Historical Tales Volume Iii Part 11

Ambuscades were also laid for them. On the eighth day of their march they fell into one of these at Tusignala, where three hundred Spaniards lay concealed on the ground and fired into their ranks. Though these were dispersed by a fierce charge, they followed the freebooters closely, annoying them from the shelter of woods and thickets. The next day a still larger ambuscade was laid, which, fortunately for the freebooters, was discovered and dispersed in time, the fleeing Spaniards leaving their horses behind.

Two days later New Segovia was reached. Here the buccaneers expected a severe engagement, and hoped to gain a supply of provisions. In both they were mistaken; the inhabitants had decamped, carrying all food with them.

Their prisoners, who had served them as guides to this point, knew nothing of the country beyond, but they succeeded in taking a new prisoner who was familiar with the further route.

The country they were pa.s.sing through was mountainous and very difficult.

Steep acclivities had constantly to be climbed, narrow paths on the borders of deep chasms to be traversed, and rapid slopes to be descended.

The nights were bitterly cold, the mornings were darkened by thick fogs, and their whole route was attended with danger, discomfort, and fatigue.

New Segovia lay in a valley surrounded on all sides by mountains, one of which had to be ascended immediately on leaving the town. The next day's dawn found them on its summit, with a valley far below them, in which, to their joy, they beheld a large number of animals which they took to be oxen. Their joy was dissipated, however, when the scouts they sent out came back with the information that these animals were horses, saddled and bridled, and that a series of formidable intrenchments had been built in the valley, rising like terraces, one above another, and carried to the mountains on each side, so as completely to close the route.

There seemed no way to avoid these defences. On one side of the mountain flowed a river. A small eminence, surrounded by breastworks, commanded the only pa.s.sage which the freebooters could follow. The whole country round was thick forest, through whose rock-guarded demesnes not the slightest indication of a path could be seen. Yet to attack those works in front promised quick and utter defeat, and if they wished to avoid destruction they must find some way to outwit their foes. It was decided that the forest presented less dangers and difficulties than the fortified road, and that the only hope of safety lay in a flank movement which would lead them to the rear of the enemy.

During that day active preparations were made for the proposed movement.

The three hundred Spaniards who had ambushed them some days before still hung upon their rear. Their horses, sick, and prisoners were therefore left in an enclosed camp, barricaded by their baggage-vehicles and guarded by eighty of their number. As a means of impressing the enemy with their numbers and alertness they kept up camp-fires all night, repeated at intervals the rolls upon the drum, relieved the sentinels with a great noise, and varied these signs of activity with cries and occasional discharges of musketry.

Meanwhile, as soon as the shades of evening descended, the remainder of the freebooters, some two hundred in number, began their march, following the route indicated by a scout they had sent to examine the forest. The difficulties of that night journey through the dense wood proved very great, there being numerous steep rocks to climb and descend, and this needed to be done with as little noise as possible. Daybreak found the adventurers on a mountain elevation, from which they could see the Spanish intrenchments below them on the left. The greatest of their impediments had been surmounted, but there were difficulties still to be overcome.

Fortunately for them a thick mist rose with the morning light, which, while it rendered their downward pa.s.sage critical, served to conceal them from the enemy below. As they came near the works the heavy tread of a patrol guided them in their course, and the morning prayers of the Spaniards were of still more advantage in indicating their distance and position. The freebooting band had reached the rear of the hostile army, composed of five hundred men, who were so taken by surprise on seeing their ferocious enemy rushing upon them with shouts and volleys, from this unlooked-for quarter, that they fled without an attempt at defence.

The other Spaniards behaved more courageously, but the appearance of the buccaneers within the works they had so toilsomely prepared robbed them of spirit, and after an hour's fight they, too, broke and fled. The trees they had felled to obstruct the road now contributed to their utter defeat, and they were cut down in mult.i.tudes, with scarce an attempt at resistance. We can scarcely credit the testimony of the freebooters, however, that their sole losses were one killed and two wounded. The success of the advance party was equalled by that of the guard of armed men left in the camp, who, after some negotiations with the troop of Spaniards in their rear, made a sudden charge upon them and dispersed all who were not cut down.

That the freebooters were as much surprised as gratified by the signal success of their stratagem need scarcely be said. One of the panics which are apt to follow a surprise in war had saved them from threatened annihilation. They learned, however, the disquieting fact that six miles farther on was another strong intrenchment which could not be avoided, the country permitting no choice of roads. In their situation there was nothing to do but to advance and dare the worst, and fortunately for them their remarkable success spread such terror before it that, when they appeared before these new works, the Spaniards made no attack, but remained quietly behind their breastworks while their dreaded foes marched past.

The seventeenth day of their march carried them to the banks of the river towards which their route had been laid. This was the Magdalena, a stream which rises in the mountains near New Segovia and flows through a difficult rock channel, with numerous cascades, three of them amounting to cataracts, finally reaching the Caribbean Sea after a course of several hundred miles.

How they were to descend this mountain torrent was the question which now offered itself to them. It presented a more attractive route of travel than the one so far pursued over the mountains, but was marked by difficulties of a formidable character. These were overcome by the freebooters in an extraordinary manner, one almost or quite without parallel in the annals of travel. The expedient they adopted was certainly of curious interest.

Before them was a large and rapid river, its current impeded by a mult.i.tude of rocks and broken by rapids and cascades. They were dest.i.tute of ropes or tools suitable for boat-building, and any ordinary kind of boats would have been of no use to them in such a stream. It occurred to them that what they needed to navigate a river of this character was something of the nature of large baskets or tuns, in which they might float enclosed to their waists, while keeping themselves from contact with the rocks by the aid of poles.

They had no models for such floating contrivances, and were obliged to invent them. Near the river was an extensive forest, and this supplied them abundantly with young trees, of light wood. These they cut down, stripped off their bark, collected them by fives, and, lacking ropes, fastened them together with lianas and a tenacious kind of gum which the forest provided. A large number of small, frail, basket-like contrivances were thus made, each large enough to carry two men, with whom they would sink in the water as deep as the waist. Piperies, Lussan called them, but his description does not make it clear just what they were like.

While thus engaged, the freebooters killed part of their horses, and salted their flesh for food, all the work being done with the energy and activity necessary in their critical situation. During it they were not molested by the Spaniards, but no one could tell how soon they might be.

When all was ready they restored their prisoners to the liberty of which they had long been deprived, and entered upon one of the most perilous examples of navigation that can well be imagined.

Launched in their piperies, the freebooters found themselves tossed about by the impetuous current, and speedily covered with spray. The lightness of their floating baskets kept them from sinking, but the energetic efforts they were obliged to make to keep from being thrown out or dashed on the rocks soon exhausted them. A short experience taught them the necessity of fastening themselves in the piperies, so that their hands might be free to keep them from being hurled on the rocks. Occasionally their frail crafts were overturned or buried under the waves in the swift rapids, and the inmates were either drowned or escaped by abandoning the treasures which weighed them down.

Whatever else may be said of this method of navigation, it proved a rapid one, the frail barks being hurried on at an impetuous speed. Each of the cataracts was preceded by a basin of still water, and here it became necessary to swim to the sh.o.r.e and descend the rocks to the bottom of the fall. Some who remained behind threw the piperies into the stream to be carried over the liquid precipice, and recovered by swimming out to meet them, or replaced by new ones when lost.

After three days of this singular navigation it was decided, in view of the fact that the piperies were often dashed together to their mutual injury, to separate and keep at a distance from each other, those who went first marking out by small flags where it was necessary to land. During their progress the question of food again became prominent, the salted horsemeat they had brought with them being spoiled by its frequent wetting. Game was plentiful, but their powder was all spoiled, and the only food to be found was the fruit of the banana-tree, which grew abundantly on the banks.

The cupidity of the freebooters was not abated by the danger of their situation. They made the most earnest endeavors to preserve their spoil, and some of the poorer ones even resorted to murder to gain the wealth of their richer comrades. The dispersion of the flotilla favored this, and six conspiring Frenchmen hid behind the rocks and attacked and killed five Englishmen who were known to possess much treasure. Robbing the bodies, they took to the stream again, leaving the b.l.o.o.d.y corpses on the bank.

Those who saw them had no time to think of avenging them.

Gradually the river grew wider and deeper and its course less impetuous.

The cascades were all pa.s.sed, but the stream was obstructed by floating or anch.o.r.ed tree-trunks, by which many of the piperies were overturned and their occupants drowned. To avoid this danger the piperies were now abandoned and the freebooters divided themselves into detachments and began to build large canoes from the forest trees. Four of these, carrying one hundred and thirty men, were soon ready and their builders again took to the stream. Of the fate of the others, who remained behind, no further account is given by the historian of this adventure.

On the 9th of March, sixty days after their departure from the Pacific, the adventurers reached the river's mouth, having completed their remarkable feat of crossing the continent in the face of the most threatening perils from man and nature. But fortune only partly favored them, for many had lost all the wealth which they had gathered in their career of piracy, their very clothes hanging in rags about their limbs.

Some, indeed, had been more fortunate or more adroit in their singular navigation, but, as a whole, they were a woe-begone and miserable party when, a few days afterwards, they reached the isle of Perlas. Here were some friendly vessels, on which they embarked, and near the end of April they reached the West Indies, with the little that remained of their plunder.

Such was the end of this remarkable achievement, one which for boldness, intrepidity, and skill in expedients has few to rival it in the annals of history, and which, if performed by men of note, instead of by an obscure band of robbers, would have won for them a high meed of fame.

THE CRUELTY OF THE SPANIARDS TO THE INDIANS.

Never were a people more terribly treated than the natives of America under the Spanish adventurers. The often told story that the Indians of Hispaniola were annihilated in one generation after the settlement of that island is sufficient evidence of the frightfully inhuman treatment to which they were subjected. The laws of Spain provided for justice and humanity in the dealings with the Indians, but the settlers, thousands of miles away, paid no attention to these laws, and the red men were almost everywhere reduced to slavery, or where free and given political rights, were looked upon as far inferior to the whites. In every district Spain placed an official called the "Protector of the Indians," but it does not appear that they were much the better off for their "Protectors." It is our purpose here to say something about the cruel treatment of the natives in South America.

[Ill.u.s.tration: INDIANS OF THE PLATEAU.]

INDIANS OF THE PLATEAU.

The Spanish settlers had three terms which applied to their dealings with the Indians, the _encomiendo_, the _mitad_, and the _repartimiento_, each indicating a form of injustice. The conquerors divided the country between them, and the _encomiendos_ were rights granted them to hold the Indians for a number of years as workers in their fields or their mines. Under these grants, the natives were converted into beasts of burden, and forced to do the hardest work without the least compensation. They were obliged to labor all day long under the burning tropical sun, to dive into the sea in search of pearls for their masters, or to toil buried from the light of day in the depths of the mines. It is not surprising that these miserable slaves, accustomed to a life of indolence and ease, perished as if exposed to a killing plague.

The _mitad_ was a law formed for their protection, but it soon became one of the worst of the abuses. Under it every man from the age of eighteen to fifty was required to render bodily service, the natives of each mining colony of South America being divided into seven sections, each of which had to work six months in the mines. Every mine-owner could demand the number of Indians he needed. In Peru alone fourteen hundred mines were worked, and labor of this kind was in constant demand.

As to the kind of labor they had to do, we need only say that when any man was called upon to work in the mines he looked upon it as a sentence of death. Before going he gave all his possessions to his relatives, and they went through the funeral service, as if he were already dead. They well knew the usual end of labor in the mines. A ma.s.s was said for him at the church, and he had to take an oath of fidelity to the king. Then he was sprinkled with holy water and sent away to his deadly service. Deadly we may well call it, for it is said that scarcely a fifth part of these miners lived through their term of labor.

Lowered from the light of the sun into the deep underground shafts and galleries, and pa.s.sing from the pure air of heaven to a pestilential atmosphere, excessive labor and bad food soon robbed them of strength and often of life. If they survived this, a species of asthma usually carried them off during the year. We may judge of the results from the calculation that the _mitad_ in Peru alone had eight million victims.

The law limited the _mitad_ to those living within thirty miles of a mine, but laborers were often brought by force from hundreds of miles away. As for the small wages paid them, the masters took part of it from them in payment for their food, and usually got the remainder by giving credit for clothes or liquor or in other ways. In fact, if by good fortune the Indian had not lost his life at the end of his term of service, he might be brought into debt which he could not pay, and thus held a slave for life.

The _repartimiento_ was another protective law, which also became a means of oppression. Under it the district officials were required to supply all things needed by the Indians, there being, when the law was pa.s.sed, no peddlers or travelling dealers. This privilege was quickly and shamelessly abused, the natives being sold poor clothing, spoiled grain, sour wine, and other inferior supplies, often at three or four times their value when of good quality. They were even made to buy things at high prices which were of no possible use to them, such as silk stockings for men who went barefoot, and razors for those who had scarcely any beard to shave. One _corregidor_ bought a box of spectacles from a trader, and made the natives buy these at his own price, to wear when they went to ma.s.s, without regard to the fact that they were utterly useless to them.

The oppression of the natives was not confined to the laity, but the clergy were often as unjust. They forced them to pay not only the t.i.thes, but extravagant prices for every church service, forty reals being charged for a baptism, twenty for a marriage certificate, thirty-two for a burial, etc. Such sums as these, which fairly beggared the poor Indians, enabled the clergy to build costly churches and mission houses and to keep up abundant revenues.

These general statements very faintly picture the actual state to which the Indians were reduced. This may be better shown by some instances of their sufferings. The Timebos Indians, for example, of the province of Velez, New Grenada, were reduced to such extreme misery by the embezzlement of the funds, that whole families flung themselves from the top of a rock twelve hundred feet high into the river below. One night, in order to escape from the cruelty of the colonists, the whole tribes of the Agatoas and Cocomes killed themselves, preferring death to the horrors of Spanish rule. Many Indians strangled themselves when in peril of being enslaved by the Spaniards, feeling that a quick death was better than a slow one under the torture of incessant toil.

In one instance, when a party of hopeless natives had come together with the intention of killing themselves, an intendant came to them with a rope in his hand, and told them that if they did not give up their purpose he would hang himself with them. This threat filled them with such horror at the prospect of meeting a Spaniard in the spirit world, that they fled from the spot, preferring life with all its terrors to such a companion.

As may well be imagined, the natives did not all yield resistlessly to their tyrants. Thus, in exasperation at the quant.i.ty of gold-dust which they were forced to pay as tribute, the people of Aconcalm, in the province of Canas, seized the brutal Spanish collector one day, and gave him melted gold to drink, "to satisfy in this way his insatiable thirst for gold."

In December, 1767, the descendants of the two tribes which had owned the mining valley of Caravaya descended on the white inhabitants in revenge for a usurpation of their lands which had taken place more than two centuries before. They settled the question of ownership by burning the city and killing all the inhabitants with arrows and clubs. When news of this was received by the viceroy, Don Antonio Amat, he swore on a piece of the true cross to kill all the savages in Peru. He was prevented from carrying out this threat only by the prayers of the actress Mariquita Gallegas, whom he loved, and who convinced him that it was his duty as a Christian to convert them to the religion of Christ rather than to ma.s.sacre them.

In 1780 there began a memorable insurrection of the persecuted natives. It was especially notable as being led by a direct descendant of the Inca Tupac-Amaru, who had been beheaded by the Spaniards in 1562. This n.o.ble Indian, the last of the Incas, had been well educated by the Jesuits in Cuzco, and became the cacique of Tungasac. His virtues were such as to gain him the respect and esteem of all the Peruvian Indians, who venerated him also as the lineal descendant of their ancient emperors.

One day this cacique, exasperated by the rapacity of the _corregidor_ of Tuita, who had laid three _repartimientos_ on the Indians in a single year, seized the tyrannical wretch and strangled him with his own hands.

Then, taking the name of his ancestor, Tupac-Amaru, he proclaimed himself the chief of all those who were in rebellion against the Spaniards.

His error seems to have been in not fraternizing with the creoles, or white natives of the country, who hated the Spaniards as bitterly as the Indians themselves. On the contrary he treated these as enemies also, and thus greatly augmented the number of his foes. The Indians, their memories of their ancient freedom aroused by his call, joined his ranks in enthusiastic numbers and won several victories over the whites, the whole of Upper Peru breaking out in insurrection. Lacking fire-arms as they did, they kept up the struggle for a year, the outbreak being brought to an end at last by treachery instead of arms. Betrayed by a cacique to whom the Spaniards promised a colonel's commission,-a promise they did not keep,-the Inca was taken prisoner by his enemies, and conducted to Cuzco, the ancient capital of his ancestors. Here he was tried and condemned to death, and executed with a frightful excess of cruelty that filled with horror all the civilized world, when the terrible tale became known.

Conducted to the place of execution, his wife and children, and his brother-in-law, Bastidas, were brought before him, their tongues cut out, and then put to death by the Spanish method of strangling before his eyes.

His little son was left alive to witness his death. This was one in which the most brutal tortures of mediaeval times seemed revived. His tongue being torn out, his limbs were tied to four horses, which were driven in different directions with the purpose of tearing him limb from limb. The horses proved unable to do this, and he remained suspended in agony, until one of the more merciful of the Spaniards ended his torture by cutting off his head. During this revolting scene the little son of the victim gave vent to a terrible scream of agony, the memory of which haunted many of the executioners to their death.

The legs and arms of the victim were sent to the rebellious towns, his body was burned to ashes, his house was razed, his property confiscated, and his family declared infamous forever. One of his brothers was sent to Spain and condemned to the galleys, in which he remained for thirty years.

Such were the means taken by the Spaniards to overcome the love of liberty in the natives of Peru.