The English-language historian who deals with Spanish civilization and culture has to think as much of how he is going to grapple with the bias of his public as he does of finding what the case is. If his conclusions do not conform to their preconceptions, the uninformed public and sometimes, unfortunately, the historian will set him right. Salvador de Madariaga wondered why, when he published a book, the series of misunderstandings that followed should be called reviews when they could “ equally well be described as Extraviews, Counterviews, Sideviews, Underviews, Superviews, Supercilious views,” or “ just views.” And, of course, the most perceptive of all, “ favorable ” views.

Early in his political life the famous British statesman, W. E. Gladstone, had close contact with colonial problems. His maiden speech in the House of Commons, June 3, 1833, was a defense of his father against charges that slaves were mistreated on the Gladstone plantations in Demerara; his first government post was that of Parliamentary Undersecretary of State for the Colonies; before the end of the 1830's he had served on many committees which studied questions relating to the colonies; and in 1846 he was Secretary of State for War and the Colonies. In 1835 and again in 1849 he drafted pamphlets on the British colonial empire; by mid-nineteenth century he was a leading advocate of colonial self-government; and his speech “Our Colonies” at Chester, November 12, 1855 (published as a pamphlet), was a clear statement of his creed that “ freedom and voluntaryism ” should govern the relationship between Britain and the overseas portions of the British Empire. While in later years noncolonial issues received most of his attention, he never abandoned his faith in freedom as the basic remedy for intra-imperial problems. In the closing years of his political career he fought magnificently but vainly to apply that principle of freedom (which had stilled colonial discontent) to the age-old Irish question.

In 1565, when Spain was still on the ascending arc of its colonial ventures, the first permanent settlement in the Philippines was made. The subsequent decades witnessed, not only a military conquest by Spanish conquistadores, but a spiritual conquest as well. The efforts of Salcedo, Legazpi and the others were, so to speak, the first stage, ushering in the missionaries, “… the real conquerors, who without any other arms than their virtues, gained over the good will of the islanders … and gave the king two millions more of submissive and Christian subjects.”

Several currents of “enlightened” doctrine ran swiftly and strongly through Latin America by the end of the eighteenth century. Scholarly work of the past two decades obviates the need to prove that the new philosophy, the new science, and the new politics found acceptance in the Spanish world. Forbidden books made their way into Latin America with relative ease, the Inquisition proved ineffective in preventing the spread of new ideas, and the Spanish crown itself not only promoted useful knowledge but encouraged “ modern ” philosophical studies. Aside from special studies on the Enlightenment, however, the more general histories of Latin America too frequently take the position, implicit if not explicit, that the Catholic clergy, monolithic in their obscurantism, constituted the primary obstacle to the complete victory of “enlightened” ideas. It appears to me that this point of view is somewhat inaccurate. This paper holds as a thesis, rather, that the clergy were seriously split on practically all aspects of the Enlightenment. Some supported, some opposed, and many were indifferent to or ignorant of “ enlightened ” notions. The degree of support or opposition varied, and not all who opposed or supported the movement, supported or opposed it in toto.

Captain Francisco Antonio de Fuentes y Guzmán, whose proud boast it was (as he never tires of reminding us) that he was the great-great-grandson of Bernal Díaz del Castillo, in his erratic, rambling, and frequently delightful Recordación Florida (c. 1690), has this to say about the ancient town that will be the subject of this article: