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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, APRIL 22, 1983
PAGE 11
There are many myths in this region of nearly 350 million people
with a common culture and language. The first myth involves the
idea that the U.S. has always been bigger, richer and stronger
than Latin America. The real fact is the U.S. was first viewed by
its southern neighbors as a poor, unrefined and younger brother
in the New World. While the major cities in Spanish America were
established in the 1500s and became thriving communities in the
1600s, the U.S. was still a wilderness area, rejected by the
Spanish explorers who did not deem it worthy of being inhabited.
Like Esau's birthright, they did not esteem its real worth until
it was too late. All they found were impenetrable forests and
mountain ranges, a land teeming with hostile and savage Indians,
a far cry from the rich and cultured civilizations they conquered
in Mexico and South America. Most important, though, was the
fact they found no gold.
So the refined Spanish "caballeros" looked with amusement as the
first poot English settlers arrived one hundred years later and
tried to survive in the rejected and unpromising land. At the
same time, Latin America was a booming�rea, with gold, silver,
grains, and other valuable materials pouring into Spain helping
to make her the most formidable power in Europe. This factor led
to the fourth restoration of the Holy Roman Empire under the
rulership of Charles the Fifth, a Spanish monarch.
Until 1750, [ English-speaking North ] America was still sparsely
populated, with a total of 3,800,000 inhabitants. In comparison,
there were 15,000,000 Spanish Americans to the south with large
cities and commercial ports. Who would have ever thought, one
hundred years later, the U.S. would easily outpace its "older
brother." It is here where the resentment of the "older brother"
begins.
To add insult to injury, as Jacob supplanted Esau, so the Anglo
Saxons had been slowly supplanting the Spanish beginning with the
defeat of the Spanish Armada by the English in 1588. Since that
time, Spain and Latin America have sat helplessly by and watched
Jacob's blessings surge in their formerly disdained land. Until
1800, the Spanish still dominated two-thirds of [what was to be
come l the U.S. This covered all the area west of the Missis
sippi. It is a little known fact that Napoleon only came into
possession of the Louisiana territory through a treaty with Spain
in 1800 [the Second Treaty of San Ildefonso on October 1, 1800],
and three years later sold it to the U.S. Spain not only lost all
this land, but, by the end of the century, also lost the Phil
ippines (named after a Spanish king) and Puerto Rico.
From the 1800s on, as God's blessings poured into North America,
the differences between the two rivaling systems became more
apparent.
Politically, the U.S. had wrought an impressive
miracle in the unification of one nation from many states. But
in Latin America, the opposite took place.
Instead of unity
after independence from Spain [some thirty years after that of
the U.S. ] there was fragmentation. A continual wave of civil
wars and frequent overthrows of the government have plagued these
nations until the present time.