Page:The Story of Mexico.djvu/216



XIX.

INDIANS.

Conquest was complete. Tenochtitlan was no more, and the Aztec kings with their dynasty were blotted out. So were all the other independent states of Anahuac, for if here and there a petty chieftain were allowed still to call himself lord of his domains, it was a mere form, to keep him and his people contented, while in reality the Spaniard controlled every thing throughout the conquered land. The terrible war gods were overthrown, their temples and images thrown down and hidden under ground. Even the annals of the country, the picture-writings, which the Spaniards imagined to be impious scrolls connected with the heathen belief of the savages, were destroyed. Before long distinctive names of the separate tribes were wiped out, as details of no importance, and all the native races of the country went by the common title of Indios.

This of course is the Spanish word for Indians, with the same source. Columbus in seeking a new world believed that when found it would be India, little thinking that the earth he had rightly guessed to be round, was big enough to contain a whole continent between the western shore of Europe and the Indies,