In order that the full financial profit, as it was then understood, of the colonies should continue to be passed on to Spain, it was essential that the colonists should continue a negligible factor.  The permanence of this state of affairs could only be affected in one way:  it was necessary that no equipment such as would provide independence of thought or action should be allowed to be at their service.  Books, of course, were considered as one of the most mischievous potential engines of the kind.  The Spaniards determined that none of the learning of their country should pass into the colonies.  A certain number of volumes were permitted to cross the sea, it is true, but these were of the species that might be readily understood by a child of a few summers, and were ridiculously inadequate to the most ordinary intellect of adults in civilized regions.  These themselves were subjected first of all to a close inspection on the part of the Inquisition in Spain.  After this they had to pass the Board of Censors appointed by the Council of the Indies.  Even here the precautions did not end, for on their arrival in the colony they were once again inspected as a safeguard, lest any secular matter or work of fiction should by any chance be overlooked and suffered to remain.

In short, the policy by which the motherland endeavoured to retain for her own benefit the riches of her colonies was undoubtedly one of the most benighted ever conceived by a European nation.  It amounted to nothing less than a consistent checking and deadening of the intelligence of her sons oversea in order that their atrophied senses should fail to detect the true manner in which they were being shorn of their property and privileges.

On the other hand, in conformity with the same theory, superstition was encouraged to an extraordinary degree.  The Royal Seal, when it arrived from Spain, was greeted as though it were a symbol of Deity, and the royal audience would chant an oath to obey it as implicitly as though it were a command of God.  Every conceivable care was taken to foster this frame of mind throughout the colonies, and, since the intellectual occupations were religiously kept to themselves by the officials, it is not astonishing to find how far this method succeeded, and for how long it continued.  Thus, even as late as 1809, when a portrait of King Ferdinand arrived at Coquimbo, the oil-painting was received with the honours accorded to a symbol of Deity.  A special road was made for it from Coquimbo to La Serena, the capital of the province.  This task occupied many days.  Volunteer citizens filled up the holes, made wooden culverts, and, in fact, acted as enthusiastic road repairers, in order that the portrait might suffer no discomfort.  When it was judged that the highway was sufficiently repaired, the portrait set out upon its astonishing journey.  It was surrounded by cushions and placed in a flower-filled carriage.  The inhabitants kneeled as the picture passed, and when it had been placed in the cathedral, salvos of artillery sounded, and the people shouted in delirious joy.  The occasion, moreover, was marked by a fete which lasted three days.