P1: KAE 9780521612739c04
136
CUNY1096/Gill
978 0 521 61273 9
September 19, 2007
18:49
THE POLITICAL ORIGINS OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY
of other faiths, thanks to exclusionary colonial policies, meant that religious liberty for non-Catholics would be of secondary importance (Collier 1997, 305).34 Nonetheless, “secondary importance” did not mean “no importance.” The issue did arise following emancipation, and the limited actions taken early on did have a long-term impact in the cultivation of religious diversity and eventual liberty. As with the United States, economic trade and immigration became the primary motivation that provided some freedom of maneuver for religious minorities. Following separation from Spain and Portugal, local entrepreneurs drooled over the prospects of expanded markets for their goods.35 The United States and northern Europe offered the most attractive markets, and both regions were primarily Protestant in orientation. Attracting merchants from these countries meant not locking them up or otherwise persecuting them for practicing a different religion, a lesson learned earlier in colonial British America. Simply put, persecuting merchants is bad trade policy. Most countries were tolerant of Protestants worshiping on their shores so long as they didn’t proselytize and worshiped discretely in inauspicious buildings (Winn 1970, 297). But, “even though a non-Catholic foreigner was legally entitled to enjoy the benefits of the protection of his rights, in civil life he suffered fierce ostracism and onerous social pressures because of Catholic mentalities moulded [sic] by three centuries of the colonial Inquisition” (Bastian 1992, 320). The connection between religious liberty and trade was reinforced by outsiders. Having just gone through emancipation from a colonial power, and understanding the importance of linking economic growth to freedom of conscience, policy makers in the young United States attempted to write guarantees of religious liberty into mercantile treaties with different countries. Various U.S. political leaders in the 1820s and 1830s, including secretaries of state and presidents, considered religious freedom for North American traders and professors who resided in Latin America to be an essential component of any treaty (Bastian 1992, 320; Winn 1970, 1972).
34
Technically speaking, colonial Latin America was not entirely a “Protestant-free zone.” The Dutch were able to set up some outposts in northern Brazil and allowed religious freedom, as they did in New Amsterdam. A few other minor exceptions existed, primarily in the Caribbean (Bastian 1992, 314–16). 35 Commercial trade between Spanish America and the British American colonies and northern Europe existed as far back as the sixteenth century due to Spain’s inability to effectively police the waters of the Caribbean (Elliott 2006, 226). However, legal and normalized trade with these Protestant regions was greatly expanded following emancipation as the risks of commerce were reduced with Spain’s absence. Pirates still sailed the waters, though.