Note XXIX-24 — Chapter XXIX · THE PEOPLE OF HONDURAS AND GUATEMALA. 1800-1887.
Reading edition
The old system attempted to improve their condition by enacting laws believed to be conducive to that end. Witness clauses of a decree of the constituent assembly of Nov. 8, 1851, giving force to certain laws of 1839, and reviving others of the old Spanish Recop. de Indios, which were intended to prevent the maltreatment of Indians. Guat., Recop. Ley., i. 246, 512-15, 846-53. On the 6th of Sept., 1879, a decree was passed, acknowledging the lamentable condition of ignorance and abjectedness the Indian had been kept in, and providing that at least a portion of them should attend the pub. schools already established in nearly all the departments. Salv., Diario Ofic., Sept. 20, 1879.