ABSTRACT
Hernando Cortes stimulated the settlement of his several colonies by liberal grants of land and municipal privileges. In the distribution of the soil among the Conquerors, Cortes adopted the vicious system of repartimientos, universally practised among his countrymen. The natives, filled with amazement at the viceroy's humiliation before men whose naked feet and tattered garments gave them the aspect of mendicants, henceforth regarded them as beings of a superior nature. The missionaries lost no time in the good work of conversion. The vast extent of the American continent had been ascertained by the voyages of Cabot in the North, and of Magellan very recently in the South. In Cortes instructions for the conduct of these expeditions, he enjoined a considerate treatment of the natives, and inculcated a policy which may be called humane, as far as humanity is compatible with a system of subjugation.
