Politics and economics were subordinated to religion; the third combined the absolutism of the first and the monopoly of the second. The conquest of America was apostolic. The Spanish captains fought to convert the overseas infidels. The imperialism of Charles V. and Philip II. had a religious character. To preserve the colonies from heresy it closed the ports, prohibited all traffic with foreigners, and imposed a conventual seclusion upon a whole world. The Church was the centre of colonial life. She governed in the spiritual order; imposed punishments, flagellations, exile, and excommunication, and delivered unbelievers and sorcerers to the purifying care of the Inquisition. In the department of morals she kept a watchful eye upon the people; she defended the Indians, and often opposed the governors. Viceroy and cacique feared her equally. A formidable moral power, she helped to discipline the unruly Creoles, to unite classes and races, and to form nations. The cities were adorned by her chapels and convents, and to these convents, in pious mood, the hidalgos often left all their possessions.
Thus property became a monopoly of the convents. Hence a plethora of monks and nuns, and the accumulation, in Mexico and at Lima, of enormous wealth. In Peru the annual income of the archbishop amounted to £8,000, and that of some bishops to £4,000. What with bishops and viceroys there was no lack of luxury. A pompous and sensual Catholicism satisfied the imagination of the Creoles, the superstitious fears of the Indians, and the cheerful materialism of the negroes. The Aztec, the quechua, accepted from the monks a strange, Byzantine dogma, mingled with aristocratic ideals and Oriental mysteries. The native soon confounded the two mythologies. In Mexico, so Humboldt reported, "the Holy Ghost is the sacred eagle of the Aztecs." Novel and sumptuous rites were added to the traditional religion. Processions and festivals, a kind of continual religious fair, united all races. The people loved the cult of religion, with its external manifestations, its virgins loaded with heavy ex-votos, its sorrowing Christs, its gorgeously-decked saints, and the glitter of gold and silk.
As confessor the priest influenced the family and directed the education of children; as preacher he condemned immorality and judged the governors. As in Byzantium, as in the Florence of Savonarola, the colonial monk, speaking in the name of the exploited populace, was an austere professor of virtue. The Creole admired his ecclesiastical learning, and his invincible attitude before the powers of this world; in him the Indian found a protector.
The American colonies differed in social composition. The negro abounded in Peru and Cuba, but soon disappeared in Chili and the Argentine. The poverty of Araucania contrasted with the opulence of Caracas, Lima, and Mexico. In the Aztec capital some territorial seigneurs drew forty thousand a year sterling in revenues. Frezier valued the jewels of a rich lady of Lima at 240,000 livres of silver. The melancholy Sierra, peopled by Indians, contrasted with the life of the coast, where luxurious cities attracted the traveller. In the cities of the interior, Cordoba or Charcas, we find settled traditions, tenacity, and sobriety, but in the capitals of the coast all is luxury, instability, and licence.
Spain tended to destroy this variety by uniform laws.[[2]] Originality was as odious to her as heresy. Customs and beliefs, hierarchies and privileges, all must be uniform. Under such a régime the life of the colonies was dull and monotonous. The cities slumbered, lulled by the murmur of prayers and fountains. Idleness was the natural condition of the Creole; lengthy meals and daily siestas limited his inconsiderable activities. The empty streets and squares knew hours of silence; rejoicings were ordered, and the orders pasted on the hoardings; gaiety itself was imposed. It seemed as though time itself must stand still in these cities of parallel streets; that the ideal of all men must be absolute quietude.
The hidalgo of noble origin, the owner of vast domains, governed his sons and his slaves with the severity of a Roman patrician. He could be neither merchant nor manufacturer; commerce and industry were "low callings." He was attracted rather by the bar, the subtleties of the "doctors," the scholarship and poetry of the courts. Whether at the university or the cabildo (municipality), his life would be the same. He would sing the glory of viceroys in Gongoric rhymes, or commentate upon Duns Scotus, or meticulously construct acrostics or syllogisms. In the café, at social gatherings, in the literary salons, he would whisper criticisms of the governors and the bishops, or discuss the titles to nobility of a marquis of recent creation, or the purity of blood of an enriched mulatto. A conventual chapter, or the quarrel of a bishop and a viceroy, or a bull-fight, would fill him with ecstasy. Attending mass in the morning, and in the evening driving through the stately streets in a luxurious calèche, the proud caballero would bear himself majestically. At night, in his gloomy house, he would find his wife telling her beads, surrounded by docile slaves.
Sensuality and mysticism were the pleasures of the colonists. The convents themselves, despite their high walls, were not able to shut out these violent delights. Licentious monks, nuns with lovers, sprightly abbés, figure in the chronicles of the period as in the Italian contes. The cloister, with its rich arabesques, the patio (courtyard) perfumed with orange-blossom, the murmuring jet of the fountain: these evoke the passion of Andalusia. A devout society pays the insatiable convents a tribute of gold and virgins; and love, fleeing the dead cities, takes refuge in cells quick with ambition and unruly desires.
The woman, guarded in the Oriental fashion, in houses strong as fortresses, attracts society to her salon by her Parisian grace; in a world of ponderous scholars she is famous for her amenity and subtlety. Her fidelity, for the hidalgo, is a question of his honour. The husband revenges himself for transgressions by terrible punishments, as in the Calderonian drama, while the heroic lover brings his exasperated desires to the Moorish balcony, where he awaits his lady in torment. Away from home, a host of illegitimate unions, of concubines, of clandestine amours.
Passion will be tragic and devotion voluptuous; in place of mystics we shall find illuminés. The devil is the essential personage of this religion of minutiæ; thanks to him the dreary colonial life is surrounded by mystery; his appearances and his manoeuvres thrill the Creole's blood. Hobgoblins, sorcerers, spells, thefts of the consecrated host, and exorcisms occupy the Inquisition; tales of incubi and succubi, of pacts with Satan, of ghosts that expiate their old offences in long-abandoned houses; absurd miracles of saints; processions mingling with the dances of slaves; gaily decked temples and parasitic rights which stifle the traditional faith, deprive the Catholicism of Spain of its Semitic rigidity.
All through life the pious colonist is surrounded by marvels. He loves nature with an ingenuous faith, and attributes to the saints and demons a continual intervention in his placid existence. An unexpected sound reveals the presence of a soul in torment; a tremor of the earth, the divine wrath; sickness is a proof of diabolic influence; health, of the efficacy of an amulet. In the pharmacies chimerical products may be purchased—condor's grease, unicorn's horns, and the claws of the "great beast."