Hispanic Nations of the New World Part 1

The Hispanic Nations of the New World.

by William R. Shepherd.

CHAPTER I. THE HERITAGE FROM SPAIN AND PORTUGAL

At the time of the American Revolution most of the New World still belonged to Spain and Portugal, whose captains and conquerors had been the first to come to its sh.o.r.es. Spain had the lion's share, but Portugal held Brazil, in itself a vast land of unsuspected resources. No empire mankind had ever yet known rivaled in size the illimitable domains of Spain and Portugal in the New World; and none displayed such remarkable contrasts in land and people. Boundless plains and forests, swamps and deserts, mighty mountain chains, torrential streams and majestic rivers, marked the surface of the country. This vast territory stretched from the temperate prairies west of the Mississippi down to the steaming lowlands of Central America, then up through tablelands in the southern continent to high plateaus, miles above sea level, where the sun blazed and the cold, dry air was hard to breathe, and then higher still to the lofty peaks of the Andes, clad in eternal snow or pouring fire and smoke from their summits in the clouds, and thence to the lower temperate valleys, gra.s.sy pampas, and undulating hills of the far south.

Scattered over these vast colonial domains in the Western World were somewhere between 12,000,000 and 19,000,000 people subject to Spain, and perhaps 3,000,000, to Portugal; the great majority of them were Indians and negroes, the latter predominating in the lands bordering on the Caribbean Sea and along the sh.o.r.es of Brazil. Possibly one-fourth of the inhabitants came of European stock, including not only Spaniards and their descendants but also the folk who spoke English in the Floridas and French in Louisiana.

During the centuries which had elapsed since the entry of the Spaniards and Portuguese into these regions an extraordinary fusion of races had taken place. White, red, and black had mingled to such an extent that the bulk of the settled population became half-caste. Only in the more temperate regions of the far north and south, where the aborigines were comparatively few or had disappeared altogether, did the whites remain racially distinct. Socially the Indian and the negro counted for little. They const.i.tuted the laboring cla.s.s on whom all the burdens fell and for whom advantages in the body politic were scant. Legally the Indian under Spanish rule stood on a footing of equality with his white fellows, and many a gifted native came to be reckoned a force in the community, though his social position remained a subordinate one. Most of the negroes were slaves and were more kindly treated by the Spaniards than by the Portuguese.

Though divided among themselves, the Europeans were everywhere politically dominant. The Spaniard was always an individualist. Besides, he often brought from the Old World petty provincial traditions which were intensified in the New. The inhabitants of towns, many of which had been founded quite independently of one another, knew little about their remote neighbors and often were quite willing to convert their ignorance into prejudice: The dweller in the uplands and the resident on the coast were wont to view each other with disfavor. The one was thought heavy and stupid, the other frivolous and lazy. Native Spaniards regarded the Creoles, or American born, as persons who had degenerated more or less by their contact with the aborigines and the wilderness. For their part, the Creoles looked upon the Spaniards as upstarts and intruders, whose sole claim to consideration lay in the privileges dispensed them by the home government. In testimony of this att.i.tude they coined for their oversea kindred numerous nicknames which were more expressive than complimentary. While the Creoles held most of the wealth and of the lower offices, the Spaniards enjoyed the perquisites and emoluments of the higher posts.

Though objects of disdain to both these masters, the Indians generally preferred the Spaniard to the Creole. The Spaniard represented a distant authority interested in the welfare of its humbler subjects and came less into actual daily contact with the natives. While it would hardly be correct to say that the Spaniard was viewed as a protector and the Creole as an oppressor, yet the aborigines unconsciously made some such hazy distinction if indeed they did not view all Europeans with suspicion and dislike. In Brazil the relation of cla.s.ses was much the same, except that here the native element was much less conspicuous as a social factor.

These distinctions were all the more accentuated by the absence both of other European peoples and of a definite middle cla.s.s of any race. Everywhere in the areas tenanted originally by Spaniards and Portuguese the European of alien stock was unwelcome, even though he obtained a grudging permission from the home governments to remain a colonist. In Brazil, owing to the close commercial connections between Great Britain and Portugal, foreigners were not so rigidly excluded as in Spanish America. The Spaniard was unwilling that lands so rich in natural treasures should be thrown open to exploitation by others, even if the newcomer professed the Catholic faith. The heretic was denied admission as a matter of course. Had the foreigner been allowed to enter, the risk of such exploitation doubtless would have been increased, but a middle cla.s.s might have arisen to weld the the discordant factions into a society which had common desires and aspirations. With the development of commerce and industry, with the growth of activities which bring men into touch with each other in everyday affairs, something like a solidarity of sentiment might have been awakened. In its absence the only bond among the dominant whites was their sense of superiority to the colored ma.s.ses beneath them.

Manual labor and trade had never attracted the Spaniards and the Portuguese. The army, the church, and the law were the three callings that offered the greatest opportunity for distinction. Agriculture, grazing, and mining they did not disdain, provided that superintendence and not actual work was the main requisite. The economic organization which the Spaniards and Portuguese established in America was naturally a more or less faithful reproduction of that to which they had been accustomed at home. Agriculture and grazing became the chief occupations. Domestic animals and many kinds of plants brought from Europe throve wonderfully in their new home. Huge estates were the rule; small farms, the exception. On the ranches and plantations vast droves of cattle, sheep, and horses were raised, as well as immense crops. Mining, once so much in vogue, had become an occupation of secondary importance.

On their estates the planter, the ranchman, and the mine owner lived like feudal overlords, waited upon by Indian and negro peasants who also tilled the fields, tended the droves, and dug the earth for precious metals and stones. Originally the natives had been forced to work under conditions approximating actual servitude, but gradually the harsher features of this system had given way to a mode of service closely resembling peonage. Paid a pitifully small wage, provided with a hut of reeds or sundried mud and a tiny patch of soil on which to grow a few hills of the corn and beans that were his usual nourishment, the ordinary Indian or half-caste laborer was scarcely more than a beast of burden, a creature in whom civic virtues of a high order were not likely to develop. If he betook himself to the town his possible usefulness lessened in proportion as he fell into drunken or dissolute habits, or lapsed into a state of lazy and vacuous dreaminess, enlivened only by chatter or the rolling of a cigarette. On the other hand, when employed in a capacity where native talent might be tested, he often revealed a power of action which, if properly guided, could be turned to excellent account. As a cowboy, for example, he became a capital horseman, brave, alert, skillful, and daring.

Commerce with Portugal and Spain was long confined to yearly fairs and occasional trading fleets that plied between fixed points. But when liberal decrees threw open numerous ports in the mother countries to traffic and the several colonies were given also the privilege of exchanging their products among themselves, the volume of exports and imports increased and gave an impetus to activity which brought a notable release from the torpor and vegetation characterizing earlier days. Yet, even so, communication was difficult and irregular. By sea the distances were great and the vessels slow. Overland the natural obstacles to transportation were so numerous and the methods of conveyance so c.u.mbersome and expensive that the people of one province were practically strangers to their neighbors.

Matters of the mind and of the soul were under the guardianship of the Church. More than merely a spiritual mentor, it controlled education and determined in large measure the course of intellectual life. Possessed of vast wealth in lands and revenues, its monasteries and priories, its hospitals and asylums, its residences of ecclesiastics, were the finest buildings in every community, adorned with the masterpieces of sculptors and painters. A village might boast of only a few squalid huts, yet there in the "plaza," or central square, loomed up a ma.s.sively imposing edifice of worship, its towers pointing heavenward, the sign and symbol of triumphant power.

The Church, in fact, was the greatest civilizing agency that Spain and Portugal had at their disposal. It inculcated a reverence for the monarch and his ministers and fostered a deep-rooted sentiment of conservatism which made disloyalty and innovation almost sacrilegious. In the Spanish colonies in particular the Church not only protected the natives against the rapacity of many a white master but taught them the rudiments of the Christian faith, as well as useful arts and trades. In remote places, secluded so far as possible from contact with Europeans, missionary pioneers gathered together groups of neophytes whom they rendered docile and industrious, it is true, but whom they often deprived of initiative and selfreliance and kept illiterate and superst.i.tious.

Education was reserved commonly for members of the ruling cla.s.s. As imparted in the universities and schools, it savored strongly of medievalism. Though some attention was devoted to the natural sciences, experimental methods were not encouraged and found no place in lectures and textbooks. Books, periodicals, and other publications came under ecclesiastical inspection, and a vigilant censorship determined what was fit for the public to read.

Supreme over all the colonial domains was the government of their majesties, the monarchs of Spain and Portugal. A ministry and a council managed the affairs of the inhabitants of America and guarded their destinies in accordance with the theories of enlightened despotism then prevailing in Europe. The Spanish dominions were divided into viceroyalties and subdivided into captaincies general, presidencies, and intendancies. a.s.sociated with the high officials who ruled them were audiencias, or boards, which were at once judicial and administrative. Below these individuals and bodies were a host of lesser functionaries who, like their superiors, held their posts by appointment. In Brazil the governor general bore the t.i.tle of viceroy and carried on the administration a.s.sisted by provincial captains, supreme courts, and local officers.

This control was by no means so autocratic as it might seem. Portugal had too many interests elsewhere, and was too feeble besides, to keep tight rein over a territory so vast and a population so much inclined as the Brazilian to form itself into provincial units, jealous of the central authority. Spain, on its part, had always practised the good old Roman rule of "divide and govern." Its policy was to hold the balance among officials, civil and ecclesiastical, and inhabitants, white and colored. It knew how strongly individualistic the Spaniard was and realized the full force of the adage, "I obey, but I do not fulfill!" Legislatures and other agencies of government directly representative of the people did not exist in Spanish or Portuguese America. The Spanish cabildo, or town council, however, afforded an opportunity for the expression of the popular will and often proved intractable. Its membership was appointive, elective, hereditary, and even purchasable, but the form did not affect the substance. The Spanish Americans had an instinct for politics. "Here all men govern," declared one of the viceroys; "the people have more part in political discussions than in any other provinces in the world; a council of war sits in every house."

CHAPTER II. "OUR OLD KING OR NONE"

The movement which led eventually to the emanc.i.p.ation of the colonies differed from the local uprisings which occurred in various parts of South America during the eighteenth century. Either the arbitrary conduct of individual governors or excessive taxation had caused the earlier revolts. To the final revolution foreign nations and foreign ideas gave the necessary impulse. A few members of the intellectual cla.s.s had read in secret the writings of French and English philosophers. Others had traveled abroad and came home to whisper to their countrymen what they had seen and heard in lands more progressive than Spain and Portugal. The commercial relations, both licit and illicit, which Great Britain had maintained with several of the colonies had served to diffuse among them some notions of what went on in the busy world outside.

By gaining its independence, the United States had set a practical example of what might be done elsewhere in America. Translated into French, the Declaration of Independence was read and commented upon by enthusiasts who dreamed of the possibility of applying its principles in their own lands. More powerful still were the ideas liberated by the French Revolution and Napoleon. Borne across the ocean, the doctrines of "Liberty, Fraternity, Equality" stirred the ardent-minded to thoughts of action, though the Spanish and Portuguese Americans who schemed and plotted were the merest handful. The seed they planted was slow to germinate among peoples who had been taught to regard things foreign as outlandish and heretical. Many years therefore elapsed before the ideas of the few became the convictions of the ma.s.ses, for the conservatism and loyalty of the common people were unbelieveably steadfast.

Not Spanish and Portuguese America, but Santo Domingo, an island which had been under French rule since 1795 and which was tenanted chiefly by ignorant and brutalized negro slaves, was the scene of the first effectual a.s.sertion of independence in the lands originally colonized by Spain. Rising in revolt against their masters, the negroes had won complete control under their remarkable commander, Toussaint L'Ouverture, when Napoleon Bonaparte, then First Consul, decided to restore the old regime. But the huge expedition which was sent to reduce the island ended in absolute failure. After a ruthless racial warfare, characterized by ferocity on both sides, the French retired. In 1804 the negro leaders proclaimed the independence of the island as the "Republic of Haiti," under a President who, appreciative of the example just set by Napoleon, informed his followers that he too had a.s.sumed the august t.i.tle of "Emperor"! His immediate successor in African royalty was the notorious Henri Christophe, who gathered about him a n.o.bility garish in color and taste-including their sable lordships, the "Duke of Marmalade" and the "Count of Lemonade"; and who built the palace of "Sans Souci" and the countryseats of "Queen's Delight" and "King's Beautiful View," about which cl.u.s.ter tales of barbaric pleasure that rival the grim legends clinging to the parapets and enshrouding the dungeons of his mountain fortress of "La Ferriere." None of these black or mulatto potentates, however, could expel French authority from the eastern part of Santo Domingo. That task was taken in hand by the inhabitants themselves, and in 1809 they succeeded in restoring the control of Spain. Meanwhile events which had been occurring in South America prepared the way for the movement that was ultimately to banish the flags of both Spain and Portugal from the continents of the New World. As the one country had fallen more or less tinder the influence of France, so the other had become practically dependent upon Great Britain. Interested in the expansion of its commerce and viewing the outlying possessions of peoples who submitted to French guidance as legitimate objects for seizure, Great Britain in 1797 wrested Trinidad from the feeble grip of Spain and thus acquired a strategic position very near South America itself. Haiti, Trinidad, and Jamaica, in fact, all became Centers of revolutionary agitation and havens of refuge for. Spanish American radicals in the troublous years to follow.

Foremost among the early conspirators was the Venezuelan, Francisco de Miranda, known to his fellow Americans of Spanish stock as the "Precursor." Napoleon once remarked of him: "He is a Don Quixote, with this difference-he is not crazy.... The man has sacred fire in his soul." An officer in the armies of Spain and of revolutionary France and later a resident of London, Miranda devoted thirty years of his adventurous life to the cause of independence for his countrymen. With officials of the British Government he labored long and zealously, eliciting from them vague promises of armed support and some financial aid. It was in London, also, that he organized a group of sympathizers into the secret society called the "Grand Lodge of America." With it, or with its branches in France and Spain, many of the leaders of the subsequent revolution came to be identified.

In 1806, availing himself of the negligence of the United States and having the connivance of the British authorities in Trinidad, Miranda headed two expeditions to the coast of Venezuela. He had hoped that his appearance would be the signal for a general uprising; instead, he was treated with indifference. His countrymen seemed to regard him as a tool of Great Britain, and no one felt disposed to accept the blessings of liberty under that guise. Humiliated, but not despairing, Miranda returned to London to await a happier day.

Two British expeditions which attempted to conquer the region about the Rio de la Plata in 1806 and 1807 were also frustrated by this same stubborn loyalty. When the Spanish viceroy fled, the inhabitants themselves rallied to the defense of the country and drove out the invaders. Thereupon the people of Buenos Aires, a.s.sembled in cabildo abierto, or town meeting, deposed the viceroy and chose their victorious leader in his stead until a successor could be regularly appointed.

Then, in 1808, fell the blow which was to shatter the bonds uniting Spain to its continental dominions in America. The discord and corruption which prevailed in that unfortunate country afforded Napoleon an opportunity to oust its feeble king and his incompetent son, Ferdinand, and to place Joseph Bonaparte on the throne. But the master of Europe underestimated the fighting ability of Spaniards. Instead of humbly complying with his mandate, they rose in arms against the usurper and created a central junta, or revolutionary committee, to govern in the name of Ferdinand VII, as their rightful ruler.

The news of this French aggression aroused in the colonies a spirit of resistance as vehement as that in the mother country. Both Spaniards and Creoles repudiated the "intruder king." Believing, as did their comrades oversea, that Ferdinand was a helpless victim in the hands of Napoleon, they recognized the revolutionary government and sent great sums of money to Spain to aid in the struggle against the French. Envoys from Joseph Bonaparte seeking an acknowledgment of his rule were angrily rejected and were forced to leave.

The situation on both sides of the ocean was now an extraordinary one. Just as the junta in Spain had no legal right to govern, so the officials in the colonies, holding their posts by appointment from a deposed king, had no legal authority, and the people would not allow them to accept new commissions from a usurper. The Church, too, detesting Napoleon as the heir of a revolution that had undermined the Catholic faith and regarding him as a G.o.dless despot who had made the Pope a captive, refused to recognize the French pretender. Until Ferdinand VII could be restored to his throne, therefore, the colonists had to choose whether they would carry on the administration under the guidance of the self-const.i.tuted authorities in Spain, or should themselves create similar organizations in each of the colonies to take charge of affairs. The former course was favored by the official element and its supporters among the conservative cla.s.ses, the latter by the liberals, who felt that they had as much right as the people of the mother country to choose the form of government best suited to their interests.

Each party viewed the other with distrust. Opposition to the more democratic procedure, it was felt, could mean nothing less than secret submission to the pretensions of Joseph Bonaparte; whereas the establishment in America of any organizations like those in Spain surely indicated a spirit of disloyalty toward Ferdinand VII himself. Under circ.u.mstances like these, when the junta and its successor, the council of regency, refused to make substantial concessions to the colonies, both parties were inevitably drifting toward independence. In the phrase of Manuel Belgrano, one of the great leaders in the viceroyalty of La Plata, "our old King or none" became the watchword that gradually shaped the thoughts of Spanish Americans.

When, therefore, in 1810, the news came that the French army had overrun Spain, democratic ideas so long cherished in secret and propagated so industriously by Miranda and his followers at last found expression in a series of uprisings in the four viceroyalties of La Plata, Peru, New Granada, and New Spain. But in each of these viceroyalties the revolution ran a different course. Sometimes it was the capital city that led off; sometimes a provincial town; sometimes a group of individuals in the country districts. Among the actual partic.i.p.ants in the various movements very little harmony was to be found. Here a particular leader claimed obedience; there a board of self-chosen magistrates held sway; elsewhere a town or province refused to acknowledge the central authority. To add to these complications, in 1812, a revolutionary Cortes, or legislative body, a.s.sembled at Cadiz, adopted for Spain and its dominions a const.i.tution providing for direct representation of the colonies in oversea administration. Since arrangements of this sort contented many of the Spanish Americans who had protested against existing abuses, they were quite unwilling to press their grievances further. Given all these evidences of division in activity and counsel, one does not find it difficult to foresee the outcome.

On May 25, 1810, popular agitation at Buenos Aires forced the Spanish viceroy of La Plata to resign. The central authority was thereupon vested in an elected junta that was to govern in the name of Ferdinand VII. Opposition broke out immediately. The northern and eastern parts of the viceroyalty showed themselves quite unwilling to obey these upstarts. Meantime, urged on by radicals who revived the Jacobin doctrines of revolutionary France, the junta strove to suppress in rigorous fashion any symptoms of disaffection; but it could do nothing to stem the tide of separation in the rest of the viceroyalty-in Charcas (Bolivia), Paraguay, and the Banda Oriental, or East Bank, of the Uruguay.

At Buenos Aires acute difference of opinion-about the extent to which the movement should be carried and about the permanent form of government to be adopted as well as the method of establishing it-produced a series of political commotions little short of anarchy. Triumvirates followed the junta into power; supreme directors alternated with triumvirates; and const.i.tuent a.s.semblies came and went. Under one authority or another the name of the viceroyalty was changed to "United Provinces of La Plata River"; a seal, a flag, and a coat of arms were chosen; and numerous features of the Spanish regime were abolished, including t.i.tles of n.o.bility, the Inquisition, the slave trade, and restrictions on the press. But so chaotic were the conditions within and so disastrous the campaigns without, that eventually commissioners were sent to Europe, bearing instructions to seek a king for the distracted country.

When Charcas fell under the control of the viceroy of Peru, Paraguay set up a regime for itself. At Asuncion, the capital, a revolutionary outbreak in 1811 replaced the Spanish intendant by a triumvirate, of which the most prominent member was Dr. Jose Gaspar Rodriguez de Francia. A lawyer by profession, familiar with the history of Rome, an admirer of France and Napoleon, a misanthrope and a recluse, possessing a blind faith in himself and actuated by a sense of implacable hatred for all who might venture to thwart his will, this extraordinary personage speedily made himself master of the country. A population composed chiefly of Indians, docile in temperament and submissive for many years to the paternal rule of Jesuit missionaries, could not fail to become pliant instruments in his hands. At his direction, therefore, Paraguay declared itself independent of both Spain and La Plata. This done, an obedient Congress elected Francia consul of the republic and later invested him with the t.i.tle of dictator. In the Banda Oriental two distinct movements appeared. Montevideo, the capital, long a center of royalist sympathies and for some years hostile to the revolutionary government in Buenos Aires, was reunited with La Plata in 1814. Elsewhere the people of the province followed the fortunes of Jose Gervasio Artigas, an able and valiant cavalry officer, who roamed through it at will, bidding defiance to any authority not his own. Most of the former viceroyalty of La Plata had thus, to all intents and purposes, thrown off the yoke of Spain.

Chile was the only other province that for a while gave promise of similar action. Here again it was the capital city that took the lead. On receipt of the news of the occurrences at Buenos Aires in May, 1810, the people of Santiago forced the captain general to resign and, on the 18th of September, replaced him by a junta of their own choosing. But neither this body, nor its successors, nor even the Congress that a.s.sembled the following year, could establish a permanent and effective government. Nowhere in Spanish America, perhaps, did the lower cla.s.ses count for so little, and the upper cla.s.s for so much, as in Chile. Though the great landholders were disposed to favor a reasonable amount of local autonomy for the country, they refused to heed the demands of the radicals for complete independence and the establishment of a republic. Accordingly, in proportion as their opponents resorted to measures of compulsion, the gentry gradually withdrew their support and offered little resistance when troops dispatched by the viceroy of Peru restored the Spanish regime in 1814. The irreconcilable among the patriots fled over the Andes to the western part of La Plata, where they found hospitable refuge.

But of all the Spanish dominions in South America none witnessed so desperate a struggle for emanc.i.p.ation as the viceroyalty of New Granada. Learning of the catastrophe that had befallen the mother country, the leading citizens of Caracas, acting in conjunction with the cabildo, deposed the captain general on April 19, 1810, and created a junta in his stead. The example was quickly followed by most of the smaller divisions of the province. Then when Miranda returned from England to head the revolutionary movement, a Congress, on July 5, 1811, declared Venezuela independent of Spain. Carried away, also, by the enthusiasm of the moment, and forgetful of the utter unpreparedness of the country, the Congress promulgated a federal const.i.tution modeled on that of the United States, which set forth all the approved doctrines of the rights of man.

Neither Miranda nor his youthful coadjutor, Simon Bolivar, soon to become famous in the annals of Spanish American history, approved of this plunge into democracy. Ardent as their patriotism was, they knew that the country needed centralized control and not experiments in confederation or theoretical liberty. They speedily found out, also, that they could not count on the support of the people at large. Then, almost as if Nature herself disapproved of the whole proceeding, a frightful earthquake in the following year shook many a Venezuelan town into ruins. Everywhere the royalists took heart. Dissensions broke out between Miranda and his subordinates. Betrayed into the hands of his enemies, the old warrior himself was sent away to die in a Spanish dungeon. And so the "earthquake" republic collapsed.

But the rigorous measures adopted by the royalists to sustain their triumph enabled Bolivar to renew the struggle in 1813. He entered upon a campaign which was signalized by acts of barbarity on both sides. His declaration of "war to the death" was answered in kind. Wholesale slaughter of prisoners, indiscriminate pillage, and wanton destruction of property spread terror and desolation throughout the country. Acclaimed "Liberator of Venezuela" and made dictator by the people of Caracas, Bolivar strove in vain to overcome the half-savage llaneros, or cowboys of the plains, who despised the innovating aristocrats of the capital. Though he won a few victories, he did not make the cause of independence popular, and, realizing his failure, he retired into New Granada.

In this region an astounding series of revolutions and counter-revolutions had taken place. Unmindful of pleas for cooperation, the Creole leaders in town and district, from 1810 onward, seized control of affairs in a fashion that betokened a speedy disintegration of the country. Though the viceroy was deposed and a general Congress was summoned to meet at the capital, Bogota, efforts at centralization encountered opposition in every quarter. Only the royalists managed to preserve a semblance of unity. Separate republics sprang into being and in 1813 declared their independence of Spain. Presidents and congresses were pitted against one another. Towns fought among themselves. Even parishes demanded local autonomy. For a while the services of Bolivar were invoked to force rebellious areas into obedience to the principle of confederation, but with scant result. Unable to agree with his fellow officers and displaying traits of moral weakness which at this time as on previous occasions showed that he had not yet risen to a full sense of responsibility, the Liberator renounced the task and fled to Jamaica.

The scene now shifts northward to the viceroyalty of New Spain. Unlike the struggles already described, the uprisings that began in 1810 in central Mexico were substantially revolts of Indians and half-castes against white domination. On the 16th of September, a crowd of natives rose under the leadership of Miguel Hidalgo, a parish priest of the village of Dolores. Bearing on their banners the slogan, "Long live Ferdinand VII and down with bad government," the undisciplined crowd, soon to number tens of thousands, aroused such terror by their behavior that the whites were compelled to unite in self-defense. It mattered not whether Hidalgo hoped to establish a republic or simply to secure for his followers relief from oppression: in either case the whites could expect only Indian domination. Before the trained forces of the whites a horde of natives, so ignorant of modern warfare that some of them tried to stop cannon b.a.l.l.s by clapping their straw hats over the mouths of the guns, could not stand their ground. Hidalgo was captured and shot, but he was succeeded by Jose Maria Morelos, also a priest. Reviving the old Aztec name for central Mexico, he summoned a "Congress of Anahuac," which in 1813 a.s.serted that dependence on the throne of Spain was "forever broken and dissolved." Abler and more humane than Hidalgo, he set up a revolutionary government that the authorities of Mexico failed for a while to suppress.

In 1814, therefore, Spain still held the bulk of its dominions. Trinidad, to be sure, had been lost to Great Britain, and both Louisiana and West Florida to the United States. Royalist control, furthermore, had ceased in parts of the viceroyalties of La Plata and New Granada. To regain Trinidad and Louisiana was hopeless: but a wise policy conciliation or an overwhelming display of armed force might yet restore Spanish rule where it had been merely suspended.

Very different was the course of events in Brazil. Strangely enough, the first impulse toward independence was given by the Portuguese royal family. Terrified by the prospective invasion of the country by a French army, late in 1807 the Prince Regent, the royal family, and a host of Portuguese n.o.bles and commoners took pa.s.sage on British vessels and sailed to Rio de Janeiro. Brazil thereupon became the seat of royal government and immediately a.s.sumed an importance which it could never have attained as a mere dependency. Acting under the advice of the British minister, the Prince Regent threw open the ports of the colony to the ships of all nations friendly to Portugal, gave his sanction to a variety of reforms beneficial to commerce and industry, and even permitted a printing press to be set up, though only for official purposes. From all these benevolent activities Brazil derived great advantages. On the other hand, the Prince Regent's aversion to popular education or anything that might savor of democracy and the greed of his followers for place and distinction alienated his colonial subjects. They could not fail to contrast autocracy in Brazil with the liberal ideas that had made headway elsewhere in Spanish America. As a consequence a spirit of unrest arose which boded ill for the maintenance of Portuguese rule.

CHAPTER III "INDEPENDENCE OR DEATH"

The restoration of Ferdinand VII to his throne in 1814 encouraged the liberals of Spain, no less than the loyalists of Spanish America, to hope that the "old King" would now grant a new dispensation. Freedom of commerce and a fair measure of popular representation in government, it was believed, would compensate both the mother country for the suffering which it had undergone during the Peninsular War and the colonies for the trials to which loyalty had been subjected. But Ferdinand VII was a typical Bourbon. Nothing less than an absolute reestablishment of the earlier regime would satisfy him. On both sides of the Atlantic, therefore, the liberals were forced into opposition to the crown, although they were so far apart that they could not cooperate with each other. Independence was to be the fortune of the Spanish Americans, and a continuance of despotism, for a while, the lot of the Spaniards.

As the region of the viceroyalty of La Plata had been the first to cast off the authority of the home government, so it was the first to complete its separation from Spain. Despite the fact that disorder was rampant everywhere and that most of the local districts could not or would not send deputies, a congress that a.s.sembled at Tuc.u.man voted on July 9, 1816, to declare the "United Provinces in South America" independent. Comprehensive though the expression was, it applied only to the central part of the former viceroyalty, and even there it was little more than an aspiration. Mistrust of the authorities at Buenos Aires, insistence upon provincial autonomy, failure to agree upon a particular kind of republican government, and a lingering inclination to monarchy made progress toward national unity impossible. In 1819, to be sure, a const.i.tution was adopted, providing for a centralized government, but in the country at large it encountered too much resistance from those who favored a federal government to become effective.

In the Banda Oriental, over most of which Artigas and his hors.e.m.e.n held sway, chaotic conditions invited aggression from the direction of Brazil. This East Bank of the Uruguay had long been disputed territory between Spain and Portugal; and now its definite acquisition by the latter seemed an easy undertaking. Instead, however, the task turned out to be a truly formidable one. Montevideo, feebly defended by the forces of the Government at Buenos Aires, soon capitulated, but four years elapsed before the rest of the country could be subdued. Artigas fled to Paraguay, where he fell into the clutches of Francia, never to escape. In 1821 the Banda Oriental was annexed to Brazil as the Cisplatine Province.

Over Paraguay that grim and somber potentate, known as "The Supreme One"-El Supremo-presided with iron hand. In 1817 Francia set up a despotism unique in the annals of South America. Fearful lest contact with the outer world might weaken his tenacious grip upon his subjects, whom he terrorized into obedience, he barred approach to the country and suffered no one to leave it. He organized and drilled an army obedient to his will.. When he went forth by day, attended by an escort of cavalry, the doors and windows of houses had to be kept closed and no one was allowed on the streets. Night he spent till a late hour in reading and study, changing his bedroom frequently to avoid a.s.sa.s.sination. Religious functions that might disturb the public peace he forbade. Compelling the bishop of Asuncion to resign on account of senile debility, Francia himself a.s.sumed the episcopal office. Even intermarriage among the old colonial families he prohibited, so as to reduce all to a common social level. He attained his object. Paraguay became a quiet state, whatever might be said of its neighbors!

Elsewhere in southern Spanish America a brilliant feat of arms brought to the fore its most distinguished soldier. This was Jose de San Martin of La Plata. Like Miranda, he had been an officer in the Spanish army and had returned to his native land an ardent apostle of independence. Quick to realize the fact that, so long as Chile remained under royalist control, the possibility of an attack from that quarter was a constant menace to the safety of the newly const.i.tuted republic, he conceived the bold plan of organizing near the western frontier an army-composed partly of Chilean refugees and partly of his own countrymen-with which he proposed to cross the Andes and meet the enemy on his own ground. Among these fugitives was the able and valiant Bernardo O'Higgins, son of an Irish officer who had been viceroy of Peru. Cooperating with O'Higgins, San Martin fixed his headquarters at Mendoza and began to gather and train the four thousand men whom he judged needful for the enterprise.