And what was the record of Spain's
dominion in California? Setting aside unfounded calumnies as absurd as
the one which claims that Philip II passed a law sentencing to death any
foreigner who set foot on Spain's dominions in the New World, relegating
such lies to where they belong, Spain's rule in her New World
possessions, including California was marked by humanity as well as
energy. Cortes, Pizzaro, Vizcaino, Coronado, Menendez, Ponce de Leon,
Cabeza de Vaca, Balboa, as well as the later "pathfinders" governors and
viceroys of Catholic Spain, were men of honor, and sobriety to whose
names no "butcheries and cruelties" may be justly attached.
Perhaps one of the best proofs of Catholic Spanish humanity is the fact
of the preservation of the aborigines of the land wherever Spanish
conquests were made. Take for example, the statistics of the last census
of Mexico which reveal that of a population of 15,000,000 souls
7,000,000 are pure Indian 5,000,000 mestizos or of mixed Indian and
foreign extraction and only 3,000,000 foreigners or of Mexican birth but
of purely foreign extraction. Take, California, Arizona, New Mexico and
other former Spanish possessions of whom the same may be said in
proportion.
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