CHAPTER XVI.

THE PROGRESS OF THE CANADIAN NATION.

Canada is, in respect of extent, the noblest colonial possession over

which any nation has ever exercised dominion. It covers an area of

three million three hundred and thirty thousand square miles. Our

great Indian Empire is scarcely larger than one-fourth of its size.

Europe is larger by only half a million square miles; the United

States is smaller to nearly the same extent. The distances with which

men have to deal in Canada are enormous. From Ottawa to Winnipeg is

fourteen hundred miles--a journey equal to that which separates Paris

from Constantinople: the adventurous traveller, who would push his

way from Winnipeg to the extreme north-west, has a farther distance

of two thousand miles to traverse. The representatives of Vancouver

Island must travel two thousand five hundred miles in order to reach

the seat of Government. The journey from London to the Ural Mountains

is not greater in distance, and is not by any means so difficult. From

Halifax, the capital of Nova Scotia, to New Westminster, the capital

of British Columbia, there is a distance of four thousand miles--about

the distance as that which intervenes between London and Chicago, or

between London and the sources of the Nile.

The people on whom has devolved this vast heritage are in number about

four million. It is greatly beyond their powers, as yet, to subdue

and possess the continent upon whose fringes they have settled.

Nevertheless, their progress is now so rapid in numbers and industrial

development, and the wealth which lies around them is so great, that

year by year they must fill a larger place in the world’s regard,

and exercise a wider influence upon the course of human affairs. At

the beginning of the century they numbered scarcely a quarter of a

million--the slow growth of two hundred years of misgovernment and

strife. Twenty-five years thereafter their numbers had more than

doubled; in the following quarter of a century they had trebled. During

the ten years from 1851 to 1861 the annual increase was one hundred and

twenty thousand; in the following decade it was at the rate of sixty

thousand, of which less than one-half was by immigration. The increase

is mainly rural; there are no very powerful influences favouring the

growth of great cities. Montreal has a population of one hundred

and seven thousand; Quebec, of sixty thousand; Toronto has grown to

fifty thousand; Halifax to thirty thousand. All European nations are

represented on Canadian soil. Of English, Scotch, and Irish there are

over two million; of Frenchmen over one million. Germans, Russians,

Dutchmen, Swiss make up the remainder. The fusion of races has yet

made imperfect progress; the characteristic aspect and habits of each

nationality remain with little modification.

The Canadian people maintain a large and growing commerce, one-half of

which is with the mother country. Their exports are £18,000,000; their

imports are £26,000,000. They purchase iron largely in England, the

time having not yet come when their own abundant stores of this article

can be made available. They import annually four million tons of coal;

but the approaching close of this traffic is already foreshadowed by

the circumstance that they also export the product of their own mines

to the extent of four hundred thousand tons. Textile manufactures are

steadily gaining importance in Canada; but as yet the people clothe

themselves to a large extent in the woollen and cotton fabrics of the

old country.

Canada sells annually the produce of her forests to the extent of five

million sterling, and of her fields to the extent of four million.

The harvest of the sea yields a value of over two million, of which

one-half is sent abroad; the furs which her hunters collect bear a

value of half a million. She extracts from the maple-tree sugar to the

annual value of four million; her frugal cottagers gather annually two

million pounds of honey from the labours of the bee.

The lumber trade is the most characteristic of Canadian industries.

On the eastern portion of the Dominion, stretching northwards towards

the Arctic regions, illimitable forests clothe the ground. For the

most part these are yet undisturbed by man. But in the valleys of

streams which flow into the St. Lawrence, notably in the valley of the

picturesque Ottawa, the lumber trade is prosecuted with energy. Year by

year as autumn draws towards its close numerous bands of woodsmen set

out for the scene of their invigorating labours. A convenient locality

is chosen near a river, whose waters give motion to a saw-mill, and

will in due time bear the felled timber down to the port of shipment.

A hut is hastily erected to form the home of the men during the winter

months. The best trees in the neighbourhood are selected, and fall in

thousands under the practised axe of the lumberman. When the warmth

of approaching summer sets free the waters of the frozen stream, the

trees are floated to the saw-mill, and cut there into manageable

lengths. They are then formed into great rafts, on which villages of

huts are built for the accommodation of the returning woodsmen. The

winter months are spent in cutting down the timber; the whole of the

summer is often spent in conducting to Quebec or the Hudson the logs

and planks which have been secured. The forests of Canada are a source

of great and enduring wealth. They form also the nursery of a hardy,

an enduring, and withal a temperate population; for the lumberman

ordinarily dispenses with the treacherous support of alcohol, and is

content to recruit his energies by the copious use of strong tea and of

salted pork.

The occupation of about one-half of the Canadian people is agriculture.

In the old provinces there are nearly five hundred thousand persons

who occupy agricultural lands. Of these, nine-tenths own the soil

which they till; only one-tenth pay rent for their lands, and they

do so for the most part only until they have gained enough to become

purchasers. The agricultural labourer--a class so numerous and so

little to be envied in England--is almost unknown in Canada. No more

than two thousand persons occupy this position, which is to them

merely a step in the progress towards speedy ownership. Land is easily

acquired; for the Government, recognizing that the grand need of

Canada is population, offers land to every man who will occupy and

cultivate, or sells at prices which are little more than nominal.

The old provinces are filling up steadily if not with rapidity.

During the ten years from 1851 to 1861 the land under cultivation

had become greater by about one-half. During the following decade

the increase was in the same proportion. Schools of agriculture

and model farms have been established by Government, and the rude

methods by which cultivation was formerly carried on have experienced

vast ameliorations. Agriculture has become less wasteful and more

productive. Much attention is given to the products of the dairy. Much

care has been successfully bestowed upon the improvement of horses and

cattle. The manufacture and use of agricultural implements has largely

increased. The short Canadian summer lays upon the farmer the pressing

necessity of swift harvesting, and renders the help of machinery

specially valuable. In the St. Lawrence valley the growing of fruit

is assiduously prosecuted; and the apples, pears, plums, peaches, and

grapes of that region enjoy high reputation. Success almost invariably

rewards the industrious Canadian farmer. The rich fields, the well-fed

cattle, the comfortable farm-houses, all tell of prosperity and

contentment.

The fisheries of the Dominion form one of its valuable industries. The

eastern coasts are resorted to by myriads of fishes, most prominent

among which is the cod-fish, whose preference for low temperatures

restrains its further progress southward. Sixty thousand men and

twenty-five thousand boats find profitable occupation in reaping this

abundant harvest. A Minister of Fisheries watches over this great

industry. Seven national institutions devote themselves to the culture

of fish, especially of the salmon, and prosecute experiments in regard

to the introduction of new varieties.

The Mercantile Navy of the Dominion is larger than that of France.

It comprises seven thousand ships, of the aggregate tonnage of one

million and a quarter; while the tonnage of Great Britain is six

million. Canada has invested in her shipping a capital of seven and a

half million sterling. She uses the timber of her forests in building

ships for herself and for other countries. The annual product of her

building-yards is considerably over a million sterling.

The burden laid by taxation upon the Canadians is not oppressive.

Taxation is raised almost entirely in the form of custom and excise

duties, and amounts to four million sterling. This is an average rate

of one pound for each of the population; not differing appreciably from

the rate of taxation in the United States, but being considerably less

than one-half of that which now prevails in Great Britain.

Canada trusts for her defence against foreign enemies to her militia

and volunteers, of whom she has nominally a large force. But only a

handful of these are annually called out for a few days of drill,

and the Dominion spends no more than £200,000 upon her military

preparations. Her fleet is equally modest, and consists of a few small

steamers which serve on the lakes and rivers, and mount in all about

twenty guns.

Besides the outlays incurred in carrying on the ordinary business

of Government, large sums, raised by loan, are annually expended on

public works. Navigation on the great rivers of Canada is interrupted

by numerous rapids and falls. Unless these obstructions be overcome,

the magnificent water-way with which Canada is endowed will be of

imperfect usefulness. At many points on the rivers and lakes canals

have been constructed. The formidable impediment which the great Fall

of Niagara offers to navigation is surmounted by the Welland Canal,

twenty-seven miles in length, and on which, with its branches, two and

a half million sterling have been expended. Much care is bestowed,

too, upon the deepening of rivers and the removal of rocks and other

obstructions to navigation. The vast distances of Canada render

railways indispensable to her development. The Canadian Government

and people have duly appreciated this necessity. They have already

constructed seven thousand miles of railway, and are proceeding rapidly

with further extension. The cost of railways already made amounts to

eighty million sterling, of which Government has provided one-fourth.

Very soon Canada will have a length of railway equal to one-half that

of Great Britain. But the disposition to travel has not kept pace with

the increased facilities which have been provided. The average number

of journeys performed annually by each Englishman is seventeen, while

the Canadian average is not quite two.

There still remain in the various provinces of the Dominion about

ninety thousand Indians, to represent the races who possessed the

continent when the white man found it. Two-thirds of these are in the

unpeopled wastes of Manitoba and British Columbia; the remainder are

settled in the old provinces. The Indian policy of Canada has been

from the beginning just and kind, and it has borne appropriate fruits.

The Governments of the United States have signally failed in their

management of their Indian population. Faith has not been kept with

the savages. Treaties have again and again been made by the Government

and violated by the people. Lands have been assigned to the Indians,

and forcibly taken from them so soon as possession was desired by any

considerable number of white men. Large grants of food and clothing

have been given by the Government, and shamelessly intercepted by

dishonest traders. Out of transactions such as these have sprung bitter

hatreds, ruthless massacres, inflicted now by the red man, now by the

white, and a state of feeling under which a Western American will, on

slight provocation, shoot down an Indian with as little remorse as

he would slay a stag. Canada has dealt in perfect fairness with her

Indians. She has recognized always the right of the original occupants

of the land. She has fulfilled with inflexible faith every treaty into

which she has entered. The lands allotted to the Indians have been

secured to them as effectively as those of the white settler, or have

been acquired from them by fair process of sale and purchase. The

Indians have requited with constant loyalty the Government which has

treated them with justice. While the French ruled Canada there was

perpetual strife with the Indians, as there is to-day in the United

States. Canada under the British has never been disturbed by an Indian

war.

The Indians of the older provinces have adopted settled habits and

betaken themselves to agriculture. In Ontario they are steadily

increasing in numbers and intelligence. Drunkenness diminishes;

education is eagerly sought; hunting gives place to farming; the

descendants of the barbarous Iroquois have been transformed into

industrious and prosperous citizens. In Quebec there is also progress,

but it is less rapid, and the old drunken habits of the people have

not yielded so completely to the influences which surround them. The

Indians of British Columbia are still very drunken and debased, and

their numbers diminish rapidly. In Manitoba and the whole North-West

the condition of the Indians is very hopeful. Drunkenness is almost

unknown; crime is very rare; the demand for schools and for persons

who can teach how to build houses and till the soil is universal and

urgent. The buffalo has been the support of the North-Western Indian.

Its flesh was his food, its skin was his clothing, the harness of

his horse, the property by whose sale all his remaining wants were

supplied. The innumerable multitudes of buffalo which frequented the

plains maintained in the Indian camp a rude affluence. But the buffalo

gives place before advancing civilization, and the Indians in alarm

hasten to find new means of subsistence.

The problem which savage occupants present to the civilized men who

settle on their lands has been solved in Canada by the simple but rare

device of friendly and perfectly fair dealing. The red men of Canada

live contentedly under the rule of the strangers, and prove that they

are able to uphold themselves by the white man’s industries. They

adopt his language, often to the disuse of their own, his dress, his

customs, his religion. Not only do the two races live in concord;

their blood has been largely mixed. The native race is probably doomed

to disappear, but this will not be the result of violence or even of

neglect. The history of the Indian race in Canada will close with its

peaceful absorption by the European races which possess the continent.

Thirty years ago the Canadians, borrowing largely from their neighbours

of the United States, perfected their common-school system. Schools

adequate to the wants of the population are provided. A Board chosen

by the people conducts the school business of the district. The costs

are defrayed by a local tax, supplemented by a grant from the treasury

of the province. In general, no fees are charged; primary education

is absolutely free. The French Canadians manifest less anxiety for

education than their British neighbours, and have not yet emerged

from the ignorance which they brought with them from Europe, and in

which they were suffered for generations to remain. In Toronto and

the maritime provinces the means of education are ample, and are very

generally taken advantage of by the colonists.

* * * * *

A noble heritage has been bestowed upon the Canadian people. Treasures

of the sea and of the soil, of forest and of mine, are theirs in

lavish abundance. Their climate, stern but also kindly, favours the

growth of physical and mental energy. They enjoy freedom in its

utmost completeness. Their peaceable surroundings exempt them from

the blight of war and the evils of costly defensive preparation.

For generations these inestimable advantages were in large measure

neutralized by the enfeebling rivalries which divided the provinces.

But internal dissension has been silenced by confederation, and Canada

has begun to consolidate into a nation. Differences of religion and

of race still hold a place among the forces which are shaping out

her future, but the antipathies which they once inspired have almost

passed away. The distinctions of Catholic and Protestant, Englishman

and Frenchman, are being merged in the common designation of Canadian,

which all are proud to bear. The welfare of Canada, her greatness in

the years of the future, are assured not merely by the vastness of her

material resources, but still more by the spirit which animates her

people. The destiny towards which the Canadian people are hastening

is fittingly indicated by the eloquent words of one of the ablest of

their Governor-Generals. [Sidenote: 1875 A.D.] “However captivating,”

said Lord Dufferin, “may be the sights of beauty prepared by the

hands of Nature, they are infinitely enhanced by the contemplation of

all that man is doing to turn to their best advantage the gifts thus

placed within his reach. In every direction you see human industry and

human energy digging deep the foundations, spreading out the lines,

and marking the inviolable boundaries upon and within which one of the

most intelligent and happiest offsets of the English race is destined

to develop into a proud and great nation. The very atmosphere seems

impregnated with the exhilarating spirit of enterprise, contentment,

and hope. The sights and sounds which caressed the senses of the Trojan

wanderer in Dido’s Carthage are repeated and multiplied in a thousand

different localities in Canada, where flourishing cities, towns, and

villages are rising in every direction with the rapidity of a fairy

tale. And better still, _pari passu_ with the development of these

material evidences of wealth and happiness is to be observed the growth

of political wisdom, experience, and ability, perfectly capable of

coping with the difficult problems which are presented in a country

where new conditions, foreign to European experience, and complications

arising out of ethnological and geographical circumstances, are

constantly requiring the application of a statesmanship of the highest

order.”

FOOTNOTES

[12] Francis I. said that he “would fain see the article in Adam’s

will which bequeathed the vast inheritance” to the Kings of Spain and

Portugal.

[13] “One must be ready,” wrote this devout priest, full of faith, “to

abandon life and all he has; contenting himself, as his only riches,

with a cross--very large and very heavy.”

[14] The fathers were wise in their generation. The Indians hated

beards, and extirpated their own. It was judicious to omit this

distasteful feature from all sacred representations.

[15] See page 77.

[16] Towards the close of her dominion in Canada, France expended about

one million sterling on her unprofitable colony, mainly in building

forts along the enormous line from Quebec to New Orleans, in order to

shut in the English colonists.

[17] According to the best estimates, the population of Canada at this

time was composed of 100,000 Catholics and 400 Protestants.

[18] See page 145.

[19] In three years the debt had nearly doubled--rising from twenty-one

to thirty-eight million dollars. In 1859 it had further risen to

fifty-four million.

[20] “It was here that Canada, emerging from her woods and forests,

first gazed upon her rolling prairies and unexplored North-West,

and learned, as by an unexpected revelation, that her historical

territories of the Canadas--her eastern sea-boards of New Brunswick,

Labrador, and Nova Scotia; her Lawrentian lakes and valleys, corn-lands

and pastures--though themselves more extensive than half-a-dozen

European kingdoms, were but the vestibules and ante-chambers to that

till then undreamt-of Dominion, whose illimitable dimensions alike

confound the arithmetic of the surveyor and the verification of the

explorer. It was hence that, counting her past achievements as but the

preface and prelude to her future exertions and expanding destinies,

she took a fresh departure, received the afflatus of a more imperial

inspiration, and felt herself no longer a mere settler along the

banks of a single river, but the owner of half a continent; and, in

the magnitude of her possession, in the wealth of her resources,

in the sinews of her material might, the peer of any power on the

earth.”--_Lord Dufferin, Governor-General of Canada. Speech in the City

Hall, Winnipeg, September 1877._

[21] With careful husbandry much better results are obtained. A yield

of forty to fifty bushels is common, and a prize was recently awarded

to a farmer whose land yielded one hundred and five bushels!

[22] In presence of Lord Dufferin a pine tree was felled whose height

was two hundred and fifty feet, and whose rings gave evidence of an age

which dated from the reign of Edward IV.

SOUTH AMERICA.

CHAPTER I.

DISCOVERY AND CONQUEST.

Columbus prosecuted, down to the close of life, the great work of

discovery to which, as he never ceased to feel, God had set him apart.

He occupied himself almost entirely among those lovely islands to

which Providence had guided his uncertain way; seeing almost nothing

of the vast continents, on the right hand and on the left, which he

had gained for the use of civilized man. Once, near the island of

Trinidad, he was suffered to look for the only time upon the glorious

mainland, so lavishly endowed with beauty and with wealth. Once again

he sailed along the coasts of the isthmus and landed upon its soil. But

he scarcely passed, in his researches, beyond the multitudinous islands

which lay around him on every side. He sailed among them with a heart

full, at the outset, of deep, solemn joy, over the unparalleled victory

which had been vouchsafed to him; full, towards the close, with a

bitter sense of ingratitude and perfidy. He had made his first landing

on the little island of San Salvador. Voyaging thence he quickly

found Cuba, “the most beautiful island that eyes ever beheld, full of

excellent ports and profound rivers.” Then he discovered Hispaniola

and Jamaica, and a multitude of smaller islands. Thirteen years of life

were still left to him, and Columbus was content to expend them among

the sights and sounds which had caressed his delighted senses at his

first coming into this enchanted world.

But there were other adventurers, allured by the success which had

crowned the efforts of Columbus, and hastening now to widen the scope

of his inquiry. Five years from the first landing of Columbus, John

Cabot had explored the northern continent from Labrador to Florida.

Many navigators who had sailed with Columbus in his early voyages now

fitted out small expeditions, in order to make fresh discoveries on

the southern continent. Successive adventurers traversed its entire

northern coasts. One discovered the great River of the Amazons; another

passed southwards along the coasts of Brazil. Before the century

closed, almost the whole of the northern and eastern shores of South

America had been visited and explored.

Ten or twelve years after Columbus had discovered the mainland,

there was a Spanish settlement at the town of Darien on the isthmus.

Prominent among the adventurers who prosecuted, from this centre of

operations, the Spaniard’s eager and ruthless search for gold was

Vasco Nuñez de Balboa--a man cruel and unscrupulous as the others, but

giving evidence of wider views and larger powers of mind than almost

any of his fellows. Vasco Nuñez visited one day a friendly chief, from

whom he received in gift a large amount of gold. The Spaniards had

certain rules which guided them in the distribution of the spoils, but

in the application of these rules disputes continually fell out. It

so happened on this occasion that a noisy altercation arose. A young

Indian prince, regarding with unconcealed contempt the clamour of the

greedy strangers, told them that, since they prized gold so highly,

he would show them a country where they might have it in abundance.

Southward, beyond the mountains, was a great sea; on the coasts of that

sea there was a land of vast wealth, where the people ate and drank

from vessels of gold. This was the first intimation which Europeans

received of the Pacific Ocean and the land of Peru on the western shore

of the continent. Vasco Nuñez resolved to be the discoverer of that

unknown sea. Among his followers was Francisco Pizarro, who became, a

few years later, the discoverer and destroyer of Peru.

[Sidenote: 1513 A.D.] Vasco Nuñez gathered about two hundred well-armed

men, and a number of dogs, who were potent allies in his Indian wars.

He climbed with much toil the mountain ridge which traverses the

isthmus. After twenty-five days of difficult journeying, his Indians

told him that he was almost in view of the ocean. He chose that he

should look for the first time on that great sight alone. [Sidenote:

Sept. 25.] He made his men remain behind, while he, unattended, looked

down upon the Sea of the South, and drank the delight of this memorable

success. Upon his knees he gave thanks to God, and joined with his

followers in devoutly singing the _Te Deum_. He made his way down

to the coast. Wading into the tranquil waters, he called his men to

witness that he took possession for the Kings of Castile of the sea and

all that it contained--a large claim, assuredly, for the Pacific covers

more than one-half the surface of the globe.

Many of the adventurers realized large gains in gold and pearls,

from their trading with the natives. But the hunger of the Spaniards

for gold was still utterly unsatisfied. No considerable quantity of

gold had been found in the islands; but the constant report of the

natives pointed to regions in the interior where the precious metals

abounded. On the mainland, beside the Gulf of Paria, the early voyagers

were able to obtain more ample supplies. When Columbus explored the

Mosquito country and Costa Rica, he found the natives in possession of

massive ornaments of gold, on which they did not seem to place very

special value. Still the natives spoke of a country far away among

the mountains where gold and precious stones were profusely abundant.

The Spaniards continued to advance in the direction to which these

rumours pointed. As they approached the northern portions of Central

America, evidences of higher civilization and greater wealth multiplied

around them. The natives lived in houses solidly built of stone and

lime, their temples were highly ornamented, the soil was more carefully

cultivated here than elsewhere; above all, there was much gold, which

could be obtained in exchange for the worthless trinkets offered by the

strangers. [Sidenote: 1518 A.D.] At length the Spaniards arrived on the

borders of Mexico, and held intercourse with the chief who ruled over

the region to which they had come.

When the Spanish Governor of Cuba heard of the tempting wealth of

Mexico, he determined to send out an expedition sufficiently strong

to effect the conquest of the country. Hernando Cortes, then a young

man of thirty-three, was intrusted with the guidance of this arduous

enterprise. Cortes was a man of middle height and slender figure, with

pale complexion and large dark eyes; of grave aspect, and with an air

of command which secured prompt obedience; of resolution which no

danger could shake; inexhaustibly fertile of resource, and eminently

fitted, therefore, to lead men who were about to encounter unknown

perils. Cortes having placed his fleet under the protection of St.

Peter, and having kindled the enthusiasm of his men by assurances of

glory and wealth and divine favour, sailed for the coast of Yucatan.

[Sidenote: Feb 18, 1519 A.D.] His forces numbered seven hundred

Europeans and two hundred Indians. He had fourteen pieces of artillery.

His enemies had not yet seen the horse, and Cortes sought anxiously to

have the means of overawing them by the sudden attack of cavalry. But

horses were scarce, for they had still to be brought from Europe; and

only sixteen mounted men rode in his ranks. These diminutive forces

were embarked in eleven little ships, the largest of which did not

exceed one hundred tons burden.

Cortes disembarked his army on a wide sandy plain where now stands

the city of Vera Cruz, the chief sea-port of Mexico. He was within

rather less than two hundred miles of the capital of the country, and

he sent to demand access to the presence of the King. Pictures, which

represented the ships and the cannon and the horses of the Spaniards,

had been forwarded to Montezuma, who pondered with his councillors

those symbols of mysterious and terrible power. The council failed to

ascertain the true character of the strangers, and remained in doubt

whether they were supernatural beings or merely the envoys of some

distant sovereign. Montezuma came to the conclusion that in any case

they should be persuaded to depart and leave his country in peace. He

sent an embassy to point out the dangers of the journey, and request

his unwelcome visitors to return to their own land. But, by a fatal

indiscretion, the ambassadors supported the King’s request by rich

gifts:--a helmet filled to the brim with gold; two circular plates

of gold and silver “as large as carriage-wheels;” a multitude of

ornamental articles of costly material and beautiful workmanship. The

greedy eyes of the Spaniards glistened with delight as the treasures of

the simple monarch were spread before them. From that moment the ruin

of Montezuma was sealed.

Cortes prepared for his advance upon the Mexican capital by destroying

all the ships of his fleet with one solitary exception. There were

faint hearts among his men, and fears which counselled early return to

Cuba. Cortes had accepted for himself the alternative of success or

utter ruin, and he purposed that his men should have no other. When the

enfeebling possibility of escape was withdrawn, he roused their courage

by appeals to the complex motives which swayed the Spaniards of that

day. The desire to plant the cross on the temples of the heathen, the

craving for glory and for gain, nerved the hearts of the warriors, who

now, trusting to the skill of their leader and the protecting care of

Divine Providence, went forth to the conquest of a great empire.

Their way led at first across plains sodden and rendered almost

impassable by the summer rain. [Sidenote: Aug. 16, 1519 A.D.] Soon they

left the plain and began to climb the long ascent of the Cordilleras,

up towards the great table-land where the city of Mexico stands.

They left, too, the warmth of the coast, and traversed a dreary

mountain-region, swept by cold winds and tempests of sleet and snow.

They passed under the shadow of volcanic mountains whose fires had

been long extinguished; they looked down the sheer depths of dizzy

precipices, and saw, far below, the luxuriant vegetation which a

tropical heat drew forth. At length they came within the fertile and

populous territory of the Tlascalans--a bold republican people who

maintained with difficulty their independence against the superior

strength of Montezuma. Cortes sought the alliance of this people; but

they unwisely rejected his overtures and attacked his army. It was

not till the close of two days of fighting that Cortes routed his

assailants. The bold savages endured the dreaded attack of Spanish

horsemen, the murderous discharge of Spanish artillery; they offered

their defenceless bodies to the Spanish sword and lance, and were

slaughtered in thousands, while their feeble arms scarcely harmed the

invaders. The humbled Tlascalans hastened to conclude peace, and a

great fear of the irresistible strangers spread far and wide among the

population of the plateau. Montezuma once more sent large gifts of the

gold which the Spaniards loved, and vainly begged them to forbear from

coming to his capital.

Fifteen miles from Tlascala stood the city of Cholula, which Cortes

now received an invitation to visit. Cortes found Cholula “a more

beautiful city than any in Spain,” lying in a well-tilled plain, with

many lofty towers, and with a dense population. Montezuma had enticed

the Spaniards hither that he might destroy them; and to that end he

had prepared an ambuscade of twenty thousand Mexican troops. But Cortes

detected the plot, and having drawn a large assemblage of the chiefs

and their followers into the great square, he gave the signal for an

indiscriminate and unsparing massacre. The defenceless people fell

in thousands; and Cortes, satisfied with the fearful lesson he had

taught, erected an altar and cross, addressed the priests and chiefs on

the excellences of the Christian religion, and resumed his advance on

Mexico.

For a few leagues the way led up the steep side of a great volcanic

mountain, then in a state of eruption, although its fires are now

extinguished. A dense forest for a time impeded their march; then, as

they ascended, vegetation ceased, and they passed within the line of

everlasting snow. At length, rounding a shoulder of the mountain, the

great valley of Mexico, seen afar in that clear air, spread itself

before them, in all its glory of lake and city, of garden and forest

and cultivated plain. There were Spaniards who looked with fear upon

the evidences of a vast population, and demanded to be led back to the

security of the coast; but for the most part the soldiers, trusting to

the skill of their leader and the favour of Heaven, thought joyfully

of the vast plunder which lay before them, and hastened down the

mountain-side.

The city of Mexico contained then a population which the Spaniards

estimated at three hundred thousand souls. It was built in a shallow

salt-water lake, and was approached by many broad and massive

causeways, on some of which eight horsemen could ride abreast. The

streets were sometimes wholly of water; sometimes they were of water

flanked by solid foot-paths. There were numerous temples; the royal

palaces excelled those of Europe in magnificence; the market-place

accommodated fifty thousand persons, and the murmur of their bargaining

spread far over the city; the dwellings and the aspect of the common

people spoke of comfort and contentment.

[Sidenote: Nov. 8, 1519 A.D.] Montezuma received his unwelcome visitors

with munificent although reluctant hospitality, and assigned one of

his palaces as their place of residence while it should please them

to remain. Cortes, whose desire to convert the heathen was of equal

urgency with his desire to plunder them, took an early opportunity to

acquaint Montezuma with the leading doctrines of the Christian faith,

and to assure him that the gods of the Mexicans were not gods at all,

but “evil things which are called devils.” But the unconvinced heathen

refused his doctrine, and expressed himself satisfied with his gods

such as they were.

For several days Cortes lived peaceably as the guest of Montezuma,

pondering deeply the next step which he must take in this marvellous

career. He perceived the full danger of his position. A handful of

invaders had thrust themselves among a vast population, whose early

feelings of wonder and fear were rapidly passing into hatred, and who

would probably, ere long, attempt their destruction. Against this

danger no guarantee was so immediately available as possession of

the King’s person. With the calm decision in which lay much of his

strength, Cortes rode down to the palace, attended by a competent

escort, and brought the astonished but unresisting Montezuma home to

the Spanish quarters. The Mexicans revered their sovereign with honours

scarcely less than divine, and Cortes felt that while he possessed the

King he was able to command the people. In a few days more Montezuma

and his great lords professed themselves vassals of the King of Spain.

For six months Cortes ruled Mexico. He dethroned the Mexican gods, and

he suppressed the human sacrifices which the Mexican priests offered

profusely to their hideous idols. He built ships for defence; he sowed

maize for food: he gave attention to mining, that he might have gold

to satisfy the needs of the King of Spain. While he was thus occupied,

he learned that eighteen ships had arrived near his little settlement

of Vera Cruz. They carried a force of eighty horsemen, fourteen hundred

foot soldiers, and twenty pieces of cannon, sent by the Governor of

Cuba, who was jealous of his success, with instructions to arrest

Cortes and his companions. It was a threatening interruption to a

victorious career. Cortes devolved his government upon Alvarado, a

rugged soldier in whom he had confidence, and with only seventy men

hastened to encounter his new foes. By skill and daring he achieved

decisive success, and within a few weeks from the day he quitted Mexico

he was ready to return, strengthened by the arms of those whom he had

subdued, and whom he now gained over to his cause.

But during those weeks events of grave import had occurred in Mexico.

The absence of Cortes resulted in a visible diminution of the meek

submission with which the Mexicans had hitherto demeaned themselves

towards their conquerors. Rumours arose that a revolt was in

contemplation. Alvarado resolved to anticipate the expected treachery.

The time of the annual religious festival had come, and the great

lords of Mexico were engaged in the sacred dance which formed the

closing ceremonial. Suddenly a strong force of armed Spaniards attacked

the undefended worshippers, six hundred of whom were slaughtered.

The outraged city instantly rose against its murderous tyrants. The

Spaniards endured at the hands of their despised assailants a blockade

which must have quickly ended in ruin unless Cortes had hastened to

their relief.

Cortes returned in time at the head of thirteen hundred soldiers,

of whom one hundred were horsemen. He found the city wholly turned

against him. [Sidenote: June 24, 1520 A.D.] The next day, a formidable

attack was made. The streets and terraced roofs of the houses could

not be seen, so densely were they covered by assailants; stones were

thrown in such numbers that it seemed as if it rained stones; the

arrows shot by the Mexicans so covered the courts of the fortress

that it became difficult to move about. The Indians attempted almost

successfully to scale the walls, offering their undefended bosoms,

with reckless disregard of life, to the musketry and artillery, whose

discharge swept them down by hundreds. Their feeble weapons wounded,

but scarcely ever killed; but at the close of each day Cortes found

his fighting strength diminished by the loss of sixty or eighty men.

Food could scarcely be obtained, for the people withheld supplies. To

such a measure of intensity had the cruelty of their oppressors kindled

the hatred of the Indians, that they were willing to spend thousands

of their own lives, if by the costly sacrifice they might compass the

death of one Spaniard. It was necessary for Cortes to be gone. First,

however, he would endeavour to conjure his assailants into submission

by the voice of their King. The unhappy Montezuma came forth upon a

balcony and besought the infuriated people to cease from resistance.

But the spell had lost its power, and the fallen monarch was struck

down and fatally injured by a shower of arrows and of stones. Cortes

left the city that night. [Sidenote: July 1, 1520 A.D.] His stealthy

retreat was discovered, and the vengeful savages caught him at fearful

disadvantage. They swarmed in their canoes around the broken bridges

where the Spaniards had to pass. In the darkness the retreat speedily

became a hopeless and bloody rout. Four hundred and fifty Spaniards

perished, with a large number of their Indian allies and one-half of

the horses. The artillery was wholly lost. It is said that when Cortes

became aware of the ruin which had been wrought, he sat down upon a

great stone in a Mexican village and wept bitterly.[23]

Cortes withdrew to Tlascala, where his allies, unacquainted with

the practice of civilized life, adhered with unswerving loyalty to a

fallen cause. Many of his soldiers were eager to quit the scene of

their crushing defeat. Cortes resolved to maintain his hold upon the

country he had won. He united many states in a great league for the

overthrow of Mexico. He sent ships to Hispaniola for horses, men,

and arms. He ordered brigantines to be built at Tlascala. Six months

after his defeat he was again before Mexico with a force of nearly a

thousand Spaniards and a hundred thousand native allies--with horsemen,

and musketeers, and a fleet of brigantines, to command the lake and

the approaches to the city. It was not till May, however, that active

operations were commenced.

The siege lasted for almost three months. During many days Cortes

forced his way constantly into the city, retiring at nightfall to his

camps in the outskirts. Always he inflicted fearful slaughter upon the

Indians, sparing neither age nor sex: occasionally the brave savages

had their revenge, and the Spaniards, looking up to the summit of the

great temple, witnessed in horror comrades offered in sacrifice to the

Mexican gods. Unwonted horrors attended this cruel siege. The Indian

allies of Cortes frequently banqueted upon the bodies of their slain

enemies, and frequently supplied the materials for a like ghastly

feast. Famine and disease pressed heavily on the doomed city; but no

suffering or danger quelled the heroic resistance of the despairing

people. At length Cortes resolved to destroy the beautiful city,

step by step as he gained it. The houses were pulled down and their

materials thrown into the lake. The Mexicans refused to yield; they

desired only to die. Enfeebled by hunger they ceased to fight, and

the siege became little more than a ruthless slaughter of unresisting

wretches. [Sidenote: Aug. 13, 1520 A.D.] At length the new King

was taken, and all opposition was at an end. The great mass of the

population had perished. The lake and the houses and the streets were

full of dead bodies. Palaces and temples and private dwellings had

fallen. The Spanish historian,[24] who was present, and who in his time

had witnessed many horrors, “does not know how he may describe” these.

He had read the awful story of the destruction of Jerusalem, but he

doubts whether its terrors equalled those which attended the fall of

Mexico.

* * * * *

The fame of this appalling success spread far and wide in Central

America. From great distances southward embassies sought the conqueror,

to conciliate his favour, to offer submission to the great monarch

whose servants had beaten to the ground the power of the Aztec tyrants.

A thousand miles away Cortes had allies and vassals. Still farther

to the south was the rich province of Guatemala, with great and

well-built cities, the home of a people whose progress in the arts of

civilized life was not inconsiderable. Regarding these people reports

were carried to Cortes that they had lately manifested to his allies

dispositions less cordial than had heretofore existed. Three years had

now passed since the conquest of Mexico, and Cortes and his followers

were ready for new enterprises. An expedition, composed of two hundred

and eighty men, with four cannon, with “much ammunition and powder,”

was sent forth under Pedro de Alvarado to ascertain the truth of those

statements which had been reported to Cortes. [Sidenote: Dec. 1523

A.D.] Alvarado, a gallant but ruthless warrior, forced his way into

the fertile valleys of Guatemala. He fought many battles against great

native armies, and inflicted vast slaughter--himself almost unharmed.

He slew the King; he overthrew cities; he gathered together the chiefs

of a certain province, “and as it was for the good and pacification of

this country he burned them.” The people were given over as slaves to

Spaniards who desired them. While busied with these awful arrangements

the devout Alvarado did not fail to entreat that Cortes would appoint

a solemn procession of Mexican clergy, to the effect that Our Lady

might procure for him the succour of Heaven against the urgent perils

of his enterprise. Under such auspices Guatemala became a Spanish

possession.

* * * * *

Among the followers of Vasco Nuñez there was a middle-aged Spanish

warrior, slow, silent, but gifted with a terrible pertinacity in

following out his purposes. His name was Francisco Pizarro. He probably

heard the young Indian tell of the wealth of Peru.[25] He was beside

Vasco Nuñez when that eager discoverer waded into the waters of

the Pacific. A little later he arrested his chief and led him to a

death of violence. He had taken part in an expedition in which the

Spaniards, pursued by overwhelming forces, stabbed their prisoners as

they retreated, and left them dying on the way, in order to hinder

the pursuit. He was wholly without education, and was unable even to

sign his own name. At this time he was living near Panama, on certain

lands which he had obtained, along with the customary allotment of

Indian labourers. Here he applied himself to cattle-farming; and his

labours and his gains were shared with two partners--Almagro, the

son of a labouring man, and De Luque, a schoolmaster. The associates

prospered in their industry, and it seemed probable that they would

live in obscurity, and die wealthy country gentlemen. But Pizarro had

never ceased to brood over the assurances which he had heard ten years

before, that there were in the south regions whose wealth surpassed all

that the Spaniards had yet discovered. He wished to find a shorter path

to greatness than cattle-farming supplied, and he was able to inspire

his associates with the same ambition. The scope of the copartnery was

strangely widened. The rearing of cattle was abandoned, and a formal

contract was entered into for the discovery and conquest of Peru.

Pizarro was to conduct the enterprise; Almagro was to bring to him

reinforcements and needful stores; De Luque was to procure funds. The

profits resulting from their efforts were to be equally divided. They

were ridiculed in Panama as madmen; but the courage and tenacity of

Pizarro sufficed to crown with terrible success purposes which in their

origin seemed wholly irrational.

[Sidenote: Nov. 1524 A.D.] The early history of the expedition was

disastrous. Pizarro sailed from Panama on his career of conquest,

attended by eighty men and four horses. He crept down the coast;

landing occasionally to find only a rugged and barren country. Hunger

fell on his followers, and many died. The Indians assailed them with

poisoned arrows, and slew some. The forests were impenetrably dense;

the climate was unwholesome. Almagro brought a small reinforcement; but

the employment became intolerable, and the men, losing heart, returned

to Panama. Pizarro, with only fourteen followers, sought shelter on

an uninhabited island, “which those who have seen it compare to the

infernal regions.” Here they spent three wretched months, living on

shell-fish and what else the sharpened eye of hunger could discover.

[Sidenote: 1527 A.D.] Strengthened by supplies which Almagro was able

to send, they set forth once more and moved southward along the coast.

And now they found the region of which they had dreamed so long. They

landed in the northern part of Peru. Gold was everywhere. They found

a temple whose walls were lined with plates of gold; a palace where

every vessel, for use or for ornament, was formed of gold. The people

were gentle, and received them hospitably. But Pizarro had no more

than fourteen men with him--a force wholly inadequate for purposes

of conquest. [Sidenote: 1528 A.D.] He returned to Panama, and thence

to Spain, bearing to the King the thrilling story of his marvellous

discovery. The King bestowed large rights of government upon the

successful adventurer; and as the conversion of the natives was an

end steadily prosecuted by the Spanish Government, a bishopric in the

newly-found territory was assigned to his partner De Luque. But Pizarro

had omitted to obtain honours or advantages for Almagro--an omission

which drew in its train a long series of destructive strifes among the

conquerors.

[Sidenote: Dec. 1530 A.D.] Once more Pizarro set forth to conquer

the great kingdom of which he now claimed to be governor. His forces

consisted of one hundred and eighty-three men and thirty-seven horses.

He found it necessary to wait for additional strength; and he encamped

in an unhealthy locality, where his men suffered severely. At length

he was joined by a reinforcement of fifty-six men, one-half of whom

were mounted. He had incurred a delay of seven months; but the time

was well spent. While he waited the Peruvians lightened his task by a

civil war, in which multitudes perished. To secure retreat, in event

of disaster, Pizarro resolved to found a city. He chose a convenient

site, and erected several strong buildings, among which were a church,

a court-house, and a fortress. He left fifty men to garrison his

settlement, to which he gave the name of San Miguel, in recognition of

services rendered to him by that saint in a recent battle. He divided

the neighbouring lands among his citizens, and assigned to each a

certain number of Indians--an arrangement which, as he was assured, was

not merely indispensable to the comfort of the settlers, but “would

serve the cause of religion and tend greatly to the spiritual welfare”

of the savages thus provided for.

And now his simple preparations were completed. He had learned that at

the distance of twelve days’ journey eastward beyond the great mountain

barrier of the Cordilleras the Peruvian monarch was encamped with a

powerful army, flushed with victory in the civil war which had just

closed. It seemed a wild adventure to go forth with a hundred and

eighty men against an enemy computed at fifty thousand. But Pizarro

knew what Cortes had accomplished with means apparently as inadequate;

he trusted in the well-proved courage of his men, the vast superiority

of their arms, and the favour of the saints. He had placed himself

where hesitation must draw in its train inevitable ruin. But there was

no hesitation in the steady purpose of the resolute, tenacious Pizarro.

He determined to encounter the victorious Inca. [Sidenote: Sept. 24,

1532 A.D.] He marched forth from the gates of his little town, eastward

towards the mountains and the unknown perils which lay beyond.

For several days the march of the Spaniards led them across the rich

plains which lay between the mountains and the sea. Their progress was

easy and pleasant, and they passed several well-built and apparently

prosperous towns, whose inhabitants hospitably supplied their wants. At

length the vast heights of the Andes cast their shadows on the little

army, and the toilsome ascent was begun. The path was so steep that

the cavalry dismounted and with difficulty led their horses upward; so

narrow that there was barely room for a horse to walk; in many places

it overhung abysses thousands of feet in depth, into which men and

horses looked with fear. As they rose, the opulent vegetation of the

tropics was left behind, and they passed through dreary forests of

stunted pine-wood. The piercing cold was keenly felt by men and horses

long accustomed to the sultry temperature of the plains. But the summit

was reached in safety, and the descent of the eastern slope begun. As

they followed the downward path, each step disclosed some new scene of

grandeur or of beauty.

On the seventh day, the hungry eyes of the adventurers looked down on

a fertile valley. A broad stream flowed through its well-cultivated

meadows; the white walls of a little city glittered in the evening

sun; far as the eye could reach there stretched along the slopes of

the surrounding hills the tents which sheltered the Peruvian army. The

Spaniards had reached their destination. They had reached the city of

Cassamarca, and they were almost in presence of the Inca Atahualpa,

whom they had come to subdue and destroy. In the stoutest heart of that

little party there was for the moment “confusion, and even fear.” But

no retreat was possible now. Pizarro formed his men in order of battle,

and with unmoved countenance strode towards the city.

[Sidenote: Nov. 15, 1532 A.D.] The Inca knew of the coming of his

visitors, and had made some preparations for their reception. Quarters

were assigned to them in a range of buildings which opened upon a vast

square. It was evening when they arrived; but Pizarro lost no time in

sending one of his brothers, with Fernando de Soto and a small troop

of horsemen, to wait upon the Inca and ascertain his dispositions. The

ambassadors were admitted to the royal presence and informed that next

morning the monarch with his chieftains would visit Pizarro. Riding

back to their quarters, the men thought gloomily of the overwhelming

force into whose presence they had rashly thrust themselves. Their

comrades shared the foreboding which the visit to the Peruvian camp had

inspired. When night came on they looked out almost hopelessly upon the

watch-fires of the Peruvians, which seemed to them “as numerous as the

stars of heaven.”

Happily for the desponding warriors, the courage of their chief was

unshaken by the dangers which surrounded him. Pizarro did not conceal

from himself the jeopardy in which he stood. He saw clearly that ruin

was imminent. But he saw, too, how by a measure of desperate boldness

he might not only save his army from destruction, but make himself

master of the kingdom. He would seize the Inca in presence of his army.

Once in possession of the sacred person he could make his own terms.

He could wait for the reinforcements which his success was sure to

bring; at the worst, he could purchase a safe retreat to the coast. He

informed the soldiers of his purpose, and roused their sinking courage

by assurances of divine favour and protection.

[Sidenote: Nov. 16, 1532 A.D.] At sunrise next morning Pizarro began

to make his preparations. In the halls which formed the ground-floor

of the buildings beside the grand square he disposed his horsemen and

footmen. His two pieces of artillery were planted on the fortress which

looked down on the square. The arms of the men were carefully examined,

and the chief made himself sure that swords were sharp and arquebusses

loaded. Then mass was said, and the men, who stood ready to commit one

of the foulest crimes in history, joined devoutly in the chant, “Rise,

O Lord, and judge thine own cause.” About noon the sentinel on the

fortress reported that the Inca had set out from his camp. He himself,

seated on a throne of massive gold, was borne aloft on the shoulders

of his principal nobles; before him moved a crowd of attendants whose

duty it was to sweep every impurity from the path about to be honoured

by the advance of royalty; on either hand his soldiers gathered towards

the road to guard their King. At a little distance from the city,

Atahualpa paused, in seeming doubt as to the measure he was adopting,

and sent word to Pizarro that he would defer his visit till the morrow.

Pizarro dreaded to hold his soldiers longer under the strain which

approaching danger laid upon them. He sent to entreat the Inca to

resume his journey, and the Inca complied with the treacherous request.

About sunset the procession reached the gates of the square. The

servants, drawing aside, opened an avenue along which the monarch was

borne. After him a multitude of Peruvians of all ranks crowded into

the square, till five or six thousand men were present. No Spaniard

had yet been seen; for Pizarro apparently shunned to look in the face

of the man whom he had betrayed. At length his chaplain advanced and

began to explain to the astonished monarch the leading doctrines of

the Christian religion. As his exposition proceeded, it was noticed

that the Peruvian troops were drawing closer to the city. Pizarro

hastened now to strike the blow which he had prepared. A gun was fired

from the fortress. At this appointed signal the Spaniards rushed

from their hiding-places. The musketeers plied their deadly weapons.

The cavalry spurred fiercely among the unarmed crowd. High overhead

flashed the swords of the pitiless assailants. The ground was quickly

heaped with dead, and even flight was impossible until a portion of

the wall which bounded the square yielded under the pressure of the

crowd and permitted many to gain the open country. Around the Inca a

fierce battle raged,--such a battle as can be fought between armed and

steel-clad men and others without arms, offering their defenceless

bosoms to the steel of the slayer in the vain hope that thus they might

purchase the safety of their master. The bearers of the Inca were

struck down, and he himself was taken prisoner and instantly secured.

The cavalry, giving full scope to the fierce passions which the fight

aroused, urged the pursuit of the fugitives far beyond the limits

of the city. The Peruvian army, panic-stricken by these appalling

circumstances, broke and fled. Less than an hour ago Atahualpa was a

great monarch, whose wish was the law of a nation; the possessor of

vast treasures; the commander of a powerful army. Now his throne was

overturned; his army had disappeared; he himself was a captive in the

hands of strangers, regarding whom he knew only that their strength was

irresistible and their hearts fierce and cruel.

The fallen monarch, perceiving the insatiable greed of gold which

inspired his captors, sought to regain his liberty by offers whose

magnitude bewildered the Spaniards. He offered to fill with gold, up

to a height of nine feet, a room whose area was seventeen feet in

breadth and twenty-two feet in length. A room of smaller dimensions

was to be twice filled with silver; and he asked only two months to

collect this enormous ransom. The offer was accepted, and the Inca sent

messengers to all his cities commanding that temples and palaces should

be stripped of their ornaments. In a few weeks Indian bearers began to

arrive at Cassamarca, laden to their utmost capacity with silver and

gold. Day by day they poured in, bearing great golden vessels, which

had been used in the palaces; great plates of gold, which had lined

the walls and roofs of temples; crowns and collars and bracelets of

gold, which the chieftains gave up in the hope that they would procure

the liberty of their master. At length the room was filled up to the

red line which Pizarro had drawn upon the wall as his record of this

extraordinary bargain. When it was acknowledged that the Inca had

completely fulfilled his stipulation,[26] Pizarro executed an Act in

presence of a notary, and proclaimed it to the sound of the trumpet

in the great square of Cassamarca. By this document he certified that

the Inca had paid the stipulated ransom, and was now in consequence

liberated. But he did not, in actual fact, set the captive monarch

free. On the contrary, he informed him that until a larger number of

Spaniards arrived to hold the country, it was necessary for the service

of the King of Spain that Atahualpa should continue a prisoner.

Meanwhile rumours became current in the camp that Atahualpa had ordered

a great rising of his people to destroy the invaders. The Spaniards

had been recently joined by Almagro with important reinforcements;

but still they were no more than four hundred men, and they were in

possession of treasure which exposed them to apprehensions unfelt

by the penniless adventurer. It was asserted that a vast army was

gathering only a hundred miles away; at length the imaginary force was

reported to be within ten miles. The cry arose that the Inca should

be brought to trial for his treasonable practices. A court was formed,

with Pizarro and Almagro as presiding judges; counsel were named to

prosecute and defend; charges were framed,[27] and the unhappy Inca

was placed at the bar. The evidence taken reached the court through

the doubtful channel of an Indian interpreter, who, it was believed,

sought the destruction of the prisoner. The judges occupied themselves

with discussion, not of the guilt of the accused, but of the results

which his execution might be expected to produce. Their judgment was

death by burning, as befitted an idolater. [Sidenote: Aug. 29, 1533

A.D.] The whole army claimed a voice in the great decision. A few

condemned the proceedings, and urged that the Inca should be sent to

Spain to wait the pleasure of the King. But the voice of the larger

number confirmed the sentence of the court, and it was intimated to

Atahualpa that he must prepare for immediate death. The fallen monarch

lost, for a moment, the habitual calmness with which an Indian warrior

is accustomed to meet death. With many tears he besought Pizarro to

spare him. Even the stern conqueror was moved in view of misery so

deep; but he was without power to reverse the doom which his army had

spoken. Two hours after sunset, Atahualpa was led forth, with chains

on hand and foot. The great square was lighted up by torches, and the

Spanish soldiers gathered around the closing scene in the ruin which

they had wrought. The Inca was bound to the stake, and rude hands piled

high the fagots around him. A friar who had instructed him in Christian

doctrine besought him to accept the faith, promising in that event the

leniency of death by the cord instead of the flame. Atahualpa accepted

the offered grace, and abjured his idolatry. He was instantly baptized

under the name of Juan, in honour of John the Baptist, on whose day

this conversion was achieved. With his latest breath he implored

Pizarro to have pity on his little children. While he spoke, the string

of a cross-bow was tightened around his neck, and, with the rugged

soldiers muttering “credos” for the repose of his soul, the last of the

Incas submitted to death in its most ignominious form. Next morning

they gave him Christian burial in the little wooden church which they

had already erected in Cassamarca. His great lords, as we are assured,

“received much satisfaction” from the honour thus bestowed upon their

unhappy prince.[28]

[Sidenote: Sept. 1533 A.D.] Almost immediately after these occurrences

Pizarro marched southward and possessed himself easily of the Peruvian

capital--“the great and holy city of Cusco.” Although the capital had

parted with much of its treasure in obedience to the requisition of

its captive monarch, there still remained a vast spoil to enrich the

plunderers. In especial, mention is made of ten or twelve statues of

female figures, of life size, made wholly of fine gold, “beautiful and

well-formed as if they had been alive.” The Spaniards appropriated

these and much besides. The great Temple of the Sun was speedily

rifled; for the piety of the conquerors conspired with their avarice to

hasten the downfall of idolatrous edifices. In this temple the embalmed

bodies of former Incas, richly adorned, sat on golden thrones beside

the golden image of the Sun. The venerated mummies were now stripped

and cast aside. The image of the Sun became the prize of a common

soldier, by whom it was quickly lost in gambling. Pizarro claimed the

land for the Church as well as for the King. He overthrew temples;

he cast down idols; he set up crosses on all highways; he erected a

Christian place of worship in Cusco.

Cusco was the worthy capital of a great empire. It was of vast extent,

and contained a population variously estimated at from two to four

hundred thousand persons. The streets crossed regularly at right

angles; the houses were built mainly of stone, with light thatched

roofs. The numerous palaces[29] were of great size, and splendid beyond

anything the conquerors had seen in Europe. A mighty fortress, built

upon a lofty rock, looked down on the city. It was formed of enormous

blocks of stone, fitted with such care that the point of junction could

not be discovered. Two streams descending from the mountains flowed

through the city in channels lined with masonry. This noble city was

the pride of all Peruvians. It was to them all that Jerusalem was to

the ancient Jews or Rome to the Romans.

The natives offered no considerable resistance to the entrance of

the conquerors. Vast multitudes had gathered out of the neighbouring

country. They looked with wonder and with awe upon the terrible

strangers who had slain their monarch, who were now marching at their

ease through the land, claiming as their own whatever they desired.

They heard the heavy tramp of the war-horse and the strange thrilling

notes of the trumpet. They saw the mysterious arms before whose

destructive power so many of their countrymen had fallen, and the

bright mail within whose shelter the Spaniard could slay in safety

the undefended Indian. They may well have regarded the fierce bearded

warriors as beings of supernatural strength and supernatural wickedness.

But the time came when they could no longer endure the measureless

wrongs which had been heaped upon them; when they were impelled to

dash themselves against the mailed host of their conquerors and perish

under their blows if they could not destroy them. No injury which it

was possible for man to inflict upon his fellows had been omitted in

their bitter experience. Their King had been betrayed and ignominiously

slain; their temples had been profaned and plundered; their

possessions had been seized or destroyed; dishonour had been laid upon

them in their domestic relations; they themselves had been subjected to

compulsory service so ruthlessly enforced that many of them died under

the unaccustomed toil. They were now to make one supreme effort to cast

off this oppression, which had already gone far to destroy the life of

their nation.

[Sidenote: Jan. 1535 A.D.] Pizarro--raised to the dignity of

Marquis--had retired to the coast, where he occupied himself in

founding and embellishing the city of Lima. His brother Fernando--a

stout-hearted and skilful captain--was left in charge of Cusco. Danger

was not apprehended, and the garrison of Cusco was no more than

two hundred Spaniards and a thousand native auxiliaries. While the

Spaniards enjoyed their lordly repose in the splendid palaces of the

fallen monarchy, the Peruvian chiefs organized a formidable revolt.

From all the provinces of the empire multitudes of armed natives

gathered around Cusco, and took up position on hills where they were

safe from the attack of Spanish horsemen. Many of them were armed with

lances or axes of copper tempered so that they were scarcely less

effective than steel. Every man in all those dusky ranks was prepared

to spend his life in the effort to rescue the sacred city from this

abhorred invasion. [Sidenote: Feb. 1536 A.D.] They set fire to the

city; they forced their way into the streets, and fought hand to hand

with the Spaniards in desperate disregard of the inequality of their

arms. They fell slaughtered in thousands; but in six days’ fighting

they had gained the fortress and nearly all of the city which the

flames had spared. The Spaniards held only the great square and a few

of the surrounding houses. Some despaired, and began to urge that they

should mount and ride for the coast, forcing their way through the

lines of the besiegers. But the stout heart of Fernando Pizarro quailed

not in presence of the tremendous danger. In his mind, he told them,

there was not and there had not been any fear. If he were left alone

he would maintain the defence till he died, rather than have it said

that another gained the city and he lost it. The Spaniard of that day

was unsurpassed in courage, and his spirit rose to the highest pitch

of daring in response to the appeal of a trusted leader. The men laid

aside all thought of flight, and addressed themselves to the capture

of the great fortress. This strong position was fiercely attacked, and

defended with unavailing heroism. Many Spaniards were slain, among

whom was Juan, one of the Pizarro brothers, on whose undefended head a

great stone inflicted fatal injury. The slaughter of Indians was very

great. At length their ammunition failed them--the stones and javelins

and arrows with which they maintained the defence were exhausted. Their

leader had compelled the admiration of the Spaniards by his heroic

bearing throughout the fight. When he had struck his last blow for his

ruined country he flung his club among the besiegers, and, casting

himself down from the height of the battlement, perished in the fall.

“There is not written of any Roman such a deed as he did,” says the

Spanish chronicler. [Sidenote: May, 1536 A.D.] The defence now ceased;

the Spaniards forced their way into the fortress, and slaughtered

without mercy the fifteen hundred men whom they found there.

For several weeks longer the Indians blockaded Cusco, and the Spaniards

were occasionally straitened in regard to supplies; but always at the

time of new moon the Indians withdrew for the performance of certain

religious ceremonies, and the Spaniards were able then to replenish

their exhausted granaries. The siege languished, and finally ceased,

but not till the Spaniards had practised for some time the cruel

measure of putting to death every Indian woman whom they seized.

* * * * *

But now misery in a new form came upon this unhappy country. Fierce

strifes arose among the conquerors themselves. Pizarro had gained

higher honours and ampler plunder than had fallen to the share of his

partner Almagro, and it does not seem that he was scrupulous in his

fulfilment of the contract by whose terms an equal division of spoil

was fixed. Almagro appeared on the scene with an overwhelming force,

to assert his own rights. For ten or twelve years from this time the

history of Peru represents to us a country ungoverned and in confusion;

a native population given over to slavery, and wasting under the

exactions of ruthless task-masters; fierce wars between the conquerors

devastating the land. [Sidenote: 1537 A.D.] Tranquillity was not

restored till a large portion of the native population had perished,

and till all the chiefs of this marvellous conquest had died as

miserably as the Indians they had destroyed. Almagro entered Cusco, and

made prisoners of the two brothers Fernando and Gonzalo Pizarro; whom,

however, he soon liberated. [Sidenote: 1538 A.D.] He, in turn, fell

into the hands of Fernando, by whose orders he was brought for trial

before a tribunal set up for that occasion in Cusco. He was condemned

to die;--partly for his “notorious crimes;” partly because, as the

council deemed, his death “would prevent many other deaths.” On the

same day the old man, feeble, decrepit, and begging piteously for life,

was strangled in prison and afterwards beheaded. Immediately after

this occurrence Fernando Pizarro sailed for Spain, where his enemies

had gained the ear of the King. Fernando was imprisoned, and was not

released for twenty-three years, till his long life of a hundred years

was near its close. [Sidenote: 1541 A.D.] Three years after the death

of Almagro, the Marquis Pizarro, now a man of seventy, was set upon in

his own house in Lima and murdered by a band of soldiers dissatisfied

with the portion of spoil which had fallen to their share. The close

of that marvellous career was in strange contrast to its brilliant

course. After a stout defence against overwhelming force, a fatal wound

in the throat prostrated the brave old man. He asked for a confessor,

and received for answer a blow on the face. With his finger he traced

the figure of a cross on the ground, and pressed his dying lips on

the hallowed symbol. Thus passed the stern conqueror and destroyer

of the Peruvian nation. [Sidenote: 1548 A.D.] A few years after the

assassination of the Marquis, his brother Gonzalo was beheaded for

having resisted the authority of Spain; and he died so poor, as he

himself stated on the scaffold, that even the garments he wore belonged

to the executioner who was to cut off his head. The partnership which

was formed at Panama a quarter of a century before, had brought wealth

and fame, but it conducted those who were chiefly concerned in it to

misery and shameful death.

* * * * *

From Peru the tide of Spanish conquest flowed southward to Chili. The

river Plate was explored; Buenos Ayres was founded; and communication

was opened from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Forty years after the

landing of Columbus, the margins of the continent bordering on the

sea had been subdued and possessed, and some progress had been made

in gaining knowledge of the interior. There had been added to the

dominions of Spain vast regions, whose coast-line on the west stretched

from Mexico southward for the distance of six thousand miles--regions

equal in length to the whole of Africa, and largely exceeding in

breadth the whole of the Russian Empire. It has now to be shown how

ill-prepared was Spain for this sudden and enormous addition to her

responsibilities--how huge have been the evils which her possession of

the new continent inflicted upon mankind.

CHAPTER II.

THE INDIANS OF SPANISH AMERICA.

The native populations with which the Spaniards were brought into

contact differed widely, in respect of the degree of civilization

to which they had attained, from the Indians of the Northern

Continent. The first colonists of Virginia, Massachusetts, and the

St. Lawrence valley found the soil possessed by fierce tribes, wholly

without knowledge of the arts of civilized life. The savages of the

north supported themselves almost entirely by the chase, regarding

agriculture with contempt; their dwellings were miserable huts; their

clothing was the skins of the beasts which they slew; they were without

fixed places of abode, and wandered hither and thither in the forest

as their hopes of success in hunting directed. They left no traces of

their presence on the land which they inhabited--no cleared forest, nor

cultivated field, nor fragment of building. They were still savage and

debased in a degree almost as extreme as humanity has ever been known

to reach.

The inhabitants of the islands where Columbus first landed were the

least civilized of the southern races. But the genial conditions of

climate under which they lived, and the abundance with which nature

surrounded them, seemed to have softened their dispositions and made

them gentle and inoffensive and kind. They were scarcely clothed at

all, but they lived in well-built villages and cultivated the ground.

Their wants were few; and as the spontaneous bounty of nature for the

most part supplied these, they spent their days in simple, harmless

indolence. Land among them was “as common as the sun and water.”

They gave willingly, and without hope of recompense, any of their

possessions which visitors desired to obtain. To the pleased eye of

Columbus they seemed “to live in the golden world without toil; living

in open gardens, not intrenched with dikes, divided by hedges, or

defended with walls.”

The natives of Central America were of a fiercer character and more

accustomed to war than those of the islands. They had also made

greater progress in the arts; and the ornaments of gold which the

Spaniards received from them evidenced considerable skill in working

the precious metals. They wore mantles of cotton cloth, and must,

therefore, have mastered the arts of spinning and weaving. Their

achievements in architecture and sculpture still remain to excite the

wonder of the antiquary. Here and there, wrapped almost impenetrably

in the profuse vegetation of the forest, there have been found ruined

cities, once of vast extent. These cities must have been protected by

great walls--lofty, massive, skilfully built. They contained temples,

carefully plastered and painted; and numerous altars and images, whose

rich sculptures still attest the skill of the barbarian artist.

It was, however, in the ancient monarchies of Mexico and Peru that

American civilization reached its highest development. The Mexican

people lived under a despotic Government; but their rights were secured

by a gradation of courts, with judges appointed by the Crown, or in

certain cases elected by the people themselves, and holding their

offices for life. Evidence was given on oath, and the proceedings of

the courts were regularly recorded. A judge who accepted bribes was

put to death. The marriage ceremony was surrounded with the sanctions

of religion, and divorce was granted only as the result of careful

investigation by a tribunal set up for that special business. Slavery

existed; but it was not hereditary, and all Mexicans were born free.

Taxation was imposed according to fixed rates, and regular accounts

were kept by an officer appointed to that service. The Mexicans had

made no inconsiderable progress in manufactures. They wove cotton

cloths of exceedingly fine texture, and adorned them with an embroidery

of feather-work marvellously beautiful. They produced paper from the

leaf of the Mexican aloe; they extracted sugar from the stalk of

the Indian corn. They made and beautifully embellished vessels of

gold and silver; they produced in abundance vessels of crystal and

earthenware for domestic use. They had not attained to the use of

iron; but they understood how to harden copper with an alloy of tin

till it was fitted both for arms and for mechanical tools. Agriculture

was their most honourable employment, and was followed by the whole

population excepting the nobles and the soldiers. It was prosecuted

with reasonable skill--irrigation being practised, land being suffered

to lie fallow for the recovery of its exhausted energies; laws being

enacted to prevent the destruction of the woods. The better class of

dwellings in cities were well-built houses of stone and lime; the

streets were solidly paved; public order was maintained by an effective

police. Europe was indebted to the Mexicans for its knowledge of the

cochineal insect, whose rich crimson was much used for dyeing fine

cotton cloths. The Mexicans were without knowledge of the alphabet

till the Spaniards brought it; but they practised with much skill an

ingenious system of hieroglyphic painting, which served them fairly

well for the transmission of intelligence. Montezuma was informed of

the coming of the Spaniards by paintings which represented their ships

and horses and armour.

Notwithstanding the industrial progress of this remarkable people,

their social condition was, in some respects, inexpressibly debased.

It was their custom to offer to their gods multitudes of human

sacrifices. Their most powerful motive in going to war was to obtain

prisoners for this purpose; and the prowess of a warrior was judged

by the number of victims whom he had secured and brought to the

sacrificing priest. Wealthy Mexicans were accustomed to give banquets,

from which they sought to gain social distinction by the culinary

skill exercised and the large variety of delicacies presented. One of

the dishes on which the cook put forth all his powers was the flesh

of a slave slaughtered for the occasion.[30] The civilization of the

Mexicans was fatally obstructed by their religion. The priesthood was

numerous, and possessed of commanding authority. The people regarded

the voice of the priest as that of the deity to which he ministered,

and they lived under the power of a bloody and degrading superstition.

Here, as it has been elsewhere, a religion which in its origin was

merely a reflection of the good and the evil existing in the character

of the people, stamped divine sanction upon their errors, and thus

rendered progress impossible.

For two or three centuries before her fall, Peru had constantly

extended her dominion over her less civilized neighbours. Her

supremacy was widely recognized, and many of the surrounding tribes

were persuaded to accept peacefully the advantages which her strong

and mild government afforded. It was her wise policy to admit her new

subjects, whether they were gained by negotiation or by force, to an

equality of privilege with the rest of the people, and to present

inducements which led quickly to the adoption of her own religion and

language. By measures such as these the empire was consolidated while

it was extended, and its tranquillity was seldom marred by internal

discontent. When the Peruvian empire received its sudden death-blow

from the Spanish conquerors, it was doing the useful work which

England has done in India, and Russia in Central Asia--subjugating the

savage nations whose territories lay around and imparting to them the

benefits of a civilization higher than their own.

Peru was governed according to the principles of Communism. A portion

of land was set apart for the Sun--the national deity--and its revenues

were expended in the support of temples and a priesthood. A second

portion belonged to the Inca--the child and representative of the

Sun. The remainder was divided annually among the people. All shared

equally. When a young man married he received a fixed addition; when

children were born to him further increase was granted. He might not

sell his land or purchase that of his neighbour; he could not improve

his condition and become rich. But neither could he suffer from want;

for the Government provided for his support if he could not provide for

it himself, and poverty was unknown. It was equally impossible to be

idle, for the Government enforced the exercise of industrious habits.

Agriculture was the national employment. To illustrate its dignity, the

Inca was wont on great public occasions to put his own divine hand to

the plough and reveal himself to his people in the act of turning over

the fruitful sod. The Peruvians were acquainted with the virtues of the

guano, which was piled in mountains upon the islands lying along their

coasts, and were careful to protect by stern laws the sea-fowl to which

they were indebted for the precious deposit. Between the sea and the

mountains there stretched a level expanse on which rain never fell.

This otherwise profitless region was nourished into high fertility by

an elaborate system of irrigation. On the mountains the solid rock

was hewn into terraces and covered with soil laboriously carried up

from below. In the valleys flourished the tropical banana and cassava

tree. On the lower ranges of the mountains grew the maize. At a greater

height appeared the American aloe, the tobacco plant, and the coca,

the favourite narcotic of the Indian. Yet further up the mountain-side

Europeans first saw the potato, then largely cultivated in Peru, and

destined at a later time to attain vast social and even political

significance in the Old World.

The public works of Peru furnish striking evidence of the industry

of the people and the enlightened views of their rulers. Two great

roads traversed the country from north to south. One of these, whose

length is estimated at fifteen hundred miles, ascended the mountains

and passed along the plateau, at a height occasionally of twelve

thousand feet; the other ran parallel in the plain which was bordered

by the sea. The construction of the upper road was necessarily a

work of prodigious difficulty. Vast ravines had to be filled with

solid masonry; lofty masses of rock had to be pierced by galleries or

surmounted by a long succession of steps; bridges formed of osiers

twisted into huge cables had to be hung across rivers. The roadway

was formed of massive paving-stones and of concrete; and although no

wheeled vehicle or beast of burden other than the llama passed over

it, the Spaniards remarked with grateful surprise on its perfect

smoothness. There was no road in Europe so well built and so well

maintained. Since the conquest it has been suffered to fall into ruin;

but here and there, where mountain-torrents have washed the soil from

underneath, massive fragments of this ancient work are still to be seen

hanging in air, so tenacious were the materials used, so indestructible

was the structure produced.

The Peruvians had gained no inconsiderable skill in textile

manufacture. Cotton grew abundantly on the sultry plains. Large

supplies of wool of extreme fineness were obtained from the Peruvian

sheep. Two varieties of these--the llama and the alpaca--were

domesticated and carefully watched over by Government officers. Two

other varieties roamed wild upon the mountains. But once in the year

a great hunt was organized under royal authority; the wanderers were

caught and shorn; and the wool thus obtained was carried to the royal

store-house. Thence it was given out to the people, to be woven into

garments for themselves and for the Inca. The beauty of the fabrics

which were produced awakened the admiration of the Spaniards, as

greatly superior to the finest products of European looms.

The sons of the great nobles were instructed in the simple learning of

the country, in seminaries erected for that purpose; beyond the narrow

circle of the aristocracy education did not pass. Some of these youths

were to be priests, and they were taught the complicated ritual of the

national religion. Some would have to do with the administration of

public affairs, and these were required to acquaint themselves with

the laws. Many would become subordinate officers of Government, having

charge of revenues; recording births and deaths--for the registration

system of the Peruvians was painstaking and accurate; taking account of

the stores received and given out at the royal magazines. These were

instructed in the Peruvian method of keeping records--by means of knots

tied upon a collection of threads of different colours. The education

of the nobles did not extend further, for little more was known; and as

the Peruvian intellect was devoid of energy and the power to originate,

the boundaries of knowledge were not extending. The masses of the

people lived in contented ignorance; pleased with the Government which

directed all their actions and supplied all their wants; enjoying a

fulness of comfort such as has seldom been enjoyed by any population;

without ambition, without progress, but also without repining; wholly

satisfied with the position in which they were born and in which they

lived; experiencing no rise and no fall from one generation to another.

* * * * *

Such were the people upon whom there now fell, with awful suddenness,

the blight of Spanish conquest. Their numbers cannot be told with

any approach to accuracy, for the estimates left by the conquerors

are widely diverse. The population of the city of Mexico is set down

by some writers at sixty thousand; by others, with equal opportunity

for observation, at six hundred thousand; and a divergence equally

baffling attends most of the statements which have been supplied to

us. There is, however, abundant evidence that the Southern Continent

was the home of a very numerous population. The means of subsistence

were easily obtained; in Peru marriage was compulsory; the duration of

life and the increase of population were not restrained, as in Northern

America, by severity of climate and the toil necessarily undergone

in the effort to procure food. Cortes, on his way to Mexico, came to

a valley where for a distance of twelve miles there was a continuous

line of houses. Everywhere near the coast the Spaniards found large

villages, and often towns of considerable size. Peru was undoubtedly a

populous State; and the great plateau over which Mexico ruled contained

many tributary cities of importance. One Spanish writer estimates that

forty million of Indians had perished within half a century after the

conquest;--beyond doubt an extravagant estimate, but the use of such

figures by an intelligent observer is in itself evidence that the

continent was inhabited by a vast multitude of human beings.

The power of resistance of this great population was wholly

insignificant. The men were not wanting in courage; the Peruvians,

at least, were not without a rude military discipline: but they were

inferior in physical strength to their assailants; they were without

horses and without iron; their solitary hope lay in their overwhelming

numbers. They were powerfully reinforced by the diseases which struck

down the invaders; but their own poor efforts at defence, heroic and

self-devoted as these were, sufficed to inflict only trivial injury

upon their well-defended conquerors. A vast continent, with many

millions of men ready to die in defence of their homes, fell before the

assault of enemies who never at any point numbered over a few hundreds.

The invaders claimed the continent and all that it held as the property

of the Spanish Sovereign, upon whom these great possessions had been

liberally bestowed by the Pope. The grant of his Holiness conveyed not

only the lands but also the infidels by whom they were inhabited; and

the Spaniards assumed without hesitation that the Indians belonged to

them, and were rightfully applicable to any of their purposes. Upon

this doctrine their early relations with the natives were based. The

demand for native labour was immediate and urgent. There was gold to

be found in the rivers and mountains of the islands, and the natives

were compelled to labour in mining--a description of work unknown

to them before. There was no beast of burden on all the continent,

excepting the llama, which the Peruvians had trained to carry a weight

of about a hundred pounds; but the Spaniards had much transport work to

do. When an army moved, its heavy stores had to be carried for great

distances, and frequently by ways which a profuse tropical vegetation

rendered almost impassable. Occasionally it happened that the materials

for vessels were shaped out far from the waters on which they were to

sail. Very often it pleased the lordly humour of the conquerors to be

borne in litters on men’s shoulders when they travelled. The Indian

became the beast of burden of the Spaniard. Every little army was

accompanied by its complement of Indian bearers, governed by the lash

held in brutal hands. When Cortes prepared at Tlascala the materials of

the fleet with which he besieged Mexico--when Vasco Nuñez prepared on

the Atlantic the materials of ships which were to be launched on the

Pacific, the deadly work of transport was performed by Indians. The

native allies were compelled to rebuild the city of Mexico, carrying or

dragging the stones and timber from a distance, suffering all the while

the miseries of famine. Indians might often have been seen bearing on

bleeding shoulders the litter of a Spaniard--some ruffian, it might

well happen, fresh from the jails of Castile.

The Indians--especially those of the islands, feeble in constitution

and unaccustomed to labour--perished in multitudes under these toils.

The transport of Vasco Nuñez’s ships across the isthmus cost five

hundred Indian lives. Food became scarce, and the wretched slaves who

worked in the mines of Hispaniola were insufficiently fed. The waste of

life among the miners was enormous. All around the great mines unburied

bodies polluted the air. Many sought refuge in suicide from lives of

intolerable misery. Mothers destroyed their children to save them from

the suffering which they themselves endured.

Nor was it only excessive labour which wasted the native population.

The slightest outrage by Indians was avenged by indiscriminate

massacre. Constant expeditions went out from Spanish settlements

to plunder little Indian towns. When resistance was offered, the

inhabitants were slaughtered. If the people gave up their gold and

their slender store of provisions, many of them were subjected to

torture in order to compel further disclosures. Vasco Nuñez, who was

deemed a humane man, wrote that on one expedition he had hanged thirty

chiefs, and would hang as many as he could seize: the Spaniards, he

argued, being so few, they had no other means of securing their own

safety. Columbus himself, conscious that the gold he had been able to

send fell short of the expectation entertained in Spain, remitted to

the King five hundred Indians, whom he directed to be sold as slaves

and their price devoted to the cost of his majesty’s wars. Yet further:

there came in the train of the conquerors the scourge of small-pox,

which swept down the desponding and enfeebled natives in multitudes

whose number it is impossible to estimate. The number of Indian orphans

furnished terrible evidence of the rigour of the Spaniards. “They are

numerous,” writes one merciful Spaniard, “as the stars of heaven and

the sands of the sea.” And yet the conquerors often slew children and

parents together.

It was on the islanders that these appalling calamities first

fell. They fell with a crushing power which speedily amounted to

extermination. When Columbus first looked upon the luxuriant beauty

of Hispaniola, and received the hospitality of its gentle and docile

people, that ill-fated island contained a population of at least a

million. Fifteen years later the number had fallen to sixty thousand.

The inhabitants of other islands were kidnapped and carried to

Hispaniola, to take up the labours of her unhappy people, and to perish

as they had done. In thirty years more there were only two hundred

Indians left on this island. It fared no better with many of the

others. At a later period, when most of these possessions fell into the

hands of the English, no trace of the original population was left. On

the mainland, too, enormous waste of life occurred. No estimate lower

than ten million has ever been offered of the destruction of natives

by the Spanish conquest, and this number is probably far within the

appalling truth. Human history, dishonoured as it has ever been by the

record of blood causelessly and wantonly shed, has no page so dreadful

as this.

But although there prevailed among the conquerors a terrible unanimity

in this barbarous treatment of the natives, there were some who

stood forward with noble courage and persistency in defence of the

perishing races. [Sidenote: 1502 A.D.] Most prominent among these was

Bartholomew de Las Casas, a young priest, who came to the island of

Hispaniola ten years after Columbus had landed there. He was a man of

eager, fervid nature, but wise and good--self-sacrificing, eloquent,

bold to attack the evils which surrounded him, nobly tenacious in his

life-long efforts to protect the helpless nations whom his countrymen

were destroying. He came to Hispaniola at a time when the island was

being rapidly depopulated, and he witnessed the methods by which this

result was accomplished. [Sidenote: 1511 A.D.] Some years later he was

sent for to assist in the pacification of Cuba. In the discharge of

this task he travelled much in the island, baptizing the children. One

morning he and his escort of a hundred men halted for breakfast in the

dry bed of a stream. The men sharpened their swords upon stones which

abounded there suitable for that purpose. A crowd of harmless natives

had come out from a neighbouring town to gaze upon the horses and arms

of the strangers. Suddenly a soldier, influenced, as it was believed,

by the devil, drew his sword and cut down one of the Indians. In an

instant the diabolic suggestion communicated itself to the whole force,

and a hundred newly-sharpened swords were hewing at the half-naked

savages. Before Las Casas could stay this mad slaughter the ground

was cumbered with heaps of dead bodies. The good priest knew the full

horrors of Spanish conquest.

When the work of pacification in Cuba was supposed to be complete,

Las Casas received from the Governor certain lands, with a suitable

allotment of Indians. He owns that at that time he did not greatly

concern himself about the spiritual condition of his slaves, but

sought, as others did, to make profit by their labour. It was his duty,

however, occasionally to say mass and to preach. [Sidenote: 1514 A.D.]

Once, while preparing his discourse, he came upon certain passages in

the book of Ecclesiasticus in which the claims of the poor are spoken

of, and the guilt of the man who wrongs the helpless. Years before,

he had heard similar views enforced by a Dominican monk, whose words

rose up in his memory now. He stood, self-convicted, a defrauder of

the poor. He yielded a prompt obedience to the new convictions which

possessed him, and gave up his slaves; he laboured to persuade his

countrymen that they endangered their souls by holding Indians in

slavery. His remonstrances availed nothing, and he resolved to carry

the wrongs of the Indians to Spain and lay them before the King.

[Sidenote: 1515 A.D.] Ferdinand--old and feeble, and now within a few

weeks of the grave--heard him with deep attention as he told how the

Indians were perishing in multitudes, without the faith and without the

sacraments; how the country was being ruined; how the revenue was being

diminished. The King would have tried to redress these vast wrongs, and

fixed a time when he would listen to a fuller statement; but he died

before a second interview could be held.

The wise Cardinal Ximenes, who became Regent of the kingdom at

Ferdinand’s death, entered warmly into the views of Las Casas. He

asserted that the Indians were free, and he framed regulations which

were intended to secure their freedom and provide for their instruction

in the faith. He chose three Jeronymite fathers to administer these

regulations; for the best friends of the Indians were to be found among

the monks and clergy. He sent out Las Casas with large authority,

and named him “Protector of the Indians.” [Sidenote: 1516 A.D.] But

in a few months the Cardinal lay upon his death-bed, and when Las

Casas returned to complain of obstructions which he encountered,

this powerful friend of the Indians was almost unable to listen to

the tale of their wrongs. The young King Charles assumed the reins

of government, and became absorbed in large, incessant, desolating

European wars. The home interests of the Empire were urgent; the

colonies were remote; the settlers were powerful and obstinate in

maintaining their right to deal according to their own pleasure with

the Indians. For another twenty-five years the evils of the American

colonies lay unremedied; the cruelty under which the natives were

destroyed suffered no effective restraint.

CHAPTER III.

SPANISH GOVERNMENT OF THE NEW WORLD.

The ruin which fell on the native population of the New World was at no

time promoted by the rulers of Spain; it was the spontaneous result of

the unhappy circumstances which the conquest produced. In early life

Columbus had been familiarized with the African slave-trade; and he

carried with him to the world which he discovered the conviction that

not only the lands he found, but all the heathens who inhabited them,

became the absolute property of the Spanish Sovereigns. [Sidenote:

1495 A.D.] He had not been long in Hispaniola till he imposed upon all

Indians over fourteen years of age a tribute in gold or in cotton.

But it was found impossible to collect this tribute; and Columbus,

desisting from the attempt to levy taxes upon his subjects, ordained

that, instead, they should render personal service on the fields and

in the mines of the Spaniards. [Sidenote: 1496 A.D.] Columbus had

authority from his Government to reward his followers with grants of

lands, but he had yet no authority to include in his gift those who

dwelt upon the lands. But of what avail was it to give land if no

labour could be obtained? Columbus, on his own responsibility, made

to his followers such grants of Indians as he deemed reasonable. He

intended that these grants should be only temporary, till the condition

of the country should be more settled; but the time never came when

those who received consented to relinquish them.

A few years later, when the Indians had gained some experience of the

ways of the Spaniards, they began to shun the presence of their new

masters. They shunned them, wrote Las Casas, “as naturally as the

bird shuns the hawk.” It was reported by the Governor, Ovando, that

this policy interfered with the spread of the faith as well as with

the prosperity of the settlements. [Sidenote: 1503 A.D.] He received

from the Spanish Monarchs authority to compel the Indians to work

for such wages as he chose to appoint, and also to attend mass and

receive instruction. The liberty of the Indians was asserted; but in

presence of the conditions under which they were now to live, liberty

was impossible. Ovando lost no time in acting on his instructions. He

distributed large numbers of Indians, with no other obligation imposed

upon those who received them than that the savages should be taught the

holy Catholic faith.

[Sidenote: Nov. 1504 A.D.] Next year the good Queen Isabella died.

She had loved the Indians, and her influence sufficed to restrain the

evils which were ready to burst upon them. Her death greatly emboldened

the colonists in their oppressive treatment of their unhappy servants.

The search for gold had become eminently successful, and there arose a

vehement demand for labourers. King Ferdinand was a reasonably humane

man, but the welfare of his Indian subjects did not specially concern

him. There were many men who had done him service which called for

acknowledgment. The King had little money to spare, but a grant of

Indians was an acceptable reward. That was the coin in which the claims

of expectants were now satisfied. The King soothed his conscience by

declaring that such grants were not permanent, but might be revoked

at his pleasure. Meantime the population of the islands wasted with

terrible rapidity.

In course of time the colonists desired that their rights should

be placed upon a more stable footing, and they sent messengers to

the King to request that their Indians should be given to them in

perpetuity, or at least for two or three generations. [Sidenote: 1512

A.D.] Their prayer was not granted; but the King summoned a Junta,

and the Indians became, for the first time, the subjects of formal

legislation. The legality of the system under which they were forced

to labour was now clearly established. In other respects the laws

were intended, for the most part, to ameliorate the condition of the

labourers. But it was only at a few points the new regulations could be

enforced. By most of the colonists they were disregarded.

Thirty miserable years passed, during which, although the incessant

labours of Las Casas gained occasional successes, the colonists

exercised their cruel pleasure upon the native population. The islands

were almost depopulated, and negroes were being imported from Africa

to take the place of the labourers who had been destroyed. Mexico

had fallen, with a slaughter which has been estimated by millions.

Of the numerous cities which Cortes passed on his way to Mexico,

“nothing,” says a report addressed to the King, “is now remaining but

the sites.” In Peru it was asserted by an eye-witness that one-half

or two-thirds of men and cattle had been destroyed. The survivors

of these unparalleled calamities had fallen into a condition of

apathy and indifference from which it was impossible to arouse them.

The conquerors had not yet penetrated deeply into the heart of the

continent; but they had visited its coasts, and wherever they had gone

desolation attended their steps.

[Sidenote: 1542 A.D.] The Spanish Government had made many efforts

to curb the lawless greed and cruelty of the conquerors. Now a Junta

was summoned and a new code of laws enacted. Again the freedom of the

Indians was asserted, and any attempt to enslave them forbidden. The

colonists had assumed that the allotments of Indians made to them

were not subject to recall. But it was now declared that all such

allotments were only for the single life of the original possessor; at

his death they reverted to the Crown. Yet further: compulsory service

was abolished, and a fixed tribute took its place.

Official persons were sent to enforce these laws in Mexico and Peru.

But the Junta had not sufficiently considered the temper of the

provinces. It was found that Mexico would not receive the new laws,

which were therefore referred to the Government for reconsideration.

The Viceroy, who carried the laws to Peru, after bringing the country

to the verge of rebellion, was taken prisoner by the local authorities

and shipped homewards to Spain. The laws which the high-handed

conquerors thus decisively rejected were soon after annulled by an

order of the King.

The Spanish Government was thus baffled in its efforts to terminate the

ruinous control which Spanish colonists exercised over the natives.

The duration of that control was gradually extended. In seventeen

years it crept up to three lives. Fifty years later, after many years

of agitation, the fourth life was gained. Twenty years after, the

still unsatisfied heirs of the conquerors demanded that a fifth life

should be included in the grant; but here they were obliged to accept

a compromise. The system continued in force for two hundred and fifty

years, and was not abolished till near the close of the eighteenth

century.

But although the Government yielded to the clamour of its turbulent

subjects, in so far as the prolongation of Spanish control was

concerned, it was inflexible in its determination to modify the

quality of that control. The prohibition of compulsory labour was

firmly adhered to. The legal right of the conquerors was restricted

to the exaction of a fixed tribute from their subject Indians. This

tribute must be paid in money or in some product of the soil, but not

compounded for by personal service. The Indians might hire themselves

as labourers, under certain regulations and for certain specified

wages, but this must be their own voluntary act. For many years

the Spaniards yielded a most imperfect obedience to these salutary

restrictions, but gradually, as the machinery of administration spread

itself over the continent, the law was more strictly enforced.