File:Barbarous Mexico - Slave Plantation in Yucatan.jpg

Identifier: barbarousmexico00turn (find matches)
Title: Barbarous Mexico
Year: 1911 (1910s)
Authors: Turner, John Kenneth
Subjects: Mexico -- Politics and government 1867-1910 Mexico -- Economic conditions
Publisher: Chicago : C. H. Kerr & company
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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estwere Mayas. The Maya slaves, to my eyes, differedfrom the free Mayas I had seen in the city principallyin their clothing and their general unkempt and over-worked appearance. Certainly they were of the sameclay. Their clothing was poor and ragged, yet generallyclean. The women wore calico, the men the thin, un-bleached cotton shirt and trousers of the tropics, thetrousers being often rolled to the knees. Their hatswere of coarse straw or grass, their feet always bare. Seven hundred of the slaves are able-bodied men, therest women and children. Three hundred and eightyof the men are married and live with their families inthe one-room huts. These huts are set in little patchesof ground 144 feet square, which, rocky and barren asthey are, are cultivated to some small purpose by thewomen and children. In addition to the product oftheir barren garden patch each family receives dailycredit at the plantation store for twenty-five centavos,or twelve and one-half cents worth of merchandise.
Text Appearing After Image:
THE SLAVES OF YUCATAN 27 No money is paid; it is all in credit, and this same sys-tem prevails on about one-half the plantations. The otherhalf merely deal out rations. It amounts to the samething, but some of the planters stick to the moneycredit system merely in order to keep up the pretenseof paying wages. I priced some of the goods at thestore—corn, beans, salt, peppers, clothing and blanketswas about all there was—and found that the prices werehigh. I could not understand how a family could liveon twelve and one-half cents worth of it each day, ahard-working family, especially. The slaves rise from their beds when the big bellin the patio rings at 3:45 oclock in the morning, andtheir work begins as soon thereafter as they can getto it. Their work in the fields ends when it is too darkto see, and about the yards it sometimes extends untillong into the night. The principal labor of the plantation is harvestingthe henequen .leaves and cleaning the weeds from be-tween the plants.

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