Humboldt on New Spain

Alexander von Humboldt, Political Essay on the Kingdom of New Spain

Prussian scientist Humboldt explored New Spain (Mexico) in 1803, just a few years before the indepedence movements broke out. Note his observations of racial composition, inequalities that he observed, and on the role of religion (Roman Catholicism).

It is certain, however, that this population has made the most extraordinary progress. The augmentation of tithes, of the Indian capitation, and of all the duties on consumption, the progress of agriculture and civilization, the aspect of a country covered with the newly constructed houses, announce a rapid increase in every part of the kingdom. How are we to conceive then that social institutions can be so defective and a government so iniquitous as to pervert the order of nature, and prevent the progressive multiplication of our species in a fertile soil and temperate climate? Happy the portion of the globe where a peace of three centuries has almost effaced the very recollection of the crimes produced by the fanaticism and insatiable avarice of the first conquerors!

To give an accurate idea of the indigenous inhabitants of New Spain, it is not enough to paint them in their actual state of degradation and misery; we must go back to a remote period when, governed by its own laws, the nation could display its proper energy; and we must consult the hieroglyphic paintings, buildings of hewn stone, and works of sculpture still in preservation which, though they attest the infancy of the arts, bear a striking analogy to several monuments of the most civilized people. The nature of this work does not permit us to enter into such details, however interesting they may be, both for the history and the psychological study of our species. We shall merely point out here a few of the most prominent features of the immense picture of American indigenous population.

As to the moral faculties of the Indians, it is difficult to appreciate them with justice if we only consider this long oppressed caste in their present state of degradation. The better sort of Indians, among whom a certain degree of intellectual culture might be supposed, perished in great part at the commencement of the Spanish conquest, the victims of European ferocity. The Christian fanaticism broke out in a particular manner against the Aztec priests who observed the meridian shade in the gnomons and regulated the calendar. All those who inhabited the teocalli or houses of God, who might be considered as the depositories of the historical, mythological and astronomical knowledge of the country were exterminated.

The monks burned the hieroglyphic paintings by which every kind of knowledge was transmitted from generation to generation. The people, deprived of these means of instruction, were plunged in an ignorance so much the deeper as the missionaries were unskilled in the Mexican languages and could substitute few new ideas in place of the old. The Indian women who had preserved any share of fortune chose rather to ally with the conquerors than to share the contempt in which the Indians were held. The Spanish soldiers were eager for these alliances as very few European women had followed the army. The remaining natives then consisted only of the most indigent race, poor cultivators, artisans, among whom were a great number of weavers, porters who were used like beasts of burden, and especially of those dregs of the people, those crowds of beggars who bore witness to the imperfection of the social institutions and the existence of feudal oppression, and who in the time of Cortes filled the streets of all the great cities of the Mexican empire. How shall we judge, from these miserable remains of a powerful people, of the degree of cultivation to which it had risen from the twelfth to the sixteenth century and of the intellectual development of which it is susceptible?

Accustomed to a long slavery* under the domination of their own sovereigns as well as under that of the first conquerors, the natives of Mexico patiently suffer the vexations to which they are frequently exposed from the whites. They oppose to them only a cunning veiled under the deceitful appearances of apathy and stupidity. As the Indian can very rarely revenge himself on the Spaniards, he delights in making a common cause with them for the oppression of his own fellow citizens. Harassed for ages and compelled to a blind obedience, he wishes to tyrannize in his turn. The Indian villages are governed by magistrates of the copper-colored race; and an Indian alcalde exercises his power with so much the greater severity because he is sure of being supported by the priest or the Spanish subdelegado. Oppression produces everywhere the same effects, it everywhere corrupts the morals. [*Note: By "slavery," Humboldt refers to the institution of encomienda and other types of forced labor, not to the actual institution of African slavery. See next paragraph on encomienda. Elites found lots of ways to force others into labor.]

The court of Spain seeing that the new continent was depopulating very rapidly took measures beneficial in appearance, but which the avarice and cunning of the conquerors contrived to direct against the very people whom they were intended to relieve. The system of encomienda was introduced. The Indians, whose liberty had in vain been proclaimed by Queen Isabella, were till then slaves of the whites who appropriated them to themselves indiscriminately. By the establishment of encomienda, slavery assumed a more regular form. To terminate the quarrels among the conquistadores, the remains of the conquered people were shared out; and the Indians, divided into tribes of several hundreds of families, had masters named to them in Spain from among the soldiers who had acquired distinction during the conquest, and from among the people of the law sent out by the court as a counterpoise to the usurping power of the generals. A great number of the finest encomiendas were distributed among the monks, and religion, which from its principles ought to favor liberty, was itself degraded in profiting by the servitude of the people.

Mexico is the country of inequality. Nowhere does there exist such a fearful difference in the distribution of fortune, civilization, cultivation of the soil and population. The interior of the country contains four cities which are not more than one or two days journey distant from one another and possess a population of 35,000, 67,000, 70,000 and 135,000. The central table land from Puebla to Mexico and from thence to Salamanca and Celaya, is covered with villages and hamlets like the most cultivated parts of Lombardy. To the east and west of this narrow strip succeed tracts of uncultivated ground on which cannot be found ten or twelve persons to the square league. The capital and several other cities have scientific establishments which will bear a comparison with those of Europe. The architecture of the public and private edifices, the elegance of the furniture, the equipages, the luxury and dress of the women, the tone of society, all announce a refinement t which the nakedness, ignorance and vulgarity of the lower people form the most striking contrast. This immense inequality of fortune does not only exist among the caste of whites, it is even discoverable among the Indians.

The Mexican Indians, when we consider them en masse, offer a picture of extreme misery. Banished into the most barren districts, indolent from nature and more still from their political situation, the natives live from hand to mouth. We should seek almost in vain among them for individuals who enjoy anything like a certain mediocrity of fortune. Instead, however, of a comfortable independency, we find a few families whose fortune appears so much the more colossal as we least expect it among the lowest class of the people.

This respectable bishop (Fray Antonio de San Miguel), whom I had the advantage. of knowing personally and who terminated his useful and laborious life at the advanced age of 8o, represents to the monarch that in the actual state of things the moral improvement of the Indian is impossible if the obstacles which oppose the progress of national industry are not removed. . . . These citations can hardly fail to surprise us from the pen of a prelate belonging to the regular clergy, who passed a part of his life in convents, and who filled an episcopal chair on the shores of the South Sea.

"The population of New Spain," says the bishop towards the end of his memoir, "is composed of three classes of men; whites or Spaniards, Indians, and castes. I suppose the Spaniards to compose the tenth part of the whole mass. In their hands almost all the property and all the wealth of the kingdom are centered. The Indians and the castes cultivate the soil; they are in the service of the better sort of people; and they live by the work of their hands. Hence there results between the Indians and the whites that opposition of interests and that mutual hatred which universally takes place between those who possess, all and those who possess nothing, between masters and those who live in servitude. Thus we see, on the one hand the effects of envy and discord, deception, theft, and the inclination to prejudice the interests of the rich; and on the other, arrogance, severity and the desire of taking every moment advantage of the helplessness of the Indian. I am not ignorant that these evils everywhere spring from a great inequality of condition. But in America they are rendered still more terrific because there exists no intermediate state; we are rich or miserable, noble or degraded by the laws or the force of opinion.

"Now, Sire, what attachment can the Indian have to the government, despised and degraded as he is, and almost without property and without hope of ameliorating his existence? He is merely attached to social life by a tie which affords him no advantage. Let not your majesty believe that the dread of punishment alone is sufficient to preserve tranquillity in this country; there must be other motives, there must be more powerful motives. If the new legislation which Spain expects with impatience do not occupy itself with the situation of the Indians and people of color, the influence which the clergy possess over the hearts of these unfortunate people, however great it may be, will not be sufficient to contain them in the submission and respect due to their sovereign.

"Let the odious personal impost of the tributo be abolished; and let the infamy which unjust laws have attempted to stamp on the people of color be at an end; let them be declared capable of filling every civil employment which does not require a special title of nobility; let a proportion of the demesnes of the crown which are uncultivated be granted to the Indians and the castes; let an agrarian law be passed for Mexico similar to that of the Asturias and Galicia, by which the poor cultivator is permitted to bring in, under certain conditions, the land which the great proprietors have left so many ages uncultivated to the detriment of the national industry; let full liberty be granted to the Indians, the castes and the whites to settle in villages which at present belong only to one of these classes; let salaries be appointed for all judges and all magistrates of districts; these, Sire, are the six principal points on which the felicity of the Mexican people depends."

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 chapeton or gachupin, and the second that of criollo. The Spanish laws allow the same rights to all whites, but those who have the execution of the laws endeavor 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.

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 the 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 administration 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.

To complete the table of the elements of which the Mexican population is composed, it remains for us to point out rapidly the differences of caste which spring from the mixture of the pure races with one another. These castes constitute a mass almost as considerable as the Mexican Indians. We may estimate the total of the individuals of mixed blood at nearly 2,400,000. From a refinement of vanity, the inhabitants of the colonies have enriched their language with terms for the finest shades of the colors which result from the degeneration of the primitive color. It may be useful to explain these denominations because they have been confounded by many travelers and because this confusion frequently causes no small embarrassment to those who read Spanish works on the American possessions.

The son of a white (creole or European) and a native of copper color is called mestizo. His color is almost a pure white, and his skin is of a particular transparency. The small beard and small hands and feet, and a certain obliquity of the eyes, are more frequent indications of the mixture of Indian blood than the nature of the hair. If a mestiza marry a white man, the second generation differs hardly in anything from the European race. As very few Negroes have been introduced into New Spain, the mestizos probably compose 7/8 of the whole castes. They are generally accounted of a much more mild character than the mulattos, descended from whites and Negresses, who are distinguished for the violence of their passions and a singular volubility of tongue. The descendants of Negroes and Indian women bear the strange name of Chino, Chinese. On the coast of Caracas and, as appears from the laws, even in New Spain, they ate called zambos. This last denomination is now principally limited to the descendants of a Negro and a female mulatto, or a Negro and a Chinese female. From these common zambos they distinguish the zambos prietos who descend from a Negro and a female zamba. From the mixture of a white man with a mulatto comes the cast of ciuarteron. When a female cuarter6n marries a European or creole, her son bears the name of quinteron. A new alliance with a white banishes to such a degree the remains of color that the children of a white and a quinteron are white also.

In a country governed by whites, the families reputed to have the least mixture of Negro or mulatto blood are also naturally the most honored. In Spain it is almost a title of nobility to descend neither from Jews nor Moors. In America the greater or less degree of whiteness of skin decides the rank which man occupies in society. A white who rides barefooted on horseback thinks he belongs to the nobility of the country. Color establishes even a certain equality among men who, as is universally the case where civilization is either little advanced or in a retrograde state, take a particular pleasure in dwelling on the prerogatives of race and origin. When a common in an disputes with one of the titled lords of the country, he is frequently heard to say, "Do you think me not so white as yourself?" This may serve to characterize the state and source of the actual aristocracy. It becomes, consequently, a very interesting business for the Public vanity to estimate accurately the fractions of European blood which belong to the different castes.