ook to consider: Who were the builders of these
American cities?

My opinion on this question has been fully and freely expressed, "that
they are not the works of people who have passed away, and whose
history is lost, but of the same races who inhabited the country at the
time of the Spanish conquest, or of some not very distant progenitors."
Some were probably in ruins, but in general I believe that they were
occupied by the Indians at the time of the Spanish invasion. The
grounds of this belief are interspersed throughout these pages; they
are interwoven with so many facts and circumstances that I do not
recapitulate them; and in conclusion I shall only refer briefly to
those arguments which I consider the strongest that are urged against
this belief.

The first is the entire absence of all traditions. But I would ask, may
not this be accounted for by the unparalleled circumstances which
attended the conquest and subjugation of Spanish America? Every captain
or discoverer, on first planting the royal standard on the shores of a
new country, made proclamation according to a form drawn up by the most
eminent divines and lawyers in Spain, the most extraordinary that ever
appeared in the history of mankind; entreating and requiring the
inhabitants to acknowledge and obey the church as the superior and
guide of the universe, the holy father called the pope, and his majesty
as king and sovereign lord of these islands, and of the terra firma;
and concluding, "But if you will not comply, or maliciously delay to
obey my injunction, then, with the help of God, I will enter your
country by force; I will carry on war against you with the utmost
violence; I will subject you to the yoke of obedience, to the church
and king; I will take your wives and children, and make them slaves,
and sell or dispose of them according to his majesty's pleasure. I will
seize your goods, and do you all the mischief in my power, as
rebellious subjects, who will not acknowledge or submit to their lawful
sovereign; and I protest that all the bloodshed and calamities which
shall follow are to be imputed to you, and not to his majesty, or to
me, or the gentlemen who serve under me."

The conquest and subjugation of the country were carried out in the
unscrupulous spirit of this proclamation. The pages of the historians
are dyed with blood; and sailing on the crimson stream, with a master
pilot at the helm, appears the leading, stern, and steady polic