Spanish colonies

“ Consequently from the middle of the seventeenth century at the period of the rapid rise of colonial powers of France, Holland, and England, the Spanish colonies find themselves under a commercial regime which increasingly hampers their prosperity and effectually blocks their advancement. ”

“ Mexico and Peru had proved to be inexhaustible sources of wealth, and when the gold and silver diminished, the Viceroys in these and the other colonies could compel the people to wring rich products out of the soil, enough to supply Spain's necessities. The inhabitants of these colonies, composed of the aboriginal races with an admixture of Spanish, had [pg 138] been treated as slaves and drudges for so many centuries that they never dreamed of resistance, nor questioned the justice of a fate which condemned them always to toil for Spain. ”

“ This dire contest in America destroyed almost every person of any note who came within its influence, desolated the country where it originated, prevented the growth of colonization, and changed for the worse the whole course of legislation for the Spanish colonies. ”

“ The Spanish-American empire was therefore much longer-lived than the first colonial dominion of Great Britain in North America, and the natural inference is, either that the Spaniards treated their colonies or dependencies better than the English treated theirs, or that the English colonies were in a better position than the Spanish dependencies to assert their independence, or that both causes operated simultaneously. ”

“ Twenty-two years later the Spanish colonies in America were to follow the example of the Thirteen and break their connection with Europe. But being more dispersed over the continent and separated by great mountainous chains and deserts and forests and by the Portuguese Empire of Brazil, they did not achieve a union among themselves. They became a constellation of republican states, very prone at first to wars among themselves and to revolutions. ”

“ But in the case of the most prosperous instances of colonization by the British, the native races have either wholly disappeared or are in progress of extinction, while the infusion of Spanish and foreign blood into the colonies of Spain has not only allowed the increase of the indigenous population, but has been insufficient to change or do more than slightly modify their national characters. ”

“ The troops of Cortes, and the gallant adventurers who followed them as settlers in the Spanish colonies, had descendants who soon began to form a powerful population. Among those, a government possessed of common sense would have found the natural support of the parent state. But the man of Spain scorned to acknowledge the equality even of the Spanish blood, when born in the colonies; and no office of trust, and no commission in the colonial troops, could be given to a Creole. ”

“ It is difficult to compare Spain and Great Britain as regards their respective colonial policies in America, for their possessions differed in kind. Spain owned dependencies rather than colonies, Great Britain owned colonies rather than dependencies. Spanish America was the result of conquest: English America, not including Canada, was the result of settlement. But, so far as a comparison can be instituted, it will probably not be seriously contended that the British colonies suffered more grievously at the hands of the mother country than did the colonial possessions of Spain. ”

“ This is especially necessary on account of the traditional and widely prevalent opinion that the Spanish colonial system was always and everywhere a system of oppression and exploitation; whereas, as a matter of fact, the Spanish system, as a system of laws, always impeded the effectual exploitation of the resources of their colonies, and was far more humane in its treatment of dependent peoples than either the French or English systems. ”

“ In the colonies the most striking feature of Spanish economic policy was its wastefulness. After the conquest of the New World, it was to the interest of the Spaniards to gradually wean the native Indians from barbarism by teaching them the arts and sciences of Europe, to encourage such industries as were favoured by the soil, and to furnish the growing colonies with those articles which they could not produce themselves, and of which they stood in need. Only thus could they justify their monopoly of the markets of Spanish America. ”

“ Colonies, from being primarily fields for the propagation of Christianity and incidentally for the production of wealth, became the field primarily for industrial and commercial development and incidentally for Christian work. The change no doubt has contributed vastly to the wealth of the world and to progress, but it has been fatal to the native populations. The Spanish policy aimed to preserve and civilize the native races, not to establish a new home for Spaniards, and the colonial legislation provided elaborate safeguards for the protection of the Indians. ”

“ Efforts to progress were throttled and the friction between the mother country developed until the conquest of Spain by Napoleon, 32which gave the many Spanish colonies that had become thoroughly satiated with disgust and contempt for the Madrid Government, a chance to rebel and establish themselves as independent nations. Taking advantage of the condition in Europe and having in mind the successful revolution of the American colonists, the people of Argentine, Bolivia, Paraguay and Chile revolted, and after much fighting finally drove the Spanish troops from their shores. ”

“ The Spanish colonies are under a government in many respects less favourable to agriculture, improvement, and population, than that of the English colonies. They seem, however, to be advancing in all these much more rapidly than any country in Europe. In a fertile soil and happy climate the great abundance and cheapness of land, a circumstance common to all new colonies, is, it seems, so great an advantage as to compensate many defects in civil government. ”

“ Population and industries.—The heroic age of Spanish colonization had now passed. The surprising results achieved in the New World during the first eighty years, not counting the work of exploration, are set forth in a description of the colonies in 1574 written by López de Velasco, official geographer. At that time there were in North and South America about two hundred Spanish towns and cities, besides numerous mining camps, haciendas, and stock ranches. The Spanish population was 32,000 families, or perhaps from 160,000 to 200,000 persons. ”

“ Thus Teutonic America now consists of two nations only.130 How different the fate of the Spanish colonies. Scattered over a space eight thousand miles long from San Francisco to Magellan's Straits, in days before railways existed and with even steam navigation in its infancy, they did not think of trying to maintain500 political connection across vast distances, and naturally fell apart into many independent states, roughly corresponding to the administrative divisions of colonial days. ”

“ And, however impolitically despotic the Spanish governments may be, still do these colonies enjoy the opportunities of improvement, which in every age arise from the knowledge of commerce and of letters—opportunities which were never enjoyed in South America under the reigns of Montezuma and Atabalipa. But if from Spanish, we turn our eyes to British America, what a glorious prospect! ”

“ In treating Spain's part in the New World it has been customary, after recounting the discovery of America, to proceed at once to territory now within the United States—Florida, New Mexico, Texas—forgetting that these regions were to Spain only northern outposts, and omitting the wonderful story of Spanish achievement farther south. This book being a history of the colonization of North America, Spain's great colonies in South America, now powerful nations, fall beyond our geographical limits. ”

“ Amongst the inhabitants of the Spanish colonies, the fourth rank was assigned to the negroes pure and simple. They were in several settlements employed chiefly in domestic service. Their superior physical strength, as well as their favour with their masters, gave them an ascendancy over the natives, whom they were wont to treat with such insolence and scorn, that an implacable antipathy arose between the two races. ”

“ The Spanish tribe had come before either, and with military greediness were eating up the wealthy South. But Spain could set only a poor and perishing scion in the new world. That was always an evil tree to graft from, not producing good fruit. Besides, an old nation, in a state of decay, founds no healthy colonies. The children of a decomposing State, time-worn and debauched, though with a whole continent before them—what could they accomplish for mankind? ”

“ The war for independence in the United States had no apparent influence upon the colonies of Spanish America. They remained loyal to Spain. The French Revolution seemed also without effect. But during the long Napoleonic wars, when Spain remained for years in the grip of the Corsican, and the people of Spanish America were left largely to govern themselves, a thirst for liberty arose, and a spirit of revolt showed itself about 1810 throughout the length and breadth of the colonies. ”

“ It has often been observed that whereas the men who went to the northern English colonies were mostly small farmers or townsfolk of the trading or artisan classes, the Spanish emigrants were mainly adventurers, making gold and silver their first object, the acquisition of plantations or mines to be worked by natives the second. ”

“ The American Forces are at Hand, ready to undertake Expeditions, and to accomplish any purpose, before the Spaniards, at so many thousands of miles distance, can be apprized of their Designs; and long before they possibly can send sufficient Reinforcements. Another Reason is, that the Native Spanish Indians, being in the most abject Slavery to the Prince and the Priests, will naturally and heartly join the late British Colonies, and assist them in subduing the Spaniards, in order to emancipate themselves from bondage, and to regain their long lost Liberties. ”

“ The British Colonies have set the example, when they thought themselves aggrieved. The Tyranny, Oppression and Extortion of the Spaniards in the higher Ranks, will dispose the Native Descendants of the original Inhabitants, and doubtless, many of the Native Spaniards, in the lower Ranks, to imitate their Example.
The Spanish Military Forces in the Country cannot defeat a general confederacy of the Indians and others; when strengthened by an Army from the associated American Colonies. ”

“ The successful assertion of their independence by the thirteen English colonies of the northern continent appealed to the slumbering democracy of the Spanish colonists, and increased the general discontent with the political system under which they lived. 1780 A.D. A revolt in Peru gave to Spain a warning which she was not sufficiently wise to understand. ”

“ Circumstances connected with the emancipation of the Spanish American colonies from the dominion of the mother country, and with the long, and for a time uncertain, struggle which some of them were called upon to maintain, led to an apprehension in this country that, under the plea of putting a stop to the waste of human life, and to the bloody and remorseless warfare which characterizes in a special manner civil contests among the Spanish race, some of the leading European governments might offer their aid to Spain for the purpose of pacifying or reducing her revolted colonies. ”

“ At the period of the Spanish conquests, the Indians, in spite of the obstinate assertions to the contrary, were happy, or at any rate were, through the intelligent care of the Government, placed in a situation which insured their existence under very satisfactory conditions. It is indubitable that if Spain had retained her colonies for fifty or sixty years longer, she would have gradually succeeded in converting the aborigines of her vast territories, attaching them to the cultivation of the soil, and making them give up a nomadic existence, and adopt the far preferable life in villages. ”

“ Of the residence of European Spaniards in Filipinas
By a necessary and inevitable effect of certain causes, physical and moral, which would take too long to explain here, the Spanish race in the colonies—or the descendants of Europeans, and mestizos of these, born and reared there—have from their birth political sentiments which are entirely opposite to those of their ancestors and other Europeans. They regard the Indian as an entirely passive being, the European as a foreigner, and the land as exclusively their own. ”

“ Some able and well-intentioned men came to the Islands, as came to all of Spain’s colonies, among whom may be mentioned Oidor Antonio de Morga, the fiscal, Francisco Leandro de Viana, and Governors Anda y Salazar, Basco y Vargas, Aguilar, Enrile, and others of the nineteenth century when opportunities for gain were somewhat diminished. ”

“ A group of documents on commerce (ca. 1602) , although somewhat fragmentary, contain much interesting information regarding the trade between Spain and her colonies. Fray Martin Ignacio de Loyola, bishop of Rio de la Plata, writes his opinion regarding colonial administration in the Spanish empire. The colonies should be kept in a dependent and subordinate position, and their high officials should be sent from Spain. ”