ground down by heavy taxes and personal service, a portion of which went to the priests, and the rest was consumed by the caciques, governors, and chiefs in eating and drinking. The tributes had been lowered, but the common laborers felt not the benefit of the decrease, as they were made to pay at the old rates, the chiefs reaping the advantage of the difference. They were virtually held in slavery.[1] On the matter reaching the ear of the king the audiencia was directed January 19, 1560, and again July 12th, of the same year, to check such abuses.
It was the audiencia as much as unprincipled encomenderos and infamous tax-collectors that thwarted the beneficent designs of the king and his viceroy. As a court of appeal this tribunal would render nugatory many of the viceroy's decrees. Then the affairs of the natives would be postponed and impeded in such a manner as to defeat the ends of justice, and render of no effect the beneficent royal purposes.[2] This was folly on the part of the high court, and a cause of inconvenience to the litigants. The condition of the natives, as a matter of justice and charity, called for prompt despatch in their suits at law, and freedom from costs; no pettifoggers should have been allowed to meddle with them. In their ignorance, and for several reasons, the Indians permitted the mestizos and others to exercise over them a baneful influence, in inducing them to keep up litigation, particularly about their lands. The best course that occurred to the viceroy was to expel all mestizos and
- ↑ Arzob. de Méj., Carta, in Pacheco and Cárdenas, Col. Doc., iv. 499, 515-22. Father Toral, who had invariably shown himself a warm friend of the natives, did acknowledge, however, that Velasco had done much toward improving their condition, as he had abolished personal service, slavery, and many abuses. Toral, Carta á S. M. el Rey, in Cartas de Indias, 138.
- ↑ The emperor's attention was called to the matter by the Franciscan comisario and other fathers of that order, among them Motolinia and Sahagun, who complained that the audiencia's course made much confusion between the Spaniards and natives. Bustamante et al.. Carta al Emp., in Cartas de Indias, 121-2. The viceroy told the king that were it not for his forbearance much trouble might have resulted from the insolent behavior of some of the oidores; he then begged for the appointment of a visitador of the audiencia, and for the removal of those objectionable oidores.
