l institution in society. The nonconformist sects were
the stronghold of the merchant class and spread rapidly in the American
colonies. There, instead of being a check on the commercial spirit, the
Church itself had become dominated by the middle class. Equally important
is the fact that in colonial America the level of religious life was very
low. Most colonists, with the exception of the original founders who had
fled religious persecution, did not come for religious freedom but for
economic advancement. When some Virginians at the end of the seventeenth
century, petitioned the government to build a college for the training of
ministers, they were told to forget about the cure of souls and instead
to cure tobacco. The result was that the planter class, unchallenged by
any other powerful institutions, was free to shape a slave system to meet
its labor needs. In any conflict which arose between personality rights
and property rights the property rights of the master were always
protected.

In contrast, the South American planter would not have such a free hand
in shaping his own affairs. The Renaissance and Reformation had not made
the same impact on Spain and Portugal as they did on the rest of Western
Europe. Consequently, secularization and commercialization had not
progressed as far in eroding the traditional power and prestige of the
Crown and the Church. Although both institutions readily compromised with
capitalist interests and strove to develop a working alliance with them,
neither the Crown nor the Church in Spain and Portugal had ever been
taken over by the commercial interests.

Both Spain and Portugal had had continuous contact with slavery extending
back into ancient times. Roman law as well as the Church fathers had
concerned themselves with it, and these concepts had been incorporated
into Spanish and Portuguese law. Also, slaves continued to exist in both
countries down to modern times. Therefore, when Portugal began importing
slaves from West Africa in the fifteenth century, the institution of
slavery was already in existence. Before long, significant numbers of
African slaves were to be found in both Portugal and Spain. When the
South American planters began importing slaves, slavery already had a
framework and a tradition within which the planter had to operate.

The Spanish Crown devoted a great deal of time and energy to the
supervision of its overseas possessions. Instead of permitting
consid