burning fields of grain, killing livestock, spoiling caches of food, and enslav-
ing or murdering men, women, and children. Prisoners of war were often
shot, hanged, or drowned; and their women and children were used for tar-
get practice. To justify the slaughter of children, the English worked on the
principle, as one general put it, that “nits make lice.” Despite such ferocity on
the part of the English, or perhaps because of it, the Irish fought on.
Observing England’s Irish “problem,” the Spaniards saw an opportu-
nity to turn Ireland into England’s unwinnable war, its “quagmire,” and so
to prevent England from harassing Spain in the New World. To understand
Spain’s role in the British colonization of America, it is necessary to con-
sider a process that began in Ireland, but first we must objectively compare
the Spain and England of that time.
During the sixteenth century Spain was the western superpower. It
deployed the largest fleet of merchantmen in the world. Its soldiers were
regarded as the finest infantry of the time. The looting of the treasures of
the Aztecs and Incas gave it riches beyond the dreams of the other
European powers. Its vast and relatively efficient bureaucracy controlled an
empire stretching over five continents. The embodiment of medieval
Christianity, Spain regarded itself as the protector of law and order: it was
the conservative, “establishment” power of its day.
In contrast, the England that Henry VIII had brought into being and
that was then led by Elizabeth I was what today would be called a rogue
state. Henry destroyed the economic base and shattered the structure of
England’s medieval church; in the already complex affairs of Europe, he
fostered dissident movements and used his espionage service and small
army to dabble in revolution. Being weak, England used the weapon of the
weak, terrorism. Men like Hawkins and Drake were the terrorists of their
time. Drake’s savage raid of 1586 on the Spanish Caribbean involved the
massacre of populations and the looting of treasuries on a scale and with a
ferocity that would have been almost unimaginable even a few years before.
While some European states managed to acquire Spanish gold by selling
their products, the British got theirs through piracy. Piracy, as John
Maynard Keynes wrote, enabled Britain to pay off its entire foreign debt
and establish its great trading ventures.
The Spanish government was well informed of English plans and
74 THE BIRTH OF AMERICA