Page:Vol 2 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/589

Rh called upon them to build town-houses or to make other improvements. Under such a system towns could get along without funds, and the surplus spoken of was appropriated by the unprincipled collectors.

A common trick was for the collectors to ask every two or three years for a new count, on the ground of a decrease in the population, which they made apparent by hiding a number of the natives. Then with less to account for they would collect from all and keep the surplus. The remedy suggested by Cortés to check these frauds, and to do away with all undue thraldom, and at the same time offer an inducement to the macehual to acquire industrious habits and improve his fortunes, was to give each man or head of a family a title for himself and his legal heirs, to a share of land, conditioned upon his faithful payment every year of a certain rent, under penalty of forfeiture of the leasehold. By this arrangement the tribute would be laid on the land, and not on the laborer. The surplus shares of land remaining at the first grants should be awarded to those born thereafter in the district, and of proper age, who had no land to cultivate because their parents had not a sufficient quanity. This proposal met with favor on the part of the crown. Early in 1560 it was ordained that all scattered natives should be called to dwell in