Desire to Seize the Spanish Lands.
However, the Westerners wished more than the privilege of sending down
stream the products of their woods and pastures and tilled farms. They
had already begun to cast longing eyes on the fair Spanish possessions.
Spain was still the greatest of colonial powers. In wealth, in extent,
and in population--both native and European--her colonies surpassed even
those of England; and by far the most important of her possessions were
in the New World. For two centuries her European rivals, English,
French, and Dutch, had warred against her in America, with the net
result of taking from her a few islands in the West Indies. On the
American mainland her possessions were even larger than they had been in
the age of the great Conquisadores; the age of Cortes, Pizarro, De Soto,
and Coronado. Yet it was evident that her grasp had grown feeble. Every
bold, lawless, ambitious leader among the frontier folk dreamed of
wresting from the Spaniard some portion of his rich and ill-guarded
domain.
Relations of the Frontiersmen to the Central Government.
It was not alone the attitude of the frontiersmen towards Spain that was
novel, and based upon a situation for which there was little precedent.
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