How we cite our quotes: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
Mrs. Gould knew the history of the San Tomé mine. Worked in the early days mostly by means of lashes on the backs of slaves, its yield had been paid for in its own weight of human bones. Whole tribes of Indians had perished in the exploitation; and then the mine was abandoned, since with this primitive method it had ceased to make a profitable return, no matter how many corpses were thrown into its maw. Then it became forgotten. (I.6.17)
In this passage, we get the pre-history of the San Tomé mine that Charles inherited. Apparently many slaves working the mine under a "primitive method" died in the effort, and the mine wasn't profitable. We're not sure which is the bigger tragedy, in the Goulds' minds—the non-productivity or the lost lives.
Quote #2
Don José Avellanos, clanking his chains amongst the others, seemed only to exist in order to prove how much hunger, pain, degradation, and cruel torture a human body can stand without parting with the last spark of life. Sometimes interrogatories, backed by some primitive method of torture, were administered to them by a commission of officers hastily assembled in a hut of sticks and branches, and made pitiless by the fear for their own lives. A lucky one or two of that spectral company of prisoners would perhaps be led tottering behind a bush to be shot by a file of soldiers. (II.1.5)
Again, primitivism is associated with cruelty to other human beings—in this case, Guzmán Bento's.
Quote #3
The silence about me is ominous. There is above the middle part of this house a sort of first floor, with narrow openings like loopholes for windows, probably used in old times for the better defence against the savages, when the persistent barbarism of our native continent did not wear the black coats of politicians, but went about yelling, half-naked, with bows and arrows in its hands. (II.7.16)
This is Decoud writing to his sister. He notes that people he would have viewed as "savages" in earlier days have become part of the political elites of "our native continent." By using "our" here, it's almost like he's not setting himself apart from this savagery.