Agriculture and grazing became the chief occupations.

Domestic animals and many kinds of plants brought from Europe throve wonderfully in their new home.

Huge estates were the rule; small farms, the exception.

On the ranches and plantations vast droves of cattle, sheep, and horses were raised, as well as immense crops.
Mining, once so much in vogue, had become an occupation of secondary importance.
On their estates the planter, the ranchman, and the mine owner lived like feudal overlords, waited upon by Indian and negro peasants who also tilled the fields, tended the droves, and dug the earth for precious metals and stones.

Originally the natives had been forced to work under conditions approximating actual servitude, but gradually the harsher features of this system had given way to a mode of service closely resembling peonage.