Page:Vol 6 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/630

610 held every advantage. On one side he fell a victim to political intriguers, on the other to masters who, with the aid of a debtor's law, managed to hold him in the slavery known as peonage, sometimes so oppressive that his wife had to toil in the field with him, and his children serve like beasts from their early years. And yet the tax collector overlooked him not, as he often does the richer man. In this his own land, where the law grants him the title of citizen, he is regarded by the few as a useful machine only, and by the mass either as an undesirable intruder, an incubus, a dead weight, or as an outcast.

No wonder, then, that he draws back in sullen stubbornness, and clings to old memories and customs. A striking illustration of this lies in the fact that more than a hundred aboriginal idioms are still spoken after three centuries and more of national mingling: During the war of independence, the Spanish authorities were induced to court Indians as well as others with exemptions from forced service and tribute, and other privileges which promised to lift them in the social scale; but republican laws have not yet effectually promoted this desirable aim, leaving them unprotected against the political schemers and selfish employers, who swindle, flog, and otherwise maltreat them with connivance of abject or interested local officials. The same spirit prevails as in colonial times, when the aborigines were considered a fair prey. Their only true friend, the benevolent friar, has