Was the discovery of America a blessing or a curse to mankind?
Abbé Genty.
Quinine.
This opinion seems to have been a favourite hobby with the worthy Raynal; for in 1787, in view of the approaching tercentenary, we find him proposing to the Academy of Lyons the offer of a prize of fifty louis for the best essay upon the question whether the discovery of America had been a blessing or a curse to mankind. It was furthermore suggested that the essay should discuss the most practicable methods of increasing the benefits and diminishing the ills that had flowed and continued to flow from that memorable event. The announcement of the question aroused considerable interest, and a few essays were written, but the prize seems never to have been awarded. One of these essays was by the Marquis de Chastellux, who had served in America as major-general in the army of Count Rochambeau. The accomplished author maintains, chiefly on economic grounds, that the discovery has been beneficial to mankind; in one place, mindful of the triumph of the American cause in the grand march upon Yorktown wherein he had himself taken part, he exclaims, "O land of Washington and Franklin, of Hancock and Adams, who could ever wish thee non-existent for them and for us?" To this Baron Grimm[2] replied, "Perhaps he will wish it who reflects that the independence of the United States has cost France nearly two thousand million francs, and is hastening in Europe a revolutionary outbreak which had better be postponed or averted." To most of these philosophers no doubt Chastellux seemed far too much of an optimist, and the writer who best expressed their sentiments was the Abbé Genty, who published at Orleans, in 1787, an elaborate essay, in two tiny volumes, entitled "The Influence of the Discovery of America upon the Happiness of the Human Race." Genty has no difficulty in reaching the conclusion that the influence has been chiefly for the bad. Think what a slaughter there had been of innocent and high-minded red men by brutal and ruthless whites! for the real horrors described by Las Casas were viewed a century ago in the light of Rousseau's droll notions as to the exalted virtues of the noble savage. Think, too, how most of the great European wars since the Peace of Westphalia had grown out of quarrels about colonial empire! Clearly Columbus had come with a sword, not with an olive branch, and had but opened a new chapter in the long Iliad of human woe. Against such undeniable evils, what benefits could be alleged except the extension of commerce, and that, says Genty, means merely the multiplication of human wants, which is not in itself a thing to be desired.[3] One unqualified benefit, however, Genty and all the other writers freely admit; the introduction of quinine into Europe and its use in averting fevers. That item of therapeutics is the one cheery note in the mournful chorus of disparagement, so long as our attention is confined to the past. In the future, perhaps, better things might be hoped for. Along the Atlantic coast of North America a narrow fringe of English-speaking colonies had lately established their political independence and succeeded in setting on foot a federal government under the presidency of George Washington. The success of this enterprise might put a new face upon things and ultimately show that after all the discovery of the New World was a blessing to mankind.[4] So says the Abbé Genty in his curious little book, which even to-day is well worth reading.
Spanish and English America.
If now, after the lapse of another century, we pause to ask the question why the world was so much more interested in the Western hemisphere in 1892 than in 1792, we may fairly say that it is because of the constructive work, political and social, that has been done here in the interval by men who speak English. Surely, if there were nothing to show but the sort of work in colonization and nation-making that characterized Spanish America under its Old Régime, there would be small reason for celebrating the completion of another century of such performance. During the present century, indeed, various parts of Spanish America have begun to take on a fresh political and social life, so that in the future much may be hoped for them. But the ideas and methods which have guided this revival have been largely the ideas and methods of English-speaking people, however imperfectly conceived and reproduced. The whole story of this western hemisphere since Genty wrote gives added point to his opinion that its value to mankind would be determined chiefly by what the people of the United States were likely to do.
Precious metals.
The smile with which one regards the world-historic importance accorded to the discovery of quinine is an index of the feeling that there are broad ways and narrow ways of dealing with such questions. To one looking through a glass of small calibre a great historical problem may resolve itself into a question of food and drugs. Your anti-tobacco fanatic might contend that civilized men would have been much better off had they never become acquainted with the Indian weed. An economist might more reasonably point to potatoes and maize—to say nothing of many other products peculiar to the New World—as an acquisition of which the value can hardly be overestimated. To reckon the importance of a new piece of territory from a survey of its material productions is of course the first and most natural method. The Spanish conquerors valued America for its supply of precious metals and set little store by other things in comparison. But for the discovery of gold mines in 1496 the Spanish colony founded by Columbus in Hispaniola would probably have been abandoned. That was but the first step in the finding of gold and silver in enormous quantities, and thenceforth for a long time the Spanish crown regarded its transatlantic territories as an inexhaustible mine of wealth. But the value of money to mankind depends upon the uses to which it is put; and here it is worth our while to notice the chief use to which Spain applied her American treasure during the sixteenth century.
Aims of Columbus.
The relief of the church from threatening dangers was in those days the noblest and most sacred function of wealth. When Columbus aimed his prow westward from the Canaries, in quest of the treasures of Asia, its precious stones, its silk-stuffs, its rich shawls and rugs, its corals and dye-woods, its aromatic spices, he expected to acquire vast wealth for the sovereigns who employed him and no mean fortune for himself. In all negotiations he insisted upon a good round percentage, and could no more be induced to budge from his price than the old Roman Sibyl with her books. Of petty self-seeking and avarice there was probably no more in this than in commercial transactions generally. The wealth thus sought by Columbus was not so much an end as a means. His spirit was that of a Crusader, and his aim was not to discover a New World (an idea which seems never once to have entered his head), but to acquire the means for driving the Turk from Europe and setting free the Holy Sepulchre. Had he been told upon his melancholy death-bed that instead of finding a quick route to Cathay he had only discovered a New World, it would probably have added fresh bitterness to death.