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Title: The South American Republics, Part II (of 2)
Author: Thomas C. Dawson
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THE SOUTH AMERICAN REPUBLICS
* * * * *
Story of the Nations
A Series of Historical Studies intended to present
in graphic narratives the stories of the different
nations that have attained prominence in history.
In the story form the current of each national life is distinctly
indicated, and its picturesque and noteworthy periods and episodes
are presented for the reader in their philosophical relations to
each other as well as to universal history.
12º, Illustrated, cloth, each $1.50
Half Leather, each $1.75
No. 62 and following Nos. net $1.35
Each (By mail) $1.50
Half leather, gilt top, each, net $1.60
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FOR FULL LIST SEE END OF THIS VOLUME.
* * * * *
[Illustration: CHURCH OF SAN FRANCISCO IN LIMA.]
The Story of the Nations
THE SOUTH AMERICAN REPUBLICS
by
THOMAS C. DAWSON
American Minister to Santo Domingo
In Two Parts
PART II
PERU, CHILE, BOLIVIA, ECUADOR, VENEZUELA, COLOMBIA, PANAMA
G. P. Putnam's Sons
New York and London
The Knickerbocker Press
1904
Copyright, 1904
by Thomas C. Dawson
Published, September, 1904
The Knickerbocker Press, New York
PREFACE
This history begins when Pizarro and Almagro, Valdivia and Benalcazar,
led their desperadoes across the Isthmus to the conquest, massacre, and
enslavement of the prosperous and civilised millions who inhabited the
Pacific coast of South America. It ends with the United States opening a
way through that same Isthmus for the ships, the trade, the capital of
all the world; with American engineers laying railroad iron on the
imperial highway of the Incas; with British bondholders forgiving
stricken Peru's national debt; with their debtor bravely facing the fact
of bankruptcy, and turning over to them all its railways.
The American people, alert, practical, keen, possessing in their press
and congress admirable organisations for the collection and
dissemination of exact knowledge, already fully appreciate the
advantages that will accrue to the United States itself from the
building of the Panama canal. Hardly less thoroughly do they understand
the probable effect upon eastern Asia and the great commercial nations
of western Europe. Few, however, have yet reflected upon the canal's
vital importance to the peoples of the Pacific coast of South
America--to four at least of the six countries whose stories I have
tried to tell in this volume.
Cut off from all practicable communication with the rest of the
continent by those yawning ravines which lead down the inner declivities
of the Andes, gullied by gigantic torrents, and choked by impenetrable
forests, the narrow strip of territory stretching along the mountain
tops and shore plain from Quito to Central Chile, connects with the
outside world solely through ports on the Pacific Ocean. Throughout
colonial times the stream of greedy Spanish office-holders flowed down
the coast from the Isthmus, and a scanty trickle of trade followed the
same channel. For three centuries Panama was the _entrepôt_ and Lima the
metropolis of all Spanish South America except Venezuela and eastern New
Granada. Magellan's famous discovery did not divert these currents
because the stormy straits that bear his name are practically useless
for sailing ships, and even Schouten's rounding of the Horn only blazed
a path which proved too perilous for the vessels of the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries. But with the nineteenth century improvements in
navigation and especially with the use of steam and the freighter built
of iron, all was changed. Valparaiso became nearer to London or New York
than Guayaquil, and during the last seventy-five years the ports of
Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, and Pacific Colombia have been little more than
remote and unimportant stations on a trade route that stretches its
interminable length from the commercial emporiums in the North Atlantic
through Pernambuco, Rio, Buenos Aires, and around the southern end of
the continent. For centuries Spanish tyranny denied the world access to
those countries, and hardly had they shaken off the political system
that strangled their development, when geographical considerations and
the invention of iron steamships placed them at a disadvantage compared
with their competitors. Their commercial, and therefore their industrial
and political progress, has been ten-fold slower than it should have
been.
The moment the first vessel floats through from the Caribbean to the
Pacific the course of commerce will reverse its direction. Buenaventura,
Esmeraldas, Guayaquil, Callao, Mollendo, Iquique, and even Valparaiso
and Talcahuano will send their ships by the short route of Panama
instead of around the continent and through the Straits of Magellan.
Western Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Chile herself will be tied
by rapidly strengthening bonds of mutual interest and intercourse to
each other and to the great commercial nations; and a transformation
will begin whose extent no man can foresee. Every patriotic American
must hope that his own countrymen will devote the money, energy, and
attention essential to secure that share of influence and trade justly
due the United States' geographical proximity and political sympathy;
that French literature, language, and ideas, British capital, and German
commerce now so dominant in all South America, will be supplemented by
American schools, money, and commercial enterprise; and that such
influences will spread from Panama through Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and
Bolivia down the coast to prosperous Chile and across into the fertile
plains of Argentina and southern Brazil.
The author wishes to acknowledge his especial indebtedness to Sir
Clement Markham's scholarly _History of Peru_, one of the very few
complete and intelligent histories of a South American country available
in the English language. The reader who commands Spanish will be
interested in Torrente's _Revolucion Sud Americana_, Mackenna's
_Historiade la Independencia_, Paz Soldan's _Narracion Historica_,
Mitre's _San Martin_, and Bulnes's _Expedicion Libertadora_.
For Chile excellent books in both Spanish and English abound, among
which are worth special mention, Barros Arana's _Historia General_,
Mitre's _San Martin_, Bañados's _Balmaceda_, Hancock's _History of
Chile_, and Hervey's _Dark Days in Chile_.
Few authorities exist for Bolivia. Valdes's _Estudio Historico_ is
admirable for the period which it attempts to cover. Sanjines's
_Historia_, Mitre's _San Martin_ and _Belgrano_, Torrente's
_Revolucion_, and D'Ursel's _Séjours et Voyages_, as well as Fernandez's
recent _Campaña del Acre_ have been found valuable.
Wolf's _Geografia del Ecuador_ is more than a geography, and no one
interested in that country can afford not to study this work carefully.
Suarez's _Historia General_, and Cevallos's _Compendio_ give a good
account of military and political affairs but do not bring them down to
recent years.
For Venezuela Tejera's _Manual de Historia_ has been of much use, as
also Scruggs's _Colombian and Venezuelan Republics_, Jenny Tallenay's
_Souvenirs_, and in the war of independence Mitre's great work on the
life of _San Martin_.
Perez's wonderfully condensed book, _Geografia Politica_, has been the
main reliance for Colombia, but Mitre's _San Martin_, Torrente's
_Revolucion_, Holton's _New Granada_, and Scruggs's _Republics_, have
supplied much information on points not covered by Senor Perez's work.
Intelligible details about comparatively recent times are proverbially
the hardest to obtain, and the author feels that whatever of accuracy
these pages may boast is due principally to his friends among present
South American diplomats--men who understand South American history
because they have been a part of it. Salvador de Mendonça, Joaquin
Godoy, Oliviera Lima, Claudio Pinilla, Estanislao Zeballos, Manoel
Gorostiaga, and Carlos Tobar have kindly tried to help him thread his
way through the tangled mazes of Latin-American politics, and his
principal reluctance at giving these pages to the public now is that he
has not had the good fortune as yet to know and converse with men of
like ability from Colombia and Venezuela.
T. C. D.
PETROPOLIS, BRAZIL, March 29, 1904.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
_PERU_
I. THE INCA EMPIRE 3
II. THE SPANISH CONQUEST 20
III. CIVIL WARS AMONG THE CONQUERORS 41
IV. THE COLONIAL PERIOD 58
V. THE WARS OF INDEPENDENCE 74
VI. FROM INDEPENDENCE TO CHILEAN WAR 98
VII. THE CHILEAN WAR AND LATTER-DAY PERU 117
_CHILE_
I. THE SPANISH CONQUEST 135
II. THE COLONIAL PERIOD 148
III. THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE 156
IV. THE FORMATIVE PERIOD 189
V. CHILE'S GREATNESS AND THE CIVIL WAR 211
_BOLIVIA_
I. THE CONQUEST AND THE MINES 235
II. THE COLONIAL SYSTEM AND TUPAC'S REVOLT 248
III. THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE 255
IV. BOLIVIA INDEPENDENT 266
_ECUADOR_
I. THE CARAS 285
II. THE SPANISH CONQUEST 297
III. THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE 311
IV. THE FORMATION OF ECUADOR 320
V. MODERN ECUADOR 330
_VENEZUELA_
I. CONQUEST, SETTLEMENT, AND COLONIAL DAYS 347
II. THE REVOLT 357
III. MODERN VENEZUELA 384
_COLOMBIA_
I. CONQUEST AND SETTLEMENT 403
II. COLONIAL TIMES 419
III. THE WAR AGAINST SPAIN 430
IV. MODERN COLOMBIA 446
_PANAMA_
THE EVENTS LEADING TO INDEPENDENCE 475
INDEX 491
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
CHURCH OF SAN FRANCISCO, LIMA _Frontispiece_
ANCIENT PERUVIAN MONUMENT 7
CHURCH OF THE JESUITS IN CUZCO ON THE SITE OF THE
PALACE OF HUAYNA CAPAC 15
OBSEQUIES OF ATAHUALLPA 33
_From a painting by the Peruvian artist Monteros._
STONE BRIDGE OVER THE RIMAC RIVER, LIMA, PERU 37
RUE MERCADERES, PROCESSION DAY, LIMA 45
LITTLE "INFERNILLO" BRIDGE ON THE OROYA RAILWAY.
ALTITUDE 10,924 FEET 55
PROMENADE OF THE ALAMEDA, LIMA 62
GENERAL VIEW OF LIMA, SHOWING THE CATHEDRAL 68
BAKER ON HORSEBACK, LIMA 75
THE MOLE AND HARBOUR OF CALLAO 83
CHURCH OF SAN FRANCISCO LIMA 87
MILK-WOMAN OF LIMA ON HORSEBACK 91
VILLAGE OF CHICLAY ON THE OROYA RAILWAY, 12,200 FEET ABOVE
THE SEA 100
DON RAMON CASTILLA 107
STATUE OF BOLIVAR, LIMA, PERU 115
GENERAL DON ANDRES A. CACERES 129
MAP OF PERU _Facing_ 132
BRIDGE ON THE ROAD BETWEEN SANTIAGO AND MENDOZA 137
INDIAN ENCAMPMENT 146
HOUSE OF CONGRESS, SANTIAGO 153
PLAZA DEL ARMAS, SANTIAGO 157
BERNARDO O'HIGGINS 165
RAILROAD BRIDGE BETWEEN SANTIAGO AND VALPARAISO 169
TALCAHUANO 175
NATIVE COSTUMES IN CHILE ABOUT 1840 179
VIEW OF SANTIAGO, CHILE, ABOUT 1835 195
VIEW OF VALPARAISO 205
JOSE MANUEL BALMACEDA 221
THE PLAZA, VICTORIA, VALPARAISO 229
MONOLITHIC DOORWAY AT TRAHUANACO 237
BALSAS ON LAKE TITICACA 259
LOADED LLAMAS 279
ECUADOR INDIANS 302
CHURCH OF SANTO DOMINGO AT GUAYAQUIL 305
GUAYAQUIL, ECUADOR 325
COSTUMES OF NATIVES NEAR QUITO 327
ECUADOR PEON'S HOUSE 332
PRINCIPAL STREET IN GUAYAQUIL 340
ANCIENT INDIAN ROCK FOR GRINDING MAIZE 358
THE PASS OF ANGOSTURA, BOLIVAR CITY 373
ROAD NEAR MACUTO 379
ENTRANCE OF PUERTO CABELLO IN 1870 386
VENEZUELAN SOLDIER OF 1870 393
VENEZUELAN GUERILLAS 397
MAP OF ECUADOR, COLOMBIA, AND VENEZUELA _Facing_ 398
OLDEST FORTRESS IN AMERICA, AT CARTHAGENA 407
TRAVELLERS DESCENDING A MOUNTAIN ROAD 411
NATIVE BOATS, MAGDALENA RIVER 415
THE NATURAL BRIDGE AT GUARANDA 421
FALLS OF TEQUENDAMA 423
NATIVE HOUSES IN COLOMBIA 427
ROPE BRIDGE OVER THE MAGDALENA RIVER 434
THE HOME OF BOLIVAR 440
PANAMA FROM THE BAY 445
SCENE IN THE ANDES, EN ROUTE TO BOGOTÁ 449
CATHEDRAL, PANAMA 453
CROSSING THE MOUNTAINS IN 1850 456
TYPES OF COLOMBIAN NATIVES 459
POST-OFFICE AT BOGOTÁ 463
RAFAEL NUÑEZ, PRESIDENT OF COLOMBIA IN 1879-1883, 1885-1891 467
VIEW OF PANAMA 477
STEAMERS ON THE MAGDALENA RIVER 479
NATIVE VILLAGE ON THE PANAMA RAILWAY 483
MAP OF SOUTH AMERICA SHOWING PROGRESS OF THE MOVEMENT FOR
INDEPENDENCE _At End_
PERU
CHAPTER I
THE INCA EMPIRE
For many centuries before the Spanish conquest and before the rise of
the Incas a succession of great empires existed in Peru. Ruined edifices
of unknown date prove that at some remote period advanced civilisations
and powerful nations were developed in the coast valleys and on the
Andean plateau. In tombs which vastly antedate even these megalithic
palaces and fortresses, cotton twine, woven cloth, and cobs of maize
have been found. The domestication and breeding to perfection of the
llama as a beast of burden, and the alpaca as a fleece-bearer, the
development of potatoes, maize, and the quinoa grain, must have consumed
untold cycles of time. There is no doubt of the remote antiquity of the
civilisation of the Indians who inhabit the Andean plateau south of the
equator, nor that their culture was wholly self-developed, owing nothing
to outside influences.
About the year 1000 the Incas were merely one of several tribes living
on the high, beautiful, and fertile plateau of Cuzco, which lies on the
eastern edge of the gigantic uplift of the Andes. Down the precipitous
gorges into the steaming and impenetrable forests of the Amazon plain
the civilised Indians never cared to go. The maize, quinoa, and potatoes
upon which they depended for food could not flourish in the intense heat
and heavy rainfall of those regions. Neither themselves nor their llamas
and alpacas could thrive in the montaña or forested plain. Their natural
habitat was the rough plateau, broken by numerous valleys, which lies
between the Eastern and the Central Cordilleras, and extends from the
Vilcañota "nudo," shutting it off from the Titicaca basin, to the
transverse range of the "Cerro de Pasco," in the North. The ocean lies
two hundred and fifty miles south-west, beyond the Central and Maritime
Cordilleras and the bleak plateau which lies between them.
This great central section, on whose eastern edge near its southern
border we first find the Incas, is the heart of Peru. Although the
climate of a few of its gorges is almost tropical, the valleys have the
temperature of Italy or Spain; higher up the crops of northern Europe
flourish; then are pasture lands, and above all bleak wilds and peaks
covered with perpetual snow. At the dawn of authentic Peruvian history
this favored region was thickly inhabited by many independent tribes;
probably all speaking dialects of the same language, and certainly very
similar in their industrial life and social customs.
Tradition recounts that the Incas had migrated to Cuzco from unknown
ancestral seats--by some conjectured to have been the shores of the
prehistoric fresh-water sea of the Amazon plain--under the leadership
of Manco Capac, the first of an unbroken line of sovereigns who claimed
descent from the Sun-god and ruled the Incas until the Spanish conquest.
The Incas developed a religion whose elaborate and rigid ritual, which
regulated every act of their lives, finds its best parallel among the
Hebrews. Each family had its household god; each sept worshipped an
imaginary ancestor; the whole nation adored the sun as the progenitor of
the reigning family, and the monarch's person was revered as divine. So
profound was the religious feeling of this people that they finally rose
to the conception of a supreme deity--a creator of the universe. His
temple filled one side of the great square at Cuzco.
Even more remarkable than their religious system was the social and
industrial organisation of the Incas. Private property in land did not
exist. It belonged to the septs and was from time to time allotted to
the heads of families. Every person was obliged to work, all males being
divided into classes according to age and strength, and suitable labour
assigned to each. The produce, whether crops or livestock, was divided
between the government, the priesthood, and the communes. Scarcity in
one section was made up from the plenty in others; public officers
annually revised the allotments, and turns at the irrigation works were
taken in accordance with fixed rules. Not a spot of cultivable land was
left unused. Habitations were built on rocky hills; deserts or the sides
of barren cliffs were used for cemeteries; whole mountain sides were
terraced up thousands of feet, and land was literally created by years
of patient labour employed in bringing earth in baskets and laying it on
the bare rocks. By no people has irrigation been more extensively and
successfully applied, and in spite of their ignorance of iron and steam,
of labour-saving appliances and instruments of precision, the Incas
constructed a system which in real effectiveness has never been
surpassed. Many of their canals, reservoirs, and terraces were allowed
to crumble by the Spanish conquerors, but modern Peru still lives upon
the half-ruined fragments of the mighty works of the Incas.
Secured from want by this intelligent socialism, their lives and rights
safe under laws administered with inflexible severity, bound closely by
family and governmental ties, trained from childhood in industry and
obedience, the Incas seemed destined to dominate and absorb the more
loosely organised tribes with whom they came in contact, provided that
they did not become inert, stationary, and unwarlike, and cease to
produce individuals possessing initiative. The dynamic elements
indispensable to expansion were furnished by the ruling clan and by
fanaticism. The offspring of Manco Capac partook of his divinity and
each emperor left numerous sons, whose descendants constituted a
privileged class. In the process of time there gathered around the
emperor thousands of men of his own kindred, devoted from their birth to
warfare and statecraft.
[Illustration: ANCIENT PERUVIAN MONUMENT.]
Under the fourth emperor the Incas were successful in a life and death
struggle against a tribe with whom they had hitherto shared the valley
that surrounds Cuzco. Under the two succeeding emperors they extended
their dominions south to the transverse range of mountains which
separates the Peruvian from the Titicacan plateau. Yahuar Huaccac, the
seventh sovereign, conquered the tribes on the eastern slopes, and by
the beginning of the fourteenth century the Inca domain included the
southern third of the great valley of Peru--an area of fifteen thousand
square miles, containing probably two millions of people. Uira Cocha,
the eighth emperor, began that wonderful series of conquests which
within a century and a half extended over half of South America. On the
other side of the Vilcañota "nudo" lay the vast basin which takes its
name from Lake Titicaca. Too high and too cold for cereals, the plateau
was inhabited by tribes of shepherds, who made no prolonged resistance
when attacked by the armies of the Inca. Their rapid and complete
incorporation into the Inca system followed. Colonies swarmed from the
over-populated provinces of old Peru into the newly acquired
territories. The Titicacan copper mines furnished the material for
weapons and tools, and a great commerce in exchanging the wool,
potatoes, and livestock of the higher regions for the maize and cotton
of the lower added to the prosperity of the whole empire. This conquest
doubled the extent of the Inca domain and opened up a vast field for
colonising expansion within their own territory. Once achieved, the
nation turned its attention to the conquest of the North. Beyond the
gorge of the Apurimac--the Inca boundary in that direction--lay the
rival nation of the Chancas, a vigorous and expanding people who were at
the head of a great confederation of tribes which covered the northern
two-thirds of the central plateau of Peru, and probably also included
the Quichua-speaking tribes of the coast.
The Chancas defeated Urco, Uira Cocha's oldest son and successor, and
their army advanced toward Cuzco, subjugating the northern allies of the
Incas. The victors came within sight of the capital, where meanwhile the
energetic Yupanqui, Urco's younger brother, had gathered the whole force
of the empire. The battle which decided the fate of Peru was fought on
the heights above Cuzco; the Chancas were defeated, and fell back only
to be pursued and overwhelmed by Yupanqui. He returned in triumph and
was installed as emperor in place of his incompetent brother, assuming
the title of Pachacutec, or "Reformer of the World." The Incas pressed
their advantage relentlessly; all the tribes of the Chanca confederacy
were subjugated; and Pachacutec's generals even extended their conquests
north of Cerro de Pasco. The Incas had now conquered a practicable route
to the Pacific, and the coast tribes about Lima soon also fell under
their control. Pachacutec built a great military road from Cuzco north
along the fertile plateau, through the smiling valley of Jauja, and down
the short descent to the neighbourhood of Lima. Colonies were
established at strategic points, and the new territory became so
rapidly welded to the Inca system that, when the Spaniards arrived a
hundred and fifty years later, they found the whole of central and
southern Peru occupied by a homogeneous people, perfectly loyal to the
Inca dynasty.
Pachacutec's successor, Tupac Yupanqui, proved even more successful than
his father. The five hundred miles of rainless coast from Lima to the
Ecuador border was inhabited by a mysterious race, in civilisation and
origin entirely distinct from the Quichua-speaking mountain tribes to
which the Incas belonged. Short rivers, rushing down from the Andes,
each irrigated a portion of the desert, which only requires water to
become extremely fertile. The irrigation works of this people were on a
gigantic scale, one of their reservoirs having its lower end guarded by
a dam eighty feet thick at the base. The valleys were cultivated to the
highest degree of perfection, and filled with a swarming and industrious
population housed in cities whose ruins still survive to attest the
skill of their builders. Enervated by centuries of peace, the
inhabitants had long confined their warlike operations to building
defensive fortresses. Nevertheless, when Tupac advanced up the coast he
met a desperate and prolonged resistance, until one after another the
fortresses fell. The capital of the confederacy was laid in ruins and
great numbers of the people were transported to distant provinces.
Garrisons and Inca colonies were established and a military road was
constructed along the coast. However, the country was really held only
by force, and even in Spanish times Quichua had not displaced the
Mochica tongue in half the northern coast valleys.
Tupac next turned his attention to enlarging the southern limits of his
empire. From Titicaca his armies advanced over hundreds of miles of
bleak plateaux and barren deserts and down the steep Andean slopes into
the fertile valleys of central Chile. His conquests extended as far
south as the river Maule,--three hundred miles beyond Santiago,--but the
tribes retained their autonomy and became rather allies than subjects.
On the eastern side of the Andes he obtained the allegiance of the
peoples living in the mountain valleys of north-western Argentine, and
he completed the incorporation of the vast and fertile plateau which
extends from the Titicacan basin to the present Argentine border.
Returning to the northern frontier, he reduced the peoples who lived in
the confused tangle of mountains and gorges which lies between the two
Cordilleras north of Cerro de Pasco, thus extending his boundaries
nearly to the present Ecuador line. The rest of northern Peru and all of
southern Ecuador belonged to tribes who were loosely attached members of
the confederacy headed by the Caras of Quito. They opposed only a short
resistance to the arms and diplomacy of Tupac, and he made their
territory the base for the great war which he proposed to undertake
against the ancient kingdom of Quito. About the year 1455 he advanced
with a great army, largely recruited from the tribes recently wrested
from the Quito monarch, and defeated the Caras in a great battle. The
whole plateau as far north as Riobamba submitted, reducing the Shiri's
domain to the neighbourhood of Quito itself and a small region north of
that city. However, all of Tupac's efforts to force the last barrier
which interposed between him and the Cara capital failed, and he was
compelled to content himself with extending his conquests on the coast
as far as the Gulf of Guayaquil. In 1460 he returned to Cuzco, where
three years later he was enraged to hear that the Shiri was making a
desperate and partly successful effort to recover the lost provinces.
Tupac's preparations for a final campaign to wipe the Quito kingdom out
of existence were interrupted by his own death.
Huaina Capac succeeded to the throne and continued his father's
preparations. Bad news, however, from the far southern provinces
compelled him first to undertake a campaign into Chile, in which he was
victorious. He then proceeded north and devoted the rest of his life to
conquering and incorporating the Cara empire. He first constructed a
military road from the northern Peruvian coast to the plateau in
southern Ecuador; then he exterminated or reduced to obedience the
tribes on the Gulf of Guayaquil, and the coast beyond, nearly as far as
the equator. Returning south, he defeated the wild savages of the
regions where the Amazon leaves the mountains. Having thus secured
himself against an interruption of his line of communications, he
advanced against Quito in overwhelming force. The Caras and their allies
among the brave tribes of northern Ecuador made a desperate resistance,
but were overthrown in battle after battle, and Huaina Capac entered
Quito in triumph. All the tribes of the confederacy submitted except the
Caranquis, a warlike people who lived north of Quito. These achieved
some minor successes, but were finally overwhelmed and exterminated.
The Inca empire, now at its greatest extent, included all the
inhabitable portions of Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia, three-fourths of
Chile, and a large part of the Argentine, stretching two thousand two
hundred miles north and south, and from the Pacific to the eastern foot
of the Andes. Except for the plateaux of Colombia practically the whole
Andean region had been united under one government. The rest of South
America was occupied by savage peoples, divided into small bands, who
picked up a precarious existence along the streams; and the Inca empire
was safe from any serious attack on its continental boundaries. But the
later conquests of Tupac and Huaina Capac had incorporated peoples in
civilisation and warlikeness hardly inferior to the Incas themselves.
Indeed, in the light of subsequent events, it is clear that the later
campaigns weakened the real military power and homogeneity of the
empire. While the older parts, southern Peru and Bolivia--the heart of
the Inca domain--formed a homogeneous and thoroughly loyal centre whose
inhabitants all spoke the same language and where socialism and the
worship of the sun according to the Inca rites prevailed, from the
latitude of Lima north the country had been too recently subdued to be
counted upon. The northern coast still required to be kept down by
permanent garrisons; the mountain tribes of northern Peru retained a
certain measure of autonomy; and the vast territories where the Shiri of
Quito had held sway for so many centuries were very loosely attached.
Tupac, the first conqueror, found it advisable to remain there almost
continuously during the last half of his reign, and Huaina Capac, his
heir, was born in Ecuador, and devoted his whole life to that region. He
married the daughter and heiress of the defeated Shiri, and was regarded
rather as the legitimate successor of the ancient dynasty than as an
alien conqueror.
In 1525 Huaina Capac died at Quito, leaving a will by which he
bequeathed the northern kingdom to Atahuallpa, a son born to him by the
Shiri's daughter. Peru, with the southern provinces, fell to Huascar,
his son by a princess of Inca blood. As the eldest and the legitimate
heir according to the rules of succession which governed in the Inca
dynasty, the latter was to be paramount, thus retaining a semblance of
unity. Huascar and the Inca nobles who surrounded him at the old
Peruvian capital were unwilling to acquiesce in this virtual division of
the empire. The chief of the Cañaris, a tribe always hostile to Quito,
sent a messenger to Cuzco offering to swear allegiance to Huascar. As
soon as Atahuallpa heard of this derogation of his authority he ordered
an army to march and unseat the recalcitrant prince, and despatched an
ambassador to his brother with a conciliatory message, at the same time
unequivocally asserting his claim to the lordship of all the ancient
domain of the Shiris. Huascar insisted that southern Ecuador, a region
which had been wrested from the Caras by their grandfather, and whose
tribes had only been allies of Quito, should not be included. His bitter
feeling against his brother was increased by reports that Atahuallpa had
assumed Incarial insignia which only a legitimate emperor was entitled
to use. He returned a harsh answer, demanding immediate and
unconditional obedience. Seeing nothing was to be hoped for from
Huascar, Atahuallpa began gathering the forces of the Quito kingdom.
[Illustration: CHURCH OF THE JESUITS IN CUZCO, ON THE SITE OF THE
PALACE OF HUAYNA CAPAC.]
Huascar was delayed by insurrections which broke out among the tribes of
northern Peru, and at first could only send a few troops to the
assistance of the Cañaris. The latter managed to hold Atahuallpa's
generals in check until Huascar's main army advanced. Atahuallpa retired
slowly up the plateau to within fifty miles of his capital, pursued by
the Inca army. It seemed certain that he would quickly be defeated, and
either slain or brought to his brother's feet to receive a rebel's
sentence. But against this invasion, inspired by the ruling oligarchy of
Cuzco, the warlike people of northern Ecuador stood nobly by the
grandson of the last of their ancient line of monarchs. Though the
southerners were victorious in the first encounter, Atahuallpa in person
rallied his army and drew it up in an advantageous position at Naxichi.
The Incas attacked confidently, but this time they were hopelessly
routed and the chief generals slain with thousands of the common
soldiery. The remnant fled in disorder to the territory of the Cañaris.
Atahuallpa could not immediately follow up his advantage, and by the
time he had organised his forces for an offensive campaign, Huascar had
sent another great army to the rescue under the command of his younger
brother, Huanca Auqui. When Atahuallpa crossed the transverse barrier of
Azuay and descended into the fertile plateau north of Cuenca, a terrific
battle ensued which lasted two days. Both sides suffered severely, but
the final advantage lay with the Northerners, and Huanca Auqui sullenly
retreated, abandoning Ecuador to Atahuallpa. A fearful vengeance was
taken on the Cañaris, while the other tribes joined the victor.
Next year Atahuallpa sent a great force under the command of Quizquiz,
the ablest Indian general of the time, into northern Peru. Huanca Auqui
was again defeated, and abandoned the disputed territory, while
Atahuallpa's troops poured into the northern coast provinces. Having met
with no serious resistance there, they ascended the Cordillera to the
neighbourhood of Cajamarca, where they met the reinforced Inca army.
Again they were victorious and Huascar's forces retreated south of the
Cerro de Pasco, followed by Quizquiz, whose army grew like a rolling
snowball by enlistments among the warlike and half-independent tribes of
northern Peru.
Huascar's resources were, however, by no means exhausted by the crushing
defeats he had suffered during the last four years. The great plateaux
of Peru and Bolivia, the most populous and richest portion of the
empire, remained faithful; the ruling classes regarded Atahuallpa's
revolt not only as an impious rebellion against the legitimate emperor,
but as a menace to their own continued supremacy in the state. Tens of
thousands poured up from the southern provinces to reinforce the army
which lay in the valleys south of the Cerro de Pasco in daily
expectation of attack. But Tupac's and Huaina Capac's conquests had
created a Frankenstein monster. When the ruder nations of the North were
first attacked by the Inca armies they did not know how to organise and
were easily reduced in detail. Three-quarters of a century of Inca rule
had taught them what they lacked without destroying the spirit of
individual initiative nourished by local autonomy. The older parts of
the empire had been frozen by rigid socialism and ritual, and the
people's energies sapped by long centuries of tutelage. The northern
tribes who followed Atahuallpa's banner were superior in military
prowess to the Incas who fought for Huascar, uniformly beating the
latter with numbers constantly inferior. The balance of power had passed
from Cuzco and the centre to Quito and the north.
Quizquiz's forces finally crossed the Cerro de Pasco and poured down
into the beautiful and populous valley of Jauja. Again they were
victorious, and the Incas fled along the road leading toward Cuzco.
Huascar and his partisans determined to make their last stand at the
capital itself. Reinforcements were hurried up not only from Bolivia,
but from Chile, and the Argentine, and an army which is said to have
numbered seventy thousand, the largest ever seen in South America,
assembled at Cuzco. Meanwhile Quizquiz was relentlessly advancing along
the plateau, and his main body reached the neighbourhood of the city
intact. After some manoeuvres for position in which the able and
experienced northern generals obtained a decisive advantage, Huascar's
camp was surprised at early dawn. His soldiers could not form and a
frightful carnage ensued, in the midst of which he himself was made
prisoner. As soon as the capture became known his followers fled in all
directions. Quizquiz advanced his camp to the heights overlooking the
capital; all idea of further resistance was abandoned; the city
submitted, and the principal partisans of Huascar perished in a cruel
massacre.
CHAPTER II
THE SPANISH CONQUEST
During the long campaigns by which his general, Quizquiz, had conquered
Peru, Atahuallpa had never left the North. He received the news of the
crowning victory and the capture of Huascar, in his palace at Tumibamba
on the Cuencan plain, and started at once for Cajamarca, the first great
town on the plateau south of the Ecuador border, accompanied by only a
small army. While waiting near Cajamarca, Atahuallpa heard the wonderful
news that two hundred strangers had landed on the coast at Tumbez--a
port on the southern side of the Gulf of Guayaquil. They were white and
their faces were covered with hair; they had garments and arms different
from any his informants had seen; and most extraordinary of all they
were accompanied by outlandish gigantic beasts who carried them over the
ground with a terrifying speed.
The effect of this intelligence upon Atahuallpa and his advisers can
only be conjectured. It was remembered that four years before a ship
carrying a score or more of these same foreigners had sailed along the
coast of Ecuador and northern Peru, landing at various places to beg
provisions and ask questions. Two had been left behind, and were taken
to the interior, where their fate is unknown. It is, however, probable
that these unfortunate Spaniards had given to Atahuallpa's officers much
information about the resources and intentions of their countrymen. The
Inca emperor seems to have realised that the importance and power of the
foreigners was out of all proportion to their numbers. The newcomers
protested that their purposes were amicable, and sent friendly messages
to Atahuallpa, who resolved to act cautiously and avoid offending them
unnecessarily. He despatched his own brother as an ambassador with
assurances of good-will and a polite inquiry as to their wishes and
intentions. But unfortunately for himself and his country the Inca was
dealing with a man whose profound and deceitful diplomacy was as much
superior to his as a musket is to a cross-bow. The Spanish leader
returned word that he appreciated the kind expressions of the emperor
and would at once proceed to Cajamarca to pay his respects in person.
This was Francisco Pizarro, one of the greatest practical geniuses whom
modern Europe has produced. Born out of wedlock at Trujillo, a town in
Estremadura, the province which during centuries was the great fighting
ground of Castilian and Moor, he passed his youth as a swine-herd in the
most abject poverty and illiteracy. Enlisting as a private soldier, he
spent his young manhood in fighting under Gonzalo de Cordoba, in those
campaigns which carried the renown of the Spanish infantry to the
farthest confines of Europe. An admirable soldier, conscious that he
possessed powers of the highest order, hopelessly handicapped in old
Europe by his base birth and illiteracy, the discovery of the New World
opened up a field for his talents. He eagerly embraced the opportunity,
embarking in 1509 with Alonso de Ojeda for the Darien gold mines. Four
years later he accompanied Balboa in that memorable journey across the
Isthmus which resulted in the discovery of the Pacific Ocean. To the
city of Panama, looking out over the mysterious sea, adventurers flocked
like a pack of wolves eager for a share in the spoils of its unknown
shores, and Pizarro was among them. The news of Cortes's conquest of
Mexico brought to America a horde of soldiers of fortune. Recklessly
brave, experienced in the most scientific warfare of the time,
arrogantly proud of their nationality, utterly careless of odds, ready
to risk their lives on the chance of sudden fortune, a set of men better
qualified for the work which fate threw in their way could not be
conceived.
Panama had hardly been founded when rumours of the existence of a
wealthy and civilised empire lying far to the south reached the ears of
the Spaniards. In 1522, Pascual de Andagoya, a gentleman of
distinguished family who occupied a high office at Panama, made an
expedition for a short distance along the coast and obtained valuable
confirmation of the vague reports. Obliged to abandon the enterprise by
his own illness, he turned it over to a partnership formed for the
purpose by Pizarro, Almagro, and a priest named Luque. The first enjoyed
a great reputation for good judgment and fertility of resource, gained
in expeditions along the Caribbean coast, and by mere force of his
talents had come to be regarded as one of the ablest and luckiest
captains on the Isthmus. The active command was to be his, while
Almagro, a soldier of more advanced age and hardly inferior reputation,
backed him up and sent supplies and reinforcements. Luque was the
moneyed man of the concern. They bought a small vessel at Panama which
Balboa himself had built eight years before, and in 1524 Pizarro started
down the coast. But his supply of provisions was inadequate, it was
impossible to obtain more from the savage natives of the forested shores
of Colombia, and the first effort ended in failure.
Nothing discouraged, Pizarro and his partners persevered. They had great
difficulty in raising money to fit out properly the next expedition, but
happily they succeeded in interesting the mayor of Panama. Eighteen
months later Pizarro sailed once more with a better equipment and one
hundred and sixty men. For five hundred miles he found nothing except
the hot and swampy seashore of Colombia, inhabited by miserable naked
tribes, and his companions had begun to believe that the empire they
were seeking was a myth, when the pilot who had been sent on ahead came
back with word that he had penetrated south of the equator, and there
had met a sort of large sea-going raft coming from the south manned by
a clothed and civilised crew and laden with cloth, silver work, metal
mirrors, vases, and various other goods.
These Indians said they came from Tumbez, a city in a fertile valley on
a dry and penetrable coast which lay not more than two hundred miles
farther south. They were traders bringing up a stock to sell to the
shore peoples of Ecuador--tribes who had long been compelled to
acknowledge the suzerainty of the Incas, but who still lived in virtual
independence under their own chiefs. The men on the raft told the
Spaniards that the whole interior and the southern coast were inhabited
by civilised peoples, subjects of an emperor whose capital was a great
city in the mountains hundreds of leagues to the south. Having received
this confirmation of their most extravagant hopes, Pizarro and his men
pushed on until they nearly reached the northern boundary of Ecuador,
not far from the limits of the Inca empire. It was clear, however, that
their small force would never be able to cope with the armies of such a
power. Almagro went back to Panama for reinforcements, while the
indomitable Pizarro landed his already disheartened adventurers on a
swampy island where their clothes rotted in the steaming, tropical heat
and never-ceasing rain; fevers decimated them, mosquitoes tortured them,
and eatable provisions were impossible to obtain. When Almagro reached
Panama, the governor flew into a rage on hearing that Pizarro was
holding his men against their will, and sent a ship to bring back all
who wished. Nine-tenths of the band deserted Pizarro, but he was
indomitable and thirteen heroes stood by him in his determination to
reach Peru or perish. For weary months he waited for provisions, but the
moment they arrived he set off for the south. Within twenty days he and
his little band of adventurers reached the Gulf of Guayaquil, four
hundred miles farther on, and immediately landed at Tumbez. With their
own eyes they saw full confirmation of what the Indians of the raft had
told them. Irrigated fields, green with beautiful crops, lined the river
bank; eighty thousand people, all comfortably housed, lived in the
valley; commerce was flourishing; large temples profusely ornamented
with gold and silver testified to wealth and culture; the government was
well-ordered and stable; and the people received the visitors with
open-handed hospitality.
After refreshing his followers, Pizarro continued his explorations down
the coast for a couple of hundred miles, finding a succession of fertile
valleys interrupting the monotonous desert, each filled with villages
and farms and a thriving, civilised, and prosperous population. In the
fall of 1527 he returned to Panama, full of the idea of leading an
expedition to conquer the great empire about which he had obtained such
minute and exact information. He wisely resolved himself to go to Spain
and secure the direct patronage and countenance of the government at
Madrid. Taking with him natives brought from Tumbez and specimens of
products, he set off, and on his arrival was granted an audience by
Charles V. The Emperor was greatly impressed by the story which the
adventurer told. Naturally of a noble and commanding presence, the
conscious dignity of Pizarro's manners corresponded to the high
ambitions which filled his mind. In the doing of great things he had
dropped all evidences of his base origin, and contact with men and the
habit of command had given him an ease of address and clearness of
thought which made his hearers forget the deficiencies of his early
education. The concession he prayed for was granted. He himself was
legitimatised and ennobled and received the title of "adelantado," while
the gallant followers who had refused to abandon him on the Colombian
island were made gentlemen of coat-armour. Pizarro and his partners were
formally authorised to conquer and settle Peru in the name of the
Castilian sovereign and received a grant of money for the purchase of
arms, agreeing to remit to the royal treasury one-fifth of all the gold
that they should find.
Pizarro knew just the kind of men needed to assist in this hazardous
enterprise, and he took every precaution to select only those of whose
valour and capacity he was well assured. His mother had bred up a family
of lions in the little old Estremadura town, and his four brothers were
hardly his inferiors in valour and audacity. Hernando, the oldest and
only legitimate son of Francisco's father, agreed to go. So did Juan and
Gonzalo, two illegitimate brothers who were younger, and also Francisco
Alcantara, a half-brother on the mother's side. Hernando Cortes, the
noble conqueror of Mexico, exerted himself to help Pizarro fill up his
ranks with soldiers of the most approved courage, and the latter
finally sailed for the Isthmus with a small body picked from the very
flower of the fighting men of the Peninsula.
Pizarro believed that a few hundreds of good men, well provided with
artillery and horses, would be as effective as thousands in striking
terror to masses of Indians armed only with spears and swords. Arrived
at Panama, it was arranged that he should proceed to Peru at once, while
Almagro would follow later with reinforcements recruited among the
unemployed adventurers in Nicaragua. All sorts of good fortune favoured
the daring enterprise. For once the fitful winds which usually baffle
sailing ships in the Gulf of Panama were kind, and Pizarro's clumsy,
little caravels traversed in thirteen days the seven hundred miles of
inhospitable coast which lay between the Isthmus and the first Inca
provinces. Landing among the half-civilised tribes of Ecuador, he had
the good luck to find a store of gold and emeralds. This he sent back,
as an encouragement to Almagro, and marching down the Ecuador coast, he
reached the Gulf of Guayaquil, on whose southern shore began the
populous and civilised portions of the empire. He crossed to the island
of Puna, overcame its fierce inhabitants with great slaughter, and there
was joined by a large and welcome reinforcement of men and horses under
the command of Hernando de Soto, afterwards so famous as the discoverer
of the Mississippi, who had come on his own motion to get his share in
the spoils.
So far, Pizarro's operations had been among outlying provinces owning
only nominal allegiance to the Incas, but he now felt strong enough to
cross over to Tumbez and establish a footing in their real domain. From
Tumbez he marched south to Paita, where he determined to establish his
base. The quick eye of the master general appreciated the strategical
advantages of this valley. At this point the great military road coming
down from the plateau of Ecuador debouched on the coast plain.
Communication to the south was easy by a road which connected all the
coast valleys with branches climbing to the plateaux. An anchorage at
the valley's mouth afforded a sure means of keeping open that
communication with Panama which was so essential to success;
reinforcements could reach him in whatever part of Peru he might
venture, and a garrison left at Paita would command the main route
connecting Quito and Cuzco, cutting the Peruvian empire in two.
On receiving Pizarro's answer to his friendly message, Atahuallpa
resolved to await the promised visit, apparently suspecting no evil. The
audacious Spaniard had, however, conceived the design of capturing the
victorious claimant of the throne of the Incas, well knowing that in its
actual distracted condition the country would be left without a centre
about which it could rally. Open war, no matter how overwhelming his
first victory might be, could hardly be ultimately successful.
Atahuallpa once safe at Cuzco or Quito and surrounded by the disciplined
soldiers who had overthrown Huascar, a defensive campaign might be
undertaken in which Pizarro would find every step toward either capital
bitterly disputed. Hundreds of thousands of Peruvians pouring up from
the numberless provinces of the empire would be thrown in a
never-ceasing succession of armies against his little band of Spaniards,
and the latter would infallibly be driven back to the coast by
starvation and fatigue if not by defeat in the field.
Apparently foolhardy, in fact Pizarro's plan offered the only chance of
success. Never dreaming that such a step was in contemplation,
Atahuallpa took no precautions. Leaving fifty-five men at the little
post of San Miguel in the Paita valley to secure his retreat, Pizarro
marched south with one hundred and two foot soldiers, sixty-two horses,
and two small cannon two hundred miles along the coast plain to a point
opposite Cajamarca, and ascended along an Inca military road, meeting a
friendly reception from the wondering natives, and being supplied with
provisions by Atahuallpa's orders.
On the 15th of November, 1532, Pizarro entered Cajamarca. He found an
open square in the middle of the town surrounded by walls and solid
stone buildings, which he received permission to occupy as quarters.
From his camp outside, Atahuallpa sent word that the following day he
would enter the town in state and receive the Spaniards. Marvellous good
fortune favoured Pizarro's treacherous designs. The Indians had
furnished a trap already made, and now Atahuallpa deliberately walked
into it. On the morning of the 16th the Indian army broke camp and
marched to Cajamarca, followed by the Emperor, who was borne in a litter
and surrounded by his personal attendants, the great chiefs, and the
nobles belonging to his own lineage. At sunset he entered the square,
accompanied only by these unarmed attendants, and found Pizarro and a
few Spaniards awaiting him. The rest were hidden in the houses around
the square with their horses saddled, their breast-plates on, and
musketry and cannon ready charged.
From among the group which surrounded Pizarro stepped forward Friar
Valverde and approached the Inca monarch, who, reclining in a litter
raised high above the crowd on the shoulders of his attendants, waited
with dignity to hear what those strangers had to say. The priest
advanced with a cross in one hand and a Bible in the other and began a
harangue which, clumsily translated by an Indian boy, the Inca hardly
understood. But in a few moments he realised that this uncouth jargon
was meant to convey an arrogant demand that he acknowledge himself a
vassal of Charles V. and submit to baptism. With haughty surprise he
threw down the book which Valverde tried to force into his hand--the
priest shouted, "Fall on, Castilians--I absolve you," and into the
helpless crowd burst a murderous fire from the doors of the houses all
around. Aghast and bewildered by this display of powers which to them
seemed necromantic, the survivors nevertheless manfully stood to the
attack of the mail-clad horsemen who rode into the huddled mass
ferociously slashing and slaughtering. The Indians strove desperately to
drag the Spaniards from the horses with their naked hands, and
interposed a living wall of human flesh between the murderers and their
beloved sovereign. At length Pizarro's own hands snatched Atahuallpa
from the litter. The Indian soldiers outside, hearing the firearms and
the noise of the struggle, tried to force their way into the square, but
the Spanish musketry and cannon mowed them down by hundreds, and they
fled before the charges of the cavalry, dispersing in the twilight.
Pizarro took every precaution to prevent the escape or rescue of his
prisoner, and for the first few weeks treated him kindly. The Spaniard
was playing a profound diplomatic game. He well knew that Atahuallpa's
generals would fear to endanger the latter's life by undertaking any
aggressive measures, and that Huascar's partisans would take advantage
of this providential opportunity to reorganise their forces. He
conversed much with the captive emperor and at length began to hint to
him the advisability of arbitration with Huascar. But the Inca took
alarm and secretly sent off orders for his brother's execution. Seeing
that the Indian was not to be cajoled, the Spaniard adopted a sterner
attitude, pretended the greatest indignation at the fratricide, and soon
had Atahuallpa willing to offer anything for his release. Shrewdly
guessing that for gold the Spaniards would run any risk, the Inca
negotiated for his ransom, saying: "I will fill this room with gold as
high as I can reach if only you will liberate me." Pizarro agreed,
insisting, however, that the ransom be delivered in advance at
Cajamarca. A formal contract was drawn up and executed before a notary,
and the deluded emperor ordered all preparations for war on the
Spaniards to be interrupted and that the temples be stripped of their
gold ornaments to supply the enormous amount he had promised. Under
protection of this truce Pizarro sent out expeditions to explore the
country and to expedite the process of gathering the treasure, and while
this was going on Almagro arrived with reinforcements which doubled the
Spanish forces. Finally the agreed sum was all in Cajamarca. It amounted
to four million five hundred sterling in modern money. One-fifth was
sent to the royal treasury and the remainder divided, making even the
private soldiers rich for life.
Nevertheless, Atahuallpa was not released. Large bodies of his troops
were known to be on their way from Cuzco, and Pizarro realised that,
once at the head of his forces, the Inca would wage an unrelenting
warfare to expel the last Spaniard from Peru. If kept a prisoner his
partisans would no longer hesitate to fight to release him, appreciating
now the uselessness of relying on Spanish promises. He must be got rid
of, and so after a mock trial in which he was charged with Huascar's
murder and with conspiring against the Spaniards, the Inca emperor was
strangled to death in the public square at Cajamarca. Pizarro knew
better than to allow the Indians time to settle the disputed succession.
With masterful sagacity he resolved to strike at Cuzco during the
confusion. He suddenly evacuated Cajamarca and rapidly marched along the
northern plateau, and over the Cerro de Pasco into the fertile valley
of Jauja. From this point a short road led down the Cordillera to the
sea, making it an admirable base for a campaign against Cuzco.
[Illustration: OBSEQUIES OF ATAHUALLPA.
[From a painting by the Peruvian artist, Monteros.]]
Leaving a garrison to protect his retreat to the ocean, Pizarro advanced
by forced marches along the great central plateau toward Cuzco. Quizquiz
and the army, which had defeated and captured Huascar two years before,
tried to oppose his progress, but all the calculations of the Indian
general were overthrown by the incredible speed of the Spanish cavalry.
The horsemen reached the neighbourhood of Cuzco without encountering any
considerable force of the enemy. Here the advance guard was surprised,
lost a fourth of its number, and was on the point of being overwhelmed,
when the opportune arrival of the main body dispersed the Indians.
Though only a small part of Quizquiz's army had taken part, this defeat
badly demoralised his soldiers; it seemed impossible to make any headway
against these strangers clothed in steel, mounted on great beasts, and
armed with weapons which slew their opponents before the latter could
got in a blow. Moreover, Quizquiz was in a hostile country, where
sympathies were all with the Huascar party and where the executioners of
Atahuallpa were regarded as deliverers.
Manco Capac, Huascar's brother and legitimate successor, went in person
to the Spanish camp to propose a formal alliance and a joint war of
extermination against the Atahuallpa faction, Pizarro received him with
every mark of honour and respect and renewed his assurances that the
sole object of his march from Cajamarca was to crush the enemies of the
rightful emperor. Quizquiz tried hard to get his forces into shape for
resistance, but his position near Cuzco was untenable, and after a
slight skirmish he was obliged to leave the way open to the capital.
Just a year from the day he had reached Cajamarca, Pizarro entered Cuzco
by the side of the legitimate emperor amid the acclamations of the
people. Manco's inauguration was splendidly celebrated with all the
ancient rites, but among the procession of rejoicing Incas rode an
ominous cavalcade--the Spanish soldiers, who now numbered nearly five
hundred.
The new emperor gathered an army, and, assisted by some Spaniards, set
off in pursuit of Quizquiz, whom he defeated a short distance north of
Cuzco. The old northern general, still indefatigable, made a rapid march
on Jauja to surprise the Spanish garrison, but was repulsed in this
well-considered effort to cut Pizarro's communications with the coast,
and had to make his way, the best he could, back towards Quito. The
central portion of the empire would now have been content to settle back
into quiet allegiance to Manco. But the latter soon found that his
allies regarded the country as their own. Under the pressure of
necessity for help against Quizquiz he had acknowledged, as a matter of
form, the titular supremacy of the Spanish king, and he was now required
to carry out his obligation to the letter. A municipal council, framed
on the Spanish model, was installed as the governing body of the ancient
capital; the great temples were turned into churches and monasteries;
other public edifices were seized to be used as residences or barracks
for the Spaniards; tombs, temples, and private residences were searched
for gold; and the authorities were required to furnish troops and
carriers for the expeditions which their oppressors planned against the
remoter parts of the empire. With the resignation characteristic of the
race, the Indians submitted to these exactions, and Manco hesitated long
before deciding to put himself at the head of a revolt.
The transcendant military and diplomatic qualities Pizarro had displayed
were equalled by the energy and foresight which he now showed as an
administrator. Realising that his capital should be on the coast in
order to secure direct communication with Panama, he made a careful
examination of routes and possible sites and selected the valley of the
Rimac, just below Jauja, where he founded Lima. From this point the
military road by which the Incas had kept up communication from Cuzco
with the coast and the northern provinces ascended to the plateau. Lima
and Jauja were the strategical keys to central and southern Peru; San
Miguel gave easy access to Quito, and Pizarro insured the region
extending from Cerro de Pasco to the Ecuador border by establishing the
city of Trujillo half-way up the coast.
Their original agreement provided that Pizarro should have the northern
half of the countries they might conquer, and Almagro the southern.
Accordingly, about two years after Cuzco was occupied, Almagro started
for Bolivia and Chile, accompanied by five hundred Spaniards and two
brothers of the Inca emperor, leading a large native army. In Bolivia,
where the Inca power had been established for centuries, he encountered
no opposition, and crossed the bleak plateaux of the Puna, descended the
Andes, and finally reached the fertile valleys of northern Chile. But so
little gold was found that Almagro determined to return and set up a
claim to Cuzco.
[Illustration: STONE BRIDGE OVER THE RIMAC RIVER, LIMA, PERU.]
In the meantime the Incas of central Peru had awakened from the dream of
a continuance of the ancient dynasty under Spanish protection. Pizarro
himself seems to have been guilty of few acts of wanton cruelty, but he
neither wished nor tried to restrain his followers from reducing the
Indians to vassalage. The natives were fast crowded to the wall, and the
Spaniards divided the fairest parts of the country into estates,
treating the Indians as tenants from whom tribute was due. The
sovereignty of the emperor soon became a mere fiction. In 1536 Manco
escaped from Cuzco and raised the standard of rebellion. The moment
appeared favourable. The Spanish forces were scattered; Pizarro was at
Lima, and Almagro in the wilds of Chile, but as a matter of fact the
Incas laboured under almost hopeless disadvantages. Their cities,
fortresses, and roads were all in the hands of the Spaniards, and the
kingdom of Quito, the most warlike part of the empire, had meanwhile
been reduced by a Spanish expedition from San Miguel.
The rebellion was confined at first to the tribes who lived in the
neighbourhood of Cuzco. These rose _en masse_ and besieged the two
hundred Spaniards, who, under the command of Hernando Pizarro and his
two younger brothers, Juan and Gonzalo, occupied the capital. The
Indians captured the citadel overlooking the town, and poured an
incessant rain of stones and burning darts on their enemies. The
Spaniards soon ran out of provisions, and were forced to try to
recapture the citadel or perish miserably by fire and starvation. Juan
Pizarro led a desperate assault, ably assisted by Hernando and Gonzalo,
and all three proved themselves worthy of the name they bore. Juan fell
mortally wounded in the moment of victory, but the Incas fled in
confusion, giving the surviving Spaniards an opportunity to procure
supplies of maize from the neighbouring farms. This defeat disheartened
the Indians. Numbers and bravery seemed useless against the horses and
firearms of these strangers, whose reckless courage was only equalled by
their cruelty. The Incas kept up the siege for several months, but
without artillery their swords and spears could make little headway
against men provided with firearms and protected behind solid stone
walls. While the Spaniards in Cuzco were thus fighting for their lives,
the Incas near Jauja rose and descended on Lima, but Francisco Pizarro
with his dreaded cavalry waited for them in ambush, and the Indians were
surprised and cut to pieces.
In spite of this success the governor's position remained most grave. He
sent for help to Panama, Guatemala, and Mexico, but meanwhile had no
means of relieving Cuzco. Its fall meant not only the death of his
beloved brothers, but would almost certainly be followed by a general
insurrection and the loss of all the advantages gained in three years of
fighting and scheming. He hurried forward two hundred and fifty
men,--all he could possibly spare,--but had little prospect of success
until news came that Almagro and his five hundred followers had arrived
at Arequipa on their way back from Chile. From Arequipa there is a pass
to the north end of Lake Titicaca, and thence to Cuzco the way was easy.
Manco would be caught between Pizarro's army coming up from Lima and
Almagro's descending from the south. The Inca gave up hope and with a
few devoted followers retired into the wild region of Vilcabamba, lying
north of Cuzco near the Amazonian plain. In those rugged and forested
defiles he was safe from Spanish pursuit, but his retirement ended all
hope of organised and general resistance. The Inca empire had fallen
never to rise again. With stoical resignation the Indians made the best
of their sad situation, while the conquerors were left free to fight
among themselves over the division of the magnificent spoils which had
so miraculously fallen into their hands.
CHAPTER III
CIVIL WARS AMONG THE CONQUERORS
The edict of Charles V. conceded to Pizarro the territory for two
hundred and seventy leagues south of the river on the Ecuador coast
where the conquest had begun, and to Almagro the next two hundred
leagues. In his heart Almagro was dissatisfied with this award, and,
even if he accepted the division, there was wide room for
misunderstandings and disputes. No one knew the exact latitude of the
river whence the measurement was to be made, nor had any one surveyed
the distances along the winding roads. Almagro contended that Cuzco and
Arequipa lay within his province, but this Pizarro vigorously and, as it
turned out, correctly denied.
Almagro's personal followers were disgusted with the rude poverty they
had found in Chile, and saw little chance of valuable spoil unless their
leader should secure the fertile plateaux of Titicaca, Cuzco, and
Arequipa. They urged him to seize by force what he believed to belong to
him. After the flight of Manco his army reached Cuzco before the force
which Pizarro was sending up had penetrated nearer than a hundred miles.
Hernando Pizarro had two hundred men at Cuzco, but they were exhausted
with long months of fighting against the Indian besiegers and could
offer no effective resistance to the night attack by which Almagro
surprised them. Hernando and his brother Gonzalo were captured and
imprisoned, and Almagro advanced against the army from Lima and defeated
it. "This," exclaimed Pizarro, when he heard the news, "is Almagro's
return to me, after losing a beloved and gallant brother, and spending
all I possess in pacifying the country. I mourn for the danger of my
brothers, but still more that two friends in their old age should plunge
into a civil war to the injury alike of the King's service and of Peru."
From this moment all the powers of his great mind and the resources of
his profound cunning were devoted to securing his brothers' safety
first, and afterwards revenge upon Almagro. Willing to agree to anything
rather than leave them in the hands of enemies whom he knew to be as
coldly cruel as himself and far more bloodthirsty, he sent ambassadors
to treat for the liberation of Hernando and Gonzalo. But Almagro thought
he held the whip hand, and marched his victorious army across the
Cordillera opposite Cuzco and up the coast nearly to Lima, declaring his
intention of founding a capital for his government in the valley of
Chincha, and announcing that he would be satisfied with nothing less
than the cession of all Peru from Lima south. To obtain Hernando's
release the governor was forced to consent that Almagro should remain
in possession of the disputed territory pending the decision of the
King, but Hernando was no sooner safe at Lima than Pizarro repudiated
his promise. He declared war; his army, under the leadership of Hernando
and Valdivia--afterwards famous as the conqueror of Chile--advanced down
the coast. Futilely raging at Pizarro's treachery, the old man
retreated, making his way toward Cuzco over one of the southern passes.
His pursuers by a rapid march over a difficult and little used pass
reached the neighbourhood of the Inca capital without resistance.
Almagro was compelled to accept battle, or to shut himself up in Cuzco
and let his enemies bring up artillery and batter him out at their
leisure. His men outnumbered Pizarro's, and were assisted by a large
contingent of natives, though inferior in discipline and arms. He chose
the speedier alternative, but the flank attacks of his native
auxiliaries made no impression on Hernando's carefully disposed infantry
and his Spaniards fell into confusion when the main bodies met in the
shock of battle. With a flank cavalry charge the rout became general;
Hernando Pizarro dashed in, conspicuous with white plume and
orange-coloured doublet; the most desperate partisans were slaughtered,
bravely fighting, and the old man fled. He was soon captured and brought
back to the very prison where he had so long confined Hernando. After
languishing for a few months, orders were given that he be strangled.
Francisco made no sign to save the life of his old comrade, and the
sentence was inflicted.
For the second time Pizarro entered Cuzco in triumph, wearing now an
ermine robe presented to him by Hernando Cortes, and once more he
devoted himself to organising his vast dominions and extending the
Spanish power over the distant provinces. Gonzalo Pizarro went to Quito
to make that expedition into the Amazon country in search of the
Eldorado which so miserably failed in its immediate object, but resulted
in Orellana's discovery of the great river. Hernando Pizarro proceeded
to Bolivia to develop the mining industry--a labour soon to be rewarded
by the finding of Potosí. Valdivia undertook the conquest of Chile, and
Alvarado that of the mountains of northern Peru. The governor travelled
himself over most of his dominions, founding cities at strategic points
in the more populous and fertile valleys. He visited Charcas--now
Sucré--the old Indian capital of southern Bolivia; he founded one city
at Arequipa, commanding the greatest valley of the southern coast, and
another at Guamanga in a fertile plateau half-way between Jauja and
Cuzco. The better parts of the country were divided into great feudal
estates and distributed among his favourites and faithful followers,
while the partisans of Almagro made their way as best they could out of
Peru or hung around in helpless poverty, gnashing their teeth as they
saw their luckier comrades rapidly enriching themselves by Indian
tribute and mining.
[Illustration: RUE MERCADERES, PROCESSION DAY, LIMA.]
Almagro's friends quickly carried the news of his illegal execution to
Spain, crying for justice against the Pizarros. The Spanish government
was not unwilling to secure a selfish advantage from the disputes
among the original conquerors, and sent out Vaca de Castro to
investigate and report.
When the royal commissioner arrived at Panama early in 1541, the latest
news from Peru was tranquillising. Pizarro was busily engaged in
enlarging and beautifying Lima, in regulating the revenue and the
administration, in distributing "encomiendas," and in restraining the
rapacity of his Spaniards. However, Lima was full of the "men of
Chile"--as Almagro's adherents were called--all bitter enemies of the
governor. They passed him in the street without saluting, and their
attitude was so menacing that Pizarro received repeated warnings and was
urged to banish them. Absolutely incapable of personal fear, magnanimous
when his passions had not been aroused, he only replied, "Poor fellows;
they have had trouble enough. We will not molest them." He even sent for
Juan de la Rada, the guide, counsellor, and guardian of the young
half-breed who was Almagro's heir, and condescended to try to argue him
into a better frame of mind, saying at parting, "Ask me frankly what you
desire." But the iron had entered too deeply into Rada's soul; he had
already organised a conspiracy to assassinate Pizarro.
At noon on Sunday, the 26th of June, 1541, Pizarro was sitting at dinner
in his house with twenty gentlemen, among them his half-brother,
Francisco Alcantara, and several of the most illustrious knights who had
taken part in the conquest. The great door into the public square was
lying wide open. The conspirators, to the number of a score, had
assembled in a house opposite. All of a sudden they rushed into the
square fully armed and carrying their swords naked in their hands. A
young page standing in front of the governor's house saw them and ran
back shouting: "To arms! all the men of Chile are coming to kill the
Marquis, our lord." The guests rose in alarm from the table and all but
half a dozen fled to the windows and dropped into the garden. Pizarro
threw off his gown and snatched up a sword, while the valiant Francisco
Chaves stepped forward through the ante-room to dispute the passage at
the staircase. The ferocious crowd of murderers rushed up and laid him
dead on the stairs. Alcantara checked them for a few moments with his
single sword, but was soon forced back into the dining-room and fell
pierced with many thrusts. The old lion shouted from the inside, "What
shameful thing is this! why do you wish to kill me?" and with a cloak
wrapped round one arm and his sword grasped in the other hand, he rushed
forward to meet his assassins and strike a blow to avenge his brother
before he himself should fall. Only two faithful young pages remained at
his side. Though over seventy years of age, his practised sword laid two
of the crowd dead before he was surrounded. The two boys were butchered
and in the mêlée Pizarro received a mortal wound in the throat, and
falling to the floor, made the sign of the cross on the boards and
kissed it. One of the ruffians had snatched up an earthen water jar and
with this pounded out the old man's brains as he lay prostrate,
disdaining to ask for mercy and murmuring "Jesus" just as the fatal blow
fell.
Thus perished by the sword this great man of blood. The measure he had
meted out to Atahuallpa and Almagro was measured to him again. He who
had shamelessly broken his oath times without number to gain his own
high ends was slain by treacherous, cowardly assault. But his great
vices should not blind us to his greater virtues. Courageous,
indomitable, far-sighted, patriotic, large-minded, public-spirited,
possessing a God-given instinct for seeing straight to the centre of a
problem and the energy to strike at the psychological moment, he was
equally great as an explorer, a soldier, a general, a diplomatist, and
an administrator. Even his shocking moral delinquencies lose something
of their turpitude when we consider the greatness of his aims and the
baseness of his origin. A bastard, a common soldier, a penniless
adventurer, a man who had to fight his way up by his own wits, courage
and parts, in the worst of schools, it was not to be expected that he
would be scrupulous. But that his real nature was magnanimous, generous,
and truthful is proven by the many instances in which he forgave his
enemies and kept his word to his serious loss, and that his ambition was
not sordid is shown by his self-sacrificing devotion to the public good
during the later years of his life. Formed in nature's grandest mould,
circumstances and environment had much deformed his character, but the
original lineaments are plain.
The news of the murder threw Peru into confusion. In Lima the
governor's friends hid themselves or fled; a hundred sympathisers joined
the assassins; the rudders and sails of the ships in port were taken
away so that no word could be sent to Panama; and all the treasure in
the city was plundered. Young Almagro assumed the title of governor of
Peru, but he and Rada soon realised that the vast majority at Lima
regarded them with execration, while threatening messages came from the
commanders in other towns. Rada and the boy usurper started up the road
for Jauja and Cuzco. At the former place Rada died, but his protégé,
though only twenty-two years old, now showed unexpected ability and
resource. Suppressing with bloody severity a quarrel among his captains,
he took the road to Cuzco, where his father's party was strongest.
In the meantime the royal commissioner, now become legal governor of
Peru, had sailed from Panama. Shipwrecked off the coast of southern
Colombia, he resolved to proceed by land, and disembarking at
Buenaventura, made his way with infinite difficulty through the tangled
forests and steep defiles of the Maritime Cordillera to the valley of
the Cauca River. Thence to Quito over the highlands of Popayán and Pasto
was easier. As soon as the news of Pizarro's murder reached him he
hastened south, receiving many offers of help from the friends of the
dead governor. At Jauja he found a considerable army ready to his
orders, so he proceeded promptly to Guamanga, to which point Almagro was
advancing from Cuzco. The soldiers of the young half-breed knew that
they were fighting with halters round their necks, and the battle was
the bloodiest since the Spaniards had landed in Peru. Of the twelve
hundred white men who went into the fight only five hundred escaped
unwounded. The rebels were practically annihilated. Two days after the
battle Pizarro's murderers were executed in the great square at
Guamanga. Young Almagro managed to escape to Cuzco, but he was quickly
captured and relentlessly put to death.
Upon the death of Francisco Pizarro the right to nominate a governor
reverted to the Spanish Crown. Though some disappointment was felt that
Gonzalo Pizarro had not been appointed, Vaca de Castro succeeded without
opposition. Gonzalo's selection would not have suited the new policy of
the Spanish government. Las Casas had written his famous book exposing
the unspeakable iniquities of the earlier conquerors toward the West
Indian natives. It produced a tremendous effect on public opinion, and
the authorities at Madrid decided to root up Indian slavery, and
gradually abolish the existing "encomiendas." Manifestly, such a step
would excite bitter dissatisfaction among the adventurers in Peru, and
it seemed best to name a viceroy, who would be _ipso facto_ vested with
absolute power, and not subject to the influence of the
"conquistadores."
This dangerous post was entrusted to Blasco Nuñez de Vela, an old
bureaucrat of the Escurial, whose integrity, piety, and rigid obedience
to orders had pushed him into high positions. Arriving in Peru early in
1544, he was received with outward courtesy and respect, thinly veiling
real alarm and distrust. The "New Laws" abolished personal service by
Indians; the grandees of estates must hereafter be content with a
moderate tribute from their tenants; encomiendas might not be sold nor
even descend by inheritance; and--worst of all--public officials and all
Spaniards who had taken part in the wars between Almagro and Pizarro
were to be deprived. The provisions were drastic and rumour exaggerated
them. In his journey down the coast the viceroy had sternly ordered that
no Indian be forced to carry a burden against his will. To the Spaniards
this seemed an outrageous violation of the natural order of things. The
whole fabric of their fortunes rested upon forced Indian labour. Without
it they could not work their mines, farm their estates, or transport
their goods, and these "New Laws" enforced by a conscientious and
stubborn old bureaucrat, would virtually rob them of all that their
swords had won.
Dismayed "encomienderos" wrote to Gonzalo Pizarro, urging him to espouse
their cause; his own vast estates would infallibly be wrenched away by
the viceroy, and he was told that his head was to be cut off as soon as
Nuñez Vela could lay hands on him. With the Pizarro instinct of running
to meet a danger, he hastened from southern Bolivia to Cuzco, where he
was proclaimed "procurator general" of Peru; soldiers flocked to his
camp; he seized the artillery and stores at Cuzco, and soon was at the
head of four hundred desperate men, well armed and provided. Many,
however, shrank from open rebellion against the representative of the
Castilian king, and the Pizarros had enemies. The result was still
doubtful, when the viceroy himself turned the scale by his own violent
measures. He imprisoned Vaca de Castro on suspicion of favouring the
revolt; quarrelled with the judges of the royal court; and finally in an
altercation with the popular factor of Lima, stabbed his opponent with
his own hand, and then attempted to conceal the murder. Frightened at
the burst of public indignation, he fled to Trujillo, while the royal
judges took the direction of affairs into their own hands. They ordered
the arrest and deportation of the viceroy, and sent a conciliatory
message to Gonzalo. But he knew better than to rely upon the
unauthorised promises of the judges. His answer was to send a detachment
to Lima, which seized three deserters and hanged them on trees outside
the town. The judges having no troops upon whom they could rely, were
forced to recognise Pizarro as governor. A few days later he made his
triumphal entry, riding at the head of twelve hundred men. There was no
mistaking the sincerity of the acclamations with which the Spaniards
welcomed the devoted champion of their privileges. Nevertheless in the
minds of most there lurked an uneasy consciousness that all this was in
fact flat treason against the lawful sovereign, and that no government
could in the long run prevail without recognition from Madrid.
The sea-captains to whose custody the blundering old viceroy had been
entrusted did not know what to do with their embarrassing prisoner, and
set him ashore at Tumbez, whence he proceeded to Quito to get help from
the anti-Pizarro faction. The governor of southern Colombia joined him
and he soon had five hundred men under his orders. Gonzalo flew to the
point of danger; the viceroy retreated to Popayán, but being joined by
more recruits, rashly returned to the neighbourhood of Quito to offer
battle. He was defeated and killed; Pizarro went back to Lima, while his
lieutenant, Carbajal, hunted down and put to death every loyalist who
remained under arms in southern Peru.
Gonzalo's administration lasted three years' and they were golden ones
for the Spanish adventurers. The marvellous silver mines of Potosí and
the gold washings of southern Ecuador were discovered. Encomiendas were
lavishly granted; the Indians went back to their fields; the mining
industry began that marvellous development which soon made Peru the
treasure box of the world and Potosí a synonym for limitless wealth. But
the dazzling sunlight of prosperity was dimmed by the shadow of
Pizarro's scaffold slowly creeping across the Atlantic and down the
coast. His chief lieutenants, knowing they had sinned past forgiveness,
urged him to declare himself king of Peru, but he was at once too proud
and too patriotic to fling away his right to die a loyal Spaniard.
Philip, the leaden-eyed, close-mouthed despot, was regent of Spain.
Bitterly chagrined that the stream of Peruvian gold had ceased to flow
into the royal treasury, his vindictive heart held no mercy for the
gallant soldier whose sword had helped win the riches now temporarily
diverted. He selected a man after his own heart--Pedro de la Gasca, an
ugly, deformed little priest, hypocritically humble, though astute and
untiring, whose success as an inquisitor was a guarantee that he would
be as pitilessly cruel as even Philip could wish. Gasca landed at Panama
in the character of a modest ecclesiastic, a humble man of peace who had
been commissioned to investigate the sad situation of Peru and
re-establish peace. He said he would recommend the repeal of the
obnoxious New Laws, and had authority to suspend them. Gonzalo refused
to put his head into the noose and demanded substantial assurances. But
many Peruvians were more easily beguiled, and welcomed the excuse to
renew their allegiance to lawful authority. While Gasca remained at
Panama, gathering troops from the neighbouring provinces, Pizarro's
fleet deserted, leaving the coast open to attack. An advance guard came
sailing down the coast, sending letters ashore at every port promising
amnesty and rewards. Desertions were so numerous that Gonzalo was forced
to give up the hope of defending Lima and retreated toward Arequipa.
Gasca ascended to Jauja, while Pizarro's old enemies in the Titicacan
region rose, gathered a thousand men, and sent word to Gasca that they
could overwhelm without help the five hundred soldiers who remained
faithful. But a Pizarro never waited to be attacked. By forced marches
he crossed the dizzy pass where the Mollendo and Puno Railway now runs,
and fell upon his enemies near the southern end of Lake Titicaca. Though
outnumbered two to one, the superior discipline of his men, his
admirable dispositions, Carbajal's skilful handling of the artillery,
and his own cool and intrepid leadership of the cavalry charges, gave
him a decisive though dearly bought victory.
[Illustration: LITTLE "INFERNILLO" BRIDGE ON THE OROYA RAILWAY.
ALTITUDE 10,924 FEET.]
Meanwhile Gasca was coming up the road from Jauja to Cuzco, his army
increasing by accessions from every direction until it numbered over two
thousand. The wisest of Gonzalo's counsellors advised him to retire to
southern Bolivia and make a defensive campaign in that remote region,
but he preferred bold methods. For once, however, he could not inspire
his men with his own confidence. They followed with heavy hearts his
eager march against Gasca's overwhelming army. He drew them up for the
attack and the battle was about to begin when, to his despair, he saw
several captains desert to the enemy and his soldiers surrendering
without a blow. Knowing that all was over, he turned to Juan Acosta, who
rode at his side, saying, "What shall we do, brother Juan?" "Sir, let us
charge them and die like Romans." "Better to die like Christians,"
replied Pizarro, and he rode across the plain and gave himself up. The
exulting priest grossly insulted the fallen warrior, and called a
court-martial to condemn him and his captains to immediate execution.
Though only forty-one years old when he went to the scaffold, Gonzalo
had for sixteen years taken a leading part in nearly every one of the
battles and expeditions of Peru, and is justly regarded as the best
fighting man among the "conquistadores."
The property of Pizarro's friends was confiscated; the prisons filled
with wretched victims; many were put to death; many more mutilated or
flogged; even the staunchest loyalists were not safe. Gasca evaded and
delayed as long as possible the distribution of land-grants among those
who had earned and been promised such rewards, and when he had to
announce the list he sneaked to Lima by an unfrequented route in
cowardly fear of his miserable life. He never dared to try to put the
New Laws into effect, and when a peremptory order came from Spain that
enforced Indian labour must cease, he kept it secret until he could
resign the government to the royal judges, leaving instructions that it
should be published immediately he was at sea.
Peru was left in confusion. The prohibition of Indian slavery added to
the dissatisfaction felt over Gasca's awards. The _ad interim_
governments could make little progress in securing its enforcement.
Rebellion after rebellion broke out, and civil war continued to desolate
Peru, with a few intervals of quiescence during which the government
allowed the proprietors to do as they pleased, until the arrival of the
Marquis of Cañete, the "good viceroy," on the 29th of June, 1556.
CHAPTER IV
THE COLONIAL PERIOD
The Spanish occupation of Peru was a conquest, not a colonisation. The
narrow plateau from Colombia to Chile and the adjacent dry valleys on
the Pacific and in north-western Argentina had been found fully
populated by civilised races. The work of subjugating them was
practically accomplished within eight or ten years after Pizarro landed
in Ecuador, and this marvellous result was achieved by private
adventurers who, though they held commissions from Madrid, really acted
on their own responsibility. A very few appreciated the advisability of
well treating the Indians and thereby preserving the effective
industrial organisation, but the vast majority concerned themselves only
with immediate profit. For eighteen years the original conquerors and
the adventurers who followed in their track fought over the spoils. When
the Marquis of Cañete was appointed viceroy he found eight thousand
Spaniards in Peru alone, four hundred and eighty-nine of whom had grants
of lands and Indians.
We can never know the sufferings of the Indians during these civil
wars. The chronicles tell us minutely the stories of the battles,
marches, sieges, surprises, assassinations, and deeds of military
prowess, but little of the destruction and abandonment of the irrigating
canals and terraces, the ruin of the magnificent roads, the breaking up
of the ancient socialistic system, the impressment of natives into the
rebel bands, the death by exhaustion of thousands dragging artillery
over the steep mountain paths, the starvation of whole villages robbed
of their crops. But the sturdy physique of the Andean Indians and their
perfect adaptation to the climatic conditions saved them from
extermination. In the midst of the devil's dance of Spanish carnage, the
Inca officers reported minutely the crops stolen or destroyed, and the
deficiencies were made up as far as possible from the villages which had
escaped for the time being.
Naturally the Spanish government was anxious to put an end to such a
state of affairs. Considerations of self-interest reinforced the
eloquent indignation of Las Casas, but the New Laws could not be put
into effect, notwithstanding the sentiment of fidelity to the Castilian
king and the growth of considerable cities in which Spanish law and
custom were dominant. The only real cities which the Incas had built
were Cuzco in central Peru, Quito in Ecuador, and Charcas in Bolivia,
and after the conquest they continued a village-dwelling people, but the
Spaniards, true to the instinct inherited from Roman times, preferred to
live in cities. Within a few years they had established municipalities
not only at the three Inca capitals, but at Piura, Lima, Trujillo, Loja,
La Paz, Guamanga, Jauja, and numerous other places.
The enlightened advisers of Charles V. came to the conclusion that Peru
could never become a loyal and profitable appanage of the Crown until
freedom of action was granted to its government. Don Andres Hurtado de
Mendoza, Marquis of Cañete, accepted the difficult post of viceroy. He
was a scion of the noblest House of Spain, distinguished alike in arms
and letters, capable and resolute, of mature years and wide experience.
His salary was fixed at the then fabulous sum of forty thousand ducats
in order to enable him to maintain regal state, and, accompanied by his
vice-queen and an imposing retinue, he assumed power with ceremonial
splendour. He prohibited further immigration from Spain and ordered that
no Spaniard in Peru should leave his district without permission. Though
the encomienderos were left in possession of their estates, they were
made to understand that they must cease the more outrageous forms of
oppressing the natives. He sent for the most notorious disturbers, and
they came joyfully expecting to receive grants, but were summarily
disarmed and banished. He employed the more adventurous in expeditions
to the interior and in completing the conquest of Chile. All the
artillery in the country was gathered under his eye, and the corregidors
were required to dismiss most of their soldiery. Finally, the viceroy
continued Pizarro's policy of founding cities into which were gathered
the Spaniards who remained scattered over the country.
He did much to alleviate the lot of the natives, though he dared not
venture on giving them all the rights guaranteed by Spanish law. No
efforts were spared to Hispaniolise the Inca nobles, and native chiefs
who could prove their right by descent were formally allowed to exercise
jurisdiction as magistrates. Even the rightful emperor, Sayri Tupac, who
had maintained his independence in the wilds of Vilcabamba, was induced
to swear allegiance and accept a pension and estates in the valley of
Yucay. When the Inca had attested the documents by which he renounced
his sovereignty, he lifted up the gilded fringe of the table-cloth,
saying: "All this cloth and its fringe were mine, and now they give me a
thread of it for my sustenance and that of all my house." Retiring to
Yucay, he sank into a deep melancholy and died within two years.
In the meantime Charles V. had been succeeded by Philip II. The Marquis
of Cañete's liberal and enlightened policy did not wring money from the
unhappy country fast enough to suit the greedy despot. He listened to
the slanders against the "good viceroy" brought home by disappointed
Spaniards, and Cañete's reward for five years of brilliant service was a
recall. Only his death saved him from hearing with his own ears the
reproaches of his ungrateful sovereign.
Several years elapsed before Philip found a man who possessed the
courage, capacity, mercilessness, and obstinacy to devise and apply a
system which would make Peru a mere machine to produce gold and silver
for the Spanish Crown. Such a one was Don Francisco de Toledo, a member
of the same ancient house to which the Duke of Alva belonged. To him
belongs the distinction of founding the infamous colonial system--the
origin of the misery and disorder from which Spanish South America has
suffered ever since, and a potent if not the principal cause of the
decline of Spain herself and the loss of her magnificent colonial
empire. Toledo reached Lima 1569, leaving Spain just after the news had
been received that William the Silent and his Hollanders had risen in
revolt against the cruelties of Alva and gained the victory of
Gröningen.
[Illustration: PROMENADE OF THE ALAMEDA, LIMA.]
The new viceroy first devoted himself to the destruction of the native
dynasty. Sayri Tupac's younger brothers, Titu Yupanqui and Tupac Amaru,
still roamed free in the forests of Vilcabamba. The Spaniards had
hitherto not interfered with the Indians' celebrating their national
festivals with the ancient solemnities, and Toledo came to Cuzco to be
present at one which he had determined should be the last. As soon as it
was over he sent for Titu to come in and take the oath of allegiance.
Titu died of an illness, but the chiefs swore fealty to the boy Tupac
Amaru, and refused to put him in the power of the Spaniards. The
exasperated viceroy sent a force which captured the young emperor.
Brought to Cuzco, Toledo ordered him to be decapitated, and the head was
stuck upon a pike and set up beside the scaffold. One moonlight night a
Spaniard went to the window of his bed-chamber, which overlooked the
great square, and saw the whole vast space packed with a crowd of
kneeling, silent people, their faces all turned to the Inca's grisly
head; it was the Indians devoutly worshipping the last relic of their
beloved and unfortunate sovereign. But there was no spirit left in them
for rebellion--and no centre for them to rally around. Toledo's
executions exterminated the leading Incas and half-castes; the
celebration of Indian rites was forbidden, and everything which might
remind the people of the fallen _régime_ destroyed or removed.
Toledo's "Libro de Tasas," or code of regulations, is the basis of the
system under which the Spanish colonies were governed for more than two
centuries. The Spaniards were practically recognised as belonging to a
privileged and governing caste. The country was divided into about
fifty districts, called "corregimentos," each under the rule of a
corregidor. This official was substantially absolute so far as the
Indians were concerned, although an effort was made to keep up parts of
the ancient Inca organisation, and in practice the hereditary village
chiefs administered justice and exercised considerable power.
Every male Indian between the ages of eighteen and fifty was compelled
to pay a certain tribute or poll-tax, for whose collection their chiefs
were responsible. About one-sixth of the Indians belonged to estates
already granted, and these paid their tribute to the proprietors, the
Crown deducting one-fifth. The other five-sixths paid directly to the
representatives of the government. In consideration of this tribute,
general and indiscriminate personal service was declared to be
abolished, but the commutation was not in full. One-seventh of the
Indians were required to work for their masters, and the wretched
victims of this "mitta" were sent by their caciques to the nearest
Spanish town, where they could be engaged by any one who required their
services. But these were not all the burdens. The natives of the
provinces near the mines were compelled to furnish the labour necessary
to work them, and the poor creatures to whose lot it fell to go might
never hope to return. Oppressive as was the letter of these laws, their
practical application was made infinitely worse by evasions practised
with the connivance of the corregidors. Hundreds of Indians were hunted
down and carried away to work on farms and in factories under the
pretext that the "mitta" returns had not been honestly made, and though
the population decreased, the survivors were required to furnish the
same number of victims every year.
In spite of the slaughter during the civil wars, the Peruvian Indians
numbered eight millions in 1575. Including the outlying provinces, the
population of the Inca empire must have reached twenty millions in the
heyday of its prosperity. Horrible as had been the decrease of the first
forty years of Spanish domination, it was a trifle to that which
followed the establishment of Toledo's system. In 1573 the impressment
for the Potosí mines produced eleven thousand labourers; one hundred
years later only sixteen hundred could be found. In the non-mining
provinces the destruction was not so stupendous, but some encomiendas,
originally containing a thousand adults, were reduced to a hundred
within a century, and the miserable survivors were compelled to pay the
same sum as had been assessed to their ancestors. The total population
of Peru proper had fallen to less than a million and a half within two
centuries and that of the whole empire to not more than four millions.
So great had been the mortality among the feebler inhabitants of the
warm coast valleys that they had practically died out, and their places
were taken by negro slaves whose importation began shortly after the
conquest.
The Indians were the worst but not the only sufferers. The Creole
descendants of the early Spanish settlers, though they nominally enjoyed
the same rights as the later arrivals, in reality had small chance to
participate in the offices and fat concessions. Each new viceroy brought
a new swarm of needy noblemen, who regarded the Creoles with lofty
disdain. Commerce except with Spain was forbidden, and even that was
burdened with almost intolerable burdens. As time went on new taxes were
devised until it seemed the deliberate purpose of the Spanish government
to transfer all the gold and silver in Peru's mountains to the royal
treasury. Not only were both imports and exports taxed, but also every
pound of provisions sold in the markets and shops. One-fifth of the
products of the mines and one-tenth of the crops went directly to the
Crown. All kinds of businesses had to pay licences; quicksilver and
tobacco were monopolies; and offices were regularly sold to the highest
bidder.
Nevertheless the Spanish occupation brought many incontestable benefits
to South America. To say nothing of the civilised system of
jurisprudence, the letters and the religion which have made the peoples
of the continent members of the great western European family, the
introduction of new and valuable animals, grains, and fruits raised the
level of average well-being among the surviving inhabitants. Horses,
asses, cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, chickens, pigeons, wheat, barley,
oats, rice, olives, grapes, oranges, sugar-cane, apples, peaches and
related fruits, and even the banana and the cocoa palm were introduced
by the Spaniards. In return Europe owes to Peru maize, potatoes,
chocolate, tobacco, cassava, ipecacuanha, and quinine.
Toledo had put his colonial system in full operation by 1580, and from
that time to near the close of the Spanish epoch the story of Peru
offers little of interest. Expansion ceased; the colonists made no
effort to spread over the Amazon plain, or to prevent the Portuguese on
the Atlantic coast from occupying the interior of the continent almost
to the foot of the Andes. On the seacoast of Venezuela and the plains of
the lower Plate the Spanish race still showed a scanty fraction of that
vigour and enterprise which had enabled the early conquerors to spread
over half the continent in a few short years, but in Peru, Ecuador, and
Bolivia the country slowly decayed. Though the viceroys who followed
each other in rapid succession were selected from among the greatest
grandees of Spain, they were held to an increasingly rigid account, and
the smallest concession to commerce or a failure to send home the utmost
farthing which could be wrung from the people was severely and
peremptorily punished. Their jurisdiction extended over all Spanish
South America; the captains-general of New Granada, Venezuela, and
Chile, the royal audience of Bolivia, the president of Ecuador, and the
governors of Tucuman, Paraguay, and Buenos Aires being all nominally
subject to their orders. But in practice these widely separated
divisions of the continent were largely independent. Lima was, however,
the political, commercial, and social centre of South America. To its
port came from Panama the goods destined for Peru, Chile, Bolivia, and
even Paraguay and Buenos Aires. Many of the viceroys were lovers of
letters, and the university produced scholars and authors not unworthy
comparison with those of the Old World. The continual influx of
Spaniards of distinguished Castilian ancestry and gentle training made
the language of even the common people singularly pure, and the sonorous
elegance of the Spanish tongue as spoken during the classical period has
been best preserved in the comparative isolation of Peru. The influence
of the bishops and priests, the Jesuits and the Franciscans, was hardly
inferior to that of the officials. The clergy controlled education;
every village had its parish priest who compelled the Indians to go to
mass and made them pay heavily for the privilege; the Inquisition was
early introduced and performed its dreadful functions without let or
hindrance.
[Illustration: GENERAL VIEW OF LIMA, SHOWING THE CATHEDRAL.]
The regulations which attempted to confine the oppression of the Indians
within bearable limits were persistently violated, not only by private
individuals, but by the corregidors themselves. Kidnapping was reduced
to a system, and often all the male adults of a village were dragged off
to work in the mines, leaving only the women and children to till the
fields. The corregidors went into partnership with merchants, and the
poor Indians were compelled to purchase articles for which they had no
use, and thrown into slavery to work out the debt if they failed to pay.
The wiser viceroys did not waste their energies in vain efforts to
mitigate the profitable abuses. They devoted their attention rather to
the exaction of the last penny of taxes, to be spent in maintaining the
horde of office-holders, or to be remitted to Spain. So rigidly was
taxation enforced and so successful were the Spaniards in finding rich
mines of silver, gold, and mercury, that early in the seventeenth
century the revenue had reached the sum--enormous in those days of low
prices--of nearly five hundred thousand pounds, of which about half was
regularly sent to Madrid. Foreign nations could not effectively
interfere with Spain's commercial and fiscal monopoly. The Isthmus was
in her hands, and the voyage through Magellan's Straits or around Cape
Horn was too stormy and uncertain for the slow, clumsy ships of that
age, and only a few English and Dutch expeditions, half-trading,
half-piratical, ravaged the coast towns in the seventeenth century.
The most memorable event of Peru's history during the seventeenth
century was the revelation of the sovereign virtues of quinine. The Lima
physicians were unable to cure the Countess of Chinchon, the viceroy's
wife, of a stubborn attack of malarial fever, but the rector of the
Jesuit college had received some fragments of an unknown bark from a
Jesuit missionary to whom they had been given by an Indian in the
mountain wilds of southern Ecuador. Doses of this quickly restored the
vice-queen, and when Linnæus named the world's plants in scientific
order, he called the genus to which the tree belongs chinchona, from the
viceroy, through whom its virtues had come to notice.
The succession of the Bourbons to the Spanish Crown, at the beginning of
the eighteenth century, brought about a considerable change of colonial
policy. To England was conceded the privilege of exporting negroes to
South America, and French vessels were permitted to come round the Horn
and trade at Peruvian ports. The latter concession was soon revoked and
the commerce of the Pacific coast again became a monopoly for the ring
of merchants at Cadiz. The Atlantic, however, by this time swarmed with
ships of all the European maritime Powers, and it was impossible to
prevent smuggling at the Caribbean and Argentine ports. The Madrid
government reluctantly came to the conclusion that it was impossible to
administer effectually from Lima the provinces which were commercially
tributary to the Caribbean Sea. In 1740 Bogotá, on the populous plateau
of eastern New Granada, was made the capital of a new viceroyalty, under
whose jurisdiction were placed the captaincy-general of Venezuela and
the presidency of Quito. Buenos Aires was a resort for contraband
traders under non-Spanish flags, and smuggling through that port so
increased that goods coming from Spain by the Panama route were
undersold in the markets of Argentina, Paraguay, Chile, Bolivia, and
even Peru itself. In 1776 the southern Atlantic region was detached from
Lima, and to the new viceroyalty of Buenos Aires were attached not only
the Plate provinces--Buenos Aires and Paraguay--but also that part of
Chile which lay east of the Andes, as well as Tucuman and the audiencia
of Charcas as far north as Lake Titicaca. By these changes Peru was
reduced to its present dimensions, except that Chile remained attached
as a semi-independent captaincy-general.
Three times since its foundation had Lima been nearly destroyed by
earthquakes, but none of them was to be compared with the convulsion
which in 1746 reduced the whole city to a shapeless mass of ruins. More
than a thousand people perished; a great wave engulfed Callao, drowning
half the population and carrying great ships far inland.
The expulsion of the Jesuits in 1767 was effected without difficulty. In
the neighbourhood of Lima alone they owned five thousand negro slaves
and property to the value of two million dollars, and every penny of
their immense accumulations was confiscated by the government.
The great Indian rebellion which had so long been expected broke out in
1780 under the leadership of Tupac Amaru, the lineal descendant of the
last of the reigning Inca emperors. In Peru proper it did not spread
beyond the southern frontier provinces and the story of its suppression
belongs to Bolivia. The authorities were so alarmed that the reforms, to
procure which Tupac had risked and lost his life, were shortly after
voluntarily adopted. The vitality and fighting qualities of the
half-breeds now stood revealed, and the Creoles, jealous of imported
officials and dissatisfied at their exclusion from places of honour and
profit, realised that a weapon lay ready to their hand when they should
determine upon revolution.
General Theodore de Croix, a Fleming, was entrusted with the
reorganisation and reform made necessary by the Indian rebellion. The
corregidors, petty tyrants over whom no effective control could be
maintained, were abolished; the country was divided into a few great
provinces, each ruled by an intendente to whom were responsible the
subdelgados who had charge of local affairs, and measures were taken for
the enforcement of the laws intended to protect the Indians.
By the year 1790 these valuable reforms had been put into effect, but
they came too late. Ideas of liberty had begun to infiltrate into the
educated classes, and among the Creoles the abstract right of Peru to
autonomous government became the subject of secret though widespread
discussion. A succession of able and liberal viceroys, however, averted
the danger for the time, and the outbreak of the revolution in the rest
of South America found Peru ruled by Abascal, whose energy, foresight,
and determination not only prevented an insurrection at Lima, but nearly
saved all South America to Spain.
CHAPTER V
THE WARS OF INDEPENDENCE
The storm soon to burst over South America was gathering when Viceroy
Abascal assumed the reins of power in 1806. He made no pretensions to
statesmanship, but it did not escape his shrewd soldier's eye and common
sense that French revolutionary ideas would soon make trouble. Her very
existence threatened in the titan conflict then devastating Europe,
Spain could not be relied upon to spare any of her soldiers to guard her
colonies. He must take care of himself. Wasting no time in seeking to
propitiate the revolutionary elements, he quietly set to work to
organise and arm an efficient army while vigilantly watching the course
of events.
[Illustration: BAKER ON HORSEBACK, LIMA.]
Although less infected than any other province, being the one where the
Spanish bureaucracy was most numerous and powerful, even in Peru Creole
society was honeycombed with revolutionary sentiment. The plots to
secure autonomy came to Abascal's notice, and with the first overt act
he pounced upon the plotters. Two republican visionaries, named Ubaldo
and Aguilar, were the first martyrs for liberty. A few learned and
respected professors in Lima dared to speculate on the future of America
as affected by recent events in Europe, but the viceroy summoned them to
his presence and his stern warnings silenced them. Two young lawyers
held evening parties where politics were discussed by the rising youth
of the capital. One of the ringleaders was condemned to ten years'
imprisonment and the other sent to Spain, while several more were
shipped off to southern Chile. Although the liberals continued to meet
and conspire, and the priests were particularly active, for the present
nothing definite came of all this.
Even the news of the deposition of the Spanish authorities at Quito, La
Paz, and Charcas, in 1809, met with no response from the liberals at
Lima. Abascal banished Riva Aguëro, their leader; his expeditions
quickly suppressed the insurrections in Bolivia and Ecuador; and he
redoubled his exertions to strengthen his army, recruiting among the
Indians and half-breeds, and casting cannon. That his apprehensions were
justified was proved by the events of the following year. In rapid
succession Buenos Aires, northern New Granada, Caracas, and Santiago
installed revolutionary juntas in place of the Spanish governors. The
flames of revolution spread rapidly from these centres. Soon the Spanish
officials were overthrown throughout Argentina, Chile, New Granada, and
Venezuela; Bolivia and Ecuador were divided; and only Peru remained
steady. But Abascal, resolute and unshaken, sent his armies against the
triumphant revolutionists. The story of these campaigns is elsewhere
told in connection with the countries where they were conducted. Though
the patriots won some important victories, the loyal arms steadily
advanced.
The redemption of Ecuador, Chile, and Bolivia had been mainly achieved
with the resources which Abascal had picked up in South America. Until
1813 the people of the Peninsula were fighting desperately for national
independence against the armies of the great Napoleon. No money or men
could be spared for South America, and Abascal even managed to remit two
million dollars to Spain in a single year--that of 1811. The armies with
which his generals won their early victories were recruited almost
entirely from the native population of Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador. In
this struggle between Spaniard and Creole, the sturdy Indian of the
plateau, who was dragged reluctant from his home, took no great
interest, but any sympathy he felt was anti-Spanish. Nevertheless, so
ingrained was the habit of obedience that when drilled and commanded by
Spanish officers the half-breeds and Indians made excellent soldiers.
During these six years, only one insurrection touched the territory of
Peru proper. In 1814 the Indians of the Cuzco region rose under the
leadership of one of their own caciques. The whole population of this,
the most southern province of Peru, seems to have sympathised with the
insurrection, and the same feeling extended over the Bolivian border.
When Pumacagua, the Indian leader, advanced into Bolivia the people
about La Paz joined him. But his army was an undisciplined, unarmed mob,
only eight hundred of the twenty thousand who followed him possessing
muskets. The Spanish general, Ramirez, hastened up from southern
Bolivia; the Indians retreated over the Cordillera to Arequipa, where
they were followed by the Spaniards. When Ramirez approached they again
retired to the Bolivian plateau and the game of hide-and-seek ended with
the horrible slaughter of Umachiri near Lake Titicaca.
In 1816 Abascal thought that his work was virtually completed and that
he had earned the right to retire. Resistance was confined to Buenos
Aires, to the thinly populated provinces of Tucuman and Cuyo, and to the
banks of the Orinoco. The Argentine revolutionists were fighting among
themselves, and that they must succumb before an advance in force from
the Bolivian plateau appeared certain. The last act of his
administration was to send out a fleet that compelled four Argentine
ships which Admiral William Brown had brought around the Horn to
withdraw to the Atlantic. He was succeeded by General Pezuela, a
strategist of no mean abilities, who had borne a brilliant part in the
Bolivian campaigns. The new viceroy straightway set about final
preparations for a decisive advance across the pampas to Buenos Aires,
but like a thunderbolt from a clear sky came the news that San Martin
had made a sudden descent on Chile and won the battle of Chacabuco,
annihilating the Spanish forces in that country. Pezuela saw himself
obliged to begin a war to reduce Chile to obedience--an undertaking sure
to be long and arduous, and in which he must encounter a general whose
technical mastery of the profession had enabled him to create an army
equal in discipline and effectiveness to any the viceroy might hope to
throw against him. Pezuela abandoned the idea of an immediate Argentine
campaign, and contented himself with maintaining a defensive attitude
on the Bolivian frontier. He managed to repulse the armies which the
Buenos Aireans sent against Bolivia, but it was in vain that he poured
into Chile all the troops he could possibly spare. They were overthrown
and annihilated in the decisive battle of Maipo. The viceroy sent for
help to Spain and New Granada, but Venezuela had risen in insurrection
under Bolivar and Paez; and it was impossible to spare any considerable
number of troops from the Caribbean.
So long, however, as Spanish ships commanded the Pacific, Peru itself
was safe from attack and the viceroy could securely await the arrival of
reinforcements, and then attack Chile where he chose. Happily for the
cause of South American independence, the war-ship of the beginning of
the nineteenth century was not the expensive, complicated, slow-built
machine it has since become. San Martin subordinated everything to the
creation of a fleet. He forced the Argentine and Chilean governments to
furnish him money, and his agents hastened to Europe and North America
to buy ships and engage British and American captains. The Spaniards had
four frigates and thirteen smaller ships, mounting in all three hundred
and thirty guns, while San Martin was able to improvise only three
frigates and as many brigs, mounting about one hundred and eighty
cannon. This disparity of force was more than made up by the superior
skill and experience of the foreign seamen. His admiral was Lord
Cochrane, a Scotchman of noble family, but radical principles and
adventurous disposition. A daring and reckless fighter, inventive and
fertile in resource, he excelled in leading cutting-out expeditions and
surprises. His marvellous activity and the capture by Blanco Encalada of
their largest frigate dismayed the Spanish captains. When Cochrane
sailed up the coast he found the Spaniards huddled under the guns of
Callao castle. Returning to Valparaiso, he reported to San Martin that
he could guarantee the unmolested transport of an army to any point on
the Peruvian coast, and again sailed away for Callao. Though his attempt
to destroy the Spaniards with fire-ships and rockets was unsuccessful,
he captured and sacked several towns and terrorised the Spanish
authorities all along the coast. San Martin after many disappointments
and interruptions succeeded in preparing an army of invasion. For ten
years war had desolated every other part of Spanish South America, while
Peru had remained untouched. At length the conflict was to be
transferred to the very centre of Spanish power.
On September 7, 1820, Lord Cochrane's fleet dropped anchor in a bay near
Pisco, one hundred and fifty miles south of Lima. San Martin's army,
numbering four thousand five hundred Argentines and Chileans,
disembarked without opposition and occupied the fertile, vine-covered
valleys. To undertake a campaign for the conquest of Peru with such a
force seemed absurd. The viceroy's troops were five times as numerous;
at Lima alone he had nearly nine thousand men; as many more were
quartered at Cuzco, Jauja, and Arequipa, besides the six thousand
veterans who guarded the Bolivian frontier against an invasion from
Buenos Aires. The contest was, however, really not so unequal as it
appeared. The Spanish armies were made up of native Peruvians and
Bolivians, with some Venezuelans; sympathisers with the patriot cause
swarmed in their ranks; many were waiting an opportunity to desert; the
viceroy had little control over his generals, and the arrival of the
Argentine army stimulated the activity of the patriot societies in the
Peruvian cities.
From Pisco San Martin detached a force of twelve hundred men under the
command of General Arenales, which ascended the Cordillera, roused the
population of the plateaux immediately back of Lima, and defeated a
detachment under General O'Reilly near Cerro de Pasco. The Indians rose,
but when the Spaniards came up in force Arenales retired to the coast,
leaving his allies to be mercilessly slaughtered. Meanwhile San Martin
with the main body had taken ship at Pisco and, sailing north, landed at
Huacho, seventy miles beyond the capital. His three thousand men could
not hope to succeed in a direct attack on the city, defended by thrice
that number of disciplined troops. On the other hand, the Spanish army
was shut off from the sea; its base was now far back in the interior;
its line of communication might be cut at any moment by other
expeditions like that of Arenales. Lima and the coast towns were
decidedly disaffected. San Martin's plan was to wait patiently until a
rising should compel the Spaniards to retire to the interior, and then
to organise the country and gather an army for the final campaign on the
plateau. He kept, therefore, at a safe distance from the Spaniards; sent
out detachments which scoured the country up to the walls of Lima; and
entered into communication with the conspirators in the city. Crowds of
young enthusiasts hastened out to join him; Cochrane daringly cut out
the frigate _Esmeralda_ under the very guns of Callao castle; an
expedition sent to Tacna, on the extreme southern coast, was
enthusiastically received; and numerous desertions from the Spanish army
culminated in a battalion of Venezuelans coming over in a body. The
viceroy was sorely puzzled. He hesitated to send his army to attack San
Martin, fearing an insurrection or surprise during his absence, and
knowing that defeat meant irretrievable ruin. Really only two courses of
action lay open to the Spaniards--they must either fight San Martin, and
the sooner the better, for he was becoming stronger every day--or they
must abandon Lima and concentrate on their base in the mountains. The
viceroy could not make up his mind to abandon the ancient capital, and
he was reluctant to expose his family to the hardships of a guerilla
warfare in the mountains.
[Illustration: THE MOLE AND HARBOUR OF CALLAO.]
San Martin drew closer and closer, the attitude of the Lima liberals
became more and more threatening, and still Pezuela made no move. News
came of the revolution in Spain and of the overthrow of absolutism, and
all the principal commanders united in demanding his resignation. He had
no alternative, and retired to Spain, while the generals selected one
of their number, La Serna, to succeed him. The new viceroy entered into
negotiations looking toward an amicable accommodation of the whole
question at issue between Spain and her colonies. The Argentine was
nothing loath, well knowing that every month strengthened the patriot
feeling among the coast Peruvians and brought him nearer his goal. San
Martin proposed that South America become a constitutional monarchy and
accept a Bourbon prince as its king in return for a recognition of its
independence--a concession which even the revolutionary Spanish
government could not confirm. The suggestion reflects little credit upon
the political acumen of the great Argentine general. San Martin, in
fact, seems never to have appreciated the motives and instincts which
had pushed the Creoles into rebellion. The revolutionary movement in
South America was in its essence separatist and republican; no monarch,
whether the scion of a European House, or a Bolivar trying to play the
rôle of a Napoleon, could ever have kept the Spanish colonies together.
The first six months of 1821 were consumed in these fruitless
negotiations, and by this time the position of the Spaniards at Lima had
become untenable. It was necessary for them to retire to the plateau,
where the sturdy natives furnished a supply of excellent recruits and
the mines, fields, and pastures would maintain an army. On July 6, 1821,
La Serna evacuated the capital and retired to Jauja, leaving a
well-provisioned garrison at Callao against the hoped-for arrival of a
fleet from Spain. Even then a dozen well-fought frigates might have
undone all San Martin's work and changed the fate of South America.
Three days later the Argentine general entered the city, and on the 28th
of July, 1821, Peru was proclaimed an independent republic, with San
Martin as temporary dictator under the title of Protector. During the
rest of the year he was occupied with trying to secure the adhesion of
the whole coast, and made no effort to undertake the redemption of the
interior. When the Frenchman Canterac, the most enterprising of the
Spanish commanders, made a descent on Lima, San Martin merely maintained
the defence, being well assured that the enemy must soon retire on
account of want of provisions. But he found himself hampered in
consolidating coast Peru by the fact that he was a foreigner. The
Peruvians were jealous and suspicious, and he feared that troops
recruited among them might turn their arms against him, while his
Argentine officers regarded the country as their own property, and
monopolised the positions of honour and profit to which the Peruvians
thought themselves more justly entitled.
Matters remained virtually at a standstill until the summer of 1822. San
Martin had been unable to make his position stable enough to justify his
devoting himself to military operations, nor had he succeeded in
gathering and equipping an army with which he was willing to undertake a
decisive campaign. Canterac even took the offensive, although he made no
effort to re-occupy permanently the coast plain. Outside help was
necessary, and San Martin, despairing of obtaining it from Chile or the
Argentine, turned his eyes to the north. Bolivar's battles of Boyacá and
Carabobo had redeemed northern Granada and Venezuela in 1819 and 1821,
and he was now advancing toward Quito to complete the expulsion of the
Spaniards from that viceroyalty. With a force of Colombians Sucré went
to Guayaquil by sea and climbed to the Ecuador plateau. Defeated and
driven back on his first attempt, he was reinforced by a division sent
by San Martin, and renewed the effort with better success. Although
Bolivar had in the meantime been checked in his southward march on Quito
by the loyalists of southern Colombia, Sucré alone destroyed the Spanish
army which had held Ecuador for so many years. The battle of Pichincha,
fought in May, 1822, left Bolivar and Sucré free to employ their
numerous and well-disciplined troops in completing the liberation of
Peru and Bolivia.
[Illustration: CHURCH OF SAN FRANCISCO IN LIMA.]
Bolivar joined his victorious lieutenant at Quito, incorporated Ecuador
with his new republic of Colombia, and proceeded overland to Guayaquil,
where San Martin lost no time in going to meet him for a conference. The
Argentine expected to find as unselfish a patriot as himself, but the
"liberator" was not single-minded. He had formed plans for his own glory
and aggrandisement to the accomplishment of which San Martin might be an
obstacle. When the latter broached the subject of a joint campaign
against the Spaniards in Peru and Bolivia, Bolivar gave him no
satisfaction, and evaded the Argentine's noble offer to serve in a
subordinate capacity. The silent soldier made no protest and uttered
no reproaches. Confiding not even in his closest friends, he calmly
considered his plight on his way back to Lima. His situation in Peru,
bad already, would be made ten times worse by Bolivar's intrigues.
Seeing that he could be of no further service to the cause of South
American independence, he formally resigned his authority to a national
congress, deliberately sacrificing his own future for the cause he
loved, but leaving behind him a name untarnished by any suspicion of
self-seeking or personal ambition.
Bolivar waited in vain for the expected invitation to come with his
veterans. The leaders in Peru did not propose to jeopard their own
supremacy. They thought they were strong enough to whip the Spaniards by
themselves, and made great efforts to drill and equip an efficient army.
By the end of the year four thousand men under the command of Alvarado
were sent to the southern coast to make an attempt to reach Lake
Titicaca and thereby get between the Spanish armies. It failed before
the astonishing energy of the Spanish general, Valdez, who by forced
marches reached the pass which the Peruvians were trying to climb, and
taking up a strong position, beat them back with great slaughter.
Alvarado retreated, but was caught by Valdez and completely routed;
hardly a third of the army escaped to the seashore. The news of this
defeat brought about a change of government at Lima. A revolution,
headed by the principal officers, made Riva Aguëro, the leader of the
Peruvian liberals, president, while General Santa Cruz, a Bolivian,
received chief command of the forces, in place of Arenales. Word was
sent to Bolivar that his offer of help would be accepted; and another
Peruvian army was recruited. Before the six thousand men promised by
Bolivar had arrived, the Peruvians had regained confidence. With the aid
of a London loan, the patriots got seven thousand soldiers ready for
service, and in May, 1823, five thousand men under the command of Santa
Cruz sailed from Callao for southern Peru. This time they advanced so
promptly that the Spanish generals could not get to the passes in time
to dispute the way. Santa Cruz entered La Paz and defeated the first
army which came against him. But the two main Spanish bodies hastened up
from Cuzco and Charcas, outmanoeuvred Santa Cruz, united their forces,
and routed his army in a panic, not a fourth ever reaching the seaboard.
Shortly after Santa Cruz's departure on this ill-fated expedition, Sucré
arrived at Lima with the first instalment of the promised Colombian
auxiliaries. The Spanish general, Canterac, had concentrated a large
army at Jauja and descended on the capital; Lima was denuded of Peruvian
troops; the government helpless against the Spaniards or Sucré. The
Colombian was made commander-in-chief, and retiring to the
fortifications of Callao before Canterac's overwhelming numbers,
procured Riva Aguëro's deposition and the nomination of one of his own
tools as nominal president, while he sent off an urgent message to
Bolivar to come in person. Canterac, after holding Lima for a few weeks,
went back to the mountains, and Bolivar himself landed at Callao on the
1st of September, almost at the very moment when Santa Cruz's army was
getting involved in that snarl out of which it never extricated itself.
The news of its destruction left Bolivar undisputed master of the
situation, and in February the submissive rump of the Peruvian
parliament conferred upon him an absolute dictatorship. He now devoted
all the wonderful energy with which nature had endowed him to
preparation for a campaign which he meant to be final; and united ten
thousand men under his command, two-thirds of whom were Colombian
veterans and the rest Peruvians, Argentines, and Chileans who fought for
the sheer love of fighting. His officers were the pick of South America,
men who had proven their bravery and skill on all the hundred
battle-fields from Venezuela to Chile. With such a force he did not
hesitate to attack the Spaniards, although the latter were nearly twice
as numerous.
Suddenly, however, his plans were seriously disturbed by a revolt of the
garrison in Callao castle--Argentines and Chileans who had not received
their pay. The mutineers hoisted the Spanish flag and sent word to
Canterac that he might come in and take possession. This event produced
a great sensation at Lima. Many citizens who distrusted Bolivar or were
fearful of the final result vacillated in their allegiance. Even men who
had been prominent liberals went over to the royalists. Bolivar
abandoned the capital and removed his base of operations to Trujillo,
three hundred miles north. But discouragement gave place to confident
enthusiasm when news came that the Spanish generals were fighting among
themselves. Olañeta, the renegade Argentine, who commanded in Bolivia,
had quarrelled with La Serna, whom he regarded as a pestilent liberal
and an enemy of the absolute pretensions of the Spanish king. The
viceroy sent Valdez against him, and some hard fighting had taken place,
when this fratricidal war was interrupted by the news of Bolivar's
preparations.
[Illustration: MILK-WOMAN OF LIMA ON HORSEBACK.]
Though just recovering from a dangerous illness, Bolivar lost no time in
taking advantage of Olañeta's revolt. His army numbered nine thousand
men; it was well supplied with cavalry, and the troops received their
liberal pay punctually. The patriots advanced rapidly and unopposed over
the Maritime Cordillera, covered by a cloud of Peruvian guerillas, under
whose protection Sucré marked out the daily route and brought in
provisions. The city of Pasco, just south of that transverse range which
forms the northern limit of the great Peruvian plateau, was reached and
Bolivar's army hastened south along the western shore of the lake of
Reyes to the marshy plain of Junin at its southern end, where he met
Canterac hurrying up from Jauja with a slightly inferior force.
When Bolivar caught sight of the royalist army he held his infantry back
in a defensible position, and sent his cavalry toward the enemy.
Canterac rashly charged in person at the head of all his cavalry, but
instead of the easy victory he expected, his squadrons were thrown into
some disorder when they encountered the patriot lancers. The latter,
however, were compelled to retreat, and fled into a defile, followed by
the royalists. The royalists did not notice that a Peruvian squadron had
been drawn aside, and scarcely were they in the defile than they were
charged from the rear. The fugitive patriots in front rallied, and the
disordered and huddled royalists, caught between two fires, could make
no effective resistance. They were quickly cut to pieces and driven from
the field. The whole affair had not lasted three-quarters of an hour;
the numbers engaged did not much exceed two thousand; the royalist loss
was only two hundred and fifty, yet this battle of Junin produced almost
decisive results. As the fugitive cavalry rode up to the protection of
the muskets of the infantry, the latter retreated. Though Canterac was
not pursued, he did not stop in his precipitate flight until he had
nearly reached Cuzco, five hundred miles away, losing two thousand men
by desertion on the road.
Leaving Sucré in command of the army, which now threatened Cuzco itself,
Bolivar returned to Lima to look after his political interests, collect
money, and urge the sending of reinforcements from Colombia. La Serna
called in all his outlying divisions, while Sucré confidently scattered
his forces. He underestimated the strength of the royalists, for to his
consternation La Serna suddenly broke out of Cuzco at the head of ten
thousand men, and before Sucré could concentrate, his opponent was
threatening his rear and manoeuvring to cut him off from his base.
Happily, the royalists were compelled to march in a semicircle, and
Sucré, by desperate exertions, united his forces and cut along the
radius, coming in sight of La Serna just as the latter had succeeded in
getting between him and the road to Jauja. Sucré's position was
desperate. The valleys to the north were rising in favour of the
royalists; a patriot column advancing from that direction to reinforce
him was driven back; his provisions and ammunition were beginning to
fail. Sucré's army was La Serna's real objective. Even if he could
shake off the pursuit, another march to Lima would be as barren of
results as Canterac's last descent, and to leave the Colombian army at
Guamanga would expose Cuzco and Bolivia to invasion. During three days
the opposing armies marched and counter-marched among the ravines on the
west bank of the Pampas River, and finally Sucré took the desperate
resolution of crossing the deep gorge in which the river runs in order
to reach the high grounds on the other side. He managed to get his main
body over safely, but the Spaniards fell upon his rearguard, killing
four hundred men and capturing one of his two cannon. The two armies
were now opposite each other on the high, narrow, and broken plateau
which lies between the Eastern and Central Cordilleras, separated only
by the gorge of the Pampas. They marched in plain sight of each other,
the royalists along the slopes of the Central Cordillera, while the
patriots skirted the foothills of the Eastern. Sucré hoped to outrun the
enemy and reach the main road to Jauja, but La Serna again outflanked
him; he offered battle, but the viceroy had determined to engage under
conditions where not a patriot could escape, and by skilful manoeuvres
the royal army succeeded in getting into the protection of the eastern
range at a point north of Sucré. Irretrievably cut off from the Jauja
road, convinced by his previous failures that he could not better his
position by any further manoeuvres, the Colombian general resolved again
to offer battle, although this time upon a field chosen by La Serna. He
ceased marching and allowed the enemy to dispose their forces at will.
On the 8th of September, 1824, La Serna's army, numbering eight thousand
five hundred men--of whom only five hundred were Spaniards--encamped on
the high grounds overlooking the little plain of Ayacucho, which sloped
gently eastward to the little village of Quinua. To the left the level
ground was bounded by a deep and precipitate ravine, and on the right by
a valley which, though less difficult, was impracticable for fighting.
Sucré's army lay at the eastern extremity of the plain, at the edge of
the slope which rises from Quinua. Behind was no cover to re-form in if
defeated. His forces were a little less than six thousand, and he had
only one cannon against the enemy's eleven, but three-fourths of his men
were the pick of the Colombian veterans and the rest Peruvians of the
highest spirit. Tired of interminable marching through the mountains,
isolated in a hostile region, starvation staring them in the face,
confident of their superiority, man for man, to the royalists, and led
by fiery young generals,--Sucré was only thirty-one and his chief
lieutenant twenty-five,--they welcomed the opportunity to fight it out
once for all, face to face and man to man.
The morning sun of the 9th rose radiant behind the mountains where the
Spaniards lay encamped. Sucré deployed his army in the open plain,
riding down the line exclaiming, "Soldiers, on your deeds this day
depends the fate of South America," while the Spanish columns descended
in perfect order from the heights. La Serna realised that his men would
not fight with the same spirit as the patriots and that defeat might be
followed by wholesale desertion, but he counted on his artillery and the
reserve he had left on the high ground as a sure refuge in case of a
reverse.
The story of the battle is soon told. The patriots advanced to meet the
Spanish attack; musketry volleys on both sides did terrific execution,
and the two armies met bayonet in hand. On the left the Spanish columns
were unable to make any impression on the Colombian infantry, and while
the conflict was still undecided the royalist cavalry rashly charged,
hoping to strike a deciding blow. But they were met by a counter-charge
of the patriot squadrons and rolled back in defeat. The whole left of
the royalist army dispersed, and such was the confusion that the
impetuously pursuing Colombians reached the Spanish camp and spiked the
artillery, defeating on their way the enemy's centre. In the meantime
the Spanish right under Valdez had outflanked the Peruvians who held
that part of the line and driven them back, but before he could reach
the patriot centre the battle had been decided. Attacked by the
victorious cavalry, Valdez's men were cut to pieces, and by one o'clock
in the after noon the Spanish army, except the reserve under Canterac,
had ceased to exist as an organised body. Of the royalists fourteen
hundred were dead and seven hundred wounded, while the patriots had lost
six hundred wounded and three hundred dead. The viceroy was wounded and
a prisoner, his men deserting and dispersing by hundreds. Canterac sued
for terms, and that afternoon fourteen generals, five hundred and
sixty-eight officers, and three thousand two hundred privates became
prisoners of war. Never was a victory more complete and decisive than
Ayacucho. The war for independence was over. Only under Olañeta in far
southern Bolivia and at Callao castle did a Spaniard remain under arms.
Sucré marched to Cuzco, where he rested and refitted and then went on to
Puno and La Paz. Olañeta's troops deserted as the Colombian approached,
and the last of the Spanish generals fell at the hands of his own men as
he was bravely trying to suppress a mutiny. Callao castle held out for
thirteen months, and with its surrender was hauled down the last Spanish
ensign which floated on the South American mainland.
CHAPTER VI
FROM INDEPENDENCE TO THE CHILEAN WAR
If ever country began an independent existence without any basis for a
strong, ordered, and stable government, that country was the Peru of
1826. The interior inhabited by Indians long held in abject subjection
by the Spanish generals, the long strip of coast divided by local and
factional jealousies, the nation had already miserably failed to unite
in face of defeats suffered from the Spaniards, or of the military
preponderance first of the Argentines and then of the Colombians.
In 1825 all thought of open resistance to Bolivar was manifest folly.
Peru was his to do with as he pleased. He went through the farce of
summoning a congress and offering to resign his dictatorship, but with
thousands of Colombian troops encamped at Lima, it was natural that he
should be begged to retain the direction of affairs on his own terms.
The "liberator" devoted all his energies to laying the foundations for a
great military confederation with himself as its life head. Venezuela,
New Granada, and Ecuador were already united under the name of the
United States of Colombia, of which he was president. He hoped to make
his tenure permanent by imposing an aristocratic and centralising
constitution providing for a life president. The submissive Peruvian
congress agreed to adopt his system, and the dictator set out on a
triumphal tour to put it in application in upper Peru. Travelling along
the coast to Arequipa, he crossed the Cordillera to La Paz, and thence
proceeded over the Titicacan plateau to Charcas and Potosí. There he
created a new nation which, in his honour, was named Bolivia; wrote its
Constitution with his own hand; and, having installed Sucré as life
president, returned to Lima at the beginning of 1826.
Apparently Bolivar's system was dominant from the Caribbean to the
Argentine pampas, and he regarded himself as certain soon to be virtual
emperor of all South America. But the instinct of local pride was
growing; the signs of Peru's wish to be rid of him could not be ignored,
and the new congress he had summoned was abruptly dismissed. In
September the news of disturbances in Venezuela, which foreshadowed the
breaking up of Colombia, made it necessary for Bolivar to hasten north.
He left General Lara at Lima, but that officer failed to keep the unruly
mercenaries upon whom his power depended in good humour. A mutiny broke
out; Lara was arrested and deported, and the mutineers entered into
negotiations with the Peruvian leaders. The money demanded was soon
raised and the Colombian soldiers shortly embarked, leaving the field
free for the local chiefs to fight among themselves for supreme power.
General Santa Cruz, though by birth a Bolivian, had great influence
anions the few Peruvian troops, and tried to forestall his competitors
by seizing the direction of affairs and summoning a congress, but
General La Mar, himself born at Cuenca in Ecuador, was stronger. The
latter secured the selection of his friends, and when congress met he
had a two-thirds majority and became president. So long as Sucré
remained in control of Bolivia there could, however, be no certainty
that Colombian rule might not be re-established, but he was already in
trouble on account of the mutinous disposition of his troops. When the
Peruvians sent against him a hastily gathered force he was compelled to
withdraw, the Bolivarian Constitution was abolished, and Santa Cruz made
himself supreme in Bolivia.
[Illustration: VILLAGE OF CHICLAY ON THE OROYA RAILWAY, 12,200 FEET
ABOVE THE SEA.]
Encouraged by this success, La Mar determined to wrest Guayaquil and
Cuenca from Colombia. Bolivar, already furious over the defection of
Peru and Bolivia, made a formal declaration of war, although he was too
much occupied with his own troubles in New Granada and Venezuela to go
in person to the frontier. General Flores, whom he had put in charge of
Ecuador, made preparations to resist La Mar, Sucré came to direct the
operations, a Peruvian naval expedition captured Guayaquil, and La Mar's
main army of four thousand men occupied the province of Loja and
penetrated within forty miles of Cuenca, only to be defeated. The
Peruvian president signed a treaty giving up his conquests, but he was
no sooner safe in his own country than he repudiated it and refused to
surrender Guayaquil. His defeat had, however, cost him his prestige at
home, and one of his generals, Gamarra, revolted and declared himself
dictator.
Gamarra had been chief of staff at Ayacucho; he was a good soldier, but,
like most of his companions, had no conception of constitutional
government, and thought the men whose bravery had redeemed Peru from the
Spaniards' _ipso facto_ entitled to govern. Force was the only method he
knew to secure obedience, and under his administration taxes were
arbitrarily increased, citizens exiled without trial, and the country
virtually governed by martial law. Until the last year of his
administration Gamarra held the country fairly quiet, but as the end of
his legal term in 1833 approached, the question of the succession
plunged Peru into an indescribable anarchy. Gamarra's enemies got
control of the assembly called to frame a permanent Constitution and
illegally named a president, while Gamarra proclaimed one of his own
partisans. Every military chief who could command the support of a few
soldiers acted on his own responsibility. Dictators and _soi-disant_
presidents were put up and pulled down one after another in a
bewildering succession. Orbegoso, La Fuente, Vista Florida, Nieto, San
Roman, Vidal, Gamarra, and Salaverry were each proclaimed supreme within
the next year. Combinations of the different chiefs formed, dissolved,
and re-formed with perplexing rapidity. Two bands would fight a bloody
battle one day and the next would fall into each other's arms and swear
eternal friendship.
Salaverry, a chief only thirty years old and remarkable for his dash and
energy, succeeded in establishing himself pretty firmly at Lima, while
Gamarra held Cuzco. Orbegoso, who had received a majority of votes in
congress, entered into negotiations with Santa Cruz, the strong dictator
of Bolivia, agreeing to everything to get help against Salaverry and
Gamarra. The wily Bolivian had planned to divide Peru and unite the
fragments with Bolivia into a confederation. At the head of five
thousand men he advanced on Cuzco and wiped out Gamarra. The fiery
Salaverry did not wait to be trapped at Lima, but left the capital with
his whole force and hastened south. Not daring to attack Santa Cruz's
vastly superior army, he slipped around to Arequipa, laying that unhappy
town under contribution and impressing its citizens into his army. The
Bolivians followed; he evacuated Arequipa, and evaded them for a time,
but they finally caught him as he was making a daring attempt to cut
their line of communication. His army was dispersed and destroyed and he
and his principal officers were taken prisoners and mercilessly shot.
It seemed as if Peru might now, under the strong rule of Santa Cruz,
enjoy the peace and order with which he had blessed Bolivia. The country
was partitioned, Orbegoso becoming sub-president of North Peru, which
included Lima, and General Herrera of South Peru. Santa Cruz was
proclaimed protector of the Peru-Bolivian confederation and the new
government formally inaugurated in the fall of 1836. He was an able and
laborious administrator, zealous for economy and purity in public
affairs, a friend of orderly government, a ruler who knew how to
organise an efficient army while maintaining it in due subordination.
But from the beginning it was evident that he held supremacy by a very
uncertain tenure. The Peruvian military classes, so long and so
absolutely dominant, were unanimously against him and his methods. The
mercantile, professional, and moneyed classes were bound by a hundred
ties to the officers, and the agricultural peasantry, composed of
Indians and negroes, took no part in public affairs. Sooner or later he
must have come again into conflict with men of the Gamarra-Salaverry
type, but the immediate peril was from Chile, whose power and
energy--great even then, but so far unknown and underestimated--were
thrown into the balance against him. The civil war of 1831 had resulted
in the defeat of the Chilean liberals, and Freire, their leader, had
fled to Peru and there received aid and comfort. The Chilean
remonstrances remained unnoticed, and Santa Cruz's commercial policy was
adverse. The defeated Peruvian generals swarmed into Chile and promised
to aid an invasion.
The Chilean aristocracy could not resist this temptation to make their
country the dominant power on the Pacific coast, and without any warning
their ships sailed up from Valparaiso and captured the Peruvian fleet at
Callao. This left the way clear to land troops on the Bolivian or
Peruvian coasts. The first expedition went against the province of
Arequipa. It landed without resistance and climbed to the city, while
Santa Cruz's army maintained a defensive attitude. Lack of provisions
soon compelled the Chilean general to promise that the war should not be
renewed if he were allowed to depart. His government refused to ratify
this agreement, and sent another expedition to the neighbourhood of
Lima, which was accompanied by Gamarra and a large number of Peruvian
exiles. Orbegoso declared his independence of Santa Cruz and gave
battle to the Chileans on his own responsibility, but was defeated and
fled to Guayaquil.
A year elapsed before Santa Cruz could march an adequate army to the
neighbourhood of Lima. As he approached, Gamarra and the Chileans
evacuated the capital, retiring up the coast, whither the Bolivians
followed. Repulsed in an attack on the rearguard of the fleeing allies,
and feeling that he could not rely upon the Peruvians in his army, he
took the defensive and posted his forces near the town of Yungay,
occupying a hill called the Sugar Loaf. The allies stormed this hill by
a brilliant assault in which they suffered greatly, but their unexpected
success completely demoralised Santa Cruz's army. His men scattered in
all directions, and though he escaped with his life, his prestige was
destroyed. Gamarra became president of Peru, Bolivia revolted, and Santa
Cruz made his way to a European exile.
During two years Gamarra kept his turbulent rivals in check, but he then
rashly undertook a campaign against Bolivia, giving as a pretext the
refusal of its government to expel the old adherents of Santa Cruz. The
Peruvian army advanced into Bolivian territory, only to be overthrown in
the bloody battle of Yngavi. Gamarra was killed and his best officers
taken prisoners. The Bolivians made a counter-invasion, but a treaty of
peace was soon signed. The removal of the common danger was the starting
signal for a race to power among the Peruvian generals. Each of them had
raised troops on his own account and now proposed to use them for his
own benefit. They ignored the claims of Gamarra's constitutional
successor. La Fuente, Vivanco, and Vidal formed an alliance and
proclaimed the latter dictator; Torico seized Lima and declared himself
supreme chief; Vidal hastened down from Guamanga and defeated him; then
Vivanco rebelled against Vidal and in his turn descended on the capital.
Twenty years of independence had brought Peru no nearer a stable
government. Anarchy and civil war had been her lot, and the situation
seemed to grow more desperate year by year. The country's only hope was
a man in whom military talent would be combined with such strength of
will and pertinacity of purpose that he would crush out lesser despots
and restore and maintain order by the strong hand.
[Illustration: DON RAMON CASTILLA]
The Porfirio Diaz of Peru was at hand, a little, quiet, rough, and
unpretentious soldier, who for twenty years had been modestly doing his
duty, observing events and slowly maturing in character. All Peruvians
knew him as one of the heroes of Ayacucho, but none appreciated his
latent possibilities, and he had been passed by while his more showy
companions of that historic day had pushed themselves to the front.
Ramon Castilla had been a colonel on Gamarra's staff at Ayacucho,
and was rewarded by being appointed prefect of his native
province--Tarapaca, the most southern part of Peru. About 1830 he began
to take part in the civil wars, but he never started a revolution on his
own account, and always seems to have chosen the side that best promised
stability and respect for the Constitution. To Orbegoso. Castilla was
long faithful but abandoned him when he made alliance with the
Bolivians. He went into exile when Santa Cruz was victorious, and
returned with Gamarra and the Chileans. At the battle of Yungay he
commanded the Peruvian contingent of the allied cavalry, and when
Gamarra became president gave him his adhesion; but was taken prisoner
at the fatal battle of Yngavi, where his chief was killed. Returning
from captivity he found Peru torn to pieces by the armed rivalry of
contending generals, and Menendez, the legal president, a fugitive.
Unhesitatingly he threw himself into the conflict against those whose
claims rested on their own pronunciamentos. Landing at Arica with only
five men, his cool audacity saved his life in the first attack; his
little band increased; Vivanco's partisans were confounded by the
rapidity of his movements; their opponents hastened to join him.
Castilla obtained control of Arequipa and Cuzco, and finally, in July,
1844, completely overthrew Vivanco's army, putting an end to the civil
war. The first use he made of his victory was to declare a general
amnesty; the second to restore Menendez to the position of acting
president. The latter called a convention, and ten months later Castilla
was elected president of Peru without opposition.
The country realised at once that it was in the hands of a master--a man
strong enough to be generous, but with whom it was not safe to trifle.
Almost instantaneously commerce felt the impulse which assured peace
always gives. The turbulent military leaders found their occupation
slipping away, while the orderly elements of the community grew in
power. At heart the vast majority of the people were law-abiding, and
the class which promoted revolutions was numerically an insignificant
element of the population. But it was not alone Castilla's personal
force of character, his shrewdness as a politician, his prestige as a
general, his popularity so nobly won by generosity and moderation, which
made his position secure. At the moment he assumed supreme power
bountiful Providence placed in his hands riches untold. Holding the
strings of a purse into which poured the millions from the guano and
nitrate deposits, he could reward his friends, keep his troops contented
by regular pay, relieve agriculture of taxation, place the disordered
finances on a sound footing, and promote general prosperity by works of
public utility. Europe suddenly realised the value of the bird manure
found on the desert islands of the Peruvian coast, and soon hundreds of
ships were coming annually to load the precious fertiliser.
Instead of squandering this fairy gift on the enrichment of his
creatures, or on the creation of a vast, useless, and wasteful swarm of
office-holders,--the hardest of all temptations for a South American
politician to resist,--Castilla paid interest on the foreign debt which
Peru had incurred during the war of independence, and refunded it, with
the accrued interest, that already amounted to more than the principal.
The internal debt was also consolidated, care being taken to admit no
fictitious claims; telegraphs and railways were constructed; steam
vessels added to the navy; and all legitimate branches of the
administration adequately provided for. But the moment Castilla's strong
hand was removed, extravagance and corruption grew to alarming
proportions. Under General Echenique, his successor, public offices and
pensions were multiplied; concessions were granted not to promote
honestly new industries, but to favourites to be sold for what they
would bring; and finally a measure was rushed through congress to extend
the time fixed by Castilla for presenting claims to be funded in the
internal debt. It was openly charged that the ministerial ring had
arranged to put themselves on the roll of national creditors. Public
opinion was scandalised, and the discontent and jealousy soon showed
itself in open revolt. The first insurrection was suppressed, but in the
beginning of 1854 Castilla decided to put himself at the head of the
movement against Echenique. Though the government regulars were better
armed and provided than the militia which rallied around Castilla, the
latter advanced from one position to another and finally overthrew the
president in the decisive battle of La Palma. Echenique fled the country
and Castilla assumed the reins of power once more, not to lay them down
until 1862, when he voluntarily retired to private life. His second
administration was as orderly as his first except for a local
insurrection at Arequipa. He was not, however, so successful in
restraining the predatory disposition of the Peruvian politicians and
was unable to restore the administration to its old economical basis.
The eighteen years of almost uninterrupted peace which elapsed between
the beginning of Castilla's first administration and his retirement
changed the face of Peru. A generation had grown up to whom the early
years of independence were only a tradition. War, age, banishment,
discouragement had thinned the ranks of the Ayacucho veterans, and the
days were gone when one of them had merely to issue a pronunciamento to
be forthwith hailed as president, dictator, supreme chief, protector,
regenerator, by a turbulent soldiery and a fickle, ambitious Creole
aristocracy. Peru's subsequent troubles have been financial, not
military.
In 1860 the Constitution which still governs the country was adopted.
Framed under Castilla's influence it retains the centralised system of
provincial government through prefects appointed from Lima, and gives
the executive preponderant powers, although it is liberal and humane in
its guaranties to the citizen. Slavery and Indian tribute, which
continued to exist until 1855, are forbidden; forced recruiting, the
scourge of old revolutionary days, is a crime; all Peruvians who can
read and write, who own property or pay taxes, are entitled to vote.
Castilla was succeeded by his old friend and companion in arms, General
San Roman, a straightforward soldier who resembled his chief in his
unquestioning obedience to lawful authority, but whose unfortunate death
six months after his inauguration prevented him from demonstrating
whether he possessed the same statesmanlike qualities. Vice-President
Pezet peacefully took his place. Castilla had encouraged foreign
immigration into the coast valleys, so admirably adapted to cotton and
sugar, but where labour was scarce. Chinese coolies had come in large
numbers, and the flattering offers had also attracted some Europeans.
Among the latter were seventy Basque families, who shortly claimed that
they were badly treated. Making a protest against a breach of contract
committed by the proprietor of the estate on which they were working,
they were attacked and some of them killed. The criminals escaped
punishment, and the Spanish government made an international question of
the affair, finally demanding an apology and three millions of dollars
as indemnity. This being refused Spain broke off diplomatic relations
and sent a powerful fleet, which seized the Chincha guano islands. Too
weak alone to bid defiance to the Spanish ships, Pezet temporised,
meanwhile asking Chile for help, and hoping for the early arrival of
war-ships ordered in Europe. But the Spaniards pressed him so hard that
he thought himself forced to yield to their demands. He concluded an
agreement derogatory to the national honour, and a terrific outburst of
public indignation followed. Prado, prefect of Arequipa, made
preparations to march on Lima and depose the pusillanimous president;
the Chileans, who had meantime determined to join in resistance to
Spanish aggression, supported the insurrection; the terrible old
Castilla went himself to the presidential mansion and gave Pezet a sound
rating. The latter gave in and offered his resignation. Prado became
supreme chief, issued a declaration of war against Spain, and signed a
treaty of alliance with Chile. During the absence of the Spanish fleet
the batteries at Callao were heavily reinforced, and an immense force of
volunteers flocked to man the guns. When the Spanish ships appeared and,
gallantly running into range, opened fire on the 2d of May, 1866, they
were met by a determined resistance. Though the Peruvians suffered most
severely--two thousand being killed and wounded--their opponents were
unable to effect a landing or obtain the slightest concession, and their
ships were so badly damaged that they abandoned further hostilities.
Prado now found that the unconstitutional character of his position had
only temporarily been ignored when he attempted to hold the power
against General Canseco, second vice-president, who was Pezet's lawful
successor. Castilla, now over seventy years old, landed in his native
province, determined to unseat him. But the enfeebled frame of the aged
warrior was unable to withstand fatigues and he died of exposure on the
march. Canseco, however, roused Arequipa. Prado failed to take the place
by assault, and gave up further opposition. Meanwhile Colonel Balta had
headed a formidable insurrection in the north, and though Canseco was
allowed to fill out his legal term, Balta's friends controlled the
electoral college, and he was inaugurated president in August, 1868.
With his accession Peru entered definitely upon a new era. The race for
fortune absorbed the energies of the ruling class; cane and cotton
planting, nitrate mining, railroad building under foreign direction,
opened up vistas of profit without labour; social and civil intrigue
replaced fighting and pronunciamentos. Castilla's liberal refunding of
the old debt, the scrupulous regularity with which international
obligations had been met, and the immense and increasing revenue from
nitrate and guano, gave Peru credit in the money markets of Europe.
Balta and his advisers were full of schemes for the material progress of
the country and their own enrichment. A great railway system was
projected and more than two thousand miles constructed at a cost of near
forty million pounds. Enormous sums were spent on port works; expensive
moles and piers built in the wave-lashed roadsteads which are Peru's
only harbours; for the first time serious efforts were made to explore
and develop the forested plain east of the Andes; the city of Iquitos
was built at the head of deep-water navigation on the Amazon;
office-holders multiplied; and new parks and public buildings
embellished the cities. English capitalists eagerly took the bonds which
the Peruvian government recklessly issued, and the foreign debt
increased from five millions sterling to forty-nine millions before the
end of Balta's term--a sum upon which two-thirds of the gross revenue
would hardly suffice to pay interest. Such a debt was truly stupendous
for a country most of whose population of scant two millions and a half
was poor, non-commercial, non-industrial, and without other resources
than a rude agriculture. Leaving out the proceeds of the guano monopoly
and the nitrate royalties, the total revenues could not pay the
interest.
[Illustration: STATUE OF BOLIVAR--LIMA, PERU]
Don Manuel Pardo, Peru's first civilian president, had already been
constitutionally selected as Balta's successor, and the latter was
within a few days of the end of his term, when a terrible catastrophe
happened. Among the poor relations whom the luckless president had
preferred to positions in the army were four brothers named
Gutierrez--the sons of a muleteer near Arequipa. Suddenly one brother
appeared at the head of his battalion and took possession of the great
square in the centre of the capital, while another forced his way into
the president's study, revolver in hand, arrested the chief of state,
and locked him up. Warned in time the president-elect escaped on board a
man-of-war, and the eldest Gutierrez was proclaimed supreme chief. The
people of Lima soon recovered from their stupefaction and a scene of
terrific street-fighting followed. One of the conspirators was shot by
the mob as he went to the railway station on his way to Callao. His
brothers retaliated by murdering the captive president, but they soon
fell before the rifles of the populace. Their bodies were hung up in the
cathedral by the infuriated people, while the president-elect returned
and assumed his functions.
Pardo's four years were one continual struggle against impending
bankruptcy. Though he brought some order into public accounts, it was
only by all sorts of expedients that he managed to keep up interest
payments. He easily suppressed an insurrection led by Pierola in 1874;
his intellectual and moral force united about him the educated and
property-holding classes in a party which survives to this day; and he
left the reputation of having been the best president who ever ruled
Peru. However, no efforts could avail more than merely to put off the
evil day of reckoning. The rapid exhaustion of the guano deposits
precipitated the disaster. Payment of interest was suspended in 1876 and
the same year Pardo turned over the government to General Prado with the
currency at fifty-per-cent. discount and Peruvian bonds selling in
London at twelve.
CHAPTER VII
THE CHILEAN WAR AND LATTER-DAY PERU
The nitrate region extends along the narrow desert coast of the Pacific
for three hundred and fifty miles. Peru owned the northern one hundred
and fifty, and prior to 1866 Bolivia claimed the remainder. After the
discovery of the precious mineral the industrious and energetic Chileans
crowded up the coast, while the Bolivians were shut in behind their high
Andes. Chile insisted that her true boundary lay as far north as the 23d
degree, and took vigorous measures to safeguard the interests of the
Chilean nitrate companies. In 1866 Bolivia reluctantly made a treaty by
which the 24th degree was agreed upon as the formal boundary, although
the Chilean miners were allowed to continue their operations in the
productive regions north of that line and their taxes were not to be
increased without their government's consent. This treaty gave rise to
constant disputes, and as the nitrate, silver, and copper business of
the neutral zone became more profitable, the Bolivian government pressed
harder for a larger revenue. The Peruvian government had planned to
secure a control of the output by the state purchase and operation of
nitrate properties, and such a trust would prove ineffective unless the
Bolivian government had a free hand with the Chilean companies. In 1872
Peru and Bolivia made a secret treaty of alliance. Its provisions soon
became public, and Chile not unreasonably believed it to be aimed
especially at her miners' operating on Bolivian soil. She promptly began
purchasing iron-clads. It was a favourite saying of old Marshal Castilla
that when Chile bought a battle-ship Peru should buy two, but the Lima
government was too poor to follow the good advice, and the fatal year of
1879 found her naval force inferior to that of her rival.
At this juncture the Bolivian congress voted not to ratify a treaty
negotiated with Chile four years before, and passed a law imposing heavy
taxes on the nitrate business. The Chilean companies protested and
resisted; their government backed them up, and sent a fleet to protect
their interests. Enraged at the seizure of her ports, Bolivia declared
war in March, 1879. Peru could not be expected to remain quiet. Not only
was she bound by the solemn agreement of the treaty of alliance, but she
had an imperative selfish interest in preventing the disputed nitrate
territory from falling into Chile's hands. She began to gather an army
on the southern frontier, but she was illy prepared for war and Chile
knew it. Her offers of arbitration were promptly rejected; the Chilean
government had determined to strike both allies at the same time, and
presented an ultimatum, demanding that Peru abrogate the secret treaty,
cease warlike preparations, and remain neutral in the war with Bolivia.
Failing immediate and categorical compliance war was declared in April.
What had proven true in the time of Pizarro, San Martin, and Santa Cruz,
was still true--the successful invasion or defence of Peru depended on
the control of the Pacific. Whichever power should obtain a naval
preponderance would surely get the nitrate territory--a rainless,
cropless region where an army must be sustained by supplies brought by
sea--and then could attack the other at its capital. Chile had two new
iron-clads, the _Cochrane_ and the _Blanco_, besides two good cruisers
and several gunboats. The two Peruvian iron-clads, the _Huascar_ and the
_Independencia_, were older, though their speed was superior. The
Chileans opened the war on the ocean by blockading the Peruvian ports in
the extreme south, but Miguel Grau, the able seaman and intrepid fighter
who commanded the Peruvian fleet, at once attacked the Chilean cruisers
which were lying off Iquique. The _Huascar_ rammed and sank the
_Esmeralda_, but while his other iron-clad was pursuing the _Covadonga_,
she ran upon the rocks and was lost. This was in reality a deathblow to
Peru, but the gallant Grau devotedly determined to see what his single
ship, rapidly manoeuvred, could do to make unsafe the embarkation of a
Chilean army. For four months he terrorised the coast from Antofagasta
to Valparaiso. Chile could not take a step until she had disposed of
Grau and his dreaded _Huascar_. The blockade of Iquique was abandoned
as useless; the iron-clads ordered back to Valparaiso to be cleaned and
repaired so that they might match the _Huascar_ in speed; new officers
were put in command; and on October the first the Chilean fleet set sail
from Valparaiso on a systematic chase for the Peruvian iron-clad. On
reaching Antofagasta it was divided into two squadrons, the _Cochrane_
leading one and the _Blanco_ the other, and they immediately began
patrolling the coast.
The _Huascar_, accompanied by a consort, the _Union_, was cruising in
the neighbourhood, and at daylight on the 8th of October the first
Chilean division sighted her. Grau fled, and was gradually drawing away
from his pursuers when, to his horror, three columns of smoke appeared
on the horizon directly forward. He was caught between the two Chilean
squadrons. The _Union_ had speed enough to slip by the enemy, but the
_Huascar_ was too slow. Grau's only chance was to close with the
_Cochrane_ before the _Blanco_ could come up astern, and he went
straight for the former. At half past nine the _Huascar_ fired the first
shot, the distance being about three thousand yards. It fell short and
only the fourth shot took effect. The _Cochrane_ then replied, and
though the practice on both sides was wild, the two ships soon came so
close that the machine guns were brought into effective play. A shot
disabled the _Huascar's_ turret, and in desperation Grau tried
repeatedly to ram, but was foiled by the quick turns which the
_Cochrane's_ twin screws enabled her to make. Just half an hour after
the action began a shell struck his conning-tower, blowing the heroic
Peruvian into atoms. A few minutes later the _Blanco_ came up and added
her missiles to the storm of shots which the _Cochrane_ and the smaller
consorts were pouring upon the doomed _Huascar_. Nevertheless no one
thought of striking. Hardly had Grau been blown to pieces than the
executive officer had his head taken clean off by a shell from the
_Blanco_, and the officer next in seniority was severely wounded. A few
moments later the lieutenant who succeeded to the command was killed,
and his successor, in turn, was wounded before the end of the action.
When the ship finally struck, an hour and a half after the first shot
was fired, one of the juniors was in command, and sixty-four of the
complement of one hundred and ninety-three officers and men lay killed
or wounded on the deck.
The Chileans were now in absolute control of the sea, and could land an
army when and where they pleased. The Bolivian sea-coast, inhabited
almost exclusively by Chilean miners, and inaccessible overland from
Bolivia proper, had fallen into Chile's hands at the opening of the war,
but Grau's success in immobilising the Chilean navy had been taken
advantage of by the Peruvians to ship nine thousand troops to their own
nitrate province, where they could conveniently attack the Chileans who
occupied the Bolivian territory to their south, or defend their own most
valuable piece of property. But although this army was in Peruvian
territory the naval victory of the Chileans isolated it almost
completely. A hundred miles of rough, rainless desert, intercepted by
deep ravines transverse to the coast, separated it from Tacna, where
fertile valleys begin and communication with the rest of Peru becomes
possible.
By the end of October the Chilean army embarked at Antofagasta ten
thousand strong and well provided with cavalry and the most modern
artillery. Of Iquique and Pisagua, the two principal ports of the
Peruvian nitrate country, the latter, which lies forty miles north of
the former, was chosen as the less likely to be defended in force. Only
a thousand men were found, who, in spite of a gallant resistance from
their two small batteries and their rifle pits, were unable to prevent
the landing of the Chileans protected by a tremendous fire from the
fleet. Driven from the town the Peruvians could not even hold the top of
the precipitous bluff until the arrival of reinforcements from Iquique.
The Chileans relentlessly pushed their advantage and soon were in
possession of the railroad for fifty miles into the interior and had six
thousand men entrenched on a hill called San Francisco. Abundantly
supplied with provisions and water they could afford to wait, while the
allies, cut off from communications, must either attack at once or
abandon the province. The Peruvian general chose the former alternative,
but his troops arrived in front of San Francisco exhausted and thirsty
after a twenty-miles' march across the dry desert. Only a small part of
the army took part in the assault, and it was easily repulsed.
Disheartened the allies fell back to the foot of the giant range which
inexorably barred their way to the east, and after a few days of
suffering from hunger and thirst, took their way north among the barren
foothills. The enemy sent a detachment to harass their march, but they
turned on their pursuers and defeated them, and reached Tacna province
hungry, ragged, half-armed, and generally demoralised.
Not only was the great nitrate province, the treasury of Peru,
irretrievably lost, but every point on the coast, including Lima itself,
laid open to attack. President Prado left the army at Tacna, went to
Lima, and thence sailed for Europe, announcing that he was going to buy
iron-clads. Hardly was he on board ship when a revolution broke out in
the capital, and the restless Pierola, who had headed the latest
attempts at insurrection, declared himself supreme chief. The Bolivians
also deposed their unsuccessful president. Peru's revolutionary
government, rushed into power on a wave of wounded national pride,
embodied the more than Spanish haughtiness of the Creole aristocracy,
and refused all concessions. The allies still had a large army at Tacna,
not too demoralised to make a creditable resistance, although it was cut
off from easy communication with the rest of Peru and Bolivia, and stood
badly in need of arms, clothing, and ammunition. The Chilean ships
blockaded Arica, the Tacna port, but the fast _Union_ again showed her
heels to the enemy's whole fleet, ran the blockade, and landed stores
which put the allied army on a fighting footing.
Late in February, 1880, the Chileans disembarked a fine army of
fourteen thousand men at a seaport sixty miles north of the allies' main
position, and lost no time in occupying the interior as far as Moquegua
at the foot of the Andes. Their first object was to cut the allied
armies off from any communication with their respective countries. A
small Peruvian force made an attempt to hold Torata, a point
strategically important because it commanded the entrance into the Andes
from Bolivia and Peru, but was unsuccessful. The allied armies were now
bottled up in a little valley where provisions would surely shortly
fail. The Chileans advanced south across the desert upon Tacna, and the
allies took a strong defensive position on a ridge, flanked by steep
ravines, with a sloping glacis in front. Vastly superior in artillery,
though only slightly outnumbering the allies, the Chileans thought
themselves justified in assaulting the position. They opened the battle
by a cannonade in which their magnificent Krupp guns did terrific
execution, and under cover of the fire the infantry advanced in four
columns of twenty-four hundred men each. Approaching the trenches they
were met by a storm of rifle bullets through which they charged bayonet
in hand.
Meanwhile the allies on the crest of the sand-hills suffered terribly
from the plunging artillery fire. The Bolivians, holding the weakest
part of the line, bore the brunt of the attack. Once the Chileans
wavered, but a supporting cavalry charge quickly drove back the
advancing enemy, and after two hours of desperate fighting the sturdy
Bolivian Indians gave way, their position was carried, and the allied
army fled all along the line. Though the Chileans had lost over two
thousand, the losses of the allies were greater. No way of retreat lay
open; they scattered in confusion; and their army virtually ceased to
exist. A couple of thousand Peruvians held out in Arica for a month,
deliberately devoting themselves to certain death, but the place was
carried by an assault in which quarter was neither given nor asked.
Peru now lay helpless at the mercy of the Chilean armies and fleet. The
ports were blockaded and bombarded, while expeditions ravaged the
fertile coast valleys. Nevertheless the Peruvians would not yield. The
United States offered her mediation, and plenipotentiaries met to see if
terms of peace could be arranged. Chile demanded the formal cession of
the nitrate territory and an indemnity. The Peruvians refused such hard
terms, hoping against hope for foreign intervention. This passive
obstinacy enraged the Chilean government, and after a delay of several
months it was determined to capture the capital and dictate terms at
Lima. Late in December, 1880, a splendidly equipped army of twenty-six
thousand men landed a short distance south of Lima and marched on the
city. Only a few fragments of the Peruvian regular army had survived the
defeats in the south, but the population rallied _en masse_ to resist
the invaders. At Chorrillos, a few miles south of Lima, the militia
waited behind a hastily constructed line of defence. The assault of the
Chilean regulars was irresistible; four thousand Peruvians perished, and
as many more were taken prisoners. The survivors fell back on a second
line of defence, only six miles from Lima, and were there defeated in a
second battle in which two thousand were killed and wounded. The Chilean
losses in the two fights reached five thousand. On the following day the
mayor of Lima formally surrendered the city, and on the 17th of January
the Chilean army took possession. The helpless citizens were required to
make up a contribution of a million dollars a month; the customs duties
were confiscated, and the Chileans violated all the rules of civilised
warfare by wantonly destroying the great and valuable public
library--the best in South America.
Pierola escaped to Guamanga, but succeeded in rallying no forces. He
gave it up and went to Europe. It became necessary to organise a
government which could treat for peace. The citizens of Lima, with the
consent of Chile, made Garcia Calderon provisional president, but when
the discussion of terms began the Chileans repeated their demand for the
unconditional cession of the nitrate territory, and Calderon did not
dare assent. The enemy sent him prisoner to Santiago, while Iglesias in
the northern departments, Caceres in the centre, and Carrillo in the
south each kept up an independent resistance with a few militia. The
Chileans made no serious attempt to conquer the interior, contenting
themselves with pocketing the Peruvian customs revenues. This situation
lasted two years and a half, until Iglesias came to the conclusion that
peace could only be obtained by complete submission. Caceres was,
however, resolved upon further resistance and quarrelling with Iglesias,
advanced into the latter's territory. He was intercepted by a Chilean
expedition and his forces destroyed. This left Iglesias a clear field;
he declared himself president and entered into negotiations with the
Chileans, arranging a treaty of peace which was signed on the 20th of
October, 1883. Five days later the Peruvian flag was once more hoisted
in the capital. Sporadic risings against Iglesias were easily suppressed
by Chilean bayonets; four thousand men remained to see that the treaty
was ratified, and a convention finally ratified it in March. Its
provisions differed little from the demands made by Chile three years
before. The money indemnity was waived and half the guano proceeds were
left to Peru's creditors. On the other hand, the provinces of Tacna and
Arica were to be held by Chile for ten years, and at the end of that
time a popular vote would decide who should retain them, the losing
country receiving ten million dollars from the other. Better far for the
interests of permanent peace had the fate of the provinces been
definitely determined. Chile and Peru have never been able to agree upon
the terms under which the plebiscite should be conducted; the former
still retains the provinces and the latter still agitates for their
recovery.
No sooner had the Chilean army left than Caceres began a civil war to
oust Iglesias. For eighteen months the fighting continued with varying
fortunes, but in December, 1885, Caceres surprised Lima when undefended;
Iglesias resigned; a general amnesty was proclaimed, and peace was
restored to the distracted country. A junta assumed power and in the
election which followed Caceres was chosen president, and in the middle
of 1886 he entered upon the dreary task of re-organising Peru. The
treasury was empty, the population had been decimated by a horribly
destructive war during four years, the flourishing coast valleys with
their cotton and sugar plantations had been laid under contribution, the
mines had ceased to be worked, the guano and nitrate revenue was gone,
the country was weighed down with a debt which could never be paid, and
foreign creditors pressed for a settlement utterly beyond the abilities
of the impoverished country. Rigid economies were enforced in all
departments of the administration, but the most that could be hoped was
to meet ordinary expenditure.
Peru had nothing to offer towards the immense foreign debt except her
railways, and the British creditors finally agreed to the Grace
contract, by which she was released from all responsibility for a sum
amounting to over fifty millions sterling, in return for the cession of
the state railways, the payment of eighty thousand pounds annually, and
certain rights to the guano deposits, mines, and public lands. British
pressure induced Chile to give up a large proportion of the guano
proceeds, and in 1890 the contract was ratified and the "Peruvian
Corporation" took over the vast properties conceded. Though disputes
have arisen from time to time, the corporation has made some progress in
extending lines to open up the mineral wealth on the plateau, and a
successful beginning has been made toward the exploitation of the rubber
forests of the Amazon plain. It cannot be doubted that the industrial
development of Peru must be greatly aided by the existence of this
gigantic private enterprise which will apply the energy and economy
characteristic of individual enterprise to undertakings governmental in
magnitude.
[Illustration: GENERAL DON ANDRES A. CACERES]
Caceres made no change in the centralised system of government by
prefects,--and the administrative fabric survived, substantially
untouched, the horrors of the Chilean war and the fighting between rival
chiefs. Liberal tendencies were shown in efforts to place the Indians on
an equal political footing with the Peruvians of Spanish descent,
although naturally the Creole aristocracy still dominates by reason of
its intelligence. Considerable dissatisfaction was felt with Caceres'
management of finances, but in 1890 he was succeeded by his friend,
Colonel Bermudez, who continued his policy. Unfortunately for the peace
of the country the latter died in 1893. His legal successor was Solar,
first vice-president, but an intrigue in the cabinet prevented the
latter's peaceable recognition. Caceres' influence was dominant in the
administration, and a semblance of an election recalled him to power.
General Pierola, who had led two unsuccessful insurrections--those of
1874 and 1878--and who had got power in 1880, only to lose it after the
fall of Lima, saw his opportunity. Solar joined forces with him and
revolt broke out against Caceres. The latter had completely lost the
popularity won as the most determined champion of the national rights
against Chilean aggression; his administration was bad; the public
employees were unpaid; the meagre resources of the country were wasted
on his favourites. Though his troops were at first successful against
Pierola's and Solar's hasty levies, the revolution recovered from each
defeat until finally the insurrectionists entered Lima itself. The
enemies of Caceres within the town arose and for two days its streets
were the scene of bloody barricade fighting. Rarely does a civilised
city pass through such a frightful experience as Lima on the 18th of
July, 1895. There had been no time to extinguish the street lamps, and
all night long the bands of revolutionists advanced, fighting by the
lights which brightly illumined the carnage except where extinguished by
rifle balls. Though his forces were gradually driven back, Caceres
stubbornly refused to resign, and at last only yielded to the urgent
representations of the foreign ministers, leaving power in the hands of
a junta.
With his withdrawal peace was restored, except for the resistance which
his partisans kept up for a short time in Arequipa, and this peace has
never since been disturbed. The junta served until an election could be
held, in which Pierola was chosen president by an overwhelming and
really popular majority. In 1899 he was succeeded by Romana, an engineer
who had been a member of the outgoing ministry, and he, in his turn, had
as successor, Señor Candamo, who took his seat in 1903. Historically the
new president represents the old aristocratic party founded by Pardo--a
party which had been pushed to one side in the financial confusion which
preceded and the civil disorders which succeeded the terrible Chilean
war by the more radical and democratic elements known as Pierolistas and
constitutionalists. The return to a participation in affairs of elements
which include so large a proportion of the intelligence, self-respect,
and wealth of the nation is one of the most hopeful signs of the times.
The Peruvian aristocracy has learned its lesson in the hard school of
adversity, and vies with the commercial classes in sober, serious
attention to industrial and governmental matters. Each division of the
people seems to wish to bear its share in the financial, political, and
moral regeneration of their country.
Peruvian politics are conducted _en famille_. Economic and social
questions are discussed and settled amicably among the ruling coteries
and do not as in Europe and North America form the basis for the
organisation of political parties. Though the country is steadfastly
Catholic, clericalism is not, as in Ecuador, Colombia, and Bolivia,
regarded as a menace by those who hold liberal views, and the provinces
have never made any insistent demand for a larger share of autonomy, as
in Argentina and Colombia. As a rule the elections are free and
translate the popular will. Peru has long since passed the stage of
pronunciamentos and military government; since Castilla's time the
successful revolutions have been few, and have always been undertaken
for the maintenance of the regular constitutional order--not its
overthrow--or have been inspired by national feeling when the fatherland
was in danger.
[Illustration: PERU]
CHILE
CHAPTER I
THE SPANISH CONQUEST
About a century before Pizarro landed, Tupac Yupanqui, the greatest of
the Inca conquerors, crossed the rough mountains, bleak plateaux, and
waterless deserts which lie between the habitable part of Bolivia and
the irrigable valleys of northern Chile, and rapidly overran the coast
for six hundred miles. As one goes south the plain broadens, the short
rivers flowing from the mountains grow larger, the rainfall and the area
available for cultivation increase, and from Santiago a wide valley, the
heart of Chile, stretches between the Andes and the coast range,
sustaining a dense population. As far south as the river Maule, the
limit of Tupac's conquests, irrigation is necessary for crops. In all
these valleys dwelt various tribes whose system of agriculture and
civilisation was similar to that of the Incas. Only the southern peoples
inhabiting the rainy and forested regions beyond the Maule refused to
submit. Huaina Capac, Tupac's son, was once obliged to undertake a
campaign to consolidate the Inca power, but Chile north of the Maule
became thoroughly attached to the Cuzco dynasty.
Little resistance was encountered when Almagro invaded this country just
after Pizarro's entry into the Peruvian capital. He advanced as far as
the Maule, finding everywhere a population probably as dense as that of
the present day. Agriculture was highly developed; the people were
clothed in substantial stuffs of their own manufacture; they mined
copper, tin, and lead, and possessed excellent arms and tools. The
tribes all spoke the same language, but each enjoyed a degree of
autonomy under its own chiefs. Their habits were democratic; they loved
freedom and independence; the Inca socialistic system did not prevail;
and each farmer owned his own field and could transmit it to his
children. The race was large and vigorous, the selected survivors from
among immigrants who had been greatly improved by countless generations
of struggle in the more rigorous climate. As one approached the cold and
rainy mountains of southern Chile their characteristics became more
pronounced and south of the Maule warlike, half-savage tribes proudly
maintained their independence. Almagro's sole pre-occupation was gold,
but he vainly searched the valleys as far as the southern boundary of
the Inca empire. Here he encountered serious resistance from the
independent tribes, and though victorious in his fights, concluded that
it was not worth while remaining in such a cold and goldless country. He
abandoned Chile and returned to Peru, there to meet his death at
Pizarro's hands.
[Illustration: BRIDGE ON THE ROAD BETWEEN SANTIAGO AND MENDOZA.]
Pizarro soon took measures to extend the Spanish conquests to all parts
of the Inca empire, and for Chile he selected his quartermaster, Pedro
de Valdivia, an active and experienced soldier. Late in 1540--the summer
season in those latitudes--Valdivia, with two hundred Spaniards and a
large number of Indian auxiliaries, crossed the Andes and arrived at
Copiapo, the northernmost inhabited valley. Like Almagro he met no
opposition as he pushed his way south for four hundred and fifty miles.
Arriving at the great valley of Chile, in that favoured region he
founded the city of Santiago, which has ever since remained the capital
and most important place in the country. The people of the neighbourhood
attacked the settlement and burned half the houses, but they were soon
decisively defeated. Nevertheless, the invaders position was critical;
many of them wished to return; a mutiny was on the point of breaking
out; but at this juncture the fortunate discovery of valuable gold mines
near Santiago hushed all talk of abandoning the country.
Firmly established at Santiago, Valdivia next turned his attention to
the northern provinces, and founded a city at Coquimbo, about two
hundred and fifty miles north of the capital, which became the centre of
Spanish power in that region. In 1545 he advanced into the country south
of Santiago, where the Promaucians welcomed him as an ally against their
hereditary foes, the Araucanians, a fierce and powerful confederacy
dwelling beyond the river Biobio, which flows into the Pacific in
latitude 37°. By the following year Spanish influence was dominant north
of that river. Valdivia, with many of his men, temporarily returned to
Peru to aid in the suppression of Gonzalo's revolt, but as soon as civil
war was over he came back to Chile with his title of governor confirmed
by viceregal authority. He had found Lima swarming with hungry
adventurers who eagerly followed him, hoping for grants of lands and
Indian slaves, or to make their fortunes in mining. With their help the
conquest and settlement of all Chile as far south as the Maule was
effectually completed. The land was apportioned among the cavaliers,
each becoming a sort of feudal baron, and in effect creating a landed
aristocracy which has continued to rule the country to the present day.
The process of incorporation did not stop at the Maule, but included the
Promaucians and most of the other tribes between that river and the
Biobio. Beyond the latter stretched the Araucanian territory for two
hundred miles, and Valdivia now undertook the conquest of the southern
forests where the Inca arms had never been able to penetrate. His first
step was to found Concepcion near the mouth of the Biobio. The
neighbouring territory belonged to allies of the confederacy, and the
Araucanians felt great alarm at such an aggression. The grand council
was summoned, composed of the head-chiefs of the four nations, and the
chiefs--called ulmens--of the provinces and tribes into which these
nations were divided and subdivided. In accordance with immemorial
custom, the deliberations lasted three days, and the humblest warrior
was permitted to give his opinion before war was voted. Once the
determination reached and a general, or "toqui," elected, each soldier
put on his leather cuirass, picked up his heavy war club, and, four
thousand strong, the tribesmen sallied forth to attack the Spaniards.
Musketry volley and cavalry charge compelled the Araucanians to retreat,
after a hotly contested combat which lasted several hours. These
Indians, strong and sturdy dwellers in an invigorating climate, were
more formidable foes than the Spaniards had yet encountered in South
America. Though amazed at the deadly effect of the strange weapons which
the invaders used, they were not demoralised. Like the Saracens they
believed that death in battle was a passport to paradise, war was their
principal business, and the youth were trained up to the trade of arms.
At close quarters they were almost irresistible; their clubs and
spears, wielded with reckless bravery, matched the swords of the
Spaniards, and as soon as they learned how to take advantage of cover in
approaching an enemy provided with firearms, the result of a battle
between them and the Castilians became doubtful.
During the year 1551 Valdivia occupied himself in fortifying Concepcion
and making preparations for an invasion of Araucania. Heavy
reinforcements came and he advanced encountering at first no serious
opposition. He founded the city of Imperial, one hundred and fifty miles
south of Concepcion, and thence pushed a hundred miles farther on, where
he established a seaport, calling it by his own name. Returning north in
1553, on his way he built several forts in the Araucanian territory, and
at Santiago found a fresh body of troops, and, what was even more
important, a supply of horses. Two hundred men were despatched across
the Andes to begin the conquest of what is now known as the province of
Mendoza in the Argentine Republic. Fancying that he had practically
completed the subjection of Chile, Valdivia sent a messenger to Spain to
sue for the title of Marquis and a perpetual governorship, and fitted
out an exploring expedition to the Straits of Magellan in the vain hope
of opening up direct sea communication with the mother country.
The Araucanians had, however, not relaxed their determination to rid
themselves of the white invaders. News came that the confederacy had put
an army of ten thousand men in the field, and that the outlying forts
had been stormed. Valdivia at once advanced from Concepcion at the head
of his forces, numbering two hundred Spaniards and five thousand Indian
auxiliaries. A hundred miles south of the city he came in sight of the
Araucanian army. For some time the Indian commander manoeuvred
cautiously, endeavouring to draw the Spaniards into a position where he
could charge without suffering too much from the dreaded artillery.
Finally battle was joined, and despite the destructive fire the Indians
managed to come to close quarters. As soon as these fierce warriors
reached the enemy's line all was up with the invaders. The Spanish army
was literally annihilated. Valdivia himself fled, but was pursued and
quickly captured. Brought before the Indian general he begged for his
life, agreeing to quit Chile with all the Spaniards, but his
protestations were cut short by the war club of an old chief standing
near.
The Spanish settlers south of Concepcion fled for refuge to the ports of
Imperial and Valdivia, abandoning the other towns and forts. A young
chief named Lautaro, who had been captured and baptised years before by
Valdivia, but who had escaped to his own people, led a considerable army
to the Biobio, destroyed an expedition sent against him, and drove the
enemy out of Concepcion. If the Indians had understood the art of
besieging fortified places, Imperial and Valdivia and probably Santiago
itself would now have fallen, and the Spaniards would have been expelled
from the southern and better half of Chile. Lautaro led north two
thousand Araucanians, ravaged the lands of the Promaucians beyond the
Maule, and penetrated to the neighbourhood of the capital. Repeated
expeditions sent against him were defeated; the dismayed Spaniards
urgently called for help from Peru and recalled the adventurers from
Argentina. Happily the civilised tribes of northern and central Chile
remained faithful, and the bulk of the Araucanian forces was occupied
besieging Valdivia and Imperial,--a fruitless undertaking so long as
provisions could be thrown in by sea. Worst of all for the Indians
smallpox broke out among them. At last the Spaniards surprised Lautaro's
encampment near Santiago; the Araucanian leader fell dead, pierced by a
dart; and his companions fought like wild beasts until every man was
slain. This victory secured the safety of Santiago, and the Araucanians
retired behind the Biobio.
Meanwhile Mendoza, the great pacificator and organiser, had come out to
Lima and assumed the viceroyalty. Turbulent adventurers swarmed into
Peru whom he thought could be better employed elsewhere. Southern Chile
seemed just the place for these reckless, needy cavaliers, who were so
anxious to carve out fiefs for themselves. Early in 1557, Garcia de
Mendoza, son of the viceroy, was appointed captain-general and enjoined
to reduce the Araucanians to obedience. He came accompanied by ten ships
and a considerable force of Spaniards. Still larger forces were on their
way overland from Peru. Cautiously landing troops and artillery at the
deserted city of Concepcion, he had finished his defences before the
confederacy could mobilise its army. Though the Araucanians attacked
with desperate fury, their charges were beaten back by the artillery
fire. Re-forming on the other side of the Biobio, the Indians waited
until Mendoza, who had meanwhile received a large reinforcement of
cavalry, advanced. In the battle which followed they were defeated, but
they had learned a lesson of prudence and they fought in front of
forests into whose depths the Spanish cavalry could not pursue.
Retreating slowly, they again gave battle, and, though again defeated,
inflicted great losses on the Spanish infantry. Mendoza hanged his
prisoners, and once more advanced, this time to the place where Valdivia
had met his death. Here he founded a fortified town, naming it Cañete,
after the hereditary title of his family. Leaving it heavily garrisoned,
he went on to Imperial for provisions. In his absence the Indians
unsuccessfully tried to carry Cañete by assault, and seeing the
hopelessness of aggressive movements, they withdrew to the wooded
districts and mountains, abandoning the open country and the sea-coast
to the Spaniards. Mendoza pushed on beyond the southern limits of the
Araucanian territory and discovered and explored the populous
archipelago of Chiloë. On his way back he founded, on the mainland a
hundred miles south of Valdivia, the city of Osorno.
The Araucanians were now shut in between the Andes and a semicircle of
towns and forts; it seemed as if their final subjection would only be a
question of time. Mendoza returned to Santiago, leaving a lieutenant to
undertake a campaign of raids and surprises. A few of the Araucanians
remained in the field, and it was not until their veteran chief,
Caupolican, was betrayed and pitilessly shot to death with arrows, that
the whole confederacy again flew to arms under the command of his son.
Marching on Concepcion, the Indians cut to pieces first one Spanish
force of five hundred men and then another; and blockaded the city from
the land side. The Spaniards, holding the sea, had no difficulty in
pouring in reinforcements from Peru and Valparaiso, and the Indian army
finally retreated. At Quiapo, between Concepcion and Cañete, it was
defeated and nearly annihilated, its most celebrated chiefs and heroes
perishing in the slaughter. Once more the Araucanians retired to their
forests and mountains while the Spaniards rebuilt and improved the line
of fortifications and took possession of the valuable gold mines of
Villarica. But they could make no further impression on these
indomitable Indians. For forty years the war continued, sometimes
active, sometimes desultory, and with constantly varying fortunes. Year
after year the Spaniards poured in reinforcements, and their expeditions
more than once ravaged the remotest parts of the Araucanian territory.
But as soon as the armies retired the unflagging Indians would return to
the attack, cutting off isolated bands of settlers and surprising forts
and towns.
About 1593, the able chieftain Paillamachu was toqui of the confederacy.
The incessant wars against the Araucanians had made the province such a
continual drain on the Peruvian treasury, that Mendoza, who had been
promoted to the viceregal throne, determined to end this impossible
situation in one way or another. A general was sent to Chile with full
powers either to treat or fight, but the haughty and intractable Indians
rejected with scorn his overtures for peace. He then fortified the line
of the Biobio and erected new fortresses to serve as bases for a
campaign of extermination to be undertaken as soon as reinforcements
arrived. These came slowly and the Indians themselves took the
offensive, considerable bands invading the Spanish settlements, storming
some forts and blockading others. The Spanish general exerted himself to
concentrate his scattered forces, but while making a hasty journey,
accompanied only by a small escort, from Imperial toward Concepcion, he
was surprised and killed by a band of Indians. Forty-eight hours later
not only the whole of Araucania, but also the provinces south of
Valdivia, rose in arms. All the Spanish towns south of the
Biobio--Osorno, Valdivia, Villarica, Imperial, Cañete, Angol, Coya, and
Arauco--were simultaneously besieged. Paillamachu crossed the river and
burned first Concepcion and then Chillan, a town a hundred miles north
of the Araucanian boundary, ravaging the country to the river Maule.
Alarmed for the safety of Santiago, the Lima viceroy sent a new governor
with a well-equipped army, but it was as much as he could do to force
the Indians back into their own territory. The Indian general suddenly
assaulted the city of Valdivia, carried it by storm, slaughtered or
captured the inhabitants, and seized two millions of booty with many
arms and cannon. Villarica and Imperial managed to hold out for three
years but finally they, with Osorno, were reduced by starvation. When
Paillamachu died in 1603 the Spaniards had no foothold on the mainland
south of the Biobio except the Valdivia citadel.
[Illustration: INDIAN ENCAMPMENT.]
Two or three years later the government made a last effort to reduce the
Araucanians. An army of three thousand Spaniards besides a large
contingent of natives advanced across the Biobio. To such an
overwhelming force the Araucanians dared not offer open battle, but they
hung on its flanks, skirmishing and harassing, and the host was
compelled to return without having accomplished anything decisive. From
the protection of the forts on the Biobio, the Spanish general sent
expeditions to lay waste the Indian country, but these smaller bodies
were roughly handled and the first period of Araucanian wars closed with
the nearly complete destruction of the Spanish forces operating in
southern Chile. The authorities at Lima and Madrid gave it up as a bad
job. Thenceforward the Biobio remained the southern boundary of the
Spanish possessions. An army of two thousand men and a line of forts
guarded the frontier, and though hostilities were frequent, for
centuries no real progress was made toward depriving the Araucanians of
their independence. In the progress of time the slow infiltration of
Spanish blood and Spanish customs modified their characteristics, but it
was not until 1882 that they became real subjects of the Chilean
government.
CHAPTER II
THE COLONIAL PERIOD
The Araucanian wars made Chile a school of arms for all South America.
The appointment to its captaincy-general was eagerly sought by ambitious
soldiers, and the place, especially after the seventeenth century, was a
stepping-stone to the magnificent and lucrative position of viceroy at
Lima. Preoccupied with the southern wars, passing most of their time on
the frontiers, the governors paid little attention to central and
northern Chile. The Indians peacefully cultivated the great estates of
their feudal masters; and although the mining industry was considerable
it never threatened the extinction of the neighbouring population. The
few towns were mere villages, built of one-story, thatch-covered houses,
commerce was insignificant, portable wealth small, money almost unknown.
However, the landed proprietors of Chile mostly lived upon their
estates, and came into more intimate contact with their Indian tenants
than in the richer and more tropical provinces, a circumstance which
has had a profound effect upon the character and racial composition of
the modern Chilean.
Although unsuccessful in Araucania, the governors prospered in their
efforts to extend the Spanish dominion east of the Andes and before the
end of the sixteenth century the fertile valleys of the province of
Cuyo--Mendoza, San Juan, and San Luiz--as far as the central desert
which separates them from the grass-covered pampas of Buenos Aires, were
incorporated with Chile. At the same time the green and populous island
of Chiloë--the Ireland of the Pacific--was added to the
captaincy-general.
The first comers were adventurous soldiers looking for sudden riches,
but Chile furnished these gentlemen small returns for hard knocks. The
reasons which led the Spanish government to discourage emigration to
Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador, did not apply to Chile, and when, early in
the seventeenth century, the Madrid authorities abandoned the useless
and expensive effort to conquer Araucania, they permitted a considerable
number of real colonists. A heavy immigration followed--composed mostly
of Basques and Aragonese--hardy and industrious settlers who made
thrifty farmers and merchants. These people were no mere army of
occupation--a privileged class living parasitically upon the Indians;
they set about developing the real resources of the country, and their
blood, mixing into the fine and strong aboriginal strain, vastly
improved it. The lower classes in Chile are industrious, enduring, and
brave, and though at times they show a touch of that primitive ferocity
characteristic of young peoples, their innate energy and great physical
strength have been of incalculable value to the nation.
Little worth detailing is recorded in the annals of Chile during the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. For many years the Araucanians
refused to make any treaty with the Spaniards. The chronicles are filled
with accounts of the incursions made by the Indians into Spanish
territory--often successful, more often repulsed, with sieges,
ambushes--tales of reckless valour and unspeakable cruelty. Sometimes
the Europeans carried the war over the Biobio, and during the ten years
prior to 1640 they were so successful in carrying fire, slaughter, and
pillage to the homes of the Araucanians, that the latter finally
consented to an armistice and a formal treaty of peace. The Spanish
governor went to the plain of Quillin, escorted by more than ten
thousand persons, and the Araucanian general appeared in state at the
head of all the toquis, ulmens, and chief warriors of the confederacy.
Into the open space between the high contracting parties was led a llama
for sacrifice, whose sprinkled blood remained a pledge that the historic
Biobio would henceforth be respected by both nations as the boundary,
and that the Araucanians would never permit colonists of third nations
upon their shores, or aid the English and Dutch buccaneers. The Indians
faithfully adhered to this pact of friendship and refused to furnish the
Dutch with provisions when the latter took possession of Valdivia in
1643. But in 1655 the cupidity of Spanish officers caused trouble, and
war devastated both sides of the border for the next ten years. In 1665
a new treaty, identical in terms, was negotiated, which continued in
force until 1722. However, Spanish priests pushed their evangelising
among the Indians, and officers, called "Capitanos de los amigos,"
appointed to guard the interests of the missionaries, assumed authority
highly offensive to the Araucanians. The great council was summoned, a
general selected, and the missionaries expelled. When the Spanish
governor marched to the frontier with five thousand men the Indians
offered battle which the Spaniards dared not accept. The former
continued firm in their demands, and peace was only re-established by
abolishing the obnoxious officials.
Meanwhile nothing of moment had disturbed the slow and even current of
colonial progress in northern and central Chile. The country was poor,
its exports small and its imports smaller. Great fortunes were not
accumulated as in other South American countries, though the national
life rested on a broader, surer basis. The wheat and cattle, the fruits
and poultry introduced by the Spaniards raised the standard of
alimentation and the vitality of the people, while the continual
admixture of Spanish blood augmented individual initiative and
intelligence. The towns at first grew very slowly. Santiago itself had
only eight thousand inhabitants at the end of the seventeenth century,
while the other so-called cities, Coquimbo, Castro, Valparaiso, Chillan,
Concepcion, and Valdivia, were in fact little more than villages. The
rural districts were populous, for the soil was fertile, the climate
healthful, and the means of a simple subsistence abounded. Imported
vices and diseases, and the oppressions suffered at the hands of the
first Spanish proprietors, had somewhat thinned out the native
population, but these losses were largely made up by a rapid increase of
the element which boasted white descent, and in the latter part of the
eighteenth century Spanish Chile was more densely populated than the
Atlantic seaboard of North America.
[Illustration: HOUSE OF CONGRESS, SANTIAGO.]
Spanish legislation gave a monopoly of South American commerce to a
favoured ring of merchants at Cadiz, forbidding any communication with
Chile except by the circuitous Isthmian route. Freights were enormous,
profits and taxes exorbitant, and in spite of the repressive measures of
the Spanish authorities, smuggling was carried on by way of the route
over the Andes to Buenos Aires and Colonia. The war of the Spanish
Succession, following the death of the last of the descendants of
Charles V., disorganised Spanish administration, and during the
confusion of the first few years of the eighteenth century illicit
trading increased apace. The triumph of Louis XIV., and the seating of a
French prince on the throne of Madrid, resulted in a temporary
permission to French ships to trade with South America. For a time
French manufactures were brought directly to Chile by way of Cape Horn.
The customs receipts--hitherto merely nominal--rapidly increased, and
although the license was soon revoked at the demand of the Cadiz
monopolists, a permanent impetus had been given to commerce. Improving
conditions gave a fresh start to immigration, and the comparatively
rational policy of the Bourbon dynasty removed many of the more crying
abuses of colonial administration. A little before the middle of the
eighteenth century Governor Manso, with the approval of Madrid, founded
a dozen cities scattered through all the provinces as far south as the
Biobio, and settlements spread to the frontier of Araucania. Manso's
successor, Rosas, was even more diligent in establishing new towns and
received the title of "Conde de Poblaciones." He founded the University
of San Felipe at Santiago, and stimulated commerce by opening a mint. In
his administration occurred the great earthquake of 1751, which engulfed
and destroyed Concepcion by a tremendous wave from the sea, and
inflicted great damage upon Santiago and many other towns. These
convulsions are very frequent in Chile and in early times people
supposed that it was not safe to build houses of more than one story. It
has since been ascertained that two-story edifices are as secure as
lower ones and Chilean cities contain many handsome buildings.
Rosas' successor was Don Manuel Amat. Under his administration the
erection of new cities continued, and he is remembered as the
captain-general who helped suppress the robbers and bandits who had
infested the country. Vigilance committees were organised, volunteer
patrols guarded the city streets and country roads, and a coast militia
fought the pirates who infested the seashore. Chile in the middle of
the eighteenth century presents the characteristics of a frontier
country--rapid founding of towns, disorders and lawlessness effectively
suppressed by lynch law, and a childish display of newly acquired
wealth.
The encroachments upon the Araucanians finally grew irksome to those
indomitable and intractable savages. What the Spanish armies and priests
had failed in, the settlers who poured into the fertile plains and
valleys of southern Chile seemed about to achieve. The next
captain-general even tried to incorporate the independent tribes into
the Spanish system, but when he attempted to gather them into towns the
spirit which had animated their forefathers proved too strong. A war
broke out which lasted several years and ended only when the Spanish
government renewed the treaties guaranteeing them practical
independence, and allowing them to keep an ambassador at Santiago. Just
about this time the trans-Andean province of Cuyo was separated from
Chile and transferred to the newly created Buenos Aires viceroyalty.
Taken purely for reasons of administrative convenience, this measure
resulted in shutting off Chile from expansion over the vast plains of
the Plate Valley, confining her between the Andes and the sea, and
ultimately securing to the Argentine a territorial and numerical
preponderance among Spanish-American republics.
CHAPTER III
THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE
The last years of Spanish rule were the most prosperous Chile had known.
A brisk coasting trade sprang into being; a small merchant marine grew
up; the removal of the prohibition against free commerce with the rest
of Spanish South America raised prices. The opening of Buenos Aires
reacted upon her western neighbour, and Chile ceased to depend on the
Isthmus route. A spirit of enterprise was awakened by a freer
intercourse with the outside world and by the immigration of hardy
adventurers who came through Buenos Aires, the great South American
rendezvous of that day.
[Illustration: PLAZA DEL ARMAS, SANTIAGO.]
Among these immigrants was the famous Ambrose O'Higgins, a poor Irish
lad, who landed at Buenos Aires, made his way to Chile, started as a
peddler, became an army contractor, made a fortune, got a commission in
the army, distinguished himself in an expedition against the
Araucanians, ingratiated himself with everybody by his wit, courage, and
good-natured shrewdness, and finally was selected as captain-general.
He ruled the country wisely and well until promoted to be viceroy at
Lima. His successors were mostly able and honest men, and under their
government the natural causes making for the prosperity of Chile had
free scope. Wealth increased, and with it love of display, honours, and
letters. Santiago became a real capital, the favourite residence of the
landed aristocracy and a social centre where fashions were prescribed.
The English war into which France pushed Spain in 1796 much damaged
Chilean commerce, but not sufficiently to stop the impulse already
received. The old ignorant content with Spanish rule gave place to a
growing demand for the removal of all restrictions, and the appetite for
commercial freedom grew with what it fed on.
Chile was still comparatively poor and backward. The rude population
were engaged in a harsh struggle with fierce savages and in laying the
foundations of material prosperity. Most of these people were the
descendants of Indians accustomed for centuries to implicit obedience to
a rustic, unlettered aristocracy. The genius of the race was rather
practical than ideal, and the long, careless government by men
invariably chosen for their military abilities rather than their
qualities as civil administrators had not tended to make Chile a fertile
soil for the development of revolutionary ideas. Chilean society was
less favourably constituted for sudden changes than that of Buenos
Aires--the boom town of the time, with its active commerce, its restless
recently arrived population,--or that of the northern viceroyalties,
controlled by professional and office-holding classes and parish
priests.
Two or three hundred families held most of the lands of Chile, and the
power of this aristocracy was especially predominant in the provinces
around Santiago. In the southern provinces long wars had thinned the
native population and dispossessed the original grantees. Estates were
more widely distributed and opinion more radical, but in the rest of the
country the newer immigrants had been forced to accept the system, and
the comparatively few families who owned the land and thereby controlled
the means of subsistence of the whole people, enjoyed unquestioned
ascendancy. But conservative as this aristocracy was, among its members
there rankled a profound jealousy of the Spanish officials who wrung
excessive taxes from their reluctant fingers; who enforced the Spanish
regulations forbidding the culture of grapes, olives, and tobacco; who
until recently had closed the ports, cutting off the profitable sale of
crops, and compelling the payment of extravagant prices for manufactured
goods; and most irritating of all, who still monopolised the lucrative
offices.
The news of Ferdinand's imprisonment and the invasion of Spain by
Napoleon's armies reached Chile in the late summer of 1809, creating
great excitement among the Spanish office-holders and the Creole
aristocracy. Sentiment was universal against submission to the French
usurpation and discussion at once began of how the government should be
carried on during the King's captivity. Carrasco, the captain-general,
hesitated and vacillated between the conflicting suggestions.
In preparation for an emergency, whose exact nature no one could
foresee, the city authorities gathered arms, drilled troops, and levied
extra taxes. The property-owning and governing classes divided into two
currents of opinion. The government officials, with their friends and
hangers-on, saw that their interests would best be served by the
recognition of the revolutionary juntas which had assumed the _ad
interim_ direction of affairs in Spain. The leading Creole families
proposed the establishment of an independent junta, pending Ferdinand's
return, or the definite defeat of the national cause in Spain. Although
the latter party warmly protested their faithfulness to the
mother-country, at bottom they designed to secure for Chile and Chileans
virtual independence while Spain's troubles lasted, and the Spanish
officials did not hesitate to characterise their opponents as rebels.
Feeling rapidly grew intense, and in May, 1810, the captain-general
ordered the arrest of several prominent Creoles. This arbitrary measure
aroused such a fierce clamour that Carrasco lost his nerve, and
consented to the release of the prisoners. This indication of weakness
encouraged the agitators, and when news came across the Andes that the
people of Buenos Aires had deposed their viceroy, Santiago broke into
revolution.
The captain-general had summoned an open cabildo to enjoin obedience to
certain orders received from Spain, but this assembly tumultuously
demanded his resignation. Helpless against the popular outcry and the
hostile attitude of the city government, he turned over his authority to
Toro, a wealthy nobleman, whose venerable age and pacific disposition
seemed likely to preserve the peace. Nevertheless, the Creoles persisted
in their demand for an independent Chilean junta. Another meeting of all
the qualified electors was called; the arrival of a representative of
the new junta at Buenos Aires, who strongly urged Chile to follow
Argentina's example, had its influence; and on the 18th of September,
the date observed as the anniversary of Chilean independence, Toro
resigned his authority to the cabildo. The office of captain-general was
abolished and power passed to a junta of seven. Chile's ports were
opened to all nations, quadrupling the customs receipts in a single
year, and the country began a virtually separate existence, although the
acts of the junta ran in the name of the Spanish King.
However, the junta's power rested upon a basis too narrow for stability.
Representing only the Santiago aristocracy, there was no certainty that
its orders would be respected in the provinces, or that independent
juntas would not be set up in other cities. To remedy this difficulty a
national congress was summoned, but the junta allotted to Santiago
almost as many members as to all the other municipalities together. The
elections took place in April, 1811, and while they were going on the
Spanish officer in command of a detachment at Santiago revolted. A
member of the junta, José Carrera by name, an active and ambitious
young man, who belonged to one of the most influential Creole families,
distinguished himself by attacking and defeating the Spaniard with an
improvised force of armed patriots. When congress met it voted many
reforms; abolishing slavery, reorganising the judiciary, freeing
commerce of vexatious restrictions, decreeing the payment of the clergy
out of the public treasury instead of by tithes, and conferring on the
elective bodies of the municipalities the right to elect their own city
officers. However, divisions soon arose among the members. The
representatives of the outside provinces bitterly complained of the
unfairness of the apportionment; the radicals wished to reorganise
everything, while the conservatives insisted on preserving many of the
old institutions. The Santiago representatives, chosen from the landed
aristocracy, were mostly conservative, while the members from the South
were largely radical. Under the leadership of Doctor Rosas, the latter
withdrew. The Santiago conservatives, left in undisputed control of
congress, displaced the old junta, but Carrera and his two brothers had
made themselves all powerful in the army by cleverly seizing its Spanish
officers. He determined to ally himself with the radicals and assume
supreme power. Marching to the hall of congress at the head of his
troops, he compelled the selection of a new junta with himself as chief,
and expelled the members upon whom he could not rely. Rosas had
meanwhile established a radical junta at Concepcion, and Carrera offered
to associate him in the government. Rosas declined, and the Santiago
leader, now frankly a military dictator, advanced with an army to reduce
the South to obedience. But the news that the Spanish party had gained
the ascendancy in Valdivia and Chiloë intimidated him, and he made peace
with Rosas, retiring to Santiago. His emissaries nevertheless continued
to intrigue in Concepcion and finally stirred up a riot which resulted
in Rosas' expulsion.
For nearly two years Carrera and his brothers remained in power,
governing by military force, confiscating the property of their enemies,
allowing their friends to loot the public funds, and committing many
enormities. Conspiracy after conspiracy was formed against them, only to
be detected and suppressed, while the patriots divided into hostile
factions each selfishly ambitious for control. Meanwhile Abascal, the
able and resolute viceroy at Lima, had succeeded in keeping Peru
submissive, in crushing out the revolution in Ecuador and Bolivia, and
in repelling the northward march of the Argentine patriots. He now
prepared to send an army to re-establish royal authority in Chile. Early
in 1813 a large force landed at Talcahuano and, advancing to Concepcion,
was joined by the garrison of that place. Reinforcements came up from
Valdivia and Chiloë, and the Spanish general took the road for Santiago
at the head of four thousand men. In the face of this imminent danger
the bickerings of the patriots were hushed. Carrera advanced to the
South in command of twelve thousand men, poorly armed and disciplined.
On the Spanish side the officers were, however, suspicious, and had
little confidence in their raw levies. A sudden and successful attack on
an outpost near the river Maule was followed by a panic among the
royalists, and they retreated in disorder, but with no great loss, to
the fortifications of Chillan, only fifty miles from Concepcion.
Detachments of patriots pushed on to Concepcion and captured that place
and Talcahuano. The Spanish army was completely isolated in Chillan, but
had found there an abundant supply of provisions, and successfully
resisted Carrera's efforts to take the place. His hastily gathered
levies, without means of sheltering themselves from the rain and cold,
melted away by desertion. Finally he retired toward Concepcion followed
by the Spaniards and the remnants of his army were only saved from total
rout by the gallantry and steadiness of Bernardo O'Higgins. This
military chief, a natural son of the old Irish captain-general, and heir
to his Chilean estates, had made common cause with the patriots at the
beginning of the revolution, and attached himself to the fortunes of
Rosas, the leader of the Concepcion radicals. When the latter was
banished by Carrera, O'Higgins retired from the army. The Spanish
invasion had roused him; he offered his sword to Carrera, and his
dashing military talents sent him quickly to the front.
[Illustration: BERNARDO O'HIGGINS.]
Carrera's failure at Chillan cost him his prestige, his rivals at
Santiago took advantage of his absence to expel him from the junta, his
violent measures at Concepcion exasperated its people to revolt, and his
own troops became mutinous. The new Santiago junta formally nominated
O'Higgins to the chief command and Carrera was compelled to withdraw.
The new general inspired some vigour into the patriot operations, but
the arrival of reinforcements from Lima gave the royalists an
overwhelming preponderance in cavalry and artillery. The junta had
recalled a large part of his forces to defend Santiago, when an
unexpected movement by one of the Spanish divisions resulted in the
capture of the important city of Talca, half-way between the capital and
Concepcion. Though O'Higgins and the troops left in the South managed to
repulse an attack of the main Spanish army, an army sent from Santiago
failed to retake Talca and its destruction left the capital unprotected.
O'Higgins by forced marches succeeded in beating the Spaniards to the
Maule, saving the city for the moment. Meanwhile, a revolution had
overthrown the junta responsible for the fatal Talca expedition and the
new dictator entered into negotiations with the Spanish commander. The
latter, confronted by O'Higgins' army, and anticipating a desperate
resistance, thought it best not to press his advantage too far. He
agreed to an armistice, and Chile offered to acknowledge allegiance to
Spain, send members to the Cortes shortly to assemble, and accept any
Constitution which might be promulgated by that body, if the viceroy
would recognise _ad interim_ the present Santiago government and
withdraw the Spanish army within two months.
One result of the armistice was the liberation of the Carreras from the
Spanish prison in which they had been confined since their deposition
the year before. They hastened to Santiago and started an intrigue for
the overthrow of Lastra and O'Higgins. Such was their popularity with
the troops in Santiago and the extent of their family influence that
they got possession of the city and were preparing to dispute the
supreme control of Chile with O'Higgins by force of arms when news
arrived that the viceroy refused to sanction the compromise, and that an
army of peninsular veterans was on its way. Though Carrera and O'Higgins
pretended a reconciliation, each distrusted the other, and took the
field virtually independent. Under such conditions Chilean success was
impossible. O'Higgins' division was annihilated at Rancagua, Carrera
abandoned the capital, and fled with a few hundred followers over the
Andes, where he was joined by O'Higgins and the more determined
patriots. This influx of the pick of the fighting men of Chile was a
valuable reinforcement for the army which San Martin was already
organising behind the shelter of the eastern foothills. Between the
rival Chilean leaders, Carrera and O'Higgins, he chose the latter, gave
him his confidence, and made him his chief lieutenant, while Carrera,
finding no place in San Martin's entourage, went on to Buenos Aires,
never again to return to his native country.
Both aristocracy and people in Chile were tired of the military misrule
which they had suffered during the dominance of the patriot chiefs. A
deputation of the most prominent citizens went to welcome General Osorio
as he advanced to Santiago after the battle of Rancagua. Within a month
the Spanish power was securely re-established throughout the country.
The leading revolutionists who remained in Chile were executed or
banished, more than a hundred being exiled to the desolate island of
Juan Fernandez. During two years and a half--from 1814 to 1817--Osorio
and his successor, Marco del Ponte, ruled Chile with a rod of iron. So
far as possible everything was restored as it had been before 1810. The
Spanish judges were reinstated, elective municipal councils abolished,
the newspapers suppressed, and all the liberal reforms revoked.
Meanwhile San Martin, behind the screen of the Andes, and only a hundred
and fifty miles from Santiago, was forging a thunderbolt destined to
shatter into fragments the edifice which Abascal had been so skilfully
constructing through seven laborious years. The story of how the silent
Argentine gathered and equipped the "Army of the Andes" has already been
told. In the chapter devoted to Argentina the reader will find a meagre
description of his marvellous march over the cloud-high passes, the
descent into the plain of Aconcagua made so suddenly that the Spanish
forces could not hurry up to bar his way, the prompt advance over the
low transverse range which forms the northern boundary of the plain
where Santiago stands, and the overwhelming victory in the gorge of
Chacabuco against the pick of the Spanish veterans, who confidently
stood to the attack, never dreaming until San Martin was right upon them
that his main body had had time to reach the spot. The Spanish
authorities at Madrid and Lima had made the irretrievable mistake of
underestimating the efficiency of his army. They thought the troops in
Chile amply able to take care of any four thousand men the patriots
could get together, but San Martin's army was differently provided and
organised than the undisciplined masses which had been routed at Huaqui,
Villapugio, and Rancagua. The Spanish generals were not so much
surprised at his crossing the Andes as at finding the troops which
reached the Chilean plains to be well furnished with artillery, cavalry,
and ammunition, perfectly ready for an aggressive campaign, and a match
man for man for any force that could be brought against them.
[Illustration: RAILROAD BRIDGE BETWEEN SANTIAGO AND VALPARAISO.]
The royalists lost twelve hundred of their best men at Chacabuco; only a
thousand escaped from the field to fly in disorder toward Santiago. On
the way they met the Spanish cavalry riding to join them, but
Captain-General Marco, instead of rallying the three thousand men who
remained under his orders, hurried out of town toward Valparaiso,
anxious for his personal safety. San Martin had expected to be obliged
to fight another battle and kept his army together, instead of pursuing
and annihilating the dismayed Spaniards. More than half the latter
managed to escape to Valparaiso, where they embarked for Peru. Santiago
received the conqueror with no great enthusiasm. The moneyed classes
feared another prolonged civil war with its attendant confiscations,
forced contributions, and general disorder; the common people cared
little whether a Spaniard or an Argentine occupied the governmental
palace. However, no one dreamed of resistance; the partisans of the
proscribed patriots and the votaries of independence and liberalism were
delighted; San Martin with his host of hardy gauchos and Chilean exiles
assumed full control of the capital. He summoned an assembly of notables
who promptly and unanimously elected him "Governor of Chile with plenary
powers." But this was not what the far-sighted and patriotic soldier
wanted. He realised that Chile could never give that unquestioning
support so vital to the success of his cherished campaign against Peru
so long as any stranger, even himself, governed by force. San Martin
peremptorily declined the honour, but intimated that he would be glad to
see his staunch friend, O'Higgins, selected dictator, and accordingly
the enemy of the Carreras was placed at the head of the new Chilean
government.
With eyes fixed on a Peruvian campaign it was only natural that San
Martin should leave immediate details in Chile to others. Though all
central Chile submitted with good grace, the South remained a stronghold
of the Spanish sympathisers. Among its warlike people the royalist
armies had been recruited, and there lay the two strongest
fortresses--Talcahuano and Valdivia--both of them still in possession of
the Spaniards. After two months' delay, Las Heras, with a thousand men,
was despatched, but his force was inadequate and his advance slow.
Before he arrived near Concepcion, an able Spanish general, Ordoñez, who
had fought side by side with San Martin in Spain, had organised a
division equal in numbers, with which he retired to Concepcion and there
was joined by the sixteen hundred troops who had escaped after the rout
at Chacabuco, and who had been ordered back to Chile the moment they
made their appearance at Callao. The Spanish general now thought himself
strong enough to annihilate Las Heras, but the sortie which he led was
beaten back in the battle of Gavilan. However, this victory was in no
way decisive, and the patriots were not able to make any impression on
the fortifications at Talcahuano or to advance south of the Biobio.
Southern Chile remained hostile and Talcahuano and Valdivia were open
doors through which the Spaniards could send reinforcements and supplies
as long as they held command of the sea.
San Martin remained in Santiago only a short time after Chacabuco.
Prepossessed with the idea that Chile could never be safe or Peru won
until he had organised a fleet to wrest control of the Pacific from the
Spaniards, he hastened across the Andes to arrange with his friends in
the Argentine government for the necessary money. The Chilean campaign
had saved Buenos Aires from impending invasion; the Argentine patriots
would certainly be crushed if Chile should fall back into Spanish hands;
they could never feel secure so long as Peru and Bolivia remained
royalist. The promises which he asked were readily given, on his
agreeing that Chile should contribute three hundred thousand dollars
toward the purchase of a squadron on the Pacific, and forty thousand for
the support of the Argentine army on the Bolivian frontier, besides
taking the responsibility of the pay and maintenance of the Army of the
Andes. Argentina was to aid in purchasing the fleet and hold back the
Spaniards on the Bolivian border.
San Martin returned to Chile, where he was shortly followed by an
official representative of the Argentine government and the alliance
created by Chacabuco received formal sanction. He found Chilean affairs
in a very unsatisfactory condition. O'Higgins was hated by the powerful
partisans of the Carreras, and distrusted by Chileans generally as too
much under Argentine influence. His power really rested upon Argentine
bayonets; his appointment of Quintana, an Argentine and San Martin's
aide-de-camp, as acting dictator at Santiago was bitterly resented. San
Martin's presence did something to allay the feeling, but as a matter of
fact he had little sympathy for the Chilean people, being a man who
despised the arts by which popularity is gained, and who made few
friends. Meanwhile the three Carreras were actively plotting from their
exile at Buenos Aires for the overthrow of O'Higgins and San Martin.
Their friends and agents swarmed in Chile and preparations were made for
a rising as soon as they should set foot in the country. The two younger
brothers attempted to cross the Andes in disguise, but were detected and
arrested at Mendoza. Quintana ordered the imprisonment of many persons
suspected of being Carrera partisans, but his severe measures raised
national feeling to such a height that it was thought safest to carry
out San Martin's suggestion and appoint a Chilean as acting dictator in
his stead.
In the Argentine the position of the patriot government was even worse.
With civil war actively raging in the one country and only held in check
by foreign bayonets in the other, and with both governments struggling
against financial difficulties, it is no wonder that the war-ships which
were expected to sweep the Spanish frigates from the Pacific did not
arrive. The delay cost the patriots dear. In January, 1818, four Spanish
ships, mounting two hundred and thirty cannon sailed into Talcahuano,
and landed three thousand four hundred well-equipped soldiers, most of
them peninsular veterans. San Martin, a master of the art of recruiting,
had raised a second army composed principally of Chileans and nearly
equal in numbers to the original Army of the Andes, so that his total
force amounted to nine thousand men, while the Spanish troops did not
exceed five thousand. The Argentine general was in the dark as to where
the enemy would land, and had already issued orders for O'Higgins, who
was in command near Concepcion, to retreat, resolved on concentrating
his forces near Valparaiso. Even after the Spanish army had disembarked
at Talcahuano, San Martin was in doubt whether Osorio would not
re-embark and strike at some unexpected harbour near Santiago. But the
latter came up steadily by the land route, encountering no opposition
though somewhat hampered by broken bridges and the bareness of the
country of horses and supplies, for the retreating O'Higgins had left
his track a desert. The farther the Spaniards penetrated toward
Santiago the more difficult became the feeding of their army and the
more certainly disastrous a retreat in case of reverse.
[Illustration: TALCAHUANO.]
O'Higgins stopped at Talca to await orders, and there, on the 20th of
January, 1818, he defiantly made proclamation of Chile's absolute
independence of Spain. Three weeks later the approach of Osorio's army
forced him to abandon the place and he retired to form a junction with
San Martin. The latter completed his concentration and advanced with an
army of over seven thousand men, superior in all arms and especially in
cavalry and artillery. About a hundred miles south of Santiago he met
the Spaniards and won some cavalry skirmishes. The enemy retired toward
Talca, unwilling with inferior forces to bring on a general action where
defeat meant annihilation, and even contemplating a retreat to
Talcahuano. But behind them lay the deep river Maule, and San Martin
made a dash to reach it first. The two armies marched rapidly on
parallel lines with the patriot cavalry harassing the Spanish rear. On
the afternoon of the 19th of March the Spaniards wheeled into line in
excellent position just outside the city of Talca, with their west flank
protected by a stretch of broken ground called the Cancha-Rayada. San
Martin was following close, but the partial attack which be immediately
made was interrupted by darkness before any decisive results were
obtained. Hastily going into camp too near the enemy's lines and all
unprepared for battle, the patriots were surprised at about nine o'clock
in the evening by the assault of the whole Spanish army. The alarm was
given by the cavalry pickets, but only a few had time to get into line
of battle before the enemy was upon them. San Martin over on the extreme
right heard a few volleys and then the noise of confused flight,
scattering shots, and the thundering hoof-beats of the pursuing cavalry.
O'Higgins had been wounded while trying to get his men into order, and
from that moment the patriots in his neighbourhood thought of nothing
but escape through the darkness. The centre and left, including the
cavalry, dispersed in the wildest confusion, abandoning the artillery.
The right wing, composed of three thousand five hundred infantry, was
not attacked and waited in stupefaction for two or three hours not
clearly understanding what had happened. Its officers held a council,
put Las Heras in command, and by daybreak the division was sixteen miles
from the field of battle. In the meantime San Martin and O'Higgins had
found each other, and soon were busily engaged in collecting the
scattered cavalry. The patriot loss in killed and wounded had been
small, but a third of their number had deserted and many of the
remainder searched in vain for their regiments. However, the royalist
army had been nearly as badly dispersed in making this night attack as
the patriots in receiving it. No effective pursuit could be made, and
San Martin retreated on Santiago practically unmolested. The first news
of the disaster was carried to the capital by fugitive officers. They
reported that San Martin was killed and O'Higgins mortally wounded, and
everything lost. Shouts of "Viva el rey" resounded through the streets;
leading citizens opened communication with Osorio, and the republicans
prepared for flight to Mendoza or Valparaiso. But the next day word came
that San Martin himself was safe; and the day following a despatch
saying he had four thousand men under his orders. With O'Higgins's
arrival in the city the revolutionary disorders were suppressed, and
soon San Martin rode into the city. Though half dead through loss of
sleep, as he drew rein at his house he made the one speech of his life,
laconically assuring the people that he expected to win the next battle,
and that right soon.
[Illustration: NATIVE COSTUMES IN CHILE ABOUT 1840.]
Not forgetting precautions which ensured a safe retreat to the northern
provinces or the Argentine, he devoted himself to re-organising the
army, and within ten days after its dispersal had five thousand men
together, well provided and resolute to give a good account of
themselves. He took a position on a low line of chalk hills seven miles
south-west of Santiago, and waited for the enemy, whose numbers were now
slightly superior to his own. Meanwhile the Spanish officers were
greatly disappointed at the negative results of Cancha-Rayada; mutual
reproaches flew back and forth in their council of war; many advocated
maintaining the defensive and even retreating to the south to be nearer
their base. Their indecision gave San Martin the needed opportunity to
gather his dispersed forces and to inspire them with his own confidence.
Finally, however, Osorio advanced cautiously on Santiago, hoping that
the Argentine would not risk another battle for the defence of the
capital, and manoeuvring to the west so as to get between the city and
the sea. In front of San Martin's position lay another line of chalk
hills, separated from the first by a narrow stretch of low ground. At
their western end ran the road from Santiago to Valparaiso. Like the
Union position at Gettysburg this line of hills was admirably adapted
for a defensive battle, and Osorio resolved to occupy it, especially as
he thought his left wing extended far enough west to command the
Valparaiso road, thereby securing him a communication with a new and
more convenient base on the coast and giving him a line of retreat in
case of a reverse. But San Martin's quick eye saw that this opinion was
mistaken; and that his opponent might easily be cut off.
San Martin's tactical dispositions were admirably made on the momentous
morning of April 5, 1818. He divided his army into two divisions and a
reserve, stationing the latter on the extreme east of his line. Under
cover of a heavy artillery fire the west division rushed down the slope,
across the bottom, and up the hills commanding the Valparaiso road. The
counter-charge of the Spanish horsemen was repulsed by the superior
patriot cavalry, and the Spanish west wing was isolated from the rest of
the army. Meanwhile the patriots' east division, composed of the bulk of
their infantry, had charged straight across the narrow part of the
bottom and reached the high ground opposite without seeing an enemy, but
there was met by a terrific charge from the royalist infantry, and
rolled in confusion back down the hill. Regardless of the artillery
fire, the Spaniards were pursuing triumphantly over the low ground, when
suddenly their eastern flank received the charge of the patriot reserve,
which had advanced obliquely from its original position on the extreme
east. This movement decided the battle. The Spanish infantry could not
re-form to meet it, and were rolled up in helpless confusion. The flying
patriot infantry rallied and returned to the attack; their cavalry,
already victorious at the other end of the line, turned and charged the
west flank of the Spaniards, who, simultaneously taken at both ends and
in front, were cut down by hundreds. A few managed to keep their
formation and fell back to the farm of Espejo, behind whose extensive
buildings and garden walls they entrenched themselves, determined to
sell their lives as dearly as possible. Joined by their left wing,
which, unable to reach the centre where the hard fighting had taken
place, had suffered little loss, they withstood the attack of the
victorious patriot army. But the artillery was brought up, the walls
knocked to pieces, and the position carried in the midst of the most
frightful carnage. The infuriated patriots gave no quarter until General
Las Heras rode among them and begged them to desist from the inhuman
slaughter.
Maipo was the hardest fought battle in all the wars of South American
independence. Of five thousand royalists, twelve hundred were killed,
eight hundred wounded, and two thousand two hundred made prisoners. Only
eight hundred escaped, flying south toward safety at Talcahuano, of whom
less than a hundred held together until they reached the Spanish
fortifications. Of the patriots more than a fifth were killed and
wounded--the greatest sufferers being the freed negroes whom San Martin
had recruited in the Argentine. Half of these brave fellows were left on
the field.
Juan and Luiz Carrera, imprisoned at Mendoza, had been an embarrassment
and menace to San Martin and O'Higgins. The latter hated them too much
to be willing to make terms, and yet he feared that their execution
would cause an insurrection by their family and party friends in Chile.
A criminal prosecution had been trumped up against them and proceedings
delayed on various pretexts. The news of the disaster at Cancha-Rayada
was their death sentence. Dr. Monteagudo, O'Higgins's representative,
acting as judge, sentenced them to death at three o'clock one afternoon
and sent them to the shooting bench at five. Every Chilean who did not
belong to the O'Higgins faction was profoundly shocked at this murder.
Though the victims were agitators and revolutionists they belonged to
one of the most respected families in Chile; with their older brother
they had been the leaders in the first war against Spain; their devotion
to the cause of independence was unquestioned, and they embodied the
national sentiment which opposed the Argentine army's remaining on
Chilean soil.
Pursuit of the Spaniards flying from the field of Maipo was hardly over
when open opposition to O'Higgins and his policy broke out. A cavalry
corps--the "Husares de la Muerte"--composed of Carrera partisans had
volunteered after the rout at Cancha-Rayada and rendered valuable
service at Maipo. O'Higgins ordered it to disband. An open cabildo met
which voted the dictator's deposition, but his soldiers arrested the
Carrera leader, shot him in cold blood, and the citizens had no
alternative but to disperse and submit. O'Higgins undertook to crush the
opposition by ferociously persecuting his republican enemies and
rapaciously confiscating the property of the royalists. This so occupied
him that he was unable to pay much attention to the Spaniards in the
south. Osorio gathered a small force at Talcahuano, easily beat off some
desultory expeditions which the patriots sent against him, and from May
until September held the whole country south of the Maule. But after the
slaughter at Maipo the viceroy had all he could do defending Peru and
Bolivia. Late in the year Osorio withdrew with most of his troops,
leaving only meagre garrisons in the fortresses of southern Chile.
San Martin had remained only a few days in Santiago, hurrying back to
Buenos Aires to try to induce the Argentine government to carry out its
promises of the year before and aid in the purchase of a fleet. Just
before his departure an East Indiaman, carrying forty-four guns, had
arrived at Valparaiso and the Chilean treasury was emptied to pay for
her. When he reached Buenos Aires his friend Puerreyedon, the Argentine
dictator, agreed to raise a loan of five hundred thousand dollars and
send around two ships of the Argentine navy. San Martin immediately took
the road for Chile, but at Mendoza a letter came forbidding him to draw
on the Argentine treasury. He resigned, but the Argentine authorities,
dismayed at the consequences of his withdrawal, finally gave him two
hundred thousand dollars.
The winter storms make the Andean passes impracticable, and it was
October before the general reached Santiago, where to his delight he
found that O'Higgins had already got together a considerable squadron.
The East Indiaman, bought just before Maipo, and manned by British and
North American officers, had succeeded in capturing a Spanish brig. Two
American privateers were shortly afterwards bought by the Chilean
government, and their arrival was followed by that of an English vessel
purchased by San Martin's agent in London. Others were on their way from
the United States and two Argentine ships were reported to be coming
around Cape Horn. A few days prior to San Martin's return to Santiago,
Chile's two frigates with two smaller consorts had sailed south from
Valparaiso in the hope of intercepting a fleet of transports, carrying
two thousand troops and a great quantity of arms, which the Spanish
government had sent around the Horn from Cadiz convoyed by a fifty-gun
frigate. Stormy weather had, however, scattered the royalist fleet and
more than half the transports gave up the attempt to weather the
formidable promontory, though the frigate and the others succeeded. The
transports evaded the Chileans and reached Callao in safety, but the
frigate was caught lying at anchor in Talcahuano, and proved an
important addition to the patriot navy.
The object for which San Martin had been planning and working during two
years was achieved. His naval force, manned by professional sailors
picked from among the best sea-fighting people of the world, was too
formidable for the enemy to dare to attack. Chile was safe from invasion
and Peru lay open to a descent. San Martin's first care was to wrest
southern Chile from the Spaniards. To leave them in control of a fertile
and populous territory where they could recruit troops, collect
provisions, and menace Santiago was not safe. Toward the end of 1818 he
sent his lieutenant, Balcarce, an Argentine, against them at the head of
thirty-five hundred men. Such a force was irresistible; Chillan,
Concepcion, and Talcahuano were abandoned and the Spanish commander shut
himself up in the fortress of Valdivia.
But when San Martin came to face the question of organising and
equipping an army adequate for the invasion of Peru he found the
Chileans cold and indifferent. The success of their fleet had insured
them against assault, and they appeared to be chiefly interested in
getting rid of the Argentine army of occupation. The soldiers had not
received their pay, and though O'Higgins issued a proclamation
announcing an expedition to Peru, San Martin waited around for months
without receiving the promised aid. Finally he presented his resignation
as general-in-chief of the proposed Peruvian expedition, and withdrew
the Army of the Andes from Santiago, leading a part over the Andes to
Mendoza and leaving the rest on the Chilean side near the entrance to
the pass. This measure quickly brought the governments of both Chile and
Argentina to terms. His presence east of the Andes intimidated the
rebels against the authorities at Buenos Aires, leaving the latter's
hands free to aid him, while the O'Higgins party in Chile realised that
it could not maintain itself without his support. He required five
hundred thousand dollars for the equipment of an army six thousand
strong. Chile agreed to furnish three hundred thousand and Argentina
the remainder, and he returned to Santiago in the middle of 1819 to
complete his arrangements. While actively engaged in preparations word
came that civil war had again broken out in the Argentine. San Martin
was compelled to make his choice between deferring to an indefinite
future his cherished expedition against Peru, or abandoning his native
country to probable disintegration. He remained in Chile and though the
Argentine government, under whose commission he was acting, had ceased
to exist, he did not shrink from the responsibility of disposing of the
Army of the Andes. His men cheerfully agreed to follow him, but months
went by with little accomplished, and it was not until late in 1820 that
he was able to sail for Peru, and then with only four thousand men
instead of the six he had counted on. With his departure his influence
on the affairs of Chile ceased.
Lord Thomas Cochrane, a very able but very erratic British naval
officer, who had gone into politics and got into trouble in his native
country, arrived in November, 1818, to take command of the patriot navy.
Under his dashing and restless leadership no time was lost in pushing
naval operations. The year 1819 was spent in expeditions to the Peruvian
and Ecuadorian coast; Callao was repeatedly bombarded, and the Spanish
fleet took refuge under the guns of the fortresses, leaving the sea free
to the patriots. Failing in a desperate attempt to cut out the Spanish
ships from under the very guns of the Callao batteries, Cochrane sent
all his vessels except his flag-ship to Valparaiso, and sailed with her
for Valdivia, the last port held by the Spaniards on the Chilean
mainland. The place was a very Gibraltar of natural strength, and had
been well fortified. Nine forts and batteries disposed on both sides of
the narrow estuary were garrisoned by over a thousand men; nevertheless
Cochrane prepared to capture them by assault with his single ship.
Stopping at Talcahuano he took on board two hundred and fifty Chilean
soldiers, and was fortunate in finding two smaller ships. His flag-ship
stranded; he transferred the marines to the other ships and went on;
reaching the Valdivia bar, he landed without giving the Spaniards a
moment's time to bring up reinforcements, and at the head of his
soldiers and marines he attacked the outermost fort. Though defended by
three hundred and sixty men its resistance was short. While Cochrane's
main body advanced up a narrow path drawing the garrison's fire, a
detachment found a neglected entrance in the rear through which they
poured a volley on the defenders. Panic-stricken, the Spaniards fled to
the next fort, but the patriots followed so close that no stand could be
made. One after another all the forts on the south side of the estuary
were rushed. Next day Cochrane's two smaller ships sailed into the
harbour under the fire of the northern forts, and soon after the
half-disabled flag-ship made her appearance. Seeing the long-boats
filling with men and the cannons of the ships ready to open fire, the
Spaniards fled to the city and surrendered the following day. This
capture deprived the royalists of their last base of operations in
Chile, and only the Chiloë Islands and a few scattered guerilla bands
among the Indians of Araucania remained faithful.
CHAPTER IV
THE FORMATIVE PERIOD
The long struggle against Spain accustoming Chileans to military service
and uprooting the system under which the country had been ruled for
centuries, necessarily placed the control of government in the hands of
the generals. Like all other Spanish-American countries Chile had to
pass through a period of irresponsible pretorian rule and the
sterilising horrors of wars in which one ambitious chief tried to
displace another. But anarchy lasted only a short time; the civil
element was powerful even at the beginning; and Chileans never acquired
the revolution habit. Her government has been stable longest and her
political history the least checkered of any Spanish-American country.
To this result, so happy for the internal prosperity and external power
of the nation, several causes have co-operated. First of all has been
the existence of a powerful landed aristocracy whose interests lay
rather in cultivating their estates in the security of peace and order
than in trying to make fortunes by taxes wrung from a poverty-stricken,
reluctant proletariat. The people are by climate and inheritance
industrious, naturally inclined toward industrial progress, agricultural
rather than pastoral, prolific and colonising, and though pugnacious,
they are not, like the inert Indians of the Andean and Central American
countries, to be bullied into following the first revolutionary chief
who comes along. Further the country is geographically compact--a narrow
strip of plain with easy communication between its provinces, and,
unlike the Argentine and Colombia, not divided into widely distant
districts, each with its isolated capital, its local chiefs, its
ambition for hegemony and autonomy.
In the throes of the first war for independence Carrera was hardly able
to maintain himself, and a civil revolution had as much to do with his
overthrow as his military misfortunes. O'Higgins, even while supported
by San Martin's army of Argentine veterans, held control by a very
precarious grip. During 1819 and 1820 there were no serious troubles
because attention was absorbed by the war against Peru and over
Cochrane's naval victories, but no sooner had San Martin left, than
symptoms of discontent again appeared on the surface. Complaints against
the arbitrary and corrupt practices of O'Higgins's ministers were loud
and unrestrainable; the aristocracy opposed his measures, and the very
senate he had appointed to assist in the government openly obstructed
him. Theoretically a radical, he called a national congress to establish
the new nation on a democratic basis. However, even his own nominees
moved slowly, while Coquimbo, the northern, and Concepcion, the
southern capital, were hotbeds of opposition. In the latter part of 1822
General Freire, the hero of the campaign which had redeemed southern
Chile, took the initiative at Concepcion. The southern provinces
declared against O'Higgins; Freire prepared to advance on Santiago.
Coquimbo followed--an old Carrera partisan assuming the governorship.
The northern revolutionists invaded the centre, while news came that
Freire was rapidly coming up from the south. In January, 1823, O'Higgins
handed his resignation to a committee of Santiago citizens, who
appointed a temporary junta and summoned a congress. A few days later
General Freire landed at Valparaiso with sixteen hundred soldiers, and
on his advancing to the neighbourhood of the capital, congress very
prudently offered him the dictatorship. The aristocracy and the people
soon found that they had gained nothing in this exchange of masters.
After a short spasm of reform, the public finances fell into horrible
disorder, while the ruling clique enriched itself at the expense of the
treasury.
Freire permitted congress to promulgate a Constitution which in effect
recognised the aristocracy as the dominant political element, but at
heart he was a radical and an absolutist, and the document soon proved
to be only so much waste paper. He showed his anti-clerical tendencies
by refusing to come to any agreement with the Pope's representative, who
arrived in 1824 charged with the reorganisation of the Chilean
hierarchy. He summarily banished the Bishop of Santiago because of his
royalist leanings, and issued decrees confiscating Church property. In
1825 he dissolved congress and for some months ruled frankly as a
dictator. When he issued writs for a new national assembly he solemnly
promised not to interfere in the elections, but so little confidence was
felt that, outside of Santiago, no one participated and from there only
a few members were returned. Freire soon quarreled with this rump
parliament, and its dissolution was followed by political confusion in
which parties became daily more sharply defined and acrimonious. There
were "federalists," who advocated provincial assemblies; "pipiolas," who
followed the strong liberal chief, General Pinto; "o'higginistas," who
favoured the return of the former dictator; and finally the
conservatives, nicknamed "pelucones" from the perukes--pelucas in
Spanish--which old-fashioned Chilean gentlemen wore. Only the military
power and prestige of Freire, coupled with his real abilities and
resolution, prevented attempts at forcibly displacing him.
Early in 1826 the Spaniards who until then had held out on the island of
Chiloë, surrendered, and this signal service to the country somewhat
strengthened the dictator. In July of that year a congress met, composed
of men favourable to Freire, and a majority of the members were
federalists, who divided Chile into eight autonomous provinces. But it
soon became evident that such a system must encounter strong opposition.
The provincial assemblies would pass laws at variance with the measures
of the central government, and in the next moment adopt resolutions
instructing their delegates in the national congress to oppose the
permanent establishment of a federated republic, declaring emphatically
in favour of national unity. Nevertheless, the liberals persisted in
their efforts to impose on the reluctant country a brand new form of
government. Doctrinaires and soldiers were still in the saddle, and only
close observation of the signs of the times revealed the fact that
discussion was becoming broader and the military elements in danger of
losing their preponderance. By the beginning of 1827 Freire had sunk to
be little more than the doubtful leader of a fraction of a party. His
administration was in horrible financial straits, the expenditures were
twice the income, and in May he resigned in favour of the
vice-president, General Pinto. The latter was an eminent lawyer as well
as a brave soldier, who held very radical views. Continuing the policy
of his predecessor he summoned a congress which swept away the old
Constitution and framed one that was frankly federalistic, and during
1828 and 1829 he and his party struggled to put it into application. But
the sullen resistance of the aristocrats and the rivalries among the
jealous liberal leaders were too much for him. Party passion became so
acute and politicians so irritated and aggressive that it became
impossible to carry on any regular government. In November Pinto
resigned and Vicuña, president of the senate, tried his hand at holding
the liberals together and suppressing the now confident and aggressive
conservatives.
Not only political but also social anarchy obtained throughout the
country. Disorders were prevalent, robberies occurred daily, life was
unsafe, foreigners were fleeing to Valparaiso. General Prieto,
commanding the army on the Araucanian frontier, revolted and began a
march on the capital. Vicuña hurried to the northern provinces to try to
hold them quiet, while General Lastra went against Prieto. Under the
leadership of Portales, the ablest statesman Chile has ever produced,
the conservatives at Santiago organised a junta and bade open defiance
to the liberals. When Lastra and Prieto met there was no fighting. The
two generals held a conference and arranged a compromise by which Freire
was to be recalled. But affairs at Santiago were in more resolute hands
than theirs. Portales absolutely refused to agree, and back of him stood
the conservative party, well organised and knowing clearly what it
wanted. The conservatives had the land, the wealth, the prestige of
social position, the ardent support of the clergy; their influence
ramified everywhere; they had been welded together during the long
dominance of the liberals; and, best of all, they followed a strong
leader. The army could not be united in unquestioning support of any one
general. Prieto decided to cast his lot with the conservatives, and
occupied Santiago. The congress which was hastily elected naturally
proved frankly and aggressively conservative. The liberals flew to arms,
calling on Freire to lead them, and two thousand Chileans perished in
battle before the final and decisive conservative victory at Lircay
(April 17, 1830). Freire fled to Peru, Prieto was elected provisional
president, and Portales became vice-president.
[Illustration: VIEW OF SANTIAGO, CHILE, ABOUT 1835.]
Though he owed his elevation to his military successes the new president
did not attempt to rule as a dictator, and co-operated cordially with
the vice-president in organising a parliamentary civil government on an
enduring basis. Prieto played not illy the rôle of a Washington to
Portales' Hamilton. Militarism, radicalism, and federalism had been
tried and found wanting and the great conservative statesman took care
that the new order should be tainted with none of them. Two years were
spent in careful experiment and deliberation, and the Constitution
framed in 1833 has remained, with a few amendments, the fundamental law
of Chile to this day. The most aristocratic and centralised of American
Constitutions, it has given Chile the strongest and stablest government
in Spanish America. The foundation of political power is the
property-holding class. No man may vote unless he possesses land,
invested capital, or an equivalent income from his trade or profession,
and congress may fix the amount of the qualification as high as it
pleases. Political power originated in the oligarchy, and its exercise
was delegated to a president whose functions are even more extensive
than those of the chief magistrate of the United States. _Ipso facto_
commander-in-chief of the armed forces, free to select his cabinet and
the chief functionaries of state without the confirmation of a senate,
not subject to impeachment, possessing an effective control over the
judiciary, given a practically absolute veto, with the intendentes of
the provinces and the governors of the departments receiving from him
their commissions and acting as his agents, it would seem that the
president of Chile is little less than an absolute and irresponsible
ruler. But from the beginning the executive was in practice dependent
upon the oligarchy as represented in congress. The instances in which a
president has tried to rule in defiance of the wishes of the aristocracy
have been rare, and never successful.
When Prieto's first term expired in 1836, many of the conservatives
pressed Portales to accept the presidency, but he was satisfied with his
place as chief minister. Under his vigorous and intelligent direction
the courts and clergy had been reformed, the police organised, a
national guard created, the budgets balanced, the executive and congress
worked harmoniously together, peace and order had replaced confusion.
Chile's feet had been placed on the path of social and industrial
progress.
The exiled Freire meanwhile was receiving aid from Santa Cruz who had
recently created the Peru-Bolivian Confederation with himself as its
chief, and whose ambitious designs included the installation of a
government in Chile which would be his complaisant and obliged friend.
With arms obtained in Peru, General Freire made a descent upon the
island of Chiloë, but the rebellion was quickly suppressed, war declared
against Santa Cruz, and the Peruvian fleet surprised and seized. While
the army of invasion was waiting for the order to embark a few companies
engaged in a mutiny which brought about a horrible tragedy. Portales had
come to the camp to watch the preparations. The mutineers seized him as
hostage, and fleeing to the interior carried him along locked in a
closed carriage. In the middle of the winter night they encountered a
detachment of government troops, and with the first volley the guards
stopped the carriage. A man got out, walked unflinchingly to the side of
the road, a half dozen shots rang out in the still air, and he fell.
When the first light of dawn illumined the field, the victorious
national guards found a body lying pierced by four bullets--it was
Portales. But his work had been too thoroughly done for even his own
death to affect it. He had found his country feeble and divided, torn by
feud and faction; he left her prosperous, united, possessing surplus
vitality for a successful foreign war. Prieto and the conservatives were
not shaken; the expedition to Peru proceeded, and though the first
failed, the second won the battle of Yungay, overthrew Santa Cruz, and
made Chile the dominant power on the Pacific coast.
At the end of his two terms of five years each, Prieto was succeeded by
General Bulnes, the hero of the war. Foreign commerce was increasing by
leaps and bounds; the growth of the customs revenues put government
finances on a sound footing; the expenses of the war against Santa Cruz
had been provided for out of current income. William Wheelwright had
established the first steamship line on the Pacific. The political
policy of Bulnes was as repressive toward the liberals as his
predecessor's. However, education and literary activity were encouraged;
a new university was inaugurated at Santiago in 1843. The opera and the
drama flourished, and society took on a more intellectual and
cosmopolitan tone. Even religious doctrine and the relations of Church
and State were discussed with considerable freedom and warmth, and
everywhere were signs of an awakening--a flowering out of the
industrial, commercial, and intellectual life of the nation. German
colonists were induced to settle in the forested valleys and mountains
of the South, and that part of Chile became and has remained more
Teutonic than Latin. The discovery of gold in California opened a market
for Chilean wheat and gave a fresh impetus to commerce and agriculture,
while the mines of Copiapo began to yield their inexhaustible wealth.
Bulnes was re-elected without opposition in 1846, but a new Chile had
grown up in the fifteen years of peaceful order. Though the old liberals
had disappeared, a new party had arisen all the more formidable because
its principles were moderate and it sought not dictatorships, military
government, or federalism, but only administrative reforms, such as
restraining the clergy and widening the suffrage. By 1849 the liberals
had a majority in congress and an agitated session ensued. The
conservative president was pushed into an attitude of uncompromising
resistance to the liberal demands. Manuel Montt, the intellectual leader
of the conservatives, a strong and ambitious man, who was known to have
the courage and firmness to maintain himself against odds, was selected
as Bulnes' successor. His elevation in the spring of 1851 was followed
by an armed outbreak, which the government troops suppressed, but in
September the revolution flamed forth with redoubled fury.
From Concepcion, the liberal headquarters, marched an army which gained
several victories and even threatened the capital. But the conservatives
rallied and in December the issue was decided by the bloody battle of
Loncomilla. In Chile, a narrow plain shut in between the Andes and the
sea, losers cannot hide; a single encounter in force is enough; civil
wars cannot be prolonged in remote provinces or by the flight of the
defeated to inaccessible deserts. Though the destruction of life and
property had been frightful--four thousand Chileans perishing and
commerce and industry being paralysed for the moment--peace was
immediately re-established and the nation rapidly recovered. A general
amnesty buried the doings of the insurgents in oblivion, and former
liberals were welcomed as members of the party which Montt and Varas,
his able minister, organised. Though their faces were set against
political innovations they adopted many important administrative
reforms. The admirable civil code prepared by Bello was given to the
country, replacing the complicated and confusing mass of old Spanish
laws by clear and systematic legislation. The tariff was lowered and
differential duties as between foreign countries were abolished.
Commercial courts were installed, decimal coinage adopted, church tithes
converted into a moderate fixed tax, treaties of commerce and amity
negotiated with the great commercial nations, missions established
among the Araucanians, and public libraries and schools were multiplied.
On the other hand, Montt and Varas relentlessly pursued a policy of
centralisation, subjecting even the affairs of the municipalities to the
control of the Santiago bureaucracy. Re-elected as a matter of course in
1856, Montt's second term was even more intransigent than his first.
Many leading liberals were driven from the country, and minor
insurrections broke out more than once, only to be sternly suppressed.
The landed aristocracy had, however, ceased to be unanimous against
concessions; its more progressive members belonged now to the liberal
party; and the "montt-varistas" in congress were compelled to ally
themselves now with the clericals, now with the liberals, in order to
secure a working majority. In 1858 Montt came to an open rupture with
congress because it insisted on passing a law permitting the return of
his banished political enemies. Meanwhile he had alienated the clergy by
compelling the ecclesiastical authorities to submit to the decisions of
the civil tribunals, and some conservatives united with the liberals
against him in the elections in the fall of 1858. His measures became
arbitrary and oppressive. Newspapers were suppressed, meetings
dispersed, and agitators imprisoned. At the end of the year a great
meeting was called at the capital to promote a reform of the
Constitution. The government forbade it as a menace to public order, and
the dissatisfaction was so wide-spread that Montt proclaimed martial
law.
The liberals in the southern and northern provinces simultaneously rose
in rebellion and for four months civil war raged furiously. Gallo, a
young, rich, and powerful leader, was at the head of the insurrection in
the North and at first he defeated the government forces and occupied
Coquimbo. But his hopes were crushed by the news that the southern
liberals advancing from Concepcion had been repulsed at Chillan,
enabling Montt to concentrate the whole army against him. Four thousand
regulars routed the two thousand men who followed Gallo, and the
remnants fled across the Argentine border. Defeated and banished, the
liberals in reality had won. The seriousness of the rebellion had
convinced the aristocracy that concessions must be made or a renewal of
the conflict would be inevitable. Montt did not seek a re-election, and
it was necessary to unite on some man of high personal prestige, and of
distinguished family, who had remained neutral in the recent struggle.
Such a one was found in Perez, who accordingly received the unanimous
vote of the electoral college and was inaugurated in 1861. That the new
president's policy would be one of reconciliation and compromise was
soon made evident by his procuring the passage of a law granting amnesty
for political offences. A coalition of moderate liberals and
conservatives threw Montt and Varas with their party of "nationalists"
into opposition along with the radicals or "reds" under the leadership
of Gallo. The curious spectacle was presented of two sets of men, united
in an alliance against the administration, who only two years before had
been fighting in the field, and who now professed the most radically
divergent political opinions. Fierce parliamentary struggles ensued, but
they were confined to the floor of congress and to changes in the
ministry.
The country had now recovered from the commercial panic of the fifties
and from the devastations of the brief civil war, and proceeded again on
the even tenor of its prosperous commercial way. The railroad from
Valparaiso to Santiago was completed in 1863; lines were extended up and
down the great central valleys; the telegraph system was enlarged;
Chilean capitalists began to push up the desert northern coast to engage
in the guano business; the German immigration to southern Chile
continued and European colonisation was fostered. Indeed, no South
American country has incorporated such a large proportion of North
European blood; and British, German, and French names are common not
only in commerce and industry, but also in the political, naval, and
military services--witness Mackenna, O'Higgins, Beauchef, Godoy, Montt,
Walker, Edwards, MacIver, Tupper, Prat, Larrain, MacClure, Koenig,
Mathieu, Stuven, Ross, Marchant, Cumming, Day, Stephan, and a hundred
others.
In 1865 a war with Spain interrupted domestic progress, political as
well as commercial. Engaged in a dispute with Peru, the Spanish
government had sent an overwhelming fleet to enforce its demands, and
seized the Chincha Islands. The Spanish admiral was reported to have
justified this high-handed act upon the ground that Peru was still
subject to Spain. If this was true of the one country it was of the
other, and the Chileans believed their territorial integrity and even
their independence menaced. Government and people manifested an active
sympathy with Peru; Peruvian vessels were allowed to coal; newspapers
were filled with abuse of Spain; and a riot occurred in front of the
Spanish legation. In September, 1865, the Spanish fleet sailed into
Valparaiso Bay and its admiral presented an ultimatum. Four days were
given for a satisfactory explanation, an apology, and a salute to the
Spanish flag. Failing this he would blockade the coast and procure
indemnification by force. The Chilean government rejected the
humiliating proposition; the blockade was established, and the
administration, backed by the enthusiastic approval of the whole
country, refused to make any concessions, though Chile's fleet consisted
of one small vessel and her ports were at the enemy's mercy. The single
Chilean steamer succeeded in capturing a Spanish gunboat, which so
humiliated the admiral that he committed suicide, and when, in March,
1866, Chile refused even to disclaim an intention of insulting Spain, or
to exchange salutes, the Spaniards proceeded to bombard Valparaiso. The
town was totally without defences and open to cannon fire; ten millions
of property were destroyed in the three hours and a half that the
cannonading lasted, nine-tenths of it being on the water-front and
belonging to foreign merchants. The Spanish fleet then withdrew,
although the original question remained exactly as at the outset.
[Illustration: VIEW OF VALPARAISO.]
An indirect result of the common danger of the Pacific nations was an
agreement in 1866 between Chile and Bolivia as to their boundary on the
coast. The line was fixed at the 24th degree, but Chileans were allowed
to continue to exploit guano and nitrate as far north as the 23d--an
arrangement which gave their country substantial claims in a region
which shortly proved a marvellous producer of ready money. The German
colonisation in the South continued on an increasing scale during the
late sixties; free land was given to immigrants and their passage paid.
The Araucanians, resenting the influx of whites so near their own
territory, began to make trouble, and a war went on through 1868, 1869,
and 1870, which finally resulted in their suing for peace. A line of
forts kept them in order and they ceased to be a disturbing factor in
Chilean affairs.
Perez had been re-elected in 1866, and his second term marks the
beginning of a new era in Chilean politics. The dynamic elements had
finally become stronger than the static, and the pressure for amendments
to the Constitution could no longer be resisted. But in the forty years
since Portales had fixed the form of the government in its aristocratic
mould, political traditions had hardened into habits. No really radical
changes had any serious chance of success. A measure forbidding the
president to be re-elected was passed, and a desperate fight made to
extend the suffrage to all who could read and write. Though favoured by
President Perez the last failed to carry, and the most the liberals
could obtain was a law reducing the property qualification.
The election in 1871 was warmly contested. The advanced liberals pressed
hard on the conservatives, who resisted further changes desperately. The
latter united with the moderate liberals upon Errazuriz as presidential
candidate to succeed Perez, and receiving the support of the outgoing
administration he was elected. At first the elements who had elected him
controlled a majority in congress, but the aggressiveness of the
liberals and rival ambitions in the government coalition soon overthrew
the reactionary ministry. Errazuriz changed as congress did and soon
found himself pushing liberal reforms. The great issue was the
amenability of the clergy to the civil tribunals. Though fifteen years
previously President Montt had compelled the reinstatement of two church
dignitaries deprived of their places by the archbishop, the clergy had
nevertheless persisted in their claims. The liberals now insisted on the
adoption of a criminal code which would leave no doubt, and amid bitter
opposition it was passed. The clericals were further outraged by
concessions as to Protestant worship and the obligatory teaching of the
Catholic religion in the state colleges. Though the bill establishing
civil marriage failed, the anti-clerical movement went so far that the
old-line conservatives withdrew in disgust from the alliance which had
existed between them and the moderate liberals since the revolt against
Montt. Thenceforth the conservative party ceased to be an important
factor, and the predominant liberals divided into factions who intrigued
among themselves to organise working congressional majorities, which
supported ministries and controlled patronage. Political reform went on
with increasing momentum. To curb the control of elections which the
ministry in power exercised through the local officers who made up the
voting lists, minority representation was provided for, but only after
the moderates had forced the radicals to a compromise, which exempted
presidential and senatorial elections.
Meanwhile material prosperity was steadily increasing and population
growing at the rate of one and a half per cent. a year. Coal mines had
been discovered in southern Chile, railroad building continued, and the
finding of the rich Caracoles silver mines in 1870, lying near the
northern limit of the jointly occupied territory, not only opened up
vistas of wealth, but brought to the front the troublesome question of
the Bolivian boundary. Peru became alarmed at Chile's rapid progress in
the nitrate and guano business, Bolivia feared aggressions on the part
of her powerful neighbour, and in 1872 these two powers entered into a
defensive alliance intended to protect their joint interests on the
Pacific coast. The reaction inevitably consequent on rapid commercial
expansion came in the middle of Errazuriz' term, and was aggravated by a
fall in the prices of Chilean exports caused by the world panic of 1873.
The already burdened government finances quickly felt the strain; outgo
exceeded income, and it was necessary to reduce expenses. Happily the
debt, though large, was not excessive. Chile had gone in for no such
reckless carnival of borrowing as Peru and the Argentine, and her bonds
had been opportunely refunded at a low rate of interest.
As the time for the election approached the radical liberals put forward
Mackenna on a programme which included not only religious freedom in its
widest sense, the extension of the common schools, and the abolition of
the tobacco monopoly, but also railways and internal improvements enough
to bankrupt the treasury. The moderate liberals were opposed to Mackenna
and his programme, so the party split. The convention of moderates was
at first unable to agree on a candidate, but on a second attempt Anibal
Pinto was nominated. Favoured by the outgoing administration, his
election was a foregone conclusion.
By this time the dispute with the Argentine over the possession of the
southern extremity of the continent had become acute, and public feeling
in both countries had risen to a height perilous to the maintenance of
peace. The only boundary treaty between Chile and Argentina--that of
1856--provided that the limits should be as they had been during
colonial times, but these were not certain because throughout the
Spanish occupation the territory now disputed had been uninhabited, and
neither the viceroy of Buenos Aires nor the captains-general of Chile
had concerned themselves about it. Since independence Chile had always
claimed to the Andes on the east and to Cape Horn on the south,
including the region about the Straits of Magellan over to the Atlantic
side. As early as 1843 she had established a post at the eastern end of
the straits, and Argentina at first did not seriously dispute her
possession. In 1870 guano was discovered in the region, and when Chile
promptly proceeded to treat it as her own the Argentine government
protested. For ten years the two countries bickered, but with the
Peruvian war impending Chile thought it wiser to make some concessions,
and the dispute was finally settled by a treaty in 1881 by which the
territory was divided, Chile getting the more valuable part with the
control of both ends of the straits, although this great interoceanic
waterway was declared neutral and no fortifications may be erected
there.
CHAPTER V
CHILE'S GREATNESS AND THE CIVIL WAR
Since 1873 the low prices of Chile's chief exports, wheat and copper,
had turned the balance of trade against her. The government could not
make both ends meet, and in 1878 the banks were compelled to suspend
specie payments. They resorted to the issue of more notes, backed by the
government's guaranty. Just at this juncture the Bolivian government
levied a heavy royalty on the nitrate extracted by the Chilean companies
operating in Bolivian territory. This threatened ruin to the most
promising enterprise in which Chilean citizens were engaged, and was
believed to be a manifest violation of the terms of the treaty of 1866.
The government determined not to stop short of war itself if necessary
to defend Chilean interests, though war on Bolivia also meant war on her
ally, Peru.
A meagre description of the stirring events of this contest will be
found in that part of this volume devoted to Peru. Chile's overwhelming
victory not only profoundly affected her international position, but
also her internal condition. The preparations of the spring of 1879
plunged the government into expenditures which ordinary revenues were
totally insufficient to meet. A new issue of paper money was resorted
to, but the interest on the foreign debt was kept up. The first nine
months of 1879 were an anxious time for Chileans. Pitted against two
nations whose combined population was nearly double her own, her
treasury empty, while that of Peru was supplied by the marvellous
nitrate deposits of Tarapacá, the result appeared doubtful and the
consequences of failure almost too horrible to face. When the Peruvians
lost their iron-clad, _Independencia_, hope rose, but the ease with
which the _Huascar_ eluded the Chilean ships made the people again lose
confidence in their navy, and the coast towns were terror-stricken. But
the destruction of the dreaded iron-clad in the naval battle of the 9th
of October changed in the twinkling of an eye fear into confidence,
apprehension of national ruin into the joyful assurance that a Chilean
army would soon be in possession of the Golconda of the Pacific. Within
a month the Chilean forces were landed in the nitrate country, the
Peruvians and Bolivians had been chased across the desert, and the
Chilean collectors were receiving a million and a half a month from the
royalties of the nitrate mines. A net sum nearly equal to the total
revenue which Chile previously had been collecting from all sources was
added to her income, and she was no longer driven to painful expedients
in order to raise money to meet her military expenses. Although the
issues of paper money were continued and prices consequently rose,
business flourished and a period of abundance replaced the hard times
which had reached a crisis in 1878. The government was able to abolish
the odious tobacco monopoly, and the war rather lightened than increased
the burdens of commerce. The centralised government of Chile proved an
admirable instrument for times of war. The president and his ministry,
backed by a compact congress, wielded the whole force and resources of
the country like a weapon fitted to the hand, striking heavy and
relentless blows until Peru lay prostrate.
After the complete destruction of the allied army by the Tacna campaign
in March, 1880, the government, confident that a treaty of peace would
soon be signed, delayed further aggressive operations for several
months. But the Peruvians were obstinate and later in the year it was
resolved to carry the war to the centre of the enemy's country. Lima
fell on the 17th of January, 1881, and the glorious news was received
while the liberals were contending over whom they should select as a
candidate to succeed Pinto. There was much striving among the rival
chiefs and one convention had already adjourned without coming to any
agreement. Pinto ventured to interfere in a more decided way than any
previous president had done and his influence was sufficiently powerful
to induce the liberal party to unite on his personal choice, Santa
Maria. The opposition tried to rally around the candidacy of General
Baquedano, the greatest general of the war, but the prestige of the
administration was too powerful.
Although his nomination had been bitterly opposed by many prominent
liberals, once in office Santa Maria found means to unite in his support
a great majority of congress. The members who took their seats in 1882
were divided into three factions: the liberals proper, as the moderates
were called, the radicals, and the nationals--few in number but counting
in their ranks some of the ablest and wealthiest aristocrats in Chile.
The conservatives, no longer an important factor, had abandoned their
opposition to the civil reforms which the liberals pressed forward,
concentrating their efforts on a hopeless but desperate resistance to
religious innovations. Santa Maria was in full accord with his party,
and his message of 1883 proclaimed that the time had come for the
realisation of the oldest and dearest aspirations of Chilean
liberals--civil marriage and registry, entire liberty of conscience, and
the secularisation of the cemeteries. In the fierce discussion which
followed, the eloquent prime minister, Balmaceda, took the lead.
Although educated for the priesthood he had developed into an
intransigent radical, a passionate advocate of the completest separation
of Church and State.
The civil-marriage law was pushed through in spite of the sullen
resistance of the conservatives and clericals. The women of Chile, the
old-fashioned elements of society, and the clergy would not accept the
result. The priests refused to perform a religious ceremony for any one
who had been married by the civil law, and excommunicated the president
and his cabinet. Devout Chileans of all classes would not yield on this
point of conscience, and cursed the liberal politicians as betrayers of
their God. All other political questions were held in abeyance. Urged by
their wives and the priests, the conservatives abandoned the attitude of
abstention from politics which they had so long maintained, and went to
the polls to do what they could to secure a majority for the repeal of
the law. But ladies' entreaties and priests' absolutions availed little
against the government's control of the election machinery, and the law
remained on the statute books. Opposition centred against the
presidential candidacy of Balmaceda--the radical, the Anti-Christ, the
uncompromising. In vain Santa Maria tried to unite the four liberal
groups--the government liberals, the radicals, the nationals, and the
new division called dissidents. They refused to meet in a general
convention. However, a majority, composed of the government liberals,
the nationals, and a portion of the radicals, decided to support
Balmaceda and he was triumphantly elected in 1886.
The dissidents, conservatives, and opposition radicals formed a
formidable minority, determined to obstruct his administration. In the
closing days of 1885 scenes were enacted on the floor of the Chilean
congress which resembled recent sessions of the Austrian parliament. The
revenue and appropriation bills were about to expire, and fresh ones for
a new fiscal period had to be adopted. Under the regulations every
member had a right to speak twice on each section, and the minority
filibustered until the constitutional period for adjournment had
expired. Santa Maria would have to finish out his administration and
Balmaceda begin his without supply bills. Under a strict construction of
the Constitution all government would cease, but Balmaceda was not the
man to shrink from enforcing the right of self-preservation inherent in
all governments. The executive calmly proceeded to collect taxes and pay
expenses according to the provisions of the expired law until a new
congress met shortly after Balmaceda's inauguration, and this solution
was peacefully accepted by the country.
Chile had never known a time of such material prosperity as the first
three years of Balmaceda's administration proved to be. The revenues,
well-nigh doubled by the nitrate and copper of the provinces wrested
from Peru, were further increased by the flourishing condition of
commerce and industry. The administration initiated and carried forward
many important public works. Large sums were voted for railways,
colonisation, and schools. Public salaries were raised, the Araucanian
country colonised, and the Indians finally incorporated as real citizens
of Chile. The clericals made the best of their defeat, and the liberal
majority in congress, inspired by Balmaceda's energy, pushed forward
rapidly on the road of reform and change. A new election law was passed
and a beginning made toward making the Constitution more democratic.
Balmaceda's first idea was to unite all the liberal factions, conciliate
the conservatives, and devote himself to a policy of material
development. Although owing his election to three political parties out
of the six, he was unwilling and perhaps unable to govern solely by
their assistance. Instead of regarding himself as the chief of a
combination of parties, entrusted by it with the direction of affairs
and under obligations to act in harmony with it, he did not hesitate to
accept the help offered by his former political opponents when that help
was needed to carry into effect his personal ideas of what was best for
the public interest. On the other hand, the party which had elected him
was really no party at all--it was only a temporary coalition of three
discordant factions. It is not necessary to follow the many changes in
his cabinet, the continual substitution of one group for another, the
details of the efforts which he made during three years to govern as he
pleased, and at the same time to govern in harmony with congress. His
difficulties lay not so much in reconciling conflicts of opinion on
matters of policy as with the personal rivalries and ambitions of the
factions. Suffice it to say that toward the end of 1889 he found himself
without a majority in congress and with no prospect of obtaining one.
Heretofore the rival groups had been only too anxious to trade their
votes in exchange for a share of patronage. Now, satisfied that the
president was determined upon depriving them of their secular influence
in public affairs, all the factions of the ruling aristocracy fought him
bitterly. They feared that the president was plotting the formation of a
personal party, cemented by hopes of office, responsible to him alone,
and that the system of parliamentary government which had grown up by
tacit consent and long-continued custom, would be replaced by a real
presidential government in which the executive would be the source of
power and not merely its channel.
Indeed, circumstances and his own characteristics were rapidly forcing
Balmaceda into this position. Conscious of his own integrity and the
disinterestedness and patriotism of his motives, his irritation against
the stubborn self-seeking of the cliques ended in convincing him that
the old interpretation of the Constitution must be abandoned, and the
president in person in reality vested with all the powers given by the
letter of the fundamental law. He devoted the remainder of his life to
an effort to free the presidency from the practical control which
congress had exercised since the days of Portales. In January, 1890, he
threw down the gauntlet by appointing a cabinet composed exclusively of
personal supporters. The new ministers announced that, considering their
power to be derived from the president, they would hold office so long
as they continued to be satisfactory to him, regardless whether or not
they were supported by a parliamentary majority. In May, Balmaceda went
a step farther by selecting another cabinet at whose head he placed San
Fuentes, his own intimate friend and a man regarded with particular
hatred by the president's opponents because it was understood that he
had been selected as the president's successor, pledged to the
continuance of the same policy. Congress replied by passing a vote of
censure. Balmaceda insisted that the cabinet should remain in power.
Congress refused to pass any appropriation bills and summoned the
ministers to the bar of the House. But the president was confident that
he could carry the elections, and, sure of ultimate victory, felt he
could afford to make present concessions. In August a compromise was
agreed upon by which Balmaceda dismissed the San Fuentes cabinet and
selected one composed of neutral men, while congress consented to pass
the appropriation bills. The truce did not last long. The new ministers
soon found that they were mere figureheads and that the Balmacedist
executive committee was the real power in the administration. They
resigned and Claudio Vicuña formed a ministry which was a re-edition of
the May cabinet. The announcement of its appointment was in effect a
notification that the armistice was at an end. Congress accepted the
gage of combat and immediately began to organise for civil war.
The wealth, social distinction, and professional classes of the country
were mostly on the side of the congressionalists, and all who were
conservative and fearful of disturbance in the established order rallied
around them. The democratic elements, the reformers, the radicals, the
dissatisfied, supported Balmaceda, but the great mass of the common
people, used for centuries to political subordination to the upper
classes, remained inert. His opponents met with no encouragement in
their efforts to suborn the army and General Baquedano refused the
leadership of the insurrection which they offered him. However, the
officers of the navy, recruited from among the aristocratic classes,
enthusiastically assured their undivided support, and Jorge Montt, who
held a high position in the navy, was chosen as chief of the revolution.
The congressionalists resolved to make the issue upon the point whether
the president had a right to maintain any military force, land or naval,
after the 31st of December, the day upon which the existing
appropriation law expired. Balmaceda did not hesitate an instant, but
issued a proclamation that he would follow the precedent established in
1886--collect taxes and maintain the public service by executive
authority until the assembling of the next session of congress. He
expressly disclaimed any designs of establishing a permanent
dictatorship, while expressing his firm determination not to permit the
refusal of congress to interrupt the functioning of government. The
issue was sharply drawn; neither side would recede; either congress
would cease to exercise its immemorial control of the executive or would
depose him.
[Illustration: JOSE MANUEL BALMACEDA.]
Five days after Balmaceda's proclamation the congressionalist chiefs
embarked on board the war-ships lying in Valparaiso Bay, and the civil
war was on. The army remained faithful to Balmaceda and he was in
undisputed possession of the whole country, although his opponents had
powerful sympathisers everywhere. The latter's plan of campaign was
simple. Once again power on the sea was to decide the fate of the
Pacific coast. The navy sailed away to the nitrate provinces, a region
separated from the rest of Chile by the impassable Atacama desert and
to which, therefore, Balmaceda could not send re-inforcements. The small
garrison under Colonel Robles made a desperate resistance, but was soon
overpowered, and there the revolution established its base of
operations. The population of sturdy miners, used to discipline under
their bosses, furnished an admirable supply of recruits, and a revenue
of two millions a month fell at once into the hands of the
congressionalists. Possessing the sinews of war, it was only a question
of a few months to equip an army with the most modern weapons and have
it thoroughly drilled and organised by experts. The blockade of the
southern ports intercepted Balmaceda's supplies and the congressionalist
partisans escaped by hundreds to make their way up the coast and join
the revolutionary army. By August they were ready with a force of more
than ten thousand men.
In the meantime Balmaceda had been making desperate efforts to get a
navy, but iron-clads cannot be improvised, and the congressionalist
agents in New York and Europe had money enough to outbid him and to
command influences which effectually hindered prompt action. In Chile
itself he adopted stern repressive measures against the plots of his
enemies and vigorously recruited his army, putting into the field nearly
thirty thousand soldiers. But the blockade prevented his procuring
modern arms and they had to go into battle with old-style rifles whose
range was only half that of those carried by their opponents. He was
also at a disadvantage in that the enemy could strike where he pleased
on a coast nine hundred miles long. Balmaceda was obliged therefore to
keep his forces divided. Nine thousand were at Coquimbo, three hundred
and fifty miles north of Santiago; as many at Concepcion, four hundred
miles south of the capital; and five thousand at Valparaiso, a hundred
miles north-west. At Santiago he kept the remainder as a reserve to be
sent to the assistance of whichever of the three divisions might be
attacked.
On the 20th of August the fleet of seventeen vessels carrying the whole
revolutionary army suddenly appeared a few miles north of Valparaiso.
Balmaceda had short warning and was not able to oppose the landing,
which was skilfully conducted by Colonel Canto, the able strategist who
commanded the congressionalist forces, with the valuable assistance of
Colonel Koerner, a Prussion tactician of the first rank whose services
had been hired. There was no time to get troops from Coquimbo and
Concepcion. The congressionalist generals moved so rapidly that the best
the president could do was to send the Santiago division, which, united
with that at Valparaiso, made a force nearly equal in numbers to the
enemy. The revolutionists landed with their rations in their haversacks
and within a few hours were marching straight south along the seashore
on Valparaiso. The Balmacedists tried to defend the passage of the
Aconcagua River, which enters the ocean twenty miles north of the city,
but they had hardly got into position on the heights which overlook its
southern bank when the enemy was upon them. The latter's artillery was
twice as strong and his infantry more numerous besides being armed with
longer range rifles. In spite of the advantage of position and the
fatigue of their opponents the Balmacedists were flung back in complete
defeat by the volleys of the Mannlichers and the furious cannonading
from both batteries and ships. The battle lasted the whole day and at
its close two thousand of the government troops lay on the field, three
thousand had been dispersed or deserted to the enemy, and scarcely three
thousand held together for the retreat to the neighbourhood of
Valparaiso, where three regiments of the Santiago division who had taken
no part in the fight were waiting. Canto followed, but failing in a
tentative attack on the strong northern defences of Valparaiso, he
determined to make a circuit to the east, cut the railroad between
Santiago and Valparaiso, and either take the latter place in the rear or
march on the capital as seemed best. The movement, so masterfully
conceived, was skilfully carried out without a moment's loss of time.
The essential thing was to act so promptly that Balmaceda could not
concentrate his forces. On the 25th the whole congressionalist army had
reached Quillota, on the railroad twenty-five miles back of Valparaiso.
But Balmaceda had also been active, and during those three days the
Concepcion division had arrived at Santiago, and reinforcements had been
got through to Valparaiso which raised the army to nearly ten thousand
men. Four thousand troops defended Santiago and more were momentarily
expected from Coquimbo.
Canto resolved to give him no time for any further concentration, but to
fall upon the Valparaiso army before the railroad could be repaired and,
by destroying Balmaceda's largest force, end the war. A forced march
across country brought him to the old carriage road which comes into
Valparaiso from the south. By the 27th his army had covered the
incredible distance of forty miles and was within six miles of the
government forces, who occupied a strong position between the
congressionalists and Valparaiso. Tired though the congressionalists
were, they were forced to attack without delay. The only provisions
which they could count on were the rations that they had brought in
their haversacks; and Balmaceda might at any moment receive
reinforcements from Santiago. So they advanced resolutely to the
assault. The Balmacedists fought with little enthusiasm or hope; the
desertion of part of their cavalry and the inactivity of the rest
discouraged the infantry and artillery, but at first they met the
charges with the steadiness characteristic of the race. The battle was
decided by a flank movement executed by Koerner, who turned the
Balmacedist left, while the cavalry charged recklessly up the hill.
Thrown into confusion, the government troops were simply swept out of
existence by furious volleys and determined charges. Some had stood
steady long enough to kill and wound a sixth of the enemy who charged up
the hill, but more than a quarter of their own numbers perished in the
battle and the pursuit.
The fight was over at half-past ten in the morning, but the news of the
utter ruin of all his hopes did not reach Balmaceda until half-past
seven. It was his wife's saint's day and friends were coming to dine at
his house. Characteristically he did not recall the invitations, and not
until the dinner party was over did he arrange to turn over the
government of the city to General Baquedano. Then he quietly walked to
the Argentine legation and received asylum. Vicuña, the recently elected
president, who would have succeeded Balmaceda on the 18th of September,
was in Valparaiso and fled to a foreign warship followed by the
principal Balmacedist chiefs. No further resistance was made and the
congressionalist junta, with Jorge Montt at its head, assumed the
supreme direction of affairs. Balmaceda's fall was followed by some
riots, but the arrival of the responsible chiefs of the victorious party
ensured the re-establishment of order. Like the Anglo-Saxon, the Chilean
fights desperately on the field of battle, and when his blood is up he
is relentless, but when beaten he phlegmatically accepts the
consequences, and when victorious he is not cruel. The Chileans resemble
their prototypes of the northern hemisphere in lacking the vivid
imagination which makes the inhabitants of warmer climates vengeful.
Slow, silent, serious, practical-minded, hard to themselves as well as
to others, they turned at once to the work of reconstruction.
No one suspected that the defeated president was at the house of the
Argentine minister. It was supposed that he had escaped in disguise, but
on the 18th of September, the day upon which his legal term as president
expired, the country was astounded to hear that he had shot himself that
very morning. The unhappy man feared that he might get his generous host
into danger, and his theatrical temperament could not bear the
humiliation of a public trial or the risk of being torn to pieces by a
mob in case he were discovered. He offered himself as an expiatory
sacrifice, knowing that his death would save his friends from further
persecution and hoping that it might do for the cause of democratic
government in Chile that which his life had so signally failed to
accomplish.
An election had been called and Jorge Montt chosen president of Chile
with all due regard to legal forms. The aristocratic and parliamentary
form of government, under which Chile had so long lived in peace, order,
and prosperity, growing at home in intellectual and moral graces and in
material welfare, while abroad the nation had waxed great in the
consideration of the world, was restored as it had been before Balmaceda
attacked it. Not only the arbitrament of battle, but the verdict of the
people, so far as the latter can be gathered from the convinced
enthusiasm shown by the congressionalists and inferred from the
passiveness of the masses, had decided that there should be no radical
change; that the president should be advised by the congress and rule in
harmony with its majority; that the ballot should be guarded by both an
educational and a property qualification; that political evolution
should proceed by slow amendment and not by radical innovation--by
experiment, not by theory.
The last twelve years of Chile's internal political history offers
little of special interest to the foreign student. Jorge Montt, though
raised to power by force of arms, proved a modest and non-aggressive
president. For two years the anti-Balmacedist groups managed to keep a
majority together, but incompatible ambitions rather than differences
of principle soon divided them. Balmaceda's old partisans quickly
rallied and elected nearly a quarter of the members of the congress of
1894, holding the balance of power amid the warring factions. Curiously
enough, it was with the conservatives that the Balmacedists formed a
combination, and though they held no cabinet position in Montt's time,
they were a principal factor in the coalition which elected Errazuriz to
the presidency in 1896. The jealousies among the rival factions of the
liberals were too bitter to permit the bulk of that party to make any
effective combination against the conservative-Balmacedist-liberal
alliance, and the latter remained in power during most of Errazuriz's
administration. At its end, the liberals having failed to agree, German
Riesco was nominated and elected by much the same influences over Pedro
Montt, son of the old president.
The present Chilean parties do not embody any definite and conflicting
political principles. Each one derives its origin from some great
conflict which took place under a former administration. Once welded
together in battling for a common cause, friendship, gratitude, the hope
of mutual aid in their ambitions have kept the members united. The
latter-day Balmacedists are not enemies of parliamentary dominance; the
nationals are now classed as liberals, though they started as
ultra-conservatives under Montt; the conservatives do not especially
oppose reforms, though they defend the Catholic universities against
radical attacks. The property qualification for suffrage is liberally
construed; any one who has an income of a thousand pesos is legally
entitled to vote, and if the elector can read and write he is not
rigidly cross-examined as to the exact amount of the wages he receives.
However, this wide extension of the suffrage has not brought about any
material change in the personnel of congress. Discussion of the
advisability of changing the present system is purely academic, and if
dissatisfaction exists it ferments far beneath the surface. Like the
English aristocracy that of Chile is truly representative, wielding its
power with a keen sense of its responsibility to the nation, and rarely
refusing to adopt a reform which is clearly demanded by the country.
[Illustration: THE PLAZA VICTORIA VALPARAISO.]
Chile recovered with some difficulty from the industrial disorganisation
and tremendous expenditures caused by the civil war. Balmaceda's vast
issues of paper money disturbed government finances and made the returns
of private enterprise uncertain. The world-wide fall of prices in the
years following 1893 hurt Chilean exports, and an era of economy made
necessary by closely balanced budgets succeeded the flush times.
Meanwhile, the marvellous material growth of the Argentine Republic
began to make Chileans doubt if their country could retain that military
and naval hegemony which she had possessed since her great victories
over Peru and Bolivia. Shut in between the Andes and the sea, on the
north an uninhabitable desert and on the south the bleak Antarctic
waste, Chile naturally envied the limitless and fertile plains over
which her neighbour might spread her population, and the Argentine navy
was fast approaching her own in size and efficiency.
By the year 1895 Argentina's revenue exceeded Chile's nearly twenty per
cent., while the former's foreign commerce was seventy per cent. and her
population fifty per cent. greater. Their rivalry, none the less real
because tacit, explains the seemingly unreasonable bitterness of the
dispute over the differing interpretations of the treaty of limits. That
treaty fixed the boundary at the crest of the Andes, but when the joint
commissioners appointed to make the surveys reached southern latitudes
where the range becomes ill-defined and runs off into the sea they found
it difficult to determine just where the crest was. The Argentines
insisted on a line drawn between the highest peaks because that would
give them more territory, while the Chileans contended for the watershed
between the two oceans. Another dispute also arose about the line which
ought to divide the Argentine from the province which Chile had taken
from Bolivia. Though in both cases the disputed territory was
comparatively valueless, national feeling rose to an extraordinary pitch
and more than once war has been imminent. The northern dispute was at
length settled in 1898 by the arbitration of the American minister to
Buenos Aires, but, though a similar method of settlement had been agreed
upon as to the other and more important question, its final submission
was delayed from year to year, and meanwhile each nation suspected the
other of aggressions. Argentina ordered new iron-clads, which she could
ill afford; Chile ordered still better ones, and Argentina kept pace. In
1898 and again in 1901 the two countries were on the brink of a war
which certainly would have ruined either one or the other. Happily,
better counsels prevailed and arbitration by the English government was
hurried forward, resulting in 1902 in a settlement with which both
parties are in reality satisfied, and the fine iron-clads building in
Europe are now for sale.
BOLIVIA
CHAPTER I
THE CONQUEST AND THE MINES
Between latitudes fourteen and a half and twenty-three and a half, the
mighty Andean chain is massed into a plateau five hundred miles wide,
over twelve thousand feet high, and interspersed with a complex system
of mountains and ridges, parallel, transverse, and interlaced.
Geographers estimate that this central portion of the Andean system
contains nearly five hundred thousand cubic miles of matter above sea
level, and that it would, cover the entire area of South America to an
average depth of four hundred feet. The great ranges which stretch north
to the Caribbean and south to Cape Horn are mere arms of this massive
elevation of the earth, the highest and largest in the new world. Within
a few miles of the coast rises a lofty and continuous range of mountains
which can be scaled only over a few passes, none of which fall far below
fourteen thousand feet. From the top a vast plateau stretches to the
lofty chain which forms the inland rim of the Andean massif. This
plateau is Bolivia. The northern portion forms the Titicaca basin, the
whole of which was formerly covered by an immense fresh-water sea, fed
by the snows of the surrounding mountains, and draining south-east into
the Plate Valley. Now, however, the rainfall has so decreased that the
great lake is shrunk to a mere tithe of its original dimensions, and
none of its waters escape out of the dry plateau. In its southern part
the plateau is bifurcated by a high central range, which divides
southern Bolivia into two portions, the western of which, called the
Puna, is too high, cold, and dry for cultivation. To the east the plains
are lower and moister, sloping very gradually toward the east until they
plunge off abruptly into the great central valley of South America.
The northern part of the Titicaca basin was the cradle of civilisation
in South America. On the shores of the lake are ruins of great buildings
erected by a race who occupied this plateau unknown centuries before the
rise of the Inca power. One doorway exists in an almost perfect state of
preservation, carved out of a single block of stone seven feet high and
twice as long, covered with figures elaborately sculptured in high
relief, while dozens of heroic statues, and walls containing hewn stones
twelve yards long, remain to attest the skill of the old workmen.
[Illustration: MONOLITHIC DOORWAY AT TRAHUANACO.]
Bolivian history emerges from the realm of conjecture with the invasion
of the Incas, a warlike and civilised tribe who inhabited the slightly
lower plateaux and valleys north-east of the Titicaca basin. The ancient
Titicacan civilisation had long since fallen from its high estate and
the Inca armies easily overcame the resistance of the scattered
shepherd tribes. The conquered aborigines were incorporated with the
Incas and Quichua became the principal although not the only language.
Great colonies of the dominant race spread south and east over the
massif into the fertile regions of Yungas, Cochabamba, and Charcas.
Bolivia became one of the principal seats of the Inca power. There they
built their most magnificent palaces; in the northern mountains they
found the copper for their tools and weapons, and the gold which they
used to ornament their temples. Over the higher plains roamed flocks of
llamas and vicuñas. The slightly lower parts of the plateau produced
potatoes and quinoa, and the warmer valleys maize, cocoa, and cotton.
The broad lake, the rivers, and the roads over the comparatively level
country favoured intercommunication and social and industrial
consolidation.
In the terrible civil war which broke out about 1525 between Atahuallpa
and Huascar, Bolivia suffered less than the Peruvian and Ecuadorean
provinces, but thousands of her sons were drafted into the armies which
Huascar successively launched against Quizquiz and the horde of northern
tribes which relentlessly marched from Quito to Cuzco, and after five
years of slaughter captured the southern capital and the legitimate
emperor. But before Quizquiz had had time to pursue his conquering way
into Bolivia, news came that Pizarro had imprisoned and murdered
Atahuallpa, and that the Spaniards were on their way to Cuzco to give
battle to Quizquiz and restore the legitimate succession. The northern
Indians were defeated and at the close of 1533 Pizarro entered Cuzco in
triumph riding at the side of Huascar's heir. The people of southern
Peru, Bolivia, Tucuman, and Chile regarded the Spaniards as deliverers
and allies. Within a few months after the occupation of Cuzco the
strangers rode out of the city along the splendid stone-flagged Inca
roads, crossed the transverse range into the Titicaca basin, and
followed south-east to the extremity of the plateau, encountering little
resistance and regarded as ambassadors from the Inca emperor. They found
the country teeming with a docile and prosperous population, and the
mountains on its borders were reported to abound in silver, gold, and
copper. Almagro, Pizarro's partner and associate, to whose share had
fallen the southern half of the empire, resolved not only to take
possession of Bolivia, but also to conquer the great province which the
Indians told him lay far to the south in fertile valleys on the western
side of the Andes and hard by the Pacific Ocean.
In 1535 Almagro marched from Cuzco with five hundred Spaniards and ten
thousand Indians, the latter under the command of a brother of the
Emperor. After crossing the Titicaca basin, he surmounted the
difficulties of the bleak and icy Puna, the snowy passes, and the
Atacama desert, and descended finally into Chile. But he found the
people poor and warlike, and encountered little gold. Returning in 1538
to make war on Pizarro, he was defeated and died strangled in prison by
his relentless rival. Hernando and Gonzalo Pizarro, Francisco's
brothers, became dominant on the Titicacan plateau, and began
establishing great feudal lordships, dividing the country among their
followers and exacting tribute and forced labour from the Indians. In
1540 the great Marquis himself visited Charcas, the southern capital and
only large Indian city in Bolivia.
Late that same year his quartermaster, Pedro de Valdivia, led another
expedition along the route over the Bolivian plateau into northern
Chile. Meanwhile the Spaniards were diligently searching Bolivia for the
Indian gold mines. Though the Incas were known to have extracted immense
quantities of the metal from the placers around Lake Titicaca, the
surface deposits had been pretty well exhausted, and the Spaniards were
disappointed. Silver, however, existed in abundance and the strangers
began to work the mines shortly after they reached the plateau. About
1545 the great deposits of Potosí were discovered on a bleak
mountainside four hundred miles south-east of Titicaca and near Charcas,
in the regions where Gonzalo Pizarro possessed immense estates. At that
time Gonzalo was virtually independent monarch of the whole Inca empire,
having headed a successful revolt against a viceroy sent out to
reorganise the country and put a stop to Indian slavery. But he did not
long enjoy his riches, for in 1548 he risked his all in a hopeless
battle with a new Spanish governor and ended his stormy life on the
scaffold.
The discovery of Potosí revolutionised Upper Peru--as Bolivia was then
called. It is probable that the high and inaccessible plateau would
have largely escaped Spanish settlement if it had not been for the
marvellous riches now offered to Spanish cupidity. Pizarro's original
followers came as conquerors and not as settlers. They overran a great
and civilised empire whose revenues they proposed to absorb and whose
inhabitants they subjected to tribute, but after they had obtained all
the gold accumulated in the hands of the Indians there would have been
little to have induced them to remain in Bolivia. But as soon as the
unprecedented extent of the silver deposit at Potosí was recognised,
Bolivia became the greatest source of that metal in the known world and
the most important province of the transatlantic dominions of the
Castilian king. That one mountain has produced two billion ounces of
silver. Even by the early rude processes which the Spaniards found in
use among the Indians seventy million ounces were taken out in the first
thirty years, and the discovery of quicksilver in Peru, with the
invention of the copper-pan amalgamation process in 1575, quadrupled the
output. A great mining camp sprang up on the Potosí mountainside; royal
officials, contractors, and merchants flocked to this Eldorado; the
mountain roads to Lima swarmed with mule trains, carrying down silver
and painfully toiling back again laden with supplies; the routes of the
Bolivian plateau became the greatest arteries of travel in Spanish
America.
The year of Gonzalo's execution the city of La Paz was founded in a
valley lying in the open plains just south of Lake Titicaca, and soon
became a great emporium of Spanish trade. On the fertile plateau to the
east of Potosí the city of Charcas flourished and was made the political
and ecclesiastical capital of Upper Peru, Potosí being too high for
Europeans. Soon other great mines were found, among which those of
Oruro, on the south-eastern edge of the Titicaca basin, proved
especially rich. Nearly ten thousand abandoned silver mines testify to
the activity of the Spaniards in hunting the precious metal, and the
total production of silver in Bolivia during the colonial period
exceeded three billion ounces. To work these mines the Spaniards
ruthlessly impressed the helpless Indians. Each village was required to
furnish a certain number of labourers annually. Lots were drawn as if
for a proscription, and the unhappy creatures who drew the bad numbers
went off to meet a certain death in the dark wet pits and galleries,
bidding good-bye to their wives and children like men stepping on the
scaffold. The destruction of life was frightful, the official returns
made by the officials charged with the impressment demonstrating that in
the neighbourhood of Potosí the Indian population fell within a hundred
years to a tenth of its original numbers.
The influx of Spanish adventurers and officials also stimulated the
extension of the system of agricultural encomiendas--that is, the grants
of large tracts of land with the privilege of enslaving the Indian
occupants. Sheep were introduced from Spain within twenty years of the
conquest, and immense herds belonging to the Spanish proprietors and
tended by Indian slaves soon covered the vast pasture grounds which are
found even on the higher and colder portions of the plateau. Horses had
come with the first conquerors and the breeding of mules flourished,
especially in Cochabamba, the great agricultural centre which was
founded in 1573, as well as in Charcas and the far southern districts of
Tucuman. Cattle spread quickly over these same regions, and their beef,
maize, mules, and horses found a good market in the mining districts.
By the year 1580 the Spanish colonial system affecting the natives had
been perfected, codified, and put into general operation. The whole
country was divided into about thirty districts, each governed by a
corregidor who in theory was controlled by a complicated and carefully
drawn system of regulations, but who in practice was a petty tyrant
against whom the white Creoles had little chance of redress, and who
held the Indians absolutely at his mercy. The regulations framed by the
distant viceroy at Lima for the protection of the natives were evaded by
the corregidors, intent solely on extorting money from the poor
creatures committed to their charge. Encomiendas had nominally been
abolished, but landed proprietors still exercised the right to exact
tribute from the Indians on their estates and great numbers were forced
to serve as life servants under various pretexts. Those Indians who
retained a semblance of freedom obeyed their own caciques, who were
often the descendants of the royal Inca family. The principal duty for
which the Spaniards held these chiefs responsible was the collection of
the head-tax in their respective villages.
The letter of the law required a seventh of the adult male population to
work for the benefit of the Government, and in practice this resulted in
an unlimited farming out of Indians as slaves to the rural proprietors.
As much as possible the Indians retired to their villages to escape the
notice of the officials, hoping to find under their own caciques a
measure of security and a chance to live in modest poverty. Misrule,
slavery, labour in the mines, neglect of that intensive and
government-directed agriculture which had alone rendered it possible to
sustain the dense population of Inca times, decimated the Indians.
Few parts of the plateau escaped coming under Spanish rule, but the
white conquerors, like their Inca predecessors, stopped short when they
reached the dense forests and steep valleys, eroded by wildly rushing
rivers, which cover the eastern slope of the great mountain region. Down
these terrific gorges no progress was made, and only occasionally did
some devoted priests manage to establish a mission among the intractable
Indians who inhabit the open prairies interspersed among the beautiful
forest-covered plains drained by the tributaries of the Madeira. The
roads the Incas had built to the Pacific continued even in Spanish times
to be the only practicable way of communication between Bolivia and the
outer world. Transportation over the steep and tedious route from Potosí
to La Paz, thence around Titicaca, and along the high valleys of
southern Peru to the beginning of the tremendous descent to Lima, was
too expensive to permit any export except of the precious metals. To
the south there was a somewhat easier route to the valleys of
north-eastern Argentina, into which the Spaniards had spread within a
few decades after the discovery of Potosí, and whence food and pack
animals were drawn for the mining regions. Spanish law forbade the use
of the Atlantic ports at the mouth of the Plate, and for more than two
centuries Bolivia continued under both administrative and commercial
subordination to Lima.
Jesuit missionaries arrived in Bolivia within twenty-five years after
Loyola had founded the order. They established an important mission on
the banks of Lake Titicaca in 1577, and five years later introduced the
printing-press in order to distribute among their proselytes grammars
and catechisms in the native tongues. In the seventeenth century they
succeeded in penetrating down the eastern slope of the Andes and across
the great central plain to the outlying hills of the Brazilian mountain
system where they established several missions among the Chiquitos
Indians. They even reached the grassy prairies which lie three hundred
miles north of the inner angle of the great plateau, converted the
Mojos, and taught them to herd cattle. But in the forests and along the
base of the Andes the fierce tribes held their own as they had against
the Incas and as they have continued to do against the Spanish-Americans
to this day.
In 1619 another great silver find was made, this time near Lake
Titicaca. A few years later civil war broke out among the Potosí miners
caused by the rancorous greed of the speculators who worked the mines
under contract. Official authority could do little to suppress the
bloody encounters, and the factions were only reconciled after three
years of fighting. The discovery, in 1657, of another very rich silver
mine near the lake brought on desperate fights among the miners who
flocked to the place. The chief contractor enraged the other Spaniards
by his exactions, and the situation became so serious that in 1665 the
viceroy went in person and summarily tried and executed forty-two
persons, among them the contractor's own brother.
For one hundred and fifty years the Spaniards had failed to find gold
deposits equal to those from which the Incas had drawn the fabulous
treasures that paid Atahuallpa's ransom, but about the end of the
seventeenth century rich placers were discovered in the mountains east
of Lake Titicaca. The town of Sorata soon rivalled Potosí in opulence.
Shortly thereafter other great gold deposits were found on the eastern
slope of the inner Andes by adventurous Brazilians who had made their
way across the continent to the eastern headwaters of the Madeira and
ascended the Beni River as far as the escarpment of the great plateau.
The news of the discovery brought a crowd of Spanish miners from Chile,
and as the placers were rich and Indian labour abounded, fortunes were
rapidly accumulated. The gold was sold in annual fairs which continue to
be held to this day, but as is always the case in gold washings the
first results were the best. The region is too difficult of access for
quartz mining, and the production rapidly fell off. Activity in that
part of Bolivia ceased in the eighteenth century and only a few Indians
continued to wash a little gold in the remoter streams. In 1781 Sorata
was destroyed and the gold country virtually abandoned.
CHAPTER II
THE COLONIAL SYSTEM AND TUPAC'S REVOLT
During the two hundred years which followed the Spanish conquest, life
on the Bolivian plateau was vegetative and changeless except for the
occasional excitement caused by the discovery of a rich new silver mine.
The Indians lived in their villages, herding their masters' sheep or
cultivating maize and potatoes, paid tribute to the encomenderos or the
Crown collector, and submitted with dull patience to all the exactions.
They reverenced their caciques, listened submissively to the parish
priests, and meekly suffered the tyranny of the corregidors. The
language of the conquerors was unintelligible to most of the people.
When summoned to work in the mines they went to slow misery and certain
death with the stoicism of their race. The South American Indian changes
his attributes but slowly, and we find a moral resemblance in tribes
differing widely in material culture. The Inca emperor exacted and
received the same blind, unquestioning obedience which the Paraguayans
gave to Lopez four centuries later, and the rude Guaranies on the banks
of the Paraná, who had hardly entered the stone age, were no more
readily submissive to the Spaniards than the Quichuas of Bolivia, whose
engineering, agriculture, and architecture had reached a high degree of
development.
Except the floating population of miners, the Spaniards and their
descendants lived in the cities--La Paz, Cochabamba, Oruro, Charcas,
Tarija, Santa Cruz. Each city had its plaza, its townhouse, its
officials, and its law-courts. Administrative centres for the
surrounding districts, their inhabitants were mainly functionaries and
hangers-on, who varied the sleepy monotony of their existence by
factional quarrels and political intrigues. In these cities the slow
process of amalgamating the white and red races began, and the dynamic
restlessness of the Caucasian infiltrated by degrees into the static
calm of the Indian. The lower classes of the towns became half-breed,
while in the country districts pure Indians predominated. Late in the
colonial period the Spaniards were still occupying the position of alien
taskmasters, and the process of fusing the different races into a
homogeneous mass had made little progress after two centuries and a half
of contact. In a word, the social and political organisation of Upper
Peru was largely a continuation of the Inca system, but that system had
been deformed and deprived of its efficiency and was subject to constant
arbitrary interference from the Spanish corregidors, while the cities
were separately governed by military governors and their own cabildos.
Until the middle of the eighteenth century the authority of the Lima
viceroy nominally extended over the whole of Spanish South America.
However, boards of high judicial and civil functionaries called
audiencias, responsible directly to the Crown, exercised very important
and independent judicial and administrative functions, each over a great
division of Spanish America. Hardly had the conquest been completed when
an audiencia was established at Charcas and that city became the
political and ecclesiastical capital not only of all Upper Peru but of
the vast regions to the south. The viceroy was too far away to
interfere, and in effect a great semi-independent province was created,
whose boundaries extended indefinitely south and east from the
transverse range which separated the Titicaca basin from the region
immediately governed by the viceroy and known as Lower Peru. To the
jurisdiction of this province the governors of Tucuman, Paraguay, and
Buenos Aires were subject, as well as the missions among the Chiquitos
and Mojos on the headwaters of the Paraguay and Madeira.
The Bourbon kings, who succeeded the House of Austria early in the
eighteenth century, were forced to abandon the effort to centralise the
administration and commerce of the whole continent at Lima. The Atlantic
and Caribbean coasts could not be effectively governed from the Pacific
and the rising currents of trade and immigration must be allowed more
liberty to follow their natural channels. The viceroyalty of Bogotá was
created in 1740 including the northern and north-western portions of the
continent, and in 1776 the south-eastern parts were erected into the
viceroyalty of Buenos Aires. The whole audiencia of Charcas was
separated from Lima, and to its territory was added that portion of
Chile which lay east of the Andes. Though the Bolivian plateau was the
most populous and important division of the new viceroyalty, Buenos
Aires, far away on the Atlantic and in a region then considered of
little value, was chosen as the capital.
In spite of prohibitive regulations goods had long been smuggled into
Buenos Aires and thence carried over the Argentine plains up the
comparatively easy passes leading to southern Bolivia, and the selection
of the Plate city was a recognition by the Spanish government of the
futility of longer trying to divert the trade of the Atlantic slope from
its natural channels. But the greater length of the Atlantic route
largely overcame the advantage of easier gradients, and social and
commercial habits centuries old could not be revolutionised by statute.
Most of Bolivia's small intercourse with the outside world continued to
be conducted along the old Inca routes to the Pacific, and political
union brought about no organic and commercial incorporation with the
provinces near the mouth of the Plate.
Before the new viceroyalty was in good running order, a great Indian
insurrection broke out which involved a large proportion of the Indians
of the plateau. Tupac Amaru, the legitimate heir of the Inca emperors,
and a wealthy and influential cacique in one of the valleys between
Cuzco and the Bolivian border, had received a good Spanish education
and possessed many friends among the whites. But his heart went out to
his own people, and he had the courage to protest against the
intolerable oppressions of the corregidors. Failing to obtain redress
after repeated prayers to the Spanish authorities at least to enforce
their own laws honestly, he resolved to appeal to arms, and in 1780 he
captured and killed a particularly demoniacal corregidor, his own
immediate superior, and summoned the Indians of southern Peru to fight
for their rights under his banner. Tupac had secured some firearms and
out of the vast multitudes which assembled at his call he equipped three
thousand men. The Spaniards advanced from Cuzco with a force of twelve
hundred men, but Tupac defeated them and hastened across the range to
arouse the population around Titicaca. At every village he addressed the
people from the church steps, saying that he was come to abolish abuses
and punish the corregidors, and the Indians responded with acclamations
for the Inca and redeemer. Meanwhile the Spanish officials were
assembling a large force in Cuzco which, strange as it may seem, was
mostly composed of Indians. The race possessed little instinctive
capacity for organisation, was deficient in initiative, moral courage,
and independence, and had not the resolution to refuse to follow the
Spanish officers. There were only a few like Tupac who possessed the
mental energy and originality to plan and to fight on their own account.
Receiving news of the Spanish preparations, the Inca hurried back to his
home province and attempted to negotiate. He recounted to the Spanish
authorities his own earnest endeavours to obtain a measure of justice
for his people, the habitual violation of Spanish law by Spanish
officials, and the intolerable oppression of the system of impressment.
He proposed a negotiation by which reforms might be attained without
further bloodshed. Tupac's fame as an enlightened and unselfish patriot
rests securely on the contents of the noble and able despatch which, on
this occasion, he sent to the Spanish authorities. But the latter
refused all compromise and ordered an advance on Tupac's position. He
was surrounded, his army destroyed, and he himself sentenced to be torn
in pieces by horses after witnessing with his own eyes the fearful
tortures and death of his innocent and harmless wife and children.
The perpetration of such atrocities goaded even the dull and stoical
Indians into a fury. They rose everywhere on the plateau and the
Spaniards in northern Bolivia fled for refuge to La Paz and Puno. The
Spanish army which had overcome Tupac advanced into the Titicaca basin,
but was compelled to retreat before overwhelming numbers. Puno was
evacuated and in 1781 the Spaniards had lost all foothold in northern
Bolivia. But the habit of obedience was too strong; their first fury
over, the Indians listened to promises of fair treatment and offers of
compromise. Tupac's cousin, who had been made chief of the insurrection
after the former's murder, was persuaded to submit on the promise of
pardon, only to be arrested, tried, and executed as soon as his
followers had laid down their arms. The family of the Inca was
extirpated, ninety of its members, including women and children, being
sent on foot, loaded with chains, over the hundreds of miles of mountain
road to Lima and thence conveyed to Spain, where they rotted away in
prison.
Many of the reforms to secure which Tupac had lost his own life and
devoted his kin to destruction, were voluntarily put into effect by the
Spanish government a few years later. The office of corregidor was
abolished, and the district governors were made directly responsible to
the governor of the province, who was in turn responsible to the viceroy
and audiencia. Courts were established to protect the rights of the
Indians and the higher authorities made a sincere effort to secure the
enforcement of the laws. However, the reforms did not materially change
the condition of the country, and the Indians apparently settled back
into the same apathetic obedience to the whites. The anti-Spanish
feeling took no active form for the present, but the events had proved
that the Indian population had become a field well prepared for the
springing up of a crop of bloody insurrections.
CHAPTER III
THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE
The South American war of independence began and ended on the plateau of
Upper Peru. On Bolivia's soil the first blood of the great revolt was
spilt and there the last Spanish soldiers laid down their arms. Lying on
the great route from Lima to Buenos Aires, her territory inevitably
became the battle-ground for the hardest and most continuous fighting on
the continent, and her population, having been the most oppressed by
Spanish misrule, showed itself the most tenacious in efforts to drive
out the Spanish authorities.
From 1809 to 1825, with scarcely an intermission, battle succeeded
battle, campaign campaign, and insurrection insurrection, as the
Spaniards and patriots, alternately victorious, marched and
counter-marched along the great mountain road that winds through the
plateau from Humahuaca on the Argentine frontier to the barrier north of
Lake Titicaca. Not a village but what was captured and pillaged, not
merely once but many times, and the tale of garottings and hangings, of
massacres, burnings, and depredations, of heads and hands spiked up by
hundreds along the highways, wearies in the telling. The Indians and
half-breeds who formed the bulk of the Bolivian population joined by
tens of thousands the bands that were continually being recruited by the
patriot caudillos, or were impressed into the Spanish armies. Like
Missouri in the American Civil War, Bolivia furnished more than her
contingent to both sides, and her geographical position was similar to
that of Virginia. The fighting on her soil was the longest continued and
the severest, although the decisive battles were fought outside her
territory. Suipacha, Huaqui, Ayohuma, Viluma correspond to Seven Pines,
Chancellorsville, and Fredericksburg; while Chacabuco, Boyacá, and
Ayacucho, like Donelson, Vicksburg, and Chattanooga, were the fights
that brought the real results.
The patriots from the Argentine wished to carry the war to the seat of
Spanish power and made continual efforts to get to Lima by way of
Bolivia, but though they often reached the plateau they could never long
maintain themselves. The farthest that they ever penetrated was to the
south end of Lake Titicaca, where they were still distant from their
goal by more than a thousand miles of difficult mountain road. The
Spanish generals were more successful, but any army in possession of the
plateau was immediately impelled to dissipate its forces in keeping open
lines of communication with the seaboard and in tedious marches.
The news of the French usurpation in 1808 and the consequent civil
disturbances in Spain demoralised the Spanish authorities in the
Bolivian cities, and the Creoles immediately conceived the hope that
they might possess themselves of the offices and the revenues. Early in
1809 a few influential native Bolivians and disaffected Spaniards took
forcible possession of the government buildings in Charcas and La Paz
and deposed the Spanish officials. The insurgents managed to arm a few
troops, but were able to make no effective resistance to the forces
which the viceroys at Buenos Aires and Lima promptly sent to quell the
movement. The rebellion was quenched in blood. Goyeneche, the Lima
general, ordered wholesale executions among those who had taken part,
and the news of his dreadful cruelties roused a bitter desire for
revenge in the hearts of the Creoles of all South America.
The deposition by Buenos Aires of her viceroy on the 25th of May, 1810,
was shortly followed by the advance of an Argentine army into Bolivia,
and the forces which the Spanish authorities at Potosí and Charcas had
been able to collect were defeated at Suipacha, near the southern border
of the plateau. All the cities of Bolivia fell into the hands of the
patriots, while the villages rose in revolt against their Spanish
tyrants. The Buenos Aireans wished to subject the Bolivian provinces to
a centralised government and rule them from the capital on the Plate,
but every town in Upper Peru had its ambitious Creole leaders who wished
to control their own country. These disagreements had much to do with
the crushing defeat which the Argentine army shortly suffered at Huaqui
on the southern shore of Lake Titicaca. The projected triumphal advance
through Cuzco and Lower Peru to Lima was turned into a precipitate
retreat through La Paz, Oruro, and Potosí into the Argentine. Alone the
Bolivian patriots were not strong enough to prevent the re-establishment
of the Spanish authority in the cities along the main route. But in the
villages and the outlying cities like Cochabamba and Santa Cruz the
insurgent bands kept up a desperate resistance.
The main body of the victorious Spanish army pursued the fleeing
Argentines into their own territory, only to be defeated by General
Belgrano in the battle of Tucuman--a victory which probably saved Buenos
Aires from capture and the South American revolution from extinction. In
1813 the Argentines again invaded Bolivia, but they had not proceeded
far beyond Potosí when they were met and routed in the battles of
Villapugio and Ayohuma. The Bolivian patriots were once more left to
their own resources, and their country subjected to the most awful
devastations. Though unable to concert a general plan of action or to
assemble one large army, nevertheless they had courage to die in battle
or on the scaffold. The most famous leaders in the south were Camargo
and Padilla, whose daring forays helped prevent the Spaniards from
advancing into the Argentine, while Arenales at Santa Cruz and other
patriot leaders farther north continually threatened the line of
communication to Titicaca, Cuzco, and Lima.
[Illustration: BALSAS ON LAKE TITICACA.]
Late in the year 1814 the region north of Lake Titicaca to and beyond
Cuzco burst into insurrection under the lead of an Indian cacique and
an indefatigable agitator of a priest named Munecas. The Indians rose
_en masse_ and the Spanish army in southern Bolivia was cut off from
Lima. Twenty thousand insurgents assembled near the north end of Lake
Titicaca, but they possessed neither arms, officers, nor organisation.
Not one in twenty had a musket, and though their invasion down the
Maritime Cordillera to Arequipa was at first successful, a comparatively
small force of Spanish regulars chased them back over the passes to the
region of the lake and there dispersed them at the battle of Humachiri.
Meanwhile the guerilla bands in southern Bolivia and the Argentines in
Salta had been more successful. The Spaniards were compelled to retire
from the Argentine border back beyond Potosí. The Argentines again
invaded the plateau and advanced in force on the road to La Paz and
Lima. Once again the Spanish forces which concentrated to meet them were
victorious and the allied patriots were completely overthrown in the
battle of Viluma, November, 1815, which marks the end of the first
period of the war of independence. Thenceforward for seven years the
Spanish generals were dominant on the plateau, and the Bolivian patriots
made only a desultory and scattered resistance.
With admirable foresight the victorious Spanish general, Pezuela, went
to work to subdue thoroughly the whole of Upper Peru. The viceroy,
Abascal, backed him up in establishing in this natural fortress a strong
military state, whence money and soldiers could be drawn for offensive
operations against the insurrection in any part of the continent. The
mines supplied the funds of which the viceregal government stood in such
desperate need, and the hardy, sturdy Indians of Bolivia afforded a
stock of excellent recruits whose fidelity might be enforced by white
officers and severe discipline. Pezuela remorselessly pursued the
patriot chiefs; Camargo was finally run to earth, captured, and
garrotted; Padilla fell in the midst of his little band and was brutally
beheaded as he lay wounded on the ground. Garrisons occupied all the
towns and important positions, the irregular excesses of the Spanish
soldiery were sternly forbidden, a measure of order and security
replaced the confusion of the previous years, and the whole resources of
the people were carefully husbanded and devoted to the upbuilding of an
army. Before the end of 1816 Pezuela had a well-equipped and efficient
force of eight thousand men ready for an advance into the Argentine.
The year 1816 was the blackest for the patriot cause since the beginning
of the revolution. Chile had been reduced to obedience; the Argentine
was convulsed by civil war; Uruguay had fallen into the hands of the
Portuguese king; the Spaniards were triumphant in Venezuela, and New
Granada, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia were making no resistance. Pezuela
had been promoted to be viceroy at Lima and La Serna in the beginning of
1817 led the Spanish army into the Argentine and advanced far beyond the
frontier. But he made his campaign according to the rules of regular
European warfare, and though the gauchos of Salta did not venture to
give him battle they kept up a harassing series of night attacks,
ambushes, and daring forays into his very lines. Mounted on their fleet
and hardy plains horses, living on wild cattle, and needing no baggage
or provision train, their mobility was phenomenal, and they rendered the
advance of the Spanish army through the long stretches of desert and
pampa almost impossible.
Meanwhile San Martin's great victory at Chacabuco in Chile completely
changed the situation throughout the continent. It was necessary for the
viceroy to drain the other provinces of troops to attempt Chile's
recovery. Even if La Serna did succeed in pushing toward Buenos Aires,
San Martin could recross the Andes and strike him in flank with a
victorious army. So the Spanish general withdrew from the northern
Argentine and took up the old position near the Bolivian border. The
Argentines never attacked him in force, although they kept up a war with
incursions over the frontier, and the indomitable Bolivian patriots rose
in one local revolt after another during the next four years. The
country was never pacified, although the relentless vigilance of the
Spanish commanders prevented the insurrection from becoming general.
In 1820 San Martin sailed from Valparaiso and landed his army of
Argentines and Chileans on the Peruvian coast near Lima. His masterly
dispositions soon compelled the Spaniards to evacuate the capital and
thenceforth their power was confined to the Andean region which extends
south-east from the Cerro de Pasco to the southern boundary of Bolivia.
The patriots had the advantage of being able to land troops at any point
on the coast, and the Spanish generals, to meet these invasions, were
compelled to move their armies over the tortuous mountain paths. Late in
1822 an expedition attempted to reach the Bolivian plateau by the pass
which leads directly up to La Paz. Valdez, the Spanish general, managed
to get to the threatened point before the patriots had pushed their way
up the mountain. They attacked at a disadvantage, and their army was
destroyed.
A year later a similar effort was made by an army of five thousand
Peruvians under the command of Santa Cruz, a Bolivian half-breed of
noble Inca lineage who had been engaged in the Spanish service until
1821, and then, deserting, had risen to supreme power in the patriot
army after the retirement of San Martin. Northern Bolivia had been
denuded of troops by the Spanish generals in the course of their
operations near Lima. No army disputed the pass, and Santa Cruz
penetrated to La Paz without opposition. Valdez hastened from Peru, and
the Spanish army in southern Bolivia moved toward the threatened region.
Santa Cruz's position lay directly between them; his forces were
superior to either of the Spanish armies and apparently it would not be
difficult for him to whip them in detail. But he made the mistake of
dividing his own forces, and Valdez came up with such unexpected speed
that he failed to unite his two divisions before the Spaniards reached
La Paz. He retreated to the south in order to join his other division,
closely followed by the enemy, and scarcely had he effected the junction
when Valdez skilfully outflanked him and united his forces to the army
of southern Bolivia. By this manoeuvre the patriot army found itself
hopelessly outnumbered and fled north in disorder. By the time it
reached the coast it had been practically annihilated. One body of
Spaniards resumed at its leisure a position threatening Lima, while the
Bolivian division occupied itself with crushing the insurgents who had
risen at Cochabamba and other points during Santa Cruz's stay upon the
plateau.
This disastrous campaign seemed to destroy all hope of Bolivian freedom
for years to come. But Olañeta, the renegade Argentine who commanded the
Spanish army in Bolivia, quarrelled with La Serna and the northern
generals. They sent a force to fight him, and while the Spaniards were
thus warring among themselves word was received that Bolivar had arrived
on the Peruvian coast, accompanied by his great lieutenant, Sucré, and a
large army of Colombian veterans. To meet this pressing danger the
viceroy abandoned his efforts to reduce Olañeta to submission, recalled
the troops he had sent into Bolivia, and sent north as large a force as
he could muster. Bolivar climbed the coast range unopposed and met the
Spanish army not far south of Cerro de Pasco. On the 24th of August,
1824, he won the cavalry action of Junin, and the Spaniards were
compelled to retire to Cuzco. Bolivar went to Lima to consolidate his
political position, leaving the command with Sucré. Four months later
the viceroy suddenly broke out of Cuzco, outmanoeuvred Sucré, and
marched toward Lima closely followed by the Colombian forces. The two
armies finally met at Ayacucho, December 9, 1824, and though the
royalist army fought on a field of its own choosing and had the
advantage in numbers and artillery, it was annihilated.
The only Spanish troops which remained in the field were Olañeta's in
southern Bolivia. He struggled desperately to hold his men together and
make another stand, but the news of Ayacucho was the signal for an
uprising of the patriots all around him. The royalist officers and
troops had no heart for a hopeless fight, and as Sucré approached the
detached garrisons deserted. In March Olañeta received word that one of
his lieutenants, Medina Celi, who was in command at Tumusla near
Potosí, had declared for the patriots. The Spanish general promptly
marched with the few troops who remained faithful, and, on April 1,
1825, fought the last action of the war of independence. Olañeta was
defeated and himself slain, probably by a ball fired by one of his own
men.
CHAPTER IV
BOLIVIA INDEPENDENT
After his great victory at Ayacucho, Sucré advanced rapidly to Cuzco and
thence into the Titicaca basin. By February he had reached Oruro in what
is now central Bolivia, and Upper Peru rose as one man to welcome the
deliverer. The next step was to decide upon the future government. For
thirty years before the beginning of the revolution this country had
been part of the viceroyalty of Buenos Aires, and when the city on the
Plate had expelled its Spanish rulers the patriots there had expected
that Upper Peru would continue to be connected with the new nation.
Although in the early years of the war these provinces sent delegates to
congresses which assembled in the Argentine cities, the Creoles of the
plateau never showed any anxiety to incorporate their country with the
Argentine, and the successes of the Spanish generals virtually renewed
Bolivia's ancient connection with Lima. Now that the Spaniards were
expelled, the Bolivian Creoles were no more willing to unite with Lower
Peru than with Buenos Aires, and Bolivar encouraged this sentiment. The
ambitious and lucky soldier had formed the Napoleonic conception of
making himself supreme dictator of a confederation of small states, each
of which was to be ruled by a subordinate dictator named from among his
creatures. To organise Upper Peru into a separate country with Sucré at
its head would be a long step in this direction. Bolivar himself was
president of the confederation of Venezuela, New Granada, and Ecuador,
as well as dictator of Lower Peru, and at the head of a victorious army
of Colombians. Argentina's influence was nullified by civil war. Chile's
strength was as yet unsuspected. For the moment Bolivar was supreme in
South America. At his dictation Peru and Buenos Aires promulgated
decrees leaving to the provinces of Upper Peru the right "to decide
freely and spontaneously as to what form of government would be most
conducive to their prosperity and good government."
When Bolivar himself reached the country he was received in a delirium
of joy and gratitude, and the enthusiastic Bolivians acclaimed him
father of their country. In a literal sense he deserved the title, for
his intervention had conferred independence on Bolivia, and his decrees
now fixed her boundaries. In general he followed the ancient limits of
the audiencia of Charcas. Peru retained the seacoast directly to the
west as well as all the Titicacan basin north and west of the lake,
compelling Bolivian commerce to pass through foreign territory in order
to reach the ocean. Far to the south Bolivia was conceded a little
ribbon of coast, but the route thither lay over the bleak and barren
Puna and was too long to be of any practical service.
On the 11th of August, 1825, official proclamation was made that the new
republic had begun its existence, taking the name "Bolivia," in honour
of the liberator. Congress said in the act of independence that: "Upper
Peru is the altar upon which the first blood was shed for liberty, and
the land where the last tyrant perished. The barbarous burning of more
than a hundred villages, the destruction of towns, the scaffolds raised
everywhere for the partisans of liberty, the blood of thousands of
victims that would make even Caribs shudder; the taxes and exactions, as
arbitrary as inhuman; the insecurity of property, life, and of honour
itself; an atrocious and merciless inquisitorial system; all have not
been able to extinguish the sacred fire of liberty and the just hatred
of Spanish power."
Early in the following year Bolivar presented a Constitution all ready
for the approval of congress. Written in his own hand, it stands a
curious proof of his political ideas. After laying down the somewhat
vague principle that liberty is a mere island which the waves of tyranny
and anarchy alternately threaten to engulf, and establishing a
legislative system, too complicated to be workable, he shows the cloven
hoof by providing for a president elected for life and possessing the
right to nominate a successor. Sucré was made the president as a matter
of course, but hardly had he begun his regular government when troubles
broke out. His own character, the internal conditions of Bolivia, and
the international jealousies felt against him as the friend and
representative of Bolivar, combined to make his position untenable. A
general of the first order, a statesman of enlightened ideas, and a
single-minded and unselfish patriot, Sucré would not deign to impose
himself by force of arms on a reluctant people, nor make undignified
compromises with the turbulent caudillos. He had accepted the presidency
only after it had been repeatedly pressed upon him by the Bolivian
congress, and though he was probably influenced by his loyal wish to aid
Bolivar in the latter's scheme of uniting all Spanish-America under a
strong, semi-monarchical government, he was unselfishly anxious to
restore peace and order. The heterogeneous population of about a million
who lived upon the plateau was, however, demoralised by the terrible
experiences through which it had passed in the previous fifteen years.
Three-fourths were Indian, a stoical, docile race which would not make
much trouble, but which was divided into two nations speaking different
languages and possessing little capacity for organisation. The few
whites and the more numerous people of mixed blood were the dominating
elements, and these had been trained to lawlessness and ferocity by the
long war.
Sucré vainly tried to replace anarchy by some semblance of orderly
government. The revenues of the country had fallen from the two millions
annually of colonial times to almost nothing. His attempt to substitute
a rational system of direct taxation for the countless Spanish imposts
failed. Money to pay the Colombian troops could not be raised and the
mercenaries became mutinous. At the same time symptoms of rebellion
appeared among the Bolivian caudillos. Troubles in Colombia and
Venezuela had forced Bolivar to retire from Peru and the troops he left
behind almost immediately mutinied, and Santa Cruz pushed himself to the
head of affairs at Lima. The Bolivarian Constitution of Peru was
overthrown, and Santa Cruz and Gamarra advanced upon Bolivia to expel
Sucré. The latter's Colombian troops mutinied and bands of
insurrectionists rose in various parts of the country to aid the
Peruvian invaders, while Argentina and Chile plainly showed their desire
for Sucré's overthrow. On the 28th of July, 1828, a little more than
three years after his triumphant entry into Bolivia, Sucré made a treaty
with the leader of the Peruvian army agreeing to withdraw from Bolivia
with all the natives of Colombia. General Santa Cruz was named
president, and the Peruvians occupied many of the Bolivian provinces for
several months, only to withdraw when it became evident that their
continued presence would surely provoke a universal uprising. Santa Cruz
soon triumphed over all opposition and established himself as master of
the country.
The new president was a man whose general intelligence and ability and
knowledge of diplomacy, law, and economics gave the country a successful
and rational government. Though he abandoned Sucré's premature attempt
to reform the taxing system, he energetically applied and improved the
old imposts and soon brought some order out of the financial chaos. His
army was the best organised, disciplined, and equipped in South America.
He also tried to attract European immigration and to improve
agricultural, commercial, and social conditions and methods. The
difficulties of communication and the conservative and industrially
unenergetic character of the population, however, prevented any rapid
development. Peru was distracted by civil commotions, and Santa Cruz
pressed hard on the northern country. He probably could have forced the
cession of adjacent seacoast to the inestimable and lasting benefit of
Bolivia, but his ambition led him farther. Appealed to for help by one
of the rival Peruvian factions, he gave it upon the condition that that
country should be divided, the two parts uniting with Bolivia in a
confederation of which he was to be the supreme head. In 1835 he invaded
Peru and made himself master of the country.
The creation of the Peru-Bolivian Confederation was an especial menace
to Chile and the Argentine. The latter country, still a prey to the most
lamentable civil disorders, was in no position to undertake any
effective intervention, but Chile's already strong and well-established
government determined to restore the balance of power. Pretexts for war
were soon found, and the more solid texture of Chile's social and
political organisation, the energy of her people bred in cold regions,
and her command of the sea, quickly made themselves felt. The first
expedition sent to Arequipa in 1837 was compelled to retire by an army
which Santa Cruz despatched down the Cordillera from La Paz. The
factions in Peru, however, rose and in the following year Chile renewed
the war. On the 20th of January, 1839, with the aid of the Peruvian
auxiliaries, the Chileans overwhelmingly defeated an army of Bolivians
and Peruvians under Santa Cruz at the battle of Yungay.
The fragility of the foundations upon which Santa Cruz had rested his
system was now apparent. The "Peru-Bolivian Confederation" disappeared
from the map. Peru re-established her independent existence with her old
boundaries. Santa Cruz's enemies in Bolivia rose in rebellion and he
fell without a struggle. As a matter of fact the ten years of his more
or less orderly government had not changed the character of the Bolivian
Creoles and mixed-bloods. His government had been military, reactionary,
and a mere makeshift; the Indians still occupied their inferior
position, the lower classes regarded the ruling coteries as self-seeking
aristocrats, a dull discontent fermented among the whole population, and
the ambitious chieftains found little difficulty in seducing the
soldiery. Bolivia, definitely cut off from the Pacific, helpless to
defend her interests in the plains surrounding the plateau, unable to
attract the fertilising and civilising currents of commerce and
immigration, entered upon an epoch of civil war, pronunciamentos, and
dictatorships which lasted nearly half a century. A recital of the
literally countless armed risings, and of the various individuals who
exercised, or claimed to exercise, supreme power, would throw little
light on the progress of the country. Foreign commerce and domestic
industry were so small that the government was always poor and unable to
meet its expenses. Peru's possession of the seaports held Bolivian
commerce at her mercy, and the military and naval power of Chile was a
continual menace. Either of Bolivia's larger neighbours could easily
bring on a revolution by opportune aid to ambitious factions, and the
turbulence of the Creole military classes was not restrained by any
powerful and intelligent commercial and industrial population.
In the midst of the fighting which followed the overthrow of Santa Cruz,
a liberal Constitution was proclaimed which attempted to take from the
executive his preponderance in the government. Negro slavery was
abolished and the movement was altogether in the direction of democracy
and against the property-holding classes. In 1840 General Ballivian
overcame all his rivals and gained supreme power. In the following year
the dictator of Peru, taking advantage of the continual disputes over
questions of transit through Peruvian territory, and thinking that in
Bolivia's enfeebled condition she would not be able to resist
incorporation, led a large army over the border and occupied the
province of La Paz. But the Bolivians rallied around Ballivian and
defeated the Peruvians in the battle of Yngavi near the end of 1841, a
victory which definitely assured the independence of Bolivia.
Ballivian had risen to power by brute military force and crushed out the
feeble attempt at popular government made after the fall of Santa Cruz.
Despotic, irritable, and ambitious, he had not the wide knowledge or
administrative capacity of Santa Cruz, and he gave the country a much
worse government. The pride of the turbulent half-breeds was roused by
the victory over the Peruvians, and conspiracies and insurrections
occurred more frequently. Ballivian ordered the liberal Constitution of
1839 to be repealed and the preponderance of the executive in the
governmental system was restored by the Constitution of 1843. He ruled
until 1848, but the partisans of Santa Cruz grew bolder and bolder. In
spite of the president's efforts to surround himself with officials of
talent and intelligence, the power of the government decreased. The
irrational and artificial boundaries given to Bolivia by Bolivar
continued to involve her in disputes with Peru, and in 1847 the
imposition of practically prohibitive duties nearly brought on war.
Ballivian assembled an army, but Castilla, the Peruvian president, found
means to foment an insurrection, and the Bolivian president was soon
engaged in a desperate conflict with the very men whom he had expected
to lead against the foreign enemy. Successful at first in his
operations, one mutiny was suppressed only to be followed by others more
formidable, and he finally gave it up in disgust and retired to exile.
A year of confused struggling followed and at last General Belzu
succeeded in establishing himself as dictator. Of low origin and
uneducated, passionate and violent, the new ruler owed his elevation to
his popularity with the common soldiery and the lowest classes of the
population. His so-called policy of conciliation amounted in fact to
permitting the guerilla bands to do as they pleased. Rapine, robbery,
and riot became almost the normal condition of the country, while the
better elements never ceased their conspiracies. Doctor Linares, a man
of probity and learning, though stubborn and uncompromising, persisted
untiring in his efforts to rid the country of the dictator. For seven
years, however, Belzu maintained himself, while Bolivia fell lower and
lower into the pit of anarchy, disgraced abroad by the actions of an
ignorant tyrant who broke treaties, refused to listen to the protests of
foreign ministers, and finally bundled them all out of the country,
secure that on his mountain-tops no army could reach him to avenge the
insult. The British foreign office literally wiped Bolivia from the map,
declaring that she could no longer be recognised as a civilised nation.
At last the dictator tired of his place and voluntarily resigned it,
leaving as his successor a bastard son-in-law, named Cordova. The latter
suppressed nine revolutionary movements in three years before he was at
last overthrown by the indefatigable Linares.
The new dictator started in with the good wishes of the respectable
elements, and earnestly tried to raise his country from the abyss into
which she had fallen. But the nation had been so thoroughly demoralised
that there was no foundation to build upon. The public offices were
filled by political favourites, but when he threw them out and tried to
put honest and competent men in their places he lost the good-will of
the office-holding class. He tried to reform the army and dismissed the
useless swarm of officers without commands, but this gained him the
enmity of the military. The very ministers whom he had selected to aid
him in putting reforms into effect plotted against him, and it was a
conspiracy led by Fernandez, the member of his cabinet in whom he placed
his greatest confidence, that brought about his fall after he had ruled
three stormy and anxious years.
A period of frightful confusion, known as the presidency of General
Acha, ensued. The chiefs fought among themselves with such ferocity that
in Chile and Peru the partition of Bolivia was seriously discussed.
Finally, at the end of 1864, a remarkable man came to the front out of
the tangle. This was the celebrated dictator, Melgarejo, who frankly
abandoned all pretence of governing by any sanction except that of brute
force and terror. He kept up a great army of spies, and the conspiracies
which they reported were ruthlessly crushed by the well-paid ruffians
who composed his army and blindly obeyed his capricious commands. One
day the dictator, drunk, as was his habit, called the guard and ordered
them to jump out of the windows in order to show a visiting foreigner
the superior discipline of the Bolivian soldier. Several had broken
their arms or legs, but he did not even look to see, and continued his
demonstration by ordering his aide-de-camp to "lie dead" like a poodle
dog. Taxes were arbitrarily levied; peaceable citizens were exiled and
shot; around him circulated a crowd of parasitic functionaries. But in
spite of his extravagances and cruelties Melgarejo gave some solidity
and consistence to the governmental structure. The production of silver
had been declining until about 1850, but at the beginning of Melgarejo's
administration had again reached ten millions annually, and thereafter
rapidly increased with the encouragement given by him to the investment
of foreign capital. Money was freely spent on public works, and the
Mollendo railroad, extending to the head of Lake Titicaca, dates from
this time. It is the principal route for Bolivia's foreign commerce,
though it does not touch Bolivian territory. The isolated desert region
on the coast began to be exploited and the guano, nitrate, copper, and
silver found there vastly increased the country's revenues, although a
considerable foreign debt was incurred.
Melgarejo's enemies succeeded in overthrowing him in 1871, and their
leader, General Morales, succeeded to the supreme power. There followed
some relaxation of the system of personal tyranny, but in the main the
form of the administration changed little, either under Morales or his
immediate successors. The first named was able to negotiate a European
loan to be employed in the building of railways, and in fact one was
constructed--running from Antofagasta on the nitrate coast over the
Cordillera and across the Puna table-land to the centre of the country
at Oruro. Heavy gradients, the unproductive character of the region
along the line, and its length, have prevented its furnishing the cheap
and practical outlet to the sea which had been hoped for. Insurrections
continued to break out from time to time, and in 1876 General Daza
usurped supreme power. His rule lasted until the Chilean war of 1879,
but the first decisive defeat was the signal for his fall.
Narciso Campero became president, and the Bolivian nation, hopeless of
recovering its coast provinces by force of arms, began the task of
re-adjusting itself to the new conditions. The Constitution was
re-written in its present form, and a succession of presidents have
since ruled the country in a peace and security which forms a happy
contrast with the anarchy that preceded Melgarejo's advent. The
production of silver rapidly increased, reaching fifteen million dollars
in 1885, when Pacheco was president, and growing to twenty millions in
1888 with Arce in the executive chair. Potosí still yields three million
ounces per annum, and the great Huanchaca mines far surpass Potosí,
making Bolivia the third silver-producing country in the world. But her
great resources can never be profitably utilised until a practical
outlet to the sea has been found. On the Pacific she has been absolutely
shut in since the Chilean war--Peru controlling the northern fourth of
the coast which separates her from that ocean and Chile the remainder.
Bolivia is without a seaport, though she retains a hope of receiving
compensation for the loss of her nitrate territory in the cession of one
such outlet, when Chile and Peru are able to come to an agreement about
the province of Arica. But the explorations of Heath on the upper
tributaries of the Madeira resulted in discoveries which may ultimately
enable Bolivia to utilise the magnificent fertile plain lying just at
the foot of the table-land, but so far well-nigh as inaccessible as the
South Pole. Broad and navigable rivers meander through this vast region,
needing only the construction of a railway around the Madeira rapids to
communicate with the Amazon and the Atlantic.
[Illustration: LOADED LLAMAS.]
Since the days of the Jesuit missionaries the Mojos Indians in the
prairies on the Mamoré north of Santa Cruz have retained a measure of
civilisation, breeding cattle and keeping up a connection with the
Creoles at Santa Cruz. Lately the latter have pressed on into the rubber
regions of the lower Mamoré and even crossed into the valley of the Beni
and founded the town of Riveralta where the Orton joins the Beni. From
La Paz daring men painfully made their way down the roadless gorges of
the great Cordillera and reached navigable water where the Beni emerges
from the mountains. Thence to Riveralta the way was comparatively easy
and little steamboats now ply those waters. This region is permanently
inhabitable by civilised man, but to the north-east the country drops
off into swampy plains drained by the Acre, a tributary of the sluggish
Purus. Up the latter river the Brazilian rubber hunters had come from
Manaos and found the banks of the Acre unprecedentedly rich in the
finest gum. Thousands poured into the territory and by the early
nineties it was furnishing a large percentage of the world's supply.
Though the Bolivian boundary had long been believed to cross the Acre
near the 9th degree, the Brazilian rubber gatherers did not hesitate to
enter an entirely unoccupied territory and even penetrated as far south
as the 12th degree in a region undisputably Bolivian. The authorities at
La Paz attempted to assert their political control, but since it was
well-nigh impossible to get troops into the country except by way of the
Atlantic, the rubber gatherers defied them. The Brazilian government
intervened to protect the interests of its citizens; President Pando
headed an expedition in 1902 which was met at the borders of the Acre
valley, and after some fighting with the insurgent Brazilians, which
seemed likely to bring on a war between the two powers, a treaty was
agreed upon by which Brazil takes the territory, paying a money
indemnity, agreeing to build the railroad around the Madeira Falls, and
ceding a port on the Paraguay.
Internally the condition of Bolivia has in the main been quiet since the
Chilean war, and the contest between clericalism and radicalism has lost
much of its bitterness. General Camacho led an unsuccessful insurrection
in 1890 and afterwards fled to Valparaiso. Three years later he planned
another insurrection and the government had great difficulty in
obtaining arms and money for operations against him. Chileans finally
furnished rifles and a loan, and shortly afterwards a treaty was
negotiated by which Bolivia abandoned its alliance with Peru and came
under Chilean influence. Peru resented this and the following year her
restrictions on Bolivian commerce nearly brought the two countries to
blows. The crisis, however, passed, and Bolivia has returned to the
policy of avoiding entangling alliances, while pressing Brazil, Chile,
or Peru to give her outlets to the ocean. In 1896, Alonso, leader of the
conservatives, and that energetic general and explorer, José Manuel
Pando, chief of the liberals, contested the presidential election. In
this contest the geographical jealousies which exist between northern
and southern Bolivia played a considerable rôle. Alonso was successful
and served as president during three years, but early in 1899 Pando
began warlike operations and in April overthrew Alonso in a decisive
battle. Under his vigorous administration the country has been quiet.
The plain of the Madeira has been opened up to settlement, and the
international position of the government is now vastly improved.
ECUADOR
CHAPTER I
THE CARAS
The irrigated valleys of Chile lie open to the ocean or are easily
accessible over the low coast range. The sea-board of Peru is likewise
defenceless, and though the Andean passes are high they are dry and
practicable and offer a way of approach to the table-land behind. The
want of rain from Valparaiso to Paita is explained by the Antarctic
current whose waters cool the breezes so that the warmer land condenses
no moisture. But at the northern boundary of Peru the coast bends
abruptly to the east; the cold current follows its original north-east
direction and lets the warm tropical waters wash the land. From the Gulf
of Guayaquil to Panama the coast and mountainsides are covered with
luxuriant vegetation and the ascent of the passes becomes well-nigh
impracticable. Therefore the Andean plateau in Ecuador is accessible
from the Pacific only on the south and the Colombian plateaux are
virtually cut off from communication with the western ocean.
Tradition relates that about the seventh century of the Christian era a
nation of Indians, bearing the name of Caras, invaded the sea-board of
central Ecuador. They were warlike, aggressive, conquerors by instinct,
and their civilisation was superior to that of the barbarous tribes upon
whom they descended. They came by way of the sea, most probably from the
south, bringing a complicated religion to which they were fanatically
devoted, and a military and tribal organisation which gave them an
overwhelming advantage. In all probability the Caras were akin to those
highly civilised nations who lived in the valleys of the northern
Peruvian coast. Be this as it may, there is no doubt that the Caras were
not long content with dominance along the coast, and succeeded in
forcing their way up the slopes of the Cordillera through a zone
uninhabitable on account of the perpetual rain, and only penetrable
along defiles where the soaked clay of the steep mountainsides affords
no footing and the tangle of vegetation leaves no path.
At six thousand feet above sea-level the roads became better, the
vegetation ceased to be tropical, and when they emerged through the
passes to the comparatively level plains about Quito, some eight
thousand feet above the sea, they found themselves in a country where
the cereals and fruits of the temperate zone flourish and no forests
interrupt communication. Two lines of great mountains stretched north
and south and between them lay a plateau less than forty miles in width,
and though much of it was bleak and arid, at least half lay below the
elevation where the successful cultivation of the cereals and the
potato becomes possible. At regular intervals transverse ranges of
mountains, called "nudos," or knots, cut the plateau into separate
divisions, each measurably protected from attack by its neighbours.
Andean Ecuador has been aptly compared to a great ladder four hundred
miles long, with the "nudos" forming its gigantic rungs. Beginning at
the northern boundary of modern Ecuador, Quito lies in the second of the
eight sub-plateaux, which is one of the largest and most fertile. Into
it descended the Caras and began to conquer and absorb the aborigines.
These inter-Andean valleys were inhabited by numerous tribes speaking
distinct languages, who had developed considerable skill in agriculture.
The compact and efficient military organisation of the Caras gave them a
great advantage over more loosely organised peoples, but for three
hundred years they were occupied in extending their power over the
valley of Quito and thence over Latacunga and Ibarra, which adjoin it
north and south.
From the year 1300 the Cara traditions gather more clearness and
precision. By a law handed down from immemorial times each Shiri was
succeeded by his son, or if he had no son by the son of a sister,
daughters and other female descendants being absolutely excluded. The
eleventh Shiri, whose reign corresponded with the last years of the
thirteenth century, had no male heir, and he asked the general council
of the nation for permission to name as successor the husband he might
choose for his daughter. Each one of the different chiefs, hoping to be
selected, voted for the proposition, but the Shiri diplomatically went
outside of his own dominions and proposed to the monarch who ruled in
Riobamba that his eldest son, Duchisela, marry the Princess Toa. The
proposition was accepted and the Quito kingdom doubled its territory and
power.
Duchisela reigned seventy years, and upon his death was succeeded by his
son Autachi, the thirteenth Shiri. This monarch raised the Cara power to
its highest pitch, extending his dominions south over the plateaux of
Alausi, Cañar, Cuenca, Jubones, Zaruma, and Loja, and thence far beyond
the present Ecuadorian boundary over the Peruvian provinces of
Huanacabamba, Piura, and Paita. This vast increase of territory was due
more to treaties of confederation and alliance than to conquest. None of
the new provinces were ever thoroughly incorporated into the Cara
confederacy, and their allegiance to the Shiri in far-away Quito sat
lightly upon them. By the end of the fourteenth century the Cara
influence was dominant along the Andean plateau from the first degree of
north latitude to the sixth south, and extended to the arid coast plain
of northern Peru. The humid and forested coast region north of Guayaquil
remained in the hands of barbarous tribes, nor were the Caras ever able
to extend their power down the wooded eastern slopes of the Andes into
the Amazon plain.
Cara expansion was suddenly checked by the Incas. In the latter part of
the fourteenth century these fierce and indomitable Islamites of the
western continent under the lead of Tupac Yupanqui conquered the coast
nations from Lima to Paita, and the ruder tribes who lived in the
mountains from Cerro de Pasco north to the Ecuadorian border. Tupac did
not respect the southern confederates of the Caras, and the Shiri
appears to have made little resistance when his allies were rapidly
reduced. The Inca system was the far better adapted for conquest. The
emperor could equip and lead to invasion armies numbering tens of
thousands, well disciplined, blindly obeying their generals, marching
over carefully prepared roads, and supplied by an admirable
commissariat. The Caras had contented themselves with treaties of
alliance; they were only the chief tribe in a confederacy, and warlike
as were the members they could not combine to offer any effective
resistance to the first onslaught of the great military empire.
A fairly homogeneous civilisation had grown up in the Ecuadorian
Cordillera during the four hundred years of Cara influence. Bringing
with them from their unknown original home a capacity for military and
political organisation far superior to that of most American aborigines,
the Caras were like a ferment introduced into the heterogeneous and
inert tribes of the plateau, which gradually transformed the latter into
a vigorous people so well fitted to their surroundings that they
survived the Inca conquest, even turning the tables and becoming the
dominant element in the empire, and then outlived the decimating tyranny
of the Spaniards, so that ninety-five per cent. of the present
population is composed of their descendants. That this civilisation was
in the main self-developed can hardly be doubted. There is no evidence
of any intimate contact with the Incas; with the peoples of Yucatan and
Mexico the Caras had no connection, and the conjectures as to
communication with the peoples of eastern Asia have no historical or
archæological basis. Their civilising and consolidating mission was
aided by exceptionally favourable surroundings. The climate was healthy,
agreeable, and conducive to bodily and intellectual vigour; the soil
reasonably fertile and well adapted to the production of eminently
nourishing food crops, while requiring hard labour in its cultivation.
The potato, the quinoa grain, and maize played no insignificant rôle in
the history of the Caras; they might never have risen above the level of
Caribs if they had lived in a region where savoury and poorly nourishing
esculents grow wild. Not less important was the physical configuration
of Ecuador. Dry and open valleys, some of them large enough to sustain
two hundred thousand people, and easily penetrable in every part, while
surrounded by high mountains and bleak "paramos," shut off from the
outer world by the forest-covered declivities of the Cordilleras, were
admirably adapted to favour the growth of compact little states, whose
inhabitants would retain their individual initiative and local pride
even after incorporation in a larger political system.
Hualcopo, the fourteenth Shiri, ascended the throne of Quito in 1430.
Tupac Yupanqui had completed the reduction of the coast tribes of
northern Peru and the mountain tribes as far north as the present
Ecuador border had ceased to resist him. From the coast valleys of Piura
and Paita, he marched up the easy pass which leads over the Cordillera
into the fertile plateaux of southern Ecuador, and after a few victories
all the tribes as far north as the nudo of Azuay submitted, and
transferred their allegiance from Quito to Cuzco. Loja, Zaruma, Jubones,
the great valley of Cuenca, and Cañar were taken away, and Hualcopo was
deprived of all but his hereditary dominions--the old kingdoms of
Riobamba and Quito. The Shiri possessed no army capable of undertaking
an offensive campaign against the Incas, but, although terrified at
Tupac's rapid advance, the ancient possessions of the Shiri remained
faithful. Tupac spent two years in the province of Cañar, erecting
fortifications and recruiting his army by new arrivals from the south
and enlistment among the recently conquered tribes. Meanwhile Hualcopo
was fortifying himself in the valley of Alausi, which lies north of
Azuay, and in the passes that lead over the Tiocajas nudo into Riobamba.
About the year 1455 the Inca army advanced in force. Defeated in several
minor actions, the Shiri abandoned Alausi and concentrated his forces in
the passes of Tiocajas. After three months of skirmishes and sieges in
which the forts fell one by one, the Caras were compelled to accept a
pitched battle. The conflict was well sustained, but with the death of
the principal Cara general, victory declared for the Incas and the Caras
fled from the field leaving sixteen thousand dead.
Hualcopo retired to Riobamba, but there it was impossible to maintain
himself, and he was forced to retreat to the fortress of Mocha in the
nudo which divides Riobamba from the valley of Latacunga. Here he made a
determined and successful stand, and all Tupac's efforts to force his
way over the last line of natural fortifications which kept him out of
the northern valleys were in vain. The Inca emperor was forced to
content himself with assuring his possession of the provinces already
conquered. In 1460 he returned to Cuzco, leaving the territory
garrisoned. Three years later the heroic Hualcopo died, and was
succeeded by his son, Cacha, the fifteenth and last Shiri. The young man
signalised his accession to the throne by an aggressive campaign for the
recovery of the lost provinces. He passed south into the valley of
Riobamba, surprised the Inca garrisons, and put them to the sword,
revindicating all the country as far south as the nudo of Azuay. Beyond
that range he was unable to go, for all his efforts failed before the
obstinate resistance of the inhabitants of Cañar. Tupac began
preparations to lead an overwhelming army against Cacha, but his own
death interrupted him, and it was not until 1475 that his son, Huaina
Capac, surnamed the "great," was able to take the road for the north,
determined to put an end to the Shiri dynasty. He first consolidated his
power among the tribes on the coast south of Guayaquil, whom his father
had left half independent, and then extended his conquests along the
northern shore among the barbarians of Manabi. On the island of Puna he
put to the sword all the male inhabitants, and one tribe in Manabi,
notorious for its abominable and unnatural practices, he extirpated.
Returning south, he crossed the mountains in northern Peru, and
descending their eastern slopes, waged a bloody war against the
Pacamorés, who inhabited the forests where the Upper Amazon debouches
into the plain. Having thus secured his line of communications he
devoted himself to the main object of the campaign--the conquest of
Quito.
Disproportionate as appeared the resources of the contending nations,
the war which ensued was well contested. The Caras had resumed their
warlike habits and the imminence of the danger animated them and their
allies to a desperate resistance. For months the Caras held the great
Inca army at bay in the defiles of the Azuay, but finally they were
defeated and retreated to the line of Tiocajas. The Incas followed and
in a great battle vanquished their opponents so decisively that not only
was Riobamba lost, as had happened after the former defeat, but likewise
Latacunga and Quito itself. No stand could be made at Mocha, and the
Shiri fled to Ibarra, through Quito, where the Caranquis, the most
warlike members of the confederacy, were determined to resist to the
last. A considerable number of Cara warriors had escaped the slaughter
at Tiocajas, and a formidable army assembled to defend the last
fortresses in the extreme north of the kingdom. Huaina himself laid
siege to Otavalo, the principal stronghold of the Caranquis, but was not
able to reduce it. Their successes encouraged them to take the
offensive, and in a sortie the Inca emperor narrowly escaped losing his
life. Compelled to retire to suppress a mutiny among his southern
troops, he left the northern army under the command of his brother,
Auqui Toma, and the latter was killed in an assault on the redoubtable
fortress of Otavalo. This, however, was the last victory which the Shiri
won. Huaina's reinforcements had come up and he advanced with an
overwhelming army to avenge his brother's death. Otavalo was taken and
its garrison put to the sword; the Shiri fled to another fortress, where
he was defeated and slain. The victorious emperor took a fearful
vengeance on the Caranquis, whose obstinacy had cost him so dear.
Tradition tells that twenty-four thousand were massacred, and their
bodies thrown into a lake which has ever since borne the name of
Yahuarcocha--the "pool of blood."
Thenceforth the provinces of the old Quito kingdom were integral parts
of the Inca empire. The southern valleys had readily accepted the Inca
rule, and the central ones appear to have abandoned the Shiri's cause
promptly after the second battle of Tiocajas. Though the Caranquis had
been exterminated and the Caras had suffered greatly, the other tribes
remained intact. The Inca emperor saw that a policy of conciliation
would best insure the obedience of these formidable peoples. He spent
the remainder of his long life in Ecuador, married the daughter of the
dead Shiri, and ruled rather as the legitimate successor of the ancient
dynasty than as an alien conqueror. So far as possible the religious,
political, and social customs of the Incas were introduced, but it does
not appear that the work of amalgamation had proceeded very far in the
fifty years which intervened until the advent of the Spaniards. The
Quichua had not displaced the native tongues to any great extent, and
while the Ecuadorean tribes became loyal subjects, they did not regard
themselves as in any way inferior to the older subjects of the empire.
Rather had the balance of power passed to them; they had acquired the
skill in regular warfare once the exclusive property of the Incas; and
the issue of the civil war between Huascar and Atahuallpa seems to prove
that they would have played the principal rôle in the Inca system if the
advent of the Spaniards had not altered everything.
Huaina Capac died in Quito in 1525, and his body was taken to Cuzco to
be laid with his ancestors. In order better to secure the northern
kingdom to his descendants he named Atahuallpa, a son by his marriage
with the Shiri princess, ruler of the old dominions of Quito. His eldest
son, Huascar, was given the rest of the empire with the title of emperor
and a suzerainty over Atahuallpa. But Huaina's wise provisions were
rendered valueless by the dispute which arose between the two brothers
about the boundaries of Atahuallpa's territories. The latter insisted
that they included the provinces south of the Azuay, which had been
wrested from Hualcopo by Tupac Yupanqui seventy years before, but
Huascar would not admit that they extended beyond the hereditary
dominions of the Shiri dynasty. The people of Cañar, the most northerly
of the disputed provinces, had always been bitter enemies of Quito, and
their chief now refused to recognise Atahuallpa as overlord and sent a
deputation to Huascar. Atahuallpa despatched his uncle Caluchima and his
great general Quizquiz to occupy the province and dethrone the
recalcitrant chief. Huascar hurried up some of his Inca regulars to aid
the people of Cañar, who won the first battles and advanced towards
Atahuallpa's capital. The northerners rallied around the grandson of
their old Shiri, and two great armies met on the banks of the Naxichi,
only fifty miles south of Quito. Atahuallpa gained a complete victory,
and followed it up by advancing over the Azuay into Cañar, where he was
again overwhelmingly victorious over a second army which Huascar had
sent against him. The whole of southern Ecuador fell into his hands and
he took a fearful vengeance on the Cañaris. Atahuallpa himself remained
in Ecuador while Quizquiz went on into Peru to achieve that crushing
series of victories which resulted in the taking of Cuzco and the
capture of Huascar himself. By the year 1532 the whole empire as far
south as Cuzco lay prostrate, and it seemed certain that the Cuzco
dynasty would be displaced by the illegitimate Quito branch.
CHAPTER II
THE SPANISH CONQUEST
The fratricidal war lasting seven bloody years exhausted the resources
of the northern and central provinces of the Inca empire, and raised the
spirit of faction to a bitter pitch. Hardly had the last battle been
fought when Pizarro landed on the northern Peruvian coast. The moment
could not have been more favourable. The story of Atahuallpa's capture,
of Pizarro's intrigues with the different Inca factions, and of his
triumphal march to Cuzco through a country distracted by civil feud,
belongs rather to the history of Peru than of Ecuador. With Atahuallpa's
death and the defeat of Quizquiz near Cuzco, Quito was left without a
master. The country had been drained of able-bodied men by Atahuallpa's
levies, and bands of troops who found their way back from Peru fought
among themselves. The indefatigable Cañaris rose again against the Quito
authorities, and following the fatal example set by the Huascar party in
Peru, applied to the Spaniards. From San Miguel, the colony which
Pizarro had established at Piura, in the valley where the road from the
Ecuador table-land debouches into the coast plain, Sebastian de
Benalcazar led a force of two hundred Spaniards to their assistance.
Ascending the Cordillera he was joined by great numbers of Indians in
Loja, Cuenca, and Cañar, and crossed the Azuay before he encountered the
meagre forces of the Quito generals. Horses and firearms gave the
Spaniards an easy victory, and their enemies retreated to the defences
of Tiocajas. This locality was once more fated to be the scene of a
battle decisive of Ecuadorean history. Benalcazar and his allies were
victorious, but at such a cost that he thought seriously of giving up
the enterprise. Tradition recites that the giant volcano Cotopaxi burst
forth into a terrific eruption after the battle, and that the midnight
explosions were heard scores of miles along the plateau. To the Indians
this was an infallible signal of the displeasure of the sun god.
Trembling with superstitious fear they retreated in disorder; Benalcazar
crossed Tiocajas without resistance, and overran the country as far
north as Quito, taking possession of the city in December, 1533.
Meanwhile Almagro had been hurrying up from Peru with reinforcements and
on his way along the plateau fell in with a third expedition under
Alvarado, governor of Guatemala. Coming from Panama on his own account
and landing on the coast a long distance north of Guayaquil, Alvarado
had succeeded in forcing his way through the dense forests and
rain-soaked defiles and debouched on the plateau near Riobamba. Almagro
paid him one hundred thousand dollars to withdraw, and Benalcazar was
entrusted with the completion of the conquest he had so well begun.
Disappointed in the search for gold, Benalcazar divided the country into
feudal lordships, enslaving the Indians and compelling them to pay
tribute. His restless energy was not satisfied with the conquest of the
old Cara kingdom, and he soon led an expedition of one hundred and fifty
Spaniards and four thousand Indians against the coast provinces and
founded the city of Guayaquil, whose magnificent and sheltered port, the
best on the Pacific coast, gave independent access to the sea. Though
the passes leading from Guayaquil to Riobamba were far more tedious than
the southern ones from Piura to Loja, they brought Quito two hundred
miles nearer the ocean, and their use made Ecuador independent of
northern Peru. Hardly had Benalcazar returned to the table-land and gone
north to conquer southern Colombia, when the tribes near Guayaquil
attacked and destroyed the settlement. His lieutenant at Quito
despatched another expedition; Pizarro sent reinforcements by sea; and
the place was re-founded. Again was it destroyed, and only in 1537, when
Pizarro sent up Orellana with an adequate force, was a permanent
settlement made on the site where to-day is the largest and richest city
of Ecuador.
Benalcazar had conquered Quito in the name and under the authority of
Pizarro, and the latter now named his brother Gonzalo governor.
Confident of finding another Peru in the unknown regions to the east of
his new domain, the young Pizarro enlisted hundreds of adventurers, and
in the beginning of 1541 led the largest and best-equipped expedition
yet assembled in South America down the declivities of the Andes.
Difficulties began as soon as he reached the sweltering, steaming forest
region. Rain fell unceasingly; the soft clay of the defiles afforded no
footing; instead of finding stone highways like those over which they
had marched in their conquest of the table-land, the Spaniards had to
cut tracks along the mountainsides through the matted vegetation.
Provisions ran short, clothes rotted, arms rusted, no villages or tribes
possessing food were encountered. Finally Gonzalo was obliged to halt
the main body, sending a detachment under Orellana, the second in
command, on ahead to find provisions. Orellana followed down a stream
which soon grew large enough to be navigable. He built boats and
proceeded, but still found no signs of civilised inhabitants. Fearing
that he could never ascend the river to the main body, he determined to
keep on, confident that ultimately he must reach the ocean. The river he
was descending is now called the Napo. After a course of nearly a
thousand miles, it flowed into the Amazon, and down the latter's broad
current Orellana and his little band floated to the Atlantic, there
built a little ship, and finally made their way to Spain.
Hearing nothing of Orellana, Gonzalo gave up and climbed back to Quito
with a starving and naked remnant of his men. There he learned of the
assassination of his great brother at Lima, and that Vaca de Castro, the
royal commissioner appointed to settle the disputes between the
partisans of Almagro and Pizarro, had passed through Ecuador on his way
south to Peru, appointing another governor for Quito. Gonzalo retired to
Charcas in southern Bolivia, whence he emerged a year later to head the
great rebellion. The viceroy was compelled to fly from Lima, and landing
at Tumbez made his way to Quito. The Spaniards in Ecuador and southern
Colombia were against Pizarro, but the latter chased the viceroy out of
Quito and north into Popayan, where Benalcazar took sides with him. Four
hundred Spaniards accompanied the viceroy in a counter-invasion, but
near the city he was completely defeated and decapitated as he lay
wounded on the field. Gonzalo, now undisputed lord of the whole Inca
empire, returned at his leisure to Lima. The tale of how Gasca, shrewd
old priest, by intrigue and conciliation, re-established royal authority
and brought Pizarro to the scaffold, does not especially affect the
history of Ecuador.
By 1550 the civil wars were over, the unruly original conquistadores had
been executed, banished, or reduced to obedience. Shortly afterward the
system of Indian tribute and slavery was modified so that although the
proprietors got rich the aborigines were saved from rapid extermination,
royal officials and functionaries were installed, an elaborate system of
taxation established, and Ecuador, with the rest of Spanish America,
entered upon a long period of exploitation under form of law, instead of
being the haphazard prey of irresponsible private adventurers.
[Illustration: ECUADOR INDIANS.]
For the next two hundred and fifty years Ecuador has no history. The
occasional eruption of a volcano or an Indian insurrection is all one
finds in the annals, except the interminable lists of the Spanish
officials sent out to enrich themselves and the Crown at the expense of
the hapless Indians. The Spanish occupation brought about no
colonisation of Ecuador in the true sense of that word, although it
worked a considerable revolution in the life and customs of the Indians
who continued to constitute the bulk of the population. Indeed, the
habitable area of the Andean plateau was so limited and the aboriginal
population so numerous, that there was no room for immigration without a
war of extermination. The cultivable area of Andean Ecuador barely
exceeds eight thousand square miles, and it is probable that more than
a million natives lived there in the time of the Caras and Incas. Even
at the present day these eight thousand miles contain more than
two-thirds of the total population, and not more than four hundred
thousand people inhabit the two hundred and eighty thousand square miles
of high, barren mountains, steep declivities of the Cordillera, and
wooded plains on the coast and in the Amazon valley, which constitute
the remainder of Ecuador.
One of the important results of the Spanish occupation was the
introduction of new food plants and domestic animals. Wheat and barley
were early planted by the Castilian proprietors who had divided the
country among themselves, and these grains quickly replaced the quinoa,
which, with the potato, had been the chief reliance of the Caras. The
cultivation of the potato and also of maize was, however, continued. The
Spanish invaders introduced the plantain and banana, which immediately
became the staples of the forested and tropical districts, making
possible a great increase of population. The plateau was found suited to
European fruits, and orchards were soon flourishing in its more favoured
parts. Rice, indigo, and sugar-cane were also introduced, and an export
trade in these articles grew up, as well as in the native cacao and
sarsaparilla.
The Spanish rulers effected radical changes in the political, social,
and religious life of the civilised Indians. A certain apathy and
fatalism seems characteristic of the American aborigine, and in
Ecuador, trained through countless centuries to the patriarchal rule of
his own chiefs, he submitted to the exactions and innovations of his new
masters. According to Spanish constitutional law and practice, America
was not a component part of the mother-kingdom, but the new continent
was regarded as the personal property of the king of Castile, its lands,
mines, and inhabitants being his to dispose of at pleasure. The viceroy
at Lima was the monarch's lieutenant, only responsible to the king
himself or to the advisory board known as the Council of the Indies. For
great territorial divisions like Ecuador this power was delegated to
governors, and the corregidors were likewise unrestrained within the
smaller subdivisions. The Indians were regarded as mere chattels, and
the tribute exacted from every adult was a logical consequence of their
legal status. In theory even the Spanish residents had no rights to
self-government, nor did any constitutional guaranties of life and
property exist.
But such a despotism largely existed only on paper. The Spaniards who
came to South America brought with them their characteristic
constitutional traditions and personal independence. Instinctively they
flocked into cities and organised municipal governments after the
time-honoured Spanish form. So a system came into existence which had
the sanction of the people's co-operation and was therefore workable.
The country districts were left to the Indians and as long as they paid
their tribute to the Crown or to the Spaniard who claimed the lands
they tilled, little heed was paid to the form of civil government among
them. The influence of their hereditary chiefs survived for centuries,
and their old laws and customs died out only by degrees. In the cities
contact between Spaniards and Indians was closer. In process of time the
increasing number of half-breeds aided in the process of amalgamation,
and even the pure-blood Indians of the fields and villages learned much
of what their masters had to teach them.
[Illustration: CHURCH OF SANTO DOMINGO AT GUAYAQUIL.]
The Church, however, operated more powerfully than any other influence
in making Ecuador Spanish. Within a few years after the conquest a
regular bishopric was established in Quito, and hundreds of priests and
friars flocked over to take part in the wholesale evangelisation of the
heathen natives. The gospel was preached everywhere, churches and
chapels built in even the smallest villages, the obdurate Indians were
treated with scant ceremony, and it soon became well understood among
the natives that a hearty acceptance of the Christian cult tended to
keep them out of trouble. Ecuador quickly became one of the most
devotedly Catholic countries in the world, and has ever since remained
so. The Crown and the landed proprietors made lavish gifts to the cause
of religion, and a great proportion of the property of the country
ultimately fell into the hands of the religious orders. Quito has
appropriately been called the city of convents, and if we are to believe
the accounts of travellers in colonial times half the population must
have been priests, monks, and nuns. The introduction of Christianity
among the Indians aided powerfully in spreading a knowledge of the
Spanish language, but was more effective in substituting the Quichua for
the ancient local tongues. The evangelists found it easier to preach to
all the tribes in one language, and Quichua was naturally chosen, since
it was already in the most general use as the official medium of the
Inca empire. The Spanish priests reduced it to written form and it
became a _lingua franca_ which was understood among all the nations of
the Andean plateau very much as Guarany was among the Indians of the
Atlantic slope.
The details of Spanish civil, military, and financial administration in
Ecuador did not differ greatly from those in the other provinces, and
there is no need to repeat them here. The peaceable character of the
Ecuador Indians made the maintenance of a standing army or even of a
militia unnecessary. A few companies of troops in each of the principal
towns and the natural military aptitude of the Spanish residents were
sufficient to suppress any symptoms of rebellion, and to keep the
Indians at work for their masters. Happily for the natives no great
finds of silver or gold were made except in the southern province of
Loja, and forced labour in the mines did not decimate the population, as
happened in Bolivia and parts of Peru. Spaniards did not immigrate to
any considerable extent, and negro slavery flourished on the seacoast.
The only schools were priests' seminaries in which little except
theology was taught and the level of intellectual culture among the
Creoles sank very low. Taxes were heavy, public employments and titles
of nobility were openly sold by the government, commerce amounted to
little, because little gold and silver was mined and other articles
would not bear the heavy transportation charges and the exactions and
restrictions of the Spanish colonial system. The magnificent stone
highways which the Cara and Inca monarchs had built were allowed to fall
into ruins, but their remains are to be seen even to this day on the
table-land near Cuenca, still solid in spite of the storms and
earthquakes of four centuries. Population on the plateau slowly
decreased. Quito had been a great city while it was the Cara
capital--the residence of Huaina Capac and Atahuallpa--and in 1735 Ulloa
estimated that it contained over seventy thousand people, but at the end
of the eighteenth century it had fallen to less than forty thousand.
However, the introduction of the plantain undoubtedly brought about an
increase of population in the coast provinces, and Guayaquil flourished
with the cultivation of cacao and sugar-cane.
No great figure of a soldier, reformer, or administrator stands out
among all the hundreds of officials who were sent over from Spain to
rule the country. Even records of the growth of jealousies between
Spaniards and Creoles, such as we encounter in other countries of South
America are wanting. The Creoles appear never to have been able to
interrupt the monotonous course of Spanish administration. In 1564 the
old kingdom of Quito, with the addition of some outlying Colombian and
Peruvian provinces, was erected into a presidency, and a royal
audiencia, or court of appeals, with important administrative functions,
was established. The viceroy of Lima continued to exercise nominal
jurisdiction over all Spanish South America until the year 1719, when
the viceroyalty of New Granada was first created. The Quito presidency
was attached to the new jurisdiction, and this emphasised the separation
from Peru. Twelve hundred miles of crooked, wretched road intervened
between Quito and Lima, while the distance to Bogotá was less than half
as great. However, the natural outlet for the plateau from Cuenca north
to Popayan was the road to Guayaquil, and the Quito presidency was
therefore co-extensive with a natural commercial subdivision of the
continent.
In 1736 a party of scientists commissioned by the king of France came to
Quito for the purpose of measuring an arc of the earth's meridian at the
equator. These savants erected two pyramids to serve as a permanent
record of the line they had measured, and placed upon them an
inscription stating that the work had been done under the patronage of
the king of France. Years afterwards a Spanish official, offended in his
national pride by the wording of the inscription, obtained an order from
Madrid for the destruction of these monuments, so invaluable to the
science of exact geography.
The latter part of the eighteenth century was marked by a greater
interest in education. The seminaries widened their courses of study to
include something more than the canon law and the Fathers, and
public-spirited Creoles endowed new and better institutions of learning.
No press or periodical literature appeared, but poetry and
belles-lettres were cultivated with some success by native authors.
Though the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1765 was accomplished without
bloodshed, it resulted in no material weakening of ecclesiastical
influence. The revolutionary ideas which were transforming the political
thought of the world during the eighteenth century hardly penetrated
Ecuador at all, and whatever influence they had was confined to the
small percentage of the population that boasted of non-Indian blood.
The news of Lexington and Yorktown and the enfranchisement of British
North America stimulated no similar movement among the patient Indians
and devout Creoles of the Andean valleys, and even the tremendous
cataclysm of the French Revolution passed almost unnoticed.
CHAPTER III
THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE
The beginning of the nineteenth century saw Spain involved to her ruin
in the tremendous struggle between Napoleon and his enemies. Her fleets
were destroyed at St. Vincent and Trafalgar; her treasury was emptied;
her administration demoralised. Free communication with her American
colonies was impossible while British frigates commanded every sea, and
both on the Peninsula and in America, Spanish subjects lost their
traditional respect for the monarchy. Though the jealousy against their
imported rulers which always fermented among Creoles was not so strong
in quiet, isolated, and agricultural Ecuador as in the coast provinces
and mining regions, the news of Spain's defeats and humiliations
awakened ambitious lawyers and wealthy landowners to a realisation that
the Spaniards might be ousted from the lucrative offices.
The opportunity came in 1809 with the resignation of Charles IV., the
deposition and imprisonment of Ferdinand VII., the usurpation of the
Spanish throne by Joseph Bonaparte, and the occupation of the Peninsula
by the French. The viceroys and governors of Spanish America refused to
recognise Joseph. The many patriots on the Peninsula who resisted the
French usurpation organised provisional juntas which assumed to be the
supreme depositaries of power pending the expulsion of Joseph and the
return of Ferdinand, while the Queen claimed a regency for herself. The
Spanish authorities did not know who would come out on top and were
principally anxious to maintain themselves in their places, while
ambitious leaders among the Creoles immediately began to plot to turn
the confusion to their own advantage and to secure autonomy and even
independence for the colonies.
In 1809 Don Ruiz de Castilla was president of Quito. His jurisdiction
included not only all present Ecuador, but also the southern part of
Colombia, extending north three hundred miles along the great Andean
plateau through the populous regions of Pasto and Popayan and far down
the high and fertile valley of the Cauca. These portions of Colombia are
continuous with the table-land on which Quito stands and directly
accessible therefrom, while they are separated from the parallel series
of plateaux on which Bogotá, Tunja, and Socorro lie, by the deep valley
of the Magdalena. Castilla's dependence upon the Bogotá viceroy was
therefore largely nominal, and he could expect as little help from New
Granada as from Peru. He had only a few troops at Quito--probably not
more than two or three hundred,--while the governors of the subordinate
provinces, Popayan, Guayaquil, and Cuenca, each could muster only a few
dozen armed police. A number of wealthy Creole proprietors and restless
lawyers determined in the early part of 1809 to overthrow the president
and create a governing junta composed of residents of Ecuador. Castilla
was powerless to avert the storm. The handful of troops in barracks was
easily suborned by the conspirators, who included the persons of
greatest wealth, intelligence, and influence in the community. The mass
of the Indian population was inert and would naturally side with their
landlords, while the Spanish residents and Creole Tories had formed no
plans for common action.
On the night of the 9th of August, 1809, the chiefs of the movement,
with the officers of the troops, met in the house of Doña Manuela
Canizaries, the Madame Roland of Ecuador, and assigned to each the rôle
which he was to play in the _coup d'état_. The officers went to the
barracks, led out the troops, and took possession of the government
buildings in the name of the revolutionist committee. The president and
those Spanish officials who proved recalcitrant were imprisoned, a
governing junta of nine with Juan Montufar as chief was appointed, and
an open cabildo summoned which confirmed these acts. The junta notified
the viceroys of Bogotá and Lima that it had assumed the government, and
sent messengers to the provincial capitals demanding that they expel
their Spanish authorities, adhere to the new order of things, and
recognise the supremacy of the Quito junta. But the movement met with no
favourable response from the rest of the presidency. The governors of
Popayan, Cuenca, and Guayaquil immediately began to enlist troops to
defend themselves against an attack from Quito. The junta prepared for
war, but though plenty of ambitious young Creoles volunteered as
officers there were not firearms enough to go around. At last an
expedition set off to the north against Pasto and Popayan only to be
easily defeated by the hasty levies the Spanish authorities had made
among the sturdy Indians of those regions. Frightened by this defeat and
their hopeless isolation, the junta resigned under promise of amnesty
and in October Castilla returned to Quito and resumed the reins of
government. But his position was insecure, and rumors of a fresh
conspiracy soon drove him to repressive measures and the imprisonment of
leading Creoles. The feeling grew bitter and in August, 1810, a
desperate effort was made by the Creoles to get possession of the
barracks. Its failure was followed by a frightful massacre in which many
of the most popular men in the place were murdered.
Meanwhile, the supreme junta at Seville, anxious to pacify the
revolutionary disorders, had commissioned Carlos Montufar, a son of the
chief of the fallen Quito junta who then happened to be in Spain, to go
to Ecuador and reconcile the factions. Under his advice Castilla
resigned to a new junta the direction of affairs, taking, however, the
position of its chief member, and sent away his troops. In reality the
younger Montufar sympathised with his brother Creoles; the universal
indignation at the massacre of 1810 pushed him on to vengeance;
Spaniards travelling through the country were waylaid and assassinated;
and by the time Molina, appointed by the Spanish government in
Castilla's place, had reached Cuenca on his way north to Quito, the old
governor had again been deposed and imprisoned and open war existed
between Arredondo, the Spaniard commanding the troops who had retired
from Quito in accordance with the compromise, and the junta in the
latter city. The year 1811 passed without any material change in the
situation. The Spanish generals controlled Guayaquil and Cuenca in the
south and Pasto and Popayan in the north, practically isolating the
revolutionary government at Quito. As the troops of both sides became
better trained the war took on a more determined and cruel character.
Royalists and revolutionists both raised recruits among the sturdy
mountain Indians and half-breeds. In technical knowledge of their
profession the Spanish officers were superior to the revolutionary
leaders and could procure arms more readily. Their armies were usually
better disciplined and more efficient, although more liable to depletion
by desertion.
In this state of perpetual war, government rapidly became exclusively
military. On the surface the contest seemed only a struggle between two
sets of independent chiefs, in whose mouths "liberty" and "loyalty" were
mere catch-words, and who continually quarrelled among themselves even
when they nominally belonged to the same side. Early in 1812 Montufar
was overthrown by another Creole chief in Quito who thereupon undertook
an expedition against the Spanish general at Cuenca. But sedition among
the patriot troops gave an easy victory to the latter, and the Spaniards
took the offensive. Marching toward Quito, they dispersed the patriot
army at Mocha, and entered the capital in triumph.
Montes, the Spanish general who now became ruler of the presidency, was
a wise and moderate man, and spared no pains to conciliate. He soon
succeeded in so completely consolidating his power that during nine
years Quito and most of the presidency remained quietly submissive, and
became one of the centres whence Spanish expeditions went out against
the parts of the continent which still remained in revolution. An able
general, Samano by name, carried the successes of the Spanish arms to
the north, and although the patriots of Colombia obtained some temporary
advantages in the winter of 1814-15, they never penetrated south of
Pasto. In 1816 the tide again turned with the arrival of eleven thousand
Spanish veterans in the north of Colombia. The patriots were soon
everywhere defeated, Bogotá itself taken, and a remnant of
revolutionists who attempted the invasion of Popayan and Pasto were
overwhelmed by Samano in 1816 at the battle of Tambo. The patriot cause
was at its lowest ebb in all South America. Resistance ceased in
Colombia; only a few scattered bands kept up a desultory warfare in
Venezuela; Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia were quiet; Spanish authority had
been re-established in Chile; Uruguay had fallen into the hands of the
Portuguese king; and Spanish armies were invading the Argentine, the
last refuge of the revolution.
San Martin's thunderbolt descent upon Chile and his victory at Chacabuco
changed the aspect of affairs. A fleet was improvised at Valparaiso
which obtained command of the Pacific coast, cutting off the Spaniards
in Ecuador from receiving supplies except overland from the Caribbean
ports. Bolivar took new heart for his tedious task of arousing the north
and driving the Spaniards from Venezuela and New Granada. In 1819 he
climbed the east side of the Andes to the neighbourhood of Bogotá and by
defeating the Spanish army at Boyacá, freed most of present Colombia,
and even in Quito the patriots renewed their revolutionary plotting.
Meanwhile San Martin had completed the expulsion of the Spaniards from
Chile, and in 1820 he transported an army by sea to the neighbourhood of
Lima itself, opening communications with the anti-Spanish party all
along the coast. On the 9th of October, 1820, a successful revolution
broke out at Guayaquil, and little time was lost in sending an army to
the plateau. The Spaniards defeated it, but with Bolivar threatening
them from Colombia, their comrades in Peru fighting for their lives
against San Martin, the population of Quito on the verge of a revolt,
and the Pacific in the control of the patriots, they could not follow up
their advantage.
On June 24, 1821, Bolivar gained the crowning victory of Carabobo in
Venezuela. The Spanish position in the Caribbean provinces became
irretrievable, and the patriot general was thenceforth free to pursue
his plans for the expulsion of the enemy from southern New Granada and
Ecuador and their incorporation with Colombia. In the fall of that year
General Sucré, who shares with San Martin the honor of being the
greatest soldier of the patriot side, arrived at Guayaquil by sea,
bringing with him seventeen hundred Colombian and Venezuelan veterans.
Bolivar was to advance from Bogotá, conquering Popayan and Pasto on his
way to Quito, while Sucré came up from the south. The latter at once
ascended the Andes to the plateau, but was badly defeated. Retreating to
Guayaquil, he reorganised his army, incorporating with it a
reinforcement of twelve hundred men sent by San Martin, and again
climbed the Andes. By this time Bolivar was advancing from Popayan to
Pasto and the Spaniards, thinking it best to concentrate their forces,
abandoned Cuenca and the southern provinces and allowed Sucré to advance
unopposed to the neighbourhood of Quito. There he outmanoeuvred them and
gained a commanding position on the slopes of the great volcano,
Pichincha, overlooking the city. His foes were forced to the alternative
of giving battle at a disadvantage or permitting him to effect a
junction with Bolivar, and overwhelming them by superior numbers. On the
morning of the 24th of May, 1822, the battle decisive of Ecuador's fate
was fought. The royal army suffered annihilation; four hundred dead lay
on the mountainside and two hundred wounded; eleven hundred men and one
hundred and sixty officers surrendered the following day. The only
troops who escaped belonged to scattered detachments not present at the
battle, who fled down the eastern slope of the Andes into the trackless
forests and finally made their way down the Amazon to the Atlantic.
CHAPTER IV
THE FORMATION OF ECUADOR
At the head of a victorious army of Colombians and Argentines, Sucré
could naturally do as he liked with Ecuador and an assembly of the
people of Quito accepted incorporation into the republic of Colombia.
Bolivar, meanwhile, had had some hard fighting with the stubborn
loyalists of Pasto, and the issue remained doubtful until news of the
victory of Pichincha was received. The Spanish commander surrendered;
Bolivar came on to Quito, and thence proceeded to Guayaquil. The
inhabitants of this important city were divided. Many wanted to be
independent; others preferred incorporation with Peru, to being tied up
with Colombia, a country whose capital could only be reached by months
of tedious travelling; others, however, were willing to maintain the
ancient political connection with New Granada. As a matter of fact,
discussion was useless, for Bolivar threw into the scale the weight of
his military power. Guayaquil and the adjacent coast region became a
department of Colombia, while the southern plateau provinces--Cuenca
and Loja--were also erected into a department of Bolivar's vast
confederation. This completed the division of the old presidency of
Quito into four parts--Pasto and the northern provinces, Quito and the
central, Cuenca and the southern, and Guayaquil with the coast, and in
all of them the influence of Bolivar's satraps was predominant.
Shortly after his arrival at Guayaquil Bolivar and San Martin had their
famous interview. The latter came up from Lima hoping to arrange plan of
joint campaign, but he quickly saw that Bolivar would never consent to
share the glory of driving the Spaniards from their last strongholds.
The great Argentine magnanimously determined to retire, and returning to
Lima, resigned the presidency of Peru. San Martin once out of the way,
Bolivar was eager to lead a Colombian army to Lima, but the Peruvians
declined his assistance. Alone, however, they had little chance against
the able Spanish generals, and, aghast at the progress of the enemy,
they soon sent to Bolivar begging his assistance on his own terms. The
selfishly ambitious liberator gladly accepted, and within a month Sucré
was on his way south at the head of a fine army of Colombian veterans.
Bolivar himself followed with reinforcements, and though hampered and
delayed by the revolt of the Callao garrison, Sucré's military ability
backed by Bolivar's tireless energy and large resources produced their
legitimate results. Bolivar in person advanced to the plateau and August
6, 1824, won the cavalry action of Junin which compelled the retirement
of the Spanish army to Cuzco. Bolivar returned to Lima leaving Sucré in
command, and on the 9th of December the latter annihilated the main body
of the enemy in the battle of Ayacucho--the crowning victory of the war
of South American independence.
Bolivar was supreme from the Caribbean to Potosí. As president of the
United States of Colombia he ruled Venezuela, New Granada, and Ecuador,
he himself was dictator of Peru, and his faithful lieutenant exercised
supreme power in Bolivia. The realisation of his cherished plan for the
union of all South America into one great confederacy, with himself as
life-president, seemed near at hand. But successful soldier though he
was--heroic, resourceful, and unwavering in reverse--his statecraft was
short-sighted and impracticable. The moment of his apogee marked the
beginning of his decline. He failed to appreciate that the spirit of
South America was profoundly democratic and local, and that the war of
independence owed its beginning and successful prosecution to a deeply
rooted impulse toward division, liberty, and anarchy among the Creoles.
To build a tower out of sand would have been easier than to create a
stable union between the recently liberated provinces of Spanish
America. Viewed in the light of subsequent events the wonder is that
territorial disintegration stopped where it did, and that South America
did not split into twenty instead of nine separate countries.
Bolivar's partisans in Colombia were unsuccessful in their intrigues to
replace the Constitution of Cucutá with one drawn up after the plan
their chief had imposed upon Bolivia and Peru. Neither leaders nor
people, army nor professional classes, showed any disposition to concede
him greater powers. His attempts to interfere in the affairs of
Argentine and Chile were repulsed, Peru became restless under his
dictatorship, Bolivia only waited a favourable opportunity to expel
Sucré, the very troops he had brought from Colombia to Peru became
mutinous, his pan-American congress at Panama turned out a fiasco. He
remained two years in Peru, until the news of a great uprising in
Venezuela made it necessary for him to hurry to the north. Hardly had he
left Lima than the military chiefs in Peru virtually disavowed his
authority. Under the leadership of their officers the Colombian troops
in Lima revolted, and the Peruvians, delighted to be rid of these
embarrassing guests, paid their pecuniary demands, and to the number of
over three thousand despatched them in ships for the north. They
disembarked in Ecuador, where one division took possession of Guayaquil
and another of Cuenca. Bolivar was so occupied with the troubles in
Venezuela that he could personally take no measures against this
defection, but General Flores, a Venezuelan whom he had appointed
commander of the military forces of the three southern provinces of the
old Quito presidency,--Guayaquil, Cuenca, and Quito,--proved energetic
and fortunate. His intrigues sowed discord among the officers of the
revolting troops. A counter-revolution occurred in his favour at Cuenca,
and after a short period of virtual independence Guayaquil also returned
to its old connection with Quito.
The movement against Bolivar from Colombia proper involved Pasto and
Popayan--the northern division of the old Quito presidency--while Quito
and the southern provinces were left largely to their own devices.
General La Mar, who had succeeded in making himself president of Peru,
conceived the idea of enlarging the limits of that country by the
acquisition of Guayaquil and Cuenca, and he was the more enthusiastic
because the latter was his native province. In 1828 war broke out
between Colombia and Peru. Peruvian ships blockaded Guayaquil, and in
January, 1829, forced the surrender of that place, while a Peruvian army
seven thousand strong invaded the Ecuadorean plateau and penetrated
beyond Cuenca. Flores and his rivals united in face of the common
danger, the Colombian veterans scattered through the country rallied to
the banner of Sucré, who came in person to take command, and the
decisive battle was fought at Tarqui in February. The Peruvians were so
badly defeated that they sued for peace, and agreed to surrender
Guayaquil and the greater part of the southern provinces.
[Illustration: GUAYAQUIL, ECUADOR.]
By this time, however, Bolivar's own position had become desperate.
Venezuela had already separated from the confederation, and when on the
12th of May, 1830, Flores proclaimed the Quito presidency independent,
it was little more than the announcement of an existing fact. He
attempted to disarm jealousy against Quito by christening the country by
the fanciful name of Ecuador, and by decreeing that each province should
have an equal vote in the legislative assembly. Flores was merely one
of a multitude of military chiefs who had been fighting among themselves
since the expulsion of the Spaniards. Though married to a Quito lady he
was a Venezuelan and could rely on few local friendships or sympathies,
and the Colombian veterans, who swarmed over the country devouring the
substance of the people and eager for pay and plunder, regarded him as
one of themselves and were ready to desert him for any chief who might
offer higher wages.
Now that Bolivar was overthrown and Sucré murdered on a lonely mountain
road by hired assassins, the sentiment of loyalty to their old chiefs
tardily revived among the fickle Colombian regulars. They received
Flores's declaration of independence with indignation; an insurrection
broke out among the garrison at Guayaquil; and the veterans marched to
the plateau. Flores had no force capable of making headway against them,
and was compelled to negotiate a treaty, agreeing to support Bolivar in
case the latter should remain in South America. On the other hand, the
troops consented to recognise Flores if Bolivar should go into exile.
Hardly had the treaty been signed than word was received of the lonely
death of the great Venezuelan at Santa Marta. Most of the veterans took
service under Flores, and he pursued the recalcitrants with relentless
and bloody severity. Pasto and Popayan, composing the province of Cauca,
the northern division of the old Quito presidency, wavered as to whether
they would cast their lot with Ecuador or New Granada. The government
at Bogotá sent an army into the disputed territory, and Flores tried to
organise a force large enough to beat it, but he was hampered by
mutinies, conspiracies, and poverty, and after a year of expensive
though nearly bloodless operations withdrew and consented to a treaty by
which Ecuador gave up all claim to Pasto and Popayan, losing a third of
the territory and population of the old presidency of Quito.
[Illustration: COSTUMES OF NATIVES NEAR QUITO.]
Flores, however, managed to hold Guayaquil and Cuenca as well as Quito
and must therefore be regarded as the founder of Ecuador, though his
reactionary, absolute, and violent government was hated by all that was
young, intelligent, and liberal in the country. The Indian peasants
groaned under the burden of taxes imposed to subsidise a horde of
functionaries. Finances were in deplorable confusion; the public debts
left unpaid; population decreased, especially in the Andean region;
agriculture, industry, and commerce remained stationary, except in the
cacao districts on the coast. The lower classes had a hard struggle for
bare existence, and the parasitical ruling race was solely pre-occupied
with political war and intrigue. But it cannot fairly be said that
Flores or any other one man was responsible. The lamentable condition of
affairs resulted inevitably from the long struggle with Spain and from
the situation, character, and ideals of the people. But such a janizary
system of government was too burdensome, unwieldy, and wasteful not to
fall by its own weight sooner or later. The people were simply unable to
pay the taxes which Flores levied vainly trying to satisfy his troops.
Mutinies broke out among the latter, and the liberals were encouraged to
organise.
A revolutionary society was formed in Quito whose ramifications extended
among the enthusiastic youth in every part of the republic. In
Guayaquil, the wealthiest and most commercial city, the demand for
better financial administration became universal. In 1833 Vicente
Rocafuerte, the foremost of Ecuadorean liberals and the most
accomplished public man in the country, openly assumed the leadership of
the opposition to Flores. Elected a member of congress he bravely
defied the dictator, who sentenced him to banishment. But when he
reached Guayaquil the troops and citizens of that city arose to support
him. Flores led an army down the Andes and attacked and captured
Guayaquil, Rocafuerte and his partisans escaped and kept up the struggle
at different points of the coast, while sympathetic insurrections broke
out on the plateau in Flores's rear. Though the dictator finally
succeeded in capturing Rocafuerte, the only use he was able to make of
his victory was to secure better terms from the liberals. Rocafuerte and
he formed an alliance and together they pacified the country, the former
becoming president and the latter retaining command of the army. Ecuador
enjoyed her first real respite from civil war and tumult since 1809, and
Rocafuerte's inauguration in 1835 marks the beginning of civil and
constitutional government.
CHAPTER V
MODERN ECUADOR
President Rocafuerte was not only animated by revolutionary principles,
imbued with liberal ideas, and a student of the best political and
economic writers, but he proved to be a good administrator--practical,
cautious, and sure--and earned the title of the greatest of Ecuador's
reformers. His first step was to summon a constituent assembly which
divided the country into provinces and parishes, outlined a rational
scheme of administration, and made a substantial beginning toward
substituting civil for military government. Although he did not attempt
to carry into practice the dreams of radical liberals--impracticable
among a population nine-tenths Indians in semi-bondage, and in a country
where the clergy were dominant--he reformed the taxing system, set in
order the finances, so far as his means and knowledge would permit,
earnestly encouraged industry, agriculture, and commerce, repaired and
built roads, promulgated a new and humane criminal code, and established
schools. He set up the pyramids of the French geographers, showing that
tender regard for his country's repute abroad which is rarely absent in
statesmen of high character and noble aims. Under his administration
Ecuador assumed the payment of her proportion--twenty-one and a half per
cent., or one million eight hundred thousand pounds--of the debt
contracted by the defunct United States of Colombia during the war of
independence. However, this debt proved a burden too great for her
resources. Interest fell behind and the principal has been scaled down
repeatedly. Only in 1900 was an arrangement satisfactory to the
bondholders finally reached.
His efforts made Ecuador the second South American republic whose
independence was formally recognised by Spain. In religious matters he
proved true to his liberal convictions, and while never persecuting the
clergy always advocated religious freedom for the individual. But though
he set his country's feet in the path of progress, the steps were slow,
short, and uncertain. His alliance with the military element as
represented by Flores, and the religious and social conservatism of the
bulk of the people, hampered rapid progress. The radical liberals
conspired against him, but their plots were sternly stamped out.
Government remained essentially military and aristocratic, and active
participation was confined to the educated and military classes.
Nevertheless, a sort of equilibrium between the demands of the governing
caste and the capacities of the producing masses was reached, and a
certain degree of order replaced the indiscriminate exactions and
tyranny which the proletariat had endured ever since the first Spaniard
had landed. When Rocafuerte finished his term in 1839, Ecuador was at
peace and had recovered much of the material prosperity lost during the
long wars. On the plateau the Indians cultivated their wheat and
potatoes in security, while on the low coast lands the cacao industry
flourished, making Ecuador one of the chief sources of the world's
supply of chocolate and multiplying Guayaquil's population and wealth.
[Illustration: ECUADOR PEON'S HOUSE.]
Flores's command of the army insured him the succession to the
presidency. Though his return to power meant political reaction, the
beneficent effects of Rocafuerte's system had been too obvious to be
entirely ignored and hastily abandoned. Flores's first measures were
moderate, but his irrational ambition quickly led him into an expensive
and fruitless intervention in the Colombian civil war of 1840. His
financial difficulties and a return to military habits caused him to
adopt measures continually more arbitrary, and he went stubbornly ahead
with his schemes to make his dictatorship permanent. He forced the
adoption of a new Constitution lengthening the presidential term to
eight years, and caused himself to be declared elected in 1843. The
conflict with the liberals became acute; Rocafuerte protested and was
forced to fly for his life. The young radicals of Quito plotted the
tyrant's assassination, while the villagers of the plateau arose in
revolt against the gatherers of an obnoxious poll-tax. In 1845 a liberal
revolution broke out at Guayaquil. Flores descended from the table-land,
but the liberal army met and defeated him at the foot of the mountains,
and he accepted the offer of twenty thousand dollars in cash and a
pension to leave the country.
The better elements of the triumphant party were not able to keep the
upper hand. A new Constitution was hastily adopted and the mulatto Ramon
Roca installed as president. For four years he ruled while the gulf
between liberals and conservatives widened day by day, and factional
jealousies and ambitions within the dominant party became menacing. The
congress of 1849 quarrelled bitterly over the presidential succession
and was unable to agree on any one. Ambitious chiefs got arms and men
together, and after a year of uncertainty General Urbina, of Guayaquil,
issued a pronunciamento declaring Diego Noboa provisional head of the
government. A convention called for the purpose adopted a new
Constitution and elected Urbina's nominee president for the full term.
To the consternation of the liberals he recalled the Jesuits and gave
asylum to the defeated conservatives from Colombia, going so far as to
send troops to the frontier to aid in their restoration. But Urbina, to
whose command these forces had been entrusted, proclaimed himself
dictator and exiled Noboa. He promulgated a new Constitution--Ecuador's
sixth in twenty-two years,--persecuted the conservatives, and ruled for
four years as an ultra-liberal. At the expiration of his term in 1856 he
named his friend Robles as his successor, who maintained himself against
the conservative attacks until in 1859 his government became involved in
a war with Peru. When Robles and Urbina went to the Peruvian frontier
the conservatives rose behind them. As a matter of fact the country was
tired of the misrule of the military chiefs, miscalled liberals, whose
government was a compound of oppression for their enemies and license
for their friends. The clericals armed their adherents in the northern
villages and marched on Quito. The partisans of the administration at
the capital could oppose no effective resistance, and the insurgents
entered the city, and on May 1st installed a provisional government with
Garcia Moreno at its head. The latter at once pushed on south with a
small force, and, though defeated by Robles, he escaped to Peru, where
he received help for new operations. In spite of Moreno's temporary
reverse his friends retained possession of Quito, and the Peruvian
blockade of Guayaquil absorbed the president's attention. The forces
under Robles soon crumbled away, and he resigned and went into
banishment. Urbina, the real chief of the liberal party, had a small
body of troops in Cuenca with which he tried to maintain the unequal
contest, but his position soon became untenable and he followed Robles
into exile.
Moreno was now master of the whole Andean region. Guayaquil, however,
remained in the hands of a liberal chief; the Peruvian government had
tired of its bargain to support the Ecuadorian clericals; the blockade
was abandoned, and the Peruvian ships retired after making a treaty with
the Guayaquil authorities. This rid Moreno of an embarrassing
entanglement with a foreign power, although it left the Guayaquil
insurgents free to employ all their forces against him. Descending with
all the forces he could muster, his mountaineers defeated the coast
troops in every encounter, and on the 2d of September, 1860, Moreno
captured the great seaport, putting an end to open opposition in all
Ecuador. Every successful revolutionist in those days made his own
Constitution, so it is a waste of words to tell that Moreno summoned a
convention which promulgated a new fundamental law for the republic.
During the next fifteen years he remained the dominant personality in
Ecuadorian history. His biography is typical of the careers of the
higher class of Creole statesmen, and profoundly interesting to a
student of South American history as illustrating the difficulties with
which men of constructive minds and a passion for order have been
obliged to contend. A scion of one of the oldest and proudest Spanish
families, he had been proscribed in his youth, and spent the years of
his exile studying in the old world. He returned with his naturally fine
mind stored with the fruits of study and observation, but with his
prejudices of caste and religion unshaken. The clericals set all their
hopes on this brilliant young advocate, and his public life, his
opinions, and his personality résumé the reactionary characteristics of
Ecuador. Nevertheless it is hard for an unprejudiced outsider to study
the history of his country during his time without retaining a strong
admiration for his abilities and force, even if not convinced that his
career made for the moral uplifting of the republic.
He found the finances in a wretched state. Salaries were unpaid,
the revenue amounted to less than a million pesos, and the government
was living from hand to mouth on twenty-per-cent. loans. He directed
his activity principally toward effecting urgent material
reforms--increasing the revenue by systematising taxation, suppressing
frauds and contraband, founding a mint and hospital at Quito, building
the great waggon-road from Quito to the southern provinces, and
connecting that remote and mountain-locked capital by a telegraph line
with Guayaquil. The whole of his own salary he devoted to the public
use, the laws were better enforced, life and property became safer, and
material prosperity increased. The government was centralised, the
semi-independency of the departments abolished, the Jesuits recalled,
the rights and privileges of the clergy restored and increased, and a
Concordat signed with the Holy See which virtually freed the Ecuadorian
Church from all secular control.
The Concordat was denounced throughout the continent as treason to South
American independence, and his relations with European diplomatic
representatives were so cordial and frank that rumours of his
willingness to accept a foreign protectorate or even annexation by Spain
were rife in the other capitals. The publication of his personal
correspondence with a French diplomatist raised such a storm against him
that other countries plotted his overthrow, and the democrats of
Colombia, victorious in the civil war of 1863, sent an army to the
frontier, proclaiming that their purpose was "to liberate the brother
democrats of Ecuador from the theocratic yoke of Professor Moreno." His
army was defeated in the battle of Cuaspud, but he stood firm and his
people showed no eagerness to accept Colombia's invitation and re-enter
that confederacy. Her army was unable to follow up its advantage, and
the danger quickly passed. When war broke out between Spain and Peru he,
like the Emperor of Brazil, refused to follow Chile's example and take
sides, against the mother country. In a word, his foreign policy was a
selfish but intelligent opportunism, and he was not influenced by vague
sentimental considerations and blind chauvinism.
In 1864 Urbina, with the countenance and assistance of Peru, invaded the
southern province, Loja, but the insurrection was promptly crushed. Next
year Moreno's term expired, and he named a disciple and friend to be
president in his place, but his own political preponderance was so
unquestioned and his prestige so enormous in the barracks, convents, and
pulperias that he continued the real ruler of the country. His
understudy did not please him and he demanded and received a
resignation. The incumbent next selected proved insubordinate and had to
be displaced by force. When Moreno declared himself provisional dictator
the Guayaquil liberals undertook an armed resistance, but by 1869 he was
firmly in the saddle once more. He kept his hold on the government,
apparently becoming more securely entrenched each year in the love and
confidence of the soldiery, the priests, and the common people. From the
safety of exile the liberals wrote crushing pamphlets against him and
his despotism, his favouritism toward the clergy, his steady, relentless
policy of conservatism and reaction. But their attempts at insurrection
were feeble and in 1875 he was re-elected as a matter of course. The
liberals, hopeless of ending his domination constitutionally or by open
war, had recourse to assassination. On the 6th of August a party of
young Creoles deliberately killed him at midday on the principal square
of Quito in the presence of the populace and the soldiery.
The murderers were executed and the vice-president succeeded to the
vacancy. However, no one appeared big enough to fill Moreno's shoes, and
his death made civil war inevitable. After a few months the
vice-president was deposed; then one of Moreno's ministers remained at
the head of affairs for a short time; but finally Antonio Borrero was
selected president in constitutional form. He proved not to possess the
resolution requisite to cope with the situation. General Veintemilla,
commander of the troops in Guayaquil, revolted in the name of the
liberal party, defeated Borrero, and went through the usual form of
summoning a convention, adopting a new Constitution, and having himself
named president. He held power insecurely and by the aid of a personal
party from 1878 to 1883, but neither conservatives nor liberals were
satisfied. The radicals attacked him furiously for not putting in
practice anti-clerical principles, and the conservatives never trusted
him. When his constitutional term expired, the army proclaimed him
dictator, but he soon fell before the combined forces of his enemies.
During the fighting José Camano came to the front, and now seized the
presidency. Alfaro, the principal liberal leader who had co-operated
with Camano in overthrowing Veintemilla, made war against his late ally,
but was defeated. The new president, once securely in his seat, formed
close relations with the clergy and the old partisans of Moreno, and
though the liberal chiefs kept up a guerilla warfare in the forests and
swamps, he finished out his term. In 1888 he was succeeded by Antonio
Flores, who followed his predecessor's policy in the main, and was in
his turn succeeded by another friend of Camano's--Luis Cordero. It was
not until 1895 that the liberals were able to gather their forces for a
formidable rebellion. Camano was then governor of Guayaquil, and the
immediate occasion of the outbreak was the charge that he had taken part
in the sale of the Chilean iron-clad, _Esmeralda_, to Japan, then at war
with China. It was claimed that Ecuador had acted as a go-between and
committed a wilful breach of the rules governing the conduct of neutral
nations. President Cordero's prestige was seriously compromised by this
incident. His forces were defeated in several actions and he resigned.
Alfaro, who had been in exile since 1883, returned, took possession of
Guayaquil, was proclaimed dictator, and finally completely overthrew the
conservatives in the battle of Gatajo. His election to the presidency
followed in 1897, and he was succeeded four years later by the present
incumbent, General Leonidas Plaza.
[Illustration: PRINCIPAL STREET IN GUAYAQUIL.]
The Ecuador coast is one of the most fertile and lovely regions on the
earth. It already furnishes a considerable proportion of those tropical
products of which the great nations of the temperate zone demand more
every year. Like a Luzon which has been stranded at the foot of the
Andes, its green shores refresh the eyes of the north-bound traveller
tired of the dreary desert that stretches from Valparaiso to the Gulf of
Guayaquil; it possesses the best harbour on the Pacific south of Panama
and one of the few in all South America which is not mountain-locked.
Between the Cordillera and the sea there is room for untold millions of
cacao and coffee trees. In spite of civil war and political upheavals
which have made her custom-house so often the prey of irresponsible
bandits, masquerading under the name of dictators, Guayaquil's
population and wealth have increased until she has outstripped the hoary
old capital, which, enthroned on a volcano side, overlooks a narrow
strip of cultivable land. Nevertheless the plateau is still predominant
in the Ecuadorian state, and supports a vast majority of the
population. Nine-tenths of the inhabitants of the Andean region are
Indians, mostly in a condition not far removed from bondage, by
circumstance and their own distrustful natures shut up within the narrow
limits of an existence which has no outlook over the mountains. None the
less, they are sturdy fellows, admirably suited to the climate of those
high altitudes, and though their numbers have been practically
stationary since the Spanish conquest, the failure to increase has been
rather due to lack of room than to misgovernment, vice, or the want of
the qualities that make for success in the struggle for existence. In
that day, now near at hand, when a great railway shall connect the
string of towns on the Ecuador plateau with Peru and Colombia, and when
branches shall run to the ports and take the place of the well-nigh
impassable trails down the tremendous, rain-soaked slopes of the Andes,
the mountain region of Ecuador may be transformed and revivified by new
systems of agriculture, and the artistic taste and remarkable ingenuity
of the people may find a market and a reward. The railway from Guayaquil
long stopped at the foot of the mountains, but within the last three
years the almost insurmountable difficulties of the ascent have been
overcome by American engineers, and the line is being rapidly built
along the plateau to Quito. Ecuador already supplies the world with
Panama hats, and other manual industries may flourish when unfavourable
transportation conditions are removed. Not only are the common people
patiently industrious, but they possess innate good taste and artistic
feeling. Such a people has special aptitudes, sure to give it a place in
that vastly complicated workshop into which the multifarious needs of
modern civilisation are transforming the earth. The plateau of Ecuador
does not, however, offer room for any considerable immigration, and its
wheat, barley, and potatoes do not and will not much more than suffice
for local consumption. Ecuador's great future lies in the beautiful and
as yet sparsely peopled Pacific plain, and in the vast and absolutely
unknown forests which stretch east from the Andes.
VENEZUELA
CHAPTER I
CONQUEST, SETTLEMENT, AND COLONIAL DAYS
On his third voyage in 1498 Columbus sighted the Venezuelan coast just
south of the Windward Islands. A year later, Alonso de Ojeda saw the
mainland at about the same place and skirted the coast for four hundred
miles west without finding any important break in a line of mountains
which rose almost directly from the sea to a height of three to nine
thousand feet, covered to their very tops with luxuriant vegetation. But
there was no such barrier as that made by the main Andes on the Pacific;
the passes were only half a mile instead of nearly three miles high; the
slopes were not dry and desolate as in Peru, or covered with a tangled
mass of forest as in Pacific Columbia and Ecuador. Just beyond the
harbour where Puerto Cabello now stands, the coast-line turned abruptly
to the north-west, leaving the mountains farther inland, but the
intervening plain was swampy and uninviting. Still following west, Ojeda
rounded Cape San Roman and turned south into the great Gulf of
Maracaibo. There he saw Indian villages of houses built on piles near
the shallow shores, and he called the place Venezuela--"little
Venice,"--a name shortly extended to the whole coast from the mouth of
the Orinoco west to the forbidding and uninhabitable peninsula of
Goajira, which forms the western promontory of the Gulf of Maracaibo.
There is no record that either Columbus or Ojeda effected a permanent
landing, and it was not until 1510 that some adventurers founded a
settlement on the small island of Cubagua, in the channel between the
large island of Margarita and the mainland. This was a mere nest of
pirates who persecuted the Indians of the shore, kidnapping and selling
them as slaves to the Spaniards on the Antilles, and it was shortly
abandoned. In 1520, on the coast just opposite, was founded the
settlement of Cumaná, the oldest city on the South American continent,
which, though destroyed by the natives, was rebuilt in 1525, when
valuable pearl fisheries were discovered in the neighbouring waters of
Margarita. However, the place remained of little importance and did not
become a centre for the colonisation of the adjacent country, the
Spaniards attaching little value to this region because it contained no
gold washings.
The real colonisation of Venezuela began four hundred miles farther west
with the foundation in 1527 of the city of Coro on the narrow neck of
land which separates the Gulf of Maracaibo from the Caribbean Sea.
Thence there was easy access by water to the shores of the great lagoon,
or by land over the coast plain to the north-western slopes of the
Andean range which runs south-west to the giant plateau of Pamplona just
over the Colombian border. The Andean valleys were filled with gold, and
among the higher mountains lay fertile plateaux, cultivated by tribes of
semi-civilised Indians. Altogether the region was well calculated to
stimulate the cupidity of adventurers.
Charles V. granted the Venezuela coast to the Welser family of Augsburg,
the greatest merchants of their time and his heavy creditors. Under
their commission the first adelantado, Alfinger, took possession of Coro
and conducted various expeditions south-west along the Andes, perishing
near Pamplona about 1531. His successors continued these murdering,
kidnapping incursions into the interior, often being led to their ruin
among remote mountain fastnesses by tales of a mythical Eldorado, where
the rivers ran over silver sands, the palaces were of solid gold with
doors and columns of diamonds and emeralds, and the Indian king every
morning covered his body with gold dust and bathed in precious aromatic
essences.
Eighteen years, however, elapsed before the Spaniards established a
permanent settlement in the interior, and only in 1545 was the city of
Tocuyo founded in a beautiful Andean valley a hundred and fifty miles
south of Coro. But the cruelties of the proprietors' agents scandalised
public opinion. Charles V. declared their concession cancelled and a
governor, responsible directly to the government, was appointed in 1547.
Thenceforward the settlement of Venezuela proceeded more rapidly. Five
years later the city of Barquisimeto, fifty miles north of Tocuyo and
near the point where the Andes join the coast range, was established on
a secure footing after hard fighting with the Indians; in 1555 the
Spaniards penetrated east a hundred miles along the lovely plateaux of
the coast mountains, and founded Valencia. The following year they
settled Trujillo, fifty miles south-west of Tocuyo, and two years later
Merida, a hundred miles farther in the same direction and not far from
the Colombian frontier.
To the east of Valencia lay valuable gold washings, and to work these
the Spaniards fixed a camp at San Francisco in the Aragua Valley about
1560. This is the garden spot of Venezuela, and the warlike Teques
Indians, under their terrible chief, Guaicaipuro, massacred the miners
and defeated several expeditions from Valencia and Barquisimeto. It was
not until 1567 that the Spaniards succeeded in establishing their power
in the valley of Caracas, which, a hundred miles east of Valencia, lies
close to the shore, although three thousand feet above sea-level and
separated from the ocean by high mountains. The defensibility of the
site as well as the fertility of the soil pointed it out as the best
place for the seat of government. A city was founded which ten years
later replaced Coro as the capital of the province, and shortly
thereafter a port was opened at La Guaira giving direct communication
with Spain. The savage tribes fought more pertinaciously than the
civilised natives of Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and northern Chile and
Argentina, and a greater number of Europeans and negroes replaced those
who were slain. Finally, however, the majority submitted, and were
incorporated as peasants into the Spanish system.
By the end of the sixteenth century the Spaniards had obtained
undisputed possession of that lovely strip of mountainous country which
extends from Cape Codera west between two parallel coast ranges to
Barquisimeto and thence west-south-west nearly to the head of Lake
Maracaibo--a belt some four hundred miles long and fifty or seventy-five
wide. They also held the great peninsula east of Maracaibo Gulf, and had
established outlying settlements in the llanos south of the mountains,
besides the two isolated ports--Cumaná on the eastern coast and
Maracaibo on the western. Notwithstanding the sack of Caracas in 1595 by
the daring British buccaneer, Amyas Preston, the colony prospered.
Unlike the Pacific coast, it had easy and direct communication with the
Antilles and Europe; the altitude was great enough to ensure a healthful
climate, while its fertile valleys could be reached from the sea in a
few hours over easy passes, far different from those formidable gorges
which are the only ways of reaching the table-lands of Colombia,
Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia. The interior, instead of being a heavily
forested plain like that of the Amazon, practically inaccessible behind
tremendous rain-soaked declivities, was an open prairie into which the
mountains sank gently, and whose grassy expanses afforded pasture for
innumerable herds. These geographical and topographical features have
been determinative of Venezuela's development and history, political as
well as industrial.
In the early years of the seventeenth century the long-neglected Cumaná
district on the eastern coast began to be developed. The city of
Barcelona was founded in 1617 near a magnificent body of grazing land
and in the best tobacco country in Venezuela, where the Indians had
grown the plant for untold generations. Barcelona soon became an
important centre of population, and the starting-point for missionaries
to the interior tribes. The gold placers which had attracted the first
adventurers to the mountains west of Caracas became exhausted within a
few decades. Nevertheless, the fertile lands, distributed among the
Spaniards in encomiendas, continued to be cultivated by Indian and negro
labour, but, although maize, bananas, potatoes, and in the higher
valleys even wheat, as well as the vine and olive, with the cattle
introduced by Europeans, furnished an abundant supply of food, to say
nothing of tobacco and sugar, Spain's blind colonial policy virtually
prevented export of agricultural products. The Spanish authorities
wanted nothing from their American dominions but gold and silver, and
when Venezuela's placers were exhausted the colony was neglected. It was
in spite of the prohibition of the Spanish government that cacao trees
were introduced, and the exportation which soon grew up--the first of
any importance from Venezuela--was mostly clandestine. Practically all
the goods legally imported had to be procured from the Cadiz monopoly,
and were sent to the Isthmus and there transhipped into coasting
vessels, paying enormous freight charges, profits, and duties. Tobacco
and salt were monopolised by government concessionaires, and not a
chicken could be sold in the markets without paying an exorbitant tax.
Education was completely neglected. It was not until 1696 that a
priests' school was established in Caracas, and when the city of Merida
asked a similar boon, it was denied because "His Catholic Majesty did
not deem it wise that education should become general in America." So
the Creoles grew up nearly as ignorant as the Indians around them,
although retaining all the fierce pride of their Spanish descent,
acknowledging no man as superior, and retaining very dim sentiments of
loyalty to the mother country. Nevertheless, the ancient municipal
forms, traditional among peoples of Spanish descent, survived,
furnishing the framework of civil government, while the priesthood
constituted a moral and intellectual tie binding the Creoles to their
Castilian ancestors.
The repressive regulations against commerce could not be perfectly
enforced. Although the arrival of a ship from Spain was a real event,
British, Dutch, and French traders frequented the coast, opening markets
with their swords, and often turning buccaneers and sacking a town when
not satisfied with their reception. But the burning of a few coast
hamlets was more than compensated by the advantages of practical
free-trade, and Venezuela owed much of the prosperity she enjoyed during
the seventeenth century to these semi-pirates. The settlements crept
along the Andean valleys to the Colombian frontier; the Creoles ventured
farther and farther into the wide plains of the Orinoco and their cattle
were soon roaming half-wild in the immense and luxuriant pastures
stretching south of the agricultural strip. From the mixture of the
Indians of the llanos with Europeans sprang a new race of men, the
semi-nomadic llaneros, whose hardiness, courage, horsemanship, and
prowess as hunters of big game have given them equal celebrity with the
gauchos of the Argentine, the cossacks of the Russian steppes, or the
Texas cowboys. The buccaneers and smuggling traders were especially
active in the latter part of the seventeenth century. In 1654 Frenchmen
were repelled in an attack on Cumaná, but in 1669 the Britisher, Morgan,
sacked Maracaibo, and in 1679 the French pillaged Caracas itself. The
paralysis suffered by Spain during the war of the Spanish Succession
nearly destroyed Venezuelan commerce, and it did not recover with the
peace of Utrecht. Only five ships arrived in the first thirty years of
the eighteenth century, and from 1706 to 1721 not a single vessel sailed
for Spain.
The Spanish government determined to try if another system would not
bring a larger revenue into the royal treasury. The Guipuzcoa Company
was granted an exclusive franchise to buy and sell in the colony, and
the operations of this powerful corporation galvanised commerce into a
certain activity. In order to stimulate the receipt of hides, and
prevent the incursions of wild plains Indians, trading posts were
established in the llanos, and soon the prairies south of Valencia and
Caracas rivalled the Barcelona country in cattle, and the ranches
extended up the Apuré, the great western tributary of the Orinoco, to
the foot of the Colombian Andes. Meanwhile expeditions penetrated up the
Orinoco from its mouth, and in 1764 the city of Angostura was
established four hundred miles from the sea. The operations of the
Guipuzcoa Company did not aid in establishing a more friendly
understanding between the home government and the Venezuelan Creoles.
The independent merchants constantly quarrelled with the company's
agents; the low prices for which they were compelled to sell their stock
outraged the ranch owners; the farmers resented the monopolisation of
tobacco and the restrictions on sugar-culture; exorbitant prices were
demanded for imported goods. Protests became so loud that special
commissioners were sent from Spain to investigate, but they gave
no satisfactory relief. Shortly after the foundation of the
Guipuzcoa Company, Venezuela had been raised to the dignity of a
captaincy-general. The increased efficiency of the administration
assisted the monopoly in suppressing clandestine trading, and the
feeling grew to such a height that in 1749 a Creole leader, named Leon,
menaced Caracas itself at the head of six thousand armed men, demanding
the suppression of the company and the expulsion of its factors. The
captain-general was forced to yield and the revolutionists dispersed,
but his promise was never redeemed. The active measures of the company
effectually shut off foreign trading-ships, and the ports were so
fortified that the British expeditions retired defeated from the
attacks they made in 1739 and 1743 on La Guaira and Puerto Cabello,
although in 1797 they captured the island of Trinidad and menaced the
entrance to the Orinoco. It was not until 1778, when the Spanish
government finally abandoned the monopolistic colonial system and opened
all the ports of South America to free commerce with each other and with
Spain, that the Guipuzcoa Company retired from business. Six years
before this the provinces of Maracaibo, Cumaná, and Guiana--as the lower
Orinoco region was called,--all of which had heretofore been directly
dependent upon the viceroy of Bogotá, were placed under the jurisdiction
of the captain-general of Caracas, fixing the modern boundaries of
Venezuela.
CHAPTER II
THE REVOLT
Venezuela's conditions during colonial times produced a people
possessing in the clearest and most accentuated form the characteristics
distinctive of the Spanish Creole. Not more than one per cent. of the
total population of over eight hundred thousand were native Spaniards;
fifteen per cent. were Creoles of pure European descent; sixty per cent.
were Indian, two-thirds of whom had an admixture of white blood; and
three-fourths of the twenty-five per cent. of negroes and mulattoes were
free. The majority did not consist of docile, inert, pure-bred natives
as in Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Paraguay, though the white element was
not so large that the Creoles had ceased to occupy the position of a
governing and property-owning caste who lived upon the labour of the
half-breeds, Indians, and negroes. They regarded themselves as a
superior class, entitled by birth to exemption from manual labour, and
even considered commercial pursuits unworthy a gentleman.
[Illustration: ANCIENT INDIAN ROCK FOR GRINDING MAIZE.]
The Spanish government had concerned itself little with this purely
agricultural colony, and its hand was felt only in the collection of
taxes. The officials were comparatively few, the number of resident
Spaniards small, and neither mutual commercial interests nor a solid
administration existed to strengthen the flimsy ties that bound
Venezuela to the mother-country. So little had the interference of the
Spanish government been felt since the abolishment of the Guipuzcoa
Company that no well-defined and widespread sentiment in favour of
separation existed. There was a vague feeling of dissatisfaction among
the masses, but their ignorance prevented them from forming any rational
plans for the betterment of their condition. However, the Venezuelan
coast is so accessible that the fertilising and disturbing currents of
trade and ideas had really profoundly modified the people, and the
leaven of unrest was at work. The wealthier Creoles had imbibed radical
notions and were ambitious of trying their hands at governing. By
heredity, social custom, and environment indisposed to industry and
commerce, their unemployed activities naturally flowed into the channel
of politics, intrigue, and fighting.
The first outbreak owed its origin to events in Spain. In 1796 a
republican conspiracy was brought to light on the Peninsula, and several
of its leaders were exiled to La Guaira. In their prison they were
visited by many prominent Creoles, into whose minds they inculcated
their republican principles, and it was not long before the existence of
an extensive republican plot among the Creoles of La Guaira and Caracas
was denounced to the captain-general. Many persons were arrested, and of
the two principals, España expiated his treason on the scaffold, while
the other, Gual, escaped into exile. But the seed of revolution had been
planted, and many leading Creoles entered into correspondence with the
British authorities on Trinidad, who promised aid in arms, munitions,
and ships. Francisco Miranda, a native of Caracas, who had fought under
Washington, and distinguished himself at Valmy and Jemappes as a soldier
of the French republic, planned an invasion with the avowed purpose of
achieving Venezuelan separation from Spain. With three ships manned by
American filibusters he sailed from New York early in 1806, and
attempted to land at Ocumare, near Puerto Cabello. But the Spanish
authorities had been warned and he was beaten in a sea-fight where he
lost sixty prisoners. Ten North Americans were condemned by
court-martial and shot in Puerto Cabello, and their names are inscribed
on a monument recently erected in the principal square of the town. The
captain-general offered thirty thousand dollars for Miranda's head, but
the latter retired to Jamaica, where, with the help of the British
authorities, he organised a force of five hundred foreigners. Three
months later he made a descent on Coro, effected a landing, and took the
city. But the population remained inert, and the indifferent or hostile
attitude of the region forced him to withdraw.
Though the western provinces received Miranda so coldly, among the
Creoles of the upper classes at Caracas aspirations for constitutional
government, autonomy, and even for independence had made headway in the
ten years since the suppression of the conspiracy of Gual and España. In
1808 French commissioners arrived bringing the news of Ferdinand's
expulsion. They were empowered to receive the allegiance of the colony
for Joseph Bonaparte, but the captain-general hesitated and asked the
advice of leading citizens, who proved unanimous against recognising the
French régime. The captain-general's vacillation gave the Creoles of the
cabildo a predominance in governmental councils. Although in the middle
of the following year it was decided to recognise the Seville junta as
supreme, pending Ferdinand's return, this decision was reached only
after many debates, and a numerous party among the Creoles saw no
reason why Venezuela should not establish a junta of her own. The news
of the frightful cruelties perpetrated by Goyeneche in suppressing the
junta at La Paz excited great indignation among Creoles; the
anti-Spanish feeling grew rapidly; and when, on the 19th of April, 1810,
the captain-general summoned an open cabildo to receive the news that
the French armies had overrun nearly the whole of Spain and that only
Cadiz remained faithful to Ferdinand, the electors had no sooner met
than, excited by suggestions of ambitious persons, they turned into a
mob howling for the resignation of the captain-general and the
establishment of a Caracas junta. Accordingly a junta was named which
exiled the Spanish functionaries and sent messages to the provincial
capitals demanding their adhesion. The cities of the mountain strip
extending from Cumaná to the Colombian Andes responded favourably and
sent delegates to Caracas, while Maracaibo, Coro, and Guiana refused. As
a matter of fact the masses as yet took little interest. The Caracas
revolution was effected by a few determined spirits, and the adhesion of
the mountain provinces was given by Creole municipal authorities who saw
in the change an opportunity to better their personal fortunes. Nor was
the resistance of Coro and Maracaibo so much inspired by love of Spain
as by the presence of the resolute, clear-headed José Ceballos, who
gathered troops and sent emissaries into the revolted provinces. The
Caracas junta responded by raising an army which marched toward Coro,
and the civil war was on.
The news of the massacre of the Ecuadorean revolutionists at Quito in
August, 1810, warned the junta Creoles that they had engaged in no
child's play. A commission went to London to solicit the intervention of
the British government in reaching an accommodation with the patriot
authorities in Spain, but the Seville junta declared the Caracas
revolutionists traitors. The commissioners fell under Miranda's
influence and he convinced them that an open declaration of independence
was the only course left. Meanwhile the troops sent to conquer Coro had
been defeated by Ceballos. Threatened by the royalist arms, unable to
count on the support of any considerable proportion of the rural
population of even their own provinces, the Creoles of the ruling
coterie proceeded to extreme measures. A congress met in March and on
the 5th of July, 1811, adopted a declaration of independence,
proclaiming the seven provinces of Cumaná, Barcelona, Caracas, Barinas,
Trujillo, Merida, and Margarita free and sovereign states. Venezuela
was, therefore, the first independent republic in Spanish America.
Congress adopted a Constitution full of the most radical reforms and
advanced ideas, and a handful of political theorists and advanced
radicals took the direction of affairs, and imposed their crude theories
on a bewildered and reluctant population. The ruling clique issued fiat
money in immense quantities, and the resulting disorganisation of
business increased discontent.
Miranda, who had come from Europe to take command of military
operations, warned them that the fabric was not strong enough to
withstand the shock of battle, but the eager young reformers persisted.
The clergy and the native Spaniards were the first to react. Though an
outbreak of the Spaniards in Caracas was bloodily suppressed, the
priests stirred up the people of Valencia, and that city--the second in
the republic--declared against the Caracas government. Miranda succeeded
in reducing the place only after costly fighting. The ruling clique did
what they could to raise and equip troops to meet the approaching
attacks from Coro and the West Indies, but their efforts were hampered
by loyalist risings. In February, 1812, Monteverde, a Spanish leader,
marched with a small detachment south from Coro, and northern Trujillo
welcomed him. Defeating the patriot forces wherever he met them and
refusing quarter to his prisoners, he prepared to advance eastward on
the centre of the revolution. The junta was already trembling, when, on
the 26th of March, a terrific earthquake devastated the revolted
provinces. The solid ground rocked with such violent oscillations that
in less than a minute the cities of Caracas, Barquisimeto, and Merida
were mere heaps of ruins. Twelve thousand persons perished in Caracas
alone. The loyalist provinces escaped injury, and the priests preached
that the earthquake was a punishment sent by God upon impious rebellion.
The people of Barquisimeto joined Monteverde, and he marched east,
slaughtering the raw recruits with which the patriot leaders tried to
block his way. Merida, Trujillo, and Barinas declared for the king, and
an expedition sent from Caracas to the lower Orinoco was destroyed.
Monteverde entered Valencia unopposed and only the coast from Caracas
east to Cumaná remained to the republic. In despair the politicians made
Miranda dictator, but, though the army numbered five thousand, he had no
confidence in his men. He signed a capitulation and tried to fly while
his army dispersed or joined the loyalist forces. On the 30th of July
Monteverde entered Caracas and the first Venezuelan revolution ceased to
exist.
Among the volunteer officers who had been entrusted with positions of
confidence by Miranda was a young Creole, named Simon Bolivar. Heir to
some of the largest estates in Venezuela he had been left an orphan at
three years of age, and was educated by a tutor who filled his
marvellously impressible mind with a crude political philosophy, and
under whose teachings he evolved original theories of government which
all the wars, debates, and revolutions of his stormy life failed to
modify. Preoccupied with his own ideas, he gave no heed to the counsels
of others, took no thought of obstacles, and, victor or vanquished,
stubbornly followed his own way, always confident of infallibility and
persevering in the face of difficulties that would have appalled a
rational man. From his earliest childhood a little feudal lord, owing
obedience to no parent, with hundreds of slaves at his orders, his
precocious intelligence the object of that ruinous admiration with which
thoughtless strangers and servants spoil a rich and lonely child, his
naturally strong will uncurbed by any discipline, he grew into
manhood--arrogant, uncompromising, solitary, suspicious, a deep thinker,
wildly ambitious, marvellously brilliant, though lacking steady
common-sense, blindly confident of his own moral and intellectual
infallibility, firmly convinced that he was destined for vague great
things, inordinately fond of honours and praise, and absolutely unable
to distinguish his desires of gratifying selfish ambitions, and his
yeasty notions of regenerating mankind. At sixteen he went to Spain to
complete his education; his wealth procured him an entrance into the
aristocratic families of Madrid; and he even penetrated the precincts of
the ceremonious court and had the honour of playing ball with the lad
who afterwards became Ferdinand VII. When only eighteen he married a
beautiful girl, who died shortly after he brought her back to Caracas.
For the rest of his life he remained without family ties. Again he went
to Europe and wandered through England, France, and Italy, falling more
and more under the spell of the mighty spirit of Napoleon the Great. At
the age of twenty-three Bolivar returned to his native country and took
up his life as a rich slave-owner. When the revolution broke out in 1810
he took no part until the junta requested him to go to England on the
embassy previously mentioned. There he became acquainted with Miranda,
and, appreciating that the South American revolution must be decided by
arms, made up his mind that only as a soldier could he put himself at
the head of affairs in Venezuela. His first essays in the military art
were not successful, and it was he who lost Puerto Cabello, giving the
first revolution its _coup de grâce_. But a situation in which others
saw no hope he regarded as an opportunity, and he resolved to devote his
life to South American independence.
Bolivar went to Cartagena in Colombia and offered his sword to the
patriot junta which ruled that city. Given a small military command on
the Magdalena River, he embodied a few militia and surprised two posts
which were obstructing the navigation of the river. Delighted at these
successes, the Cartagena junta sent him reinforcements, with which he
captured Ocana, an important city lying east of the Magdalena and not
far from Pamplona and the Venezuelan border. The loyalists had collected
a considerable force in the Venezuelan province of Barinas, with which
they proposed to advance into Pamplona. The patriot chief of this
Colombian province appealed to Bolivar and this suggested to him the
Napoleonic plan of relieving Pamplona and reconquering Venezuela. On his
own responsibility he dashed with only four hundred men over the Andes
in front of Ocana, descended into the plain north of Lake Maracaibo,
took the royalists on their march to Pamplona by surprise, and routed
them. Joined by the patriots from Pamplona, he received formal
authorisation to drive the Spaniards from the Venezuelan provinces of
Merida and Trujillo. His movements among the mountain valleys were like
lightning flashes, and though the Spanish forces were more numerous
their commanders were demoralised by his attacks made in defiance of all
the rules of prudent warfare. Within fifty days there was not an enemy
left in the two provinces, and Bolivar's army had been trebled by
enlistments. The New Granadan government ordered him to pause, but he
paid no heed. Issuing a proclamation that no quarter would be given, he
crossed the mountains south-west into the province of Barinas,
annihilated the Spanish forces there, and rushing to the east caught
another army of a thousand men near Valencia and destroyed it.
Monteverde had no time to concentrate his scattered forces, and the news
of this last defeat caused him to flee to the protection of the
fortifications of Puerto Cabello. Bolivar occupied Valencia and Caracas
without resistance. In a campaign of ninety days, with a handful of New
Granadans and mountaineers from western Venezuela, he had defeated and
dispersed over four thousand royalists, and conquered the country from
the Andes to the capital.
Only the lower plains of the Orinoco and the coast provinces of
Maracaibo and Coro remained royalist, for while Bolivar had been
overrunning the west, another young Creole, Mariño, had led a small
expedition from the island of Margarita, captured Maturin just east of
the mouth of the Orinoco, and with the military stores found there armed
the inhabitants of Cumaná province, made ripe for revolt by the
cruelties of Monteverde. The Spanish attempts to recover Maturin by
assault were repulsed with great slaughter, and Mariño followed up his
success by besieging Cumaná. By the time Bolivar reached Caracas the
place was in the last extremities of starvation, and Monteverde's
flight was a signal for its surrender. There were therefore two
dictators in Venezuela, and Mariño sent to Bolivar to treat about the
form of government, but the latter had determined on a centralised
administration with himself supreme. Mariño refused to agree, and only
the activity of the loyalists prevented a war between him and Bolivar.
Monteverde held out in Puerto Cabello, and when reinforcements arrived
from Spain resumed the offensive. Though Bolivar won a victory at Las
Trincheiras, and was greeted on his return to Caracas with the title of
"Liberator," reaction had in fact begun. Reports of loyalist movements
came from all sides; Bolivar's power was confined to the towns; the
terrible Boves roused the llaneros and gathered the nucleus of a
formidable army of horsemen. Ceballos sallied out from Coro and captured
Barquisimeto, utterly defeating Bolivar when the latter attacked him.
Difficulties, however, only stimulated this remarkable man to fresh
exertions. The patriot leader, Campo Elias, overthrew Boves's horsemen
near Calabozo on the llanos south of Caracas, killing the prisoners and
butchering every man in the town because it had helped the loyalists.
This cruel deed decided the llaneros for the Spanish side, and though
Bolivar, with the assistance of Campo Elias's troops, won the pitched
battle of Araure from Ceballos, Boves had escaped to the plains there to
recruit another army of llaneros, which was destined to expel the
Liberator.
Bolivar was soon reduced to the possession of Caracas and its
neighbouring valleys, with a feeble reserve at Valencia. Mariño had
thirty-five hundred men, and Bolivar finally agreed to recognise him as
dictator of the eastern provinces as the price of his help. But their
union only put off the evil day. Boves crushed Campo Elias at La Puerta
and advanced on Caracas. Raging like a trapped wild beast, Bolivar
ordered the wholesale assassination of eight hundred and sixty-six
Spaniards confined at La Guaira. His desperation inspired his followers,
and when Boves attacked the entrenchments outside Caracas and rushed the
patriot magazine, the young Granadan who was in command, seeing that the
place could not be held, ordered his men to fly, but when the loyalists
triumphantly rushed into the building they found him in the act of
throwing a match into the powder. In the explosion eight hundred of the
assaulting column were blown into the air and the survivors desisted.
Mariño was coming by forced marches from the east along the plains, and
Boves retired to cut him off, while Ceballos also abandoned the siege of
Valencia. Mariño eluded Boves and beat off one attack. If the Liberator
had concentrated his forces and united with his colleague the patriots
would have stood a chance, but he sent most of his own troops to recover
the west, joining Mariño with only a few men. At La Puerta on the 14th
of June, 1814, the battle decisive of the second Venezuelan revolution
was fought. The desperate charges of Boves's llanero horsemen
overwhelmed the patriots, and more than half their number were left dead
on the field. Bolivar fled to Caracas, gathered all the money and
jewels, and, encumbered by a great multitude of fugitives, retreated
east. But at Aragua the patriots were driven out of their trenches with
terrific slaughter. The Liberator took ship at Barcelona with the
intention of making a last stand near the mouth of the Orinoco, but his
comrades had had enough of him. He was declared a traitor and Rivas put
in command. The remaining patriots managed to repulse one attack of the
royalists, but in a second they were defeated, and in a third Boves
slaughtered them nearly to the last man, although he himself was killed
in the mêlée. Only a few scattered bands on the plateaux of Barcelona
and the plains of the upper Orinoco kept up a resistance. The detachment
which Bolivar had so imprudently sent west before the battle of La
Puerta escaped into New Granada, while the Liberator went by sea to that
country and took service under its government.
The revolution headed by Bolivar and Mariño had been crushed by Boves,
Morales, and Ceballos with troops recruited in Venezuela itself.
Monteverde's defeat and Boves's death left Morales master of Venezuela,
and virtually independent of outside control. But by 1815 Ferdinand was
securely on the throne of Spain, and absolutism had replaced the
Constitution established by the popular leaders of 1812. The Spanish
government determined to suppress the revolutionists who still
maintained themselves in New Granada and the Argentine, and to reduce
the semi-independent royalist chiefs to a more exact obedience. In
April, Morillo, Spain's ablest general, arrived near Cumaná at the head
of ten thousand veteran regulars. Morales sailed out to meet the Marshal
and place his troops at his orders, but the regular officers gazed in
astonishment at the dark-skinned llaneros, wearing only a hat and a
waist-cloth, who were the pillars of royal authority in Venezuela. At
first the Spaniards accepted the aid of these half-savage allies, but
Morillo lost no time in establishing a military despotism in which the
llanero chiefs had no place. Even more unpopular was his leaving three
thousand Spaniards to garrison Venezuela while he impressed an equal
number of native troops to accompany him on his expedition against New
Granada. Nearly a third of the latter deserted rather than embark, and
the attitude of the Spanish officers who were left behind to rule the
country roused the native instinct for independence.
Meanwhile the scattered bands of patriot guerillas on the western
headwaters of the Orinoco, near the Granadan border, had been uniting
and increasing in strength. José Antonio Paez, a mixed-blood, only
twenty-six years old, who could neither read nor write, but of herculean
strength and skill in the use of lance and sword, proved the leader for
the occasion. A small corps in which he was a simple captain was
threatened by the Spanish governor of Barinas at the head of fourteen
hundred men. His own commander wished to retreat, but Paez persuaded
five hundred reckless fellows to follow him in a night assault. Leading
his men in a furious charge he bore down the enemy with a rush, killing
four hundred and taking many prisoners, whom he treated so well that
they all joined him. The fame of his success spread through the llanos
and the rough plainsmen, dissatisfied with the discipline and routine of
the regular Spanish officers, flocked to the banner of this new
chieftain, and he began the organisation of the army of the Apuré,
destined to be the principal instrument in the redemption of Venezuela.
Meanwhile the guerilla chiefs farther down the Orinoco made headway
against the Spaniards, and the whole plain turned to the patriot side.
Hearing of these successes, Bolivar resolved to return to Venezuela. He
landed near the mouth of the Orinoco, but was soon driven thence and
took ship for Ocumare, near Puerto Cabello. From this point he sent a
small expedition inland towards Valencia under the command of MacGregor,
who achieved some successes against isolated bodies of loyalists, was
joined by many llaneros, and finally made his way to the plains of
Barcelona, while Bolivar was compelled to re-embark and flee to Hayti.
MacGregor took the city of Barcelona, and then with the assistance of
the negro chief, Piar, who had been besieging Cumaná, repulsed Morales
himself at the battle of Juncal. By the end of 1816 the patriots had
gained so many advantages that Morillo thought himself obliged to return
to Venezuela at the head of huge reinforcements. However, the patriot
cause needed a head. The chieftains were rude and ignorant men with a
talent for fighting and nothing more, while Bolivar was a man of wide
and varied accomplishments. In spite of his failures he retained great
prestige among the Creole officers. He was agreed upon as
general-in-chief, and in December landed at Barcelona. But Piar had led
his victorious army over to the Orinoco, and notwithstanding Bolivar's
entreaties the llaneros persisted in their refusal to return to a
country where cavalry could not manoeuvre to advantage. When Bolivar
arrived at Piar's headquarters near Angostura he appreciated that the
true theatre for a successful war had been found. In those plains the
llanero cavalry, which formed the bulk of the patriot force, was
invincible. Morillo also realised that the coast would not long remain
tenable if the line of the Orinoco were in the hands of the patriots,
and he sent a regular force of three thousand men under La Torre down
the Apuré and Orinoco to Angostura, while he himself quickly made an end
of the few insurrectionists who stubbornly refused to retire from the
coast to the llanos. During one of Bolivar's absences, La Torre offered
Piar battle, and at San Felix, in April, 1817, the plainsmen annihilated
the Spanish infantry.
[Illustration: THE PASS OF ANGOSTURA, BOLIVAR CITY.]
Bolivar now went vigorously to work to secure complete command of the
river and soon had quite a fleet. His ascendancy over his officers
increased daily, and when Piar conspired against him he was strong
enough to have the negro hero arrested and shot as a traitor. Before the
end of 1817 the patriots were in command of the whole line of the rivers
except the fortress of San Fernando, near the junction of the Apuré and
Orinoco, and Morillo could do nothing against them because the plains
were flooded. When the waters fell in early spring the royalists
achieved some successes, but Bolivar joined Paez, established a blockade
of San Fernando, and surprised Morillo himself near Calabozo. Against
Paez's advice he now insisted on making a campaign for the recovery of
Caracas, but was badly defeated by the marshal at La Puerta--a spot for
the third time the scene of a patriot downfall. Though Paez had captured
San Fernando his expedition into the mountain country was no more
successful than Bolivar's, and the two retreated to the river to raise
fresh troops. Morales followed the patriots to the Apuré, but was in his
turn repulsed by Paez, giving Bolivar a breathing spell.
The Liberator's position was desperate; his infantry had been destroyed;
his cavalry reduced in numbers; his men were nearly without arms; his
ammunition exhausted. Ill-considered movements had turned the brilliant
situation in which he had found patriot affairs a year before into the
gloomiest sort of an outlook. On the other hand, a defensive campaign in
the llanos could be kept up indefinitely, and though Morillo had twelve
thousand men in the populous mountain provinces north of the plains, he
also was without money, arms, and supplies. As he reported to the
Peruvian viceroy: "Twelve pitched battles in which the best officers and
troops of the enemy have fallen, have not lowered their pride or
lessened the vigour of their attacks." With that indomitable energy
which more than compensated for his inferiority as a strategist, Bolivar
set to work to create a new army. Cavalry of the most admirable sort
could be recruited in sufficient numbers among the llaneros, but bitter
experience had convinced him that against Spanish regulars the native
infantry stood little chance. The cessation of the Napoleonic wars had
left thousands of European veterans without employment, and Bolivar
contracted for a few thousand Britishers and Irishmen, paying a bounty
of eighty dollars per man on enlistment and promising five hundred
dollars at the conclusion of the war. Some of these troops arrived
opportunely late in 1818, and, few as their numbers were, no soldiers in
South America could stand against them.
In October Bolivar issued a proclamation foreshadowing the union of
Venezuela and New Granada. In the midst of defeat, with all of both
countries except the thinly populated Orinoco plains in possession of
the Spaniards, he was confidently planning the creation of a great
empire. Morillo opened the campaign of 1819 by advancing with over six
thousand men against Paez on the upper Orinoco. The Creole's four
thousand were mostly cavalry, and he had learned better than to risk a
pitched battle. The Spanish columns were harassed beyond endurance by
his light horsemen, and after weeks of heartbreaking marches Morillo had
to retire, having accomplished nothing.
From Bolivar's erratic genius now emanated a great stroke of strategy.
West of the plains of the Apuré and Casanare, tributaries of the upper
Orinoco, rises the giant range of the Cordillera and on its top lay the
fertile plateaux of Socorro, Tunja, and Bogotá, the populous heart of
New Granada. For three years the Spaniards had been in secure possession
and all except three thousand troops had been drafted for service in
Venezuela and Peru. A small Spanish force came down from Tunja to attack
the patriot guerillas in Casanare, and was repulsed. Where the enemy
could go he could follow, reasoned Bolivar. Paez's cavalry had proved
itself amply able to hold the llanos, so no risk to Venezuela would be
incurred by temporarily withdrawing part of the infantry. With two
thousand natives and five hundred British the Liberator followed up the
Orinoco, Meta, and Casanare to the latter's sources at the foot of the
Paya pass, which leads directly into the fertile valley of Sagamoso, the
heart of Tunja province. This pass is high and very difficult, although
the distance to be traversed was only eighty miles. The road was a mere
track leading along precipices, crossing and recrossing mountain
torrents, and the rain fell incessantly as the patriots struggled up the
slippery path. When they reached the higher regions a hundred men
perished with the cold, and not a horse survived. The army arrived at
Sagamoso in a pitiable condition, but without seeing an enemy except an
outpost, which was easily dislodged.
Not knowing Bolivar's numbers, Barreiro, the Spanish commander, dared
not attack, and the Liberator thus obtained a much-needed opportunity to
rest his men and gather horses for his dismounted cavalry. As soon as he
got his army in hand he outmanoeuvred Barreiro and by a rapid march
captured the city of Tunja, where he found a good store of arms and
material. This movement also placed the patriot army between the
Spaniards and Bogotá. Barreiro, seeing himself cut off from his base,
made a desperate dash for the capital, but Bolivar knew the enemy's
route and took up a position directly across his path on the right bank
of the small river Boyacá. Though the patriots were only slightly
superior in numbers, the Spaniards had to attack at a disadvantage, and
fled completely defeated after losing a hundred men. Practically their
whole force was dispersed or made prisoners. Small as were the numbers
engaged and easily as it was won, Boyacá was the most important battle
fought in northern Spanish America. Central New Granada, the wealthiest
and most populous part of the country, fell into Bolivar's hands without
a further blow. Its revenues relieved his financial difficulties and
among its sturdy inhabitants he recruited a new army. Morillo, now
isolated in Venezuela, must expect an attack from the llaneros,
reinforced by the Granadan mountaineers.
[Illustration: ROAD NEAR MACUTO.]
During the Liberator's absence from Venezuela he had been branded as a
traitor for abandoning his country without the authorisation of
congress, and Mariño made commander-in-chief. But the news of Boyacá
fell like a thunderbolt among the disaffected, and his return in
December quelled them utterly. No opposition was made when he announced
that Venezuela and New Granada were united into a single republic, the
United States of Colombia, with himself as president and military
dictator. The year 1820 passed without any decisive campaign. Bolivar
occupied himself principally in recruiting and refitting his armies.
Twelve hundred Irish mercenaries arrived and were incorporated with an
army which was sent by sea to threaten the Spaniards in Cartagena, and
co-operate with the New Granadans on the lower Magdalena. A strong
division of Venezuelans was sent against Quito. Paez with the main army
of the Apuré was, however, repulsed in an advance into Barinas. In spite
of this success Morillo could only lie inactive south of Caracas. His
forces were not numerous enough both to retake New Granada and to hold
northern Venezuela. But word came that Ferdinand was preparing an army
of twenty thousand men which would shortly sail from Cadiz for America,
and with this reinforcement the marshal believed he could destroy all
the patriot armies. The revolution which broke out in Spain in 1820
against Ferdinand's absolute government overturned his hopes. The
expedition never sailed, and the new liberal government showed itself
disposed to make terms with the revolted colonies. In November a six
months' armistice was arranged pending the despatch of peace
commissioners to the mother-country, and Morillo resigned in favour of
La Torre.
Bolivar's lieutenants respected the armistice only where convenient, and
shamelessly continued warlike operations, wresting the New Granadan
coast from the Spaniards, beginning the siege of Cartagena, and
encouraging a revolt in the province of Maracaibo. When La Torre
declared the armistice at an end late in April, 1821, Bolivar had
twenty thousand men in the field disposed in five armies. Montilla was
besieging Cartagena with three thousand; one Granadan army held the
valley of the Magdalena; another was operating against Ecuador; Bermudez
with two thousand men threatened Caracas from the east; and Bolivar and
Paez at the head of nine thousand men were ready to advance directly
from the Orinoco on Valencia and Caracas. To these forces La Torre could
only oppose nine thousand troops besides his garrisons. The moment the
armistice was formally terminated Bolivar started straight for La Torre.
The latter had made the fatal mistake of dividing his forces, and had
only about three thousand men drawn up on the wide plain of Carabobo, at
the northern foot of the passes which lead through the mountains from
the llanos to the Valencia plateau. Bolivar's six thousand captured the
passes, but he could not deploy his infantry on the flat ground in front
except at the risk of having them cut to pieces. On June 23, 1821, he
detached the British legion of one thousand men and fifteen hundred
cavalry under Paez around to the left to take the Spaniards in flank.
The charge of the llanero horse was driven back by the musket fire, but
the pursuing Spaniards were checked by the steady Englishmen, who stood
in their tracks and withstood the fire of the whole Spanish army. Their
ammunition was soon exhausted; no help came from Bolivar; all seemed to
be over with them; a second cavalry charge was as unsuccessful as the
first; and the surviving Britishers made up their minds to carry the
enemy's position or perish. Their commander had fallen; the colours
changed bearers seven times; still they kept their formation as steadily
as if on parade, and bayonet in hand rushed on the Spaniards, who
outnumbered them four to one. For a brief time the struggle was fierce
and the result doubtful, but cold steel in the hands of such a
desperate, forlorn hope was too much for the Spaniards. They began to
give ground and at last broke and fled. The llanero horse rode them
down, and only a remnant escaped to the shelter of Puerto Cabello.
Bolivar entered Caracas acclaimed--and this time justly--as the
liberator of his country.
Meanwhile the constituent congress of the new republic of Colombia had
met at Cucutá, a town near the limits of Venezuela and New Granada. It
was composed entirely of civilians and lawyers and proved to be
radically republican and opposed to Bolivar's anti-democratic theories.
Though a centralised government was adopted, congress rejected the life
presidency and hereditary senate, and abolished the military
dictatorship by providing that the commander-in-chief, when on active
service, should leave his political functions in the hands of the
vice-president. Bolivar made a pretence of declining the presidency, but
yielded to the importunities of congress and continued in command of the
army on the terms proposed, stipulating, however, that he be allowed to
organise as he saw fit the provinces he might conquer in the rest of
South America.
The Spaniards now held only Puerto Cabello and Cumaná, but no progress
was made toward driving them out of these positions during the remainder
of 1821, nor until after Bolivar had, early in 1822, left for the south
to co-operate with Sucré in the conquest of Quito. In October Cumaná
surrendered to Bermudez, but from Puerto Cabello Morales led an
expedition which reconquered Maracaibo and Coro. He was unable to hold
them and the defeat of his squadron on Lake Maracaibo in July, 1823,
forced him to surrender. On the 8th of November Puerto Cabello was taken
by assault and the long war for Venezuela's independence was over.
CHAPTER III
MODERN VENEZUELA
In 1822 Bolivar departed bent on the conquest of Ecuador, Peru, and
Bolivia, leaving a New Granadan vice-president as ruler of the great
Colombian republic, of which Venezuela was merely one division. The
massacres and sackings of ten bloody years had depopulated and
impoverished Venezuela, and the cost of maintaining the army and aiding
Bolivar in his foreign contests drained its exhausted resources. The
educated Creoles, especially powerful in the agricultural regions near
the coast, saw no place for themselves in Bolivar's centralising system.
They wanted to control the offices in their own localities, and did not
relish the establishment of a bureaucracy in which appointments and
promotions would be settled at Bogotá. The predominant radical French
ideas added force to the sentiment of local independence. The theorists
were offended by Bolivar's manifest predilection toward aristocratic
forms and the favours which he granted the clergy. Most dangerous of
all, jealousy of the Liberator was rife among the generals.
Paez had been left at the head of military affairs in Venezuela and soon
after the capture of Puerto Cabello he became involved in quarrels with
the municipal authorities. The llanero general recked little of the
arguments of the lawyers, and carried things with a high hand. In 1826,
when the Bogotá government sent an order for the organisation of
militia, he filled the measure to overflowing, and the municipality of
Caracas made a formal complaint to the central government. A decree for
his suspension was issued, but a riot in the streets terrorised the
cabildo and he was replaced in power as a sort of dictator. This
amounted to a destruction of the influence of the central Colombian
government in Venezuelan affairs. Many cities raised the standard of
rebellion and made themselves virtually independent. Bolivar hastened
back from Peru to reduce his old companion in arms to obedience. He
cajoled Paez into temporary co-operation, subdued most of the revolted
cities, and, seeing that his system could not be sustained without
coercion, assumed a dictatorship. But the news that Peru had revolted
destroyed his dream of a continent-wide dominion, and the demand for
local autonomy continued so strong throughout Venezuela and New Granada
that he was forced to call a national assembly to amend the Constitution
on the basis of a compromise. In spite of Bolivar's intrigues nearly
half the elected delegates staid away, and a majority of those who
presented themselves at Ocana, in March, 1828, though chosen under the
pressure of his influence, opposed his measures.
[Illustration: ENTRANCE OF PUERTO CABELLO IN 1870.]
The minority who favoured him withdrew at his suggestion, leaving the
congress without a quorum. It dissolved and the Liberator visited
Caracas, Cartagena, and Bogotá, calling popular assemblies whose
deliberations were directed by bayonets and which obediently besought
him to save the country from anarchy in his own way. He issued a decree
virtually abolishing the Cucutá Constitution, but a conspiracy to
assassinate him was formed at Bogotá in the fall of 1828, and he was
saved only by the devotion of his mistress, who stood in the way of the
midnight assassins, giving him time to jump from a window and escape. He
took a fearful vengeance on the conspirators and banished his worst
political enemies, but the incident failed to turn public sentiment in
his favour, and it was in vain that he exhibited himself as a martyr.
His old friend, General Cordoba, headed an unsuccessful insurrection in
the province of Antioquia; insurgents rose in Popayan and Rio Negro, and
towards the end of 1829, in Bolivar's native city, Caracas, an assembly
of one thousand generals, public functionaries, and prominent citizens
announced that Venezuela would shortly separate from Colombia and called
upon Paez to assume a dictatorship. The Liberator struggled vainly
against the rising tide of federalism; the country was at heart opposed
to Cæsarism and union; he had been unable to convince the Creoles of the
advisability of providing a strong centralised government; and his only
supporters were personal ones. Bitterly protesting that he was falsely
charged with aspiring to mount a throne, and insisting that his real
ambition had been only to secure the perpetuity of the Colombian union
and establish an ordered government, he offered his resignation.
Congress, however, contained many of his friends and hesitated at coming
to an open breach. He was re-elected and made one last effort to enforce
the obedience of Venezuela. But the troops he raised in New Granada did
not dare to attack Paez, who with superior forces was waiting in an
impregnable position near the frontier. Sick and discouraged, the
Liberator renewed his resignation--this time in earnest--and retired to
the seacoast, where a few months later he died of a wasting sickness at
the early age of forty-seven. Though his courage, energy, and sublime
persistence and self-confidence had been the chief factors in securing
South American independence, those qualities proved utterly inadequate
to hold in check the unruly ambitions of the Creoles. He died clearly
foreseeing the decades of anarchy which lay before the northern
countries of the continent. "I blush to admit it," he said to congress
on the eve of his fall, "but independence is the only benefit we have
achieved, and that has been at the cost of all others." On his death-bed
he wrote: "Our Constitutions are books, our laws papers, our elections
combats, and life itself a torment. We shall arrive at such a state that
no foreign nation will condescend to conquer us, and we shall be
governed by petty tyrants."
The Venezuelan federalists had not waited for Bolivar's death to
complete the formal separation from Colombia. In May, 1830, a
constituent congress assembled which named Paez dictator and notified
Bogotá that the country regarded itself as absolutely independent. But
Bolivar had partisans and the ruling clique enemies. The eastern
provinces refused to recognise Paez's authority and the whole country
was soon under arms. But Bolivar's death and the virtual recognition of
Venezuela's independence by New Granada brought about a treaty between
Paez and Monagas, the chief of the insurrection. The Creole aristocracy
came to a working understanding with the generals, and little cliques in
each city supported the central government as long as they were
recognised as dominant in their own localities. Naturally the ignored
outsiders were dissatisfied and plotted to overthrow these oligarchies.
In May, 1831, a revolution broke out in Caracas which menaced nothing
less than the extermination of the property-holding classes, but it was
suppressed and its leaders executed. On paper the form of government was
most liberal, congress abolishing the tobacco monopoly and many odious
taxes inherited from Spanish times, proclaiming religious freedom, and
adopting a Constitution very similar to that of the United States. But
in practice the conservative cliques had things their own way. Though
ambitious chiefs headed insurrections from time to time, they were all
bought off or defeated, and Paez continued president until 1835, leaving
the country in a condition of comparative order and prosperity.
Doctor Vargas, a civilian, succeeded him, but against him the generals
revolted, declaring Mariño dictator. Carujo, the soul of the
insurrection, said, in the act of making the president and his ministers
prisoners, "Doctor Vargas, the world belongs to the strongest," and the
latter nobly replied, "No, the world belongs to the just," résuméing in
a word the conflict between force and law, between unbridled ambition
and the necessity for order, which has desolated Venezuela to this day
and which will last until the selfish elements learn that their own true
interests would best be served by promoting the prosperity of the whole
people--by relying upon their own industry rather than on chances to
despoil the producing classes. The government party appealed to Paez,
and the llanero general accepted the command. His prestige with the
common people and the army enabled him to gather forces with which he
overcame the revolted generals after eight months of bloody civil war.
Vargas was recalled from exile, but after a short time refused to
continue in the presidency, and his place was taken by the
vice-president, Doctor Narvarte. In 1839 Paez was again made president,
and was succeeded in 1842 by General Soublette, another of the heroes of
the war of independence. Until 1846 there was comparative tranquillity
in Venezuela. The population had decreased by a fifth during the Spanish
wars, being estimated at six hundred and fifty thousand in 1825, but
within the succeeding twenty years it grew to a million and a quarter.
Cacao, coffee, and sugar became important articles of export and made
the landed proprietors rich. With the cessation of warlike operations on
the plains, cattle rapidly multiplied, the first waggon roads were
built, and a bank was established.
In 1846 an anti-Creole insurrection broke out among the men of colour,
and Paez was again invested with dictatorial powers. When he had
completed his work he installed Monagas as president. Popular irritation
against the ruling conservative coterie was, however, profound and
Monagas quarrelled with congress, and sent his soldiers to break up its
meetings. Paez took up arms again and tried to expel his nominee, but
was defeated, and for the next nine years Monagas and his brother
alternated in the presidency. Though raised to power by the conservative
party they abandoned it and before 1850 had thrown themselves into the
arms of the liberals, or federalists. Extravagant powers were granted
to the states; the provincial coteries ran their localities to suit
themselves; the ties binding the different parts of the country together
were weakened; an elaborate and confused set of taxes, national,
provincial, and municipal, well-nigh choked commerce out of existence.
More and more liberty was conceded to the states and municipalities,
and, on paper, to the individual also. Slavery was abolished in 1854.
Revolutions broke out from time to time, and finally, in 1858, the
so-called conservatives overthrew the Monagas régime. But they
immediately divided into warring groups, and their new Constitution
proved too centralising to suit the Creole politicians. The liberals
hoisted the banner of federalism and several provinces rose in revolt.
Under the leadership of Pedro Gual the conservatives were, however,
victorious, but they again split to pieces, and Gual himself went over
to the liberals. A revolution in Caracas brought back old General Paez,
who assumed a dictatorship and tried to re-establish the power of the
central government. But it was impossible. Many disappointed
conservatives had turned federalist. No politician seemed willing to
submit to any administration unless he was a member of it. The struggle
had degenerated into a mere selfish contest for power, and the terms
liberal and conservative, federalist and unitarian, had ceased to have
any real relation to the opinions of the persons who bore these
appellations. General Falcon, with Guzman Blanco as lieutenant, led a
successful insurrection in Coro and made himself undisputed master of a
considerable portion of the country. The province of Maracaibo formally
declared itself separated from all connection with Caracas. For three
years civil war raged, when finally Paez gave up and Falcon assumed
direction of the exhausted country. On only one thing had the rapid
succession of dictators, provincial and national, been agreed,--the
increase of taxes. Import duties had been raised to such a point that
commerce could stand no more. But in spite of the enormous sums wrung
from merchant, producer, and consumer, the treasury was empty, for the
local chiefs openly took possession of the receipts of the custom-houses
in their respective districts, and diversions of public funds to private
use were the rule among all ranks of officials.
[Illustration: VENEZUELAN SOLDIER OF 1870.]
Falcon's success meant the definite triumph of unrestrained federalism.
The twenty states into which the seven old provinces had been divided in
the effort to provide enough offices to go around, became in law
sovereign; the presidential term was reduced to two years; absolute
liberty of the press was permitted, and the right of meeting for any
purpose guaranteed. Imprisonment for debt, the death penalty, and
religious instruction in the schools were all abolished. During the five
years that Falcon was the chief political figure affairs in Venezuela
grew worse and worse. State after state burst into revolution. Falcon
sometimes whipped the insurrectionists and sometimes bought them off,
but more often was unable to secure even a semblance of obedience
except by conceding everything. National penury reached the limit, the
states collected and pocketed the dues in most of the custom-houses,
officials were in regular partnership with smugglers, and finally the
feeble ghost of a federal administration simply flickered out of
existence because it could pay nobody.
A chief of the so-called unitarian party was declared president in 1868,
but Guzman Blanco, now the undisputed head of the federalists, retook
Caracas in 1870 and installed himself as dictator. He proved the
strongest and most tenacious man who had yet come to the front. With a
terrific insurrection raging against him, he concentrated all powers in
his own hands, suppressed the peculations of his agents, and
relentlessly dragged the half-breeds and negroes into his armies. He
finally put down all his enemies and in 1873 was installed as
constitutional president. Until 1889 he virtually reigned over
Venezuela. Though occasionally he might allow some one else to be
elected president, after a short interval he would find a pretext for
intervention and oust his nominee. Though the Constitution was left
substantially unamended, he interpreted it as he pleased. He organised a
regular machine through which he governed the "sovereign" states, taking
care that none but his creatures should become governors and that the
members returned to congress should be docile. To all intents and
purposes his will was the law of the land, for the legislative and
judicial departments were his instruments, and his executive decrees
covered nearly every imaginable subject. The minutest details of
commercial and social life were regulated, the clergy owed their
positions to the dictator, and even private property was not safe if
Blanco took a fancy to it. But in the main his tyranny was intelligent.
The country escaped the desolating outbreaks of local chiefs, with
forced loans wrung from property owners and merchants, the seizure of
cattle and coffee for "war purposes," and the lassoing of peons to serve
in the armed bands. Though the taxes imposed by Blanco were enormously
heavy, the marvellous productive forces of the soil could stand almost
any burden provided its amount were certain and its collection regular.
Though the dictator withdrew millions for his private use, depositing
them in Paris against the evil day of his expulsion, indiscriminate
exactions by subordinates were suppressed. Large sums were spent on
public works and buildings, and the beautification of the city of
Caracas, one of the handsomest and best-built cities in America, dates
from Guzman Blanco's time. Nearly five hundred miles of railroad were
constructed. The country was given and has retained the inestimable
blessing of a stable currency, and the coffee and cacao businesses
increased enormously. The number of cattle, which the civil wars prior
to 1870 had reduced to one million four hundred thousand, increased
sevenfold in fifteen years.
But Blanco's system was anomalous and rested on no secure foundation.
The commercial and property-holding classes abstained from politics, the
people became tired of his busybody tyranny, the peons were still an
inert and ignorant mass, harmless by themselves, but furnishing a
tempting recruiting ground for ambitious revolutionists. Nor had the
Creole politicians changed their nature. There were plenty of talented
adventurers whose mouths fairly watered seeing the immense fortune
Blanco was accumulating, and who only waited a favourable opportunity to
conquer a share in the spoils. The successful outbreak came in 1889,
headed by Rojas Paul. His success was a signal for other chiefs to
imitate his example. Resolute leaders hastily organised bands of peons,
and the old story of pronunciamentos, kidnappings of peaceful peasants,
attacks, surprises, forced loans, and all the demoralising and
disintegrating horrors of civil war were repeated. Paul was overthrown
by Andueza, and in 1892 Crespo got to the head of affairs and held power
long enough to accumulate a respectable fortune. Andrade succeeded
Crespo, but had to divide the spoils with his predecessor. The
disturbances did not become of a character to injure seriously
Venezuela's commerce and production until 1896, but there then began a
rapid decline in the value of her exports. The government's revenues
diminished a third and amounted to less than half the expenditures. The
debt grew to alarming figures and the guaranteed interest on foreign
capital employed in building railroads was allowed to fall into arrear.
In 1899, Castro, a man hitherto unknown in politics, started an
insurrection against Andrade in the western state of Los Andes. Marching
from one town to another his army grew like a rolling snowball by
forced enlistments, and though the sturdy hillmen did not know what they
were fighting for and would gladly have been at home, they showed all
the stolid bravery that seems inborn in their race. The government
troops could not stand against them, and Castro finally entered Caracas
in triumph. Though insurrection after insurrection has broken out
against him, the dauntless courage with which he leads his men has
enabled him to maintain himself. The successful South American
revolutionist must be willing to risk losing his own life, for so long
as he leads he will be followed, but his cowardice or death means a
rapid dissolution of his forces.
[Illustration: VENEZUELAN GUERILLAS.]
Though the solidity acquired by the Venezuelan commercial and financial
structure during the long years of Blanco's reign has prevented the
country from reverting into the anarchy which prevailed before 1873, and
though the spirit of federalism is not so rampant and the chieftains
aspire rather to a control of the whole country than to power confined
to their own localities, the recent civil wars have disorganised the
finances. Internal production has been hampered and external obligations
have been deferred--the latter with serious consequences. Anti-foreign
sentiment, already raised to a threatening height by the boundary
dispute with British Guiana--a long-standing matter which was happily
settled by arbitration after menacing a serious rupture between the
United States and Great Britain,--was further exacerbated by the
blockade of Venezuelan ports and the destruction of the Venezuelan navy
by the joint fleets of Germany, England, and Italy in 1902--measures to
which the European governments had been incited by the failure of
Venezuela to settle claims of their citizens. In the face of this
foreign war the civil conflicts were interrupted, and President Castro
empowered the American minister to negotiate for the submission of the
claims to arbitration. To the weight of the sentiment that international
money claims should not be enforced by warlike measures was added the
existence of a current of opinion in the United States which favoured
arbitration as in this instance certainly the best method of adjustment.
The temporary occupation of ports on American soil by European powers
might give the latter a military hold in the western continent which
would embarrass and complicate more important relations. The submission
was quickly and amicably arranged, the claims of the citizens of other
countries are to be ascertained at the same time, and the matter is now
before The Hague international tribunal.
[Illustration: ECUADOR COLOMBIA AND VENEZUELA]
By a resolution of congress General Castro is empowered to hold the
office of president for six years from 1902. Bitter and costly as have
been the experiences through which Venezuela has passed during the last
twelve years, the vast majority of the intelligent and property-holding
classes realise more clearly than outsiders possibly can that internal
stability will alone ensure the commercial development of the country;
that Venezuela united is far more likely to prosper than if separated
into always jealous and often warring provinces. The mass of the people
are industrious and peaceable. Real progress has been made since the
time of Bolivar in the almost impossible task of adjusting republican
forms and procedure to a people who by inheritance and tradition knew
nothing of the difficult art of self-government. It cannot fairly be
said that Venezuela as yet sees her way clear to a solution of the
problem, but her commercial statistics for the last thirty years prove
that her people have acquired industrial capacity, and the history of
other Spanish-American countries shows that the power for evil of the
turbulent military class may perish once for all with startling
suddenness when the right stage in national development is reached.
COLOMBIA
CHAPTER I
CONQUEST AND SETTLEMENT
When Alonso de Ojeda coasted along the Venezuelan shore in the spring of
1499 he stopped short just west of the Gulf of Maracaibo, near the
present boundary between Venezuela and Colombia. The following year
Rodrigo Bastida doubled the Goajira peninsula and pursued his voyage to
the west, catching sight of the giant snowclad mountains of Santa Marta
and of the low land which lies between them and the sea. Coming to the
mouth of a great river on the day sacred to Saint Magdalene, he named it
the Magdalena, and farther to the south-west found the fine harbour
where the city of Cartagena now stands. At the head of the Gulf of
Darien he came to another great river, the Atrato, and here his
explorations stopped.
More than a year later the great Columbus himself, on his fourth and
last voyage, sighted the Central American coast at Cape Gracias á Dios,
near the present boundary between Nicaragua and Honduras. Thence he
sailed south-east along a pestilential shore for eight hundred miles,
finally arriving near the point where Bastida had left off his
explorations. It is said that Bartholomew Columbus founded a settlement
on the Atlantic shore of the Isthmus, but it was soon destroyed by the
neighbouring Indians. The long stretch of coast was unfit for the abode
of Europeans, but the Indians had gold in abundance, and the Spaniards
were satisfied that the interior was full of mines. Hundreds of
fortunate adventurers had accumulated fortunes in the placers of Hayti,
and with a view of repeating their successes on the mainland, Alonso de
Ojeda solicited and obtained from the Spanish Crown the grant of the
territory from Goajira to the Atrato, while Diego de Nicuesa was given
the coast from the Atrato to Cape Gracias á Dios. In 1510 one of Ojeda's
lieutenants founded a town called Sebastian on the eastern shore of the
Gulf of Darien. The Indians soon destroyed it, but Antigua was
established across the gulf. This place was in fact on the Isthmus of
Panama, and not much more than one hundred miles from the Pacific Ocean,
of which the Spaniards then knew nothing. Among the military adventurers
who had followed Ojeda to Darien were Nuñez de Balboa and Francisco
Pizarro. In 1511 the former went a short distance into the interior
looking for gold, and fell in with an Indian chief who told him that
only a few leagues south lay a great sea whose shores were inhabited by
numerous rich and civilised nations. Two years later he headed an
expedition from Antigua which resulted in the epoch-making discovery
which has immortalised his name. As the band of Spaniards approached
the line of hills from which the natives told them they could see the
mysterious ocean, Balboa hastened ahead of his men and was the first to
catch a glimpse, but in the headlong rush for the honour of first
touching its waters he was beaten by Alonso Martin and that lean and
tireless soldier who was afterwards to conquer Peru--Francisco Pizarro.
The Pacific side of the Isthmus proved to be more healthful and
habitable than the marshy shores of the Atlantic, and the settlers at
Antigua were soon driven by fevers and dysenteries, torrential rains and
sweltering heat, to the more healthful region of Panama. Nicuesa
likewise had been able to do nothing with his long stretch of Isthmian
and Central American coast. Nombre de Dios, not far from the present
site of Colon, was the only town which he succeeded in establishing, and
that maintained itself only as landing-place on the way to Panama. To
this day the Caribbean coast from the Atrato delta as far as Gracias á
Dios is practically uninhabited by white men; on the site of Antigua
there is left not a trace; the Indians in its neighbourhood are still
independent savages; and the north shore of the Isthmus has been a
hospital and a grave for successive generations of white men during four
hundred years. Only its position at the strategical gate to the great
South Sea has induced men to go to its noisome shores.
The Isthmian settlements were, as they remain, separated from the
continent of South America by the deep and broad valley of the Atrato,
where the rainfall is the greatest known, and whose dense tropical
forests are uninhabitable and practically impassable. No land
communication exists between Panama and Colombia proper. However, the
coast east of the Atrato delta is dryer, and at Santa Marta, beyond the
mouth of the Magdalena and at the foot of the great outlying mountain
mass of Colombia's north-eastern peninsula, was founded in 1525 the
first permanent settlement in Colombia proper. It was nothing more than
a kidnapping station, whence expeditions scoured the interior for slaves
to be sold to the Haytian gold mines. Meanwhile from Coro, established
two years later, on the eastern side of Maracaibo Gulf, murdering and
slaughtering expeditions were sent across the gulf, returning to
Venezuela after making a circuit among the mountains lying south of
Maracaibo Bay. Later these expeditions from Coro penetrated over these
mountains, reaching the llanos of the Apuré and finally the plains of
Casanare lying east of Bogotá, which now belong to Colombia.
[Illustration: OLDEST FORTRESS IN AMERICA, AT CARTAGENA.]
The exploring parties from Santa Marta and Coro, and information picked
up along the coast, gave the Spaniards a pretty fair idea of the
geography of the interior, and the existence of immense quantities of
gold and of civilised nations living on the high plateaux was verified
from many sources. The conquest of the fertile and salubrious interior
of Colombia was effected from three distinct centres,--Cartagena and
Santa Marta on the Caribbean coast, and Quito on the Ecuador table-land.
Serious colonisation began with Heredia's foundation of Cartagena in
1533. The new leader set vigorously to work to establish himself firmly
on the magnificent harbour and seek for gold. Cortes' and Pizarro's
marvellous successes had brought a multitude of adventurers to the new
world, all of whom were eager for a share in the spoils of the yet
independent Indian kingdoms. Heredia found the rocky hills which rise
not far south of Cartagena full of profitable gold washings, and the
Indians reported that only a short distance in the interior, where the
mountains rose higher, there was a region called Zenufana which produced
the precious metal far more abundantly. Their story was true, and
Zenufana was none other than the present state of Antioquia, which has
produced hundreds of millions of dollars of gold. No time was lost in
starting on the search. Heredia's first expedition penetrated to the
headwaters of the river Sinu, which flows into the Caribbean not far
south-west of Cartagena, and though successful in finding gold he was
unable to force his way over the high sierra of Abibe, the most northern
bulwark of the great Maritime Cordillera, which barred his way into
Antioquia and the valley of the Cauca. In 1535 the town of Tolu was
founded between the mouth of the Sinu and Cartagena, and the expeditions
skirted the northern end of the Andes until they reached the river Cauca
where it debouches into the Magdalena. In 1537 Spanish expeditions
succeeded in crossing the formidable Abibe Mountains, and penetrated
east into the coveted mining country. Up the Cauca they followed for two
hundred miles, passing the rapids which place an almost inexpugnable
barrier between the upper and lower river. Not far from the present city
of Cartago they found traces of white men, and learned that while they
themselves had been pushing south the indomitable companions of Pizarro
had extended their explorations and conquests more than a thousand miles
north from their landing-place on the Peruvian coast. The men from
Cartagena went on to Cali, where the conquerors of Popayan had their
headquarters, and there an expedition was fitted out which, under the
leadership of Jorge Robledo, returned down the Cauca and conquered
Antioquia after much bloody fighting with the Indians. It is said that
each of Heredia's men received a larger amount than the conquerors of
Mexico and Peru. Certain it is that the founding of Cartagena resulted
in putting the Spaniards in possession of the valley of the Cauca and
the wonderful gold mines of Antioquia as far south as the 5th degree.
Benalcazar, one of Pizarro's lieutenants, after conquering Quito in
1533, had proceeded north along the Andean plateau between the two
Cordilleras. A hundred miles from Quito he entered the high region of
Pasto, inhabited by vigorous, semi-civilised Indians much resembling
those of Ecuador. Near this point the Andes, heretofore massed in one
great chain, split into three parallel ranges. The western and central
chains are separated from each other by the valley of the Cauca and near
the Caribbean dip down to sea-level. The eastern range bears off a
little to the right, with the Magdalena valley between it and the
central mountains, and six hundred miles north turns north-east and
enters Venezuela just south of Maracaibo Bay. Benalcazar went straight
north from Pasto and entered the region where the Cauca gathers its
headwaters. This was Popayan, a lower country than Pasto, but still high
enough to be healthful, pleasant, and densely populated. In rapid
succession the tribes inhabiting the whole upper Cauca valley were
conquered, and Benalcazar's officers only stopped when they met their
countrymen coming up from Cartagena. The city of Cali was founded in
1536, Popayan in 1538, Pasto and Anserma in 1539, and Cartago in 1540.
This beautiful valley is one of the most isolated regions on the globe.
To the east and west the high walls of the Quindio, or central, and of
the western Cordillera shut it off from the Magdalena valley and from
the Pacific, and the rapids near Cartago make communication with the
Caribbean almost impossible.
Benalcazar himself had returned to Quito and it was not until 1538 that
he was able to undertake the conquest of the upper Magdalena and those
lovely plateaux and rich kingdoms which nestled on the broad top of the
eastern Cordillera. In the meantime he had been forestalled by an
expedition coming from the Caribbean. In 1536 Jimenez de Quesada sallied
forth from Santa Marta with eight hundred men and one hundred horses.
Avoiding the swampy delta of the Magdalena, he passed through the
Chimilas mountains which lie east of it, and reached the solid ground of
the foothills that approach the river banks some three hundred miles
above its mouth. Along these he made his way through incredible
difficulties and hardships, months being consumed in the journey, and
his men perishing by scores from fatigue, starvation, and continual
fights with the savage natives. When he reached the river Opon, he
determined to climb to the plateau, near the site of Velez, where he was
told that the mountain top was inhabited by a civilised race. After
fighting his way through the unconquerable savages of the Opon valley he
found himself in the centre of a series of lovely table-lands, many of
them the beds of ancient mountain lakes whose alluvial bottoms were
inexhaustibly fertile, where the climate was perfect and all the
products of the temperate zone grew luxuriantly. The plateaux,
interrupted by valleys and ridges, stretched from Pamplona to beyond
Bogotá--a distance of more than two hundred miles. This region was then
and remains to this day the populous heart of Colombia, the principal
seat of power, wealth, and national civilisation. However, it is so
isolated that it has never constituted a nucleus around which the widely
separated provinces of Colombia could unite into a well organised
nation. To reach Tolima, Bogotá's nearest neighbour in the upper
Magdalena valley, it is necessary to descend thousands of feet of steep
mountainside, along which the sure-footed mule can hardly climb. To
reach Cauca, not only must the Magdalena valley be crossed but the
enormously high Quindio range must be climbed, and before getting to
the Pacific, still another mountain chain intervenes, while the populous
gold regions of Antioquia can only be reached by following down the
Magdalena and up the Cauca. Weeks of the most difficult journeying are
required to get to the seacoast or any of the other states, and Panama
might as well be on the other side of the globe so far as practical
communication goes.
[Illustration: TRAVELLERS DESCENDING A MOUNTAIN ROAD]
Quesada had lost three-fourths of his men in reaching the promised land,
but once there he encountered fewer difficulties than any of the other
great Spanish conquerors. The numerous nation of the Chibchas inhabited
the southern plateaux, who acknowledged allegiance to the zipa of
Meuqueta. But their so-called empire possessed no military force or
cohesion, although they had carried agriculture to a high degree of
perfection. They manufactured cotton cloths, mined gold and emeralds,
worked artistic ornaments, had a circulating medium and a calendar,
lived in houses, built splendid temples, and had tools hard enough to
carve stones into elaborate sculptures. Their government was absolute;
crimes were severely and relentlessly punished; the caste of priests
wielded great power. Altogether they appear to have reached a stage of
material civilisation not much inferior to the aztecs of Mexico, the
caras of Ecuador, or the incas of Peru, but in efficiency of
governmental and military organisation they fell far below those great
peoples. Spanish chroniclers have amused themselves with recording
traditions of great wars in which the Chibchas had assembled armies of
hundreds of thousands not long before the conquest, but the fact
remains that less than two hundred Spaniards overcame them and reduced
them to unquestioning obedience within a few months and without serious
loss. Indeed, Quesada's successors had more difficulty with the smaller
nations who inhabited the northern plateaux of Tunja, Socorro, and
Tundama, and the most serious resistance was made by the semi-savage
tribes of the upper Magdalena, who fought nearly as desperately as the
Indians of Antioquia and the Caribbean coast.
Quesada chose the site of the ancient Chibcha capital for his city and
there Bogotá was founded on the 7th of August, 1538. It lies on the
eastern border of a magnificent level plain, the bed of the largest of
the prehistoric lakes, thirty miles broad and sixty long, and nearly
nine thousand feet above sea-level. One hundred and fifty thousand
people live on that plain to-day, and the population in Chibcha times
was probably even larger. The same year Benalcazar reached the
neighbourhood of Bogotá, having come down the valley of the Magdalena
from Quito and Pasto, and at the very same moment arrived an expedition
from Coro in Venezuela, which had crossed the mountains south of
Maracaibo and followed south along the llanos lying at the eastern base
of the Colombian Andes, thence climbing the sierra to Bogotá. Remarkable
as it may seem, these three bands of indomitable Spaniards, starting
from widely separated points on the coast, met each other in the remote
interior of the continent, brought to the same place by the fame of the
fertility and riches of the Chibcha kingdom. The Venezuelans under
Federmann, and the Ecuadoreans under Benalcazar, accepted the bribe
which Quesada offered them not to interfere with his conquest, and the
three chiefs, laden with gold, returned to Spain in the same ship.
Quesada left his brother in nominal command of the colony, but each of
the conquerors was a law unto himself. When the governor of Santa Marta
came up to Bogotá they refused to recognise his authority. Tunja and
Velez were founded in 1539 on the plateaux north of the capital, and a
year or two later Quesada's brother wasted a great part of his forces in
a fruitless expedition to the mountains of Pasto in search of the
Eldorado. Meanwhile, in 1539, the Portuguese Geronimo Mello had
succeeded in entering the mouth of the Magdalena, making his way for a
considerable distance upstream. The great river proved to be perfectly
navigable from the sea to a point nearly as far south as Bogotá, and the
Spaniards immediately utilised it as a route to Santa Marta and
Cartagena far preferable to the track through swamps and foothills which
Quesada had followed. Each of the plateau provinces lying on the
mountains which follow its eastern bank had its own paths down the
slopes to the river, and a practicable though tedious and expensive
communication with the Caribbean was developed.
[Illustration: NATIVE BOATS, MAGDALENA RIVER.]
In 1542 Lugo, an adventurer who had successfully intrigued against
Quesada, arrived with a commission as adelantado and considerable
reinforcements. New cities were founded among the gold mines of the
upper Magdalena at Tocaima, Ibague, and Neiva, as well as at Pamplona at
the northern end of the plateaux. The tribes of Bogotá, Tunja, Velez,
Socorro, and Pamplona submitted without appreciable resistance, and
their fertile fields were divided into great estates among the
Spaniards. But the more savage tribes in the gold-bearing valleys of the
Upper Magdalena and Cauca and in Antioquia struggled hard to escape
impressment into the mines, and war almost exterminated them. The same
thing happened on the plains of the Caribbean coast, although in that
region some tribes maintained their independence. To work the mines and
plantations negro slaves had to be imported, with the result that black
blood predominates in the lower regions of Colombia, while the
descendants of the aborigines are in a majority on the eastern plateaux.
Within twenty-five years after the establishment of the first permanent
Spanish post at Santa Marta, the whites were in undisputed control of
practically all Colombia which is now inhabited by civilised people.
Three great territorial divisions corresponded to the three directions
in which the conquest had been effected. From Cartagena, Antioquia and
the lower Cauca had been settled; from Quito, Popayan, Pasto, and the
upper Cauca; and Bogotá was the centre of the region extending from
Pamplona south along the plateaux and into the valley of the upper
Magdalena. This division of the country soon brought on disputes as to
pre-eminence and jurisdiction between the authorities, foreshadowing
the demand for local independence which desolated Colombia with civil
war during so many years of the last century. Lugo, the new adelantado,
who had displaced Quesada, deprived many of the original conquerors of
their grants of lands and Indians, and the old and new comers fell to
fighting among themselves. But their numbers were too small to make
their disagreements really threatening to the interests of the Spanish
Crown. In 1545 the Spanish government sent out a commissioner to reduce
the country to order. The first royal commissioner was replaced by a
second in 1553, who carried things with a high hand, depriving
proprietors of their grants, nominating members of his own family to the
lucrative posts, and finally even exiling Quesada himself and executing
some of the most famous of the original conquerors. Under instructions
from Madrid he promulgated many laws for the protection of the Indians
from the exactions and tyrannies of the encomenderos--regulations which,
as in Peru, excited great dissatisfaction among the colonists and were
constantly evaded. It was forbidden for any encomendero to be military
governor of his district, and the original conquerors were replaced in
all positions of authority by officials newly brought out from Spain.
However, the office of commissioner was an irregular and extraordinary
one and his powers ill-defined. Even at Bogotá his authority was defied
by the audiencia and the municipal councils, and over the remote
provinces of Antioquia and Popayan, Cartagena and Panama, his power was
a mere shadow. The Spanish government resolved to erect Quito and Bogotá
into presidencies, whose governors would be responsible directly to
Madrid and have greater authority over subordinate officials.
CHAPTER II
COLONIAL TIMES
In 1564 the president arrived in state with all the trappings
appropriate to his high rank. His powers were most ample; he was
practically vicegerent of the Castilian king; his jurisdiction extended
not only over the Bogotá-Pamplona plateaux and Tolima on the upper
Magdalena, but also over Santa Marta, Cartagena, Antioquia, and even to
Panama and the Mosquito coast. The name of New Granada, which Quesada
had given to his conquests in honor of his native province in Spain, was
extended to the whole presidency. To it were also attached, though
loosely, the provinces that now make up the republic of Venezuela. But
access to the Venezuelan coast from Bogotá was so difficult as to
prevent that region from ever being really a part of the New Granada
presidency, and it became an independent captaincy-general in 1731. The
eastern boundary of the president's immediate jurisdiction included the
provinces which naturally communicated with the Colombian plateaux, but
the extension of the Andes north-east from Pamplona along the
Venezuelan coast was left to be settled from Coro. For similar reasons
the valley of the upper Cauca--Cali and Popayan, as well as Pasto--was
attached to the presidency of Quito, and the subordination of its
governor to Bogotá was only incidental and gave rise to many disputes
and conflicts. The administrative entity of New Granada may be said to
have included the territory which the Spaniards had reached by the line
of the Magdalena, and in addition the Cartagena region and the Isthmus.
The last named province was a source of constant trouble, because the
difficulties of communication and the diversities of interests really
made it separate from the rest of New Granada. Panama's governor and
independent audiencia frequently defied the commands received from
Bogotá.
[Illustration: THE NATURAL BRIDGE AT GUARANDA.]
The disorders near Bogotá ceased after the arrival of the first
president, Neiva. He actively engaged in promoting new colonisation,
founding the city of Ocana in the Maracaibo watershed north-west of
Pamplona, as well as Leiva and several other towns. He opened a road
down from Bogotá to Honda at the head of navigation on the Magdalena,
and in his time great flatboats were introduced. These were poled
against the river's rapid current, and they continued the sole means of
river freight transportation for nearly three centuries. The cornerstone
of the Bogotá cathedral was laid, and schools established which soon
counted among the most successful and famous in Spanish America. The
country prospered after a fashion. The fertile plateaux from Bogotá to
the north were admirably adapted to the residence of Europeans, and the
rich soil soon produced large crops of wheat and fed great herds of
cattle. This region was so attractive that the Spaniards became attached
to the country and contentedly established themselves as semi-feudal
proprietors of estates cultivated by the docile and industrious Indians.
A considerable proportion of the successive generations of
office-holders sent out from Spain, applied for land-grants and remained
in the country, founding new Creole families. Mixture with the
aborigines occurred on a large scale and the process of Caucasianising
the population made greater progress than in many other parts of Spanish
America. The region was too far from the sea-coast to attract haphazard
adventurers or to serve as a Botany Bay for convicts; the Spanish
settlers belonged as a rule to good families; and the standard of
living, education, and manners was exceptionally high. Bogotá became one
of the principal centres of Spanish American culture, and Colombian
authors are celebrated for their excellence throughout the
Spanish-speaking world. In the invigorating climate the Creoles retained
their physical vigour and the concentration of population on these
densely inhabited plateaux increased their mental alertness. Living,
however, as a superior class in the midst of a subject population, they
acquired no taste or capacity for commerce or industry. A Creole was by
birth a gentleman and exempt from manual labour. The Colombian plateaux
made little material progress, and settled down into an eventless,
patriarchal existence.
[Illustration: FALLS OF TEQUENDAMA.]
Conditions were entirely different in the deep, hot valleys of the
Magdalena and Cauca and on the sweltering sea-coast plain. The
semi-savage Indians did not make good labourers, and were massacred or
driven into the fastnesses on the mountain sides, while their places
were taken by negro slaves. The white population fell into much the same
position as it occupies in the West Indian Islands. In the mining
regions the Indians were pretty nearly exterminated. Antioquia, the
great mineral province, has always contained a larger proportion of
white blood than any other part of Colombia, and with the decline of its
mines it became a centre whence white emigration poured into the other
departments. Still different conditions prevailed in the extreme
south, where the highlands of Popayan and the dry, cold tablelands of
Pasto offered the same aspect as adjoining Ecuador. In those utterly
isolated and comparatively unattractive regions the Indian population
remained predominant.
In Colombia, as in all the other Andean countries, the impulse toward
conquest, expansion, and colonisation seems to have died out completely
with the disappearance of the first generation of conquistadores. We
read of the foundation of new cities from time to time, but it usually
means that previously existing villages were given municipal charters.
After one brief spurt the Spaniards settled down to enjoy the fruits of
their ancestors' heroic marches and battles. Except near Panama the
rainy Pacific coast was left untouched, and the forests of the Amazon in
the south-east could not be penetrated. The open prairies of the Orinoco
north-east of Bogotá could be occupied and the province of Casanare at
the foot of the eastern Andean range became a stock region, inhabited by
the same hard-riding, semi-civilised llaneros as the adjoining
Venezuelan plains.
The Spanish government applied its restrictive colonial system with the
utmost rigour. The obnoxious market tax was imposed as early as 1690;
tobacco and salt were made monopolies; the exportation of agricultural
products was discouraged; and the production of gold, emeralds,
platinum, and silver, was jealously watched and heavily taxed. In the
early history of the colony the profits of mining were prodigious, but
during the seventeenth century, after the cream of the surface placers
had been skimmed, progress was slow. The unhealthful climate of the
mining regions almost exterminated the settlers; the native population
diminished so rapidly that soon the mines were short-handed; and the
importation of negro slaves was so costly that the smaller proprietors
could not operate on their own account, and even the great mine owners
had to be content with moderate profits. One-fifth of the gross product
was required to be paid to the government, and there were other fiscal
exactions. The efforts of the authorities to prevent the smuggling of
gold introduced a swarm of soldiers, collectors, and guards with whom
the miners were in a constant turmoil.
The influence of the Church was very powerful, and the population became
devotedly Catholic. Great tracts of the best lands were given to the
bishoprics and the religious orders. Piously disposed persons left
property in trust charged with the payment of so many dollars a year for
the saying of so many masses, and the stewardships, or rights to
administer these estates, were the subject of sale or descended from
father to son. In 1630, a daring president, Jiron, presumed to arrest
and banish the archbishop of Bogotá, but fifty years later one of his
successors wrote back to Spain that "in New Granada there is much Church
and little king." The poor Indians were decimated not only by war,
massacre, and forced labour in the mines, but the white man's diseases
played havoc with them. The small-pox was introduced on the plateaux
within a few years after the conquest, and continued to ravage the
country throughout the early part of the seventeenth century. The third
president died of the leprosy within a few months after his arrival in
1579, and the first case of elephantiasis, which has proved a curse to
Colombia, occurred in 1646.
The quarrels and disagreements between the president and the governors
and audiencias of the associated provinces, especially Panama, to say
nothing of the disputes with the president of Quito and the governor of
Venezuela on account of conflicting jurisdiction, became so acute early
in the seventeenth century that the Spanish government determined to
erect New Granada into a viceroyalty, extending the power of the Bogotá
central authorities over Ecuador and Venezuela. The first viceroy was
inaugurated in 1719, but he recommended a return to the old system. In
the year 1740 the viceroyalty was re-established and all connection with
Peru ceased. Although in the meantime Caracas had been made a
captaincy-general, it was placed nominally under the viceroy's
jurisdiction, and Ecuador was again detached from Lima. Within a few
years the attempt to govern Maracaibo, Cumaná, Margarita Island, and
Guiana from Bogotá was abandoned, and these provinces transferred to the
Venezuelan captaincy-general. But the high rank and royal powers of the
viceroys did not save them from troubles. They were engaged in an almost
continual struggle against the encroachments of the clergy, while the
laity protested vigorously at the constantly increasing taxation. A
special royal commissioner came out in 1774 to perfect the tobacco
monopoly, and five years later another agent arrived with instructions
still more irritating. The Creoles of Santander arose in the "Rebellion
of the Communes" and so formidable was the insurrection that the
authorities were compelled to make a feint of yielding to the people's
demands. They promised to expel the obnoxious commissioner; to abolish
not only the tobacco monopoly, but the market-tax on the sale of
domestic products, the requirement that every shipment be accompanied by
a high-priced official invoice, and the poll-tax; to lower the stamp
duties, the curates' tithes, and the Indian tribute; to cease burdening
commerce with unreasonable highway, bridge, and ferry dues; and to
require the priests to give up the practice of forcing the Indians to
pay for masses. The viceroy also promised to open public employments to
Creoles, to permit the establishment of a militia, and to concede to the
people the right to confirm the governors nominated by the Crown or
viceroy. But no sooner had the insurgents dispersed, than the government
repudiated all these pledges and dragged the popular leaders to the
scaffold.
[Illustration: NATIVE HOUSES IN COLOMBIA.]
The foreign commerce of the viceroyalty had diminished until only one
small fleet came each year to Cartagena and Porto Bello, and though,
during the latter part of the colonial period, certain viceroys did
something to open up roads by which wheat, sugar, cacao, and hides could
be exported at a profit, no measures could prove effective while the
enormous fiscal exactions of the Spanish government continued. During
the last few years of the eighteenth century, commerce was made
nominally free, but this meant simply that the old prohibitions on
private shipments by sea were abolished, and the ports opened for trade
with Spain and the other colonies. These wise measures were, however,
accompanied by such an increase in taxes that their effect was nugatory.
Meanwhile New Granada had also had her external troubles. In 1586 Sir
Francis Drake reached Cartagena and forty years after the Spanish
government fortified the place at great expense. Nevertheless Ducasse
took it in 1695 though Admiral Vernon, with a great fleet and army,
unsuccessfully besieged the place in 1741, after having captured Porto
Bello. The unsettled Central American coast north from the Isthmus was
nominally a part of the vice-royalty, but had been completely neglected
by the Bogotá authorities, and in 1698 a colony of twelve thousand
Scotchmen, with authority from Parliament and backed by a vast popular
subscription, landed on the north shore of the Isthmus. They purposed
the establishment of a general emporium for all nations on the spot
which the great financier, William Paterson, who originated the scheme,
regarded as "the key of the commerce of the world." There was to be
free-trade; the Indians were to be protected; religious liberty was to
be established; and the Spanish monopoly of South and Central America
destroyed. The far-sighted Paterson hoped to found a colonial empire and
to enrich his own country by the resulting trade. But the enterprise was
wrecked by the fatal climate and the supineness of the British
Government. Provisions fell short, and within a year the survivors
re-embarked in a miserable plight. Two small supplementary expeditions
arrived in 1699 to find assembled a Spanish fleet and army against which
no serious resistance could be made. After a little half-hearted
fighting the Scotchmen capitulated and the colony was definitely
abandoned. The Bogotá government continued to neglect that coast. It was
placed under the jurisdiction of the captain-general of Cuba, and the
claim that Colombia set up after she became an independent nation has
never held good against the Central American republics.
CHAPTER III
THE WAR AGAINST SPAIN
The stirring events of the year 1808 in Spain and the disorganisation of
the monarchy produced great excitement in the New Granadan cities. When
the news of the establishment of a junta at Quito came in September of
the following year, Amar, the Bogotá viceroy, summoned an assembly of
the authorities and leading citizens for consultation. The Creoles
favoured an independent junta, but the prestige of the Spaniards and
Amar's popularity prevailed, and it was resolved to recognise the home
revolutionary government, and to send an expedition to crush the Quito
junta. Meanwhile the Ecuador patriots had despatched troops to Pasto,
but the sturdy conservative mountaineers resented the invasion and
repulsed the Quiteños. Thenceforth to the end of the war Pasto remained
a loyalist stronghold. Though Quito soon laid down its arms under
promise of amnesty, the re-established Spanish government massacred the
insurgent leaders, and reports of these cruelties threw the Creoles of
the cities into effervescence, though the Indian and negro population
of the rural districts remained indifferent. On May 22, 1810, the
citizens of Cartagena demanded and obtained an independent revolutionary
junta; shortly after an insurrection broke out among the llaneros on the
Orinoco plains north-east of Bogotá; on the 4th of July Pamplona
followed Cartagena's example and set up its own junta; and a little
later Socorro did likewise. By this time things were ripe in Bogotá for
an anti-Spanish revolution. Ambitious Creoles intrigued among the
people; the natural feeling of jealousy and hatred between Spaniards and
Americans became inflamed; a contemptuous remark about Creoles made by a
Spaniard in the streets was the signal for the gathering of a great mob
which rushed tumultuously to the public square and howled for an open
cabildo and the immediate appointment of a junta. With six thousand
armed men in front of his palace the viceroy had no choice. The junta
was named and a circular sent to the other cities inviting them to name
deputies for a congress to arrange a federal union. But local
jealousies, hardly held in check by the rigid colonial system, now
flamed forth; the people instinctively grouped along geographical lines;
and divergencies of opinion and ambition among leaders increased the
confusion. Cartagena and other provinces declined to send delegates to
Bogotá, preferring to act independently until the re-establishment of
regular government in Spain.
When the congress met it represented only a part of the territory, and
but a small percentage of the population. Nariño and other popular young
leaders in Bogotá intrigued for a centralised system in which Bogotá
was to be master province. An insurrection against the junta installed
him as dictator, and congress fled from the capital. The royalists had
made no effort to oppose the revolution in the centres of population,
contenting themselves with sending expeditions from Quito to occupy
Pasto and Popayan, with keeping possession of the Isthmus, and
establishing themselves on the lower Magdalena. Cartagena was thereby
isolated from the rest of the revolted provinces, and Bogotá cut off
from communication with the sea. In March, 1811, the patriots marched up
the Cauca from Cali and defeated the Spaniards in Popayan. Quito rose in
rebellion a second time, and the Ecuadoreans advanced north into Pasto,
only to be beaten once more by the loyalist peasantry. The Granadans,
who invaded by way of Popayan, met with no better success, and their
forces under the command of a North American adventurer, Macaulay, were
annihilated. The re-establishment of the royal authority at Quito
followed, and Bogotá again lay open to attack from the south.
While the royalist reaction was thus closing in around the revolution in
central New Granada, the mass of the people cooled, the patriot leaders
fought among themselves, and the interior was a prey to anarchy.
Dictator Nariño had broken completely with the ambulatory congress, and
was sending his troops into the adjacent provinces. Congress protested
and a civil war broke out in central Granada. Nariño was defeated in an
attack on Socorro, but the federalists were in their turn repulsed when
they lay siege to the capital, and Bogotá declared itself an independent
state. In the midst of these disorders, the alarming news was received
that General Samano, advancing from Quito and Pasto, at the head of two
thousand well-equipped men, had retaken Popayan, and was already
menacing Antioquia and the lower Cauca. In the face of this common
danger Nariño and congress came to terms. The latter advanced to meet
Samano and badly defeated him at the battle of Calivio, January 15,
1814. The re-occupation of Popayan was the only result of this victory.
Pasto remained faithfully loyalist--a Vendee into which many republican
armies were destined to dash in vain. The Spaniards brought up
reinforcements, and when Nariño again advanced his army was overwhelmed
and himself captured. However, the loyalists were not able to equip an
army large enough to justify undertaking the conquest of central
Granada, so the jarring factions and provinces were left alone for the
present to waste their energies in internecine conflicts.
[Illustration: ROPE BRIDGE OVER THE MAGDALENA RIVER.]
Cartagena had all the while remained independent, and in 1813 Bolivar,
flying from his native Venezuela after the suppression of its first
insurrection, took service with the Granadan city. With a handful of
militia he drove the Spaniards from the lower Magdalena, and retook the
important city of Ocana near the Venezuelan border. His unexpected
success created such enthusiasm that the Cartagena dictator gave him a
small body of regulars, and with them the daring Venezuelan began that
marvellous campaign which for the second time expelled the Spaniards
from Venezuela. His triumph was shortlived, and by September, 1814, his
forces had been dispersed by the loyalist llaneros and he was back in
New Granada. He now offered his services to the federated provinces, and
in spite of his recent defeats, the prestige of the 1813 campaign
secured him the command of the army which was about to march on Bogotá
to force that recalcitrant province into the union. At the head of
eighteen hundred men Bolivar prosecuted the campaign with all his usual
activity. The outlying towns of the province surrendered at his
approach, and the capital itself, which had been denuded of troops by
Nariño for his ill-fated expedition against Pasto, and which in fact
was tired of the dictatorship, could not make much resistance. The seat
of the federal government was transferred to Bogotá, and the victorious
general, though a Venezuelan, became captain-general of its forces, and
to his title of "Liberator" was added that of "Illustrious Pacificator."
If the adhesion of Cartagena could be secured, the union of New Granada
would be well-nigh complete; so with two thousand men he proceeded to
the lower Magdalena and established his headquarters just above the
delta and within striking distance of the sea-port. However, his
intrigues with its government led to nothing. Cartagena refused to
co-operate with the confederation on any terms, and finally Bolivar made
a foolish attempt to besiege the strongest fortress in America without
artillery. He soon came to his senses, raised the siege, gave up his
command of the Granadan army, and withdrew to Jamaica to wait a new
opportunity to make war on Spaniards.
The revolutionary cause was in a bad way. The loyalists of Venezuela,
Ecuador, and southern New Granada had put down the insurgents in their
own provinces. Bogotá was only held back by the military pressure of a
few resolute republicans from declaring for the king, and the other
provinces were disgusted with civil disorder and wavered in their
allegiance. However, they were destined not to be given the opportunity
to return peaceably to obedience on reasonable terms. Wellington's
peninsular campaigns and Napoleon's fall changed the face of affairs in
Spain. Ferdinand once more on the throne of his fathers, and absolute
government re-established, all thought of compromising with the
American rebels on the basis of autonomy or representation in the Cortes
was abandoned. In April, 1815, Marshal Morillo, Spain's ablest general,
arrived on the Venezuelan coast with more than ten thousand veteran
regulars. Having reinforced himself among the Venezuelan loyalists, and
leaving a large garrison of Spaniards in Venezuela, he proceeded to
Cartagena at the head of over eight thousand troops. The defenders
numbered less than four thousand, but behind the strongest
fortifications in America they prepared to make a desperate resistance.
So formidable were the walls that Morillo did not try to take the place
by assault. His main body landed at Santa Marta and crossed the
Magdalena to blockade the city from the rear, while his fleet cut off
communication by sea. The besiegers suffered terribly in the
pestilential swamps, but the defenders were reduced to the most horrible
extremities during four months and a half. The provisions ran out;
fevers decimated the people; the starving garrison ate rats and hides,
sentinels fell dead at their posts; the commander drove out of the city
two thousand old men, women, and children, and of this procession of
spectres only a few reached the Spanish lines. Finally, the surviving
soldiers escaped by boats in the midst of a storm which dispersed the
Spanish squadron, and Morillo entered a deserted city where the very air
was poisoned by the rotting bodies of famished people. It is calculated
that six thousand persons died of hunger and disease. The Spaniards
hunted down and shot the revolutionary leaders; the absolute powers of
the governor were revived; and even the inquisition re-established.
While Cartagena was being besieged, a Spanish army advanced along the
Venezuelan Andes to the Granadan border and climbed to the Pamplona
plateau. There they defeated the local patriots, and the latter fled
from the province after killing all the Spanish non-combatants on whom
they could lay hands. Desperately alarmed, the congress at Bogotá made
Camilo Torres dictator, and he resolutely advanced with twenty-five
hundred recruits against Pamplona. The Spanish general retreated to
Ocana, with the patriots following, but receiving reinforcements, turned
upon Torres, and on the 22nd of February, 1816, utterly defeated him.
The revolution lay helpless at Morillo's feet. The royalist forces
promptly occupied the great plateau provinces of Pamplona and Socorro,
as well as Antioquia. Bogotá had in fact long been disaffected to the
insurgent cause and now became openly royalist. Torres resigned, and
when Madrid, whom the revolutionary chiefs appointed in his place,
called for volunteers only six men presented themselves. Congress
dissolved, and the dictator and a few determined leaders, with a remnant
of the army, fled north to Popayan. There they joined a band of local
patriots under Mejia, and gave unsuccessful battle to General Samano,
who had advanced from Quito. This fight of Tambo seemed the revolution's
_coup de grâce_ in New Granada, Ecuador, and Venezuela. Only on the
plains of eastern Venezuela, and in the llanos on the Apuré and Casanare
headwaters, did a few guerrilla bands maintain themselves. In far away
Argentina, the town of Buenos Aires and the gauchos were still defiant,
but elsewhere in all Spanish South America resistance to the King's
generals had ceased.
Marshal Morillo fully appreciated how dangerous to Spanish domination in
New Granada and Venezuela were the fierce, hard-riding, llaneros,
uncatchable and unconquerable in the vast Orinoco plains. Fighting on
the royal side under guerrilla chiefs they had beaten the republicans
and Bolivar, but they turned insurrectionist the moment Spanish regular
officers assumed command. Morillo resolved to crush the towns
completely, and hoped gradually to wear out or exterminate the llaneros.
In pursuance of this policy all officers above the rank of captain were
denied amnesty, and shot wherever found. The same fate was reserved for
those who had held high civil office during the insurrection. The
Marshal came to Bogotá in person to see that his bloody orders were
carried out. The city's prisons were filled with unfortunates whose
wives and daughters pleaded in vain for mercy. The most prominent
patriots were shot in the back as traitors and their bodies hung on
gibbets. The great scholar, Caldas, the pride of Bogotá for his
world-wide reputation as a scientist, suffered a not much better fate.
In the capital alone one hundred and twenty-five of New Granada's
brightest and best perished on the scaffold, their property was
confiscated, and their families reduced to abject poverty. Because they
had not actively resisted the rebellion, the entire male population were
adjudged to have forfeited all civil rights, and gangs of Granadan
youth were impressed into the army, or, worse still, forced to work on
the public roads. Even the ladies of Bogotá were sent to country towns
to remain under police surveillance with women of doubtful character.
While thus engaged in stamping out the revolutionary embers in New
Granada word came to Morillo that the Venezuelan llaneros had risen
against his lieutenants, and that Bolivar had landed near Valencia.
Leaving a garrison of Venezuelan and Pasto royalists at Bogotá under the
command of Samano, the Marshal, with four thousand Spanish troops, took
the plateau road to the frontier, carrying with him some prisoners to
shoot on the line. Samano's first act on assuming the government of
Bogotá was to erect a gallows in the great square facing the windows of
his palace, and to set up four execution benches on the public
promenade. Of the victims who sat thereon with their backs to the firing
squad, one of the first was the beautiful Policarpa Salabarrieta, with
seven men also implicated in sending information to the llanero
insurgents. She died exhorting her companions to meet their fate like
men, and under the name of La Pola her memory is preserved in the songs
of the Colombian people. Sixty years after her death the Colombian
congress voted a pension to her surviving relatives.
[Illustration: THE HOME OF BOLIVAR.]
Morillo never returned to New Granada. Before he arrived in Venezuela,
Bolivar had temporarily retired, and the llaneros retreated to the vast
solitudes in which they were unconquerable. Though the Spanish regulars
won battle after battle their victories were fruitless, and Bolivar
soon returned to Venezuela to be again placed at the head of the
patriots and to wage unremitting warfare with cavalry from a secure base
in the llanos, while he imported British mercenary infantry capable of
making headway against the Spanish regulars. From 1816 to 1819 New
Granada suffered hopelessly and silently the bloody despotism of the
Spanish generals, while the tide of war rolled to and fro in Venezuela.
In the early part of the latter year Samano sent a small expedition down
the steep Cordillera slope against the guerrillas in the Casanare plains
north-east of Bogotá. This gave Bolivar a great strategical idea. He
knew that the tableland of New Granada had been denuded of troops; but
it was useless to try an attack from the direction of the provinces
south of Maracaibo Bay because this well-travelled route and its
populous towns were in secure possession of the enemy. Where Spaniards
could go he could follow--so he reasoned--and determined to assault
Bogotá directly from the Orinoco plains, thus striking the centre of the
Spanish line.
With a mixed army of British mercenaries and hardy Venezuelans the
Liberator mounted the difficult pass which leads from Casanare up to
Tunja. Samano had only three thousand troops and these he sent under the
command of General Barreiro to meet Bolivar. Though the patriots were
somewhat inferior in numbers and arrived on the plateau fatigued,
starving, and without horses, Barreiro, not knowing their real numbers,
hesitated about attacking. Bolivar was given time to rest and remount
his men, and then took a vigorous offensive. His rapid movements
confused the Spanish commander, and the latter allowed the patriot army
to get between him and Bogotá. Thus cut off from his base, Barreiro made
a desperate dash to reach the capital, but ran against the patriots
posted directly across his path at Boyacá, on the 7th of August, 1819.
The loyalists attacked at a disadvantage and without hope. After losing
a hundred men they fled in disorder and the whole army dispersed or was
captured. The way to Bogotá lay open, and Samano had no forces to defend
the city. Within three days Bolivar had traversed the hundred miles from
the battlefield, and Samano fled in such precipitous haste that he left
behind the government archives and even the money in the treasury. A
month later the whole of New Granada, except the stubbornly loyalist
Pasto and the fortress of Cartagena, was free. Bolivar had himself made
president and military dictator, naming Santander vice-president, and
giving each province two governors, one military and the other civil,
responsible directly to Bogotá. The municipal governments were
preserved, and the Spanish system of taxation continued, but patriot
republicans displaced loyalists in all the offices.
Bolivar soon returned to his Venezuelan headquarters on the Orinoco to
fight Morillo and organise the grand republic he had dreamed of so many
years. Though all of Venezuela except the Orinoco valley, all of
Ecuador, and the sea-ports and southern provinces of New Granada still
remained in the hands of superior Spanish armies, and although the
Creole ruling class had already proved strongly prejudiced in favour of
local autonomy and the tearing down of aristocratic forms, his
imagination vaulted all obstacles and he planned the new state down to
its minutest details. His idea was a centralised system with himself at
its head as life president, backed by a hereditary senate, and ruling
the three grand divisions of his empire through docile vice-presidents.
But his military power and prestige were insufficient to overcome the
opposition of jealous generals and ambitious lawyers. He spent the year
of 1820 in futile intrigues among the politicians, and in unsuccessful
campaigns against the Spaniards in Venezuela, while the patriots
trembled at the news that a great army was assembling at Cadiz which
would surely sweep them out of existence. A liberal revolution in Spain
came opportunely to interrupt military operations.
Bolivar was obliged to compromise with the advocates of federalism and
democracy. A congress representing the Granadan and Venezuelan provinces
then in the hands of the patriots assembled at Cucutá early in 1821.
Composed of ambitious civilians it was opposed to centralisation or
military rule, and in spite of the Liberator's protests adopted a
compromise Constitution. Though Bolivar was conceded the title of
president, he was required to give up his civil authority whenever he
took command of the army, and this meant an abolishment of the
dictatorship. The idea of a life presidency or a hereditary senate was
abandoned, and the only part of his system which Bolivar managed to
retain was the subordination of the provinces to the central government.
The Liberator now devoted himself to the direction of the war, leaving
that long-headed schemer, Santander, in power at Bogotá as
vice-president. The winning of the battle of Carabobo in Venezuela in
June, 1821, and the surrender of Cartagena in September, made necessary
the withdrawal of the Spanish troops from the Isthmus. Panama
immediately declared itself independent, in November, 1821, and
announced its intention of joining the great confederation of Colombia,
then composed of the provinces of Venezuela, and New Granada, and later
of those of Ecuador.
Pasto alone remained in the hands of the Spaniards. Bolivar determined
to expel them from this province, and also from Quito and Guayaquil,
while visions of conquests in Peru and Bolivia, and of returning to his
dazzled countrymen in Colombia crowned with laurels gathered on southern
battle-fields, floated through his mind. Congress gladly gave him leave
of absence and Santander promised supplies of money and soldiers. In
1822 he advanced against Pasto, sending his able lieutenant, Sucré,
around by sea to Guayaquil to take Quito from the south. Gathering three
thousand men at Popayan he marched into Pasto and on the 7th of April
came upon the royal army at Bambona. A bloody battle followed and
Bolivar by inciting his men to reckless charges remained master of the
field. However, he lost three times as many men as the royalists; the
latter retired in good order, and the Liberator, after encamping eight
days on the plateau, surrounded by a hostile population, hampered by the
difficulties of the mountain paths, with a strong enemy in front, was
compelled to retreat on Popayan, leaving his sick and wounded. He
remained inactive until the glorious news of Sucré's overwhelming
victory at Pichincha arrived. The loyalists in Pasto were now completely
isolated. The Spanish commander made terms with Bolivar and the
indomitable mountaineers were induced to submit on the promise that they
should be allowed to retain their local laws and customs.
[Illustration: PANAMA FROM THE BAY.]
CHAPTER IV
MODERN COLOMBIA
After Bolivar's departure for Peru, a period of relative quiet ensued.
Nevertheless, ambitious local politicians constantly intrigued against
Santander, who in his turn was suspected of encouraging federalist
agitation in the hope of overthrowing Bolivar. The United States and
England recognised the independence of Colombia shortly after the
expulsion of the Spaniards, but foreign troubles arose when the new
republic faced the question of paying the immense debt contracted by
Bolivar's agents in recruiting and equipping the mercenary troops and
buying ships, artillery, and ammunition. This debt had been enormously
swollen by the dishonesty of some Colombian commissioners and by the
greed of money lenders who insisted on receiving bonds for double the
amount they had really advanced. The temptation to borrow more when it
was refunded was too great to be resisted, and Colombia soon saw herself
burdened with foreign obligations amounting to nearly seven millions
sterling. All the revenues were insufficient to pay interest on this
sum--a truly stupendous one for so poor a country. The payments fell
into arrears, and though the debt has been scaled down repeatedly,
interest has rarely been paid. At the very beginning of her independent
existence Colombia's credit was ruined, and the three countries into
which she was shortly divided have remained burdened to this day with
the debts then contracted, their finances disorganised, their attempted
operations blighted by the reputation of bankruptcy, and their
diplomatic relations hampered by the clamours of bondholders.
Santander's administration was further embarrassed by Bolivar's demands
for money and troops with which to pursue his conquests in Peru and
Bolivia, and still graver difficulties soon arose. Paez, left in command
of the army in Venezuela, became involved in disputes with the
authorities of the Venezuelan cities and with the ministers at Bogotá,
all of whom he despised as mere civilians or as foreigners who had no
right to interfere.
Finally, in 1826 the central government formally deprived him of his
position and summoned him to Bogotá, but a revolution which promptly
broke out in Caracas made him dictator. The news brought Bolivar back
from Lima, where for two years he had reigned an absolute monarch,
leading the life of a voluptuous eastern prince. For the next four years
the Liberator struggled in vain to repress the rising tide of federalism
and radicalism in Venezuela and New Granada. The republican theorists
could not forget that he had re-established the convents, placed the
schools under priestly control, abrogated government contracts for
personal reasons, introduced aristocratic decorations, and schemed for a
hereditary senate and a life tenure of the executive; nor that his
influence had stopped the Cucutá convention in the path of political
reform, prevented the abolition of slavery and capital punishment, and
retained the connection of Church and State, and the exemption of the
army and clergy from civil jurisdiction. Santander was more liberal and
a better practical politician. He had shown much ability during the
Liberator's absence, and risen to be the head of a considerable party.
Bolivar succeeded in temporarily crushing some of the opposition in
Venezuela and in cajoling Paez, and on his return to Bogotá he made a
feint of resigning the presidency. Congress, however, was still under
his spell and re-elected him. He then made an attempt to secure legal
sanction for his system by summoning another constitutent convention.
But news had come of Peru's and Bolivia's defection, and the agitation
of the transcendental liberals, the universal desire for local
self-government, and the ambitions of a hundred intriguers for high
office, proved too much for him. A majority of the convention which met
at Ocana in 1828 were partisans of Santander and opposed Bolivar's
proposals although the Liberator at the head of three thousand soldiers
watched the proceedings. Though he did his best to intimidate the
majority, he shrank from frankly playing the role of a Cromwell, and
contented himself with ordering his supporters to withdraw, leaving the
convention without a quorum. It dissolved and the country trembled on
the verge of disintegration. His friends called an assembly which
obediently proclaimed him dictator. The Liberator accepted, and deprived
Santander of the vice-presidency. The press was muzzled, protesters
banished, and military rule established. Some fiery young republicans,
determined to emulate the example of Brutus, struck down the palace
guards at midnight and rushed into the house to kill the dictator. But
his mistress, Manoela Saenz, awakened by the noise, directed him to a
window. He dropped a few feet to the pavement and ran and hid himself
under a bridge, while the woman, in her night clothes, met the assassins
on the stairs and told them they could enter only over her dead body.
They pushed her aside with their bloody hands only to find the quarry
escaped. The next day Bolivar returned to the palace and his spies soon
hunted down the criminals. Santander, suspected of knowledge of the
plot, went into banishment, and for the moment civil war was averted.
[Illustration: SCENE IN THE ANDES, EN ROUTE TO BOGOTÁ.]
But the incident did not revive Bolivar's waning popularity. News came
in 1829 that Paez had again assumed the dictatorship of Venezuela. This
was fatal to Bolivar's hopes. With New Granada in a ferment behind him
he could not expect to conquer Paez and the formidable llaneros. He made
a half-hearted attempt to raise an army, but recoiled before the
insuperable difficulties. Again he resigned the presidency, protesting
that he was ready to sacrifice all personal ambition to secure the
integrity of the Colombian union and the establishment of a strong and
ordered government. Again he was re-elected, but meanwhile civil war was
raging in Ecuador, where his own troops disavowed his authority.
Rebellion also broke out in Pasto, and Peru intervened in Ecuador and
sent a fleet to capture Guayaquil and an army to invade Cuenca. Bolivar
exhausted his last resources in despatching troops to meet the Peruvian
onslaught, but the principal result of the war was to put General Flores
in a position to make himself independent dictator of Ecuador.
Despairing of longer maintaining himself, but loath to give up his
ever-cherished idea of union, the Liberator entered into negotiations
with European diplomats to appoint a prince of a reigning family as king
of Colombia. But the idea was impracticable. There was no place for a
monarch, either native born or foreign, on the Granadan highlands, and
Venezuela had already virtually separated. Although a rebellion in
Antioquia headed by his old companion in arms, General Cordoba, failed
in the fall of 1829, at the end of the year word came that Venezuela had
formally declared her independence and had pronounced a sentence of
perpetual banishment against the Liberator. This was the last straw, and
Bolivar made no further resistance to his fate, but summoned a congress
and retired to his country house penniless, sick, and heartbroken. All
his vast estates had been sacrificed to the cause of independence; the
hardships of his innumerable marches over the cold mountain roads had
broken his health; and his mode of life during the intervals of peace
had not tended to restore it. Although only forty-seven he was a dying
man. Still he clung to his hopes of vindication and re-election, but
seeing that even the bulk of his own friends opposed, he at last sent in
a formal resignation. He lived only a few months after congress had
elected Mosquera president.
Though Bolivar's overthrow was a triumph for the federalists and red
republicans, congress shrank from going too far and installed a wealthy
aristocrat as president. However, his feeble administration was soon
driven from power by the revolt of General Urdaneta, who made use of
Bolivar's name as a rallying cry, but who in fact was actuated alone by
personal ambition. The federalists and anti-Bolivarists did not leave
him long in possession, and in May, 1831, he was expelled in his turn.
Obando and Lopez, both bitter enemies of the Liberator during his
lifetime, and the latter suspected of complicity in the cowardly murder
of the great Marshal Sucré, came to the head of affairs. New Granada's
intestine troubles made her too weak to attempt the coercion of
Venezuela and Ecuador, so their independence was recognised and the
Colombian republic ceased to exist.
[Illustration: CATHEDRAL--PANAMA.]
A federalist Constitution for New Granada was framed in 1832, and
shortly afterwards Santander became the first legal president.
Unquestionably the strongest man in the nation, a good administrator and
a shrewd politician, he was helpless to check the tendency toward
disintegration, though he reduced Bolivar's army of twenty thousand to
less than one half, and did much to establish civil administration.
His energy in enforcing order earned him the title of the "Man of Laws,"
and many Granadans regard him as the real founder of their nationality.
Marquez, who succeeded to the presidency in 1837, was not radical enough
to suit the advanced federalists and republicans, although the first
serious rebellion which broke out against him was caused by his
suppression of convents in reactionary and Catholic Pasto. At the same
time Obando was intriguing against the government, and many of the
provincial governors aided the plots. When summoned to trial, Obando
fled to the wilds of Popayan and Pasto, and civil war raged through 1839
and 1840. In this latter year Panama successfully revolted, maintaining
its independence until 1842. Tomas Mosquera, the minister of war, with
the help of his son-in-law, General Herran, eventually triumphed over
the rebels. In 1841 the latter became president, and set vigorously to
work to strengthen the power of the central government.
By this time, all the people who took any interest in politics had
divided into two parties. The liberals insisted on universal suffrage,
the separation of Church and State, the granting the provinces the
fullest autonomy, the division of the greater portion of the national
revenue among the provincial governments, and even opposed the
theoretical right of any government to impose its will on the individual
citizen. The conservatives believed in respecting the clergy, in
continuing the old system of education under priestly control, and
resisted any further emasculation of the national government. Herran
recalled the Jesuits, and under his direction a conservative convention
framed a more centralising Constitution than that of 1832. Bolivar's
ashes were delivered to the Venezuelan government with impressive
solemnities, and his memory apotheosised as the father of the nation and
the apostle of centralisation. Herran was succeeded by his
father-in-law, Tomas Mosquera. During his administration, which lasted
until 1849, steam navigation was introduced on the Magdalena, the Panama
railway was begun, the finances were brought into some sort of order,
the army was further reduced, and the post-office system was improved.
[Illustration: CROSSING THE MOUNTAINS IN 1850.]
The liberals and federalists were constantly becoming more powerful and
more discontented. Disturbances broke out from time to time and when
Mosquera's term expired, the attempt to elect a successor in an orderly
and constitutional manner utterly failed. Riots and bloodshed followed,
and it was officially announced that no candidate had received a
majority of the popular vote. The duty of making a choice fell upon
congress, and Lopez, a general of the war of independence who had taken
part in the overthrow of Bolivar, was installed. This meant a resumption
of the march toward complete decentralisation, temporarily checked
during Herran's and Mosquera's administrations. The Constitution was
reformed so as to reduce the power of the national executive and
guarantee greater privileges to the provinces. The latter were divided
and subdivided to suit the exigencies of local politicians until their
number reached thirty-five. Lopez had been a revolutionist himself and
did not know when he might be one again, and his abolishment of the
death penalty for political crimes met with the hearty approval of the
large number of Granadan politicians who were in the same case. The
central government transferred a large part of its revenues to the
provinces, and gave up to them the control of judicial administration,
of education, and of transportation. The tide of liberal legislation
also swept over the privileges of the clergy. Laws were voted
suppressing of tithes, giving the nomination of parish priests to the
civil authorities, taking control of education out of their hands,
separating Church and State, and establishing civil marriage. But it was
easier to pass such laws than to enforce their observance by the
Granadans. The clergy were enormously powerful among the common people
and the conservative aristocrats. The banishment of the archbishop and
several suffragans roused the conservatives. Politics became the
principal preoccupation of the educated classes. Hardly a village in the
country but had its political club, and more than a hundred party
newspapers, besides innumerable pamphlets, thundered against their
opponents. The conservative revolution broke out in 1851, beginning in
Pasto and immediately spreading over the whole western half of the
republic and even to the eastern plateau. Antioquia was the stronghold
of the clericals, and there they gathered a force of a thousand men
which was beaten at Rio Negro on the 10th of September, 1851, while the
insurgent bands in a dozen other provinces were reduced in detail.
Although the liberal government was thus triumphant in the field, the
danger had been too great and was still too menacing to make it safe to
maintain an uncompromising attitude on the religious question.
Lopez procured the election of Obando, another political general of the
same type and opinions as himself, as his successor in the presidency.
The new president's first act was to summon a convention which abolished
the last traces of Herran's moderately centralising Constitution, and
depriving the executive of the power of naming provincial governors.
Obando gave satisfaction to no one, and in 1854 General Melo, commander
of the cavalry in Bogotá, incited the garrison and workingmen of that
city to join him in an insurrection. However, the chiefs of the
conservative party would have none of him; the recent concessions to the
clergy had removed the strongest motives for rousing fanaticism to arms;
and the clericals declared in his favour in only a few provinces. The
property-holding and educated classes were practically unanimous against
him. Mosquera and Herran, the most powerful men in New Granada and the
historical chiefs of the moderate conservatives, had modified their
views to suit the exigencies of the situation and become in effect
moderate liberals. It was Mosquera himself who led the provincial
militia against Bogotá and overcome the dictator after much bloody
street fighting.
[Illustration: TYPES OF COLOMBIAN NATIVES.]
The unhappy country, tired of continual internecine disorder and
exhausted by the harrying civil wars, rested willingly for two years
under the compromise administration of Mallarino in which
representatives of both parties and most of the principal factions had a
voice. As a matter of fact the federal government had almost ceased to
exercise the greatly reduced functions which nominally remained to it.
The executive had only the shadow of a control over the provinces, its
revenues sank to well-nigh nothing, its army was reduced to eight
hundred men. The very name of the country was changed from the "Republic
of New Granada" to the "Granadine Confederation," and the organisation
of powerful and independent federal departments was begun, foreshadowing
the abolition of the old provincial system. In 1857 three candidates had
presented themselves--Ospina, representing the clerical conservatives;
Murillo, the advanced liberals; and Mosquera, the moderates. Suffrage
had been made universal, and under the conditions necessarily
prevailing among a population almost entirely illiterate and used for
centuries to monarchical and military government, a satisfactory
election was impossible. On the face of the returns Ospina received a
plurality, but the radicals were able to force the adoption of a new
federal Constitution in 1859 which abolished the old provinces. However,
the new system had not the sympathy of the conservative and clerical
president. He tried to usurp control of the elections, the liberals
accused him of acting unconstitutionally, insurrections broke out in
various parts of the country, and the confusion became worse confounded.
In the state of Bolivar, the liberal insurrectionists triumphed, while
in Santander the conservatives themselves started a revolution which
Ospina only succeeded in suppressing by the bloody battle of Oratorio.
Meanwhile Mosquera had become governor of Cauca, and when the
conservatives of that state tried to expel him, he beat them and took
advantage of his victory to declare himself independent of Ospina. The
latter advanced, but Mosquera defeated him, and invaded the upper
Magdalena, gaining the battle of Segovia. In every state there was an
insurrection against Ospina, and three ex-presidents accompanied the
insurgent armies. On the surface the civil war appeared to be a mere
contest for personal power between Mosquera and Ospina, but the former
had ensured a large support by raising the banner of federalism, and the
latter's triumph would probably have meant a strengthening of the
national government and certainly a reaction from the radicalism which
had gained ground year by year since the fall of Bolivar. Supported by
the clericals, conservatives, and reactionists, Ospina fought
tenaciously and with a fair prospect of success. But the federalist
armies advanced relentlessly from both north and south, and one after
another the provinces of the eastern plateaux were wrested from him by
bloody and well-contested battles. Bogotá was finally taken and the
president imprisoned, but Mosquera's opponents kept up the conflict for
some time in the states of Panama, Santander, and Antioquia, and it was
near the end of 1861 before the federalists were everywhere triumphant.
With Mosquera at the head of affairs, under the title of "Supreme
Director," a congress was summoned whose members were called, not
deputies, representatives, or delegates, but "plenipotentiaries" of the
sovereign states. This congress adopted a new constitution, New
Granada's sixth since 1830. The triumphant liberals expelled the
Jesuits, abolished ecclesiastical entails, extinguished the monastic
orders, confiscated Church property, decreed the absolute separation of
Church and State, imprisoned the archbishop, and secularised the
schools. Suffrage was made nominally universal, and the death penalty
abolished. The name of the country was changed to the "United States of
Colombia," and it became little more than a league of nine federal
states for the purpose of defence against foreign attack. The national
government was expressly prohibited from interfering in the affairs of
the states, even for the preservation of order, and a clause of the
Constitution provided that "when one sovereign state of the union shall
be at war with another, or the citizens of any state shall be at war
among themselves, the national government is obligated to preserve the
strictest neutrality." The federal judiciary had no power to decide any
constitutional questions nor could its decisions bind the state
authorities. The national government was deprived of half its revenue
for the benefit of the states, and the receipts of the latter equalled
the federal income. This Constitution remained in force for twenty-two
years, during which civil wars and factional disputes continually racked
Colombia.
[Illustration: POST-OFFICE AT BOGOTÁ.]
Moreno, the clerical dictator of Ecuador, had aided Ospina during the
civil war, and to punish him Mosquera undertook a campaign which
resulted in a Colombian victory at Cuaspud on the 30th of December,
1863. However, he desisted from his announced intention of deposing
Moreno and installing an anti-clerical government in Ecuador, and
granted peace without the imposition of any onerous terms. Murillo was
elected president in 1864 for the ensuing two years, to which short
period the term had been reduced. The religious question would not down,
and he found a conservative revolution going on in the state of
Antioquia. It triumphed, and Murillo prudently recognised the successful
insurgents as the legal government. He followed this same policy in
regard to other revolutions in the states of Bolivar, Magdalena, and
Panama, and cautiously refrained from all intervention, even when
conservative insurrections occurred in the neighbourhood of Bogotá
itself, or when the clericals of Antioquia invaded Cauca, and defeated
the liberals. One of the last acts of his administration was to impose
on the impoverished federal treasury the settlement of all the forced
loans and confiscations made during the three years of terrible civil
war. Mosquera, who succeeded Murillo in 1866, was not content to remain
a mere figurehead, although it was under his leadership that the federal
system had been definitely established. He bought ships and artillery
without authorisation from congress, and claimed the power of
intervening by force whenever the legal government of a state was unable
to maintain order. This attack on the right of revolution outraged the
radical republicans. According to their theory and practice the federal
government was merely an alliance between the peoples of the states, but
Mosquera's doctrine would tend to make it an alliance between the state
governments, creating a ruling oligarchy whose power might be continued
indefinitely. Denounced as the assassin of Colombian liberty, he broke
off relations with the liberal majority in congress, and in 1867 assumed
dictatorial powers. But the Bogotá garrison was suborned by his enemies,
and its revolt was followed by his deposition and the substitution of
Acosta.
The new president renewed Murillo's policy of non-intervention. Colombia
had begun to reap a benefit from the increasing foreign demand for
tropical products. Exports grew in value, and with them, imports and
revenue. But expenditures grew faster; the poorer states demanded and
received subsidies from the federal treasury; public buildings and local
improvements were planned beyond the nation's ability to pay; and a
swarm of employees and pensioners battened on the public revenues. Under
the concession of 1850 the Panama railway had agreed to pay three per
cent. of its net revenue to the government, and the receipts from this
source amounted to fourteen thousand dollars a year. Colombia had
stipulated for the right to purchase the road in 1870 for the
ridiculously low price of five million dollars, but Acosta's
administration had no money to invest and was greedy for ready cash. So
the franchise was extended until 1966 for one million dollars down and
an annual subsidy of a quarter of a million. In 1880, under the pressure
of poverty, the installments until 1908 were alienated.
Under Gutierrez's administration (1868-69), when the governor of
Cundinamarca gathered troops and assumed a dictatorship, the president
deposed him. Even a liberal administration found it impracticable to
carry out the theory of non-intervention. An attempt was now made to
secure the nation's creditors by authorising the hypothecation of
specific revenue--a measure which left the administration insufficient
means to meet ordinary running expenses. Under Salgar (1870-72), the
acknowledged deficits amounted to fifty per cent. of the total revenue.
The increasing revenues had proved a curse instead of a blessing, for
the demands of the states and officials were insatiable, and the sums
spent in subsidies and internal improvements grew beyond all reason.
Meantime the most extreme and unrestrained liberalism dominated the
politics of the country. Congress passed a formal vote of condolence for
the death of Lopez, Paraguay's unspeakable tyrant, who had just
succumbed to Brazil and Argentina, after having devoted to destruction
nine-tenths of his people. All honorary and useless military titles and
employments were abolished, and the law on that subject contains the
following curious provision: "In naming the eight generals spoken of by
the Constitution, from whom must be chosen the commander-in-chief of
the army, all Colombians over twenty-one shall be considered as generals
of the republic."
Murillo was elected for a second term in 1872, and at once devoted
himself, and with considerable success, to the re-organisation and
regulation of the finances. The law of 1868, which had hypothecated the
revenues to meet the charges of the public debt, was repealed and the
foreign bonds were scaled down to less than one-third their face. By
such measures the president succeeded in paying the government employees
and taking care of pressing home necessities, and even showed a nominal
surplus at the end of his term.
During the administration of Santiago Perez (1874-76) the first
mutterings of the terrible storm of civil war soon to burst over the
country were heard. The state of Panama defied his authority and
imprisoned his officers, but he applied conscientiously the
constitutional doctrine of non-intervention, and disavowed a general who
on his own responsibility had deposed the governor. The governor of the
state of Magdalena took possession of the custom houses at the mouth of
the river, and the troops of the state of Bolivar attacked federal
detachments passing along the Magdalena--a river which is inter-state,
and whose navigation was free by the terms of the Constitution. The
popular election of 1875 was so disturbed that congress assumed the
power of selecting a president, and Parra was installed the following
spring. An internecine conflict broke out in Cauca; the president
started to intervene, and the states of Antioquia and Tolima declared
war against him. Although guerilla bands in Cundinamarca, Boyacá, and
Santander menaced the government's rear, twenty-five thousand recruits
were raised and sent against the rebelling states. Antioquia was beaten
at Chancos and Garrapata, and the rebels of central Colombia at La
Donjuana, in battles where the largest numbers of soldiers ever gathered
on Colombian soil were engaged.
[Illustration: RAFAEL NUÑEZ, PRESIDENT OF COLOMBIA IN 1879-1883,
1885-1891.]
Peace was followed by a general amnesty, because the victorious
liberals dared not proceed to extremities against their adversaries.
Trujillo was installed as president without opposition, and the harried
country recovered somewhat from the exertions and disasters of the
terrible year of 1876. The finances were, however, in horrible disorder;
expenses amounted to enormous figures; the deficits became greater than
the total revenues; interest on the public debt, which had been
regularly kept up since 1873, was indefinitely suspended. Disturbances
soon began to break out again, and the national guard deposed the
governors of Cauca and Magdalena. The president showed an inclination
toward centralisation; he formed alliances with state governors,
encouraged them to prolong their terms, and systematically fostered
divisions in the liberal party. Trujillo was succeeded by Nuñez,
nominally a liberal, but who at heart had also sickened of the
federalistic system and was looking for an opportunity to strengthen
presidential prerogatives. The Constitution stood during his first term
and those of his two successors, but when he was re-elected in 1884 the
policy which he followed soon caused him to be denounced by the liberals
as a traitor to the Constitution.
The failure of a liberal insurrection in 1885 was followed by a complete
unitarian and clerical reaction. In 1886 a new Constitution was adopted
which substituted a consolidated republic for the loose confederation.
The country's name was changed from the "United States of Colombia" to
"Republic of Colombia" in order to express the dominating principle of
the new régime. The sovereignty of the individual states was expressly
denied in the document, and the two most refractory ones--Panama and
Cundinamarca--temporarily reduced to territorial dependencies. The
governors were named from Bogotá instead of being elected and the right
of federal intervention re-affirmed. Suffrage was limited by an
educational and property qualification; the clergy were admitted to
participation in politics; the Roman Catholic was declared to be the
national religion, although individual freedom of worship was permitted;
the presidential term was extended to six years; and an attempt was made
to insure judicial independence by a life tenure.
Under this Constitution there was for a long time less disorder. In
Colombia political hatreds are, however, incredibly virulent and
persistent because party differences are fundamental and irreconcilable.
The clericals regard their opponents as pestilent enemies of religion
and order, and the liberals anathematise the ruling party as a
reactionary, corrupt, and benighted oligarchy. The exiled liberals have
made repeated efforts to regain power, and the administrations have not
been able to avoid a constantly mounting national expenditure and the
continuation of deficits and repudiation. In 1899, a formidable
insurrection, aided from Venezuela, broke out, President Sanclemente was
imprisoned, and in 1900 Vice-President Marroquin assumed the executive
functions. This terrible civil war ended only in November, 1902, when
the insurgents surrendered their fleet and stores. President Marroquin
and the conservative government seem now firmly established, backed as
they are by the tremendous influence of the Church among the masses. The
people are returning to their usual avocations, though business has been
demoralised by the stupendous depreciation of the paper currency.
The vast expenditures of the French canal company boomed Panama, but the
resulting prosperity was confined to the Isthmus. The Bogotá government
hoped for a great increase of income when the canal should be completed,
and the abandonment of the enterprise was a disappointment. The
principal subject of public preoccupation during 1903 was the
negotiation with the United States concerning the permission desired by
the latter to continue the work. Colombia proper has its outlet down the
Magdalena to the Caribbean, and therefore has no greater special
commercial interest in the building of a canal than Venezuela, Guiana,
or Cuba, but the Colombians of the continent regarded the possession of
the isolated Isthmian region as their most valuable national birthright,
and believed that this invaluable strategic position should be used so
as to obtain the utmost possible advantages for the Bogotá government as
well as for the people of Panama. The revenue from the Panama railway
had been one of the important sources of government income and the
ruling political classes considered that they were entitled to have this
income largely increased if a canal was built.
The special congress summoned to consider the treaty already signed by
the executive failed to ratify the agreement and adjourned, after
empowering the president to try and negotiate a new one which would give
Colombia a larger bonus and revenue. But the rejection of the treaty was
followed by a declaration of independence on the part of the people of
Panama, who believed that the United States would pay no larger sum than
that already agreed upon and who saw their own interests being
sacrificed for the sake of a far-distant interior region with which they
had few commercial ties and whence invasion and coercion need not be
feared because of the lack of practicable routes of communication. The
United States and other powers promptly recognised the new nation, which
at once made a canal treaty similar to that rejected by the Bogotá
congress.
At Bogotá the first impression was one of profound dismay. The executive
offered to declare martial law, suspend the Constitution, and ratify the
rejected treaty in spite of the Senate. General Reyes, the foremost
living Colombian, immediately departed for Panama as a special envoy to
endeavour to persuade the people there to return to their allegiance,
but his overtures were rejected, and he went to Washington on the
hopeless errand of inducing the United States Government temporarily to
abandon its policy of forbidding fighting on the Isthmus, so that
Colombia might reduce the people of Panama to obedience. Meanwhile many
Colombians blamed the Marroquin administration for the irreparable loss
of Panama and ten million badly needed dollars. Some popular
demonstrations occurred, and the hot-headed demanded that war be
declared against the United States and an army marched across the Atrato
swamps to attack Panama from the land. But the financial and
topographical difficulties were so evidently insurmountable that the war
talk soon died down, the demonstrations against the Government ceased,
and most elements seem to have acquiesced in the election of General
Reyes to the presidential term which begins in 1904. It will be under
his able guidance that Colombia will start on the tedious road leading
to internal peace and regeneration, to financial rehabilitation, and to
the reconcilement of those fierce factions whose wars have drenched
their country's soil with blood for so many decades.
PANAMA
PANAMA
THE EVENTS LEADING TO INDEPENDENCE
The history of Panama is for the most part identified with that of
Colombia, which is narrated elsewhere in the present volume. It will,
however, be convenient to review certain movements and tendencies of the
last half-century in order to obtain a just understanding of the
position and prospects of the new republic.
All the principles of advanced democratic government were included in
the programme of the party which ruled Columbia from 1863 to 1883, and
the statute books of the time afford ample proof that the leaders
earnestly tried to put those principles into practical effect. They
dreamed a Utopia, but practically their efforts only aggravated the
anarchical tendencies bequeathed by the Spaniards and Bolivar. Colombian
liberals still insist that a persistent enforcement of the Constitution
and principles of 1863 would ultimately transform the character of the
people--that religious bigotry and priestly influence would gradually
disappear; that the progressive enlightenment of the masses would make
military despotism and revolutions impossible; and that in process of
time the relations of the states to the federal government would reach a
satisfactory and workable basis. But so far as the experiment went no
progress was made toward unifying the nation and pacifying the adverse
elements. Discontent, disorders, civil wars increased in violence as the
years went by. Though one-fifth of the federal revenues were spent on
the public school system, and one-tenth of the children were nominal
attendants, the clergy were permitted to have no share in their control,
and retaliated by excommunicating the parents. The devotedly pious
Creole mothers and wives, threatened with the closing of the
confessionals and the denial of absolution, threw their incalculable
influence against the atheistic government. The destruction of the
convents and the confiscation of the vast ecclesiastical estates
violently changed the ownership of two-thirds of the land in the
confederation, but this imposition of new landlords on the industrious,
oppressed, half-enslaved tenantry did not much modify real agricultural
conditions. No extensive subdivision of estates resulted, and the Creole
aristocracy continued to pay more attention to political intrigue than
to improving their property.
[Illustration: VIEW OF PANAMA.]
Not less disappointing in its practical working was the independence of
the states. Not only did the local bosses constantly abuse autonomy for
their own selfish purposes, but the presidents at Bogotá often ignored
the constitutional rights of the states, and selected for coercion
precisely those states which were farthest from the capital and most
needed wide autonomous powers. Though Panama's position was isolated,
its population cosmopolitan, its commercial interests and social
structure peculiar, and though in colonial times its dependence on
Bogotá had been only nominal, the liberal presidents usually ruled it
like a conquered province. Members of the Andean oligarchy poured in to
batten on its revenues; the autonomy guaranteed by the Constitution
proved illusory, and discontent led to repeated efforts to achieve
absolute independence.
Rival ambitions among its own leaders furnished, however, the immediate
cause of the downfall of the liberal party. A close oligarchy grew up
and that inevitable corollary, a powerful faction of dissident liberals,
while the clericals remained formidable and irreconcilable even after
their bloody overthrow in 1876. Rafael Nuñez, a brilliant writer, a
resolute and ambitious party chief, and a leader in the confiscation of
church property, had been defeated in his candidacy for the presidency
in 1875. The younger and dissatisfied liberals rallied behind him in his
war against the oligarchy, and in 1880 the old-fashioned liberals could
not prevent his election to the presidency. He vigorously strengthened
the prerogatives of the federal executive and built up his personal
following, but although the issue of paper money and the discontinuance
of interest on the foreign debt--a debt which only ten years before had
been scaled down to $10,000,000, one-sixth its original amount, on a
solemn promise that at least this much would be faithfully paid--placed
large funds at his disposal, the old-line liberals were strong enough to
prevent his re-election in 1882. Their victory was illusory and
temporary. Nuñez controlled both houses of congress and was able to
block President Zaldua at every turn. Eighty years old and in feeble
health, the latter died after a year of fruitless struggle.
[Illustration: STEAMERS ON THE MAGDALENA RIVER.]
After a short _ad interim_ administration in which Nuñez's influence
predominated, he was re-elected to the presidency and installed in 1884.
By this time his centralising tendencies were manifest, and the measures
he adopted unmistakably pointed to the substitution of a unified
republic for the old loose confederation. Many of his liberal
supporters fell away and he was driven into an alliance with
the conservatives. Appointments of members of that party to
important positions were followed by the great revolt of 1885. The
insurrectionists delivered their main attack on the Caribbean coast,
whither the importation of arms was easy. Much of the department of
Magdalena fell into their hands, and they besieged Cartagena in force.
But when one of their expeditions invaded the Isthmus, burning Colon,
and interrupting traffic on the Panama Railway, the president appealed
to the United States, as previous presidents had done in similar cases,
to carry out the guaranty of free transit contained in the treaty of
1846. At the same time the government troops attacked and defeated the
isolated insurrectionists at Colon, and shortly afterwards the latter's
main army suffered a bloody repulse in an assault on Cartagena. This
broke the back of the movement against Nuñez, and the liberals abandoned
the hopeless struggle.
The insurrection had been undertaken for the purpose of defending the
1863 Constitution, and its defeat meant the destruction of departmental
independence. As the logical and natural result of his victory, the
president proclaimed the abolishment of the Constitution and summoned a
convention to adopt a new one. Thenceforward until his death ten years
later Rafael Nuñez and his political ideas were supreme in Colombia, and
Panama was held in the most rigid subjection. The old "United States of
Colombia" was replaced by the "Republic of Columbia," one and
indivisible; the departments became mere administrative divisions whose
governors were appointed from Bogotá; the presidential term was
increased to six years; the radical liberal projects were abandoned; the
clergy regained many of their privileges; and the historical
conservatives continued the dominant party.
As long as Nuñez lived there were few outbreaks and no serious civil
war, though the ousted liberals never ceased to plot the government's
overthrow. The centralising system held the departments in a rigid
control from whose inconveniences Panama suffered far more than the
mountain districts. Practically she was allowed no voice in either her
own or general affairs; the very delegates who nominally represented her
in the constitutional convention of 1885 were residents of Bogotá
appointed by Nuñez; military rule became a permanent thing on the
Isthmus; all officials were strangers sent from the Andean plateau; and
the million dollars of taxes wrung each year from the people of Panama
were spent on maintaining the soldiers who kept them in subjection. In
January, 1895, the harassed province broke out in a rebellion which was
suppressed by an overwhelming force of Colombian troops in April.
Meanwhile in Colombia proper the opposition to the ruling clique grew
stronger and stronger. Persecution united the liberals, and they began
organising for revolt all over the republic. The conservatives
themselves divided into two parties, one of which opposed the
administration. Nuñez did not live to finish the second term to which
he had been elected in 1892, but his successor managed to suppress the
premature revolt of 1895, and in 1898 Sanclemente was elected, the
opposition refraining from going to the polls. The new president soon
found his position very difficult, and, unlike Nuñez, was unable to
dominate his own party and hold the opposition in check. The French
Canal Company, whose concession, granted in 1878, would expire in 1904,
offered a million dollars for a renewal, desiring to recoup, by a sale
to the United States, a part of the two hundred millions sunk by De
Lesseps. Sanclemente's government wished to accept, but the opposition
and even the conservative congress insisted on the forfeiture of the
French rights. The administration rapidly lost prestige, the
discontented elements saw their opportunity, and the long-brewing storm
now broke on the hapless country. The liberals hurriedly completed their
preparations, and in the fall of 1899 a civil war began--the most
terrible and destructive that has ever devastated the republic. Before
it ended in 1902, more than two hundred battles and armed encounters had
been fought, and thirty thousand Colombians slain. The detailed history
of the campaigns has not yet been written, but it is apparent that the
insurrectionists at first gained many successes. The president declared
martial law, suspending the functions of congress, and the extension
desired by the French Canal Company was granted by executive decree. But
the pecuniary relief thus obtained did not materially help the
floundering administration. Sanclemente became a mere figurehead for his
more resolute ministers, and in July, 1900, the vigorous
vice-president, Marroquin, seized power by a _coup d'état_, throwing
Sanclemente into a prison, where he remained until his death. Thereafter
the war against the rebels was prosecuted with more energy, and the tide
turned with the defeat of an army of Venezuelans, eight thousand strong,
which had invaded the eastern provinces, to co-operate with the
insurrectionists.
[Illustration: NATIVE VILLAGE ON THE PANAMA R. R.]
However, the liberals were still strong in the west and north. On the
Isthmus four insurrections had broken out from October, 1899, to
September, 1901, and though each had been promptly suppressed, in 1902
the liberals were able to make a last great effort to establish
themselves at Panama. They had considerable forces near the mouth of the
Magdalena, and gunboats on the Pacific. The secure possession of the
Isthmus would have enabled them to reinforce this Magdalena army, cut
off Marroquin from the sea, and undertake a campaign against the
interior. At first all went well for them; their gunboats captured the
government's vessels on the Pacific side; they concentrated a
respectable army there and finally defeated and captured two thousand of
Marroquin's troops at Agua Dulce, near Panama. But this was their last
success. Marroquin poured reinforcements into Colon, and though the
American admiral at first refused to allow them to be transported over
the railroad to Panama, permission was granted when it became evident
that there would be no fighting near the line. News came of the defeat
of the liberal army near the Magdalena, and General Herrera, the victor
at Agua Dulce, found himself isolated. In desperation he sent an
expedition in October which surprised and captured Colon, but French and
American marines were promptly landed to prevent fighting in that city.
The expedition had no alternative but to surrender, and a few days later
General Herrera with the main body capitulated on the Pacific side.
The three years of war left Colombia in frightful demoralisation. The
victorious government was little better off than the defeated liberals.
Commerce and industry had been prostrated; revenues had dwindled to
nothing; the paper currency was worth less than one per cent. The
exhaustion of its adversaries, not its own strength, enabled Marroquin's
government to continue in power. In such a situation the administration
welcomed the opportunity which now offered of renewing the building of
the Isthmian canal. The United States government determined to undertake
this great work itself, and finally decided in favour of Panama as
against the Nicaragua route. Forty million dollars was agreed upon as a
just price for the work already done by the French Company, and nothing
remained but to obtain Colombia's consent to the transfer. The civil war
helped to delay the negotiation of a satisfactory treaty, but as soon as
it was over the Marroquin administration lost little time in coming to
an agreement with the United States. Colombia was to receive a bonus of
ten million dollars for consenting to the transfer and enlarging the
terms of the original concession; her sovereign rights were reserved
and guaranteed, although she agreed to police and sanitary control of
the canal strip by the United States.
When this treaty was submitted to the Colombian Senate for ratification,
opposition developed which the administration was not strong or resolute
enough to overcome. Among the politicians at Bogotá, the opinion was
almost universal that the executive should have demanded more. The
Colombian people have ever regarded the political control of the Isthmus
as their most valuable national heritage, and cherished extravagant
hopes that some day they would be vastly enriched by the sale or rental
of this strategic bit of ground for its natural use as the greatest
artery of the world's commerce. Many now insisted, as they had done in
1898, on enforcing a forfeiture of the French rights, or at least on
receiving a proportion of the $40,000,000 to be paid for them. It was
also said that the Americans could well afford a larger bonus, and the
opponents of the treaty made the further point that the agreement was
unconstitutional and contained insufficient guaranties of Colombian
sovereignty. Against this storm the feeble administration probably could
do little and certainly did nothing. The Senate was allowed to adjourn
without ratifying the treaty, and an attempt was made to negotiate a new
one providing for a larger bonus and more stringent guarantees of
Colombian sovereignty.
The United States, however, absolutely refused to consider any other
terms than those already agreed upon, and the civilised world saw the
completion of an enterprise promising incalculable benefits to mankind
indefinitely postponed by the opposition of Andean provinces whom the
accidents of war and international politics had given an arbitrary
control over a region with which they had no natural connection. The
situation was particularly hard for the people of the Isthmus, whose
confident hopes were now disappointed of at last receiving, by the
prosperity which would follow the building of the canal, some
compensation for the oppression and losses they had suffered during
eighty years of misrule by the Bogotá oligarchies. Hardly had the treaty
been rejected when plotting for a declaration of independence began. The
resident population was unanimous, and good grounds existed for
believing that even the Colombian garrison would offer no resistance
unless reinforcements should come from Bogotá. In case of an armed
conflict with Colombia the people of Panama could count on the sympathy
of all America and Europe. The stockholders of the French Company had a
direct pecuniary interest in their success. If once they could establish
independence and a _de facto_ government, Colombia could not deliver an
effective attack without violating the neutrality and security of
transit guaranteed to the Isthmus by the United States. Everything
pointed to the success of a well-conducted movement.
Though the preparations for the revolt could not be concealed, the
Bogotá government took no effective measures to forestall it. Warned
that trouble was impending, the United States sent ships to prevent
fighting that might interfere with transit. The new republic was
proclaimed at Panama on the 3rd of November, 1903. The Colombian
authorities made no resistance; the garrison surrendered without firing
a shot; and the entire population acquiesced in the appointment of a
provisional government, pending the calling of a convention and the
adoption of a Constitution. A small force of Colombians had been landed
at Colon, but the revolution at Panama found it still on the Atlantic
side. On November 4th the American naval commander refused to give these
troops permission to use the railroad for warlike purposes. Because the
vital portion of the new republic is virtually neutral under the treaty
of 1846, the provisional government having established itself in
peaceable possession was safe from external attack. The useless
Colombian troops at Colon either joined the people of Panama or retired.
The inhabitants of Colon and the outlying districts immediately sent in
their adherence, and the peace of the whole Isthmian region remained
unbroken. On the 13th of November the United States recognised the new
republic, being followed by France on the 18th, and then by all other
nations as soon as diplomatic formalities could be complied with. Dr.
Manuel Amador Guerrero was elected first president of the Republic of
Panama, being inaugurated on February 19, 1904. A treaty with the United
States for the building of the canal was framed on substantially the
same lines as the one which had been negotiated with Colombia. By the
end of February it had been ratified and proclaimed, and the United
States at once made preparations for the beginning of the work.
[Illustration: MAP OF SOUTH AMERICA]
INDEX
A
Abascal, General, Viceroy of Peru, 73-78, 163, 168, 260
Abibe Mountains, 408
Acha, General, 276
Aconcagua River, the, 223;
plain of, 168
Acosta, Juan, 56
Acosta, President of Colombia, 464, 465
Acre River, the, 280
"Adelantados," 26, 349, 414, 417
Agua Dulce, battle of, 484, 485
Alansi, valley of, 291
Alacantra, Francisco, 26, 46
Alfaro, President of Ecuador, 339, 341
Alfinger, Adelantado of Venezuela, 349
Almagro, partner of Pizarro, 23, 24, 27, 32, 36, 136, 239, 298;
at war with Pizarro, 41-43, 239, 301;
execution of, 43, 44, 136, 239
Almagro the younger, 49, 50
Alonso, President of Bolivia, 281
Alpaca, the, 3, 4
Alvarado, Spanish adventurer, 44, 88;
Governor of Guatemala, 298
Amar, Viceroy of Bogotá, 430
Amat, Don Manuel, 154, 155
Amazon River, the, discovery of, 44, 114, 279, 293
Amazon, forested plains of, 4, 5, 40, 67, 303, 351, 424
Andagoya, Pascual de, 22
Andean plateau, the, 3, 235, 285, 288, 302, 312, 335, 342
Andean valleys, 10;
gold in, 349, 354
Andes, the, 4, 135, 245, 317, 342, 347, 409 et passim
Andes, army of the, 168, 173, 174, 185, 186
Andrade, Creole revolutionist, 396
Andueza, Creole revolutionist, 396
Angol, besieged, 145
Angostura (city), 374
Anserma, founded, 409
Antigua, founded, 404, 405
Antioquia, great mineral province of Colombia, 387, 407-409, 412, 416,
417, 419, 422, 433, 437, 451
Antioquia, state of, 407, 457, 461, 462, 467
Antofogasta, 119, 120, 122, 277
Apples, 66
Apuré River, the, 355, 374-376, 406, 437;
army of, 372, 380
Aragua Valley, the, 350
Araucania, colonised, 216
Araucanians, the, independent spirit of, 138-147, 150, 151, 155;
treaty of, with Spanish, 150, 151;
missions established among, 201;
at war with Chile, 206, 216
Arauco, besieged, 145
Araure, battle of, 368
Arce, President of Bolivia, 278
Arenales, General, 81, 89, 258
Arequipa (city), founded, 44, 80, 99, 103, 108, 110, 112
Arequipa (province), 39, 41, 77, 104, 259
Argentina, 11, 13, 18, 71, 142, 245;
civilised tribes of, 58, 350;
revolution in, 76, 160, 161, 317;
civil wars in, 78, 186, 261, 267, 271, 323
Argentine, army, the, 80, 81, 98, 185, 186, 257, 258;
navy, the, 78, 79, 173, 183, 184;
pampas, 99
Argentine Republic, the, 140;
expansion of, 155, 230, 231;
boundary treaty of, with Chile, 209, 210
Arica (city), 108, 123, 125
Arica (province),
arrangement between Peru and Chile concerning, 127, 278
Asses, 66
Atacama desert, the, 239
Atahuallpa, Inca empire divided between Huascar and, 14, 308;
fratricidal war between Huascar and, 16-19, 238, 295, 296;
sends ambassador to Spaniards, 21;
treacherously captured by Pizarro, 30, 31, 48;
offers ransom, 31, 246;
murder of, 32, 238, 297
Atrato, River, the, 403-406;
Valley, 405, 472
Audiencias, royal, established, 67, 71, 250, 251, 254, 267, 308, 417,
420, 426
Auqui Toma, 294
Ayachucho, plain of, 95;
battle of, 96, 97, 256, 264, 266, 322
Ayohuma, battle of, 256, 258
Azuay, nudo of, 17, 291-293, 295, 298
Aztecs, the, 412
B
Balboa, Nuñez de, discoverer of the Pacific, 22, 23, 404
Balcarce, General, 185
Ballivian, General, 273, 274
Balmaceda, Chilean Liberal leader, 214-216, 218-220, 222-225;
death of, 226
Balta, Colonel, President of Peru, 113, 114, 116
Bambona, battle of, 444
Bananas, 66, 303, 352
Baquedano, General, 213, 219, 225
Barcelona (city), founded, 352;
captured, 372
Barcelona (province), 362
Barinos (province), 362, 363, 366
Barley, 66, 303, 343
Barquisimeto, founded, 350, 351;
destroyed by earthquake, 363;
captured, 368
Barreiro, General, 377, 378, 441
Bastida, Rodrigo, 403, 404
Belgrano, General, 258
Bello, civil code prepared by, 200
Belzu, General, 274, 275
Benalcazar, Sebastian de, conquers Quito, 298, 299, 409, 410, 413, 414
Beni River, the, 246, 279, 280
Bermudez, Colonel, 130, 381
Biobio River, the, 138, 139, 141, 145-147, 150
Blanco, Guzman, Dictator of Venezuela, 391, 394-396, 398
_Blanco_, the, 119-121
Bogotá, (city) 308, 312, 316, 317, 378, 384, 420, 448;
founded, 413;
one of the centres of Spanish-American culture, 422;
Archbishop of, banished, 425, 457, 461;
revolutionary junta in, 431;
seat of federal government, 435, 442, 470, 471;
punishment of, 438, 439
Bogotá (province), 376, 416, 419, 434, 437;
vice-royalty of, 71, 250, 313, 327, 356, 385, 416, 420, 426;
jurisdiction of, 356, 420, 426, 429;
audiencia of, 417;
presidency of, 418;
named New Granada, 419;
declares itself an independent state, 433
Bolivar, Simon,
the "Liberator" of South America, 79, 86, 368, 382, 384, 435;
Dictator of Peru, 90, 98, 447;
military exploits of, 92, 264, 317, 321, 366, 367;
President of United States of Colombia, 99, 322, 378, 442, 443, 448,
450, 451;
plan of, for South American Confederation, 99, 267, 320-322, 384,
442, 443, 450, 451;
constitutions, 99, 101, 268, 270, 385, 386;
undertakes conquest of Quito, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia, 101, 318,
383, 384, 447;
wins battle of Ayachucho, 264;
welcomed in Bolivia, 267;
political theories of, 268, 322, 448, 451;
forced to retire from Peru, 270;
drives Spanish from Venezuela and New Granada, 317, 370, 372, 374,
375, 378, 433-435, 439, 440, 444;
interview of, with San Martin, 321;
life of, devoted to South American independence, 366, 388, 451;
army of, 376, 380, 381, 440, 441, 452;
proclamation of, 376;
overthrow of, 323, 326, 448, 450, 451;
death of, 326, 387, 388, 452;
character and education of, 364-366;
native city of, 387;
apotheosis of, 455
Bolivar, State of, 460, 463, 466
Bolivia (Upper Peru), 235-281;
description of 235, 236;
Inca conquest of, 13, 18, 236, 238;
military roads in, 36, 239, 244, 251;
Spanish conquest of, 36, 239, 248, 250;
Inca cities in, 44, 59;
capital of, 44;
precious metals found in, 44, 238-242, 245-247;
railroads in, 54, 277, 279, 280;
audiencia established in, 67, 250 (_see also_ Charcas);
the battleground of war of independence, 76, 77, 86, 97,
255 _et seq._, 268;
republic of, created, 99, 267, 268;
Bolivar the Father of, 99, 266, 267;
named, 99, 268;
first president of, 99, 268-270;
constitutions of, 99, 268, 270, 273, 278, 322;
the Peru-Bolivian Confederation, 101-103, 105, 197, 270-273, 281;
boundary treaty of, with Chile, 117, 281;
at war with Chile, 118, 271, 272, 281;
secret treaty of, with Peru, 118;
nitrate territory of, 211, 278;
early civilisation of, 236, 239, 249;
rainfall in, 236;
fertility of, 238;
population of, 239, 244, 269;
character of population of, 239, 260, 269, 272, 273, 357;
Spanish cities in, 241, 242, 249;
cattle-raising in, 242, 243, 248;
Spanish colonial system in, 243, 245, 249;
taxation in, 243, 269, 270, 276;
missions established in, 245, 279;
printing-press, in, 245;
battles in, 257-260, 264-266, 272, 273, 281;
sturdy spirit of patriots in, 258-262, etc.;
commerce of, 267, 272, 281;
period of civil war and anarchy in, 272 _et seq._;
slavery abolished in, 273;
greatest silver producing country of the world, 277, 278;
rubber production of, 278-280;
without seaports, 278, 280, 281;
treaty of, with Brazil, 280;
international position of, 281
Bonaparte, Joseph, 311, 312, 360
Bonaparte, Napoleon, 77, 159, 311, 365, 435
Borrero, Antonio, President of Ecuador, 339
Bourbon dynasty, the, 70, 154, 250
Boves, organises troop of llaneros, 368, 369;
death of, 370
Boyacá River, the, 378;
battle of, 86, 256, 317, 378, 441
Boyacá, state of, 467
Brazil, treaty of, with Bolivia, 280;
loyalty of, 337
Brown, Admiral William, 78
Buccaneers, 69, 70, 150
Buenaventura, 49
Buenos Aires, viceroyalty of, 67, 71, 155, 251, 257;
smuggling in, 71, 152, 251;
revolutionary junta in, 76, 160, 161, 438;
pampas of, 78, 149;
importance of, 156, 158
Bunes, General, 198, 199
C
Cabildos, in Bogotá, 431;
in Bolivia, 249;
in Chile, 160, 161;
in Ecuador, 313;
in Venezuela, 360, 361, 385
Cacao, native to South America, 66, 238, 303
Cacao industry in Colombia, 428;
in Ecuador, 303, 328, 332, 341;
in Venezuela, 352, 390, 395
Caceres, President of Peru, 126-131
Cacha, the last Cara shiri, 292, 294
Caciques, 64, 243, 244, 248
Cadiz, 70, 361, 380, 443;
monopoly, the, 152, 352
Cajamarca, 17, 20, 21, 29, 31
Calabozo, 368, 375
Caldas, Colombian scientist, 438
Calderon, Garcia, 126
Cali (city), 408, 409, 432
Cali (province), part of presidency of Quito, 420
Calivio, battle of, 433
Callao, engulfed by tidal wave, 71;
Peruvian fleet at, 104;
Spanish fleet at, 112, 184, 186
Callao Castle, 80, 84, 97, 321
Caluchima, 296
Camano, José, President of Ecuador, 339
Camargo, patriot leader, 258, 260
Campero, Narcisco, President of Bolivia, 278
Cañan (province), 288, 291, 296, 298
Cañaris, the, Indian tribe, 14, 16, 17, 296, 297
Candamo, Señor, President of Peru, 131
Cancha-Rayada, battle at, 176-178
Cañete (city), founded, 143, 144;
besieged, 145, 146
Cañete, Marquis of, the "good viceroy," 57, 58. _See_ Mendoza
Canizaries, Doña Manuela, 313
Canseco, General, President of Peru, 113
Canterac, Spanish commander, 85, 89, 93, 96, 97
Canto, Colonel, 223, 224
Cape Codera, 351
Cape Gracias á Dios, 403, 404, 405
Cape Horn, 69, 152, 209, 235
Cape San Roman, 347
Captaincies-General, 67, 71, 148, 355, 356, 419, 426
Carabobo, battle of, 86, 317, 381, 443
Caracas (city), revolutionary junta in, 76, 361;
founded, 350;
sacked, 351, 354;
made a captaincy-general, 356, 392, 426;
destroyed by earthquake, 363;
Bolivar's birthplace, 382, 386, 387;
under jurisdiction of Bogotá, 426;
revolution in, 447
Caracoles, silver mines of, 208
Cara Indians, the, confederacy of, 11, 12, 16, 288, 289;
invade Ecuador, 11, 286, 287;
conquered by Incas, 11-14, 288-296
Caranquis, the Indian tribe, 13, 293, 294
Caras, description of, 286-290, 293, 412;
staple articles of food of, 290, 303;
conquered by Spanish, 299
Carbojal, Spanish commander, 53, 56
Caribbean Sea, 70, 71, 348, 405, 406, 414, 470
Carib Indians, the, 268, 290, 413
Carrasco, Captain-General of Chile, 159-161
Carrera, José, creole leader, 162, 164, 166, 167, 173, 182
Carrera, Juan, 162, 173, 181, 182
Carrera, Luiz, 162, 173, 181, 182
Carrillo, 126
Cartagena (city), revolutionary junta in, 366, 431;
Bolivar takes service with, 366, 433;
besieged, 380, 381, 429, 435-437, 480;
oldest fortress in America, 406-409, 428, 436, 442;
surrender of, 443
Cartagena (province), 417, 419, 420, 431, 432
Cartago (city), 408, 409;
Carujo, Venezuelan revolutionist, 389
Casanare (province), 424
Casanare River, the, 376, 377, 437;
plains of, 406, 440
Cassava, 66
Castilla, Don Ramon, President of Peru, 106-110, 112, 274;
character and ability of, 108;
death of, 113
Castilla, Don Ruiz de, President of Quito, 312, 314
Castilla, Marshal, 118;
Castro (city), 151
Castro, President of Venezuela, 396, 398, 399
Castro, Vala de, Governor of Peru, 46, 49, 50, 52, 300
Cattle, introduced into South America, 66, 151, 352
Cattle-raising in Bolivia, 243, 261;
in Colombia, 421;
in Venezuela, 354, 355, 390, 395
Cauca (province), northern division of Quito presidency, 324, 326;
State of, 460, 466, 468
Cauca River, the, 49, 312, 408, 409, 411, 412, 422, 432, 433
Caudillos, the, Bolivian, 256, 269, 270
Caupolican, Arauncanian chief, 144
Ceballos, José, 361, 368, 369
Central America, Colombia's claim to, 429
Cerro de Pasco Mountains, 4, 9, 11, 17, 18, 32, 36, 81, 262, 264, 289
Chacabuco, battle of, 78, 168, 170, 172, 256, 261, 317
Chanca Indians, the, 9
Chancos, battle of, 467
Charcas (Sueré), Indian capital of Bolivia, 44, 59, 240;
audiencia of, 71, 250, 251, 267;
revolutionary junta in, 76;
Spanish capital of Upper Peru, 242, 249, 301;
jurisdiction of, 250, 251
Charles IV. of Spain, 311
Charles V., Emperor, authorises conquest of Peru, 25, 26, 41, 60;
appoints governor for Venezuela, 349
Chaves, Francisco, 47
Chibcho Indians, the, 412-414;
civilisation of, 412
Chile, Inca conquest of, 11, 12, 18, 135;
Spanish conquest of, 36, 43, 44, 60, 136, 139-149;
captain-general of, 67, 148, 154, 155, 158, 160, 161;
war of independence in, 76, 78, 112, 156 _et seq._, 190, 261, 317;
junta established in, 161;
at war with Peru and Bolivia, 104, 105, 118, 119, 208, 211, 281;
boundary treaty of, with Bolivia, 117, 118, 206;
boundaries of, 117, 147, 150, 155;
defeats allies, 121-125;
captures Lima, 125, 126, 213;
mineral products of, 117, 136, 138, 144, 148, 199, 208;
nitrate industry of, 117, 118, 126, 206, 211;
gains control of nitrate region, 212, 220-222;
navy of, 118-121, 183-185, 204;
characteristics of inhabitants of, 135, 136, 149, 150, 190;
area of, 135;
rainfall in, 135;
population of, 135, 136, 152, 230;
agricultural conditions in, 136, 148, 199;
battles in, 141, 143-145, 164, 167, 176-178, 180-182, 187, 223-225,
272;
Spanish cities of, 145, 151, 154, 155;
at war with Araucanians, 147, 206;
the colonial period in, 148-155;
immigration into, 149, 156, 199, 203;
growth of commerce in, 148, 152, 154, 158, 162, 199, 200, 203, 230;
smuggling in, 152;
taxation in, 152, 158;
prosperity of, 154-156, 158, 203, 208, 216;
universities in, 154, 198;
the capital of, 154, 158;
seismic disturbances in, 154;
Cuyo separates from, 155;
landed aristocracy of, 158, 159, 162, 189, 201;
liberal reforms in, 162, 168, 200, 206-208, 214-217;
slavery abolished in, 162;
Spanish authority re-established in, 163, 166, 168, 316;
independence of, proclaimed, 176;
civil wars in, 189 _et seq._, 200-203, 215-226;
constitutions of, 193, 196, 206;
strong government established in, 196, 197, 271, 272;
qualifications for suffrage in, 196, 206;
becomes dominant power on Pacific coast, 198;
political conditions in, 198-203, 207, 214, 215, 227-229;
financial conditions of, 98, 200, 211-213;
religious conditions in, 199, 201;
adopts civil and criminal codes, 200, 207;
at war with Spain, 203, 204, 337;
debt of, 208;
boundary treaty of, with Argentina, 209, 210;
boundary disputes with Argentina, 209, 210, 230, 231;
chief exports of, 211;
paper money issued in, 212;
under jurisdiction of Buenos Aires, 251
Chilean (city), 145, 151, 164
Chiloë Islands, the, explored, 143, 149, 188, 192, 197
Chimilas Mountains, 410
Chincha Islands, the, seized by Spain, 112, 203
Chinchon, Countess of, cure of, 70
Chinese coolies in Peru, 111
Chiquitos Indians, the, 245, 250
Chocolate, Europe indebted to Peru for, 66;
Ecuador supplies large amount of, 332
Chorrillos (city), 125
Coal mines, 208
Cochabamba (city), 243, 249, 258
Cochrane, Lord Thomas, Admiral, 79-83, 186-188, 190
_Cochrane_, the, 119-121
Cocoa palm introduced into South America, 66
Coffee-raising, 341, 390, 395
Colombia (New Granada), plateau of, 13, 312, 406, 410, 414, 419;
Spanish exploration of, 22, 347, 348, 403-406, 410-414;
native tribes of, 23, 406, 409, 410, 412-414, 416;
first permanent settlement in, 406, 416;
Spanish conquest of, 407-418;
revolutionary spirit in, 366, 430 _et seq._;
war of independence in, 86, 316, 317, 430-444;
formation of United States of, 98, 99, 318, 322, 378, 382, 461;
provinces in confederation of, 98, 99, 267, 318, 320-322, 337, 378,
443;
Bolivar, President of confederation of, 99, 322, 378, 442, 443, 448,
450, 451;
southern part under jurisdiction of Quito, 312;
Constitution of Cucutá, 322, 386;
confederation of, breaks up, 324, 388, 451, 452;
at war with Peru, 324;
civil wars in, 333, 337, 417, 450-458, 460, 470, 476, 481-485;
boundaries of, 403;
gold in, 404, 406-409, 412, 414, 416, 424;
cities founded in, 404-406, 408, 409, 413-416, 424;
climate of, 405, 406, 410, 422, 424, 425;
rainfall in, 405;
tropical forests of, 406;
fertility of, 406, 410, 412, 414, 420, 421;
Indian slavery in, 406, 416;
negro slaves in, 422, 425;
early civilisation of, 404, 409-412;
population of, 409, 410, 413, 422, 424;
territorial divisions of, 416;
royal commissioners sent to, 417, 427;
erected into a presidency, 418, 419;
jurisdiction of presidency, 419, 420;
colonial period of, 419-429;
names of, 419, 458, 459, 461;
education in, 420, 422, 454, 456, 461;
roads built in, 420, 428;
river transportation in, 420;
creoles of, 421, 422, 427, 428, 430, 431, 476;
agricultural products of, 421, 424, 428;
Antioquia, great mineral province of, 422;
commercial conditions in, 422, 425, 427, 428, 485;
taxation in, 422, 424, 427, 428, 481;
authors of, celebrated, 422;
mineral products of, 424;
Spanish colonial system in, 424, 427, 428, 431;
decrease in population of, 425;
smuggling in, 425;
religious conditions in, 425, 437, 455-458, 461, 462, 469, 470;
governors of, 425, 428, 437;
diseases rife in, 426;
"Rebellion of the Communes" in, 427;
viceroys of, 428, 430, 431;
exports of, 428, 464;
claim of, to Central America, 429;
Congress of, 432, 433, 437, 439;
battles in, 433, 437, 439, 441, 443, 461, 462, 467, 482;
independence of, recognised, 442, 446;
financial conditions in, 446, 447, 455, 463-466, 468, 472, 485;
public debt of, 446, 447, 468, 469, 478, 479;
credit of, 447;
liberty of the Press in, 450, 457;
numerous constitutions of, 452, 455, 457, 460-462, 468, 469, 475,
478, 480;
political conditions in, 454-462, 465, 469, 476, 480, 481;
right of suffrage in, 454, 459-461, 469;
steam navigation introduced into, 455;
death penalty abolished, 456, 461;
campaign of, against Ecuador, 462;
power of judiciary in, 462, 469;
receipts from Panama railway, 464;
franchise of railway extended, 465;
becomes a consolidated republic, 468, 469, 479;
name changed to Republic of, 468, 480;
length of presidential term in, 469, 481;
paper currency in, 470, 478, 485;
negotiates treaties with United States, 470;
rejects treaties, 471, 485, 486;
Panama declares her independence of, 471;
threatens war against United States, 472;
future of, 472;
appeals to United States, 480;
demands of, in regard to Panama Canal, 485, 486
Colombian army, the, 98, 267, 323, 326, 337
Colon (city), 405;
burned, 480;
captured, 485;
adheres to Panama, 488
Colonia (city), 152
Columbus, Bartholomew, 404
Columbus, Christopher, 347, 348
Concepcion, founded, 139, 140, 142, 151;
burned, 145;
destroyed by tidal wave, 154;
patriots capture, 164;
southern capital of Chile, 191
Concordat signed by Ecuador, 337
"Conquistadores," the, 50, 56, 424
Copiapo, valley of, 137;
mines of, 199
Copper, 8, 117, 211, 238, 239
Copper-pan amalgamation process, 241
Coquimbo, founded, 138;
northern capital of Chile, 151, 190
Cordero, Luis, President of Ecuador, 340, 341
Cordilleras, the, 4, 11, 33, 259, 286, 290, 376, 408
Cordoba, General, 387, 451
Cordoba, Gonzalo de, 21
Coro (city), 348-350, 360, 361, 406, 413, 420
Corregidors, 60, 64, 69, 243, 248, 249;
abolished, 72, 254
"Corregimentos," 64
Cortes, Hernando, conqueror of Mexico, 22, 26, 44, 407
Cortes, the Spanish, 166,436
Cotopaxi, eruption of, 298
Cotton, 3, 8, 111, 113, 238, 412
Council of the Indies, 304
_Covadonga_, the, 119
Coya (city), 145
Creoles, 65, 66, 243, 279, 308, 310, 421;
growth of revolutionary ideas among, 72, 74, 77, 84, 159, 160, 257,
311, 312, 338, 359-362, 388, 430;
characteristics of, 272, 273, 357, 396, 422;
education among, 307, 309, 310, 336, 353, 384;
new race of, 354
Crespo, President of Venezuela, 396
Croix, General Theodore de, 72
Cuaspud, battle of, 337, 462
Cuba, captain-general of, 429
Cubagua, island of, 348
Cucutá (city), 382;
Colombian Congress meets at, 443, 448
Cucutá, constitution of, 322, 443
Cuenca (city), 100
Cuenca (province), 291, 298, 312, 314, 323, 324, 327;
plateau of, 288, 307, 308
Cumaná, oldest city in South America, 348, 351, 383
Cumaná (province), 356, 362;
transferred to jurisdiction of Venezuela, 426
Cundinamarca, State of, 465 467, 469
Cuyo (province), 78, 149;
separation of, from Chile, 155
Cuzco, plateau of, 3, 4, 9
Cuzco (city), Inca capital, 5, 12, 18, 19, 32, 33, 59, 63, 103, 108,
291, 295;
military road from, 9, 18, 28;
possessed by Spanish, 32-36, 39, 238, 258
D
Darien, gold-mines of, 22;
Gulf of, 403, 404
Daza, General, 278
De Lesseps, Ferdinand, 482
Drake, Sir Francis, 428
Ducasse captures Cartagena, 428
Duchisela, long reign of, 288
E
Earthquake, of 1751, 154;
of 1812, 363
Echenique, General, President of Peru, 109, 110
Ecuador, Cara conquest of, 11-13, 286-288;
Inca conquest of, 12, 13, 17, 24, 288, 291-296;
character of inhabitants of, 24, 27, 286, 287, 289, 307, 342, 343,
357, 409;
gold and silver in, 27, 53, 307;
military roads in, 12, 28, 307, 336;
Spanish conquest of, 58, 67, 297 _et seq._;
Inca cities in, 59;
war of independence in, 76, 86, 309 _et seq._, 437;
incorporation of, with Colombia, 98, 267, 318, 320-322, 443;
the founder of, 101, 327;
description of, 285-287, 290, 291;
climate of, 285, 290;
fertility of, 286, 290, 341-343;
taxation in, 301, 307, 328, 336;
area of, 302, 303;
population of, 302, 303, 342, 343;
European grains and fruits introduced into, 303, 308;
cacao industry of, 303, 328, 332, 341;
Catholic Church in, 305, 306, 309, 337;
education in, 307, 309;
the capital of, 307;
decrease in population of, 307, 308, 328;
negro slavery in, 307;
presidency of Quito erected, 308, 321, 323, 324, 326, 327;
under jurisdiction of New Granada, 308;
audiencia established in, 308;
junta appointed in, 313, 314;
open cabildo summoned, 313;
battles in, 293, 298, 316, 318, 324;
independence of, declared, 324, 452;
named, 324;
treaty of, with Colombia, 327;
civil war in, 328, 329, 337-341, 451;
civil and constitutional government in, 329;
reforms in government of, 330, 331, 336;
financial conditions of, 31, 336;
second South American republic recognised by Spain, 331;
prosperity of, 332;
numerous constitutions of, 333-335, 339;
railways of, 342;
manual industries of, 342;
future of, 342, 343;
under jurisdiction of Bogotá, 426;
Colombian campaign against, 462
Eldorado, 241, 349
Elephantiasis, 426
Elias, Campo, patriot leader, 368, 369
Emeralds, 27, 412, 417, 424
Encalada, Blanco, 80
Encomiendas, system of agricultural, 38, 46, 53, 65, 240, 242;
abolished, 50, 51, 243, 417
England, granted privilege of exporting negroes to South America, 70;
war between Spain and, 158;
fleet of, destroys Venezuelan navy, 398;
recognises independence of Colombia, 446
Errazuriz, President of Chile, 207, 228
_Esmeralda_, the, capture of, 82, 119;
sale of, to Japan, 340
España, creole leader, 359, 360
Estremadura (province), 21, 26
F
Falcon, General, 391-394
Federmann, explorer, 414
Ferdinand VII. of Spain,
deposition and imprisonment of, 159, 311, 312, 360, 365, 370, 380;
restoration of, 435
Fernandez, conspiracy of, 276
Flores, Antonio, President of Ecuador, 340
Flores, General, the founder of Ecuador, 101, 323, 324, 326-329, 333,
451
France, war between Spain and, 152, 256, 311, 312;
recognises republic of Panama, 488
Franciscans, the, 68
Freire, General, 104, 191-194, 197
French scientists in Quito, 309
Fruits introduced into South America, 66, 151, 303, 308
G
Gallo heads insurrection, 202
Gamarra, General, Dictator of Peru, 101-105, 270
Garrapata, battle of, 467
Gasca, Pedro de la, 54, 56, 57, 301
Gatajo, battle of, 341
Gauchos, 171, 261, 438
Gavilan, battle of, 172
Goajira, peninsula of, 348, 403, 404
Goats, 66
Gold, Spain's desire for, 26, 35, 53, 65, 66, 69, 241, 352;
in Bolivia, 240, 246, 247;
in Chile, 136, 138, 144;
in Colombia, 404, 406-409, 412, 414, 416, 424;
in Ecuador, 27, 53, 299, 307;
in Peru, 25, 27, 32, 36;
in Venezuela, 352
Goyeneche, General, 257, 361
Grains introduced into South America, 66, 151
Grapes, 66;
cultivation of, forbidden, 159
Grau, Miguel, Admiral, 119-121
Great Britain, action of foreign office in regard to Bolivia, 275;
threatened rupture between United States and, 398;
abandons Isthmian colony, 429.
_See also_ England.
Gröningen, victory of, 62
Guaicaipuro, Indian chief, 350
Gual, creole leader, 359, 360
Gual, Pedro, 391
Guamanga, founded, 44, 49, 50, 60, 106, 126;
battle at, 49, 50
Guano deposits, 109, 113, 114, 116, 127, 128, 206, 210
Guarany, Indians, the, 249;
language, 306
Guatamala, 39, 298
Guayaquil (city), founded, 299;
best port on Pacific coast of South America, 86, 101, 105, 299, 323,
324, 326, 335;
population and wealth of, 328, 332, 341
Guayaquil (province), 312, 314, 317, 327, 444;
cultivation of cacao and sugar-cane in, 308
Guayaquil, Gulf of, 12, 20, 25, 27, 285, 341
Guiana (province), under jurisdiction of Bogotá, 356;
transferred to jurisdiction of Venezuela, 361, 426
Guiana, British, 398
Guipuzcoa Company, the, 354-356, 358
Gutierrez brothers, the, 114, 116
Gutierrez, President of Colombia, 465
H
Hague international tribunal, the, 399
Hayti, Bolivar flees to, 372;
gold placers of, 404, 406
Heath, explorer, 278
Heredia founds Cartagena, 406, 408
Herran, General, President of New Granada, 454, 455, 458
Herrera, General, 103, 485
Hides, exportation of, 354, 428
Honda (city), 420
Honduras, 403
Horses, 20, 27, 39, 66, 243, 261
Huacho, San Martin lands at, 81
Huaina Capac, Inca emperor, campaign of, 12;
conquest of Quito by, 12-14, 18, 292-294, 308;
death of, 14, 295
Hualcopo, Cara shiri, 290-292, 295
Huanacabamba (province), 288
Huanca, Auqui, 17
Huanchaca, mines of, 278
Huaqui, battle of, 170, 256, 257
Huascar, Inca empire divided between Atahuallpa and, 14;
fratricidal war between Atahuallpa and, 16-19, 238, 295, 296;
execution of, 31
_Huascar_, the, 119-121, 212
Humachiri, battle of, 259
"Husares de la Muerte," cavalry corps, 182
I
Ibague (city), 416
Ibarra, 287, 293
Iglesias, President of Chile, 126, 127
Immigrants, into Peru, 111, 149;
into Chile, 156, 203;
into Ecuador, 307
Imperial (city), founded, 140;
besieged, 142, 145, 146
Inca Indians, the, home of, 3, 4;
civilisation of, 3, 24, 25, 236, 290, 412;
migration of, 4
Incas, language of, 4, 10, 13;
religion of, 5, 13;
social and industrial organisation of, 5, 6, 10, 59, 249, 289, 295;
capital of, 5, 12, 18, 19, 32-35, etc.;
emperors of, 5, 6, 8-10, 12, 14, 16, 28-32, 34-38, 40, 61, 62;
death of last emperor of, 63;
conquests of, 6, 8-19, 236, 288 _et seq._;
irrigation system of, 6, 10, 25, 59;
empire of, 8, 9, 11, 13, 22, 292-294;
military roads built by, 9, 10, 12, 28, 29, 38, 59, 239, 244, 251,
307;
armies of, 11, 18, 19, etc., 237;
Spanish conquest of, 20-40, 297;
population of, 25, 65, 244, 303;
reduced to slavery, 38, etc., 242-244, 348;
cities built by, 20, 38, 44, 59, 60, 240
_Independencia_, the, 119, 212
Indians of South America,
the, early civilisation of, 3, 4, 236, 286, 289, 410, 412;
various tribes of, 3, 5, 8-14, 23, 59, 135, 238, 245, 286-289, 292,
293, 350, 405, 410, 413;
language of, 4, 9, 10, 11, 136, 238, 306;
characteristics of, 24, 25, 77, 136, 249, 252, 253, 289, 303, 307,
421, 422;
conquered by Spanish, 24, 25, 27-40;
oppression and slavery of, 38, 58, 59, 63-65, 68, 69, 242-244, 253,
254, 348, 406, 416, 422, 425-428;
rebellions of, 38-40, 72, 77, 251, 253, 254, 258, 259;
Spanish legislation in behalf of, 57, 243, 254, 417;
impressment of, 64, 69, 242, 253, 416, 425;
missions established among, 151, 244, 250, 306, 352
Indigo, 303
Inquisition established, in Peru, 69;
in Colombia, 437
Ipecacuanha, Europe indebted to Peru for, 66
Iquique, Peruvian port, 119, 122
Iquitos (city), 114
Irish mercenaries in Bolivar's army, 376, 380
Irrigation in South America, 6, 10, 25, 59, 135
J
Jauja (city), 54, 60, 84, 89, 92-94
Jauja, valley of the, 9, 18, 33, 35, 36, 39, 44, 49
Jemappes, battle of, 359
Jesuits, in Bolivia, 245, 279;
in Colombia, 455, 461;
in Ecuador, 309, 334, 337;
in Peru, 68, 71, 309
Jiron, Governor of New Granada, 425
Jubones, plateau of, 288, 291
Juncal, battle of, 372
Junin, battle of, 93, 321
Jurisprudence, Spanish system of, in South America, 66, 200, 304
K
Koerner, Colonel, 223, 225
L
La Donjuana, battle of, 467
La Fuente, Dictator of Peru, 102, 106
La Guaira, 350, 356, 359, 369
La Mar, General, President of Peru, 100, 101, 324
La Palma, battle of, 110
La Paz, founded, 60, 241, 249;
spirit of independence in, 76, 77, 257, 260, 361
La Puerta, decisive battles of, 369, 375
Lara, General, deported, 99
Las Casas, famous book of, 50, 59
La Serna, General, Viceroy of Peru, 84, 91;
army of, 93-95, 261, 264
Las Heras, patriot commander, 171, 172, 177, 181
Lastra, General, 194
Las Trincheiras, 368
Latacunga, valley of, 287, 292, 293
La Torre, General, 374, 380, 381
Lautaro, Araucanian chief, 141, 142
Leiva founded, 420
Leon, creole leader, 355
Leprosy, 426
Lima (city), founded by Pizarro, 36, 46, 60;
Incas attempt to take, 39, 42;
Pizarro in, 46, 52;
political, social, and commercial centre of South America, 67, 71;
viceroyalty of Peru established at, 50, 60, 67, 70, 71, 142, 148,
304, 426;
jurisdiction of, 67, 250, 251, 304, 308;
earthquakes in, 71;
revolutionary spirit in, 73, 75, 76, 81-84, 317;
evacuated by the Spaniards, 84, 89;
Bolivar at, 99, 321, 323;
insurrections in, 114, 116, 131;
Chilian army captures, 125, 126, 213;
public library of, destroyed, 126
Linares, Doctor, 275, 276
Linnæus names chinchona, 70
Lircay, victory at, 194
Llamas, 3, 4, 150, 238
Llaneros, the, origin of, 354, 424;
cavalry troops of, organised, 368;
valour of, 369, 371-374, 376-378, 381, 382, 385, 389, 431, 434, 438,
439, 450
Llanos, 354, 368, 372, 375, 377, 406, 413, 437, 440
Loja (city), built by Spaniards, 60
Loja (province), 101, 288, 291, 298, 307, 338
Loncomilla, battle of, 200
Lopez, General, President of Colombia, 452, 455, 457
Lopez, tyrant of Paraguay, 248, 465
Los Andes, 396
Louis XIV. and war of Spanish Succession, 152
Loyola, founder of Jesuit order, 245
Lugo, adelantado, 414, 417
Luque, partner of Pizarro, 23
M
MacGregor captures Barcelona, 372
Madeira Falls, the, 280
Madeira River, the, 244, 246, 278-281
Madrid, Pizarro goes to, 25;
legislation at, in behalf of Indians, 50, 417;
commissions from, 58;
revenue sent to, 69;
government, 70, 147, 309, 418;
French king on throne of, 152
Madrid, Dictator of Colombia, 437
Magdalena River, the, 366, 380, 406, 408-410, 412-414 _et passim_;
named, 403;
Valley, 312, 381
Magdalena, State of, 463, 466, 468, 480
Magellan, Straits of, 69, 140, 209
Maipo, battle of, 79, 179-182
Maize, 3, 4, 8, 39, 238, 248, 290, 303, 352;
Europe indebted to Peru for, 66
Mallarino, President of New Granada, 458
Manabi, 292, 293
Manaos, 280
Manco Capac, first Inca sovereign, 5, 6
Manco Capac, brother of Huascar, 34, 38-41
Manso, Governor, 154
Maracaibo Bay, 406, 409, 441
Maracaibo (city), sack of, 354;
refused to bend delegates to Caracas, 361
Maracaibo, Gulf of, 347, 348, 351, 403, 406
Maracaibo, Lake, 351, 383
Maracaibo (province), under jurisdiction of Bogotá, 356, 426;
transferred to jurisdiction of Venezuela, 356, 426;
revolt in, 380;
separated from Caracas, 392
Marco, General, 170
Margarita, Island of, 348, 367, 426
Margarita (province), 362
Mariño, Dictator of Venezuela, 367, 369, 370, 378, 389
Marquez, President of New Granada, 454
Marroquin, President of Colombia, 469, 470, 484
Martin, Alonso, 405
Maturin captured, 367
Maule River, the, 11, 135, 136, 138, 142, 145, 164, 166
Medina Celi joins patriots, 264, 265
Melgarejo, Dictator of Bolivia, 276, 277
Mello, Geronimo, explores Magdalena River, 414
Melo, General, 458
Mendoza, Andre Hurtado de,
Marquis of Cañete, "the good viceroy," 57, 58, 60, 142;
death of, 61
Mendoza, Garcia de, campaign of, 142, 143;
founds Cañete, 143
Mendoza (province), 140, 149
Menendez, President of Peru, 107
Mercury, 69
Merida (city), founded, 350;
destroyed by earthquake, 363
Merida (province), 362, 363, 366
Meta River, the, 377
Meuqueta, zipa of, 412
Mexico, 22, 39, 290
Miranda, Francisco, patriot leader, 359, 360, 362, 363
Mississippi River, the, 27
"Mitta," 64, 65
Mocha, 293, 316
Mochica language, the, 11
Mojos Indians, the, 245, 250, 279
Molina, Governor of Ecuador, 315
Mollendo railroad, the, 54, 277
Monagas, President of Venezuela, 388, 390
Monteagudo, Dr., 182
Montes, General, 316
Monteverde, General, 363, 364, 367, 368, 370
Montilla, General, 381
Montt, Jorge, President of Chile, 220, 227
Montt, Manuel, President of Chile, 199-201;
proclaims martial law, 201
Montt, Pedro, 228
Montufar, Carlos, 314
Montufar, Juan, 313
Moquegua, 124
Morales, General, 277, 370, 372, 383
Moreno, Garcia, President of Ecuador,
long administration of, 335-339, 462;
character of, 336
Morgan, sacked Maracaibo, 354
Morillo, Marshal, in Venezuela, 370-372, 436-439;
report of, 375;
resigns, 380
Mosquera, Tomas, President of Columbia, 452, 454, 455, 458, 460-464
Mosquito Coast, the, 419
Munecas, priest, 259
Murillo, President of Colombia, 459, 462, 466
N
Napo River, the, 300
Napoleon. _See_ Bonaparte
Nariño, Dictator of Colombia, 431, 432, 434
Narvarte, Doctor, 390
Naxichi, battle at, 16
Negroes, 70, 273, 351, 352, 357, 394, 416, 422, 425
Neiva (city), 416
Neiva, President of New Granada, 420
New Granada, captain-general of, subject to viceroy of Peru, 67;
viceroyalty of, created, 71, 308, 312, 426;
jurisdiction of, 420;
revolutionary junta installed in, 76;
war of independence in, 86, 98, 101, 261, 312, 317, 318, 320, 322,
326, 370, 435, 442;
provinces in Colombian confederation, 376, 443;
opposition to Bolivar's government in, 385, 387;
recognises independence of Venezuela and Ecuador, 388, 452;
name of, extended to presidency of Bogotá, 419;
influence of first president of, 452, 454;
army of, 452, 458;
constitution of 1832, 452, 455, 457;
name of, changed, 458, 459, 461.
_See also_ Colombia.
"New Laws," the, 51, 54, 57, 59
Nicaragua, 27, 403;
Canal, 485
Nicuesa, Diego de, 404, 405
Nieto, Dictator of Peru, 102
Nitrates, 113, 114, 117, 277;
extent of region, 117, 206;
taxed, 118, 211
Noboa, Diego, 334
Nombre de Dios founded, 405
"Nudos," 4, 8, 287, 291, 292
Nuñez, Rafael, President of Colombia, 468;
political ideas of, 478-480;
death of, 481
O
Oats, 66
Obando, General, President of New Granada, 452, 454, 457, 458
Ocana (city), captured, 366, 433;
national assembly held at, 385, 448;
founded, 420;
battle near, 437
Ocumare, 359, 372
O'Higgins, Ambrose, career of, 156, 158
O'Higgins, Bernardo, gallantry of, 164;
saves Santiago, 166;
defeated, 167;
dictator, 171, 173, 181, 182, 190;
resignation of, 191
Ojeda, Alonso de, explorations of, 22, 403;
names Venezuela, 347, 348
Olañeta, renegade Argentine, 91;
death of, 97, 263-265
Olives, 66, 159, 352
Opon River, the, 410
Oranges, 66
Oratorio, battle of, 460
Orbegoso, Dictator of Peru, 102-105
Ordoñez, General, 171
O'Reilly, General, 81
Orellana, discoverer of the Amazon, 44, 300;
refounds Guayaquil, 299
Orinoco, River, the, 78, 348, 355, 356, 374, 377, 442;
plains, 354, 367, 424, 441;
valley, 442
Orton River, the, 279
Oruro, silver mines of, 242, 249, 266, 277
Osorio, General, re-establishes Spanish authority in Chile, 167, 168;
defeated by San Martin, 174, 176-181
Osorno, founded, 143; besieged, 145, 146
Ospina, President of New Granada, 459-461
Otavalo, capture of, 293, 294
P
Pacamdré Indians, the, 293
Pachacutec, _See_ Yupanqui.
Pacheco, President of Bolivia, 278
Pacific Ocean, the, discovery of, 22, 404, 405
Padilla, patriot leader, 258, 260
Paez, José Antonio,
patriot leader, 79, 371, 372, 375, 377, 380, 381, 385, 387;
Dictator and President of Venezuela, 389-391, 447, 450
Paillamachu, Araucanian chief, 144-146
Paita (city), 28
Paita (province), 285, 288, 289
Pampas, 78, 99, 149
Pampas River, the, 94
Pamplona, revolutionary junta in, 431
Pamplona (province), 349, 366, 411, 416, 419, 437
Panama (city), founded, 22, 23-25, 298, 341, 412;
Pizarro sends to, for aid, 39;
pan-American Congress at, 323
Panama Canal, the, 470-472, 482, 485-489
Panama, Gulf of, 27
Panama hats, manufacture of, 342
Panama, Isthmus of (province), 22, 23, 27, 69, 352, 404, 405, 417,
419, 420, 429, 432, 470
Panama (province), audiencia of, 420, 426;
joins Colombian confederation, 443;
rebels against Colombia, 454
Panama railway, the, 455, 480, 484, 488;
receipts from, 464, 470
Panama, State of, 461, 463,466, 469, 470;
Colombian misrule in, 471, 478, 480, 481, 487;
declares independence, 471, 488;
republic of, recognised, 471, 488;
neutrality and free transit guaranteed to, by treaty of 1846, 480,
487, 488;
insurrections in, 484;
provisional government in, 488;
canal treaty with United States, 488, 489
Pando, José Manuel, President of Bolivia, 280
Paraguay, 67, 71, 248, 357
Paraguay River, the, 280
Paraná River, the, 249
Pardo, Don Manuel, first civilian President of Peru, 114, 116;
aristocratic party founded by, 131
Parra, President of Colombia, 466
Pasco, 92
Pasto (city) founded, 409, 413
Pasto (province), 49, 312, 314, 316, 324;
part of presidency of Quito, 326, 327, 420;
high tableland of, 409, 414, 424, 454;
loyal to Spain, 432-434, 442, 444;
rebellion in, 451
Paul, Rojas, 396
Paya Pass, the, 377
Peaches, 66
Pearl fisheries, 348
"Pelucones," 192
Peons, impressment of, 394-396
Perez, President of Chile, 202, 206
Perez, Santiago, President of Colombia, 466
Peru, early inhabitants of, 3, 4, 357;
antiquity of civilisation in, 3;
fertility of, 4, 8, 41, 44, 80;
climate of, 4, 285;
Inca empire established in, 5-20, 296;
system of irrigation in, 5, 6, 10;
copper mines of, 8, 117;
military roads in, 9, 10, 12, 28, 33, 36, 38, 59;
battles in, 11, 13, 16, 17, 19, 39, 43, 50, 56, 78, 88, 92, 93, 96,
97, 101, 105, 107, 110, 124, 125, 213, 272, 324;
Inca cities of, 20, 59, 60;
Spanish conquest of, 20-40, 58, 67, 297;
mineral wealth of, 24, 25, 27, 32, 36, 53, 65, 66, 69, 109, 113,
114, 116, 127, 128;
extent of, 28, 41, 44, 58, 67, 71;
Spanish cities in, 36, 44, 59, 60;
Indian rebellions in, 38, 72, 77;
governors of, 44, 49, 50, 52;
viceroyalty of, _see_ Lima;
viceroys of, 50-52, 58, 60-63, 70, 72, 74, 78-80, 82, 84, 261, 301,
304, 308;
slavery prohibited in, 50, 57, 111;
industrial development of, 53, 108, 111, 113, 114, 127-129, 132;
revenue to Spain from, 53, 60, 64-66, 69, 77;
civil wars in, 57, 99-103, 106-108, 110, 113, 127;
Spanish colonial system established in, 61-66;
taxation in, 64, 66, 69, 109;
population of, 65;
university in, 67;
Spanish language in, 68;
religious conditions in, 68, 69, 132;
discovery of virtues of quinine, 70;
earthquakes in, 71;
Jesuits expelled from, 71;
creoles of, 72, 74, 76, 77, 84, 110, 123, 130;
revolutionary spirit in, 72-76, 81, 82;
navy of, 78, 101, 104, 109, 118, 197, 325;
war of independence in, 80-97, 185, 186, 261, 316;
Spaniards evacuate capital of, 84;
proclaimed a republic, 85;
financial conditions in, 89, 110, 114, 115, 130, 132;
congress of, 98, 99;
Bolivar, Dictator of, 98, 322, 447;
Bolivarian constitution imposed on, 99, 322;
revolts from Bolivar's government, 99-101, 270, 323, 324, 448;
state of anarchy in, 101-103;
further constitutions of, 102, 111;
at war with Chile, 104, 119-125, 190, 197, 198;
capital of, captured by Chileans, 125, 126, 212, 213;
at war with Bolivia, 104, 273;
treaty of peace with Bolivia, 105;
commerce in, 108;
railways in, 109, 113, 122, 128;
debt of, 109, 114, 128;
insurrections in, 110, 113, 114, 116, 123, 130-132;
immigration into, encouraged, 111;
treaty of alliance with Chile, against Spain, 112;
naval battles of, 112, 119-121, 212;
at war with Spain, 112, 203, 204, 337;
revenue from nitrates, 113, 114;
first civilian president of, 114;
guano deposits of, 116, 127, 128;
currency of, 116;
treaty of alliance with Bolivia, 118, 119;
nitrate region owned by, 117, 119, 121, 122, 212;
loses nitrate province, 123, 125;
losses of, in Chilean war, 125, 127;
mediation of United States between Chile and, 125;
treaty of peace with Chile, 127;
reorganisation of, 128;
British creditors of, 128;
rubber industry in, 129;
political conditions in, 130-132;
hopeful signs of the times for, 131;
cause of revolutions in, 132;
Upper, formed into republic of Bolivia, 240, 266-268;
re-establishes independent existence, 272;
at war with Colombia, 324, 451;
surrenders southern provinces, 324
Peru-Bolivian Confederation, the, 101-103, 105, 197, 197, 270-273, 281
Peruvian bonds, 114, 116
Peruvian Corporation, the, 128, 129
Pezet, President of Peru, 111, 112
Pezuela, General, 82, 260
Philip II. of Spain, 53, 54, 61
Piar, negro chief, 372, 374
Pichincha, battle of, 86, 444
Pierola, General, 116, 123, 126, 130;
President of Peru, 131
Pigeons, 66
Pigs, 66
Pinto, Anibal, President of Chile, 209, 213
Pinto, General, President of Chile, 193
"Pipiolas," 192
Pisagua captured, 122
Pisco, 80, 81
Piura (city) founded, 60, 297
Piura (province), 288
Piura, valley of, 291
Pizarro, Francisco, the conqueror of Peru, early life of, 21, 22;
with Ojeda and Balboa, 22, 404, 405;
partners of, 23;
failure of first exploring expedition, 23;
second expedition of, 23-25;
authorised by Charles V. to conquer Peru, 25, 26;
third expedition of, 26, 27;
reinforced by de Soto, 27;
lands in northern Peru, 27, 28, 297;
meets Inca emperor, 29;
treachery of, 28-34, 238;
establishes Spanish government, 35, 44;
founds cities, 36, 44;
territory awarded to, 36, 41;
crushes Indian rebellion, 38-40;
Almagro quarrels with, 41-43;
treachery of, towards Almagro, 42, 43, 48, 136, 239;
extends Spanish conquest throughout Inca empire, 44, 136, 240, 407,
408;
conspiracy against, 46;
murder of, 47-50, 300;
character of, 48
Pizarro, Gonzalo, valour of, 26, 56;
at siege of Cuzco, 38;
capture of, 42;
Governor of Quito, 44, 299-301;
Governor of Peru, 50-53, 240, 301;
defeat and death of, 56, 240, 301
Pizarro, Hernando, joins expedition to conquer Peru, 26, 38;
capture and release of, 42, 43;
capture and death of Almagro by, 43, 136;
develops mining industry of Bolivia, 44;
establishes feudal lordships, 239, 240
Pizarro, Juan, 26, 38
Plantain introduced into Ecuador, 303, 308
Plate provinces, the, 71
Plate River, the, 67, 245, 251;
Valley, 155, 236
Platinum, 424
Plaza, Leonidas, President of Ecuador, 341
Poll-taxes, 64, 243, 427
Popayán (city) founded, 409
Popayán (province), 49, 53, 301, 312, 314, 408, 409, 417, 424, 432,
433, 444, 454;
part of presidency of Quito, 324-327, 420;
lost to Ecuador, 327
Portales, Chilean statesman, 194, 196, 197;
death of, 197, 198
Porto Bello captured, 429
Portuguese, the, 67, 261, 316
Potatoes, native to South America, 3, 4, 8, 238, 248, 287, 290, 303,
332, 343, 352;
introduced into Europe, 66
Potosí, silver mines of, 44, 53, 65, 99, 240, 241, 258;
yield of silver from, 278
Poultry introduced into South America, 66, 151
Prado, General, President of Peru, 112, 116, 123
Presidencies, 71, 418, 420, 426
Preston, Amyas, 351
Prieto, General, President of Chile, 194, 196-198
Printing-press, the, 245
Promancians, the, 138
Puerreyedon, Argentine dictator, 183
Puerto Cabello, 347, 359, 360, 366, 372;
British attacks on, 356;
captured by patriots, 382, 383, 385
Pumacagua, Indian leader, 77
Puna, bleak plateau of, 36, 236, 239, 268
Puna, island of, 27, 292
Puno, 97
Purus River, the, 280
Puzuela, General, Viceroy of Peru, 78
Q
Quartz mining in Bolivia, 246
Quesada, Jimenez de, conquest of, 410, 412-414;
founds Bogotá, 413;
exiled, 417;
names New Granada, 419
Quiapo, Spanish victory at, 144
Quichua language,
official medium of Inca empire, 9, 10, 238, 295, 306;
reduced to a written language, 306
Quicksilver, discovery of, in Peru, 241
Quillin, treaty of, 150
Quillota, 224
Quindio mountain range, 409, 411
Quinine, Europe indebted to Peru for, 66;
discovery of virtue of, 70;
origin of name, 70
Quinoa grain, the, native to South America, 3, 4, 238, 290, 303
Quintana, Dictator of Chile, 173, 174
Quinua, village of, 95
Quito (city), the Cara capital, 12, 307, 341;
Incas possess, 13, 14, 59, 238;
Spanish occupation of, 44, 49, 53, 406, 413, 416;
revolutionary spirit in, 76, 313, 314, 334, 335, 339, 383, 430, 432;
city of convents, 306;
population of, 307, 308;
French scientific monuments in, 309
Quito (province), Cara kingdom of, 11, 286-288;
the shiri of, 12, 14, 290;
Inca conquest of, 12, 18, 293, 294;
Spanish conquest of, 28, 36, 38, 299;
erected into a presidency, 71, 308, 309, 323, 324, 326, 327, 418,
426;
under jurisdiction of New Granada (Bogotá), 308, 420;
audiencia of, 308;
declared independent, 324;
provinces attached to presidency of, 420
Quizquiz, Indian general, 17;
defeats Huascar, 19, 20, 35, 238, 296;
defeated by Pizarro, 33, 34, 297
R
Rada, Juan de la, 46, 49
Railroads in Bolivia, 279, 280;
in Chile, 203;
in Peru, 54, 113, 277
Ramirez, Spanish general, 77, 78
Rancagua, battle of, 167-170
Reyes, General, President of Colombia, 471, 472
Reyes, Lake of, 92
Rice, 66, 303
Riesco, German, President of Chile, 228
Rimac, valley of the, 36
Riobamba, 12, 288, 292, 293, 298
Rio Negro, battle at, 457
Riva Aguëro, President of Peru, 76, 88, 89
Rivas, patriot commander, 370
Riveralta, 279, 280
Robledo, Jorge, 408
Robles, Colonel, 221
Robles, President of Ecuador, 334, 335
Roca, Ramon, President of Ecuador, 333
Rocafuerte, Vicente, President of Ecuador, 328-330;
wise administration of, 330-332
Romana, President of Peru, 131
Rosas, Doctor, Governor of Chile, 154;
title of, 154;
founds university, 154;
establishes radical junta, 162, 163
Rubber, forests, exploitation of, 129;
Bolivia furnishes large per cent. of, 280
S
Saenz, Manoela, 450
Sagamoso, valley of, 377
St. Vincent, battle of, 311
Salabarrieta, Policarpo ("La Pola"), fate of, 439
Salaverry, Dictator of Peru, 102, 103
Salgar, President of Colombia, 465
Salt, 353, 424
Salta, gauchos of, 259
Samano, General, 316, 433, 437, 439-441
Sanclemente, President of Colombia, 469, 482
San Felipe, university of, founded, 154
San Felix, battle of, 374
San Fernando, fortress of, 374, 375
San Francisco hill, battle at, 122
San Francisco, mining camp at, 350
San Juan, valley of, 149
San Luiz, valley of, 149
San Martin, General, equips "Army of the Andes," wins battle of
Chacabuco, and liberates Chile, 78, 168-171, 184, 261, 317;
creates a fleet, 79, 172-174, 183, 184;
raises armies for conquest of Peru, 80-82, 84, 171-174, 176, 178,
185, 186, 262;
proclaims independence of Peru, 85;
President of Peru, 85;
resigns presidency, 88, 263, 321;
famous interview of, with Bolivar, 86, 321;
declines governorship of Chile, 171;
defeat of, 176-173;
wins battle of Maipo, 179-181;
one of the greatest of South American patriots, 318
San Miguel founded by Spanish, 36, 297
San Roman, General, President of, Peru, 111
Santa Cruz (city), 249, 258, 279
Santa Cruz, General, commands Peruvian army, 88;
defeat of, 89, 90, 262, 263;
Dictator of Bolivia, 101, 102;
President of Peru-Bolivian Confederation, 103, 104, 197, 270, 271;
overthrow of, 105, 198, 272
Santa Maria, President of Chile, 213
Santa Marta (city), 326, 406, 414, 436
Santa Marta Mountains, 403
Santander, 442-444, 446-448;
first legal President of Colombia (New Granada), 450, 452;
title of, 454
Santander (city), "Rebellion of the Communes" in, 427
Santander, State of, 460, 461, 467
Santiago (city), 11, 126, 135, 142, 145, 186, 223-225;
revolutionary junta installed in, 76, 160, 161;
founded, 137;
discovery of gold near, 138;
population of, 151;
universities established in, 154, 198;
social centre of Chile, 158
Sarsaparilla, 303
Sayri Tupac, Inca emperor, 61, 62
Sebastian founded, 404
Segoria, battle of, 460
Seville junta, the, 314, 360, 362
Sheep introduced into South America, 66, 242, 243, 248
Shiris, the, of Quito, 12, 14, 16, 287-296
Silver, in Bolivia, 44, 239-242, 245, 246;
in Chile, 199, 208;
in Colombia, 424;
in Ecuador, 307;
in Peru, 24, 25, 53, 65, 66, 69, 117
Sinu River, the, 408
Slavery, Indian, 38, 69, 71, 242-244, 348, 406;
negro, 273, 394, 416, 422, 425
Smallpox, ravages of, 142, 426
Smuggling, 70, 71, 152, 251, 353, 354, 394, 425
Socorro (city), revolutionary junta in, 431, 432
Socorro, plateau province of, 312, 376, 413, 416, 437
Solar, Vice-President of Peru, 130
Sorata (city), the rival of Potosí, 246;
destroyed, 247
de Soto, Hernando, 27
Soublette, General, 390
South America, animals native to, 3, 4, 238;
tribes of, 4, 5, 9, 13, 66, 238, 248, etc.;
productions of, 3, 5, 8, 66, 70, 238, 303;
Spanish law in, 61, 66, 200, 253, 304;
animals introduced into, 66, 242, 243;
benefits to, from Spanish occupation, 66, 151, 303;
commerce except with Spain forbidden to, 66, 69-71, 152, 251, 355,
356;
Lima the political, commercial, and social centre of, 67;
negroes imported into, 70, 416;
spread of revolutionary ideas in, 73, 74, etc.;
character of revolution in, 84;
plan for constitutional monarchy in, 84;
success of wars of independence in, 97, 188, 265, 318, 322, 383;
Argentine preponderance among republics of, 155;
description of Andean plateau of, 235, 285;
theatre of the war of independence in, 255;
revolution in, saved from extinction, 258;
plan for one great confederacy in, 269, 322;
countries of, 322;
harbours of, 341;
oldest city of, 348;
first independent republic in, 362;
oldest fortress in, 407, 428, 436;
manner of founding Spanish cities in, 424
South Sea, the, 405
Spain, conquest of South America by, _see_ Peru, Chile, etc.;
royal commissioners sent from, 46, 49, 54, 417, 427;
colonial system of, 62 _et seq._, 70, 243, 307, 351-356, 424, 427,
428;
colonial government of, 57, 59, 249, 301, 303, 353;
commercial monopoly of, 66, 69-71, 152, 250, 251, 352-356, 424;
war of succession in, 70, 152, 159, 250, 256, 311, 312, 354, 360,
370;
at war with France, 77, 159, 256, 311, 312;
revolution in, 82, 359, 370, 430, 443;
at war with Peru and Chile, 111, 112, 203, 204, 337;
reforms in system of colonial government of, 154, 253, 254, 301,
349, 417;
at war with England, 158
Spanish, adventurers 21, 22, 26, 27, 53, 58, 67, 242, 300, 301, 348,
404, 407, 413, 414;
armies in South America, 29, 39, 50, 52, 80, 81, 141, 142, 144, 146,
147, 150, 155, 168, 170, 174, 181, 239, 253, 258-261, 263,
264, 298, 301, 315-318, 350, 366, 367, 371, 375, 376, 380,
413, 436, 437, 440, 443;
constitution, the, 370;
constitutional law, 304
Spanish crown, revenue of, from Peru, 32, 53, 60, 64-66, 69, 77;
from South America, 417, 425
Spanish fleet, 79, 80, 142, 174;
seizes Chincha Islands, 112, 203;
at Callao, 112, 186;
at Valparaiso, 204;
defeated, 360, 383;
at Cartagena, 436
Sucré (Charcas), 44
Sucré, General, Bolivar's great lieutenant, destroys Spanish army, 86;
takes Colombian army to Peru, 89, 264, 321;
wins battle of Ayachucho, 93-97, 266, 321, 322;
numbers and quality of army of, 95, 318;
first President of Bolivia, 99, 268, 322;
administration of, 269;
overthrow of, 270, 323;
wins battle of Pichincho, 318, 444;
murder of, 326, 452
Sugar-cane, introduced into South America, 66, 303;
cultivation of, 111, 113, 308, 352, 355, 390, 428
Sugar Loaf, the battle of, 105
Suipacha, battle of, 256, 257
Sun-god, worship of the, 5, 13, 298
T
Tacna (city), revolutionary expedition to, 82;
result of campaign, 123, 213
Tacna (province), 122, 123;
yielded to Chile, 127
Talca (city), captured, 166;
independence of Chile proclaimed at, 176
Talcahuano (city), 163, 164, 171, 174
Tambo, battle of, 316, 437
Tarapacá, province of Peru, 106;
nitrate deposits of, 212
Tarija (city), 249
Tarqui, decisive battle of, 324, 325
Taxation, 64, 66, 69, 118, 152, 158, 211, 243, 269, 270, 276, 301,
307, 328, 336, 353, 424
Teques Indians, the, 350
Tiocajas nudo, 291;
battles of, 291, 293, 294, 298
Titicaca, Lake, 8, 39, 54, 71, 78, 256, 258;
placer gold around, 240, 246;
Jesuit mission at, 245;
basin, 4, 11, 236, 239;
plateau, 8, 41, 99, 240;
copper and silver mines of, 8, 240
Titu Yupanqui, 62, 63
Toa, Cara Princess, 288
Tobacco, Europe indebted to Peru for, 66;
in Chile, 159;
in Colombia, 424, 427;
in Venezuela, 352, 353, 355
Tocaima (city), 416
Tocuyo founded, 349, 350
Toledo, Don Francisco de, founder of Spanish colonial system, 62-67;
arrives at Lima, 62;
puts to death last Inca emperor, 63;
_Libro de Tasas_ of, 63
Tolima, plateau of, 411, 419
Tolima, State of, 467
Tolu founded, 408
"Toquis," 139, 144, 150
Torata (city), 124
Torico, General, 106
Toro, Captain-General, 160, 161
Torres, Camilo, Dictator, 437
Trafalgar, battle of, 311
Treaties, 117, 118, 150, 151, 206, 209, 210, 280, 281, 327, 470, 471,
480, 485-489
Trinidad, Island of, captured by British, 356, 359
Trujillo, birthplace of Pizarro, 21
Trujillo (city) founded by Pizarro, 36, 60, 350
Trujillo, province of Venezuela, 362, 363, 366
Trujillo, President of Colombia, 468
Tucuman (province), subject to viceroyalty of Lima, 67;
attached to viceroyalty of Buenos Aires, 78;
thinly populated, 78;
cattle-raising in, 243;
subject to audiencia of Charcas, 250;
battle of, 258
Tumbez (city), 25, 53, 301;
Spaniards land at, 20, 28
Tumibamba, Huascar captured at, 20
Tumusla, 265
Tundama, plateau of, 413
Tunjá (city), founded, 414;
captured by Bolivar, 378
Tunjá (province), 312, 376, 377, 413, 416
Tupac Amaru, last Inca emperor, 62;
death of, 63
Tupac Amaru, lineal descendant of Inca emperors, 72, 251;
heads Indian rebellion, 72, 251, 252;
cruel death of, 72, 253
Tupac Yupanqui, Inca emperor,
conquests of, 10, 11, 14, 18, 135, 289-292, 295;
death of, 12, 292
U
Uira Cocha, Inca emperor, 8, 9
Ulloa, ----, 308
"Ulmens," 139, 150
Umachiri, battle of, 78
_Union_, the, 120, 123
United States, the, threatened rupture between Great Britain and, 398;
recognises independence of Colombia, 446;
undertakes Panama Canal, 470, 471, 482, 485;
negotiations of, with Colombia, 470, 471, 488;
appealed to by Colombia, 471, 480;
neutrality and free transit guaranteed to Panama by, 480, 487, 488;
Colombia rejects treaty with, 486, 487;
recognises republic of Panama, 488;
treaty of, with Panama ratified, 488, 489
United States of Colombia, the, 98, 99, 322, 378.
_See_ Colombia.
Universities, 67, 154, 198
Urbina, General, 334, 338
Urco, Inca emperor, 9
Urdaneta, General, 452
Uruguay in possession of Portuguese, 261, 316
V
Valdez, General, 88, 96, 262
Valdivia (city), besieged, 141, 142, 145;
taken by Dutch, 150;
size of, 151;
strength of, 171, 187;
possessed by Spanish, 171, 185;
captured by patriots, 187
Valdivia, Pedro de, conqueror of Chile, 43, 44, 137-139, 240;
cities founded by, 137, 139;
capture and death of, 141
Valencia, founded, 350;
loyal to Spain, 363, 364, 439;
patriots in, 367, 369, 372
Valmy, battle of, 359
Valparaiso (city), 104, 119, 120, 262, 285, 317, 341;
size of, 151;
bombarded, 204;
battle at, 223-225
Valparaiso Bay, 220
Valverde, Friar, 30
Varas, Chilean Minister, 200, 201
Vargas, Doctor, President of Venezuela, 389
Veintemilla, General, President of Ecuador, 339
Vela, Blasco Nuñez de, Viceroy of Peru, 50-53
Velez (city) founded, 410, 414
Venezuela, sighted by Columbus 347;
named, 348;
cities founded in, 348-350, 352;
colonisation of, 348;
governors of, 349, 426;
fertility of, 349, 350, 352, 395;
granted to Welser family, 349;
settlement of, 349-351;
savage tribes of, 350;
subject to viceroyalty of Lima, 67;
under jurisdiction of Bogotá and Caracas, 71, 356, 419, 426;
revolutionary spirit in, 76, 358-361, etc.;
revolts against Bolivar, 79, 101, 323, 378;
war of independence in, 86, 261, 316, 317, 362, 364, 366-370,
378-383, 388, 434, 437, 451, 452;
in Colombian confederation, 98, 322, 376, 378, 384, 443;
Bolivarian constitution of, 99, 385;
separates from confederation, 99, 324, 385, 387, 388, 451;
cattle-raising in, 345, 355, 395;
topography of, 351, 352;
negro labour in, 351, 352, 357;
agricultural products of, 352, 358, 390, 395;
exports from, 352, 390;
commercial conditions of, 352-358, 390-392, 395, 396, 398, 399;
gold placers of, 352;
taxation in, 353, 389, 391, 392, 395;
education in, 353;
trading posts in, 354;
made a captaincy-general, 355, 419;
captains-general of, 356, 360, 361;
boundaries of, fixed, 356;
population of, 357, 390;
characteristics of population of, 357, 358;
Bonaparte claims allegiance of, 360;
first independent republic of South America, 362;
constitution of 1811, 362;
financial conditions in, 362, 394-396, 398;
earthquake in, 363;
important battles of war of independence in, 369, 374, 375, 378,
381-383;
impoverished by wars, 384, 394;
constitution of 1831, 389, 391, 394;
civil wars in, 387-392, 396-398;
political conditions in, 389-392;
roads built in, 390;
bank established in, 390;
slavery abolished, 391;
liberty of the press permitted, 392;
religious conditions in, 392, 395;
smuggling in, 394;
stable currency of, 395;
railroads built in, 395, 396;
debt of, 396;
boundary dispute with British Guiana, 398;
foreign relations of, 398;
navy of, destroyed, 398;
progress of, 399;
provinces under jurisdiction of, 426
Vernon, Admiral, 428
Viceroyalties, of Bogotá, 71, 250, 356, 420, 426;
of Buenos Aires, 71, 251;
of Lima, 50, 67, 250, 375;
of Quito, 86, 418, 420
Vicuña, Claudio, President of Chile, 193, 194, 219, 226
Vicuñas, 238
Vidal, Dictator of Peru, 102, 106
Vilcabamba, 40, 61, 63
Vilcañota nudo, the, 4, 8
Villapugio, battle of, 170, 258
Villarica, gold-mines of, 144-146
Viluma, battle of, 256, 260
Vista Florida, Dictator of Peru, 102
Vivanco, Peruvian general, 106
W
Welser family, the, Venezuela granted to, 349
Wheat introduced into South America, 66, 151, 211, 303, 332, 343, 352,
421, 428
Wheelwright, William, establishes first Pacific steamship line, 198
Windward Islands, the, 347
Wool, 8
Y
Yahuarcocha Lake, 294
Yahuar Huaccac, Inca emperor, 8
Yngavi, decisive battle of, 105, 107, 273
Yucay, valley of, 61
Yungay, battle of, 105, 198, 272
Yupanqui, Inca emperor, 9
Z
Zaldua, President of Colombia, 479
Zaruma, plateau of, 288, 291
Zenufana (Antioquia), 407
* * * * *
The Story of the Nations.
In the story form the current of each National life is distinctly
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THE STORY OF THE NATIONS.
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THE JEWS. Prof. James K. Hosmer.
CHALDEA. Z. A. Ragozin.
GERMANY. S. Baring-Gould.
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SPAIN. Rev. E. E. and Susan Hale.
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A series of biographical studies of the lives and work of a number of
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HEROES OF THE NATIONS.
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PERICLES. By Evelyn Abbott.
THEODORIC THE GOTH. By Thomas Hodgkin.
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CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. By Washington Irving.
ROBERT THE BRUCE. By Sir Herbert Maxwell.
HANNIBAL. By W. O'Connor Morris.
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ROBERT E. LEE. By Henry Alexander White.
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SALADIN. By Stanley Lane-Poole.
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ALEXANDER THE GREAT. By Benjamin I. Wheeler.
CHARLEMAGNE. By H. W. C. Davis.
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MARLBOROUGH. By C. W. C. Oman.
RICHARD THE LION-HEARTED By T. A. Archer.
WILLIAM THE SILENT. By Ruth Putnam.
CHARLES THE BOLD. By Ruth Putnam.
GREGORY VII. By F. Urquhart.
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NEW YORK, LONDON.
* * * * *
Transcriber's note:
1. Passages in italics are surrounded by _underscores_.
2. Images have been moved from the middle of a paragraph to the closest
paragraph break.
3. Certain words use the oe-ligature in the original.
4. The punctuation in the idex was made consistent.
5. The following misprints have been corrected:
"COLUMBIA" corrected to "COLOMBIA" (page x)
"slaughterd" corrected to "slaughtered" (page 43)
"agressive" corrected to "aggressive" (page 286)
"recalcitant" corrected to "recalcitrant" (page 296)
"stategist" corrected to "strategist" (page 375)
"familes" corrected to "families" (page 422)
"succeded" corrected to "succeeded" (page 460)
"surborned" corrected to "suborned" (page 464)
"Gautemala" corrected to "Guatemala" (page 491)
"Bogatá" corrected to "Bogotá" (page 508)
6. Other than the corrections listed above, printer's inconsistencies
in spelling, punctuation, hyphenation, and ligature usage have been
retained.
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