continent to high plateaus, miles above sea level, where
the sun blazed and the cold, dry air was hard to breathe, and then
higher still to the lofty peaks of the Andes, clad in eternal snow or
pouring fire and smoke from their summits in the clouds, and thence to
the lower temperate valleys, grassy pampas, and undulating hills of the
far south.

Scattered over these vast colonial domains in the Western World were
somewhere between 12,000,000 and 19,000,000 people subject to Spain, and
perhaps 3,000,000, to Portugal; the great majority of them were Indians
and negroes, the latter predominating in the lands bordering on the
Caribbean Sea and along the shores of Brazil. Possibly one-fourth of
the inhabitants came of European stock, including not only Spaniards and
their descendants but also the folk who spoke English in the Floridas
and French in Louisiana.

During the centuries which had elapsed since the entry of the Spaniards
and Portuguese into these regions an extraordinary fusion of races had
taken place. White, red, and black had mingled to such an extent that
the bulk of the settled population became half-caste. Only in the more
temperate regions of the far north and south, where the aborigines were
comparatively few or had disappeared altogether, did the whites remain
racially distinct. Socially the Indian and the negro counted for little.
They constituted the laboring class on whom all the burdens fell and for
whom advantages in the body politic were scant. Legally the Indian under
Spanish rule stood on a footing of equality with his white fellows,
and many a gifted native came to be reckoned a force in the community,
though his social position remained a subordinate one. Most of the
negroes were slaves and were more kindly treated by the Spaniards than
by the Portuguese.

Though divided among themselves, the Europeans were everywhere
politically dominant. The Spaniard was always an individualist. Besides,
he often brought from the Old World petty provincial traditions which
were intensified in the New. The inhabitants of towns, many of which had
been founded quite independently of one another, knew little about their
remote neighbors and often were quite willing to convert their ignorance
into prejudice: The dweller in the uplands and the resident on the coast
were wont to view each other with disfavor. The one was thought heavy
and stupid, the other frivolous and lazy. Native Spaniards regarded the
Creoles