The New World ^y Arthur R. Gray txhravy of t:he t:heolo0ical ^^minavy PRINCETON . NEW JERSEY FROM THE LIBRARY OF ROBERT ELLIOTT SPEER Gray, Artnur r^. The new worla THE NEW WORLD ^^^X^y V. ,,u THE NEW W BY v^ ARTHUR R. GRAY The Domestic and Foreign Missionary Societv 281 FOURTH AVENUE NEW YORK /^AO "Et vidi caelum novum, et terrain novam. Primum enim caelum, et prima terra abiit, et mare jam non est." — Rev. xxi. 1, Vulgate. INTRODUCTION The New World is One World and each inhabitant of it, wherever he may live, is responsible, accord- ing as God has prospered him, in some measure for the whole of it. Long time the Western Hemisphere had been hidden from those who knew of Christ and His liberating Gospel. At length God guided the wise man from Genoa across the unplumbed seas and the New World was found — and that new world, mind you, was not North America, nor South America, but the Americas, — ^both of them. For many years a large part of the present United States was under one and the same flag with Peru and Colombia and Cuba and Mexico and many other Spanish-speaking states. The dominions of the Don were limited by parallels of longitude, not of latitude. The Nuevo Mundo meant the northern and southern continents. Thus, from the very beginning, in the minds of men, the New World was one. As it grew toward manhood, and began to prepare for participation, on a basis of equality, with the so- called Old World, this fact of oneness was emphasized by the manner in which statesmen and thinkers on both sides of the Equator thought along similar lines. Though Latinism of feeling and thought and action may produce a people superficially different from the Anglo-Saxons; though the Colombians and Brazilians and Cubans and all the rest of them are in many things vi INTRODUCTION as unlike North Americans as they can be, still in matters political all have the same aspirations. Wash- ington and Bolivar, true exemplars of the Anglo-Saxon and Latin characteristics, were Americans. Despite differences innumerable, and the deep sym- pathy between Latin Americans and Latin Europeans, in recent years the Pan-American Union has been formed. Through it in the future the New World dreams of advancing the cause of democracy and liberty. It was because our people instinctively felt this one- ness a hundred years ago that they applauded President Monroe when in his famous message he proclaimed the identity of the interests of the two continents. Men may laugh at the Monroe doctrine in these days, and Latin Americans may very naturally resent it, but that in no way affects the issue, which is that the North and South Americans have both benefited by it. It has stood for that hemispherical solidarity in things political which people of the Americas feel instinc- tively. Its influence for good was recognized at a branch meeting of the Pan-American Conference in New York on the 27th of December, 1915. The pre- siding officer, Eduardo Suarez, the ambassador from Chili, said in his opening address : — Although representing only one of the republics, I am con- vinced that I am interpreting the thought and feeling of each and every one of them when I say the Government of the United States today completes the erasing with a friendly hand of the last traces of past misunderstandings and erro- neous interpretations which had in former times clouded the horizon of America. No doubt, there had prevailed before now in the atmos- phere in American foreign offices, uncertainties, misgivings, and suspicions whenever the well-inspired and unquestionably beneficial declaration by President Monroe was brandished in the United States with a view to practical application. There was lacking the precise definition of the meaning and extent of that memorable document and many of the weaker INTRODUCTION ru American nations seemed afraid and apprehensive whenever the news reached them of a possible application of its declarations. Thus, the Monroe Doctrine might have been a threat so long as it was only a right and an obligation on the part of the United States. Generalized as a derivation from the Pan-American policy supported by all the republics in the continent as a common force and a common defence, it has become a solid tie of union, a guarantee, a bulwark for our democracies. All the republics of America are capable of setting up their own destiny, and all are unquestionably bound to serve in their turn as exponents of our civilization and progress. Let us, we delegates with the Latin soul,^ prove that we are equally capable of generating energy to insure the well- being of human kind, and that we are likewise able to assist with a contribution worthy of our brothers of Saxon- America in the work of Pan-American communion. . . . Yes, the New World is one world and the New World has a contribution to make to the peoples of the rest of the world. It is surrounded by a cloud of wit- nesses who are watching the great experiment which it is making in government. Just because this New World of ours has this brave task imposed upon it, each and every citizen should feel responsible for the progress of the whole of it. And specially those of us to whom has been entrusted the knowledge of the true relation be- tween catholicity and individualism, between authority and liberty, between dogma and scholarship, — we to whom this precious gospel has been given owe a double duty to every nation in the New World as it struggles toward the ideals set up by Washington and Bolivar. Without our message their ambitions can never be realized. God give us wisdom and power so to play our part that the labors of the Conquista- dores and the struggles of the liberators may be justi- fied and the New World made an exemplar of Christian Democracy among the nations of the earth. CONTENTS CHAPTER I FOR GOD, FOR GLORY, AND FOR GOLD Tells how the New World was found and how the conquerors were conquered Page 3 CHAPTER n CONQUISTADORES OF THE CROSS Tells how the Church began to labor in the New World, and what glorious things some of its servants did... ^Pay^ 31 CHAPTER HI THE ROCK WHENCE WE ARE HEWN Tells of the wind which an unwise government sowed in the New World and of some of the things which accounted for its unwisdom Page 60 CHAPTER IV NEW RESPONSIBILITIES. PORTO RICO AND THE CANAL ZONE Tells how the people of that part of the New World called the United States took over the control of parts of the Spanish Dominion, and how our Church has taken up its share of the responsibility Page 87 CHAPTER V NEAR NEIGHBORS. CUBA AND HAITI Tells how our duty toward certain of our New World neigh- bors has compelled us to undertake some other tasks. Page 127 X CONTENTS CHAPTER VI TWO HUGE REPUBLICS. MEXICO AND BRAZIL Tells how we are exhibiting interest in the welfare of New World republics of prodigious possibilities Page 176 APPENDIX I On the Pronunciation of Spanish Words Page 225 APPENDIX II The Monroe Doctrine Page 227 APPENDIX III The American Church Missionary Society Page 230 APPENDIX IV On the Work done by Other Churches and Religious Bodies in South America Page 231 APPENDIX V Bibliography Page 233 Index Page 239 ILLUSTRATIONS The Pan-American Building at Washington Frontispiece OPPOSITE PACK Spring at Aguadilla on the Isle of Porto Rico where Columbus Once Filled His Water-Casks 10 Toscanelli's Map, Used by Columbus in His First Voyage 18 An Old Cut Depicting Balboa taking Possession of the South Sea 26 Bartholomew De Las Casas, from a Portrait 34 Cathedral of San Francisco, Santo Domingo City, Oldest Cathedral in the New World; begun in 1514 42 St. John's Church, San Juan 90 St. Luke's Hospital, Ponce 98 Church of the Resurrection, El Coto 104 Flooding Gatun's Lock Chambers, Preparatory to the Passage of the First Vessel through the Canal 112 Christ Church, Colon 119 The Building in Matanzas in which the Fieles, a Jesus Congregation, was Organized 126 Our Cathedral of the Santisima Trinidad, Havana 126 A Confirmation Class at Sabana Bonito, Constancia Plan- tation, Bishop Hulse in the background 134 Jamaican Children in a Church School at Guantanamo.. 140 Bishop Holly 156 Confirmation Class in Haiti 163 A Haitian Soldier 170 The Mary Josephine Hooker Memorial School and Or- phanage, Mexico City 178 St. Andrew's Industrial School and Farm, Guadalajara.. 186 Church of the Mediator, Santa Maria 200 Congregation at Dom Pedrito: Bishop Kinsolving in the center 214 MAPS Porto Rico 102 Canal Zone 118 Cuba 138 Haiti 162 Mexico 190 Southern Brazil 208 xi THE NEW WORLD CHAPTER I FOR GOD, FOR GLORY, AND FOR GOLD A wilderness of heaving waters; as far as the eye can reach nothing but the short, blue-gray chop of the South Atlantic; above, a few querulous seagulls, screeching a complaint because of the presence of a strange invader within their realms of silence; the object of their invectives, a little ship — called such by courtesy, for it is only ninety feet long — which bobs and lurches to the wave's command. On board the vessel a group of lightly clad men gaze in bewildered awe at the endless spaces about them. In the bow are several who search the horizon to the westward for the coasts of far Japan, or Cipango as they have learned to call it from the reports of Ser Marco Polo. On the poop, near the steersman, stands a stoical, silent man, whose motionless figure and hungry eyes bear testimony to long days of doubt and danger well endured. Ever and anon he turns to examine a rough map whereon is pictured what the geographers of early days imagined might be found by adventurers who sought the Indies by the way of the setting sun. Strange maps those were! And wonderful to us sophisticated folk was the ignorance of those other- wise learned geographers whose only source of in- formation came from the travellers who sought Japan and China— the credulity of which travellers you re- member was commemorated in the jest, now meta- morphosed into the proper name, La Chine, which 3 4 THE NEW WORLD is still attached to the rapids west of Montreal. And wonderful were the mariners who, with naught to help them but faulty maps, drove their frail barks westward. How did they ever do it? To us a chartless ocean, or a coast without its complement of lighthouses, is a thing of terror. To them, unaccustomed to modern, mechanical navigation, what we call prudence was a thing unknown ! Had it not been, how could they ever have gone beyond the Canaries or let the friendly pillars of Hercules sink below the horizon? It was bad enough to have to sail uncharted oceans, but to have to do so without knowing where one was going! That was the supreme test. Perhaps a parenthetic word or two about the six- teenth century mariner's method of navigation would increase our understanding and appreciation of their work : By the end of the thirteenth century (writes Mr. Fiske), the compass had come to be quite generally used, and the direction of a ship's course could be watched continuously in foul and fair weather alike. For taking the sun's alti- tude rude astrolabes and jackstaffs were in use, very crazy affairs as compared with the modern quadrant, but sufficiently accurate to enable a well-trained observer, in calculating his latitude, to get somewhere within two or three degrees of the truth. In calculating longitude the error was apt to be much greater, for in the absence of chronometers there were no accurate means for marking differences in time. It was necessary to depend upon the dead-reckoning, and the custom was first to sail due north or south to the parallel of the place of destination and then to turn at right angles and sail due east or west. Errors of eight or even ten degrees were not uncommon. Thus at the end of a long outward voyage the ship might find itself a hundred miles or more to the north or south, and six or seven hundred miles to the east or west, of the point at which it had been aimed. Under all these difficulties, the approximations made to cor- rect sailing by the most skillful mariners were sometimes wonderful. Doubtless this very poverty of resources served to sharpen their watchful sagacity. To sail the seas was in those days a task requiring high mental equipment; it was FOR GOD, FOR GLORY, AND FOR GOLD 5 no work for your commonplace skipper. Human faculty was taxed to its utmost, and human courage has never been more grandly displayed than by the glorious sailors of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. ^ But to return to our little vessel and its crew. Though the silent commander appears to the eye calm and serene, within his mind are a multitude of anxious thoughts. More than 2,700 miles of water have been left behind since that 6th day of September when they sailed from Gomera in the Canaries, and it is now the 11th of October. Can they by any possibility have sailed past Japan? And if so what lies to the west of them? Have all his carefully worked out theories been wrong? If the world is not round and the back door to the Indies not ahead of them where will their journey end? If the world is flat — perish the foolish thought ! — will they soon reach a falling off place? — Thus vast questions harry his mind and drive him to go over his calculations again and again. But this doubt as to their whereabouts is not the worst of his troubles. For the past two weeks his crew, terrified by the unending waste of water, has been almost unmanageable. He has had to resort to all sorts of petty deceptions to keep them under control. Nothing but their belief in his superior knowledge has saved him thus far. "Surely," he thought as he strained his weary eyes westward, **land must be some- where near at hand." Those birds, those bits of seaweed, they must indicate something. Suddenly a green branch is seen ahead, and then a small stick apparently carved with an iron instru- ment. Then those on the Nina see a branch of dog- rose briar, covered with flowers ! At the sight of these a thrill runs through the ship — ■ excited voices rise from the now crowded bulwarks, *Fiske, The Discovery of America, I, 315-6. 6 THE NEW WORLD and their tone is no longer that of raucous mutineers. "Land must be near," they shout. *' Whose land, what land?" the question rises spon- taneously. "No matter whose or what," the replies come quickly, "no matter where it is or what it is like, it is land ! land ! land !" The leader from the poop forthwith promises ten thousand maravedis — a handsome sum for those days even though it only amounts to fifteen dollars and eighty cents in our currency — to whomever shall first see the shore. For the remaining hours of daylight and on into the night ninety eager pairs of eyes defy sleep and scan the horizon. At length, about ten o'clock, the admiral sees from the high poop of the Santa Maria a distant blaze as if somebody were moving along a beach with a torch. Fearing the effect of any more disappointments he does nothing, but hope blazes brightly in his heart. Four endless hours drag by — then suddenly and shrilly a voice thrills across the waters announcing that land is in sight. It is a sailor on the Pinta who has made this marvellous announcement, and before its echoes have died down the strained bulwarks are again thronged and the weary eyes of weary sailors are again looking — looking — looking. Though the light is only such as southern stars supply they can all see something that has the appear- ance of land and ask to be allowed to lower boats that they may go nearer and investigate. Their com- mander, however, orders them to abide patiently till morning — after all he has been through he is not going to take any risks at this tremendous moment. Three more hours creep by — hours than which none ever seemed longer to mortal men. At length, however, the dawn comes and with it a steadily increasing light, until the sun himself gets up and all is plain. FOR GOD, FOR GLORY, AND FOR GOLD 7 There lies the land — ^it is no mirage this time. It is the good hard old earth whereon man's feet may tread, and whereon he may lay him down at night without fear of gales and overwhelming waves. There lies the land for which they had been searching these many tremulous weeks ; the land about which the world had been speculating since first men studied geography; the land which answered the question of the centuries, which proved that the world is round. Columbus and his crews have found it. The old order has come to an end. The New World has been found ! ^ How paltry are our attempts to realize the sig- nificance of that event ! We talk glibly about a change being wrought in the world's history, but we come far from understanding how great that change was. It is simply beyond us to appreciate what it meant to have Europe cease to be synonymous with the ''world." And yet appreciate it to some extent we must if we are to profit by the fact that we are in- habitants of the New World ; if we are to live up to the privileges which are given to those to whom have been entrusted the duties of new world citizenship. A New World had come into being — it is still new — and in proportion as we understand how vitally this New World can and must influence the progress of humanity — of God's children — shall we be able to do our part in bringing the whole round world to the feet of Christ its Lord. Upon our shoulders rests the burden. Shall we prove worthy? Shall we so labor that the prodigious discovery of Columbus shall be made worth while? We cannot dwell further on the story of Columbus. Enough has surely been said to make the reader ap- * The story of how the printer Walzmiiller came to give the name America to the new world is well told by Payne, History of the New World Called America, I, pp. 210 fif. 8 THE NEW WORLD preciate the daring and the skill and the perseverance of the man and the men who first crossed the unknown Atlantic. Mariners they were than whom the world never saw bolder. Navigators they were, clever and resourceful beyond compare. Save that the ocean to the westward was open and free from reefs, and that a' little to the south of the Canaries could be found a breeze which blew steadily toward the sunset — save for those two facts they knew little or nothing of the seas they plowed. But the bravery of the servants of Ferdinand and Isabella was not only displayed upon the high seas. On land many performed prodigies which make one fairly gasp with wonder. Take, for example, from among the many tales of their doings the following story told by Prescott about Gonzalo Pizarro's expedi- tion to the headwaters of the Amazon: ^ Gonzalo Pizarro received the news of his appointment to the government of Quito v^ith undisguised pleasure; not so much for the possession that it gave him of this ancient Indian province, as for the field that it opened for discovery toward the east, — that fabled land of Oriental spices, which had long captivated the imagination of the Conquerors. He repaired to his government without delay, and found no difficulty in awakening a kindred enthusiasm to his own in the bosoms of his followers. In a short time, he mustered three hundred and fifty Spaniards, and four thousand Indians. One hundred and fifty of his company were mounted, and all were equipped in the most thorough manner for the undertaking. He provided, moreover, against famine by a large stock of provisions, and an immense drove of swine which followed in the rear. . . . It was the beginning of 1540 when he set out on this celebrated expedition. . . . The scene changed as they entered the territory of Quixos, where the character of the inhabi- * These tales have been told so often and so well that rather than retell them in his own words the author has selected the most attractive renditions and quoted directly from them. FOR GOD, FOR GLORY, AND FOR GOLD 9 tants, as well as of the climate, seemed to be of another description. The country was traversed by lofty ranges of the Andes, and the adventurers were soon entangled in their deep and intricate passes. As they rose into the more ele- vated regions, the icy winds that swept down the sides of the Cordilleras benumbed their limbs, and many of the natives found a wintry grave in the wilderness. . . . On descending the eastern slopes, the climate changed; and, as they came on the lower level, the fierce cold was succeeded by a suffocating heat, while tempests of thunder and light- ning, rushing from out of the gorges of the sierra, poured on their heads with scarcely any intermission day or night, as if the offended deities of the place were willing to take vengeance en the invaders of their mountain solitudes. For more than six weeks the deluge continued unabated, and the forlorn wanderers, wet, and weary with incessant toil, were scarcely able to drag their limbs along the soil broken up and saturated with the moisture. . . . From the wandering tribes of savages whom they had occasionally met in their path, they learned that at ten days' distance ^ was a rich and fruitful land abounding with gold, and inhabited by populous nations. . . . This intelligence renewed his hopes, and he resolved to push the adventure farther. , . . Con- tinuing their march, the country now spread out into broad savannas terminated by forests, which, as they drew near, seemed to stretch on every side to the very verge of the horizon. ... At every step of their way, they were obliged to hew open a passage with their axes, while their garments, rotting from the effects of the drenching rains to which they had been exposed, caught in every bush and bramble, and hung about them in shreds. Their provisions, spoiled by the weather, had long since failed, and the live stock which they had taken with them had either been consumed or made their escape in the woods and mountain passes. They had set out with nearly a thousand dogs, many of them of the ferocious breed used in hunting down the unfortunate natives. These they now gladly killed, but their miserable carcasses furnished a lean banquet for the famished travelers, and when these were gone they had only such herbs and dangerous roots as they could gather in the forest. . . . At length the way-worn company came on a broad expanse of water formed by the Napo, one of the great tributaries of the Amazon. . . . Sorely pressed by hunger, the ad- venturers determined, at all hazards, to cross to the opposite side, in hopes of finding a country that might afford them sustenance. A frail bridge was constructed by throwing the 10 THE NEW WORLD huge trunks of trees across the chasm, where the chffs, as if spHt asunder by some convulsion of nature, descended sheer down a perpendicular depth of several hundred feet. Over this airy causeway the men and horses succeeded in effecting their passage with the loss of a single Spaniard, who, made giddy by heedlessly looking down, lost his foot- ing and fell into the boiling surges below. Yet they gained little by the exchange. The country wore the same unpromising aspect, and the 'river-banks were studded with gigantic trees, or fringed with impenetrable thickets. The tribes of Indians, whom they occasionally met in the pathless wilderness, were fierce and unfriendly, and they were engaged in perpetual skirmishes with them. From these they learned that a fruitful country was to be found down the river at a distance of only a few days' journey, and the Spaniards held on their weary way, still hoping and still deceived, as the promised land flitted before them, like the rainbow, receding as they advanced. At length, spent with toil and suffering, Gonzalo resolved to construct a bark large enough to transport the weaker part of his company and his baggage. The forests furnished him with timber; the shoes of the horses which had died on the road or been slaughtered for food, were converted into nails; gum distilled from the trees took the place of pitch; and the tattered garments of the soldiers supplied a substitute for oakum. It was a work of difficulty; but Gon- zalo cheered^ his men in the task, and set an example by taking part in their labors. At the end of two months, a brigantine was completed, rudely put together, but strong and of sufficient burden to carry half the company, — the first European vessel that ever floated on these inland waters. Into this ship Pizarro put such of his followers as had to have immediate relief from the toilsome marches, and over it he placed in command Orellana. Without delay they sailed away, promising to return in a few days with provisions and, if possible, news of an El Dorado. Days and weeks passed away, yet the vessel did not return ;i and no speck was to be seen on the waters, as the Spaniards strained their eyes to the farthest point, where the line of * Orellana, unable to return, sailed down the Amazon in liis strange craft and along the coast of South America to the island of Margarita. FOR GOD, FOR GLORY, AND FOR GOLD 11 light faded away in the dark shadows of the foliage on the borders. Detachments were sent out, and, though absent several days, came back without intelligence of their com- rades. Unable longer to endure this suspense, or indeed to maintain themselves in their present quarters, Gonzalo and his famishing followers now determined to proceed toward the junction of the rivers. Two months elapsed before they accomplished this terrible journey, — those of them who did not perish on the way, — although the distance probably did not exceed two hundred leagues; and they at length reached the spot so long desired. . . . Their herculean efforts had, however, been in vain. The ship which had preceded them to this spot was not to be seen, their comrades were nowhere in evidence. The only sign that Spaniards had ever been there was the presence of a half-starved man named Vargas, who had been one of the crew which had started off on the rough hewn vessel. To him they turned eagerly for information. What had become of the vessel they had built and which now seemed to be their only means of escape from the wilderness? They listened with horror to the answer of Vargas, as he told them that the boat had gone on down the river and left them to their fate, and their blood almost froze in their veins as they saw themselves thus deserted in the heart of a remote wilderness, and deprived of their only means of escape. They made a spasmodic effort to prosecute their journey along the banks, but, after some toilsome days, strength and spirits failed, and they gave up in despair. Then it was that the qualities of Gonzalo Pizarro, as a fit leader in the hour of despondency and danger, shone out conspicuous. To advance farther was hopeless. To stay where they were without food or raiment, without defense from the fierce animals of the forest, and the fiercer natives, was impossible. Only one course remained; it was to return to Quito. But this brought with it the recollection of the past, of suflFerings which they could well estimate, — hardly to be endured even in imagination. They were now at least 12 THE NEW WORLD four hundred leagues from Quito, and more than a year had elapsed since they had set out on their painful pilgrimage. How could they encounter these perils again? Yet there was no alternative. Gonzalo endeavored to re- assure his followers by dwelling on the invincible constancy they had hitherto displayed, adjuring them to show them- selves still worthy of the name of Castihans. He reminded them of the glory they would forever acquire by their heroic achievement when they should reach their own country. He would lead them back, he said, by another route, and it could not be but that they should meet somewhere with those abundant regions of which they had so often heard. It was something at least that every step would take them nearer home; and as, at all events, it was clearly the only course now left, they should prepare to meet it like men. The spirit would sustain the body; and difficulties encountered in the right spirit were half vanquished already ! The soldiers listened eagerly to his words of promise and encouragement. The confidence of their leader gave life to the despondent. They felt the force of his reasoning, and, as they lent a willing ear to his assurances, the pride of the old Castilian honor revived in their bosom, and everyone caught somewhat of the generous enthusiasm of their com- mander. ... I will spare the reader the recapitulation of the sufferings endured by the Spaniards on the retrograde march to Quito. They took a more northerly route than that by which they had approached the Amazon, and, if it was attended with fewer difficulties, they experienced yet greater distresses from their greater inability to overcome them. Their only nourish- ment was such scanty fare as they could pick up in the forest or happily meet with in some forsaken Indian settlement, or wring by violence from the natives. Some sickened and sank down by the way, for there was none to help them. Intense misery had made them selfish ; and many a poor wretch was abandoned to his fate, to die alone in the wilder- ness, or, more probably, to be devoured while living, by the wild animals which roamed over it. At length, In June, 1542, after somewhat more than a year consumed in their homeward march, the wayworn company came on the elevated plains in the neighborhood of Quito. How different their aspect from that which they had ex- hibited on issuing from the gates of the same capitol two years and a half before, with high romantic hope and in all the pride of military array ! Their horses gone, their arms broken and rusted, the skins of wild animals instead of FOR GOD, FOR GLORY, AND FOR GOLD 13 clothes hanging loosely about their limbs, their long and matted locks streaming wildly down to their shoulders, their faces burned and blackened by the tropical sun, their bodies wasted by famine and sorely disfigured by scars, — it seemed as if the charnal-house had given up its dead, as, with un- certain step, they glided slowly onward like a troop of dismal spectres ! More than half of the four thousand Indians who had accompanied the expedition had perished, and of the Spaniards only eighty, and many of these irretrievably broken in constitution, returned to Quito. This tale represents no extraordinary event in the history of the Conquistadores. It has been chosen because it is so typical. The stories of Cortez' con- quest of Mexico, of Francisco Pizarro's conquest of Peru, of Balboa's and Pedrarias' victories on the isthmus of Darien, of Ojeda and Quesada in Central and South America — those tales of conquest are apt to mislead us into thinking that all went well with the ever-conquering Spaniards. Just because they accom- plished so much we forget the horrors they endured, and the tale of Gonzalo Pizarro has been chosen be- cause, lacking the element of victory, it enables us to realize a little better the trials which they all — whether victors or vanquished — had to suffer as they fought for the New World. As we read these things, we ask involuntarily, — what was it all about ? What did they do it all for ? What power drove the Conquerors ? What enticement drew them? Were they animated by the spirit of a Ulysses whom Tennyson has made for us the incarnation of restlessness? Did they merely wish: To sail beyond the sunset and the baths Of all the western stars. . . . Were they mere adventurers, loving excitement for the sake of the thrill only? Or was there something behind it all, — something big and dominating which 14 THE NEW WORLD drew them ever onward till the New World lay trem- bling beneath their feet? No better summing up of the answer to these ques- tions has been made than that they did it *'for God, for glory, and for gold." Religious zealots they were in the first place, who sought new lands to add to their sovereign Pontiff's do- main. Born adventurers they were, in the second place, to whom the plaudits of the multitudes were dear be- yond computation. And lastly, they were El Dorado hunters of the first magnitude. Nor were the last two of these incentives necessarily unworthy or peculiar to the Dons. What men have been free from them ? Since the days of the Phoenician explorers, navigators have had material as well as pa- triotic ambitions. It was not because they desired to find gold that the Conquistadores are to be faulted, but rather because in their search they forgot that suc- cess consists in something more than heaps of glitter- ing treasure ; because they forgot that there was any- thing else in the world except gold. Had they only retained a sense of proportion, had they only been able to temper their zeal for wealth, and labor quite as much for God and Glory, then would they have built under the Southern Cross a commonwealth of perennial glory, a commonwealth which today would have stood high among the nations of the world. But why speculate with an impossible "if." A man cannot serve two masters, much less three. One of them will sooner or later gain the mastery, and the moral that we have to learn from the story of the Conquistadores is that no heroism and fortitude, no bravery and longsuffering, no prodigies of valor and cunning, will ever be worth while, if in seeking and finding them men forget their duty to their neighbors and their God. FOR GOD, FOR GLORY, AND FOR GOLD 15 If one is to understand conditions in any country, he must know somewhat of its history. What the United States is today can only be explained by telling of the Colonial period, of the Revolution and the days of division and reunion. Even so, Latin America of to- day can only be understood by those who have some knowledge of its past. Which is another way of say- ing that to understand and sympathize with a person, we have to know somewhat of the rock whence he was hewn. What follows in this and the following chapters is an endeavor to compress within small compass a description of the rock — or call it sand if you will — whence the peoples and the governments to the south of us were hewn. For us as students and would-be neighbors the most important factor about Latin America is its past. We have already pointed out the motives which ac- counted for the bravery and the perseverance of the Conquerors, and which led to the opening up of the new world. If, however, we are to grasp their full significance, we must look at them somewhat more in detail. For God In the first place the Conquistadores crossed the sea and defied a thousand dangers for the glory of God. That is a point which cannot be too often stressed, since it reveals better than anything else the temper of the time. Those were days, one is almost tempted to say, of man's innocence. Certainly in comparison to these days when adventurers set out to find the poles without ever a thought about God's governance, without ever a prayer that their explorations may redound to the spread of His Kingdom, — certainly in comparison to these days those of Columbus were simple and full of faith. 16 THE NEW WORLD To begin with, the great navigator was himself mis- sionary-hearted. He considered himself an Ambas- sador of Christ. Like David Livingstone he divided his interest between things theological and things geo- graphical.^ In fact a most interesting parallel be- tween Columbus and Livingstone could be drawn, and parenthetically, one cannot help remarking how largely the world has depended upon the servants of the Church for its progress in the field of discovery. To a very considerable extent, modern scientific geog- raphy is a by-product of missions. To be more explicit about Columbus, one can best refer to his writings. In a letter referring to a famous medieval prophecy, he writes, for example, — "The Rabbi Joachim says that out of Spain shall come he who will rebuild the house of Mt. Zion." And then he goes on to explain how that he had been glad to go to the Indies since in that adventure he had expected to find gold and wealth enough to enable the Church to send out another crusade which would finally recover the Holy City and the Sepulchre of Christ from the in- fidels. Or again, when he returned the first time from Haiti, to Spain, he writes that those whom he had left behind would easily collect a ton of gold — how ignorant he was of Haitian resources — while he was absent, and that therefore in less than three years the capture of the Holy Sepulchre and the conquest of Jerusalem could be undertaken. Again, later in his life, 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, in- terest, should to the extent of one-half go to aid the expenses of recovering the Holy places in Palestine. ^ The author is not unaware of Justin Winsor's unfavorable estimate of the character of Columbus. He feels, however, the force of Mr. Fiske's argument to the effect that the critically minded Las Casas would not have admired Columbus so had he been what Mr, Winsor would have us believe. FOR GOD, FOR GLORY, AND FOR GOLD 17 Such facts as these show how deeply concerned the Genoese adventurer was about the spiritual results of his work.^ Nor was he alone in this. The story of Cortez and his Mexican career reveals similar ideals and ambitions. Blood and iron warrior that he was, he never forgot the Faith. It is very easy to ridicule such statements and gen- erally to criticize sixteenth century standards. But it is unfair so to do without wide qualifications. Progress does not mean from one kind of thing to another kind, but rather from one degree to another. By which is meant that we are not different in kind from the conquerors of Mexico, but only in degree. Further, we are not perfect ourselves and twenty-fifth century people, if the Kingdom does not come before then, will probably look upon the deeds of our heroes as many now look on those of Cortez. Let us avoid these pitfalls of superficiality and think of the Spanish heroes in terms of the century in which they lived, and let us take Cortez and judge him on that basis. With the little army with which he invaded Mexico, Cortez was scrupulously careful to keep always a complement of priests. Never were their ministrations put off or made of secondary importance. From begin- ning to end the Cross went side by side with the banner in his army. The first colony he established he named Vera Cruz, or True Cross. These facts are only illustrative of the entire tone of his expedition. Nor can one say that it was all outward and without inward significance. In his acts and in his letters the Conquistador showed time and time again that he took his faith seriously. On one occasion, for ex- ample, he risked everything rather than forego the * Compare Payne, History of the New World Called America, I, 137 ff., 186 ff. 18 THE NEW WORLD Church's offices, and at many other times he did things which he need not have done, and which decreased his chances of success, in order to pay what was due to the God in whom he so fervently beheved. That Cortez had an appreciation of moral values and held high ideals was abundantly proven when he risked, on one occasion, losing the imperial favor for the sake of the pure Gospel. The following from a letter written to the Emperor Charles V on October 15, 1524, reveals the real Cortez: Every time I have written to your sacred Majesty, I have mentioned to your Highness the disposition that exists in some of the natives of these parts to embrace our holy catholic faith and become Christians ; and I have begged your imperial Majesty to direct that religious persons of good life and example be provided. As very few, or almost none, have yet come, and it is certain that they would gather much fruit from their labors, I again call the attention of your Highness to the subject, and beg you to make this provision with all speed ; for by this means God our Lord will be greatly served, and the desire of your Highness in this case as a good Catholic fulfilled. By the deputies, An- tonio de Quinones and Alonso Davila, the councils of^ the towns of New Spain and myself, did send to supplicate your Majesty to supply bishops and other prelates for the administration of the offices of the church and divine wor- ship, and such was the view I then entertained of the course best to be pursued; but having well considered this matter, it now appears to me that your sacred Majesty may in a different manner provide for the more easy conversion of the natives of this country, and their instruction in the prin- ciples of our holy faith. The plan I would recommend, is, that a number of religious persons (or priests), as I have already mentioned, zealous for the conversion of this people, should come out, for whom houses and monasteries should be erected in the provinces wherever it may seem proper; and that tithes be assigned them to defray the expense of building their houses, and for their support, the surplus to be applied to the erection and ornamenting of the churches in the villages where the Spaniards reside, as well as to main- tain the clergy who officiate in them. Officers appointed by your Majesty should collect and keep an account of the FOR GOD, FOR GLORY, AND FOR GOLD 19 tithes, and with them supply the monasteries and churches; for which purpose they will be more than sufficient, and a balance left for the disposition of your Majesty. Let your Majesty petition his Holiness (the Pope) to grant you the tenths of these parts for this purpose, giving him to under- stand the service rendered to God our Lord by the conver- sion of this people, which can be accomplished in no other way; for if bishops and other prelates are sent, they will follow the custom practised by them for our sins at the present day, by disposing of the estates of the church, and expending them in pageants and other foolish matters; and bestowing rights of inheritance on their sons or relatives. A still greater evil would result from this state of things; the natives of this country formerly had their priests, who were engaged in conducting the rites and ceremonies of their religion; and so strict were they in the practice of honesty and chastity, that any deviation therefrom was punished with death; now if they saw that the affairs of the church and what related to the service of God were entrusted to canons and other dignitaries, and if they understood that these were the ministers of God whom they beheld indulging in vicious habits and profaneness, as is the case in these days in Spain, it would lead them to undervalue our faith and treat it with derision, and all the preaching in the world would not be able to counteract the mischief arising from this source. As the conversion of this people is, and ought to be, the principal object of your Majesty, which we likewise who reside here ought as Christians to keep in view, and sedulously endeavor to promote, I have sought to counsel your imperial Majesty in regard to this matter, and to express my opinion respecting it; which I beg your Highness to receive as pro- ceeding from one of your subjects and vassals who exerts, and will still continue to exert, his strength in extending the realms and seignories of your Majesty throughout this land, and in making known your royal fame and great power amongst these nations: and who at the same time desires, and will labor with all his soul, to induce your Highness to command the propagation of our holy faith, as the means of securing happiness in eternal life* . . .1 When we turn from the fiery conqueror of Mexico to that finest of all the Conquistadores, Vasco Nufiez de Balboa, we find another noble illustration of the * Letters of Cortes, edited by F. A. MacNutt, pp. 213-215. 20 THE NEW WORLD emphasis placed on the spread of God's Kingdom by the Spanish adventurers. The story of Balboa's first vision of the Pacific has, so far as literary effect is concerned, been told once and for all by Washington Irving. Here is his ac- count : With palpitating heart, he ascended alone the bare mountain top. On reaching the summit, the long-desired prospect burst upon, his view. It was as if a new world were unfolded to him, separated from all hitherto known by this mighty barrier of mountains. Below him extended a vast chaos of rock and forest, and green savannas and wandering streams, while at a distance the waters of the promised ocean glittered in the morning sun. At this glorious prospect Vasco Nufiez sank upon his knees, and poured out thanks to God, for being the first European to whom it was given to make that great discovery. He then called his people to ascend: "Behold, my friends," he said, "that glorious sight which we have so much desired. Let us give thanks to God that he has granted us this great honor and advantage. Let us pray to Him to guide and aid us to conquer the sea and land which we have discovered, and which Christian has never entered to preach the holy doctrine of the Evangelists. As to yourselves, be as you have hitherto been, faithful and true to me, and by the favor of Christ you will become the richest Spaniards that have ever come to the Indies; you will render the greatest services to your king that ever vassal rendered to his lord; and you will have the eternal glory and advantage of all that is here dis- covered, conquered, and converted to our holy Catholic faith. The Spaniards answered this speech by embracing Vasco Nunez, and promising to follow him to death. Among them was a priest, named Andreas de Veram, who lifted up his voice and chanted Te Deum Laudamus, the usual anthem of Spanish discoverers. The rest, kneeling down, joined in the strain with pious enthusiasm and tears of joy; and never did a more sincere oblation rise to the Deity from a sanctified altar, than from that mountain summit.^ Only a short while ago we were telling with pride how an Alaskan missionary made the heights of Mc- * Irving, Voyages and Discoveries of the Companions of Columbus. Vasco Nunez de Balboa. Chap. IX. FOR GOD, FOR GLORY, AND FOR GOLD 21 Kinley to resound with Te Deum Laudamus. With that fresh in our memories is it not inspiring to be reminded of Balboa and Veram, and to know that as that hymn to the Trinity was the first song sung on the summit of North America, even so when first the southern sea, the wide and wonderful Pacific, was seen by Europeans, its waters were called upon to echo the Christians' hymn of Faith. It would be a simple matter to bring out many more facts illustrating the emphasis laid by Cortez and Balboa and all the Conquistadores on the conver- sion of the aborigines. Whether in Cuba or Mexico or Central or South America, they remind us of Charlemagne and his contemporaries, and in a measure one may say that the immediate products of those *'sword or baptism" conversions in the old and new worlds were a good deal alike. The conditions of the lands in which the things were done were so totally different though — as we shall see later on — that as the years went by differentiations of marked character developed, so that what resemblances at first appeared soon ceased to exist. "For God," then, was a controlling motive with the discoverers and conquerors. For God they began their search for gold. For God at the first they sub- jugated all the Indians with whom they came in con- tact. For God they committed in the beginning, it must be confessed, vast and horrible crimes, and in the name of the Prince of Peace they made war where none was necessary. For Glory Such was the first of their ideals. And then there was the second, — for glory. Men will do much for glory. The pride of life is vigorous. Few are in- sensible to its cajolery, few are unmindful of the pes- 22 THE NEW WORLD sible plaudits of the multitude. Tacitus, two thousand years ago, said that **the desire of glory clings even to the best men longer than any other passion.'* Shakespeare made the ''for glory" phase one of the seven in the life of men : Then, a soldier, Seeking the bubble reputation Even in the cannon's mouth. Whether it represents the attitude of men at a specific age or not, does not concern us here. What does concern us is that from the college youth of modem America plunging into the line and performing feats before full stadia which he would not do in practice, back to the days of tribal warfare, the gratification of personal vanity and the applause of one's friends and neighbors have been real incentives to deeds of bravery. The extent to which the Conquistadores labored for glory is, of course, indeterminable. We know though that as a result of their centuries of warfare with the Moors a spirit of what one might call spectacular militarism had developed, a spirit which Cervantes parodied at the end of the sixteenth century. One is quite safe, therefore, in saying that no estimate of the motives of the Spanish conquerors should leave out a reference to their love for fanfaronade and the shoutings of the multitude. Whether this spirit was baneful or not need not be determined here. We may say, at least, that love of adventure, sheer passion for excitement — for crossing unknown seas, for penetrating mysterious forests, for subjugating strange peoples, for contending with the elements — that love for these things is capable of fine development. It might be added that such an incentive is without question a nobler one than mere love for gold. The pity is that the Spaniards who went to the FOR GOD, FOR GLORY, AND FOR GOLD 23 Indies did not retain their passion for Glory. As it was, not only did they forget that they had come out for God, but they even forgot the Glory that was to be won. In the fever of the treasure hunt they cast off almost every worthy impulse and like bloodhounds with nose on trail, dashed blindly after Gold. Therein lies the appalling tragedy of the Conquest. As Las Casas says, the ''execrable sed d'oro" (execrable thirst for gold) conquered the Conquistadores. For Gold From the earliest days Europeans had thought of the unknown lands which lay to the east of Palestine as places from which great wealth m.ight be obtained. Throughout the thirteenth century, there was much rivalry for the control of the trade with the orient, and it was due to her success in this direction that Venice became at one time the commercial center of the world. During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries it was the most splendid and luxurious city in all Christendom, and most of its splendor came from the fact that it was the chief port through which the costly products of India and China were obtained. But the long overland journey to the eastern end of the Mediterranean was arduous and costly, and for a great many years mer- chants had been eager to find some other way of tap- ping the wealth of the orient. If only a passage for ships could be found, the whole matter would be simpli- fied and the profits of the traders greatly increased. Hence it came to pass that though they went out for God and for Glory, the controlling motive in the ex- peditions of the Conquerors was a material one, and to this fact must be attributed most of the unhappy his- tory of the early days. It has been often pointed out that the difference between the settlers in Virginia and New England, and 24 THE NEW WORLD those who went to the Caribbean, was a matter of motive. The pilgrims, on their part, crossed the ocean that they might find a place where, for the rest of their days, they could worship God in their own way. The Spaniards, seeking a short cut to the treasure houses of the Indies, regarded the lands which they found in a totally different light. And it takes no stretch of the imagination to see that the latter motive was less apt to produce happy results, since solid and lasting colonies are only founded by those who go in search of homes. We can with profit compare the Spaniards with the gold-seekers in Alaska. Those who rushed pell-mell to the Klondike were not seeking homes, and from the accounts which we receive of their behavior we are forced to believe that Alaska in the nineteenth century presented many situations com- parable to those in the colonies of the Spanish Main. Is there not a large moral in these facts, and should we not be grateful that our ancestors were led not by tales of treasure cities, but crossed the wide Atlantic for spiritual rather than material reasons? When we take up the story of the Spaniards' search for gold, we find that it can be divided into two dis- tinct parts. In the first place there were the more or less resultless expeditions of Columbus and his companions ; and in the second there were the rich strikes of those who found the treasure cities of the Aztecs and Incas. Both of these experiences were unfortunate. The first in that it developed a vicious type of slavery. The second in that it resulted in furious and exterminating warfares. Take, for example, the experience of those who ex- plored the Antilles. The native Arawaks whom they found in the islands were such a docile people that it was the simplest thing in the world to make slaves of them, and the result was inevitable. Where men have to work with their own hands for what they get, FOR GOD, FOR GLORY, AND FOR GOLD 25 the nobler qualities have an opportunity to survive, but vv^here they can sit back and let others do the work, the worst passions come to the surface. And so it came to pass that the treasure-hunters along the shores of the Caribbean and in Hispaniola soon developed in their worst form all the vices of slave-drivers. One cannot better picture their depravity than by quoting directly from one of their own writers, and, parentheti- cally, it should never be forgotten that it is from the Spaniards themselves that we receive the severest criticisms of the Conquistadores. Here, for example, is what Las Casas tells us of certain happenings in Cuba:^ And further, my Prince, a man named Hatuey, who had fled with many of his people from Hispaniola to Cuba, to escape the climate and inhuman operations of the Christians, having received news from some Indians that the Christians were crossing over, assembled many or all of his people and addressed them thus : "You already know that it is said the Christians are com- ing here; and you have experience of how they have treated the Lords so-and-so and other people of Hispaniola: They come to do the same thing here. Do you know why they do it?" The people answered no, except that they were by nature cruel and wicked. "They do it," said he, "not only for this but because they have a God whom they greatly adore and love ; and to make us adore him they strive to subjugate us and take our lives." He had near him a basket full of gold and jewels, and he said: "At hand here is the god of the Christians, let us perform Areytos before him, if you will (these were dances in concert and singly) ; and perhaps we shall please him and he will command them that they do us no harm." All exclaimed : "It is well, it is well !" They danced before it [the basket full of gold and jewels] till they were all tired, after which the Lord Hatuey said, "Know well that in any event if we preserve the gold, they will finally have to kill us to take it from us; let us throw it into the river." They all agreed to this proposal, and threw the gold into the great river in that place. * Quoted from the Brevissima RelaciSn as given by MacNutt, Bar- tholomew de Las Casas, p. 329. 26 THE NEW WORLD One only has to read the pages of Las Casas to see how fearfully the Spaniards behaved. Even though one realize that in his zeal he overexaggerated con- siderably, the facts are not altered, since so great was their lust that the Indians whom they had enslaved believed gold was their god. When we turn to the experiences of those who dis- covered the treasure cities of the Aztecs and Incas, we find a similar state of affairs. It was the ease with which they enslaved the Indians that accounted to a great extent for the degeneration of the first group. This second group, on the other hand, was driven to desperate deeds by the knowledge that the aborigines had anticipated them, and already held in fortified places the wealth which they so fiercely coveted. Once again we can turn to the Spanish historian for an ac- count of what happened. Led on by the knowledge that within the vaults of Montezuma's palace were piles and piles of gold and silver the followers of Cortez stopped at nothing. With equal ferocity did other Spaniards attack the peoples in Peru and Guatemala. Read, for example, this passage taken at random from the Brevissima Relacion:^ When the rulers throughout all those provinces saw that the Spaniards had burnt that one [a certain Cacique] and all those chief lords, only because they gave them no gold, they all fled from their towns and hid in the mountains; they commanded all their people to go to the Spaniards and serve them as their lords, but that they should not reveal to them their [the rulers] hiding-place. All the inhabitants came to offer themselves to his [Pedro de Alvarado's] men and to serve them as their lords. This compassionate captain replied that he would not receive them; on the contrary he would kill them all if they did not disclose the whereabouts of their chiefs. The Indians answered that they knew nothing about them, but that the Spaniards should make use of them, of their wives and children whom they would find in their houses, where they could kill them or » Op. cit., p. 353. FOR GOD, FOR GLORY, AND FOR GOLD 27 do with them what they wished. This the Indians declared and offered many times. Stupefying to relate, the Spaniards went to the houses where they found the poor people working in safety at their occupa- tions with their wives and children, and there they wounded them with lances and cut them to pieces. They also went to a quiet, large and important town where the people were ignorant of what had happened to the others, and were safe in their ignorance; within barely two hours they destroyed it, putting women, children and the aged to the sword and killing all who did not save themselves by flight. Thus, because they had heard that the caciques, in what we now call Central America, had treasure-houses full of gold and silver did the Spaniards assail them and theirs. The same comment which we made with regard to their depredations among the peaceful Ara- waks is applicable here. Had no tales of wealth al- ready accumulated come to their ears; had they had to work with their own hands for what they were to obtain, how different the story would have been. But one cannot leave the matter at this point lest the reader imagine that it was because they were Spaniards that these terrible things were done. Any such conclusion would be unfair, and one may assert this the more confidently since there has been made public within recent years the story of the Welser ex- pedition to Venezuela. Charles V had become deeply indebted to certain Augsburg bankers by the name of Welser. For some years that house had been established in Spain and had been pressing its imperial debtor for a right to do some exploring in the Indies. The Emperor realized that if any commercial company were to receive an exploration concession it had best be this one, so after much negotiation a bargain was struck. Heinrich Ehinger and Heironymus Sailer, with whom the house of Welser had been united, were given an exclusive right to explore and settle that part of the coast of 28 THE NEW WORLD South America which lay between Cape Maracapana and Cape de la Vela — which means practically Vene- zuela of today. With the provisions of the grant we have no concern here. In the conduct of the conces- sionaries, however, we are much interested since it throws considerable light upon the subject. The Germans went across the South Atlantic for business purposes only. They received their charter and commenced operations without making any plans for the spread of the Gospel. That there was a great opportunity for missionary work never occurred to them, and the records show, as Professor Moses brings out, that *'they had apparently less regard for the na- tives than even the Spaniards, and a consideration of their treatment of the Indians will help to modify the views that cruelties equal to those practised by the Spaniards would not have appeared if any other na- tion had been put in the place of Spain." ^ Las Casas, of whom more later, thus speaks of this Welser company. ''Their one object was to get the gold out of the country at whatever cost. They em- ployed means so odious that the Spaniards seemed gentle beside these new prospectors ; they surpassed tigers in ferocity, and recognized neither God nor King nor common humanity." It should be added that Las Casas had no grudge against the Germans.^ In conclusion, it should be said that the Conqulsta- dores were encouraged in their lust for gold by the court and nobles of Spain. As will be shown later on, 1 Moses, The Spanish Dependencies in South America, I, p, 65. 2 For further testimony that others besides the Spaniards did not behave in an exemplary way in the Indies, see Bullard, Panama, Ch. XX. Under the title, "The Presbyterian Invasion," he narrates the story of the endeavor made by Chiesly and Paterson, two Scotch- men, to break into the gold fields of the Indies. The colony which they founded on the San Bias Coast had a short and checkered career, and the behavior of the Scotchmen was anything but satisfactory. Other descriptions of the enterprise will be found in Anderson, Old Panama and Castilla del Oro, Ch. XXIV, and Barbour, The History of William Paterson aind the Darien Company. FOR GOD, FOR GLORY, AND FOR GOLD 29 the Spanish monarchs were singnlarly lacking in eco- nomic sense. About the only thing that they knew how to do well was to fight. Wars seem to have been the be-all and the end-all of those in power. Nor, when- we remember the centuries in which they had to fight the Moors, can we be very much surprised. It was inevitable that kings like Charles V and Philip II who were trying to dominate Europe should need vast quantities of money. And moreover, seeing that this money was to be used for military expeditions, the most unproductive of all occupations, it was equally inevitable that the resultant estimate of its value would be highly unscientific. We cannot discuss here the economic significance of wealth, but we must at least say that only where it is desired or valued for what it can produce, does it come as a blessing to Its possessor. Where gold and silver are wanted for the sinews of war, and for nothing else, their real value is entirely lost sight of. We must picture to our- selves, then, a Court in Spain ever clamoring for more and more gold. Only as we realize this and the atmosphere which it created can we understand that before ever the Conquerors boarded their ships, their conception of the value of that which they were to seek was hopelessly awry. Read the laws laid down by the Casa de Contrata- cion, for example.^ Therein we see that the king valued his new possessions only for the ducats they would bring him. No loophole was left through which his proportion of all that was sent back to Spain could escape. Only vessels holding the imperial li- cense could go to the Indies. No one could go on board those vessels without a special permit. No one could build or repair vessels engaged in the trade without special license. No one could go to any port * A good account of these will be found in Moses, The Spanish Dependencies in South America, I, Ch. XIV. 30 THE NEW WORLD save the exact one stated on his permit to sail. To take on board a passenger not licensed to go, or to set anybody on shore at any place except the one specified, entailed a fine of a thousand ducats. As we read of these regulations, we marvel at their com- pleteness, but we also groan in spirit, since they reveal a situation of such a character as would have led the Indians of Cuba to report to their friends that even the King of Spain made gold his God. Such was the Spaniard's lust for gold. And thus were the Conquerors conquered. Can we refrain from moralizing? That men who were so brave and so indomitable, who were able to overcome fatigue and disease, and all the terrors of unknown lands and seas, that men who carried with them the Cross of the crucified Christ and preached Him to the natives — that men who exhibited such splendid daring, should in the end have fallen a prey to their own avarice is a fact which should make us pause. And more par- ticularly is the story of value to us, since our own land holds out temptations similar to those to which the Spaniards yielded. We in the United States are laboring for God, for glory, and for gold. To what extent have we allowed the lust for riches to stultify our other and better desires? Of one thing we can be certain, and that is, that the same fate which over- took the Conqulstadores will overtake us if we, In the heat of the pursuit, forget life's real values and fall down and worship the golden image. CHAPTER II CONQUISTADORES OF THE CROSS The early days of missionary effort in Latin Amer- ica were filled with heroism and splendor. If we of to-day only emulate the self-sacrifice and courage of the first preachers of Light, we shall do well. Our ideals, the prayers we offer for downtrodden peons and unevangelized Indians, the hopes we have for building up the peoples of the great southern lands, are no new things. Before any modern ambassador went forth to tell the North American aborigines of their Saviour, and before what we call modern mis- sions were dreamed of, the Dominican and Francis- can friars and the Society of Jesus inaugurated and carried out in Latin America a campaign which for courage and self-sacrifice equals anything the world has ever seen. In many ways, the heroism of the Jesuits in the Canadas reminds us of the earlier deeds of the same order in South America and of followers of St. Francis and of St. Dominic in many parts of Latin America. It was in the summer of 1496 that the first perma- nent city of the new world was founded. On his first journey Columbus had established the little settle- ment of Isabella on the northwest coast of the island of Hispaniola, but on his revisiting the spot on his second voyage, he found that the entire colony had been wiped out. It was Bartholomew Columbus, a brother of Christopher, who founded the first city 31 32 THE NEW WORLD which was to last. The spot chosen by him was at the mouth of the Ozema River, which river empties into the Caribbean near the southeast corner of what we now call Santo Domingo. There was founded Santo Domingo City, and there is stands today, and what is of special interest to us, there also still stand the walls of a church — San Nicolo — which was the first stone church to be built in the Americas. It is worth while remembering that the first bishopric in the western world was established in that its oldest city, and that the people are using at this present mo- ment as their cathedral — San Francisco — the edifice which was put up between 1514 and 1540 by Ales- sandro Giraldini, the first bishop. Most interesting of all is the fact that within this cathedral lie the remains of Columbus. In 1765 the supposed remains were removed to Havana, but in 1877, while repairs were being made, a casket was found whereon was the inscription, ''Discoverer of America, First Admiral and Illustrious and Famous Don Christobal Colon." Subsequent investigation has, as far as is humanly possible, demonstrated that in this casket really repose the bones of Columbus. How profoundly appro- priate it is that the first of the Conquistadores should rest in the oldest cathedral building in the Americas. Though it was the Franciscan Order which built the first church, it is to the Dominicans that credit must be given for taking the first steps toward improving the condition of the aborigine. They were the first to speak in behalf of his liberty, of his dignity as a reasonable being endowed with freewill and under- standing. "Associated in the popular conception with the foundation and extension of the Inquisition," says Mr. MacNutt in his life of Las Casas, "the Domini- cans may appear in a somewhat unfamiliar guise as torchbearers of freedom in the vanguard of Spanish colonial expansion in America, but such was the fact. CONQUISTADORES OF THE CROSS 33 History has made but scant and infrequent mention of these first obscure heroes, who faced obloquy and even risked starvation in the midst of irate colonists, whose avarice and brutality they fearlessly rebuked in the name of religion and humanity; they sank, after lives of self-immolation, into nameless graves, sometimes falling victims to the blind violence of the very Indians whose cause they championed — proto- martyrs of liberty in the new world." No study of Latin-American missions should over- look these things ; and in particular no student should be ignorant of the career of the great Dominican, Bartholomew de Las Casas, the leader in this move- ment, the man who by his daring and downright self- sacrifice stands forth as the father of missions to Indians and the inaugurator of that campaign against slavery which is only now approaching its conclusion. What Wilberforce was to England three hundred years later, Las Casas was to the New World in the sixteenth century. Sad to say, though, the ears of the sixteenth century were closed to words which found a hearing in the nineteenth. That, however, does not cloud the issue ; rather does it the more make us marvel at the insight of that Friar-Bishop who was so far ahead of ^ his time. Probably the best way to tell of both the Friars and Las Casas is to sketch the life of the latter, since as it proceeds one becomes acquainted in a gen- eral way with the former. Born of a noble family in Seville, in 1474, Bar- tholomew de Las Casas grew up imbued with all the traditions of the typical Don. Of his earlier years we need not speak ; they were similar in every re- spect to those of his contemporaries. No stories are told of any youthful precocity nor of prophecies by admiring parents of a career of splendor. The first incident of importance is what we might 34 THE NEW WORLD call antiprophetical. His father, who had accompanied Columbus on his second voyage to the new world, brought home from the Indies as a present to his son, then a student at Salamanca, an Indian slave. Thus curiously, he who spent his later years laboring to extinguish slavery, first comes before us as a slaveholder. This fact also brought him to the notice of the world at large, since Isabella had issued an order prohibiting Spaniards from holding Indians as slaves ; hence young Las Casas was brought by his father's act under the displeasure of his sovereign. Consider- ing that his later years were spent petitioning Spanish royalty to abolish servitude, this contretemps is almost humorous. After leaving Salamanca and its daily drills in grammar, logic, metaphysics and Latin, Las Casas joined the group which followed spellbound the he- roes who had returned from the Indies. So thrilled did he become that when Columbus called for volun- teers for his third expedition, young Las Casas was one of the first to enlist. Another young man who did the same thing was the soon-to-be renowned Fernandez Cortez. After all the formalities incident to such an undertaking had been completed, and with dreams of wealth beyond measure about to be won, and with no thought in the mind of our hero save that of worldly profit, the expedition sailed on the 13th of February, 1502. On arriving in Hispaniola (Haiti), Las Casas un- dertook at once the management of those properties of which his father had become possessed on the earlier journey. Never dreaming that it was not quite proper, he bought more slaves, worked them hard in the mines, and generally surrendered himself to the acquisition of wealth. He was neither better nor worse than his fellows. His affairs prospered so that, ac- cording to his own statement, his yearly income grew BARTHOLOMEW DE LAS CASAS, FROM A PORTRAIT CONQUISTADORES OF THE CROSS 35 until it amounted to 100,000 castellanos — an amazing sum, his biographer asserts. And now we must digress for a moment, and ex- amine the conditions under which Las Casas and his contemporaries held slaves. Unfortunately, on the shoulders of the great Co- lumbus must rest the guilt of the repartimiento sys- tem for handling the natives — of which more in a moment. His character has already been discussed; here we are concerned only with certain of his acts — namely, his arrangements whereby slavery, which had been forbidden by the kind-hearted Isabella, was introduced and made permanent in the Indies — under an assumed name, we might almost say. Hostilities between the natives and the Spaniards had been constant, and Columbus, the Captain-General, after that the Spaniards had gained the upper hand sufficiently, laid a tribute upon the entire population of Hispaniola, which required that each native above fourteen who lived in mining districts should pay a little bell filled with gold every three months, while those of the other provinces should pay an arroba of cotton each. Repeated failures to collect these amounts showed the Governor that some other system must be devised, and accordingly instead of money the In- dians were compelled to pay their tribute in labor — just exactly as in certain of our states a man has either to pay so much "road tax" a year, or work on the roads for a length of time the payment for which labor would be equivalent to the sum demanded. No doubt these regulations were well meant, but two years had not elapsed before men had forgotten about the bell full of gold and the arroba of cotton, and the alternative of personal service was regularly de- manded of the Indians, sometimes of entire villages. Soon, as a result of these demands being met, the island was divided into repartimientos or shares. That Z6 THE NEW WORLD is to say, one or more villages would be put under the direction of their native caciques (pronounced ka- seeks or katheeks) to work the soil for certain Span- iards, and such village or villages would constitute the repartimiento of the people to whom it was given. Thus the natives were placed in a condition resem- bling, as has been pointed out, that of feudal villen- age. This was the state of affairs when the governor- ship of Columbus came to its abrupt ending. The seeds of the most cruel slavery the western world has ever seen had been sown. It was under the later governorship of the notorious Ovando that the system developed to the cruel extremes of the encomienda which called forth the denunciation of Las Casas and the Friars. The re- partimiento arrangement was bad enough, but the encomienda device resulted in slavery of the deepest dye. Mr. Fiske thus describes the encomienda: The way in which Ovando carried out the order about missionary work was characteristic. As a member of a re- ligious order of knights, he was famiHar with the practice of encomienda, by which groups of novices were assigned to certain preceptors to be discipHned and instructed in the mysteries of the order. The word encomienda means ''com- mandery" or "preceptory," and so it came to be a nice euphemism for a hateful thing. Ovando distributed Indians among the Spaniards in lots of 50 or 100 or 500, with a deed worded thus : "To you, such a one, is given an encomienda of so many Indians, and you are to teach them the things of our holy Catholic Faith." In practice the last clause was regarded as a mere formality, and the effect of the deed was simply to consign a parcel of Indians to the tender mercies of some Spaniard to do as he pleased with them. If the system of repartimientos was in effect serfdom or villenage, ^he system of encomiendas was unmitigated slavery. On hearing the word slavery coupled with the word Indian one is immediately tempted to ask whether some CONQUISTADORES OF THE CROSS Zl mistake has not been made. Indians — slaves ! Im- possible! They would die sooner than submit to shackles. This only serves to show that if one is to understand the Latin-American problem, he must be- come acquainted with the difference between the abori- gines of Latin America and those of North America. With the exception of tribes like the Aztecs on the Mexican plateau and the Incas on the slopes of the Andes and the Caribs on the shores of the Caribbean, many of the southern natives, specially those on the Islands — the Arawaks — were a mild, simple folk, of quite a different nature from their vigorous northern neighbors. Though when driven by the cruelties of their enemies they retaliated with fiendish vim and made many a Spaniard pale at the thought of falling into their hands, the explorers almost invariably found the Arawaks to be friendly at the start, good-natured, willing to live and let live. This fact is of vast social significance. It explains to a large extent the economic systems which grew up in Latin America. It shows us why so much firmer political foundations were laid in New England than in Hispaniola. One is inclined to wonder whether the Puritans would not have made use of such docile creatures had they found them in the wilds of New England, and would not have suffered in the same way from the experience. For after all, it must never be forgotten that the Spaniards were terribly tempted by the comparative ease with which they could enslave the red men. Imagine an Iroquois submitting to bonds ! And imagine the people who had to protect themselves from the Iroquois becom- ing indolent! Probably the explanation of the fact that all in all the southern aborigines were mild and docile com- pared to their northern cousins is to be found in the difference between their natural surroundings. In the north, food and game had to be sought out, and in 38 THE NEW WORLD doing so conflicts between the tribes were inevitable. In the south, on the other hand, nature was so prodigal that there was no need for hunting expeditions and the like, — there was food enough for all. Then too the regions where game was to be found were limited in the north so that the Indians had to fight to be kept from being driven to less favorable ranges. Lastly, and of this matter we shall have more to say later, the warmth of the sun and the generosity of nature begat indolence, and indolence ever begets a type of peacefulness. The tribal arrangement of these peoples at the time of the conquest was quite highly developed in Mexico and Central America and among the Incas of what we now call Peru. Among the lesser tribes, those who dwelt in the Islands of the Caribbean Sea — the Caribs and the Arawaks — on the other hand things were more simple. Generally speaking, of this latter class we can say, that the same type of clan and tribal or- ganization obtained among them as was found among the North American Indians. The leader of the tribe was termed the cacique and under him were those who by might had won positions of responsibility. If any- thing the leaders of the southern aborigines were a bit more autocratic than were the sachems and chiefs in the colder climes. Perhaps this was due to the different economic conditions under which they lived. The northerners were nomadic, the southerners had fixed abodes. As to the highly developed organization of the Aztecs and Incas, among them a thoroughgoing monarchical system prevailed. The Emperor Montezuma, against whom Cortez fought, enjoyed all the pomp and regalia of royalty. His palace was a place of wonder and his armies highly trained. To him subject kings made obeisance. To an even greater extent the royal Incas reigned in splendor in the midst of admiring and ador- CONQUISTADORES OF THE CROSS 39 ing subjects. In many ways the Inca emperors re- mind one of the rulers of the Sunrise Kingdom. The people bowed down before them even as they did be- fore the sacred Mikado. Nay it is to be doubted whether in Japan even the reverence for their rulers quite equalled that of the ancient Peruvian for his Inca. It is told that when two men met in a road which led to the royal city of Cuzco, the one approach- ing the city always had to give the right of way to him who had come from it, since the latter having come from the precincts of the Emperor's palace had for the moment been invested with a kind of sanctity. So far as we are concerned the special interest in the government of the southern aborigines lies in this — that the missionaries almost always took advantage of the fact that the Cacique or Emperor or Inca was an autocrat, and worked on and through them. The history of the early missions reveals the friars ever seeking out those in authority first, and when once they were converted, using them and their influence to convert their followers en bloc. This fact is signifi- cant. The splendid results which we have had among the North American Indians could hardly have been achieved if our workers had followed this plan. Per- sonal conversion and indifference to rank is always the wisest policy. Those whose minds delight in the problem of race origins will be anxious to go still farther back and inquire into the origin of the natives in the lower latitudes. Who were they? Whence did they come? How came they to be dwelling in the western hemi- sphere? We can safely follow Fiske in saying that the legends about their origin which held sway a century, or a half century for that matter, ago, are not based on fact. And yet the point made in these legends, that the North American aborigines came over from Asia, is almost certainly correct. The scientist differs from 40 THE NEW WORLD the legend-maker only in the matter of how they came over. All agree that from the beginning the Americas were populated, as they are being populated to-day, by immigrants. *'In all probability," says Mr. Fiske, "the first im- migrant came from the old world at some ancient period, whether preglacial or postglacial, when it was possible to come by land ; and here, in all probability, he remained undisturbed by later comers, unless the Eski- mos were such. There is not a particle of evidence to suggest any connection or intercourse between aboriginal America and Asia within .any such period as the last 20,000 years, except in so far as there may perhaps now and then have been slight surges of Eskimo tribes back and forth across Bering Strait." ^ We next ask about the religion of these folk. What was the Cross to displace? And to that question the answers would be too numerous to put down. Some worshiped one deity and some another, and some had one type of crude ceremonial and some another. In fact, all the various forms of animism and fetishism were prevalent. Noted instances of advanced religious thought, of course, were found. The original Mexi- cans had evolved a creed which for sublimity was as- tonishing. In many ways it suggested the truths re- vealed by our Lord. Notably in the case of the belief in the Fair God, Quetzalcotl who, as their beautiful legend puts it, driven from the land by the wickedness of man, had promised to return bringing peace and purity — a veritable Kingdom of God* on earth. ^ Again, the faith of the Incas in Peru was noble and lofty. All in all the Inca "civilization," to do what Mr. Fiske calls violence to that word, presents * For an extensive examinaticxn of this see Payne, History of the Neiv World ^ Called America, II, 64 ff. ' This story will be found in semi-juvenile form in Henty's By Right of Conquest. Payne's account in The History of the Nezv World Called America should be read by all who desire to go into it seriously. CONQUISTADORES OF THE CROSS 41 the most fascinating of anthropological problems. Their primitive culture was so highly developed, their religion so comparatively pure and philosophical, that save in the case of the creed promulgated by Aknaton in Egypt some 4,000 years B.C., the v^^orld has seldom seen its equal. Such premonitions of the Truth as they displayed make us marvel.^ Aside from these two advanced forms, the religion of the American aborigines was, as has been said, crude and simple. Folk lore and legends, medicine men and fetishes, superstitions and fears of evil spirits — such made up the faith of the children of the wilderness to whom the Friars went with the Gospel. Parenthetically it might be added that there are still tens of thousands of their kind in Latin America today. One of our best known travelers stated re- cently that though rumor had it that there w^ere some 500,000 unevangelized savages in Central America, he was certain that 1,500,000 would be a truer es- timate. To such peoples it was that the missionaries went, and, if enough has been said to show how much they differed from their northern neighbors it will be realized that the problems involved in the conversion of the two peoples were fundamentally different. In the one case it was a question of converting one by one a fierce and nomadic people; in the other it was a matter of diplomacy — of winning over a cacique — which done, the rest followed with comparative ease. But let us return to Las Casas, that we may learn from his life how first the Gospel of Liberty was preached to these southern savages. We left him at the beginning of his career as a planter and slave owner in Hispaniola. Rich and * For a succinct summing up of all the world's premonitions of Christianity, though not written from a Christian point of view, see Williamson, The Great Law, a Study of Religions Origins and of the Unity Underlying Them. 42 THE NEW WORLD prosperous, he was enjoying to the full the luxuries of life. No thought of a serious nature disturbed his golden serenity. Then suddenly a new factor appears upon the scene. The Dominican Friars, overflowing with zeal for God's little ones, make their appearance and all is changed ! It was in 1510 that the Friars came. There were four of them, under the leadership of Pedro de Cor- dova. The name of one of his followers, Fray Antonio de Montesimos, should be mentioned also, for reasons which will subsequently appear. From the first these monks ministered not only to their own countrymen, but, to the concern of all, to the natives. They showed and said that they were unwilling to regard the Indians as mere beasts of burden; that they had as much right to the Gospel as had the Spaniards. Many disputes naturally re- sulted from these actions, since the logical outcome of such an attitude entailed a treatment of the natives which would disrupt the entire economic system, it being impossible for the Don to look upon his slaves as fellow Christians and get the last drop of work out of them. And his exploitation of the Indians was founded upon this last drop of work basis. Though he must have heard the matter discussed many times, and though from earliest days he had been in a position to know better, apparently the right and wrong of this matter had never occurred to Las Casas. Then, too, he appears to have paid little heed at the first to the teaching of the Friars. Just what was responsible for his beginning to listen to them we know not ; all that we do know is that their words did find a lodgment in his mind, and that their conclusiveness finally overcame all his prejudices. It was on the octave of All Saints, we are led to believe, that he crossed the Rubicon, for he writes of the prior's sermon on that day: *Tt was a sermon so CONQUISTADORES OF THE CROSS 43 lofty and so divine that I held myself happy to hear it." In response to the preacher's invitation at the close of this epoch-making sermon, many of his hearers, including Las Casas, sent their slaves to a rendezvous. There they received from the prior, crucifix in hand, — assisted by interpreters, — their first instruction in Christian doctrine, and thus began on the 8th of November, 1510, the first real missionary effort made in the Americas to instruct the aborigines. Deeds more than words carry conviction, and these efforts, — when and where we are again at a loss to say, — resulted in changing the young planter into a Minister of the Gospel. Into the story of his life the change whereby he gave up his business and be- came a priest, breaks with strange suddenness. How long he had been considering the matter, whether the F.riars, finding him a willing listener, had pled with him until he yielded, or whether all along he had had a subconscious tendency toward the Church, we know not. All that we do know is found in the following quaint passage from his own memoirs: In this same year and in these same days, when the father, Fray Pedro de Cordoba, went to La Vega, a cleric called Bartholomew de Las Casas had sung a new mass ; he was a native of Seville and among the oldest (settlers) in the island, and that was the first time that a new mass was sung in all the Indies ; on account of being the first, the event was celebrated with great festivity by the Admiral (Don Diego Columbus) and everybody who was in the city of La Vega; they comprised a large number of the inhabitants of the island, for it was smelting time, when each brought his gold with his Indians to have it melted, all meeting to- gether as people do to make payments, in the places where fairs are held in Castile; as there were no gold coins* they made certain pieces in imitation of castellanos and ducats, different sorts in the same smelting, where the King's fifth was melted and paid; these coins they offered (to the new priest) while others made arrieles to offer. Reales were cur- 44 THE NEW WORLD rent, and many of these were presented, all of which the newly ordained priest gave to his godfather, save a few gold pieces that were especially well made. There was one notable feature of this first mass, with which the clergy present were not satisfied: namely, there was not a drop of wine in the whole feast, because no ship having arrived^ from Castile since a long time there was none in the entire island. ^ It is to be noted that Las Casas was the first person to be ordained to the Sacred Ministry in the new world. The newly ordained priest began at once to work as an educator among the Indians, and so skillfully did he proceed that he had soon acquired a fame through- out all the colonies. Specially among the Indians was his name known. The early history of Cuba resounds with the stories of his deeds in their behalf. Though his opposition to slavery came later, within a year he was known as the friend of the natives wherever tale- bearers went. So much so-, that often when a new district was to be occupied in Cuba, the governor found it advisable to send Las Casas ahead of him to prepare the way. The veneration which the Cuban Indians felt for him at this period of his career was remarkable. They trusted him alone of all his people ; they believed him to be omnipotent and gave him the magician's title of Bebique. No tribute-bearers to the governor ever failed to bring a free-will offering of affection to their friend. Las Casas. Thus matters proceeded for four years, but the greatest was yet to be. Though his works of mercy were many, and though he sincerely labored for the natives, still his great awakening was not yet. The Las Casas of imperishable fame was yet to arise. Once again it required a Dominican to arouse him. The first man publicly to condemn slavery in the *MacNutt, Bartholomew de Las Casas, 41. CONQUISTADORES OF THE CROSS 45 western world was Fray Antonio de Montesimos. Like many of his followers, he took as his text on the great occasion which marked the beginning of his cam- paign, the words, "I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness." With fearless eloquence Fray An- tonio exposed the barbarity of human servitude. The subsequent behavior of his hearers, among whom were the most prominent in the colony of Santo Domingo, sounds sadly familiar to the ears of all students of history. They went in a body to the monastery and protested against such revolutionary doctrines and de- manded a retraction next Sunday ! Like Robert of Sicily, they could enjoy their Gospel only so long as *'deposuit potentes de sede, et exaltavit humiles" ^ was left out. To the confounded protesters the Prior re- plied that Antonio's words represented the sentiments of the entire Dominican community, and had been pro- nounced with his approval ! To the answered threat that they would be driven from the Indies they re- plied humbly that they cared not, and on the next Sunday, Fray Antonio, to the text of "Repetam scien- tiam meam a principio et operatorem meum probabo justum" (Job XXXVI, 3), elaborated upon his previ- ous discourse and announced that the sacraments of the Church would henceforth be refused to all who con- tinued in their wicked ways. He further dared his adversaries to appeal to Spain. Appeal they did, and after many interesting vicissitudes the controversy was decided, be it noted by all who think the court of Spain hopelessly corrupt, against the rich and in- fluential nobles. Further and more important, the *'Laws of Burgos'* were subsequently and consequently promulgated, which, as the first legal recognition of the rights of aborigines, are worthy of everlasting com- memoration. So much for the Dominicans and their accomplish- *The seventh verse of the Magnificat, St. Luke I, 52 46 THE NEW WORLD ments. Let us return to their great convert. As yet, though a benevolent priest, Las Casas was a large slave-holder; as yet the cry of the innocents had not reached his ears. But his day was at hand. It happened that he was asked to preach at Baracoa on Pentecost, 1514, and in searching the Scriptures for a text came by chance upon these verses in the 34th chapter of Ecclesiasticus : He that sacrificeth of a thing wrongfully gotten, his offer- ing is ridiculous, and the gifts of unjust men are not accepted. The most High is not pleased with the offerings of the wicked; neither is He pacified for sin by the multitude of sacrifices. Whoso bringeth an offering of the goods of the poor doeth as one that kiileth the son before his father's eyes. The bread of the needy is their life; he that defraudeth him thereof is a man of blood. He that taketh away his neighbor's living, slayeth him; and he that defraudeth the laborer of his hire is a blood- shedder. As he read them, there suddenly broke through his mind a realization of the value of God's little ones, and of his own responsibility in the matter. Just as St. Augustine was converted by reading the 13th and 14th verses in the 13th chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, so was Las Casas by reading these from Ecclesiasticus. Though the change came slowly and though some time elapsed before he had thoroughly found himself, when he did, the change was volcanic. Resolved to do nothing by halves he freed all his slaves and embarked upon that fiery crusade against slavery which made him the hero of the Church and the most reviled and hated man in the Americas. One interesting incident at this time is worth record- ing. The same old problem which has come to so many perplexed him. Should he let his slaves go so that he could denounce the institution without fear of criti- cism, or should he keep them in benevolent bondage CONQUISTADORES OF THE CROSS 47 lest if set free a far worse fate befall them? He de- cided that his duty was clear, and, without a slave left to his name, began his great crusade. Of the subsequent labors of Las Casas, of his many- voyages to Spain, there to plead with the Emperor in behalf of the suffering Indians, of his many confer- ences with the godly Cardinal Ximenez, of his insisting after he had won the imperial ear and become as it were a dictator of policies, on measures so radical that they would have wrecked the entire colonial system ; of the failure of the colonial governors to carry out the laws which, through his activities, were passed, and his consequent righteous rage and despair ; of his great blunder in recommending as a compromise that negro slavery be substituted for that of the Indians,^ of these things we have no space to speak here. The most that we can do is to relate two or three characteristic epi- sodes in his life, hoping that from them the reader will gain a good idea of the man. It was when Las Casas was working in Guatemala that he had written a paper called "De unico vocationis modo" in which he had developed two propositions, the first that men must be brought to Christ by persua- sion and not by force, and the second that war against the individual was not justified unless some specific injury had been sustained. * Mr, Fiske, in commenting on the unfair way in which Las Casas has been treated for his momentary and thoughtless error in suggesting the use of negroes ae slaves in place of the Indians, points out that in- stead of _ being, as his detractors would have it, the proposer of negro slavery in America, he was really in the end its great opponent. He says: "The African slave-trade would have assumed much larger pro- portions than it has ever known, and its widely ramifying influence for evil, its poisonous effects upon the character of European society in the New World, whether Spanish or English, would probably have surpassed anything that we can now realize. When the work of Las Casas is deeply considered, we cannot make him anything else but an antagonist of human slavery in all its forms, and the mightiest and most effective antagonist, withal, that has ever lived. Subtract his glorious life from the history of the past, and we might still be waiting, sick with hope deferred, for a Wilberforce, a Garrison, and a Lincoln." (.The Dis- covery of America, by John Fiske, Vol. II.) 48 THE NEW WORLD These propositions would not seem so unusual to us today, but when written they made a great sensa- tion. They were translated from the Latin into Span- ish and spread broadcast among the colonists. It was the second proposition that brought the most criticism down upon him, since the only way in which the colonists had been able to keep a supply of slaves was by incessant conflict with the native tribes. In these they made many prisoners, and it was the custom of olden days that persons captured in warfare could be brought home as slaves. It was under such condi- tions, for example, that the ancient Britons were brought back to the imperial city by the Tiber and that vast numbers of the slaves who served the Roman Empire were obtained. Since, then, this practice against which Las Casas spoke was not an innovation, but had centuries of precedents in its favor, his words were received with jeers and anger. Some of the Conquistadores in addition to being angry were amazed at the absurdity of Las Casas* first proposition. "Try it," they taunted, "try with words only and without force to bring the Indians into the Church." Las Casas gladly accepted the chal- lenge and entered into a formal contract with the acting governor of Tuzulutlan, one Alonzo Maldonado. by which he undertook to proselyte the Indians of Tuzulutlan. Tuzulutlan was called by the Spaniards the Tierra Guerra (land of war), because of all the In- dians of Central America none had resisted them quite so ferociously as had those of that province. Three separate expeditions had been sent out to subdue them, but had been defeated ingloriously. If the Conquista- dores had been asked to choose the province which would be the most difficult for the missionary to work in, they undoubtedly would have chosen this one. So sure were they, that the government pledged itself in case Las Casas succeeded in pacifying the tribes CONQUISTADORES OF THE CROSS 49 by peaceful measures, to make the territory a direct appendage of the crown, — not to give repartimientos in it to private persons (which meant not to let any slaves be made among the natives), and lastly not to let any layman enter the district for five years. Four Dominican monks, therefore, were to attempt the work which had defeated three armies. We can well imagine how gladly the annoyed slave-holders received the news of this attempt, — at last, they thought, they would get rid of these trouble-makers. The Dominicans started their preparation on their knees. Several days were spent in fasting and prayer in their cells, after which they came forth with the following unusual plan. They composed a lengthy ballad in the language of the natives which, beginning with the story of the creation and fall, contained all the Biblical narratives and doctrines of the Church. Would that this re- markable literary work were still in existence ! While some of the monks were busy on this epic others occupied themselves setting it to music, so that it might be accompanied by the crude instruments with which the natives were familiar. Though the missionaries had only been a few years in Guatemala, they had labored so diligently over the language and customs of the inhabitants that they were able — marvel of marvels — to complete the whole thing within a couple of months. Of course the music that is set to the teponaztli, or hollow cylindrical wooden drum, is not concerned with motives and counterpoint, being largely monotonic, so the monks did not need much time to attend to the harmony. Having finished the cantata, or whatever you choose to call it, the good Fathers began to study how they should introduce this poem to the notice of the Indians, and availing themselves of a happy thought, called in as coadjutors four Indian merchants whose habit it was to make 50 THE NEW WORLD journeys several times a year into the Land of War. To continue the story in Sir Arthur Helps's words: The monks, with great care, taught these four men to repeat the couplets which they had composed. The pupils entered entirely into the views of their instructors. Indeed, they took such pains in learning their lessons, and (with the fine sense for musical intonation which the Indians generally possessed) repeated these verses so well, that there was noth- ing left to desire. . . . Las Casas communicated his intended undertaking to Domingo de Betanzos, now the head of the Dominican Order in New Spain, who was delighted to give his sanction and his blessing to the good work.. . . The enterprise was now ready to be carried into action, — ■ to be transplanted from the schools into the world. It was resolved that the merchants should commence their journey into "the Land of War," carrying with them not only their own merchandize, but being furnished by Las Casas with the usual small wares to please aborigines, such as scissors, knives, looking-glasses, and bells. . . . It is a bold figure to illustrate the feelings of a monk by those of a mother; but it may be doubted whether many mothers have suffered a keener agony of apprehensive ex- pectation than Las Casas and his brethren endured at this and other similar points of their career. They had the fullest faith in God and the utmost reliance upon Him; but they knew that He acts through secondary means and how easily, they doubtless thought, might some failure in their own preparation — some unworthiness in themselves — some un- fortunate conjunction of political affairs in the Indies — some dreadful wile of the Evil One — frustrate all their long-en- during hopes. In an age when private and individual suc- cess is made too much of, and success for others too little, it may be difficult for many persons to imagine the intense interest with which these childless men looked forward to the realization of their great religious enterprise — the bring- ing of the Indians by peaceful means into the fold of Christ. The merchants were received, as was the custom in a country without inns, into the palace of the Cacique, where they met with a better reception than usual, being enabled to make him presents of these new things from Castille. They then set up their tent, and began to sell their goods as they were wont to do, their customers thronging about them to see the Spanish novelties. When the sale was over for that day, the chief men amongst the Indians remained CONQUISTADORES OF THE CROSS 51 with the Cacique, to do him honor. In the evening, the merchants asked for a "teplanastle," an instrument of music which we may suppose to have been the same as the Mexican te/^ona^jtli, or drum. They then produced some timbrels and bells, which they had brought with them, and began to sing the verses which they had learned by heart, accompanying themselves on the musical instruments. The effect produced was very great. The sudden change of character, not often made, from a merchant to a priest, at once arrested the attention of the assemblage. Then, if the music was beyond anything that these Indians had heard, the words were still more extraordinary; for the good fathers had not hesitated to put into their verses the questionable assertion that idols were demons, and the certain fact that human sacrifices were abominable. The main body of the audience was delighted, and pronounced these merchants to be ambassadors from new Gods. The Cacique, with the caution of a man in authority, sus- pended his judgment until he had heard more of the matter. The next day, and for seven succeeding days, this sermon in song was repeated. In public and in private, the person who insisted most on this repetition was the Cacique; and he expressed a wish to fathom the matter, and to know the origin and meaning of these things. The prudent merchants replied, that they only sang what they had heard ; that it was not their business to explain these verses, for that office belonged to certain padres, who instructed the people. "And who are padrcsf" asked the Chief. In answer to this ques- tion, the merchants painted pictures of the Dominican monks, in their robes of black and white, and with their tonsured heads. The merchants then described the lives of these padres: how they did not eat meat, and how they did not desire gold, or feathers, or cocoa ; that they were not married, and had no communication with women ; that night and day they sang the praises of God; and that they knelt before very beautiful images. Such were the persons, the merchants said, who could and would explain these couplets : they were such good people, and so ready to teach, that if the Cacique were to send for them, they would most willingly come. The Indian chief resolved to see and hear these marvelous men in black and white, with their hair in the form of a garland, who were so different from other men ; and for this purpose, when the merchants returned, he sent in com- pany with them a brother of his, a young man twenty-two years of age, who was to invite the Dominicans to visit his brother's country, and to carry them presents. The cautious 52 THE NEW WORLD Cacique instructed his brother to look well to the ways of these padres, to observe whether they had gold and silver like the other Christians, and whether there were women in their houses. These instructions having been given, and his brother having taken his departure, the Cacique made large oflferings of incense and great sacrifices to his idols for the success of the embassage. On the arrival of this company at Santiago, Las Casas and the Dominican monks received the young Indian chief with every demonstration of welcome : and it need hardly be said with what joy they heard from the merchants who accompanied him of the success of their mission. While the Indian Prince was occupied in visiting the town of Santiago, the monks debated amongst themselves what course they should pursue in reference to the invitation which they had received from the Cacique. Guided through- out by great prudence, they resolved not to risk the safety of the whole of their body, but to send only one monk at first as an ambassador and explorer. Their choice fell upon Father Luis Cancer, who probably was the most skilled of all the four in the language that was likely to be best under- stood in Tuzulutlan. Meanwhile the Cacique's brother and his attendants made their observations on the mode of life of the monks, who gratified him and them by little presents. It was time now to return; and the whole party, consisting of Luis Cancer, the Cacique's brother, his Indians, and the four merchants of Guatemala, set off from Santiago on their way to the Cacique's country. Luis Cancer carried with him a present for the Cacique in fabrics of Castille, and also some crosses and images. The reason given for carrying these latter is, "That the Cacique might read in them that which he might forget in the sermons that would be preached to him." The journey of Father Luis was a continued triumph. Everywhere the difiference was noticed between his dress, customs, and manners, and those of the Spaniards who had already been seen in Tuzulutlan. When he came into the Cacique's territory he was received under triumphal arches, and the ways were made clean before him as if he had been another Montezuma, traversing his kingdom. At the entrance of the Cacique's own town, the Chief himself came out to meet Father Luis, and bending before him, cast down his eyes, showing him the same mark of reverence that he would have shown to the priests of that country. More sub- stantial and abiding honors soon followed. At the Cacique's orders a church was built, and in it the father said mass in CONQUISTADORES OF THE CROSS 53 the presence of the Chief, who was especially delighted with the cleanliness of the sacerdotal garments, for the priests of his own country, like those of Mexico, affected filth and darkness, the fitting accompaniments for a religion of terror. Meanwhile, Father Luis continued to explain the Christian creed, having always a most attentive and favorable hearer in the Cacique. The good monk had taken the precaution to bring with him the written agreement signed by the Gov- ernor, and he explained to the Chief the favorable conditions that it contained for the welfare of the Indians. The mer- chants were witnesses who might be appealed to ^ for the meaning of this document; and that they were faithful to the monks — indeed, a sort of lay-brotherhood — may be in- ferred from the fact of their continuing to chant every even- ing the verses which had won for them at first the title of ambassadors from new gods. The Cacique's brother gave a favorable report of what he had seen at Santiago, and the result of all these influences on the mind of the Indian Chieftain was such, that he determined to embrace the Chris- tian Faith. No sooner had he_ become a proselyte, than, with all the zeal and energy belonging to that character, he began to preach the new doctrine to his own vassals. He was the first to pull down and to burn his idols; and many of the chiefs, in imitation of their master, likewise became icono- clasts. In a word, the mission of Father Luis was supremely suc- cessful, and after he had visited some of the towns subject to the converted Cacique, he returned, according to the plan that had been determined upon by the brethren, to the town of Santiago, where Las Casas and the other monks received with ineffable delight the good tidings which their brother had to communicate to them.i The next incident is in connection with the ex- perience which befell Las Casas immediately after he had been appointed Bishop of Chiapa, a district near the scene of his successful labors in the Tierra Guerra of Guatemala. He had been consecrated in Seville on the 4th of July, 1544, and had sailed with forty-five Dominican monks to proselyte his frontier diocese. It was to be expected that he would be received in silence ; as the most hated man in the new world, now that he * Helps, The Spanish Conquest in America, III, pp. 237-243. 54 THE NEW WORLD had been elevated to the episcopate, he was the most feared. Though he was now seventy years of age, he had not abated one bit in his determination to put down slavery, and he had made up his mind, perhaps some may think a bit unwisely, to use his episcopal power to exclude it from his diocese. Arriving at his new post, the man of God determined to take an order of the pope, which had forbidden slavery, literally; and accordingly he announced ex cathedra that absolution would be refused to all Span- iards who continued to hold slaves. The officials of the province refused to carry out the laws and Las Casas journeyed to Honduras to lay the case before the high court, the Audiencia. Unable to get redress there, he threatened to excom- municate the judges if they refused to do their duty, and he tells us in his memoirs of one of the judges whose conscience being troubled heaped abuse upon him and said, ''You are a scoundrel, a foul man, a bad monk, a worse bishop, — a shameless scoundrel — you ought to be flogged!" Las Casas replied. ''The Lord will punish me for my sins which are many." By his fearless insistence, he at last forced the Au- diencia to send an officer to Chiapa to enforce the laws, and when the inhabitants of the chief city of his dio- cese, Ciudad Real, heard of their bishop's triumph they determined to resist his entry into the city. Then it was that the courage of the old man rose to sublime heights, and "unguarded and on foot, with only a stick in his hand and a breviary in his girdle," he approached the rebellious city. "On the way he stopped at a Dominican monastery. The monks urged him to turn back, saying that the infuriated populace would surely kill him. But he insisted on going on. " 'For,' he said, 'if I do not go to Ciudad Real, I banish myself from my church; and it w^ll be said of CONQUISTADORES OF THE CROSS 55 me, with much reason, The wicked fleeth; and no man pursueth.' . . . If I do not endeavor to enter my church, of whom shall I have to complain to the king, or to the pope, as having thrust me out of it? Are my adversaries so bitter against me that the first word will be a deadly thrust through my heart, without giving me the chance of soothing them? In conclusion, reverend fathers, I am resolved, trusting in the mercy of God and in your holy prayers, to set out for my diocese. To tarry here, or to go elsewhere, has all the inconveniences which have just been stated.' " One last word about Las Casas to show the extent to which he was hated. In speaking of this, Sir Arthur Helps writes: The hatred to Las Casas throughout the New World amounted to a passion. Letters were written to the residents in Chiapa, expressing pity for them as having met the greatest misfortune that could occur to them, in being placed under such a bishop. They did not name him, but spoke of him as "That Devil who has come to you for a bishop." The following is an extract from one of these letters. "We say here, that very great must be the sins of your country, when God chastises it with such a scourge as sending that Anti- christ for a bishop."! Such was the life of the great Apostle to the southern red men. In conclusion we can only say that driven by his enemies from the lands for which he had labored he spent the remaining years of his life in Spain. They were fruitful years, however, for Las Casas never could be idle, and to the unflagging diligence of this last period of his life the world owes much of the information it possesses of the era of the Conquistadores. To the many volumes he wrote we now turn for the history of those times. It should not be imagined that in telling the story * See new edition of The Spanish Conquest in America, IV, 208, foot- note. 56 THE NEW WORLD of the Dominicans and the Bishop of Chiapa one ex- hausts the diptychs of the Latin world. Though less well known, equally deserving — since the Master gave a penny also to those who came at the twelfth hour — were the labors and exploits of the Franciscans along the shores of the Amazon and Huallaga Rivers, and of the Jesuits in what is now Paraguay. Far off from all bases of supply, in trackless forests, and among inhospitable tribes, they repeated the triumphs wrought by Las Casas in the North. The work of the Francis- cans along the Valley of the Amazon and Huallaga Rivers has been graphically described by a recent traveler : His [the missionary's] wants were few and he was content with the simplest fare and raiment. He may have been of noble blood and gentle nurture, but he was glad to exchange a palace and chateau for a palm-thatched hut in Amazonian wilds. If he had not a cabin of his own, he gratefully accepted such shelter as was offered him by the denizens of the forest. It mattered not that it was dark and smoky and noisome, alive with loathsome insects and the common abode of filthy animals and jabbering or brawHng men and women. He knew how to make himself all to all men, and how to win their hearts by patience, self-abnegation, and sacrifice. He ate what was placed before him and concealed any repugnance that the strange and disgusting food, which was frequently offered him, was calculated to excite. He knew no luxuries, for all these he had left behind him in Europe. His usual fare was cassava-bread and fish, maize and plantain. If these could not be had he, like the Indian, would uncomplainingly appease his hunger by roots and nuts, ants, worms and other creeping things even more repulsive. If his nomadic and whimsical children chose to change their place of abode, as often occurred in the beginning of their conversion, the padre followed them. Frequently their course was through dense morasses, when the wanderers were mired to the waist; at others it was along the rough bed of a mountain torrent, which so cut and inflamed the naked feet as to cause the most excruciating agony. It mattered not how long the journey lasted, or how great were the privations and sufferings that had to be endured, the brave and loyal shepherd never separated from his flock. He feared CONQUISTADORES OF THE CROSS 57 no danger and shrank before no difficulty. Perils far from being a deterrent, had a charm for him, and the martyr's crown, that often awaited him in the discharge of duty, was the highest incentive to heroic deeds. . . . But while making known to the children of the forest the essentials of the Gospel of Peace, the Spanish missionaries did not forget to teach them, pari passu, the arts of civilized life. They converted these wild hunters and fishermen into skillful artisans, herdsmen and tillers of the soil. They col- lected the roving and scattered tribes from the hidden recesses of the forest, and formed them into peaceful communities along the great waterways where fish and game were abun- dant, and where they could be always under the watchful eye of their spiritual guides and protectors. And, almost before the civil authorities of Quito and Lima were aware of the work that was being accomplished, the banks of the Huallaga and the Amazon were dotted with flourishing towns and vil- lages, the homes of peaceful and happy Indians of many tribes and languages, who were more highly civilized than had been the Incas even in their palmiest days, and whose children knew more of their Creator and of His relation to His creatures than did the wisest men of Cuzcq. The Con- quistadores of the Cross, with only the crucifix in their hands, had In a few short years accomplished what neither Inca nor Spanish arms had been competent to achieve — the subjugation of the countless warlike and antagonistic hordes of the montana. . . .^ Worthy, too, of commemoration and inclusion in all histories of missions were such men as Juan de Zumar- raga, Protector of the Indians, — for whom he fought loyally all his days — first Bishop of Mexico, founder of schools and hospitals and patron of industrial and agricultural activities ; Peter Claver who gave his life for those in servitude ; who having declared himself the "slave of the negroes for ever" spent his life en- deavoring to live up to that profession. It is told of him that he met ever}^ slave ship which ever anchored at Cartagena with food and delicacies for its wretched freight. To the poor half-crazed negroes, he went as a messenger of mercy for forty-four years. He cared * Mozans, Along the Andes and Down the Amazon, 443 ff. 58 THE NEW WORLD personally for each of the inmates of the slave ships and made one and all believe him to be their defender and friend; Toribio de Mogrovejo, the second Bishop of Peru, who learned the Quichua language thoroughly in order to find out the real conditions and wants of the Indians, and who protected and worked for them for a score of years/ The student is urged to study also the work of the Jesuits in Paraguay. In the interior of that country they established thirty towns. In them, under a com- munistic form of government, they taught the Indians agriculture, cattle raising, cotton weaving, carpentry, tailoring, boat building, and almost every industry use- ful and necessary to life. "They also made arms and powder, musical instruments, and had silversmiths, musicians, painters, turners, and printers to work their printing-presses ; for many books were printed at the missions, and they produced manuscripts as finely exe- cuted as those made by the monks in European monasteries. All the estancias, the agricultural lands and workshops were, so to speak, the property of the community; that is to say, the community worked them in common, was fed and main- tained by their productions, the whole under the direction of the two Jesuits who lived in every town. A portion called tupinamhal in Guarani was set aside especially for the main- tenance of orphans and of widows. The cattle and the horses, with the exception of "los caballos del santo," destined for show at feasts, were also used in common. The surplus of the capital was reserved to purchase necessary commodities from Buenos Ayres and from Spain. Each family received from the common stock sufficient for its maintenance during good conduct, for the Jesuits held in its entirety the Pauline dictum that if a man will not work, then neither shall he eat. But as they held it, so they practised it themselves, for their lives were most laborious — teaching and preaching, and acting as overseers to the Indians in their labors continually, from the first moment of their arrival at the missions till * The most available source for information concerning these men is the Catholic Encyclopedia. CONQUISTADORES OF THE CROSS 59 their death. Thus, if the mayor of the township complained of any man for remissness at his work, he received no rations till he had improved. To inculcate habits of providence amongst the Indians, always inclined to consume whatever was given to them and go fasting afterwards, they issued the provisions but once a week, and when they killed their oxen forced the Indians to "jerk" a certain quantity of beef to last throughout the week. Vegetables each family was obliged to plant both in their gardens and in the common fields; and all that were not actually consumed were dealt out to the workers in the common workshops or preserved for sale. . . . This, then, was the system by means of which the Jesuits succeeded, without employing force of any kind, which in their case would have been quite impossible, lost as they were amongst the crowd of Indians, in making the Guaranis endure the yoke of toil. . . .^ The modern world has no finer "manual training" and industrial schools than Paraguay had in its thirty Jesuit towns in the middle of the sixteenth century ! Travelers tell us that to this day the beneficent in- fluence of that work is evident in the country districts. It is doubtful whether there has ever been seen else- where such a large and successful development in the field of Christian economics. But we must bring this chapter to an end. Having seen the inspiring beginning of missions in Latin America, we must pass on to a consideration of the later history of the Conquest, since only as we know something about it can we comprehend why, after such glorious beginnings, the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries show regress rather than progress. * Cunninghame Graham, A Vanished Arcadia, 181-183. CHAPTER III THE ROCK WHENCE WE ARE HEWN "South America is the victim of a bad start. It was never settled by whites in the way that they settled the United States. All the European blood from the Caribbean to Cape Horn probably does not exceed that to be found within the area inclosed by lines connect- ing Washington, Buffalo, Duluth and St. Louis. The masterful whites simply climbed upon the backs of the natives and exploited them. Thus pride, contempt for labor, caste, social parasitism, and authoritativeness in Church and State fastened upon South American so- ciety and characterize it still. It will be yet long ere it is transformed by such modern forces as industry, democracy and science. "It would be unpardonable for us ever to be puffed up because we enjoy better social and civic health than is usual in South America. If our forefathers had found here precious metals and several millions of agricultural Indians, our social development would have resembled that of the peoples that grew up in New Spain. Not a race accounts for the contrast in destiny between the two Americas, nor yet the personal virtues of the original settlers, but circumstances." ^ Thus speaks a critic who, however one may be in- clined to receive his words, at least has been a good guide through other fields. And certainly all will agree with his opening words — South America, and Latin America, had a bad start. Despite the splendid courage * From the preface of Ross' South of Panama. 60 THE ROCK WHENCE WE ARE HEWN 61 and faith of many of the Conquistadores, and despite the holy zeal of the early missionaries, other influences were more potent and the Spanish colonies did not flourish. Properly to estimate things as they are we must learn about those other influences. But, be it noted, what is said is said in a spirit of humility, not of self-righteous pride. God knows North America has great and glaring sins of its own. Certain things must be comprehended, however, if we are to proceed, but the student is warned to approach the task in the spirit of the Publican rather than of the Pharisee. Following in the footsteps of the Conquistadores came a steady stream of colonizers, government officials, clergy, fortune-hunters and adventurers — some wise and brave and worthy, some unwise and lazy and unworthy. It is a mistake to imagine though that the colonies were developed after 1550 as they had been before, — by spectacular invasions led by impetuous seekers after glory and gold. On the contrary in the later years the course of colonial expansion followed along comparatively orderly channels. The fierce spasmodic thrusts of the Conquistadores were replaced by slow and painstaking political invasions. Great empires are not built up by adventurers, however keen their swords and sharp their wits, and Spain built up a great empire. Her dominions grew and grew, until in 1581 when the Kingdom of Portugal was united by a diplomatic marriage with that of Spain all the New World was at the feet of Philip the Second. King of Portugal and Spain, the world trembled at his word — South America was his, and the Indies were his, and Central America and Mexico acknowledged him their lord. Nor did the dominions of Spain cease to increase with the death of Philip. Despite un- scientific methods — which an unsophisticated world did not perceive to be unscientific — the course of expan- sion went on until 1786 when they reached their great- 62 THE NEW WORLD est extent. In that year, beginning at Porto Rico on the East they stretched westward to CaHfornia, and northward to Missouri, and southward to ChiH. Among the large islands in the West Indies all except Jamaica and Santo Domingo acknowledged Philip's will ; on the northern continent what are now Florida and southern Alabama and Mississippi and all the area west of the Mississippi River, and Mexico, were Spanish; on the southern continent everything made obeisance to the descendant of Ferdinand and Isabella except the Guianas and Brazil. Thus came into being that vast division of the world which we call Spanish or Latin America ; which though it was split up into a number of different nations in the early part of the nineteenth century, still re- mains Spanish in spirit. A territory it is which by its very bulk demands our attention ; which because of its huge resources must become more and more im- portant as the years roll by; more and more indis- pensable to those other parts of the world which have as yet paid little attention to it. Physical bigness does not necessarily prove anything, but such extraor- dinary bigness as is Latin America's — and of course we include Portuguese Brazil in all this, the Portu- guese being even more "Latin" than the Spaniards — commands our serious attention, and specially is this true now that the world, as a result of the development in steam and electricity, has become a little neighbor- hood. We seldom realize how true it is, to digress for a while from our theme, that the one time uncomfort- able and inconvenient world has become comfortable and convenient. We forget what an appalling thing it used to be to journey to the tropics in cockle shells. But all that has changed now, and steam and elec- tricity have brought the antipodes together, and, what is more important, it behooves us to remember these THE ROCK WHENCE WE ARE HEWN 63 things. We can go from New York to Porto Rico now, for example, in the time it used to take to go halfway round little Porto Rico, while Havana, through the building of the Florida East Coast Ex- tension to Key West, is as accessible to Chicago as is Houston. Further, South America is now being co- ordinated and connected by railroad systems so that its great bulk is becoming less and less clumsy ; and with the west coast of this great continent communi- cation has recently been simplified by the building of the Panama Canal. To show the size of Latin America, the following figures need to be studied. REPUBLIC. AREA POPULATION Square Miles Argentine Republic 1,139,979 6,989,023 Bolivia 708,195 2,267,935 United States of Brazil 3,218,130 20,515,000 Chili 291,500 3,500,000 Columbia 438,436 4,320,000 Costa Rica 23,000 388,266 Cuba 44,164 2,161,662 Dominican Republic 19,325 673,611 Ecuador 116,000 1,500,000 Guatemala 48,290 1,992,000 Haiti 10,200 2,000,000 Honduras 46,250 553,446 United Mexican States 767,097 15,063,207 Nicaragua 49.200 600,000 Panama 32,280 419,029 Paraguay 171,815 800,000 Peru 679,600 4,500.000 Salvador 7,225 1,700.000 Uruguay 72,210 1,042.686 United States of Venezuela 393,976 2,713,703 7,445,872 73,699,575 Put beside these by way of comparison the square mileage and population of the United States. Our 64 THE NEW WORLD land contains 2,973,890 square miles and about 95,000,- 000 people. Dry figures that these are, they are eloquent. Though there are seven-ninths as many people — there may be more since no accurate estimate of the size of the Indian tribes in Central America is obtainable — they have more than twice as much territory to in- habit. We think of the empty spaces in our own enormous west and yet they are small beside the un- used lands of Latin America. Nor is the tale all told when one has shown the size of Spanish America, since in addition to "bulk its resources are huge and — considering the tendency of northern civilization — are becoming more and more important each day. Overlooking such non-essentials as tobacco and cofifee or diamonds and mahogany, con- sider the matter of the world's food supply. It is as- serted that the valley of the Amazon will eventually be called upon to feed the world. When all other arable lands have reached their limit of production our descendants will fall back, we are assured, on those fecund lands on which food enough can be raised for almost any imaginable population. What prouder destiny could any land have than to become the world's garden and farm. In which con- nection it might not be amiss to quote from a report recently made at an International Geological Congress, in which is shown among other facts that if the world continues to advance along the lines followed in the past one hundred years, the future of the southern continent is destined to be agricultural. The report * is one which deals with the coal resources of the world and it brings out the following significant facts : The relation of coal to civilization is apparent from an inspection of any world map. The heaviest coal producing countries lead in civilization. A large portion of the wealth ^Bulletin of the American Geographical Society, October, 1915, p. 761. THE ROCK WHENCE WE ARE HEWN 65 per capita in each may be traced directly to the hives of in- dustry and the centers of population that cluster around the sites of their coal supplies. The factor of area or of geo- graphical position appears overshadowed by the importance of that of coal resources. Belgium is a case in point. This does not imply, however, that civilization depends on coal entirely. It means that nineteenth or twentieth century civili- zation alone is based in part on coal consumption. Given the discovery of an economically more advantageous source of energy, and coal will become as unimportant from the standpoint of the world's commerce as trade winds in our day. The bulk of the world's supply of coal is stored in the continental areas of the northern hemisphere. North America and Eurasia contain approximately six-sevenths of the total reserves. The fuel is distributed most abundantly north of the 20th parallel of north latitude. This is not due so much to the development of large land masses in the northern hemi- sphere as it is to the existence of vast areas of rocks belong- ing to the carboniferous period which are not well repre- sented either in Africa or South America. A factor of far- reaching economic importance in the commercial and industrial relations between northern and southern continents is thereby created. Industrial supremacy of the northern continents is insured as long as coal is not superseded by another fuel or new reserves are not discovered in the southern continents. In a statistical table which follows it is revealed that while the estimated coal reserve of North America is 5,073,431 million tons, that of South America is only 32,097 million tons, of which 27,000 are in Colom- bia. On the present basis then, the agricultural future of the southern continent is its only future. The student of sociological problems will find in these facts much food for thought. So also will the speculative chemist who is prepared to combat the theory that to the coal lands belong the world's in- dustrial future. Was it not Lord Kelvin who said that he could imagine a day when we would regard our present method of getting power and heat from coal as absurd and clumsy ; a day when we would see the sun harnessed and its energy made to drive the wheels of the world. And then, perhaps in a moment 66 THE NEW WORLD of playfulness, but yet with an undertone of serious- ness, he added that when that day came the highest priced land would be, as it is now, where power was most easily obtained, which meant that coal lands and equatorial lands would exchange places — on this basis the industrial centers of the world will be nearer Brazil and Sahara than New York. Returning from this dream of the future to the present, let us look at the actual resources of the Spanish dominions of today. In his recent volume Professor Shepherd gives us this resume of the sub- ject : When estimating the value of the natural resources of the Latin-American states, one must take into account certain obstacles that lie in the way of their development. There are vast stretches of waste land, especially in the mountainous areas; and in the tropical sections there are huge swamps and miasmic forests as well. The resources, furthermore, are often inaccessible because of poor facilities of transporta- tion. If railways were to be built, the engineering difficulties presented at times would make the construction so costly as to destroy the possibility of ultimate profit. Despite these obstacles, the wealth in mines, forests and soil is astounding, and even now is only just beginning to be made useful to mankind. Though practically all of the republics are rich in mineral substances, Mexico, Colombia, Bolivia, Chile, Peru and southern Brazil are the chief mining centers. Mexico is noted for its silver, copper, iron, petroleum, precious and semi-precious stones and gold; Colombia, for its platinum and emeralds ; Bolivia, for its tin, silver, copper, and bis- muth; Chile, for its nitrate of soda, copper, salt, sulphur and coal; Peru, for its silver, copper and petroleum; and southern Brazil, to a much less extent, for its diamonds, gold, iron and coal. Among the republics of Central America, Hon- duras contains probably the largest mineral deposits. Vene- zuela is richly stored with asphalt. Many of the states, par- ticularly Mexico and Peru, are supplied with excellent mineral springs. So far as forest products are concerned, nearly every country of Latin America abounds in trees of the most varied utility. Mahogany, rosewood, ebony and other cabinet THE ROCK WHENCE WE ARE HEWN 67 woods, and timber of extraordinary hardness and durability, are scattered through the tropical areas. Brazil, however, is the one that possesses the richest and most beautiful flora. From Latin America probably more economic plants and vegetable substances in general have been derived than from any other quarter of the globe. Vast quantities of rubber are available in western and northern Brazil, in the adjoining areas of the Spanish-American republics, such as Peru, Co- lombia, and Bolivia, and in Mexico, where numerous sub- stitutes for it, like "guayule," have also been discovered. Tropical fruits of every sort, sugar cane, tobacco and cotton are profuse in their distribution, Cuba alone being the greatest producer of sugar-cane in the world. The same is true of several of the "beverage plants" of the commoner sort, like the coffee of Brazil, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Colombia and Mexico; the cacao of Brazil, Ecuador, the Dominican Repub- lic, Venezuela and Haiti and the "yerba," or Paraguay tea, of that country and the neighboring districts of the Argentine Republic and Brazil. Vegetable silk (Paraguay), coca (Bolivia and Peru), from which cocaine is made and the leaves of which are chewed by the natives to relieve fatigue; gums, resins, and oleaginous plants in general, sarsaparilla, cinchona bark, which is the source of quinine (Peru and Bolivia) ; "Peruvian" balsam (Salvador), dye-woods, ivory nuts (Ecuador and Colombia), from which buttons, gaming counters and the like are manu- factured; and "chicle" (Mexico), which is the chief in- gredient in chewing gum, are among the vegetable substances that grow in great profusion. To them may be added "hene- quen" and "ixtle" (Mexico), which are fibrous plants use- ful in the manufacture of cordage ; the vanilla bean ; "ma- guey," a generic name for some thirty-three species of cacti (Mexico), which provide food, drink, and clothing for the poorer folk; "toquilla" (Ecuador), the straw from which Panama hats are made* many varieties of spices, bread-fruit, manioc, yams, Brazil nuts, essential oils for the manufacture of perfumery, and the wax-palm (Brazil), extraordinary in the number of its uses. Cereals of every description flourish in the temperate and sub-tropical areas of all the Latin-American republics, and cattle, sheep and horses thrive on their grassy savannas ; but the great agricultural and grazing areas lie in southern South America. Here the Argentine Republic is easily foremost. Out in the "camp," as the open country is called, lies an absolutely enormous expanse of fertile land yielding alfalfa, and other forage grasses in practically unlimited quantities, 68 THE NEW WORLD a region in which the mild climate enables cattle, sheep and horses to live in the pastures throughout the year. Uruguay, its little neighbor to the eastward, is also famed for its cattle, though agriculture is encroaching on the grazing grounds. The same is true in a measure of southwestern Brazil. In Chile and the western part of the Argentine Republic the vine is cultivated with great success. . . .^ Such then are the lands which the Spaniards and Portuguese settled. A huge division of the earth's surface they make, and a v^ealthy one, v^hich, v^hen all is said and done, has perhaps more in it to contribute to man's physical necessities than any other. One can not overestimate its importance, and v^e of the north cannot too quickly come into close relations with those who possess such good lands So far we have seen only the romantic side of their history. We have heard of the Conquistadores with their gruesome thirst for gold ; we have heard of the commencement of missions, but we have heard noth- ing of the economic and political and sociological in- fluences which have played so large a part in making the Latin Americans what they are to-day, — which con- tributed toward that "bad start" of which Professor Ross speaks. In the first place Latin America's development was influenced by the maladroitness of the executive in the home land. Through a highly organized system, the "Council of the Indies," as representative of the monarch, ruled the far away settlements. Mechanically the system was extraordinarily good, but the distances being great, and the means of communication poor, it could not be specially efifective. To anticipate and prevent diffi- culties which these problems of distance created, re- course was had to a most unfortunate system of checks and counterchecks among the crown's representatives * Shepherd, Latin America, pp. 117 to 121. THE ROCK WHENCE WE ARE HEWN 69 in the field. To prevent any viceroy or officer from acquiring too much power, that old device of Louis XI's, ''divide et impera" (divide and rule), was made use of. Though as a policy it is hard to beat, its re- sults — distrust, dishonesty and dissipation of energy — are eternally certain, and he who climbs to heights on such a ladder will sooner or later come tumbling down again. In carrying out this policy the various viceroys and captain-generals and audiencias and corregidors were played ofif against each other, each one being encouraged to feel that he could machinate against the other if that other became too popular or prosperous. A notable example of this occurred in the case of Cortez. If ever there was a faithful servant of the crown, if ever the Spanish king had a general whom he could trust to be true and loyal it was the con- queror of Mexico. Had Cortez been left to himself after he had won the land for Spain, if he had been allowed to rule where he had conquered, there is every reason to believe he would have done good work for the empire and created a really strong and auton- omous province. Under the policy inaugurated by Charles V though, this could not be, and the last time that Cortez went back from Spain to Mexico, though he went loaded down with honors and the title of Marquess of the Valley of Oaxaca and Captain General of New Spain, he was nevertheless shorn by a shortsighted monarch of all his powers. A civil governor was put in control of everything not specifi- cally military, which meant that the Conquistador him- self had become a second fiddle. What a pity that the emperor could not have trusted Cortez. Am- bitious, and loving pomp and pageantry as he did, it is still inconceivable that he would not have continued loyal. We see unwisdom of the same kind, to be sure, in England's early colonial policy, and should attribute 70 THE NEW WORLD these blunders to the times more than to individuals, but that does not affect the issue. How could a strong colony grow up so long as the colonials were not en- couraged to respect their immediate governors ? Each and every one felt that he could appeal over the head of his local magistrate to the home government, and that that appeal would very likely be listened to if his magistrate happened to be prospering abundantly. How could respect for government in the Indies be expected so long as too great success by a local adminis- trator was tantamount — so far as his treatment by the home government and fellow officials was concerned — to treachery. Can we not see in this policy the germ of that spirit which grew and grew until, when the colonies wrenched themselves free and had governors of their own choosing, they were incapable of taking them seriously and obeying them loyally. The orgy of revolution which Latin America has been through in the last one hundred years can in part be traced to that divide et imp era policy of the Spanish monarchs. So far as the Laws of the Indies were concerned, there was little to be desired. But personalities, not codes, make strong nations. Though the Spanish code displayed a spirit of humanity and a wise regard for rights of individuals which for their time were ex- traordinary, still their excellence was undone by the folly of the Crown. "If elaborate system and supervision, careful adapta- tion of means to ends, diligent nursing, could avail for colonial growth," wrote Admiral Mahan, "the genius of England has less of this systematizing faculty than the genius of France; but England, not France, has been the greater colonizer of the world. Success- ful colonization with its consequent effect upon com- merce and sea-power, depends essentially upon national character ; because colonies grow best when they grow of themselves, naturally. The character of the colo- THE ROCK WHENCE WE ARE HEWN 71 nist, not the care of the home government, is the prin- ciple of the colony's growth." What follows in this chapter is meant to show some of the reasons for the insufficiency of character among the Spanish colonials. The first loose bolt in the Spanish machine, then, was the jealousy of the executive. And, parentheti- cally, one cannot refrain from adding the executives were of a kind from which one would have expected jealousy and similar descents to folly. The tale of the reigns of the Spanish Kings between 1600 and 1700 is one long repetition of blunders — blunders which resulted in removing Spain's candlestick. It was Philip II who was responsible for starting Spain downhill. The influence which he exerted upon the empire of his successors is fairly unbelievable. Had that superstitious adventurer. Ponce de Leon, brought home a draft from a fountain of youth and thereby enabled the gloomy monarch to rule his people down to the eighteenth century, he could hardly have influenced matters more. As one reads of the acts of Philip III, Philip IV, and Charles II, — monarchs who were on the throne from the death of Philip II in 1598 down to the year 1700, he sees the ghost of the gloomy Philip ever on the stage. The gist of the matter can be summed up in a paragraph. Philip II honestly believed himself to be the anointed of God. In him the divine right theory reached — for olden days at least — its zenith. So per- suaded was he of his personal responsibility, and so conscientious withal, that he delegated almost no power to his subordinates. Spain's dominion was vast and the number of things in which she was engaged beyond measure. The interviewing of ambassadors from the peoples with whom, by reason of the size and ramifications of her international dealings, she had to deal, was enough for one man — and yet the Em- peror allowed nothing of importance to be done until 72 THE NEW WORLD he had personally attended to it. Often papers of great importance were delayed for months until he could find time to look them over. When Spain under- took to subdue England and the resplendent Armada was made ready, rather than turn that momentous campaign over to a competent leader, Philip put it under the command of an incompetent whom he could control from his cell in the thrice gloomy Escorial. It was this principle of personal rule, founded upon his conscientious belief that he and God were partners, which blighted the years following the death of Philip. Had his successors been men of like caliber it might have been different. They were not though. They were weaklings who — irony of ironies — reversed the policy of Philip and instead of delegating nothing, dele- gated everything — to selfish and vicious favorites ! And that is where the trouble arose. The people had been trained to follow whatever betide, and true to their training they followed these favorites! Philip III, son of Philip II, was idle, careless, and weak, and glad to be a tool in the hands of the Duke of Lerma. To the vicious Lerma practically all the royal preroga- tives were given, and for twenty years he misgoverned Spain. He was followed in Philip IV's days by Olivares, whose character can be estimated from the fact that he won his ascendency over his monarch by initiating him, when a youth, into the mysteries of filth and debauchery. Next came Valenzuela in Charles IPs time, who might be said to have followed in the footsteps of "J^^oboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin." If ever in this world there has been an illustration of the dangers of one man rule it was in Spain. De- spite his deep convictions, one can almost believe that Philip II would have changed his ways if he could have known what the results of his policy would have been. THE ROCK WHENCE WE ARE HEWN 73 For us the special interest lies in the effect of the misgovernment of Spain upon the history of her colonial possessions. The favorites — Lerma and his ilk — caring for nothing save their own pleasure and pockets, let the Indies alone so long as silver from the treasure ships kept coming their way. Whether governors plundered the colonials and natives, and misruled them, they cared not. As a result, all the evils of the mother country were reproduced in the Indies, and, left a prey to such officials as favoritism minus intelligent interest provided them with, they decreased in wisdom and stature and favor with the world. The economic history of the Indies must also be comprehended if one is to understand their mal- development. In things economic the Spaniards were blind leaders. So true is this, that their history is the only history which explains itself. As Martin Hume wrote in the preface to his volume on the "Greatness and Decay of Spain": The mere relation of the events of history adds but little to the stock of useful knowledge unless it enables us to apply the experience of the past to the conduct of the present, and so to avoid for our own time some of the errors into which previous generations have fallen. This end can best be attained by regarding history not as a disjointed collec- tion of facts, but as a harmonious concatenation of causes and effects. In the case of most national histories this is difficult, because the actions and the results which follow them are usually distant in point of time, obscured by side issues and complicated by intervening circumstances. It is other- wise with the history of Spain. There the ordinary observer may see the working of the process by which nations are ruined. He who runs may read the lessons that unsupported pride and unwarranted ambition are as disastrous to nations as to men, that riches gained without labor produce no ex- tended or lasting prosperity, that the true basis of wealth is industrial production. . . .* * Hume, Spain, Its Greatness and Decay, introduction. 74 THE NEW WORLD Beginning with the fearful military expenses needed to support the pride and pretensions of Philip II, Spain started upon a career of economic folly such as the world has seldom seen. Not that she could not have met her debts. She could have done so had her finances been wisely handled. But that is where the trouble arose. While her kings and favorites were spending money like water, her officials were making laws which little by little impoverished the people, destroyed their industries, discouraged their agricul- turalists, and utterly discounted the efforts of her traders. They killed every goose which might have been counted on to lay golden eggs — and they had lots of them — and then after the geese were dead they plucked their feathers.^ The results of this disastrous policy were terrible. Hume thus describes the humiliating condition reached in the year 1601 : ''Lerma himself, by a stroke of genius, conceived another theory. It was, he said, the waste of silver in making Church and household plate which caused coin to be so scarce. So in April, 1601, sudden orders were sent throughout Spain for official inventories to be made of every piece of silver-plate in private houses and churches, and all this was to be kept intact until orders were received for its utilization. This was too much. Bishops and clergy thundered from the altars and pulpits against such sacrilege, and in August a humble apology was given and the order cancelled. But something had to be done. The Cortes now might vote what they liked, but the ruined people could not pay it; and the next device was an appeal ad misericordiam to bishops, nobles, officials, and others, to give what money and plate they chose. The Archbishop of Seville contributed his plate and 30,000 ducats in money, and others gave in proportion. But 1 See for illustrations Hume's Spain, pp. 195, 271, 285, 305. THE ROCK WHENCE WE ARE HEWN 75 there was a lower depth still. Officers were appointed to go from door to door accompanied by the priest of each parish, to beg for alms for the King, the small- est sum received being fifty reals. To this had Spain fallen. The master of the New World with its count- less treasures had not money to pay for his household servants, or to set forth the meals for his own table." ^ Instances of this kind could be multiplied. What is desired here, though, is not so much to reveal the poverty of Spain, as the policy which made her poor, since it was that same policy which was largely respon- sible for the economic incompetence which developed in the Indies. The point of the matter is this — in their utterly suicidal endeavors to raise funds to pay the bills created by their military ambitions, the rulers of Spain did the very things which made money scarce. They would forbid the manufacture of this thing here and of that thing there, until the land became almost empty and silent. By a bitter irony of fate it came to pass that if there was any kind of a tax or a law which would destroy an industry, they decreed it — and always, of course, in the name of that industry ! It was in perfect accord with this policy that they sought to encourage home industries by prohibiting the colonials from producing or manufacturing articles which could be produced or manufactured in Spain. While it is true that the government and the Casa de Contratacion insisted on the colonists' taking out with them seed and farm implements and domestic animals so that they could be self-supporting, that ruling was insufficient. They should further, if they desired to see the new land become strong and vigorous, have encouraged the settlers to inaugurate such industries as would make the land and its people industrious and provident. What they did do was exactly the opposite, * op. cit., pp. 200-201. 76 THE NEW WORLD and as a result, the New World grew up without any ideas of thrift or economy.^ In addition to the foregoing economic blunder the great heresy which tacitly proclaimed manual labor to be undignified was encouraged. In one degree or another most military-minded peoples are blind to the worth and importance of work. The Spaniard was no exception to this rule, and we find it written large in the books that the colonizers of Latin America thought it beneath them to work with their hands.^ The effect of this upon the growing states was inevitable, since only where a premium is put upon industry can efficiency be expected.^ There remain to be treated in this chapter on handicaps, two momentous problems, the first of which is the question of climate. Some would have it that heat per se has an unwholesome influence on men. How much truth is there in this? For ex- ample, in a paper on Argentina and the Argentines, read at a meeting of the Association of American Geographers in New York in April, 1915, these words were used: "Contrasts strongly distinguish North and South America, and among those most generally recognized in the popular mind there is none more conspicuous than the stability of self-government in the one and its * As a general example of this policy, take the cases of Peru and Mexico. There the trades of the dyer, the fuller, the weaver, the shoemaker and the hatter were abolished and the natives compelled to buy the products of those industries from Spain. This meant that the very clothes they wore the natives had to get from Spain. Again, grape and olive growing were abolished everywhere except in Peru and Chili, and these provinces could not sell wine or oil to anv place to which Spain exported them. Trade with China and the Philippines was forbidden as soon as it was discovered that the colonies were pro- curing from them things that could be made in Spain. * It is interesting in this connection to note that so clearly did Spain's great king, Charles III (1759-1788) realize the damage wrought by the prevalent idea that manual labor was infra dig. that he issued a royal decree in 1783 in which it was declared that it was no degradation tor hidalgos to engage in handicrafts! After all that has been said about the worthlessness of some of the Spanish kings, it should at least be said that in Charles III Spain had a very great leader. THE ROCK WHENCE WE ARE HEWN 11 instability in the other continent. The causes are racial in part ; they are in a measure inheritances from distinct colonial policies ; and they are also due to geo- graphic conditions. The last unfortunately perma- nent. Self-government is a hardy plant. Like wheat and oats it flourishes where there is ozone in the air and frost." Again, and to quote this time a distinguished Peru- vian whose characterization of the Latin peoples must command our attention, in discussing ^the "political anarchy of the Latin America land" we are told, ''there are a few republics in which these conflicts have been perpetual; such is the case in Central America and the Antilles. It seems as though the tropical climate must favor these disturbances. As- sassinations of presidents, battles in the cities, collisions between factions and castes, inflammatory and decep- tive rhetoric, all lead one to suppose that these equa- torial regions are inimical to peace and organization." ^ Is there anything in this idea that national stability is dependent upon plenty of ozone and frost? Some political philosophers, following Buckle, are so sure that there is, that they say that the children of cold climes will always have to help those who live where the sun shines fiercely. Though the writer for his part does not believe that it is the heat which makes the dift'erence, as will be pointed out later on, still when we think of the matter historically we are forced to admit that its influence has in the past been unfortunate. This might perhaps more properly be called a problem of flora and fauna, since it is more with the products of the heat than with the heat itself that we are concerned. The warm climate of the tropics, in other words, was responsible for certain economic * Calderon, Latin America: Its Rise and Progress, p. 199. 78 THE NEW WORLD conditions which were of moment. The matter can best be illustrated by a hypothetical case: Imagine two men leaving the same place three hundred years ago, say, for example, London, and emigrating, the one to the island of Cuba, the other to the island of Newfoundland. Imagine them settling down in such places for the rest of their lives. Would one expect their children to develop as the decades went by with no greater differences of character than would have appeared had they been brought up in adjacent houses back in England? If not, what dif- ferences would one expect? To speculate about such things one has to inquire somewhat into the laws of supply and demand, since life must be supported and a large part of it consists in the buying and selling of food and raiment. Looked at in this way, we speedily realize that the family brought up in the tropics would have been brought up in comparative abundance, without — that is the point, — without any great amount of effort on the part of the father. On the other hand, he who had to wring a living from the niggardly soil of Newfound- land, would do so with difficulty. The atmosphere of the tropical family would be one of ease ; that of the other, care and labor. The one family, dependent upon brain and brawn in its struggle with nature, would de- velop in one direction ; the other, able to "get along" without undue effort, mental or physical, would de- velop in another. One family would have little time for leisure, the other would find time hanging heavy ; one would have the long winter nights and the cheer- less, harvestless months of ice and snow to prepare against, the other would be free from the embarrass- ments and impoverishments of barren winter. And so it goes. When one imagines the cumulative effects of dif- ferences such as these reaching down through two or THE ROCK WHENCE WE ARE HEWN 79 three generations, he is able to realize to a certain extent the divergent influences of the antipodes. A recent writer has expressed it amusingly by asking what would have happened to the Pilgrim fathers if they had emigrated to the regions where the Indians were mild-tempered, and nature smiled benignantly, and no one had to work for a living.^ Thus, historically considered, one cannot but see that climate and the resultant soil characteristics in- fluenced the development of the Latin world. While the soils that only yielded to patient labor were drill- ing those who settled in the northern zones and making them hardy and self-reliant, those who had taken up their abode in the benignant tropics were receiving none of those lessons in economy and industry which men need for their welfare. Beyond that point it is to be doubted if mere heat was a factor. On the other hand given modern science and its ingenuity one has every reason to believe that nowadays the ther- mometer's readings are of even less importance. (See Appendix to this Chapter.) But though men may be able today and in the future to disregard the temperature, there yet remains a serious problem. Namely, the absence from the tropics of marked seasonal changes. It is highly questionable whether in this matter Latin America is not face to face with a serious situation; whether its absence of "weather" is not a real handicap. Ii} his book on "Climate and Civilization" ^ the * In this connection Mr. Payne's theory that the advancement of civilization is largely dependent on the development of cereals is inter- esting. Cereal culture, he says, is in all infant civilizations of funda- mental value because (1) of the nourishment given by cereals to the muscular and nervous systems; (2) it "alone among the forms of food- production taxes, recompenses and stimulates labor and ingenuity in an equal degree." "Regarded as stimulants to human activity," he goes on, "fruits and roots have a low comparative value." It should be noted that fruits and roots were to a large extent the food of those who lived on the shores of the Caribbean. Payne, History of the New World, T. 353 f^. * Huntington, Climate and Civilization. 8Q THE NEW WORLD author presents a most interesting development of this theme. Ellsworth Huntington says frankly that climate "is not the cause of civilization, for that lies infinitely deeper. Nor is it the only or the most important con- dition. It is merely one of several, just as an abundant supply of pure water is one of the primary conditions of health." ^ He then proceeds to show what he be- lieves to be a favorable climate, and, to make a long story short, concludes that it is not so much a ques- tion of temperature as it is of variation. "Under proper conditions," he says,^ "a relatively high tempera- ture is not particularly harmful provided it does not go to undue extremes." On the other hand "changes of temperature from day to day are of great impor- tance." He cites a multitude of facts to show that it is the changes which come from day to day and from season to season which go to produce the energy which makes for progress and prosperity.^ Whether or not we accept Professor Huntington's hypothesis, we cannot but be impressed with its force. It certainly would seem to have the indorsement of many who have found that it is not the heat of the tropics which "gets on their nerves" but the everlasting sameness.* So much for the large question of climate. Let us turn to another and even more difficult subject, the matter of miscegenation. When the Conquistadores came over they brought with them but few of the gentler sex. Camps were no * op. cit., p. 9. ' Op. cit., p. 269. ' Professor Huntington attributes climatic variations to storms and shows how those parts of the world which are by general consent admitted to be the most "civilized" are those which are within the track of the world's storms. ^ * Mr. Fiske, in his Excursions of an Evolutionist, p. 189, and in the whole of the chapter on "Sociology and Hero Worship," contends strongly that ideals rather than physical environment influence civiliza- tion. Of course they do, but one is inclined to believe that Fiske would at least go as far as Huntington and admit the partial influence of climate. THE ROCK WHENCE WE ARE HEWN 81 place for women. Intermarriage with the natives began at once and continued through three hundred years until a condition unparallelled elsewhere has arisen. It is not a subject though upon which a North American is competent to speak; we are too apt to believe in the infallibility of our own judgment. For every rea- son we should in this instance let a Latin American guide us. The following deliverance of Senor Calderon is therefore presented.^ The three races [he writes], Iberian, Indian, and African, — united by blood, form the population of South America. In the United States union with the aborigines is regarded by the colonist with repugnance; in the South miscegenation is a great national fact; it is universal. The Chilian oligarchy has kept aloof from the Araucanians, but even in that country unions between whiter and Indians abound. Mestizos are the descendants of whites and Indians; mulattos, the children of Spaniards and negroes; zambos, the sons of negroes and Indians. Besides these there are a multitude of social sub- divisions. On the Pacific coast Chinese and negroes have interbred. It is always the Indian that prevails, and the Latin democracies are mestizo or indigenous. The ruling class has adopted the costume, the usages, and the laws of Europe, but the population which forms the national mass is Quechua, Aymara, or Aztec. ... Of the total population of Peru and Ecuador the white element only attains to the feeble propor- tion of 6 per cent., while the Indian element represents 70 per cent, of the population of these countries, and 50 per cent, in Bolivia. In Mexico the Indian is equally in the majority, and we may say that there are four Indian nations on the con- tinent: Mexico, Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia. In countries where the pure native has not survived, the mestizos abound; they form the population of Colombia, Chili, and Paraguay; in this latter country Guarani is spoken much more frequently than Spanish. The true American of the South is the mestizo, the descendant of Spaniards and Indians; but this new race, which is almost the rule from Mexico to Buenos Ayres, is not always a hybrid product. The warlike peoples, like those of Paraguay and Chili, are descended from Spaniards, Araucanians, and Guaranis. En- * Calderon, Latin America: Its Rise and Progress, p. 356 ff. «2 THE NEW WORLD ergetic leaders have been found among the mestizos; Paez in Venezuela, Castilla in Peru, Diaz in Mexico, and Santa- Cruz in Bolivia. An Argentine anthropologist, Seiior Ayarr- agaray, says that "the primary mestizo is inferior to his Euro- pean progenitors, but at the same time he is often superior to his native ancestors." . . . He learns Spanish, assimilates the manners of a new and superior civilization, and forms the ruling caste at the bar and in politics. . . . One may say that the admixture of the prevailing strains virith black blood has been disastrous for these democracies. In applying John Stuart Mill's law of concomitant variations to the development of Spanish America one may determine a necessary relation between the numerical proportion of negroes and the intensity of civilization. Wealth increases and mternal order is greater in the Argentine, Uruguay, and Chili, and it is precisely in these countries that the propor- tion of negroes has always been low ; they have disappeared in the admixture of European races. In Cuba, San Domingo, and some of the republics of Central America, and certain of the states of the Brazilian Confederation, where the chil- dren of slaves constitute the greater portion of the popula- tion, internal disorders are continual. A black republic, Haiti, demonstrates by its revolutionary history the political incapacity of the negro race. The mulatto and the zambo are the true American hybrids. . . . The inferior elements of the races which unite are evi- dently combined in their offspring. It is observed also that both in the mulattos and the zambos certain internal contra- dictions may be noted; their will is weak and uncertain, and is dominated by instinct and gross and violent passions. The invasion of negroes affected all the Iberian colonies where, to replace the outrageously exploited Indian, African slaves were imported. In Brazil, Cuba, Panama, Venezuela, and Peru this caste forms a high proportion of the total population. In Brazil 15 per cent, of the population is composed of negroes, without counting the immense number of mulattos and zam- bos. Bahia is half an African city. In Rio de Janeiro the negroes of pure blood abound. In Panama, the full-blooded Africans form 10 per cent, of the population. Between 1759 and 1803 642,000 negroes entered Brazil; between 1792 and 1810 Cuba received 89,000. These figures prove the formid- able influence of the former slaves in modern America. But they are revenged for their enslavement in that their blood is mingled with that of their masters. As the Indian could not work in the tropics black immigration was directed prin- cipally upon these regions, and the enervating climate, the THE ROCK WHENCE, WE ARE HEWN 83 indiscipline of the mulatto, and the weakness of the white element have contributed to the decadence of the Equatorial nations. ... The zambos have created nothing in America. On the other hand, the robust mestizo populations, the Mamelucos of Brazil, the Cholos of Peru and Bolivia, the Rotos of Chili, descendants of Spaniards and the Guarani Indians, are dis- tinguished by their pride and virility, . . . The European established in America becomes a Creole; his is a new race, the final product of secular unions. He is neither Indian, nor black, nor Spaniard. The castes are confounded and have formed an American stock, in which we may distinguish the psychological traits of the Indian and the negro, while the shades of skin and forms of skull reveal a remote intermixture. If all the races of the New World were finally to unite, the Creole would be the real American. He is idle and brilliant. There is nothing excessive either in his ideals or his passions; all is mediocre, measured, har- monious. His fine and caustic irony chills his more exuber- ant enthusiasms; he triumphs by means of laughter. He loves grace, verbal elegance, quibbles even, and artistic form; great passions or desires do not move him. In religion he is skeptical, indifferent, and in politics he disputes in the Byzan- tine manner. No one could discover in him a trace of his Spanish forefather, stoical and adventurous. But is unity possible with such numerous castes? Must we not wait for the work of many centuries before a clearly American population be formed? The admixture of Indian, European, mestizo, and mulatto blood continues. How form a homogeneous race of these varieties? There will be a period of painful unrest; American revolutions reveal the disequilibrium of men and races. Miscegenation often pro- duces types devoid of all proportion, either physical or moral. The resistance of neo-Americans to fatigue and disease is considerably diminished. In the seething retort of the future the elements of a novel synthesis combine and grow yet more complex. If the castes remain divided there will be no unity possible to oppose a probable invasion. "Three conditions are necessary," says Mr. Gustave Le Bon, "before races can achieve fusion and form a new race, more or less hornogeneous. The first of these conditions is that the races subjected to the process of crossing must not be too inequal in number; the second, that they must not differ too greatly in character; the third, that they must be for a long time subjected to an identical environment." Examining the mixed peoples of America in conformity 84 THE NEW WORLD with these principles we see that the Indian and the negro are greatly superior to the whites in numbers; the pure European element does not amount to 10 per cent, of the total population. In Brazil and the Argentine there are num- bers of German and Italian immigrants, but in other countries the necessary stream of invasion of superior races does not exist. . . . We have indicated the profound difference which divides the bold Spaniard from the negro slave; we have said that the servility of the Indian race contrasts with the pride^ of the conquerors; that is to say, that the mixture of rival castes, Iberians, Indians, and negroes, has generally had dis- astrous consequences. Perhaps we may except the fortunate combinations of mestizo blood in Chili, southern Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia. Finally, the territory has not yet exercised a decisive influence upon the races in contact. The modern Frenchman and Anglo-Saxon are born of the admixture of ancient races subjected for cen- turies to the influences of the soil. The great invasions which modified the traditional stock took place a thousand years ago; they explain the terrible struggles of the Middle Ages. The new American type has not so long a history. In short, none of the conditions established by the French psychologists are realized by the Latin-American democracies, and their populations are therefore degenerate. . . . This retrogression constitutes a very serious menace. In South America civilization is dependent upon the numerical predominance of the victorious Spaniard, on the triumph of the white man over the mulatto, the negro, and the Indian. Only a plentiful European immigration can re-establish the shattered equilibrium of the American races. In the Argen- tine the cosmopolitan alluvium has destroyed the negro and mitigated the Indian. A century ago there were 20 per cent, of Africans in Buenos Ayres; the ancient slave has now dis- appeared, and mulattos are rare. In Mexico, on the other hand, in 1810 the Europeans formed a sixth part of the population; to-day they do not form more than a twentieth part. It would not be fair to Sefior Calderon to take this passage from his book without adding that he is no pessimist about his people's future. True scientist that he is, he refuses to becloud the issue and conceal one of the grave problems by which his Latin American THE ROCK WHENCE WE ARE HEWN 85 world is confronted. The problem is there, and it must be faced courageously. And courageously he does con- front it, and may we add that we believe that his great people will with God's help rise, as we of the north hope to rise, above the turmoil and din of diffi- culties and become a great and glorious race able to bear not only their own but others' burdens. Appendix to Chapter III Some writers deny that the white man could have flourished or ever can flourish in lower latitudes. In his much criticized volume on "The Expansion of Races," ^ Dr. Woodruff has a chapter called the *'Myth of Acclimatization," wherein he lays it down as a law that the white man cannot live in the tropics. He says : The history of attempts of white men to colonize in the tropics has been a very sad one. So many failures have resulted that it is now generally acknowledged to be impos- sible. White men might live anywhere on earth, perhaps, if they knew how to protect themselves. They can live under the ocean in a diving bell for a while, but that does not mean acclimatization to a fish's environment. A great deal of the past mortality in the tropics has been due to infections, but since we have learned how to escape them, the death-rate has been diminished, though not so very greatly, for as soon as an Englishman in India or an American in the Philippines, begins to break down, he is sent home. Our army statistics place these cases with the home troops. ^ Some of our tuberculosis, for instance, arises in the Philippines and the deaths occur in the United States. This reduction of the death-rate in the tropics has given rise to a widespread opinion that acclimatization is possible, and it seems an almost hopeless task to convince people of the truth. ^ To dodge or hide from the causes of death is the necessity of the well-housed white man, but the tropical native resiststhe same dangers which would kill Northern types. That is, a white man cannot safely do manual labor in the open — the test of acclimatization. Even with all his care, his children deteriorate unless sent North. ^ Woodruff, The Expansion of Races. Chap. XVI. 86 THE NEW WORLD The sanitation of Panama has so completely removed causes of death that thousands are now working at places formerly considered unhabitable, and the death-rate has been so greatly reduced that it is said to be a heahhier place than New York. Yet, as a matter of fact, the death- rate is kept down by sending home all who cannot recover there, and, indeed, many do_ die after they come home sick. No "colony" can survive if it must send its invalids away to save their lives. Indeed, it cannot afford such expenses as those needed in Panama to keep the workmen alive, and for that very reason it is generally acknowledged that tropical "colonies" will always be unsanitary except when a rich Northern nation supplies the funds. No little community can support the enormous sanitary force needed in Panama, for instance. Whether or not Dr. WoodrufiF is correct in this matter we cannot say. Opposed to him are some great authorities. In an address delivered at St. Louis in June, 1910, Dr. William C. Gorgas — the man who made the Panama Canal possible by making the district sanitary — said : These figures prove that in the case of the unacclimated foreigner, women and children, as well as men, health con- ditions have been so changed at Panama that one can live about as well here as in the healthy parts of the United States. That in the case of the native and negro, who make up the bulk of the total population, his sanitary surroundings have been so changed that he now enjoys at Panama about the same degree of health as the ordinary inhabitant of the United States. If this can be accomplished at Panama, the same may be accomplished anywhere else in the tropics. In this discussion I believe that I have shown that the Caucasian native of the United States is at present living in large numbers in the most unhealthy locality in the tropics doing the same out-of-door labor that he did at home. But the object lesson will do little good unless at the same time we can show that the expense of such sanitation is within reasonable limits. ^ * Address of the President of the American Society of Tropical Medi- cine at St. Louis, June, 1910. CHAPTER IV NEW RESPONSIBILITIES INTRODUCTION At the close of the Spanish- American War in 1898, Bishop Potter in addressing his Diocesan Convention gave voice to the opinion of many of our prominent citizens as follows: Never was the situation more critical or the need of our common work for Christ more urgent. . . . The nation has had much, during the past few months, to blind and intoxi- cate it. It has won an easy victory over an effete and de- crepit adversary, in which no splendors of individual heroism, nor triumphs of naval skill — and in these we may indulge a just pride — ought to blind our eyes to the fact that we have had a very easy task against a very feeble foe. And now, with unexpected fruits of victory in our hands, what, men are asking us, are we going to do with them? Nay, rather, the solemn question is: What are they going to do with us? Upon what wild course of so-called imperialism are they going to launch a people, many of whom are dizzy already with the dream of colonial gains, and who expect to repeat in distant islands some such history as our conquered enemy wrote long ago in blood and plunder in her colonies here and in South America. At such a time, as never before, the Church of God is called upon, in the pulpit and by every agency at her com- mand, to speak the words of truth and soberness, and to reason of righteousness, temperance and a judgment to come — a judgment for nations as well as individuals — till impetuosity is sobered and chastened ; and until a people in peril of being wrecked upon an untried sea can be made to pause and think. The things that this community and this nation alike supremely need are not more territory, more avenues of trade, more subject races to prey upon, but a 87 88 THE NEW WORLD dawning consciousness of what, in individual and in national life, are_ a people's indispensable moral foundations — those great spiritual forces on which alone men and nations are built.i Again a year later, while the strife between those who upheld our policy of annexing new lands and those who opposed it was still at its height, he said at the Church Congress in Minneapolis: It would seem at least reasonable that the conquering or purchasing republic should inaugurate its relations to the new possessions by some conference with its dominant people. But no. ^ Its first word is subjection, its first demand sur- render,_ its first, second and third conditions are. We will recognize nobody, we will treat with nobody, we alone will dictate all the terms.2 The question as to whether our government was stultifying itself or not in "annexing" new territory was a century old. The Federalist party had at- tacked the annexation of Louisiana, alleging that it was unconstitutional from every point of view. Jef- ferson and the Republicans had replied that the power to make treaties implied a power to annex new lands, as did also the power to regulate territory; and so the argument went on. But whether the one or the other was right does not affect us since the treaty whereby Louisiana was annexed was ratified on December 20, 1803. Probably the opponents of expansion have been more logical than its advocates, but the people have apparently approved the acts of the illogical legislators and the nation has kept on enlarging. From the Atlantic to the Pacific the boundaries have been increased until now there is little more on the North American con- tinent that we could — or would — logically or illogically annex. * Hodges, Henry Codman Potter, p. 314. »0p. cit., p. 315. NEW RESPONSIBILITIES 89 "At least/* thought the anti-expansionists, after Alaska had been purchased, "those who would load us down with new burdens have reached their limit. There is nothing more that they can lay their hands upon." But their day-dream was rudely disturbed in August, 1898, when the flag was raised over Hawaii. The next shock came, when, on December 10th of the same year, Spain ceded Porto Rico and the Philip- pines to us. And the last blow fell in February, 1904, when the Panama Canal Convention was signed, whereby a strip of land ten miles wide across the Isthmus of Panama came into our possession. Thus, for better or worse, we have gone ahead and today Congress has to legislate not only for forty- eight states, but also, if indirectly, for parts of the old Spanish Dominions. Obviously this is no place to discuss the Philip- pines or Hawaii; rather is it our task to learn some- thing about those portions of Latin America which the zeal of the expansionists has brought under our control. 90 THE NEW WORLD PORTO RICO There is shown today in the town of Aguadilla, at the northwestern corner of Porto Rico, a spring whereat Columbus once filled his water casks. It was during the explorer's second voyage that he made that visit, but since he was in search of something more marketable than water, he never repeated it. The only famous member of the Conquistador group who ever lived on Borinquen — the ancient name for the island — was Ponce de Leon. To this day is shown the house he built in San Juan. When the tourist is shown the powerful Morro Castle which guards the entrance to the harbor of San Juan, he is told that it never pulled down its flag. This, in a measure, describes the history of Porto Rico as a Spanish province. Though the French priva- teers and Sir John Hawkins, Sir Francis Drake and Lord Cumberland and others in vain tried to capture the city of San Juan, they never succeeded. For four hundred years nobody had ever shaken the hold of the Spaniards on the island. The Indians were not vigorous enough to dispute it with their conquerors ; the English and the Dutch and the French found Morro impregnable. In 1898 the American navy half- heartedly shelled the town, but the surrender of it and of the island came as a result of the treaty of Paris rather than from a fear of gun fire. Not that it could not have been captured, but it just did not turn out that way, and the little fortress' record remained intact. Though the actual treaty whereby the island was ceded to the United States was not signed till December 10, 1898, the flag was raised in the preceding August. NEW RESPONSIBILITIES 91 A military form of government was then established which held sway until April 12, 1900, when the Organic Act, establishing a civil government, was passed by Congress. In accordance with this act the Hon. Charles H. Allen was made governor. To cooperate with the executive officer there was created a legislature com- posed of two houses, — an upper house consisting of six Americans, who were also heads of the govern- ment departments, and a lower house, the members of which were the thirty-five Porto Ricans elected thereto by their own people. In the early years, under the new order, several changes were made in this organization, and today it is as follows: The governor is appointed by the President of the United States for a four years' term ; in him is vested the power of veto. The Executive Council, or upper house, also appointed by the President, is made up of the six American department heads and five Porto Ricans. Their term of office is also four years. The House of Delegates still consists of thirty-five mem- bers, five from each of the seven electoral districts, elected by the people for two years. The judiciary comprises an attorney-general and staff, and a United States Court appointed by the President, a Supreme Court of five members, also ap- pointed by the President, seven District Courts ap- pointed by tlie Governor, and thirty-four Municipal Courts, the judges and officials of which are elected by the people; and fifty-nine justices of the peace, ap- pointed by the Governor. Of the island thus annexed by the United States Government nothing superlative can be said. It is neither so large nor so rich, nor so well provided with harbors, as are Cuba and Santo Domingo. It has an area of 3,606 square miles, and had a population ac- cording to the official estimate of 1914 of 1,184,489. 92 THE NEW WORLD Of these the colored population forms thirty-five per cent. Sixty-three per cent, of the islanders are en- gaged in agriculture, fisheries and mining; twenty-one per cent, in domestic service ; eight per cent, in manu- facturing industries, — in sugar mills, and cigar fac- tories ; eight per cent, in trade and industry. Accord- ing to the statistics of 1899 over eighty-three per cent, of the population could neither read nor write. The most hopeful and valuable work carried on by the new government is the educational. In 1899 the entire school system was reorganized and education made compulsory. Gradually, in all parts of the island, schools have been built. High schools are housed in fine substantial concrete buildings in the larger towns. At Fajardo the writer saw an edifice of which any of our cities in the States might be proud. In the smaller centers will be found dignified buildings, such, for example, as the charming one just erected at Carolina. Out in the country, on the carretera or country roads, are smaller buildings wherein the children of the farm- ers learn their A B Cs. Always in front of these schools one sees the flag waving as a sign and symbol of that power which has taken under its kindly wing the upbringing of Porto Ricans. Writing about the schools, Bishop Colmore says: The public school system as a direct result of the Ameri- can occupation, will be of immense value to the people. And as a proof of the appreciation of this institution on the part of the people, one need only point to the fact that there are many hundreds of applications which the school authorities are unable to accept, and this notwithstanding the fact that no child under eight years is accepted in the schools. A very healthful condition is evident in the adoption of athletics, especially the game of baseball, which has been taken up with much enthusiasm. From this game the youth will obtain more than physical benefit, since by the observa- tion of the rules of play, the character will be strengthened in self-control, honor, truthfulness and obedience to dis- NEW RESPONSIBILITIES 93 cipline, and the excitable Latins will learn how to get wrought up and yet keep their heads, how to be beaten or victorious — without taking it personally. There were 4,330 common schools in 1914 with 207,- 010 pupils enrolled, and a goodly number of kinder- gartens and night schools. At the apex of this system is the University of Porto Rico at Rio Piedras, a suburb some seven miles to the south of San Juan. In its various departments, as yet in their infancy, leaders are being trained. In view of the fact that the prosperity of Porto Rico is largely dependent upon its agriculture, many think that the most important educational work is that being done at the agricultural school at Mayaguez. It is stated that, since the land is not now being scien- tifically handled, unless a change comes breakers are ahead. For example, there are large sugar plantations which are not beginning to be operated economically; there are lands now used for one kind of product which should be used for another; there are places where intensive cultivation should replace the present extravagant method. While these things can be said with equal force of many districts of the United States, the matter is not so urgent here. It is largely a question of density of population. In a speech made at the Mohonk Confer- ence in September, 1915, the present governor of Porto Rico, the Hon. Arthur Yager, asserted that the chief- est of the island's problems was overpopulation. He even went so far as to advocate emigration to Santo Domingo as the best solution to the difficulty. When it is remembered that there are 325 people to the square mile in Porto Rico, as against 336 to the same area in Japan, and that the latter people have been forced to resort to emigration, the gravity of the issue will be seen. The relation between this population factor and agricultural education is self-evident, but at best 94 THE NEW WORLD intensive cultivation can only postpone the day when something radical must be done; such at least is the opinion of the present governor. As to the character of the Porto Rican proper, Mr. Salva- dor Brau in his "Porto Rico y su Historia" states that "the general character of the present generation of Porto Ricans is made up of the distinctive qualities of the three races (Spanish, Indians and Africans) from which they are de- scended, to wit: indolence, taciturnity, sobriety, disinterest- edness, hospitality, inherited from their Indian ancestors; physical endurance, sensuality, and fatalism from their negro progenitors; and love of display, love of country, independ- ence, devotion, perseverance, and chivalry from their Spanish sires." To the Porto Rican population should be added the few Spaniards who remain in the island, the larger number of British West Indian laborers who have come here to live, and the Americans who as government officials or interested in the various industries, have moved here since the Ameri- can occupation. 1 Such are the constituent parts of the million and a fifth of islanders. One significant fact is brought out by Bishop Colmore, a fact which has a large bearing on the economic and religious condition of the country, — namely that, "as in most of the Latin countries, there is, practically speaking, no middle class, though this most desirable element in a population is said to be on the increase. With the introduction of foreign ideas as to the dignity of labor, there is sure to be a change for the better in this particular," For those who are interested in social uplift, in home-making and character building and soul saving, nothing is more vital than this. As has been emphasized often it is difficult to lay solid foundations for Church or State on either of the so-called upper and lower classes. The Master chose fishermen and publicans for His lieutenants. Was not He, Himself, brought up * Quoted from a letter recently received from Bishop Colmore. NEW RESPONSIBILITIES 95 as a carpenter, and was not St. Paul the tent-maker most emphatic about the value of being an "operative" ? It would seem then that economically the two chief needs of the Island are agricultural schools and such an industrial development as will create a "middle class." To these should be added the need for a re- lentless campaign against that enemy of all progress, the hook worm. "Another great and far-reaching advance," writes Bishop Colmore, "has been the dis- covery in 1900 of the germ of tlncinariasis, anemia or hook worm. The economic value of the discovery may be understood from the fact that the disease re- duces the efficiency of the workman at least fifty per cent. It was found that in cases which are not too far advanced, the trouble may be cured by specific treatment, and through the establishment of clinics and dispensaries the disease has been practically eradi- cated from the cities. In 1910 it was estimated that about 300,000 cases were still in existence in the coun- try districts." As one goes through the country the sallow faces and emaciated bodies of the men bear sorrowful testimony to the devastations of this disease. The work of fighting it has been begun, to be sure, but before the people of the highlands can become really efficient laborers it must be totally wiped out. To turn to the political problems yet to be solved, none is more pressing than the question of citizen- ship. Though home rule largely exists, and though freedom has taken the place of virtual servitude, the Porto Rican still loves Spain better than the United States, for the simple reason that though the Don abused him, he treated him nevertheless as one of the family. "It is all very well," said a most intelli- gent young islander to the writer, "to say that you have helped us, but you have left the most important thing of all undone. You have not made us United States citizens. What are we to-day? We are neither 96 THE NEW WORLD Spaniards nor Americans. We are only Porto Ricans, and what is a Porto Rican? He has no flag of his own !" This is not as simple a question as it would seem to be. There has been a revised "organic act" before Congress for some years. In its projected form it grants American citizenship to the people of Porto Rico together with a partially elective senate ; extends the appointive judiciary system and provides for sev- eral other changes asked for by the people. The mere fact that despite all the pressure which Porto Ricans can bring to bear this act has not yet been passed shows that the government feels that its implications are so serious as to demand more than a hurried study.^ As can well be imagined, in local politics this citizen- ship issue is the largest. There are two parties in the island, the Republican, which is associated with the national party in the United States, and the Union- ist, whose chief aim has been, until recently, the com- plete independence of the island. Jose de Diego, a philosopher and poet of consider- able eminence in Latin lands, is the leader of the ex- treme party. Until recently he has had it pledged to ultimate membership in a projected Union Antillana, or confederacy of the islands of the Greater Antilles. His activities as an oppositionist to the American rule went so far in 1915 as to establish a rival university in which nothing but Spanish could be used.^ Very recently, however, de Diego's leadership has been overthrown by Luis Mufioz Rivera, resident commis- sioner for the island in Washington. At a conven- tion held in San Juan on October 26, 1915, "two resolu- tions were before the convention, one embodying the * At the time of writing, this matter is being urgently pressed in Con- gress with what probable results the writer has no- way of ascertaining. ^ ' In the University of Porto Rico and in the public schools everything IS taught m English. NEW RESPONSIBILITIES 97 ideas of Luis Munoz Rivera for complete home rule, and the other calHng for independence as advocated by Jose de Diego. The home rule issue won 105 to 35. This action of the convention was followed by the resignation of Mr. de Diego as president of the party, together with the resignations of the members of the Junta Central. All of these resignations were unanimously accepted by the convention. Those who attended the convention and who were in accord with its almost unanimous action went away feeling that they had participated in and witnessed one of the most highly successful gatherings which Munoz Rivera has ever dominated. They seemed well satisfied with the new demon- stration of absolute control which the resident commissioner displayed and asserted that their predictions that de Diego would be eliminated as an important factor in the party had been more than fulfilled. Others, however, contended that the failure of the con- vention to go on record as frankly favoring United States citizenship and the retention of the idea of ultimate in- dependence — a thing to be dreamed of but not to be talked about — left something to be desired in the way of eliminat- ing the de Diego faction, and asserted that Mr. de Diego might with good grace continue to work with the party for immediate home rule, while as an individual he might continue to carry on his independence campaign, but with- out the official sanction of the party.^ Commenting on this movement, Bishop Colmore writes : The independence of Porto Rico would seem to be a financial impossibility, since, e.g., the federal government to-day supports the postal, lighthouse and marine hospital services and the Porto Rico regiment, and at the same time turns over to the insular government all the customs receipts of the island. Even with all this done by the federal govern- ment, it has been found necessary to practice strict economies, cutting down many former appropriations, in order to avoid bankruptcy of the insular government. As for centuries in the past [writes our bishop upon another and important matter] so to-day the Roman Church controls ' Quoted from The Porto Rico Progress of Wednesday, October 27, 1915. The Progress is the English newspaper of the Island. 98 THE NEW WORLD largely the religious life of the island. However, as is often the case in this part of the world, the Church has lost control of the people, and while they are nominally Roman Catholic, baptized, married and confirmed, so, in a majority of cases, their relationship to the Church ceases there. Many have fallen away from the Church altogether, as is evidenced by a religious census taken in Puerta de Tierra, San Juan, which revealed that in about fifty families a large percentage of the parents (all in the working class) professed no religion what- ever. This condition might naturally be expected where the relationship of the Church toward the people has been a business one rather than a pastoral one. So-called Protestantism claims a communicant member- ship of some 13,000. Others who have left the church of their fathers are wandering, largely indifferent, but open to the consideration of almost any form of non-Roman religion. Many there are who like to call themselves "free thinkers," but who are largely Spiritualists, or Theosophists. This cult has gained a large following in Porto Rico, and was in existence long before the American occupation. There seems to be no general organization of the movement. The members in a town form a "center" which is independent of all other centers. They have no paid ministers or leaders, and attack very vigorously that practice in other churches. Their chief tenet seems to be the re-incarnation of the soul. They deny the divinity of Christ, but say that He was a spirit which had been highly developed through a series of incarnations, and that this condition is possible in any human being, and that many such may arise at any time. The secret of the success of this movement is no doubt due to the enormous distribution of literature on the sub- ject — a fact which we should take very much to heart. Not only are there works in Spanish on the doctrines and philosophy of the movement, purchasable at all book stores, but also innumerable novels of a poor order, which hint at, and artfully make use of, their doctrines and teachings. There is evidence in addition to this of a decided searching on the part of many of the better class of Porto Ricans for something outside the Roman Church to satisfy their religious longings.^ It is to be hoped, however, that the Roman Church has changed its policy in the latter years, and will consequently gain ground. It has an American bishop, and American * The following are declared to be the objects of the Theosophical Society, according to the Revista Teosofica, the official organ of the NEW RESPONSIBILITIES 99 clergy are being brought in from time to time. A large plant for a church and industrial school, in which there should be accommodation for some two thousand children, has lately been completed in Puerta de Tierra, San Juan, which should accomplish a large amount of good. OUR WORK IN PORTO RICO The Spanish Government issued a decree granting freedom of worship in the Island of Porto Rico in 1869, and a group of foreign residents ^ met on the 19th of December of that year to discuss the feasibiHty of establishing a Church. In the Spirit of Missions for March, 1870, we find the following letter addressed to the Editor of the Tidende, presumably a St. Croix publication : At this meeting it was decided that sufficient encourage- ment having been given, in a practical way, by the names and sums on the subscription lists already in circulation, that the best endeavors of the parties then met together be used to bring this project to a satisfactory issue, and in order to form a nucleus for the transaction of the necessary business attendant on the enterprise, the above-named gentlemen formed themselves into a committee. It was at the same Cuban section of the society. Inasmuch as the Spanish almost translates itself, it is given in the original: — 1. Formal" el nucleo de una Fraternidad Universal de la Humanidad, sin distincion de raza, creencia, sexo, casta o color. 2. Fomentar el estudio comparativo de las Religiones, Literaturas y Ciencias. 3. Investigar las leyes inexplicadas de la Naturaleza y los poderes psiquicos latentes en el hombre. A los que deseen pertenecer a la Sociedad, no se les pregunta por sus opiniones. religiosas o politicas, pero en carabio se exige a todos, ante de su admision, la promesa de respetar las creencias de los demas miembros. In Ponce is published a monthly review, "La Estrella de Oriente" (Star of the Orient). This is the official organ of the "Ananda" lodge of the society. From the way in which it interchanges the words Theosophy and Spiritualism (Teosofica and Espiritualista) it would seem that the spiritualism of the Antilles is quite different from what we associate with that word. The prophets of the Porto Rican spiritualists are Mrs. Besant and H. P. Blavatski! » These gentlemen were: W. E. Lee, Thomas G. Salomons, Thomas p Dodd, Joseph Henna, Charles H. Daly, G. F. Wiechers, T. Bronsted, John F. Finlay, Peter J. Minvielle and J. F. Finlay. Spirit of Missions, March, 1870, p. 182. 100 THE NEW WORLD time agreed upon, that the church to be established should be of the "Episcopal denomination." The names on the subscription lists are positively such as to lead to the hope that the church, if established, will be a glorious success. The amount, reaching little short of $5,000, is capable of being increased; the alarm that has been created among the priesthood is a further proof of the probability of success. Sermons are being preached in their church, of a most violent character, condemning Protestantism in all its details — clergy, Bibles, etc., etc.; the effects of which sermons are, however, doing us a great deal of good, instead of the injury intended; and it is to be regretted that we as yet have no supply of translated Prayer Books and Bibles, as inquiries for them are frequent, all being anxious to read these so condemned works. Another meeting of the committee was called on the 22d inst., at which it was decided that a clergyman should be immediately called to take charge of our congregation, for the limited period of six months; services to be conducted in some temporarily arranged building, pending the collecting of funds and erecting of the edifice. The Rev. Mr. Allan of your island, now visiting our place, was invited to hold service for us on Sunday — yesterday — to which he kindly consented. Consequently, on the 28th day of November, 1869, the first Protestant service ever held in this island was con- ducted at the residence of Thomas G. Salomons, Esq., who had hurriedly, but becomingly, arranged his large hall for the purpose. The attendance amounted to about 200 persons, and everything passed off in a highly satisfactory manner; even the singing, and performance on the harmonium, was of a superior order, parties not of our faith having volunteered to assist in having everything go off well. Such is the feel- ing extant. To you, no doubt accustomed to hear them, I need scarcely say a word about the beautiful prayers, and most appropriate sermon delivered by Mr. Allan, who chose for his text, St. John, 3d chapter, 14th verse, moving^ many of his audience to tears by his impressive and appropriate discourse. On his concluding, but one feeling existed,— that of regret at its termination.! Thus it will be seen that the Church's first entrance into the island was for the purpose of ministering to those resident English and Americans who had by rea- ^ spirit of Missions, March, 1870. pp. 182-183. NEW RESPONSIBILITIES 101 son of an ancient law been deprived of all spiritual oversight. The next official statement about the work we find in the Spirit of Missions for February, 1873, where this entry occurs: A new opening for the work of our church presents itself in the establishment of the Parish of the Holy Trinity at Ponce, Porto Rico. The first public services were held in that city on the festival of the Epiphany by the Rev. J. C. DuBois, of St. Paul's, St. Croix, on the united invitation of the Protestants in the place. The result of the services held on that day and subsequently was the organization of the parish with the above name. As all the services have been conducted by members of his diocese, Bishop Jackson, of Antigua, has given the work there his counsel and over- sight, and in the month of June invited the people and held services with them. . . . There is a singular unanimity in the present movement of all the resident Protestants in their desire for the establish- ment of the Episcopal Church ; affording an opportunity for the establishment of our Scriptural liturgy in a foreign land which has rarely been presented us. A lot has been given, and an iron church ordered from Liverpool, paid for prin- cipally by subscriptions raised in Ponce, but by the failure of a banking house, whose drafts they had purchased and forwarded in part payment of the new church, they have suf- fered a loss of $600. The establishment of a school in connection with the parish work may for a year or two have to be secured by con- tributions from abroad, and in the prospective influences of a school of the design contemplated American churchmen have certainly an equal, if not greater interest.^ It will be seen that the inaugurators of the work were Anglicans acting under the oversight of the Bishop of Antigua. Thus, just as we inherited the foundations in the Hawaiian Islands from the Church of England, so do we owe to that Church the begin- nings of the work in Porto Rico.^ * spirit of Missions, February, 1873, pp. 126-127. 'The missionary societies of the Church of England support seven dioceses in the West Indies. They are: the Diocese of Nassau, which includes alj the islands between Great Bahama on the northwest to 102 THE NEW WORLD After the American occupation, Chaplain Brown of the Army did much to help the little congregation in Ponce, and to bolster up some small beginning which had been made in San Juan. At the same time Bishop McLaren, of Chicago, became deeply inter- ested in the Porto Rican work and was put in charge of it. He appealed widely for funds for buildings. The Rev. George B. Pratt, appointed by the Bishop of Chicago, took charge of the mission in San Juan in March, 1899, and held services in a building on the plasa principal. There he was visited by Bishop Whip- ple at the request of the Bishop of Chicago, in 1900. A long account of this visitation is given in the Spirit of Missions. "In his visits," the article states, "to the principal towns, Bishop Whipple found everywhere a warm wel- come. The hearts of the people 'seemed to be hungry for the ministrations of the Church. Llis first service was held in San Juan, where the Reverend George B. Pratt has gathered the beginnings of a promising congregation. At the present time they are mostly Americans. It is not to be expected that, so long as the services of the Church are held in an incon- venient and inadequate place, any but those who are already earnest Church people, or those who wish to gather with their fellow-countrymen, will attend them. Much, however, has been done to prepare the way for future work. A class of twelve persons was presented for Confirmation. Some of the Army officers are in- terested in the maintenance of the services. One of them acts as organist. Another is one of the Church Magua and Turks Island on the southeast; the Diocese of Antigua, which includes all the islands east and south of Porto Rico, the southern- most being Martinique; the Diocese of Barbadoes and the Windward Islands, which includes everything between St. Lucia on the north and Granada on the south; the 'Diocese of Trinidad; the Diocese of Hon- duras; the Diocese of Guiana; the Diocese of Jamaica. The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel has been largely responsible for this work. A little book published by that society, entitled, "Our Oppor- tunity in the West Indies," by B. G. O'Rorke, tells of the work and its possibilities. NEW RESPONSIBILITIES 103 officers, but they are liable to removal at any time, and cannot be permanent elements of strength. The Bishop held two other services in San Juan; one in the regi- mental barracks and one in the Church room, at which he confirmed a second class." ^ Meantime despite Chaplain Brown's efforts, the work in Ponce had run down badly. The Rev. Fred- erick Caunt, who had been put in charge (also in 1899), found when he arrived, that the Church build- ing had been closed for some years. In August of that year some churchmen in General Miles' army had made an effort to open it, but had retreated before the dilapidation which met them. Bishop Whipple wrote home, after he had seen the structure, that the only thing to do was to tear it down, that it was not safe, but when the writer was in Ponce in September, 1915, the same old church was being used. The present bishop avers that one good blow will settle all ques- tions as to how much longer it will last. With visits to Mayaguez, where Mr. Monefeldt was beginning his long and helpful career as a lay reader, and Arroyo and Cayey, Bishop Whipple concluded his visitation. His last words on the subject were: "The first duty of the Church in the United States is to send a bishop to Porto Rico. This must be done quickly. Precious time has already been lost by delay. There could be no field more attractive to a great hearted shepherd of souls, both because of the diffi- culty of the work and the certainty of the harvest. A man is needed of profound sympathy, wide exe- cutive ability, and the hopefulness of his Master. Nothing less than such characteristics will enable him to grapple with the difficulties and solve the problems by which he will be confronted." Acting under instructions from the Presiding Bishop, Bishop Peterkin, of West Virginia, visited the island ^spirit of Missions, April, 1900, p. 208. 104 THE NEW WORLD in January, 1901. During his two months stay he held services in nineteen different places ; confirmed twelve persons in Holy Trinity Church, Ponce; six in AH Saints, Vieques; and one in the temporary chapel in San Juan, in which latter place he found Chaplain Brown in charge once again, since Mr. Pratt had been compelled to leave.^ Better days were now in store for the work in San Juan. The Rev. James H. Van Buren arriving in 1901, took up the rectorship of St. John's and put new life into everything. Writing from that city in the summer of 1901, Mr. Van Buren said that the Church was needed in Porto Rico, "that the American life which is flowing in here may be kept true to Christ" ; that it should help the Americans to be exemplars of the higher life and thus impress "upon the Porto Ricans the fact that in exchanging Spanish for American supremacy they have not become sub- jects or citizens of a non-Christian nation. It is im- portant," he continues, "that our Church should bear no inferior part in stemming the un-Chrlstian tide of immigration against which every American in Porto Rico must make a struggle." As one of the clearest ex- planations for the need of the American Church in Porto Rico this statement of Bishop Van Buren's is worthy of much emphasis. At the General Convention which met in San Fran- cisco in 1901, the Rev. William Cabell Brown, of Brazil, was elected Bishop of Porto Rico, but feeling , the great Importance of the work which he was doing in the South American republic, he declined. At a special meeting held in Cincinnati, April 16, 1902, the House of Bishops next elected the rector of St. John's, San Juan. Commenting on this, the Spirit of Missions said: * The best summary of the early history of the work will be found in Vol. LXVI of the Spirit of Missions, pp. 232-236. o H O (A J £ H -a U c H B o fa U ys NEW RESPONSIBILITIES 105 When in the winter of 1900 the Board of Managers seemed to have great difficulty in finding just the right man to send to Porto Rico, the Reverend James H. Van Buren, then rector of the important parish of St. Stephen, Lynn, Mass., volunteered for the service under the conviction, as he ex- pressed it, that the honor of the American Church is at stake in this matter. In February, 1901, Mr. Van Buren reached San Juan. The work he has done since then in creating con- fidence in the small group of discouraged church people, gathering a vigorous congregation of English-speaking resi- dents, and a Porto Rican congregation of much promise . . . indicates that he is peculiarly qualified to be the leader of the church's work in this new district. In any story of the mission on our island posses- sion, mention should be made of the name of Francis B. Dumaresq, who took a prominent part in the estab- lishment of the work at San Juan. The delay and dis- couragements of the early days served only to stimu- late his zeal and increase his readiness to serve. He realized to the full the constructive power of the Church and the part it could play in the elevation of the people. As Mr. Van Buren's counsellor and helper, he gave generously of his time and means. He was the first senior warden of St. John's, and on his death made provision for the cancelling of a note of a thou- sand dollars for money advanced by him for the pur- chase of a site for the new Church. At best the climate of Porto Rico is trying. Bishop Van Buren suffered incessantly from the damp heat. Try as he would to disregard the ravages which the tropical sun wrought, it was in vain, and his health gave way so completely in 1912, that he had to resign. The Rev. Charles Blaney Colmore, dean of the Cathe- dral in Havana, was elected at the General Convention of 1913, in his stead.^ * Between the resignation of Bishop Van Buren and the election of Bishop Colmore, Bishop Knight of Cuba had charge of the work. Thus it came to pass that Dr. Knight has served the church right valiantly in four fields: Cuba, Porto Kico, Haiti and the Canal Zone, and a tower of strength he has been in all. 106 THE NEW WORLD The new bishop arrived at San Juan in January, 1914. What follows is his own statement of the work as it was in November, 1915: In San Juan we have, in the first place, the Church of St. John the Baptist. Its congregation is composed of Ameri- cans and other EngHsh-speaking people. It has a flourishing Sunday school. A private school for younger children in the Condado, — an uptown residence district about three miles from the center of San Juan — has been opened in connection with this parish. A young Porto Rican woman of the parish is preparing to establish a kindergarten and first grade school work among the Porto Rican children of the neighborhood. Next comes St. Luke's Church, Puerta de Tierra, — that part of the city which is midway between the downtown old San Juan and the uptown new district. It has two congregations, one composed of Porto Ricans, the other of the British West Indian negroes. There is a large Sunday school with chil- dren from both congregations. A weekly Bible class is con- ducted for the West Indians, as also is a mutual benefit association, which insures them a small sick benefit allow- ance, and burial in case of death. In the basement of St. Luke's there is a good assembly room, and here we have a day school of some forty-five children in the lower grades. There are two auxiliary chapels in the suburbs of San Juan: St. Paul's and the Annunciation. The latter is in the heart of what is destined to be the best uptown residence section. As yet the work in them is small, though good beginnings have been made. It is planned to co-ordinate these four works in a modified cathedral organization under the leadership of the Bishop, with St. John's as the center. The church building in Ponce is, as has been told, the oldest non-Roman place of worship in the Spanish possessions. The property on which it stands is central and valuable. It is now used for services in both the Spanish and English languages. Among those who attend are Americans from the sugar mills, English, Porto Ricans, and West Indian negroes. In the lower story of the adjacent rectory, there is a hall with reading room and games to attract the young people. This hall is also the home of the Sunday school and the Mutual Benefit Society of Holy Trinity. St. Luke's Hospital, situated in Ponce, on a hillside above the center of the town, is our most successful institutional work. It helps to commend the Church to the people of the western part of the island. We have here a large building NEW RESPONSIBILITIES 107 thoroughly equipped, and an average of some thirty-five patients are taken care of at all times. The hospital, after having been closed for a year, is rapidly winning favor among both the people and the local physicians. A well-appointed chapel, where regular services are held, marks the connec- tion between the philanthropic and evangelistic work of the church. A good training school with fourteen pupil nurses, gives an opportunity for the Porto Rican girls to obtain a valuable and useful profession, — something new for a Spanish province. In Mayaguez our building, though old and disreputable, still roofs in St. Andrew's Church, a parish school and the beginning of a home for orphans. We believe the church schools are the most effective means of getting at the chil- dren. Furthermore, the influence exerted in them is sure to tell in later years. There are about forty children in the Mayaguez school, and it is most encouraging to hear them join in the morning service, before school begins. A few girls are kept as boarders as charges of the Church. Most of them have no homes, or come from undesirable surround- ings, and the instruction they are receiving, both theoretical and practical, will be the largest factor in their lives. The Island of Vieques (Crab Island) lies some fifteen miles off the eastern coast of Porto Rico, and consists chiefly of sugar lands. There is one town of importance, Isabel Segunda, where we have a church building and rectory. This work was begun for the benefit of the Church of England West Indian negroes, who came to Vieques in the earlier days. At the present time the oversight of the parish is in the hands of the priest of Fajardo, who twice a month crosses the stormy strait in a thirty-foot mail launch. We also have a resident parish worker, who, between the visits of the priest, holds services, conducts Sunday school and the different auxiliaries and sewing classes. Fajardo, at the northeast corner of the island, reached by train in about three hours, is the only mission in Porto Rico which does not own its building. We are in great need of property there and plan to put up, some day, a building which will serve for both chapel and parish house. We esti- mate that six thousand dollars will be sufficient to do this. Our work here is almost entirely among the Porto Rican people and will grow faster as soon as we can procure a home for it. At El Coto, about twenty-five miles west of San Juan, near the northern shore, is the newest and most prosperous mission we have among the Porto Ricans. Situated in a rural dis- 108 THE NEW WORLD trict among pineapple and grapefruit plantations, where there are no other advantages for spiritual refreshment, the people as a whole flock to the Chapel of the Resurrection whenever there is to be a service. The chapel is constructed of con- crete, and with the exception of a few gifts of furnishings, represents the self-sacrifice of the devoted missionary and his wife. The wife is a most capable graduate nurse, and her ministrations in the community are a Godsend to the people. Just lately these devoted people have bought and refitted a small building on a piece of property adjoining their own, and have arranged it for the purpose of a night school, dis- pensary and reading-room. The little place is always crowded, and the doors and windows are often filled with eager adults who try by looking on to gain some advantage from the instruction being imparted to the younger ones. We should establish more missions of this kind among those com- munities which are not receiving the ministrations of any other Christian body. NEW RESPONSIBILITIES 109 THE CANAL ZONE If there is any one spot in Latin America which is rich above all others in historical associations it is that strip of land between Cape Gracias a Dios and the Gulf of Darien. It resounds with memories of Colum- bus and Ojeda and Nicuesa. It was there that Balboa labored and achieved; there that the unspeakable Pedrarias wrote his name on history's page of shame ; from there Pizarro and his little crew set out to con- quer Peru; across it, the treasures of the Incas were born under heavy guard; along its shores buccaneers and pirates, explorers and smugglers picked their un- certain way; and in its city of Panama colonial life reached its heights, — and depths. Read the story of the Isthmus and you get in concentrated form the history of the Conquistadores. It is to more modern times, however, that we must attend, to the days when the dreams, four hundred years old, of piercing the Isthmus and joining the oceans, began to be realized.^ The story of the French attempt, in the years 1880 to 1888, to build a canal is pathetic. Beset by two in- sidious enemies, sin (in the form of graft) and mosquitoes (the spreaders of disease), they struggled along for a while, but in the end succumbed inglori- ously. Engineers tell us that it is a marvel, consider- ing the difficulties which they had to meet, that they accomplished as much as they did. Everyone who has lived in the zone has a wholesome respect for de Les- seps and the Universal Interoceanic Canal Company. Beyond the fact, though, that the French once tried to do the work, and having failed sold out their rights * On the earliest plans for a canal see Helps, Spanish Conquest of 297?*^*' ^* ^^' '^°*^^''S°"» O^^ Panama and Costilla del Oro, pp. no THE NEW WORLD to a new French Panama Canal Company, we are not interested. Our concern begins with the year 1902 when through a combination of circumstances, among which the abrogation of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty in December, 1901, was the most important, it came to pass that the government of the United States began to plan definitely to "dig the big ditch." As Americans we have a right to be proud that our government has always refused to resort to those poli- cies and diplomacies which are taken as a matter of course by some peoples. North Americans, whatever other weaknesses they have, are square and above board in all their dealings with other States. We are not ''diplomats" and we thank God for it. Sometimes we are misunderstood just because we are so obvious. Those accustomed to the old Machiavellian school cannot comprehend us. Our motives are even at times impugned when, though we have no secret plans for world empire, we are forced to send a revenue cutter here or a cruiser there. All in all, though, John Hay's words can be laid down as expressing our attitude to- ward the world. Speaking at a dinner in New York on November 19, 1901, he said: "If we are not per- mitted to boast of what we have done, we can at least say a word about what we have tried to do and the principles which have guided our action. The briefest expression of our rule of conduct is, perhaps, the Monroe Doctrine and the Golden Rule. With this simple chart we can hardly go far wrong." ^ Was there an exception to this rule in our dealings with Colombia and Panama? Though we cannot for a moment concede that President Roosevelt and Mr. Hay did anything underhand or dishonorable, — any- thing that we should be ashamed to talk about, still the events which led up to our acquisition of the Canal * Thayer, The Life of John Hay, II, p. 296. NEW RESPONSIBILITIES 111 Zone were such as to need explanation. For the only time in its history our government let expediency and a desire to promote the good of humanity overrule a literal interpretation of treaty rights. For the only time in our career we lost patience with a weak brother and used "diplomacy" to bring him to righteous terms. Having said so much by way of introduction, let us take up the story. As a result of the Mexican war, we had acquired a long Pacific seaboard with which, — in the absence of transcontinental railroads — it was very difficult to com- municate. Via the isthmus of Panama was the only practical way. Then, too, England was getting very active in Plonduras and the Monroe Doctrine was be- ginning to look a bit thin.^ If we were to retain con- trol of our best means of communicating with the western coast and provide against further British de- velopments in that vital spot, something had to be done. Accordingly in 1846 we made a treaty with New Gran- ada, the old name for Colombia, by which "the govern- ment of New Granada, guarantees to the government of the United States that the right of way or transit across the Isthmus of Panama, upon any modes of communi- cation that now exist or that may be hereafter con- structed, shall be open and free to the government and citizens of the United States. . . . And in order to secure to themselves the tranquil and constant enjoyment of these advantages, and as an especial compensation for the said advantages, and for the favors they have acquired by the fourth, fifth, and sixth articles of this treaty, the United States guaran- * Every student of Latin America should know what the Monroe Doctrine is. (See Appendix B.) For presentations of the two possible ways of interpreting it, the historic (wherein the United States is re- garded as the party with the "Paramount Interest") and the modern (wherein all the states of the New World are conjointly regarded as guardians of New World liberties) see, Hart, A. B.: The Monroe Doc- trine: An Interpretation and Sherrill, C. H.: Modernising the Monroe Doctritie. 112 THE NEW WORLD tee positively and efficaciously to New Granada, by the present stipulation, the perfect neutraHty of the before-mentioned Isthmus with the view that the free transit from the one to the other sea may not be inter- rupted or embarrassed in any future time while this treaty exists; and, in consequence, the United States also guarantee, in the same manner the rights of sovereignty and property which New Granada has and possesses over the said territory." Such were the words of the treaty. It is to be noted that they called for two things, first that we should maintain uninterrupted transportation across the Isth- mus, and second that we should guarantee to New Granada sovereignty over the land. That these points were clear no one disputes, but . . . ! After much study of both the Panama and Nica- ragua routes, the United States Government came to the conclusion in 1902 that it had best build a canal from Colon to Panama. There were many ins and outs but with them we are not directly concerned here. Suf- fice it to say that in order to make the work possible the Hay-Herran treaty was made in 1903, whereby Colom- bia ceded to us administrative control in perpetuity over a strip of land thirty miles wide across the Isth- mus. In return for this we agreed to pay ten millions in cash and a subsequent rental, to begin in 1912, of $250,000 a year. Our Senate ratified this treaty on March 17, 1903, but, to the surprise of all, the govern- ment at Bogota declined to follow suit. The most charitable explanation of Colombia's action is to be found in the queer bargaining methods of some South Americans. Not only do they always haggle over a price, but there is no precedent among them which holds a man to an agreement to sell or buy at a price to which he has agreed. With many peoples, if A says he will sell to B for $10, he will stand by his word if B **takes him up." This custom {Copyright, Underwood & Underwood, New York) FLOODING GATUN'S LOCK CHAMBERS. PREPARATORY TO THE PASSAGE OF THE FIRST VESSEL THROUGH THE CAXAL NEW RESPONSIBILITIES 113 does not obtain among many South Americans. On the contrary, the mere fact that B "takes A up" shows A that B wants to buy, and incites him to say, "Oh, no, I could never sell for that." Colombia offered us the Zone for so much, and we "took her up," and she, perceiving that we were eager to close the deal, replied, in true South American style: "Oh, no, we want more." To have completed the deal we should have refused the offer and de- manded a smaller price, and kept on demanding it, until the ten millions were actually paid over and re- ceipted for. Such is the kindest explanation of Colom- bia's action in refusing to ratify the Hay-Herran Treaty. To us, it looked like a "hold up," to them it was their way. The delay which followed was both long and irritat- ing. Then came a revolution, and the United States immediately recognized the rebels, — i.e., the inhabi- tants of that strip of the Isthmus which we needed — and made a treaty with them which provided for the building of the canal. Quite unjustly our government has been accused of fomenting and instigating that revolution. Our critics say, "You could not bring Colombia to terms, so you worked up a revolution in Panama, supported it, and used the rebels to gain your own ends." Further, they point out that according to our treaty with New Granada, we guaranteed, "the rights of sovereignty and property which New Granada has and possesses over said territory." ^ "Even if you had not fomented the revolution," they go on, "you were bound to do all you could to help Colombia suppress it, whereas you virtually pre- vented that nation from doing anything and in a bare- * No one should form an opinion about this matter without having read chaps. 25, 26, 27 of Bunau Varilla's Panama, The Creation, Destruction and Resurrection. 114 THE NEW WORLD faced way recognized the rebels as a fully organized Republic three days after the outbreak." What have we to say to this? To begin with we must admit that we changed our interpretation of a fifty-year old treaty. In his "Four Centuries of Pana- ma," Mr. Johnson explains that Mr. Hay told Dr. Amador, the Panama revolutionary agent in New York (when questioned by Dr. Amador as to whether our government would allow Colombia to suppress the Panamanians if they revolted), that ''however much the United States might sympathize with Panaman aspirations for liberty and independence, and however much it might regret or even resent Colombia's re- jection of the canal treaty, it would be manifestly im- possible for this government to give any aid to a revolutionary enterprise, or to commit itself with any promises in advance. It would scrupulously fulfill its duties as a neutral, and would inflexibly maintain its rights and privileges under the Treaty of 1846 with New Granada. Those rights and privileges included the protection of free neutral transit across the Isth- mus, and the guarantee of the sovereignty of the land against alien aggression, though, of course, it did not guarantee Colombian possession of the Isthmus against local and domestic revolution. But the United States could give no promises to, and make no treaties with, a government which was not yet in existence." ^ In justification of Mr. Hay's attitude his biographer, Mr. Thayer, says : *'The very critics who were so sen- sitive over the wrongs of the Filipinos fighting for their freedom, had been strangely stony toward the Pana- manians, who also desired their liberty. Granted that the Panamanians may not have been on a higher moral plane than the Colombians, ought we to ignore the fact that their cause was worthy, and that of the * Johnson, Four Centuries of Panama, p. 169. See all of chapters 9 and 10 for a discussion of the proceedings. NEW RESPONSIBILITIES 115 Colombians was odious ? Let us at least be consistent. If those who conspire for liberty in Manila are heroes and martyrs, we must not dismiss those who conspire for liberty at Colon as outlaws." ^ Two further quotations should be given to clear up the matter. Here is what Mr. Roosevelt, who directed the negotiations without much reference to his Secre- tary of State, wrote to Mr. Thayer in 1915: To talk of Colombia as a responsible Power to be dealt with as we would deal with Holland or Belgium or Switzer- land or Denmark is a mere absurdity. The analogy is with a group of Sicilian or Calabrian bandits ; with Villa and Car- ranza at this moment. You could no more make an agree- ment with the Colombian rulers than you could nail currant jelly to a wall — and the failure to nail currani jelly to a wall is not due to the nail; it is due to the currant jelly. I did my best to get them to act straight. Then I determined I would do what ought to be done without regard to them. The people of Panama were a unit in desiring the Canal and in wishing to overthrow the rule of Colombia. If they had not revolted, I should have recommended Congress to take possession of the Isthmus by force of arms; and, as you will see, I had actually written the first draft of my Message to this effect. When they revolted, I promptly used the navy to prevent the bandits, who had tried to hold us up, from spending months of futile bloodshed in conquering, or en- deavoring to conquer, the Isthmus, to the lasting damage of the Isthmus, of us, and of the world. I did not consult Hay, or Root, or any one else as to what I did, because a council of war does not fight; and 1 intended to do the job once for all.2 Finally, the following summing up of the situation is worthy of repetition, since it voices the opinions of many who knew all about the conditions and problems : To^ sum up. So far as I know, the apologists of the Co- lombians have never brought forward a single fact that pal- liates, much less excuses, the acts of the dominant ring at Bogota from the beginning to the end of this affair. That ^Thayer, The Life of John Hay, II, p. 313. * Op. cit., II, p. 327. 116 THE NEW WORLD ring was moved by the instinct of blackmailers, one of the lowest of human instincts, because it combines fraud and cowardice. By the Treaty of 1846 the Colombians were bound to grant a charter for an Isthmian Canal; and the price to be paid by the United States for this charter was to be settled by mutual agreement. They broke that obligation in refusing to accept the terms which their agent, Dr. Herran, negotiated; yet those terms must have been communicated to him from Bogota, and the government which sent them must have thought at the time of sending that they were ample. It went further and showed no intention of making any other proposal. . . . How exorbitant their demands were, and how shameless they were themselves, appeared when, having lost Panama, they offered to sell out to the United States for eight million dollars, and even for five million, all the rights for which in their greed they had demanded twenty-five million. At the end of October, with the trucu- lence of blackmailers who suppose they have their victim at their mercy, they demanded the twenty-five millions; but by the middle of December they were begging for five. Although their action was odious, we must ask whether blackmailers have no rights, even when they deny the rights of others. Must we not keep faith even with the faithless? The laws of each civilized state recognize that the rights of individuals may be set aside by the State for the prosecu- tion of works of great public importance; but this law of eminent domain in international affairs does not exist. When we were building the transcontinental railways we should never have allowed a tribe of Modocs or of Apaches, who happened to occupy territory through which the line was to go, to block the construction; if they had attempted to resist we should have driven them off. So if some villages of Cretins had stood at the Swiss entrance of the Simplon Tun- nel, they would have been removed. In such cases the proper action is self-evident. But where shall we draw the line between right action and injustice and brutality? How shall we escape from justifying the shockingly cynical treatment of Inferior by Superior peoples? Evidently, each case must be decided on its merits. Morally, the Colombians were Cretins, but with the rapacity of wild Indians. The Canal which the American Government planned was for the benefit of the entire world. Should the blackmailing greed of the Bogota ring stand in the way of civilization? I believe there is only one answer to this question— blackmailers must not be toler- ated; but I believe also that it is so important that respect for legality should never be undermined that it would have NEW RESPONSIBILITIES 117 been better if the United States had openly given notice that they intended to take the Canal Zone rather than to have it appear that they were conniving at a conspiracy.^ THE CHURCH IN PANAMA Our work in the Canal Zone was begun, not as is usually thought by the Church of England, but by ourselves. Mr. Tracy Robinson, a resident for fifty years in the Isthmus, in his book on that subject^ tells of the beginnings as follows: The beautiful building, Christ Church, erected on the beach at Colon at a cost of $75,000 by the Panama Railroad Com- pany, assisted by private subscriptions, is a monument alike to the liberal spirit that prompted, and the tolerance that per- mitted and encouraged it. It was built in 1864 by Mr. Weeks, a New York contractor ; and was consecrated to the Episcopal service by the late Bishop Alonzo Potter, of Pennsylvania, in June, 1865, when that distinguished prelate was on his way from New York to California, as guest of the Pacific Mail Company in one of their new steamers via the Straits of Magellan. During the few days* delay at Panama, the bishop came over to Colon, and performed the ceremony of consecration, in which I had the honor of being one of the sponsors. He returned the following morning to the ship in Panama Bay; and sad to relate, the fatigue and unusual excitements of the Isthmian journey brought on illness which resulted in the good man's death on arrival in the harbor of San Francisco. The church long remained in the Diocese of New York, but was transferred to that of Honduras, over which Bishop Ormsby, of the Church of England, presided. . . . Among the earlier rectors were Rev. Messrs. Major, Temple, Bancroft, Tullidge, Knapp, and Henson, with all of whom I had pleasant acquaintance. It was shortly after the French had begun their work upon the canal that this building and the work generally were transferred to the English diocese of British Honduras. > Op. cit., II, pp. 328 ff. * Robinson, Fifty Years at Panama, pp. 229-231. 118 THE NEW WORLD That part of the Central American state which we call British Honduras was added to the British Do- minions in 1798, but no Church of England work — Other than government chaplaincies — was established there until 1818. The Rev. R. Shaw of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel had resided there between 1776 and 1785, but the Society had refused to make a grant for the work after the latter date. In 1817, the magistrates of the colony asked that ancient and honored Society for a grant to help them complete "a very handsome Church in the town of Belize," and received two hundred pounds for that object in 1818. This can be considered the official beginning of the missionary side of the work in Central America. In the same year the Church Missionary Society sent, in response to the request of Chaplain Arm- strong, a second chaplain, a schoolmaster and a printer for the purpose of establishing a mission among the Mosquito Indians. This second chaplain was soon invalided home, however, and the work lay dormant until 1824, when, by the creation of the two sees of Jamaica and Barbadoes, episcopal supervision be- came possible. British Honduras was made a part of the diocese of Jamaica. Workers were subsequently sent there by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. In 1880 British Honduras "organized itself on the base of a separate diocese," and elected Bishop Toger, of Jamaica, as their bishop, a position which he retained about a year. Then, by the advice of Arch- bishop Tait, the jurdisdiction reverted to Jamaica.^ In 1882 the Bishop of Jamaica— having oversight of Hon- duras — brought before the society the spiritual condition of 'Another attempt to make a separate diocese was made in 1891, when the Archdeacon of Antigua was consecrated at Barbados as Bishop of Honduras. (This was the first consecration of an Anglican Bishop in the West Indies.) The new bishop. Holme, was shipwrecked on his way to Belize, though, and died shortly after reaching there. 80 » SO-SO'I CAHIB B EA N y^yz/ SEA ^.:^::^^ / 1 /^l/^^ ) 1 ^/ — \i_JV\\ / ±/(/l /^i-l// Camp BaTrd J ^jf V i ^(X<^atjl'll ^r-> H |F--^-^x^:C^^ ^r' i V-) \ r^^K^^ (\ ^K, "-< 'V a /\ "•^. ^^^^ \ \ V "^^ *N. Einpire$s. \, A V^Parai$b^ 9' 1 v*S^ \l^"58 y / \ .La^Bocaf^^y 9 \f Palo^Sec^A^'^^ '^a M^'^ BAY OF CANAL ZONE C fa^^ama. 80° e. c. brTooman, mapb. fvi. v. 80*30' | fOlNTS ALONG THE CANAL WHERE THE CHURCH IS CARRYING ON WORK NEW RESPONSIBILITIES 119 the laborers on the Panama Canal. Over 15,000 Jamaicans and others from various parts of the West Indies, besides Europeans and Americans, were employed in the construc- tion of the Canal, numbers of whom were "either communi- cants or followers of the Church of England"; but there was no one to minister to them.i The society voted two hundred pounds toward the payment of a chaplain, and in November, 1883, the Bishop sent to Colon, the first point on the Atlantic side, the Rev. E. B. Key, the Rev. S. Kerr, and a catechist. Mr. Key, after assisting in organizing the Mis- sion, returned to Jamaica (as arranged), leaving Mr. Kerr to carry on the work with the aid of lay agents. Within twelve months a chain of eight stations was established, stretching from Colon to Panama. The people attended the services in large numbers, and contributed liberally toward the expenses of the Mission. In 1885 a rebellion broke out, the town of Colon was burnt, and Mr. Kerr had to with- draw for a time. For some months the beautiful church at Colon was used as a guard house . . . prison and hospital; and the Com- munion table . , . for eating, drinking, and gambling. Until the building was restored, cleansed and renovated, and the city rebuilt, no work was possible in the city. The agents up the line, however, remained at their posts, and at no time were ministrations altogether suspended. In October, 1885, Christ Church was again placed in Mr. Kerr's charge, and the Mission has been continued with good results.^ Though the French attempt to make the canal was given up in 1888, the need for the Church's services remained, and the Bishop of Jamaica continued in charge. Thus it came to pass that under the auspices of the Church of England, missionary work in Colon and Panama and intermediate points was continued until the time of the American occupation. When the United States appeared upon the scene, as was to have been expected, the Church of England ceded jurisdiction back to the American Church. The property which thus came into our possession con- * The records of these days are difficult to obtain, and we can only assume that at the time of the Bishop of Jamaica's visitation the Ameri- cans had left Christ Church vacant. * Digest of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel Records, 1701-1892, pp. 240, 241. 120 THE NEW WORLD sisted of the churches in Colon and Panama City and two chapels, one at Mt. Hope and one at Bas Obispo, along the line of canal operations. We came into the use of several other buildings at the same time, but title to these was held by the Commission.^ It was through the courtesy of the Most Rev. Enos Nuttall, Archbishop of the West Indies, and of the Right Rev. G. A. Ormsby, Bishop of Honduras, that these ar- rangements were satisfactorily made. At once on our assuming control and pending the election of an American Bishop of Panama, the Presid- ing Bishop, acting as Provisional Bishop, appointed the Bishop of Washington as his commissary. It was soon discovered, though, that as the Bishop of Wash- ington could rarely visit the Isthmus it would be neces- sary to request the Bishop of Honduras to give such episcopal oversight as he could. This he kindly con- sented to do, and visited the Isthmus in the summer of 1906, holding six confirmations, two ordinations, and dedicating one church building. He reported that the population of the Isthmus at the time was seventy thousand, about thirty thousand of whom were em- ployed on the canal works, and that many of them were English-speaking negroes from the West Indies who were members of the Church of England. He urged the immediate appointment of three American clergy, one to take charge of the missions along the route of the canal, one to establish a congregation at Cristobal, a suburb of Colon, and a third to act as assistant to the rector of Christ Church, Colon, which Church, together with the Church in Panama, by the * A scheme proposed by the English is now under consideration, whereby the foreign jurisdiction of the entire Diocese of Honduras shall be transferred to the Church in America. According to it, the Bishop of Honduras would continue his oversight of the northern part of Central America, retaining his own diocese as at present, but becom- ing an agent of the American Church at such times as he might go outside those portions of his diocese over which the British flag flies. See O'Rorke, Our Opportunity in the West Indies, p. 84. NEW RESPONSIBILITIES 121 concordat made with the Church of England had been transferred to the American jurisdiction. He further reported that there was good reason to believe that when the American Church really took up the work the Canal Commission would be glad to help in several ways.^ For one reason or another it took a long time to get the work really started. Although actual operations on the canal had begun on May 4, 1904, it was not until October, 1907, that anyone volunteered for ser- vice. The Rev. H. B. Bryan, coming forward then, was appointed Archdeacon of Panama by the Presid- ing Bishop. He arrived at Colon on the 10th of November. Following him the Rev. E. J. Cooper went out in 1908 to take charge of Christ Church, Colon.^ Upon the death of the Bishop of Washington (H. Y. Satterlee) in 1908, the Presiding Bishop made the Bishop of Cuba (A. W. Knight) his commissary to care for and supervise the work in the Canal Zone. Provided at last with full and workable ecclesiastical machinery the mission took on new life. It is not for us to detail the story of the Church's work in the Zone. Rather should we try to indicate its * The full report of the Bishop can be found in Appendix K to the 1905-6 Foreign Report of the Board of Missions. * A full list of the workers up to date is as follows: 1907 — The Yen. H. B, Bryan, appointed Archdeacon of Panama. 1908 — Rev. E. J. Cooper,* Christ Church, Colon; still in the mission. Rev. G. C. Eskins St. Paul's Church, Panama; retired 1908. Rev. J. F. Calm, Locum-tenens Missionary; retired 1908. Rev. T. T. Mulcare, West Indian deacon; still in the mission. 1909 — Rev. W. Cross, Cristobal; retired September 20, 1910. Rev. W. H. Decker, Empire; transferred to Cuba in 1913. Rev. A. S. Peck,* Culebra; retired May 1, 1911. 1910— Rev. H. A. Brown,* Chaplain U. S. A., Archdeacon; retired 1913. 1911— Rev. J. R. Bicknell,* Chaplain U. S. A., Ancon; retired 1912. Rev. J. F. Griffith, New Gatun; transferred to British Guiana in 1914. 1912 — Rev. H. C. Carson,* Ancon; still in the mission. 1915 — Rev. A. F. Nightingale, Panama, Present staff: The Rt. Rev. Dr. Knight, Bishop in charge; Rev. Messrs. H. R. Carson, Ancon; E, T. Cooper, Colon; J. T Mulcare, La Boca; A. F. Nightingale, Panama. * Not supported by the board. 122 THE NEW WORLD chief features. To begin with, unlike anything else that the Church has as yet undertaken an elerncnt of temporariness has predominated at many points. A majority of those to whom we went to minister, for example, were on the ground for only a short time. Again, many of the sites on which chapels were built are now many feet below the surface of the water. In the first year about six thousand young men went down to the Zone seeking their fortunes, of whom but a few regarded their jobs as anything but short-time services. Among them were a large number of college graduates and men who had been ac- customed to the ministrations of the Church at home. To them we certainly owed a duty, and if any find fault with the work on the ground that it was not worth while doing so much for transients, we can only reply that the friends and relations of the six thousand were very glad that the steadying influence of the Church was near them. Another unusual aspect of the Panama undertaking is to be found in the fact that the Church and State worked hand in hand. Accustomed as we are to the American fear of a State Church, it comes at first as a surprise to learn that the canal Commissioners provided us with land and buildings in many instances. This is to be explained by the fact that when they imported a great number of West Indian laborers the commissioners guaranteed to them free schools and churches. Perhaps, one is tempted to speculate, had the settlements possessed a more permanent character these things could not have been done without much difficulty, if at all. At all events, the fact that they were done gives us cause for considerable satis- faction. In undertaking to build the canal the United States went about it in a true spirit of humanitarianism. It NEW RESPONSIBILITIES 123 realized that it was doing something for the good of the world. It was only proper therefore, that, since the object of its efforts was the good of humanity, the small fraction of humanity which was engaged in the operations should be cared for in a Christian way. Not only did the Commissioners remember that the men's bodies should be cared for; they remembered also that their spiritual needs must be met. We have just reason to be proud of the broad vision of those in authority and to be glad that the Church had such a splendid opportunity to co-operate with them. Parenthetically, it is interesting in this connection to speculate as to what the effect of such govern- ment aid would have been under conditions less tem- porary. For example, suppose the government had helped us build churches in the growing West, what would have been the result? Probably, we are in- clined to believe, anywhere else and under any other conditions such assistance would have had unfortunate results, since men and women cannot afford to be deaf to the warning of Araunah and use churches which have cost them nothing. Such, in brief, are the conditions under which Bishop Knight and his clergy worked. And a great work they did, as will be evidenced by the following account of a visitation made by the bishop in January, It was a busy ten days. The Bishop landed in Colon at noon on Sunday, December 31st. At 7.30 that night, in Christ Church, Colon, he confirmed fifty-nine. That same night the Bishop preached at a watch-night service in Christ Church. On Monday night he confirmed at New Gatun a class of seventy-two. On Tuesday night he visited St. Mark's Church, Culebra, where he confirmed a class of twenty-one, and on Wednesday night at Paraiso, he confirmed fifteen. On Thurs- day night he visited St. Paul's Church, Panama, where he confirmed a class of thirty-five. 124 THE NEW WORLD On Saturday morning the clergy and catechists assembled at St. Mark's Church, Culebra, for a short conference, after which the Rev. J. T. Mulcare was advanced to the priest- hood. On Sunday morning the Bishop celebrated the Holy Com- munion in the Commission Chapel at Culebra, and at 10.45 consecrated St. Mary's Church, Empire. At 2.30 he^ con- firmed twenty-six persons at Bas Obispo, and at six o'clock held a service for the marines at Camp Elliott. At 7.45 he confirmed a class of thirty-one at St. James's Church, Empire. On Monday night he confirmed eighteen persons at Las Cas- cadas, and sixteen on Tuesday night at Gorgona. Wednes- day night the Bishop was at St. Luke's Hospital Chapel at Ancon, and on Thursday morning crossed the Isthmus to Colon, where, after a short service, he sailed for Haiti. Altogether two hundred and eighty-three persons were con- firmed, and over five thousand listened to the Bishop's ser- mons. The work here is in splendid condition. During the last twelve months there have been over one thousand baptisms. Every community is supplied with one or more places of worship, while we now have six priests and one deacon, who, together with the ten catechists, hold regular services in fifteen different places.^ In 1915 the canal was opened and the era of large operations came to an end. After his visit to the Zone, in the summer of 1915, Bishop Knight wrote: Conditions on the Isthmus have settled to the point where it is possible to form some idea of what will need attention in the future. Many of the missions which existed during the active construction period, when it was almost one con- tinuous village from the Atlantic to the Pacific, have dis- appeared with the letting in of the water. Some of our largest and most active mission stations are now beneath the water, and ships sail over localities where church edifices stood. The policy of concentration at the ends of the canal brought forth orders to close missions and remove buildings, and as the lands upon which these buildings stood were occupied only on sufferance, no other alternative remained. Among the buildings ordered removed were those at Gatun, Gorgona, Bas Obispo, Las Cascadas, Empire, Culebra, Pedro * Spirit of Missions, March, 1912. NEW RESPONSIBILITIES 125 Miguel and Mt. Hope, and these have been all removed or sold at a great sacrifice. Las Cascadas, Empire and Culebra were given over to the army as garrisons, as these three villages were not flooded ; but all civilians were removed excepting such as were necessary for the domestic service of the army officers. Two new towns were established at the Pacific end, Balboa and La Boca, the former for the administrative officers of the canal and Zone Government, the latter for the negro laborers. These two towns are model villages, well laid out, and have every modern improvement. It would seem, therefore, that the church's permanent work was to be confined to the cities of Panama, Colon, and the American towns of Ancon, Balboa and La Boca. With this understanding, we began to concentrate on these points, but it was soon found that a number of laborers were required to operate the locks, so small settlements of West Indian negroes were allowed to remain at Gatun and Paraiso. The army people have their own chaplains, and it happens that not one of the three chaplains assigned to the Isthmus at present is of our Church; but as by far the majority of the West Indian negroes are of the English Church, it became necessary to^ maintain services for them. At the request of the commanding officer at Empire services have been resumed. As our buildings had been removed or sold we had no place of our own in which to conduct these services. A suitable building, however, has been provided by the army authorities at Empire, which is sufficiently near to Las Cascadas and Culebra to meet the needs of the colored people. It is interesting to note that Colonel Morton ordered a census taken of the negroes employed by the army and it was found that fully eighty per cent, were attached to the Episcopal Church, and almost all asked for the services of that church, if only one were to be permitted to occupy the field. This order has been issued, and we alone main- tain services for these people. The chapel at Paraiso was not ordered removed, and was the only one we had left in the Zone. Here services have been regularly maintained for the negroes. At the Gatun Locks the authorities have assigned a building to us for services. These actions are a tacit recognition of the help the Church has been to the authorities during the construction of the canal ; for the West Indian negro is not content to remain where he cannot have the services of his Church. To sum up we give the following list of the missions 126 THE NEW WORLD on the Isthmus as compiled by Bishop Knight, April, 1916. Panama City Church building, St. Paul's, owned by the Church. Ancon Hospital chapel, St. Luke's, under control of the Church. La Boca Church, St. Peter's by the Sea, and rectory, owned by the Church. Palo Seco Chapel, Holy Comforter, owned by the Government. Paraiso Chapel, St. Augustine's, owned by the Church. Empire Chapel, owned by the Government. Gatun. ^ Chapel, owned by the Government. Camp Baird, Cristobal.. Chapel, owned by the Government. Colon. .Church, Christ Church, owned by the Church. The chaplain of the Ancon Hospital has charge of the work at Ancon, Panama, Paraiso, Palo Seco and Gatun. The resident clergymen at La Boca cares for it and Empire. The rector of Colon takes care of the work at Camp Baird. CHAPTER V NEAR NEIGHBORS CUBA The island of Cuba was brought, technically speak- ing, within the Spanish Empire when Diego Velazquez was appointed its governor in the year 1512. For the 387 years that followed it was the pearl of Spain's West Indian possessions. Its size, its fertility and its natural wealth made it a colony of greatest value. Its soil produced the finest tobacco and sugar in the world. Its forest lands covered a million and a quarter of acres. In its mines, copper and manganese and iron were found, and best of all, though a tropical country, its climate was agreeable. But though the land was fair and overflowing with milk and honey, and though so far as nature went there was every reason for peace and tranquillity, quite an opposite state of affairs prevailed. The Spaniard had not been wise in his colonial policy and the colonists, like those who threw the tea of the equally unwise English into Boston Harbor, were dis- contented. As a matter of fact there was no general island-wide revolution until the last decade of the last century, but local disturbances had abounded, and great had been the misery therefrom. One of our first workers wrote home in the nineties that it was gen- erally believed that 150,000 Spanish infantry had been lost in guerilla wars. Evidently the milk and honey of the promised land had turned to gall. 127 128 THE NEW WORLD The clash of arms in which we are interested is that one which began in 1895 and which ended in the separation of the island from Spain. The story as it affects us is briefly as follows : General Campos was in command of the Spanish forces at the beginning of this revolt of 1895, but his wily antagonist, Maximo Gomez, had defied and all but defeated him, — exactly as the Boer commanders taunted and all but defeated the British in South Africa. In the beginning of 1896, Campos had been recalled and as his successor Valeriano Weyler had been sent out, — Weyler, who subsequently was known among the Cubans as 'The Butcher." This new gen- eral and his policy are important to us since it was due to his merciless methods that the condition of affairs in Cuba was forced upon the attention of the United States. The reconcentrado system enforced by him, in fact, gave Cuba a worldwide notoriety. It would appear, to be perfectly fair, that the Cubans them- selves were responsible for the invention of this system, but they never carried it to the limits adopted by Weyler. The reconcentration system entailed the gathering, under compulsion, of all the inhabitants of certain districts in certain places within a given number of days. This accomplished, nobody was allowed to leave those centers of concentration without passes, and these passes were practically never granted. This meant that not only were complete provinces denuded of their inhabitants, but that all business and com- mercial establishments were closed, and all food pro- duction and agricultural operations within these provinces abandoned. In the words of President Mc- Kinley, "It was not civilized warfare, it was extermi- nation. The only peace it could beget was that of the wilderness and the grave." News of this procedure spread abroad quickly, and NEAR NEIGHBORS 129 Cuban relief committees sprang up in many parts of the United States. The President was importuned by vociferous editors to intervene, but according to all the laws of diplomacy he could do nothing. Finally the situation became so bad that Weyler was recalled and a less rigid disciplinarian, Blanco, sent out in his stead. But it was too late. Humane as Blanco endeavored to be, his predecessor's work had been only too effectual and the suffering and starvation wrought by it continued. The technical point which had prevented the United States government from intervening was this : Were the Cuban insur rectos rebels, or not? So long as they were rebels and had no real government of their own, the United States could not intervene. Perhaps it should also be added that in international affairs it has generally been conceded that that nation which is nearest to a people in turmoil, and hence most con- cerned, is the one to act, if action is justified. It can well be imagined that throughout this period the relations between the United States and Spain had been anything but friendly. The press of this country had not been sparing in its adjectives and the diplo- mats had had continually to cross large patches of thin ice. Some of the more violent of Cuba's friends had time and time again endeavored to bring us into the war on the side of the islanders, and the efforts of the Cuban Junta in New York had been anything but quieting. Finally, on the fifteenth of February, the United States battleship Maine, which was in Havana Harbor on a friendly visit, was blown up as she lay at her mooring. At first, everybody imagined that she had been destroyed by Spaniards in retaliation for the campaign of hatred which had been waged in the States against Cuba's colonial government. Calmer thought, however, showed that the Cuban's were the 130 THE NEW WORLD ones who had profited from the deed, which fact made some people less quick to come to conclusions.^ At all events the loss of the Maine turned out very happily for the insurrectos.!^ It brought on the Spanish- American war in which poor old Spain was hopelessly worsted and forced to retire from the West Indies and the Philippines. How tempted one is to moralize at this point. Gone were the glories of Spain. Lost were the islands which Columbus had found; those islands whose shores the feet of the Conquistadores had trodden ; those islands which had been blessed by the presence of the saintly Las Casas and the Dominican fathers; those islands from which bulging ships had set forth with their treasures to swell the fortunes of the unwise Philip: all were gone. And worst of all, but few in the islands wept ! How like the story of Babylon and Egypt and Rome and the Empire of Napoleon 1 Truly *'our little systems have their day," and truly they are fools who think that gold and silver and sword and pike, or the modern 12-inch shell and submarine can make a kingdom which will last! After the downfall of the old regime, the United States government, in order to forestall a period of anarchy which seemed probable from the unwilling- ness of the victors to divide the spoil quietly, sent down an army of occupation. That our intentions were beneficent is proven by the fact that though we spent millions in assisting the sufferers and in improving conditions, we asked but little in return when we gave * The destroyers of the Maine will probably never be known. Sub- sequent investigations removed the suspicion that the vessel had been wrecked by an explosion in one of her own magazines. All that we know is that the explosion came from without. For a virtual accusation that this was not so see I. A. Wright, Cuba, p. 169. ^ Inasmuch as our political relations to Cuba are bound up in the history of these early days, the student should, if possible, get a larger acquaintance with the facts than can be given here. A full statement will be found in Robinson, Cuba and the Intervention. NEAR NEIGHBORS 131 back the island to its inhabitants.^ Oyer three rnillions was spent in the first year of occupation on sanitation, while within the same period, nine hundred and ninety odd thousand was spent on charities and in aid to the destitute. During the second and third years of oc- cupation, similar sums were spent unselfishly. Had ever a government in the history of the world spent in another land tens of millions, given of the lives of its citizens, given out of the wealth of its experience, and at the end of that time asked for so little in return? If our country has not been missionary-minded in things political, who has? Truly in what we did for Cuba the New World had begun to make the labors of Columbus worth while. The end of our first great missionary act as a nation came on the 20th of May, 1902, and was signalized by the following letter from General Leonard Wood, Military Governor: Headquarters Department of Cuba, Havana, May 20, 1902. To the President and Congress of the Republic of Cuba. Sirs : Under the direction of the President of the United States, I now transfer to you, as the duly elected representative of the people of Cuba, the government and control of the Island; to be held and exercised by you, under the provisions of the Constitution of the Republic of Cuba heretofore adopted by the Constitutional Convention and this day pro- mulgated; and I hereby declare the occupation of Cuba by the United States and the Military Government of the Island to be ended. This transfer of government and control is upon the ex- press condition, and the Government of the United States will understand, that by the acceptance thereof you do now, pur- suant to the provisions of the said Constitution, assume and undertake, all and several, the obligations assumed by the United States with respect to Cuba, by the treaty between the United States of America and Her Majesty the Queen * Stephen Bonsai answers eflFectively the retort that the Piatt Amend- ment was a large quid pro quo. See his The American Mediterranean, pp. 36-39. 132 THE NEW WORLD Regent of Spain, signed at Paris on the 10th day of Decem- ber, 1899. . . . Then follow nine paragraphs detailing certain finan- cial arrangements, at the conclusion of which comes this paragraph: It is understood by the United States that the present gov- ernment of the Isle of Pines will continue as a de facto government, pending the settlement of the title to said island by treaty pursuant to the Cuban Constitution and the Act of Congress of the United States approved March 2, 1902. (Signed) Leonard Wood, Military Governor. In reply to this truly astonishing document, — aston- ishing because in the whole history of the world noth- ing of the kind had ever been done before, — the newly elected Cuban President, T. Estrada Palma, wrote a letter of sincere acknowledgment which concluded: I take this solemn occasion, which marks the fulfillment of the honored promise of the Government and people of the United States in regard to the Island of Cuba, and in which our country is made a ruling nation, to express to you, the worthy representative of that grand people, the immense gratitude which the people of Cuba feel toward the American nation, toward its illustrious President, Theodore Roosevelt, and toward you for the efforts you have put forth for the successful accomplishment of such a precious ideal. (Signed) T. Estrada Palma. Though Cuba was thus made an independent nation, international problems and possibilities made it neces- sary that the United States should in the first place safeguard that independence, and in the second, take such steps as were necessary to prevent a recurrence of that turmoil which has too often afflicted Latin peoples. Hence, the passing by Congress of the so- called Piatt Amendment, which provided that the government of Cuba should contract never to barter away its independence to any foreign power ; never to NEAR NEIGHBORS 133 allow any foreign power to have a naval or military lodgment in its territory ; never to contract any debts which it could not pay. Further that it should allow the United States to intervene *'for the preservation of Cuban independence, the maintenance of a govern- ment adequate for the protection of life, property and individual liberty" ; and should omit from its bound- aries the Isle of Pines ; and, lastly, should embody the foregoing principles in a treaty with the United States.^ The Piatt amendment must be understood if one is to know about the relations, political, social, and sentimental, between Cuba and the United States. How our government could have done any less without courting grave international problems it is hard to see. It would appear to have been wisdom's ounce of pre- vention. It merely repeated a policy to which we were committed in the days of Spanish supremacy. Never- theless, human nature is human nature and it has created a great deal of bitterness. One is inclined to believe, however, that the unpleasantness caused by the Amendment is but a drop in the bucket compared to the troubles which might have come if we had not taken such action. The State Department knows a lot of things that never get into the newspapers. Such is the story of Cuba's independence, and our participation in it. When one studies Cuban life and the position of Americans on the island, this political background must be borne in mind, since it qualifies every circumstance and situation. CUBA OF TO-DAY The population of the new Republic is about two and a half millions. The area of the island being 44,- 164 square miles, we see that the density of its popu- »0p. cit., pp. 245-257. 134 THE NEW WORLD lation (56 to the square mile) is nothing com- pared to that of Porto Rico. In fact one of the first points which one encounters in studying Cuban prob- lems is its comparative under population. Russia has 61 to the square mile. Of course, in the United States we have only about 31, but then everyone .knows that we are thinly settled. Further, when one considers the fertility of the soil and the immense number of people which it could support, the issue becomes clearer. In those half-mythical days of the far future, when the population of the northern zones becomes cumber- some, that elongated island — it is over seven hundred miles long and only about seventy wide — of vast fer- tility and tolerable climate is certain to become a haven of refuge for many. Since it can feed many more people than Belgium, and since Belgium now has 589 to the square mile, it is not unreasonable to dream, as some do, of a day when Cuba's population will be over ten millions. Verily, a contingency to be prepared for. As to the general condition of the Cubans: there is no occasion to use superlatives. According to the census returns of 1907, sixty-nine per cent, of them could read. To-day, under the new government, there are 2,344 school houses with 4,333 teachers, with over 275,000 pupils on tiie rolls. At the apex of the educational system is the University of Havana, which is divided into three faculties, of Arts and Science, of Medicine and Pharmacy, and of Law. The most unusual thing in this University is that the Cuban Congress regulates and dictates the rules in reference to the different courses of study. It is hard to imagine an American scholar who would be willing to accept a position in an institution of learning over which politicians had such control. The government of the island is very much like our own, having a president, cabinet, and a national NEAR NEIGHBORS 135 congress made up of a Senate (24 members, 4 for each province), and a House of Representatives (91 members, 1 for every 25,000 of the inhabitants). Writing from Havana in the winter of 1915-16, Dean Myers, of the Cathedral, speaks of the present-day problems as follows: There are no political problems in Cuba, in the American sense of that term; no "tariff question"; no dispute about a centralized or non-centralized government; no "prohibition" propaganda, — intemperance is not a problem in Cuba, not- withstanding every "bodega" or country grocery offers liquor for sale, in all its forms. No societies harangue about "wom- an suffrage," although there has been a perceptible change from the seclusion of women under the Spanish regime, and many, old and young alike, are taking advantage of an in- creased and increasing liberty of action, such as going unat- tended upon the streets, or in the company of male escorts without chaperonage, or as members of philanthropic and literary clubs. There are two political parties in Cuba, the Conservative, now in power, and the Liberal; but their divisions are not caused by such problems as are paramount in the United States. They consist rather in the following of individual leaders, so that a change in political parties hardly affects the fundamental problems of the country, — seemingly going no further than a swapping of political patronage and office from one set of leaders and followers to another — a contest between the "Ins" and the "Outs." At the present time (1916), for instance, upon the eve of another presidential election, the Liberals are opposing the re-election of President Menocal because, as they have said in a recent statement, such re-election might result in "future evils for the country," the inference being that it would engender such dissatisfaction upon the part of the "Outs" as would lead to another revolu- tion. They make no attack upon the policy of the administra- tion, nor do they criticize its attitude toward fundamental political principles. Of course there are problems confronting Cuba. First is the creation of an economic middle class among the Cubans themselves, a class which will uncover issues and force their attention and solution upon the country. At present Cubans are divided into the very rich and the very poor, and poverty is both a problem and a business, necessarily fostered and encouraged under the present system. There is no middle 136 THE NEW WORLD class, the only element approaching it being the foreigners, mostly Spaniards, who, of course, have no political influence. One cause of this lack of an economic middle class is that nearly all the land is held in large tracts, and as there is no tax upon unimproved land it is held for large profits and thus kept out of the reach of any but the wealthy. Americans in Havana, for instance, find it cheaper to rent, high as rents are, than to build and own their own homes. A reasonable tax upon the land which would force its division into smaller tracts and lots, and its sale at prices within reach of the people, would have a very beneficial effect. In the first place it would distribute the wealth of the country, and in the second it would result in the creation of that most valuable of national assets — a home-owning middle class. These results would in turn obviate the necessity for the present enormous tariff on imports, the burden of which must be borne by those who can least afford it, as will be seen when it is remembered that Cuba imports everything except raw sugar, tobacco and a few fruits. The cost of living in Cuba as a result of its tariff laws, is enormous. In any consideration of Cuba's problems it should be borne in mind that the people have been in possession of their independence for only about fifteen years. They had much, very much, to learn; but all things considered, they have fared very well. Compare their experiences, for instance, with our own. Compare our municipal muddles and our cor- rupt state governments with their mixups, and one can see that time — and patience — can and will solve Cuba's problems. But in the meantime they must develop one thing, which we in the United States are fortunate enough to have produced already, a public conscience that condemns the evils threat- ening the nation's peace and welfare and which serves as an earnest of their elimination. The fundamental need of Cuba, therefore, is a moral and religious one — the creation of a public conscience which will encourage and give support to patriotic and disinterested citizens, and prevent that characteristic shrug of the shoulders and expression of the lips which, implying and signifying "What's the use?" has an influence beyond realization. Until such a public moral opinion is generated there can hardly be even an attempt at any real solution of Cuba's problems, moral, political or economic. Hence the justification of our mission, not only for our own and English-speaking people, but for natives who need and seek what we have to con- tribute; for there is no indication that such a public con- science will be created and sustained without such aid. Take, NEAR NEIGHBORS 137 for example, the National Lottery, perhaps the most insidious evil in Cuban life, but legalized and run by the government and accepted as a matter of course by the people. This is the chief, but by no means the only example of the evils which a public conscience is needed to eradicate. There are intelligent and patriotic Cubans who see this. Many of them are in our own and other mission churches; many of them with no religious affiliation at all, and a few in the Roman Catholic Church. Perhaps the greatest service that our own and other missions can render Cuba, and the other Latin American Republics is to provide a moral and religious home where such patriotic men may find inspiration and encouragement until the leaven has worked sufficiently for them to have their own national churches, as China has to-day, which will best express the genius of their people and point them to the righteousness that exalteth a nation ; and at the same time cement that mutual understanding and friendship which will unite the Americas in a common service of mankind, based upon common political and religious ideals. This is becoming more and more imperative and necessary for the future peace and welfare of this continent and of the world, as our political and commercial interests draw us daily closer together — for good or for ill. THE church's work IN CUBA Up until 1876, strict laws had made it impossible for any except the faithful of the Roman Church to hold religious services in Cuba. In that year a decree of religious toleration was issued by the home govern- ment in Madrid. As a matter of fact, though, the new law was not heard of by most of the islanders for almost ten years, which was only natural, seeing that they remained in ignorance of many other things which were going on in the hurrying world beyond their small horizon. If one would have an idea, then, of the conditions under which our work began he must picture to him- self a people who were so little concerned about re- ligious liberty that they did not know whether they were free or not, — did not know, and never made any 138 THE NEW WORLD effort to find out. This does not apply to everybody of course, but to the rank and file. Such was Cuba. A land of contented discontent, or ignorant ignorance, of small local revolts but of no large national move- ments, of medieval sterility. It was a part of the New World that needed help from the other parts which had surged forward on the tide of progress. The first evidence that northern New Worlders wished to help in solving Cuba's problems appeared in 1882, when under the auspices of the American Bible Society and the Ladies Bible Society of Philadelphia, one Seiior Diaz began work as a colporteur in Havana. Such a large welcome was given his unexpected mes- sage that soon another colporteur — thanks to the ef- forts of a loyal churchman, Mr. John Rhoads, of Phila- delphia, — a Sefior Pedro Duarte was sent to Matanzas. Duarte was made of larger caliber than Diaz; the mere distribution of Bibles did not suffice for him. "On my arrival at Matanzas," he wrote, "besides de- voting all the hours of the day to the distribution of the Bible, I felt in my heart the need of uniting with some Christians, of repeating with them the prayers and psalms of the ritual of the Church whose faith had been my faith for many years already. . . . "To satisfy that need which I felt, and to better carry on the propaganda of the Gospel, on the 5th of August, 1883, I held the first evening service, taking as a text for meditation that night Chapter 5 of the Gospel of St. Matthew. A large number of persons attended this service ; members of all classes of society and of different nationalities might have been seen there. There was formed and continued a congrega- tion called 'Fieles a Jesus'" (Faithful to Jesus). But these meetings and this forming of a congrega- tion not under the patronage of the long-established Church in Cuba did not pass unchallenged. Before he knew it Mr. Duarte found himself in the hands of NEAR NEIGHBORS 139 the law and compelled to employ counsel to tell the islanders about the new law of toleration. At this point let us pause before we vent our spleen — let us pause and get our bearings, lest we say some- thing worthy only of those who have no historical perspective. And there is no better way in which to get our bearings than to take some well-known illustra- tion of medievalism: John Calvin, for example. He did exactly the same kind of things as did the Cuban authorities. He had a system in Geneva which con- trolled people from the cradle to the grave. Never in Cuba were laws enforced more thoroughly than in protestant Geneva. Which is said not in criticism of Calvin, but because it illustrates the medieval point of view. To be sure, one may say that those things which were done in Geneva happened in the sixteenth century, whereas Mr. Duarte lived in the nineteenth. Very true, but unless we realize that Cuba was afflicted with arrested development, — was still in the sixteenth century, — we miss the whole point. Let us not be splenetic, therefore, over the picture of Mr. Duarte in prison. Let us rather feel as we feel toward people whose development has been arrested. Only as we acquire this sympathetic point of view can we approach our problem with any hope of being useful. Shortly after Mr. Duarte had been released by the law, he made up his mind to study for Holy Orders, and went to Philadelphia. There, under Edward W. Syle, one of the clergy, by the way, who had been compelled to leave China when the American Civil War had all but put a stop to that work, — there, under Mr. Syle, Duarte prepared himself for ministering to the people in Cuba.^ . * A ^^J^ interesting account of Mr. Duarte's experiences will be found Jtl S peptember. October, November and December. 1893, issues of J he hclio, the organ of the American Church Missionary Society. 140 THE NEW WORLD During the two years that Mr. Duarte was in Philadelphia, Bishop Young, of Florida, who had be- come interested in the work, made two visits to Cuba and wrote feelingly of the "need for the Bread of Life" in that land. Not content with writing, a little later he made a special voyage to New York with the intention of asking the Board of Missions to take charge of the work. He failed, however, in the en- deavor. Exactly why, does not appear in the records, but from the general context one is led to believe that it was a matter of dollars and cents, — just, for ex- ample, as to-day the Board has had to decline to ap- propriate for new work in every missionary jurisdic- tion in the world. It is the same old story of never being able to start new work until the most opportune moments have passed. The Board of Missions is continually in the position of a man who has reached the station just after the train has pulled out and has had to commence that hundred mile journey on shanks* mare. In 1885, Mr. Duarte was ordained a deacon by Bishop Stevens, of Pennsylvania, and was ready to go back to Matanzas, but — the old problem — how was he to be supported? In the presence of this perplexity, 'The Ladies' Cuban Guild," of Philadelphia, came into existence, and volunteered to shoulder the burden. Bishop Stevens, however, thinking that it would be too heavy a load for a small guild, asked the American Church Missionary Society ^ to bear a hand also. But that Society found that it could not, and the Ladies* Guild bore the entire expense of Mr. Duarte*s work until 1888. At that time, Bishop Whitaker, Bishop Stevens' successor, backed up by a resolution of the Board of Missions, asked the American Church Mis- sionary Society to take charge. This it agreed to do, * See Appendix III for a statement of the American Church Mis- sionary Society. JAMAICAN CHILDREN IN A CHURCH SCHOOL AT GUANTANAMO NEAR NEIGHBORS 141 since the gradually awakening conscience of its con- stituents had considerably increased the possibilities of its exchequer. During Mr. Duarte's absence, the work had been carried on by the Rev. J. B. Baez, who had been brought into it under amusing circumstances. It seemed that previous to Duarte's departure a certain American citizen named Santamarina had desired to marry a Cuban lady whose certificate of baptism did not appear on the record of the parish church in Ma- tanzas, notwithstanding the fact that she had been baptized there. On account of that omission, Mr. Santamarina had been told that he w^ould have to pay $300 for the services of the Church. Unwilling to put up with this extortion he had turned to Mr. Duarte, who had replied that if he would pay the expenses, he (Duarte) would import a clergj^man from the United States. Santamarina agreed, like a good Yankee. Accordingly, Mr. Baez had been im- ported from Key West and the marriage, together with four others, had been performed in the American Consul's office. At the conclusion of this ceremony the party had adjourned to the building occupied by the Fieles a Jesus congregation and received the Eucharist. Mr. Baez remained for two years in Cuba, and pre- sented a large number of persons in several different congregations, — *'in Havana, in Santiago de los Begas, and in Bejucal," — to Bishop Young for confirmation. So great was his success in Matanzas that a second congregation was established and named after St. Peter the Apostle. Several candidates for Holy Orders came forward and not a few lay readers were ap- pointed.^ *At this time there was quite a discussion as to the canonical right of our branch of the Church Catholic to enter the Latin field. In response to letters written in 1893 by the editor of The Echo twenty- six bishops replied approving. Their names will be found in the 142 THE NEW WORLD Like so many things, though, that start with a rush, the flourishing work in Cuba was not founded on solid rock. Personal disagreements arose which resulted in a good many desertions, among which was that of one of our best workers. It sounds familiar to learn that this man on going over to one of the denominations found that he had stepped from comparative poverty into affluence. He had been struggling along with barely enough to make ends meet. His new friends granted him everything he asked for. More than a hundred thousand dollars was provided with which to build a church and forward its interests. So suc- cessful was he in a material way in fact, that, like people in many places the Havanese assumed that material prosperity indicated spiritual strength and flocked after him in great numbers. One of our first workers once said that the story of the Cuban mission is one of beginnings and end- ings. In many places things would start with a boom and then break up with another boom. One of Mr. Duarte's letters, after he had been absent from Cuba on sick leave, illustrates this : "The Episcopal Church," he writes, ''has disappeared in Havana; all the converts she has made went to make up the component parts of the Baptist Church, and in Matanzas nothing was left. The furniture of the Chapel Fieles a Jesus was stored in the different houses of its members." In this extremity, the veteran was called upon by Mr. Rhoads to make another trip to Cuba and send in a report. This resulted in his September and November numbers of The Echo. Perhaps the most striking statement of any of them was that from the Assistant Bishop of Alabama, Dr. Jackson, who, under date of September 23, 1893, writes in reply to the (question whether we have a right to establish missions in Latin countries, "Rome has established no national church in these countries, has, in fact, established nothing but missions; and missions of divers branches of the Church may exist co-ordinately in the same territory. Thus the English and the American Churches both have missions in China and Japan, and there is no schism." See also pages 3 to 7 of The Echo for February, 1894. NEAR NEIGHBORS 143 settling down in Matanzas and re-establishing the work so thoroughly that it has continued there ever since. The subsequent history of the Cuban mission ^ is both encouraging and discouraging. Ups and downs continued with the ups only gradually getting the balance of power. As late as 1899, for example, despite the fact that the American Church Missionary So- ciety had been doing its best, we find that there were only three workers on the ground, of whom Mr. Duarte was one. Clearly something radical had to be done. There was no use trifling any longer. The work needed a bishop and a regular ecclesiastical organiza- tion. Bishop Young had pled for a bishop in Cuba back in the eighties, but the Board had been unable to see its way clear to ask for one.^ Much later, as a tempo- rary relief, the Presiding Bishop had asked the Bishop of Porto Rico to take charge (in 1902), but transit from San Juan to Havana is less simple than from New York, so that expedient did not work. At last, in 1904, matters came to a head, and at the General Convention which met in Boston, the Rev. Albion W. Knight was elected Bishop of Cuba. With this act began a new phase in the life of the mission, a phase during which the growth was sure and steady. The * See, for further details, the history of work by Bishop Knight. ' The first official statement that we have with regard to the Board of Missions becoming interested in the Cuban work will be found in the issue of the Spirit of Missions for July, 1884, where we read, "The Board has entered temporarily upon the work in Cuba," and further that at its May meeting it adopted the following resolution: "Whereas the Bishop of Florida has looked to the Foreign Committee for an appropriation, etc., etc., Resolved, that the Foreign Committee recom- mend to the Board of Managers to consider whether an appropriation to such work ... in the single sum of One Thousand Dollars shall be made; it being distinctly understood that nothing whatever is prom- ised beyond September 1, 1884." On the 10th of June the Board of Managers acted favorably upon this resolution. A full account of the Bishop of Florida's visits will be found in Vol. XLIX of the Spirit of Missions, p. 484 ff. 144 THE NEW WORLD principles which guided the new bishop can best be set forth in his own words : On account of its proximity to the United States [Bishop Knight writes] and the close political affiliation which came as a result of the Spanish-American war, immigration to Cuba from the United States has been natural and inevitable. The people immigrating have been engaged largely in de- veloping the resources of the island. They are as a rule ignorant of and not connected with the form of religion that has existed in the Cuba of the past. Along with these immigrants it was and is but natural that the Episcopal Church should go, and its first work is the care of those thus settled on the Island of Cuba, permanently or tem- porarily. In considering this phase of the work we must take into consideration the fact that outside the city of Havana, the greater portion of North Americans are settled either in the mining or rural districts. In the mining districts in the moun- tain province of Santiago, there is a very large number of Americans engaged in the development of the enormous deposits of iron. These are largely men of collegiate edu- cation, mining engineers, chemists, and men of that type. They are separated from the ties and associations which were formed in their younger days and the environment is such as to tempt them to yield to practices which drag one down. The presence of a clergyman of the church, even though his visits be infrequent, has an effect far beyond what one would imagine. Then, too, there are many North Americans on the large sugar estates. Cuba supplies more than half the sugar con- sumed in the United States, and gradually the plantations have been getting into the hands of our people. On these sugar estates a certain amount of skilled Yankee labor is employed. Frequently with the men go their families, and this group of immigrants is, like that above noted, quite separated from the world of their birth. They are absorbed for many months of the year with the great mills that grind twenty-four hours a day and seven days of the week. They need at least the occasional presence of a clergyman of the church. Would that we could have one with them all the time ! The third class of North Americans are those who have settled in colonies in certain districts of Cuba or on the Isle of Pines. They have bought land and undertaken its develop- ment, more particularly along the line of citrus fruits. In NEAR NEIGHBORS 145 these colonies the family life— found only infrequently in the mining and sugar districts— presents a new problem. Here we find men who have left their homes with their wives and children and come into this new land in the hope that they will be able to better themselves materially. They find them- selves surrounded on all sides by conceptions of morals and religions quite strange to them. The church must follow such and see to it that they are not lost in or absorbed by their surroundings. To do this we must have church build- ings and regular services and schools. I would emphasize schools because in the public school system everything is taught in Spanish, with Cuban teachers, with the natural re- sult that the children who attend them acquire the Spanish mode of thought, and even think in Spanish. It might be asked why don't these North Americans main- tain their own schools, and the reply is that it takes an organization like the church to conduct schools of the best type. Having spent all of their money on their new homes and plantations, the settlers are quite unable to undertake educational work of a kind that is worth while. And then, too, they are not in a position to know how to do the thing properly. By way of illustrating the work that we are doing for these settlers or immigrants we might say that in Havana there is the Cathedral in which the main services are in English; in La Gloria, where there is an American colony of several hundred families, we have a new church building, a rectory, and resident clergyman, and a school; at Bartle services have been conducted from time to time by the clergy- man at La Gloria; on the Isle of Pines we have five mission stations cared for by one clergyman who whisks about from one to the other in automobiles each Sunday, and thereby keeps them all going.i In addition to these we conduct ser- vices at Guantanamo City, at Guantanamo Naval Station, at the mining stations of Fermeza, and Felton, at Paso Estancia and the sugar estates of Constancia, Preston, Chaparra and Ensenada de Mora. In addition to the North American immigrant element, in which has been included Canadians and Englishmen, of whom there are quite a number in Cuba, there is, as we have already seen in the case of Porto Rico, a large number of negroes from the British West Indies. Whereas Porto Rico is over- populated, Cuba is underpopulated, and these West Indians are welcomed gladly wherever operatives are needed. Many * For an interesting description of this work see the Spirit of Missions, March, 1915, pp. 183-186. 146 THE NEW WORLD of them have been brought up in the Church of England. They are essentially a religious and loyal lot, and it is in- cumbent upon us to minister to them. For* them we conduct services at Guantanamo, where we have a district priest and a beautiful church; in Santiago; in Ensenada de Mora, where again we have a fine church and a resident priest; at Preston, and at Felton, and lastly, in Havana, services are regularly held for the large element of English-speaking blacks. In Guantanamo we have a school for them. The third element [writes Bishop Knight] with which the church has to deal, is the native population of the island. In conducting work am.ong them no attempt is made to proselyte. One often hears the question asked, Why is it necessary to send missionaries to a country like Cuba, which has been under the care of an ancient church for four hundred years? There are two answers to this: the first is found in the fact that a large proportion of the popula- tion have_ for various reasons rendered themselves shepherd- less. It is practically impossible for the old church with which they have been dealing in the past to revive their interest in spiritual and religious things. Another church going in and presenting Christianity from a different point of view, is able to excite their interest and frequently bring them back into the fold of Christ. The second reason is to be found in the fact that there has been a real lack of interest and religious fervor in the priests and the people. It is but a natural result of the circumstances which have obtained. The priests have not been dependent upon the people for their living, and the people, not having to support them, have lost interest. It is the old story of Arauna. Another Church going in, aids in creating once again the religious atmosphere, and with it goes a revival of hitherto dead loyalty to the old Church, The work therefore of the Episcopal Church among these people is to gather together, as far as possible, those who may come to it through the excitement of a renewal of their interest in religious matters, and also to create such an atmosphere as will help the old Church to do its work more efficiently and faithfully. What the Church has accomplished among these people has come as a result of the work that was undertaken for the immi- grants about whom we have already spoken. The natives, having witnessed the form of service and the character and nature of the Church's policy, have of themselves in many places called for our Church's ministrations. In response to such calls we have developed a work which in a measure covers the whole Island of Cuba. NEAR NEIGHBORS 147 During^ Bishop Knig^ht's ten years, following these lines of development, the work grew from six to thirty- seven congregations, and the communicant list from 200 to more than 1,700, and the children in the Sunday schools from 75 to over 1,300; in the parochial schools the pupils increased in number from 75 to more than 800, and the clergy list from 2 to 24.^ When we remember that the opportunities and open- ings were far larger when Mr. Duarte first shouldered the burden in Matanzas, we cannot help wondering how much greater would the results have been today if the Church had appointed a bishop twenty years earlier. This business of trying to run a mission without a head, is a good deal like trying to direct soldiers who have no officer with them. One interesting point brought out by Bishop Knight at the time of his resignation is, that when one analyzes the work he sees "that there are two distinctive kinds ^ The following is a complete list of our work in Cuba: Among White Foreigners Among English-Speaking Blacks Cathedral in Havana Vedado Isle of Pines (flV( £ Stations) Camaguey Sagua la Grande Ceballos Constancia (near Cienfuegos) Santiago Ceballos Ensenada de Mora La Gloria Guantanamo Paso Estancia Preston Felton Felton Bartle Camaguey Among Spanish-Speaking Blacks Among Cubans Limonar Jesus del Monte (Havana) Bacuranao Coliseo Jovellanos Matanzas Santiago Bolondron Union Cardenas Sagua la Grande Macagua Cienfuegos Constancia Cespcdes Nuevitas Camaguey Chaparra Santa Cruz del Norte 148 THE NEW WORLD of work being done ; that among the English-speaking people whether white or black, and that among na- tive people whether white or black. The compara- tive progress among these two groups is very signifi- cant. There is almost exactly the same number of communicants among the English-speaking people as there is among the Spanish-speaking people, and the number of clergy is almost equally divided. On the other hand, when one considers the growth as indicated by baptisms and confirmations, he finds that that among the natives far exceeds that among the foreign element. This is accounted for by the fact that the vast majority of those who immigrate to Cuba are of mature years and have, as a rule, been baptized or con- firmed before leaving their home. Should this ratio of progress keep up, the native Church will soon pre- ponderate very largely in numbers. This means that for a long time the native Church will look to the United States for financial aid and assistance." The Cubans who are thus being reached belong to what is called the "working classes." As in all other parts of Latin America, it is very difficult to reach the so-called ^'cultured" people, and thereby hangs a tale — a tale concerning the irrespressible conflict be- tween the ideals of the old and new orders. Sad to say, this conflict and its result are almost inevitable. We have seen it vividly illustrated in Japan and in many other parts of the world. We shall see it illus- trated again in Brazil. It amounts to this. Just as among our own people seventy-five years ago, when the discoveries of science began to come thick and fast, there followed a bewildering amount of agnosticism and materialism ; so among these people under similar conditions, loss of faith has followed. May we not say though, that as the Church has gradually adapted itself to the new situation, and met with success the new problems, and driven back the tidal wave of un- NEAR NEIGHBORS 149 belief, even so we may be confident that in Cuba, before very long, agnosticism will be dispelled before the advance of an awakened Church. We now come to the last phase of our work. At a special meeting of the House of Bishops, in October, 1914, the Rerv. H. R. Hulse was elected to succeed Bishop Knight, who had resigned to become Vice Chancellor of Sewanee. Bishop Hulse was conse- crated in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine on the 12th of January, 1915, and went shortly thereafter to his diocese. As a man who has for many years been interested in the Latin American problem, who was at one time General Secretary of the American Church Missionary Society, — his acquaintance with the subject is wide and deep, and the Church can feel very sure that under him we shall make a worthy contribution to the progress of the people of that wonderful New World island. ISO THE NEW WORLD HAITI The history of Haiti makes terrible reading. Mas- sacres and slave drivings, revolutions and executions follow one upon the other in such quick succession that the heart sickens. Just outside Port au Prince the plain of Cul-de-Sac bears bitter testimony to these things. There it lies, the center of the most fertile district in the world, a district which yielded a vast amount of produce in the days when the Frenchmen ruled, a district which was once dotted with the splen- did residences of wealthy planters, a district which to- day could support a fabulous number of people, — there it lies desolate, with naught but a few ruins to remind one of its pristine glory. Where might be wealth and plenty today, where wealth and plenty did abound in efficient yesterdays, a few, poor, sordid folk eke out a slim existence. The Cul-de-Sac is eloquently symbolical of Haiti as a whole. "I have traveled," wrote the British resident St. John, "in almost every quarter of the globe, and I may say that, taken as a whole, there is not a finer island. No country pos- sesses greater capabilities, or a better geographical position, or more variety of soil, of climate, and of production ; with magnificent scenery of every descrip- tion, and hillsides where the pleasantest of health- resorts might be established." ^ The Black Republic occupies the western third of the island which Columbus named Little Spain, Espaiiola — which name was changed later to the latin Hispaniola. For a few feverish years, as we learned in an earlier chapter, the Conquistadores had worked its gold mines with enslaved Arawak Indians, but the poor docile »St. John, Hayti, p. 18. NEAR NEIGHBORS 151 creatures, unused to labor, had succumbed so rapidly that by the year 1507, a population estimated any- where between eight hundred thousand and a million and a half (probably the lowest figure was nearer the truth) had been reduced to sixty thousand. In this extremity there was nothing to do but import negroes, — that is to say, if the wealth-getting activi- ties were to be continued. Yes, if wealth were to be won, slaves must be brought from Africa. Accord- ingly a royal ordinance was given on September 3, 1500, permitting this importation, and the dread work began. Can we of this tumultuous part of the New World throw a stone at the Spaniards for perpetrating that act? Further, and this is more to the point, are not nine-tenths of all our present social troubles the direct result of the same spirit as that which dominated the Spaniards? The cause, for example, of the Spaniards' getting slaves, was not that they could not work the mines without them, but that they could not do it in a hurry. In the same way, the cause of most of our labor troubles, of much of the suffering and injustice, whether of the poor man or rich man, is that people are in a hurry to make a go of this or that scheme, to develop this or that state or territory, to build this or that road. Everyone wants to "get rich quick," and it is the spirit which that hurry creates that makes most of the trouble. So the Spaniards in a hurry to develop Haiti brought over Africans, and with them made the island the richest of the Indies, the pride of the ambitious colonist. But the Dons were not destined to hold Hispaniola as they did Cuba and Porto Rico and the rest of the Antilles. Certain French buccaneers, driven from St. Kitts, about the year 1630, obtained a foothold on Tortuga, a lazy little island just north of Cap Haytien. From that point they made successful in- 152 THE NEW WORLD cursions upon Haiti and eventually moved over, bag and baggage, and claimed ownership — by right of con- quest. The French government, after the manner of governments generally, seeing a chance for gain in recognizing these lawless buccaneers, did so in 1640, and lo ! they became lawful colonists. There followed a period in which so many of their compatriots j'oined them, that, though Spain w^as loth to give up her right- eous claims, at the treaty of Ryswick in 1697 she finally admitted the inevitable and ceded the western third of the island to Louis XIV. It was not until 1770 that an actual boundary line between the French and Spanish colonies was run off, and even then it was done in a very haphazard way. Haiti's golden days were in the period between the Treaty of Ryswick and the opening of the French Revolution, i.e., between 1697 and 1789. Cap Haytien during this time became so splendid a place that men called it the Paris of America, and the rest of the island flourished correspondingly. Thirty thousand whites ruled multitudes of blacks, and slavery, of a kind never exceeded in brutality, prevailed. The Revolution of 1789 turned things upside down quite as much in Haiti as in France. The blacks, sud- denly freed by the edicts of the perfervid, if perfidious, orators of the Constituent Assembly in Paris, became like children with a new and deadly toy. To make matters worse they were aided and abetted in the crimes which they committed in the name of their new found liberty, by mulattos who had been educated in France by their white fathers, and hence had become experts in all the devilment of unworthy whites. Un- doubtedly the bloody years of the early nineteenth cen- tury were due, like the bloody days in our own recon- struction period, not to the blacks themselves, but to those sorrowful and anomalous, and much to be pitied products of the white man's sin, — those men without NEAR NEIGHBORS 153 race. With such leaders, and with the memories of cruel treatment which were theirs, should we marvel that bloody deeds were done? In his polemic for Haiti, a Methodist divine, the Rev. M. B. Bird/ tells how that in the years 1802 and 1803 twenty military expeditions with 51,509 soldiers, had been sent from France to fight the Haitian insurgents, who, drunk with a too quickly given liberty, had turned upon their former white owners with murderous intent. Following the action of the French revolutionary assembly bestowing **lib- erty, equality and fraternity," on all the world, the poor blacks, misunderstanding the very meaning of liberty, had begun a West Indian reign of terror. Within a space of nine months, under the leadership of the terrible Dessalines and Christophe, they had burned, ravished and slaughtered the whites with in- genuity and persistence. In mad retaliation, the French had perpetrated like inhumanities, and the island had been soaked with blood. The end of all this miserable business came in 1805, when, having lost sixty thousand men and spent ''two hundred million francs," and gained nothing perma- nent, the French withdrew. Since that time, Haiti has been independent,^ but her independence has been one of demolition and destruction rather than of regenera- tion and construction. Those who have been at the head of affairs, whether as emperors or presidents, have * The Black Man, or Haytian Independence, by M. B. Bird, published by the author, New York, 1869, Mr. Bird was a missionary in Haiti for thirty years and became, toward the close of his career, a regular "institution" in the land. ' The wars developed but one Haitian whose name is worthy of a place on the pages of History, Toussaint L'Ouverture. Of him Sir Spenser St. John says, "The conduct of this black man was so remark- able as almost to confound those who declare the negro an inferior creature incapable of rising to genius." (Hayii, p. 45.) A pure negro, this really upright, honest and trustworthy man proved himself a great leader and an unselfish patriot. It is a melancholy commentary that while the Haitians have forgotten all about Toussaint they cherish the memory of Dessalines. See on this point Pritchard, Where Black Rules White, pp. 279, 280. 154 THE NEW WORLD almost without exception, been self-seekers and cor- ruptionists. By bloodshed they have acquired their positions, and by bloodshed they have been driven out. Between the years 1804 and 1914, Haiti passed through more than a score of major convulsions, to say noth- ing of many minor ones. Now under ''emperors," now under "kings," now under "presidents," — one has to use quotation marks since only in name did the leaders resemble real emperors and kings and presi- dents — the land groaned. To succeed to the head- ship generally meant to displace one's predecessor with violence — though some wily ones decamped before their too powerful rivals arrived. Notably we should record the accomplishment of Simon Sam, president from 1896 to 1901, who having filled the treasury by means of an issue of bonds, proceeded at once to loot it. He made a "getaway" by night — literally — and has been enjoying his winnings in another land.^ Such, in a hurried way, is the history of that land where the black man rules. It should be noted in passing, that things like these have not been allowed to go on in any other quarter of the world, and for a significant reason. Elsewhere some European power would have stepped in. In this instance the Monroe Doctrine has stood in the way, — and a better illus- tration of the advantageous disadvantages of that dogma could not be found. Just because Haiti con- trols one of the principal approaches to the Isthmus of Panama, foreign benefactors have had to be excluded at all costs.^ While the United States on its part has had to keep its hands off or run the risk of making * A careful list of these convulsions will be found in Bonsai, The American Mediterranean, pp. 407-409. ' On this see MacCorkle, The Monroe Doctrine in its Relation to the Republic of Haiti. In pursuance of this policy we have developed in recent years what has been termed the policy of "custom house pro- tectorates." We established one over Santo Domingo in 1907 and over Nicaragua in 1912. On this last see A. R. Thompson's statement in The World's Work for March, 1916, pp. 49 ff. NEAR NEIGHBORS 155 itself hated by those very peoples whose independence it wished to protect. Two outstanding facts in connection with Haiti's past must be dwelt upon. The first, that from begin- ning to end the military have dominated; presidents or emperors have always governed with the sword. Statesmanship and oratory have found no place in political campaigns, and the proverbially mighty pen has been significantly idle. To rule has meant to com- mand the largest body of troops, and tenure of office has meant continued control of those troops. The poor privates have been "enlisted" by violent means, and books on Haiti resound with the sad stories of men tortured or terrified into service. One serious economic result of this state of affairs is reported by Bishop Colmore. Speaking of the miserable poverty which he has found in the country districts, he says : The men have for the past few years feared to show them- selves anywhere on the public highways, or even on their own farms, since they knew that when seen they would be arrested by the authorities and impressed into military service. Also they have found it discouraging to try to raise a crop, for when successful they have had to divide the harvest most unequally with the military commander of the district. These conditions having existed for years, and the country having suffered from constant revolutions, the economic condition of the people has become difficult in the extreme. This should not be, since the soil of Haiti is as fertile as can be, and the country is practically free from the difficulties of the absentee landlord. A large proportion of the men in Haiti own small tracts of land from which they can secure the necessaries of life. As is always the case in splendor-loving lands, titles of much grandiloquence have been conferred helter- skelter. Pritchard relates that the army of 1867 had 6,500 common soldiers, 7,000 regimental officers, and 6,500 Generals of Division ! In fact, a whole chapter is devoted by that writer to the Haitian general, since 156 THE NEW WORLD in his study of the land he came to the conclusion that that class was the problem of the island. The second, and perhaps most important thing to know about the land where the Black Man rules, is Voodooism, and now we are upon dangerous ground. "There is one thing common to the whole country," writes Pritchard, "of which every Haitian denies the existence. Vaudoux ^ is the one thing which they all declare they have not." When we analyze the statements made about this, we find that while Haitians seem to try to evade the charge of being Voodooists, all foreigners who have visited the island are convinced that the cult permeates the whole people. The only thing about which in- vestigators disagree is whether there are human sacri- fices or not. Bonsai says that he is "prepared to sub- stantiate in every particular, upon evidence which appears to me, and to many others to whom I have submitted it, to be absolutely unimpeachable" ^ certain stories about cannibalism and the sacrifice of children to Voodoo going on today. On the other hand, Bishop Colmore says, "I have not been able to find any evi- dence to prove that human sacrifices are offered." ^ Such are the pro and con of the Voodoo dispute. It is not a question of whether the cult exists but of the extent to which its practices go. So far as we are concerned its importance lies in its influence upon the people. In any study of the Haitians we must, if we ^Voodoo and Vaudoux are interchangeable words; the former would appear to be the English corruption of the Creole French "Vaudoux," This Creole word probably comes from "Vaudois." The Vaudois were Waldensians, a sect which broke off from the Church in the twelfth century and because of their schism were accused of sorcery. 2 Bonsai, American Mediterranean, p. 90. ' Those desirous of going into the matter further should read the report of the public trial in St. John, Haiti, pp. 196-207. It is inter- esting to note that Bishop Coxe was convinced of the existence of cannibalism in 1872. See Spirit of Missions, Vol. XXXVIII, p. 322 ff. It _ would not be fair at this point to omit reference to Leger's Haiti, Her History and Detractors. Mr. Leger with some bitterness denounces as untrue the statements in St. John and Pritchard. BISHOP HOLLY NEAR NEIGHBORS 157 are to help them, have a sympathetic understanding of these things, for, though we cannot say just how crude their rites have been, we at least are sure that in form- ing their characters Voodooism has played a real and mischievous part. To come down to the thing itself, Voodooism is a crude form of that very prevalent (among primitive peoples) form of religion which we call for want of a better name snake worship. In all parts of the world and at all times the serpent has been an object of reverence. It has been taken to typify wisdom, wealth, and subtle power. The gods of India have been wor- shiped in the guise of snakes ; among the Greeks this was not uncommon (^sculapius was associated at times with serpents) ; Mexico's worship of Quetzal- coatl reveals a fascinating phase of it; in Egypt the cult was well-known, and many other illustrations, such as Moloch, Baal, Ceredwyn, etc., could be given to show the almost universality of the idea.^ Voodooism then is modern, crude snake worship. The peculiar kind of snake worshiped in Haiti is a little green serpent, said to be perfectly harmless. Bonsai avows that that particular snake no longer exists on the island, and he very strongly suspects that the actual objects of worship are reptiles that have been pickled. The form of worship is typical. The snake alive or dead is kept in a box which serves, one might say, for the altar at the rites. The occasion for gathering together for ceremonies would appear to be sacrificial. Some individual de- sires to have an offering made in the interests of this or that person. Accordingly the papaloi and mama- 1 Some students would see traces of the belief in the serpent's wis- dom in the Garden of Eden story and in the account of Moses holding up the serpent in the wilderness. For a thorough exposition of this matter see the article on serpent worship in the last edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, or W. Williamson, The Great Law, p. 90 ff. 158 THE NEW WORLD loi, corruptions of papa le roi and mama le roi [sic], prepare the sacrificial chamber. At the appointed time, and in the presence of devotees, the papaloi and mama- loi, dressed in true African gaudery, dance through an orgy the details of which had best be omitted. There are different kinds of offerings made. There are two sects, those who delight in the blood and flesh of white cocks and spotless white goats, and those who not only are devoted to these but on great occasions call for the flesh and blood of the "goat without horns," or human victims. As already indicated, the existence of the latter sect at the present time is questioned. Descriptions of these ceremonies can be found in any of the writers to whom we have been referring. In common with all other snake worshipers the Haitians attribute to the serpent wisdom and power, specially as made evident in drugs prepared with mystic incantations. Many are the stories one hears of astonishing cures and transformations made by these drugs. One feels reticent about them, and yet they present a phase of the subject of which the student should not remain in ignorance. From a lot of ma- terial here are one or two stories which are quite typical. A certain person who was living in Port au Prince and had a virulent attack of a serious disease, a dis- ease which is not cured in New York without many months of treatment, asserts that for a sum of money a papaloi cured him, with a curiously medicated leaf, in a week. This is not a random tale, but one that came to the writer first-hand. Another case is related by Pritchard. An engineer living at Petit Goave had all the symptoms of African beri-beri. The regular M.D.'s having given him up, he sent for the nearest papaloi, who for fifty dollars prepared, with many incantations of course, a thick brown bath of leaves. Into this the sick man was NEAR NEIGHBORS 159 plunged and three days later was able to return to work.^ Nor would their knowledge of drugs seem to be limited to specifics for diseases. Perhaps their best known achievement is their ability to give a drug which produces a sleep indistinguishable from death. Bonsai tells, for example, of the case ^ of a man who died and was buried. The attending physician, a man of "un- doubted probity," declared that there was nothing un- usual in the case. Two days later his widow, on going to the cemetery, found the grave open and the body gone. Twenty-four hours after that discovery, a mail rider from Jacmel entered Port au Prince with the deceased entirely alive, but clothed, not only in grave clothes, but in his zvrong mind, — clean daft. The mail rider reported that he had saved the live-deceased from a band of Voodooists in the mountains.^ Bishop Colmore, writing about this says: Many believe that those versed in the cult can control others through cunjers and hoodoos, even to the extent of suspend- ing animation. When one dies they often think that the person is only in a trance, and that after being buried, the voodooist can exhume the iDody and restore life. The person in that case would be entirely in the control of the voodooist and would be spirited away to some remote part of the country^ and have to spend the rest of his hfe as a slave. There is nothing that the Haitian abhors more than the idea of slavery, so many, I am told, even among the better class, will go to the dead person secretly and force a large dose of poison down his throat, to make sure that he is really dead, and free from the servitude of any supposed con- jurer. From such a veritable chaos, political and spiritual, the people of the Black Republic are endeavoring to »Cf. St. Tohn, Hayti, p. 216 ff. " Bonsai, The American Mediterranean, p. 45 £F. ' For further statements on this secret drug power of the Voodoo leaders see Pritchard, op. cit., pp. 93-101; St. John, op. cit., p^ 217 ff.; Verrill, Pcrto Rico Past and Present and San Domingo of To-day, p. 353 ff.; Ober, A Guide to the West Indies, pp. 267, 268; Underbill, The West Indies, Their Social and Religious Condition, pp. 159-163. 160 THE NEW WORLD rise, and who, reading of their superstition and ignor- ance, can fail to hear the appeal for help? Is there any spot in all the world where the Church is more needed? And, to bring the appeal home, these things have been going on in a place no further distant from New York than is Minneapolis. Before turning to the survey of the story of the Church in Haiti, a few paragraphs should be added about its present political condition. At the time of writing, its president is General Sudre Dartiguenave. Under him is a Chamber of Communes of ninety-nine members (one for each Commune), chosen for three years by a (theoretical) direct popular vote; and a Senate of thirty-nine members, chosen for six years by the members of the Chamber of Communes from a list made up partly by the president and partly by the electors. The president's legal term of office is seven years. The area of the republic is approximately 10,200 square miles, and its population in the neighborhood of two and a half millions. It is said that the vast majority of these are pure negroes, though there are many mulattos, descended from former French set- tlers. Altogether there are about five thousand foreign- ers on the island, five hundred of whom are white, though it should be noted that technically the white man cannot own property in the republic. Port au Prince, the capital, has about a hundred thousand in- habitants ; Cap Haitien, thirty thousand; Les Cayes, twelve thousand. The official religion of the island is Roman Catholi- cism, but, as Bishop Colmore has pointed out, despite the fact that the children are all brought to be baptized without fail, a large majority of those who bring them to baptism are out and out believers in Voodoo. The Roman priests admit that this fact is only too true. To combat the ignorance of the people the government NEAR NEIGHBORS 161 has done but little. Though it appropriates a million dollars a year for public instruction, education is a minus quantity in the rural districts. As has been pointed out a thousand times, what always brings turbulent countries like Haiti to the end of their tether is debt. Naturally, finances go from bad to worse where revolution and graft dominate ; they became so involved in the Black Republic in recent years that a crisis was precipitated which compelled our government to abandon its policy of non-inter- ference. The revenue, derived almost entirely from customs, was in the year 1913-14, $4,788,000; but against this income was a forbidding fixed charge of $2,882,468 on the national debt ; and most of this debt had been made in Europe. What with the entire ab- sence of efficiency in the administration of the treas- ury, and with the frequent demands for improvemet coming from justly enraged creditors in Europe, the situation had become impossible, internationally speak- ing, — a sad commentary, by the way, on the world's system of values, that dollars and cents had to de- cide when the situation had become serious ! At length in the summer of 1915 the last straw was laid upon the camel's back. Guillaume Sam, said to be the illegitimate son of Simon of that ilk, had been ''president" since March, but his armed backers had been gradually diminishing in number. Suddenly on the 27th of July his enemies, after a very bloody fight, got the upper hand and according to Mr. Mar- vin, in an apparently authentic account,^ murdered Guillaume Sam after violating his sanctuary in the French legation. Though we held no brief for Sam we could not let this last disregard of all international rights go by, and accordingly Admiral Caperton landed 500 marines and put Port au Prince under martial law. * See "Assassination and Intervention in Hayti,'* by George Marvin in The World's Work. Feb., 1916, p. 404 ff. 162 THE NEW WORLD There followed a series of conferences which ended most auspiciously in the drawing up of a convention in accordance with which "the President of Haiti should appoint upon nomination by the President of the United States, a general receiver and such aids and employees as may be necessary," to administer the finances and assure the tranquillity of the country.^ The extent to which our help is to be given is con- siderable. Just now we have about 1,800 marines dis- tributed around the country teaching the people the elements of peace and industry. This state of affairs IS to be continued for ten years, and we may hope that in that period — the first peaceful one that the poor people will have ever experienced — a real begin- ning may be made in the knowledge of self-govern- ment. THE CHURCH IN HAITI James Theodore Holly was born of free black par- ents in the city of Washington, in the year 1829. His father and mother were Roman Catholics. Owing to their nomadic disposition, his early years were spent now in New York, now in Brooklyn, now in Cleve- land; most of his education seems to have been re- ceived in the public schools of the first two cities. At the age of twenty-one he renounced his Roman al- legiance and shortly afterward applied for Orders in the Church. In June, 1855, Holly was ordained deacon by Bishop *It is cheerful to note that the Haitians realize that we are really acting for their good. A committee of its senate, appointed to inves- tigate the effect of the new treaty upon Haitian independence, reported: "La Commission^ admit que _ les bons offices du gouvernement des Etats-Unis offerts a la Republique d'Haiti pour I'aider a * developper efficacement ses ressources agricoles, minieres et commerciales et etablir sur une base solide ses finances * ne constituent aucune atteinte a I'exer- cice de la Souverainete Rationale. Au contraire, un tel concours offert spontanement par un si puissant voisin, c'est la consecration meme de notre independence politique," Le Moniteur, Port-au-Prince. Mercredi, 10 Novembre, 1915 (the official iournal of the Haitian Republic, appear- ing Wednesdays and Saturdays). s < ill t? \\\ L I r -o W; ^?— ^/ y n \N si::!::^ o ^ c c 9t r 5 tJ ^ •) ;? (O a: ^ o « e J2 fSl S c < «9 s- rt3 ^ «0 4. a> 0} NEAR NEIGHBORS 163 McCoskry, of Michigan, in which diocese he was liv- ing at that time, and shortly thereafter came to New York to obtain the permission of the Foreign Com- mittee of the Board of Missions to go on a visit of in- spection to Haiti. His request was granted and a trip of two months' duration followed. On his return, he reported that the island was painfully in need of mis- sionaries and offered himself as a volunteer. There being no funds, however, with which to open a new field Holly had to accept a gracious declination. Shortly thereafter he was called to St. Luke's Church, New Haven, Connecticut, where he remained until 1861. In that year, after having been ordained priest by Bishop Williams, of Connecticut, he went out as a member of an emigration colony to Haiti. There were 111 altogether who made this adventure, chiefly from Connecticut. Undoubtedly their exodus was in- spired by those other and much larger expeditions which had been made to Liberia not so very long before. In fact, emigration en masse as a solution to the negro problem was very much in the air at that time. After sixteen months with the colonists. Holly re- turned to America to plead Haiti's cause at the Gen- eral Convention. Though the Convention heard him gladly, the Foreign Committee was unable to do any- thing and he turned at last to the American Church Missionary Society.^ The first official record of the connection of Holly with that society will be found in the Fourth Annual Report, dated October 15, 1863. There we read: During the last autumn the attention of the committee was called to what appeared a singularly providential open- ing for missionary efforts in the Island of Haiti. The Rev. J. Theodore Holly, a clergyman of our Church, went out in 1861 with a colony of over one hundred emigrants from » Spirit of Missions, Vol. XL. p. 599 ff. 164 THE NEW WORLD the United States, and settled with them in that island. The colony was located in the neighborhood of the city of Port au Prince. Mr. Holly immediately established the services of our Church among them, which have been continued to the present time. These services have awakened so much interest, not only among the colonists, but also in Port au Prince, that our committee have been requested to cooperate in establishing our Church on a firm basis in that island. The committee did not feel at liberty to dismiss such an applica- tion without making all due inquiries as to the need and prospects of such a mission. Upon application to the Presid- ing Bishop, he at once appointed the Bishop of Delaware to make an episcopal visit to Haiti, and ascertain the condition of these people, and perform such official acts as might be needed. Hitherto, circumstances have delayed the Bishop's visit. It is now expected that he will sail during the month of October. The committee are assured that the Bishop will receive a most cordial reception, not only from the missionary and the colonists, but from the President and other officers of government.^ A hall has been tastefully fitted up in the city, where services have been regularly held since last spring, and where a respectable congregation and Sunday school have been collected. So far as can now be judged, the opening for a most successful mission seems to be great. The Bishop of Delaware made the promised visit to the field in October, 1863. Of it he reported to the Society enthusiastically: We held divine service on Sundays, the first, eighth, fifteenth, and twenty-second of November, partly in Enghsh and partly in the French language, the latter services being conducted by the Rev. C. H. Williamson [wrote the Bishop]. The place in which our ministrations were held was a hall, ordinarily used for concerts and similar entertainments, the gratuitous use of which had been kindly tendered to Mr. Holly by Mr. John Hepburn. Many of the foreign residents make the room so occupied an objection to attending Mr. Holly's services. It is, however, the only place that can be obtained, and is cool and commodious. Mr. Holly had made such arrangements as were practicable for the decent and impressive celebration of divine worship. Our congregations were full and attentive, comprising the American Minister and Consul, some of the foreign residents, including a large and interesting English family, a number of American colo- NEAR NEIGHBORS 165 nists, and many native Haitians. When the services were in French, the latter formed a large majority of those present, and the males considerably outnumbered the females. This is quite the reverse of what is seen in the Roman Catholic Church, which the more intelligent of the men have almost deserted, except on great public occasions. On Sunday, the first of November, I administered the Lord's Supper to about thirty communicants. On the eighth, I ad- ministered the rite of Confirmation, laying hands upon sixteen persons. On the twenty-second, I held a second confirmation, when ten were confirmed. The candidates were mostly of mature years and heads of families. They were all colored (mulatto) or black, except five young persons of the English family above mentioned. Their deportment was serious and becoming, and I was encouraged to believe that their pro- fession of faith was intelligent and sincere. . . . Such was the official beginning of the mission. And a serious, solid beginning it was. There was no emotionalism or superficiality about it. One dare assert that in no corner of the world has an infant Church laid better foundations. A trenchant evidence of Holly's own self-sacrifice and sterling worth is the fact that in those early years he labored to keep things afloat, like the first apostle to the Gentiles, with his own hands. He had, by the way, been a cobbler in his youth, and this bore him in good stead in those hungry days during our Civil War. Nor were Holly's labors in vain, since only three years after arriving he reported that twenty-five fami- lies were welcoming his ministrations ; that he had a Sunday school with thirty scholars and six teachers; and that in communion alms for the year he had re- ceived six hundred and forty-nine gourdes and twenty- two centimes. Further, in Port au Prince seven thou- sand seven hundred gourdes had been subscribed toward buying a lot for a church. It might be inter- esting to add that the American Church Missionary Society appropriated at that time between five and six thousand dollars a year to the work. 166 THE NEW WORLD Just why we are not informed, but probably be- cause it preferred to limit its activities to the domestic field, that Society transferred the responsibility for this undertaking to the Board of Missions in 1866. The resolutions under which this was done read: Resolved: That the Executive Committee [of the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society] be advised that it is the desire of this Society that the Haitian Mission be tendered to the Foreign Committee for its adoption and care. Resolved: That the Treasurer of this Society be directed, on the acceptance of this Mission by the Foreign Committee, to pay to its Treasurer all funds now in hand or which shall hereafter be contributed for that special object.^ In response to this, the Foreign Committee voted at once to accept the work and asked Bishop Burgess of Maine to make an episcopal visitation to the island in its behalf. Of the events connected with this visit of Bishop Burgess, made in the latter part of 1866, none were quite so important and welcome as the inauguration by him of a native ministry. At Port au Prince he ordained two men to the ministry and accepted ap- plications for Holy Orders from six more. These acts were of wide importance since they show how it came to pass that the Haitian field, from the very beginning, has been ministered to by its own people. They show also the extent and depth of Holly's states- manship. Realizing that Haiti must in the last resort be led by Haitians, — not only realizing this, but con- centrating his efforts upon it, he succeeded within a few years in bringing the desired end to pass. But to return to the Bishop of Maine. His ministra- tions to the people of the Black Republic were his last. On the way home he died at sea, and many remember him as a martyr to that cause. A church, Holy Trinity, subsequently built to his memory in Port au ^spirit of Missions, Vol. XXXI, p. 25. NEAR NEIGHBORS 167 Prince stood for some years as a memorial to his memory. Unfortunately, it was destroyed by fire in the seventies. The next important phase in the growth of this mission began six years after Bishop Burgess's death. As one might expect, it was introduced by the demand for a native bishop. In the October, 1872, issue of the Spirit of Mis- sions, there is a letter from Mr. Holly, in which he says: Without any effort on our part to proselyte any one calling himself a member in communion with any branch of the Christian Church, without any offer of employment with Mis- sionary stipend, we have seen a Congregational pastor, a Wesleyan pastor, a Baptist pastor, and a Roman Catholic priest, all come and spontaneously conform to our Church, and ask our Ministerial Commission to labor to build up a branch of our Church in Haiti. Now of these persons, one, the priest, obtained license to minister, but only by making a voyage to this country to make his declaration of conformity before a Bishop here. One of the others, after waiting several years in vain, became dis- couraged and left Haiti for British Guiana. Another died recently after five years' fruitless waiting. The remaining one still awaits the arrival of a Bishop.^ It was to study this appeal that Bishop Coxe visited the island in 1872. From Haiti he wrote many en- thusiastic letters with the result that on all sides interest was aroused. With seven priests and four deacons, all native, Holly's work of ten years, the bishop reported, had certainly been worth while. Not only in the towns had the energetic leader achieved comparatively large results, but throughout the country districts he had laid firm foundations. Bishop Colmore tells us today that one of the most hopeful things about the mission is the real strength of the Church in the » Spirit of Missions, Vol. XXXVII, pp. 639, 640. 168 THE NEW WORLD country districts. Not only are the people baptized and confirmed, but they are well instructed and follow through the services heartily. Between the years 1870 and 1875, as a result of Bishop Coxe's own interest, the mission was, so to speak, at the height of its popularity in the States. But the problem of the episcopate had reached a point where something had to be done. The journey to Port au Prince from the United States was an arduous one, and unless the Foreign Committee of the Board were willing to let matters drag along at all costs, a change had to be made. Should a bishop be sent them, or should a Haitian be consecrated? Acting on the advise of Bishop Coxe, the Foreign Committee sent for Mr. Holly, and held many conferences with him. The result was that at the Board Meeting of October, 1874, a Special Committee was appointed to deal with the question, consisting of Bishops Cpxe and Little- john, and the Rev. Drs. Haight and H. C. Potter, and Mr. Benjamin Stark. The questions involved were summed up by the committee's report as follows: (1) Shall the Mission be organized as a Mission of this Church, or erected into an independent Haitien Church, aided by our nursing care and watchful oversight? (2) In any case shall we place the work under a Bishop of the white race, sent out as an organizer and ruler, rather than as a Bishop identified with his diocese and people; or shall we give to Haiti as their first Bishop, some one already known to them, and by race and citizenship a partner in all their interests, perils, and aspirations? These two questions have been thoughtfully considered, and with the following results: (1) We believe that the Haitien Mission must be made a National Haitien Church, as speedily as possible. As a mere Mission, it will always be a foreign interest among Haitiens, and like the Wesleyan Mission, which has been operating in the island for fifty years, it will languish and fail to command the sympathy and affection of natives. It will be regarded as the church of certain American residents, but NEAR NEIGHBORS 169 will never spread among the people. The fact that its clergy are all Haitiens, and that for several years they have pre- sented themselves to popular attention as the seed of a National Church, has already operated favorably on the minds of many intelligent Haitiens and has been felt in their National Councils. If we should decide on giving our Mis- sion the form which is thus proposed, a slight constitutional alteration will be necessary in our own organization; but this change is called for by other considerations than those of the Haitien Mission, as will be shown by members of your committee, should the question of such change in the con- stitution be taken up at the present meeting of the board. (2) Your committee were at first disposed to believe that a Bishop of the white race and a citizen of the United States going out, like our other foreign Missionary Bishops, to preside over the work, would be able to secure many ad- vantages which a co-citizen of the Haitiens would not be likely at once to command. To be brief, however, they found many considerations of great weight on the other side; and recent changes in Kaitien affairs have led them to regard such considerations as preponderating and decisive. By an article of the amended Constitution of Haiti the superior ecclesiastics of any form of religion, established in the Isle, must be Haitien citizens or forfeit all claims to recognition as ecclesiastics, or church authorities, in the courts and councils of the nation. ^ This principle has been adopted on grounds which appear to us very important to the welfare of the Haitien people, and it is not less important that we should recognize it and conform our operations to it. On this ground, then, as well as others, we are convinced that it is desirable that if the Mission is to be supplied with a Bishop by the nursing care of our Church, it is essential that the person selected should be of the colored race, and one willing to identify himself with the Haitien people, as a fellow-citizen, if not already a native or naturalized citizen of that republic. Let such a Bishop be sent out as a Mis- sionary Bishop of our Church; and then, let him as speedily as possible, give to the Mission such a national organization as we have proposed, under sufficient guarantees to entitle them to our continued co-operation and support. The Con- cordat between Bishop Seabury and the Scottish Church affords us a precedent, in our own history, for such an arrangement with the Haitien Diocese as shall identify their doctrine and worship with our own, in all essential particulars, *This ruling was changed later on, so that Bishop Colmore is fully recognized "in the courts and councils of the nation." 170 THE NEW WORLD so long as they shall remain, in any degree, dependent on aid from us. Your committee have therefore agreed to present the fol- lowing resolutions : Resolved: That it is necessary to the further prosecution of our missionary work in Haiti, that a Missionary Bishop should be consecrated for that island.^ Resolved: That in the opinion of this board it is desirable, if not all-important, that such Missionary Bishop should be of the African race, and invested with Haitien citizenship. Resolved: That the House of Bishops are hereby respect- fully requested to elect and consecrate a Bishop for the Island of Haiti.^ These preliminaries had to such an extent been antic- ipated in Haiti, that no sooner were they done with than Mr. Holly presented evidence of his having been elected bishop, by the Haitian clergy, before leaving the island. These testimonials having been found satis- factory to the House of Bishops then sitting, it proceeded ^'according to Article 10 of the Constitution, to choose, designate, and consecrate," to the office the man thus recommended to them. Further, it should be noted, that in anticipation of further needs, the American bishops named a com- mittee of bishops "with which will be associated the Bishop consecrated for Haiti, to form a Board of Ad- ministration for the provisional exercise of Episcopal discipline in Haiti, and to take measures for the con- secration of other Haitian bishops, according to need, and on demand of the Church in Haiti. When three bishops at least shall have been canonically settled in Haiti, the aforesaid Board will cease its functions." ^ Holly's consecration soon followed these prelimi- naries, in Grace Church, New York, on the 8th of November, and the new bishop returned to his work. Commenting on this, an eyewitness said : ^spirit of Missions, Vol. XXXIX, Report of the Board of Missions, p. 32. A HAITIAN SOLDIER NEAR NEIGHBORS 171 Many will remember the crowded edifice, the numerous people of the new Bishop's own race and color who gathered there to see this highesf office of the Church conferred upon one of themselves, and there were those who remarked upon the sweet-toned earnest voice that answered to the solemn questions then put to one of a hitherto despised race. What England had done for Africa ten years before in sending Crowther, the former slave boy, to minister as a Bishop in his native land, the Episcopal Church of the United States had now done for Haiti. ^ Thus began the independent Haitian Church. That it did not continue to grow as rapidly after 1874 as it did before must be ascribed, not to the inefficiency of its bishop, but to a multitude of reasons. Prob- ably beneath them all, though, is the one we least like to give, and that will be suspected by those who have read the first part of this chapter, namely, that the Haitians as yet have not developed the abilities which enable men to flourish in independence, whether ecclesiastical or political. Bishop Holly died March 13, 1911, and the problem of the work in the Black Republic had to be taken up again. The Haitian Church being in a chaotic con- dition and not knowing which way to turn, asked that an American bishop be sent to investigate matters. In response a deputation with Bishop Knight at its head went down. It was during this visit, on January 22, 1912, that the National Convocation of their Church voted to relinquish its autonom.y and sent a petition to the Church in the United States asking to be re- ceived once again as a missionary district. It also ex- pressed its willingness to abide by whatever arrange- ment might be made by the House of Bishops. Pending the meeting of the General Convention the Presiding Bishop, in accordance with the desire of the Haitian Convocation, appointed the Bishop of Cuba as his commissary to care for the field. Dr. Knight ^spirit of Missicms, Vol. XL, p. 608. 172 THE NEW WORLD very shortly made a visitation and reported that the condition in the country districts was very satisfactory. At the General Convention which met in New York in 1913, following a recommendation from the Com- mittee on Foreign Missions, the House of Bishops voted to grant the petition of the Orthodox Apostolic Church of Haiti, and receive it again as a foreign missionary district.^ This having been done, the second problem, that of episcopal supervision, was taken up and finally, after two postponements, it was voted that the bishop of the missionary district of Porto Rico, "should also be in charge of the mission- ary district of Haiti, with the care of such Christian people in Santo Domingo as may have asked or may hereafter ask for pastoral oversight." Thus Haiti once again was brought within the fold, in this instance under the supervision of the newly elected Bishop of Porto Rico, Dr. Colmore. The new bishop is enthusiastic about the Church's opportunity in the Black Republic. He feels that in the clergy now in charge, he has an unusually apt band of assistants. Writing recently he said: Our clergy are doing a good work in the cities, but it is in the country places that we are most needed and where more lasting good can be accomplished. The work is among people who are ignorant, simple, and wholly lovable. They are teachable and from them we must expect better things in the future. In one district we have no less than eighteen different mission stations where the work is carried on by three priests and a deacon. During the absence of the clergy, the lay readers conduct the services and very well trained the people are, for I have been present when the people sang, unaccompanied by any musical instrument and without prayer book, all the parts of the Eucharist that are ordinarily sung in our own churches. There are not sufficient prayer books for all the people, nor could many of them read if they had them. Our chief effort with these people after the evangelical work must be in an educational way. There are several of * Journal of the General Convention of 1913, pp. I^i, 77. NEAR NEIGHBORS 173 our clergy who have been educated in the States. Two young men are at St. Paul's School, Lawrenceville, Va., and at least three more are anxious and ready to go as soon as the necessary funds can be secured for their support. The total expense for a boy in the training school is about $130 to $150 a year. The idea is that each young man should learn some trade at the school and when he returns to his native land as a clergyman of the Church, he will be able to establish a school where this trade may be taught as a specialty. With five or six of these parochial schools scat- tered throughout the country districts, much lasting good can be done for the country people. Meanwhile the work in the cities will not be neglected. We have the beginnings of school work and a very creditable clinic in Port au Prince. This clinic conducts medical work among the poor. As to the people whom the bishop visits, as he goes about on horseback from place to place following the mountain trails, — which trails, by the way, he tells us are nothing but the river-beds, — they are healthy, ro- bust, long-lived and as happy as the proverbial African of the cornfield. They all dress in blue denim. They are exemplars of courtesy; sometimes, the bishop says, he will have to accept wayside hospitality, in- cluding a cup of coffee, as many as eight and ten times in a day. They own their small farms, but sad to say, find that it is not very profitable to expend much labor upon them, lest the military come and seize everything. They raise chiefly coffee, cocoa, sweet potatoes, yams, and some sugar cane ; their diet of rice and beans is almost as invariable as is the Chinaman's diet of rice and fish. Referring to the clergy, the bishop tells the follow- ing story : Promis was formerly one of the Voodoo priests or "papa- loi." On one occasion he had prepared a feast for his fol- lowers, and a sacrifice was to be offered to the spirit. A fat beef had been secured for the feast-sacrifice, but before the date for the celebration the animal died. The feast had 174 THE NEW WORLD to be postponed and the next time Promis provided a goat, but this time, before the date arrived, the goat was stolen. Very much disgusted, Promis began to think that if his spirit could not better protect the animals he provided for sacrifice, he would not continue his fealty. He at once began to make investigations of the matter and applied to some of our clergy and lay readers. They told him of the worship of the true Spirit within the Church of the Living God, and persuaded him to give up his Voodoo and allow them to destroy the household gods. Promis became an in- quirer and was finally confirmed in the Church, There is now a mission near his house, for which he gave the land. His son is a devoted lay reader and serves the Church faithfully. Promis is "promise"; suddenly there is a promise of a more glorious life for him when he shall stand before his God and Judge; promise, too, of greater freedom and love for himself and his family in this life. The Love of Christ has changed his life and it is a privilege to meet him with his cheerful and gentle manner. He certainly is one of God*s gentlemen. In concluding a letter, written shortly after the last treaty had been made with the United States, Bishop Colmore said: The United States has undertaken the material responsibility of arranging the political and economic conditions in the Republic. God grant that this work may be done in a dis- interested and magnanimous manner, but how far will we, as a nation, fall short of our whole duty to Haiti, if at this time we do not assist her people in a moral and spiritual way? This is a great opportunity which is before us. The young men of Haiti, trained and educated in the Church in the United States, will bring large returns for the Kingdom of God. Haiti needs us now; let us not fail to give our- selves and our interest to help her work out her own salva- tion as a nation and as a people of God. NEAR NEIGHBORS 175 APPENDIX TO CHAPTER V. There is no map on which all the stations are marked. The following is a reproduction of the list given in the Journal of the Haitian Convocation. The towns are starred. The rest of the work is in the country districts. Town or Village District Church {Endroit) {Commune) •Arcahaie Arcahaie St. Tames* Pois-la-Ravine Arcahaie St. Peter's Azile Leogane St. Luke's Bigone Leogane The Good News Buteau Leogane The Good Shepherd Deslandes Leogane The Annunciation Dufaure Leogane St. Stephen's Gros-Morne Leogane The Resurrection *Leogane Leogane The Redemption Mitton Leogane St. Andrew's Petit-Boucan Leogane St. Tames the Great Petit-Harpon Leogane St. John the Evangelist •Cavaillon Cavaillon St. Mark's •Cayes Cayes St. Saviour's Macombe Cayes St. James' Coustard Thomazeau The Transfiguration Halte Cadet Thomazeau The Redemption O'Gorman Thomazeau St. Matthew's Fond Cheval Mirebalais St. Jude's Trianon Mirebalais St. Andrew's Gros-Morne Gonaives The Resurrection Petit-Fond Lascahobas The Good Saviour •Port-au-Prince Port-au-Prince The Holy Trinity •Port-au-Prince Port-au-Prince The Epiphany •Torbeck Aux Cayes St. Paul's Turbc Croix-des-Bouquets . .St. James* Thirteen clergymen are listed in the report of the Con- vocation of 1915. In regard to the pronunciation of Haiti: if Anglicized it should be Hay-tee. In French it is Ah-ee-tee. There is no justification for the half french, half english combination "High-tee." CHAPTER VI TWO HUGE REPUBLICS MEXICO No nation in the new world has quite so interesting a history as Mexico; that of the United States is prosaic beside it. To compress what has to be said about it within a few pages is to take almost all the juice out of the luscious fruit. One would like to tell of the days of the Aztec's glory, — when Nezahual- coyotle was propounding and patronizing a religion of startling purity and profundity — Nezahualcoyotle who built great palaces, collected literature, aided poets and artists, and wrote deeply philosophical prayers to *'the unknown God." One would like to record some of the findings of the archeologists who bring home to us the extraordinary extent of that ancient civilization by showing that in some respects the Aztec language sur- passed the European in finish and elegance of expres- sion, and that those who used it were so advanced intellectually that their vocabulary contained words for 1,200 different species of plants. What other primi- tive people were experts in botany to that extent ? It is a well-known fact that in most lands to which mis- sionaries go they have much difficulty in telling their Good News because of the poverty of the language of the natives. In ancient Mexico on the other hand, we are told that the missionaries were able to say in the Aztec tongue everything they wished "about the thunderings or anathemas from Sinai or the sublime teachings of Christ." ^ * Terry, Mexico, p. 17. 176 TWO HUGE REPUBLICS 177 Again one would like to tell of the days when the bloody sacrifices of the war God Huitzilopochtli made terrible the fame of his altars; or of the reign of Montezuma, and of the splendors of his court. The story of that epoch, made famous by Prescott and Fiske and Bandelier, is one with which all students of Mexico should be familiar, and these allusions are made principally in the hope of stimulating the reader to some independent reading. Then, too, one would like to tell of the epoch of the Conquest. Everybody should know about Her- nando Cortez and his diplomatic-martial achieve- ments; about his siege of the city of Mexico when, against Montezuma's great and well-entrenched array, he advanced with but a handful of soldiers ; about the Noche Triste, that mournful night when, in answer to the summons from the tomtom on the great Teocalli (sacrificial pyramid) the hosts of the Aztecs swarmed like wasps about the retreating Spaniards and all but overpowered them. Truly those were resonant days, and he who would understand the splendor that once was Mexico's, and the valor and resource that made the name of Spain feared throughout the New World, should read about them. For our part, we must confine ourselves to a few of the more significant personages and happenings in the history of the land, and in the first place we shall re- peat the oft- told tale about the God Quetzalcoatl and the prophecies respecting him. In the pantheon of Mexico, Quetzalcoatl stands out clear and distinct. In fact it is hard to find any heathen superstition quite so fascinating to the Chris- tian as that connected with this Toltec god and his promised return. The story is as follows: The Toltecs, a people who came "out of the north," — God alone knows whence — the Toltecs, predecessors of the Aztecs, had settled in what is now Mexico and 178 THE NEW WORLD laid the foundations of a wonderful civilization. Aye, more than foundations did they lay. They themselves achieved a degree of culture wherefrom sprang such products as cunningly wrought ornaments of gold and silver, and well woven cotton fabrics, and perennial buildings of finely carved stone, and picture writing, marvelously like that of the Egyptians. It was in the days of these large achievements that the traditions about the mystic God Quetzalcoatl emerged ; the "god of the air," "the shining serpent," — not, according to Mr. Bandelier, "feathered serpent." He was envisaged as a white man, with noble features, long beard, and flowing garments. He had taught a religion in which virtue and austerity were dominant and the sacrifice of human beings and ani- mals forbidden — and the Toltecs had their very re- ligious being in sacrifice of living things. This weird and wonderful creature, the legend ran, had disappeared after only twenty years sojourn in Toltecland; had disappeared in the direction of the rising sun, and, most unaccountable of all, had promised to return bringing plenty and peace. Like the faithful among the Jews, some "waited for the expectation" of Quetzalcoatl, of Quetzalcoatl who would redeem the land from the bloody holo- causts to which it had been doomed by the bloody Huitzilopochtli. So strong was this belief that it vitally affected the issue when the Spaniards arrived from the direction of the rising sun. At first they were hailed as ambassadors of the Fair God, and the rever- ence accorded them was such that they were able to advance into the country almost unopposed. In fact the subsequent fall of the Emperor Montezuma and the Aztec Empire were in no small measure due to the prevalence of this superstition.^ * Helps, The Spanish Conquest of America, I, p. 203 and II, p. 188. Also Fiske, Discovery of America, II, pp. 237, 238. TWO HUGE REPUBLICS 179 Such is the story of Quetzalcoatl, the Mexican mes- siah. Can we not say that God had marvelously pre- pared the way for the coming of His Church in that part of the New World ? And must we not see in the nigh civilization which surrounded the men of the Toltec days a portent of a still higher civilization yet to be won for our neighbor to the south? From Quetzalcoatl to Juarez is a long jump, but one that it is worth while making. The former typi- fies the high-water mark of ancient Mexico's religious aspirations; the latter, the highest point her political life has yet reached. As the Quetzalcoatl legend shows that the true Mexicans are capable of dreaming great dreams, so the story of Juarez reveals the capacity of the aborigines to do great things. A race which could develop and cherish such a myth as that of Quetzalcoatl and produce such a leader as Juarez must be made of noble stuff. The Spaniards had conquered Mexico, and three hundred years of oppression and maladministration had been endured. Under their yoke Latin America had groaned, until, following the French and North Ameri- can revolutions, one by one their colonies had re- belled. The three centers from which the rebellions had come were what are now the states of Vene- zuela, Argentine Republic, and Mexico. As in other lands, economic oppression was one of the chief causes of complaint in Mexico. Her in- dustrial possibilities had been suppressed, her trade with China prohibited, her vineyards destroyed lest the vineyards of Spain have troublesome competitors. On top of this, the French Emperor, Napoleon, had conquered Spain and put one of his brothers on its throne, and confusion worse confounded had fol- lowed. Who was to rule Mexico? The old or the new Spanish rulers — the descendants of the Corsican or those of Charles V? 180 THE NEW WORLD This complication had seemed specially advantageous to those who had for some time been plotting-, and the patriot priest, Hidalgo, had started the revolutionary ball rolling in 1810, with his famous slogan "Viva America ! Viva Religion ! Death to bad Govern- ment!" Though Hidalgo was captured and shot in 1811, and though many subsequent reverses came to the revolutionists, the Spaniards were finally worsted, and their last flag hauled down from the castle of San Juan de Ulua at Vera Cruz in 1825. There followed a forty year period of pronuncia- mientos ^ and ''imprisonings, seizings, shootings, exe- cutions, treachery, cruelty, and bloodshed." The pro- fession of arms became the only profitable one for men with ambition, and the land groaned under their yoke. No one seemed able to unite the discordant fac- tions, every man's hand was against his neighbor. What could pacify the land?^ Then came the endeavor of the Emperor Napoleon III to add Mexico to his domain. With this end in view, and taking advantage of that frequent happen- ing in Latin America, failure to pay interest on cer-t tain moneys owed to Europeans, he had made and set up an Austrian Archduke, Maximilian by name, to be Emperor of Mexico. Excellent man that Maximilian was, though, he could not survive the cowardly deser- tion to which Napoleon subjected him, and he soon went the way of so many of Mexico's leaders, — was captured by his enemies and set up before a firing squad. Meantime Benito Juarez had become the power behind the scenes, and it is to his character and * Whenever a new decree or a new revolution eventuates in Mexico, its appearance is marked by a pronunciamiento or efflorescent declara- tion, generally in the form of a bulletin, posted at all conspicuous places. * The wars between Texas and Mexico, and the United States and Mexico, came during this period, with the result that Mexico lost what are now the states of Texas, California, New Mexico and Arizona. TWO HUGE REPUBLICS 181 achievements that one should attend if he would see what Mexican Indians can be like. Juarez was a pure blooded Zapoteca Indian. No Spanish blood coursed through his veins. He had begun life as a shepherd, among the mountains of Oaxaca. A rude adobe hut with thatched roof had been his home, while the only language known to him was the Zapotec dialect. He had learned Spanish and other rudiments of educa- tion from a bookbinder in Oaxaca whose employ he had entered in 1818. From 1821 to 1832 he had studied in a clerical school and had been admitted to the bar shortly after graduation. On emerging into public life his sterling ability had won one position after another for him, until he had finally been elected Governor of the Province. During his incumbency he had prepared and issued Mexico's first code of criminal laws. During these meteoric years he had been known as a holder of liberal opinions, so much so that at times he had suffered considerably for his belief. Not to be deterred though, he continued propagating them with the final result that he was exiled to New Orleans in 1853, at which place he had to support himself as a fruit peddler. By 1855 the cause for which he labored had gained headway enough to make it possible for him to return to his native land, where within a short time he was elected by the liberals to the office of President of the Republic. It will be remembered that it was shortly after this that the Emperor of France sought surreptitiously to add Mexico to his domain. Naturally, to do this President Juarez and all his followers had to be ex- pelled, and expelled they were by the trained and well-organized troops of the Third Empire. Though driven from the capital the doughty Juarez had by no means given up the fight. Establishing himself in various towns near the United States border, he had 182 THE NEW WORLD kept alive the faith of those who wanted no monarchies in the New World. Among his confederates was Por- firio Diaz, later to become the ruler of the land. Though we cannot go into the details of the three years of Maximilian's innocuous rule, we must say this much — that the exiled Juarez, by his wise patriot- ism, used the unlawful exploits of the French to unite the people of Mexico as they had never been united before. In fact the schemings of Napoleon III pre- sented just the kind of an opportunity that was needed, and the character and prestige of Juarez supplied the medium that was necessary to take advantage of that opportunity. Hence after the firing squad had done its work with the poor Maximilian, Juarez returned in power to the capital and the land was united under a president whom all respected. Those whom the Gods love die young, though, and the noble Indian died within a few years — he was the only president who has died a natural death while occupying the office ! So much for Benito Juarez. As has been said of him — ''We search in vain for a more wonderful ex- ample of human greatness and success — a poor, ignor- ant Indian boy, emerging from the wild mountains of Oaxaca to link his name to some of the most radical reforms the American continent has ever wit- nessed," and we shall also search in vain for a better type of patriot or a better sign that Mexico has within her the seeds that make for greatness. When we remember that of the fifteen millions of Mexicans to- day some 5,700,000 are pure Indians, and when we read of the splendid things that came from the Za- poteca stock, we can with confidence, even in the midst of these many present alarms, look upon the future. Following Juarez came Porfirio Diaz, President of the Republic from May 5, 1877 to 1911. Of the epoch of Diaz one can only say that it presents a parable TWO HUGE REPUBLICS 183 which all men should read, and especially the people of these United States. As we can well imagine, the new president found, on assuming the reins of authority, that before him was a protean task. The people whom he was chosen to serve were poor and hungry, and all but worn out by a half century of discord. No railroads, worthy of the name, had been built, and travel by means of diligence or horseback was dangerous by reason of the multitude of brigands who roamed about the coun- try. The nation's resources were in desperate condi- tion. In the midst of possible plenty starvation reigned ! How was the land to be raised from 'the ashes, how were plenty and health to be established? Such were the questions which faced Diaz, and the way in which he answered them provide us with much food for thought. Basing his faith in that old, old theory that a people's life consists *'in the abundance of things that they have," Diaz concentrated from the first on the material side of life. He built railroads and harbors, and estab- lished postal and telegraph systems, and encouraged industries and the opening of mines. He established a rural police who made all districts safe, he beauti- fied and drained the cities, and enlarged the irrigation system, and best of all, in the minds of Europeans, he put the financial condition of the country in such a solid condition that Mexico's credit was unquestioned. By 1905, men were saying, "Diaz the Great," and "Mexico the model Latin American Republic." It is a very hard not to quote scripture, or at least Shakespeare, at this point. As we read of the terrible desolation which now broods over Mexico; of the hungry multitudes, of its blood-soaked soil, of its utterly vanished credit, of its ruined bridges and de- stroyed railroads and vanished crops and shut down mines, — as we read today of a situation altogether 184 THE NEW WORLD similar to that which existed when Diaz began to rule ; and as we realize that this abominable desolation has been brought to pass within four short years, we echo the cry of the psalmists and prophets and political philosophers of all ages — a man's and a nation's life consisteth not in abundance of things.^ But let us turn from this discussion of the past to some facts about the land and the people. To begin with, geographically Mexico is in a very important place. With the opening up of the Pacific she be- comes a meeting-point for the orient and Occident. Moreover, this meeting-point is blessed with superior climatic advantages. Practically half of the Republic has an elevation of 5,000 feet, and a good portion of what remains is 2,000 feet above the sea. In addition to these advantages, Mexico is a land of great potential wealth. Though between 1522 and 1879 her silver mines were worked to the extent of 3,725,000,000 dol- lars, the amount of the precious metal remaining is vast. Then, there are great agricultural possibilities to be developed, so that withal, nature has laid founda- tions for a great and powerful state. As to the people themselves, as has already been indicated, a goodly proportion, thirty-eight per cent., are pure Indians. They are divided up into about fifty aboriginal tribes in various stages of civilization and savagery, and speaking many different languages. So great is the "dispersion of tongues," that often- times one will see, sitting side by side in a market-place, five or six women who are unable to speak to each other because of the differences in their dialects. Of these Indians we hear many picturesque but * It would not be fair to omit mention of the fact that Diaz did many things for the improvement of the lot of the masses. He pro- moted public education, insisted on freedom of worship, suppressed brigandage, and theoretically abolished peonage. Naturally there is much disagreement about his character. Many hold that only with an iron hand couid Mexico be ruled at all, and that Diaz did as well as any man could in the face of the powerful landed interests. TWO HUGE REPUBLICS 185 more pathetic stories. They are poor and dejected, but not necessarily thriftless and improvident. To all appearances they are hopeless material, but we must consider, as Bishop Aves writes, "the true conditions and the dark logic of history that traces these people to their present helpless state ; that since the Spanish Conquest, which drove them from their fertile val- leys, they have passed through slavery, serfdom, and peonage into their present state of semi-feudalism; that they have ever been placed at the brunt of inter- necine wars, playing the pawn in the endless game of political contention; that they have been kept in ignorance as well as penury ; that in their present semi- feudal state they must needs belong more or less to the great landed estates on which they work and to which they are commonly in hopeless debt; that they have nothing with which to be 'provident,' no opportunity to 'thrive,' and no hope to inspire ambi- tion; that their only independence is the meager and precarious foothold on life that the rocky clearing on the mountainside will afford them." Such a picture would not apply to all the Mexican Indians, those living in the lowlands, where vegeta- tion is abundant having at least plenty to eat and escap- ing such suffering as is inflicted by the cold of the highlands. Speaking of the climate in which the Indians of the Tierra Frio live, Bishop Aves writes : The typical mountain home means a stone jacal of one or two rooms, with dirt floor, windowless, carpetless, with neither stove nor bed. The place for resting, eating, and sleeping is the ground; and at an altitude of eight thousand to ten thousand feet it is generally cold. Those who have experienced the discomfort common to all southern lands, because of the fact that they seldom make preparation against winter's cold, can well appreciate how miserable the huts of the Indians must be. 186 THE NEW WORLD The life which these people lead is very simple. At night [to quote Bishop Aves again], when the children have brought home the little flock of goats and the poultry from the day's herding, filled the waterpots from the distant stream, and ground the daily supply of corn, when the father has returned from his day's work on the neighboring hacienda (where he has earned two reals, 12^ cents), the supper of corn calces, which the mother is baking on the heap of stones, is eaten in silence, smoke, and semi-darkness, and bedtime has come. There is no need of light, for there is neither book nor paper in the hut. Outside among the rocks and cacti (which furnishes the only fruit that grows) is a little patch, two or three acres, perhaps, of corn for winter use. Let that little harvest come to grief and_ deprive the family of the father's shilling wage, and it is plain to see what must speedily follow. But the Mexican Indians are both stoical and proud. They are inured to the hard life they live; and it must be severe suffering that will compel them to complain or ask for help. It should be added that in these last dis- astrous years, many a little patch of corn has been destroyed, so that starvation is staring thousands upon thousands of Indians in the face. In addition to the Indians there are the Mestizos, who may be looked upon as the typical Mexicans of to- day. They form somewhere in the neighborhood of forty-three per cent, of the population.^ They are a picturesque people, generally poor and ignorant, and yet possessed withal of excellent traits which must develop as time goes on. They form a strong backbone of the country, though the conditions under which they live, like those of the Indians, are but little removed from serfdom. This brings us to the point at which we must touch upon Mexico's two great problems — education and land ownership. Something like eighty-seven per cent, of the population can neither read nor write, and the shadow of this darkens almost every avenue. The education of the lower classes proceeds but slowly [writes Enock], and at present less than thirteen per cent, of TWO HUGE REPUBLICS 187 the entire population can read and write. It is to be recol- lected, however, that the great bulk of the population consists of peons and Indians, and the conditions of the life of these render the question of education among them often impossible. Knowledge cannot but slowly unfold for the indigenous peoples of Spanish America, weighed down as they are by conditions of race, caste, and inheritage, and imposed social burdens. The second problem is that of land ownership. As has already been said, the Indians and the Mestizos live in a semi-feudal condition. This is due to the fact that though the Aztecs started Mexico in the right direction and possessed an excellent system of in- dividual land tenure, such things were done away with by their unwise successors. Today, as a result of out- rageous concessions to this company and to that, and grants to this individual and to that, the ownership of the land has been absorbed by a comparatively small number of individuals. Such vast landed estates as one finds in Mexico are unknown anywhere else.' In the State of Chihuahua, for example^ there is a single estate of over fifteen million acres belonging to the Terrazas family. In the State of Morelos, a small state in the south of Mexico, twelve proprietors own nine-tenths of the mining property. In the State of Yucatan, the greater portion of the land is owned by thirty men; and the territory of Quintana Roo, twice as large as Massachusetts, has been assigned to the eight companies that were willing to pay high enough for franchises.^ An attempt, regarded by many as insincere, was initiated before the present revolution to solve this problem, but owing to the fact that the large owner regards it almost as a matter of honor not to part with any of his estates, and the further fact that the popu- lation centers around these haciendas, it is not an * Turner, Barbarous Mexico, p. 126 ff. If the reader desires to find a bitter denunciation of Diaz and his system, he should read this book. 188 THE NEW WORLD easy thing to do. The best agricultural and mineral lands have been thus pre-empted, and those which are open to colonists are not very desirable, even though they can be acquired by going through the simple formula of "denouncement,'' which entails certain legal formalities and the annual payment of a small tax. It is on these lands that the bulk of the population live in what Bishop Aves terms, "a semi-feudal con- dition.'* Generally speaking, they are there upon sufferance. They do not have to work, but if they don't, their landlords, discovering that the soil is not being developed, can with good excuse bring pressure to bear; which pressure of course cannot be resisted unless the tenant is prepared to vacate. When a well- to-do man rents a piece of land he has a chance, but a poor man to whom moving is practically impossible has no chance, — he is virtually a serf. The next class of people to be considered is that termed the "obreros," or working class of the cities. Among them life is very much like that which one encounters in Spain, and among them, it may be added, our Church does most of its work in the City of Mexico. They are the shopkeepers, the stenographers, the bookkeepers, and the salesmen and saleswomen. Lastly comes the upper class, which like the upper class in our own country is "upper" only in things material. Some estimate that about seventy-five per cent, of them are agnostic. They are well educated, and like all southern peoples are fond of display and punctiliosity. In appearance they differ little from Europeans. "The Mexico gentleman,'* writes Enock, "is courteous and punctilious and gives much attention to dress and matters of ceremony, after the general manner of the Spanish American, and the frock coat and silk hat form his indispensable exterior whenever possible. His courtesy pervades his business relations TWO HUGE REPUBLICS 189 generally as well as social affairs ; indeed this pleasing quality permeates the whole social regime from the highest official or wealthy citizen, down to the poorest peon or Indian laborer. The distinction between this class and the poor is very sharp and the high silk hat and frock coat form a striking contrast to the half- naked and sandaled peon in the plazas and streets of the cities. Similarly does the caballero or horse- man on caparisoned steed spur the dust on the country roads over which the humble cotton-clad Indian laborer slinks to his toil." THE CHURCH IN MEXICO The story of the Church in Mexico falls into three distinct periods. The first from its inception to the consecration of its first Bishop ; the second from Dr. Riley's consecration to the consecration of Bishop Aves; and the third from Bishop Aves' consecration to the present day. As a result of the political teachings and influence of Benito Juarez, Mexicans in great number had begun thinking along new lines. As had happened before elsewhere, for example in the Church of England in the eighteenth century, the Church in Mexico had for- gotten much about the fundamentals of Christian prac- tice. Its prodigious wealth had all but ruined it. It thought it was rich and knew not that it was hungry and blind and naked. Its activities w^ere largely politi- cal and financial, and like organizations in our own land whose chief concern is money, it was "conserva- tive" a routrance. Perhaps the most unfortunate thing about this wealth was that it was largely invested in land. The revolu- tion fostered by Juarez reached its climax when the Reform Laws of 1859 were passed. One of the most striking of these was that by which the property of 190 THE NEW WORLD the Church was confiscated and nationalized, and com- plete religious freedom proclaimed. It happened that the movement for which Juarez stood was accelerated by the fact that when Maxi- milian and his French allies appeared upon the scene they pronounced in favor of the old system. It was only after the Austrian discovered that the liberal propaganda had gained too much headway to be trifled with that he came out in favor of religious toleration. In the meantime, however, the cause of nationalism and religious freedom had become asso- ciated in the minds of the masses, greatly to the ad- vantage of the latter. We are not surprised to discover, then, that as a result of these events there began among the more thoughtful of the clergy a strong movement for church reform. According to a correspondent in the Spirit of Missions, in July, 1864, "at least 150 Mexican priests . . . are desirous of a thorough reform of the Church. Some of them are already earnestly labor- ing to make their church what they would call the 'Re- formed Church of Mexico.' " Some of these priests gathered together in groups and corresponded with the Rev. Angel Herrerros de Mora, a clergyman of our Church, in New York. They de- clared to Mr. Mora, according to a report of the For- eign Committee of the Board of Missions, "their will- ingness to receive such instruction and all the aid we can give them in arriving at a full knowledge of the truth themselves and of imparting it to others." Surely, the editor adds, "we shall greatly fail in our duty if we leave these men to themselves, or cause them through our neglect to turn for aid to those who, however much good they may do them, will not enable them to make the Reformed Church of Mexico a Church which shall combine evangelical truth with apostolic order." ^ ^Spirit of Missions, Vol. XXIX, pp. 177. 178. TWO HUGE REPUBLICS 191 This statement makes clear the exact reason for the beginning of our work in Mexico. It coincides precisely with a statement made recently by the Bishop of Porto Rico to the effect that as he sees it, our reason for being in Latin lands, ecclesiastically speaking, is either to build up true Catholicity, or to compel the Latin branch of the Church to return of its own initia- tive to true Catholicity, which, as the Bishop put it, "amounts to the same thing in the end." In order to ascertain exactly what had best be done, the Foreign Committee sent the Rev. E. J. Nicholson to Mexico, in 1864, on a tour of observation. "He not only surveyed the ground," we are told, "but has really inaugurated our Church service there ; and being obliged to return here for conference with the Foreign Committee, has left his mission in charge of one of the priests who have joined it, — the Rev. Father Aguilar — whose accomplishments and devotion are well spoken of by those in Mexico who favor a re- formation in the Church. Father Aguilar represents a multitude of devout priests and good people in the States of Mexico." Such, in a very brief way, was the beginning of "La Sociedad Catolica Apostolica Mexicana," later named, "La Iglesia de Jesus" by Mr. Aguas. The story of the years that follow is not always joyful, but it is full of significance and contains a mighty moral. The way in which the flamboyant beginnings almost died out reminds us that big beginnings are not always a proof of power. As a matter of fact, the moralizer is tempted to add, it would be hard to find anywhere in the history of the Church an instance wherein a whirlwind beginning, such as was seen in Mexico, was followed by immediate prosperity. The Rev. H. Chauncey Riley, a man of large in- dependent fortune, who had been educated in Spain, was rector of a Spanish American congregation in the 192 THE NEW WORLD city of New York. He had for some time been tire- less in his efforts to promote the interests of a group of some three thousand ''evangehcal Christians" in the south of Spain, and when news reached him of the events in Mexico, his sympathy was at once aroused. In 1869, under the auspices of the "Ameri- can and Foreign Christian Union," — a New York So- ciety composed of members of various religious bodies —he went to the City of Mexico and offered his ser- vices to the reformers. Mr. Aguilar, their first leader having died, Riley was accepted gladly as his suc- cessor. On his arrival, Mr. Riley had been able to secure from the government the church of San Jose de Gracia, one of the conventual churches which had been sequestrated by the Reform Laws of '59. One can well imagine that great excitement reigned when it was announced that San Jose was to be opened by the reformers, and that the Roman clergy had many conferences as to how they could best prevent what would be to them a sacrilege. Wisdom prevailed in these conferences, we are glad to learn, and it was de- cided not to resort to violence. Instead they determined to trust to the eloquence and persuasive power of a learned theologian, the rector of one of their large churches, the Rev. Manuel Aguas — a Dominican Friar. In order to do the thing thoroughly, and to prepare a diatribe against the reformers which would be ir- resistible, Mr. Aguas began a serious study of the ecclesiastical position of Mr. Riley and his Anglican Church. But alas! for those who had pinned their faith on the Dominican rector. The more he read, the more thinking did he do, until, to the consternation and amazement of all the city, he announced that he had discovered that the reformers were not heretics at all, and that he himself, in recognition of this would preach the sermon on the occasion of the opening of TWO HUGE REPUBLICS 193 the church. One need not add that excitement ran high and that the opening- service was an occasion of much importance. Contrary to the expectations of many, it passed ofiF quietly, and from that time until 1872 Mr. Aguas labored incessantly and quietly for the cause of true CathoHcity. The same difficulty which arose in other Latin dis- tricts soon developed in Mexico. A Church without a bishop was found to be like a body without a head. Something had to be done. In this extremity the clergy in Mexico senl: a petition to the General Con- vention which met in New York in 1874, asking that a bishop be sent them under conditions similar to those under which one had been sent to Haiti. The situation, however, was too precarious for instant action, and the House of Bishops appointed a Com- mission of seven bishops to study the question. The first meeting of this body decided that the only thing to do was to send some competent person to the field, and accordingly asked Bishop Lee of Delaware, their chairman, to make a tour of inspection. Accom- panied by Dr. Heman Dyer of New York he went in 1875 and reported that episcopal supervision was needed at once. So many people had been carried away by the enthusiasm of the moment that a steady- ing hand was necessary. Moreover, men were clamor- ing for ordination, and there was no one either to ad- vise or ordain them. Among those desiring ordina- tion at this time he felt constrained to accept several at once, and ordained them to the diaconate. "As it was uncertain," in the language of his report, "when another opportunity would be presented, elevation to the presbyterate followed a few days afterward." These were the first episcopal acts in Mexico of a bishop of the American Church. As an evidence of the extent of the movement in these early days, Bishop Lee reported upon his re- 194 THE NEW WORLD turn that he had found some fifty congregations made up of over six thousand people. Despite this evidence of progress the Board of Mis- sions did not feel justified in taking the work under its direction. It was glad though to see formed, under the auspices of the committee of seven bishops, "The League in Aid of the Mexican Branch of the Church." This League held its organization meeting in Calvary Church, New York, on the 22d of March, 1876.^ Within a short space of time branches were formed in thirteen dioceses, and contributions began to pour in. It should be interjected, to make it doubly clear, that as yet the Church did not dare "touch" the Mexican movement, that though the committee worked in har- mony with the Foreign Committee of the Board, great care was taken to make it plain that it was not Board work. For example, in their notices they state that, "Persons contributing to the work of this 'League* through the Foreign Committee should always desig- nate their gifts as 'for Mexico,' and they should under- stand that in thus contributing to it they do not aid the work of the Foreign Committee, but only of 'The League in Aid of the Mexican Branch of the Church.' " 2 Meantime, though the League was the mainstay of the mission, the American Church Missionary Society had added Mexico to its sphere of influence. This had been done in 1872. Its prestige, plus the efforts of the League had by ^77 succeeded in arousing a great amount of interest, specially in the eastern states. Nor was it difficult to do this, since the re- ports from the field were fairly amazing. The writer can well remember being told by those who were in the thick of it that at one time many people thought that all of Mexico was about to desert Rome for * A full account of this will be found in Vol. XLII of the Spirit of Missions, p. 609 ff. 2 spirit of Missions, Vol. XLII, p. 609. TWO HUGE REPUBLICS 195 Canterbury. No wonder they thought so, when word came from Mr. Riley that in order to shelter the crowds who came to the services, he had had to buy the San Francisco church, — a building of vast seat- ing capacity which had been among the many seques- trated by the Reform Laws.^ At length, pressure from within and without com- pelled the Board to desert its policy of caution. The movement looked so big that it was unbelievable that anything but prosperity lay ahead. Accordingly at a meeting of the Foreign Committee held on December 11, 1877, the following Resolution was adopted: Resolved: That it be recommended to the Board of Man- agers to assume for the future the charge and responsibihty of the work in Mexico hitherto carried on by the American Church Missionary Society; and to authorize the Foreign Committee to receive and disburse contributions from the Church for the aid of the Mexican Branch of the Cathohc Church of our Lord Jesus Christ. At a subsequent meeting of the Board, held in New York in October, this resolution was adopted and ap- propriations made to the extent of $14,000 a year. But the Church in Mexico was still without a bishop. It will be remembered a request for one had been made to the House of Bishops in 1874, and this re- quest had been referred to the commission of seven bishops. The Mexicans, unwilling to lose any time, in the meanwhile had proceeded to an election. At first they elected Dr. Riley as Bishop of the Metro- polis and the Rev. P. G. Hernandez for the regions beyond the city. Subsequently, owing to the request of Dr. Riley, they changed this and elected him Bishop of the Valley of Mexico and Mr. Hernandez Bishop of Cuemavaca, and a young man named Valdespino * It is a melancholy fact that this large church was sold a few years later for a song. The property it occupied is now worth over a million dollars. 196 THE NEW WORLD Bishop of the City of Mexico. These things were done on the 9th of November, 1878. At the same time a constitution "for the Mexican Branch of the Church Catholic of our Lord Jesus Christ" was drawn up and submitted to the House of Bishops, and along with it was a report to the effect that in the three proposed dioceses there were seventy-one congregations with 3,500 members and more worshipers. The committee examined all of these reports carefully and finally recommended that Dr. Riley be consecrated Bishop of the Valley of Mexico. This was done on St. John the Baptist's Day, June 24, 1879, in Trinity Church, Pittsburgh, Pa.^ With the consecration of Dr. Riley, the first period in the history of the young Church came to an end. SECOND PERIOD The "Church of Jesus" suffered in many ways throughout the second period from the haste to which the exigencies of the situation had driven its leaders during the first period. More specially is this true of the years between 1879 and 1885. So great had been the demand for his ministrations, and so multitudinous the requests for assistan<:e, that, in his endeavor to help everybody, Bishop Riley al- lowed matters to get at sixes and sevens. To be per- fectly fair to him we must say that he was no admin- istrator and was confronted by a situation which required the most skilful kind of management. To make a long story short, he spent money right and left without keeping accurate accounts. When asked for a statement of expenditures he had neither vouchers nor receipts. His enemies — and who does » spirit of Missions, Vol. XLIV, p. 309 ff. TWO HUGE REPUBLICS 197 not make them — took advantage of this and accused him of misappropriation, but the Mexican Committee of the House of Bishops made a very thorough ex- amination and completely exonerated him from any such charges. When the reader learns that he labored for ten years v^ithout salary, and gave in the neighbor- hood of one hundred and sixty thousand dollars out of his own pocket to the work, he will realize that whatever errors Dr. Riley made were the result of that kind of inefficiency which sometimes accompanies untamed enthusiasm. In addition to these financial troubles he had al- lowed a schism to develop. Two bodies, one calling itself The Ciierpo Ecclesiastico, and the other 'The Independent Mexican Church," came into existence. The first was made up of a large majority of the Church outside of the City of Mexico; the second had for its followers, generally speaking, those in the city. Such was the condition when, in response to a request from the committee of seven, Bishop Riley resigned in April, 1884. Though his removal solved one of the Board^s prob- lems, it was still confronted by the schism. The Cuerpo Ecclesiastico wished to be received as a mis- sionary jurisdiction ; the Independent Church was violently opposed to such a procedure. What was to be done? Should the petition of the majority be granted, and if so under what terms? A solution was reached at the General Convention of 1886, when, in response to a second and very urgent request, the House of Bishops decided to acknowledge the Ciierpo Ecclesiastico as the proper authority in Mexico; following which, the Board of Missions, though unable to make appropriations, appointed a presbyter, the Rev. W. B. Gordon, under the nomina- tion of the Presiding Bishop, to the rather anomalous position of what we might call "Resident," in Mexico. 198 THE NEW WORLD Mr. Gordon's salary was guaranteed by the League, and his duties were to live in Mexico and guide and counsel the local authorities. For almost six years he handled the delicate situation in a very skilful way, and suc- ceeded, before ill health made him give up, in reunit- ing the Independent Church and the Cuerpo Ecclesi- astic o. Following Mr. Gordon came the devoted Henry Forrester. For ten years this faithful presbyter was the practical head of the infant Church. He was the kind of a man that was needed, and under his wise, firm guidance, the task begun by Mr. Gordon was com- pleted and Mexico made ready for a bishop. The General Convention of 1904 — shortly after Mr. Forrester's death — elected to the vacant see the Rev. Henry D. Aves. The entrance of Bishop Aves upon his duties marks the beginning of the third epoch. One cannot close this narration of the second period, however, without mentioning the names of two de- voted women to whose unwavering faith, during the dark days, the Church in Mexico owes more than it ever can repay : Mrs. M. J. Hooker, who, hearing the call of the Master, went down to Mexico and largely at her own charges founded the orphanage which has been there ever since, and accomplished great good. For many years she was spoken of as the Saint of the Mexican Mission, and to her quiet influence many women owe what they now know about the better and truer things of life. And Mrs. John Clark, who served on various committees year after year, and by her prayers, faith, and generosity kept afloat undertakings which must otherwise have gone down. While there were other notable workers, these are the two names which one hears most often when the bright side of the middle period is discussed. TWO HUGE REPUBLICS 199 THIRD PERIOD In his first report to the Board in 1905, Bishop Aves stated that, thanks to its enlarged appropriation, work was being carried on in twenty-one Anglo-Saxon com- munities, — the largest institution being Christ Church in Mexico City, an English congregation. 'Though mindful," he wrote, **of the fact that the predominating motive of our House of Bishops in send- ing a bishop into Mexico has been to carry the Church's blessing to the Anglo-American residents there, I can- not divest myself of the deep sense of responsibility which enters in my representative ministry to care for these 'other sheep' in the wilderness ; and I am con- fidently hopeful that the Church will make speedy pro- vision whereby this may be undertaken." ^ These words referred to the fact that in his commission from the House of Bishops, Dr. Aves was specifically in- formed that he was appointed to take charge of the Anglo-Americans in Mexico. To the request that he take care of those "other sheep," the Church listened gladly, and with the help of increased appropriations he speedily undertook to care for the ''thirty-two or more congregations" of natives who appealed to him to be their chief pastor. Such was the situation when Bishop Aves first went down. There was every reason to believe that con- ditions were propitious and that the Iglesia Catolica Mexicana was at last ready to go forward, — President Diaz had rendered the land orderly, prosperity was on all sides, why should not everything flourish? But those who were thus sanguine forgot to reckon with affairs political, for Bishop Aves had only just started work when the revolution of 1912 came down 1 First Annual Report of the Bishop of the Missionary District of Mexico, Sptrtt of Mtsstons, Vol. LXX, p. 197. 200 THE NEW WORLD Upon him like a wolf on the fold and scattered his sheep far and wide. Poor Mexico ! One thing after another has assailed it. Dissension ecclesiastical, unwise leadership, hub- bub political — one after another they have set at naught the labors of the tireless clergy. Today matters are at a standstill. What will result from the punitive expedition against Villa ? Who can tell? And the wise historian will lay down his pen and pray for, rather than write further about, Mexico and its Church. CHURCH OF THE MEDIATOR. SANTA MARIA TWO HUGE REPUBLICS 201 BRAZIL The huge republic of the southern continent which we now call Brazil is not so rich in romance as are some other Latin lands. Why is it that the smaller a thing is the more charming it seems to be, while large things are generally prosaic? At all events if one had to describe Brazil in a sentence he would not resort to poetry or the language of ron.ance. Rather would he fall back on some heavy alliteration like: Prodigious, Portentous, Prolific, Prosaic, Problematical. It is so vast, and its past is so unoriginal, its present so con- fused and its future so uncertain, that a feeling of bewilderment overcomes one as he thinks about it. A score of years before Cortez burst in upon the Aztecs, a Spaniard named Pinzon had visited the mouth of the Amazon. He was bound west, however, and proceeded on his journey without setting up the banner of Castile and Leon. In the spring of 1500, just a few months after Pinzon had been there, a Portuguese, Pedro Alvarez Cabral, having been deflected from his course by the Brazilian current, dropped anchor in a little bay on the Brazilian coast which he thought was on the east coast of India. More mindful of his master's desire for new lands than Pinzon, Cabral took pompous possession of the territory in the name of the King of Portugal. Shortly thereafter, having marooned two of his crew to keep his title clear, he despatched a vessel back to Lisbon with news of the achievement, and proceeded with the rest of his fleet to Calicut. Thus it came to pass that Portugal and not Spain became overlord of Brazil. This overlordship, it should be added, was, after the manner of the times, regularized by Pope Alexander 202 THE NEW WORLD VI., who divided the new world into two parts by the forty-first parallel of west longitude. To the Spaniards he gave all to the west of that line, while the Portu- guese were permitted to call their own whatever lay to the east.^ The first name given the land was Vera Cruz. This did not obtain long though, since the Europeans in- sisted on calling it by the name of the chief com- modity it yielded them, — Brazil wood. The subsequent history of Brazil can be divided into three parts. The period of the colonials; the period of the empire ; and the period of the republic. Of the colonial period several things should be com- mented on here. In the first place, when the King of Portugal decided to make sure of his possession of the new land, he divided it into Capitaneas, a sort of feudal fief, to be bestowed upon such of his subjects as would undertake, at their own expense, to settle and develop the new country. In return they were made absolute rulers of their territory. The whole coast of Brazil was in this way divided into twelve sections, 150 miles wide and as deep as the settlers cared to go, and given over to adventurers, — for better or worse. In these fiefs six permanent settlements were made, which in time were concentrated about four 1 Pope Alexander VI, May 4, 1493, issued a Bull in which "by the fullnesse of Apostolical power, doe give grant and designe to you, your heires and successors, all the firme Lands and Hands found, or to be found, discovered or to be discovered, toward the West and South, drawing a line from the Pole Arctike to the Pole Antarctike (that is from the north to the south), contayning in this Donation whatsoever firme Lands and Hands are found or to be found toward India, or toward any other part whatsoever it be, being distant from, or without the foresaid Line, drawne a hundred Leagues toward the West, and South, from any of the Hands which are commonly called De Los Azores and Capo Verde." Quoted from Anderson, Old Panama, p. 503. Inasmuch as between the westernmost^ of the Azores and the eastern- most of the Cape Verde group there is a difference in longitude of about 10 degrees, the Bull's description was decidedly vague. It took the treaty of Tordesillas to decide that the line should be 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands, or somewhere between 41 and 44 west longitude. Fiske, The Discovery of America, II, p. 454 ff. TWO HUGE REPUBLICS 203 centers, Bahia, Sao Paulo, Pemambuco, and Rio de Janeiro. For many years the settlements remained on the coast, and even to-day the Brazil that counts as a political entity is the table land of the Atlantic sea- board between Ceara to the north and Rio Grande do Sul. In the expeditions which went out to the Capitaneas there were very few women, and nothing is more re- markable than the rapidity and success of the inter- marrying which took place between the newcomers and the native Indians. Not only were the evil results of this, so often seen, largely avoided, but the product has been on the whole most satisfactory.^ The general result has been thus summed up by Denis : "Each race would gain ; each race was warlike, and of an in- credibly hardy stock ; the restless adventurers of feudal Portugal and the beasts of burden of the coastal Indian gave the race a physical basis which should save it from degeneration for many generations to come." Of all the early settlers none were so energetic as those who occupied what is now called the State of Sao Paulo. Some would have it that the history of Brazil is the history of.Sao Paulo. The mixture of the Portuguese and the Indians of that district produced a people endowed with a tremendous ambition and a stamina to back it up. The Paulistas were the leaders in almost everything that made for conquest and progress in old Brazil, and today Sao Paulo is the economic center of the country. During the colonial period and up until 1762 the capital of Brazil was Bahia. That city and Pernam- buco were the ecclesiastical and political centers. The energy of the Paulistas, however, at length turned the scales, and we now find that southern Brazil, just like northern United States and southern Australia, is the * Denis, Brazil, pp. 35, 36. 204 THE NEW WORLD predominant part of the country.^ When we think, therefore, about Brazil we must remember that econom- ically and socially it presents the same general features as the United States turned upside down. In this connection we can see why, when Mr. Kinsolving and the early workers first went there, they settled in southern Brazil, — they wanted to occupy that portion where their influence would be most felt. Though it is perfectly true that our work is only in a little corner of a vast land, still that little corner is the dynamic center. The colonial period came to an end in 1807. As usual it was the Napoleonic escapade which turned things topsy-turvy. In this year, the Regent of Portu- gal, Dom Joao, flying from the French Emperor, trans- ferred the court from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro. Thus the colony was raised to coordinate rank with the mother country and Brazil became one of the nations of the world. The period of the empire opened auspiciously and had the house of Braganza provided competent rulers Brazil might still be an empire. Joao and his son were kindly, good-natured men, — the latter being very lib- eral-minded. But that firmness without which noth- ing could prosper in the revolutionary period was lack- ing. After much vacillation the people decided to follow the example of the other South American States and proceeded to set up a republic. The exact occasion for this change came in 1889 when the kindly emperor Dom Pedro announced that he was going to abdicate in favor of his daughter Isabel. The Brazilians had about made up their minds to establish a Republic so soon as Pedro should be gathered to his fathers, and the idea of having their plans upset by the sudden accession of the autocratic * This is interesting in connection with Professor Huntington's climate theory, see page 80. TWO HUGE REPUBLICS 205 Isabel was too much for their patience. Accordingly, supported by the republican leagues and the army, Fon- seca prepared and put through a coup d'etat. The Em- peror and his family were put on board a ship bound for Lisbon, and Brazil was declared a Federation of twenty sovereign states. According to the constitution adopted by the National Congress on February 24, 1891, the Brazilian nation is con- stituted as the United States of Brazil, comprising twenty States, one National Territory, and one Federal District Each of the old provinces forms a State, administered at its own expense without interference from the Federal Gov- ernment save for defence, for the maintenance of order, and for the execution of the Federal laws. Fiscal arrangements in such matters as import duties, stamps, rates of postage, and bank-note circulation belong to the Union; but export duties are the property of the various States. The legislative authority is exercised by the National Con- gress with the sanction of the President of the Republic. Congress consists of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, It meets annually on the 3rd of May, without being con- voked, unless another day be fixed by law, and sits four months, but may be prorogued or convoked extraordinarily. . . . The Chamber of Deputies consists of 212 members elected for three years by direct vote (providing for the representation of the minority), in a proportion not greater than one to every 70,000 of population as shown by a decen- nial census, but so that no State will_ have less than four representatives. It has the initiative in legislation relating to taxation, and in proceedings against the President of the Republic and Secretaries of State. Senators, 63 in number, are chosen by direct vote, three for each State, and for the Federal District, for nine years, and the Senate is renewed to the extent of one-third every three years. The Vice-President of the Republic is President of the Senate. The executive authority is exercised by the President of the Republic. He must be a native of Brazil, over thirty-five years of age. His term of office is four years, and he is not eligible for the succeeding term. The President and the Vice- President are elected by the people directly, by an absolute majority of votes. . . . The President appoints and dismisses ministers, is in supreme command of the army and navy, and, within certain limits, has the power to declare war and make 206 THE NEW WORLD peace. . . . The franchise extends to all citizens not under twenty-one years of age, duly enrolled, except beggars, "illit- erates," soldiers actually serving, and members of monastic orders, etc., under vows of obedience.^ The area of Brazil is important because of its vast- ness. It contains 3,290,564 square miles. When com- pared to the 2,973,890 of continental United States, it will be seen to be as large as our own land plus extra New Yorks, New Jerseys, and Pennsylvanias. A great part of the territory is uninhabited, the great states of Amazonas and Matto Grosso, for example, with a joint area of 1,265,122 square miles (over a third of Brazil), having a total population of 368,000. On the other hand, in the states of Sao Paulo, Rio Grande do Sul, Minas Geraes and Bahia, with an area of about five hundred and ninety thousand square miles, over nine million or almost half of the nation live. The official estimate of the population for 1913 was 24,308,- 219. Serious efforts are made to increase the inflow of immigrants, but as yet the annual number has not exceeded 200,000. The chief cities of Brazil are Rio de Janeiro (1,- 128,637); Sao Paulo (450,000); Bahia (290,000); Belen (200,000); Porto Alegre (100,000). Of these we are specially interested in Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and Porte Alegre. Rio de Janeiro is one of the world's great capitals. With an incom- parable harbor, splendid public buildings, wide and pretentious avenues and all the devices known to the Parisian for civic adornment, it presents a fair and smiling front. Its situation is unfortunate economi- cally, since being ringed about with mountains it is not easily approached from the land side. Incidentally it might be added that it draws its supplies largely from foreign lands and, since import duties are very high, is one of the most expensive places in the ^The Statesman's' Year Book, 1915, pp. 746, 747. TWO HUGE REPUBLICS 207 world to live. A globe-trotter told the writer that the most expensive place was Antofagasta in Chili, but that Rio was a close second. There is no doubt that South American cities as a whole are uncom- fortable places for those who's purse is small. Sao Paulo, the second city, is the coffee center of the world. Four-fifths of the world's coffee comes from Brazil and half of this goes through Sao Paulo. So dependent are Brazil and Sao Paulo on coffee that a few years ago, when the market was dangerously oversupplied, the government stepped in and put through the famous "valorisation of coffee" legislation. Valorisation was a process by which the government bought up vast quantities of the product and stored it away to await a rise in price.^ It had, of course, also to prohibit the development of any more planta- tions, since the limit of consumption having been reached it would be mere madness to increase the supply. Porto Alegre at the northern extremity of the great bay Lagoa dos Patos is populated to a considerable extent by Germans and Italians. It is situated at the confluence of several small rivers which make it an advantageous point to which to ship from the interior. It is the commercial center of the State of Rio Grande do Sul and has quite a large number of manufacturing industries. Rio Grande do Sul, the city in which our bishop lives, is at the opposite or southern end of the Lagoa dos Patos. It is as yet only a town of some 30,000 inhabitants, but its situation is important and promises a future of influence and power. It might aid the reader in getting his bearings to add that Rio Grande is next to the southernmost point at which the Church is at work, and that Jaguarao, the most southern, is as far south of the equator as a line about half way * See Chapter X of Denis's Brazil for a description of this movement. 208 THE NEW WORLD between Savannah and Charlestown is to the north of it. Writers often illustrate the difference made by living the other side of the equator, by showing how much of our literature is quite inappropriate in south- ern latitudes. For example, such passages as As soon Seek roses in December and ice in June; Hope constancy in wind, etc. But winter lingering chills the lap of May are nonsense in lands where winter begins in June and summer commences in December. THE CHURCH IN BRAZIL On that memorable journey to India made in 1805-6 by the saintly Henry Martyn, his ship laid up at Bahia for a fortnight. Thus it befell that he who was to become one of the world's great pioneers, was the first missionary of the Anglican Communion to visit the shores of Brazil. His biographer tells us that the two weeks he spent there were busy ones, and that Martyn was "fascinated by the tropical glories of the coast and the interior, and keenly interested in the Portuguese dons, the Franciscan friars, and the negro slaves." He took advantage of the opportunity pre- sented to meet Portuguese gentlemen and resident priests. With the latter he had lengthy discussions, conducted in French and Latin, on the subject of Roman Catholicism. In the beautiful gardens and in the houses of such friends as he made he meditated and prayed with the people. "As he walked through the streets where for a long time he *saw no one but negro slaves male and female'; as he passed the churches in which 'they were performing mass,' and priests of all colors innumerable, and ascended the TWO HUGE REPUBLICS 209 battery which commanded a view of all the whole bay of All Saints, he exclaimed, 'What happy missionary shall be sent to bear the name of Christ to these west- ern regions? When shall this beautiful country be delivered from idolatry and spurious Christianity? Crosses there are in abundance, but when shall the doctrine of the Cross be held up?' " His last prayer, as he left the shores of Brazil, was that "God would interfere on behalf of his Gospel/' ^ The next Anglican missionary was an American. As early as 1853 the Foreign Committee of the Board of Missions, in response to the appeal of "an intelligent Episcopalian resident in Rio de Janeiro, setting before the Committee the pressing necessities of the people and the degree of preparedness for the entrance of the pure Gospel," sent out the Rev. W. H. Cooper, of Pennsylvania, but he was unfortunately shipwrecked on the way and abandoned the task. No one else volunteered for South America until 1859, when the Rev. Richard Holden of Ohio came forward. After two years spent in preparing a Portuguese version of the Prayer Book Mr. Holden went to Para. Not content with confining his efforts to Para, the newcomer attempted a missionary journey into the interior; but before two months had passed he was forced by the police to turn back. This was only the beginning of the persecution to which he was sub- jected, for on his arrival at Para he was met by news- paper attacks inspired by the Roman bishop. Hoping to find a kindlier reception he moved to Bahia, but all to no purpose, since at that point not only the news- paper but the mobs threatened violence. So serious did these latter become that the American Consul had to come to his aid. Though he persevered for a while and started a Sunday School, and conducted services and circulated copies of the Bible and Prayer Book, * Smith, Henry Martyn. p. 106 S. 210 THE NEW WORLD he found in the end that the task was too much for him, and resigned in 1864.^ The next step toward the estabHshment of a per- manent mission in Brazil was taken in 1889, this time not by the Board of Missions but by the Ameri- can Church Missionary Society. We quote a letter written some years later by the Rev. I. Newton Stranger, one of the members of the Executive Com- mittee of the Society at that time: The honor of starting the Brazil Mission belongs to the young men in the missionary society of the Alexandria Seminary. Having become convinced that they should do something more than talk and pray, their minds were pro- videntially led to think of Brazil. Having opened communi- cation with some Presbyterian missionaries there, they found that they could have a clear field in Porto Alegre. They made application to our Missionary Board, but their scheme was voted to be impossible. They then made application to the American Church Missionary Society. The society was at a low ebb, with little money and a rapidly diminishing constituency. After some hesitation our committee agreed at least to hear their story, and wrote for them to send a delegation from the society at the seminary to New York and present their case. Our committee met Messrs. Roderick and Clark at the rooms in the Bible House. They demonstrated that they had gone over the whole matter in a very careful and thorough manner. They martialed their facts in a very telling way in two addresses, and then underwent a cross- examination fey the committee. When they were through, everyone was deeply impressed with the call, but there was no money in sight, except that which was promised from Virginia, for the work. There was not a man in the com- mittee that did not feel ready to begin the work, if we could get the means. But some were opposed to trying to do the apparently impossible. The chairman, Dr. Watkins, called on the Rev. Dr. Edwards, of Philadelphia, to lead us in prayer. We needed light and courage and faith, and I do not think it is too much to say that God answered that prayer at the time. When we arose from our knees I said that I believed that if this work was of God, as I felt it was, we would get the money for it, if we were ready ^ to go forward, and moved that we make the venture of faith. ^Reports of the Board of Missions, 1853-64. TWO HUGE REPUBLICS 211 The Rev. Dr. Neilson, I think it was, seconded the motion, which was carried without opposition, and we arranged to take the first steps and the young men were sent on their way rejoicing that they were in the way of seeing their plans of a pure Gospel for Brazil carried out. . . . Thus, in 1888, the Rev. R. A. Roderick and the Rev. F. P. Clark were appointed as missionaries to Brazil. Their ambitions, however, were not to be realized, for, one by an accident and the other by illness, they were prevented from entering the work. In their stead, in the following June two young deacons, just graduated from the Virginia Theological Seminary, the Rev. James W. Morris and the Rev. Lucien Lee Kinsolv- ing, were appointed. Having been ordained to the priesthood in August, these young pioneers sailed from Newport News on the first of September, 1889. The inception and policy of the Brazil mission dis- tinguish it from any of the other southern missions of the Church. In the first place, it is noteworthy that from the beginning the mission has gone forward without interruption. This is in part due to the happy circumstance that of the original little group that went out, all were men of exceptional ability, and, what is more important, all remained there for many years of continuous service. Of the four pioneers. Bishop Kinsolving and Mr. Meem — the latter went in 1892 — are still in the field, and Dr. Morris and Bishop Brown who went with IMr. Meem, left, one after a little less and the other after a Httle more than twenty years of service. In the second place, the method of the mission has been from the beginning evangelistic. A day school, to be sure, was attempted in the early years, and since 1907 several parochial schools have been started, but except for these the policy has been directly evangelistic. In the third place, the leaders have had a larger success than have workers elsewhere in Latin America in developing a native ministry. 212 THE NEW WORLD When the mission was only four years old four dea- cons were ordained, and today, out of a staff of eighteen, fourteen were ordained in the field, of whom thirteen are Brazilians. Many of these last were pre- pared for orders, it should be added, in a theological school at Porto Alegre. This was started in 1903, with Dr. Brown as dean. Of recent years the school has been closed, owing to the fact that the supply of Bra- zilian clergy was in danger of exceeding the demand — an excellent illustration of Bishop Kinsolving's con- sistent refusal to yield to the temptation to go ahead too rapidly. Mr. Morris and Mr. Kinsolving settled first in Sao Paulo, where they occupied themselves studying the Portuguese language. By June, 1890, just a year after their appointment, they found that they could preach haltingly in the vernacular, and at Trinitytide held their first service. This took place in the large "sala" of their dwelling in Porto Alegre, to which point they had in the meantime moved. That their services were welcome became at once apparent, for congregations of eager and interested listeners gath- ered about them. Since it was at an early date — 1892 — that Miss Mary Packard went out, this is the proper place to refer to her. Except for the wives of the American clergy, and for Deaconess Pitts, who served from 1899 to 1904, Miss Packard is and has been our only woman missionary in Brazil. To her belongs much credit for the transformation of homes, for successful work among the women and children, and the training of the youth of the Brazilian Church. The first Brazilian convocation met in Porto Alegre in the late spring of 1892, but no bishop having been appointed for Brazil — the missionaries were under the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Virginia — this convoca- tion had no canonical standing. This served but to TWO HUGE REPUBLICS 213 emphasize the already urgent need for an episcopal visitation. Converts had been admitted to the Holy Communion without confirmation, and four candi- dates for Holy Orders were awaiting ordination. When the matter was brought to his attention, the Presiding Bishop at once requested the Bishop of West Virginia (Dr. Peterkin) to make a visitation. This he did, and while there confirmed one hun- dred and forty-two people and ordained four deacons. Most important of all, his appointment and visitation gave the mission a regular organization. Thus tech- nically the Egreja Brasileira Episcopal dates from the spring of 1893.^ The need of a bishop for Brazil had, by 1898, be- come imperative, but the problem could not be settled in what is now the ordinary way. Out of respect for those in this country who objected to the enterprise, it seemed best to Bishop Peterkin and those in au- thority to advise the infant church to elect its own bishop and send him seeking consecration to the United States — just as had been done in Haiti and Mexico. Following this advice, and in response to a cable recommending it from the American Church Missionary Society, a convocation was duly summoned in the city of Porto Alegre at which Mr. Kinsolving was elected on the first ballot. Shortly thereafter he went to New York and was consecrated in St. Bartholomew's Church on the Feast of the Epiphany, 1899. The next step to be noted was taken in 1905, when the American Church Mis- sionary Society transferred its responsibility for the undertaking to the Board. This, it will be remembered, was coincident with a similar step in the Cuban work. The time had come now when the ecclesiastical *A second Episcopal visitation was made in 1897 by Dr. Stirling, the English Bishop of the Falkland Islands, with residence in Buenos Ayres. He confirmed one hundred and fifty-nine, and ordained to the priesthood three deacons. 214 THE NEW WORLD standing of the mission was found to be unsatisfactory. The Church was still "the Church in Brazil," a foreign Church, and Bishop Kinsolving was still a foreign bishop. While there was nothing inherently objection- able to this, it did not prove any more practicable in this instance than it had in Mexico and Haiti. Accordingly, following the precedents set in those fields, steps were taken to bring the Egreja Brasileira Episcopal within the fold of the Church. The inevitable formalities had to be observed, and the Brazilian convocation pe- titioned the American Church for admission as a mis- sionary district. This request was presented to the General Convention in Richmond in 1907. Having been favorably received, the next step was for the Independent Brazilian Church to go out of existence, which was accomplished by the resignation of Bishop Kinsolving, following which the congregations in southern Brazil were created into the Missionary Dis- trict of Southern Brazil and Bishop Kinsolving elected to the new district. Such, in short, is the story of our southernmost mission. Let us turn our attention to the problems and methods which characterize the work. From the beginning two aspects of the religious situation were particularly noticeable: the surprising absence of any provision for the spiritual needs of the people — surprising because a branch of the Church had been in the land some three hundred years — and the increasing dissatisfaction on the part of the more educated and thoughtful people with this lack of at- tention. For example, when Bishop Kinsolving first went to Rio Grande he found but one priest to shep- herd a population of 25,000, and in Pelotas, in the same year, Mr. Meem found two priests for 45,000, one of whom was the old and infirm chaplain of the Portuguese Hospital. In 1899, in Jaguarao, a grow- ing city of between 15,000 and 20,000, Mr. Brande TWO HUGE REPUBLICS 215 found only one priest. Is there a remote village in the United States thus poorly provided? In the vil- lage of Areal, where our missionaries went in 1898, there had never been a resident priest, nor, so far as could be ascertained, had any church office ever been said. In the railroad city of Santa Maria, where a very successful work was established, there had been no priest since the populace had expelled one some years before. No successor had even been appointed. Many similar incidents could be cited as to the needs of the cities, while in the country districts the absence of the Word of Life was even more evident. The result of this condition was that the people were not only unshepherded, but even ignorant about the first principles of the Faith. Almost nothing was known about our Lord. One of the missionaries tells how a certain village chose Him for their "patron saint." The celebration of His birth was quite over- shadowed by other less important celebrations. In a word, as might be expected, the religion of the people — where there was any — had become grossly super- stitious, and out-and-out image worship was rampant. If an historical parallel is sought, perhaps the nearest we can reach is that of colonial Virginia, when ^ "glebes and church buildings were sold for a song, and the proceeds — which were to be used *for any public purpose not religious' — were sometimes embez- zled by the sheriff's officers. Guzzling planters drank from chalices and passed cheese on communion patens. A marble font became a horse-trough. Com- munion plates, the gift of good Queen Anne, adorned the sideboards of officers of the state. Discouraged 1 McConnell, History of the American Episcopal Church, p. 117_ S. Colonial Churches in the Original Colony of Virginia, second edition. Chap. XXXIV. The author of this last rightly emphasizes the fact that though there has been no exaggeration of the extent to which the Colonial Church was neglected, the number of actual incidents of de- pravity has been considerably overstated. Still, the illustration is good. 216 THE NEW WORLD and without support, the clergy in large numbers laid down their spiritual callings." And, mark you, this destitution in Virginia was caused by the neglect of the mother Church, just as Brazil suffered from being forgotten by those who should have aided her. When our clergy began to preach and teach in the midst of this spiritual wilderness, they received, as has already been stated, a glad welcome. So much so, that from the first their congregations bore a re- markably large share of the expense of the work. In many of the missions, not content with helping finan- cially, the laity undertook to assist the minister in his parish visiting and sick calls; and, as always results when people are given something to do, interest grew apace. Moreover, the old Church began to stir itself. In Rio Grande, for example, in place of the two who were there in 1891, there are now twenty or twenty- five priests at work; under them two large schools and many new congregations have been organized, and the people are being instructed and shepherded with care and zeal. Dr. Morris, in the Spirit of Missions in 1908, gave us the following account of the method pursued by our clergy: When a man is sent to open a new center of work his orders are: "Give yourself entirely to preaching and expound- ing the Word of God. Do not come before the people as a school teacher. Let all the community know you once for all, as a preacher, a prophet, an official witness to Christ, an accredited messenger of Christ's Church. Let the people see that this is your sole business among them. You are to do this one thing to proclaim the good news of salvation in Christ, and to invite men to use and enjoy the reasonable and reverent faith of our truly Catholic Church." Experience has shown that for best results it is necessary to use at the very start the distinctive forms of the church's liturgical worship. For a while the missionaries were led to believe that these people should have at the beginning the simplest and even the barest form of service. They TWO HUGE REPUBLICS 217 thought at first that it might be best not to wear the surplice, and indeed not to conduct public service in any distinctly "Episcopal" manner. This was an entire mistake. The ordered form of the worship in accordance with the Prayer Book was particularly effective among the Brazilians. Liturgical services, by vested clergy, in a well-arranged place of worship, appeal to their sense of propriety, and give for them solemnity to the act of worship and power to the Word preached and expounded. Therefore when a missionary is deputed to open up a new and important center of work, the rule is for him to wait until he can establish the regulation services of the Church. He is to delay his public preaching until he can begin in this permanent way. He rents a convenient hall, fits it up for a chapel, and makes preparation for a formal opening ser- vice. He meets and visits as many of the people as he can, explains in private what he has come to do, and gathers as many of the people as he can interest to his own house or elsewhere for the practice of the hymns and chants, and for instruction in the order of the service. He thus has a num- ber of people ready to take part in public worship. Then on a specified day, after wide notice given, he opens his new place of worship with an inaugural service. He has with him the bishop, and as many as possible of the other clergy. He begins with the regular order of Evening Prayer, which will be reverently and enthusiastically participated in by the large crowd assembled. And then the bishop and others deliver addresses explanatory of the Church and her ways, emphasizing her historical position and her apostolic heritage, and closing with an earnest presentation of the old, ever new Gospel message of salvation in Jesus Christ. It is found that the Church put before a community in this formal and official manner attracts attention and stimulates inquiry at once, and that from the initial service there is a congregation of regular worshipers gathered together. In 1907 the bishop wrote that the time had come when mission schools were needed. "Thus far," he said, "we have sown widely. The future demands that we sow deeply." In 1909 two parochial schools were started, one in Bage and one in Porto Alegre. Con- cerning them the bishop wrote again : What is needed is a boarding-school for boys and girls, where they may be segregated during their formative period 218 THE NEW WORLD from the untoward influences surrounding young people here; be brought under the daily and constant influence of con- secrated personahties, saturated with the Church's culture and moral uplift, then sent back to their homes and parishes imbued with a loyalty and a strong grasp which they could not have attained had they been thrust into the ranks of life with only the veneer of an education. All this has been achieved in the case of our native clergy. The church should devote herself to the task of training some of the most prom- ising of her sons and daughters into strong, loyal and intelli- gent laymen and churchwomen. The Bage school was discontinued shortly after this and interest centered upon the school in Porto Alegre. As the Escola Diocesana this has grown into an im- portant institution, with forty day pupils and twenty- six boarders. In order not to "swamp a small num- ber of Church-boys in a large majority of semi-pa- gans," it has been found wise to advance the tuition for non-Church boys. 'The school," writes the bishop, "enjoys a good reputation, and is building up surely and wisely a wide clientele." And again : "This need (of a central mission school) can scarcely be overemphasized. The defects of the system of in- struction throughout the state, not only on the physi- cal and moral sides, but the inherent inadequacy of the mental training of the system in vogue, are appar- ent to all everywhere. From the lips of educational- ists of experience, I have heard the opinion expressed that the pseudo-philosophical system of positivism has exercised a most baneful influence upon, if not al- most entirely destroyed, all public instruction obtain- able in the local and normal schools." One last matter compels our attention, and that is the revision of the Portuguese Prayer Book and Bible. It will be remembered that before Mr. Holden went out in 1861 a translation of the Prayer Book had been prepared. One of the first needs felt by the later missionaries was for printed copies of this — TWO HUGE REPUBLICS 219 or better, a printed revision. To meet this demand, Dr. Brown and Mr. Cabral revised and largely re- translated the Portuguese Prayer Book. It received the imprimatur of the Custodian of the Standard Book of Common Prayer, and as early as 1896 part of it was published. The whole Prayer Book was brought out in 1898 by the Bishop White Prayer Book Society, while Dr. Brown was on furlough in the United States. In 1903 the British and American Bible Society de- cided to revise the Portuguese Bible then in use. Dr. Brown and Mr. Cabral were asked to go on the revision committee, but only Dr. Brown was able to accept. He became "the moving spirit and chief collaborator" in the work. Some of the revised New Testament is his work and practically all of the Old Testament. In 1914, Bishop Kinsolving was able to write: 'The Revised Version of the Portuguese Bible is now an accomplished fact, — thanks chiefly to the untiring energy, the ripe scholarship and the exhaustless en- thusiasm of the Rev. Dr. Brown, who, during the last months of his stay in Brazil, has averaged ten hours a day (sometimes twelve) of revision work on the Old Testament/' The following summary of the Church's work in Brazil has been prepared by the bishop. Rio dos Sinos (pronounced "Ree-oh dos See-nos"). A country district, in which the farmers, planters and cattle owners have built their own church. Calvary Church. Jaguarao (pronounced "Jag-wa-row" [the "ow" being nasal and metallic]). The most southern station in the district, a growing frontier town of about 10,000, with a little Gothic church, Christ Church. Bage (pronounced "Bah-jay" [the "j" having the sound of the "s" in "treasure"]). A thriving town on the Uruguay frontier. The church— Church of the Crucified— and lot were secured largely by the congregation. Santa Helena and Florida. Two country churches with congregations consisting of Italians, Germans, Brazilians, Belgians, French and Africans. In St. Helena— Church of 220 THE NEW WORLD the Salvation — there are services in German as well as in Portuguese. The congregation is composed of the peasant type, very faithful, and noted for their congregational sing- ing. Viamdo (pronounced "Vee-ah-mow" [the "ao" Is always very nasal and sharp]). A country village, served from Porto Alegre, where there is a church building — Grace Church — erected by the people themselves. Santa Maria (pronounced "Mah-ree-ah"). An important railroad town in the heart of Brazil. The congregation, which is composed of the best families of the town, has built a beautiful Gothic church — Church of the Mediator — and rec- tory. The central tower of the church has an illuminated cross, which can be seen at night for miles around. Besides the church, there is the Chapel of the Mediator, also built by the congregation. Sao Leopoldo (pronounced "Sao Lay-oh-pol'-do")- A small town near Porto Alegre. A lot has been purchased, and a church — Church of the Nazarene — will be built if the growth of the town seems to warrant it. Dom Pedrito. A town of 4,000 or 5,000 in the center of the richest cattle districts of southern Brazil. There is a church — Church of the Nativity — built by the people on a lot purchased by them, without help from outside. Livramento (pronounced "Lee-vra-men'-to"). A frontier town bordering on Uruguay, the center of a large cattle dis- trict with many slaughter-houses. Some of the church people are well-to-do. The church is called the Church of the Nazarene. Sao ^ Gabriel (pronounced "Sao Gah-bree-el''). An old town in the interior, the outgrowth of an old military garri- son. The church is the Church of the Redemption. Pelotas (pronounced "Pay-loh-tas"). A town of a good deal of wealth. The church is very flourishing. The Church of the Redeemer, with seating capacity of 400, was built by the people of Pelotas. The services are especially successful, and there is a thriving Young Men's Bible Class. Rio Grande do Sid (pronounced "Ree-oh Gran-day do Sul"). The port of the State, it contains the Church of Our Saviour, one of the most beautiful ecclesiastical structures in South America. The Sunday school here is especially note- worthy. The congregation includes people of all classes. Porto Alegre (pronounced "Por-to Ah-lay-gray")- The capital of the State, with a population of about 150,000; a thriving, progressive town, the center of several State Normal Schools and American Law Schools. Many of the students TWO HUGE REPUBLICS 221 from these schools attend the church services. Besides Trinity Church, the Diocesan School is situated here. Rio Meyer. One of the numerous suburbs of Rio de Janeiro, containing a population of about 70,000. At present the congregation of Trinity Church worship in a hall. Rio de Janeiro (pronounced "Ja-nay-ee-ro"). The capital of the Republic. The Church of the Redeemer has a recently built edifice. The congregation is composed of high class people, some English and some upper class Brazilian. There is also an _ English church under the jurisdiction of the Anglican Bishop in Argentina and Eastern South America. The two_ churches are under the care of the American and the English archdeacons respectively. Thus the Church in Brazil has borne a gcK>d witness and laid foundations which no earthly power can shake. And yet we must not expect too great things of it in the immediate future, since the conditions which it has to face are unusually difficult. While we in North America are surrounded by indifference and a vast amount of agnosticism, we have nevertheless on our side the unuttered and oftentimes unconscious backing of the people, and we owe this to the fact that from the beginning the teachings of the Church have been accepted consciously and unconsciously by the leaders of the nation. In Brazil, on the other hand, and throughout all Latin America, this has not been the case. Bishop Knight, speaking of this recently, said: For many years I have been studying the question of the instability of governments in countries ordinarily known as Latin countries. After careful study of the historical facts, it has seemed to me that the solution is a religious one. The Anglo-Saxons and kindred peoples, in seeking liberty, won all of the rights of liberty, or the institutions of liberty as the term is used, through a religious principle. The Anglo-Saxon asserted that liberty belonged to him as a religious right and privilege. It was a gift to mankind from God. So he founded his desire and all of his efforts to obtain liberty on a religious principle. He not only argued from this stand- point, but he waged war from this stand-point. Acquiring 222 THE NEW WORLD liberty in this way, he treated it from the religious point of view. His new institutions, as a result, had that stability which can only come from the assurance that the principle on which they are founded is God-given, is based upon the Fatherhood of God and the Sonship of mankind. On the other hand, the Latins were under an ecclesiastical system which asserted that men did not have liberty of con- science, or the right to think ; but rather must receive opinions and their beliefs through the authority which was given to the Church, They were told that when they stood for liberty, individual right to think, they were going counter to the authority of the Church. In their minds, that authority had been through the centuries identified with the Authority of God. And so, when they came out for freedom they had to take the stand that it was a human right and belonged to them because they were men. Thus, in asserting their rights they went counter to the Church and the ecclesiasical authori- ties, and what was worse, contrary to what they had been told was the Divine Will. Setting up liberty in this way, they severed their connection with the only exponent of religion which they had, and hence with religion itself. The Brazilian state, therefore, and all the other Latin states, were founded upon a rejection of the teachings of the Church. That this should be fol- lowed by a general deterioration was only to be ex- pected. If the state be founded upon a theory which is proclaimed to be atheistical, how can one expect the citizens to remain followers of the Truth. Thus, not only in things political but equally in matters economic and social, agnosticism and antinomianism followed. The kind of liberty which they had won brought with it, writes Bishop Knight, a certain freedom of unbelief. The prevalence of what is ordinarily known as free thought, the skepticism and unbelief which is so very extensive in Latin countries, particularly among the men, these can be directly traced to that funda- mental error of being forced to assert that liberty belonged to them as human beings. They placed the pyramid on the pinnacle, and not on the base. Until men in these countries TWO HUGE REPUBLICS 223 shall come to a realization of the fact that freedom is some- thing very closely associated with Divine things, their religion will not be a governing and controlling power in their actions and thoughts. It IS with such a state of affairs as this that the Church has to contend. It has to go to men and women and say to them: You were mistaken origi- nally when in founding your democracies you thought you were cutting yourselves loose from the true Church. You were mistaken also when in establish- ing freedom of thought in matters educational you supposed that you were stepping outside the limits of the Fold of Christ. Not only has the Church to say these things but it has to say them to a people who liave had this error ground into them by wellnigh a hundred years of thought. Do not the workers need our prayers and our sympathy, and have not the missions to the Latin world a great task before them? The New World must be brought to Christ. The New World must hold itself up before the nations as an exemplar of Christian Democracy. How else can these things be accomplished, unless we send forth laborers to the harvest? APPENDIX I THE PRONUNCIATION OF SPANISH WORDS The vowels in Spanish are pronounced, a as a in far; e as the a in hay; i as e in me; o as o in loss; u as oo in too. Of these^ a, e and o are what are called strong vowels, and u and i are weak. This distinction is important, because only by knowing about it can one ascertain how to pronounce the diphthong. The diphthongs are formed of two vowels blended into one syllable, each vowel being distinctly heard. These two vowels are either one strong and one weak (or vice versa) or two weak ones. Two strong vowels cannot form a diph- thong. When a diphthong is composed of a strong and a weak vowel the stress is on the strong one; when it is composed of two weak vowels the stress is on the last of the two. The following illustrations may be given: AguAdilla ValparAiso Terra del FuEgo DuArte SantiAgo GuAdalajara Any deviation from these rules is indicated by an accent over the vowel on which the stress is to be laid. This dis- solves the diphthong, making it two syllables instead of one. When a diphthong comes at the end of a word, if there is no written accent, neither vowel has any decided stress. The chief difficulty found in Spanish pronunciation is in the use of the consonants, and the following will have to be examined in detail if the matter is to be mastered: C has two sounds : (a) the hard sound of k before a, o, u, or a consonant: Cuba (Koo bah), Vera Cruz (Krooz). (b) the soft sound of th in thin before e, i; but note that the soft c in Spanish America is pronounced like s. ch is a separate letter (found after c in dictionaries) and sounds as ch in church: Chiapa. 225 226 THE NEW WORLD d has a tinge of th in although, especially between vowels and at the end of words : Madrid, Ojeda. g has two sounds: (a) the hard sound of the English g in gap before con- sonants and the vowels a, o, u: grande, Gonzalez, Guerra, Mayaguez. (b) the aspirated sound of a guttural h before e, i: general (heneral). h has no sound at all. It is a mere orthographical sign: Hernandez. j has the same sound as aspirated g in all positions: San Juan, Junta. 11 is a separate letter (found after 1) and sounds like Hi in million: Orellana. n is a separate letter (found after n) and sounds like ni in onion: canon, senor, manana. q sounds like k and is only found in the combinations que and qui (u being silent) : Quichua, Quito. T is always sounded clearly between two vowels: Torihio, cara, Orellana. rr is a separate letter (found after r) and is always strongly trilled: Carretera, Arroyo. s always sounds like s in seat (never like sh in mansion, or z in rose) : casa. Las Casas. z sounds like th in thin. It is only used before a, o, u. But note that this is not used in Spanish America. When a word ends with a consonant the accent falls on the last syllable ; otherwise, unless indicated by an accent, it should be placed on the antepenult. APPENDIX II THE MONROE DOCTRINE On December 2, 1823, in his annual message to Congress, President Monroe submitted the following recommendation, which has since borne his name: At the proposal of the Russian Imperial Government, made through the minister of the Emperor residing here, a full power and instructions have been transmitted to the minister of the United States at St. Petersburg to arrange by amicable negotiation the respective rights and interests of the two nations on the northwest coast of this continent. A similar proposal had been made by his Imperial Majesty to the Government of Great Britain, which has likewise been ac- ceded to. The Government of the United States has been desirous by this friendly proceeding of manifesting the great value which they have invariably attached to the friendship of the Emperor and their solicitude to cultivate the best understanding with his government. In the discussion to which this interest has given rise and in the arrangements by which they may terminate the occasion has been judged proper for asserting, as a principle in which the rights and interests of the United States are involved, tTiat the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be con- sidered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers. ... It was stated at the commencement of the last session that a great effort was then making in Spain and Portugal to improve the condition of the people of those countries, and that it appeared to be conducted with extraordinary modera- tion. It need scarcely be remarked that the result has been so far very different from what was then anticipated. Of events in that quarter of the globe, with which we have so much intercourse and from which we derive our origin, we have always been anxious and interested spectators. The citizens of the United States cherish sentiments the most friendly in favor of the liberty and happiness of their fellow- 227 228 THE NEW WORLD men on that side of the Atlantic. In the wars of the Euro- pean powers in matters relating to themselves we have never taken any part, nor does it comport with our policy so to do. It is only when our rights are invaded or seriously menaced that we resent injuries or make preparation for our defense. With the movement-6 in this hemisphere we are of necessity more immediately connected, and by causes which must be obvious to all enlightened and impartial observers. The poli- tical system of the allied powers is essentially different in this respect from that of America. This difference proceeds from that which exists in their respective governments ; and to the defense of our own, which has been achieved by the loss of so much blood and treasure, and matured by the wisdom of their most enlightened citizens, and under which we have enjoyed unexampled felicity, this whole nation is devoted. We owe it, therefore, to candor and to the amicable relations existing between the United States and those powers, to declare that we should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety. With the existing colonies or dependencies of any European power we have not inter- fered and shall not interfere. But with the governments who have declared their independence and maintained it, and whose independence we have, on great consideration and on just principles, acknowledged, we could not view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing them, or controlling in any other manner their destiny, by any European power in any other light than as the manifestation of an unfriendly dis- position toward the United States. In the war between those new governments and Spain we declared our neutrality at the time of their recognition, and to this we have adhered, and shall continue to adhere, provided no change shall occur which, in the judgment of the competent authorities of this government, shall make a corresponding change on the part of the United States indispensable to their security. The late events in Spain and Portugal show that Europe is still unsettled. Of this important fact no stronger proof can be adduced than that the Allied Powers should have thought it proper, on any principle satisfactory to themselves, to have interposed by force in the internal concerns of Spain. To what extent such interposition may be carried, on the same principle, is a question in which all independent powers whose governments differ from theirs are interested, even those most remote, and surely none more so than the United States. Our policy in regard to Europe, which was adopted at an early stage of the wars which have so long agitated that APPENDIX 229 quarter of the globe, nevertheless remains the same, which is, not to interfere in the internal concerns of any of its Powers; to consider the government de facto as the legiti- mate government for us; to cultivate friendly relations with it, and to preserve those relations by a frank, firm and manly policy, meeting, in all instances, the just claims of every power, submitting to injuries from none. But in regard to these continents circumstances are eminently and conspicu- ously different. It is impossible that the Allied Powers should extend their political system to any portion of either con- tinent without endangering our peace and happiness; nor can any one believe that our southern brethren, if left to themselves, would adopt it of their own accord. It is equally impossible, therefore, that we should behold such interposition in any form with indifference. If we look to the compara- tive strength and resources of Spain and those new govern- ments, and their distance from each other, it must be obvious that she can never subdue them. It is^ still the true policy of the United States to leave the parties to themselves, in the hope that other powers will pursue the same course. APPENDIX III THE AMERICAN CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY The American Church Missionary Society was founded in New York City on May 9, 1860, by a group of evangelical churchmen who had in mind the Church Missionary Society of the Church of England. Its object was "to extend and build up the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ in accordance with the principles and doctrines of the Protestant Episcopal Church as set forth in her Articles, Liturgy and Homilies.'* The society was incorporated under the laws of the State of New York in 1861. Unlike the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society which was founded by the General Convention and is coterminous with the Church, the American Church Missionary Society was a voluntary association in which anyone approving of its object became a member by the annual payment of three dollars. Its officers and Executive Board were elected at annual meetings. The president was always a layman, and the general secretary, a clergyman. As early as 1877 the society became a recognized auxiliary to the Board of Missions. Certain articles of agreement were drawn up and accepted at the General Convention of 1877. By these the American Church Missionary Society agreed to support the missionaries in certain definite fields. Within the United States, for example, it carried on work in fifteen dioceses and missionary jurisdictions. In 1873 it had assumed charge of the work in Mexico, but relinquished it to the Board in 1877. In 1888 Cuba was put on its list, and in 1889 Brazil. In 1905 the society transferred its work in Cuba and Brazil to the Board of Missions, and by new articles of agreement the connection between the two agencies was made closer.^ The society still retains its corporate existence, and aids the work in nine different dioceses and districts of the do- mestic field. Its finances are administered by its own execu- tive committee. These funds, providing an annual income of about $20,000, are derived from the capital fund of^ the society, from real estate held by it and from occasional legacies and contributions. 230 APPENDIX IV STATISTICS The following tables are intended to show the number of foreigners not connected with the Roman Church doing religious work in Latin America. It has not been found practical to attempt to give any statistics of the operations carried on by the Roman Catholic Church, but as the reader well knows, in many districts it is abundantly represented. Those who have read the preceding chapters will perceive that these tables do not attempt to set forth what we are doing, as for example in Brazil, where fourteen out of the eighteen clergy are Brazilians; and in Haiti, where all the twelve ordained workers are native Haitians. Statistics of the Protestant Mission Boards. to 1 '3 m s tl -2 6. o'C ""