Page:Vol 3 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/643

Rh the mother country was supposed to be endangered. Branches of agriculture and industry, which might have insured progress, labored for centuries under difficulties, and not only were the markets of foreign countries closed to them, but the colonies were obliged to receive the products of the old world. It is true this policy was chiefly directed against the mining and manufacturing industries, but it affected none the less the agricultural interest, which was intimately connected with it. This explains the little advance in the different methods of husbandry; the sharpened stick, the wooden shovel, the copper hoe and sickle of the Aztec being comparatively less primitive than the rude plow introduced by the Spaniard in early times and still in use in the eighteenth century. About two hundred and fifty years elapsed before a more liberal spirit pervaded the colonial policy. One of the first steps was to settle the right to property in farm lands in an equitable manner, by granting for a small compensation the possession of such as had been held for years without legal title. The encouragement which these laws afforded, was increased by giving the native laborer the much needed protection against Spanish oppression. After that time the total value of agricultural products increased considerably, and amounted at the beginning of this century to more than $30,000,000 a year in those articles alone which were subject to the payment of tithes. The injurious policy of several hundred years