BarbarousMexico JOHN KENNETH TURNER

106 BARBAROUS MEXICO
Tuztepec. I was writing a letter. I wanted to get word
to my people, but they caught me before the letter was
finished. They don't know where I am. They must
think I am dead. My brother must have had to leave
school. My—"
"Better stop," I said. "A cabo is coming!"
"No, not yet," he answered. "Quick! I will give you
their address. Tell them that I never read the contract.
Tell them that I never saw it until I came here. My
brother's name is Juan
"Look out! " I cried, but too late. "Whack! " The
long cane struck the ploughman across the back. He
winced, started to open his mouth again, but at a second
whack he changed his mind and turned sullenly to his
oxen.
The rains of our last two days in Valle Nacional made
the trail to Tuztepec impassable, so we left our horses and
traveled down river in a balsa, a raft of logs on which was
erected a tiny shelter house roofed with banana leaves.
Two Indians, one at each end, poled and paddled the
strange craft down the rushing stream, and from them
we learned that the Indians themselves have had their
day as slaves in Valle Nacional. The Spaniards tried to
enslave them, but they fought to the death. They employed
their tribal solidarity and fought in droves like
wolves and in that way they regained and kept their
freedom. Such a common understanding and such mass
movements cannot, of course, be developed by the heterogeneous
elements that today are brought together on the
slave plantations.
At Tuztepec on our way we met Senor P , politician,
"labor agent," and relative of Felix Diaz, nephew
of President Diaz and Chief of Police of Mexico City.