CHAPTER IX

SLAVES, MINES, PRODUCTS

FROM what has been related of the destruction of the natives by war and by the famine that generally follows in its train, it might be supposed that these causes alone were responsible for the rapid diminution in the number of the population. Unfortunately there were other and equally destructive forces at work, which made the coming of the Europeans a bane to the conquered tribes. Besides other contagious diseases, small-pox was introduced, and raged without let or hindrance among the Indians. In some cases half the population of provinces was carried off by this foul disease. The only remedy that the savage mind could devise to stay its progress was to plunge the patient into a bath of cold water (which is still the method of treating small-pox among the Indians of New Mexico), but it is not recorded that this met with any success. Then, again, the strong drink of the Europeans, wherever it was introduced among the natives, is said to have slain more than the sword.

Moreover, after the Spaniards arrived, they found that terrible pestilences from time to time swept through the Indian population and caused fearful mortality, while Europeans were either immune or only slightly affected. What the nature of these epidemics was is not very clear, but it has been supposed that one of them was a fatal form of diphtheria. They may have existed among the natives before the advent of the white man; certainly their effect was very destructive.

Finally it must not be forgotten that the experience of the world has shown that where a higher and a lower race are brought into contact, the lower is usually driven to the wall in the resulting competition.

These causes, acting in some cases together, in others separately, helped to diminish the native population, and when to them was added the destruction by war and enslavement, some portions of Central America, especially Panama, were nearly depopulated.

Charles V, the young Emperor, and King of Spain, learned with profound regret of the cruelties practised upon his new subjects, and of the rapid diminution in their numbers. Deeply religious and zealous for the spread of the true faith among them, he listened with interest to the eloquent words of Las Casas, who painted in the darkest colors the deeds of the explorers in Hispaniola and on Terra Firma.

In 1543 he gave his assent to a code, to be known as the "New Laws," which was intended to improve the condition of the natives, especially of those who had fallen unjustly into slavery. Other cedulas had been issued in previous years to soften the treatment of the Indians; but they had proved ineffective on account of the lack of enforcement in such distant lands. The present code was far more drastic, and contained ample provision for its execution.

As many thousands of Indians were reported by Las Casas as perishing in slavery, the principal provision was that all slaves not legally enslaved should be immediately released and that no other natives should be reduced to bondage under any pretext whatever. By legal slaves was meant only those who had been taken in war or who had been convicted of crime. The burden of proof, therefore, seems to have rested on the owner to show that his slaves had not been recruited from peaceable Indians or from those who were innocent of any crime against the laws. As the fortunes of many proprietors, however, depended upon their slaves, the temptation to invent evidence, when it was necessary, of their legal enslavement, must have been very great. The

The Cathedral in City of Mexico, erected on the site of the great idol temple of Montezuma, first used as a place of worship in 1626.