services are most in requisition. Accordingly these are what were at once demanded from the Indians: and in order that this demand might consist with the mainten ance of these Indian pueblos, it was necessary that a portion of the native community should, for certain periods of the year, quit their homes, and, betaking themselves to the service of the Spaniards, work out the tribute for themselves and for the rest of the Indian village. This was called repartimiento. In the words of the greatest jurist who has written on this subject, Antonio de Leon, "Repartimiento, in New Spain, is that which is made every week of the Indians who are given for mines and works by the judge for that purpose (los Juezes Repartidores), for which the pueblos contribute, throughout twenty weeks of the year, what they call the dobla (a Spanish coin), at the rate of ten Indians for every hundred; and the remainder of the year what they call the sencilla (another Spanish coin), at the rate of two Indians for every hundred. The above rate was for works and cultivation of land. When it was for mines, to work at which particular pueblos were set aside, it was a contribution for the whole year, at the rate of four Indians for every hundred." The encomienda, with this form of repartition attached to it, corresponds to nothing in feudality or vassalage, and may be said to have been a peculiar institution, growing out of the novel circumstances in the New World. The history of the encomienda constitutes the greatest part of the history of the bulk of the people in the New World for many generations. To any one who has much knowledge of civil life or of history, it will be obvious how many questions will arise from such a strange and hitherto unheard-of arrangement of labor. What distance will these Indians be carried from their homes? Will there be a sufficient number left to provide for the sustenance of the native community? Will the population of those communities be maintained? How will it be managed that the repartition should be fair? for, if otherwise, the same Indians may be sent over and over again, and, in fact, be different in no respect from slaves. Then, again, these services are to go for tribute. Who is to assign the value of the services or the rate of the tribute? More 135 subtle questions remain to be considered, if not solved. Shall the tax be a capitation tax, so many pesos for each Indian, or shall it be a certain sum for each pueblo ? If the former is adopted, shall the women and children be liable? Shall overwork be allowable, so that the bands of Indians in repartimiento may not only work out their own taxes, and the taxes of their little community, but bring back some small peculium of their own, which will render them especially welcome when they return to their friends and families? All these problems, and others which I have not indicated, were eventually worked out by a course of laborious and consistent legislation, to which, I believe, the world has never seen any parallel, and which must have a very considerable place in any history, aiming to be complete, that may hereafter be written, of slavery or colonization. At the first, everything was as vague in this matter as oppression could desire; and oppression loves vagueness as its favorite element.-The Spanish Conquest in America. HEMANS, FELICIA DOROTHEA (BROWNE), an English poet, born in Liverpool, September 25, 1793; died near Dublin, Ireland, May 16, 1835. Her father, a merchant of Liverpool, took up his residence in Wales while his daughter was a child, and the greater part of her life was passed in that country. She was noted for rare personal beauty and for precocity of genius, to which in after years she added an acquaintance with French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish, together with some skill as a musician and artist. At the age of fourteen she put forth a little volume of poems entitled Early Blossoms, and four years afterward another entitled The Domestic Affections, which met with a not unfavorable reception. In 1812 she married Captain Hemans, an officer who had served with credit in the Peninsular War. The marriage was not a happy one, and six years afterward Captain Hemans went to Italy, leaving his wife, with four sons, besides one yet to be born. The husband and wife never met again, though some correspondence was kept up; and after some years the two elder sons were sent to their father at Rome, the younger ones remaining with their mother. The literary labors of Mrs. Hemans fairly commenced soon after the separation from her husband. She wrote several narrative poems of considerable length, of which The Forest Sanctuary is the longest and best. She |