Canal was nearly completed between tidewater and Lake Erie. Humiliating defeats in the land campaigns of 1812 had taken away the expectation of the conquest of Canada; but the American victories at sea inspired a wholesome respect for this country. In the minds of European statesmen, and particularly of English statesmen, the United States was the one rapidly growing and expanding nation of the New World; she had already acquired territory enough for the homes of several hundred million people. Though weak in a military sense, the United States was recognized as a great potential power. Furthermore, the United States as an arbiter had something new to decide, inasmuch as by 1823 the former place of Spain in America was taken by new revolutionary and virtually independent Latin-American governments.

CHAPTER II

THE NEW LATIN-AMERICAN POWERS

1783-1823

EUROPEAN COLONIES IN AMERICA IN 1783

WHEN the Treaty of Peace of 1782-83 recognized the United States as an independent nation, there were five other blocks of American territory held by strong nations: (1) The British possessions and claims north and northwest of the United States, and in the West Indies. (2) The French in the West Indies. (3) Russia in the far Northwest. (4) Portugal in eastern South America. (5) Spain, which occupied the entire coast line from the St. Mary's River in Florida along the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean Sea, the Atlantic (with the exception of Brazil), and the whole coast of the Pacific from Cape Horn to the archipelago of the Northwest Coast.

All these colonies were held on about the same tenure. Every country settled the affairs of its colonies principally in the European capitals; even in the English St. Lawrence and West Indian colonies the people had very little part in their own government. Every home country attempted to restrict the trade of its colonies to its own vessels and its own ports. Even France, who aided the United States to gain independence, gave no privileges in the West Indies.

In 1783 the Spanish colonies were divided into several groups. (1) Immediately alongside the United States were Florida, a narrow strip which cut off the southern States from direct access to the Gulf, and Louisiana, which was a barrier across the mouth of the Mississippi. Both of them had a scanty population, and in Louisiana the Spaniards were only an official veneer. Either province might have been rushed at any time by a few thousand men from the North. (2) The populous Kingdom of New Spain contained well-built cities, a uni

versity, and an aristocracy of wealthy land-owners and silver kings. To Mexico also adhered the three outlying districts of Texas, New Mexico, and California. But Texas was in a desolate condition, because of the inroads of Comanches and other fierce Indian tribes; and New Mexico had never been prosperous. California in 1783 was developing the mission system, which rose to a prosperous condition, but later collapsed. Texas, New Mexico, and California were all at great distances from the United States and had been visited by few English-Americans. (3) The South American group of Spanish colonies, with which the United States had little touch. (4) The Spanish West Indies, which were near at hand; but direct trade was officially forbidden to the British colonies or to the United States.

It has long been fashionable to dwell upon the iniquity and tyranny of the Spanish government in the New World. This belief that the Spaniards were inherently cruel to all the natives and harsh to their own people had great effect in bringing on the Spanish war of 1898 and the annexation of the Philippines and Porto Rico. The truth seems to be that the Spanish government of the colonies was rather stupid than wicked. Easy-going modern writers, by mixing up practices and incidents of the sixteenth century with those of the nineteenth, leave an impression of systematic repression, both of the natives and of the Spanish race. Nevertheless the Spaniards in Mexico or Buenos Ayres, were probably better off and less burdened by meddling officials than Spaniards in the home country. Disturbances were few. The Antiquera rising in 1781 and the Tupac-Amaru rebellion in Peru in 1780 were almost the only formal revolutions. The Spanish colonies were more orderly than the English colonies at the same period. The Indians were oppressed and made serfs, but in the great period of Spanish rule they were not enslaved. Outside of Cuba and Porto Rico the Spanish held few of the negro slaves, who at the same period formed a sixth of the population of the United States. The Spaniards built cities, wharves, roads, bridges, splendid cathedrals and mission churches. Their sympathy with the natives was shown in the practical way of consorting with them and raising up families of mixed blood.

The principal grievance of the Spanish colonies was in matters of trade. They complained of the monopoly of the Cadiz

ship-owners and of the restrictions on commerce from one colony to another. During the American Revolution some of those grievances were redressed; and, with or without the knowledge of the Spanish colonial authorities, there was always a contraband trade with their English colonial neighbors. This trade relation to the West Indies was one of the factors in the growth of a feeling of special interest by the United States. The English allowed a lively commerce between their West Indies and the United States, but only in British or colonial ships, which was long a grievance of the Republic. The Spaniards usually allowed no such trade, even in Spanish ships, but nevertheless it always went on in American vessels.

RACE ELEMENTS IN LATIN AMERICA

Many people in the United States appear to have supposed that the population of Latin America was substantially Spanish, just as the population of the United States was then substantially English. The Latin American revolutionists received and sometimes invited Englishmen, Frenchmen, Irishmen, and North Americans to join them, with the result that McGregors, and Lynches and Cochranes became generals, statesmen, and heavy property owners, but the Celts and Anglo-Saxons were few. Though the common language was Spanish, probably two thirds of the population could hardly understand a word of it. The Spanish law, which was common to all the colonies, was later modified by the influence of French jurisprudence. Then, as now, the obvious and direct intellectual relations of Latin America were with Europe rather than with the United States.

The population was in fact made up of three elements: (1) The Iberians or native Spaniards with the "Creoles" born of the Spanish race in America; (2) mixed SpanishIndian bloods-commonly called mestizos; (3) the native Indians. In Cuba, Porto Rico, and Brazil was found a fourth element of mulattoes and negroes. The native Spaniards had most of the offices and honors in the colonies; as late as the Cuban insurrection of 1895, the "Peninsulars" looked upon themselves as superior to their own kinsmen and sons born on American soil. As for the Creoles, let the modern jurist Alvarez speak:

"The creole element, the only thinking part of the population, felt the injustice with which the mother country treated its colonies. The 'élite' of this class, instructed by travel and the perusal of the philosophical writings of the eighteenth century, took advantage of the embarrassing position in which Spain found herself because of the Napoleonic wars, and followed the example of the United States, dragging the entire creole element into a movement of emancipation."

A contemporary Peruvian writer says of these Americanborn Spaniards:

"The creoles are possessed of an independent spirit; and they hate and despise the Spaniards: they form by far the most enlightened portion of the community. Their master passions are the love of knowledge, and a luxurious and splendid mode of life, and they spare no pains to furnish themselves with books, sumptuous furniture, and articles of luxury. . . . Gold and silver are employed profusely in fitting out the trappings of their horse equipage, and in furnishing their houses; the vessels in the most common use, of the kitchen and bed-chamber, being made of silver.

They have tables of solid silver, and their window curtains, which are of velvet, are fringed with gold lace. Their tables are covered with a great profusion of dishes, cooked after the French and Spanish mode. This mode of life, which is owing to the generous and hospitable character of the creoles, who are born. to independent fortunes, often degenerates into wasteful prodigality and dissipation."

Admiral Chadwick has recently taken the position that the whole expression "Latin America" is an error. He holds that the native Spaniards and Portuguese spring to a large degree from the Berber race of north Africa, tempered with infusions of Roman and Germanic strains; and that race, both in Spain and in the New World, shows the unrest and impatience of restraint which would be expected of nomads. Whatever the soundness of this observation, there can be no doubt that the Indian element is far larger than the European in all the Latin-American states except the Argentine; and that the Indians and many of the mixed bloods are still ignorant, uneducated, and unable to understand or support genuine popular government.