Spanish America (Vol.1&2). Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle
in procuring and sorting the ore, with 400 women and children, carrying the minerals to the sorters; the total expences of the materials, workmen, overseers, &c., is above 187,500l. sterling per annum, and the net profit, during the same period, to the proprietors, after deductions of the kingʼs fifth, and all expences, is from 82,500l. to 123,759l. per annum.
The mine of Sombrerete in Zacatecas yielded in one year a profit of above 833,400l. sterling to its proprietor. In San Luis Potosi, the mine of La Purissima Catorce yields annually to its owners a profit of upwards of 43,700l. sterling. The others we have mentioned, as being the richest, yield immense revenues to their holders and to the government.
In these rich mines the miners and labourers contrive occasionally to steal the valuable metals. They, however, undergo a very rigorous search on leaving the pit; nevertheless, like the Indians in the diamond mines of Golconda, they frequently are adroit enough to secrete the ores, notwithstanding many of them go nearly naked. The greater part of the silver is procured by the means of mercury from the ores, smelting being not much used for want of fuel: the quantity of mercury used in the process of amalgamation is estimated at upwards of two millions one hundred pounds troy weight.
Copper, of which the ancient Mexicans made their tools, is found both native and in the mines of Valladolid; as well as in those of New Mexico.
Tin is found in grains and in wood tin in the clayey soil of Guanaxuato and Zacatecas.
The quantity of these metals which is brought to market is very trifling, as they are not much sought after; as is also the case with iron, which exists in various parts of New Spain in great abundance, and under every form. Lead is chiefly found in New Leon, and New Santander; and in Mexico, antimony, zinc, and arsenic. Mercury is procured in Mexico and Guanaxuato, particularly at Chica, Celaya, and Zimapan: but the mines are insufficiently worked, the mercury for amalgamation coming entirely through Spain to the northern colonies of Spanish America. Coal exists in New Mexico; and salt is yielded from the lakes of the Mexican plains; diamonds, topazes, emeralds, and other gems; asphalt, amber, jasper, alabaster, and the magnet, are produced in New Spain. The affairs of the mining interest are directed by a council-general; on this council, which has a president, the thirty-seven districts depend. The mines are wholly the property of individuals; their councils are only erected to judge of the affairs relating to the payment of the duties, and to the general ordering of the undertakings. At Mexico there is a college of mining, where young men are educated by the government, to instruct them in all the branches of science necessary to be attained, in order that the mines may be worked in the best manner. The council-general receives a tithe on all metals, and with this, the salaries of the members, the expences of the college, and advances to undertakers, are paid.
Rivers.—New Spain does not contain such extensive and majestic rivers as are to be found in her sister colonies of the south; nevertheless some of the streams are by no means inconsiderable; the Rio Bravo del Norte, and the Rio Colorado, roll a vast body of water to the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. The Rio Bravo rises in the Sierra Verde, near the northern boundaries of the kingdom; this noble river, after various intricate windings, and watering a tract of country, inhabited principally by the aborigines, loses itself in the Gulf of Mexico, having performed a course of nearly two thousand miles; which immense length of river is obstructed by cataracts in the mountainous country of the interior, and by bars of sand in the flat and marshy lands towards the sea coast; canoes navigate, however, a surprising distance up the stream. The Rio Colorado rises in the same mountains, and nearly in the same latitude; but on the opposite side to the sources of the Rio del Norte, and running through a country either waste or inhabited only by the Indians, empties itself into the upper extremity of the Gulf of California, by a large estuary, after a course of a thousand miles; canoes navigate this river for three hundred miles from its mouth. The other rivers of New Spain which are of the greatest importance, are the Mexicana, Arighitas, Flores, Trinidad, Colorado de Texas, Medina or San Josef, Magdalena or Rio Guadalupe, the Nueces, the Gila near the Great Colorado, and almost equalling it in length; the Hiaqui, Mayo, Nasas, Rio Grande de St. Jago, Panuco, Zacatula, Yopez, Alvarado, Tula, or Moetesuema, with many others of smaller note, the names of which will be mentioned under the heads of the several provinces in which they are situated.
Lakes.—The lakes of New Spain are chiefly the lakes of Mexico, near which the capital is built. Lake Chapala in New Gallicia, a large sheet of water, the dimensions of which have not been accurately obtained; it contains several islands, in one of which, some of the insurgents who had been routed by the Spanish troops, shut themselves up. Also Lake Cayman in New Biscay, in a desert country, called the Bolson de Mapimi, not so large as that of Chapala; and lake Pascuaro near Valladolid. The lakes of this part of the American continent, are neither large nor very numerous; the whole country descending rapidly from the central Cordillera, towards the east and west, throws off the deposits which may commence from the springs, into the form of rivers.
The bays and coasts, cities, towns, &c. will be described in following the provincial relations.
The islands of Spanish North America, are described at the end of the First Part.
Temperature.—In order to give some notion of different regions inhabited by man in this extraordinary country, we shall adduce the temperatures of the coast and of the higher lands.
On the coast and at the foot of the mountains under the tropical sun, the heat is excessive, and the temperature of the air is as great as in the hottest of the West India islands. This is called the hot region; and above it is the temperate region which enjoys a perpetual spring, and a temperature of from 60° to 70° Fahrenheit, at an elevation of from 3930 to 4920 feet above the sea; they are, however subject to thick fogs, as it is the height at which clouds usually float in the atmosphere. Above this and to the height of 7200 feet, is the cold region, where the mean heat is 62° Fahrenheit; beyond which the cold becomes greater and greater till the region of perpetual snow commences, at the height in the 19° and 20° of north latitude of nearly 15,050, above the ocean.
Population.—The extent of the population of New Spain may be said to be about six millions and a half, of which the Indians are conjectured to amount to nearly three millions; the remainder consists of European Spaniards, Creoles, or people of Spanish extraction; Mestizoes, from the Spaniards and Indians; Mulattoes, from whites and negroes; Zambos, from negroes and Indians; negroes, and the aboriginal race, or Indians, which are totally unmixed, and are the descendants of the people who inhabited the country at the conquest. The European Spaniards hold the chief offices, civil, military and ecclesiastical; but the Creoles view with great jealousy this assumption of power, which causes these two casts to look with very little complacency on each other; and as, by the cultivation of their minds, they hold the first rank in the colony, it has been observed by a late Spanish writer, that the struggle which unfortunately exists against the mother country, has been materially favoured by the latter class. Humboldt relates, that the expression of “I am not a Spaniard, I am an American,” had been frequently heard during the time he was on the continent.
The Europeans and Creoles, or whites, are computed to amount to 1,200,000; of whom, about 80,000 are European Spaniards.
The whites in New Spain possess the greatest property, both in the mines and the land; a descendant of Cortez, the Duke of Monteleone, a Neapolitan and non-resident, is amongst the richest who derive no advantage from mining operations; the whites are those who principally cultivate their minds, though instances of scientific attainments are not uncommon in the other classes. New Spain can boast of several learned men of Creolian birth, who have considerably advanced the arts and mathematical sciences in their country; many painters also of considerable talent exist in this portion of the New World. The manners and customs of the whites are nearly the same as those of their European brethren.
The religion is Roman Catholic, and the clergy of New Spain are a mixture of all the casts, excepting the negroes; the beneficed and dignified clergy, being chiefly whites; they consist of an archbishop of Mexico, and eight bishops of Puebla, Guadalaxara, Valladolid. Durango, Monterey, Oaxaca, Sonora, and Yucatan or Merida, with about 14,000 dignitaries, parish priests, missionaries, monks, lay brothers, and servants.
The revenues of the archbishop