Some Reflections Upon the Chapter on Religion in the Coordination of the Colonial Period by Dr. S. Zavala

Extract

Since the aim here is not to bestow upon Dr. Zavala the praise due him for his customary stimulating analyses and insights, these remarks will be confined to listing succintly and without elaboration certain respects in which, in the writer’s opinion, the chapter on religion might be enriched or strengthened.

First, by way of general considerations, might be noted the extreme unbalance given the chapter by the loosely organized and often repetitious introductory section, with its 23 out of 52 pages for the chapter as a/whole. This is followed by a mere five pages on the Spanish church as against eight for the Portuguese and some ten for the British colonial churches. Perhaps more space for the Spanish section might be secured by omission of the several attempts to portray what happened to religious America after Independence; as belonging to the post-colonial period, this material seems irrelevant to the purpose in hand.