depredations in Vera Cruz and its environs, between the city of Antequera and Huatulco, in the province of Pánuco and other places; and to stop this evil the government had been obliged to pursue and punish the criminals; after which, such of them as were slaves were restored to their masters.[1]
With each year the introduction of negro slaves increased, as their services were needed for the mines, and no better laborers for that purpose could be obtained. The natives were poor workmen, being naturally lazy, and encouraged in this vice by knowledge of existing laws against their enforced labor. Marriages between negro men and Indian women were common, the latter preferring negroes to Indians, and the negro males being more fond of Indian women. The cause of this reciprocal feeling may perhaps be found in a wise and humane law, which provided that all offspring of these unions should be born free.
Alarmed at the great number of zambo children born in the country. Viceroy Enriquez had asked the king to decree that the latter should be born slaves. And the pope was requested to forbid future marriages between the two races, but the proposals failed. Meanwhile an officer was appointed to keep a record of all zambos of both sexes, to watch over them, and see that they were engaged in honest pursuits, and to punish vagrants.[2]
But if Count Monterey failed in some particulars, in others he was eminently successful — instance the state of affairs in Michoacan, which under the energetic and beneficent rule of Quiroga, first as visitador and then as bishop, had been sent forward on a
- ↑ A law of 1557 forbade the landing from any vessel of negroes without a license of the king's officers, who were to keep account of every negro landed. Masters convicted of violating the law were to be punished with forfeiture of their vessels, and imprisonment. It was a crime under the laws of 1568-73 for any negro, mulatto, mestizo, or other of mixed breed to carry weapons. Recop., Ind., ii. 361, 363; Zamora, Leg. Ult., iii. 109, iv. 461-2.
- ↑ See Enriquez, Carta al Rey, in Cartas de Indias, 298-300.
