Note 181 — Chapter II

Toribio, Hist. de los Indios, MS., Parte 1, cap. 1.—Camargo, Hist. de Tlascala, MS. [My views of the character of the Spanish missionaries find favor with Señor Alaman, who warmly eulogizes the spirit of self-sacrifice and the untiring zeal which they showed in propagating the gospel among the natives: “El Sr. Prescott hace de los misioneros el justo aprecio que sus virtudes merecieron, y sus elogios son tanto mas recomendables, cuanto que sus opiniones religiosas parece deberian hacerle contrario á ellos. En efecto, solo la iglesia católica ha producido misioneros inflamados de un verdadero celo religioso, que los ha hecho sacrificar su vida por la propagacion de la religion y en beneficio de la humanidad.” Conquista de Méjico (trad. de Vega), tom. ii. p. 255. Mr. Gallatin, also, in his “Notes on the Semi-civilized Nations of America,” pays a hearty tribute to the labors of the Roman Catholic missionaries in the New World: “The Dominican monks, though inquisitors and relentless persecutors in Spain, became in America the protectors of the Indians.... The praise must be extended to all the Catholic priests, whether Franciscans or Jesuits, monks or curates. All, from the beginning, were, have ever been, and continue to be, the protectors and the friends of the Indian race.” Transactions of the American Ethnological Society, i. 213.]