Several years after the conquest of Mexico, the Spaniards sent expeditions into the southern parts of Central America, and conquered the Quichés and the surrounding country, in which were situated the ramparts defending Utatlan and Patinamit. It was subsequently considered desirable that investigations should be made into the ancient systems by which the aboriginal inhabitants had been governed by their caciques, and orders were given to this effect by the Emperor Charles the Fifth and by his successor Philip the Second. In the reports of the officers who conducted these inquiries, it was stated that an extraordinarily rigid line of caste was maintained amongst the Quichés. There was an absolute distinction between the ruling families descended from the caciques, and the great mass of the races who were under their control. It was also evident, judging from the language of several appeals made by Indian chiefs to obtain justice and to have their rank and authority acknowledged, that they considered the working classes of Indians as their absolute slaves. “There was no instance,” states the historian Juarros, “of any person being appointed to a public office, high or low, who was not selected from the nobility; for which reason, great anxiety was felt by them to keep the purity of their lineage unsullied. To preserve this rank untainted in blood, it was decreed by the law, that if any cacique or noble should marry a woman who was not of noble family, he should be degraded to the caste of mazegual or plebeian, assume the name of his wife, and be subject to all the duties and services imposed upon plebeians.” These services generally consisted of works performed by forced labour. The lands belonging to the ruling families were cultivated in this manner, and, in fact, the Indians of the native and working class were entirely at the disposal of their masters. One of the Spanish bishops, whose diocese was in Mexico, mentions that he had ascertained that these mazeguales could be sold or killed by their owners. There were marked differences in the dress of the people. The mazeguales wore, as a rule, nothing but the loin cloth, or sometimes, as is the case now with the Lacandones, a long cotton shirt, reaching nearly to the feet. It was a matter of observation amongst the conquerors that the inferior classes of Indians were submissive, but that their rulers were intractable, harsh and warlike.