BarbarousMexico JOHN KENNETH TURNER

THE CONTRACT SLAVES OF VALLE NACIONAL 79
masters bury their slaves themselves or throw them to
the alligators of the neighboring swamps.
Every slave is guarded night and day. At night he
is locked up in a dormitory resembling a jail. In addition
to its slaves, each and every plantation has its
inandador, or superintendent, its cabos, who combine
the function of overseer and guard; and several free
laborers to run the errands of the ranch and help round
up the runaways in case of a slave stampede.
The jails are large barn-like buildings, constructed
strongly of young trees set upright and wired together
with many strands of barbed wire fencing. The windows
are iron barred, the floors dirt. There is no furniture
except sometimes long, rude benches which serve
as beds. The mattresses are thin grass mats. In such
a hole sleep all the slaves, men, women and children,
the number ranging, according to the size of the plantation,
from seventy to four hundred.
They are packed in like sardines in a box, crowded
together like cattle in a freight car. You can figure it
out for yourself. On the ranch "Santa Fe" the dormitory
measures 75 by 18 feet, and it accommodates 150.
On the ranch "La Sepultura," the dormitory is 40 by
15 feet, and it accommodates 70. On the ranch "San
Cristobal," the dormitory is 100 by 50 feet, and it
accommodates 350. On the ranch "San Juan del Rio," the
dormitory is 80 by 90, and it accommodates 400. From
nine to eighteen square feet for each person to lie down
in—so runs the space. And on not a single ranch did
I find a separate dormitory for the women or the ch
dren. Women of modesty and virtue are sent to
Nacional every week and are shoved into a si
room with scores and even hundreds of others,,- oat
HIS