Reconquista

“ How are we to achieve the conquest of a country six or seven times as large as England, and inhabited by a people of our own race and spirit? If we beat an army in one place, another appears elsewhere; if we hold a city, it is merely an island in a sea of rebels, and we cannot convert the whole thirteen colonies into one huge camp! ”

“ General! I am now convinced, from what I have seen of this vast country and its numerous towns, that of all the deeds of arms which you have accomplished in New Spain with your troops, the least victory has been that which you gained over me and my troops; and had these even been much more numerous I am sure we should have been defeated. You cannot be too highly honoured and rewarded for having subjected so vast a territory, with so many large cities, to the sceptre of our emperor. ”

“ The conquest rooted out all their old institutions by violence. Their government and laws were overthrown by force; their religion was changed by power; their graven idols, the material emblems of their gods, were ground to dust ”

“ The Conquest brought under the dominion of the viceroyalty a people of such ancient culture that no period could be fixed as to its genesis, and of an origin so enveloped in mystery that no certain knowledge existed regarding its derivation,—a people who had lived for centuries under absolute despotism and yet had developed a gentle obedience and submission such as could only exist where the tasks were performed by willing servants of a beloved master. ”

“ The Dutchman’s Cap, Broken Jerusalem, The Dead Man’s Chest, Rum Island, and so forth, mark a time and a race more prosaic, but still more terrible, though not one whit more wicked and brutal, than the Spanish Conquistadores, whose descendants, in the seventeenth century, they smote hip and thigh with great destruction. ”

“ They come, not only to ruin us, but to ruin our descendants also, and to take from us the country of our ancestors and what shall we do--whither shall we go--when we have no longer a country?' The English promised by a unanimous oath, to make neither peace, nor truce nor treaty, with the invader, but to die, or drive away the Normans. ”

“ The Spanish Conquerors, to judge from their writings, unconscious of any worldly motive lurking in the bottom of their hearts, regarded themselves as soldiers of the Church, fighting the great battle of Christianity ”

“ The race of warriors who delighted in nothing but slaughter, was stupefied, partly by an old prophecy of the coming of a god to subdue the land, partly by the strange and terrible arms of the invaders. Moreover their neighbors and subjects were ready to rise against them and become allies of the Spaniards. In a few months of crowded battle and massacre they lay broken and helpless at the feet of the audacious conqueror, who promptly sent to Spain a glowing account of his new empire and a tribute of gold and silver. ”

“ While the native element of the population at the time of the Conquest was represented by a race apparently very old and lacking resistant vitality, the conquerors and their followers, who constituted the Spanish element, represented a strong and independent people, who were still enjoying the noontide of their vigor, having recently won supremacy against the most powerful enemies by the might of their swords and in defence of the sovereignty of their faith ”

“ Nothing more can (we think) be wished for as to extent of territory, but to be thankful for this great enlargement, and the great deliverance from our powerful enemies the French and Spaniards, and from popery and slavery which in our opinion is as great if not a greater blessing than any, or indeed all the others put together. ”

“ To-day some minor nations yet remain to be cut up into sirloins and briskets by our butchers, who scruple not to dot their proposed partitions even on living hides.
To this famous crusade all the leading nations of Christendom, except Austria-Hungary and, until to-day, Italy, have despatched a respectable contingent of conquistadors. For example, Spaniards, Portuguese, French, and English have absorbed America north and south; while Russia, France, England, Holland, and Germany have raided a good part of Asia and the Far East; and so on with the other continents. ”

“ That in the very years when Spaniards were accomplishing the unique work of redeeming an oriental people from barbarism and heathenism to Christianity and civilized life, the whole might of the mother-country should have been massed in a tremendous conflict in Europe which brought ruin and desolation to the most prosperous provinces under her dominion, and sapped her own powers of growth, is one of the strangest coincidences in history. ”

“ I have sacrificed the whole of my life to my people; and in the advanced age to which I have arrived, I shall do nothing in opposition to their religion, their tranquillity, and their happiness. I have reigned for them; I will constantly occupy myself for their sakes; I will forget all my sacrifices; and when at last I shall be287 convinced that the religion of Spain, the integrity of her provinces, her independence, and her privileges are preserved, I shall descend to the tomb, forgiving those who have embittered the last years of my life. ”

“ Poor fugitives, hiding among the rushes of the lake, some centuries ago, their leaders knew how to build up a powerful, warlike nation, but the people were oppressed by the horrors of a bloody religion, degraded and kept down by the practice of human sacrifice. The Spanish conquest brought them other rulers, and priests who gave to them a kindlier faith ”

“ For the first victors at Hastings, like the first conquistadores in America, perished, as the monk chronicles point out, rapidly by their own crimes; and very few of our nobility can trace their names back to the authentic Battle Abbey roll.
14. The cause is plain: The conquest of England by the Normans was not one of those conquests of a savage by a civilized race, or of a cowardly race by a brave race, which results in the slavery of the conquered, and leaves the gulf of caste between two races—master and slave. ”

“ We argued the fitness of things—a time and place for everything.
"If there were once more a siege of Gerona I would turn our very churches into barracks," laughed our colonel, clanking his sword and looking fierce as a fire-eater. "And who knows? As far as I am a prophet we are not anywhere near the days of the millennium. There are more signs of universal war than of eternal peace." ”

“ But Providence, says an an ancient historian, "preserved them to become the instruments of his views in that new world." "We do not mean," he adds, "to justify the design and conduct of the conquerors, but neither can we avoid tracing in the series of the conquest the destiny which prepared the ruin of that empire." ”

“ And if amidst a scene, a shock so rude, Some native blood was seen thy streets to dye, A traitor only fell beneath the feud: Here all were noble, save nobility; None hugged a conqueror's chain save fallen Chivalry!
LXXXVI.
Such be the sons of Spain, and strange her fate! They fight for freedom, who were never free; A kingless people for a nerveless state, Her vassals combat when their chieftains flee, True to the veriest slaves of Treachery; Fond of a land which gave them nought but life, Pride points the path that leads to liberty ”

“ Indeed, at all times, the inhabitants of this city, even when most civilized, and numbering many men of education, have been singularly apathetic with regard to the vestiges of the ancient people upon whose seat of empire they had established themselves by the right of conquest. For two entire centuries the same insane and bigoted spirit of wanton destruction, which the Spanish historians show to have influenced the conquerors, and to have caused the annihilation of much that was curious and valuable, seems to have possessed their descendants to a very late epoch, if not to the present day. ”

“ But the conquest once achieved, the strangers settled down upon the territory they had won, and became the nucleus of nations: in their new settlements they adopted the rules and forms of institutions to which they had been accustomed in their ancient home, subject indeed to such modifications as necessarily resulted from the mode of the conquest, and their new position among vanquished populations, generally superior to themselves in the arts of civilized life. ”

“ Spain and England were at peace, but Popery and Protestantism were at war—deep, deadly, and irreconcileable.
Wherever we find them, they are still the same. In the courts of Japan or of China; fighting Spaniards in the Pacific, or prisoners among the Algerines; founding colonies which by-and-by were to grow into enormous Transatlantic republics, or exploring in crazy pinnaces the fierce latitudes of the Polar seas,—they are the same indomitable God-fearing men whose life was one great liturgy. ”

“ Look at her citizens at any period of her career—her populace or her consuls—in the field of battle or in the forum, you will always find them the true descendants of those blood-stained refugees, who established their den of robbers on the seven hills, and pretended they were led by a man who had been suckled by a wolf. While conquest was their object, this sanguinary disposition enabled them to perform great exploits; but when victory had secured to them the blessings of peace and safety, the same thirst for excitement continued. ”

“ The decrees of fate are inevitable; it is written in the book of destiny that we shall sally forth and destroy the camp of the unbelievers, and banquet upon those mountains of grain which are piled up in the midst of it. ”

“ The right of conquest was supreme for the invaders: the opportunity of baptism was full payment to the natives. Conquest of heathendom and heathens was something even more sacred than a right: it was transcendently a solemn duty. “The earth is the Lord's;” He is its rightful owner, ruler, and disposer; the Pope is His vicegerent; the children of the one fold are his champions. True, the heathen whom the Spaniards encountered were idolaters, and some of them were believed to offer human sacrifices; the invaders frequently saw the mutilated remains of victims from those foul altars. ”

“ The wealthy inhabitants and all those peacefully inclined mourned over a resistance which brought destruction upon their houses, death into their families, and which they saw must end in their ruin and captivity ”

“ Religion entered, more or less, into the theory, at least, of the Spanish conquests in the New World. That motives of a baser sort mingled largely with these higher ones, and in different proportions according to the character of the individual, no one will deny. And few are they that have proposed to themselves a long career of action without the intermixture of some vulgar personal motive, —fame, honors, or emolument. ”

“ I refer to the utter passivity of the inhabitants, not only in the matter of resistance to attack, which the greater strength and courage of the invaders perhaps rendered useless, but in what is more surprising, the fact that after the easy conquest was completed, we hear nothing of the manner in which the people adapted themselves to the totally new condition of life and of government to which they were subjected. ”

“ With all these things they went in triumph to the heights, where they had their castles, and there offered up sacrifices to their gods, shedding much blood of men and lambs before the stones and idols. All these people were in a state of anarchy, for they say for certain that they had no lords, but only captains to lead them in their wars. ”

“ The history of the Spanish conquest in America is a record of cruelty and of blood, while that of English colonization is marked by English rigor and enterprise, and is one of successful daring and ultimate triumph. ”

“ Immediately after the Spanish conquest a rage possessed the victors to build churches, without regard to the necessary population for their support, perhaps hoping thereby to propitiate heaven for their rapaciousness and outrageous oppression of the native race. ”

“ I believe, tribes, that even you yourselves perceive that, all the tribes of Spain having been reduced to peace, we must either conclude our campaigns and disband our armies, or transfer the war into other regions: for thus these nations will flourish amid the blessings not only of peace, but also of victory, if we seek from other countries spoils and renown. ”

“ The splendour and the decadence, the glory and misfortunes, the ancient grandeur and the existing distresses of Spain, the great historic parts which we have played either in unison or in rivalry,—above all, the terrible struggle which we maintained together against a Power with which it was at first despair to cope, and yet brought to a triumphant issue, make it impossible that any record of that struggle can be received with indifference ”

“ Spaniards, Englishmen, and Italian malcontents, adventurers of all nations, and soldiers of fortune of every sect, flocked at the first summons under the standard of the Protestants, and organized themselves like a vast association, whose branches diverged freely over all parts of Europe. ”

“ If I design'd to enumerate all the Impieties, Butcheries, Desolations, Iniquities, Violences, Destructions and other the Piacula and black Enormities committed and perpetrated by the Spaniards in this Province, against God, the King, and these harmless Nations; I might compile a Voluminous History, and that shall be compleated, if God permit my Glass to run longer, in his good time. ”

“ Such an army had never before left Spain; the gallant and daring soldiers were nearly all wealthy and well-born. They wore costly armor and all their outfit was of the richest description. Everything was provided to make the expedition a success. Arms and provisions, chains for the Indians whom they expected to make slaves, bloodhounds for hunting runaways, and cards for the young nobles to amuse themselves with. Twelve priests went with them to convert the natives and keep up religious services. ”