they were left in the main to take their chances in a
sort of struggle for existence. A contributing fac-
tor in shaping the different policy pursued by Spain
in its final form was the conquest by Cortés and
Pizarro of states of a developed civilization, them-
selves in turn resting on the conquest and combina-
tion of smaller political aggregates. The peoples
under the sway of Montezuma and Atahualpa accept-
ed a change of rulers with no great resistance, and
became the subjects of the king of Spain, whose cap-
tains displaced their earlier conquerors. Only in
the case of the wilder tribes, the "unreduced"
Indians, do we have a situation more like that in
English America. ¹

The inhabitants of the newly discovered tropical
Africa knew Europeans only as slave-buyers and
kidnappers; that a similar fate did not befall the
natives of America may be attributed to the long-
continued efforts of the Spanish kings and mission-
aries, seconded by public opinion in Spain. ² These
new subjects must be converted, must be reduced to
civilized life and to regular industry. It was a com-
pulsory process, and it bore down at times in the
remoter fields of execution with terrible severity,
especially on such as were not inured to work. That
the Indians, excepting prisoners of war and the wild
Caribs resisting conquest, should not, either in theory

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