CHAPTER VIII
ECONOMIC WASTE
If it is true that South America is the victim of a bad start, it may also be said that Panama is the net result of a continuous and consistent follow-up campaign of wholesale demoralization through a long period of years.
Beginnings are apt to be determinative, and when reenforced by continuous applications of similar influences, are sure to set a stamp on a long period of civilization. Three centuries of rule or misrule make a considerable impression on any people. There is something more than climate to be taken into account in the search for causes of the present conditions in Panama.
The entire colonial program of Spain differed radically from that of the English in Canada or the United States in Hawaii or the Philippines. The leading motive of the conquistadores was the love of gold. Plunder, rapine, and devastation followed in the trail of the adventurers who fought their way across Panama and conquered Peru. Missionary zeal there was, but so mixed were the motives of these early heralds of the cross that the occasional man of pure and peaceful methods was often supplanted by the monk who used all means that he might make "Christians" of men who had no alternative but to be baptized or destroyed outright. "Better be dead than be damned," thought the energetic priests. Never was a dastardly deed wrought by the conqueror but there was a priest at hand with heaven's blessing on the crime. If this is doubted, read the unchallenged Prescott's Conquest of Peru.
Spanish colonial policies had small regard for the rights or development of the conquered. It was one of the viceroys of Mexico who said, "Let the people of these dominions learn, once for all, that they were born to be silent and obey, and not to discuss nor have opinions in political affairs."
The native village of the far interior country, away from the main roads and untouched by uplifting influences, exhibits the situation at its worst; but even so, these same villages exhibit a better condition than do the wretched Indian huts of the high Andes farther south. The population of these distant barrios on the Isthmus can hardly be classified on distinct lines; every symptom is accounted for and every unfavorable trait explained by historical factors and social forces that have combined to make remote Panama what it is to-day. There can be no radical change in these conditions until some new program of social uplift, educational progress, and spiritual life is introduced to cause a fresh reaction and begin a new life.