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INTRODUCTION.
covery there of gold, in 1848–9. Upon the West India Islands, in Mexico, in Central America, all along the Pacific slope of the Andes, and everywhere upon the lofty and pleasant table-lands that had formed the heart of the empire of the Incas, there sprang up rapidly great cities as the centres of mining and agricultural industries, of commerce and of trade. Thus did a Greater Spain grow up in the New World. It was, in a large measure, the treasures derived from these new possessions that enabled the sovereigns of Spain to play the imposing part they did in the affairs of Europe during the century following the discovery of America.[1]
- ↑ After having robbed the Indians of their wealth in gold and silver, the slow accumulations of centuries, the Spaniards further enriched themselves by the enforced labor of the unfortunate natives. Unused to such toil as was exacted of them under the lash of worse than Egyptian task-masters, the Indians wasted away by millions in the mines of Mexico and Peru, and upon the sugar plantations of the West Indies. More than half of the native population of Peru is thought to have been consumed in the Peruvian mines. To save the Indians, negroes were introduced as a substitute for native laborers. This was the beginning of the African slave-trade in the New World. The traffic was especially encouraged by a benevolent priest named Las Casas (1474–1566), known as the "Apostle of the Indians." Thus the gigantic evil of African slavery in the Western Hemisphere, like the gladiatorial shows of the Romans, was brought into existence, or, rather, in its beginning was fostered, by a philanthropic desire and effort to mitigate human suffering.
