dishonest. Frequent were the quarrels that resulted, leading often to bloodshed, and fostering a certain disloyalty which became manifest during such episodes as the Cortés-Ávila conspiracy, the overthrow of Gelves, and the burning of the palace in 1692. The whites indeed early divided themselves into two national parties, the creoles, or native-born,[1] and chapetones or gachupines[2] nicknames applied to those from Spain.
Many viceroys took special care to smooth the ruffled feelings,[3] but this availed little against the insolence of the favored party and the measures of a distrusting government, at times blinded, at times clearly revealing a disposition to sow discord so as to strengthen itself at the expense of factions. This relined policy was brought into play also among Indians, and to keep apart the dangerous negroes.[4] The party spirit raged with actual bitterness even among the religious orders, some provincias excluding creoles, others Europeans, from higher positions, and still others alternating or quarrelling when it came to the election of prelates.
While the nickname for European Spaniards could
- ↑ From criollo, nursed, brought up, that is, on the new soil.
- ↑ According to the learned professor Chimalpopocatl Galicia, this word is derived from cactli, Aztec for shoe, and tzopinia, to prick; as shown in Molina, Vocabulario. In combining words the Aztecs would drop or modify the last syllables, leaving caetzopin, he who pricks with the shoe, in allusion to the spur. Gachupin or Cachupin would be a natural corruption by Spaniards. This is the general version supported by Alaman, Hist. Mej., i. 7, Guerra, Hist. Rev., i. 142, etc., and others; but Ramirez, Hist. Dur., 78-9, is rather inclined to attribute the word to some corrupted term introduced by the creoles. Guerra traces chapeton from chapi, a Haitian word signifying a man from far off lands, but it is also likely to have been taken from the last two syllables of gachupin, with addition of the common ending ton. Gage, Voy., i. 201, states that it was applied only to the new-comers, who soon fell under the more general head of gachupin. While the names are of early date, as shown in Herrera, dec. v., lib. iv.,*cap. xii. etc., and Garcilaso de la Veja, Coment. Reales, i., cap. 36, yet Indians in many parts called Spaniards for a long time Christians, till instructed not to apply a term indicating a religious distinction. Panes, Vireyes, MS., 81.
- ↑ Mancera commended a similar course to his successors. Instruc. Vireyes, 259.
- ↑ This is revealed in the tenor of restrictive laws; and Gage, ubi sup., alludes to the effect; but Robertson, Hist. Am., ii. 308, is rather carried away by exaggerated deductions.
