In the century which followed the discovery of America, not only was the lead in initiative taken by Spain never lost, but she practically had no competitors in the conquest and colonization of the New World. If the lines of medieval enterprise had been followed in the opening up of new territories for economic development, it should have fallen either to Venice or to Genoa to undertake the work of exploration and exploitation of these unknown regions. But times had changed, and the Italian republics had changed with them. Under the stress of the Turkish conquests, which had led to the organization of a great military and naval power in the East, Venice could follow nothing but a policy of self-protection that admitted neither of expansion nor of adventure. Internal changes in the Italian peninsula, indicated by the overlordship of Milan, had reduced the power of Genoa, which had already been weakened by her long contest with Venice for the naval mastery of the Mediterranean.

The rise of Spain was phenomenal; nothing exactly resembling it had been seen before, except in the case of those great tribal or national invasions that so often altered the face of Europe. For centuries, like Italy before the advent of Italian unity, Spain was only a geographical expression. Only fourteen years before Columbus’ first voyage, the marriage of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile had consolidated the royal power on the Iberian peninsula and made these two Spanish monarchs lords of the whole land south of the Pyrenees, except in the kingdoms of Granada in the south, of Portugal in the west, and of Navarre in the north. A steady policy of aggression and conquest soon brought about the disappearance of the small kingdom of Granada. Between 1486 and 1489 Loja, Malaga, and Baza had been taken; Granada alone held out a few years more. Ferdinand, a most astute monarch of the type of Louis XI of France and Henry VII of England, had already crushed the Portuguese faction in Castile, who had favored the alliance of their queen with the King of Portugal. His ideals were for an absolute monarchy, which, by the elimination of feudal traditions and by the accumulation of wealth, might become the predominant power in western Europe.

There was no reason for Spain to become a colonizing power in the modern sense, since the peninsula was a sparsely populated country, large tracts of land having been opened up for occupation by the Christian conquests of Moorish territory. In preceding centuries, when the Christian princes began to win back, piece by piece, the lands belonging to the Moslems, a conciliatory policy had been adopted towards the conquered race; the Moors had kept their personal liberties and had been encouraged to group themselves in autonomous communities in the suburbs of Christian cities. Even when Granada was taken, favorable terms were given to its inhabitants, although in the end the promises were broken. They were conceded liberty of person, trade, education, and worship, the protection of Mohammedan law, administered by Mohammedan judges, and the benefit of mixed tribunals. But here and elsewhere Ferdinand’s methods were a consistent application of the principles of an autocrat, and, when the New World fell as a prize to the Spanish conquerors, the usages of expansion by conquest at home in the Iberian peninsula were mercilessly applied. When Malaga was taken, the captive inhabitants were sold as slaves; one-third of the proceeds of the sale was taken for the redemption of Christian captives in Africa; another was given to those who had served in the army of occupation either as mercenaries or as officials, and the remaining portion was paid into the royal treasury. As to the land, it was laid out for a colony. The large tracts opened to colonization were offered on easy conditions to the Christian inhabitants of Spain.

It was not land hunger, therefore, which prompted the Spanish monarchs to accept Columbus’ scheme of a westward route to the rich empires of the Orient. Profit-bringing trade by which stores of specie could be accumulated attracted the founders of Spanish absolutism. The project itself was not viewed with skepticism; its scientific basis was cogent; there were besides widely circulated stories of land existing in the West. But the one practical difficulty in the way of fitting out the proposed expedition was the war with the Moors of Granada, by which the Spanish treasury had been exhausted. After the city fell in January, 1492, several months were spent in haggling over terms. Columbus had made up his mind that if the voyage were sucessful he should be adequately rewarded for his trouble. Apart from conditions as to offices and the administration of the newly acquired possessions, it was agreed that he was to receive one clear tenth of all merchandise, whether gold, silver, pearls, spices, or whatsoever else was gained or gotten for the crown in his new jurisdiction. Moreover, there was a further clause inserted that in case Columbus should choose to contribute to the equipment of vessels employed in the new trade to the extent of one-eighth, he was to be at liberty to do so, thereby entitling himself to one-eighth part of the profits.

The prospects of a great trading adventure seemed altogether alluring. It must be remembered that the discoverer carried with him a letter from the Catholic monarchs to the Grand Khan of Tartary; and that it was this opening up of a direct trade route, with enormous possibilities for commercial profit, that inspired the Spanish conquest of America. Even after the configuration of the new continent had been made out by later voyagers, the fascination of establishing a connection with the Orient remained a strong inducement. Then as it faded away as an immediate possibility, the opportunity of securing large hoards of the precious metals stimulated discovery and exploration. The lust of territorial conquest remained associated with the lust of gold. The Spanish adventurer had no ideal aims; he was not attracted by the American continent because it offered a new home or because it presented a chance for trying political experiments. There was the same single-mindedness in the conquistador ideal as is seen to-day in the trust magnate who is searching for oil wells. The sordid aims called forth by the success of Columbus’ expedition were not developed by the contest with the natives occupying the lands whose possession was coveted.

When the Spanish conquerors arrived in those unknown islands of the western sea the American continent was held by a number of the Turanian races which had one time peopled most of the Old World. Only a few relics of their predominance are seen in the Europe of to-day in the Basques, the Finns, and the Esthonians. Long before historical times the process of uniting Asia and Europe with America had begun. Probably thousands of years before the rise of Caucasian civilization along the Nile and the Euphrates, Turanian hordes found their way across the Behring Straits. Little capacity for attaining the arts of civilized life was shown by the American Turanians; there were, it is true, differences in social organization, but the general level of civilization was not far above the savage type, even in the Valley of Mexico or in Quito and Cuzco in South America.

Those who took part in the overthrow of the Aztec and Inca governments magnified their own achievements by describing themselves as the conquerors of great civilized empires. Such fictions were natural in men who desired to exalt the difficulties of a suddenly achieved fame, and the exaggeration was the more easily believed because of their seizure of large stores of those precious metals by which, in the Old World, progress in civilization was measured. From the point of view both of the home government and of those who took part in the first cycle of voyages, there was not much encouragement of profit to be derived in the islands and shores of the mainland touched by Columbus and by those who worked under his leadership and inspiration from 1492-1517—that is, during the first twenty-five years of Spanish conquest.

In the first voyage of Columbus much of the coast of Hayti was explored because of the stories told as to the existence of gold on the island. In the second expedition, made the following year, Dominica, Guadeloupe, Puerto Rico, Jamaica were discovered. The foundation of the first Spanish city on the island of Hayti was laid; then the explorer passed along the north coast of Cuba, which especially interested him because he took it to be the mainland of Cathay and Cipango not far from Malacca. In 1498, after discovering Trinidad, he reached the South American continent at the mouth of the Orinoco River, which was identified by him as one of the streams of the terrestrial paradise. Then followed complaints of administrative abuses which led to Columbus’ return to the Spanish peninsula as a prisoner.

There was a fourth voyage in 1502 which extended as far as Honduras. After showing a piece of gold to the natives Columbus inquired of them by signs where the metal could be found. They pointed to the east, and after some further communications Columbus was convinced that the land of Cathay lay in that direction. He spent many weeks afterward in tacking along the shore against adverse winds and currents. Finally he landed at a place called by the natives Veragua, where the signs of civilized life, indicated by the village communities and the numbers of temples and sepulchers constructed of stone and lime, and suitably decorated, and, above all, the abundance of gold demonstrated to him that he had reached the golden Chersonese of the East. This was the land, he was sure, that had furnished King Solomon with his famous treasures. He set out from Veragua certain of discovering after a few leagues’ journey the straits of Malacca. After that, to reach the mouth of the Ganges would only be a matter of a few days. When he found the peninsula larger than he expected, he turned back to Veragua, meaning to found a permanent settlement there; but the warlike natives forced him to take refuge on his ships. Disheartened, the explorer withdrew to Hayti, from whence he returned to Spain, where he died on May 20, 1506.

There was a curious vein of mysticism in Columbus’ character, which comes out in a quotation made by him in his later years, from the famous medieval Apocalyptic, Joachim of Calabria. “The Rabbi Joachim,” he writes, “says that out of Spain shall come he who shall rebuild the House of Mount Zion.” His discovery, the explorer explained, would bring about the recovery of the Holy City and of the Sepulcher of Christ by means of the gold which would be found in the Indies. When he returned the first time from Hayti to Spain, he wrote that those whom he left behind would easily collect a ton of gold while he was absent, and that, therefore, in less than three years the capture of the Holy Sepulcher and the conquest of Jerusalem could be undertaken. Later on, he provided that the accumulated income of his property, which was to be invested in shares of the Bank of St. George in Genoa paying six per cent., should to the extent of one-half go to aid the expenses of recovering the holy places in Palestine.

The constant quest for gold that stimulated the voyages of the great explorer had, therefore, its basis in this extraordinary and fanatical revival of the spirit which had once inspired the Crusades. It was almost a mania with Columbus, whose letters contain eulogies on gold: “Who hath this, hath all that can be desired in the world; gold can even bring souls into Paradise.” Though the metal could not be found in great quantities, he discovered nevertheless a way by which the New World might be made to yield the gold which was wanted. It was Columbus who started in America the traffic in human beings. The day after he arrived in the West Indies, he talked of the prospect of using the Indians for slave traffic, and he promised to send to Europe a whole shipful of these idolaters. He kept his promise also, for in 1495 he sent five hundred Indian captives to be sold at Seville. The next year three hundred more arrived at Cadiz. It has been not unnaturally supposed that the harsh treatment received later on by the explorer at the hands of the governor of Hayti had a close connection with Columbus’ persistent policy of recruiting slave gangs from the natives of the islands he had visited. It is certain that Isabella was so outraged by the constant stream of West Indian slaves which had its source in Columbus’ discoveries that she frequently directed their repatriation. It is significant also that Bobadilla, the man who sent Columbus back to Spain in irons, is spoken of by Las Casas as an upright and humane person.

This willingness to allow the inauguration of a trade in slaves in lieu of the export from the New World of the precious metal which was so persistently sought for may be also explained by the strangeness and uncouthness of the inhabitants of the West Indian islands. Apart from the Mexicans and Peruvians, the greatest extent of the New World was inhabited by peoples who had not yet got beyond the hunting stages of culture. They used, of course, articulate speech, they had the knowledge of fire, and employed a few rude instruments of stone and wood, but they were essentially savages, and up to this time man in an actually savage stage was not known to Europeans—even to travelers. Marco Polo, indeed, had told of the existence in the East of races who devoured human flesh, but he was not believed. It was the voyage of Columbus that revealed the practice to be a literal fact and gave it such impressive emphasis that the Indian name Carib or Caribbee, in the modified form of cannibal, came to be used to designate the savage who feeds on human flesh. The smaller islands of the Antilles were all occupied by branches of this parent stock, the Carib, all of whom were distinguished by savage ferocity. The name was given them by a rival race, the Arawaks, who under various designations lived in the four larger islands, Cuba, Jamaica, Hayti, and Puerto Rico. Both peoples had come from the opposite coast of South America, probably drifting to the islands by the help of the equatorial current. On the mainland there was constant warfare between the two, with distinct advantages on the side of the Carib.

When Columbus reached the Antilles, the Arawaks in Cuba and in Hayti were in process of extermination at the hands of the Caribs. The work of subjugation commenced by the savage Carib was taken up by the Spaniard; in a few years the Arawaks of the larger islands were absolutely destroyed. The vigorous race in the smaller islands was never dominated by the Spanish conquerors; even when Spanish domination in the islands gave place to English and French rule, the Carib kept up the contest for more than a century. But the long years of warfare caused their numbers to dwindle away. As late as 1773 a military expedition was ordered to be sent to the island of St. Vincent to exterminate the Carib population, who refused to be reduced. But in place of drastic measures it was resolved to deport them. They were finally removed to the mainland of Honduras, where from this original small group the increase has been so remarkable that to-day their settlements extend from Belize to Cape Gracias a Dios.

Hayti, the island where the first city of European foundation in the New World was established, may be taken as illustrating the point where the island population had reached the most advanced standard of life. It is true that in part of the island the Caribs had effected a landing and were driving the less warlike Arawaks before them. But Hayti, when the Spanish conquest began, was already an agricultural country. It had no dense forests; there was an absence of larger game; the climate was mild and equable, and there were broad open tracts of country well adapted to cultivation. When the island was discovered, the population was estimated to be above a million; a few years later, in 1508, when under the cruel methods of the Spanish conquest the inhabitants must have been very considerably reduced, there were still 60,000 males left. The island was probably therefore more densely populated than any part of the mainland. The natural food resources in the shape of fish and small game could hardly support such a number. The growing of maize was not unknown, but the evidence goes to prove that the natives lived largely on the product of enormous manioc plantations. The root of this plant was reduced to a pulp, the juice was pressed out, and after being exposed to heat, the residue took the form of a meal that could be turned into bread cakes. The preparation of a crop of manioc was not difficult. The great savannah lands of the island, which were covered with prairie grass, were burnt over; the soil was thrown up with a pointed stick, hardened by fire, a few cuttings of the stem were planted in, some slight weeding was done, and after twelve months, without additional labor, there was ready a heavy crop of roots that could be immediately converted into bread. According to Las Casas’ estimate the labor of twenty women working six hours a day for a month was sufficient to provide bread enough to last three hundred persons for two years. The ease with which the crop was grown is shown by the naïve offer of a native chieftain to his Spanish masters to substitute for the tribute of gold which his people had no way of providing, an enormous field ready planted, which was to extend across the island from Isabella in the north to Santo Domingo in the south. The bulk of the natives including the males did not work at this primitive method of tillage, nor did they share in the breadmaking, but apparently their freedom from this kind of labor did not encourage other types of industry. The only metal worked was gold, though the island contained both copper and tin. For cutting they used stone implements, and for fishing bone hooks. Owing to the mild climate little clothing was necessary. The cotton plant was not artificially cultivated, both cloths and hammocks being made out of the wild cotton. Little attention was paid to housebuilding, though there were some large joint family houses. There was no stone architecture, and even fortification in its simplest form was not known.

For the purposes of warfare the island was divided into five districts, each of which contributed several thousand warriors under an independent chief, whose office was devolved upon him by hereditary descent. The warlike equipment was inadequate, not equal to that used by the aggressive Caribs, who had the training which comes from the hunting of large game. The Arawaks were therefore completely at the mercy of their savage assailants, unless they fought the Caribs with overwhelming numbers on their side. When the Spaniards began the conquest of the island the mild natives had, therefore, no chance of withstanding even small numbers of Europeans.

As a further test of the stage of culture reached by these, the most advanced of the islanders, we may take their religion, which proves their affinity to the lowest peoples known. They practised a simple form of fetichism combined with ancestor worship. There was a class of wizards, both men and women, who were supposed to control the spirit world. The multitude of spirits were embodied in the form of idols, sometimes in human shape, made of various materials. There were also idols consisting of the wooden figures of dead chiefs set up over their places of burial. The most famous of this type of idol were the images of the two first ancestors of mankind that were kept in the cave from which they had emerged after the deluge. As worship to these divinities, rude hymns were recited and manioc bread was used as a sacrificial offering and afterwards distributed among the worshippers.

The backward condition of the islanders did not discourage the projects of colonization which were inaugurated immediately on Columbus’ return from his first voyage. In 1493 the new flotilla showed the expansion of the hopes based on the discoverer’s success of the year before; there were now seventeen ships carrying 1200 men: miners, artisans, farmers, noblemen, all bent on the work of colonization. Twelve priests were included in the party. The exploration of the interior of the island was taken in hand by one of Columbus’ lieutenants, whose object was to discover gold and to commence the systematic working of the mines.

It was nearly a year before the Admiral returned to Hayti. In the meantime affairs in the nascent colony were in anything but a happy condition. The colonists, dissatisfied probably because fortunes were not coming quickly enough, were sending to the home government petitions and complaints condemning Columbus’ administration. A royal commissioner was soon sent out, whose personal inspection of the island resulted in a most unfavorable report being despatched to the Spanish sovereigns. Internal dissensions continued, due to quarrels over questions of jurisdiction, but these difficulties were less serious than the miseries occasioned by the oppression of the natives. Though Las Casas describes them as “the most humble, patient, loving, peaceful, and docile people, without contentions or tumults; neither fractious nor quarrelsome, without hatred or desire for revenge, more than any other people of the world,” the advent among them of colonists and adventurers bent on introducing the advanced economic system of Europe changed everything. A tribute was laid upon the whole population of the island which required that each Indian above fourteen years of age was to pay a little bell filled with gold every three months. In all other provinces the natives were to pay an “arroba” of cotton.

It was soon found that these taxes could not be collected. Accordingly, in 1496, a change was made; instead of gold and cotton, labor was substituted. The Indians near the plantations were obliged to prepare and work them. Such was the origin of the “repartimiento” system which, applied to a population unused to regular toil, and administered by harsh and unprincipled masters, transformed the larger Antilles into virtual prison houses. The natives who resisted were treated as guilty of rebellion and were sent to Spain to be sold as slaves. Oftentimes, in order to escape this servitude, whole villages and even tribes would take refuge in the forests. Regular raids were organized against those who tried to evade the tribute; those who were captured were sent to Spain. In 1498 the vessels of Columbus, fleet took home a consignment of six hundred, one-third of whom were given to the masters of the ships to cover the freight charges.

There were scruples on the part of the home government against sanctioning such an arrangement, and on more than one occasion, in applying his policy of “pacific penetration,” Columbus acted without waiting for royal sanction. After the two years’ insurrection of Roldon, the chief justice, had been brought to an end by mutual agreement, Columbus, in order to institute an era of good feeling, made a generous distribution of slaves and lands among Roldon’s supporters. Each man was to receive a certain number of hillocks for the purpose of manioc culture. The operation of tillage was placed in the hands of an Indian chieftain whose people were obliged to dwell on the land they cultivated. Those of the former rebels who chose to return home received from one to three slaves apiece. Fifteen took advantage of this last offer; but they soon found themselves confronted by a royal proclamation which directed that all holders of slaves given them by Columbus should return them to Hayti under pain of death. An unfortunate exception was, however, made in the case of Indians who had been taken as rebels.

Further indications of the attempt of the home government to curb the economic exploitation of the island introduced by Columbus are seen in the instructions given to Nicolas de Ovando, who succeeded Bobadilla as royal governor in April, 1502. He was directed to convert the Indians, not to maltreat them, nor to reduce them to slavery; to require them to work the gold mines, but to pay for their work; to refuse to allow Jews or Moors to have access to the island; to accept blacks as slaves. The idle and the dissolute were to be returned to Spain, and all mining concessions made by the previous governor were to be revoked. Ovando’s rule was to extend over all of the West Indies, with his residence on Hispaniola (Hayti).

The expedition conveying the new chief was of imposing size; there were thirty ships and 2500 persons. On board was the famous Las Casas, afterwards the apostle and champion of the Indians, who came now to make his fortune in the New World like so many other adventurers. The attraction of the reported mines of gold was irresistible, and it can be imagined how great was the joy of the Spaniards when the first news they heard in the colony was the report of the finding of a huge nugget of gold thirty-five pounds in weight. This treasure was dug up by an Indian girl not far from the settlement of San Domingo.

Equally reassuring as a foundation for the prosperity of the colony was a second piece of news which recounted how, in a part of the island, there had been an uprising of the natives which had been successfully punished, and in which the victors had reaped the reward of turning the captured rebels into slaves. It was well known that the feeling in the home country was becoming distinctly unfavorable to a colonial polity practised so ruthlessly on the natives. The Spanish sovereigns had declared themselves to be the protectors of the Indians, and had ordered them both to be treated mildly by the civil authorities and to be prepared for Christianity by the representatives of the Church. They were to be civilized, and taught the Spanish language and habits of industry. No arms should be sold to them, nor strong drink; there was to be cultivation of the soil, but it was not to be done under duress. The Indian lands could be bought or sold, and the natives were to be encouraged to adopt autonomous municipal institutions under the direction of the priests. They were also to have the right of appearing in court to act as witnesses or to institute suits. As to the mines, they were permitted to work in them, but were not to be forced. Even tribal customs were allowed to be continued, where they were not contrary to the ethical obligations of a higher type of civilization.

It was an almost idyllic scheme for assuming the white man’s burden, but it remained a paper reformation; as the testimony of Las Casas shows. For some time before his ordination this untiring advocate of the rights of the natives lived in Hispaniola the life of the ordinary Spanish colonist. He acquired slaves; worked them in the mines, and devoted himself with such assiduity to the control of the estates previously acquired in the colony by his father that he declares they turned in to him a yearly income of 100,000 castellanes, an enormous sum, considering the purchasing power of money at the beginning of the sixteenth century.

The gold fever caused terrible havoc among the colonists; they were not used to manual labor, they knew nothing of the methods of mining, they were poorly supplied with tools for the work. Often they rushed to the mines without taking with them an adequate supply of food. The tropical climate soon brought on a strange disease, probably pernicious malaria. Under its ravages, in a short period, 2500 of Ovando’s men met their deaths not long after they came to the colony. The conditions of life were hard, even food being scarce in the neighborhood of the mines, and, when the royal tax of one-fifth was deducted from the small proceeds after the expenses were paid, the colonist’s share was barely sufficient to cover his living expenses. The few who were contented with agricultural pursuits were really better off in every way, but in the mania for gold discovery no thought was given to the magnificent resources of the soil.

Las Casas notes that the worst effects of this colonial policy began in the year 1504, when Queen Isabella’s death became known. Ovando’s short and easy methods with the natives are described with great vividness by Las Casas, who took part in the warfare against one of the native chieftains. It was, of course, a conflict in which the weaker race could play their part only through ruse and stratagem, for, as Las Casas says, “all their wars are little more than games with little sticks such as children play in our countries.” Nor were the natives well qualified even for this sort of hostilities, since they were “most humble, most patient, most peaceful and calm, without strife or tumult; not wrangling nor querulous, as free from hate and desire for revenge as any in the world.” Even Columbus, in the hearing of Las Casas, bore witness to their humane qualities. He said that he met with such gentle and agreeable reception and such help and guidance when the ship in which he sailed was lost there, that in his own country and from his own father better treatment would not have been possible.

The escape of the natives to the mountains and their efforts to retaliate started, according to Las Casas, the war of extermination. When the governor Ovando arrived in the part of the island which was ruled over by a woman chieftain, Anacaona, more than 300 chiefs were brought together and assured of the pacific intentions of the Europeans. “He lured the principal ones by fraud into a straw house, and, setting fire to it, he burnt them alive; all the others, together with numberless people, were put to the sword and lance; and to do honor to the lady Anacaona, they hanged her.” Death by fire, administered with the most exquisitely devised tortures, was the fate of the Indian chieftains. “I once saw,” he continues, “that they had four or five of the chief lords stretched on the gridiron to burn them, and I think also there were two or three pairs of gridirons where they were burning others.” The fugitives were hunted down by boar-hounds who were taught and trained to tear an Indian to pieces as soon as they saw him.

Although Cuba had been discovered by Columbus, no attempt was made to occupy the island until 1511, when his son Diego, acting under the powers conferred upon him by the home government, selected Velasquez, one of the oldest and most respected colonists in Hispaniola, to take charge of the enterprise. With only three hundred men he easily occupied the island. Like the Indians of Hispaniola they were not able to organize any effective resistance. There was a repetition of the atrocities by which Hispaniola had been pacified. By 1521 the miserable natives were so brought under control that they were turned into the unwilling and inefficient instruments of the colonial policy of their new masters.

Las Casas was present at the close of this expedition, and he speaks of frequent burnings and hangings of the inhabitants. Many committed suicide to escape the enforced working in the mines. The following item in his indictment deserves to be reproduced: “There was,” he says, “an officer of the king in this island to whose share 300 Indians fell, and by the end of three months he had, through labor in the mines, caused the deaths of 270; so that he had only 30 left, which was the tenth part. The authorities afterwards gave him as many again, and again he killed them; and they continued to give and he to kill.... In three or four months, I being present, more than 7000 children died of hunger, their fathers and mothers having been taken to the mines.” The concentration of the conquerors on economic success may be gathered from the experience of Las Casas himself, who, though he had done all in his power to restrain the commission of cruel deeds, wherever he was present, did not hesitate to take advantage, priest though he was, of the “repartimiento” system, under which he received a valuable piece of land and a number of Indians to work it, in recognition of the services he had rendered in conciliating the natives.

Columbus, it must be remembered, received an authorization to deport from Spain criminals under sentence of either partial or perpetual banishment. Other delinquents had had their sentences remitted provided they agreed to go to the Indies. The result among such a motley crowd, released from the ordinary pressure of social obligations, was a laxity and dissoluteness such as was seen in the nineteenth century among frontier communities. Even Columbus spoke with no admiration of the colonists. “I know,” he said, “that numbers of men have gone to the Indies who did not deserve water from God or man.”

Despite the fact that the exploration and subjugation of the larger Antilles went on with feverish energy, Puerto Rico and Jamaica both being taken in 1509, the profits of the colonial system were most disappointing. The expeditions were costly, there was no economy in organization; at home and abroad, there were a host of officials who had to receive salaries. The gold mines were poor in quality. The native population, by war and disease, had been so much diminished that labor became scarce. The smaller islands were then drawn upon to keep up the supply of labor in Hispaniola, and as the death-rate still continued excessively high, the place of the natives was filled by negroes imported from the Portuguese colonies in Africa. Some negroes were taken to Hispaniola as early as 1505. In 1517 the African slave traffic was authorized by Charles V.

A more intelligent side of the colonial system was seen in the aim of the government to acclimatize in America European plants, trees, and domestic animals. From the time of the second voyage of Columbus there had been detailed government orders, according to which each ship that carried colonists should also be provided with specimens of such seeds as might be useful. Though there were very few domesticated animals in America, it was soon found that the European varieties would flourish there. Las Casas often speaks of the astonishment caused among the natives by their first sight of the horse. This animal soon became an economic necessity, and in many places herds of wild horses in unoccupied regions proved how fast the original stock multiplied in the newly discovered countries. Cattle also soon became one of the chief articles of internal trade between the colonies, and hides were one of the staple goods carried on the fleets engaged in West Indian trade. Sheep and European poultry also were introduced with great success. As to plants, the vine was not encouraged because the mother country produced more wine than was needed for home consumption, and it was an article that could be transported easily to the colonists. The introduction of the sugar-cane was a social benefaction, for it set the settlers free from the burden of gold mining under unfavorable conditions. The sugar industry was developed rapidly after the introduction of negro labor.

With the prevailing ideas of state control of industry, colonial autonomy was out of the question. The need of a central body with supreme powers was suggested from the first by the dissensions caused by the conflict of jurisdiction between the various officials, whose spheres of action were not carefully distinguished. In 1509 the king decided to establish at Hispaniola a supreme tribunal which could hear appeals from the decisions of the governor. From this body grew the committee called the Real Audiencia, or royal court of claims, which, after 1521, governed most of the West Indies. The function of this body was to look after the welfare of the natives, to watch over the executive acts of the governor and other functionaries, and to put a stop to abuses. An appeal from the committee lay to the Council of the Indies in Spain. This body was given final jurisdiction in all civil, military, ecclesiastical, and commercial affairs. With the consent of the king it named the viceroys, the presidents of the Audiencia, and the governors, and it had full control of the higher ecclesiastical patronage.

There was also the Indian Chamber of Commerce, the so-called Casa de Contratacion, which was intrusted with the supervision of the West Indian trade. This body saw to the provision of ships, received all goods, and had jurisdiction of all commercial questions between the colonies and the home country. Through the “Casa” passed all the enormous mineral wealth that came from the opening up of the mines on the continent of America. In 1515, owing to the representations made in Spain by Las Casas of the grievances of the native population, Cardinal Ximenes sent three friars of the order of St. Jerome with full authority to act on behalf of the Indians. Las Casas was appointed protector. When the commission was under discussion, he asked specifically for unconditional liberty for the natives and for the suppression of the serf system in all its forms and provisions, in order to enable the European proprietors to work their estates profitably. These humanitarian efforts had little effect in arresting the prevailing methods of exploitation. When the pearl coast near Trinidad in the northeastern region of South America attracted settlers, there was a fresh demand for enforced labor of a new type, and the native tribes were raided in order to secure supplies of pearl divers. Although through the voyages of explorers various widely separated points on the mainland had been touched, no place had been effectively occupied by settlement. Wherever efforts were made, the native population, the Caribs, were found to have such warlike qualities that no successful foothold could be secured. The climate also proved fatal to Europeans. After Balboa made his celebrated passage across the Isthmus, an expedition of 15 ships and 2000 men came to occupy the land, but 600 of these died in a few months.

No point yet visited by European adventurers had offered examples of native civilization higher than the primitive standards attained by the Carib and the Arawak. But in the interior, in the thick forests of Central America, were scattered about the relics of an ancient culture. In a triangular space including some of northern Yucatan, Mitla in Oaxaca, and Copan in Honduras, there are the remains of sixty communities distinguished by temples, tombs, statues, bas reliefs, fragments of buildings, and deserted palaces. These are relics of a race who at the discovery of America had lost their supremacy for many generations. According to some reckonings, at least as early as the twelfth century these celebrated dead cities were founded.

The difficulty of historical research in reconstructing the records of these aboriginal peoples is due partly to poor methods of transmission and also to the fact that so many of the original documents were lost at the time of the Spanish conquest and before. Chronological reckonings were kept for the purpose of marking the days on which tributes and sacrifices were due. To this were added the figures of chieftains, the notices of tribal conquests, and such events as floods, famines, and eclipses. All of this miscellaneous popular lore was embodied in paintings, executed by a large class of artists, some of whom were women, on paper or fiber rolls or on prepared skins. For this picture-writing skins, oblong in shape and of great length, were employed. Along with these “pinturas” there was handed down an oral method of interpretation. Our knowledge of Mexican history has to be derived from the surviving examples of these picture rolls and from the traditional explanations which were taken down in writing at the time of the entrance of the Spaniards into the country.

The tradition existing in Mexico at this period told how the primitive stock inhabiting the land were giants, many of whom had perished by flood, fire, and earthquake. Then came a body of men who wished to reach the sun, and for this purpose they reared a tower. The sun, angered at the presumption of the earth-dwellers in aspiring to share with the gods the dwellings in the heavens, summoned all of the supernatural powers; the building was destroyed; and the guilty mortals were scattered over the earth. A mythical legislator then appears in Central America who teaches the people, the offspring of the giants, the arts of civilized life. The basis of this folklore may not unreasonably be ascribed to the finding of the bones of large extinct animals and, on the site of the Central American ruined cities, of mammoth statues of human beings. The residuum of truth seems to be that the Mexicans of the Conquest were correct in their common tradition that their ancestors had come from the north, and that the country had been gradually occupied by successive swarms of invaders who came south while they were still dependent on hunting game for their food and were finally reduced to settled forms of life by the cultivation of maize. The various tribes who took part in this migration are called by the Mexican word “Nahuatlaca,” used to denote those communities who were dependent on agriculture and followed a nahua or rule of life dictated by a custom administered by hereditary chiefs. At the beginning of the sixteenth century the Nahuatlaca had reached the present limits of Costa Rica. That there were aboriginal inhabitants is inferred from the mention of the Otomi, the Huaxtecs, the Totonacs, and the Ulmecs, who at the time of the Conquest occupied districts not overrun by the Nahuatlacan immigration.

In the first stage of the southward movement the Toltecs take the lead; it is stated that, being expelled from their own country, they came from the region of the north by both land and sea. Their chief center in their new land was Tollan, a pueblo which stands on a tributary of the Moctezuma River, a stream which falls into the Gulf of Mexico. This place seems to have been once a center of trade, for the Toltecs had the reputation of being clever craftsmen. In addition to knowledge of preparing skins and of manufacturing clothing and articles of domestic use, they must have become familiar with various metals and with the employment of stone for building. Colored stones and crystals were used in their decorative work; from the coasts were brought the colored shells with which they covered their buildings, and the feathers which were woven into their tapestry. Besides this, they had a reputation for the knowledge of medicinal plants. The ruins of Tollan are extensive; as described by those who saw some of the still extant buildings at the time of the Conquest, they must have been most impressive. Sahogun mentions especially the Chalchiauhapan (On the blue water) because it was built between the two forks of the river. There were richly decorated apartments, four being more magnificent than the rest. One was called the House of Gold, another the House of Green Jade and Turquoise; a third room was covered with colored sea-shells arranged as mosaics, the interstices being filled with silver; the last room was decorated in red stones, combined with colored shells. There were besides four rooms adorned with tapestry made of the plumage of different colored birds. As with Selinus, a famous Greek city in Sicily, the downfall of Tollan must have been sudden, for there was an unfinished building seen in the ruins with remarkable pillars in the form of rattlesnakes, and also a mound in process of construction to be used as a foundation of a building of unusually large size. This fate seems to have overtaken it some centuries before the Spanish conquest, and was probably due to an insurrection among the subordinate pueblos.

The name Toltec came to be used as a synonym for a builder in stone or a worker of metals, and it was due to the influence of this race that the other branches of the Nahuatlaca stock made their progress in the civilizing arts. Not only do they stand out among other peoples of the New World as prominent in the pursuit of useful arts and in artistic achievement, but they deserve a place of honor because the deity they worshipped, Suetzalcohuatl, was not propiatiated by sacrifices of blood, but by offerings of maize, perfumes, and flowers. Probably many of them migrated to the regions of Central America, where they were able to preserve their own traditions. Here can be seen better than in the neighborhood of their ancient capital the specimens of their artistic skill. Some of the Toltecs of the dispersion took refuge at Cholula, which at the time of the Conquest was the chief seat of Toltec arts and religion, and also the center of the slave trade. Not far off is the town of Tlaxcallan.

The dissolution of the Toltec control was followed by a long period marked by successive waves of migration. Some of these nomadic tribes who described themselves as Chichimecs of the sun (Teo Chichimecs) established themselves in the strong places of the mountains, and took possession of Tlaxcallan, making it their center. In time this pueblo and its neighbors became of great importance, emigrants spreading from it over parts of Yucatan and Central America. Even at the time of the Spanish conquest the territory which Tlaxcallan dominated, although it was only forty miles in its greatest length and considerably narrower in breadth, mustered 50,000 warriors.

The spread of the Nahuatlaca race by their various emigrating swarms brought them over all parts of the Mexican plateau, and also to the coast both of the Atlantic and Pacific, but the center of their rule lay in the narrow Valley of Mexico, probably once the crater of an immense volcano surrounded by a girdle of mountains. There were fifty pueblos in the valley placed on or near the four lakes which, by changes in the distribution of land and water, had taken the place of the one large body of water that had once filled the extinct crater. Before the coming of the Nahuatlaca the district was occupied by the Otomis, whose language is still spoken in the neighborhood of Mexico City.

When the migration took place, Tezcuco, situated on the northeastern shore of the lake, became a dominant pueblo, and was at the head of a considerable confederacy. On the western side of the lake was another group of pueblos known as the Tecpanecs, who were rivals of Tezcuco. Here there settled about the year 1200 a vagrant tribe of the Chichimecs; the new arrivals were named by the Tecpanecs crane people or Aztecs, probably from their habit of wading in the marshy shores of the lake while engaged in fishing. The newcomers proved industrious, and in the course of time reclaimed the marshy island, building on the land two towns, the villages of Tenochtitlan (place of a prickly pear) and Tlatelolco (place of a hill). According to Aztec folklore, when they took possession of the island, they found on it a prickly pear tree growing on a rock and on this rock they saw an eagle devouring a snake. This fable is still recalled in the present arms of the republic of Mexico.

The two Aztec pueblos on the lake remained distinct communities until 1473, a fact which suggests their being built on separate islands, according to the traditional account. By help of the Aztecs, who were skilled in the art of war, the Tecpanec confederacy made great advances in dominating the valley. There was a little contest with Tezcuco when the confederates demanded from its people the usual tribute of cotton cloth; Tezcuco was taken and handed over to the Aztecs as a reward for their valuable services. The growing importance of the island pueblos soon, however, aroused the jealousy of the Tecpanecs and they resolved to suppress the two island communities by transferring the inhabitants to the shores of the lake. In the war which followed, though many of the people of the islands were at first reluctant to try conclusions with their powerful neighbors, the counsels of their warlike leader, Ischohuatl, prevailed. Azcapozalco, the center of the Tecpanec confederacy was captured, and with this conquest, which took place in or about the year 1428, Tenochtitlan or Mexico became the dominant power in the valley.

The island pueblos showed a statesmanlike policy in dealing with their neighbors; Tezcuco was restored to something like an autonomous position, and in the group of pueblos in the valley, of which the island communities were now the head, an equitable distribution of the tribute formerly collected by the Tecpanecs was made. Tezcuco also, and Tlacopan, a Tecpanec pueblo, were given a specific district over which to preside, and were allowed to pursue untrammeled their own line of conquest. To secure the dominant power of Mexico, causeways were built in three directions to the shore, and with other works constructed on two of the lakes, by which the straits between the lakes of Tezcuco and Xochimilco were bridged, a strong fortified place came into existence which was practically impregnable. The warlike and aggressive traditions of Ischohuatl were so well maintained throughout the ninety-two years between the formation of the confederacy and the advent of the Spanish invaders that large tracts of country outside of the valley were turned into tributary regions.

A considerable portion of this work of expansion was done by Ischohuatl’s successor, his nephew Montezuma the First, who ruled over Tenochtitlan for twenty-eight years (1436-1464). During his reign the limits of Mexican rule were extended nearly to those formed by the Spaniards, the area of conquest being decided largely by commercial reasons. Wherever in the Pacific district there were honey, cacao, tangerines, precious stones, copal gums, cinnabar, and gold, that region was marked out for absorption. These Pacific regions extended 800 miles in length and, because of the value of their products, were the most important of all the Mexican dominion. On the side of the Gulf of Mexico the eastern part of the present state of Vera Cruz was rendered tributary; from this district the most prized object of exportation was the quetzalli feathers used for standards and for warriors’ plumes. There was trade from Mexico with the Caribs on the Gulf, for Columbus met, in 1502, a Carib vessel having a cargo of cotton cloaks, tunics, skirts, Mexican swords, stone knives, bronze hatchets and bells, pans for smelting bronze, and cacao. From the time of Montezuma I to the reign of the second of the name, the sovereignty was held by three brothers in succession. During this period there was a revolt of the sister community of Tlatelolco, the suppression of which brought to an end the long existing equality in the confederation headed by this pueblo. Apart from this the boundaries of the tributary area do not seem to have been enlarged.

Altogether there are found in the roll of tributary pueblos 358 names when Montezuma II was dominant chief (1502-1520). These were small industrial settlements in all of which a particular kind of tribute was prepared; some sent cotton cloths, others raw cotton, others timber for fuel or building; from others came weapons, deerskins, tobacco. The tributes were generally paid annually in prescribed quantities. Under this system the great bulk of the population, the Nahuatlacan peasantry, were condemned to a life of severest toil of all kinds done in behalf of the warrior and priestly classes. The warriors, too, every twenty days, had to take the field, partly as a military exercise, partly also to provide the human sacrifices that, according to their old elaborate Mexican ritual, had to be offered to the gods. The priests took charge of the prisoners, prepared them for the sacrifices, divided the flesh of the victims, and arranged their skulls in the precincts of the temple, this being the method of keeping a regular toll of the offerings. There were more commonplace tasks of the priestly order, the Teopixqui, that must have filled up the intervals between the frequent great sacrificial festivals. In each teopan, or temple dedicated to a divinity, the sacred fire was kept ever burning; besides, there was the regular offering of incense, four times a day, at sunrise, noon, sunset, and midnight. To keep up this sequence of devotion and also the prescribed immolations, at stated intervals the heavens were scrutinized with official vigilance day and night. At midnight all those attached to the teopan were aroused for the solemn offering of blood that took place in a penitential chamber, each worshiper supplying his share of blood by tearing his own body with a strap of aloe thorns.

In their religious system the Aztecs, like the other members of the Nahua stock, had reached, in a technical sense, a highly differentiated standard. They had long left behind that stage of the lowest savage life where there is no recognition even of spirits, those substantial and active beings who are made responsible for the changes in the material world that the savage cannot otherwise explain. When the spirit is supposed to be composed, not of flesh and blood, but of some ethereal matter the era of civilization begins. According to savage belief the spirits are made in the image of a man, consisting of flesh and blood like man, and also requiring, like him, nourishment of food and drink. This principle took the widest extension in the Nahuatlacan worship; with the development of tribal life and the organization of confederacies there went hand in hand the regular provision of meat and drink offerings organized on a very large scale to secure the benevolence of the divinities. Various familiar forms of fetich worship were employed. Probably before the fashioning of idols by the hand of man natural objects such as plants, trees, mountains, and animals were worshipped; for example, in Mexico there was a national annual sacrifice to the mountains. In the frequent human sacrifices the victim was slain with a stone knife, on a stone slab, while the neck and limbs were kept in place by a collar and fetters made of stone. From the maize plant developed some of the most important deities in the Mexican religion. There was a long midsummer festival of eight days devoted to this vegetable, one of the prime necessities of life, at which one victim, a slave girl, was offered to the spirit dwelling in the maize. At the end of the eighteenth century the idol before which the sacrificial ceremony was performed was discovered in one of the squares in Mexico, recalling the procession in which it was carried, bound round with skulls, dead snakes, maize leaves, and ears. The toad, as the offspring of water and the symbol of the water spirit, was an object of veneration. The rabbit, as an animal considered totally devoid of sense, was worshipped as a drink god, to whom offerings were made that the worshipper might escape the deleterious effects of an over indulgence in pulque. Like other people in the primitive stage of culture the Mexicans venerated rivers and lakes as manifestations of will.

The common practice of worship of the dead prevailed also in Mexico, where its existence is attested by the preservation of the skull, or by the blocks of stone surmounted by enormous human heads which invariably denote the distinguished dead, because the gods are always represented with all their limbs. There was also a large heavenly hierarchy, gods of the atmosphere and stellar powers, some being associated with particular mountains, but the most important of all was Tezcatlipoca the giver and sustainer of life, the symbol of the wind, the bestower of life and death. Next to him came the sun god, Huitzilopochtli. He being a living person was, as appeared from the natural phenomena seen in the succession of the seasons and the change from day to night, especially in need of food. His vitality frequently shows signs of failing. It is therefore especially incumbent upon man to help him in this struggle for existence. So necessary was the maintenance of this principle of religious faith that the sun always received a share of the human victims offered to the other divinities. But all sorts of vegetable and animal life were offered to this needy divinity, who seemed to the Mexicans to show such constant signs of an impaired vitality. In the pictures of the Aztecs the rays of the sun, significantly represented as long crimson tongues licking up blood, constantly appear. The order of society was so regulated as to keep the sun in full vigorous condition; hence the never ending slaughter of human victims supplied by incessant warfare with neighboring tribes to provide the food supply for the sun. If there had been large animals in Mexico, these ghastly immolations of human victims might not have stained the progress of the Aztec people, for it is an established principle that the search for food is closely related to the development of religion among primitive races.

As the people of Nahuatlaca stock advanced economically and politically, they applied the results of their experience to their primitive tribal religion. Along with the system of tributes which maintained the dominant pueblo, there were expeditions made for securing the tribute to the sun god, called in the language of religious imagery “the plucking of flowers.” As the service of the god was connected with military expeditions, Huitzilopochtli was the Aztec god of war, the tutelar divinity of the warrior class. Twice a year in Mexico there were special rites in the building called the Abode of the Eagles, where the warriors assembled to send a messenger to their patron. In the principal court of the building there was a colossal symbol of the sun, in the shape of a solar wheel sending forth rays of gold. Before it was a great stone at the top of forty steps, called the cap of the eagles; the middle of the altar was hollowed out to receive the victim’s blood, and here the poor captive was brought dressed in the colors of the sun. He carried a staff, a shield, and a bundle of coloring matter, the purpose of which seems to have been to enable the sun to decorate his face. Just before the immolation the victim was addressed in the following words: “Sir, we pray you go to our god, the sun, and greet him on our behalf; tell him that his sons and warriors and chiefs, those who remain here, pray for him to remember them and to favor them from that place where he is, and to receive this small offering which we send him. Give him this staff to help him on his journey and this shield for his defense, and all the rest you have in this bundle.” Those who fell on the field of battle were believed, as a reward, to be transported into the house of the sun, where they became his servants and shared in his constant banquets.

With the eclecticism common to all religions and that specially marks its primitive type, an ancient god of the Toltecs, Quetzalcohuatl, also a solar deity, was adopted as a member of the Aztec divine hierarchy. According to tradition, this divine being left his abode in heaven for the purpose of showing beneficence to mankind. From him man learnt the arts of life, and while he was on earth the age of gold prevailed. Unlike the other deities, his character was mild and kindly, for he was described as being averse to war and sacrifice. Constantly crossed in his purposes by wizards, he floated away on a raft. There was a general belief that he would return and restore the reign of peace, an anticipation which was popular among the tribes who felt the burden of the Aztec domination. Each year, with an inconsistency not foreign to higher forms of religion, human sacrifices were offered under the guise of messengers sent to inform the benign Quetzalcohuatl of the need of a speedy deliverance.

As might have been expected, exaggerated estimates are given by the early authorities of the number of human beings slaughtered in the course of the year; but, in any case, it must have been great, for in the small and poor region of Tlaxcallan from one pueblo 405 captives were sacrificed at the chief feast of the local deity. Naturally, in the dominant pueblo the proportions of the human victims offered to the gods must have far exceeded these limits.

Closely connected with the Aztec religion was the development of an ingenious, if imperfect method of reckoning time. It was apparently evolved independently, for in the Old World there was nothing like it. The basis of time reckoning was the period of twenty days, and each day of this division had a proper sign or name. The periodic expeditions against neighboring hostile tribes were controlled by this division, as were also the holding of markets and the arrangement of tributes. There were eighteen of these divisions, which regulated the various festivals of the religious year. For secular purposes the 360 day year was corrected by adding to it a period of five days, a fractional part of the twenty-day period. On these supplementary five days all public ceremonies ceased. The chronological system consisted of a combination of great cycles, each of fifty-two years’ duration. And each great cycle was divided into four smaller cycles of thirteen years.

The economic and political basis of Aztec life was the pueblo, or tribal community, in which frequently each clan of the tribe had a localized quarter, each provided with the temple of the particular deity recognized by the clan as its protector. Through the wars of conquest with weaker pueblos there had grown up a rudimentary feudalism, according to which the distinguished warriors were established in the subject pueblos as proprietors of the best lands in them. The possession of these lands could descend to the sons or might be alienated for the benefit of a distinguished chieftain. The food supply of the country so controlled was regular, hence there was no need of a nomadic life. Wealth was increasing, and the population growing. Habits of industry were encouraged, with the result that the principle of the division of labor to a certain extent existed. Some forms of craftsmanship, too, were cultivated, specialized in particular communities; for example, Cholula was famous for its potters, while the art of the goldsmith was practised at Azcapozalco. Clothing was manufactured, the houses and buildings were decorated internally, and there was an elaborate cuisine. Montezuma’s meal is described as consisting of thirty sorts of stews. He used chafing-dishes to keep them warm, and he also drank chocolate and ate fruit as a second course.

There was a system of customary law administered by qualified officials, and, for controlling the conduct of the people, there existed an extremely elaborate rule of life which implied discipline and the recognition of social duties and family obligations. The Aztecs had standards of value, but no coined money and no standards of measurement, nor anything like an alphabet or even a syllabary. In the “pinturas,” however, there were a few purely phonetic symbols.

The darker side of Aztec rule is seen in the enforced human labor exacted to supply the tributes in kind, and in the revolting system of organized cannibalism, the outgrowth of their elaborate ritual. Some of the neighboring tribes successfully resisted both these types of oppression, while those who were too weak to do so depended on the mysteriously predicted deliverance from their yoke. In any case, the way for a rapid conquest had been well prepared.