ession and fraud, in the hands of the provincial authorities. All
the corregidores and sub-delegados became traders. They purchased
consignments of manufactured goods from Europe, at a cheap rate, and
sold them to the Indians at exorbitant prices. To add to the grievance,
the articles thus forced upon the natives were, in many instances, not
necessaries, but objects of luxury utterly useless to them. Even more
oppressive and cruel than the Repartimiento, was the Mita, which
consisted of the forced labor of the Indians in the mines and
plantations. Every Spaniard who wished to work a mine, obtained from the
corregidor a certain number of Indians, to each of whom he gave daily
four reals as wages, with the agreement of paying to the government a
yearly tax of eight dollars. The condition of the Indians who were
distributed to the plantation owners was even worse than that of the
mine laborers; they received only two reals per day, and were required
to work in the fields from three in the morning until after sunset. The
Indians employed in this compulsory labor, whether in the mines or the
plantations, were called _Mitas_. But there was another sort of forced
labor, for which no wages were paid. It was indeed less toilsome than
working in the mines and plantations, yet the Indians employed in it
were frequently subject to much ill-treatment. I allude to domestic
service in the houses of the corregidores, sub-delegados, and priests.
The Indians thus employed were called _Pongos_, and they were required
to continue in their places for the space of a year, after which they
were discharged. A corregidor frequently had half a dozen of these
pongos, whom he provided with miserable food and wretched clothing.[102]

In the mines and plantations countless numbers of Indians were annually
swept away by the excessive labor consequent on the mita. Some writers
estimate at nine millions the number of Indians sacrificed in the mines
in the course of three centuries. This estimate is certainly too high;
but three millions more may be added for the number of victims of the
mita in the plantations.

That the government in Spain should have tolerated this barbarous
system, so obviously calculated to bring ruin on the nation, may
naturally be matter of surprise. But a glance at the Indian laws (_Leyes
de Indias_) suffices to show the distinction between the intentions of
the Spanish government and the corrupt legislation of the country. The