Spain – Page 3 – The Pull Of The Land

Ranchitos I

February 1, 2020February 1, 2020 Richard Barnes

In Venezuela, ranchitos (or barrios) are like Brazil’s favelas, the shanty towns which grew around Rio de Janeiro and now are ubiquitous in metropolitan areas throughout Brazil. Argentina has Villa Miseria or asentamientos; Chile has campamentos; Colombia, tugurios; and so on.

To generalize, these are “informal settlements.” Man-on-the-street terms range from slums to shacks to squatter settlements, etc.

They are a sight to behold.

A visitor to the once dynamic, modern, enterprising city of Caracas is amazed as he emerges from one of the last tunnels leading from the international airport in Maiquetía, and, before getting a glimpse of the capital city’s shiny skyscrapers, he is slapped with a view of colorful, makeshift, paper shacks, stacked sky-high, side by side, grasping the massive mountainsides for miles.

“Who lives here?! Who can live here?”

By latest estimates, about 700,000 in Argentina, 48,000 in Chile, 300,000 in Colombia, and 12,000,000 in Brazil. About 1,000,000 Venezuelans make their homes in ranchitos, 800,000 of which are in Caracas. But the Venezuela figures are old and suspect. Meaning, the numbers now are likely higher.

What caused these to begin with?

In the case of Venezuela, a few sources says the “oil boom” was to blame. However, that boom began in the early 20th century, whereas the ranchitos exploded in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s.

Other sources simply presuppose the ranchitos and just report the headache these are to different politicians in different eras. One source actually said that Hugo Chavez was the first politician to declare “war” on the ranchitos, which is laughable propaganda. Hearing about governments’ plans to attack the ranchitos takes me back to my childhood, which long preceeded Chavez.

I recently asked my dear 89-year-old mother what she could recall regarding the origins of the ranchitos.

“I remember when they began appearing. The usual commentary was that they were poor people leaving the conucos [small family farms] and coming to the capital city on the basis of promises of high-paying jobs, which did not materialize for them.”

But why did they come in the mid-twentieth century and not before?

This is not a mere academic matter. As I’ve written in other posts, most recently in the post on Spain and the Reformation (Spain and the Reformation), “…North, Central, and South America have more in common with one another than is usually assumed….” Perhaps by understanding at least some of the causes behind the ranchitos of Venezuela, we would not only better understand our neighbor(s), but we might even avoid some of the pitfalls that have bedeviled them.

First, we’ll review the encomienda system brought to the New World during the Spanish discovery and conquest. Future posts will look at the hacienda system and subsequent “land reforms”, which have been the bane of peoples around the globe and yet continue to function as a siren call to many.

The much-maligned encomienda system was intended to protect and instruct the native population. In general, the system “granted” areas or regions to the Spanish Conquistadores, soldiers, and other pioneers with the encomienda — the trust, the charge, the responsibility — to protect, evangelize, and catechize all the peoples in their areas, their encomendados.

Significantly, this did not include a transfer of land ownership. The Crown insisted the land revert to the native population. The encomendero — the receiver of the grant — could exact tribute from the peoples in their encomienda in the form of minerals, produce, or labor.

In addition, the encomenderos were required to pay tribute to the crown and, as if that weren’t disincentive enough, the grants’ durations were limited to no more than two successive generations.

Had the Crown or its ministers somehow have been able to travel to the future century and read William Bradford’s Of Plymouth Colony they would have anticipated the deadly flaw in such an arrangement. Without ownership, incentives for industry and production were disfigured. Good men did their best but also had to look out for their own interests, including, in the case of many, outright confiscations of the lands, albeit with kind treatment of the natives, in many cases also granting them small parcels of land outright. Others, in effect, mistreated and enslaved the Indians. These are the ones who ended up incentivizing Bartolomé de las Casas to produce his dangerous broad-brush propaganda, which caused havoc in subsequent centuries and which is so much with us to this very day. For more on the monk and his writings, refer to the post, Simón Bolivar (Simon Bolivar).

The encomienda system produced gratifying results early on, including decent education and learning of the Spanish language, something that genuinely impressed the anti-Spaniard, Alexander Humboldt. But overall it did not render good fruit and was officially ended in the late 18th century, although historical records reflect no new conferments of encomiendas after 1721.

It is instructive to note that the encomienda system was in effect in Spain itself, but with one critical difference: in Spain, unlike in the New World, the encomenderos were actually granted title to the lands.

To her credit, Spain believed that once the Indios had been catechized and educated they would become good subjects of the Spanish crown and would be treated as such, ownership of land. This helps explain why the Latin American wars for independence required so much malignment of Spain, including resurrecting Bartolomé de las Casas to once again preach his hatred. And despite the relentless propaganda, many 19th-century Latin Americans disbelieved their betters and resisted the wars. Hence, the unbelievable bloodletting, especially in Venezuela with 33% of its population eradicated. It’s been persuasively argued that those wars were actually civil wars as opposed to wars for independence.

What followed the encomienda system was the equally-maligned hacienda system, which was an improvement, and which depended much on the character of the hacendados.

This “ancient history” is important and is with us still. For example, many of the original land holdings in Texas originated from Spanish land grants which were honored by the Texas Republic after independence. The beginnings of the world-renowned King Ranch are marked by Captain King’s purchase of a 15,500-acre Mexican land grant in the mid-19th century.

What’s more, Captain King himself established a sort of encomienda wherein, during a devastating drought where the people of Cruillas in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, in order to survive, sold him all their cattle. As he and his men rode the herd back to his ranch in Texas, he suddenly realized the people of Cruillas would not survive. He turned his horse and he and his men rode back and offered the people protection and pay if they came with him and worked in his ranch along with his men. The people agreed and became known as LosKiñenos, whose descendants still work at the ranch.

And do not live in ranchitos.

We will look at the hacienda system in a future post.

*Ranchitos* around the capital city of Caracas, Venezuela

What About Spain and the Reformation?

October 26, 2019October 26, 2019 Richard Barnes

Five hundred and two years ago, on October 31, 1517, an Augustinian monk named Martin Luther posted ninety-five theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg. This was a common action in this university town and was intended as an invitation to debate and discuss.

Instead, a conflagration ensued and the world was transformed.

The event was preceded by the labors of men such as Jan Has (John Hus), and John Wycliffe, both of whom lived in the 14th century, and also William Tyndale, whose labors were greatly influential to the translators of both the Geneva Bible (the version first brought to America’s shores) as well as the later Authorized (King James) version.

The Reformation came “in the fullness of time.” The peoples of the world, especially Europe, were “ready” to seek, find, and act upon the Truth.

The following quotes will serve to remind us that, absent the Reformation, especially the work of John Calvin and the the Genevan reformers, we would have been a very different people and place:

“[Calvinists] are the true heroes of England. They founded England, in spite of the corruption of the Stuarts, by the exercise of duty, by the practice of justice, by obstinate toil, by vindication of right, by resistance to oppression, by the conquest of liberty, by the repression of vice. They founded Scotland; they founded the United States; at this day they are, by their descendants, founding Australia and colonizing the world.” — French atheist Hippolyte Taine (1828-1893)

“Calvinism has been the chief source of republican government.” — Lorraine Boettner

“In Calvinism lies the origin and guarantee of our constitutional liberties.” — Goren van Prinsterer

“[John Calvin] is the father of America. He who will not honor the memory and respect the influence of Calvin knows but little of the origin of American liberty.” — Historian George Bancroft

“John Calvin was the virtual founder of America.” — German historian Leopold von Ranke

When we speak of the Reformation we think of men like Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Knox, Ulrich Zwingli, and many such others, mostly hailing from Switzerland, England, Holland, Scandinavia, Germany, and France.

And then there is Spain.

Perhaps the most known Spanish Reformation names are the remarkable Casiodoro de Reina and Cipriano de Valera, the erudite and pious men who translated and revised the entire Bible into Spanish from the original languages. The Reina-Valera version was first published in 1569, less than a decade after the Geneva Bible and four decades before the Authorized (King James). And it remains to this day as influential to the Spanish speaking peoples as the King James is to the English speaking.

Both men, at different times, pastored a Spanish protestant church in London. Valera translated Calvin’s Institutes into Spanish. From his introduction to the Institutes: “Therefore, open your eyes, O Spaniards, and forsaking those who deceive you, obey Christ and His Word which alone is firm and unchangeable for ever. Establish and found your faith on the true foundation of the Prophets and Apostles and sole Head of His Church.”

Both men died in exile after productive lives, despite hardships.

Spain, like her fellow European countries (including Italy, but that’s beyond today’s post), was also ripe for the Reformation. Reformistas Antiguos Españoles is a magisterial, 21-volume work which offers biographies and writings of Spanish reformers, including Juan Valdés, who, in 1529, published Diálogo de Doctrina Cristiana (Dialogue of Christian Doctrine) the first protestant book to be published in Spain. He also translated much of the New Testament from the original languages into Spanish. You could say he was the William Tyndale of Spain. An extraordinary man, as were many others of his compatriots.

Other examples of the spiritual fervent in Spain before and after Luther include the fact that there was at least one protestant congregation in Spain, established around 1510, years before the 95 theses were posted. Also, Adrian Saravia, born in the Spanish Netherlands to a Spanish father and a Flemish mother, fled to England and became one of the English Bible’s (Authorized) translators.

Another powerful indication predates 1517 by almost three centuries: Spain’s open mindedness and piety can be inferred by knowing a bit about the thirteenth-century Spanish king, Alfonso the Wise, who ordered the Bible be translated into Castilian Spanish and thus began to standardize the language. I understand there is still an extant copy of that Bible but to date have not succeeded in finding it. It was this king who laid the groundwork for the Siete Partidas, which includes large portions of the Old Testament in Castilian Spanish and which became the basis for law in Spain and her colonies until the catastrophic French Revolution’s incursions. For more on the Siete Partidas, refer to my May 11, 2019 post, “Simon Bolivar III — Influences.”

To begin to appreciate this king, however imperfect, the following was the instruction behind the Siete Partidas: “The Law-Maker should love God and keep Him before his eyes when he makes the laws, in order that they may be just and perfect. He should moreover love justice and the common benefit of all….If [the ruler] should make a bad use of his power … people can denounce him as a tyrant, and his government which was lawful, will become wrongful.” But this does not justify anarchy. “The union of all men together, those of superior, middle, and inferior rank” would determine what course to take in case of tyranny. This presaged John Calvin’s “lesser magistrates” theories, which we have institutionalized in the United States (federal, state, county, township, governor, sheriff, etc.) by three centuries, and anticipated our Fairfax Resolves and our Declaration of Independence by five!

The Spanish Inquisition, was energetically pressed by Pope Leo X, whose hatred for Luther was undisguised, not to say unhinged. He became alarmed at the incursions of the “Lutheran heresy” into Spain (apparently unaware that the “heresy” had resided in Spain for centuries before Luther) and he forcefully pressed the Spanish Inquisition whose first auto de fé took place in 1559, decades after the launching of the great explorations, including Columbus (1492), Cortés (1519), and others. If you read Columbus unfiltered by modern historians you would be forgiven if you thought he too was a Protestant.

My point is that, while the Reformation fostered unmistakable and long-lasting impact and influence on English and French America, it also affected Spanish and Portuguese America. An influence later truncated, if not extinguished by the Inquisition, which, unfortunately, had severe impact on Spain and its colonies, and even on the Roman Catholic Church in Spain, whose developing “evangelical” component was snuffed out.

As I’ve noted several times in this blog, North, Central, and South America have more in common with one another than is usually assumed. Granted, in some regions one would have to dig much deeper under the surface to find that shared background. For one thing, the French atheistic revolutionary influence forcefully invaded the Spanish colonies centuries ago in contrast to the English, who greatly delayed that infiltration.

Nevertheless, I do hope we will one day see the fruits of the common ancestry of the Reformation. Perhaps within the lifetimes of our children and grandchildren.

May you enjoy Reformation Sunday, October 27, and Reformation Day, October 31.

*Diálogo de Doctrina Cristiana*, first edition (1529) facsimile. Only one copy survived the Inquisition and that was discovered in 1925.

Geneva Bible, First Edition Facsimile, 1560

Edition of the *Siete Partidas* dated 1555. However, note the source atop the page: Don Alfonso *Sabio Rey* (Wise King) who reigned in the 13th century.

Casiodoro de Reina (right; 1520-1594) and Cipriano de Valera (1531-1602). Eminent translators of the universally loved and respected Reina-Valera Spanish Bible.

Juan de Valdés (1490-1541), published the first protestant, evangelical book in Spain. Died in exile in Italy where he played a role in the Italian Reformation.

Christopher Columbus (1451-1506). A man of his time, however extraordinary; many of his writings read like those of the reformers.

Hernán Cortés (1485-1547). A man of piety; he pleaded with Montezuma to forsake human sacrifice and cannibalism, practices which “lead to hell.”

William Tyndale (1494-1536), executed by strangulation; then his body was burned at the stake. His last words were “Lord, open the king of England’s eyes!” Within the decade several Bible translations were published in England, with the king’s approval. What the king ignored was that all were fundamentally Tyndale’s work. His prayer was honored.

Martin Luther (1483-1546). “Therefore, it is clear and certain that this faith alone justifies us…. Nothing of this article can be yielded or surrendered, even though heaven and earth and everything else fails.”

John Calvin (1509-1564), the father of the American Colonies. “It were cold and lifeless to represent God as a momentary Creator, Who completed his work once for all, and then left it. Here, especially, we must dissent from the profane, and maintain that the presence of the divine power is conspicuous, not less in the perpetual condition of the world than in its first creation….”

Franco and Forrest: Exhumation or Reconciliation?

October 2, 2019October 2, 2019 Richard Barnes

You may have seen the news recently that, after legal battles culminating with a unanimous ruling from Spain’s Supreme Court, Spain’s Socialist government will proceed with the exhumation of the body of General Francisco Franco. Having lost their efforts to prohibit this action, General Franco’s family had requested the body be buried next to his daughter in Madrid. The Socialists have also rejected this and will bury him in a state cemetery outside the city.

According to the New York Post (link below), the Socialists want to convert this site into a memorial to victims of the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939).

That’s very thoughtful.

Except that, it is a memorial to the fallen, as witness the very name of the site: Valle de los Caídos (Valley of the Fallen). Anyone who has visited and studied up on it a bit, fully understands that. Unless, of course, the Socialists plan to define “victims” differently. An altogether predictable expectation.

If you read the article about the site, you could be forgiven if you did not know that:

It was built without state monies.
It was built with mostly free labor, but also prison labor; the prisoners were paid the same rate as the free.
Some prisoners, after completing their sentence or buying their freedom, voluntarily continued to work at the site.
Political events are prohibited but it is freely available for religious and cultural research.
There is a monastery on the site.
There is no separation between Nationalists and Republicans in the cemetery; the men are buried as brothers.
Many bodies were transferred from hastily dug mass graves which made it impossible to properly identify them.

The key to the monument is reconciliation, hence, the site is dominated by a large Christian cross: the means of reconciliation between God and man and between men themselves.

Now, I have dear childhood friends who, to this day, are very passionate about General Franco, whether pro or con.

I remember having visited the Valle de Los Caídos in 1987 and then visiting a Spanish childhood acquaintance and her family some time later. During the course of our conversation I mentioned my visit to the valley and, let us say, she was not pleased that I had gone. What struck me most was her rapid-fire declaration of “facts” about the site and about the war that simply were not true, however strongly she believed them to be. Seeing it would not have been productive to engage in an argument, I let it pass, mumbling something about agreeing that the war was a terrible event. Thankfully, the rest of the afternoon’s atmosphere had a chance to improve!

I also recall running into some pro-Franco folks who were vigorous defenders of Franco and whose passion led them to label anyone opposed to him as a Communist. Which would have come as a shock to my childhood friend.

However, it is true that, in 1944, General Franco warned the West about the dangers of Communism and offered to mediate between Axis and Allied Nations as a check against the occupation of Eastern Europe and Germany by the Soviet Union’s Red Army. He believed that if nothing were done, such a take over was inevitable because of the vacuum which would ensue given the Allied demand for unconditional surrender.

Franco was spurned and ridiculed and the news was leaked so as to add insult to injury. A mere 3 years later, in 1947, Winston Churchill delivered his famous “Iron Curtain” speech which, in effect, affirmed Franco’s warning, only in this case it was after the fact. Churchill was hailed as a great statesman. Maybe he was; but Franco foresaw this years earlier, when it might have been prevented, yet was never credited for it.

Referring to this incident, the Christian Science Monitor of November 10, 1961, provocatively reported, “Generalísimo Francisco Franco recently castigated the tendency abroad to identify authoritarian Spain with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ‘without taking into account our own characteristics. In the same way,’ he said, ‘we could tar as Communist the countries of the West which allied themselves with the Soviets in the last conflict and contributed greatly to their power.'”

It was clear during my visit that unreconciled partisanship did not allow folks to reasonably discuss the roots of the terrible conflict, the atrocities, and its aftermath. And to mention, let alone seek to discuss, the Republicans’ anti-Christian hatred was a non-starter, unless you were prepared to do so behind some strong body armor.

(The intense hatred against Christianity in that war has been described as “the greatest clerical bloodletting Europe has ever seen,” with mass tortures and murders and graves emptied and corpses mocked and mutilated. This was also seen in the French Revolution, likewise characterized by mass clerical tortures and killings and hundreds of burned and desecrated churches and monasteries. The “left” in both conflicts was characterized by the same anti-Christian animus. Some might object by noting that the opposition was only against the Roman Catholic Church, not Christianity. After spending time seeing countless photos and reading hours of narratives, I have to disagree. We might develop this in another post.)

Socialist policies may sound good in the abstract; however, their incompatibility with man’s sinful nature has always been their Achilles heel and, hence, has led to totalitarianism, as, witness: Venezuela, for instance. Socialism requires compulsion; it is incompatible with liberty. It requires perennial enemies, be it the church in the wars of France and Spain or be it the United States in the case of Venezuela. It requires ongoing vengeance, even reaching into graveyards if necessary.

This is something George Orwell, an otherwise brilliant man, failed to recognize given his sincere anti-Stalinism coupled with his equally sincere and persistent adoration of Socialism. It was the Socialists who were hunting him down in Spain when he escaped by the skin of his teeth. Unsurprisingly, he chalked it all up to Stalinists. His experiences in Spain and in the Soviet Union gave us both Animal Farm and 1984, books worthy of reading, along with Huxley’s Brave New World. Unsurprisingly, Huxley also supported the Loyalists, although, unlike Orwell, he did so long distance.

About fifteen years ago, the BBC produced a surprisingly objective 6-part series on the Spanish Civil War. The link is below and I would encourage all with even a passing interest in that awful event to parcel out the time to watch it. The attitudes, arguments, passions, and hatreds you see reflected in the documentary are very “20th-century-like” and they are with us today.

As witness, the Memphis city council’s unanimous vote to exhume the bodies of Nathaniel Bedford Forrest and his wife, Mary Ann. They plan to remove them from a public park. They also voted to remove the statue of the General, which deed was done illegally, under cover of night. Litigation is currently ongoing but the spirit of the exhumation forces is similar to that which animates the Socialists in Spain. “It is no longer politically correct to glorify someone who was a slave trader, someone who was a racist on public property,” said City Council member Myron Lowery.

Mr. H. K. Edgerton, a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, strongly opposes the exhumation as well as the removal of the statue. He and his organization strenuously object to the misinformation promoted about General Forrest.

Mr. Edgerton is an African American. You would be forgiven if you did not know that.

You would also be forgiven if you did not know that:

General Forrest did not start the Ku Klux Klan. In 1871, Congress itself exonerated the General of having anything to do with the Klan. He called on it to disband. He challenged one of the “liars” to a duel to defend his name.

Union General W. T. Sherman admitted that General Forrest had done nothing wrong in the “massacre” at Fort Pillow. Here again, the abolitionist-dominated Congress absolved him from any wrong-doing. General Forrest demanded, in writing, that the Union General at the time clear his name.

General Forrest had one of his slaves, Napoleon Winbush, serve as Chaplain for his troops. The Union Army would never have allowed such a thing. Chaplain Winbush’s grandson is a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

General Forrest enlisted 45 of his own slaves to fight with him, and freed them 18 months before the war was over because he was afraid he would be killed in battle and wanted to make sure they were free. Of the 45, 44 of them stayed with him.

But there is even more to his life.

General Forrest began attending church with his wife at the Court Avenue Presbyterian Church in Memphis. The minister was Reverend George Stainback. Late in 1875, Forrest heard Stainback preach from Matthew 7 and after the service, “Forrest suddenly leaned against the wall and his eyes filled with tears. ‘Sir, your sermon has removed the last prop from under me….I am the fool that built on sand; I am a poor and miserable sinner.'”

Shortly before his death in October, 1877, he told his lawyer, General John T. Morgan, a U. S. Senator:

“General, I am broken in health and in spirit, and have not long to live. My life has been a battle from the start. It was a fight to achieve a livelihood for those dependent upon me in my younger days, and an independence for myself when I grew up to manhood, as well as in the terrible turmoil of the Civil War. I have seen too much of violence, and I want to close my days at peace with all the world, as I am now at peace with my Maker.”

Fast forward 142 years and, instead of peace, we are faced with a powerful propensity to destroy or mutilate, a ghoulish yen that reaches for even the long-buried dead, who are grotesquely slandered.

Nevertheless, as with Forrest, the story of Franco is far richer and more complex than the cartoonish characters foisted upon us.

The fervor for exhumation, the clamor for punishing folks who have died decades, centuries, and millennia ago, and who cannot defend their name against attacks today, does not lead us to reconciliation and understanding.

It leads us to new wars.

In closing this post, it is instructive to quote Abraham Lincoln who, in 1864, presciently said, “Human nature will not change. In any future great national trial, compared with the men of this, we shall have as weak and as strong, as silly and as wise, as bad and as good. Let us therefore study the incidents in this as philosophy to learn wisdom from, and none of them as wrongs to be avenged.”

https://nypost.com/2019/09/24/spanish-court-says-government-can-exhume-francisco-francos-remains/
New York Post article on the exhumation of Franco

http://www.valledeloscaidos.es/monumento
Above link is for those who might be interested in reading more about the Valle de los Caídos site. In Spanish.

Valle de los Caídos (Valley of the Fallen)

Famous photograph of felled Loyalist militia, taken by Robert Capa.

The Republican forces and supporters, also known as Loyalists, desecrated many churches and monasteries and tortured and killed many thousands of clerics and nuns. They went on to desecrate graveyards and to mock the dead. Their anti-Christianity was well known and feared. The yen to desecrate is with us today.

The Spanish Civil War attracted men and women from many western countries, including England (above, on the Loyalist side) and Ireland. United States citizens also came, most famously, The Lincoln Brigade, also on the Loyalist side.

General Nathan Bedford Forrest, circa 1865.

General Forrest statue in Memphis. It was removed by the city council at night, in defiance of state law.

Brigadier General Nathan Bedford Forrest III and his wife, Frances. He was a great-grandson of the Confederate General and the first general to be killed in action in WWII. He is mentioned here simply to note that he, fully reconciled, fought for the “Union” less than a century after his great grandfather had fought for secession.

Countless United States Civil War veterans’ reunions were celebrated for many years after the terrible war. Above photos were taken in the early 20th century.

Above two photos are of Henry Albert Woolson, Union Army. Top photo was taken during the war; second was taken in the 1950’s. He, the last Civil War veteran, passed away in 1956.

H.K. Edgerton is a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. Many African Americans fought on the Confederate side. Mr. Edgerton strongly opposes the exhumation of General Forrest and his wife and also opposed the removal of the statue.

Nelson W. Winbush, grandson of Napoleon Winbush, who was appointed by General Forrest as chaplain for his troops. Mr. Winbush, born in 1929, is also a proud member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans and a courageous opponent of the destruction of Confederate monuments and flags.

Above scene from She Wore A Yellow Ribbon reflects a time (movie was made in 1949) when we could honor both sides of a very bloody conflict. At about the 1:30 minute mark Ben Johnson and John Wayne approach “Trooper Smith”, who calls for Captain Tyree (Johnson), of the Confederate Army. Tyree remains silent, not wishing to disrespect Captain Brittles (Wayne). But Brittles commands Tyree to answer the dying Trooper. The music in the background is Dixie.

Above is the final 4 minutes of She Wore a Yellow Ribbon. At about the 58 second mark, Captain Brittles (Wayne) reads that he’s received a coveted appointment. In the minute that follows, Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, and Lee are all mentioned. With honor. That’s what reconciliation does. The fact that such scenes would be unthinkable in a Hollywood film today is not comforting.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4w-2j6Q0Qj4iJ7GmEoQGWMUBeE5h1GVq

Above link is to the 6-Part BBC documentary on the Spanish Civil War. It is well done and reasonably objective.

So far from God and so close to the United States!

September 7, 2019September 9, 2019 Richard Barnes

“Only those born in Spain were allowed to own shops or mines in the colonies.” The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt’s New World, page 47.

“…[Simón] Bolivar was the son of one of Caracas’s wealthiest creole families [which] owned several plantations, mines and elegant town homes.” The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt’s New World, page 117.

Yes, it’s the same book, published in 2016 (I am about halfway through). And the above tendentiousness — the colonists could own nothing on page 47 — and contradiction — the colonists were tycoons 70 pages later — are not isolated.

It is hailed as a masterpiece by the usual literati. It is considered at times interesting, at times insufferable, and at times infuriating by your humble blogger. You’re better off reading Humboldt’s writings directly.

We’ve much work yet ahead of us in clearing the misconceptions and prejudices which color our understanding of South America generally and Venezuela specifically, not to mention world history and science.

The fact remains that Spain’s conquest of much of the Americas, their export of European culture to these shores, their eradication of human sacrifices, their education and teaching of the Spanish language to the indigenous peoples, and much more, remains an unequalled, spectacular achievement in history. Humboldt, himself a creature of the Enlightenment, who like his fellows, borrowed profusely from Christianity without so much as a tip of the hat, would have achieved nothing had it not been for Spain who gave him a passport when Enlightenment France did not, and had it not been for the missions in the Americas who helped him and had even seen many of his discoveries centuries before he was conceived in his mother’s womb. He just took it all for granted, like a good modern.

Now, saying the above does not mean I am blind to Spanish failures (nor am I blind to English failures) or Jesuit perfidy. But it does mean that I refuse to take at face value the usual textbook approach to Spain and South America that we’ve been spoon fed for centuries now. The history of our neighbors to the south and across the pond is much more complex and vastly richer than: Spain bad–Spain rape–Spain kill–Las Casas saint.

I would challenge us to consider the possibility that we in the United States have much more in common with South America than we do with modern Europe. But to consider that challenge, we must first make an effort to clear the underbrush accumulated over hundreds of years. What did Spain do right? What did she do wrong? Was Spain responsible for the fearsome bloodletting in 19th century South America? Hint: she was not. Then who and what was?

In 1829, after “independence”, Simón Bolivar wrote to his fellow South Americans in A Look At Spanish America:

“From one end to the other, the New World is an abyss of abomination; there is no good faith in [Spanish] America; treaties are mere paper; constitutions, books; elections, combat; liberty, anarchy; life, a torment. We’ve never been so disgraced as we are now. Before, we enjoyed good things; illusion is fed by chimera…. we are tormented by bitter realities.”

This, from a man who was largely responsible for the chaos he now bitterly laments. A man who proclaimed the glorious unity of the continent, saw it irredeemably fractured and destroyed. He died, embittered (“I have plowed the sea!”), a mere year later.

Historian Luis Level de Goda wrote in 1893, “The revolutions have produced in Venezuela nothing but the most vulgar leaders, tribal chieftains, the greatest disorders and lack of concern for one another, corruption, and a long, never-ending tyranny, the moral ruin of the country, and the degradation of a great number of Venezuelans.”

Half a century before Level de Goda, the writer, Cecilio Acosta made a like point, “The internal convulsions have produced sacrifices but not improvements; tears but not harvests.” Others have made similar, terrible, and depressing observations.

One of the purposes of this blog is to look at these and related matters as dispassionately as possible and hopefully to encourage us to reconsider what we’ve been taught for generations.

And maybe, with God’s help and with sincere goodwill, we might see a true and wonderful rapprochement between “The Colossus of the North” (how they referred to the USA for generations) and the land which was first called “America” (it was South America who first had that epithet, not the United States).

Long time Mexican president, Porfirio Díaz, spoke for many in Central and South American when he exclaimed in exasperation: “Poor Mexico! So far from God, so close to the United States [Pobre Méjico! Tan lejos de Dios y tan cerca de los Estados Unidos]!”

I’d say that, today, both the United States and South America are far from God as far as their legislators go. Let’s pray and work towards a rapprochement with the Triune God. Then the way to a bright future between these great neighbors will be not only more possible but excitingly successful and fruitful!

Porfirio Díaz, president of Mexico; photo taken early 20th century.

Don Porfirio Díaz and his wife, Doña Carmen, in exile in Paris circa 1912, shortly before his death.

Sketch from life in 1830 by José María Espinosa. Bolivar was 47 and died shortly thereafter.

Following are representative examples of Spanish architecture in colonial Americas

Castillo de San Marcos, St. Augustine, Florida, United States, built 17th century.

Cuzco Cathedral, Cuzco, Perú. Built 17th century.

Metropolitan Cathedral, Mexico City. Built in sections with the first section built in the 16th century (the century before the arrival of the Pilgrims)

Metropolitan Cathedral of Quito, Quito, Ecuador. Construction began in 1562.

Cathedral of San Juan, Puerto Rico, first constructed of wood in 1521; current building first constructed in 1540, almost 100 years before the Pilgrims.

Cathedral of Santa María la Menor, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, construction began in 1512 and was completed in 1540. Pilgrims arrived in Massachussets in 1620. First permanent English settlement in America was in 1607. My point is not that “Spain is better or that England is better”; it is simply that there is more to our stories than that in the standard narratives.

Old San Juan, Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico was one of the very few Spanish colonies that was not devastated by the bloodletting elsewhere in the Americas. The district, now a national historic site, is characterized by cobblestone streets and stone buildings dating to the 16th and 17th centuries.

Simón Bolivar

April 26, 2019April 26, 2019 Richard Barnes

Readers will have noticed something of a reluctance to go much into the mystique of Simón Bolivar (Bolivar) in these posts.

A cursory look at the countless Bolivar-related videos or sites in the internet universe will help explain why this blog has skirted around and about Bolivar. Reactions to Bolivar are often loud if not violent. This does not encourage overall understanding.

Be that as it may, it is simply impossible to consider Venezuela, or South America for that matter, without grappling with Bolivar, one of the most enigmatic figures in history, much more so than Napoleon, in my opinion.

Napoleon at least recognized that a people who could not govern themselves individually could not legitimately seek to be self-governing as a whole. Reading through Bolivar’s voluminous declarations, letters, orders, and musings, one sees that at times he appeared to agree with Napoleon in this regard; at times he disagreed, and vehemently so.

When one reads Bolivar’s denunciations of those who sought to be loyal to Spain, one is perplexed. Perplexed because Spain had devolved greater amounts of self-government to its American colonies than the British crown had devolved to its own. And Spain continued to concede more self-government, while England, a quarter century earlier, was reducing such.

So, where was the beef with Spain?

This is a subject that requires setting aside, or at least tamping down a bit, some anti-Spanish prejudices which Northern Europeans and North Americans have cultivated over five centuries.

It will require questioning the propagandistic reporting of Bartolomé de las Casas, who did far more than the British and the Dutch to besmirch his own country. What he reported was, to put it mildly, highly questionable. And if one takes the time to read through a fraction of his writings, one would see that much of what he said was designed to incite hatred towards Spain.

The British and the Dutch used him to good effect, especially the engravings of the Dutchman, Theodor de Bry. But in so doing, they managed to obfuscate much of South American history for centuries after. And this obfuscation, in turn, facilitates our superficial understanding of Bolivar.

By the way, las Casas’ actions, denunciations, and writings, and the use of such by Spain’s enemies bear a vivid resemblance to today’s use of “narrative” in propaganda and public debate. Nothing new under the sun indeed!

But we need to break away from the mainstream, popular narrative and be as fair as we can in looking back and judging how that narrative has molded our thinking and, where necessary, we need to revise such thinking to be more just. Just thinking will result in just action. To borrow the old Arthur Andersen motto: “Think Straight, Act Straight”.

Did you ever hear that the Spanish colonies in South America enjoyed more political self-government than the North American colonies?

Have you ever wondered why the South American revolutions spilled far more blood than the American? Hint: it’s not because of Spain.

Have you ever questioned why the South Americans rebelled against Spain? Hint: the causes, thought processes, and models they sought to imitate are not a mirror image of those of the North American colonies.

As for Bolivar, at one point he laments the destruction of three centuries of civilization (civilization cultivated by Spain). At another, without so much as a pause for an irony alert, he condemns Spain for having kept the Americas in prehistoric conditions. Well, which is it?

At one point, he condemns Spain for heartlessness; at another, he orders the execution of helpless prisoners.

His military exploits are a wonder. He rivals Hannibal in his crossing of the Andes. Twice.

Some of his writings reach stratospheric heights and are deeply moving and prescient.

But a man is known by his fruits. And it can be argued that the fruits of South American revolution are not a compliment to any man.

I grew up admiring Bolivar. I still admire him because he possessed much that is worthy of admiration and imitation. But we must recognize that he also possessed much that is not. His actions and reactions towards Spain require understanding and mature analysis.

Alexander von Humboldt, the great 18th and 19th century explorer and naturalist, told of an encounter with a savage looking Indian who startled him as he knelt to take some water from a narrow stream deep in the Venezuelan jungle. The Indian stood across the stream. As Humboldt rose, ready to defend himself, the Indian raised his hand and spoke to him in perfect Spanish. He then proceeded to lead the explorers to a mission not far away. The great explorer wrote that he was amazed at finding such a creature speaking a civilized tongue in the middle of nowhere.

As we shall see in future posts, Humboldt was a creature of the Enlightenment; he was no friend of Christianity (though, ironically, he was a product thereof) and this more often than not blinded him to the obvious. For example, he reported that the Waraos lived atop stilts on the shores of the Orinoco in order to keep missionaries from reaching them. This is so preposterous that one marvels how despising Christianity can make intelligent people dumb! However, even Humboldt was complimentary of the work of the Spanish missionaries with the Indians in South America. (The Waraos lived in huts on stilts for protection against the massive Orinoco floods, in case you’re wondering.)

Notwithstanding my comments above, I greatly respect Humboldt, as you shall see in future posts. And I am a fan of the English also, but not uncritically so.

Spain did a phenomenal work in the Americas. Not at all perfect. Sometimes terribly imperfect. But it deserves a more just assessment.

And that assessment will serve to help us better understand Bolivar. And Venezuela.

There will be more posts on Bolivar. And Humboldt. And Spain.