Evening capital news. (Boise, Idaho) 1901-1927, 1914-05-31

IN ~ of them are in the direst OF
AIgeRSz bondage. This mighty pla-
teau, between the two
ranges of mountains, is divided into farms
or haciendas, owned by the whites, the de-
. scendants of the Spaniards, or by the
Cholos, mixture of Spaniards and Indians.
These estates are large. You may ride all
day across many of them and not come to
the end of the property. Each OF them has
large number of Indians upon it and these
Indians are practically the debt slaves OF
the owners. They live in villages or in huts,
scattered over the property. The land be-
longs to the haciendados, and the Indians
have their huts and small pieces of land,
Which are leased to them under certain con-
ditions. One of these is that the Indian
must work part of each week for his mas
ter He may have cattle, lamas, alpacas
and sheep but he has to give certain per-
centage of the increase to the haciendados.
There are, also, fixed rules as to how the
stock must be sold, and the estate owner
controls the disposition Of this and OF all the
products that the Indians raise He -actl-
cally fixes the price and he gets everything
vances to the Indians as keep him in a state
of debt slavery, and this state is transmitted
to his children. The conditions are different
in the different provinces and in some places
thew are milder than in others. But all over
the plateau they are such that the red man
has practically no chance of accumulating
property or of advancing in the state of civ
ilization.
have just had long talk with hacien-
dado who lives here in Cuzco. He owns
288,00O acres of land at Cusipata, in the
province of Paucartando, but he goes there
only during a part of the summer, and
spends his money abroad He has house
here in Cuzco, and his Indians bring the
crops here to market. This mans estate
represents about the worst of the conditions
on the high Andes He was very free in
talking about them, and he seems to have
no shame in the part he is taking in them. |
shall give our conversation as it occurred.
. Said he:
Land here is cheap. The estate at Cusi-
pata cost us only about four cents an acre.
We got the whole, including the stock,
which consisted of large number of cattle,
alpacas and sheep, for 10000 soles, or about
$4,000. | think we could sell it for twice
that amount today Much of the land is
high, running up to 10000 feet above the
sea- This is fitted only for pasture We
have also some which is as low as 10000
feet, upon which barley, potatoes, quinua
and other crops can be grown. We have
big flocks of alpacas, and altogether about
5000 sheep. We have also cattle and horses
and llamas and donkeys.
The most important possession Of the
farm, however, is our Indians Our lands
are valuable not according to their area, but
according to the number OF families of In
dams who have homes upon them and are
therefore obliged to work for the owners.
The great trouble here is labor. If we do
not have the Indians on the estates we can
get no one to work them Therefore we
hold them by keeping them more or less in
debt to us. We advance money for their ex-
penses, and also for the purchase of the
cattle, lamas, alpacas and other stock that
they own This is done from time to time
until they are SO deep in our debt they can
not get out. We want to keep them in debt,
for this is the only way we can be sure of
holding them to the land. The Indian sell
dom pays his debts. He has been accus-
toned for generations to our system, and
the only way he could pay would be by get
ting some other farmer to assume his oblga-
ton to us. In that case he could move, but
)he would be only going from one master to
another"
"But how do the Indians begin their life