CHAPTER XV. 1785–1794.

conduct of the latter personages had been extremely cruel to the natives. They either used their power to oppress the Indians, or had trafficked in the dispensation of justice by allowing the sufferers to purchase exemption from punishment; and it is related that in certain alcaldias mayores in Oaxaca, the alcaldes had enriched themselves to the extent of more than two hundred thousand dollars by these brutal exactions. Inhumanity like this, was severely denounced to the king by the bishop Ortigoza,—who merited, according to Revilla-Gigedo, the title of the Saint Paul of his day,—and the eloquent prelate complained in behalf of his beloved Indians as vehemently as Las Casas at an earlier period of this loathsome oppression. But interest overcome the appeals of mercy in almost all instances since the foundation of the American empire. The Spaniards required laborers. The ignorant and unarmed Indians of the south and of the table lands, were docile or unorganized, and, although the Spanish court and Council of the Indies seconded the viceroy's zeal in attempting to suppress the cruelty of the planters