Note 71 — PART I

The Indians are the principal and almost the only cultivators of the soil, very few Mestizos or Chinese71 being engaged in it. The few Spaniards and other Europeans who have attempted it, have been obliged to abandon their attempts to form plantations. These failures, or rather determination to abandon their speculations (even when in a promising state), have arisen from various causes; but the general one may be stated to be the very little security for life and property, in a country such as has been described. This is with the major part an insuperable objection; for from the moment they are established, and known to possess money for the payment of their workmen, they must be in expectation of an attack, and prepared to defend themselves; nor can they lie down at night free from the apprehension of seeing their establishments in flames before morning! either from robbers, or from malice of any individual who may think himself aggrieved:—the impossibility of obtaining justice so generally experienced by the Indians, and the many chances of escaping punishment, being strong inducements to the ill-disposed to adopt these modes of revenge. To this it may be added, that even were the foreigner to kill the most determined robber in the country, the circumstance of having done so in defence of his life and property, would by no means exonerate him from a fleecing by the inferior officers of justice, and from a long and tiresome process of depositions, declarations, &c. during which his affairs must be entirely neglected.73