Page:Vol 6 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/629

Rh, but what avail codes against nature and customs. The white men still retain the lead by virtue of wealth, education, and intelligence, and the mestizos, while seeking to level the wall between the two, widen for the same reason the gulf separating them from the oppressed Indians. The latter retaliate for the contempt bestowed upon them by nicknames, the mestizo being generally alluded to as a jackal. They submit patiently to indignities, and tacitly acknowledge their inferiority, yet this admission tends to hold them aloof, and to confirm then in tenacious adherence to aboriginal customs, even to partial idolatry. They care little for the strife of political parties, and fight on any side. The slaughter among other races affords them a secret satisfaction, perhaps the lingering hope that it may bring them nearer to a restoration of their ancient rights as owners of the soil. The prolonged war of extermination in Yucatan has cruelly reminded the whites that the sentiment is not passive. Thus race feeling, as well as political and other difference, serves to split this unhappy nation. Yet a brighter prospect is opening with the rise into prominence of such men as Juarez, whose ability and efforts cast a redeeming lustre on their race, and serve to lessen the social obstacles.

Any relief for the Indian would tend to raise also the grades above him. Spanish policy had partly through misdirected kindness reduced him to a state of tutelage, or even worse, that of an irresponsible being. This was his condition when a republican government suddenly took from him the substantial protection and privileges on which he had relied, gave in exchange certain rights, which to him were empty terms, and sent him forth to compete with men who