After a long layoff, I spent a little time today trying to collect a few more facts about life in Colonial New Mexico.

One of the source books I have enjoyed is “Bolton and the Spanish Borderlands”, which is a collection of writings by Herbert Bolton, an American historian from the early twentieth century who gave first attention to “the other history of America”- namely, the development of the West under Spanish colonists- and wrote widely on the topic.

Within this volume is a transcription of a speech given by Bolton to the American Historical Society at a convention in 1932, called “The Epic of Greater America”. It is a fine inclusion in the Borderlands volume because it provides a nice sweeping summary of developments in the West as Spain moved in to settle there.

Pertinent to my Anza study, Bolton provided a number of good nuggets I wanted to record.

“For some three hundred years, the whole Western Hemisphere was colonial in status… At the end of the eighteenth century, Spain, Portugal, England and Russia [remained] as the chief colonial powers in America.”

“In the half century between 1776 and 1826, practically all of South America and two-thirds of North America became politically independent of Europe, and a score of nations came into being.”

“The dominant position of Spain and Portugal in America at the end of the sixteenth century was truly remarkable. No other European power had established a single permanent settlement…. Spain had colonies all the way from Buenos Aries to the Rio Grande.”

“The North European countries and France founded no permanent American colonies in the sixteenth century [but]… All tried to break down the monopoly of Spain and Portugal.”

“At the dawn of the seventeenth century North Eurpe and France began to found permanent colonies in the Caribbean and on the North American mainland. Being late, they established themselves in leftover areas.”

“Thus by the end of the seventeenth century European colonies and trading posts formed a fringe like figure eight clear around the rim of both Americas, from Hudson bay to the head of the Gulf of California… Governments were set up, cities founded, religious institutions perpetuated, schools and colleges begun. The universities of Mexico and Lima date from 1551, the Jesuit College of Quebec, ancestor of Laval University, from 1635, Harvard from 1636, William and Mary from 1695, and Yale from 1701.

Till near the end of the eighteenth century, not Boston, not New York, not Charleston, not Quebec, but Mexico City was the metropolis of the entire Western Hemisphere.”

“Nearly every mother country revived in America some vestige of feudalism- Spain tried encomienda, Portugal the capitania, Holland the patroon system, England the proprietary grant, France the seigniory.”

“In all tropical areas, Negro slavery was common. Native policies varied according to the natives. Indian tribes were everywhere used as buffers against European rivals. Intractable Indians were everywhere driven back or killed off. Sedentary tribes were subdued, preserved, and exploited. In New Spain they were held in encomienda,; in South Carolina, Brazil, and Dutch America, and in the island colonies generally they were enslaved; in New France and in mainland English America they were utilized in the fur trade. Europeans who came without their women married native girls. Half-breeds were numerous in Hispanic and French America, and squaw men were the rule on all French, Dutch, and English frontiers. In the Chickasaw nation in 1792 a fourth of the one thousand heads of Indian families were white men, mainly English. Today, French, English, and Scotch “breeds” are numerous in Manitoba, Labrador, and northern California, and dark-cheeked oil queens are popular with oil men in Oklahoma.”

“In one respect the Indian policies of the Latin countries differed essentially from those of the Saxons. The Latins considered the Indian worth civilizing and his soul worth saving. This was due largely to the influence of the church.”