RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Wessel West Indies
stadt, 1875; and in ADB, xlii. 147-157. Consult further: Das Leben I. H. von Wessenbergs, ehemaligen Bisthumsverwesers in Constanz, Freiburg, 1860; O. Mejer, Zur Geschichte der rémisch-deutschen Frage, vol. i. passim, ii. 1, pp. 54-86, iii. 271 sqq., Rostock, 1871-74; BE. Friedberg, Der Staat und die Bischofswahlen in Deutschland, 2 vols., Leipsic, 1874; J. Friedrich, Geschichte des vatikanischen Konzils, i. 179 sqq., Bonn, 1877; F. Nippold, Handbuch der neuesten Kirchengeschichte, i, 523-531, ii. 543- 546, Berlin, 1901.
WESSOBRUNN, ves’sd-brun, PRAYER: A poem, followed by a prose prayer, found at the end of the second part of a manuscript collection, entitled De poeta, derived from the cloister of Wessobrunn, south of Munich. It is probably of Bavarian origin, and
was to all appearances composed in the eighth century. Possibly dependent upon Ps. Ixxxix. 2, it pictures in nine alliterative lines the original chaos when only God and his angels existed. The first five lines have been incorrectly supposed to represent heathen cosmological conceptions, but there is no valid reason for disputing the unity and Christian origin of the entire poem. (EH. STEINMEYER.) | BrstiocraPuy: The text is in K. Millenhoff and W. Scherer, Denkmiiler deutscher Poesie und Prosa, vol. i., 3d ed., Berlin, 1892 (there are also to be found titles of earlier literature on the subject). Consult further: J. N. Kelle, Geschichte der deutschen Litteratur, i. 74 sqq., Berlin, 1892; R. Koégel, Geschichte der deutschen Litteratur, i. T, pp. 269 sqq. et passim, Strasburg, 1894.
WEST INDIES.
Geography (§ 1).
History and Population (§ 2). The Spanish Period (§ 3). Non-Roman Missions (§ 4). Moravians (§ 5).
English Wesleyans (§ 6).
The West Indies constitute an archipelago extending in an eastward curve from North to South America, and separating the Caribbean Sea from the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico. The principal groups from north to south are: (1) The Bahamas, consisting of some thirteen low islands with many keys and reefs; area, 5,450 sq. m.; population, 53,735; Nassau is the capital and chief port. (2) The Greater Antilles, which include Cuba, the largest of the West Indies, with an area of 44,164 sq. m.; population, 1,820,239, most of whom are white; Havana is the capital, and the commercial center of all the islands. Haiti, the next island, has a total area of 28,250 sq. m., and is divided into the two Republics of Haiti; area, 10,205 sq. m.; population, 960,000, nine-tenths of whom are negroes—and Santo Domingo; area, 18,045 sq. m.; population, 610,000, a mixed race descended from the aborigines and their Spanish conquerors. West of Haiti lies Jamaica, which, including its dependent islands, has an area of 4,424 sq. m., and a population of 716,394, a mixture of whites, blacks, and half-breeds; Kingston is the capital and leading city. (3) The Lesser Antilles, properly including two groups: the Caribbean and Venezuelan, or Windward and Leeward, Islands, of which the largest and best-known are the French island of Martinique, the British island of Barbadoes, and, in the extreme south, Trinidad.
The islands were discovered in 1492 and succeeding years by Columbus in his voyages to the New World. The Spanish first settled at Haiti, and later at Cuba, Porto Rico, and Jamaica, treating the natives with such cruelty that by the middle of the eighteenth century they were practically exterminated, and negro slaves were imported to work on the plantations. During the seventeenth century
the Spanish were followed by the
2. History French, English, and Dutch, who set-
and tled in the Bahamas and the Carib- Population. bean Islands. Little by little the islands were wrested from their first
conquerors, and the opening of the twentieth century sees Cuba an independent republic, under the
1. Geography.
English Baptists (§ 7).
Church of Hngland (§ 8).
Scotch Presbyterians and English Congregationalists (§ 9).
Protestant Episcopalians (§ 10).
American Baptists and Other Protes-
tant Organizations (§ 11).
General Present Conditions (§ 12). Cuba (§ 13).
Porto Rico (§ 14).
Statistical Summary (§ 15).
protection of the United States; Haiti and Santo Domingo, independent republics; Porto Rico, a part of the United States; the Bahamas and Jamaica, crown colonies of Great Britain; and the remaining islands divided among Great Britain, France, Denmark, Holland, Sweden, and Venezuela. Among the population, the larger portion of whom are illiterate, only a remnant of the original inhabitants remain. It is estimated that fully 60 per cent of the entire population are mulattoes; in Cuba and Porto Rico the white race predominates, but in the other islands the colored race is in the majority, and in all there is a sprinkling of Chinese and Hindus. In Cuba, Porto Rico, and Santo Domingo, Spanish is the prevailing language; in Haiti it is French; in the British islands a Negro-English patois is spoken; the southern islands use a conglomerate of Dutch and Spanish, and in all fragments of aboriginal dialects are to be found; Roman Catholicism is the dominant religion.
In the journal of his first voyage Columbus states that, ‘‘ In all those islands there is no difference of physiognomy, of manners, or of language, but they all clearly understand each other—a circumstance very propitious for the realization of what I conceive to be the principal wish of our Most Serene King, namely, the conversion of these people to the Holy Faith of Christ.” In his will he desired his heirs ‘to spare no pains to put in this island of Espafiola four good professors of theology . . . to convert to our Holy Faith the inhabitants of the Indies.” Side by side with the passion for conquest in material things was that of spiritual conquest in the minds of these early Spanish explorers, and ceaversion, by any means, was the order. Conquest was first; lands were seized, and natives were enslaved; after that came the proselytizing. One of the first missionaries was Bartolomé de Las Casas (q.v.), who came to Cuba in 1502 and began a heroic struggle, not only with the heathenism of the islanders, but with the rapacity of their conquerors, and in this he had many associates of the Dominican order, though their efforts were of little avail to stem the tide. After the death of Las Casas, who was rightly called the ‘ Apostle to the West Indies,”
West Indies