Even before any legal authority could be transmitted from the Spanish court, Cortes proceeded to exercise all the powers of a viceroy ; and endeavoured, by various arrangements, to secure and improve the conquest which he had achieved. Having determined to establish the seat of government in its ancient station, he began to re build the ruined capital on a more extensive and mag nificent plan. He employed skilful persons to search for mines, and encouraged his principal officers, by large grants of land and other privileges, to settle in the re mote provinces. The natives, at times rendered des perate by their oppressions, ran to arms for the recovery of their liberties, but were uniformly overpowered by European discipline and valour. These efforts to re gain their independence only served to aggravate their suffering.; and after every insurrection (which the Spa niards affected to consider as rebellion against a lawful sovereign,) the leaders were put to death by the most excruciating torments, while the common people were reduced to the state of personal servitude. In the coun try of Panuco, sixty caciques and 400 nobles were burnt at one time ; and the families and relatives of the wretch ed victims were compelled to he spectators of their dying agonies. The captive prince Guatimozin, upon a slight suspicion of having devised a plot for shaking off the yoke, was ordered, without even the of a trial, together with two of the most distinguished chiefs of the empire, to be publicly hanged ; and these acts of bar barity, coolly committed by Certes and Sandoval, ;sere readily imitated by persons of su.'ordinate ranks in the perpetration of still greater excesses. The miserable Indians were every where dragged away to search in the rivers and tot rents for the precious metals ; but it does not appear that their avaricious oppressors profited greatly by' their labours, and the early historians of Ame rica abound with accounts of the hardships and poverty of its conquerors. It was not till thirty years after the conquest, that time richer mines of New Spain were dis covered ; and that, under a more orderly government, more gainful researches were prosecuted.
Besides being dragged from their homes to labour in the mines, a great number or Indians were obliged to follow the armies, and to carry burdens above their strength, without sufficient nourishment or repose. In Mexico particularly, where a powerful and martial peo ple made a more prolonged resistance to the invader, great multitudes fell in the field of battle. The intro duction also of the small-pox, a disease unknown in the country, proved extremely' fatal to the natives. By all these causes combined, the original inhabitants were rapidly diminishing in number. Numerous regulations were enacted by' the Spanish government to protect the native Americans from the oppression of the European settlers ; but all were ineffectual to restrain these rapa cious and daring adventurers, when removed to so great a distance front the seat of authority. The Spanish eccle siastics and missionaries exerted themselves incessantly for the protection of the natives, and are still considered by the Indians as their natural guardians, to whom they owe the various regulations enacted in their favour, and to whom they have recourse under every hardship to which they are subjected. One of the principal regula tions intended for the protection of the Indians, but per verted to the very opposite purpose, was the system of cnconziendas,by which the remains of the conquered race, instead of being left to be seized as slaves indiscrimi nately, were parcelled out in tribes of several hundreds of families, as grants to certain individuals as their pro tectors and proprietor s. They were thus attached to the soil, and their woe k became the property of their masters,.whose names they frequently assumed. But the evil thus only became worse, and more systematic ; and it was not till the 18th century that the situation of the natives began to be ameliorated. As the families of these original proprietors became extinct, the encomi endas, being considered as fiefs, were not renewed. The viceroy's, and particularly' the audencias, watched over the interests of the Indians ; and, in some provinces, their liberty and comfort have been gradually angmenting. Charles III. particularly, became their great benefactor, by annulling the encomiendas, and prohibiting the prac tices of the Corregidors, who were accustomed to supply the Indians with various articles at extravagant prices, so as to make them little better than slaves, by making them their debtors. But the establishment of inten
dancies, during the ministry' of the Count de Galvez, in the beginning of this century, was the most memorable event in the history of Indian prosperity in New Spain, and, under the active superintendance of the intendants, the native race have begun to enjoy advantages and se curities, of which they were deprived by the tyranny of the subaltern Spanish and Indian magistrates.
When the Alexicans had been brought to bear pa tiently the yoke of their conquerors, and the colonists had become tranquil possessors of all the treasures of the country', the warlike spirit insensibly declined, and the kingdom of New Spain, with the other settlements, enjoy ed a peace of two centuries and a half. The in tut nal tranquillity of Mexico has been rarely disturbed since the year 1596, when the dominion of the Spaniards was established over all the territories, from tile penin sula of Yucatan and the gulp!) of Tehuantept:e, to the sources of the Rio del Norte and the coast of New Cali fornia. Disturbances among the Indians took place in 1601, 1609, 1624, 1692 ; and, in the last of these corn motions, the palace of the viceroy, and some other pub lic buildings, were burned by the insurgents. These disturbances, however, were occasioned chiefly by a de ficiency of provision ; and, as long as the native creoles were so few in number as to continue united with the European Spaniards, no spirit of independence appeared in the country. The first symptoms of such a spirit arose about the middle of the seventeenth century, after the commotions in New England ; and, a few years be fore the peace of Versailles, the serious insurrection of Tupac Amaru, in Peru, alarmed the Court of Madrid with the apprehension of political commotions among the colonies; but it is only since the last thirty years that the colonists, having been brought, by greater freedom of trade, into contact with the United States, the British, French, and Danes, the political events in Eurcpe, since 1789, have excited an interest among the Spanish creoles, and led them to aspire after their own rights as a people. The measures employed by the public authorities to quiet these agitations, particularly the prohibition of printing presses, even in towns of 40,000 or 50,000 in habitants, and the proscribing of such works as those of Robertson, Montesquieu, Scc.; the infliction of torture on several persons in New Grenada, suspected of revo lutionary plans, and other similar instances of distrustful policy, served only to increase the discontents of the co lonists. Nothing was done to forward their just demands, to improve the obvious defective institutions of the country, and to reform the most glaring evils of the co lonial system ; and in 1796, a great revolutionary com motion broke out in the province of Venezuela, which had nearly annihilated, in that quarter, the Spanish au thority. The individual liberty which the colonists na turally enjoy, by their diffusion over a vast extent of country, and the mutual hatred of the different casts, especially the dread entertained of the blacks and In dians by the whole body of the whites, have prevented the popular discontents from spreading more generally in the other provinces. The events, particularly, which took place in 5'. Domingo, have contributed greatly to preserve tranquillity in the Spanish colonies on the con tinent. That tranquillity, however, has at length suffered an almost universal interruption, and insurrection has for several years, prevailed in every quarter of Spanish America. The progress of these revolutionary move ments is still involved in too much uncertainty' to afford any materials for a detailed account in this place, and would indeed far exceed the limits of the present article. There is less known, in this respect, of the events which have taken place in Mexico, than of any other Spanish settlement. Its secluded situation, the nature of its coasts, and its want of sea-ports, prevent any information from being received from the interior, except what the Spanish authorities may communicate. According to their accounts, all disturbances ceased in 1807 ; but va rious circumstances, particularly an intercepted letter from the Bishop of Valladolid, afford reason to belie‘e that the country is full of insurgents, and that they are daily becoming better provided with the means of re sistance. See Robertson's History of America, and Hum boldt's Political Essay on New Spain. (q.)