d, if then found
incorrigible, are driven beyond their limits,--a punishment deemed by
them the severest that can be inflicted, and which they bear with as
much difficulty as our Indians do their banishment from the "hunting
grounds" of their forefathers. When they have gained a little money by
labor, they hasten to squander it by making a festival in honor of their
favorite saint, and thus consume their miserable earnings in gluttony,
gambling, masses, fire works, and drunkenness. When it is not absolutely
necessary to toil for the necessaries of life,--especially in the
_tierras calientes_, or warmer portions of Mexico,--they pass their time
in utter idleness or sleep. Zavala declares that in many portions of
the country, the _curates_ maintain such entire dominion over the
Indians, that they order them to be publicly whipped whenever they fail
to pay their _ovenciones_, or tributes, at the regular time, or commit
some act of personal disobedience. But the degradation of this class
does not stop even here, for the same author alleges that he has
frequently seen many Indians and their wives flogged at the village
church door, because they had failed to come to mass upon some Sunday or
festival, whilst, after the punishment, these wretches were obliged to
kiss the hand of the executioner![13]

It will be seen from this sketch and description that the vicious
colonial system of Spain formed only two great classes in America,--the
proprietor and the vassal,--and that, in the nature of things, it was
utterly impossible for the latter to amalgamate with the former except
by creating an inferior race, whose sympathies were with the Indian
rather than the Spaniard, and whose type is the nomadic _ranchero_. This
fact was proved in the revolution which broke out in Spanish America.
The war cry was against the Spaniard[14] and his pure descendants. The
_creole_[15] rose against the _gachupin_,[16] and the ferocity with
which the soldiers of old Spain carried on the war against the natives
confirmed their hereditary animosity.

* * * * *

The struggle for domestic power commenced as soon as the independence of
Mexico was achieved, and the people began to establish a system of
government upon a republican basis after the downfall of the Emperor
Iturbide. The Spaniards had taught a lesson of privileged classes which
was never forgotten; so that, when the revolution took place, THE
PEOPLE were only