The Spanish Pioneers

FRANCISCO PIZARRO.
CHICAGO A. C. McCLURG & CO. 1914 Copyright By Charles F. Lummis a.d. 1893 TO ONE OF SUCH WOMEN AS MAKE HEROES AND KEEP CHIVALRY ALIVE IN OUR LESS SINGLE-HEARTED DAYS: ELIZABETH BACON CUSTER
The views presented in this book have already taken their place in historical literature, but they are certainly altogether new ground for a popular work. Because it is new, some who have not fully followed the recent march of scientific investigation may fear that it is not authentic. I can only say that the estimates and statements embodied in this volume are strictly true, and that I hold myself ready to defend them from the standpoint of historical science.
I do this, not merely from the motive of personal regard toward the author, but especially in view of the merits of his work, its value for the youth of the present and of the coming generations.
AD. F. BANDELIER.

It is because I believe that every other young Saxon-American loves fair play and admires heroism as much as I do, that this book has been written. That we have not given justice to the Spanish Pioneers is simply because we have been misled. They made a record unparalleled; but our text-books have not recognized that fact, though they no longer dare dispute it. Now, thanks to the New School of American History, we are coming to the truth,—a truth which every manly American will be glad to know. In this country of free and brave men, race-prejudice, the most ignorant of all human ignorances, must die out. We must respect manhood more than nationality, and admire it for its own sake wherever found,—and it is found everywhere. The deeds that hold the world up are not of any one blood. We may be born anywhere,—that is a mere accident; but to be heroes we must grow by means which are not accidents nor provincialisms, but the birthright and glory of humanity.
We love manhood; and the Spanish pioneering of the Americas was the largest and longest and most marvellous feat of manhood in all history. It was not possible for a Saxon boy to learn that truth in my boyhood; it is enormously difficult, if possible, now. The hopelessness of trying to get from any or all English text-books a just picture of the Spanish hero in the New World made me resolve that no other young American lover of heroism and justice shall need to grope so long in the dark as I had to; and for the following glimpses into the most interesting of stories he has to thank me less than that friend of us both, A. F. Bandelier, the master of the New School. Without the light shed on early America by the scholarship of this great pupil of the great Humboldt, my book could not have been written,—nor by me without his generous personal aid.