Page:Vol 3 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/767

Rh protégés of as much as two hundred thousand pesos. With the creation of intendentes and subdelegates the infliction decreased, so that in general the Indian enjoyed greater protection under royal than under republican rule, when the peonage system reduced large numbers to practical serfdom. During the last period of colonial sway this enslavement was counteracted by the law, which annulled any indebtedness exceeding five pesos, and regulated the conduct of the employer.

While freed from bondage they were kept in pupilage. They were exempt from tithes and most other imposts exacted from the whites, but subject to tribute. Fast days were reduced in their favor, and marriage made more easy—so that they might yield more toilers; the church must lower its rates to them, and the inquisition withhold its dreaded fangs. And all because they were held to possess less capacity than those with other blood infusion. The imputation must have been galling in the extreme to every manly spirit among them. They must not idle, however, and under cover of this order the officials, aided by native alcaldes, managed ever to exercise a despotic control for personal advantage. Thus the laws for their protection were often used as weapons against them. They were gathered under compulsion into village communities, and kept apart from the other races, an isolation which could serve only to retard advancement. Here they worked land held in common and granted to them for life only, permanent ownership of land being rare among them, thus causing a lack of the chief inducement for economy. They