Page:Vol 3 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/760

740 Tlascala, Vera Cruz, Yucatan, Oajaca, and Alta California, particularly in the last two. In Mexico intendencia they formed two thirds of the population. The castes were most numerous in Guadalajara, Puebla, the north-east provinces, and the mining regions, and the whites mustered in force along the same parallels, where mining and stock-raising presented opportunity for enrichment, and predominated in Nuevo Leon and Sonora. Indeed the sparsely settled north was occupied chiefly by Spaniards and half-breeds, although they assisted to swell the central group of Guanajuato, Puebla, and Mexico, which greatly exceeded the rest in population.

Class distinctions have ever been jealously guarded in Spain, and, proud of his race and country, the Spaniard in early days especially looked upon the foreigner with pity and contempt. These ideas could not fail to become intensified in the New World where he trod the soil as conqueror and master over a dusky and half-naked lace to whom the possession of a soul was at first denied. Under such conditions it is not strange that even in framing the most benevolent of laws the preëminence of the superior people was sustained to the disadvantage of the others. Indeed, the education, wealth, and honors of the country centred almost exclusively in the whites. They held the civil, military, and highest ecclesiastic offices; they filled the professions; they controlled all the leading branches of trade and manufacture, and owned the