The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1896-03-07
SPANISH COLONIAL SYSTEM
INTERESTING LECTURE BY PROF.
~. G. BOURNE LAST ETENING.

The ninth lecture in the Mechanics
course was delivered at North Sheffield
hall last evening by Professor Edward
G. Bourne, professor Of history in Yale,
on "rhe Spanish Colonial System"
Professor Bourne dealt with his subject
in most interesting manner. The lee
ture was well attended and was in sub
stance as follows:
The discovery OF America, wrote a
pious Spaniard, is the greatest event
in history since the redemption of man
kind Its like can never happen again.
That America was discovered by Eu-
rope rather than by China is fact of
incalculable significance in history. 1t
meant the expansion of Europe, the ere
alton of a new Europe across the sea
a vastly greater field for the develop
ment of European life. But Europe
was both one and diverse in it's COM
mon past, in it's various merging into a
complex whole of Jewish and Greek
thought, Roman and Teutonic institu-
tions, but diverse in the tendencies OF
its newly born national life. The day
of the old unity was rapidly passing.
It's great image and framework the
Holy Catholic church, was about to be
forever rent by a religious revolution.
The old civilization was to be engaged
in a death struggle with a new civiliza-
tion sprung from its own bosom. The
throes of this conflict We're to deluge
Europe with blood and to block the
progress of culture for generations.
What, meanwhile, would be the for
tunes of the Europe across the sea?
Would it be one or diverse, and, If di-
verse, would it repeat the variations of
old Europe? Would it reproduce the
Europe that was fading from the scene,
or would it offer the grandest field for
the growth of the new life that was
taking the place Of the old? 1t was to
be all these in turn, and finally the last.
The first striking divergence between
the English and Spanish colonial policy
we find in the relation of the colonies
to the crown, The English colonies
were founded through the activities of
commercial companies, which were the
outgrowth of the medieval charters to
commercial towns, or through proprie-
tors who received uasi-vice-regal
rights on the model of the county pala-
tine of Durham. The king, in short,
granted away his powers under forms
which promoted the independent activ-
tiles and responsibilities of the colo
nists. The King of Spain, on the other
hand, relying upon the grant of the
new world to Ferdinand and Isabella
by Pope Alexander vi, retained, under
his own oversight and control, his vast
possessions across the ocean sea. They
in fact belonged to the kings domain
and formed infinitely the largest land
ed estate of which history gives us any
record. Whatever channels Spain pos
sessed for bringing public opinion to
bear on the government, whatever ves-
tiges of institutions of self government
remained in the peninsula in the six
teenth century, had nothing to do with
the new world. That was under the
kings absolute authority. There Charles
v. and Philip III. could carry out un-
hindered their policy and their ideals
of government, and in Philips legisla-
ton for the Indies one sees a bright
side to a power, in depicting which his
torians have lavished their most SOM
bre colors.
The English colonies in the seven
teenth century, especially in New Eng
land, were fed by a comparatively
steady migration of sturdy and indus.
trious people.
Spain during the sixteenth century
was far from over-populated, so there
was little impulse to migration on that
score. Again, the chief object of the
Spanish kings being not to transplant
Spain so much as to add new realms tc
their possessions, looked rather to the
civilization of the natives than to immi.
grafton as the process of building up g
new Spain.
Migration from Spain was surround.
ed with every precaution. No Spaniart
could go to the new world without q
special permission from the king, ant
that permission could be obtained only
by those of unstained orthodoxy. Meth
er the enigrant nor his father or grand
father could have been punished by the
holy office. After while this was re.
laxed and registration only was requir,
ed So far then from Spanish America
forming a refuge for sectaries or heret
les, its population was to be unexcep-
tionally orthodox The piety of Tho
Spanish kings would have revolted from
the idea of subordinating the religion.
welfare of the Indians and of the colo,
MES, and of humanity in general, to the
mere commercial advantages which
would accrue from prosperous but he
retical colonies. Spanish America, a
least should be kept untainted by thu
Lutheran poison, and it probably wa:
freer from it than any other part O
the known world. By a law of 1866 EN-
igration would be allowed only whei
the emigrant specified the province HI
desired to go to and agreed to gt
straight there. Ship captains took al
oath that no unauthorized person wa,
on board. AS Seville, in the extreme
south of Spain, was the only port from
which vessels sailed and Vera Cruz anC
Porto Bello, near the isthmus, the onl!
ones where they landed, the obstacle.
| to migration were as serious as the!
could well be.
| As a natural consequence the Spanisl
element in the South American popula
! tion increased very slowly. BenZon
| estimated the number of Spaniards il
! the new world in 1850 at 5000. Com
pare this with emigration to Massachu
sets in fourteen years of over 20,00
English and with the probable Englisl
population of New England in 1860 o
about $4,000,