Francis Parkman 215 



to stepping into the place formerly occupied by the 

 conquering races of half-civilized Indians. She 

 made aboriginal tribes work for her, just as the 

 Aztec Confederacy and the Inca dynasty had done. 

 Where she was brought into direct contact with 

 American barbarism without the intermediation of 

 half-civilized native races, she made little or no 

 headway. Her early failure of strength, on the 

 other hand, was due to her total absorption in the 

 fight against civil and religious liberty in Europe. 

 The failure became apparent as soon as the ab- 

 sorption had begun to be complete. Spain's last 

 aggressive effort in the New World was the destruc- 

 tion of the little Huguenot colony in Florida in 

 1565, and it is at that point that Parkman's great 

 work appropriately begins. From that moment 

 Spain simply beat her strength to pieces against 

 the rocks of Netherland courage and resourceful- 

 ness. As for the Netherlands, their energies were 

 so far absorbed in taking over and managing the 

 great Eastern empire of the Portuguese that their 

 work in the New World was confined to seizing 

 upon the most imperial geographical position, and 

 planting a cosmopolitan colony there that, in the 

 absence of adequate support, was sure to fall into 

 the hands of one or the other of the competitors 

 more actively engaged upon the scene. 



