arranging for religious instruction, besides destroying idols and repressing pagan rites. The labor squads should receive special training, and Le made to join every morning in prayers accompanied by an admonition.[1]
Encomienda Indians could not be taken to work in the mines, or to places very remote from their villages. For such purposes slaves were employed, consisting of those who had been originally so held by the natives, or who had been condemned to slavery for rebellion.[2] We have seen how large were the numbers captured and branded after the reduction of every obstinate province and city; quarrels being frequently forced upon the natives by greedy captains in order to obtain an excuse for increasing the number of slaves. Even this was not enough, however, and either under pretence of purchase or intimidation the caciques were made to surrender the slaves held by them. Frequently the chiefs did not possess either sufficient slaves or treasures to appease the demand made, and to save themselves from persecution they gave into bondage free subjects. Others were entrapped into borrowing, or to the commission of petty offences, and held as slaves in expiation. They were not only branded, but treated with far greater severity than
- ↑ Every 2,000 Indians should have a priest, where obtainable, otherwise several villages must be grouped under one minister. Of course, the regulation was disregarded like most others, and at the petition of friars an order was issued in 1536 to enforce it. Puga, Cedulario, 112. The regulations as issued by Cortés at Mexico, March 20, 1524, are to be found in Pacheco and Cárdenas, Col. Doc., xxvi. 135 et seq., and in Cortés, Escritos Sueltos, 27 et seq. The form of certificate issued to holders may be studied in the following specimen: 'By these presents are deposited with you, Pedro Martin Aguado, a vecino of the villa de Sant Estéban del Puerto, the lord and natives of the towns of Tautoguene, Granchimar, and Tantucci, that Francisco Ramirez visited, to the end that you may avail yourself of their services, and they may help you in your estates and business, agreeably to the ordinances now provided or hereafter to be enacted upon the subject, with the obligation of giving them instruction upon the teachings of our holy Catholic faith, using therefor all possible and necessary vigilance and solicitude. Done at this villa de Santistéban on the 1st of May, 1523. Hernando Cortés. By order of his Worship, Alonso de Villanueva.' Pacheco and Cárdenas, Col. Doc., vii. 308.
- ↑ Certain villages, originally belonging to rebellious provinces probably, and partly to mining regions, had besides to furnish four Indians in every hundred for mining. Leon, Trat. Encomiendas, 5.
