STATE OF SOCIETY.

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The populace, urged by the pangs of hunger and by their fancied grievances, were now in a mood which boded ill for the peace and safety of the capital. Yet, although previous outbreaks had shown their turbulent nature, no precaution whatever appears to have been taken to guard against a disturbance. Affairs were ripe for an outbreak. The city was divided into nine wards, six of which were inhabited wholly by natives having their own governors. The total population was over one hundred and forty thousand, of whom the Spaniards and mixed races formed but a small proportion. A large part of the lower classes were idle and dissolute, and among them were many criminals. The name saramullos was then applied to them and later they were called léperos.2

3

The usual resorts of this class were the shops where pulque was sold, and the baratillo, where the natives also congregated, and where all plotted against and denounced the government at will, free from the interference of the officers of justice.*

The natives at this period, especially the men, were restless, indolent, and vicious, and so addicted to the use of pulque, the consumption of which had never been so great, that all contemporary writers concur in affirming that they were daily under its influence. They were the chief complainers against the government, and were constantly encouraged by the saramullos, who eagerly desired an outbreak because of the opportunity thus afforded them for plunder.

To oppose these dangerous elements there was in

"La poblacion...de las grandes ciudades interiores de la colonia, cuya mayoría inmensa se componia entonces, como se compone todavía hoy por desgracia, de esa plebe vagamunda y degradada por la ignorancia y la miseria, conocida con el infamante apodo de léperos.' Lerdo de Tejada, Apunt. Hist., 366. See also Sigüenza y Góngora, Carta, MS., 37.

3 A shop or collection of shops in the main plaza where cheap and secondclass wares were sold, and where stolen articles were also disposed of. It was frequented by vagabonds and criminals, and several attempts had already been made by the authorities to abolish it. Rivera, Diario, 72; Robles, Diario, ii. 26. The baratillo was not abolished until several years later, although a cédula prohibiting it was published in November 1689.

Las pulquerias donde por condision iníqua y contra Dios que se le concedió al Asentista no entra justicia.' Sigüenza y Góngora, Carta, MS., 42.

the capital but a single company of infantry, of less than one hundred men, who did duty as palace guard, and even these were indifferently armed and equipped. There was no artillery, no store of small arms and ammunition, and no organized militia. The better class of Spaniards for the most part possessed weapons of their own, but as subsequent events showed, they would not act together in time of need. Without the city the nearest available troops were the distant garrisons of Acapulco and Vera Cruz. Not even an organized police force existed which could be made available in quelling an incipient outbreak.

The palace, as shown by the accompanying plan, was provided with loopholes for infantry and embrasures for cannon, but in the disturbance which followed there was nothing to indicate that artillery was placed there. In the construction of the other buildings of the capital there was no provision made for their defence save that afforded by the thick walls, heavy barred doors, and strong shutters and iron bars of the windows; but these were common to most

5 Sigüenza y Góngora, Carta, MS., 49, summarizes this condition of affairs as the 'culpabilisimo descuido con que vivimos entre tanta pleue al mismo tiempo que presumimos de formidables.'

ABOUT THE PLAZA.

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Spanish houses, and of course ineffectual against the attacks of a mob, unless a strong armed force were stationed within.

Although the greater portion of the dwellings with their massive walls of stone or adobe, their tiled roofs, and solid doors, afforded some protection for life and property in the event of a riot, the immense quantity of merchandise contained in the stalls situated in the main plaza had no such protection. Here were built without order two hundred and eighty light wooden structures, styled cajones, in which native and foreign wares of all descriptions were sold. Among them and scattered over other portions of the public square were numberless booths of canes and rushes, for the sale of fruit, vegetables, and provisions, giving to this plaza, which was one of the finest in the world, the appearance of an irregular village of huts.

In 1658 several of the stalls were destroyed by fire, and during the confusion which ensued many were plundered. In the following year orders were given for the plaza to be cleared of both stalls and booths, but the danger from fire and thieves being quickly forgotten, they were soon restored to their former location. Later the attention of the authorities was called to the danger to which this collection of unguarded inflammable structures was exposed, but with their usual apathy they paid no heed to the matter until a second and greater disaster compelled the application of a permanent remedy.

Such was the condition of the capital in the beginning of June 1692. Though the scarcity of grain still continued, the careful distribution of the supply daily received at the public granary sufficed to keep starvation from the city. The natives, however, daily grew bolder and more insolent, and awaited but a pretext to revolt, encouraged, as they were, by the

The stalls were removed to the Plazuela del Marqués which opens into the main plaza, and the booths to the Plazuela de la Universidad. Dicc. Univ., v. 737.

inaction of the authorities which they construed into fear.7

The desired opportunity soon arrived. On Friday June 7th the corn at the public granary gave out at six o'clock in the evening, whereupon several native women who remained to be served, gave vent to their disappointment in shrill outcries and insulting epithets. On the following day they were still more disorderly, shouting, fighting, pushing, and crowding each other, so as to make it impossible for the officers to proceed with the distribution. Taking advantage of this confusion, several attempted to help themselves to corn, whereupon one of the officials, finding peaceful measures ineffectual, seized a whip, and by laying it on right and left succeeded in driving them back. In a few minutes, however, they surged forward again, headed by one more daring than the rest. The official again made use of his whip, and seizing a cane rained a shower of blows on the head and shoulders of the leader and her companions. Exasperated by this treatment, some of them seized their leader, and raising her on their shoulders rushed out of the granary, whence, followed by nearly two hundred of their companions, they hastened across the plaza to the palace of the archbishop and demanded to see him. The attendants refused, but listened to their complaints, consoled them as best they could, and dismissed them. Not content with this reception, the crowd, still carrying the injured woman, proceeded to the viceregal palace, filling its lower corridors and clamoring for an interview with the viceroy. On being told that he was absent, they tried to force their way into the viceregal apartments, but were pushed back by the guards. Thereupon they returned to the archiepiscopal palace, not a single man having joined them thus far, and were met by the primate.

In the public granary the Indian women were sometimes served before a Spaniard, and this confirmed the natives in their belief that the authorities were afraid of them. Siguenza y Góngora, Carta, MS., 42.

To him they repeated their complaints, adding that the injured woman had just died. Through an interpreter he sought to pacify them, and despatched a messenger to the granary officials, requesting that the Indians should in future be treated with more consideration. After another fruitless attempt to obtain an interview with the viceroy, the tumult ended for that day.

On the return of the viceroy in the evening he gave orders that in future an oidor should be present during the distribution of corn, for to a lack of system in this matter the outbreak was attributed. Instructions were also issued to the captain of the palace guard to take every precaution to prevent any repetition of the disturbance. Pikes were to be made ready, ammunition to be distributed to the troops, and all fire-arms to be kept loaded. No uproar occurred during the night, nor does any attempt appear to have been made by the authorities to ascertain the state of affairs in the native wards or among the saramullos. On the following day, the 8th of June,10 the native women appeared as usual at the public granary, and with the exception of pushing and crowding in their attempt to gain the foremost place, the presence

A somewhat different version of this affair is given in the Carta de un Religioso, 315. There it is stated that but one visit was made to the archbishop, who advised that one or two of them should go and lay the matter before the viceroy, but that his counsel was disregarded, and the women dispersed to their homes. This author, however, was a recluse friar, and, although a contemporaneous writer, derived his information from others, while Sigüenza y Góngora, whose version I have adopted, was a prominent man, on intimate terms with the viceroy and other government officials, and one of the most celebrated writers of the period.

According to the Carta de un Religioso, 315-16, previously cited, the viceroy upon learning of the occurrence immediately sent for the corregidor, whom he ordered to investigate the complaints, and severely punish the distributors of corn. The corregidor, however, soon returned declaring that the charges of the Indian women against the officials at the granary were false, nothing unusual having occurred there during the day. Reassured by this statement and the opinion of several gentlemen that it was only a drunken affair of the natives, the viceroy contented himself with ordering that an official of his own selection should superintend the distribution on the following day.

10 Cavo, Tres Siglos, ii. 81, erroneously gives June 9th as the date, and Zamacois, Hist. Mex., v. 458, x. 1362, that of June 18th. This latter, however, though occurring in two different places, is evidently a misprint.