pear, he abandoned the field for another, which he could prepare by burning it over, a process easier than plowing.
Whether given land on a plantation or living in his own village, the Indian was loath to work. Reliance still had to be on a system of induced labor. In this region the majority of the Indians had to be secured from communities in which the men had their own corn patches, wheat fields, pigs, chickens, and perhaps even their own cotton and sugar. The plantation owner had no legal authority to force these men to work for him, but by long-established custom every able-bodied man could be called on to work one week in four. Laborers had to be summoned to work and in this the civil authority gave its support to the requests of the plantation owners.
In actual practice in this region the plantation owner hired a man who could speak Spanish and, preferably, the native dialects to do recruiting. A man representing the civil authority would accompany this person on his rounds or the jefe politico might give him a letter to the head men of the native villages from which the labor was to be drawn. These head men and the jefe politico knew how many men there were in each village, how many had been requisitioned, and whether there was a balance. Notice was served on the head man and he would see that the Indians promised reported. If he were reluctant, he was sometimes given a tip. Those from each village arrived together, worked together on the plantation, and left together. Once on the plantation they would usually stay from four to ten weeks un-
