The encomienda system enslaved indios to the owner, an encomendero, by requiring the indios to pay the encomendero a percentage of their productivity as a tax. Since the indio was mostly tied to the land and worked long hours to produce little more than necessary to feed his family, the system literally took the food from the mouths of the poor and gave it mostly to the heirs of now dead conquistadors.
As a man of compassion for all people, despite the lack of complete respect he was denied by others, El Mestizo disliked the encomienda system and had frequently suggested to his brother that the family had more than enough wealth and that the system should be eliminated.
The suggestion was never well received by his brother, who at twenty-one had inherited his father’s noble title and control when his father passed away. For some people “more than enough” was never enough, and perhaps because the younger Cortés had never accomplished anything, he wanted even more.
El Mestizo suspected that rather than the wealth the system brought them, the fact that an encomienda was akin to a feudal domain fed his brother’s grandiose visions.
The system got its start as Spaniards set out from the mother country to find riches, either in treasure, land, or human “livestock.” Cortés was one of the early adventurers, a conquistador who was to conquer an empire and hand it over to the king of Spain.
However, the king of Spain did not finance Cortés or the leaders who followed in his footsteps. Instead, men like Cortés were adventurers who raised money for ships and supplies and recruited soldiers and other adventurers with promises of treasure.
While treasure got passed around generously following the collapse and pillaging of the Aztec and other indio empires, the king also rewarded the conquistadors with the encomienda grants, which were later extended to the Spaniards who came along after the conquest to tame the land and extend Spanish rule over it.
The encomienda plan was inspired by the feudal system long in use in Spain, whereby individuals were given control and the right to collect certain revenues from towns and villages in return for their services to the Crown.
That feudal system wasn’t a far cry from the way the indios had been living under their own empires, in which ascending orders of nobles ruled over regions.
When it came to parceling out the right to tax indios as a reward to the conquistadors, the number of indios awarded was based upon the individual’s rank and contribution to the conquest.
Being granted the right to collect from several thousand indios was common. Naturally, Hernán Cortés got the biggest piece. Besides his share of the booty and rights and privileges that came with being made the Marquis del Valle de Oaxaca, his encomienda included over a hundred thousand indios.
Even with the death of indios from plagues and other maladies, Cortés’s younger son, the marquis, still collected encomienda rights from over fifty thousand indios.
El Mestizo knew that the sheer size of the marquis’s holdings was a dangerous blessing because it caused envy and jealousy not just in the colony but at the royal palace in Madrid. The income generated by the encomienda was substantial enough for the king to view it as a nice prize if he could grab it.
That also went for the rest of the encomiendas in the colony. And countering the royal desire to be rid of the system was a desire by the aging conquistadors and the heirs of those who had passed to have their encomienda rights converted into a permanent lord-vassal system like baronages that passed on to their heirs in perpetuity.
The encomenderos pointed out that, like knights and nobles, they had the duty when called to arms to support the king with horse, lance, sword, and other arms.
The king had extended the system to the heirs of the current encomenderos, but the fact that he had not extended the rights in perpetuity was a sign that the privilege may end someday—a situation feared by those who had grown rich and fat from the sweat of indios.
Perhaps it was his indio blood, but El Mestizo passionately hated only one thing, and that was the encomienda system. It was a form of brutal slavery in which the indios subjected to it had the deepest cuts from the “wearers of spurs”—the gachupins.
The notion put forth by encomenderos that the levies upon the indios were not harmful was nonsense. Most indios were poor farmers and the burden of paying a percentage of their crops to Spaniards who most often lived hundreds of miles away in the capital was a terrible injustice.
Worse, to increase their income, encomenderos frequently kept indios tied to the land—some even branded them like cattle to make sure that they didn’t leave the area.
“It’s medieval,” El Mestizo had told his brother during a heated argument, “even worse the way some owners treat the indios, as if it were the Dark Ages.”
El Mestizo was also critical of the way the entire colonial governmental system was fastened. It began with wealthy Spaniards “buying” the license to perform a government service, such as being a judge, an administrator, tax collector, or almost any other governmental function.
In return, the king granted the license holder the right to collect and keep part of the revenues generated by his office. Thus a licensee would buy the right to be a judge and share with the Crown what he collected from fines, or buy a license to collect taxes for a region and again keep a share and give the rest to the Crown.
The system created an inherently corrupt and ineffective system of administration in which avaricious license holders collected as much and as fast as they could before the term of their license ran out. They then returned to Spain much richer than when they had arrived. Some very much richer.
The result was a gutting of the colony, in which the cream of New Spain was siphoned off and shipped to Spain, leaving behind a heritage of public corruption and ineffectiveness.
The entire system by which Spain controlled the colony rankled colonists and caused secret whispering of sedition. Madrid created the system because, with the discovery of vast quantities of silver, New Spain became a treasure house that not only was the jewel of the Spanish colonial world but also financed the rest of the nation’s vast colonial empire.
The king was determined to retain tight control on New Spain to keep it within its fold. The Crown accomplished this by ensuring that all important public offices, from the viceroy to the military commanders, were held exclusively by Spaniards who were born and raised in Spain and loyal to the Crown and, most important, to the king. Another requirement was that they planned to return to Spain after their time in the colony, thus were called peninsulares by the criollos.
The word made reference to the fact that Spain occupied most of the large Iberian Peninsula.
This created a structure in which the main governing officials came over from Spain not to live and raise families but, like military officers serving “overseas,” to serve a period of duty, during which they would enrich themselves, and then return home.
With no loyalty to the colony itself, there was little motive to ensure that long-term policies had to be best for the colony rather than the mother country.
El Mestizo found it ironic that these European-born Spaniards considered themselves superior in all ways to the full-blooded Spaniards called criollos who were born in New Spain.
The peninsulares claimed it was the warmer climate that caused a more relaxed lifestyle among the criollos, making peninsulares superior to govern.
But El Mestizo and the criollos knew that was a lie.
The peninsulares kept control of the government because the criollos were a step removed from control of Madrid, thus a step removed from the king’s trust, while the peninsulares were only temporarily in the colony and would have to someday come face-to-face again with the authorities in the “old country.”
The criollos resented the fact that they made up the largest number of the wealthy aristocracy that ruled New Spain, owning most of the mines, haciendas, and commerce, but had to bow to the peninsulares, who maintained a tight grip on political control and funneled
much of the wealth of the colony back to Spain.
The criollos, in turn, treated the indios as little better than slaves. The indios were possessions of the hacienda and were hunted down if they strayed or tried to return to the jungle.
When silver was discovered, becoming the “money crop” of New Spain, unscrupulous mine owners enslaved indios and half-castes as work animals in the mines, often forcing them to work in chains so they couldn’t escape. Some mine owners, like some encomienda owners, branded the faces of indio workers with the mark of ownership.
To the indios, mestizos, and léperos, it didn’t matter what Spaniards called each other; to them, Spaniards were gachupins with their sharp spurs.
Spurs that roweled the lower classes at every turn—bloodying their backs whenever the gachupins wanted their money, women, or lives.
BRANDING INDIOS LIKE ANIMALS
The encomendero treated the indio not just as slaves, but as work animals, even branding them with their initials.
Somewhere along the twisted road in which the entire structure of their society was destroyed, the indios lost their image of themselves as a great and mighty people.
They lost their faith in their gods and in themselves. People who once built dazzling cities and perfected science and medicine now sat with dull eyes in front of thatched huts and poked sticks in the dirt.
—Gary Jennings, Aztec Blood
FOURTEEN
GOMEZ, THE STABLE owner, had just swung open one of the big doors to the stable entrance, signaling that he was open for business, when El Mestizo approached.
“Buenos días, señor,” Gomez said. “Come to take that bad-tempered stallion off my hands?”
“He’s not bad-tempered, just temperamental. But I hope the scent of the mares you’re boarding wasn’t enough to make him kick down the walls to get to them.”
“If he did, I hope it was my own mare he got to.”
Wishful thinking, El Mestizo thought. The offspring would be worth more than the stable itself. The stallion was in the bloodline of the warhorses ridden by Cortés during the conquest, though not the warhorse he rode for the final victory against the Aztecs at the critical battle of Otumba. That prized stallion was owned by a sister of El Mestizo and considered perhaps the most valuable stallion in the world.
Leading the son of the conqueror down the open-air center of the facility, Gomez spotted a copper ladle that still had the residue of cooked corn on it.
“Look at that. I’ve been wondering if someone wasn’t coming over the walls at night. Some lépero has found a way in.”
His eyes quickly shot to the stallion owner’s tack and then relaxed—it was still there.
“Your stallion is sleeping,” Gomez said as they approached the silent stall. “Way he stomped around when you brought him in, thought he’d be up all night kicking out my walls and doors.”
“He never sleeps soundly until he’s had a few mares.”
Gomez looked over the half-open stall door and gaped. “Madre santa de Dios! The stallion has killed a boy!”
Juan stirred from sleep on the hay beside the horse and sat up, staring at the two surprised men.
The stallion neighed and leaned down with its head, gently brushing the boy’s head.
“You dirty little lépero! I’ll teach you!” Gomez shouted. He pushed open the stable door, slamming it against the wall.
The stallion got excited at the shouting, stamping its feet. El Mestizo was sure it was ready to bolt—right over them.
Juan stood up and hummed as he petted the horse’s muzzle.
Neighing, the stallion calmed down as the two men watched in amazement.
FIFTEEN
“WHERE DID YOU learn that sound?” El Mestizo asked me.
“From my mother.”
We were seated in the shade at the far end of the stable, where there was more privacy.
El Mestizo had had Gomez bring me a tortilla filled with juicy pork, tomatoes, and onions. I chewed on it as I answered the man’s questions.
“What was your mother’s name?”
“Maria.”
“And your father’s?”
I shrugged. “Only God knows his name. I am a bastardo.”
“What do you know about your mother?”
“Very little, señor. She came to the house of the prostitutes alone and with a swollen belly. I was born there and stayed until I was old enough to go out onto the streets.”
Despite his grand clothes, the prize stallion, and expensive tack he owned, I recognized the man as a mestizo like myself. It wasn’t his skin color, which was about the same as mine; Spaniards came in many different shades, from pale white to olive. But I could see from his features and the thickness of his coal black hair that, like me, he also carried indio blood.
A few mestizos owned small ranchos, most were laborers or léperos, though I had heard that there were also mestizos who were like grandees, but I had never seen one.
“Did your mother tell you anything about herself?”
“No, señor, my mother left the world when I was very small, before I was two years old, I think.”
“So you know nothing about your mother or her family, and nothing about your father or his family.”
“True, señor, I am a miserable bastardo,” I whined, “and God will reward you if you—”
“Stop!”
I clamped my mouth shut.
He leaned toward me, his eyes blazing.
“You are never again going to beg. You understand that?”
I stared at him, confused. “Then how will I eat, señor?”
“How will you eat?”
The question was asked of himself, and he appeared to muse over it, rubbing his jaw.
He suddenly stared at me so intently I drew back, frightened.
Reaching out, he gave me a gentle touch on the shoulder. “Don’t be afraid, chico. I’m just puzzled because you remind me of someone.”
“Who do I remind you of, señor?”
He hesitated and his features darkened.
“No one. I was mistaken … you remind me of no one.”
The grandee mestizo confused and scared me. I wanted to bolt, but my sore legs would have been unable to outrun him.
He stood up.
“Come, I must talk to the stable owner.”
SIXTEEN
“DID YOU HEAR what that boy hummed?” Gomez asked El Mestizo. “There’s a legend about a Zapote tune taught to princesses that could tame a jaguar. I heard the princesses would use it to calm their crying babies.”
“It wasn’t the noise the boy made that calmed the horse. The stallion doesn’t mind small boys.”
El Mestizo’s rebuttal was a lie. He, too, knew of the story about a tune hummed by Zapote princesses, but he didn’t want the tale identified with the boy.
Gomez started to say that he didn’t think the stallion would tolerate the stinking little street boy short of an act of God, but shut his mouth. He was in awe of El Mestizo even though he himself was a pure-blooded Spaniard. What the Cortés family didn’t own in the Oaxaca region, it controlled, and even a half-blood Cortés was considered Oaxaca royalty.
El Mestizo asked enough questions of the stable owner to determine that the only thing Gomez knew about the boy was that he was part of the pack of thieving léperos that polluted the streets with their cries and crimes.
When Gomez showed some curiosity about why a Cortés would be interested in a street boy, El Mestizo said, “My priest says I must do penance for a sin.” He gave the stable owner a wink that told the man the sin was of a sexual nature, something the other man would quickly relate to.
“I have decided to do penance by helping out the boy, making sure he has an opportunity to rid himself of not just the lice he carries on his filthy body, but the disgusting habits he has picked up on the streets.”
El Mestizo courteously asked Gomez if he would assist him with his penance, offering to pay for the boy’s keep if Go
mez would clean up the boy and train him to work in the stable.
“Sí, señor, but would the boy also not get training on your hacienda?”
“True, but I will be leaving with my brother for Madrid shortly,” El Mestizo said. “I’m not certain how long we will be gone. We do the king’s work and will stay as long as he commands it.”
“Of course,” Gomez said, nodding, “of course, at his command.”
“It would be better for the boy to adjust to life here, in town, where he is used to living.” El Mestizo gave Gomez a look. “Your assistance to my brother, the marquis, and myself would be greatly appreciated, but if it’s not something you feel you can do…”
The mention of the marquis had an electrifying effect on the stable owner.
Gomez got down on his knees and begged for the opportunity to take the street boy in.
El Mestizo was careful to name a sum to pay for the boy’s upkeep that wouldn’t cause suspicion, but he also slipped the man a gold coin to prime the pump.
Leaving the stable, El Mestizo’s knees were shaking. He prayed he had pulled off the pretense about penance with the stable owner.
He knew exactly who the boy was—and the child would not live long if others learned his heritage.
“Penance for sins against the boy,” he mumbled to himself.
He had not lied about that.
SEVENTEEN
AS SOON AS the stallion owner had left, Gomez cuffed me on the side of the head.
“You stinking bastardo! You’ve been sneaking in, stealing my corn.”
“Just a handful, señor.”
“Well, you’re the luckiest dirty little lépero in the colony. El Mestizo has arranged for you to work in the stable.”
I was stunned and puzzled. “What does that mean?”
“It means you get to sleep in one of the stalls and eat what the horses eat as long as you work hard, don’t steal, and don’t talk back.” He waved his hand in front of his nose. “Phew. And take a bath once a year. Understand?”