Page:Mexico (1829) Volumes 1 and 2.djvu/52

22 MEXICO. dants to the White, (Quarteroons, Quinteroons, &c.) to which, as the ruling colour, any approximation was desirable. The principal seat of the White population of Mexico is the Table-land, towards the centre of which the Indian race is likewise concentrated, (in the Intendancies of La Piiebla, Mexico, Guanajuato, Oaxaca, and Valladolid ;) while the Northern frontier is inhabited almost entirely by Whites, and descendants of Whites, before whom it is supposed that the Indian population must have retired, at the time of the con- quest. In Diirango, New Mexico, and the Provincias In- ternas, the pure Indian breed is almost unknown ; in Sonora it is again found, because the conquerors there overtook the last tribes of the original inhabitants, who had not yet placed the Kiver GTla (lat. 33 N.) between themselves and the Spanish arms. Towards the South, the coasts are inhabited, both to the East and West, by Mulattoes and Zambos, or, at least, by a race in which a mixture of African blood pre- vails. It was in these unhealthy regions that the slaves for- merly imported into Mexico were principally employed, the natives of the Table-land being unable to resist the extreme heat of the climate. They have multiplied there in an extraordinary manner, by intermarriages with the Indian race, and now form a mixed breed, admirably adapted to the Tierra caliente, but not possessing, in appearance, the characteristics either of the New World, or of the Old. The Mestizos (descendants of Natives and Indians) are found in every part of the country ; indeed, from' the very small number of Spanish women who at first visited the New World, the great mass of the population has some mixture of Indian blood. Few of the middHng classes (the lawyers, the Curas or parochial clergy, the artizans, the smaller landed proprietors, and the soldiers,) could prove themselves exempt from it ; and now that a connexion with the Aborigines has ceased to be disadvantageous, few attempt to deny it. In my