But American planters never would
be content with peonage, which does not give to the employer any power
over the Indians' offspring, or convey to him any of those _rights_ of
property in his fellow-men which form the most attractive feature of
slavery as it exists in the United States. They would demand something
more than that; and the system of _repartimientos_, under which the
Indians of the time of Cortes were divided among the conquerors, with
the land, would not improbably follow the annexation of Mexico to the
United States. The natives would be compelled to labor far more
vigorously than they now labor, and their burdens would be increased in
the same ratio in which the American is more energetic and exacting
than the Mexican. Under such a system, the Indians would vanish as
rapidly as they did from Hayti, when a similar system was adopted
there, soon after the discovery of America. Then would arise a demand
for the revival of the slave-trade with Africa, and on the same ground
on which African slavery was introduced into America,--because the
negro is better able than the Indian to meet the demands which the
white man makes upon the weaker races who happen to be placed in his
power.
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