The Appeal. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. ;) 1889-19??, 1913-03-01
MEXICAN PEOPLE
CLASSES,
Only About 0ne-tenth Of
People Have Purely
White Blood.

~ falls naturally into three divi-
1 X stons. for the population con-
ststs of people of purely Span.
1sh descent, of mestizos, or half breeds
OF Spanish and Indian blood and OF
pure blooded Indians. Out of Mexico's
100000 Inhabitants one-half may be
roughly estimated to be mestizos. Al
though the census figures of 1900 have
about one-ifth. or 100000, of purely
white descent, it Is likely that not more
than tenth come under this head,
since Indian blood permeates all
classes. At the same time special diff
fcult1es are met in attempting TO draw
a dividing line between Indian and
mestizo. Bryce chooses to estimate
the number of Indians at 5000, 1000 and
the mestizos at 100000. Included in
Mexico's population is foreign ele-
ment numbering about $4,000 people.
The number Of Americans in Mexico be-
fore the revolutionary troubles of the
last year or two was estimated at al
most 10000. .... ~.
Spanish Oppression.
When the spaniards arrived in Mexi-
co they found large sedentary popu-
1ation Of natives cultivating the soil
and trained to industry. These the
conquerors turned into serfs, who were
compelled to perform the arduous and
to them most distasteful work Of min
ing. Agriculture, too, was left to the
Indians ho o1iv IN
field labor, or any kind of manual la
Dor, for that matter, most distasteful to
the white men. The pure white popu-
lation increased hardly at all, because
few new settlers came. but the Span
1ards mixed with the natives, with the
result that after several generations
there was a considerable half breed
population, even though some Of the
tribes, notably those in the state of
Oaxaca, have remained to this day dis
tinct from the white race and from
each other. .
And it is this branch of the Mexican
people. along with the pure blooded de-
scendants of some fifty aboriginal
Indian tribes, that constitutes for the
main part Mexico's problem in gov
eminent. 1t is not a race problem in
the sense of their being color line
Educated and we'll to do Indians hold
high places in Mexico. In fact, Presi
dent Benit0 Juarez, one of the coun-
try's great heroes. was a full blooded
Zapoteca, and Porfrio Diaz is prouder
Of his Misteca ancestry than of the
white blood he also claims. Nor does
the half breed suffer any disability, So
cial or political
Mestizos Imposed Upon.
The indians and mestizos, for the
most part poor and ignorant, are little
more than the raw material for citi
zens, and the upper class Mexicans
use them for their own selfish pur-
poses both in politics and business.
The great weakness of Mexico's So
cial system lies in the fact that there
are but two classes, an upper and
lower, the former extremely limited in
number. A middle class, such as
forms the great bulk of Intelligent cit
liens in this country and in Europe
tends but slowly to appear.
Upper class Mexicans are for the
most part men Of property. Their
wealth, education and social position
enable them to WELD enormous power
over the great laboring class Of mesti
EOS and Indians. whose work in the
fields and mines makes possible the
existence and continuance Of the ma
tional industries. These poems at the
present time are not far removed from
serfdom, for their general poverty as
a class and the land monopoly of the