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The Spanish PioneersThe Spanish Pioneers. Charles F. Lummis. Paperback, (1909), 2013, Illus., 310 pp.
Fourth Edition. In this work, the author, Charles Fletcher Lummis, writes of the southwestern United States and the Spanish Pioneers to which the credit for discovery and settlement should be given. Much has been written about the Spanish Jesuits and their settlements in the New World and their work with the natives, especially in California, but little has been written of other Spanish pioneers and the extent of their contributions to United States, west of the Mississippi. When
Jamestown, the first English settlement in America, was founded, in 1607, the
Spanish were already permanently established in Florida and New Mexico, and
absolute masters of a vast territory to the south. They had already discovered,
conquered and partly colonized inland America from northeastern Kansas to
Buenos Aires, and from ocean to ocean. And as in enterprise, so also they led
the English in humanity, in justice, and kindness in the treatment of the
natives. The volume gives first the broad story of the discovery and conquest;
then the adventures of notable pioneers — Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca, Andrés Docampo
(who walked more than 20,000 miles, under fearful hardships), the brave
missionary Brother Juan de Padilla, Captain Gaspar Perez de Villagran and,
greatest of all, Francisco Pizarro — with chapters on the church-builders, the
sky cities, the missions, etc
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