History of the United States from the earliest discovery of America to the present time . d. The destruction of theFrench colony was soon after avenged byDominic de Gourgues, who sailed fromFrance to punish the enemies of his coun-try. Having accomplished his purpose bythe slaughter of the Spanish garrison hereturned home, but the French Protestantsmade no further effort to colonize Florida. Spain claimed the land by right of dis-covery, but, although maintaining the feeblesettlement at St. Augustine, did next tonothing after this to explore or civilize thisportion of America. The nation that
History of the United States from the earliest discovery of America to the present time . d. The destruction of theFrench colony was soon after avenged byDominic de Gourgues, who sailed fromFrance to punish the enemies of his coun-try. Having accomplished his purpose bythe slaughter of the Spanish garrison hereturned home, but the French Protestantsmade no further effort to colonize Florida. Spain claimed the land by right of dis-covery, but, although maintaining the feeblesettlement at St. Augustine, did next tonothing after this to explore or civilize thisportion of America. The nation that hadsent out Columbus was not destined to bepermanently the great power of the NewWorld. The hap of first landing upon theAntilles, and also the warm climate andthe peaceable nature of the aborigines, ledSpain to fix her settlements in latitudesthat were too low for the best health andthe greatest energy. Most of the settlerswere of a wretched class, criminals andadventurers, and they soon mixed largelywith the natives. Spain herself greatlylacked in vigor, partly from national Indians devoured by an old print. i57o] EARLY SPANISH AMERICA 91 partly from those obscure general causeswhich even to this day keep Latin Europe,in military power and political accomplish-ments, inferior to Teutonic or GermanicEurope. Moreover, the Spaniards found their firstAmerican conquests too easy, and the re-wards of these too great. This preventedall thought of developing the countrythrough industry, concentrating expecta-tion solely upon waiting fortunes, to behad from the natives by the sword orthrough forced labor in mines. Theirtreatment of the aborigines was nothing-short of diabolical. Well has it beensaid : The Spaniards had sown desola-tion, havoc, and misery in and aroundtheir track. They had depopulated someof the best peopled of the islands and re-newed them with victims deported fromothers. They had inflicted upon hun-dreds of thousands of the natives all theforms an
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectuniteds, bookyear1912
