"6. Conquest of any tribe by the Mexicans was not followed by an annexation of that tribe's territory, nor by an apportionment of its soil among the conquerors. Tribute was exacted, and, for the purpose of raising that tribute (in part), special tracts were set off; the crops of which were gathered for the storehouses of Mexico.
"7. Consequently, as our previous investigations (of the warlike institutions and customs of the ancient Mexicans) have disproved the generally received notion of a military despotism prevailing among them, so the results of his review of Tenure and distribution of lands tend to establish 'that the principle and institution of feudality did not exist in aboriginal Mexico.'"
Among the Peruvians their land system was probably much the same as among the ancient Mexicans. But according to Garcilapo de la Vega, they had carried their system with respect to lands a little farther. Their lands, he remarks, were "divided into three parts and applied to different uses. The first was for the Sun, his priests and ministers; the second was for the King, and for the support and maintenance of his governors and officers. * * * And the third was for the natives and sojourners of the provinces, which was divided equally according to the needs which each family required."[1]
While these several statements may not present the exact case in all respects in Peru, Mexico, or among the Northern Indian tribes, they sufficiently indicate the ownership of land by communities of persons, larger or smaller, with a system of tillage that points to large households. Neither the Peruvians, nor the Aztecs, nor any Indian tribe had attained to a knowledge of the ownership of land in severalty in fee simple at the period of their discovery. This knowledge belongs to the period of civilization. There is not the slightest probability that any Indian, whether Iroquois, Mexican, or Peruvian, owned a foot of land that he could call his own, with power to sell and convey the same in fee simple to whomsoever he pleased.
- ↑ Royal Commentaries of Peru, Lond. ed., 1688. Rycaut, trans., p. 154.
