Spain's declining power in South America, 1730-1806

Chapter I

I. Relation of the Spaniards to the Indians. II. Spaniards, Creoles, and Mestizos. III. The new society.

1-11

CHAPTER II State of the Spanish Dependencies in South America, 1730-1750

I. Peru in the beginning of the period. II. The aftermath of Antequera's rebellion. III. The controversy concerning Colonia. IV. Montevideo and Tucuman. V. Two decades of Chilean affairs. VI. The University of Chile. VII. New Granada under the last colonial presidents. VIII. The state of Quito. IX. The reestablished viceroyalty of New Granada. X. Santo Thome and the missions of the plains. XI. The little revolution of Trinidad. 12-72

Chapter III

The Spanish-Portuguese Boundary Treaty of 1750 and the "War of the Seven Reductions

I. Terms of the treaty of 1750. II. Protests of the Indians against removal. III. The boundary commissioners and the disposition of the Indians. IV. Active hostilities of the Spanish and Portuguese against the Indians of the seven reductions. V. "Emperor" Nicholas Nanguiru, further hostilities, and preparations for exile. VI. Failure of the campaign and the abrogation of the treaty. 73-96 iv SPAIN'S DECLINING POWER

CHAPTER IV The Expulsion of the Jesuits

I. Viceroy Amat and the monopoly of alcohol. II. Juan Diaz Herrera and the revolt in Quito. III. The controversy respecting the Jesuits. IV. The decree of expulsion. V. The removal of the Jesuits from the towns of Rio de la Plata. VI. The missionaries of the Chaco and the region about Sierra de la Cruz. VII. The expulsion of the Jesuits from the reductions of Paraguay. VIII. The Jesuits of Peru. IX. The Jesuits of Chile. X. Their removal. XI. The expulsion from Ecuador. XII. The Jesuits removed from Bogota and the other towns of New Granada. XIII. The Jesuits of the llanos. XIV. The Jesuits in exile. 97-152

CHAPTER V The Creation of the Viceroyalty of Rio de la Plata

I. The need of a new viceroyalty, and the functions of the viceroy. II. The audiencia of Charcas and the creation of the viceroyatly of Rio de la Plata. III. Viceroy Ceballos and his army. IV. The Spanish- Portuguese treaty of 1777. V. The commercial code of 1778. VI. Viceroy Vertiz. VII. Fernandez general intendant of the army and the royal treasury. 153-173

CHAPTER VI The Revolt of Tupac Amaru

I. Abuse of the Indians by the Corregidors. II. Areche as visitador-general. III. Tupac Amaru. IV. The beginning of hostilities. V. The events of Oruro and Sangarara. VI. Hopes and aims of Tupac Amaru. VII. The overthrow and execution of the Inca. VIII. The sieges of Sorata and La Paz. IX. Results of the war. 174-203

CONTENTS v

CHAPTER VII The Rebellion of the Communeros in New Granada

I. Viceroy Florez and the visitador-regente Pineres. II. The outbreak in Socorro. III. Organization of the Comun under Berbeo, and the battle of Puente Real.

IV. The advance on Bogota, and the flight of the regent.

V. The negotiations and the agreement. VI. Galan and the new revolt. VII. The Indians of Nemocon, and the conclusion of the conflict. 204-226

Chapter VIII

The Conspiracy of Gramuset and Berney I. The revolt under Amat, governor and captain-general of Chile. II. The conspiracy of Gramuset and Berney. III. The arrest and imprisonment of the conspirators. 227-240

CHAPTER IX The Reorganization of the Viceroyalty of Rio de la Plata

I. The Ordinanza de Intendentes. II. Status and functions of the intendants. III. The ordinance applied in Peru and Chile. IV. The reformed ordinance of 1801. V. The state of Buenos Aires and the adjacent country. 241-255

CHAPTER X Awakening Interest in Science and Politics: Mutis and Narino

I. Beginnings of literary cultivation. II. El Mercurio Peruano; Papel Periodico. III. Mutis' arrival and early years in New Granada. IV. Mutis turns to Botany; correspondence with Linnaeus. V. Work of Caballero y Gongora for progress. VI. The Botanical vi SPAIN'S DECLINING POWER

Expedition. VII. The viceroy ordered to protect the Isthmus against invasion. VIII. The viceroy's commercial views. IX. Botanical Bureau's headquarters transferred to Bogota. X. The Spanish Botanical Expedition to Peru. XI. Narino and the young reformers and their trial. XII. Narifio in Europe; his return to New Granada and imprisonment. 256-291

CHAPTER XI Lima and Santiago at the End of the Century

I. The position and external form of Lima. II. The earthquake of 1746. III. The court of the viceroy and the institutions of Lima. IV. Social characteristics. V. Santiago de Chile. VI. The classes. 292-309

CHAPTER XII The State of Venezuela and Miranda's Expedition

I. External attempts to overthrow Spanish rule. II. The captaincy-general of Venezuela. III. The revolt led by Espafia and Gaul in 1797. IV. Manners and sentiments of the inhabitants of Venezuela. V. The unemployed and the remedy. VI. The economic confusion in the province. VII. Miranda's project. VIII. Plans of Great Britain and the United States. IX. The expedition from the United States. 311-336

CHAPTER XIII The British Capture and Loss of Buenos Aires

I. The trade of Buenos Aires. II. Plans of Great Britain respecting South America. III. The British advance and capture of the city. IV. Liniers and the overthrow of Beresford. V. The cabildo and Liniers in power. VI. British reinforcements and the recall of Popham. VII. The final British attack. 337-370

CONTENTS vii

CHAPTER XIV Peru and Chile at the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century

I. The viceroys. II. El Mercurio Peruano. 3. Ambrosio O'Higgins. IV. The Araucanian question. V. Agriculture and the system of encomiendas. VI. Fear of foreign trade and foreign ideas. VII. The last viceroy of the eighteenth century. VIII. The population. IX. Commerce and industry. X. Titles of nobility and entailed estates. XI. Life in the country. XII. Hindrances to production. XIII. Royal drafts on the resources. 372-426

INDEX 427

SPAIN'S DECLINING POWER IN SOUTH AMERICA

Introduction

Spanish South America in the last decades of its dependence on Spain gave evidence of a decline in Spain's governmental authority and efficiency. The practice of the crown in conferring important offices in America only upon persons sent from Spain moved the Creoles and mestizos gradually to constitute themselves a society apart from the Spaniards. This society drifted inevitably into opposition to the established administration, and led revolts against the government. These revolts, in many instances, were immediately occasioned by the imposition of specific fiscal burdens, and they indicate that the colonies were slipping from the grasp of Spain even before the creole-mestizo element in the population had clearly formed a design for emancipation. The expulsion of the Jesuits deprived the dependencies of their ablest and most effective teachers, and took from the industrial and commercial life some of the most energetic and farsighted entrepreneurs. By this act, moreover, the government removed the only body of resix SPAIN'S DECLINING POWER

dents who manifested any clear conception of the proper relations to be maintained between the Spaniards and the Indians. The manner in which the development of interest in science and politics contributed to the spirit of patriotic independence is illustrated by the careers of Mutis and Narino. The outlook towards independence is further presented in the negotiations and expedition of Miranda and the heroic defense and recapture of Buenos Aires by the citizens after Viceroy Sobremonte had ignominiously abandoned the field.

The stage on which these scenes were enacted was the part of the territory of South America then held by Spain and now claimed by Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay. It embraces three of the four great river systems of the southern continent; those of the Orinoco, the Magdalena, and the Rio de la Plata. The principal geographical features of Venezuela are the mountains and the hilly country, occupying the northern and western parts of the territory, and the llanos, or plains, comprising the basin of the Orinoco, and extending from the western mountains to the delta of that river, an area of two hundred thousand square miles. In some parts of the plains there are low mesas, the remnants of an ancient plateau that has been gradually worn away by erosion. Other parts of this region are as level as the undisturbed ocean. Here nature, by the vigorous growth that follows the abundant rains,

INTRODUCTION xi

resists the encroachments of man's cultivation, and hitherto has tolerated only the pastoral life of semi-nomads. In agreeable and fertile valleys, between the mountain ridges and the plains, lie a number of the principal centers of population that were slowly developed during the colonial period. Caracas, the most important of these, is about six miles from the port of La Guayra, at an elevation of three thousand feet above the level of the sea. Although within the tropics, this elevation ensures it a mild climate; the temperature ranges annually from 66° to 75°. In the colonial period, a road over the mountain was practically the only line of connection between the city and its port, but traffic by this route was greatly diminished by the opening of a railroad between the two places in 1883. Valencia and Barquisimeto are two other towns that lie within this zone of eternal spring. The former, near Lake Valencia, at an elevation of sixteen hundred and twenty-five feet, is a little warmer than Caracas, having a range of temperature from 66° to 87°, with an annual mean of 76°. Barquisimeto lies about two thousand feet above the sea. These interior towns have outrun in prosperity the earlier settlements of Coro and Cumana, near the coast.

The part of the viceroyalty of New Granada that became the territory of Colombia extended along the Atlantic between fifteen hundred and sixteen hundred miles, and had a Pacific coast of xii SPAIN'S DECLINING POWER

nearly the same extent. But in spite of the kingdom's more than three thousand miles of ocean coast, the real entrance to the country was, and has continued to be, the Magdalena River. It was by this water route that Quesada advanced to the land of the Chibchas, and founded Bogota on the plateau of Cundinamarca. Santa Marta and Cartagena on the coast, the former east of the river and the latter west of it, were founded before any interior settlements, and remained important, particularly Cartagena, throughout the colonial period. Cartagena, with its excellent harbor, became the halting place for vessels engaged in trade with Peru, bound from Spain to the Isthmus. It was regarded as the bulwark of the country, and vast sums were expended on its walls and other defences. But Bogota, established far from the coast and at an elevation of eight thousand six hundred and eighty feet above the level of the sea, became the political and ecclesiastical capital, and was reached from the northern coast only by a long journey on the Magdalena River to Honda, and by a difficult mountain trail from Honda to the plateau on which the city stands. Of the valleys of the tributaries of the Magdalena, that of the Cauca River was destined to become especially important by reason of its fertility and agreeable climate. The independent river Atrato, running through the low lands near the western coast and flowing into the gulf of Uraba, was sometimes regarded as furnishing, with the river San

INTRODUCTION xiii

Juan, a possible water-way from the Atlantic to the Pacific, but its low and marshy valley never acquired great significance in the life of the viceroyalty. It was at the elevated and isolated capital that the real struggle for civilization in this part of South America was carried on.

During the later decades of the colonial period, the territory of Ecuador was subject to the viceroy of New Granada, but in some part of the period Quito was the seat of an audiencia. This city derived some of its significance from the fact that it was the capital of a Quichua kingdom before the Spanish invasion. Its position in the Andean region that extends southward from Bogota, at an elevation of 9350 feet above the level of the sea, gives it a temperate climate, although it lies directly on the equator. It is one hundred and fourteen miles from the coast and one hundred and sixty-five miles northeast of the port of Guayaquil. Through this port Quito had its connection with the traffic of the sea. Over this long and difficult route it sent out its products, particularly its textile fabrics, and imported much that it consumed of European wares. The road begun by Maldonado and designed to reach the port near the mouth of the river Esmeraldas was never completed, and in consequence of the difficulty of communication with the other dependencies and with Spain, the city and the region about it remained of only secondary importance in the colonial empire. The positions of both xiv SPAIN'S DECLINING POWER

Bogota and Quito were determined by previous establishments of the Indians. The position of Lima, on the other hand, was fixed solely by considerations of convenience and advantage as they appeared to the Spaniards. Its founders, after due deliberation, decided in 1535 to plant it where it now stands, six miles from its port, five hundred feet above the sea, and on the banks of the river Eimac. In this they broke with the tradition of the Indians, who preferred the high lands, the slopes of the Andes, to the sandy coast of the Pacific, and who had already in Cuzco a considerable city. But the Indians had no need of commerce by the ocean, while this commerce was necessary to make useful for the Spaniards the wealth of the country. The ocean to the Indians was a limit of their lands, not a highway to a market. Under the Spaniards Lima became a market and a governmental residence. The wealth of the country was drawn from the mines in the mountains of Upper Peru, now Bolivia, and exchanged at Lima for imported European wares. This process gave character to two centers of civilization in Peru : Lima, the seat of the exchange, and cities, such as Chuquisaca, Oruro, and Potosi, that came into existence and flourished near the mines. They flourished while the mines continued to pour out their treasures, but, as the regions where they were established were unfavorable for agriculture, they declined when the mines ceased to yield in abundance. With the failure of the mines in

INTRODUCTION xv

any given part of the high lands of Upper Peru there was no other form of production to provide an economic basis for society in the region in question. In Chile a different state of things prevailed. There was much profitable mining in the early decades, and the fertile soil offered abundant rewards for cultivation. When, therefore, the mines failed, the colony was able to rely on agriculture. The population in the mining regions of Peru increased with the prosperity of the mines, and diminished with their decline ; in Chile it suffered no such fate ; it had a slower but continuous growth; the wheat fields furnished a product for exportation hardly less valuable than that of the mines. The Pacific coast of Chile extends a distance of some three thousand miles from north to south, and the narrow land that lies along the foot of the Andes, between the mountains and the sea, forms, in the middle part of the country, one of the world's most favored fields for civilization. The desert lands of the rainless region of the north are in striking contrast with those settled in the period of Spanish colonization. In the vast nitrate deposits they have a source of great wealth, but none of the natural conditions that promote the establishment and growth of progressive society. In that part of the long valley where the city of Santiago lies at an elevation of two thousand feet, the fertile soil and the mild climate make this part of Chile an especially attractive seat of human culxvi SPAIN'S DECLINING POWER

ture. The lower levels of the southern districts of Chile present a rare and fruitful combination of field, forest, lake, and river, but the stout resistance of the Araucanians prevented the full exploitation of this region in the period here under consideration.

In the southeastern part of the continent, as well as in Chile, agricultural resources induced only a late social development. The barren mountains of the northern part of the viceroyalty of Eio de la Plata supported flourishing and populous cities, while the rich lands drained by the La Plata River system showed few signs of progress. But the later state of the low-land cities, compared with the mining cities of the high lands, furnishes a further confirmation of the fact that the race is not always to the swift. Decade had followed decade throughout the greater part of the eighteenth century, with little change except what might be observed in the increasing herds of the plains and the growth of contraband trade through Colonia. The pampas, or plains, of Argentina, extending six or seven hundred miles from the foothills of the Andes to the Rio de la Plata and the Atlantic, with a regular incline in that distance of somewhat more than two thousand feet, and stretching fourteen hundred or fifteen hundred miles from north to south, has no equally extensive rivals in fertility and possible productiveness except the valley of the Mississippi and the plains of Russia. The rich pastures

INTRODUCTION xvii

of Argentina and Uruguay, in the course of decades became covered with vast herds, the natural increase of the horses and cattle that had been abandoned by the early settlers of Buenos Aires. In these herds the inhabitants had for the taking an abundance of flesh for food and hides for the limited foreign commerce. Supplied with this form of food without great effort, and with the danger of extreme want removed, the bulk of the inhabitants became preeminently flesh-eaters. For many years there was lacking an effective incentive to the production of articles that would adequately furnish a more varied diet. But through the stimulus of a freer commerce and an enlarged market, agriculture was gradually developed, and became a rival of pastoral cultivation. Under the larger freedom of commerce accorded by the code of 1778, Buenos Aires distanced all other ports of this southeastern part of Spain's possessions. Asuncion in Paraguay, that had flourished in the earlier decades, became a stagnant capital of an earthly paradise. With its herds and fruits, its tobacco and mate, Paraguay presented physical conditions that seemed to favor prosperity and progress. Its impediments were its isolation in the interior of the continent, about a thousand miles up the river from the more favored ports of Buenos Aires and Montevideo, its preponderance of Indian blood in the population, and the unreasonable internal conflict between secular and ecclesiastical factions.

xviii SPAIN'S DECLINING POWER

But an economic awakening, after two hundred years of stagnation, appeared in this region, with the failure of Spain's policy of restriction and the adoption of the code of 1778. Prior to this change, the government in Spain had been illustrating throughout these vast dominions, how human cultivation and progress may be throttled and suppressed in the presence of material resources greater than any that had previously appeared in the history of the world.

Within this territory there were developed different political groups whose varying social characteristics were due in a large measure to the natural environment of the several groups and to the different qualities of the Indians who became amalgamated with the Spanish invaders. The history of these groups, or political entities dependent on Spain is a part of Spanish history; at least some changes effected in the course of their growth were ordered by the supreme political authority, and may be observed from the viewpoint of Spain. But there were other changes or events in this development that proceeded from the conscious designs of the colonists, from the efforts of settlers in a strange country to adjust themselves to their new circumstances, and from the unconscious influences of the widely varying nature in the different provinces. These latter events and forces seldom rose above the Madrid horizon, and this fact makes it necessary to assume a position outside of that horizon in order

INTRODUCTION xix

to obtain a complete view of the life that went on in the colonies. From the viewpoint of the king and the Council of the Indies, an account of the history of the dependencies may very well have a larger measure of unity than when presented from the viewpoint of colonial life that varied greatly in the different dependencies. But by emphasizing the events or movements affecting all the colonies, such as the growth of a creole-mestizo society, an awakening intellectual interest in nature and politics, the overthrow of a religious order established in all of the colonies, and the rebellions and conspiracies of the last decades of the century, as features common to many political divisions, the history of Spanish South America, even when considered from the viewpoint of colonial conditions, may seem to have a certain unity, in spite of the wide geographical separation, and the differing qualities of the inhabitants, of the several dependencies.

Spain's power in America gave evidence of declining before the colonies showed any signs of an effective organization designed to supplant legitimate authority. For decades the principal indication of change was the indisposition of officials in the colonies to carry out, or force the strict execution of, the laws. In very many instances there was apparently no thought of creating a new power, only a protest against the conduct of the existing government. In the period here examined, from 1730 to 1806, the decline xx SPAIN'S DECLINING POWER

was hardly stayed even by the energy of Charles III. In fact, that king's most positive show of administrative strength, the expulsion of the Jesuits, did not hinder but rather hastened the decline of Spanish power in the colonies. The king and the Council of the Indies continued to issue decrees in the spirit of Spain's governmental traditions, but the officials in America displayed increasing reluctance to execute them exactly. The colonists frequently supported this attitude of the officials, because it was often materially advantageous to them that the royal decrees should not be carried out. The history of these last decades of Spanish rule in South America shows the affairs of the colonies drifting towards the crisis reached in the war of independence.

Chapter I The Beginnings Of A New Society

The Relation of the Spaniards to the Indians. II. Spaniards, Creoles, and Mestizos. III. The new society.

A civilized nation of this century, attempting to adjust itself to a less developed people, has for its instruction a number of experiments by other modern nations, but when the Spaniards undertook the control of Indians in America, they were pioneers; they had for their guidance only the experience of Spain in her internal affairs. They had known a society where classes were widely separated, and such a society they fostered in the New World. They undertook to transfer to America the social distinctions that were the legitimate product of a long differentiating social growth. They exerted powerful influences to make life in the colonies grow into conformity with the European type. They put forth distinct efforts to counteract any democratic influence, or any non-European social forms, that might issue from the conditions of a new country. They created a titled nobility, and, where titles were not formally granted, the relation of the encomendero to his dependents offered a distinctly recognized superior and inferior. And whatever influence the church exerted was clearly in favor of centralized authority; it was in no sense suggestive of equality or of a democratic social organization. In fact, in all the activity of the earlier phases of colonial life in South America, there was no anticipation of a point of view different from that which had been traditional in Spain.

The Indians were adopted as an element in the society of the colonies. The absence of any conception of equality was important. It left a place in the social order for the Indians. In New England, on the contrary, the notion of equality appeared. The Indian could not, in any time allotted to him, rise to equality with the European; and the New Englander, by not providing a lower subordinate or vassal class, left no place for him.

The Spaniard built magnificent churches, filled them with decorations, and organized brilliant processions to attract the barbarians. The government, moreover, provided penalties for keeping Indians from the churches on certain specified occasions. The New Englander built churches, and insisted on the absence of artistic decoration. To these churches he went in solemn and exclusive devotion, armed and munitioned against any Indian who might dare to appear. In the Spanish colony inequality was recognized from the beginning, and the Indian had a place in the lower divisions of the social structure. In the English colonies the spirit of equality excluded him.

The retention of the Indians as an element in Spanish-American society provided occasion for the rise of a class of mestizos to bridge the social chasm between the Europeans and the Indians. In dealing with this class the Spaniards displayed a degree of wisdom not always shown in later colonizing by other nations. In Java, for instance, under the Dutch, a distinct line of discrimination was drawn between the European and the Javanese. All persons having any measure of European blood were counted as Europeans. They held themselves aloof from the natives of pure blood, but neither their attainments nor their ambitions enabled them to participate, without prejudice, in the activities of the Dutch. The Spaniards gave no such artificial position to the mestizos. These products of Spanish-Indian unions were numerous. Their origin and qualities were recognized, but they were not separated either from the Indians or the Spaniards by any hard and fast line. They were allowed to take their chances of rising or falling in the communities of their residence. Neither custom nor law hedged them about in a restricted position. The population of the Spanish dependencies was thus shaded off through the Creoles, the mestizos, and the semi-civilized Indians down to the untamed savaeres.

II

The Spaniards did, however, draw a line of demarcation, but in this discrimination the differences of races played no part. The line was drawn between Spaniards, born in Spain and Spaniards of the same stock born in America; in a word, between Spaniards and Creoles. It was conceived that a great gulf was fixed between the Spaniards who were born in Spain and the members of the same people who were born and lived in a Spanish colony.

The depreciation of the Creoles was so extreme and general that Spanish parents who emigrated held in very different regard their children who were born in Spain and those who were born later in America. In public affairs the same prejudice was manifest. The Spanish-creole conflict extended even to the monks in the monasteries. The occupants of the monasteries and of the numerous religious houses of all kinds were composed of two diverse elements, Spaniards and Creoles, who lived in almost perpetual hostility. The high civil and ecclesiastical offices were given to Spaniards but not to Creoles. But in the course of time the Creoles became a numerous class. They acquired wealth; and many of them, taking advantage of the facilities for instruction in Lima, Cordova, Santiago, Bogota, and Caracas, as well as in different parts of Europe, became men of extensive intellectual attainments and cultivation.

They knew the circumstances and needs of the colonies, and were conscious of their own fitness to have a part in the colonial government. When, therefore, they were excluded from public office, they very naturally felt that they were the victims of an unjust discrimination. By this attitude of the Spanish government, all persons thus unjustly affected, their relatives, their friends, and their dependents were drawn together into the solidarity of an increasingly powerful opposition.

Even in her virtuous solicitude for the welfare of her unmarried daughters, Spain strengthened this opposition and helped to prepare for a social revolution in America. By positive law and by the restraints of an efficient administrative system, unmarried Spanish women were prevented from emigrating; but a large number of the men who went to the colonies were unmarried. The inevitable consequence of this state of affairs was the rise of a large class of mestizos, who became affiliated with the increasing class of Creoles.

Another consequence of the amalgamation of the Spanish and Indian peoples was the creation of marked differences among the populations of different districts. The differing Indian peoples in their union with Spaniards produced descendants of varying qualities. Much of the character of the bold, hardy, independent Araucanian reappeared in the Chilean mestizo. The gentle Peruvian Indians, on the other hand, under the severe discipline of their rulers, were unfavorably placed for developing heroic qualities; and they passed on to their mestizo descendants the virtues of gentleness and amiability rather than the sterner qualities of a warlike people. Thus, in the course of time, within the limits of her South American dominions, Spain had to deal not with one homogeneous people, but with a number of nations, who, although using a common language, were about as unlike one another as are the nations of Western Europe. These differences of character among the inhabitants of the several political divisions imposed a heavy administrative task upon Spain at a time when she was undertaking to govern her vast colonial empire under a system that took no account of social differences or the varying demands of unlike climatic conditions. Under this state of things Spain's government of her dependencies became gradually more ineffective, and this lessening of the disciplinary power of the legitimate regime permitted the growth of the creole-mestizo party of opposition, and the development in it of community self-consciousness and a certain sense of independence.

While the application of Spain's rigid system of colonial government might find favor in one quarter, it tended to provoke dissatisfaction and a temper of revolt in another. It pleased Lima, because the merchants of that city enjoyed important commercial privileges; but Buenos Aires had no privileges, had not even the advantages of freedom of trade, and consequently manifested a rapidly declining loyalty; and, as subsequent events proved, the chain of provincial administrations in the colonies was no stronger than the weakest link. The triumphant selfassertion of the new society in one province meant its ultimate domination in all other provinces. The line of cleavage between the new society and the old, between the creole-mestizo element and the Spanish element, appeared, from one viewpoint, as the line between privileges and no privileges, between the recipients of political favors and those who were excluded from such favors. In view of the fact that many of the Indians, notably the Chibchas, of Colombia, and the Aymaras of Peru, represented a certain phase of civilization, the mestizos shaded off imperceptibly into the Indians of pure blood. In connection with this fact, one is able to see the importance of that feature of Spain's policy which provided for the adoption of the Indians as members of the colonial society. This was in marked contrast with the English plan. The Spaniards accepted the Indian but assigned him a social position like that held by a dependent class recognized in the European feudal order. With the Indians in feudal subjection to Spaniards it was thought to be possible to preserve in Spanish America differentiated classes corresponding with those of Europe. But the more important result of the adoption of the Indians into the body of colonial society was the fact that, separated by their dependent position from the Spanish encomenderos and the official class, they became attached to, or embodied in, the creole-mestizo element, and thus constituted an effective part of the new society.