Cordillera of the Andes were repeated in part, twenty years after, in the trifling insurrections which took place in the plain of Riobamba. It is therefore of the greatest importance, even for the security of the European families established for ages in the continent of the new world, that they should interest themselves in the Indians, and rescue them from their present barbarous, abject, and miserable condition.

CHAPTER VII.

Whites, Creoles, and Europeans.—Their civilization.--Inequality of their fortunes.-Negros.-Mixed casts.-Proportion between the sexes.-Longevity according to the difference of races. Sociability.

AMONGST the inhabitants of pure origin the whites would occupy the second place, considering them only in the relation of number. They are divided into whites born in Europe, and descendants of Europeans born in the Spanish colonies of America or in the Asiatic islands. The former bear the name of Chapetones or Gachupines, and the second that of Criollos. The natives of the Canary islands, who go under the general denomination of Isleños (islanders), and who are the gerans of the plantations, are considered as Europeans. The Spanish laws allow the same rights to all whites; but those who have the execution of the laws endeavour to destroy an equality which shocks the European pride. The government, suspicious of the Creoles, bestows the great places exclusively on the natives of Old Spain. For some years back they have disposed at Madrid even of the most trifling employments in the administration of the customs and the tobacco revenue. At an epoch

when every thing tended to a uniform relaxation in the springs of the state, the system of venality made an alarming progress. For the most part it was by no means a suspicious and distrustful policy, it was pecuniary interest alone which bestowed all employments on Europeans. The result has been a jealousy and perpetual hatred beThe most tween the Chapetons and the Creoles. miserable European, without education, and without intellectual cultivation, thinks himself superior to the whites born in the new continent. He knows that, protected by his countrymen, and favoured by chances common enough in a country where fortunes are as rapidly acquired as they are lost, he may one day reach places to which the access is almost interdicted to the natives, even to those of them distinguished for their talents, knowledge, and moral qualities. The natives prefer the denomination of Americans to that of Creoles. Since the peace of Versailles, and, in particular, since the year 1789, we frequently hear proudly declared, "I am not a Spaniard, I am an American!" words which betray the workings of a long resentment. In the eye of law every white Creole is a Spaniard; but the abuse of the laws, the false measures of the colonial government, the example of the United States of America, and the influence of the opinions of the age, have relaxed the ties which formerly united more closely the Spanish Creoles to the European Spaniards. A wise ad

ministration may re-establish harmony, calm their passions and resentments, and yet preserve for a long time the union among the members of one and the same great family scattered over Europe and America, from the Patagonian coast to the north of California.

The number of individuals of whom the white race is composed (Casta de los blancos o de los Españoles) amounts, probably, in all New Spain to 1,200,000, of whom nearly the fourth part inhabited the provincias internas. In New Biscay, or in the intendancy of Durango, there is hardly an individual subject to the tributo. Almost all the inhabitants of these northern regions pretend to be of pure European extraction.

In the year 1793 they reckoned:
In the intendancy of Gua-

Such is the simple result of the enumeration, making none of the changes requisite from the imperfection of that operation which we discussed in the fifth chapter Consequently, in the four intendancies adjoining the capital, we find 272,000 whites, either Europeans or descendants of Europeans, in a total population of 1,737,000 souls. For every hundred inhabitants, there were:

These considerable differences show the degree of civilization to which the ancient Mexicans had attained south from the capital. These southern regions were always the best inhabited. In the north, as we have already several times observed in the course of this work, the Indian population was more thinly sown. Agriculture has only begun to make any progress there since the period of the conquest.

It is curious to compare together the number of whites in the West Indies and in Mexico. The French part of St. Domingo contained in its happiest æra, 1788, on a surface of 1700 square leagues (25 to the degree) a smaller population than that of the intendancy of la Puebla. Page* estimates the population of St. Domingo at 520,000 inhabitants, among whom there were 40,000 whites, 28,000 people of colour, and 452,000

*

* Vol. ii. p. 5. In 1802 there were in the whole island of St. Domingo only $75,000 inhabitants, whereof 290,000 were labourers, 47,000 domestics, artisans, and sailors, and 37,000 soldiers. To what a degree must the population have diminished within the last six years! In the island of Barbadoes, the number of whites is greater than in any of the other islands; it amounts to 16,000, on a total population of 80,000.