The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1898-08-28
THE OLD SPANISH CONQUERORS.
The Men Who Founded the Empire of Spain in the New
World.

\ common in all parts of the Spanish en-
pre- or the new world
/ The military Adventures who led the
/ Spanish bands to America. De Soto and
/ CorteS, AlvaradO and Pizarro. Ponce de
: Leon and Ovande, had all been trained
I IN the wars with the Moors. which were
/ carried on in a manner quite as savage
as the conflicts which the Spaniards
WaSed with the Indians 1t was the
fundamental principle of warfare with
the Moors than an intldel had no rights,
/ that when conquered his life belonged
/ 10 the conQueror if the latter chose to
j take it, that the Spaniard was the in
strument of God to visit vengeance for
unbelief, and the fact that the Indians
I OF the new world had never had an OPP
\ portunlty to embrace what the Span
] iards regarded as the true religion cut
no Inquire in the eyes of the conquerOrs.
mere is 10 more pathetic picture in
! the history of European conqueStS in
| America than that Las CasaS. the
( apostle to the Indians, hurrying to and
! Iro, With an Indian boy carrying a
bucket OF water as an improvised font,
ana DaptiZing as many as possible OF
those destined to die, in order that by
one holy drop they might be saved
from endless perdition. He saw whole
villages of men and women penned up,
waiting to be killed. he counted hun
dreds of children, whose parents had
been murdered, the helpless young
creatures dying of starvation. These
atrocities were not only cOuntenanced,
but in most cases ordered. by the Span
iSh officers. The cOnGuerOrS of Amer
lea were in their own country licensed
robbers, bandits. captains of gangs of
cutthrOatS who saved the lives of their
captiveS only TO eXtOrt ransom, and,
like the Italian and Spanish brigandS
Of l.,Fr i
noses of their prisoners and sent them
to friends of the victim as a reminder
that the ransom should he speedily
paid.
Neither their natures nor their meth
DDS were altered by Hanging the field
of their operations from the old to the
new world: rather did they become
more savage Their greed and rapacity
were Unsuitable and all became
wealthy. Pizarro. the Weyler of Peru,
died worth $50 600, 900; the wealth Of
Cortez was at one time incalculable.
De Soto was one of the richest men in
Spain before he left for the exploring
expedition during which he died el><n
varsdo found in the mines and planta-
tiors of Central America an immense
fortune; the slaves of Ponce de Leon
we're once driven into a large field to
be measured, rather than counted, and
covered an area of more than % acres.
BY plantations of sugar, tobacco, cot
ton and coffee, by the products of the
forest and of the mines, through taxes
which practically ammounted to con-
fiscation, and by the sale of privileges
which enabled the purchaser to rob
outright enormous fortunes were
amassed, but, like most gathered this
way. they were Squandered almost as
quickly as they were gathered.
With few exceptions the Spanish
conquerers were men of good birth;
generally they were of noble families,
but a poor opinion of Spanish chivalTy
and Spanish honor is gained from the
treachery, the falsehoOd, the duphcity
of their dealings with the Indians. An
oath made to an infidel Indian chief
was not held to be binding; neither,
for that matter. was any oath, When
made with a mental reservation that
it could be broken when the interest OF
him who swore might be promoted by
disregarding it. Such was Spanish
chivaIry in the sixteenth century; that
it has not since improved has been
shown by the dealings of Spanish Of
hcials with their provinces during the
present century.
An empire founded by force and
fraud baptized with innocent blood,
deserves to fall quickly. -Four hundred
years are but a span in the life of
nation, but in that comparatively brief
period the Spanish empire has van
ished. Like the Persian empire of an
cient times, wherever it extended it
was a curse. a blotch, an ulcer on the
face of the earth. The evil that men Z
do lives after them; the good is Oftf
with their bones" has ia
ceived abundant complication in the
history of the states founded by Cor
ties, by AlvaradO, by Pizarro, by Ponce
de Leon; and even the explorations of
De Soto, brief as was his stay in any
particularly locality, left a stain, for
the inhabitants of the country through
which he passed hated the sight and
the name of white men, be-
cause De Soto had been in their midst.
The Spanish states in the New World
We're established by the most eXtrava-
CANT waste of human blood, and their
inhabitants have ever since shown the
same disregard for the SacrednesS of
life as was exhibited by the conquer
ors. The revolutions of Spanish Amer
lea are the heritage left the people by
the brutal soldiers who first established
European rule on this side of the At
lantic.