1: The Heritage From Spain and Portugal
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At the time of the American Revolution most of the New World
still belonged to Spain and Portugal, whose captains and
conquerors had been the first to come to its shores. Spain had
the lion's share, but Portugal held Brazil, in itself a vast land
of unsuspected resources. No empire mankind had ever yet known
rivaled in size the illimitable domains of Spain and Portugal in
the New World; and none displayed such remarkable contrasts in
land and people. Boundless plains and forests, swamps and
deserts, mighty mountain chains, torrential streams and majestic
rivers, marked the surface of the country. This vast territory
stretched from the temperate prairies west of the Mississippi
down to the steaming lowlands of Central America, then up through
tablelands in the southern continent to high plateaus, miles
above sea level, where the sun blazed and the cold, dry air was
hard to breathe, and then higher still to the lofty peaks of the
Andes, clad in eternal snow or pouring fire and smoke from their
summits in the clouds, and thence to the lower temperate valleys,
grassy pampas, and undulating hills of the far south.
Scattered over these vast colonial domains in the Western World
were somewhere between 12,000,000 and 19,000,000 people subject
to Spain, and perhaps 3,000,000, to Portugal; the great majority
of them were Indians and negroes, the latter predominating in the
lands bordering on the Caribbean Sea and along the shores of
Brazil. Possibly one-fourth of the inhabitants came of European
stock, including not only Spaniards and their descendants but
also the folk who spoke English in the Floridas and French in
Louisiana.
During the centuries which had elapsed since the entry of the
Spaniards and Portuguese into these regions an extraordinary
fusion of races had taken place. White, red, and black had
mingled to such an extent that the bulk of the settled population
became half-caste. Only in the more temperate regions of the far
north and south, where the aborigines were comparatively few or
had disappeared altogether, did the whites remain racially
distinct. Socially the Indian and the negro counted for little.
They constituted the laboring class on whom all the burdens fell
and for whom advantages in the body politic were scant. Legally
the Indian under Spanish rule stood on a footing of equality with
his white fellows, and many a gifted native came to be reckoned a
force in the community, though his social position remained a
subordinate one. Most of the negroes were slaves and were more
kindly treated by the Spaniards than by the Portuguese.
Though divided among themselves, the Europeans were everywhere
politically dominant. The Spaniard was always an individualist.
Besides, he often brought from the Old World petty provincial
traditions which were intensified in the New. The inhabitants of
towns, many of which had been founded quite independently of one
another, knew little about their remote neighbors and often were
quite willing to convert their ignorance into prejudice: The
dweller in the uplands and the resident on the coast were wont to
view each other with disfavor. The one was thought heavy and
stupid, the other frivolous and lazy. Native Spaniards regarded
the Creoles, or American born, as persons who had degenerated
more or less by their contact with the aborigines and the
wilderness. For their part, the Creoles looked upon the Spaniards
as upstarts and intruders, whose sole claim to consideration lay
in the privileges dispensed them by the home government. In
testimony of this attitude they coined for their oversea kindred
numerous nicknames which were more expressive than complimentary.
While the Creoles held most of the wealth and of the lower
offices, the Spaniards enjoyed the perquisites and emoluments of
the higher posts.
Though objects of disdain to both these masters, the Indians
generally preferred the Spaniard to the Creole. The Spaniard
represented a distant authority interested in the welfare of its
humbler subjects and came less into actual daily contact with the
natives. While it would hardly be correct to say that the
Spaniard was viewed as a protector and the Creole as an
oppressor, yet the aborigines unconsciously made some such hazy
distinction if indeed they did not view all Europeans with
suspicion and dislike. In Brazil the relation of classes was much
the same, except that here the native element was much less
conspicuous as a social factor.
These distinctions were all the more accentuated by the absence
both of other European peoples and of a definite middle class of
any race. Everywhere in the areas tenanted originally by
Spaniards and Portuguese the European of alien stock was
unwelcome, even though he obtained a grudging permission from the
home governments to remain a colonist. In Brazil, owing to the
close commercial connections between Great Britain and Portugal,
foreigners were not so rigidly excluded as in Spanish America.
The Spaniard was unwilling that lands so rich in natural
treasures should be thrown open to exploitation by others, even
if the newcomer professed the Catholic faith. The heretic was
denied admission as a matter of course. Had the foreigner been
allowed to enter, the risk of such exploitation doubtless would
have been increased, but a middle class might have arisen to weld
the the discordant factions into a society which had common
desires and aspirations. With the development of commerce and
industry, with the growth of activities which bring men into
touch with each other in everyday affairs, something like a
solidarity of sentiment might have been awakened. In its absence
the only bond among the dominant whites was their sense of
superiority to the colored masses beneath them.
Manual labor and trade had never attracted the Spaniards and the
Portuguese. The army, the church, and the law were the three
callings that offered the greatest opportunity for distinction.
Agriculture, grazing, and mining they did not disdain, provided
that superintendence and not actual work was the main requisite.
The economic organization which the Spaniards and Portuguese
established in America was naturally a more or less faithful
reproduction of that to which they had been accustomed at home.
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. Paid a
pitifully small wage, provided with a hut of reeds or sundried
mud and a tiny patch of soil on which to grow a few hills of the
corn and beans that were his usual nourishment, the ordinary
Indian or half-caste laborer was scarcely more than a beast of
burden, a creature in whom civic virtues of a high order were not
likely to develop. If he betook himself to the town his possible
usefulness lessened in proportion as he fell into drunken or
dissolute habits, or lapsed into a state of lazy and vacuous
dreaminess, enlivened only by chatter or the rolling of a
cigarette. On the other hand, when employed in a capacity where
native talent might be tested, he often revealed a power of
action which, if properly guided, could be turned to excellent
account. As a cowboy, for example, he became a capital horseman,
brave, alert, skillful, and daring.
Commerce with Portugal and Spain was long confined to yearly
fairs and occasional trading fleets that plied between fixed
points. But when liberal decrees threw open numerous ports in the
mother countries to traffic and the several colonies were given
also the privilege of exchanging their products among themselves,
the volume of exports and imports increased and gave an impetus
to activity which brought a notable release from the torpor and
vegetation characterizing earlier days. Yet, even so,
communication was difficult and irregular. By sea the distances
were great and the vessels slow. Overland the natural obstacles
to transportation were so numerous and the methods of conveyance
so cumbersome and expensive that the people of one province were
practically strangers to their neighbors.
Matters of the mind and of the soul were under the guardianship
of the Church. More than merely a spiritual mentor, it controlled
education and determined in large measure the course of
intellectual life. Possessed of vast wealth in lands and
revenues, its monasteries and priories, its hospitals and
asylums, its residences of ecclesiastics, were the finest
buildings in every community, adorned with the masterpieces of
sculptors and painters. A village might boast of only a few
squalid huts, yet there in the "plaza," or central square, loomed
up a massively imposing edifice of worship, its towers pointing
heavenward, the sign and symbol of triumphant power.
The Church, in fact, was the greatest civilizing agency that
Spain and Portugal had at their disposal. It inculcated a
reverence for the monarch and his ministers and fostered a
deep-rooted sentiment of conservatism which made disloyalty and
innovation almost sacrilegious. In the Spanish colonies in
particular the Church not only protected the natives against the
rapacity of many a white master but taught them the rudiments of
the Christian faith, as well as useful arts and trades. In remote
places, secluded so far as possible from contact with Europeans,
missionary pioneers gathered together groups of neophytes whom
they rendered docile and industrious, it is true, but whom they
often deprived of initiative and selfreliance and kept illiterate
and superstitious.
Education was reserved commonly for members of the ruling class.
As imparted in the universities and schools, it savored strongly
of medievalism. Though some attention was devoted to the natural
sciences, experimental methods were not encouraged and found no
place in lectures and textbooks. Books, periodicals, and other
publications came under ecclesiastical inspection, and a vigilant
censorship determined what was fit for the public to read.
Supreme over all the colonial domains was the government of their
majesties, the monarchs of Spain and Portugal. A ministry and a
council managed the affairs of the inhabitants of America and
guarded their destinies in accordance with the theories of
enlightened despotism then prevailing in Europe. The Spanish
dominions were divided into viceroyalties and subdivided into
captaincies general, presidencies, and intendancies. Associated
with the high officials who ruled them were audiencias, or
boards, which were at once judicial and administrative. Below
these individuals and bodies were a host of lesser functionaries
who, like their superiors, held their posts by appointment. In
Brazil the governor general bore the title of viceroy and carried
on the administration assisted by provincial captains, supreme
courts, and local officers.
This control was by no means so autocratic as it might seem.
Portugal had too many interests elsewhere, and was too feeble
besides, to keep tight rein over a territory so vast and a
population so much inclined as the Brazilian to form itself into
provincial units, jealous of the central authority. Spain, on its
part, had always practised the good old Roman rule of "divide and
govern." Its policy was to hold the balance among officials,
civil and ecclesiastical, and inhabitants, white and colored. It
knew how strongly individualistic the Spaniard was and realized
the full force of the adage, "I obey, but I do not fulfill! "
Legislatures and other agencies of government directly
representative of the people did not exist in Spanish or
Portuguese America. The Spanish cabildo, or town council,
however, afforded an opportunity for the expression of the
popular will and often proved intractable. Its membership was
appointive, elective, hereditary, and even purchasable, but the
form did not affect the substance. The Spanish Americans had an
instinct for politics. "Here all men govern," declared one of the
viceroys; "the people have more part in political discussions
than in any other provinces in the world; a council of war sits
in every house."
Title Page || 2: "Our Old King or None" >>
