called upon them to build town-houses or to make other improvements. Under such a system towns could get along without funds, and the surplus spoken of was appropriated by the unprincipled collectors.[1]
A common trick was for the collectors to ask every two or three years for a new count, on the ground of a decrease in the population, which they made apparent by hiding a number of the natives. Then with less to account for they would collect from all and keep the surplus. The remedy suggested by Cortés to check these frauds, and to do away with all undue thraldom, and at the same time offer an inducement to the macehual to acquire industrious habits and improve his fortunes, was to give each man or head of a family a title for himself and his legal heirs, to a share of land, conditioned upon his faithful payment every year of a certain rent, under penalty of forfeiture of the leasehold. By this arrangement the tribute would be laid on the land, and not on the laborer. The surplus shares of land remaining at the first grants should be awarded to those born thereafter in the district, and of proper age, who had no land to cultivate because their parents had not a sufficient quanity.[2] This proposal met with favor on the part of the crown. Early in 1560 it was ordained that all scattered natives should be called to dwell in
- ↑ An abuse injurious to both the payer and the royal treasury. Cortés, in Pacheco and Cárdenas, Col. Doc., iv. 441-2, 446-52, 456; Valderrama, in Id., iv. 359; Rel. Anón., in Id., vi. 166-7. Cortés seemed, however, to have the interests of the crown more at heart than those of the victim. He wanted the tributes increased in more favored localities, where many could make in two or three days the amount of their yearly tax, but being too lazy to work and benefit themselves, needed to be forced to it. In fact, they chose to pay four or six reales rather than the half fanega of maize, when a whole fanega was worth only four or five reales. The grain should be demanded, he urged, in lieu of money; otherwise in a short time there would be a famine. There was another imposition the natives were called upon to suffer; that of Spanish travellers billeting themselves with their servants and animals upon them. A royal order in 1563 required that travelling Spaniards should be put up at inns, if there were any, or if not, to pay for what they had. Zamora, Leg. Ult., ii. 556.
- ↑ In 1575 the royal tribute continued at the old rate. A number of natives had become the owners of large haciendas and other property paying no other tax. Enriquez, Carta al Rey (Sept. 23, 1575), in Cartas de Indias, 307-8; Hakluyt's Voy., iii. 463.
