THURSDAY, APRIL 18, 1901. A STORY OF COLONISATION.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXIX, Issue 16, 18 April 1901, Page 17

THURSDAY, APRIL 18, 1901. A STORY OF COLONISATION.

§ARD knocks often make fast friends. The Spanish-American war and the tangled struggle in the Philippines have taught our friends beyond the Pacific to respect the courage, chivalry, and colonising achievements of the once unspeakable ' Don.' But a still greater service is being quietly done to the reputation of the Spaniard, and to the cause of international amity and historical truth, by the gradual publication in English dress of the authentic story of the colonisation of the Two Avneucas by the Crown of Castile. The history of the Reformation barf boon in great part rewritten. That of American exploration and colonisation is being slowly and by piecemeal re- written too. And in due course we may hope that the English-speaking world may realise the vast debt which Christian civilisation in the New World owes to the hardy Spanish pioneer soldiers and settlers and missionaries who — long before Britain or Holland became colonising nations — had probed the depths of untamed wildernesses from Florida to Peru. • * * Max O'lihUi in one of his books twits his countrymen with the statement that few of them, except military men of a 'serious' turn, study the geography of any country outside their own. Much of our history is written in a similar spirit of lop-S'ded prouncialism — somewhat after tic fashion in which a literal y Chinaman whose life was passed within the walls of Pekin might be expected to tell the story of civilisation. This is the rule with regard to the histories of the various American countries for the mastery of which Spaniard. Dutchman, Frank, and Britain clawed and skewered each other for some two hundred year* or more. From the works of more stylists like Fkoi m; down to the slipshop chronicles of Mackenzie, the irna', hulk of English text-books show little mercy and scant jiib'ice to the bold and adventurous Spanish pioneers, wh'le buccamer.s like Drake and Morgan", and even Captain Ku)i), are often tricked out with the jewels and gewgaws of what is ,nore frequently mere historical romanca than sober history. And yet the Spanish colonists and missionaries went out into the wilds of the West as well as of the East totinuuln ma In espaila, nra hi pi u nut — now wielding the sword, now the pen. And their records exist in splendid abundance — a golden mine of literary wealth as yet but very partially explored by English-speaking historians. Prim'ott has, it is true. d«me much to open up the story of Spanish colonisation. No ha-. Bandelier. And much has been done more recently still by a painstaking non-Catholic American wiiter, Mr. P. Lummis, in his valuable work, Thr S/ntm,slt I'uhUfix. 'We love manhood,' gays he in his preface, 'and the Sp ni-sh pioneering of the Americas was the largest and loii'j"st and most marvellous feat of manhood m -ill history.' From him and from other historians who had the grace to abandon the easy paths of bald repetition and to toil and gnn> among original records, we learn to form a jiv-t conception of the valorous work done for Chris ianity, colonisation, and empire-making by the marvellous achievements of paladins like Pizarro in Peru, Cortez in Mexico, of Caiskza dk Vaca, Alvarado, Balbao, Cohonado, VALDivrA, Perkz de Villagran, ViNCENTE dk Zalvidar, and the brave missionaries who carried the cross to regions where the man of sword and armor failed — and sometimes even feared — to penetrate.

In one of the early chapters of his work, Mr. Lumjiis says : When you know that the greatest of English text-books has not even the name of the man who first sailel around tho world (a Spaniaid), nor ot him who discovered Brazil (a Spaniard), uor of him who discovered California, (a Spaniard), nor of thoHO Spaniards who fifit found and colonised in what is now the United Stateß, and that it ha- a hundn d other omimionsas glaring, and a hundred hif-toriey aa untrae as the oit issions are inexcusable, you will underbtand that it is high lime we s-hould do better justice than did our fathers to a subject which thoulJ be of the first interest to all real Americans. The Spanish were rot only the fir?t conquerors of the New World and its first colonisers, but also its first civilisers. They built the first cities, opened the first churches, schools, and universities ; brought the first printing presses, made the first books ; wrote the first dictionaries, histories, and geographies, and brought the first missionaries ; and before New England had a real newspaper, Mexico had a seventeenth century attempt at one 1 One of the wonderful things about this Spanish pioneering — almost as remarkable as the pioneering itself — was the humane and progressive spirit which marked it from first to last. Histories of the sort long current speak of that hero nation as cruel to the Indians. But, in truth, the record of Spain in that respect puts as to the blush. The legislation of Spain in behalf of the Indiana everywhere was incomparably more exteneive, more comprehensive, more systematic, more humane than that of Great Britain, the colonies, and the present United States all combined. Those first teachers gave the Spanish language and Christian faith to a thousand aborigines where we gave a new language and religion to one. There have been Spanish schools for Indians in America since 1524. By 1575 — nearly a century before there was a printing press in English America — many books in twelve different Indian languages had been printed in the city of Mexico, whereas in our history John Eliol'h Indian Bible stands alone ; and three Spanish universities in Ainerioa were nearly rounding out their century when Harvard was founded. A surprisingly large proportion of the pioneers of America were college men ; and intelligence went hand in hand with heroism in the early settlement of the New World. • * • The story — like the story of practically every human effort made amidst wild and barbarous surroundings — is not without its shadow side. But, apart from the ill-treatment of Indians by Spanish adventurers on some of the islands, the general policy of Spanish colonisation was chiefly religious in its object, as that of the Protestant English and Dutch colonisation was chiefly commercial. The centuries of warfare with the Saracen — which ended with the fall of Granada, in 1492 — had made the Spaniards a nation of crusaders, strong — sometimes even violent — in the sincerity of their religious convictions. And the triumph over the Moors left them fre«* to carry the missionary's cross as well as the conqueror's sword into the new lands whicli the faith and courage of their nation had given to the world. In his work entitled The Establishment of Spanish Rule in America Professor Bernard Moses says that if we are to judge from ' the laugunu' of the laws of the Indies, we might conclude that the King, in dealing with the inhabitants, regarded no object as of more importance than their conversion to the Chilian faith.' He also admits that ' one of the strongest motive-* of Spain's action ' in extending her empire over the seas 'was a genuine and honest desire for the spiritual regeneration of the native population.' Soon after the vojnges of discovery by Columbus the Franciscan and Dominican Iviars extended their missionary labors over a lar^e part of New Spain. By 1319 there was a Christian hMiop installed oi> an island off the coast of Yucatan, and by 1521 convents were being established about the city of Mexico. In l(»00 New Spain contained 400 convents, and 400 organised districts were in the hands of clergymen. • Nothing,' says a Protestant writer, 'could exceed the pains taken by the Madrid government in those days to make the entire colonial machinery work for the spread of the Christian religion and the ledemption of souls.' 'The Spanish colonist in Peru,' says another authority, ' was commanded to " labor for the religious instruction of the natives under his care." And everywhere through the Spanish dominions the laws were minute in their directions concerning the conversion of the natives, the hours of daily worship, and the penalties imposed upon employers of native labor who failed to consider properly the spiritual welfare of those di pendent upon them. Before the close of the sixteenth century almost every village from Mexico to Peru had its parish priest.' It has been truly observed by a Protestant writer that ' nothing equal to the foreign missionary activity of Spain in the days of her glory has ever been known in the history of Christendom.'

Among the results of the Spanish policy of colonisation were the following : a great relative freedom from social feeling as regards the ' coior-line ' ; a free mingling of white and Indian and other bloods ; and the happy preservation of the ancient races. Mexico and Peru were conquered and colonised as far back as the fir-t half of the sixteenth century. And yet the pure-blood Indians in Mexico are 38 per cent, of the total population, and people of mixed races 43 per cent. In Peru 57 per cent, of the population are aboriginals and 23 per cent, of mixed race ; while in the United States the Red Alan is a vanishing race, the aborigiuald of Tasmania arc extinct, those of Australia are fast disappearing, and even the stalwart Maori is doomed to pass away. Spain has lost her old conquests through the folly of kings and the misdirected energies and blunders of successive ministries and weary wars which burned up the strength and enthusiasm of the nation. One of the early Spanish pioneers, Ponce de Leon, set out with an expedition, when the sixteenth century was still in its teens, to search in the newly-discovered lands for a reported marvellous fountain of perpetual youth. He discovered Florida instead, and his dreams of the living waters were rudely broken at last by the swish of an Indian arrow through his heart. Nations, like individuals, have their periods of youth and strength and swift or slow decay. For them, as for the old-time Spanish cavalier, the secret of eternal youth remains undiscovered still. But the history of the conquest and civilisation and christianising of the Two Americas and of the Philippines is a monument more lasting than bronze to Spanish piety and enterprise and valor.