coast from Chesapeake Bay to Cape Horn was a by-product of this quest.

Interest in a waterway to Asia did not lead the Spanish to despise the new-found land. On the contrary their imagination invested it with impossible delights and riches. The fountain of youth, the seven golden cities - what wonders might it not hide? Men were freed from belief in such fables only by learning the truth. Discovery was a great experiment in reality. Nevertheless, reality was so marvelous that it made the era of Spanish exploration an age of romance and adventure, a chapter in history which reads like the tales of Greek heroes. Native empires welcoming the white conqueror as the Fair God whose coming had been foretold by their prophets, captive princes paying as ransom the price of a kingdom in gold these and other stories are almost as incredible as would have been the finding of the fountain of youth. And back of all the glamour in the tales of the conquistadores is the vision of native peoples melting away under the cruel hardship of unwonted toil as slaves in the mines, of multitudes crushed by the Juggernaut of "civilization."

Santo Domingo was chosen as the site of the first Spanish colony, and exploration and settlement proceeded from this center in ever-widening circles. Cuba was soon won, and in 1519 Hernando Cortez began the conquest of Mexico. The Aztec Indians of this land had made considerable progress. They cultivated the soil, dwelt in populous towns, and in their religious and governmental institutions had attained a much higher organization than the tribes farther north. However, in conflict with the invaders, who had firearms and horses, the very civilization of the natives proved to be a weakness, for Cortez, in a short campaign, by seizing the most fertile districts, compelled them to submit.

Francisco Pizarro, in a similar way, conquered Peru (15321538); and within a half-century after the first voyage of Columbus the Spanish power was established throughout Central and South America, save in Brazil, the coast of which was east of the demarkation line.

Within what is now the United States the Spanish were less successful. Attempts to imitate the exploits of Cortez and

Pizarro failed. The most notable of such efforts were those of Ferdinando de Soto and Francisco Coronado, about 1540. De Soto, who had been with Pizarro in Peru, landed on the northeast coast of the Gulf of Mexico and penetrated to northern Georgia, thence making his way to the Mississippi, crossing it not far from where Memphis now stands, and reaching the neighborhood of Hot Springs, Arkansas. His hope of conquest was baffled by the primitive character of the Indian culture. The tribes, still partly in the hunting stage, suffered only inconvenience from the destruction of their huts and crops, and avoiding the slow-moving Spaniards, harassed them continually without exposing themselves. Nor was there among the natives rorth of the Gulf any accumulated wealth to satisfy the desire for plunder as had the gold and silver of the Incas (Peruvians) and Aztecs. Disappointed and broken by hardships, De Soto died in the wilderness, and his followers made their way to the Spanish settlements in Mexico.

Coronado's expedition was due to rumors which had reached Mexico of rich native cities to the northward. Hoping that they would prove to be the fabled cities of Cibola, he penetrated into what is now New Mexico, where he found the adobe structures of the Pueblo Indians. In the hope of success farther on he divided his party, one section reaching the Colorado River at the Grand Canyon, the other crossing the Great Plains and reaching the neighborhood of the Missouri River in eastern Kansas.

On the far Pacific coast the successors of Cortez attained the shores of San Francisco Bay. But aside from St. Augustine in Florida and Santa Fé in New Mexico, Spanish colonization made no progress north of the present Mexican boundary until the eighteenth century. South of the Rio Grande, however, Spain established a great empire. The age of romance and adventure passed, but the lands, mines, and commerce of the New World continued to lure the Castilian. The Crown encouraged emigration by land grants and advances of supplies. Before either France or England possessed a single settlement in America, Mexico City had a population of fifteen thousand whites and ten times as many natives. Lima, the capital of Peru, contained two thousand Spanish families. There were schools, hospitals, and other public institutions in each of these cities, and each

boasted a university with scholars whose reputations extended to Europe.

After the first half-century the government adopted regulations laying upon the white landholders the responsibility for the welfare of their native dependents and forbidding their enslavement. The government labored in conjunction with the Church to convert the Indians to Christianity, and in the missions

instruction in industrial arts was given as well as in religion. The Spanish policy was one of assimilation, while the English treated the weaker race as an obstacle to be pushed from their path.

Spain intended that the wealth produced in the colonies should enrich herself only; hence foreigners were entirely excluded, and even Spanish trade was strictly regulated. Twice a year government fleets sailed from Cadiz or Seville for Vera Cruz, Cartagena, and Porto Bello, and the trade of the merchants was

limited to these semiannual voyages. All colonial exports had to be brought to the ports named, where fairs were held for the exchange of goods. Few commodities except the precious metals could bear the cost of transportation for long distances, and remote settlements like those in New Mexico and the Argentine were condemned to stagnation or illicit traffic, which was punishable with death. Despite slight concessions to England after the War of the Spanish Succession (see page 106), this policy remained substantially unchanged to the end of the colonial period.

Despotic in rule at home, it was not to be expected that Spain would grant political liberty to her American subjects. The government of her possessions pertained to the Crown, which acted through the "Council of the Indies." The colonies were divided into viceroyalties, with subdivisions for local administration. In 1600, the viceroyalty of New Spain comprised Mexico, Central America, and Venezuela; that of Peru the South American settlements below Venezuela. Colonial officers were appointed by the Crown and were almost invariably Spaniards. American-born subjects were excluded from all important offices, and self-government in the English sense, by officers acting under laws made by representative assemblies, was nowhere to be found in the Spanish dominions.

On the whole, the Spanish colonization of the New World was a notable achievement, to which English-speaking historians have done scant justice. "The Spanish colonial empire," writes Professor Bourne, "lasted three centuries, a period nearly as long as the sway of imperial Rome over western Europe. During these ten generations the language, the religion, the culture, and the political institutions of Castile were transplanted over an area twenty times as large as that of the parent state. What Rome did for Spain, Spain in turn did for Spanish America."

Spain became in the course of the sixteenth century the richest and most powerful state of western Europe. From the mines of Mexico and Peru such a quantity of the precious metals flowed into her coffers as Europe had not received from any source since Roman times. Not unnaturally her success obscured her errors, so that her policy influenced other nations when they came to establish colonies.

FIRST EFFORTS OF FRANCE AND ENGLAND

While the Spanish rulers were showing Europe the pathway to empire, the kings of France were busy with schemes of expansion nearer home or distracted by civil wars. Nevertheless their banner was carried to the St. Lawrence. In three voyages between 1534 and 1541 Jacques Cartier examined the great northern river, attempted a settlement at Quebec, and reached the bold height which still bears the name he gave it, "Mont Real." Cartier sowed the seed of a New France in the woods of North America, but the harvest was long delayed.

England's rulers, like their neighbors across the Channel, for a long time showed little interest in lands beyond the sea. Although the first European who explored the coast above Chesapeake Bay sailed under the English flag, he was an Italian (John Cabot, 1497) whom the penurious Henry VII allowed to embark at his own expense. Upon his return the King gave him a trifling present for finding "the new isle," a discovery on which his successors based their claim to half a continent.

England under Henry VII was still one of the lesser states of Europe, and had been exhausted by a long series of wars. Not until the middle of the sixteenth century did interest in colonization awake. Then the English began to reflect that ship-building materials from Baltic lands, wines from the Mediterranean states and Rhine Valley, oriental goods by way of Portugal, and gold and silver through the channels of trade were evidences of an odious and dangerous dependence. Colonies in America would doubtless supply all of these necessities and give the kingdom an economic self-sufficiency which might be a matter of life or death in time of war. Besides, they were convinced that their country was overcrowded. Many landlords had given up grain-raising for wool-growing, in order to meet the increasing demand of the looms of the Netherlands. This change had both reduced the food supply and thrown laborers out of employment. The care of the poor was rendered more difficult by the dissolution of the monasteries (1536) which had been the great dispensers of charity. Colonies would give employment to the poor, it was urged, and prevent idleness from breeding vice and crime.

When Henry VIII divorced his Spanish queen (1533) and