Upon all these different occasions, it was not the wisdom and policy, but the disorder and injustice of the European governments, which peopled and cultivated America.
In effectuating some of the most important of these establishments, the different governments of Europe had as little merit as in projecting them. The conquest of Mexico was the project, not of the council of Spain, but of a governor of Cuba; and it was effectuated by the spirit of the bold adventurer to whom it was entrusted, in spite of every thing which that governor, who soon repented of having trusted such a person, could do to thwart it.* The conquerors of Chile and Peru,* and of almost all the other Spanish settlements upon the continent of America, carried out with them no other public encouragement, but a general permission to make settlements and conquests in the name of the king of Spain.
Those adventures were all at the private risk and expense of the adventurers. The government of England contributed as little towards effectuating the establishment of some of its most important colonies in North America.
Smith’s ‘bold adventurer’ was Hernán Cortés, who had helped Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar to conquer Cuba in 1511, and to become its first Governor. Velázquez then sent Cortés on a mission to add Mexico to his bag in 1519, but a growing fear that Cortés posed a political threat prompted him to revoke his orders at the last moment. Cortés sailed anyway.
Spanish adventurer Pedro de Valdivia founded Santiago in Chile on 12 February 1541. In 1532, a party of conquistadors led by Francisco Pizarro conquered the Incas of Peru, and Lima became the capital of the Spanish Viceroyalty of Peru in 1543.
