For three hundred years pure white blood and Spanish birth was an indispensable qualification for promotion in the vice-kingdom, and the slightest tincture of colored blood was an indelible disgrace. But one night of tumult and rapine changed the popular standard of color. And he who had boasted the day before of his pure white blood and Spanish origin, now sought to hide himself from the officers of the law, who visited with the penalty of banishment the crime of having been born in Spain. Men now, for the first time, boasted of their Indian origin, and of the slight infusion they were able to discover of colored blood in their veins; while a man of Indian descent, and who spoke a provincial dialect, was declared elected President of the Republic of Mexico: so uncertain are all divisions of rank formed on the arbitrary distinction of color. During the night strange murmurings were heard against "the accursed enslaver of their race." The descendants of Cortez were fearful for the safety of his ashes, which had lain quietly in the convent of San Francisco[54] so long as the Inquisition possessed the power of compelling men to reverence his memory as the champion of the Cross, the favorite of the Virgin Mary, the hero of a holy war against the infidels. But now that this accursed institution, and the infamous gang connected with its management, had become powerless, the national feeling began to manifest itself so openly that the remains were removed secretly and by night to the sanctuary of the most sacred shrine of Mexico, that of Santa Teresa, where they remained until a safe opportunity presented itself for shipping them off to the Duke of Montebello, a Sicilian nobleman, who inherits the titles and also the vast estates of Cortez in the valleys of the Cuarnavaca and Oajaca, upon which none of the revolutionary governments have laid violent hands. [54] For a more authentic account, see Appendix E. CHAPTER XXV. The Priests gainers by the Independence.--Improved Condition of the Peons.--Mexican Mechanics.--The Oppression they suffer.--Low state of the Mechanic Arts.--The Story of the Portress.--Charity of the Poor.--The Whites not superior to Meztizos.---License and Woman's Rights at Mexico.--The probable Future of Mexico.--Mormonism impending over Mexico.--Mormonism and Mohammedanism.