Land of bondage..


And yet, Ladies and Gentlemen, the Tao is constitutionally free! No wonder, then, that the Tao being a slave has acquired the habits of a slave.

No wonder that after three centuries in chains w/o freedom, w/o hope, he should lose the erect and fearless posture of a freeman and become the bent, misshapen, indolent, vicious, pitiful thing that he is!
Who dare accuse him now? Who dares rise up in judgment against his man, reduced to this subhuman level by three centuries of oppression?

Ladies and Gentlemen the Tao does not come here to judged- -but to judge!
Here then his accusations and his sentence:
I indict the Spanish encomenderos for inventing taxes impossible to pay!
I indict the usurer for saddling my debts impossible to bear!
I indict the irresponsible radical leaders who undermine w/ insidious eloquence the confidence of my kind in our government!
I indict the hacendero for seizing my lands with subtle trickery and reducing me to peonage!
I indict him for sacrificing the honest efforts of an honest government on the altar of his illimitable greed!
You accuse me of ignorance. But I am ignorant because my master finds it profitable to keep me ignorant. Free me from bondage and I shall prove you false.
You accuse me of indolence, but I am indolent not because I have no will, but because I have no hope.
Why should I labor if the fruits of my labor go to extinguish and in extinguishable debt!
Free me from bondage and I will prove you false1 Give me land. Land to own. Land unbeholden to any tyrant. Land that will be free. Give me land for I am starving. Give me land that my children will not die. Sell it to me. Sell it to me at a fair as one free man sells it to another, and not as a usurer sells to a slave. I am poor but I will pay it! I will work and work until I fall with weariness for my privilege and my right to be free.
But if you will not grant me this last request. This ultimate demand, then build a wall around your homes. Build it high! Build it strong! Place a sentry on every parapet, for I who have been silent these three hundred years will come in the night when you are feasting, w/ my cry and my bolo at your door….


And may God have mercy on your soul.

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