Note 168 — Chapter VIII
Reading edition
Montes Claros describes them as Indians domiciled on the estates or in the houses of Spaniards, like servants; their masters giving them food, clothes, and a bit of land, and paying their tribute for them. Lest the system should degenerate into slavery, the king, in a cedula of 1601, declared that they were free, and desired that this should be made known to them.—Memorias, i. p. 27.