LUTHERAN FOREIGN MISSIONS ON THE WESTERN CONTINENT
South America.
|The Land.| To a large proportion of the Americans who are interested in missions Asia and Africa are better known than the great continent of South America which lies so much nearer. Of the physical features of South America it is necessary to speak in superlative terms. Here is the largest river in the world, the Amazon, with thirty thousand miles of navigable waterway, here are the densest forests, here is the greatest mountain range. The continent is five thousand miles long and at its broadest point, three thousand miles wide. Its long coast line offers splendid harbors; its interior table lands abundant minerals and metals and a fertile soil.
For many centuries the Indian held South America for his own. Unmolested from without, troubled only by quarrels with his neighbors, he lived and died for the most in slothful ignorance.
|The First Immigrants.| This quiet was interrupted when the Spaniards and Portuguese took possession of the country by right of conquest. Once opened to the world, the continent became the destination of thousands of settlers, not only from Spain and Portugal but from other European nations, many of whom built up large fortunes. The relation between them and the natives is described by R. J. Hunt. “Some of the early colonists were of a friendly disposition, and treated the natives kindly, much in the same way as they did their horses or their dogs; others, with a high sense of honor, were just and considerate to the aboriginees; a fair percentage of them, especially those in the wild, remote districts, freely mingled with the natives and married one or more of their women; but the great majority looked upon the natives with suspicion and distrust if not with abhorrence.
|The Opening of the Country.| “With the influx of immigrants and the natural increase of the descendants of the pioneers came the growth of trade, the extension of agricultural pursuits, and the opening of mines. There came simultaneously the desire for independence and the consequent rise of republics with a demand for progress and a clear determination of territorial bounds. Railways were opened in various directions, the great rivers were supplied with steamers, trade was increased, companies were formed and numerous interests started. For scientific and commercial purposes expeditions up the great waterways and across the trackless plains were organized and carried out with varying success; but even to-day there remain vast regions unknown and unexplored except by the red Indians.”[[11]]
[11]. Missionary Review of the World, July 1911.
LUTHERAN CHAPEL, MONACILLO, PORTO RICO, WITH TWO MISSIONARIES AND TWO
NATIVE WORKERS.
