The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1891-08-16

Ol ROlu anu sllVer as Dig as wagon WHEELS,
and these people made his soldiers spurs of |
gold for their horses. Since then they have
been the slaves of their conquerors. They |
have been oppressed and beaten and worked |
for generations, and it is only within few |
years that they have had the chance to be
anything else. AS they are to day hundreds
and thousands of them are hopelessly in !
debt and are as much debt slaves as are the |
debtors of Siam. Millions of them live from |
hand to mouth, and only the fewest have
what the American negro of the south |
would consider competency. Peonage, or
debt slavery, was abolished in Mexico in
1913, but in practiceit still prevails. These
Indians, many of them, are honorable, and
all of them are great lovers of home and the
locality in which they live. The huts, which
they occupy on the farms of their master
creditors, have been the homes of their
families for generations, and though they
are not bound by law to work out their
debts, they do so and incur others, so that
they keep themselves and their families in
bondage for years to come. They have no ,
hesitancy about going again into debt when
once free, and Americans who are trying to
farm here on our methods tell me 1t is al
most impossible to keep their men without
they are debtors. They never get anything
ahead, and when they want to get married
they usually borrow enough to pay the
priests and the fees and get the wedding
outfit, and this makes them debtors for
years Their employers pay them SO much
IN food and wages each day reservlng
small amount out of each months wages to
go towards the debt, and as their wages
| range in different localities from about IS
| to so cents day it will be seen that there
is little hope for their supporting their fam
! lilies and paying their debts. In some parts
of Mexico boys get 6 cents day, and in
others the average farm wages is 10 cents
| MaYipQn a
wages range from IS to % cents, and along
! the lines of railroad where track layers and
construction companies have paid more
they have become considerably higher. On
the farms these Mexican Indians work
right along for these wages. They lay of
only for Sundays and feast days, and they
appear to be industrious, quiet, SubserVlent
and good laborers. Even if they are in debt
they can change their masters by saying
that the wish to leave and by getting
new master to assume their debt and take
them. In such case new contract Is en-
tered into, and the Indian stays with his
new master till he gets dissatisfied and gets
another master to pay his debts and to take
him IN. This debt slavery exists in other
branches of industry as well as in farming.
Factories have their poems, and mines have
their debt slaves The company store eX-
lists here as it does in the mining and man
ufscturing regions of the United States,
and the poems get deeper and deeper in debt
as they live on.
| HOW THE Poems LIVE.
The Mexican, however, spends but little
upon himself or his house. The houses of
the poor are huts or novels, differing accord
ing to the locality. On the Mexican plateau,
where there is little wood, the Indians live
in low, square, one-story huts of sun dried
brick, often constructed without windows.
These novels are like great mud boxes.
They have fiat roofs, no chimneys, or fire
places, and the door of each hut is of rough
ly made boards and so low that the men and
women Of the family have to stoop in enter
ing IT. Most Of these huts have but one
room. The family sleep on the floor on
mats, and there are neither tables or
chairs. The cooking is done over fire
built out of doors or in corner of the hut,
and the cooking utensils are of clay and not
of iron or copper. j costs but few dol
lars 70 build such howell, and the average
Indian can build his own house. Near the
towns these huts are in collections of g
dozen or So making suburbs or villages OF
mud and on the Haciendas they are often
t inside the wall surrounding the adobe build
lngs where their masters live or they are
built close to the wall on the outside
Along the railroad you often see them made
3 of discarded railroad ties the ties being sci
: on end and forming the walls of the hut
t while thatch of cactus or other leaves
makes the roof If you will remember the
3 average length of the railroad tie you will
know the height of the Mexican railroad
! hut. In the rainy regions of Mexico where
) the water comes down in showers every
/, afternoon for several months of the year
3 the huts are built with ridge roofs and in
t the valley of Mexico and amid the pictur-
3 esque mountains along the line of the Mex
3 lean National railroad you see roofs made
n hoard O - oS
/ on and held down by means of stones placed
/ upon them, and the tiles are fastened with
o mortar. In few of these Indian huts are
q nails used, and rope and withes take theil
< places. The cheapest huts of all are those
I of the hot country or of the low land.
a along the coast These are made of cane o.
K poles, which are driven into the ground anC
! tied to cross poles with strings. The poles
are of the same length, and to their top
rafters are tied and on these a thatchet
roof Is fastened in the same way. Som,
/ times the poles are plastered with mud, bu
|: generally the poles stand about an incl
L apart, and you can see all that is going OF
9 in the hut through its walls. ! saw who'll
d villages of huts in the state of Vera Cruz
9 and the Indians who swarmed in and out O
: them were often half-naked. Here Their
9 is plenty Of wood, and the cooking was don
e in the open air. On the plateau much of j
9 was done with charcoal, and the fire wa
= kept alive while the food was on it b.
g means of fan made of rushes, which tn
e women moved vigorously to and fro durin
J, the operation. Both on the plateau and il
the hot country saw many huts which ha
|, several rooms, and the homes of the bette
8 classes of the poor had now and then tabl
r and a chair. In the cities find the major
g ity of the poor living in tenement houses
s and here in Mexico City there are street
It where the people fairly swarm and wher
s whole families and several families ar
|. crowded at night in one damp, ill-smellin
) room with nothing but this foulest of sew
IS erage-laden ground to sleep upon. On tn
d outskirts of the city you may see the home
IL of squatters made of all kinds of refuse ma
% terials from tin cans to store boxes and su
: dried bricks, and some of the huts are S
70 low that the people have to get down on a
x fours TO get into them. Such places ar
y occupied by the poorest of the poor of thi
: great city. Their inhabitants live by beg
n ging, doing odd jobs and often by stealing
IS and they constitute what might be Gale
70 the residences OF the five point element G
3, the capital.
= BOW THEY DRESS AND WHAT THEY EAT
r The Mexican Indians are not the blanke
r savages OF our western territories. The
Il do not cut the seats out of their pantaloop
D. before they wear them as our Indians d.
is They are in fact, as clean and particuls
S about their clothes as any people in simils
l. circumstances the world over The Door
v est man has his white shirt and white, wild
Is legged pantaloons, and the Indian gil
N wears a white chemise and skirt Sh
g. has, it is true, not the corset, the hip pad
i or the hustle of our advanced civilization
TO and the covering of her long, black hair
1t only a shawl as costly as her meagre purs
ir can buy, still she looks neat and tidy in he
vla,,