208
MEXICO UNDER CARRANZA
and suffering were the conditions of the Indians in Mexico after the conquest and it might have been supposed that the plain dictates of humanity would make the Spaniards content with the labour of their serfs without attempting afterwards to rob them of the wages of such ignominious labour. But even in this, Spanish ingenuity and avarice were not to be foiled, for the corregidores in the towns and villages to whom were granted minor monopolies of almost all the necessities of life made this a pretext for obliging the Indians to purchase what they required at the prices they chose to affix to their goods. The people groaned but paid the burdensome exaction while the relentless officer, hardened by the contemplation of misery and the constant contemplation of legalized robbery, only became more watchful, sagacious, and grinding in practice as he discovered how much the downtrodden masses could bear. There was no press of public opinion to give voice to the sorrows of the masses and personal fear even silenced the few who might have reached the ear of merciful and just rulers. At court the rich, powerful, and influential miners or land owners always discovered pliant tools who were ready by intrigue and corruption to smother the cry of discontent or to account plausibly for the murmurs which upon extraordinary occasions burst through all restraint until they reached the audiencia or the sovereign."[1]
If, as has been generally agreed by sociologists, the sure revenge of the servile class is found in the
- ↑ "History of Nations," Vol. 22, page 104.
