Page:Mexico (1829) Volumes 1 and 2.djvu/51

 MEXICO. 21 battle, but by depriving the agricultural population of the means of subsistence. During this contest, the most fertile districts were those that suffered most ; and the traveller, who now crosses the plains of the Baxio, would hardly be- lieve, but for the ruins which he sees around him, that they were once thickly peopled, and smiling with cultivation. Still, the inhabitants, though driven from their ancient seats, were not exterminated ; nor is there any reason to sup- pose that more than three hundred thousand persons altoge- ther perished during the war. The remainder must, accord- ing to the ordinary course of things, have gone on increasing. If, therefore, in lieu of supposing the population to have doubled, from 1806 to 1826, (which it certainly has not,) I add one million and a half to the minimum of 1806, as the increase during the last twenty years, and estimate the whole population of Mexico, (in 1827,) at eight millions, I shall, I think, be making a very moderate computation, and one, in which the census, now forming in the different States, will bear me out. Before the Revolution, this population was divided into seven distinct Castes. 1. The old Spaniards, designated as GachupTnes, in the history of the civil wars. 2. The Cre- oles, or Whites of pure European race, born in America, and regarded by the old Spaniards as natives. 3. The Indians, or Indigenous copper-coloured race. 4. The Mestizos, or mixed breed of Whites and Indians, gradually merging into Creoles, as the cross with the Indian race became more re- mote. 5. The Mulattoes, or descendants of Whites and Negroes. 6. The Zambos, or Chinos, descendants of Ne- groes and Indians. And, 7- The African Negroes, either manumitted, or slaves. Of these Castes, the three first, and the last, were pure, and gave rise, in their various combinations, to the others ; which again were sub-divided, ad infinitum, by names ex- pressing the relation borne by each generation of its descen-