These criados are bound to the soil by indebtedness, for although a mere contract to perform certain services does not impose specific performance, it is held in Yucatan that where an advance payment has been made either the repayment of the money or, in default thereof, the specific performance may be exacted.
"The system of labor enforced by indebtedness seems to work in Yucatan to the satisfaction of the planter. The peon is compelled to work unless he is able to pay off his constantly increasing debt, and any attempt at flight or evasion is followed by penal retribution. The peon rarely, if ever, achieves independence, and a transference of a workman from one employer to another is only effected by means of the new employer paying to the former one the amount of the debt contracted. The system thus resembles slavery, not only in the compulsion under which the peon works, but in the large initial expense required of the planter when making his first investment in labor.
"In the State of Tabasco the conditions of forced labor are somewhat different and the difficulty of the labor problem, especially from the point of view of the planter, is exceedingly aggravated. In Tabasco the law does not permit the same remedy as in Yucatan, namely, the enforcement of the specific performance of a contract upon which an advance payment has been made, but this drawback is more apparent than real, since the governmental authority is vested in the hands of the landowning planting classes, and the obligation of contracted peons to work for the planters is virtually enforced."Is it necessary to ask again, who has been distorting the truth, myself or the other fellow? Is there slavery in Mexico, and is it widespread? Are men bought and sold like mules, locked up at night, hunted down when they try to run away, starved, beaten, killed? Surely these questions have been answered to the satisfaction of every honest reader. But I have not yet answered that other question, why—why are so many Americans so ready to distort the truth about Mexico?
