te blood and Spanish birth was an
indispensable qualification for promotion in the vice-kingdom, and the
slightest tincture of colored blood was an indelible disgrace. But one
night of tumult and rapine changed the popular standard of color. And
he who had boasted the day before of his pure white blood and Spanish
origin, now sought to hide himself from the officers of the law, who
visited with the penalty of banishment the crime of having been born in
Spain. Men now, for the first time, boasted of their Indian origin, and
of the slight infusion they were able to discover of colored blood in
their veins; while a man of Indian descent, and who spoke a provincial
dialect, was declared elected President of the Republic of Mexico: so
uncertain are all divisions of rank formed on the arbitrary distinction
of color.

During the night strange murmurings were heard against "the accursed
enslaver of their race." The descendants of Cortez were fearful for the
safety of his ashes, which had lain quietly in the convent of San
Francisco[54] so long as the Inquisition possessed the power of
compelling men to reverence his memory as the champion of the Cross,
the favorite of the Virgin Mary, the hero of a holy war against the
infidels. But now that this accursed institution, and the infamous gang
connected with its management, had become powerless, the national
feeling began to manifest itself so openly that the remains were
removed secretly and by night to the sanctuary of the most sacred
shrine of Mexico, that of Santa Teresa, where they remained until a
safe opportunity presented itself for shipping them off to the Duke of
Montebello, a Sicilian nobleman, who inherits the titles and also the
vast estates of Cortez in the valleys of the Cuarnavaca and Oajaca,
upon which none of the revolutionary governments have laid violent
hands.

[54] For a more authentic account, see Appendix E.

CHAPTER XXV.

The Priests gainers by the Independence.--Improved Condition of
the Peons.--Mexican Mechanics.--The Oppression they suffer.--Low
state of the Mechanic Arts.--The Story of the Portress.--Charity
of the Poor.--The Whites not superior to Meztizos.---License and
Woman's Rights at Mexico.--The probable Future of Mexico.--Mormonism
impending over Mexico.--Mormonism and Mohammedanism.

The clergy and the other white fomenters of the separation from Spain
never contemplated the formation of a republic, or the arming of the
_le