Page:Mexico, Aztec, Spanish and Republican, Vol 2.djvu/95

Rh the firm establishment of a manufacturing system, many persons were induced to commence the cultivation of cotton. But their failure was signal. It is true that in Mexico the proportion of small farmers and rural tenants is small, and that the great majority of the owners of the soil are large landholders who might sometimes change the character of their cultivation. But these men belong to the pastoral rather than the agricultural age, and delight in the easier tending of their flocks and herds. In addition to this we must take into consideration the well known characteristics of the southern races enervated still more by the genial climate of Mexico. Those races are governed by traditions. As their fathers wrought—so they work. Their antipathy to change is proverbial, and it is by no means uncommon to see the spirit of an anecdote related by Bazil Montague, realized every day in Mexico.

"In a particular district of Italy," says he, "the peasants loaded their panniers with vegetables on one side, and balanced the opposite pannier by filling it with stones, and when a traveller pointed out the advantages to be gained by loading both panniers with vegetables, he was answered that their forefathers, from time immemorial, had so carried their produce to market; that they were wise and good men, and that a stranger showed very little understanding or decency who interfered in the established customs of a country." Such are the difficulties to be encountered in the habits and prejudices of all old nations, and the embarrassment, in the present instance, would not be so much in creating a body of gentlemen planters, as in finding laborers to work the plantations when they had been acquired.

Brought up as most of the Indians are, on small pieces of land, or in little villages among the mountains, they find that the fruitful soil produces, almost spontaneously, enough for their frugal support. A skin or two, together with a few yards of cotton or woollen cloth, suffice, every few years, for their requisite covering. The broad leaves of a plantain, or, a palm with its matted vines, afford them shelter during the day, whilst a kennel on the ground, keeps off the rains or night dews. And thus, a servile contentment with traditionary occupations or idleness, roots them to the soil where they were born, and makes them, in fact though not in name, the hereditary slaves of the estates on which their ancestors have worked for centuries. These men are, of course, not to be suddenly diverted from their tastes; and the worthy persons who have commenced the cultivation of cotton in suitable districts of the country where the Indians are numerous and unemployed, have