America

America, also called the Western Continent or the New World, consists of three

main divisions: North America, Central America, and South America. The first of

these extends from (about) 70° to 15° north latitude. Central America forms an

isthmus running from northwest to southeast and narrowing to a strip of thirty

miles in width at Panama; this isthmus extends from 15° to 8° north latitude,

where it connects with the western coast of South America. South America

begins in latitude 12° north, terminating in latitude 55° south. Hence North

America approximately extends over 3,800 English miles from north to south,

South America 4,500, and Central America constitutes a diagonal running

between the two larger masses, from northwest to southeast and is

approximately a thousand miles in length.

As the object of this article is to compile the data which will help the reader

appreciate the Christian settlement and civilization of America, we omit here the

geography, geology, and other topics usually treated in general encyclopedias,

and confine ourselves to the ethnography and colonization of the Americas. The

so-called aborigines of North America are, with the exception of the so-called

Eskimo, generally regarded as belonging to one and the same branch of the

human family, physically as well as ethnically. From the physical standpoint,

they have been classified with the type called Mongolian, but since doubts have

arisen as to the existence of such a type, it is safer to state that,

anthropologically, the American, and especially the North American Indians,

resemble some of the most easterly Asiatic tribes more closely than any other

group of the human family. The South American Indian is more nearly allied to

the northern than to any extra-American stock. As to the Eskimo, his skull is

decidedly an Arctic type, corresponding in that respect to the Asiatic, and even

European peoples living inside of the Arctic Circle. But these generalizations

may have to be modified, with the rapid strides anthropology is making in the

field of detailed and local investigation, and it will hereafter be advisable to

consider the characteristics of every linguistic stock (and even of its subdivisions)

by themselves, allowing for changes wrought in the physical condition by

diversity of environment after long residence.

DISTRIBUTION OF ABORIGINAL POPULATIONS

The distribution of the American population at the time of Columbus is, of course,

not known from personal observation, but it may be approximately reconstructed

from information gathered after America began to be visited by Europeans. The

Eskimo held most of the Arctic belt, whereas the so-called Indians swayed the

rest of the continent to its southernmost extremity. The population was not

nearly so numerous as had long been thought, even where it was most dense,

but there are no materials even for an approximate estimate. The great northern

and western plains were not settled, although there are traces of pre-Columbian

permanent abodes, or at least of some settlements made during a slow shifting

along the streams; tribes preying on the buffalo roamed with that quadruped over

the steppes. The northwest, on the Pacific, was more densely inhabited by

tribes, who subsisted by fishing (salmon), limited agriculture, and hunting. This

was also the case along the Mississippi (on both banks), and in the timbered

basin of the Alleghenies, along the Atlantic from St. Lawrence to Florida,

whereas southern Texas was sparsely inhabited, and in parts but temporarily, as

the buffalo led the Indian on its southward wanderings. The aboriginal population

of California was not large and lived partly on seafood. The great northern plateau

of Mexico, with the mountains along the Rio Grande, was too arid and

consequently destitute of means of subsistence, to allow permanent occupation

in numbers; but the New Mexico Pueblos formed a group of sedentary

inhabitants clustering along the Rio Grande and settled in the mountains as far

as Arizona, surrounded on all sides by roving Indians, some of whom, however,

like the Navajos, had turned to land-tilling also, on a modest scale. The same

conditions may be said to have obtained in Arizona. Western Mexico presented

a similar aspect, modified by a different climate. While there are within the United

States tribes that in the fifteenth century displayed a higher degree of culture

than their surroundings (the Natchez, for instance, and in the development of

ideas of government and extension of sway, the Iroquois) the culture of the Indian

seems to have reached its highest degree in Central Mexico and Yucatan,

Guatemala and Honduras, and, we may add, Nicaragua. It is as if the tribal

wanderings from north to south, which sometimes took other directions, had

been arrested by the narrowing of the continent at the Isthmus of Panama. While

the abundance of natural resources invited man to remain, geographic features

compelled him, and thus arose Indian communities that excelled in culture

Indians in every other part of the continent. South of Panama, nature was too

exuberant, and the territory too small to favour similar progress; hence the

Indians, while still quite proficient in certain arts, could not compare with their

northern neighbors. In South America the exuberance of tropical life north of the

Argentine plains, was as unfavorable to cultural growth as barrenness would have

been. Hence the Amazonian basin, Brazil, the Guyanas, and Venezuela, as well

as the eastern declivity of the Andes in general, were thinly inhabited by tribes,

few of which had risen above the stage of roving savages. On the western slope

of the Andes, in Columbia, the population was somewhat more dense and the

houses, though still of wood and canes, were larger, and more substantially

reared. Sedentary tribes of a lesser degree of culture also dwelt in northern

Argentine, limited in numbers, and scattered in and between savage groups. The

highest development attained in South America before its discovery was along

the backbone of the Andes from 15° north to near the Tropic of Capricorn, or 23°

south. This was also the case on the Pacific shore to latitude 20° south,

beginning at 2° south. In this zone the cultural growth of the Indian attained a

level equal in many ways, superior in some, inferior in others (as for instance in

plastic work in stone), to the culture of the most advanced tribes of Yucatan and

Central America. The tribes of Chile were comparatively numerous and fairly

advanced, mostly given to land-tillage and hunting; the Patagonians stood on a

lower level, and the people of Tierra del Fuego were perhaps on the lowest round

of the scale of humanity in America.

PRE-COLUMBIAN POLITICAL CONDITIONS

Not even the most advanced among the American Indians had risen to the

conception of a Nation or State; their organization was merely tribal, and their

conquests or raids were made, not with the view of assimilating subjected

enemies, but for booty (including females, and human victims for sacrifice) or, at

best, for the purpose of exacting tribute and assistance in warfare. Hence

America was an irregular check-board of tribes, independent and always

autonomous, even when overawed or overpowered by others. Those tribes whose

sway were most extensive when America was first discovered were:

in North America, the Iroquois League in what is now the State of New

York; they had organized for the purpose of plunder and devastation and

were just then extending their destructive forays;

in central Mexico, the confederacy of the tribes of Mexico, Tezcuco, and

Tlacopan;

in Yucatan, the Maya, although these do not seem to have agglomerated

so far as to form leagues, except temporarily;

in South America the Muysca or Chibcha of central Columbia, and,

in Peru, the Inca.

It has not yet been established, however, that the Inca had confederates, or if

they belonged to the class of sedentary tribes that then overran large expanses

of territory, either alone or with the aid of subjugated tribes. Traces of

confederacies appeared on the Peruvian coasts among the sedentary clusters

that were partly wiped out by the Inca not a century previous to the advent of the

Spaniards. Of the sedentary Indians that held or overawed a considerable extent

of territory by their own single efforts, the various independent groups of

Guatemala and Tarascans in western central Mexico were most conspicuous. In

North America, the Muskogees, the Natchez, the Choctaws, and further north

the Dakotas and the Pawnees displayed considerable aggressive power.

ABORIGINAL SOCIAL CONDITIONS

The system of social organization was the same in principle throughout the entire

continent, differences being, as in general culture, in degree but not in kind. The

clan, or gens, was the unit, and descent was sometimes in the male, sometimes

in the female, line. But the clan system had not everywhere fully developed; the

prairie tribes of North America, for instance, were not all composed of clans.

Various causes have been assigned for this exception, but no satisfactory

explanation has yet been suggested. The general characteristics of American

Indian society were: communal tenure of lands, no hereditary estates, titles, or

offices, and segregation or exclusion of the different clusters from each other.

Definite boundaries nowhere divided one cluster from another; uninhabited zones

or neutral belts intervened between the settlements of the tribes; where the

population was denser, the belt was narrower, though still devoid of villages. Civil

and military administrations were merged into each other, and behind and above

both, though partly occult, the power of religious creed and ceremonial

determined every action. The shamans or sorcerers, by means of oracular

utterances or magic, were the real leaders. These so-called priests also had their

organization, the principles of which were the same all over primitive America, as

they are the same today. Esoteric societies, based upon empirical knowledge

and its application to spiritual and material wants, constituted the divisions and

classifications of the wizards. Whoever practiced the rites and artifices held

indispensable for religious ends, without belonging to one or the other of these

clusters of official magicians, exposed himself to dire chastisement. Such were

and are the chief features of religious organization among the more advanced

tribes; the lesser the degree of culture, the more imperfect the system and the

less complicated in detail.

RELIGION OF THE ABORIGINES

Animism is the principle underlying the creed of the Indian everywhere, and

Fetishism is its tangible manifestation. Monotheism, the idea of a personal and

all-creating and ruling God, nowhere existed among the Indians. The whole world

was pervaded by a spiritual essence which could at will take individual shape in

special localities. The Indian feels himself surrounded everywhere by numberless

spiritual agencies, in the presence of which he is helpless, and which he feels

constrained incessantly to propitiate or appease. This fear underlies the system

of his magic and gives the wizard a hold upon him which he cannot shake off. His

every action is therefore preceded by prayer and offerings, the latter are

sometimes quite complicated. Among his fetishes, there is little or no hierarchic

gradation of idols. Phenomena that seem to exert a greater influence upon man

than others are the object of more elaborate cult, but they are not supposed to

act beyond their sphere. Thus there was and is no sun-worship as commonly

believed. The sun, as well as the moon, was looked upon as a heavenly body

which is the abode of powerful (but not all-powerful) spirits; in many tribes, little

attention is paid to them. Historic deities also arose among them as a result of

belief of mighty wizards who spirit dwelt in their fetishes. Sacrifices were made to

the fetishes, and the most precious objects offered up, human victims being

looked upon as the most desirable. Even the practice of scalping was based

upon a belief that, by securing that part of the enemy's body nearest to the brain,

the captor came into possession of the mental faculties of the deceased, and

thus added so much more to his own mental and physical power.

Anthropophagy, or cannibalism, so widely distributed through the tropics, rested

on the same conception.

ABORIGINAL LAWS AND LANGUAGES

The Indian had no written laws. Custom ruled; the decisions of tribal councils and

oracular utterances determined the questions at issue. The council was the chief

authority in temporal matters; the chiefs executed its decrees, which were first

sanctioned, or modified, by the oracles of the shamans. There was no writing, no

letters, but some of the more advanced tribes used pictographs by means of

which they could, to a limited extent, record historic events, preserve the records

of tribute, and represent the calendars, both astronomical (in a rude way) and

ritual. The knotted strings, or quippus, of Peru were a more imperfect method,

and their use, in a simpler form, was much more extended than generally

thought. The aboriginal languages of America are divided into stocks, and again

divided into dialects. The number of these stocks is becoming gradually reduced

as a result of philological study. There is an affinity between some of the idioms

of western North America and some of eastern Asia, but further than that

resemblances do not go. It is safer to follow the example set by Brinton and

subdivide the American idioms into geographical groups, each of which

embraces a certain number of stocks. There is, however, an objection to this

plan, in that, in some cases, one stock is scattered and dispersed over more

than one geographic section. There are, for instance, indications that the

Shoshones of Oregon, the Pimas, Opatats, Yaqui of Arizona and Sonora, and

Mexicans (Aztecs, Tezcucans, etc.) and a part of the Indians of Nicaragua

belong to one linguistic family which is thus represented both among the North

Pacific and Central groups.

Leaving aside the Eskimo, whose language may be classed as specifically

Arctic, the most import groups are: in British America the Athapascans, or

Tinne; the Navajos. or Dinne, in Arizona and New Mexico, with their relatives the

Apaches or N'de; the Algonquins, ranging from Nova Scotia in the north-east, on

the Atlantic, to New York Bay in the south, and from the headwaters of the

Missouri River in the west, across the basin of the Great Lakes; of these Indians

the Arapahoes, Blackfeet, Cheyennes, Chippewas, Delawares, Sacs and Foxes,

and Shawnees are the most generally known. Many tribes of this group (like

those of New England, for instance) are practically extinct; the Iroquois in

northern New York, embracing the Hurons, Eries, Cherokees, etc.; the

Muskogees comprising the tribes along the southern Atlantic coast to part of

Florida; the Catawbas, Natchez, and some of the Indians of Florida and Coahuila

in Mexico; the Pawnees, Dakotas and Kiowas. mostly Indians from the plains

and of the watershed west of the Mississippi; in the West, on the Pacific coast,

the north Pacific group extends from Alaska to southern California. The Yumas

are scattered from the mouth of the Colorado through portions of Arizona, and a

branch of them is said to live in the Mexican state of Oaxaca. The Pueblos of

New Mexico and Arizona are looked upon as a separate linguistic cluster also.

Of the great Shoshone group, mention has already been made. Mexico further

contains a number of clusters linguistically distinct, like the Taoascans, the

Otomis, the Totonacos, Zapotecos, Mijes, Mixtecos, Mayas, Zendales, some of

which have been grouped into one family. The Maya, for instance, embrace some

of the more highly developed tribes of Guatemala, and the Huaxtecos of the

State of Vera Cruz, far to the north of Yucatan. The farther south we go, the more

indefinite become linguistic classifications, for the reason that the material at

hand has not been sufficiently investigated, and also that there is, especially in

regard to South America, much material still to be collected. It follows, therefore,

that the idioms of the Isthmus can hardly be regarded as classified. A number

are recognized as apparently related, but that relationship is but imperfectly

understood. In South America, we here merely mention the Chibchas, or

Muyscas, of Columbia, the extensive Arawak stock, and the Caribs, the former

widely scattered, the latter limited to Venezuela, the Orinoco, and Guyana. Of

the idioms of Ecuador little is known except that the Quicha language of Peru

(mountains) may have supplanted a number of other languages before the

Spanish conquest. South of the Quicha, the great Aymara stock occupies the

central plateau, but in primitive times it extended much farther north. In Brazil,

the Tupi (Guarani) and Tapuya were, on the coast, the most widely diffused

languages. We may further mention the idioms of Chile, which may form one

family, the tribes of the Grand Chaco (of which the Calchaquis were the most

advanced) and the unclassified idioms of Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego. This

sketch of the distribution of American languages cannot here be carried into

greater detail. American linguists are constantly progressing, and much of what

now appears well-established is liable to be over thrown in the future.

ORIGINS OF THE ABORIGINAL RACES

The question of the origin of the Indians is as yet a matter of conjecture. Affinities

with the Asiatic groups have been observed on the northwestern and western

coast of North America, and certain similarities between the Peruvian-coast

Indians and Polynesian tribes seem striking, but decisive evidence is still

wanting. The numberless hypotheses on the origin of the primitive Americans

that have flooded literature since the days of Columbus have no proper place

here. The existence of man in America during the glacial period is still a matter of

research. Neither is there any proof of the coming of Christian missionaries in

pre-Columbian times. There may be indications, but these lack, so far, the

support of documentary evidence. If, however, we consider Greenland as an

island belonging to the North American Continent, Christianity was introduced

into America in the tenth century of our era. The tale of the voyage to "Vinland,"

attributed to Bishop Jon, or John, in the fourteenth century, rests on slender

foundations. In regard to visits of Asiatics to the west coast of America, nothing

is known, the Fu-Sang tale having been long ago shown to apply to the Japanese

archipelago. Martin Behaim placed on his map of 1492 a note according to which

seven Portuguese bishops in the ninth century fled from the Moors to a western

island called Antilia and there founded seven towns. Other than this, there is no

authority for the story. Finally, there is the story of Atlantis, told by Plato in his

"Timaeus" and his "Critias", which is equally unsupported. Though the subject of

much speculation, no trace of a submerged continent, or part of the American

Continent of which Antilles would be the remnant, has so far been discovered.

The attempts to establish traces of the Atlantis catastrophe in the folklore of

American tribes have met with indifferent success.

ORIGINS OF THE NAME GIVEN TO THE NEW WORLD

The name "America" is the outcome not so much of an accident as of an

incident. For nearly a century after Columbus, the Spaniards who had first right

to baptize the continent, having been its first European occupants, persisted in

calling their vast American possessions the "Western Indies." That name was

justifiable in so far as the discovery occurred when they were in search of Asia.

The belief that America was a part of that continent was dispelled only by

Balboa's journey across the Isthmus in 1513. Six years previous to that feat,

however, the name America had been applied by some German scholars to the

New World. It was not done with the object of diminishing the glory of Columbus,

nor of endorsing the claims of other explorers, but simply in ignorance of the

facts. Amerigo Vespucci, a Florentine pilot, first in the service of Spain, then of

Portugal, and then again in Spanish employ, had made at least two voyages to

the Western seas. It is not the purpose here to discuss the voyages Vespucci

claimed to have made to the American coast, or have been attributed to him. For

these still somewhat enigmatic tales, and the documents relating thereto, see

AMERIGO VESPUCCI. It suffices to state that at least some of his letters were

published as early as 1504. As in one of them his first voyage is placed in

1497-98, and he there claims to have touched the American continent, it would

give him the priority over Columbus (a claim, however, Vespucci never advanced).

It is easy to see how the perusal of these reports might induce scholars living

remote from the Peninsula and America to attribute to him the real discovery of

the New World and to suggest that it be named after him. Out of a chapel

founded by St. Deodatus, in the seventh century, in what is now French Lorraine,

a college had sprung up at St. Dié, Vosges, in the eleventh century. Among its

professors was Martin Waldseemüller (Hylacomylus) who occupied the chair of

cosmography. Struck by the alleged date of 1497 for Vespucci's first trip to the

new continent, he concluded that to the Florentine belonged the honour of the

first discovery, and that the New World should hence be named after him. So

when, in 1507, a printing press was established at St. Die, through the efforts,

chiefly, of the secretary of the Duke of Lorraine, he published, together with

Mathias Ringmann, professor of Latin, a geographical work of small compass,

entitled "Cosmographiae Introductio" in which he inserted the following passage: I

do not see why it may not be permitted to call this fourth part after Americus, the

discoverer, a man of sagacious mind, by the name of Amerige -- that is to say,

the land of Americus -- or America, since both Europe and Asia have a feminine

form of the name, from the names of women".

This suggestion might have had no further consequence, had not the name of

America been placed on a map published by Hylacomylus in the same year,

whether to designate only that part of the discovery which was credited or the

whole continent as far as known, is not certain. As the "Cosmographiae

Introductio" was a geographical treatise, it was gradually accepted by

cosmographers outside of Spain, although Las Casas protested against the

name America, as a misnomer and a slur on the name of Columbus. Foreign

nations successfully adopted the name proposed by Waldseemuller. Even Spain

finally yielded, substituting "America" for "Occidental Indies" and "New World" as

late as the middle of the eighteenth century. As far as known, Vespucci himself

took no interest in the use of the name America. He never laid any claim to being

the first discoverer of the continent, except as far as the (doubtful) date of his first

voyage seems to do so. He was a personal friend of Columbus as long as the

latter lived, and died (1512) with the fame of having been a useful and honorable

man. Neither can Waldseemuller be charged with rashly giving Vespucci's name

to America. More blame for not investigating the matter with care, and for blindly

following a suggestion thrown out by Waldseemuller, attaches to subsequent

students of cosmography like Mercator and Ortelius, especially to the latter, for

he had at his command the original Spanish documents, having been for a time

the royal cosmographer. An attempt to trace the origin of the name to some

obscure Indian tribe, said to have been called Amerique, has met with no favor.

COLONIZATION OF AMERICA

The European nations which settled the continent of America after its discovery

by Columbus, and exerted the greatest influence on the civilization of the New

World, were principally five. They rank, in point of date, as follows: Spain,

Portugal, France, England, Holland. Sweden made an attempt at colonization,

but, as the Swedish colony was limited to a very small fraction of the area of

eastern North America and endured not more than seventeen years, it need not

be mentioned here. Russian colonization of Alaska, and Danish occupation of

one of the Lesser Antilles may also be passed over as unimportant.

Spanish

Spain began to colonize the larger Antilles in 1493. The rapidity with which she

explored and conquered the territories discovered was amazing. Not sixty years

after the landing of Columbus, Spanish colonies dotted the continent, from

northern Mexico as far south as central and southern Chile. Not only were they

along the coast, but in Mexico and Central America they were scattered from the

Atlantic to the Pacific, and in South America from the Pacific coast eastward to

the crest of the Andes and to the La Plata River. Vast unsettled stretches of land

intervened between the colonies in many sections, but these sections could be,

and were, transversed from time to time so that intercourse could be kept up.

The entire northeastern coast of South America was under Spanish sway, and

explorations had been carried on, approximately, as far as lat. 42° north along

the Pacific; the interior as far as lat 40° the southern United States had been

traversed beyond the Mississippi, and Florida, Alabama, and Georgia taken

possession of along the Atlantic shore. The whole Pacific coast, from lat. 42° to

the southern extremity of Tierra del Fuego, was already known, settled in places,

and frequently visited, and while the Oronoco River had been explored both from

its mouth and from the west, expeditions from Venezuela penetrated to the

Amazon and explored the whole length of its course from the side of Ecuador.

These extraordinary achievements were accomplished by a nation that, in the

beginning of the sixteenth century, counted, so far as we can estimate, not ten

millions of people.

Such extraordinary activity, energy and, it cannot be denied, in many cases

sagacity also, was the outcome of the character of the Spanish people, and of

their formation. In the first place, the Spaniards are a much mixed race. Since

the times of Roman domination, nearly every people of any consequence that

overran Europe (Huns and Northern Germans excepted) occupied, for a while at

least, parts of Spanish soil, and left traces of their presence in language,

customs, and in some cases (the Visigoths) in laws and organization. Southern

invaders from Africa, the Moors, had contributed still further to the mixture.

Defense of the Spanish soil, and particularly, salvation of the Christian faith, the

people's dearest patrimony, against these Mohammedan conquerors, had made

of the Spaniards, above all, a warrior people. But seven centuries of incessant

warfare neither fashioned a very tender-hearted race nor contributed to enrich the

country. Spain had once been rich in precious metals, but the Romans

impoverished the land by draining the mines. Still the tradition remained, and with

the tradition, the longing for a return of the golden age. Until the discovery of

America, Europe looked to the far East for the wealth that was denied it by

nature. When the discovery of the Antilles revealed the existence of gold, Spain

neglected the East, and turned her eyes to the West. The fever for gold seized all

who could emigrate, and the desire for gold and silver became a powerful

incentive to seek and grasp the wealth of the New World. The thirst for gold was

neither more or less intense in the sixteenth century than it is now, but it was

directed to much vaster regions. Furthermore, the precious metals were found

among people to whom they were of no commercial value, much less standards

of wealth. To deprive the Indian of gold and silver was, to him, a much less

serious matter than to deprive him of his gathered maize or any other staple food.

The earliest periods of Spanish colonization were spent in attempts to establish

a modus vivendi with the aborigines and, like all epochs of that kind, proved

disastrous to the weaker--namely, to the Indian. Doubts as to whether the natives

were human beings or not were soon disposed of by a royal decree asserting

their essential human nature and certain rights flowing therefrom. They were,

however, (and justly, too) declared to be minors who required a stage of tutelage,

before they might be made to assume the duties and rights of the white

population. Before practically reaching this conclusion, one which once for all

determined the condition of the Indians in most South American Republics, and

partly in the United States and Canada, much experimenting had to be done.

The primitive condition of man in the New World was a problem which European

culture four centuries ago was not yet capable of solving. While in Spain the old

communal rights of the original components of the realm were for a long time

maintained, and a kind of provisional autonomy prevailed, which acted as a

check upon growing absolutism, Spanish America was from the outset a domain

of the crown. Discovery, by land and sea, and colonization, were under the

exclusive control of the monarch; only with his permission explorations could be

made, and settlements established. Personal initiative was thus placed

ostensibly under a wholesome control, but it was also unfavorably hampered in

many instances. Not so much, however, in the first century following Columbus

as in the two following centuries. The royal patronage, at first indispensable,

resulted in securing for Spanish interests an unjust ascendancy over those of the

colonists. It was often, and not improperly, contended that the Creoles were in a

worse position than the Indians, the latter, as special wards of the Government of

Spain, enjoying more protection and privileges than the Spanish Americans. The

latter complained particularly of the injustice of assigning all lucrative offices to

native Spaniards, to the exclusion of Creoles. It insured the home Government a

strong position in the colonies, but only too often its administration was

entrusted to men unfit for the positions through want of practical acquaintance

with country and people. It is true that the system of residencia, or final account

at the expiration of the terms of office, and the visita, or investigation with,

sometimes, discretionary faculties, were a check upon abuses, but by no means

sufficient. A code of law for the Indies, as Spain called its American possessions

for a long time, had been in contemplation since the middle of the sixteenth

century, but it only became a fact at the end of the seventeenth. Much of the

delay was occasioned by the enormous number of royal Decrees on which

legislation had to be based. These decrees continued to be promulgated as

occasion demanded, along with the Code, and they bear testimony to the

solicitous attention given by the Spanish monarchs to the most minute details of

their trans-oceanic possessions. It was a so-called paternal autocracy,

well-intended, but most unfavorable, in the end, to the free development of the

individual and of the colonies in general.

In the middle of the seventeenth century, Spain definitively closed its colonies to

the outer world, the mother-country excepted, and even the intercourse with that

was severely controlled. It was a suicidal measure, and thereafter the American

colonies began to decline, to the great detriment of Spain itself. Still it should not

be overlooked that the measure had, to a great extent, been forced upon Spain

by the unrelenting attacks of other nations upon her colonies and her commerce

with them, in times of peace as well as war. Instruction and education were

almost completely under the control of the Catholic Church. Secular institutions

of learning sprang up later, although the Jesuits had taken the initiative in that

direction. Considering the means at hand, much was done to study the

geography of the new continent, its natural history, and other branches of

science. In the eighteenth century, scientific explorations were made on a large

scale. Previous to that time, most investigations were due to individual efforts,

especially by ecclesiastics. In the sixteenth century, however, Philip the Second

sent to Mexico his own physician Hernandez to study specially the medicinal

and alimentary plants of that country. Nutritive plants were imported from Europe

and Asia, as well as domestic animals, and it is to the Spaniard that the planting

and cultivation of fruit and shade trees in South America is due. But all these

improvements did not satisfy the legitimate aspirations of Spanish-Americans, for

they were made for the benefit of native Spaniards. Add to this a vacillating and

heavy system of taxation that weighed almost exclusively on the Creoles, heavy

custom-house duties, stringently exacted, and the arbitrary conduct of officials

high and low, and we are not surprised that the colonies took advantage of the

opportunity afforded by the weakening of Spain during the Napoleonic period to

secure their independence. The exploitation of the abundant mines of precious

metals, discovered everywhere in consequence of Spanish exploration, was

carried out in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, according to methods that

were certainly progressive, though the mines began to give out. At the same

time, in the great mining centres, the Creoles became so rich that luxury and

corruption rapidly spread amongst them. The great bulk of the treasure went to

Europe without any profit for Spanish America. The statement that forced labour

in the mines diminished the number of Indians is greatly exaggerated. Individual

and local abuses are undeniable, but the system established after the sad

experiences of the first colonists proved wise and salutary when properly carried

out. In general, the Indian policy of the Spanish government was based upon the

idea that the Indian should in time supply the labour needed in the colonies; it

was a policy of solicitous preservation and slow patient education through the

Catholic Church.

Portuguese

As Spain was securing its foothold in the New World, Portugal was rapidly

pushing forward in its path of exploration. The outcome was rivalry between the

two nations, and disputes about the rights and limits of discovery. Both crowns,

Portuguese and Spanish, appealed to the Pope, who accepted the task of

arbitrator. His verdict resulted in establishing a line of demarcation, the right of

discovery on one side being allotted to Spain, on the other side to Portugal. The

papal bulls from 1493, while issued, according to the time, in the form of grants

by Divine rights, are in fact acts of arbitration. The Pope, Alexander VI, had not

sought, but merely accepted by request of the parties the office of umpire, and

his decisions were modified several times before both claimants declared

themselves satisfied. The methods of colonization pursued by the Portuguese,

were in the main similar to those of Spain, with the difference that the

Portuguese inclined more to utilitarianism and to commercial pursuits. Again, the

territory discovered and occupied (Brazil) was difficult uniformly of access, being

mostly covered by vast forests and furrowed by gigantic watercourses, not

always favorable to the penetration of the interior. Therefore the Portuguese

reached the interior much less rapidly than the Spaniards, and confined their

settlements mostly to the coast. The Indian population, thinly scattered and on a

much lower level of culture than the sedentary natives in part of Spanish

America, was of little service for the exploration of the vast and almost

impenetrable land. In the beginning of the seventeenth century, Brazil became

Spanish, only to be conquered by the Dutch. The domination of the latter left no

permanent stamp on the country, as it was brought to a close thirty years after

its beginning.

During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Portuguese were the most

dangerous neighbors of the Jesuit missions, in the Amazonian Basin, as well as

in Paraguay. Their policy of enslaving the Indians caused the ruin of more than

one mission and it was only with great effort that the little Jesuit state of

Paraguay, so beneficial to the aborigines, for a time held it own. The separation

of Brazil from Portugal was due more to political disturbances in the latter

country than to other causes. An empire was created with a scion of the royal

house of Portugal at its head. It is chiefly to the last emperor, Pedro II, that Brazil

owes its interior development, and to him was due the emancipation of the

slaves. The Federal Republic since created has had to deal with many

difficulties.

French

The French occupied three regions of the New World: (1) Eastern Canada, (2)

Louisiana and the Mississippi Valley, some of the lesser Antilles and Guiana in

eastern South America. The Antilles (Haiti, Martinique, Guadaloupe, etc.),

became French in the course of the incessant piratical warfare carried on against

Spain in the sixteenth century. Guiana as a French possession was the fruit of

European wars and treaties. Neither of the last two French colonies have exerted

and marked influence on American civilization. The French occupation of a part of

Haiti had more serious consequences. The uprising of the negroes on that island

resulted in the establishment of a negro republic, an isolated phenomena in the

annals of American history. The French occupation of Canada lasted two

centuries, that of the Valley of the Mississippi a little more than one, and was of

the highest importance in the exploration of the North American Continent. It is to

the French that we owe the earliest acquaintance with these regions. French

colonization was different from Spanish, inasmuch as it was attempted on a

much smaller scale and with less dependence on the home government. Like

Spanish and Portuguese colonization, however, it was essentially Catholic. The

attempts to found French Huguenot settlements in Brazil, Florida, and Georgia in

the sixteenth century all failed; in Brazil because of mismanagement; in the latter

countries because of Spanish conquest. French colonization began on the banks

near the mouth of the Saint Lawrence. The first colonizers were adventuresome

mariners who afterward applied to the crown for authority as well as for aid and

military assistance. But it was personal initiative that laid the foundation. Strange

as it may seem, Catherine de Medicis gave more support to Catholic than to

Protestant undertakings. Political reasons on her part, chiefly the desire to

supplant Spain in the American possessions, dictated this anomalous policy.

The French settlements remained comparatively few, and hugged the shores of

the Saint Lawrence, occupying points of the Lake basin and isolated posts

among the Indians and on the seaboard. The necessity of military protection, and

the limited immigration led to a governmental organization of the colony

controlled by the crown, but for the most part indifferently supported. The French

people had little confidence in the future of a domain that promised only furs and

wood, showed no traces of precious metal, and where the climate was as

forbidding as its Indian inhabitants. It is likely that owing to the antipathy against

the Canadian enterprise prevailing at court, Canada would have been abandoned,

had not two pertinent reasons prevailed: one, the secret hope of checking the

growing influence of England on the new continent and of eventually annexing the

English colonies in North America; the other, the missionary labours of the

Jesuits. Both went hand in hand, for while the Jesuits were true to their religious

mission, they were nonetheless Frenchmen and patriotic. They soon discovered

that the key to the political and military situation was in the hands of the Iroquois

Indians, or Six Nations, and the European power that gained their permanent

friendship would eventually secure the balance of power. To induce the Iroquois

to become Christians and thereby allies of France, the Jesuits spared no

sacrifice, no martyrdom, no efforts. Had the rulers of France been as sagacious

as those of Spain in their appreciation of the Jesuit missions, and had they

adequately supported them, the outcome might have been favorable. But, while

both countries were equally autocractic, the French government was as

unsystematic and careless in Canada as the Spanish was careful and

methodical in administering its American possessions. The few governors, like

Frontenac, capable of controlling the situation were poorly assisted by the

mother-country, and inefficiency too often alternated with good administration.

Even military aid was sparingly granted at the most crucial periods. It is true,

however, that the moral and material decay of France, and her exhausting wars,

may be urged in excuse of this neglect. The result was the establishment, in the

French possessions, of a spare population, scattered over so vast a territory that

communication was frequently interrupted. That population, with the exception of

the inhabitants of the official centres at Quebec and Montreal, where social

conditions were partly modeled on those of the motherland, was rude and

uneducated by reason of its isolation, though individually hardy and energetic,

and their dispersion through such vast territory prevented joint effort. The

missionaries had their hands too full, in attending to the Indian missions, to serve

adequately the wants of the colonists, who moreover, from the nature of their

occupations, were often compelled to lead an almost migratory life. Thanks to

the efforts of a trader and of a Jesuit, the connection between the Lakes and the

Mississippi River was established in the latter part of the seventeenth century.

After the establishment of the French settlements in Louisiana and Illinois, the

English colonies were encompassed by a semi-circle of French possessions. La

Salle did for the mouth of the Mississippi River and part of Texas what Champlain

had done for the mouth of the Saint Lawrence. Individual enterprise began to

make significant approaches to the Spanish outposts in northern Mexico. The

conduct of France in its North American dominions toward other European

nations was of course guided largely by European political conditions, and the

Canadians more than once anticipated the outbreak of international warfare. To a

certain extent the French imitated the Indian policy of Spain by utilizing the

resources afforded by friendly Indian tribes, but these were always fickle and

unstable. In the north, on the borders of the arctic zone, the main element of

stability--agriculture--played but a secondary role.

While the occupation of the French colonists should have proved an element of

strength to the French in Canada, it turned to their disadvantage in the end. The

incomparably more abundant resources of southern latitudes in a moist climate

formed such a contrast with the cold, northern dominion that the tendency to

neglect the latter grew stronger. When Voltaire pronounced himself in favor of the

Louisiana colony, a marked leaning to abandon Canada made itself manifest in

France. The concentrated power of the English colonies, assisted by England's

naval supremacy, rendered voluntary abandonment unnecessary.

English

The methods of English colonization are so widely known, and its literature so

extensive, that the matter may here be treated with comparative brevity. While in

the Southern Atlantic States discoveries and settlements were made with the

assent of the Crown, under its patronage, and mostly by enterprising members of

the nobility, the northern sections, New England especially, were colonized by

personal initiative. There was no desire for independence, though political, and

especially religious, autonomy were the ideals of the Puritan colonists. That

religious autonomy has usually been regarded as synonymous with religious

liberty. But it took long years of struggle and experimenting before the latter

became established in New England. The English system of colonial expression

depended much more on individual enterprise than the Spanish; but there was

much less regard for authority unless the latter was represented by law. English

colonization was more akin to the Portuguese in its commercial tendency, and

superior to the French in the faculty of combining and organizing for a given

purpose. Independence of character was an heirloom of northern origin in general,

respect for law a specifically English tradition. There is no doubt that the

influence of New England has greatly contributed to the remarkable growth of the

United States. The unparalelled rise and expansion of the United States was due

chiefly to personal initiative in the beginning, that afterwards voluntarily submitted

to the requirements of organization and to a political and (subsequently) religious

tolerance which opened the country to all outside elements thought to be

beneficial. These features, however, were not so much due to the English as to

the American character that developed after the North American colonies had

achieved their independence, and the Northern and Southern types of the people

came into closer contact. There was a marked contrast between the position

assumed by the Catholic Church towards the Indians and the attitude of

Protestantism. The former, as soon as the administration of the Spanish

dominions in America began to assume a character of stability, instituted

concerted efforts for the education and civilization of the Indians. The introduction

of the printing press in Mexico (about 1536) was brought about specially to

promote Indian education. The clergy, particularly the regular orders

(Franciscans, Dominicans, and others, and later on, on a still larger scale, the

Jesuits) became not only teachers but then protectors of the natives. It was the

aim of the Church (in harmony with the crown) to preserve the Indian and defend

him from the inevitable abuses of lesser officials and of settlers. Hence in

Spanish America, the Indian has held his own more than anywhere else, and has

come to be a moderately useful element. Attempts to create Indian communities

under the exclusive control of ecclesiastics proved very successful until the

expulsion of the Jesuits, when all the beneficial results were irretrievably lost. The

efforts of Protestants were mostly individual, and received little or no support from

the State. From the English standpoint, the Indian was and is looked upon as an

obstruction to civilization, and the expediency of his removal, forceful or

otherwise, has dictated a policy sometimes completely at variance with the

principles of forbearance and toleration so loudly proclaimed. But it must also be

acknowledged that the Indian himself is largely at fault. His extreme

conservatism in refusing to adopt a mode of life consistent with progress

exasperates, and provokes aggressive measures on the part of, the whites. The

cause of this conservatism lies largely in the religious ideas of the Indians, as yet

imperfectly understood.

The Negro

The negro has assimilated himself much better than the American aborigine to

post-Columbian conditions. Though his condition of life was for centuries

deplorable, and though we absolutely condemn slavery in every form, it cannot be

denied that through it he was slowly introduced to civilized life and became

acquainted with ideas to which the Indian has remained a stranger. Of the negro

republic, Haiti, we have already spoken.

THE ERA OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE

The emancipation of the American colonies from European control changed the

political configuration of the continent, both north and south. Of the British

possessions in North America as they existed in 1776 only the Dominion of

Canada still belongs to the British Crown. The other colonies have become the

United States of America. Spanish America has severed its connection with the

mother-country and had been divided into the republic of Mexico, the central

American republics of Guatemala, Honduras, San Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa

Rica, Leon, and Panama; the Antillian republics of Haiti, Santo Domingo, and

Cuba, and the South American republics of Venezuela, Columbia, Brazil,

Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay, the Argentine, and Chile. Jamaica remains a

British possession; Porto Rico is a possession of the United States. The Lesser

Antilles still belong to the powers which owned them prior to 1776, namely:

England, France, Holland, Denmark, and Sweden. On the continent, British

Honduras and British Guiana; Holland, Dutch Guiana or Surinam; and France,

French Guiana or Cayenne. Changes like these in the political aspects of a

continent might be expected to have had considerable influence on the status of

the Catholic Church. which is so intimately related with the history of civilization

in the New World. Nevertheless, the independence of the European colonies has

not greatly affected the position of the Church in America. In the United States,

the Church has flourished under the republican form of government. In Spanish

America, the new conditions have affected the Church more markedly, and not

always beneficially, The lack of stability in political conditions of South American

States has so often influenced the deportment of their governments towards the

Church that sometimes persecution has resulted, as in Mexico. Attempts to give

the Indian a share in the government, for which he was not prepared, have in

some instances not only loosened the ties that bound him to his former protector

and teacher, the Church, but have also fostered a racial desire to return to

primitive uncivilized conditions. Happily, the material development of many of

these countries has counteracted these tendencies, and to a considerable extent

holds them in check today. The break with Spain brought the Spanish American

clergy into direct relations with the Holy See, and proved greatly advantageous to

religion. The regular orders, especially the Jesuits, have suffered in some South

American countries. In Mexico they have been officially suppressed, but such

extreme measures last only as long as their authors remain in power.

We have not sufficient data to determine the Catholic population of America.

Even in the United States, the number usually given, "about 14,000,000" is a

conjecture more or less accurate. Spanish-American peoples may be classified

as at least officially Catholics. The same applies to the Indians, but the numbers

of the aborigines are but very imperfectly ascertained. Still, we will probably not

go far astray if we assume that nearly one-half the population of America are

Catholics at least in name, The United States of America alone contains fourteen

archbishoprics, eighty-nine bishoprics, and two vicariates-Apostolic. The

remainder of America divides into 159 dioceses, 54 of which are seats of

metropolitans. There are today (1907) two American cardinals: John Gibbons,

archbishop of Baltimore (created in 1886), and Joaquim Arcoverde de

Albuquerque Cavalcanti, Archbishop of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (created in 1905).

(For the achievements of the famous Catholic missionaries and explorers of the

New World, see articles under their respective names. The alleged

pre-Columbian discovery is also treated in a separate article.

Only general works on American ethnography and linguistics can find place here. The literature on

these subjects embodied in monographs finds place in the articles on Indian tribes, languages, and

in the bibliographic articles. The great collection of special monographs initiated by the great

Major Powell, under the title Reports of the Bureau of Ethnography (Washington) now embraces

some twenty-five volumes, and their contents are not restricted to North American topics, This

collection should be carefully consulted. The Dominican Fray Gregorio Garcia presented more fully

than any of his predecessors, and in the form of an inquiry into the origin of the Indians, a general

"apercu" of American ethnography, with references to linguistics. The first edition of the Origen de

los Indios appeared at Madrid in 1607, and a second edition was published by Barcia in 1729,

much enlarged. In the sixteenth century, a number of works on cosmography contains notices of the

customs of the American aborigines, but the information is scanty and mostly and mostly procured

at second-hand (except on Spanish America). The compilation of Lopez de Velasco, from

1571-1574, Geografia y descripcion universal de las Indias (Madrid, 1894) was made without critical

judgment and is superficial. In the seventeenth century, the great work of Cobo, Historia Del Nuevo

Mundo (1653, but printed only at the end of the past century) is highly important for the ethnology

of Spanish America; the book was of de Horn De Originibus Americanis is mostly controversial. The

rare work of the Rabbi Manasse ben Israel On the Aborigines of the New Continent, is devoted to

establishing the descent of the Indians from the Hebrews, and James Adair's History of the American

Indians (London 1775) even improves upon his Jewish predecessor, as does Boudinot, An Inquiry

into the Language of the American Indians (Trenton, 1816). While such books are dedicated to the

expounding of a favorite theory, they embrace a more extensive field of scattered data, and are not

limited to specific tribes or regions. Systematic investigation of American ethnography and

linguistics was begun in the past century (Paris, 1724). It was soon seen that real progress could only

be made by special research and a division of the whole field. So linguistics were separated from

ethnography as early as the close of the eighteenth century. In 1773-82 Court de Greblin published

the Essai sur kes Rapports des Mots, in nine volumes. About the same time, Abbat Hervas wrote the

Idea del Universo (21 volumes, cesena, 1778-81) the 22nd volume of which (Foligno, 1792) gave a

catalog of the languages known at the time, philologic dissection, polyglot vocabulary, arithmetics

(numerals), etc. Vater's Mithridates (1809-17) continued the work begun by Adelung in 1806 under

the same title. In 1815 he published also Linguarium totius orbis Index Alphabeticus quarum

Grammaticam Lexica etc. (Berlin, 1815) a German edition of which appeared in 1847, Literatur der

Grammatiken Lexica und Wortersammlungen aller Sprachen der Erde (2d edition, Berlin, 1847). In

1826, Adrian Balbi published Atlas Ethnographique du Globe (Paris) in which the then known

American languages are classified and tabulated. Not as complete as the preceding works but still

of a general character are Worsley, A View of the American Indians (London, 1828); McCullah, Jr.,

Researches, etc.(1829); Pickering, Remarks on the Indian Languages of North America

(Philadelphia, 1836). With the rapid increase in material in modern times, general works on

American languages became more and more hazardous and monographic treatment of special

subjects and groups are, very properly, taking their place. This is also true of American ethnography.

Systematic study of this branch, including, of course, linguistics, was begun in the United states by

limiting it to tribes or groups. By degrees is has been combined with practical observation. Albert

Galatin, A Synopsis of the Indian Tribes in the United States East of the Rocky Mountains and in

the British and Russian Possessions of North America (Cambridge, 1836) was the first to initiate this

systematic study; the Archaeologia (Worcester, 1820, Cambridge, 1836) and the Transactions of the

American Ethnological Society (new York, 1845 and 1848) contain the early results of the improved

method of study. The works of Schoolcraft, especially The Historical and Statistical Information

respecting the History, Condition, and Prospects of the Indian Tribes of the United States

(Philadelphia 1851-55) extended the field. On Mexico, the work of Orozco y Berra, Geografia de la

Lenguas y carta Etnografica de Mexico (Mexico, 1864) is the most comprehensive and general work

extant, and Alcide de Orbigny, L'homme americain (Paris, 1839), has treated of the Indians of the

vast South-American regions and of their idioms, as far as was possible in his time. American

anthropology as a whole is treated in but few works. Waite, Anthropologie der Naturvolker; Pascal,

Volkerkunde (Leipzig, 1877, 4th edition; English tr. London and New York, 1876); and Ratzel,

history of Mankind (English translation, London, 1896 and 1898); Anthropogeographie (Stuttgart,

1889 and 1891) show a lack of practical acquaintance with the countries and the people they

describe. The most important recent general works on the American aborigines are: Morgan,

Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity in the Human Family (Washington, 1871); Ancient Society

(New York, 1878); and especially Brinton, The American Race (New York, 1891). The student as

well as the general reader will do well, however, to check these comprehensive works by a perusal of

the constantly growing monographic literature on the various groups and tribes of American Indians.

AD. F. Bandelier

Transcribed by Michael Donahue

The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume I

Nihil Obstat, March 1, 1907. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor

Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York

The Catholic Encyclopedia: NewAdvent.com