 During the colonial period, the Tlaxcalan people were regarded as being of higher status and received better treatment compared to the other indigenous peoples of New Spain.However, the indigenous population who had been living in Tlaxcala were reduced to a small minority.According to the "Catholic Encyclopedia", in 1625 the city of Tlaxcala had only 700 people, compared to a population of 300,000 a century earlier, owing to epidemics, emigrations, and the work of digging the canal of Nochistongo to drain the Valley of Mexico.