The Spanish rulers effected radical changes in the political, social, and religious life of the civilised Indians. A certain apathy and fatalism seems characteristic of the American aborigine, and in Ecuador, trained through countless centuries to the patriarchal rule of his own chiefs, he submitted to the exactions and innovations of his new masters. According to Spanish constitutional law and practice, America was not a component part of the mother-kingdom, but the new continent was regarded as the personal property of the king of Castile, its lands, mines, and inhabitants being his to dispose of at pleasure. The viceroy at Lima was the monarch's lieutenant, only responsible to the king himself or to the advisory board known as the Council of the Indies. For great territorial divisions like Ecuador this power was delegated to governors, and the corregidors were likewise unrestrained within the smaller subdivisions. The Indians were regarded as mere chattels, and the tribute exacted from every adult was a logical consequence of their legal status. In theory even the Spanish residents had no rights to self-government, nor did any constitutional guaranties of life and property exist. But such a despotism largely existed only on paper. The Spaniards who came to South America brought with them their characteristic constitutional traditions and personal independence. Instinctively they flocked into cities and organised municipal governments after the time-honoured Spanish form. So a system came into existence which had the sanction of the people's co-operation and was therefore workable. The country districts were left to the Indians and as long as they paid their tribute to the Crown or to the Spaniard who claimed the lands they tilled, little heed was paid to the form of civil government among them. The influence of their hereditary chiefs survived for centuries, and their old laws and customs died out only by degrees. In the cities contact between Spaniards and Indians was closer. In process of time the increasing number of half-breeds aided in the process of amalgamation, and even the pure-blood Indians of the fields and villages learned much of what their masters had to teach them. [Illustration: CHURCH OF SANTO DOMINGO AT GUAYAQUIL.]