The Epic of Greater America
Author(s): Herbert E. Bolton
Source: The American Historical Review, Vol. 38, No. 3 (Apr., 1933), pp. 448-474
Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Historical Association
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THE EPIC OF GREATER AMERICA
THE membership of the American Historical Association used to
consist almost exclusively of residents of the United States. At the time
when it was formed a more exact name for the organization would have
been "The United States Historical Association". In recent years the
situation has changed. The interests of the body have greatly expanded,
and membership has come to include numerous citizens of other Amer-
ican countries, especially of Canada. This widening of the clientele and
of the outlook of the Association, together with the holding of the present
annual meeting in a Canadian city, would seem to give special fitness to
a presidential address dealing with some of the larger aspects of Western
Hemisphere history. I have therefore chosen for my subject this evening, The Epic of Greater America.
There is need of a broader treatment of American history, to supple-
ment the purely nationalistic presentation to which we are accustomed.
European history cannot be learned from books dealing alone with England, or France, or Germany, or Italy, or Russia; nor can American history be adequately presented if confined to Brazil, or Chile, or Mexico,
or Canada, or the United States. In my own country the study of thirteen English colonies and the United States in isolation has obscured
many of the larger factors in their development, and helped to raise up a
nation of chauvinists. Similar distortion has resulted from the teaching
and writing of national history in other American countries.
It is time for a change. The increasing importance of inter-American
relations makes imperative a better understanding by each of the history
and the culture of all. A synthetic view is important not alone for its
present day political and commercial implications; it is quite as desirable
from the standpoint of correct historiography.1
For some three hundred years the whole Western Hemisphere was
colonial in status. European peoples occupied the country, transplanted
their cultures, and adapted themselves to the American scene. Rival
1 This is so patent that it hardly needs demonstration, and for the future I foresee
generally in practice two types of school and college courses in American history: an introductory, synthetic course, embracing the entire Western Hemisphere, analogous to courses
in general European history; and courses in the history of the United States or of any other
individual nation. In fact, a movement in this direction is well under way.
448
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The Epic of Greater America 449
nations devised systems for exploiting natives and natur
competed for profit and possession. Some of the contest
inated, leaving at the end of the eighteenth century
England, and Russia as the chief colonial powers in America.
By this time most of the European colonies in America had grown
up; they now asserted their majority. In the half century between I776
and I826, practically all of South America and two-thirds of North
America became politically independent of Europe, and a score of nations
came into being. Eventually, the entire Western Hemisphere, with
minor exceptions, has achieved independent nationality. Since separation from Europe these nations alike have been striving on the one hand
for national solidarity, political stability, and economic well being, and
on the other hand for a satisfactory adjustment of relations with each
other and with the rest of the world.
Our national historians, especially in the United States, are prone to
write of these broad phases of American history as though they were
applicable to one country alone. It is my purpose, by a few bold strokes,
to suggest that they are but phases common to most portions of the entire
Western Hemisphere; that each local story will have clearer meaning
when stuLdied in the light of the others; and that much of what has been
written of each national history is but a thread out of a larger strand.
II.
Columbus drew the curtain of the American stage not for Spaniards
alone, but for all the European players. This navigator himself seems to
have been international, if we may judge from the number of his birth-
places. His daring voyage set in motion a race for the Orient in which
several nations took part. The Cabots for England reached the shores
of northeastern America and returned home with boats smelling of fish.
Portuguese adventurers, sailing around Africa, reached India and set up
an empire there. Spain, finding the American continent in the way,
sought a route through or around the unexpected nuisance. When
Magellan found a southern strait for Spain, Verrazano and Cartier for
France, and Thorne for England, in imitation, scurried to find a passage
further north. Spain set the fashion; the others tried to keep the pace.
Discovery was followed by exploitation and colonization. This, likewise, was not a matter of one nation, but of many. Spain and Portugal
led the way. They not only explored and exploited, but they colonized
extensively and permanently, and their experience was utilized by later
comers. In rapid succession Spain occupied the West Indies, Central
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450 Herbert E. Bolton
America, Mexico, and all South America except the eastern seaboard.
There Brazil is an imposing monument to tiny Portugal. On the mainland Spaniards first settled among the advanced peoples-Mayas, Aztecs,
Pueblos, Chibchas, and Incas. These natives were easiest to conquer,
were most worth exploiting, and their women made the best cooks. It
happened, too, that most areas of advanced primitive culture were regions
rich in mineral deposits.
The dominant position of Spain and Portugal in America at the end
of the sixteenth century was truly remarkable. No other European
power had established a single permanent settlement. Portugal monop-
olized the Brazilian seaboard. Spain had colonies all the way from
Buenos Aires to the Rio Grande. Two-thirds of the Western Hemi-
sphere was then Hispanic, and so it has remained to this day. Spain's
exalted position in the New World at the time is illustrated by the
enemies.who then rose up against her.
The North European countries and France founded no permanent
American colonies in the sixteenth century. But all were interested in
expansion in similar ways. All took to the sea. All desired a share in
the trade of America and the Far East. All tried to break down the
monopoly of Spain and Portugal. All made intrusions into the Caribbean and the South American mainland. Britons braved winds and ice
floes in an effort to find a Northwest Passage. French sea dogs, Dutch
sea dogs, and English sea dogs alike plundered vessels and sacked towns
all round the Hispanic American periphery. In defence Spain adopted
a commercial fleet system, formed a West Indian armada, and walled
her towns on the Caribbean coasts. One of these stanch old defences
tourists see today at Cartagena. The fortifications at Havana and St.
Augustine had a similar origin. The French intruded into Carolina,
Florida, and Brazil, but were effectively expelled from all three. Raleigh
attempted to found colonies in Carolina; his Orinoco project sent him
to the block. Drake became a millionaire by plundering Spaniards, was
crowned Great Hioh by the Indians near San Francisco Bay, and talked
of a New Albion in California, long before there was a New England
on the Atlantic Coast.
Then a new chapter opened. At the dawn of the seventeenth century
North Europe and France began to found permanent colonies in the
Caribbean and on the North American mainland. Being late comers,
they established themselves in the left over areas. We Saxon Americans
to-day may regard our respective countries as Promised Lands, reserved
for God's chosen people. But our Saxon ancestors froze and starved in
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The Epic of Greater America 45 I
them primarily because their Hispanic contemporaries w
trenched in the sunnier climes. The late comers mad
long-continued attempts to get a foothold on the whole
of South America, but found the way blocked by the P
is one of the chapters we forget.2
The favorite colonies of the late comers at the outset were those
planted in the Caribbean and Guiana. French, Dutch, English, and
Danes settled side by side in the Lesser Antilles, jostled each other, and
warred with Spain. They established tropical plantations, trading stations, and buccaneering bases. Till the end of the century, investors'
profits were vastly greater here than on the mainland. In I676 the
immigrant population of little Barbados alone was larger than that of
all New England.
But the future for these new comers was in the northern continent,
with its wide expanse, and its unappropriated back country. Here
North Europe and France might hope to achieve something of the renown and a fraction of the wealth which Hispanic Europe had won in
Mexico and South America. So France, Holland, Sweden, and England
all planted colonies on the northern main.
The details nieed not detain us. France occupied Acadia, the St.
Lawrence Valley, the Alabama and Mississippi basins, and the Canadian
l)rairies. The Swedes and the Dutch settled on the Delaware and the
Hudson. England founded subtropical plantations in the South, diversi-
fied colonies on the Dutch and Swedish foundations, a coastwise and
industrial society in New England, fishing stations in the northeastern
waters, and fur trading posts about the shores of Hudson Bay. New
England was redolent of fish and brimstone; New France at first was
largely a matter of skins and souls-the skins of beaver and the souls
of the heathen.
Thus by the end of the seventeenth cenitury European colonies and
trading posts formed a fringe like a figure eight clear around the rim of
both Americas, from Hudson Bay to the head of the Gulf of California.
Middle America was occupied from ocean to ocean, and long salients
had been thrust into the interior of the wider continental areas. England
alone had not thirteen but nearly thirty colonies in the islands and on
the Atlantic seaboard, strung all the way from Guiana to Hudson Bay.
As commonly used, the phrase "Original Thirteen" has been very mis-
leading and even pernicious. It does not mean the original colonies at
all, but the original states of the American Union.
2 England striped the Spanish Main (northern South America) with sea to sea grants
which on the map look just as imposing as the more familiar grants in North America.
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452 Herbert E. Bolton
In these peripheral regions of the two continents the Europeans settled on the land, adjusted themselves to the American environment,
devised systems for utilizing natural resources, and transplanted European cultures. Governments were set up, cities founded, religious institutions perpetuated, schools and colleges begun. The universities of
Mexico and Lima date from 155I, the Jesuit College of Quebec, ancestor
of Laval University, from I635, Harvard from I636, William and Mary
from i695, and Yale from 1701. Till near the end of the eighteenth century not Boston, not New York, not Charleston, not Quebec, but Mexico
City was the metropolis of the entire Western Hemisphere.
Likenesses in the colonial systems were more striking than differences. All the nations entertained mercantilistic views of coloniesthat is to say, they were for the benefit of their own people. Government
at first was of the contemporary European pattern, adapted to the Amer-
ican frontier. Nearly every mother country revived in America some
vestige of feudalism-Spain tried the encomienda, Portugal the capitanta,
Holland the patroon system, England the proprietary grant, France the
seigniory.
In all tropical areas Negro slavery was common. Native policies
varied according to the natives. Indian tribes were everywhere used as
buffers against European rivals. Intractable Indians were everywhere
driven back or killed off. Sedentary tribes were subdued, preserved, and
exploited. In New Spain they were held in encomienda; in South
Carolina, Brazil, and Dutch America, and in the island colonies generally
they were enslaved; in New France and in mainland English America
they were utilized in the fur trade. Europeans who came without their
women married native girls. Half breeds were numerous in Hispanic
and French America, and squawmen were the rule on all French, Dutch,
and English frontiers. In the Chickasaw nation in 1792 a fourth of the
one thousand heads of Indian families were white men, mainly English.
To-day French, English, and Scotch "breeds" are numerous in Manitoba,
Labrador, and northern California, and dark cheeked oil queens are
popular with white men in Oklahoma.
In one respect the Indian policies of the Latin countries differed
essentially from those of the Saxons. The' Latins considered the Indian
worth civilizing and his soul worth saving. This was due largely to the
influence of the Church. So in Brazil, Spanish America, and New
France the missionary played a conspicuous r6le. There Franciscans,
Dominicans, Augustinians, Jesuits, and other orders labored on every
border, and founded Indian missions and Indian schools. The brilliant
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The Epic of Greater America 453
Parkman made widely known the heroic work of the Jesuits in New
France. Less famous in Saxon circles is the equally heroic and vastly
more extensive work of the Jesuits in Spanish and Portuguese America.
In colonial Mexico alone there were probably ten times as many Jesuits
as in New France.
III.
Beginning on the rim of the continent, these European settlers pushed
into the interior, opening new mines, new missions, new plantations,
new farms, new trading posts, new administrative jurisdictions. Some-
times the advance to the hinterland was a westward movement, sometimes it was eastward, sometimes southward, sometimes northward.
Everywhere contact with frontier environment and native peoples tended
to modify the Europeans and their institutions. This was quite as true
in the Latin as in the Saxon colonies.
Colonial expansion involved international rivalry. This, too, embraced the entire hemisphere. In Saxon America the story of the "struggle for the continent" has usually been told as though it all happened
north of the Gulf of Mexico. But this is just another provincialism of
ours. The southern continent was the scene of international conflicts
quite as colorful and fully as significant as those in the north.
Minor rivalries occurred in Guiana, where France, Holland, and
England exploited the region side by side. England for a century tried
without success to break into the Spanish Main, and called into being
the viceroyalty of New Granada. Into Portuguese America the French
and Dutch intruded with great vigor and dogged tenacity.
But the major contest for territory in the austral continent was between Brazil and her Spanish neighbors to the west and south. Here
an empire equal in area to the Mississippi Valley was at stake. By papal
grant and royal treaty Portugal was restricted to a narrow strip on the
Atlantic shore. So said the documents. But this delimitation made little
difference in fact. Snapping their fingers at decrees and treaties, hardy
Brazilians pushed their frontiers rapidly west, founded Portuguese settlements in the interior, and plundered Spanish outposts on the Paraguay
border. The Brazilian drive toward the Andes strongly resembles the
westward movement in the United States and Canada.
Spain contested these inroads. In resisting them the Jesuits played
a dramatic part. Their Paraguay missions became a buffer province to
restrain the aggressive Portuguese. From middle Paraguay they extended their reductions above the great falls of the Parana'. There for
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454 Herbert E. Bolton
twenty years they prospered, and then
them. Within three years thousands of
as slaves to Brazil. With the remainder-twelve thousand neophytesFather Montoya and his associates fled helter-skelter in river craft five
hundred miles down the stream, skirting through tropical forests the
ninety miles of falls and rapids that broke navigation. This stirring
episode antedated by more than a hundred and twenty years the Acadian
expulsion which it somewhat resembled, and it determined the fate of a
territory vastly greater in size. Striking new root in the south, the Jesuits
defended that border for another century, sometimes by open warfare.
The left bank of the lower Plata was another scene of long continued
give and take. Brazil edged south at her neighbor's expense, but Spain
managed to hold the region that became the Republic of Uruguay. The
middle eighteenth century saw the border contest come to a head. With
English backing, Portugal had the advantage. In I750 by treaty Brazil
was given a boundary much like that of to-day. Thus the Line of Demarcation, fixed in the time of Columbus and Cabral, was sadly bent,
and Brazil came to occupy nearly half of South America.
There was another chapter in this story. To restrain the Portuguese
from further encroachments and to keep out the threatening English,
who had now occupied the Falkland Islands, Spain established the viceroyalty of La Plata, with its capital at Buenos Aires. This was one of the
significant American events of 1776. It did much to determine the
destiny of the southern continent.
The scene now shifts to the top of the map. Here again the story
has been distorted through a provincial view of history. The contest for
North America is usually represented as falling between I689 and 1763,
confined chiefly to the valleys of the Ohio and the St. Lawrence, an(d
ending on the Plains of Abraham. But this is far too restricted a view.
The story neither began on the Ohio nor ended at Quebec.
In eastern North America territorial rivalry began with the first intrusions of other Europeans into Spanish possessions in the Caribbean.
In the sixteenth century the intruders merely barked at the Spaniards'
heels. In the seventeenth century, long, before I689, important transfers
of territory were effected both in the islands and on the mainland. By
settlement of unoccupied islands, England, France, and Holland absorbed many regions stubbornly claimed but neglected by Spain. Eng-
land conquered Jamaica, and the French took western Haiti. On the
mainland, both Virginia and South Carolina were settled by England
in the face of Spanish resistance; Swedes on the Delaware and Dutch on
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The Epic of Greater America 455
the Hudson soon found themselves in the maw of the British empire.
For decades the buccaneers ravaged Spain's Caribbean shores. Jamaica
was the focus; Seitz has given us a telling refrain:
Ho! Henry Morgan sails today
To harry the Spanish Main,
With a pretty bill for the Dons to pay
Ere he comes back again.
For this harrying Morgan, like Drake, was knighted.
Then followed the more militant rivalry which Parkman has so
brilliantly depicted as the Half Century of Conflict. It was a death grip
of England not with France alone but with both France and Spain for
eastern North America. On the American mainland fur trade and
Indian alliances played a significant role. In the Caribbean and Georgia
the Anglo-Spanish contest still raged. Not only Louisbourg and Quebec,
but also Cartagena, Porto Bello, Havana, and St. Auigustine, were targets
for English cannon.
The long struggle was marked by five European wars. In each of
them nearly all international frontiers were war zones-the Caribbean,
the Spanish Main, the Florida-Georgia border, Acadia, Hudson Bay. In
the contest Carolinians duplicated on a smaller scale in Georgia and
Florida the savage Portuguese raids on the Spanish missions of Paraguay.
In one campaign an ex-governor of South Carolina destroyed thirteen
Spanish missions, burned Fathers Parga and Miranda at the stake, and
carried off more than a thousand mission Indians. Bit by bit England
shaved off both borderlands. France yielded her claims to Hudson
Bay, Newfoundland, and Acadia; Oglethorpe's intruding colony broke
Spain's hold on Georgia. But "Old Grog" Vernon's disaster in the War
of Jenkins's Ear checked English designs on the Spanish Main. There
Spain remained intact, for yellow fever was a faithful ally of the Dons.
Incidentally, through Washington's brother, who served in the Cartagena
campaign, this war gave the United States a name for its national shrine,
Mt. Vernon.
The final clash with France in this chapter of history came when
English settlers threatened the French hold on the Ohio Valley. The
classic story needs no repetition here. Leaden plates and a line of posts
signalized French determination to hold on. France was encouraged
by four years of success; the tide turned when Pitt took the helm for
England. With.Wolfe's victory on the Plains of Abraham, French rule
in mainland North America ended.
AM. HIST. REV., VOL. XXXVIII.-32
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456 Herbert E. Bolton
But the close of French rule did not rem
historians often forget. The French settle
pathfinders in the West, and their prolif
a third of Canada's population. Yankee
the line into British North America. As an offset, French Canadians
have pushed south and contributed greatly to the economic life of New
England.
The end was not yet. The contest for the continent did not closet with
the Portuguese drive for the Andes, with the absorption of Spain's Carib-
bean islands, nor with England's victory at Quebec. Western North
America was similarly involved. International rivalry was quite as much
a feature of western as of eastern America, even in colonial days, and its
story cannot properly be separated from the other. The stage for the
contest for the continent was as wide as the hemisphere and its adjacent
seas. It was international rivalry that brought into existence as organized1
communities nearly all the Spanish borderland areas of the Southwest
and the Pacific Coast. These stirring episodes, if treated at all, have been
considered only as local history, but they are a part of the general theme.
They are no more local history than is the struggle for the St. Lawrence
and the Mississippi Valley.
On her northern borderland Spain's expansion was largely defensive.
The French intruded into Carolina and Georgia, Menendez expelled
them, and founded Florida. Into Texas Spain was forced by a later
French intrusion. La Salle founded his short-lived colony on the Gulf
as a base for seizing the mines of Mexico, not primarily, as Parkman
says, to hold back the English. Spain, roused to action, planted temporary settlements in the Piney Woods of eastern Texas. Iberville
founded Louisiana split Spain's Gulf possessions in two, and France
again threatened the western country. But Spain came back. By a
counter stroke she now permanently settled Texas. In the course of
the contest the Marques de Aguayo marched a thousand miles, at the
head of cavalry raised at his own expense, restored Spain's posts beyond
the Trinity, and returned to the Rio Grande on foot, through loss of
nearly five thousand horses in a blizzard. Aguayo saved Texas for
Spain and made Napoleon's pretension and Jefferson's claim to the
province as a part of Louisiana an historical joke. During the same
international episode in which Aguayo recovered Texas for Spain, the
French advance up the Platte River was met by a Spanish gesture from
Santa Fe toward occupying the region which is now eastern Colorado.
Louisiana tells a similar story. The Seven Years' War gave North
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The Epic of Greater America 457
America a niew map west of the Mississippi as well as e
end of the struggle Spain found herself in possession of half of the
former patrimony of France, and frowning at England across the Father
of Waters. Acquired by Carlos III. in the stress of conflict, Louisiana
was occupied and developed by Spain primarily as a buffer province to
hold back first the English and then the Anglo-Americans.
Upper California was likewise a child of international rivalry.
Jesuit missionaries had carried the Spanish frontier into Arizona and
Lower California. There it stood. Then the Russian Bear threatened.
Bering explored the North Pacific and Russians planted posts in Alaska.
So Spain moved up the map once more. Portola and Serra planted
garrisons and missions at San Diego and Monterey. A few days before
the Declaration of Independence was proclaimed in Philadelphia, San
Francisco was founded on the Pacific Coast. It was planted as an outpost to hold the northwestern border of Spain's vast empire, a realm
which extended from the Strait of Magellan to the Golden Gate.
Though less a matter of bullets, the founding of San Francisco was as
much a part of world history as was Wolfe's victory at Quebec. It was
another of the significant events of 1776.
IV.
Then came the American Revolution. This too was by no means a
local matter. It lasted half a century-from I776 to i826-and it witnessed the political separation of most of America from Europe. The
event was perhaps inevitable. Spain, Portugal, and England had
founded vigorous colonies. They grew up and asserted their majority.
The revolutions were the surest signs that the mother countries had
succeeded. Tlhirteen of the English colonies led the way; Spanish and
Portuguese America followed. Throwing off their status as wards, English, Spanish, and Portuguese colonists set themselves up as American
niations. Viewed thus broadly the American Revolution takes on larger
significance.
Of the revolt of the Thirteen English colonies little need be said
before this audience. The causes were inherent in the situation. Beginning as a struggle for redress of grievances, it quickly became a war
for independence. Soon the contest became international, a fact which
determined the outcome. France, Spain, and Holland joined the colonial cause against England. Spain drove the British soldiery from the
lower Mississippi and recovered the Floridas. In the final victory the
French niavy played a decisive part. The treaty of peace was a shock to
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458 Herbert E. Bolton
European monarchs. It recognized not only a Western Hemisphere
nation, but a nation with a democratic form of government. Through
hostility to England the rest of Europe had contributed toward the
ultimate loss of all colonial America and toward the undermining of the
monarchical system.
The independence of the United States was not fully assured by the
surrender at Yorktown. For the next third of a century European interests in the Mississippi Valley were a menace to the continued independence and the growth of the new republic. The shadow of Europe
lay deep over the West. The infant nation was not born a giant, and
many persons of prominence thought it would fail. European powers
looked on with interest. If the young upstart ceased to exist, they would
be on hand to share the estate; if it survived, they would check its growth
and dominate its fortunes. The danger was averted only by the jealousy
and the long conflict among the Europeans themselves, and by the vigor
of American growth. Spain threatened the Southwest. England occupied an analogous position north of the Ohio. France was more
dangerous than either. She hoped to dominate the Ohio Valley, or even
to separate it from the United States. In this she failed, but by browbeating Spain, Napoleon regained Louisiana. Then, suddenly, his colonial plans having changed, he sold it to the United States for a song.
The shadow of France in the West was dispelled.
The revolt of thirteen of the thirty British colonies laid the foundations not of one but of two English speaking nations in North America.
One was the United States; the other was the Dominion of Canada.
Before I776 Canada was mainly French in race stock. The settlers who
now arrived made up the first large English speaking element in the
country. In the revolt of the colonies the people were far from unanimous. Only thirteen of the provinces joined, though appeals were made
to all. The Maritime Provinces, Quebec, the two Floridas, and the
island colonies, all stood by the mother country. Even in the thirteen
a third of the people were opposed to the revolution.
Under harsh treatment by the separatists, thousands of these Loyalists
emigrated during and after the war. Going to Halifax became a well
recognize(d pursuit. Some settled in the old Maritime Provinces, and
others in newly formed New Brunswick. Still others flocked to Upper
Canada-the Ontario of to-day. So British Canada was largely American in origin. These United Empire Loyalists, founders of this city,3
and a multitude of others, were Canada's Pilgrim Fathers. It was they
3 Tor-onito, where this address was delivered.
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The Epic of Greater America 459
who did the most to shape the history of the vast doma
United States. The small seed of empire which they plan
French colony has grown to be the great Dominion of
Two American nations had been founded. But the revolution had
only started. At the end of the eighteenth century only a small patch
on the American map had won its independence from Europe. Portugal
still ruled Brazil, and Spain's power was intact all the way from Patagonia to the borders of Oregon. B3ut the revolution went on.
A third of a celntury behind the English colonies those of Spain andI
Portugal rose in revolt. In the twro cases there were similarities and con-
trasts. The causes were in many respects alike. In both movements independence was achieved through outside aid. The area involved in
Hispanic was ten times that in Eniglish America, and the population
several times larger. In Hispanic America there were vastly greater
obstacles to united action than in English America. Mountains and
distance gave more effective isolation. As a consequence there were
separate revolutionary movements in the different areas, and several
nations resulted.
External influences played a prominent part in bringing the revolution about. England and France, trade rivals of Spain, plotted the liberation of her colonies. Subversive French philosophy penetrated Spanish
America in spite of all efforts to keep it out. Young Creoles were edu-
cated in Europe. English and American contact through smuggling
spread liberal ideas. The revolt of the English colonies, the French
Revolution, and the independence of Santo Domingo furnished examples. Napoleon started the ball a'rolling by seating his brother Joseph
on the throne of Spain. Spanish American resistance to the usurper
soon changed into a war for separation.
Independence came to Brazil without bloodshed. Here as in Spanish
America, Napoleon set things in motion. When he threatened to depose
the Braganzas in Portugal, John, Prince Regent, fled with his court to
Brazil. By his liberal policy he stirred nev life in the quiescent colony.
Brazil became a kingdom, John returned to Portugal and left his son
Pedro as regent. Brazil and Portugal now grew apart. Ordered home,
Pedro refused, raised the Grito de Ypiranga, declared for independenice,
and became emperor (1822).
The wars of independence in Spanish South America were an im-
posing military drama. Miranda the Precursor led the way in Venezuela. Bolivar the Liberator assumed his mantle. For fifteen years this
brilliant figure moved back and forth across the continent, setting up
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460 Herbert E. Bolton
republics, defeated here, winning vic
revolution was nearly stamped out. But Bolivar had a way of coming
back. Aided by British volunteers-veterans released after Napoleon's
fall-he crossed the Andes where they are thirteen thousand feet high,
routed the royalists, and completed the revolution in the North. This
Washington of South America well merited his title of El Libertador.
In the North the dominating figure of Bolivar gave unity to the war.
In the South there was less cohesion, but the cause prevailed. By i8i6
the Argentine was practically free. Dr. Francia expelled the royalists
and set up a republic in Paraguay. In the Banda Oriental Artigas, the
picturesque Gaucho chieftain, laid the foundations of Uruguayan
nationality. The rebel forces of the North and the Sotuth now closed in
on Peru, the last royalist stronghold. San Martin, greatest soldier of the
South, forged a new army at Mendoza, made a stupendous march over
the Andes where they are twelve thousand feet high, and completed the
revolution in Chile. Then, with fresh forces, carried niorth in a fleet
commanded by a British admiral, he defeated the royalists at Lima, and
turned his army over to the Liberator. Bolivar ascended the Andes,
created the Republic of Bolivia, and ended the war in Spanish South
America. Bolivia commemorates his name.
Simultaneously with these epic events North America ended the rule
of Spain. Hidalgo rang the Liberty Bell and sounded the Grito de Do-
lores. Mexican school boys still bless him because he raised the cry precisely at midnight, for in order to be sure to celebrate the right day, both
the fifteenth and the sixteenth of September are national holidays. The
Philadelphia bell ringer was not so considerate. Hidalgo raised an
armed mob, defeated the royalists, and seized government stores.
Routed at Guadalajara, he fled north, was captured, and executed at
Chihuahua. Rayon rose and fell. Then emerged Morelos, mule driver
priest, the chief military figure in the var. His astounldinig victories
were followed by a declaration of inidependenice.
The revolt.had spread like a flash to the northerni provinces of New
Spain, wlhere it was given special character by the proximity of the
United States. It must be remembered that at this time the Floridas,
Texas, all the Southwest, and Californiia were still parts of Spain. Occurrences there which in the nationalistic mold have been regarded as
local events, in this larger perspective are seen to be important phases of
the history of the New World.
The people of the United States favored the Mexican revolution.
They had recently fought one themselves, and were flattered by the
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The Epic of Greater America 46I
imitation. They were interested in the spread of democracy, in Mexi-
can commerce, and in Mexican land. Sam Houston of Tennessee, long
before he became famous in Texas, offered to join the revolutionary cause
there in return for real estate. There were boundary disputes between
the United States and Spain, and now was a good time to settle them.
So Mexico found many a helping hand. President Madison encouraged
a revolution in West Florida, but when a republic was erected there he
seized the district to keep order and to forestall England, for the War
of i812 was now in progress. In East Florida Madison fostered another
short-lived revolt, with a similar purpose in view. Carolinians and
Georgians ravaged the province but were expelled. Texas was "liberated" by a volunteer army raised in the United States, but was reconquered by Spain.
Meanwhile in Mexico the revolutionary congress fled from place to
place, much as the Continental Congress had done before it. Heroic
Morelos was captured and executed. But the revolt, now stamped out
in the center, was kept alive on the frontiers. Here Western Hemisphere
history was being made. Mina revived the spark by a raid from Texas.
Andrew Jackson embarrassed Spain by invading East Florida, for
Bahama Britons threatened. Uncle Sam took advantage of Spain's
predicament to acquire title to both Floridas, which he already held by
military force,4 and to negotiate the boundary line of i8i9. General Long
led new expeditions from the United States into Texas, and set up a
temporary republic. Galveston Island continued to be a base for proclamations and revolutionary raids. Bouchard, by an expedition that
sailed all the way from Argentina, tried in vain to arouse contented California. On the far southern border of Mexico Guerrero kept up a
guerrilla warfare.
Iturbide now brought the struggle to a climax. Sent by royalists to
crush Guerrero, he joined hands with the rebel instead, and ended the
rule of Spain. Then, making himself emperor, he carried the war of
liberation into Central America. He in turn was soon overthrown, and
the republic of Mexico was established, though shorn of the Floridas,
eastern Texas, and Central America. The American Revolution had
been fought and won. It did not end at Yorktown.
It was these events that called forth the Monroe Doctrine and that
make it intelligible. European monarchs looked askance at the large
crop of American republics. After the overthrow of Napoleon, that
4 Brazil similarly seized Uruguay during the revolutionary disturbances, but relinquished it a few years later.
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462 Herbert E. Rolton
mutual insurance society at one stage called the Holy Alliance was
formed to restore legitimate sovereigns. It essayed this task in Spain and
in Italy, and then discussed the reconquest of Spanish America. Just
then Russia took an aggressive position regarding Northwestern Amer-
ica. The czar declared the North Pacific a closed sea. In reply Monroc
issued his famous dictum, denouncing further colonization of America
by Europe and all plans to restore monarchy here. Russia now with-
drew all claims below 540 40'-hence the phrase later used as a campaign slogan-and the allies gave up their plans to restore Spanish rule
in America. England's precise part in.this episode is still a subject of
debate.
In most of the new Hispanic states independence was followed by
disorder-like the "Critical Period" in the history of the United States,
or like Tennessee when Sevier and Tipton were ludicrously chasing each
other around the map. The turbulence was due to political inexperience,
social antipathies, geographical barriers, and sectional or personal ambitions. But the struggle was not meaningless chaos. In the long period
of strife, cleavage in politics usually centered on fundamental issues:
centralism versus federalism; civilian rule versus militarism; privilege
versus opportunity.
Disorder led to one man power. Mysterious Francia in Paraguay,
bloody Rosas in Argentina, and venal Santa Anna in Mexico are examples of cazidillos or military chiefs who thus became dictators. The
struggle for nationality in Spanish America during the first half century
after independence is typified by the fortunes of Mexico. There disorder
and inexperience led not only to dictatorship but also to foreign invasion
and loss of territory. Mexico's career was given special character, and
made more difficult, by proximity to the "Colossus of the North".
Canada had a similar experience with her neighbor.
V.
Saxon America again occupied the center of the Western Hemisphere
stage. All of Europe and America anxiously watched the drama. By the
time the Hispanic states were established their territorial limits were
fairly well fixed except on the north. The Spanislh republics fitted into
the atdiencia districts of the old viceroyalties, whose outlines were already determined. Since independence there have been many bound-
ary disputes in Hispanic America, Brazil has taken good-sized bites out
of her neighbors' domain, but there have been few major transfers of
territory.
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The Epic of Greater America 463
Quite different was the case in Saxon America. When
came to the United States and the Loyalists founded British Canada,
most of North America above Mexico was still in the raw. Spain's
holdings north of the Rio Grande were mainly defensive and missionary
outposts. Beyond these, the major portion of the continent was Indian
country, still in the fur trade stage. It lay in the pathway of several expanding peoples. It was an outpost of four empires, each of which contributed its pioneers. It was their land of opportunity, and it was any-
body's prize. The ultimate domains of the three principal North American nations were still to be hammered out. The shaping of them was a
primary interest of the Hemisphere for the next half century. Western
North America was still largely a matter of frontiersmen and international politics. The spoils to be divided were the Spanish borderlands
and the open spaces of the Great West and Northwest. It was an affair
of all North America, not of any single nation. The outcome no one
could predict, patriotic historians to the contrary notwithstanding.
In this elemental process of shaping national zones the two English
speaking peoples moved westward side by side. In each there was a
succession of frontier types. In both cases the vanguard were the fur
men. The United States frontier nosed its way like a wedge between
British America on the right flank and Spanish America on the left. Besides being the crux of international relations, both border zones were
areas of cultural influence, quite as significant as that of the isolated
frontier.
Into the Pacific Northwest, British and American fur men raced
across the continent. These "splendid wayfarers" profited by the commerce in skins, marked out spheres of influence for their respective nations, prepared the way for fixing boundaries, and were harbingers of
permanent civilization. The British traders moved west from two
eastern bases, and represented principally two great organizations. The
Hudson's Bay Company at first had held close to eastern shores. In the
mid-eighteenth century it was forced inland by French rivalry in the
back country and by criticism at home.5 Then it found a rival in the
St. Lawrence Valley. Scotch settlers entered the fur trade at Montreal,
formed the Northwest Company, and pushed boldly west. Mackenzie,
McGillivray, McDougal, and all the rest -they have been called the
"Clan of the Macks". South of the Great Lakes they competed with
5 It is interesting to note in passing that Samuel Hearne for the Hudson's Bay Com-
pany explored the copper mine country at the very same time that Daniel Boone reached
the Mississippi. The tvo west moving columns were neck and neck.
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464 Herbert E. Bolton
American traders, and beyond the Mississ
of Spain. In the Minnesota country and
found them intrenched in the Louisiana
prairies the Nor'westers engaged in a lif
Hudson's Bay Company. Rival posts wer
stream. Price wars and bloodshed ensued
sadly upset. But important explorations re
were soon reached, and Mackenzie descend
Arctic Ocean.
The next step was across the northern
the way and rivals followed. Spaniards
Missouri, and Lewis and Clark crossed t
Columbia. For the Nor'westers Fraser es
Valley and David Thompson got a toe-h
regions which are now British Columbia, Idaho, and Montana. Fraser's
New Caledonia posts were the first permanent English speaking settlements on the Pacific Coast of America. Close behind the Nor'westers
went Astor's men, and when Thompson descended the Columbia to its
mouth he found Astoria established there. For the moment he was forestalled.
Then the. American fur men had a setback. To them the War of
I8I2 was disastrous all along the border from Detroit to Astoria. In-
dians around the Lakes generally joined the British, and American
traders fell back. Manuel Lisa and his associates retreated down the
Missouri. Astoria was sold to the Nor'westers to prevent its capture by
a British war vessel.
Canadian fur men were now confident. Why not restore the good
old boundary of the Quebec Act, and extend it west? Urged by the
traders, the British peace commissioners at Ghent proposed just this, demanding the cession of most of the country north of the Ohio, Missouri,
and Platte rivers. The Oregon country was already in their hands. It
would have been a pretty slice of territory. But quite the contrary hap-
pened, and the Canadians in turn got a setback. By the treaty British
fur men were excluded from the United States, American traders re-
placed them around the Lakes, and the boundary was run along the
forty-ninth parallel to the Rockies. Another great chapter in the story
of the map was finished. As the Americans saw it, the shadow of
Britain in the Upper Mississippi Valley had been removed. Canadians
express it differently.
West of the Rockies the Canadians were still far ahead. Spain traded
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The Epic of Greater America 465
her rights to Oregon for those to Texas and withdr
Mexico took Spain's place. England and the United States arranged for
joint occupation of the Oregon country-a seven hundred mile stretch
from California to 540 40' In that vast region the legal rights of the two
nations were now equal. But de facto the advantage was clearly with
the British, for the Astorians had sold out, and left the British in control.
Nor'westers now consolidated with the Hudson's Bay Company, a western capital was placed at Ft. Vancouver,6 and Dr. McLoughlin took
charge. For nearly two decades now this white haired dictator controlled most of the fur business of the Pacific Northwest, all the way
from San Francisco to Alaska and eastward to the Rockies. His cQunterpart at Sitka was Barainof. These two fur barons were the monarchs of
all Northwest America.
The American fur men had better luck in Mexico. Forestalled by
the British traders in the Oregon country, they pushed southwest and
west across the Great Valley and into the Rockies. Everywhere west of
Louisiana and south of 42? they were intruders on Mexican soil. Most
of our American explorer heroes of the Far West, from Smith to Fremont, were in reality belated explorers of a foreign country. For a quarter century after i820 these trespassers roamed the western wilds, profit-
ing by the fur trade, and "discovering" the mountain passes-which
Spaniards had discovered long before. Into the Great Basin they entered
simultaneously by way of the Platte River and the Rio Grande.
These mountain men were exemplars of manifest destiny. They
wandered through Mexican lands, sometimes with but more generally
without permission, unconscious of their character as unwelcome intruders, or arrogantly resentful of dark skinned people who spoke a
foreign tongue and disputed the "inalienable right" of Americans to do
as they pleased. Most of the fur gatherers were restless adventure
lovers-rolling stones who gathered no moss, nor can we say that they
got a very fine polish in the process of rolling. But they were endowed
with that physical energy, that fondness for a life of half savagery, and
that detachment from locality which fitted them for the great task which
Titanic nature had set for some one.
Below the impresario Americans, who as partners managed large
affairs, and beside the rank and file of reckless Americans who went as
hired men or free trappers, there were the more numerous French engages. These hardy souls, half European, half Indian, still formed the
backbone of the western fur trade both in Canada and the United States.
6 Across the river from the site of the present city of Portland.
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466 Herbert E. Bolton
One such has given his name to Provo,
Pierre's Hole. Western Canada is simila
commemorating the deeds of the Fren
humbler tasks of rowing, packing, ski
served as guides into the wilderness, for
had led the van, whether under English,
rule. Just as the American cowboy lear
vaquiero, so the American fur trader bor
from the French metis. Bourgeois, the w
of the mountain men became bushwa, fo
These American fur men were by no
surveyed. In the southern Rockies and
Mexican traders everywhere ahead of t
jointly owned Oregon, but found their
Bay Company, safely intrenched in Sn
Sierras, they descended the western slop
Sacramento Valley, they found the stream
Ft. Ross and by McLoughlin's brigades from Ft. Vancouver. A Hud-
son's Bay settlement encountered by the Americans in the valley, and
for obvious reasons called by them French Camp, is still in existence
near Stockton and still bears the same name.
The Americans had been beaten, not only to the Pacific Northwest,
but to northern California as well. Both they and the men of H. B. C.
were unwelcome trespassers on the soil of Mexico. The international
contest was not yet over. The map was not yet made. The ultimate
fate of the Far West was still in doubt. Spain was out, Russia had
backed up to 540 40', but England, the United States, and Mexico still
had their stake. When the Republic of Texas was created, it, too, developed ambitions for a frontage on the Pacific.
The uncertainty was removed by the settler. Fur men and Santa Fe
trader were followed into the alluring regions by land hungry Americans. All that had gone before, all the colonial and international drama
of the centuries, was the background into which fitted the relentless
westward movement of the farmer frontier.
By 1820 the United States had achieved stability anid confirmed its
independence from Europe. The next two decades witnessed the rise of
the great Middle West and the formation of a western democracy. It
was a militant democracy, fully imbued with belief in manifest destiny.
American institutions must embrace and regenerate the entire Western
Hemisphere. A concrete application was to be found in the rich lands
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The Epic of Greater America 467
of Mexico and the disputed Oregon country, just beyond. So the
shadow of Europe in the West now gave way to the shadow of the
United States in the West-a shadow which all America and several
European nations watched with anxiety, for nearly half of the northern
continent was still at stake. Impelled by this expansion urge, AngloAmericans drove a wide salient between Canada and Mexico, checking,
the expansion of the one, and absorbing half the territory of the other.
This madness for conquest has been called by our naughty neighbors
"the other side of the Monroe Doctrine".
Mexico, in spite of her turmoil, likewise felt the impulse of expansion.
Settlers poured into her northern provinces at a rate unprecedented
under Spain. The vast "Spanish Grants", as they are erroneously called,
in Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, and California, were nearly all made
during the Mexican regime. Part of the new settlers were Mexicans;
part were foreigners. Spain had colonized Florida and Louisiana with
Anglo-Americans. Mexico now made the same political mistake in
Texas, New Mexico, and California.
Many factors aroused American interest in the Far West. Boston
coast traders, overland fur men, Northwestern missionaries, and official
explorers had spied out the land. Interest was stimulated by sectional
rivalry, and by fear of England, France, or Russia. Pathfinders beck-
oned; government tried to follow. By diplomacy, through purchase
from Mexico, and through compromise with England it essayed to ac-
quire all the vast region between Louisiana and the Pacific. Mexico did
not wish to sell, and England was "stubborn"--so our schoolbooks say.
Canning put his heavy foot down on the Columbia, and there he stood;
so Uncle Sam resorted to watchful waiting. We thank President Wilson
for the phrase, for it precisely fits the case. Wilkes, Ap Jones, Larkin,
and Fremont all typify the government's hope that something would
''turn up".
While government watched, settlers moved in. Invited, Americans
colonized Texas, arose in revolt, and sought annexation, alternating this
ambition with dreams of possessing "the fine harbor of Monterey".
Covered wagons creaked their way from the Middle West to Oregon;
then England and the United States divided the disputed area.
Uninvited, and long before the Gold Rush, other covered wagons in
vaded California, still a part of Mexico; their occupants obtained gener
ous land grants, and then, imitating the Texans, set up the Bear Flag
Republic. When something thus turned up, Fremont wvas on hand.
Uninvited, Mormons poured into Utah, also Mexican territory. Uncle
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468 Herbert E. Bolton
Sam's soldiers and diplomats now supplem
Texas was annexed; Mexico went to war
of her domain. The purchase of the Gad
pleted the story of Saxon growth on the
for the continent was practically over.
This division of the western seaboard of
significant. It cut off from Spanish Amer
areas which had been only partly Hispa
near the frontier of effective Spanish col
and the United States frontage on the Pac
assimilate added millions of Europeans.
in both countries the West became a po
process of growth kept both nations youn
perience; it prolonged opportunity for so
petuated early American and Canadian c
VI.
On this long colonial and internationa
development of the Western Hemisph
had come into being. The outline of the m
pleted. The territorial bases for the natio
next phase was the filling in of the space
tion, and economic growth. Like all the ea
confined to one American nation, but w
In this whole process of national growth
teenth century the outstanding factors w
foreign immigration, foreign capital, and
these, none of the American nations wo
which they have traveled. No time is
indicate the broad lines. But if you ar
you will gladly forgive me for what I leav
The United States first got under way
was attended by growing pains. Tariffs
quisition of Texas, Oregon, and Californ
For thirty years peace between the sec
promise. War followed, but the Union was
tiplied in strength by the peopling of
sprawling, it was welded by the building
the economic reconstruction of the South
dustry on a national scale. In all this,
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The Epic of Greater America 469
European capital played a decisive part. By the end of t
century both political and economic nationality had been ac
While the United States were gaining solidarity and
British provinces to the north were being similarly welded
dominion. The War of I812 stimulated their sense of na
British immigration lessened American influence. By I850 t
had already won responsible government, but they were
entities. Like the United States, the Dominion was fashioned out of
scraps of territory variously acquired.
Now the tide of federation set strongly in. Union was prompted by
community of interests. Obstacles were met in local hostilities and
racial suspicion. Federation found able champions and determined opponents. There were Hamiltons and Calhouns. In the Quebec Conference-as significant in Canadian history as the Constitutional Convention in the United States-the Dominion of Canada was born. One
by one the older provinces joined. A mari usque ad mare became the
slogan. Hudson's Bay Company relinquished its vast jurisdiction in the
West, Manitoba and British Columbia entered the union, and the Dominion did indeed extend from sea to sea.
The loosely knit federation, like its neighbor a little earlier, was now
welded by transcontinental railroads and the development of the West.
The American movement to the frontier was duplicated in Canada.
European capital furnished the means. European immigrants thronged,
Americans flocked across the border, new prairie provinces were
formed, Winnipeg and Vancouver became boom towns. New railroads
built up still more northerly cities, and mining rushes developed the yet
more remote Northwest. Like California, Oregon, and Washington.
British Columbia looks out across the Pacific.
The World War stimulated Canadian loyalism on the one hand, and
English conciliation on the other. Canada now has full membership in
the British Commonwealth. A fine sentiment binds her to the empire,
but she is in all essentials an independent nation. From pole to pole
American independence from Europe has been achieved.
Hispanic America has a similar tale of national growth to tell. Some
of our southern neighbors have been moving rapidly along the same
road as that traveled by the Anglo-American nations. The last half
century has been remarkable especially for the emergence of the A B C
powers-Argentina, Brazil, and Chile.
The essential factors in the recent development of these countries
are much the same as those which have operated in Canada and the
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470 Herbert E. Bolton
United States. Foreign capital and foreign immigration have been decisive. Italians, Spaniards, and Germans have come to the A B C countries by millions to make their homes. Railroads, plantations, stock
ranches, nitrate works, mines, and oil wells have been developed by
English and German capital. In business matters Uncle Sam has by
no means had a monopoly there. Will Rogers, whom all will accept as an
authority, wrote from Buenos Aires a few weeks ago, "Englishmen have
got this country sewed up tighter than Borah has Idaho". Other indexes of material progress in that far Southland are the great modern
cities, such as Santiago, Rio de Janeiro, and Sao Paulo. Cultural progress has followed material prosperity. Buenos Aires, with its nearly
three million inhabitants, is the third city in the Western Hemisphere,
and one of the great ones of the world. Brazil, with a population of
over forty millions, is the second power in America, a title which Argen-
tina probably would contest. When a Brazilian boasted of his country's
forty-three millions, an Argentinian retorted, "You must have counted
all those who live in the trees".
"The first shall be last!" In the tropics and around the shores of the
Caribbean there has been less material progress than in the temperate
regions. The areas which were most developed in early colonial days are
now most retarded.7 Nevertheless, backwardness is only relative, and
some of these tropical regions, with their fruit and oil, have recently attracted capital and been developed at a tremendous rate.
Mexico, our nearest Hispanic neighbor, has continued to have its ups
and downs. The fall of Maximilian was followed by the rule of one of
the remarkable men of all time. Porfirio Diaz, half-breed Zapotec Indian, and soldier hero, became president on the platform of no reelection
-and then held office for seven terms in succession. He was a benevolent despot. He gave Mexico what it then most needed-good order
and material progress. Foreign capital poured in, railroads were built,
mines and oil wells opened. What had happened in the United States,
Canada, and Brazil, was duplicated there. Diaz became a much eulogized world figure. Outsiders saw Mexico in a Golden Age.
But prosperity was one-sided. Vast estates were still intact while
millions of people needed land. Foreigners and the old aristocracy
flourished while peons were still bound to the soil. The kettle of unrest
boiled, and the lid blew off. Madero gave the new Grito, Diaz fled the
country never to return, Madero fell, Huerta was eliminated, Carranza
put in power, and the new constitution installed. Socialistic and na7 This is true of British, Dutch, and French America also.
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The Epic of Greater America 47 I
tionalistic in its aims, fifteen years have been spent putting
tion. The declared objectives of the social revolution-for it i
on-are Mexico for Mexicans, rights for the common man
tion for the common people-slogans which sound familiar to AngloAmericans. In so radical a program vested interests have suffered. In
the struggle the Church has been involved. Critics maintain that some
of the reforms are more apparent than real; but the same has been said
of other countries.
VII.
Progress toward nationality in the Western Hemisphere has been
attended by international adjustments. The interrelations of Canada and
the United States have always been close, as their development has been
in many ways parallel. Loyalists never forget their expulsion from the
home hearth, nor the attempted conquest of I812. Fortunately, as the
Canadians say, the Americans were always just exasperating enough to
prevent an international marriage, thus preserving Canadian nationality.
By I846 the old boundary questions had been adjusted. The midcentury was sometimes disturbed by annexation talk that was seldom
dangerous. The war between the states and Fenian raids caused irritation. Fisheries and the Bering Sea were bones of contention. Blaine
enjoyed twisting the British Lion's tail. Trade relations have sometimes
been troublesome. But eventually these matters have been amicably
settled. All in all, with common boundaries unfortified for more than
a century, Canada and the United States, in this world of turmoil, furnish a splendid example of neighborliness.
Of the Hispanic republics the most intimate international contacts
have been with each other. Like good Irishmen, whom they greatly resemble, thp Latins quarrel among themselves but show solidarity against
outsiders who interfere. Bullets often fly. But boundary disputes on
many borders have been settled by arbitration, in which Latin America
has set an example before the world. With Europe there has been occasional friction, but much more conspicuous has been the peaceful in-
tercourse of commerce, investment, immigration, and cultural contacts.
Hispanic dealings with the United States have generally been closest
in the adjacent regions; and by the rest of Latin America, naturally,
these dealings have been taken as an index. Early friendship soon
cooled. When the United States seized half of Mexico's domain, that
country became embittered and other Latins suspicious. In the midAM. HIST. REV., VOL. xXXvIII.-33
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472 Herbert E. Bolton
century relations with Mexico greatly improved, and the long reign of
Diaz was the heyday of American investors south of the Rio Grande.
After the fall of "El General", the story was one of frequent intervention. Huerta was eliminated and Carranza elevated largely through
Wilson's aid. Villa chasing and "saluting the flag" made Uncle Sam
ridiculous. Mexico's new constitution threatened American investments
and a decade of irritation followed. But this matter has been adjusted.
In recent years the United States has had its most intimate relations with
the Isthmus and the Caribbean area. In these regions the United States
has exercised extensive supervisory functions. With South America, on
the other hand, the tendency is toward recognition of the fullest autonomy. There the Monroe Doctrine is dead. The Southern Continent
has grown up.
The essential unity of the Western Hemisphere was revealed by the
Great War. Every nation had to answer the question of participation
or neutrality. Canada was in from the start; the United States moved
more slowly. Until Uncle Sam joined the Allies, all Hispanic America
held aloof. Then, of the twenty states to the south, eight joined the
Allies, five broke relations with Germany, and seven remained neutral.
It is a significant thing that all America, from the north pole to the
south pole, was either on the same side of the great struggle or remained
neutral. There was emphatic Western He-misphere solidarity.
The Americas have developed side by side. In the past their relations have been close; in the future they may or may not be closer. In
the colonial period Latin greatly outweighed Saxon America. In the
nineteenth century the balance tipped decisively in the other direction.
But it is swinging back. The importance of Hispanic America as an
economic unit and as aipolitical factor is becoming greater from day to
day. It is one of the great reservoirs of raw materials. It continues to
attract foreign capital and foreign immigration. Saxon America, with
its one hundred and forty millions of people, is practically closed to
European settlers. Hispanic America, with its hundred millions, is
wide open. A German colony of a whole million is right now being
planned for the Upper Amazon-equipped with electric cooling plants
and everything else up to date. It is entirely possible that within a short
time Hispanic will outnumber Saxon America, and with continued im-
migration its race stock will be more and more largely European. Ever
since independence there has been fuindamental Western Hemisphere
solidarity. Therefore, it is not a matter of indifference to know that
Eturopean influence in South America to-day far outweighs that of Saxon
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The Epic of Greater America 473
America, and that Europe is bending every effort to dr
continent more and more into the European circle and away from its
northern neighbors.
VIII.
In this imperfect way I have endeavored to indicate some of the
larger historical unities and interrelations of the Americas. Those outlined are only a few out of the many that are patent at every turn. Cultural
and intellectual relations are quite as close and fully as important as
political, territorial, and economic contacts. What I have said is intended merely as an illustration.
In recent years the range of investigation in Western Hemisphere
history has vastly broadened. This is due in no small part to the influence of Jameson's guides to foreign archives; to the work of American
and Canadian scholars on British America; of the students of the Caribbean; of the historians of the frontier; of the whole galaxy of Hispanists;
of the social, economic, institutional, cultural, and diplomatic historians,
the international relationists, and a host of others. Our historical data
have not only become greater in amount but much more complex in
character. Phases and factors formerly undreamed of have come to
light. Many of the new discoveries do not fit into the nationalistic pattern. In the old synthesis their significance is lost. In a larger frameAvork, on the other hand, many things which have seemed obscure and
secondary become outstanding and primary.
This applies especially to borderland researches. Brebner studied
the institutional relations of New England and the Maritime Provinces
of Canada, and concluded that the histories of Canada and the United
States should be treated as one. Just as emphatically, those who have
studied borderland areas between Saxon and Hispanic America are convinced that the twvo fields are inextricably linked together. Borderland
zones are vital niot only in the determination of international relations,
but also in the development of culture. In this direction one of the important modifications of the Turner thesis is to be sought. By borderland areas not solely geographical regions are meant; borderline studies
of many kinds are similarly fruitful.
It is not merely that a new framework will find a place for special
researches that have already beeni conisummated. Quite as important, a
larger framework will call for data which we do not possess, and thus
suggest a thousand new things to do. A classic example of the influence
of a new synthesis,is found in the multitude of investigators whom
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474 Herbert E. Bolton
Turner set to work to fill out his elemen
cent committee of historians complains th
jects in United States history have been
diminishing returns. A larger synthesis o
would do much to relieve this rather p
written the history of the introduction o
into the Western Hemisphere as a whole,
horse raising from Patagonia to Labrador? Who has written on a
Western Hemisphere scale the history of shipbuilding and commerce,
mining, Christian missions, Indian policies, slavery and emancipation,
constitutional development, arbitration, the effects of the Indian on
European cultures, the rise of the common man, art, architecture, literature, or science? Who has, tried to state the significance of the frontier
in terms of the Americas?
A noted historian has written for us the Epic of America. In his
title "America" means the United States. We need an Adams to sketch
the high lights and the significant developments of the Western Hem-
isphere as a whole. Perhaps the person who undertakes the task, as a
guarantee of objectivity ought to be an inhabitant of the moon. But
such a synthesis, done with similar brilliancy, would give us the "Epic of
Greater America".
HERBERT E. BOLTON.
The University of California.
8 Before closing I wish to repeat with emphasis that I do not propose such a synthesis as
a substitute for, but as a setting in which to place, any one of our national histories.
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