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Leonard P. Liggio, “RELIGIOUS FREEDOM AND NATURE OF RIGHTS IN
THE NEW WORLD” Estorial, Portugal, June, 28, 2008
The Americas offer a laboratory for the study of religious freedom. The Discovery and
Settlement of the (West) Indies beginning in 1492 provides many opportunities to study
Mankind’s social, economic and political undertakings. For Europe, the Settlement of
the New World provided data for the development of modern social sciences as well as
natural philosophy (natural sciences). Whether the Italian Renaissance or the
anthropological readings of John Locke or the flourishing of the Enlightenment, the
New World stimulated the advanced thinking of European philosophers. The different
European Settlements in South and North America have been an increasing source of
social science studies. The different religious experiences among the Settlers of South
and North America has become a social science specialty in itself. While the
Settlements of Spain and Portugal, France and England, Netherlands, Sweden and
Denmark are worthy of study, we will examine Settlements of Spain, and England in
the New World.
Spain’s early Settlements in the West Indian islands of the Greater Antilles, in Mexico
and in Peru were accompanied by the clergy. The initial explorations of 1492 occurred
at the end of the Islamic kingdom of Grenada and the expulsion of Jewish people who
did not convert to Christianity. Morocco and especially the Ottoman Empire benefited
by the reception of the highly skilled and educated Sephardic Jewish exiles. The
expulsion of the Castilian Jews marked one policy of neglecting or negating the
economic contribution of religious non-conformists in favor of ecclesiastical
conformity. Spain, Portugal and France, as Catholic countries, pursued a policy of
religious conformity among the New World Settlers. The newly formed Spanish
Inquisition (1478) played an important role in the approval of persons wishing to
migrate to Spain’s and then Portugal’s Settlements. We will see that Anglican England
pursued the opposite policy and the English Settlements became the goal of religious
dissidents from England.
The Spanish clergy played a major role in the Settlements in the New World. The clergy
had a somewhat separate and independent line of contact with the royal government in
Castile. This emerged already in the early Settlements in Santo Domingo and Cuba
where the native populations were enslaved to provide food and labor in the farms and
mines of the Spanish. The Native Americans were and remained the majority population
and the clergy saw them as the main focus of the establishment of Christianity in the
New World.
Thus there were a series of conflicts regarding the native peoples between the clergy
and the lay Spanish settlers. Among the many clergy, the Dominican friar Don Fray
Bartolome De Las Casas, OP (1474-1566) (bishop of Chiapa) has received the most
attention in defense of the rights of the native peoples before the royal councils in
Castile. In addition, while some clergy destroyed the art and histories of the native
peoples, many other clergy preserved and studied the culture of the native peoples.
In the cities of New Spain and of Peru, especially Mexico City and Lima, a deep and
influential Catholic religious culture was created. The cities enjoyed the wide-spread
establishment of religious confraternities as well as schools, colleges and twenty-four
universities. Although established a half century after the Discovery of the New World,
the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) became a major force in the education of the New World
of Spanish and Portuguese settlers.
Religious Freedom – p. 2
Although Spanish America was settled after the Crown of Castile had ended the role of
representative assemblies and suffered the ‘modernizing’ power of the Absolutist
Monarchy, the role of the municipalities, secular clergy and religious orders in New
Spain and Peru created a number of channels for balance against the heavy power of
government.
In the late16th century, the Seventeen Provinces of the Netherlands had been part of the
patrimony inherited by Philip II from Emperor Charles V. However, Spain’s imposition
of commercial taxes on this richest and most commercial part of Northern Europe led to
protests by the Catholic nobility and bourgeoisie. Philip II went into bankruptcy four
times attempting to suppress the tax protests of the Netherlands. Meanwhile, part of the
Netherlands had become Protestant, adding to the intensity of the conflict. With the
independence of the seven Protestant provinces, the Dutch Republic was a federation of
seven provinces each with its own representative assembly. It undertook Settlements in
the New World previously having observed the Papal line down the Atlantic which gave
Spain and Portugal exclusive rights to Settlements.
The Dutch did not undertake Settlements directly as government actions but by the
creation of commercial corporations: the Dutch East Indies Company and the Dutch
West Indies Company. The Dutch West Indies Company focused on the Atlantic world,
including the Hudson and Delaware Rivers in North America, northeast Brazil (taken
from Portugal), and West Indies islands. The Indies companies were very uninterested
in religion compared to commercial profits. Dutch settlers brought clergy but did not
actively exclude religious minorities, such as the Portuguese Jews who had invested in
Brazil and then on the re-conquest by Portugal, they settled in New Amsterdam.
England had not pursued further its early North American explorations in the 1490s.
It kept closer to home by re-Settlement of Ireland under Henry VIII who was married to
the Infanta Catherine of Aragon, the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella; Henry VIII’s
divorce and remarriages led to his creation of a national church with the king as
Supreme Head of the Church of England. Although Catholic in Henry’s traditions, the
short reign of his son brought Protestant approaches to liturgy and doctrine. When
Henry and Catherine’s daughter, Mary Tudor, succeeded to the English throne, she
married her nephew’s (Charles V) son, Philip II. Mary and Philip restored the Catholic
rites and hierarchy in England (1553-58). Elizabeth I (1558-1603) personally preferred
the Catholic rites but insisted on her absolute rule of the national Church of England.
Although not opposed to Protestant theology from the Continent, Elizabeth opposed
changes in the rites of the mass and in the hierarchy. The English Puritans wished to
“purify” the English church of all its Catholic elements to be replaced by ministers and
congregations and abolition of the bishops. As the Puritans gained adherents among the
rising middle class as well as in Oxford and Cambridge Universities, the monarchs and
the Anglican clergy become more traditional. In contrast to Spain, England did not
become ‘modern’ with Absolutist Monarchy, but England remained medieval with
representative institutions, such as parliament, and the common law courts which the
American colonies of England inherited.
Religious Freedom – p. 3
The Puritans decided that England was becoming inhospitable to Puritanism and they
decided to migrate to New England. The Puritans formed the Massachusetts Bay
Company in 1628 and began a heavy migration to New England. They settled near an
earlier colony of Plymouth founded in 1620 by Protestants who had separated from the
Anglican Church. Other corporations of New Haven and Connecticut were founded.
They no longer saw themselves as part of the Anglican Church but rather as
Congregationalists. In 1634 Harvard University was established to train Puritan clergy
one hundred years after the founding of universities in Mexico City and Lima.
By 1701, Harvard was viewed as no longer strictly Calvinist; Yale University in New
Haven was founded as the home of Puritan orthodoxy.
English investors had already established the first settlement in 1607 in Virginia by the
London Company. The settlers were ordinary members of the Church of England,
mostly interested in profits from tobacco farming. Since Virginia was the richest
colony, the Anglican Church pastors were parts of the local elites. By 1696 the
Anglican clergy established a university for the training of Anglican clergy as well as
laity in the new Virginia capital, Williamsburg: William and Mary College.
The Puritans were not the only minority in England. The Catholics remained loyal
despite persecutions by the government. In the 1620s the monarchy granted a colony to
a former Secretary of State, George Calvert, Lord Baltimore. His sons led a Settlement
by English Catholics to Maryland, accompanied by English Jesuits whose academies
were the forerunners of Georgetown University established in 1789 when Catholics
enjoyed the religious freedom of the independent United States.
The New England Puritans were not tolerant of Anglicanism or other forms of
Protestantism. Puritan clergy who developed their theology further were expelled. One
such was Roger Williams, who had studied at the Puritan center at Cambridge
University,
Emmanuel College. He fled in the winter to the Indian villages in Rhode Island where
he established good relations with the Indians. His colony became a haven for religious
dissenters and flourished economically. Williams is viewed as a founder of the Baptist
tradition in America which led to the founding of Brown University (1764), in
Providence.
Rhode Island welcomed the most persecuted new group, the Society of Friends
(Quakers)
Finally, the Quakers received a colony when William Penn, a convert to Quakerism,
was granted a new colony he called Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania became a haven not
only for
Quakers but also for German sects, such as the Amish, Mennonites, Hutterites, etc.
The Dutch colony of New Netherlands was acquired by England and granted to the
Duke of York, later King James II, the brother of King Charles (married to the
Portuguese Infanta Catherine of Braganza). James granted to his new colony, New
York, a charter of laws, known as the Duke’s Laws which granted to the Dutch
inhabitants the continued use of Dutch-Roman law and all their customs, rights and
usages, including the Dutch Reformed Church. Although the Dutch remained the
majority in New York and New Jersey, English settlers brought their Anglican,
Congregational and Presbyterian churches.
Religious Freedom – p. 4
The various religious groups in Philadelphia, including the dominant Quakers, founded
together the University of Pennsylvania (1740). The Anglicans and Presbyterians in
New York City founded together King’s College (1754) which became Columbia
University. The Presbyterians founded the College of New Jersey (1746) which became
Princeton University. The Dutch Reformed Church founded Queen’s College (1766)
which became
Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey.
The English colonies became a refuge for persecuted religious groups from Britain itself
when extreme Presbyterians settled in America. There also were refugee groups from
Europe. In 1685 Louis XIV expelled the French Protestants (Huguenots) who refused to
convert to Catholicism. Unlike England which sent dissenters to the colonies, France
barred Huguenots from settling in New France (Quebec) or Louisiana. The Huguenots
settled in the Netherlands, England and Prussia. Many came to English colonies as New
Rochelle (New York), Rhode Island and Charleston, South Carolina. They created a
network of commercial contacts around the Atlantic world enriching English America.
After 1714 Spain and England had new dynasties, the French Bourbons replaced the
Austrian Habsburgs in Madrid and the Hanoverians from Brunswick replaced the
Stuarts in London. The Bourbons came full force into Spain and radically reorganized
the government and taxes in Spain and Spanish America introducing a complete
bureaucratic Despotism. After 1759 Charles III imposed greater centralized control. In
England the Hanoverians, George I and George II were German-speaking and preferred
their palaces in Hanover. The English cabinet would visit Hanover and converse with
the king in their one common language, Latin, it is said (but probably they shared
French). England enjoyed hands-off monarchy, in which the cabinet representing the
majority in the House of Commons ruled. Montesquieu counted England as a republic
in the Spirit of the Laws. From 1720-1760 the Whig Supremacy dominated the House
of Commons; Sir Robert Walpole was prime minister from 1720 to 1742, and Henry
Pelham was prime minister from 1742 until his death in 1754; Pelham’s brother, the
Duke of Newcastle was Secretary of State (including colonies), 1720-1760. The Whig
policy was following John Locke who had been a lord of the board of the colonies. The
Whig policy was called by Edmund Burke, Salutary Neglect. Regulations were not
enforced, taxes were not collected. England enjoyed the Industrial Revolution and
English America experienced one of the greatest economic growths in history, at a time
when even more diverse religious groups migrated.
One of the major actions of the Bourbon monarchs, including Charles III of Spain, was
the suppression of the religious order of the Society of Jesus during the 1760s. In
France,
Naples, Parma, Tuscany, Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, Portugal and Spain the Jesuits
were expelled to the Papal States and their properties confiscated by the state. In
Spanish America there was strong opposition to this by the municipalities and the
confraternities. Since religious orders loaned surplus revenues, many businesses and
estate owners had to find funds to pay the state as new owner of Jesuit properties.
Higher education in Spanish and Portuguese America suffered severely. Independence
came to Spanish America in 1808.
Religious Freedom – page 5
Since Maryland had been founded as a Catholic refuge and the Jesuits were the clergy
for the Maryland Catholics, their farms supported the educational activities in
Maryland. The
children of wealthy Catholics went to Jesuit colleges in Flanders and France for higher
education. Charles Carroll of Carrollton (1736-1832) was the wealthiest American.
Charles studied in the Jesuit College of Louis Le Grand in Paris where his father
provided him John Locke’s works and he learned the anti-tyrannical thought of
Francisco Suarez, SJ and Roberto Bellarmino, SJ. As a revolutionary leader Charles
signed the Declaration of Independence. He prepared the first constitution for the state
of Maryland and was the first US senator from Maryland. His cousin, Daniel Carroll
(1720-1796) was a member of the Maryland senate and the US Congress. He signed the
Articles of Confederation and the US Constitution. He was educated at the Jesuit
college at St. Omer in Flanders as was his brother, John Carroll (1735-1815). John
Carroll SJ continued his studies as a Jesuit at Liege. He became a Jesuit in 1769; but
with the suppression of the order in 1773 John Carroll returned to Maryland. The papal
edict suppressing the Jesuit Order required it proclamation by lay authorities. The
English ignored the action and the Jesuit priests in Maryland decided to continue as a
corporate body holding the properties of the Jesuits – the Corporation of the Gentleman
of Maryland. Father John Carroll represented the Continental Congress to the
authorities in Quebec which decided not to join the American Revolution. He was
elected by the US Catholic clergy as their president and again was elected first
American bishop in Baltimore when Rome approved a US bishop. John Carroll founded
Georgetown College (1789) and in 1808 was named first Archbishop of Baltimore.
American Catholicism was blessed by the number of clergy from France and Italy who
sought refuge from the French Revolution, especially Sulpicians who established
seminaries and Jesuits who staffed Georgetown College
The Society of Jesus was restored world-wide by Pope Pius VII in 1814 when he
returned from captivity under Napoleon. The Maryland Jesuits became part of the new
Jesuit order and created a number of universities in the United States during succeeding
decades.
At the time that Charles III was introducing a stronger bureaucratic Despotism in Spain,
a new king succeeded to the throne of England in October, 1760, George III (17381820) a grandson of George II. George immediately dismissed the long-serving Whig
ministers and officials (called the ‘Slaughter of the Pelham Innocents’) and reversing
Salutary Neglect he began a process of bureaucratic administration which the Whigs
considered similar to the bureaucratic Despotism of Bourbon France, Spain and the
Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. The response was the emergence of a new Whig party in
opposition inspired by Edmund Burke. George III succeeded to the English throne as
England won the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763). The war began in the Ohio Valley
when George Washington as a Virginia militia officer sought to challenge the French
trade with the Indians and their fort at Fort Duquesne (now Pittsburgh). After initial
reverses, England gained control of Quebec, as well as French spheres in India and
West Indies. Spain joined the Bourbon Family Compact and lost Manila and Havana to
England. The Peace of Paris gave England Quebec and India; Spain surrendered Florida
in return for Manila and Havana and was compensated by France with Louisiana.
Religious Freedom – page 6
England’s gains came at the cost of the greatest National Debt in its history. The new
Tory administration sought a number of tax increases and regulations. American
prosperity was linked to the export of food products, especially to French sugar colonies
(Haiti in the 18th century replaced Brazil in the 17th century as the ‘Saudi Arabia of
sugar’). English planters in Jamaica and Barbados wanted a monopoly of food exports
from America. The new Tory administration was pleased to enforce Mercantilist
restrictions on foreign trade and to seek to collect taxes. Americans reacted against the
bureaucracy and the taxation. In addition, there was the threat of London imposing an
Anglican bishop in America, which was viewed as a possible state religion for
religiously diverse colonies. London issued a Proclamation in 1763 to prohibit colonists
from settlement in the Ohio Valley which Washington and others claimed for sale to
settlers. Americans from the Thirteen Colonies met in several Congresses in
Philadelphia to seek redress of grievances When London abolished the constitutional
charter of Massachusetts, the Second Continental Congress issued the Declaration of
Independence (July 4, 1776).
Diversity of religions in English colonies led to united opposition to the Crown, but
required religious toleration for the unity of the new United States of America.
English America benefited economically and socially from the freedom of religion
which was consequence of the medieval English constitution and common law. Spanish
America suffered economically and socially first from state control of religion and then
state hostility to religion in anti-clerical persecutions.
Readings:
J. H. Elliott, Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in America 1492-1830
(New Haven, CT, Yale University Press, 2006)
Philip Wayne Powell, Tree of Hate (New York, Basic Books, 1971)
Lewis Hanke, All Mankind Is One: Disputation Between Bartolome de Las Casas and
Juan Gines de Sepulveda on Religious and Intellectual Capacity of American Indians
(DeKalb, IL, Northern Illinois University Press, 1974)
Lewis Hanke, Aristotle and the American Indians (Bloomington, IN, Indiana University
Press, 1970)
Lewis Hanke, The Spanish Struggle of Justice in the Conquest of America (Boston,
Little, Brown, 1965)
Stafford Poole, C. M., “Successors to Las Casas,” Rivista de Historia de Amerca, nos
61 and 62 (1966), pp 89-114.
Stafford Poole, CM, editor, Bartolome de Las Casas, In Defense of Indians (DeKalb, IL,
Northern Illinois University Press, 1974)
Charles R. Boxer, The Golden Century in Brazil (Berkeley, CA, University of
California Press, 1962)
Steven J. Harris, “Jesuit Scientific Activity in the Overseas Missions, 1540-1773,” Isis,
2005, 96: 71-79.
Professor Leonard P. Liggio
Atlas Economic Research Foundation
Tel: 703-934-6969
email:[email protected]