BRIEF SKETCH OF SPANISH HISTORY.
The following brief sketch of Spain, its era of greatness, the causes
leading thereto, and the reasons for its rapid decline, will be of
interest to the reader at this point in the narrative, as it will
bring into view the other side of the impending conflict:
Spain, the first in rank among the second-rate powers of Europe, by
reason of her possessions in the West Indies, especially Cuba, may be
regarded as quite a near neighbor, and because of her connection with
the discovery and settlement of the continent, as well as the
commanding part she at one time played in the world's politics, her
history cannot but awaken within the breasts of Americans a most
lively interest.
As a geographical and political fact, Spain dates from the earliest
times, and the Spanish people gather within themselves the blood and
the traditions of the three great continents of the Old World--Europe,
Asia and Africa--united to produce the mighty Spaniard of the 15th and
16th centuries. It would be an interesting subject for the
anthropologist to trace the construction of that people who are so
often spoken of as possessing the pure blood of Castile, and as the
facts should be brought to view, another proud fiction would dissipate
in thin air, as we should see the Spaniard arising to take his place
among the most mixed of mankind.
The Spain that we are considering now is the Spain that gradually
emerged from a chaos of conflicting elements into the unity of a
Christian nation. The dismal war between creeds gave way to the
greater conflict between religions, when Cross and Crescent contended
for supremacy, and this too had passed. The four stalwart Christian
provinces of Leon, Castile, Aragon and Navarre had become the four
pillars of support to a national throne and Ferdinand and Isabella
were reigning. Spain has now apparently passed the narrows and is
crossing the bar with prow set toward the open sea. She ends her war
with the Moors at the same time that England ends her wars of the
Roses, and the battle of Bosworth's field may be classed with the
capitulation of Granada. Both nations confront a future of about equal
promise and may be rated as on equal footing, as this new era of the
world opens to view.
What was this new era? Printing had been invented, commerce had
arisen, gunpowder had come into use, the feudal system was passing,
royal authority had become paramount, and Spain was giving to the
world its first lessons in what was early stigmatized as the "knavish
calling of diplomacy."
Now began the halcyon days of Spain, and what a breed of men she
produced! Read the story of their conquests in Mexico and Peru, as
told with so much skill and taste by our own Prescott; or read of the
grandeur of her national character, and the wonderful valor of her
troops, and the almost marvelous skill of her Alexander of Parma, and
her Spinola, as described by our great Motley, and you will see
something of the moral and national glory of that Spain which under
Charles V and Philip II awed the world into respectful silence.
Who but men of iron, under a commander of steel, could have conducted
to a successful issue the awful siege of Antwerp, and by a discipline
more dreadful than death, kept for so many years, armed control of the
country of the brave Netherlanders? A Farnese was there, who could
support and command an army, carry Philip and his puerile
idiosyncrasies upon his back and meet the fury of an outraged people
who were fighting on their own soil for all that man holds dear. Never
was wretched cause so ably led, never were such splendid talents so
unworthily employed.
Alexander of Parma, Cortez, the Pizarros, were representatives of that
form of human character that Spain especially developed. Skill and
daring were brought out in dazzling splendor, and success followed
their movements. Take a brief survey of the Empire under Charles V:
Himself Emperor of Germany; his son married to the Queen of England;
Turkey repulsed; France humbled, and all Europe practically within his
grasp. And what was Spain outside of Europe? In America she possessed
territory covering sixty degrees of latitude, owning Mexico, Central
America, Venezuela, New Granada, Peru and Chili, with vast parts of
North America, and the islands of Cuba, Jamaica and St. Domingo. In
Africa and Asia she had large possessions--in a word, the energies of
the world were at her feet. The silver and gold of America, the
manufactures and commerce of the Netherlands, combined to make her the
richest of nations.
The limits of the present purpose do not permit an exhaustive
presentation of her material strength in detail, nor are the means at
hand for making such an exhibit. We must be content with a general
picture, quoted directly from Motley. He says:
"Look at the broad magnificent Spanish Peninsula, stretching across
eight degrees of latitude and ten of longtitude, commanding the
Atlantic and the Mediterranean, with a genial climate, warmed in
winter by the vast furnace of Africa, and protected from the scorching
heats of summer by shady mountain and forest, and temperate breezes
from either ocean. A generous southern territory, flowing with oil and
wine, and all the richest gifts of a bountiful nature--splendid
cities--the new and daily expanding Madrid, rich in the trophies of
the most artistic period of the modern world; Cadiz, as populous at
that day as London, seated by the straits where the ancient and modern
systems of traffic were blending like the mingling of the two oceans;
Granada, the ancient, wealthy seat of the fallen Moors; Toledo,
Valladolid, and Lisbon, chief city of the recently conquered kingdom
of Portugal, counting with its suburbs a larger population than any
city excepting Paris, in Europe, the mother of distant colonies, and
the capital of the rapidly-developing traffic with both the
Indies--these were some of the treasures of Spain herself. But she
possessed Sicily also, the better portion of Italy, and important
dependencies in Africa, while the famous maritime discoveries of the
age had all enured to her aggrandizement. The world seemed suddenly to
have expanded its wings from East to West, only to bear the fortunate
Spanish Empire to the most dizzy heights of wealth and power. The most
accomplished generals, the most disciplined and daring infantry the
world has ever known, the best equipped and most extensive navy, royal
and mercantile, of the age, were at the absolute command of the
sovereign. Such was Spain."
Such is not Spain to-day. A quite recent writer, speaking of Spain
before the war, said, that although Spain in extent holds the sixth
place in the European states, "it really now subsists merely by the
sufferance of stronger nations." Thus has that nation, which three
centuries ago dominated the world, lost both its position and its
energy.
Without attempting to sketch chronologically, either this rise or this
decline, let us rather direct our efforts to an inquiry into the
causes of both the one and the other.
In attempting to explain the greatness of Spain we must give first
place to the vigor of the Spanish race. The great Spaniard was a
mighty compound. He had the blood of Rome mingled with the awful
torrent that gave birth to the soulless Goths and Vandals. In him also
flowed the hot blood of the Moors. He was both sturdy and fiery; he
had the fervor of the South with the tenacity of the North; the pride
of the Roman with the passion of the Moor. The Spanish race was
emphatically a rich race.
And then we must remember that this race had been forged in war.
Century after century, from the earliest times, they had lived with
their arms in their hands. First came the long war between the Arian
Vandals, and the Trinitarian natives; then the seven-hundred-year war
with the followers of Mahomed. The whole mission of life to them was
to fight.
Naturally there was developed in the people at large the most complete
unification and subjection. Individualism gave place almost entirely
to the common weal, and the spectacle was presented of a nation with
no political questions. Maccaulay maintains that human nature is such
that aggregations of men will always show the two principles of
radicalism and conservatism, and that two parties will exist in
consequence, one composed of those who are ever looking to a brighter
future, the other of those who are ever seeking to restore a
delightful past; but no such phenomena appear in the ascending period
of Spain's history. The whole nation moved as an organized army,
steadily forward, until its zenith was reached. This solidity was a
marked element of its strength.
Mr. Buckle recognizes this, and accounts for the harmonious movements
of the nation by the influence of two leading principles, which he is
pleased to call superstition and loyalty. The Arab invasion had
pressed upon the Christians with such force that it was only by the
strictest discipline that the latter had managed to survive. To secure
such discipline, and at the same time supply the people with the
steady enthusiasm necessary to support a war from century to century,
all the terrors and all the glories that could be derived from
religion were employed. The church and the state, the prince and the
priest, became as one, and loyalty and religion, devotion to the
standard and to the cross, were but different names for the same
principles and actions. Hence Spain emerged to greatness without the
least dream of liberty of either person, conscience or thought. Her
rallying cry was: For the Prince and the Church; not, For God and
Liberty. She went up to greatness the most loyal and the most
religious of nations; but Liberty, Justice and Truth were not upon her
banners.
Look over the territory settled and conquered by her, and what do we
see? Columbus, sailing under Spain, names the first land he discovers
San Salvador; the first settlement made in this country is St.
Augustine; the second, Sante Fe. Look down over the southern half of
our continent and such names as Espirito Santo, Corpus Christi, San
Diego, San Juan, San Jose, San Domingo attest the religious zeal of
the conquerors. They were missionaries of the Cross, robbing the
people of their gold and paying them off with religion.
Steadfast in the faith and sturdy in her loyalty, Spain resisted all
innovations with respect to her religious beliefs, and all
insurrections against her government. Her Alva and her Torquemada but
illustrated how strong was her conservatism, while her Isabella and
her Philip II show how grand and comprehensive and how persistent was
her aggressiveness, under the idea of spreading and upholding the true
faith. She not only meant to hold all she had of wealth and power, but
she aspired to universal dominion; already chief, she desired to be
sole, and this in the interest and name of the Holy Church.
The Reformation did not disturb Spain; it was crushed out within
twenty years. The spirit of liberty that had been growing in England
since Bosworth's Field, and that was manifesting itself in Germany and
the Netherlands, and that had begun to quiver even in France, did not
dare stir itself in Spain. Spain was united, or rather, was solidity
itself, and this solidity was both its strength and its death. England
was not so united, and England went steadily onward and upward; but
Spain's unity destroyed her, because it practically destroyed
individualism and presented the strange paradox of a strong nation of
weak men.
As a machine Spain in the sixteenth century was a marvel of power; as
an aggregation of thinking men, it was even then contemptible.
Ferdinand, Charles V and Philip II were able and illustrious rulers,
and they appeared at a time when their several characters could tell
on the immediate fortunes of Spain. They were warriors, and the nation
was entirely warlike. During this period the Spaniard overran the
earth, not that he might till the soil, but that he might rob the man
who did. With one hand he was raking in the gold and silver of Mexico
and Peru; with the other confiscating the profits of the trade and
manufactures of the Low Countries--and all in the name of the Great
God and Saints!
How was Spain overthrown? The answer is a short one. Spain, under
Philip II staked her all upon a religious war against the awakening
age. She met the Reformation within her own borders and extinguished
it; but thought had broken loose from its chains and was abroad in the
earth. England had turned Protestant, and Elizabeth was on the throne;
Denmark, Norway and Sweden, indeed all countries except Spain and
Italy had heard the echoes from Luther's trumpet blast. Italy
furnished the religion, and Spain the powder, in this unequal fight
between the Old and the New. Spain was not merely the representative
of the old, she WAS the old, and she armed her whole strength in its
behalf.
Here was a religion separated from all moral principle and devoid of
all softening sentiment--its most appropriate formula being, death to
all heretics. Death--not to tyrants, not to oppressors, not to robbers
and men-stealers--but death to _heretics_. It was this that equipped
her Armada.
The people were too loyal and too pious to THINK, and so were hurled
in a solid mass against the armed thought of the coming age, and a
mighty nation crumbled as in a day. With the destruction of her Armada
her warlike ascendancy passed and she had nothing to put in its place.
She had not tillers of the soil, mechanics or skilled merchants.
Business was taking the place of war all over the world, but Spain
knew only religion and war, hence worsted in her only field, she was
doomed.
From the days of Philip II her decline was rapid. Her territory
slipped from her as rapidly as it had been acquired. Her great domains
on our soil are now the seat of thriving communities of
English-speaking people. The whole continent of South America has
thrown off her yoke, though still retaining her language, and our
troops now embarked from Port Tampa are destined to wrest from her the
two only remaining colonies subject to her sway in the Western
World,--Cuba and Porto Rico. With all her losses hitherto, Spain has
not learned wisdom. Antagonistic to truth and liberty, she seems to
sit in the shadow of death, hugging the delusions that have betrayed
her, while all other people of earth are pressing onward toward light
and liberty.
The struggle in Cuba had been going on for years, and in that colony
of less than two millions of inhabitants, many of whom were Spaniards,
there was now an army four times as large as the standing army of the
United States. Against this army and against the Government of Spain a
revolt had been carried on previous to the present outbreak for a
period of ten years, and which had been settled by concessions on the
part of the home government. The present revolt was of two years'
standing when our government decided to interfere. The Cubans had
maintained disorder, if they had not carried on war; and they had
declined to be pacified. In their army they experienced no color
difficulties. Gomez, Maceo and Quintin Banderas were generals honored
and loved, Maceo especially coming to be the hero and idol of the
insurgents of all classes. And it can truthfully be said that no man
in either the Cuban or Spanish army, in all the Cuban struggle
previous to our intervention, has earned a loftier fame as patriot,
soldier and man of noble mould than ANTONIO MACEO.
Cuba, by far the most advanced of all the West Indian colonies; Cuba,
essentially Spanish, was destined to be the battle ground between our
troops and the veterans of Spain. The question to be settled was that
of Spain's sovereignty. Spain's right to rule over the colonies of
Cuba and Porto Rico was disputed by the United States, and this
question, and this alone, is to be settled by force of arms. Further
than this, the issue does not go. The dictum of America is: Spain
shall not rule. The questions of Annexation, Expansion and Imperialism
were not before us as we launched our forces to drive Spain out of the
West Indies. The Cuban flag was closely associated with our own
standard popularly, and "Cuba Libre" was a wide-spread sentiment in
June, 1898. "We are ready to help the Cubans gain their liberty" was
the honest expression of thousands who felt they were going forward in
a war for others.