The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-08-16


much debt slaves as are the debtors of
Siam. Millions of them live from hand to
month. and only the fewest have what the
American negro of the South would con-
slider q competency. Peonage or debt
slavery was abolished in Mexico in 1873,
but In practice it 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-credit RS, have been the homes of
their families Tor generations, and though
they are not bound by law 10 work out
their debts, they do 50 and incur others so
that they keep themselves and their faIni-
lies 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 almost impossible to keep their
men without they are their 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 employ
ers pay them so much in food
and wages each day, reserving a small
amount out of each months wages to
go towards the debt, and as their wages
range in different localities from about
eighteen to fifty cents day, it will be
seen that there is little hope for their sup
porting their families and paving their
debts. In some parts of Mexico boys get
SIX cents day and in others the average
farm wages is nineteen cents per diem.
On the Mexican plateau the wages range
from eighteen to twenty-three 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 In
dams work right along for these wages.
EhaNy iaNy x.fI fy.r sInx-a and aaf dQV
and they appear to be industrious, quiet,
subservient and good laborers. Even ii
they are in debt they can change their
masters by saying that they wish TO leave
and by getting new master 10 assume
their debt and take them. In such case
a new contract is entered into and the In
dian 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 indus
try as well as farming. Factories have
their poems and mines have their debt
slaves. The company store exists here as
il does in the mining and manufacturing
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 ac-
cording to the locality. On the Mexican
plateau, where there is little wood, the In
dams 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 fireplaces, and the door of
each hut is of roughly-made boards, and
is so low that the men and women of the
family have to stoop in entering it. Most
of bnG hrtfG hoxf hTtf bo
family sleep on the floor on mats, and
there are neither tables or chairs. The
cooking is done over a fire built out of
doors or in corner of the hut, and the
cooking utensils are of burnt clay and not
of iron or copper. 1t costs but few dol
lars to build such hovel, and the average
Indian can build his own house. Near the
towns these huts are in collections of
dozen or so, making suburbs or villages of
mud, and on the haciendas they are often
inside the wall surrounding the adobe
buildings where their masters live. They
are built close to the wall on the
outside. Along the railroad you
often see them made of discarded railroad
ties, the ties being set on end and forming
the walls of the hut, while a thatch of
cactus or other leaves makes the roof If
you will remember the average length of
tie railroad tie you will know the height
of the Mexican railroad hut. In the
comes down in showers every afternoon
for several months of the year the huts
are built with ridge roofs, and IN the val
ley of Mexico and amid the picturesque
mountains along the line of the Mexican
National railroad you see roofs made of
board and tile. The board roofs are tied
on and held down by means of stones
placed upon them, and the tiles are fast
ened with mortar. In few of these In
dian huts are nails used, and rope and
withes take their places. The cheapest
buts of all are those of the hot country or
of the low lands along the coast. These
are made OF cane or poles, which are
driven into the ground and tied to cross
poles with strings. The poles are of the
same length, and TO their tops rafters are
tied, and on these a matched roof is
fastened in the same way. Some times
the pole walls are plastered with mud, but
generally the poles stand about an inch
apart, and you can see all that is going on
In the hut through its walls. | saw
whole villages of such huts in
the state of Vera Cruz, and the Indians
who swarmed in and out of them were
often half naked. Here there was plenty
of wood and the cooking was done in the
open air. On the plateau much of ii was
done with charcoal and the ire was kept
alive while the food was on it by means of
a fan made of rushes, which the women
moved vigorously TO and fro during the
operation. DOIn on the plateau ana IN
the hot country | saw many huts which
had several rooms and the homes of the
better classes of the poor had now and
then a table and chair. In the cities
find the majority of the poor living in ten
ement houses and here in Mexico City
there are streets where the people fairly
swarm and where whole families and sew
eral families are crowded at night in one
damp, ill-smeiling room. with nothing but
the foulest of sewerage-laden ground to
sleep upon. On the outskirts of the city
YOU may see the homes of sQuatters made
of all kinds of refuse materials from tin
cans TO store boxes and sun-dried bricks,
and some OF the nuts are so low that the
people have TO get down on all tours to get
into them. Such places are occupied by
the poorest of the poor of this great city.
Their inhabitants live by begging, odd
jobs and often by stealing, and they con-
stitute what might he called the residences
OF the Five Points element Of the capital.
HOW THEY DRESS AND WHAT THEY EAT.
The Mexican Indians are not the blan-
ket sayages Of our Western territories.
They do not cut the seats out of their
pantaloons before they wear them as our
Indians do. Tney are in fact as cleanly
and particular about their clothes as any
people in similar circumstances the world
over. The poorest man has his white
shirt and wide-legged pantaloons, and the
Indian girl wears white chemise and q
skirt She has, il is true, not the corset,
the hip pads or the hustle of our advanced
civilization, and the covering of her lon Q
black hair is only 4 shawl as costly as her
meager purse can buy. still she looks neat
and tidy In her simple raiulent, and hen
young she has a straightness and round