Page:Vol 6 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/620

600 based on estimates, according to which the number of inhabitants may now be placed at over 10,000,000. The period of the independence war is generally regarded as stationary, but after this the increase is reckoned at about eight per mille, a figure far below those yiven by Humboldt and Navarro, and lower still when we consider the greater lease of life attained to some extent in Mexico with the aid of modern conveniences and medical knowledge. Yet their ratio does not appear extravagant for the peaceful colonial era, as compared with republican times, with its constant revolutions, and consequently unfavorable condition for rearing families. To this must be added the withdrawal from Indians of the protective measures of a paternal government, leaving them exposed to a competitive struggle with races possessing superior advantages and ever ready to abuse them.

The contact with the Europeans is undoubtedly prejudicial to the aborigines, though less rapid in its effect than in the United States. During colonial times, new and intensified epidemics appear as prominent annihilators, by which a large population was reduced to about three millions and a half at the opening of this century. Since then, other less direct causes must be regarded as mainly contributing to the decrease of their number, a decrease which becomes very marked on comparing it with the growth of the other occupants of the soil. With a fairly strong constitution, and fecund women so generally attributed to them, they should have participated to some extent in the increase of over fifty per cent, exhibited by the total population. Instead of this they declined, thus swelling the proportionate rate of growth for the other races to double or even treble.

An official report ascribes this to some hidden evil, which, however, reveals itself distinctly on one side