Spanish colonial literature in South America

No intelligent person is likely to deny the importance of official documents as the basis of a nation’s history; but these documents do not tell the whole story. There are social activities, currents of national thought, and waves of popular sentiment, which are not fully described either in laws or governmental proclamations. Tradition sometimes conveys a knowledge of these aspects of society, but tradition undergoes such modifications in the course of time that it does not render the same account to all later generations or centuries. Only what is written remains fixed.

Each century writes the literature it reads. This is especially true of historical literature. It is also true that each century, in the various forms of its literature, writes its own history; and it is to this literature, not to the later critical writings that one must refer, who would know how any given period of the past appeared to those then living. It was once said of a distinguished modern historian of Rome that he knew more about the affairs of Rome than the Romans themselves knew; which was to say, that his works presented a view of Rome such as no Roman ever had. The critical history of the society of any given period of the past is so completely an artificial creation that it would hardly be recognized by a member of that society. It takes its character, in a considerable part, from knowledge, ideas, and emotions that were foreign to him. Therefore, in order to know a nation’s life as known at any given epoch, or to visualise the worldly show that passed before the thoughtful contemporary mind, one should refer, not to the artificial creation of the modern historian, with its twentieth-century atmosphere, but to what men wrote of their own times or times near their own. Our ancestors’ vision of the world and the reaction which the world produced in their minds are revealed in the various forms of their literature.

The material for an intellectual reconstitution of the view of their society entertained by the Spanish colonists of South America is much less abundant than that which the twenty-third-century historian will have for reproducing our view of our times. There were in the Spanish colonies no congressional or parliamentary debates, no popular orators describing social conditions and setting forth economic and political doctrines, no discussion of social programmes, and, more significant than all else, no periodical press recording from day to day and from month the events and ideas of the period in question. But in the books, the reports, and the relaciones there is a larger mass of written evidence than the comparatively rude state of colonial society would lead one to expect; and it is the purpose of this book to point out the principal documents of this colonial literature, and to introduce the reader to the men of letters in the colonies who wrote under the inspiration of their experience in the New World, whether their contributions were in the realm of poetry, history, geographical description, or ecclesiastical discussion. All this is brought together under a general title in which the term “literature” is consciously expanded from its narrower meaning to cover whatever was written on any of these general subjects; and by helping the reader to a knowledge of this literature it is believed that through it he will be enabled to acquire a more or less distinct view of the colonial society as it appeared in any period to men of that period.

It is presumed that copies of this book will fall into the hands of persons not completely versed in the Spanish language, and for this reason a somewhat broad view of Spanish accentuation has been carried out as an assistance in the pronunciation of such Spanish words and titles as it has been found advisable to introduce. It will, moreover, be noted that all titles and quotations from the texts of early colonial writers are given in modernized Spanish.

The portraits here presented help to show that the intellectual life of the colonies was not limited to a single class, but embraced friars, parish priests, and bishops; private soldiers and officers of the army; governors, judges, and viceroys.

It is not to be expected that a book covering the number and wide range of facts here included will be without errors; but there are fewer errors in this volume than would have appeared but for the valuable editorial assistance of Mr. A. H. Wykeham-George, who suggested and formed the Appendix, directed the preparation of the illustrations, and supervised the passing of the whole through the press. For that assistance I take this occasion to express my cordial appreciation; and at the same time I would gratefully acknowledge the important contribution to the undertaking rendered by Miss Janet Hunter Perry, Lecturer in Spanish at King’s College, and the very friendly and helpful attention given by the authorities of the British Museum, particularly by Dr. Henry Thomas, Assistant Keeper of Printed Books.

BERNARD MOSES.

Paris, June 3rd, 1922.