The conquest and subjugation of the country were carried out in the unscrupulous spirit of this proclamation. The pages of the historians are dyed with blood; and sailing on the crimson stream, with a master pilot at the helm, appears the leading, stern, and steady policy of the Spaniards, surer and more fatal than the sword, to subvert all the institutions of the natives, and to break up and utterly destroy all the rites, customs, and associations that might keep alive the memory of their fathers and their ancient condition. One sad instance shows the effects of this policy. Before the destruction of Mayapan, the capital of the kingdom of Maya, all the nobles of the country had houses in that city, and were exempted from tribute; according to the account from which Cogolludo derives his authority, in the year 1582, forty years after the conquest, all who held themselves for lords and nobles still claimed their solares (sites for mansions) as tokens of their rank; but now, he says, "from the change of government and the little estimation in which they are held, it does not appear that they care to preserve nobility for their posterity, for at this day the descendants of Tutul Xiu, who was the king and natural lord by right of the land of Maya, if they do not work with their own hands in manual offices, have nothing to eat." And if at that early date nobles no longer cared for their titles, and the descendants of the royal house had nothing to eat but what they earned with their own hands, it is not strange that the present inhabitants, nine generations removed, without any written language, borne down by three centuries of servitude, and toiling daily for a scanty subsistence, are alike ignorant and indifferent concerning the history of their ancestors, and the great cities lying in ruins under their eyes. And strange or not, no argument can be drawn from it, for this ignorance is not confined to ruined cities or to events before the conquest. It is my belief, that among the whole mass of what are called Christianized Indians, there is not at this day one solitary tradition which can shed a ray of light upon any event in their history that occurred one hundred and fifty years from the present time; in fact, I believe it would be almost impossible to procure any information of any kind whatever beyond the memory of the oldest living Indian.