Colonial Society and Economy
The conversion of the indigenous population to Christianity was cited at the time as a guiding motive and justification for Spain’s conquests in America and is cited still by traditionalists who reject the pervasive Black Legend of Spanish cruelty to the native inhabitants. In New Granada, proselytism was at least superficially a great success, with most of the native population quickly adopting the new religion. As elsewhere in America, the Amerindian converts did not necessarily abandon all previous beliefs or ascribe the same meaning to Roman Catholic rituals as did Hispanic Christians, but they conformed outwardly to those rituals, helped build churches and chapels, and showed the Roman Catholic clergy due respect.
Spanish colonizers were sometimes annoyed when a priest or friar protested against mistreatment of the native population or of enslaved blacks, but they were eager to see the church established on a solid footing in the new lands and gave generously of their often ill-gotten gains to that effect. Likewise, the Spanish state, both from sincere conviction and from a realization of the church’s value as an instrument of social control, helped endow the church with property, support its missionary activity, and, to the extent possible, suppress religious dissent.
Extirpation of heresy and heretics, by burning as a last resort, was the special responsibility of the Spanish Inquisition, which had one of its three American headquarters (the least active of the three) at Cartagena. In the late colonial period, both state support and the missionary enthusiasm of the clergy tended to diminish, but by then the Roman Catholic Church was firmly entrenched as an institution, with roughly one priest or friar per 750 inhabitants, extensive property holdings, and additional wealth from investments, fees, and the compulsory payment of tithes by the faithful. That strong position would inevitably influence the course of Colombian history after independence.
Saints’ portraits and other religious themes dominated colonial painting, including much popular art of the period, and religious festivals were regular occasions for public entertainment (commonly marked by drunkenness and rowdy behavior that the clergy disapproved of). Formal education was largely in the hands of the clergy, who controlled the only university-level institutions and were active at other levels too.
The great majority of the population remained illiterate. For most of the colonial period, the literate were dependent on imported reading matter because the first press was set up in Santa Fe only in 1738, and the first real newspaper did not appear until 1791. However, the latter development coincided with a wider intellectual awakening to new currents in science and philosophy emanating from the European Enlightenment. A leader in this movement was José Celestino Mutis, a Spanish-born priest who settled in Santa Fe and won acclaim from European scientists for his work in studying botanical species of the viceroyalty.
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