Reporter and farmer. [volume] (Webster, Day County, Dakota [S.D.]) 188?-1946, 1903-11-12
STRANGE CONTRAST.
DIFFERENCES BETWEEN UPLAND AND
HOT LAND MExicANS.
Why the characteristics OF the Peo-
PIE In the Two Sections of Mexico
are So U~nIike-ERects OF Two Cen
turtles OF Serfdom.

0EC 81 GhAhAC-LAtACCA6 oA Me-
turtles OF Serfdom.
There is no country in the world that
presents more strange contrasts OF
land and people, habits and customs.
heat and cold, than Mexico. The table
lands of tie country are a mile and a
half higher than the coast lands, and
between these there are TO be found
all gradations of climate. This fact
lends much of the picturesque and
strange to Mexico and gives it n va
c!ety in all things possessed by few, If
any, countries in the world. OF all the
inhabitants or Mexico, the life OF the
people of the hot country is the most
interesting. This is, strange TO say, due
to the fact that there the people have
ever possessed more of freedom than in
the colder localities. For two centuries
or more the great mass of people of the
uplands were slaves. They toiled in
the mines, with a guard of soldiers set
over them; they built the public roads;
they worked the ranches, farms and
haciendas for masters who gave them
scarcely more than the food they ate.
The great farms of the uplands have
ever required sur help. and so each
ranchman had his serfs. Many estates
possessed hundreds of them. Thus all
individuality was crushed out of the
lower class, and the terrible effect Of
this condition of things is still evident
The people of the hot lands Jared bet
ter, because there 1t was much easier
to make 4 living and much harder to
hold very large haciendas. For this
reason the characteristics Of the peSple
are quite distinct from those of their
brethren of the upland Dlateaus. In
the hot lands many Indians still claim
to hold in right of inheritance from
remote ancestors portions of land each
in his own individual right. There,
too, the mayor of the village or town
holds Office so long as he pleases the
mass of the people. In the uplands
it has been the custom of the rich and
powerful 10 distribute offices of all
kinds as part Of their prerogative of
birth and wealth. The lower classes
Of the uplands, although they now
have the advantage of a fairly good
pubic system OF education and are be-
coming gradually educated, are in the
main a distinctively unambitious peo-
pie. They were SO long in semislavery
that they feel that the world Of the
middle and upper class people is be-
yond them. They have, therefore, no
interest In anything outside their cir
Gle of friends and acquaintances-that
is, in a political way. But not so In
many hot country villages and com
munities. There the Indian has ever
been more or les5 a factor in the life
of the community il. which he resided.
On the upiands there are long
stretches of more or less bare lands,
with mountains rising up boldly in the
background. In many parts during
the dry season the land is almost bar
rem OF vegetation. But in the hot coun-
try grow tall and shady trees and
thick underground. Everything grows
almost without attention from the
hand of man, and yet. strange to say,
the peon, or laboring man, is there
more ambitious II a better worker
than the peon of the colder uplands.
This is not natural and is only ex-
planned by the different conditions in
which they have passed the last 400
years. Serfdom IN the uplands extin-
guished all ambition in the lower class.
The lower class OF the hot country
people are fond Of social life, and al
most any night or early evening the
year throughout enc may find groups
Of people in a little Indian village
gathered together and entertaining one
another In front Of some one of the
houses or on the public square. which
every Mexican town. however small,
possesses. with music. songs and coca
sionally dancing.-Modern Mexico.