[See page image]

Page 78

and for eighteen years were allowed to languish in Portuguese prisons. After the expulsion of the missionaries the industries established by them were soon in ruins. The prosperity of the country was destroyed, slavery was easily revived, and vice and drunkenness became general. Notwithstanding this succession of calamities it was estimated that in 1856 there were 800,000 domesticated Indians in Brazil.

With some modifications this outline of missionary activity in Brazil will serve for a sketch of early

Spanish America. Everywhere there 3. In Other was the same apostolic zeal, the same

the Cordilleras, where no Spanish army had ever penetrated, a successful college was established by the missionaries. Indeed, the educational progress of Spanish America was remarkable. The late Prof. Edward Gaylord Bourne, of Yale, says that the efficiency of Spanish colonial academies in the sixteenth century was not equaled in the United States until the nineteenth century was well advanced (Spain in America, p. 310, New York, 1906). Long before the humane Quakers, of Pennsylvania, began their agitation for the abolition of slavery a South American Jesuit had denounced it. When guilty traders brought their human cargoes from Guinea or Angola, Blessed Peter Claver consoled the wretched negroes on their arrival in Cartagena. From the experience of Brazil the Due de Choiseul had learned nothing. He, too, attempted to get along without missionaries and endeavored to develop Guiana along economic lines of his own. Perhaps no political philosopher has ever surpassed this particular act in stupidity. When he had banished the priests, the Indians fled to the forests and his colony was practically destroyed. Prosperity returned with the restoration of the missionaries. The economist Rae, quoted by John StuartMill, gives an interesting account of the celebrated Jesuit missions of Paraguay. For winning savages to the ways of civililation they appear to have been ideal, but; like those established elsewhere in South America, they, too, were destroyed by government interference. After the conqueror came the missionary. Everywhere civilization was sustained by the priests, and when they were expelled it began everywhere to decline. The political science of a later day seems to have regarded as antiquated the custom of adopting an enlightened system of taxation to obtain a revenue for government and instead to have relied chiefly upon confiscation. From the effects of this new system of economics and from the selfish opposition to religion many parts of South America have never completely recovered. In favored regions, however, it is even now in the vanguard of civilization, and almost everywhere there are evidences of improvement. So rapid is the succession of changes in that part of the globe that descriptions written a decade ago are no longer correct.

It has already been stated that the contact of Norse Roman Catholics with the natives of Vineland had no lasting consequences. Roman Catholics did not revisit that country until 1497, when

John Cabot's expedition traced the eastern outline of North America. In the knowledge of the New World brought to Europe by these Englishmen

there is something of the vagueness of 4. Explora- the sagas. When England resumed the

From the preceding it is clear that with the discovery and the larger exploration of America, the Protestant states of Europe had nothing whatever to do. With the settlement and development of the northern continent the matter is quite different. In the territory now comprised in the United States so great was the activity and success of the people of non-Catholic nations that Roman Catholics are not popularly regarded as having been among the founders of this republic.

Of those colonies that were destined to form the United States, Maryland alone was settled by Roman Catholics. Though they were in a minority at the

outset and in every later stage of its 5. The development, they shaped its policy as

joyed religious liberty. It was not, however, until Apr., 1649, that there was passed the famous act of toleration. William Claiborne had already invaded the province and it then seemed necessary to enact into law the objective fact of freedom of worship. When religious strife had once begun, it was not easy to restore tranquillity. Indeed, until the era of independence Roman Catholics were the victims of gross discrimination. On the subject of the first establishment of religious toleration in the United States, controversy may wax and wane, but it is not probable that there will ever be found for that honor any person with a title so clear as that of George Calvert. In Pennsylvania and in other communities Roman Catholics were also to be found. However, they formed only a very small part of the population, and the chronicles of the time tell little concerning their numbers, their social status, or their contributions to the intellectual life of the colonies. It has been estimated that at the time of the Revolution they numbered about 25 000. Though the Roman Catholic population of the United States was small at the time of the War of the Revolution, members of that faith were numerous on all its borders and everywhere