George Borrow - Spanish Mission

Spanish Mission

Such was Borrow's success that on 11 November 1835 he set off for Spain, once more as an agent of the Bible society. Borrow claimed to have stayed in Spain for nearly five years. His reminiscences of Spain were the basis of his travelogue The Bible in Spain (1843). He wrote sharply:

"he huge population of Madrid, with the exception of a sprinkling of foreigners,...is strictly Spanish, though a considerable portion are not natives of the place. Here are no colonies of Germans, as at Saint Petersburg; no English factories, as at Lisbon: no multitudes of insolent Yankees lounging through the streets, as at the Havannah, with an air which seems to say, the land is our own whenever we choose to take it; but a population which, however strange or wild, and composed of various elements, is Spanish, and will remain so as long as the city itself shall exist."

The above quotation shows Borrow's empathy with native, indigenous peoples as well as his dislike for the growing 19th century phenomenon of American cultural imperialism.