Spanish-Language Masonic Books Printed in the Early United States

Between 1800 and 1830, printers in Philadelphia, New York, and Boston published a goodly number of Spanish-language items—among them, 10 Masonic titles.¹ These books and pamphlets, ranging from 30 to almost 400 pages in length, and in some cases illustrated handsomely, were probably designed not only for individual use but also for the collective consultation of Spanish-speaking Lodges that were being established then in U.S. cities like New Orleans; some also traveled to Lodges in Cuba and Mexico that had just been formed and were under U.S. jurisdiction. The titles either concealed the name of the author and publication information, or openly acknowledged the fact that they were translations of classic U.S. and British manuals. The domestic production of these Masonic materials provided a boon to the struggling U.S. economy and spread U.S. influence in those areas which were beginning to think of themselves as independent from Spain and were reaching out for the protections of other powers.

A broader picture of early American Masonry than we have known, then, can revalidate it as more than a narrow corner of U.S. historiography; more than an English importation limited to English-speaking Lodges primarily along the eastern seaboard of the United States; and more than a local movement of men whose beliefs seem odd to us today, eccentrics whose influence waned as opposition grew, other organizations drew off members, and the country expanded westward. Rather, it was a mainstream importation from Europe whose reception throughout the Americas helped to shape ideas and behaviors. These Spanish-language texts raise several important questions relevant not only to the history of Masonry but also to the process of cultural diffusion, particularly the role of books in the Americas: The philosophy’s language of universal brotherhood had helped to bridge Catholic/Protestant divisions in Europe, but in the Americas it served to heal the wounds of recent colonial wars with European powers as it posited a larger union; its acknowledgment of God introduced a religious consideration into secular humanism, thus facilitating modernization in both Catholic and Protestant societies; its vocabulary of “freemasons” gave new elites alternative status to a court aristocracy and taught lessons of egalitarianism. Here, to show how Masonic books created new networks and their language recast colonial thought, I will particularly consider one Masonic text as it passed from its original English edition to a U.S. rewrite (also in English) to a Spanish translation (based on the U.S. edition). I will then examine how a second U.S. text thoughtfully added to the first text, and then, in turn, passed into Spanish. Finally, I will consider how, in United States and the Mexican settings, Masonry’s reconstructed language added to American growth.

Freemasonry thrived throughout the Americas in the first decades of the nineteenth century.² In North America the first Lodges appeared early in the eighteenth century in Nova Scotia, New England, and along the east coast as far south as Charleston. Because their founders were largely immigrants from England, those Lodges were English-speaking and derivative of English Masonry. The men drew their charters from England and used as models for their American practices English patterns of government and sociability. Their Lodges were founded according to the Scottish and York rites, and the membership tended to be elite. Later, as the Carolinas, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky were settled and Lodges were established in those inland frontiers, more recent immigrants—commoners from Scotland and Ireland who were artisans, farmers, and laborers—made up that membership. As wars and revolutions disturbed the Caribbean, French and English landowners and planters sought refuge in the United States and imported their Masonic traditions.³ Thus the character of U.S. Masonry changed with independence and those populations. Then, in the first years of the nineteenth century, when the United States acquired Louisiana, and Cuba and Mexico came into the U.S. orbit, Lodges in Philadelphia and New York sponsored Lodges in those French- and Spanish-speaking areas. Early on, Philadelphia was a Masonic center whose Grand Lodge was...