j 
THE 
AMERICAN NATURALIST. 
Vor. x1x.—NOVEMBER, 1885.—No. 11. 
EXAMPLES OF ICONOCLASM BY THE CONQUERORS 
OF MEXICO. 
BY W. H. HOLMES. 
an E two great centers of aboriginal American culture, Mexico 
and Peru, were the first to feel the shock of the conquest, and 
the native peoples, together with their arts and institutions, sank 
at once into irretrievable ruin. Temples, sculptures and paint- 
ings, the tangible representatives of an idolatrous worship, ex- 
cited the hatred of a fanatical priesthood, and were, as nearly as 
possible, swept from the face of the land. The fiercely intolerant 
Spirit of the representatives of the church is well illustrated by 
the language of a letter written by Zumarraga, the chief inquisi- 
tor of Mexico, to the Franciscan chapter at Tolosa, in January, 
1531. The words are as follows: “ Very reverend Father be it 
known to you that we are very busy in the work of converting 
the heathen; of whom, by the grace of God, upwards of one 
million have been baptized at the hands of the brethren of the 
order of our Seraphic Father, Saint Francis; five hundred tem- 
ples have been leveled to the ground, and more than twenty 
thousand figures of the devils they worshiped have been broken 
to pieces and burned.” : 
There was, however, a limit to the power of destruction. Many 
of the greater monuments have defied the destroyer and stand 
to-day and will stand for ages to come as illustrations of the 
Power and culture of their builders. There were probably few 
_ Works more difficult to destroy or wholly deface than those found 
* Quoted by Bancroft, Native Races, Vol. 11, p. 171, 
VOL, XIX.~No, XI, 68 
