As the
northern part of the continent is equatorial the greatest degree of
heat is there experienced, while the south stretches its length
toward the Pole Quito, the capital of Ecuador, is on the equator, and
Punta Arenas, in Chile, is the southernmost town in the world.
For hundreds of years Spain and Portugal exploited and ruled with an
iron hand their new and vast possessions. Their coffers were enriched
by fabulous sums of gold and treasure, for the wildest dream of
riches indulged in by its discoverers fell infinitely short of the
actual reality. Large numbers of colonists left the Iberian peninsula
for the newer and richer lands. Priests, monks and nuns went in every
vessel, and the Roman Catholicism of the Dark Ages was soon firmly
established as the only religion. The aborigines were compelled to
bow before the crucifix and worship Mary until, in a peculiar sense,
South America became the Pope's favorite parish. For the benefit of
any, native or colonist, who thought that a purer religion should be,
at any rate, permitted, the Inquisition was established at Lima, and
later on at Cartagena, where, Colombian history informs us, 400,000
were condemned to death. Free thought was soon stamped out when
death became the penalty.
Such was the wild state of the country and the power vested in the
priests that abuses were tolerated which, even in Rome, had not been
dreamed of. The priests, as anxious for spiritual conquest as the
rest were for physical, joined hands with the heathenism of the
Indians, accepted their gods of wood and stone as saints, set up the
crucifix side by side with the images of the sun and moon, formerly
worshipped; and while in Europe the sun of the Reformation arose and
dispelled the terrible night of religious error and superstition,
South America sank from bad to worse.
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