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Title: The South American Republics Part I of II
Author: Dawson, Thomas C.
Language: English
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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 net $1.50
FOR FULL LIST SEE END OF THIS VOLUME.
[Illustration: CAPE HORN.
_Frontispiece_ [From a steel engraving.]]
THE STORY OF THE NATIONS
THE SOUTH AMERICAN
REPUBLICS
BY
THOMAS C. DAWSON
Secretary of the United States Legation to Brazil
IN TWO PARTS
_PART I_
ARGENTINA, PARAGUAY, URUGUAY, BRAZIL
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
The Knickerbocker Press
COPYRIGHT 1903
BY
THOMAS C. DAWSON
Eighth Printing
The Knickerbocker Press, New York
TO MY WIFE
I DEDICATE THIS STUDY OF THE HISTORY
OF HER NATIVE CONTINENT
PREFACE
The question most frequently asked me since I began my stay in South
America has been: "Why do they have so many revolutions there?" Possibly
the events recounted in the following pages may help the reader to
answer this for himself. I hope that he will share my conviction that
militarism has already definitely disappeared from more than half the
continent and is slowly becoming less powerful in the remainder.
Constitutional traditions, inherited from Spain and Portugal, implanted
a tendency toward disintegration; Spanish and Portuguese tyranny bred
in the people a distrust of all rulers and governments; the war of
independence brought to the front military adventurers; civil disorders
were inevitable, and the search for forms of government that should be
final and stable has been very painful. On the other hand, the generous
impulse that prompted the movement toward independence has grown into an
earnest desire for ordered liberty, which is steadily spreading among
all classes. Civic capacity is increasing among the body of South
Americans and immigration is raising the industrial level. They are
slowly evolving among themselves the best form of government for their
special needs and conditions, and a citizen of the United States must
rejoice to see that that form is and will surely remain republican.
It is hard to secure from the tangle of events called South American
history a clearly defined picture. At the risk of repetition I have
tried to tell separately the story of each country, because each has its
special history and its peculiar characteristics. All of these states
have, however, had much in common and it is only in the case of the
larger nations that social and political conditions have been described
in detail. A study of either Argentina, Brazil, Chile, or Venezuela
is likely to throw most light on the political development of the
continent, while Peru, Bolivia, and Colombia are more interesting to the
seeker for local colour and the lover of the dramatic.
The South American histories so far written treat of special periods,
and few authorities exist for post-revolution times. Personal
observations through a residence of six years in South America;
conversations with public men, scholars, merchants, and proprietors;
newspapers and reviews, political pamphlets, books of travel, and
official publications, have furnished me with most of my material for
the period since 1825. The following books have been of use in the
preparation of the first volume, and are recommended to those who care
to follow up the subject:
ARGENTINA: Mitre's _Historia de Belgrano and Historia de San Martin_,
in Spanish; Torrente's _Revolucion Hispano-Americano_, in Spanish;
Lozano's _Conquista del Paraguay, La Plata y Tucuman_, in Spanish;
Funes's _Historia de Buenos Aires y Tucuman_, in Spanish; Lopez's
_Manuel de Historia Argentina_, in Spanish; Page's _La Plata_, in
English; Graham's _A Vanished Arcadia_, in English.
PARAGUAY: All of the above and Thompson's _Paraguayan War_, in English;
Washburn's _History of Paraguay_, in English; Fix's _Guerra de
Paraguay_, in Portuguese.
URUGUAY: Bauza's _Dominacion Espanola_, in Spanish; Berra's _Bosquejo
Historico_, in Spanish; Saint-Foix's _L'Uruguay_, in French.
BRAZIL: Southey's _History of the Brazil_, in English; Varnhagem's
_Historia do Brasil_, in Portuguese; Pereira da Silva's _Fundacao do
Imperio, Segundo Periodo, Historia do Brasil, e Historia do Meu Tempo_,
in Portuguese; Nabuco's _Estadista do Imperio_, in Portuguese; Rio
Branco's sketch in _Le Bresil en 1889_, in French; Oliveira Lima's
_Pernambuco_, in Portuguese.
All of the above books may be found in the Columbian Memorial Library of
the Bureau of American Republics at Washington, which, taken as a whole,
is one of the best collections on South America in existence.
T. C. D.
WASHINGTON, January 22, 1903.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
INTRODUCTORY: THE DISCOVERIES AND THE CONQUEST 3
_ARGENTINA_
I. THE ARGENTINE LAND 37
II. THE SPANISH COLONIAL SYSTEM 47
III. THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 58
IV. THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 70
V. THE BEGINNINGS OF THE REVOLUTION 80
VI. COMPLETION OF THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE 97
VII. THE ERA OF CIVIL WARS 115
VIII. CONSOLIDATION 130
IX. THE MODERN ARGENTINE 141
_PARAGUAY_
I. PARAGUAY UNTIL 1632 165
II. THE JESUIT REPUBLIC AND COLONIAL PARAGUAY 177
III. FRANCIA'S REIGN 188
IV. THE REIGN OF THE ELDER LOPEZ 198
V. THE WAR 206
VI. PARAGUAY SINCE 1870 220
_URUGUAY_
I. INTRODUCTION 227
II. PORTUGUESE AGGRESSIONS AND THE SETTLEMENT OF THE COUNTRY 239
III. THE REVOLUTION 247
IV. INDEPENDENCE AND CIVIL WAR 259
V. CIVIL WAR AND ARGENTINE INTERVENTION 265
VI. COLORADOS AND BLANCOS 272
_BRAZIL_
I. PORTUGAL 287
II. DISCOVERY 295
III. DESCRIPTION 305
IV. EARLY COLONISATION 316
V. THE JESUITS 326
VI. FRENCH OCCUPATION OF RIO 333
VII. EXPANSION 342
VIII. THE DUTCH CONQUEST 350
IX. EXPULSION OF THE DUTCH 361
X. THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 371
XI. GOLD DISCOVERIES--REVOLTS--FRENCH ATTACKS 378
XII. THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 386
XIII. THE PORTUGUESE COURT IN RIO 401
XIV. INDEPENDENCE 411
XV. REIGN OF PEDRO I. 421
XVI. THE REGENCY 436
XVII. PEDRO II. 449
XVIII. EVENTS OF 1849 TO 1864 458
XIX. THE PARAGUAYAN WAR 468
XX. REPUBLICANISM AND EMANCIPATION 478
XXI. THE REVOLUTION--THE DICTATORSHIP--THE ESTABLISHMENT OF
THE REPUBLIC 492
INDEX 513
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
CAPE HORN _Frontispiece_
_From a steel engraving._
FERDINAND, KING OF SPAIN 6
_Redrawn from an old print._
FRANCISCO PIZARRO 9
_From Montain's "America."_
THE AUTHENTIC PORTRAIT OF CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 11
MINING SCENE 16
_Redrawn from Gottfriedt's "Neue Welt."_
A YOUNG GAUCHO 28
_From a lithograph._
FOREST SCENE IN ARGENTINA 39
_From a steel print._
DOCKS AT BUENOS AIRES 44
AN OLD SPANISH CORNER IN BUENOS AIRES 76
MANUEL BELGRANO 95
_From an oil painting._
GENERAL SAN MARTIN 99
_From a steel engraving._
PLAZA DE MAYO AND CATHEDRAL AT BUENOS AIRES 113
_From a lithograph._
BUENOS AIRES IN 1845 127
_From a steel engraving._
BARTOLOMÉ MITRE 139
_From a steel engraving._
JULIO ROCA 145
GATEWAY OF THE CEMETERY AT BUENOS AIRES 151
_From a lithograph._
A RIVER ROAD IN ARGENTINA 159
_From a lithograph._
ASUNCION 167
GUAYRÁ FALLS 179
JOSÉ RODRIGUEZ GASPAR FRANCIA 193
_From an old woodcut._
FRANCISCO SOLANO LOPEZ 211
_From a photograph taken in 1849._
PALM GROVES IN EL CHACO 217
HARBOUR AT MONTEVIDEO 231
MONTEVIDEO 243
_From an old print._
BRIDGE AT MALDONADO 249
GENERAL DON JOSÉ GERVASIO ARTIGAS 257
_From an old woodcut._
THE SOLIS THEATRE 275
THE CATHEDRAL, MONTEVIDEO 283
OLD TOWER AT LISBON WHENCE THE FLEET SAILED 296
A TUPI VILLAGE 299
A GARDEN IN PETROPOLIS 307
BAHIA 324
PADRE JOSÉ DE ANCHIETA 330
_From an old-woodcut._
PLANTERS GOING TO CHURCH 337
_From an old print._
A CADEIRA 340
OLD FORT AT BAHIA 353
RIO GRANDE DO SUL 387
OLD RANCH IN RIO GRANDE 390
WASHING DIAMONDS 391
BOATS ON THE RIO GRANDE 395
_From a steel print._
DOM JOHN VI. 403
_From an old woodcut._
DOM PEDRO I. 414
_From an old woodcut._
DOM JOSÉ BONIFACIO DE ANDRADA 418
_From a steel print._
EVARISTO FERREIRA DA VEIGA 431
_From a steel engraving._
DONNA JANUARIA 445
_From a steel engraving._
DOM PEDRO II. 447
_From a steel engraving._
BARON OF CAXIAS 453
_From an old woodcut._
PRINCESS ISABEL IN 1889 456
PAMPAS OF THE RIO GRANDE 460
OLD MARKET IN SÃO PAULO 465
GOVERNER'S PALACE IN SÃO PAULO 469
HOSPITAL AND OLD CHURCH AT PORTO ALEGRE 475
BRIDGE AT MENDANHA 480
CITY OF OURO PRETO 483
EMPEROR DOM PEDRO IN 1889 491
MILITARY SCHOOL OF RIO JANEIRO 493
GENERAL BENJAMIN CONSTANT 496
_From a woodcut._
THE EMPRESS IN 1889 498
AMERICAN LEGATION NEAR RIO 505
CAMPOS SALLES 510
_From a woodcut._
MAPS
MAP OF ARGENTINA, PARAGUAY, URUGUAY, BOLIVIA, AND CHILE 38
OUTLINE MAP OF BRAZIL 288
MAP OF SOUTH AMERICA _At end_
_Showing the progress of settlement and present populated area_
INTRODUCTORY
THE DISCOVERIES AND THE CONQUEST
INTRODUCTORY
THE DISCOVERIES AND THE CONQUEST
_Spain's Discovery of America._--Town or communal government has been
characteristic of Spain since before the Roman conquest. The Visigoths,
who destroyed the advanced civilisation they found in the Peninsula,
never really amalgamated with the subject population, and, happily, they
did not succeed in destroying the municipalities. The liberal,
civilised, and tolerant Saracens who drove out the Goths, left their
Christian subjects free to enjoy their own laws and customs. The
municipalities gave efficient local self-government while a system of
small proprietorships made the Peninsula prosper, as in the best days of
the Roman dominion. The population of Spain reached twenty millions
under the Moors, but finally dynastic civil wars enabled the remnant of
Visigoths who had taken refuge in the northern mountains to begin the
gradual expulsion of the Mahometans. In the midst of these currents of
war and conquest setting to and fro, the old municipalities survived
unchangeable, and always supplying local self-government.
A tendency toward decentralisation was ingrained in the Spanish people
from the earliest times. It was increased by the method in which the
Christian conquest of Mahometan Spain was achieved. The Visigothic
nobility, starting from separate points in Asturias and Navarre,
advanced into Saracen territory and established counties and earldoms
which were virtually independent of their mother-kingdoms. The Asturians
expanded into Leon and thence over Galicia, northern Portugal, Old and
New Castile. The power of the Leonese monarch over Galicia was nominal;
Castile and Portugal separated from Leon almost as soon as they were
wrested from the Mahometans. The Basques were always independent, and
Navarre, though it became the mother of Aragon, had little connection
with the latter region. On the Mediterranean shore Charlemagne drove the
Moors from Catalonia and made it a province of his empire, but no sooner
was he dead than it became independent. Toward the end of the thirteenth
century. The Christian conquest was virtually completed, and the
Peninsula had been divided into four kingdoms. Each of these was,
however, in reality only a federation of semi-independent feudal
divisions and municipalities united by personal allegiance to a single
sovereign. In the course of the continual quarrelling of the monarchs
their kingdoms frequently divided, coalesced, and separated again. The
death of a king or the marriage of his daughter was often the signal for
war and a readjustment of boundaries, but these overturnings did not
much affect the component and really vital political units.
More significant than the political kingdoms were the linguistic
divisions. Spain then spoke, and still speaks, three languages, each of
which has many dialects. From Asturias and Navarre the language, now
known as Castilian, had spread over the central part of the Peninsula
south to Cadiz and Murcia. From Galicia the Gallego had spread directly
south along the Atlantic, where one of its dialects grew into the
Portuguese. On the east coast the Catalonian, imported from Languedoc by
the French conqueror, is a mere derivative of the Provençal. Its
dialects are spoken all along the Mediterranean coasts of Spain as far
south as Alicante, as well as in the Balearic islands.
By 1300 A.D. two great political divisions, Castile and Aragon, covered
three-fourths of the Peninsula, and their boundaries were well
established; each, however, was a mere loose aggregation of provinces,
and every province had its own laws and customs, its jealously guarded
privileges, its legislative assembly, and its free municipalities.
Galicia had never become incorporated with Leon; the Basques ruled
themselves; Catalonia was really independent of Aragon; Castile had,
from the beginning, been virtually independent, although under the same
monarch as Leon, and, indeed, had taken the latter's place as the
metropolitan province of the kingdom.
[Illustration: FERDINAND, KING OF SPAIN.
[Redrawn from an old print.]]
The one great unifying force was religious sentiment, stimulated into
fanaticism by centuries of wars against the infidels. Nevertheless,
during the two centuries before the discovery of America the Spaniards
absorbed much culture from their Moorish subjects. In 1479, the whole
Peninsula, except Portugal and Granada, was politically united by the
accession of Ferdinand to the throne of Aragon, and of Isabella to that
of Castile and Leon. With local liberties intact, and peace prevailing
throughout its whole extent, the Peninsula enjoyed a prosperity unknown
since the golden era of the Moors. The population rose to twelve
millions; Andalusia, Galicia, Catalonia, and Valencia were among the
most flourishing and thickly settled parts of Europe, while the military
qualities of the aristocracy of Castile and Leon and Aragon gave the new
power the best armies of the time.
Colonies founded by a monarchy so organised could never be firmly knit
to each other nor to the mother country. The nobility of the sword would
try to establish feudal principalities; the new cities would endeavour
to exercise the local functions of the old Peninsular municipalities;
and the spirit of local independence still animating Catalonians,
Basques, Galicians, and Andalusians would be repeated on a new
continent. The only bond of union would be personal allegiance to the
monarch.
In the fourteenth century, Christian navigators reached the Canary
Islands--sixty miles from the African coast and six hundred south-east
of Gibraltar. The assurance that land did really exist below the horizon
of that western ocean, so mysterious and terrible to the early
navigators, gave them confidence to push farther into the deep. In
navigation, the Spaniards lagged behind their Portuguese neighbours. But
among the Spanish kingdoms Castile took the lead because her Andalusian
ports of Cadiz, San Lucar, Palos, and Huelva faced on the open Atlantic.
These towns swarmed with sailors who had followed in the track of the
Portuguese and visited their new possessions. The Castilians and
Andalusians were naturally jealous of the successful Portuguese.
Madeira, the Azores, the Cape Verdes, and the gold mines of the Guinea
coast had fallen to the latter, while the Spaniards had only the
Canaries. They gave an eager ear to the rumours that were rife in the
Portuguese islands of more marvellous discoveries still to be made--of
islands beyonds the Azores. An adventurous Italian, Christopher
Columbus, wandering among the Portuguese possessions, heard the stories.
Happily for Spain, he believed them and resolved to lead an expedition
to the farther side of the Atlantic. He entered her service and proved
to be an enthusiast of rare pertinacity. It is immaterial whether the
idea of a route to the East Indies by the west occurred to him at the
same time he became convinced that there were islands in the far
Atlantic waiting to be discovered. That which is certain is that he
devoted his life to persuading someone in authority to entrust him with
ships and men to make a voyage to the far West. The pilots at Palos
backed him, and he finally secured the desired permission and means from
Isabella of Castile. Her interest in exploration and colonisation had
been shown fifteen years before, in her energetic measures in conquering
the Canaries and forcing the Portuguese to renounce their claims to
those islands, and she well deserves the title of founder of the
colonial empire of Spain.
[Illustration: THE AUTHENTIC PORTRAIT OF CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.]
The story of Columbus's first voyage needs no retelling. He journeyed so
far to the west that he returned convinced he had reached the longitude
of eastern Asia, and the noise of his great discovery resounded
through Europe and began the transformation of the world. Since the last
great century--the thirteenth--Christendom had retrograded. The Tartars
dominated Russia and the Turks were pressing hard on Germany. Unless the
Christian world could find an outlet--unless it could create other
resources for itself and outside of itself; unless feudalism should find
an employment for its military energies outside of the vicious circle of
fruitless and purposeless dynastic wars, it seemed not improbable that
Mahometan aggression would continue until all Europe lay under the
deadening influence of the Turk. Only in the Peninsula was apparent that
spirit of expansion which is the best indication of internal vitality in
a nation. The military nobility, whose determined fanaticism,
magnificent courage, and spirit of individual initiative had driven the
Moors out of Spain in the thirteenth century, welcomed this fresh
opportunity to slay the infidel and carve out new fiefs for themselves.
_Conquest of the Andes._--Columbus showed strategic genius of the
highest order in choosing Hayti as the site of the first settlement.
That island afforded an admirable base for the conquest of the New
World. It was large enough to furnish provisions, and was conveniently
situated with reference to the coasts and islands of the Caribbean. Gold
washings were soon discovered in the interior and the unwarlike
inhabitants were at once impressed into slavery to dig in the mines. The
news of gold stimulated interest as nothing else could have done. The
Castilian government took immediate steps to exclude all other nations.
The Pope divided the globe between Spain and Portugal, and a treaty to
this effect was negotiated between the two countries. Spaniards swarmed
over to Hayti, and thence expeditions were sent out in every direction,
headed by private adventurers bearing their sovereign's commission. The
other Antilles were soon explored and, by the end of the century, the
Spaniards had reached the South American mainland and rapidly explored
its coast from the Amazon up to the Isthmus. Gold was picked up in the
streams flowing from the Columbian Andes into the Caribbean. A few years
later the north-western coast of South America was granted out to noble
adventurers who undertook its conquest and exploitation with their own
means. The Isthmian region became the new centre of Spanish power and
commerce in America. In 1513, Balboa crossed the Isthmus to the Pacific
Ocean--an event second in its far-reaching consequences only to
Columbus's first voyage. During the following years the Gulf of Mexico
was explored, and in 1518 the greatest statesman and general whom Spain
ever sent to the new world--Hernando Cortes--began the conquest of the
empire of the Aztecs.
The mining done in Hayti and along the Caribbean coast seemed pitiably
insignificant compared with the treasures found in Mexico. There
followed a new influx of gentleman adventurers who scoured the coast in
every direction seeking another defenceless empire and mines as good as
those of Mexico. The expeditions down the Pacific coast of South America
started from the Isthmus. Peru was soon found, and in 1532, Pizarro
and his band of blood-thirsty desperadoes, with inconceivable audacity,
struck a vital blow at the heart of the great empire of the Incas by
capturing its emperor. Within half a dozen years nearly the whole of the
vast region over which the Inca power had extended was overrun and the
outlying provinces were ready to submit at demand.
[Illustration: FRANCISCO PIZARRO.
[From Montain's _America_.]]
The rapidity with which a little band of Spaniards conquered the vast
and warlike empire of the Incas is well-nigh incredible. The terror
inspired by horses and firearms did much, but the capture of their
emperor demoralised the imperial Inca tribes still more. Once in the
possession of the sacred person of the monarch, the Spaniards were
regarded by the Indians as his mouthpiece and the successor to his
power. From Cuzco, the capital, a splendid system of roads and
communications radiated to every part of the empire. The military and
political dominance of the imperial tribes had weakened the power of
resistance in the provinces. The elaborate structure which had been
built up by the Incas rather facilitated than hindered the Spanish
conquest, once the decisive blow had been given at the centre. The
provinces submitted to the new rulers as fast as the Spanish columns
could march over the magnificent mountain roads.
South from Cuzco the Inca empire extended 2000 miles. It covered the
whole Andean region as far as the 37th degree of south latitude and
extended from the Pacific to the eastern slopes of the Andean foothills.
In the present Argentine it included the tribes living in the lesser
chains which occupy the north-western part of the republic. Some of
these Argentine tribes seem to have been only tributary to the Incas,
others were completely dependent, and extensive colonies had been
founded in the cotton regions. The general language was Inca, and that
admirable system of irrigation and intensive culture which made Peru
proper a garden had been introduced on the eastern slopes of the
southern Andes.
The southern part of the great Bolivian plateau seems to have submitted
quietly to the Spanish conquerors, and the stream of adventurers passed
on to the south. In 1542, Diego de Rojas led the first expedition, of
which a record has survived, down through the Humahuaca valley into the
actual territory of the Argentine. He himself perished in a fight with a
wild tribe near the main chain of the Andes, but his followers continued
their march. Near Tucuman, they passed out from the mountain defiles
unto the pampa, and, leaving the desert to their right penetrated
through Santiago and Cordoba, to the Paraná.
No permanent settlement was then made, but the reports of thousands of
peaceable and wealthy Indians inhabiting irrigated valleys, and the
accounts of the magnificent pastures which stretched away to the east,
soon tempted the Spaniards to take permanent possession. Seven years
after the first exploration a town was founded in latitude 27°, midway
between the Andes and the Paraná. About the same time other adventurers
came pouring over the Andes from northern Chile, and this current soon
joined that from the north. The Spaniards established themselves as
feudal lords, and the unhappy Indians were divided among them. In one
district, forty-seven thousand Indians were divided among fifty-six
grantees. In 1553, Santiago de Estero, for many years the capital of the
province of Tucuman was founded.
In 1561, the governor of Chile sent from Santiago de Chile over the
Andes an expedition which founded the city of Mendoza in a most
beautiful region, where the vine flourishes in perfection, and where a
wonderful system of irrigation, inherited from the Indians, still exists
to attest the latters' engineering skill. Next year San Juan was
founded, and these two towns were the centres for the settlement of the
province of Cuyo, which remained a part of Chile for two hundred years.
The immigrants from northern Chile and Bolivia established Tucuman in
the tropical garden spot of the republic in 1565. From Santiago del
Estero, in 1573, an expedition was sent two hundred and fifty miles to
the south to a region of fertile valleys and plains at the foot of a
beautiful mountain range. This was Cordoba, which at once became, and
has since remained, the most populous of the interior provinces.
By the end of the sixteenth century the Spanish power was firmly
established in settlements that have since become the Argentine
provinces of Jujuy, Salta, Tucuman, Catamarca, Santiago, Rioja, and
Cordoba. All these really formed a southern extension of Upper Peru.
Their geographical, political, and commercial relations were with
Charcas, Potosí, and Lima. The discovery, in 1545, of the great silver
mines at Potosí at once made the high Bolivian plateau, then known as
the Audiencia of Charcas, the most valuable and important province of
all the Spanish monarch's South American empire. In 1571, the discovery
of quicksilver mines in Peru vastly increased the output of precious
metals; in 1575, the wonderful Oruro mines were opened, and before the
end of the century the copper-pan amalgamation process was invented in
Bolivia, revolutionising the production of silver.
[Illustration: MINING SCENE.
[Redrawn from Gottfriedt's _Neuw Welt_.]]
The resulting prosperity of the mining regions of Bolivia stimulated the
settlement of the north-western provinces of the Argentine. The miners
needed provisions which could not well be raised in the neighbourhood of
Potosí. There was a demand for cattle for beef, and for horses and mules
for transportation. A solid economic foundation was thus provided for
the plains settlements, and the enslavement of the Indians and the
breeding of cattle went on apace. By the end of the sixteenth century
north-western Argentine--the province of Tucuman, as it was then
called--was the seat of many thriving settlements whose Spanish
inhabitants were mostly pastoral. The Indians in the neighbourhood of
each settlement had been reduced to slavery, and cultivated the fields
that had been their fathers' for the benefit of their white masters. The
Spanish proprietors lived like feudal lords, while the Spanish
authorities left these remote regions largely to their own devices.
Conditions in Cuyo, the western province just across the Andes from
Santiago de Chile, were substantially the same. A political dependency
of Chile, the few external relations it had were with that
captaincy-general. The Spanish grantees ruled their Indian slaves in
patriarchal fashion; agriculture was the principal occupation; pastoral
industry was not so profitable as in Tucuman, and the region was more
isolated. In both Tucuman and Cuyo Spanish rule was superimposed upon a
previously existing commercial and social structure. There was no
attempt to expel or destroy the aborigines. On the contrary, they were
the sole labourers and their exertions the chief source of the wealth of
their conquerors. There began a process of approximation and mutual
assimilation between the Spaniards and their semi-civilised subjects.
While the former continued to be a privileged and ruling caste, the
latter absorbed much European knowledge from them. The Indian language
long held its own alongside of the Spanish and is still spoken in many
parts of the region.
On the Atlantic side, among degraded peoples who had not progressed
beyond the wandering and tribal stages of existence. Spanish settlement
proceeded on entirely different lines. There existed no well-organised
body politic, into whose control the conquerors could step with hardly
an interruption to industry. Campaigns could not be made with the
confident expectation of finding abundant accumulations of food _en
route_. Expeditions among the squalid tribes were slow and dangerous and
settlement stuck close to the rivers instead of following fearlessly
across the plateau to the spots where the finest lands and the most
flourishing Indian communities lay ready for the spoiler.
The beginnings of the coast provinces were painful and disastrous; the
settlements were feeble; centuries elapsed before the natural advantages
of the region were utilised, and before its accessibility and fertility
drew a great immigration. The assimilation of Indian blood did not take
place on a large scale, and the immigrants and their descendants became
perforce horsemen and fighters.
_Discovery of the Plate._--The Portuguese discovery of the east coast of
South America, in 1500, was a disagreeable surprise to the Spanish
government. The Treaty of Tordesillas had been framed with the purpose
of giving America to Spain, while Africa and the shores of the Indian
Ocean were left to Portugal. Nevertheless, the Portuguese vigorously
asserted their right to the prize they had picked up by accident and
insisted on the letter of the treaty. They promptly explored the coast
as far south as Santa Catharina, six hundred miles north of the Plate,
but they had asserted no ownership farther south at the date when the
Spanish expeditions began to be sent to the South Atlantic.
In 1516, a celebrated sea-captain from the north of Spain--Juan Diaz de
Solis--was sent out by the Castilian government to explore the southern
part of the continent. He simply reconnoitred the Brazilian coast, where
the Portuguese had not yet established any settlements, and, pressing on
to the south, finally reached the Plate. His first impression on
rounding Cape St. Maria, where the Uruguayan shore turns to the
north-west, was that he had reached the southern point of the continent
and discovered the sea route into the Pacific. But the freshness of the
water in the great estuary undeceived him. Following along the northern
bank, he landed with a small party and was attacked and slain by a tribe
of fierce and intractable Indians.
When the news reached Lisbon, the Portuguese government protested
against this invasion of territory, which it claimed lay east of the
Tordesillas line. Portugal, however, did not follow up her protest or
try to take possession for herself. At this very time a celebrated
Portuguese navigator, Fernando Magellan, disgusted by the neglect of his
own country, was urging the Spanish government to give him the means of
carrying out his great project for the circumnavigation of the globe. He
was confident he could reach the East Indies by rounding the southern
point of South America or by finding a passage through the continent in
higher latitudes than had yet been reached. The year 1519, when Magellan
sailed from San Lucar on the first voyage around the world, was big with
fate for Spain. Cortes was adding a new empire by the conquest of
Mexico, thus giving Spain control of the world's supply of precious
metals. The popular assemblies of Castile and Aragon, of Catalonia,
Valencia, and Galicia, were preparing for a hopeless struggle against
the might of a monarch who ruled two-thirds of Europe. At the very
moment that Charles V. was crushing Peninsular freedom by brutal
military force, the genius of Magellan and Cortes gave him the whole of
America. Spain had heretofore been a federation of self-governing
communes and provinces, but their independence was now destroyed.
Military despotism proved strong enough to crush liberty, although it
was unable to stamp out the feeling of local segregation. The very
soldiers that conquered America took over an instinctive feeling that
the central government was dangerous and inimical to the people--a
sentiment which has always survived in some form among their
descendants.
Magellan stopped at the Plate in the beginning of 1520, and explored the
estuary to make sure that it did not afford the passage he was seeking.
In October he reached the mouth of the strait that bears his name, and,
wonderfully favoured by wind and weather, threaded his way to the
Pacific in five weeks. Subsequent wayfarers were not so fortunate and
the strait never became a practicable commercial route until after the
introduction of steam navigation. In the succeeding hundred years not
half a dozen ships reached the Pacific around South America.
Practically, the Pacific was accessible only over the Isthmus or by the
immensely long journey around the Cape of Good Hope. Nevertheless, the
importance of this epoch-making voyage has not been overestimated. The
Pacific became, in a sense, a Spanish lake, in which she could maintain
at will a naval preponderance. She occupied the Philippines and secured
control at leisure of the Pacific coast of America. However, the
scientific results were more important. Thereafter, the thorough
exploration of all the shores of the South Sea was only a question of
time. Magellan's voyage made geography an exact science. He sketched the
map of the world with broad and sure strokes and left nothing for
subsequent explorers except the filling-in of details.
The occupation of the Philippines and Moluccas gave rise to new disputes
between Spain and Portugal as to their rights under the Treaty of
Tordesillas. The imperfect instruments of those days left the line
doubtful on the eastern South American coast, as well as on the other
side of the world. In 1526, Sebastian Cabot was sent by the Spanish
government to determine astronomically the location of the line in
America, and then to follow Magellan's track to western Asia. At the
mouth of the Plate he heard rumours among the Indians of silver mines on
the river's banks and of the existence of a great and wealthy empire at
its headwaters. This was Peru--not yet reached by the Castilians on
their way south from the Isthmus, but the coast Indians showed Cabot
silver ornaments which had been passed from hand to hand from the
highlands of Peru and Bolivia down the river to the Atlantic.
Cabot and his band of adventurers determined to neglect their surveying,
trusting that the discovery of silver mines would excuse their
disobedience. They spent three years in vain journeying and
prospecting--exploring the Uruguay to the head of navigation and
following up the Paraná as far as the Apipé rapids. Signs of neither
silver nor gold, nor of civilised inhabitants, were found on either
river. Their upper courses came down from the east--the direction
opposite to that in which Eldorado was reported. The gently flowing
Paraguay, coming down the plains in the centre of the continent, seemed
to offer a better hope of success. But Cabot's forces and provisions
were inadequate to penetrating farther north than the present site of
Asuncion. Returning to a fort he had left on the lower Paraná, he found
that it had been taken by Indians and its garrison massacred.
Discouraged by such a succession of difficulties and misfortunes, he
returned to Spain.
The news of Cabot's expedition, and its failure, stimulated the
Portuguese to undertake the colonisation of the east coast of South
America. Affonso da Souza started from Lisbon with an expedition,
intending to take possession of the Plate. Lack of provisions, fear of
the Indians, the presence of a Portuguese castaway--one of those
insignificant chances that sometimes change the course of empires as a
twig diverts the current of a river--stopped Alfonso before he reached
his destination. Instead of establishing a colony on the estuary he
founded San Vicente, just south of the Tropic of Capricorn. This became
the southern outpost of the Portuguese possessions, and the temperate
zone of South America was left open for the Spaniards to occupy when
they chose.
Two years after Cabot's failure, Pizarro overran Peru. All Europe rang
with the exploit. The Spanish king was besieged by nobles who literally
begged the privilege of risking their lives and fortunes in America.
These "adelantados" contracted to conquer, at their own charges, the
particular districts granted them, certain profits being reserved to the
crown, and Charles V. freely granted such patents. Among the grantees
was a Basque nobleman, Pedro de Mendoza, to whom was given the territory
beginning at the Portuguese possessions south two hundred leagues along
the Atlantic coast toward the Strait of Magellan. He raised more than
two thousand men and reached the Plate in 1535, where he immediately
founded a city on the south bank which he named Buenos Aires. He
intended to make it a base for an advance up the Paraná to find and
conquer another Peru. His attempt was foredoomed to failure. The Indians
surrounding Buenos Aires were implacable in their hatred of the
invaders. They lived in scattered little tribes, and neither would nor
could furnish food enough to maintain the Spaniards. The provisions
brought from Spain were inadequate; sorties were useless; the Indians
fled from large parties and ambushed small ones. The preparations for
the advance up the river were delayed for months. Hundreds died of
hunger and disease. Within a year the place had to be abandoned, and in
a desperate condition the expedition fled up the river to Cabot's solid
fort. Here the adelantado stopped, sick and discouraged, while a few
hundreds of the more daring and persevering pressed on to the north,
determined to reach Eldorado. Arrived at the junction of the Paraguay
and Paraná, they chose the former river, and pushed on up it as far as
the twentieth degree, to a place they called Candelaria. There they
found vast lakes and swamps spreading to the west. It was necessary to
protect their retreat before plunging into the difficult country that
extends across to Bolivia. Accordingly, they divided and one party
remained on the dry ground near the river, while two hundred desperate
adventurers pressed on through the wilderness, hoping to reach the
Bolivian plateau.
The party that stopped behind as a reserve was commanded by Domingo
Irala, the real founder of the Spanish settlements in the Paraná valley.
The main expedition never returned. Years afterward friendly Indians
brought back the tale that it had reached the slopes of the Bolivian
mountains, obtained much gold and silver and started back triumphantly,
but had perished to the last man in an Indian ambush not far from the
Paraguay and safety. Irala waited the appointed time and then floated
down the river. He and his companions were well-nigh in despair. So far
as they knew, they were the only survivors of the three thousand people
who had accompanied Mendoza. To the north the country was inhospitable
and impenetrable, and from their experiences of the year before they
knew that at the mouth of the river no provisions or succour were to be
had. On their way up the river they had passed, about the twenty-fifth
degree, a beautiful and fertile rolling country, covered with
magnificent forests, with park-like openings, and inhabited by a large
and friendly Indian population. Opposite the mouth of the Pilcomayo,
where there was a large Indian village, they stopped on their downward
journey, determined to settle down and take some repose from their
interminable and fruitless wanderings in search of the will-o'-the-wisp
Eldorado. There, in 1536, they founded the city of Asuncion, the first
Spanish settlement on the Atlantic slope of South America.
_The Foundation of Buenos Aires._--The failure of Mendoza, first
adelantado, to establish a colony on the Plate, did not discourage
others from soliciting the grant of his territory. In 1540, Cabeza de
Vaca, a "conquistador" celebrated for his feats in Florida, was
appointed adelantado and set out gallantly to find the second Peru,
which everyone believed to exist at the headwaters of the Paraguay.
Intent on reaching the interior as soon as possible, he made no attempt
to establish a town and port at the mouth of the river Plate, but landed
at Santa Catharina on what is now the Brazilian coast in the latitude of
Paraguay, and set off across country with four hundred men and twenty
horses. The distance was a thousand miles; the route led up a heavily
wooded mountain range on the coast, and thence across a broken, but
open, plateau, where great rivers point out the natural routes to the
Paraná. The soil was fertile and the Indians along the road were able to
furnish considerable food supplies. Cabeza de Vaca made the journey
without appreciable loss and arrived in Asuncion eager to take command
and dash across to the Andes. But the sturdy Basques had selected their
able countryman--Domingo Irala--as chief of the colony and gave the new
adelantado a cold welcome. Irala insisted that a reconnoitring
expedition be sent before risking the body of the Spaniards. Its command
was given him and he penetrated almost to the headwaters of the
Paraguay. Next year Cabeza de Vaca followed, but as soon as he left the
Paraguay he got into difficulties. He could not penetrate the swamps nor
make headway against the savage Indians who lived between the river and
the eastern slopes of the Cordillera. He returned defeated and
discouraged, and the people of Asuncion bundled him back to Spain.
Though Irala subsequently did succeed in reaching Peru, by the route up
the Paraguay, no practical results followed. Paraguay remained isolated
from the Spanish empire on the Pacific coast until a roundabout
communication was established down the river and thence west across the
dry and level plains that stretch from the mouth of the river Plate to
the Cordillera.
The early days of the Asuncion settlement were stormy. The rough
adventurers fell to fighting among themselves, and their cruelties often
drove the patient and submissive Indians into rebellion. Their greed for
bigger plantations and more slaves pushed them on to conquering the
aborigines in an expanding circle. By 1553 they had founded a settlement
on the Upper Paraná and were dominant from river to river in the
southern half of the present territory of Paraguay. Until his death, in
1557, Irala was the dominating personality in the colony. According to
his lights he was just in his dealings with the Indians. When he died
the settlement was firmly on its feet, and even the Indians revered him
as their benefactor. The mass of the population was Indian, and Guarany
has always remained the prevalent language in Paraguay. Absolutely
isolated from the other European colonies, and almost without
communication with the mother country, the settlement was, however, an
unpromising affair. The few hundreds of Spaniards might have sustained
their social and military superiority over the hordes of Indians by
whom they were surrounded, but, without material and intellectual
communication with Spain, they could achieve no commercial success.
[Illustration: YOUNG GAUCHO.
[From a lithograph.]]
An outlet to the sea was necessary. The original settlers had been
adventurers, willing to follow Mendoza through swamp and forest up to
the walls of Eldorado, and their children were not less enterprising.
The horses brought over by the adelantados had multiplied amazingly, and
were spreading wild over the pampa to the south. Cattle, sheep, and
goats bred by millions. Before long the attractions of a pastoral life
began to appeal to the Spaniards and creoles of Asuncion. The braver and
more energetic preferred the free open existence of the pampa to
idleness in the sleepy villages of Paraguay.
The Argentine nation proper began its existence when the creole mounted
his horse and took to cattle-breeding on the plains. The possession of
horses, as much as of firearms, gave the gaucho his military
predominance over the fiercest aborigines, and the horse was also the
cornerstone of his industrial system. The cattle of the open pampa gave
him an unlimited supply of the best food, and his horses enabled him to
procure it with a minimum of effort. Irala's successors repeatedly tried
to establish a colony near the mouth of the Plate, but they were not
successful until the creoles on horseback had pushed their way south
along the pampa and driven back or subdued the wandering Indians. In
1560, the Guaranies of Paraguay were definitely crushed in the horribly
bloody battle of Acari, but it was not until 1573 that the Spaniards
from Asuncion succeeded in founding a city south of the confluence of
the Paraná and Paraguay. Santa Fé was the first Spanish settlement on
the Plate in territory now a part of the Argentine Republic.
The man who led the creoles to the pampa was Juan de Garay, a Basque,
who had been one of the soldiers in the army that conquered Peru. His
energy and vigour, and the bravery of the creole cavalry who followed
his expeditions down the river and over the pampas, at length opened up
communication from Paraguay to Europe and gave Spain a seaport on the
South Atlantic. Curiously enough, in the very year that Garay founded
Santa Fé, the Spaniards from Peru founded Cordoba--the most eastward of
the Andean settlements. Their hard riders had pushed on from Cordoba,
reconnoitring as far as the Paraná and there ran across Garay's men. The
two currents of Argentine settlements met almost at the beginning,
though two centuries were to elapse before they completely coalesced.
Eight years later, Garay succeeded in founding Buenos Aires after
Zarate, the third adelantado, had failed as badly as any of his
predecessors. Garay, by sheer force of energy and fitness, became the
real ruler of the settlements. Active, far-sighted, and able, he
perceived that a purely military establishment at the mouth of the river
was foredoomed to failure. To be permanent, the port and town must be
self-sustaining, and therefore must be surrounded by farms and ranches
and be accessible by land from the upper settlements. In the spring of
1580, the acting governor sent overland from Santa Fé two hundred
families of Guarany Indians, accompanied by a thousand horses, two
hundred cows, and fifty sheep, besides mares, carts, oxen, and other
necessaries. The soldiers of the convoy were mostly creoles born in
Paraguay. Boats carried down from Santa Fé arms, munitions, seed grain,
tools, and whatever in those rude days was essential to a settlement.
He, himself, went by land with forty soldiers, following the highland
that skirts the west bank of the Paraná from Santa Fé to Buenos Aires.
The Plate estuary affords no proper harbours; the immense volume of
water spreading over vast shallow beds chokes it with sand-bars, and the
shores are so shelving that even small boats cannot approach the land.
The north side is bolder, and at Montevideo and at the mouth of the
Uruguay affords bays partly sheltered from the storms which sweep up
over the level pampas and make anchorage in the river so unsafe. But the
north bank was cut off from land communication with the existing Spanish
towns by the mighty Uruguay and Paraná, and Garay desired that his new
city should be always accessible from his older settlements on the right
bank of the Paraná. His choice of the particular spot where the largest
city of the southern hemisphere has since grown up, seems to have been
determined by a few trifling circumstances. He kept as near the head of
the estuary as possible, in order to shorten the land route from Santa
Fé, and picked upon a slight rise of ground between two draws, which
made the site defensible. The fact that a nearby creek--the
Riachuelo--afforded a shelter for little boats, may also have been given
weight in reaching a decision.
Though his settlers did not number five hundred, Garay laid out his city
like a town-site boomer. The surrounding country was divided into
ranches and the neighbouring Indians were distributed among the
citizens of the new town. A "Cabildo," or city council, was named, with
the full paraphernalia of a Spanish municipal government. The new town
started off in the full enjoyment of all the guarantees known to
immemorial Spanish constitutional law. Troubles broke out almost
immediately between the creole settlers and the Spaniards who had been
sent over by the adelantado to fill offices and get the best things in
distributions of land and slaves. Garay had hardly left the town to look
after the rest of the province than the creoles, indignant over unfair
treatment, forcibly demanded an open Cabildo. This was an extraordinary
popular assembly which, according to old Spanish custom, might be called
at critical times, and was something like a town meeting. In theory, the
property-owners and educated citizens were called together merely to
give advice, but in practice, it was a tumultuous assemblage to overawe
the office-holders. The Argentine creoles were doing nothing more than
asserting their constitutional rights as vassals of the king of Castile.
They compelled the Spanish office-holders to compromise.
Meanwhile, Garay was clinching his claim to immortality as the founder
of the Spanish power on the Plate. He explored the pampas to the south
and west of the new city, and reduced many of the tribes to slavery or
vassalage. He found the plains already overrun with hundreds of
thousands of horses--the descendants of the few abandoned there
forty-five years before when the remnants of Mendoza's ill-starred
expedition fled up the river. On his way back to Santa Fé this great
Indian fighter was ambushed by Indians and stabbed while he slept.
His death was followed by outbreaks among the creoles, who resented the
efforts of the adelantado's new representatives to establish a monopoly
in horse-hair. Scarcely had they found a way to make a little money, by
hunting wild horses for their hair, than the officials tried to absorb
all the profit. The struggle between the repressive commercial policy of
Spain, and the interests of the Plate colonists, began with the
foundation of the colony of Buenos Aires and went on for more than two
hundred years.
In 1588, the creoles obtained a foothold in the extreme north of the
mesopotamian region by founding the city of Corrientes near the junction
of the Paraná and Paraguay. All the new commonwealths south of Asuncion
obtained a solid economic foundation in the herds of cattle and horses
which covered the plains. In the regions adjacent to the Andes the
Spaniards did not become so exclusively pastoral as their brethren of
the pampas near the Plate. While they had more and better Indian slaves,
their pasturage was not so good. Though apparently more isolated, their
proximity to Upper Peru and the trade that went on with that great
mining country--the goal of fortune-hunting Spaniards in those
years--placed them more directly under the control of the viceregal
authorities. Tucuman was a mere southern extension of the jurisdiction
of the Audiencia at Charcas, and Cuyo was an integral part of Chile,
but this did not prevent the early development of a strong sentiment in
favour of local self-government and of hatred of the imported Spanish
satraps.
By the year 1617 the settlements on the Lower Paraná had become of
considerable importance. Buenos Aires was a town of three thousand
people; the right bank of the river as far as Santa Fé was a
grazing-ground for the herds of the creoles; towns and ranches were
flourishing in Corrientes. In that year the Spanish crown abolished the
office of adelantado and erected the lower settlements into a province
separate from Paraguay. The new province included the territory that is
now Uruguay, as well as the four actual Argentine provinces of Buenos
Aires, Santa Fé, Entre Rios and Corrientes. Entre Rios and Uruguay were,
however, as yet entirely unsettled.
While the creoles were thus firmly establishing themselves along the
Lower Paraná and in the Andean provinces, the Jesuits were converting
the Indians in the east of Paraguay, and early in the seventeenth
century these indefatigable missionaries had penetrated to the Upper
Paraná, crossed it, and were gathering the Indians by thousands into
peaceful villages.
ARGENTINA
CHAPTER I
THE ARGENTINE LAND
South from where the great mass of the Bolivian Andes shoves a shoulder
to the east, as if seeking to join the Brazilian mountain system, and
from where a low ridge stretches out to form the watershed between the
Madeira and the eastward-flowing affluents of the Paraguay, extends an
immense flat plain. Two thousand miles from north to south, and nearly
five hundred miles in breadth, hardly a hillock rises above its surface
from the foothills of the Andes westward to the sea. In the tropical
North its surface is partly covered with trees, but south of the Chaco
the only woodlands are narrow belts following the streams. Everywhere
stretch the grassy plains, without an obstruction or interruption. The
soil is a fine alluvium, full of the right chemical elements, and
admirably adapted to agriculture, wherever the rainfall is sufficient.
As a pasture-ground it is the finest on the planet. Within recent
geological times this plain was the bottom of a great shallow gulf which
received the detritus washed down from the Andes on the one side and
the Brazilian mountains on the other. The gradual uplifting of those
youngest mountains--the Andes--raised their flanks until the adjacent
floor of the gulf appeared dry land, a land all ready and prepared for
human occupancy. Nowhere does man encounter fewer obstacles to his
freedom of movement or find it easier to procure his food supply than on
the pampa--the characteristic topographical feature of the political
division of South America known as Argentina.
Skirting the ridge on the east and draining the vast slopes of the
Brazilian mountains of their tropical rainfall, is the great river
Paraná. In latitude 27° it turns abruptly to the west, as if about to
cross the pampa, but a hundred miles farther on it resumes its southward
course. At this last turn the Paraná flows into a river which comes
straight down from the north, draining the bed of the old inland sea
that used to divide South America. This junction of the Paraná and the
Paraguay forms the second largest river in the world--a river without
obstructions to navigation, but which is so immense that it cannot be
bridged. In latitude 32° it turns back to the south-east, soon receives
the Uruguay,--a swifter stream, that drains the southern part of the
Atlantic highlands,--and then opens out into the great shallow estuary
known as the River Plate. Between the Uruguay and the Paraná is the
Argentine Mesopotamia,--a flat region where the low-lying plains,
covered with luscious grasses, intersected with streams, and
interspersed with timber, gradually rise up-stream into the highlands of
the Missions.
[Illustration: ARGENTINA, PARAGUAY, URUGUAY, BOLIVIA AND CHILE]
[Illustration: FOREST SCENE IN ARGENTINA.
[From steel print.]]
To the west the pampa is bounded by the foothills of the Andes and the
parallel chains with which that great mountain system reinforces its
flanks. At the Bolivian frontier, the great outward-jutting shoulder of
the Andes looms up among a series of subordinate chains. South of them,
for a thousand miles, is a belt of broken country averaging two hundred
miles in width. The pampa creeps up to the very foot of the mountain
ranges and where it is watered blossoms like a garden. A quarter of the
population of the Republic lives in the irrigated valleys of these
Andean provinces.
A comparatively narrow, arid, belt stretches diagonally across the South
American continent from the Pacific, in Northern Chile, to the Atlantic
in Northern Patagonia. Consequently, from north to south, and from the
Atlantic back toward the north-east border of this arid belt, the
rainfall of Argentina decreases. On the north-eastern frontier it is
about 80 inches a year; at Rosario, 40; at Cordoba, 30; at Buenos Aires,
35. In the Andean provinces it decreases from over forty, near the
Bolivian frontier, to five or six at San Juan in the latitude of Santa
Fé and Cordoba. In the eastern part of the great pampa the rainfall is
ample for cereal crops; in the western half the rains are periodical and
the region is better adapted to grazing than to agriculture, and there
the grass lands are intersected with tracts of desert which grow larger
towards the south. In the Andes the eastern ranges, catching the
rain-laden upper currents, send down ample water to irrigate the valleys
and adjacent plains.
The mesopotamian region and the country directly south of the Plate
estuary have, of course, an ample rainfall. South of the latitude of
Buenos Aires the rainfall of the Andean region, which has grown steadily
less from the northern boundary, begins again to increase. The eastern
slopes of the mountains south for an indeterminate distance are well
watered, while the Patagonian plains to their east are dry and desolate.
The climate varies from tropical, on the northern frontier, to arctic in
Tierra del Fuego. The southern pampa and the Andean provinces are
temperate or subtropical, and admirably adapted for habitation by men of
European descent. Tucuman is the hottest of these provinces. There the
average temperature of the coldest month is 53°; at Buenos Aires it is
50°; at Cordoba 47°. The average temperatures in these localities for
the whole year are, respectively, 63°, 61°, and 63°.
When Columbus landed in the West Indies, this vast territory was
occupied by two separate sets of aborigines. The Andean provinces were a
part of the great Inca Empire. South as far as Mendoza, the Andean
valleys were filled with a vigorous yet peaceful population who had
brought the art of irrigation to a high degree of perfection.
Plantations of corn, mandioc, and potatoes flourished on the terraced
hillsides and in the fertile valleys. The lower and hotter plains
furnished cotton. Constant communication, both commercial and
governmental, was kept up with the centre of the Inca power in Cuzco,
along roads that followed the easiest routes along the valleys and up
over the passes to the Bolivian plateau, and thence to the central
provinces of the Empire. Chile, on the other side of the Cordillera, was
a sister province, and the passes over the great range were well known
and constantly used. The population was greater than it is at the
present day. While the political solidity of the Inca Empire is
doubtless exaggerated, it is certain that the same civilisation extended
from Ecuador to Mendoza and Santiago de Chile, and that the Cordilleran
region was the home of twenty millions of people, organised into
vigorous, progressive, and expanding communities.
The Andean civilisation never showed any tendency to expand over the
tropical plains of the great central depressions. The Incas themselves
never cared to penetrate far down the wooded and steaming slopes of the
Andes lying directly to the east of their own capital. Their dependent
states bordering on the Argentine pampa did not cross the desert plains,
where irrigating ditches could not reach. So far as we now know, the
Andean Indians had never penetrated to the Atlantic.
East of the pampas, in the hilly woods of Paraguay and Brazil, tribes
vastly inferior in intelligence, political organisation, and
civilisation, maintained a precarious existence. Many of those who
belonged to the great Guarany family lived in palisaded villages and
cultivated the soil, but none had advanced far on the road toward a
reasonably efficient social and military organisation. The procuring of
food for their daily wants was their chief occupation; the tribes were
too small to make effective warfare on a large scale; there was no
prospect of any development into a higher culture. Certain tribes,
inferior to the Guaranies, had spread from the wooded regions over the
mesopotamian provinces and into the adjacent pampa, and the districts on
both sides of the estuary, but they never ventured far from the
water-supply. Though brave and intractable, these people showed no real
fighting capacity until after white men had taught them the use of
horses. With this knowledge, however, they were able to offer a very
effective resistance, which was not completely overcome until twenty
years ago.
The area of the whole Republic is 1,212,600 square miles. The
mesopotamian region contains 81,000 square miles, being larger than
England and even more uniformly fertile. The pampa suitable for grain
production, including the semi-forested Chaco plain in the north, has an
area of not less than 350,000 square miles. The Andean provinces contain
nearly 300,000, and Patagonia 316,000. The grazing pampa is partly
included in the Andean provinces; its boundaries to the south and toward
the Atlantic are not capable of exact definition, but it includes
perhaps half the territory of the Republic. Except the higher mountains,
and the so-called deserts of the centre, the whole territory is
productive.
[Illustration: DOCKS AT BUENOS AIRES.]
The description of the white man's spread over this immense country--the
largest, except Brazil, of the South American states, and of all these
the most immediately and unquestionably suitable for maintaining a large
population of European blood--is tedious when told in detail. But it is
a story fraught with significance for the future of the world. On the
plains of Argentina the descendants of the Spanish conquerors have
fought out among themselves all the perplexing questions arising from
the adaptation of Spanish absolutism and ancient burgh law to a new
country and to personal freedom. After more than half a century of civil
war, constitutional equilibrium has been attained. The country ought to
be interesting where there has grown up within a few decades the largest
city in the Southern Hemisphere, and the largest Latin city, except
Paris, in the world. The growth of Buenos Aires has been as dizzying as
that of Chicago, and the world has never seen a more rapid and easy
multiplication of wealth than that which took place in Argentina between
the years of 1870 and 1890. Interesting, too, is Argentina as the scene
of the most extensive experiment in the mixture of races now going on
anywhere in the world except in the United States. In forty years more
than two millions of immigrants have made their homes in Argentina. The
majority are from Southern Europe, but the proportion of British,
Germans, French, Belgians, and Swiss is a fifth of the whole. Will the
Northerners be assimilated and disappear in the mass of Southerners, or
will they succeed in impressing their characteristics on the latter?
Will a mixed race be evolved especially suited to success in subtropical
America? Will the system of administration painfully evolved out of the
old Spanish laws prove permanently suited to the great industrial and
commercial state that is growing up on the Argentine pampa? Will the
municipal and bureaucratic system prove adaptable and elastic enough to
furnish a political framework for the tremendous economic development
which has already made such strides, but which really has only begun?
Will the intellectual and social ideals of the coming Argentine nation
be military, bureaucratic, leisurely, or will they be purely commercial?
Certain answers to these questions cannot yet be deduced from the data
furnished by the history of Argentina. Their solution, however, inheres
in the past of its people. The future of Argentina will have a profound
influence on the rest of the continent. It has the largest territory
except Brazil, the greatest per capita wealth, its population is
increasing most rapidly, and it has received the greatest amount of
foreign capital. Immigration and investment in the other countries may
be expected soon to begin on a large scale. The experience of Argentina
promises to prove invaluable to all of South America.
CHAPTER II
THE SPANISH COLONIAL SYSTEM
Spain, as a world-power, reached her apogee in the year 1580, when Juan
de Garay founded Buenos Aires. In that year Portugal was united to the
Spanish Crown, and the East Indies and Brazil doubled Spain's colonial
dominions. But at the very same moment the first symptom of her decline
appeared. For the first time it was proved to the world that she could
not hold the seas against her young rivals from Northern Europe. Sir
Francis Drake, the earliest harbinger of Britain's dominance on the
seas, appeared off the Plate on his way to the Pacific. Spain had
trusted that the difficulty of threading the Straits of Magellan would
protect the South Sea, but Drake slipped through in a spell of
favourable weather and found few Spanish ships which were fit to fight
him along all the coast to Panama. Drake's wonderful raid humbled
Spanish pride where Spain was thought strongest, and encouraged
Englishmen to fight with a good heart, a few years later, the
overwhelming Invincible Armada.
In 1616 a great Dutchman, Schouten, found the passage into the Pacific
around Cape Horn. This discovery revolutionised the navigation routes of
the world. Heretofore the only practicable commercial route to the
Pacific had been across the Atlantic to the north shore of the Isthmus.
Nombre de Dios was the metropolis and the market where all the goods for
South America were landed. Those intended to be sold on the shore of the
Caribbean were sent along its coast, and those intended for the Pacific
were carried overland to Panama to be shipped on coasters down to their
destination. Direct communication across the Atlantic to Buenos Aires
was forbidden by the Spanish government.
Schouten's epoch-making discovery opened up the way for countless Dutch
and English ships to ply a contraband trade with the towns of the
Pacific coast, but did not induce the Spanish government to change its
time-honoured policy or vary its trade routes. America was treated as
the private property of the sovereign of Castile, and its commerce was
to be exploited for his sole benefit. No Spaniard was allowed to freight
a ship for the colonies, or to buy a pound of goods thence, without
obtaining a special permission and paying for that privilege. Cadiz was
the only port in Spain from which ships were permitted to sail for
America, and the whole trade was farmed out to a ring of Cadiz
merchants. To protect this monopoly and to prevent the export of gold
and silver were the chief purposes of the Spanish colonial policy. Every
port on the seaboard of Spanish South America was closed to
trans-oceanic traffic, except Nombre de Dios on the north shore of the
Isthmus. The towns on the Pacific and Caribbean coasts might admit
coasting vessels properly identified as coming from the Isthmus and
loaded with the consignments of the Cadiz monopolists, but the South
Atlantic ports were absolutely closed so far as law could close them.
Legally, no ships whatever, coasters or ocean carriers, could enter and
unload at Buenos Aires. Her imports from Spain must first go to the
Isthmus, be disembarked, and then transported across the mule-paths to
the Pacific. Thence the goods had to go in coasters to Callao, in Peru,
where they were again disembarked, transported up the Andean passes
along the Bolivian plateau, and finally down into the Argentine plain.
Under such conditions in the southern provinces European manufactures
could only be sold at fabulous prices.
On the other hand, such a system made exports impossible, except those
of precious metals and valuable drugs. Hides, hair, wool, agricultural
products, would not stand the cost of such long transport by land and
sea. The Spanish authorities seem deliberately to have come to the
conclusion that America should be confined to producing gold and silver,
and they ruthlessly strangled all other industries. The Plate
settlements especially suffered from the ruinous consequences of this
system. Having no mines of precious metals, they were considered
worthless; their interests were ignored, and their complaints given no
attention. The mere existence of Buenos Aires was a source of anxiety
to the monopolists and to the Spanish government. They feared that the
English or Dutch might take possession of the mouth of the Plate and
thence send expeditions to intercept gold and silver shipments along the
overland routes. More immediate and real was the danger of the
establishment of a contraband trade which would deprive the Cadiz
merchants of their enormous profits on goods sent by the Isthmian route.
The home government enacted laws of incredible severity in trying to
enforce this policy. In 1599 the governor of Buenos Aires was instructed
to forbid all importation and exportation under penalty of death and
forfeiture of property. The shipping of hides and horsehair to Spain
would seem to be harmless enough, but the Spanish government dreaded
that gold and silver might be smuggled out in the packages. The
government would lose its royal fifth and the precious metals might be
sent to Spain's rivals and enemies in Europe. According to the economic
ideas then accepted, gold and silver alone constituted wealth, and every
ounce mined in America which did not reach Spain's coffers was
considered irretrievably lost. To prevent clandestine shipments of the
precious metals all commercial intercourse from the coast to the
interior was made illegal, and no goods whatever were permitted to pass
along the road between Buenos Aires and Cordoba.
In the very nature of things such laws were unenforcible. Even the
governors sent out for the special purpose of repressing evasions
recommended modifications. But the Cadiz monopolists were stubborn and
their influence with the Court was all-powerful. The laws remained on
the statute books only to be constantly disregarded. No human power
could keep people who lived on the seashore, and who had hides, wool,
and horsehair to sell, from exchanging them for clothing and tools.
Perforce Buenos Aires became a community of smugglers. English and Dutch
ships surreptitiously landed their cargoes of manufactures and took
their pay in hides or in silver dollars that had escaped the Spanish
soldiers on the road down from Potosí.
Rio and Santos, in Brazil, became intermediate warehouses for the
commerce of the Plate. The officials in Buenos Aires itself connived at
evasions, and the very governors made great fortunes in partnership with
smugglers. The guards along the interior routes shut their eyes when the
mule trains passed, and the goods of Flanders and France reached
Cordoba, Santiago, Potosí, and even Lima, by way of Buenos Aires, and
were sold at prices with which the Cadiz monopolists could not compete.
Silver came surreptitiously from Chile and Bolivia to pay for these
goods. The net result was that trade followed its natural and easiest
route, although there was a fearful waste of energy in the process. The
bribe-taking official, the idle soldier at the road station, the
smuggler handling his goods in small boats and risking his life at
night, and the numerous middle men absorbed what might have been
legitimate profit to the seller or to the consumer. Commerce was half
strangled, and with it the industries of the Spanish colonies. Civil
government itself suffered, for a community whose daily occupation it
was to break one law could not be expected to have much respect for
other laws, nor for the bribe-taking rulers and mulish legislators.
Nevertheless, against these outrageously unreasonable regulations the
colonists for centuries made no armed protest. They never questioned the
abstract right of the Crown to forbid them to sell what the labour of
their hands had produced. They evaded but did not contest. Centuries of
this sort of thing ingrained into South Americans the belief that
industrial and commercial activity exists only by sufferance of the
government. The right to sell, to buy, to exercise a profession or a
trade, depended on the permission of the government. The people saw the
executives taxing industry at their pleasure, and suppressing its very
beginnings, until such a procedure came to seem a matter of course.
Commercial spirit was constantly hampered and business skill deprived of
its rewards. The evil effects of such a policy can be seen at every step
of the development of the Spanish-American countries. It is no wonder
that office-holding became the most popular of avocations. The farmer,
the stock-raiser, and the merchant seemed to be allowed to exist only to
pay the Spanish functionary, instead of the government's existing for
the benefit of the producing community. To this day, service with the
government is more esteemed than commercial pursuits. The national
ideals are only slowly becoming industrial.
The King of Castile was absolute sovereign and sole proprietor of
America. The continent was an appanage of his crown; it did not form an
integral part of Spain; America and Spain were connected solely through
their common allegiance to him. The King governed America directly,
assisted not by his regular ministers, but by a body of personal
advisers called the Council of the Indies. His representatives in South
America were the Viceroys of Mexico and Peru. The latter's jurisdiction
extended over all South America. Certain great territorial divisions had
been made Captaincies-General, and though theoretically subordinate to
the Viceroy, they were in effect independent of him. In the great
capital cities sat bodies of high judicial and executive officials known
as Audiencias. Among their functions was that of exercising the powers
of the Viceroy during his absence. Charcas, the capital of the mining
region of Bolivia, was the seat of an Audiencia, and since this city had
no resident Viceroy or Captain-General its Audiencia was the real
supreme authority over the Argentine and all the territory east of the
Cordillera, from Lake Titicaca to the Straits.
Viceroyalties and Captaincies-General were divided into provinces, each
of which was ruled by a royal governor. When the Spaniards permanently
occupied a new region their first step was to found a city and organise
a municipal government. Like the Romans, they knew no other unit of
political structure. The governing body was called a Cabildo and
consisted of from six to twelve members who held office for life. It
conducted the ordinary judicial and civil administration through
officers selected by itself and from its own members. Though the
governor was _ex-officio_ president of this body, and although its
members had bought their places, they were not mere figureheads to
register his will. Limited though their functions were, they represented
the time-honoured governmental form into which Spaniards had always
crystallised, and the Creoles could not be prevented from obtaining a
preponderant influence in them. Throughout colonial times they
represented local and Creole interests and operated continually as a
check to the aggression of the military governors.
The territorial jurisdiction of a municipality was usually ill-defined.
Indeed, as a rule, in the days of settlement it extended in every
direction until the claim of another city was encountered, and the terms
"city" and "province," were, therefore, usually synonymous. As
population grew denser new cities were founded which as municipalities
were independent of the capital town, but they were not necessarily
separated from the original province. The Cabildo of the capital of a
province bore a peculiar relation to the royal governor, and often tried
to exercise a control over the affairs of the whole province, deeming
themselves his associates and the sharers of the functions he exercised,
outside of its own boundaries, as well as within them. This assumption
was favoured by the fact that no general body representing all the
cities of a province existed, nor any constitutional machinery by which
they could act in common.
Spanish-Americans have known only two forms of government, which have
everywhere and always co-existed, though they seem inconsistent. First,
there is an executive--the limits of his power ill-defined, and often
imposing his will by force, in essence arbitrary and personal, and
feared rather than respected by the people; secondly, the Cabildos and
the modern deliberative bodies. Never really elective, these have
nevertheless performed many of the functions of bodies truly
representative; they have checked the arbitrary executives and furnished
a basis for government by discussion. For centuries the communities
looked to them for the conduct of ordinary local governmental affairs,
and they survived all the storms of colonial and revolutionary times. On
the other hand, their importance in the Spanish governmental scheme has
been a most potent influence in preventing the growth of local
representative government by elective assemblies and officials.
Consequently, in national matters, freely elected and truly
representative assemblies have been hard to obtain. Legislation has been
controlled by the functionaries, and there has been no general and
continuous participation in governmental affairs by the body of the
people. Government by discussion and by the common-sense of the majority
is difficult to establish among a people accustomed for centuries to
seeing matters in the hands of officials whom they had no practical
means of holding to responsibility. The people have rarely felt that
the executive was their own officer. He was imposed on them from above,
he was not amenable to them, and so far as they were concerned he ruled
at his own risk. The Creoles were intensely democratic in feeling and
hard to control, and when they could not tolerate an executive they
turned him out by force, because no effective machinery existed by which
they could turn him out peaceably.
Though the colonial governor was required to give an account of his
administration at the close of his term, as a matter of fact he was an
irresponsible and despotic satrap, who taxed, judged, and imprisoned
people at his pleasure, restrained only by his traditional respect for
the Cabildos and by the fear of exciting revolt. He commanded the armed
forces, and his power was, in fact, rather military than civil in
origin, method, and application. The Cabildos selected the ordinary
judicial officers of first resort from among their own members' list,
but their authority was not very effective outside the town itself. The
vast plains between the settlements were largely governed patriarchally
by the ranch owners and the popular and capable gauchos who grew into
leaders.
A taste for town life soon became characteristic of the
Spanish-Americans, and wherever able they crowded into the towns in
preference to staying on their ranches. Wealth, intelligence, and
political activity, therefore, came to be concentrated in a few _foci_.
The system of granting immense tracts of land and dividing up the
Indians as slaves among the proprietors would apparently have a
tendency to produce a landed aristocracy. But the money profits in
colonial days were small, and the great landowner lived in the same
style as his poorer neighbour. Titles of nobility did not exist, and the
constitution of society was decidedly democratic. From the very earliest
times no love was lost between the Creoles and the newly arrived
Spaniards. The governor was almost invariably a Spaniard, while the
Cabildo and its officers were usually Creoles.
CHAPTER III
THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
The greatest name in the history of Buenos Aires during the early years
of the seventeenth century is that of Hernandarias Saavedra. Of
distinguished ancestry and pure Spanish blood, he was born at Asuncion
in 1561. A thorough Creole, his education was confined to the
instruction he received at the convent of the Franciscan Fathers in his
native town. At fifteen he left school and joined an expedition against
the Indians of the Andes. He showed remarkable capacity in fighting on
the plains, and his shrewdness and firmness in dealing with the
aborigines were even more valuable than his courage. Juan de Garay, the
far-sighted Basque who founded Buenos Aires, was the patron, model, and
hero of young Hernandarias, who followed him in his great expedition
over the southern pampa. When Garay, the great Indian fighter and
coloniser, perished, his mantle fell on the young man's shoulders. In
1588 Hernandarias distinguished himself in the defence of Corrientes
against the Indians of Chaco and was the leader in the difficult
campaigns undertaken in retaliation. By the time he had reached thirty
he was the leading Creole in all the vast region from the Upper Paraguay
down to Buenos Aires, and when the Spanish Lieutenant-General of
Asuncion was deposed an open Cabildo called him to the vacancy.
Eleven years later (1602) the governor of Buenos Aires died, and by
common consent Hernandarias filled the office _ad interim_. This popular
selection was soon confirmed by royal commission. He signalised his term
of office by an expedition down the coast in which he carried the terror
of the white man's arms to the limits of the continent, and defeated the
Indians wherever they resisted. Severe with the Indians when occasion
demanded, he was inflexibly just, and as a rule protected them against
the unlawful aggressions of his countrymen. Though he did so much to
curb their military power, he left behind him the name of being their
best friend. He manumitted his own slaves; he opposed the extension of
the system of "encomiendas" with its enslavement of wild Indians, and
after his first term as governor of Buenos Aires he was named official
protector of the aborigines.
Although a Creole, such was his ability as a military leader, and his
shrewdness, wisdom, and firmness as a civil ruler, that the Spanish
government could not ignore him. Though a governor was soon sent out
from Spain to replace him and fatten off the provincials, Hernandarias
remained the most powerful man in the colony. The Spanish authorities
found that they needed him, and he retained their confidence as well as
that of the Creoles. He wisely advised the latter against open
opposition, believing that continued peace must make the colony so
strong that its interests could not continue to be ignored. In 1610 the
Spanish government promulgated laws forbidding the further enslavement
of Indians, and Hernandarias did much to secure their enforcement. At
the same time he encouraged the Jesuits to extend their missions over
the upper valley of the Uruguay, while he secured the ranchers of the
western plains against the encroachments of these energetic priests. The
Creoles prospered in the pastoral pursuits on the pampas, while the
Jesuits developed the more purely agricultural resources of the wooded
hills in the east. The success of his policy soon became evident in the
increasing prosperity of the colony. Three hundred thousand hides were
smuggled out of Buenos Aires in British ships alone in the year 1658,
and by 1630 the Jesuit missions extended in a broad, continuous belt
along the Paraná and the Uruguay from the Tropic of Capricorn to the
thirtieth degree. They were the rulers of a great theocratic republic,
whose area could not have been less than 150,000 square miles, and whose
population of something like a million was concentrated in thriving and
peaceful villages. The Jesuits systematically studied the resources of
the country and taught their Indians the cultivation of many crops
suitable for export. Their territory was commercially tributary to
Buenos Aires and contributed to her growth and prosperity.
When the governorship of Buenos Aires again became vacant in 1615, by
the death of the Spanish incumbent, Hernandarias entered on his own
third term, and two years later, by his advice, the rapidly growing
province was divided. Paraguay became a separate province, and the new
province of Buenos Aires included all the territory east of Tucuman and
south and east of Paraguay. The three provinces of Paraguay, Buenos
Aires, and Tucuman were administratively separate, and each was directly
dependent upon the Audiencia at Charcas and the Viceroy at Lima. One
immediate purpose of the Spanish government, in erecting Buenos Aires
into an independent province, was the enforcement of the prohibition of
trade. It was thought that a governor always on the ground, and
concentrating his attention on the subject, would be efficient in that
direction. However, the result was the opposite of that expected. No
governor of Buenos Aires could avoid making the interests of his capital
city his own. If honest, he was constantly pressing the home government
to open the doors a little and to make exceptions of particular cases;
if dishonest, he went into partnership with the traders.
Hernandarias's career is the one striking example of success by a Creole
in colonial times. Though the conquest and settlement of South America
was accomplished by individual initiative, the men who had done the
pioneering, who had fought and journeyed and suffered, who had stained
their souls with horrible cruelties, whose adventures and successes
would not be credited if the physical evidences did not prove the truth
of the chronicles, were displaced with scant ceremony to make room for
impoverished Court favourites. If the original conquerors were thus
badly treated, the Creoles, unfortunate to have missed the inestimable
advantage of being born on Castilian soil, could not look for favour, or
equal treatment with the office-holders sent out from Madrid year after
year.
The story of the provinces that now form the territory of the Argentine
Republic has not great interest during the long years that intervene
from the completion of the romantic conquest until the uprising against
Spanish authority. With the end of the sixteenth century, the spirit of
enterprise among both Spaniards and Creoles diminished. Throughout the
seventeenth century little progress was made in extirpating the savage
Indians even in regions as close to Buenos Aires as Entre Rios and
Uruguay. Settlements were confined to the right bank of the Paraná, and
the Indians on the left bank, protected behind the wide flood of that
river's delta, were left undisturbed. On the other hand, the dry and
level pampas gave easy access to the thriving towns of the province of
Tucuman. The Cordoba range, the greatest of the outworks of the Andes,
rises from the plain less than two hundred miles from the Paraná at
Santa Fé, and only four hundred miles from Buenos Aires itself. The city
of Cordoba, in the fertile and well-watered slope at the foot of the
sierra, was the capital of the province, the seat of a university from
1613, and the centre of Creole culture. The intercourse of the Buenos
Aireans with their neighbours of the interior constantly increased in
spite of the prohibitions of the Spanish government, while Cordoba and
the other towns of Tucuman prospered with the sale of pack-mules to the
mines of Bolivia.
In the fertile Andean valleys of Rioja and Catamarca had lived since
Inca times the powerful nation of the Calchaquies. Though they had
acknowledged the suzerainty of the Cuzco emperors, they were ruled by
their own chiefs. The first Spaniards that penetrated south from the
Bolivian plateau failed to reduce them to submission. After a bitter
experience the invaders passed to the west. For fifty years this gallant
people were left undisturbed in their Andean fastnesses. Late in the
sixteenth century aggressions again began. The Indians fought
desperately, but were overcome. Forty thousand were sold into slavery;
eleven thousand were exiled to Santiago del Estero, to Santa Fé, and
Buenos Aires. The town of Quilmes, now one of the suburbs of Buenos
Aires, was named from the mountain fastness where the Calchaquies made
their last stand. Rosario was also settled by families of these brave
Indians who were dragged across the pampas by the victorious Spaniards.
About 1655 a leader presented himself to the remnants of this warlike
people, claiming to be the descendant and heir of the ancient Inca
princes. He was known to the Indians as Huallpa-Inca, while the
Spaniards called him Bohorquez. A woman of his own race, by the name of
Colla, accompanied him, and she was greeted with all the ceremonious
honours that belonged to the Inca Queen according to ancient customs.
Even the Jesuit missionaries recognised the validity of the claims of
Bohorquez, but the governor regarded him only as a menace to Spanish
rule. He was pursued relentlessly; his followers rose in revolt; the
rebellion spread northwards, but with the capture of the Inca it
collapsed. He was sent to Lima, tried for treason, and executed, while
the Calchaquies were placed under a military deputy-governor,
subordinate to the governor of Tucuman. Their descendants have
repeatedly proved that they came of fighting stock. They were among the
best soldiers on the patriot side in the war of independence; the
province of Rioja never submitted to Rosas, it resisted Mitre even after
Pavon, the last and decisive battle of the civil wars, and it was the
last province to give its allegiance to the confederation.
The third province into which the whole territory which is now Argentina
was then divided, was Cuyo,--including the three modern provinces of
Mendoza, San Juan, and San Luiz. In its early years, these settlements
did not extend far from the Andes. Late in the sixteenth century San
Luiz was added, thus connecting the Spanish dominions from Chile across
to the borders of Cordoba.
The complicity of the Spanish governors with the contraband commerce
which they were especially charged to suppress is abundantly shown by
contemporary documents. The very first governor sent to Buenos Aires
after its erection into a separate province was accused of agreeing to
allow a Lisbon merchant to land a shipload of goods. He fled to
sanctuary among the Jesuits and there perished of grief and shame. But
others were more impudent and successful. Mercado Villacorta came to his
post announcing that he would so effectively enforce the prohibition
that "not a bird could pass with food in its beak from Buenos Aires to
the interior." However, not many months passed before a Dutch ship
applied for permission to disembark its cargo, presenting papers signed
by a natural son of King Philip himself. The captain offered to turn
over his cargo in return for a certain amount of hides, wool, silver,
and enough food to take him back to Flanders. The proposition, on its
face, was very advantageous, and Villacorta accepted it on account of
the royal treasury. He made a faithful return of the enormous profits
accruing from the cargo of the ship in question, but neglected to report
that three other Dutch ships were anchored just out of sight and that
she passed over to them in the night what had been laden on her the day
before. By chance, a royal commissioner was in Flanders and watched the
unlading of all four ships. He certified that three million dollars
worth of hides, wool, woods, and silver were taken out of their holds.
Villacorta was cashiered for the moment, but a few years later we find
him installed as governor of Tucuman. Another governor, Andres de
Robles, engaged so publicly and impudently in fraudulent transactions
and corrupt contracts that his conduct was the text of sermons in all
the churches, but he calmly went his way and paid no attention to the
clerical boycott and priestly denunciations. Imports by way of Buenos
Aires increased so rapidly that soon the Cadiz monopolists were
complaining to the Council of the Indies that the Potosí shops were
filled with goods which had come by way of the Plate. Absolute
prohibition had manifestly failed, and so palliative measures were
tried. Permission was given to special ships to sail from Cadiz for
Buenos Aires, carrying only enough merchandise to supply the demand of
Buenos Aires itself, and giving bonds to return to Cadiz, so that the
return cargo could be checked over to see that no silver was included.
Naturally, this system proved impracticable and only opened another road
to evasion.
The first severe blow to the extension of the Spanish dominions over the
valley of the Paraná was struck by the Portuguese Creoles of São Paulo
in 1632. Though King Philip of Spain was at that time also monarch of
Portugal and Brazil, the Paulistas viewed with alarm and jealousy the
encroachments of the Jesuits into the regions lying to the south-east of
the homes they had occupied for a century. They had had a hard fight to
keep the Jesuits from establishing villages in their own neighbourhood,
and now they saw these old enemies creeping up the slope of the
tributaries of the Upper Paraná, shutting them off from expansion over
the remoter interior. The Paulistas hated Spaniards and Jesuits; they
wanted Indian slaves; they recked little of the fine-spun discussions as
to the whereabouts of the dividing line between the Castilian and
Portuguese possessions; their allegiance to the Spanish monarch sat
lightly upon them. Their homes were on the headwaters of tributaries of
the Paraná, and their expeditions followed fearlessly down the streams
and across the plateau and burst unheralded on the northern villages of
the Jesuits. The poor Indians were defenceless and totally unprepared.
The Jesuits had taught them the arts of peace but not of war; they had
no arms; their spiritual rulers had bethought themselves safe in these
remote plateaux in the middle of the continent; the few thousands of
Paulistas, away over on the Atlantic border, had not been considered
worth taking into consideration. Though few in number, the band of
Portuguese Creoles created immense havoc. The Jesuit chroniclers say
that three thousand Paulistas killed and carried away into captivity
four hundred thousand Indians in a few years. This is certainly an
exaggeration, but we know that all the Jesuit villages were wiped out as
far south as the Iguassu, and that north of that tributary the Spanish
line was pushed back to the Paraná. The Jesuits protested, but their
complaints availed nothing. A few years later Portugal regained its
independence of Spain and the work of the Paulistas stood. Spain lost
her opportunity of securing the whole Plate valley, and the way was
opened to the Brazilians to make the interior of the continent
Portuguese.
The Paulistas' raids extended as far as the Jesuit villages in Paraguay
and those on the Upper Uruguay, but here the priests managed to hold
their own. Portugal's next move toward getting possession of all the
territory east of the Paraná and the Uruguay was made from the coast.
In 1680, an expedition sent by the governor of Rio landed directly
opposite the city of Buenos Aires and built a fort--calling it Colonia.
This was the first permanent occupation of Uruguayan soil, either by
Portugal or Spain. Both nations claimed it under differing
interpretations of the Treaty of Tordesillas. Portuguese historians
claim that the Paulistas had explored and asserted a right to the region
in the early years of the seventeenth century; and Spanish authorities
state that Jesuits had established a mission on the Lower Uruguay about
the same time. As a matter of fact, Colonia was the first permanent
European settlement south of Santa Catharina and north of the Plate, on
or near the Atlantic coast.
The governor of Buenos Aires promptly raised a force, sailed across the
estuary, and captured the new fort. However, Spain's diplomatic position
in Europe at the time did not justify risking serious trouble over a
matter that seemed so trifling as the possession of a piece of desert in
South America. The governor was ordered to restore Colonia to the
Portuguese authorities, leaving open for subsequent discussion and
determination the question as to which nation was entitled to the
territory on the north bank. With some interruptions, Portugal remained
in possession of the port of Colonia for a century, and its existence
was a constant source of annoyance to the Buenos Aireans. It immediately
became a rival for the trade with the interior, and its merchants had
the advantage of the open aid of their own government. Their
competitors at Buenos Aires across the river were confessedly engaged in
breaking the law of their country. Exportable goods were never safe from
seizure until they had left Argentine soil. Colonia was a convenient
storing-place, and the river crafts, once within its port, could
discharge at their leisure, free from anxiety that active officials
might threaten to enforce inconvenient laws. Every time a war broke out
between the two countries in Europe, the exasperated governor of Buenos
Aires would send over an expedition and capture the Portuguese town.
Three times was it taken and as often restored on the conclusion of
peace. Colonia in Portuguese hands interfered with the trade of Buenos
Aires merchants, and the illicit gains of Spanish officials, and also
destroyed any remnant of efficiency remaining to the prohibition of
commerce across the Atlantic. Back of these commercial and temporary
considerations was the menace to the future occupancy by Spaniards of
the vast and fertile region extending from the boundaries of São Paulo
to the mouth of the Uruguay.
CHAPTER IV
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
The rapid decadence of Spain itself during the reigns of the last kings
of the House of Austria was reflected in the colonies. With the
accession of the Bourbons a forward movement began, and the colonial
administration was roused into an appearance of activity. Something was
done in the direction of adopting a more rational commercial policy, but
it was already too late. The control of trade had irrevocably passed to
Holland and England, and Spain could not recover the business of her own
colonies. The efforts to improve administration were largely nullified
by the conservatism of her aristocracy. It seemed that her mediæval
governmental machinery could not be adapted to the conditions created by
her active rivals.
In 1726, Montevideo, the strategic key to Uruguay and the north bank of
the Plate, was occupied and fortified. Thereafter, though Colonia still
remained in Portuguese hands, it was isolated and scarcely tenable.
Immediately the north shore of the Uruguay began to be settled by
Spaniards. Simultaneously the ranchers of the right bank of the Paraná,
who had long been tempted by the fine pastures on the opposite shore,
finally ventured to secure a foothold in Entre Rios. The warlike
Charruas had kept the white man out of this favoured region for two
centuries, although it was so near to Buenos Aires. They did not yield
without a struggle, but they were overcome, and those who refused to
submit fled to the east bank of the Uruguay River--the present country
of that name. There they were followed by the proselyting Jesuits, and
it was only a question of a few years before the Argentines proper had
crossed the Uruguay and were pasturing their herds in the rolling
champaign country that extends from that river to the sea. The Spanish
advance would have continued up the coast, probably as far as the
northern boundary of the Rio Grande do Sul, if the Portuguese had not in
the meantime established a town and fort at the mouth of the Duck
Lagoon, which is the only port that gives access to the interior of that
most valuable region.
The increase of population, the extension of the occupied
pasture-ground, and the greater demand from Europe for hides and wool,
tended to multiply the volume and value of Argentine exportable
commodities. Northern Europe made marvellous strides in purchasing power
during the eighteenth century, and prices all over the world felt the
impetus. The commercial policy of the Spanish government became more lax
and the trade prohibition fell into contempt and disuse. The system of
fleets of Spanish ships under convoy was abandoned, and single ships,
mostly foreign owned, and trusting to their sailing qualities and
equipment to escape capture, carried all the trade. The trade of Buenos
Aires grew and the population of the city increased in proportion. The
exhaustion of the surface deposits and richer lodes of precious metals
in the mining provinces during the eighteenth century tended to increase
the relative importance of Buenos Aires and her territory, even in the
mind of the Spanish government, and to turn a current of immigration
toward the pastoral and agricultural provinces.
In 1750 the Spanish government made an effort to get rid of the
Portuguese in Colonia by negotiation. Portugal agreed to exchange that
port for the Jesuit Missions which covered the fine pastures in the
western half of the present Brazilian state of Rio Grande. The helpless
Indians were driven off or massacred in spite of their feeble
resistance, but as soon as the treaty was made public, Spanish and
Jesuit protests against the abandonment of the territory were so violent
that the agreement was formally annulled by mutual consent. The
Portuguese retained Colonia, and though they gave up their formal claims
to the Missions the military operations they had so promptly undertaken
against that region had pretty well rooted out Spanish influence on the
east bank of the Upper Uruguay. It was never re-established, and the
dividing line of 1750 is still substantially the boundary between
Spanish and Portuguese South America.
In 1767 Spain followed the example of Portugal and France and expelled
the Jesuits from her dominions. For generations they had been the
largest property holders in the Plate provinces. In the larger towns
popular education was in their hands. Their great schools, convents, and
churches were the finest edifices in the country. To endow their
educational and religious work they had accumulated town houses,
ranches, plantations, mills, cattle, ships, and even slaves. Along the
banks of the Upper Paraná and Uruguay they had succeeded in dominating
and absorbing the whole productive life of the community. Their system
in the Indian regions smothered everything else; no white man was
allowed to visit their settlements; the Indians were kept in absolute
ignorance of the existence of an external world; the Jesuits required
their subjects to work, gathering matte tea, cutting wood, cultivating
the soil, and tending cattle. However, the Indians were kindly treated
and were content with the easy life they enjoyed under the mild Jesuit
rule. The Fathers exported immense quantities of hides and controlled
the production of matte, then, as now, the favourite drink of Creoles
and Indians in the southern half of the continent. The Indians received
their living and the Jesuits absorbed the surplus. Their misfortunes in
Brazil had taught them a lesson, and they had tried to erect their
theocracy in regions where they need not come into close contact and
constant conflict with the lay settlers. For a century, they had been
left undisturbed in South-eastern Paraguay and the region between the
Upper Paraná and Paraguay.
Neither their services to civilisation nor regard for the interests of
the Indians, nor their wealth and influence, could avail anything
against the mandate of the Spanish monarch, backed by the Vatican and
joyfully enforced by the colonial authorities. The Jesuits who had been
employed in teaching in the towns were incontinently imprisoned and
summarily shipped off across the seas, while their schools were placed
under the charge of other ecclesiastics, and their estates sold at
auction. In the missions resistance was anticipated, but none was made.
The Indians, accustomed to look to the Fathers for guidance in
everything, were aghast when they saw the Jesuits leaving, and Spanish
officials taking their places. The new shepherds had not the skill to
drive the flocks to the shearing, and could not keep the Indians
together so as to exploit them for the benefit of the royal treasury.
From their cruelties and exactions the Indians fled and sought refuge
among the Creole settlements of Entre Rios and Uruguay, where they
constituted a valuable addition to the population.
This transplantation had hardly been accomplished when the Spanish
government took a step which revolutionised the administration of the
southern half of the continent during the remainder of colonial times,
and determined the future boundaries of the nations of South America. On
the 1st of August, 1776, the Viceroyalty of Buenos Aires was created.
All the territory south of Lake Titicaca was separated from the
Viceroyalty of Peru, and the province of Cuyo was detached from the
Captaincy-General of Chile. The new Viceroyalty covered the territory
that has since become the four countries--Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay,
and Argentina. In colonial times it was divided into eight
"intendencias," of which the northern four covered the region that is
now Bolivia and was then known as Upper Peru. The four southern
intendencias were: Paraguay; Salta, covering the northwestern provinces;
Cordoba, covering the central and western provinces; and, finally,
Buenos Aires, which, besides the present province, included Santa Fé,
the whole mesopotamian region, Uruguay, and the Jesuit country of the
Upper Paraná.
The creation of the Viceroyalty was a reluctant and tardy reversal of
the colonial policy which had steadfastly refused to recognise in Buenos
Aires the inevitable outlet of the region. Although the four northern
intendencias contained more than half the population, and Paraguay
probably half the remainder, Buenos Aires was made the capital. Situated
at the mouth of the great system of waterways, it was the natural
commercial centre of the whole Viceroyalty. In fifty years it had
doubled in population, while the old cities on the Bolivian plateau had
remained stationary. In 1776 its population did not much exceed twenty
thousand souls, but was rapidly increasing. Heretofore, it had been
rather a resort of smuggling merchants than a centre of political and
social influence. Nevertheless, from this unpromising root was to spring
the spreading tree of South American independence. Buenos Aires is the
only capital that never readmitted the Spanish authorities, once they
had been expelled, and within her walls San Martin drilled the nucleus
of the armies that drove the Spaniards out of Chile and Peru.
[Illustration: AN OLD SPANISH CORNER IN BUENOS AIRES.]
The alarming growth of the Portuguese power southward was another potent
reason for the establishment of a strong and independent military
jurisdiction at the mouth of the Plate. The Spanish government had at
last determined on vigorous measures to take Colonia, drive the
Portuguese from Rio Grande, and push the Spanish boundaries east to the
original Tordesillas line. Pedro de Zeballos, the first Viceroy, sailed
in November, 1776, in command of the largest force which up to that time
had been sent to the Western Continent. Against his twenty-one thousand
men and great fleet the Portuguese had no force, military or naval,
strong enough to make a serious resistance.
The flourishing Brazilian settlement of Santa Catharina was easily
reduced, and, leaving it garrisoned, the fleet and army went on to the
Plate. Colonia surrendered without resistance, and the army prepared to
march northward and drive the Portuguese from all the coast as far north
as Santa Catharina. Hardly was the advance begun, when news was received
that peace between Spain and Portugal had been signed. The latter
retained eastern Rio Grande, and Santa Catharina was restored, while
Spain's title to Uruguay and the Missions was recognised.
Zeballos returned to Buenos Aires and actively engaged in the military
and civil organisation of the new Viceroyalty. A fresh set of special
regulations had been prepared in Spain, creating an elaborate hierarchy
of executives. The chief provincial governors, now called "intendentes,"
were subject to the orders of the Viceroy in military matters, but as to
taxation they were directly responsible to the Crown. They were
entrusted with the paying of governmental employees, which gave them
great influence with the Cabildos and functionaries.
The intention of the Spanish government was manifestly to enforce close
relationship and greater subjection to the central authority at Madrid.
In practice, however, the financial independence of the provincial
governors stimulated the feeling of local independence, increased the
influence of the Cabildos, and paved the way for the revolution.
Since 1765 the rest of South America had enjoyed the privilege of free
commerce from the mother country. Now, the same rule was applied to
Buenos Aires, and trade with Spain quickly attained respectable
dimensions. In the five years from 1792 to 1796 more than one hundred
ships made the voyage to Spain, and exports ran up to five million
dollars annually. Buenos Aires became the _entrepôt_ of the wine and
brandy of Cuyo; the poncho and hides of Tucuman; the tobacco, woods, and
matte tea of Paraguay; the gold and silver of Upper Peru; the copper of
Chile; and even the sugar, cacao, and rice of Lower Peru. By the end of
the century the population of the city was forty thousand. Thirty
thousand more lived in the immediate vicinity; Montevideo had seven
thousand, and the outlying settlements of Uruguay twenty-five thousand
inhabitants. The civilised population of the Buenos Aires intendencia
was about one hundred and seventy thousand, and in population and in
wealth it had become easily the first among the eight great districts of
the Viceroyalty.
CHAPTER V
THE BEGINNINGS OF THE REVOLUTION
The Viceroyalty was a heterogeneous mass. The common subjection of its
component parts to the Viceroy gave it a mere appearance of cohesion.
The centring of the commercial currents in Buenos Aires did not furnish
an organic connection sufficiently strong to unite provinces and cities
so widely separated and so different in social and industrial
constitution. Upper Peru had been a mining region, and its white
population was largely of a shifting character. The bulk of the
population were Indians, and the inhabitants of Spanish blood were still
taskmasters. Society was as yet in unstable equilibrium, and the
different elements had not thoroughly coalesced. Paraguay was an
isolated and almost self-sufficing commonwealth. It was essentially
theocratic, and averse to receiving external impressions. In Salta and
Cordoba the proportion of Indian blood was not so preponderant as in
Bolivia and Paraguay; agriculture was the economic basis; the Creoles
and Indians had largely amalgamated politically and socially; and,
though the people of Spanish descent lived mostly in the towns, they
were in close and friendly contact with the civilised Indians who
laboured in the irrigated valleys. On the wide pampas a new race of men
had sprung into existence--the gauchos, whose business was the herding
of cattle, whose homes were their saddles, and who were as impatient of
control and as hard to deprive of personal liberty as Arabs or
Parthians. The proportion of white blood increased toward the coast.
Buenos Aires was the boom town of the region and the time. Its
population was recruited from among the most adventurous and
enterprising Spaniards and Creoles. Lima and Mexico were centres of
aristocracy and bureaucracy, while the social organisation of Buenos
Aires and its surrounding territory was completely democratic. All were
equal in fact; neither nobles nor serfs existed; the Viceroy was little
more than a new official imposed by external authority, and having no
real support in the country itself. It is not a mere coincidence that
the three centres--Caracas, Buenos Aires, and Pernambuco--whence the
revolutionary spirit spread over South America should all have been
democratic in social organisation and far distant from the old colonial
capitals. In Buenos Aires, the Viceroy himself could not find a white
coachman. An Argentine Creole would no more serve in a menial capacity
than a North American pioneer; and a Creole hated a Spaniard very much
as his contemporary, the Scotch-Irish settler of the Appalachians, hated
an Englishman.
Not even religion furnished a strong bond of union between the widely
dispersed cities and provinces of the Viceroyalty. The priests had not
been organised into a compact hierarchy. They had little class feeling;
they lived the life of the Creoles and shared the same prejudices. Half
the members of the first Congress after the revolution were priests, but
they pursued no distinctive policy of their own and offered no effective
resistance to the growth of the power of the military chiefs.
Commerce with Spain had been authorised, but with other nations it was
still unlawful. The Cadiz monopolists still fought hard to preserve
their privileges and to control the Atlantic trade as they had
controlled the route by the Isthmus. Great Britain had enjoyed a
monopoly of the traffic in negroes during most of the colonial period,
but in 1784 all foreign ships carrying slaves were allowed to enter,
unload, and take a return cargo of the "products of the country." The
Cadiz merchants contended that hides--then the principal article of
export--were not "products" within the meaning of this law, and the
Spanish courts decided in their favour. This absurd decision created a
storm of opposition in Buenos Aires, but even more unreasonable
restrictions continued to be insisted upon. The proposition to allow the
colonies to trade with one another was vehemently opposed by the people
of Cadiz and their agents in Buenos Aires.
Meanwhile, England's maritime victories in the wars of the French
Revolution were sweeping Spanish commerce from the sea, and the people
of the Plate saw themselves again about to be shut off from the sea
unless permission were granted to ship in foreign vessels.
Dissatisfaction grew apace, and the prestige of the Viceregal government
and the influence of resident Spaniards were seriously compromised. At
the same time there were fermenting among the intelligent and educated
youth of the city the new ideas of the North American and French
revolutions--liberty, the rights of man, representative government, and
popular sovereignty.
For generations England had cast covetous eyes at South Africa and South
America. Menaced with exclusion from Europe in her giant conflict with
Napoleon, her statesmen determined to seize outside markets and
possessions. The Cape was captured in 1805, and the next year came the
turn of Argentina. June 25, 1806, Admiral Popham appeared in the
estuary, and fifteen hundred troops, under the command of General
Beresford, were disembarked a few miles below Buenos Aires. The Viceroy
fled without making resistance, and on the 27th the British flag was run
up on his official residence. At first the population appeared to
acquiesce, but finally Liniers, a French officer in the Spanish employ,
gathered together at Montevideo a thousand regulars and a small amount
of artillery. The militia of Buenos Aires soon proved themselves anxious
to rise against the heretic strangers. Liniers crossed the estuary and,
advancing without opposition to the neighbourhood of Buenos Aires,
established a camp to which the patriotic inhabitants flocked. Within a
short time he had armed an overwhelming number of the citizens, the
scanty British garrison was shut up in the fort, and on the 12th of
August the Argentines advanced. After some hard street fighting, the
English were forced to surrender, and the flags which were captured that
day are still exhibited in the city of Buenos Aires with just pride as
trophies of Argentine valour. The British expedition might have been
successful had it been more numerous, or had it been promptly
re-enforced. If the capture of Montevideo had followed that of Buenos
Aires, the Argentines would have had no base of operations, and their
militia would have remained without ammunition and artillery stores. It
is interesting to speculate what would have been the subsequent history
of the temperate part of South America in such a case. It is possible
that the Plate would have become part of the British Dominion; British
immigration would have followed, and the Plate might have become the
greatest of British colonies.
But the opportunity was quickly gone. The successes of 1806 so strongly
aroused the spirit of national and race pride that thereafter the
conquest of Argentina was a task too great for the small armies which in
those days could be transported overseas. No sooner was Beresford
expelled than the victors met in open Cabildo, declared the cowardly
Viceroy suspended from office, and installed the royal Audiencia in his
place. A few months later the dreaded British re-enforcement came. Four
thousand men disembarked in eastern Uruguay, and Montevideo was taken by
assault. In Buenos Aires all was confusion, but the people were
resolute to resist. Again an open Cabildo assembled, and Liniers, the
French officer under whose leadership the victory of last year had been
won, was given supreme authority. Military enthusiasm spread among all
classes and the people were rapidly enrolled in volunteer regiments.
When General Whitelocke approached the city with several thousand
regulars the Argentines confidently marched out to meet him. In the open
they stood no chance, and they were compelled to fly back to the shelter
of their narrow streets and stone houses. On the 5th of July, 1807, the
British troops, disdaining all precautions, marched into the city. Both
sides of the narrow streets were lined with low, fireproof houses, whose
flat roofs afforded admirable vantage-ground. The Buenos Aires men were
well supplied with muskets, and the women and boys rained down stones,
bricks, and firebrands on the masses crowding the pavements below. The
British could not retaliate on their enemies, but pushed stubbornly on
toward the centre of the city, dropping by hundreds on the way. At the
main square, in front of the fort, barricades had been thrown up, and
there the English met a reception which flesh and blood could not
endure. For two days the conflict raged, but finally the English general
was obliged to give up and ask for terms. He had lost a fourth of his
force and was allowed to withdraw the remainder only on agreeing to
evacuate Montevideo within two months.
The political and commercial consequences of the English invasions were
vastly important. The military power of the Argentine Creoles, hitherto
unsuspected, stood revealed; local pride had been stimulated; and, at
the same time, the invasions gave a tremendous impulse to foreign
commerce. A fleet of English merchantmen had followed the warships.
Untrammelled commerce with the world at last became a fact. English
manufactured goods flooded the market. Articles until then beyond the
reach of all but the wealthiest now became cheap enough for the purses
of the gauchos. Buenos Aires's trade was boomed by the sales of imported
goods to the interior provinces. Creole jealousy of Spaniards rapidly
became accentuated. From this time dates the general use of "Goths,"
applied to Spaniards as a term of opprobrium, and of "Argentines," as a
designation for the natives of the Plate. Recognition could no longer be
withheld from the men who had organised and commanded victorious
troops, and henceforth the Creoles were in fact, as well as in law,
eligible to offices of trust and profit. Even in the Buenos Aires
Cabildo, though all the members were native Spaniards, Creole ideas
predominated.
Scarcely had the English retired from Montevideo when the course of
events in Europe precipitated Spanish South America into confusion.
Charles IV., the pusillanimous King of Spain, allied himself with
Napoleon and aided the latter's aggressions against Portugal. The
Portuguese monarch was driven to Brazil, the latter country thereby
gaining complete commercial freedom and virtual political independence.
This naturally suggested to the Argentines that they were entitled to
the same privileges from Spain. Charles IV. and Godoy, the accomplice of
his wicked wife, who really governed in his name, were bitterly hated at
home. Napoleon's troops swarmed over the country and the monarchy itself
was clearly tottering to its fall. Ferdinand, heir of Charles IV.,
conspired against his father and forced the latter to resign in his
favour. The Spanish governor of Montevideo at once took the oath of
allegiance to the new monarch, an act of insubordination to his titular
superior, the Viceroy. The latter was the Frenchman, Liniers, who
sympathised with the Creole party in desiring to wait and obtain
concessions for the colony before recognising any of the various
claimants. A dispute over the oath of allegiance to Ferdinand arose
which marked a definite rupture between the Creoles and the old-line
Spaniards--between those who regarded the special interests of the
colony as paramount and those who wished at all hazards to maintain
connection with the mother country.
Charles's abdication was only the beginning of complications. He
protested that it had been obtained from him by duress, and with
Ferdinand he appealed to Napoleon as arbiter. The latter forced them
both to renounce their claims in favour of his brother Joseph. Everyone
in South America was agreed not to recognise Joseph Bonaparte as King of
Spain, but there was wide diversity of opinion as to what affirmative
action ought to be taken. Most regarded Ferdinand as the legitimate
king, but he was in a French prison. Charles still claimed the throne,
while provisional governments were formed in many cities of Spain to
resist the enthroning of Joseph. A central junta at Seville claimed to
be the depositary of supreme executive power pending Ferdinand's return,
and to this junta the Spaniards of the Plate gave their earnest and
unhesitating allegiance. But the Creoles could not see their way clear
to an unconditional recognition of such a self-constituted revolutionary
body. Few believed that the Spanish patriots could withstand Napoleon's
armies. If Spain had submitted to Joseph the various parts of South
America would have become independent without any serious struggle. The
"Goths" in the Plate were united in a definite policy--loyalty to the
only Spanish government that was vindicating the nationality. The
Creoles could agree on no affirmative programme, but all of them were
determined that the "Goths" should not get the upper hand. The latter
rose against Liniers and tried to install a junta on the model of that
at Seville. In view of the menacing attitude of the Creole militia, the
attempt was a failure, but the Frenchman did not have the resolution to
maintain his advantage. The Seville junta finally named a Viceroy, and,
though some of the resolute spirits among the militia leaders wished to
resist, the majority shrank from open defiance of the highest existing
Spanish authority. On the 30th of July, 1809, the new Viceroy took
possession. He gained popularity by his decree declaring free commerce
with all the world, but his next act opened the eyes of the Creoles to
the real effect of the re-establishment of the Spanish system. He sent
a thousand men to Charcas, in the northern part of the Viceroyalty, to
aid in the bloody suppression of a revolutionary movement undertaken by
the Creole inhabitants of that city. The story that shortly came back of
wholesale confiscations and executions widened the breach between
Spaniards and Creoles.
Meanwhile, another crisis in Spanish home affairs was approaching.
Napoleon's armies were sweeping the Peninsula from end to end. In the
early months of 1810 they overran Andalusia, the centre of resistance.
It seemed as if the subjection of Spain was about to be completed. On
the 18th of May, Viceroy Cisneros issued a proclamation frankly
revealing the critical situation of the Spanish patriot, and of the
junta under whose commission he was acting. All classes of Buenos Aires
immediately engaged in feverish discussions as to what should be done.
The Spaniards wished to retain their privileged position; the Creoles
were determined to put an end to discrimination against themselves.
These were the real purposes of the two parties. The Spaniards did not
especially favour absolutism, nor did the Creoles in general intend to
renounce the sovereignty of Ferdinand, should he ever escape from
captivity. Among the Creoles were many liberals, mostly young and ardent
men, whom study and travel had convinced of the necessity for racial
reform and colonial autonomy. Among their leaders were Saavedra,
commander of the most efficient militia regiment; Vieytes, at whose
house the meetings of the conspirators were held; Manuel Belgrano,
afterwards the brains and right arm of the movement; and two eloquent
young lawyers, Castelli and Paso. The active spirits conspired to depose
the Viceroy, confident that this measure would be popular among all
classes of Creoles. On the 22nd of May a committee of popular chiefs
waited on him to demand his resignation. Resistance was futile, for he
could not rely on the troops. They were Creoles and proud of the fact
that Argentines had expelled the British. The office-holders tried to
arrange a compromise by which an open Cabildo should elect the
ex-Viceroy president of a new governing junta. The populace and the
militia would not submit, and on the 25th of May--now celebrated as the
anniversary of the establishment of Argentine liberty--a great armed
assembly met in the Plaza. The Creole badge was blue and white--then
adopted as the Argentine colours. The proceedings were frankly
revolutionary. A junta was named from among the Creole leaders, and the
Buenos Aires Cabildo obediently proclaimed this body the supreme
authority of the Viceroyalty. There was no pretence of consulting the
other provinces. Spanish constitutional law provided no machinery
through which they could be heard, and the capital assumed, as a matter
of course, the right of governing the dependencies.
The events of the 25th of May were not intended to sever relations
between Spain and Buenos Aires. The acts of the new government ran in
the name of Ferdinand VII., King of Castile and Leon. An able and
ambitious coterie of young men came to the front, whose achievements in
war, administration, and diplomacy were to change the face of South
America. In the neighbouring cities there were no spontaneous uprisings
against the Spanish governors, but the Buenos Aires patriots lost no
time in sending out armies to spread their liberal and anti-Spanish
doctrines. The first movement was towards the old university town of
Cordoba. Here ex-Viceroy Liniers had managed to get a few troops
together, but not enough to make effective resistance. At the first
encounter they were all captured, and the Buenos Aires junta immediately
ordered the execution of the captured officers and of the anti-Creole
chiefs. This barbarous act is a fair sample of the horrible
bloodthirstiness of the war between Creoles and Spanish sympathisers. As
a rule, both sides slew their prisoners, and the combats were,
therefore, incredibly bloody for the numbers engaged.
The Buenos Airean army continued its triumphal march through the
provinces of Cordoba and Salta up to the Bolivian mountains. The Creole
townspeople reorganised the municipal governments on an anti-Spanish
basis, and the army increased like a rolling snowball. Not until it had
reached the high lands of Bolivia was serious resistance encountered. On
the 7th of November the patriots gained the battle of Suipacha. The
Creoles of Bolivia rose, and the Buenos Aireans penetrated rapidly as
far as the boundaries of the Viceroyalty. Meanwhile, Manuel Belgrano had
led a small expedition to Paraguay. However, the inhabitants of that
isolated region showed no disposition to join the Buenos Aireans in
their revolutionary movement. The Spanish governor allowed Belgrano to
advance nearly to Asuncion, but there his little army was overpowered
and forced to surrender on honourable terms. Montevideo's capture seemed
essential to the safety of Buenos Aires itself. Spanish ships under the
orders of its governor blockaded the river and constantly menaced an
attack on the patriot capital. Early in 1811, Artigas with a band of
gauchos from Entre Rios crossed the Uruguay and overran the country up
to the walls of the fortress, defeating the Spaniards in the battle of
Piedras. Re-enforcements came from Buenos Aires, and a siege of
Montevideo was begun.
At this juncture news came of a great disaster in the north. The
Argentines had at first been joined by Bolivian patriots, but the latter
were jealous; and the former, bred on the plains, could not well endure
the high altitude, suffering in health and efficiency. The Viceroy of
Peru rapidly recruited a considerable army among the sturdy and obedient
Indians of the high Peruvian plateau. On the 20th of June, 1811, the
patriot army was attacked at Huaqui, near the southern end of Lake
Titicaca, and was virtually annihilated. Bolivia was lost to the
patriots and Spanish authority was re-established as far down as the
Argentine plains.
This great defeat completely changed the attitude of affairs. The
Argentines evacuated Uruguay, and the Spanish colonial authorities
everywhere took the offensive. The heroic resistance which the Spanish
people were now making to the army of Napoleon's marshals encouraged
the Viceroy and governor to believe that Ferdinand would soon again be
seated on the throne of his fathers. Spanish ships dominated the delta
of the Paraná, and the Spanish troops from Montevideo descended at
pleasure on the banks of the Plate or its tributaries. The Spanish
residents at Buenos Aires plotted against the junta, but their
conspiracy was betrayed, and in the middle of 1812 their chiefs, to the
number of thirty-eight, mostly wealthy merchants, were arrested and
garrotted. The situation of the revolutionary government was so
desperate that it is not hard to understand why the junta ruthlessly
repressed all signs of disaffection. Victorious Spanish armies
threatened them from both Bolivia and Montevideo, and fire in the rear
would have been fatal.
In this crisis of their fate, Manuel Belgrano, the great leader of the
Buenos Aires Creoles, came to the front. A native of the city, he had
been educated in Spain, where he had imbibed liberal principles. On his
return he threw himself with all the prestige of his learning, talents,
and wealth on the side of the Creoles. His faith in the triumph of
liberal principles was unalterable, and he was a more radical advocate
of independence than most of his associates. Though without military
training, and though his expeditions in Paraguay and Uruguay had not
been successful, his prestige and his unwavering confidence in the
patriot cause pointed him out as naturally the fittest leader. Again he
was entrusted with the command, and went north to Tucuman, where the
disheartened fragments of the patriot army were fearfully waiting for
the descent of the victorious Spaniards. The inhabitants of Jujuy and
Salta had been driven from their homes, and for the first time gaucho
horsemen appeared as the principal element of an Argentine army. The
junta ordered Belgrano to retire, so as to protect Buenos Aires, but he
disobeyed and stuck to Tucuman and let the Spaniards get between him and
the capital. With the country up in arms, and the exasperated gauchos
harassing his march, the Spanish general did not dare leave Belgrano's
army behind him. The Spanish army turned back to Tucuman to finish with
the mass of militia there before resuming its march on the capital. To
the surprise of South America, the result was a decisive patriot
victory. The gaucho cavalry, armed with knives and bolos, mounted on
fleet little horses, carrying no baggage, and living on the cattle they
killed at the end of each day's march, followed the fleeing Spaniards up
into the mountains and inflicted enormous losses. This victory gave the
Argentines for another year assurance against invasion by land, and
Buenos Aires remained a focus whence anti-Spanish influences could
spread over the rest of South America. The patriots again invaded
Uruguay, shut up the Spaniards within the walls of Montevideo, and
prepared once more to carry the war into Bolivia.
[Illustration: MANUEL BELGRANO.
[From an oil painting.]]
All this while the government at Buenos Aires was involved in internal
quarrels. The first junta soon expelled its fiercest, strongest, and
most active spirit,--Moreno,--who seems to have been the only man of the
period who foresaw the necessity of establishing a federative form of
government. With the disaster of Huaqui the necessity for a more compact
executive became urgent. A triumvirate assumed the direction of affairs.
Its policy was at once despotic and feeble and satisfied neither
federalists, advanced liberals, nor the military element. The latter was
becoming daily more predominant. A radical republican society called the
"Lautaro," composed largely of young officers, was organised and became
virtually a ruling oligarchy. San Martin and Alvear arrived from Europe,
and the prestige which they had acquired on European battle-fields at
once secured for them prominent positions. When the news of the victory
of Tucuman reached the city the military classes revolted, deposed the
old triumvirate, and installed a new one. This revolution marked the
final triumph of the sentiment of independence. The new government was
active in every sense of the word. Belgrano was re-enforced; San Martin
was encouraged in his chosen work of forming the nucleus of a
disciplined army, fit for offensive warfare; the worn-out pretence of
employing Ferdinand's name on public documents was dropped; the
inquisition, the use of torture, and titles of nobility were abolished.
The Argentine revolution had finally assumed a military and republican
character; independence was clearly henceforth its end and purpose.
CHAPTER VI
COMPLETION OF THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE
Belgrano followed up his victory at Tucuman by another invasion of the
Bolivian plateau. Even to a trained general and a regular army such a
campaign would have been difficult. The defective organisation of his
hastily gathered militia, his own unfamiliarity with the art of war, and
the fact that he was opposed by a clever commander whose army was better
drilled and better adapted to operations in that high altitude, all
conspired to leave the result in no doubt. October 1, 1813, he was badly
defeated at Vilapugio, and six weeks later his army was nearly destroyed
at Ayohuma. With the remnant he fled south to Argentine territory and
was replaced in his command by San Martin.
The advent of this consummate general and single-minded patriot
revolutionised the character of the military operations. Unlike his
predecessors and colleagues, he did not concern himself with political
ambitions. He had but one purpose--to drive the Spaniards from South
America; he knew but one way of achieving it--to whip them on the field
of battle. He had none of the brilliantly attractive qualities, none of
the eloquence or charm of most South American leaders; he had a horror
of display, and made but one speech in all his life.
By sheer force of will and attention to detail, he organised an
efficient regular army. The victories that followed were as much due to
his painstaking care and foresight as to his brilliant strategical
combinations and admirable tactical dispositions. Because he thought
another could finish his work better than himself he voluntarily
resigned supreme power on the very eve of the campaign which expelled
the last Spaniard from South America, and, disdaining to offer an
explanation, went into life-long exile. So modest was he that his name
and services well-nigh fell into oblivion. That he is now recognised as
the saviour of South American liberty is due as much to the literary
labours of the greatest of Argentine historians, Bartolomé Mitre, as to
the spontaneous opinion of his countrymen during the first decades after
his retirement.
[Illustration: GENERAL SAN MARTIN.
[From a steel engraving.]]
General San Martin was born on the 25th of February, 1778, in a little
town which had been one of the Jesuit missions far up the Uruguay River.
His mother was a Creole and his father a Spanish officer, who destined
his son to his own profession. When a child of only eight, he was taken
to the mother country and educated in the best military schools of
Spain. At an early age he entered the army and served in all the many
wars in which Spain engaged after the outbreak of the French Revolution.
He saw much active service and became a thorough master of his
profession. He imbibed liberal ideas and joined a secret society pledged
to the work of establishing a republic in Spain and independent
governments in her colonies. When the Spanish people rose against the
French conquests, San Martin threw himself heart and soul into the
conflict on the side of the patriots, and distinguished himself in the
battles that opened the way to the recovery of Madrid. He was promoted
to a lieutenant-colonelcy, but the next year he resigned his commission
to return to his native land to aid her in her fight for independence.
By a curious coincidence the ship that bore the South American who
achieved the independence of his country was called the _George
Canning_, after the European who, thirteen years later, did most to
secure the independence of South America from external attack. He landed
in Buenos Aires in March, 1812. At that moment the anti-Spanish
revolution seemed everywhere to be on the point of suffocation. Bolivia
and Uruguay were lost; the reaction was gaining ground in Venezuela;
Chile was menaced by an army from Lima and shortly fell back into
Spanish hands; Peru was steady for the old system. Only in Argentina and
New Granada were the fires of insurrection still burning, and between
them intervened Peru, the stronghold of Spanish power in South
America--a citadel impregnable behind mountains, deserts, and the ocean.
The War of Independence could only succeed by aggressive campaigns which
must be conducted through difficult country and over the whole
continent, and against forces superior in both numbers and equipment.
San Martin's first step was to organise and drill some good regiments in
Buenos Aires. He selected the finest physical and moral specimens of
youth that the province afforded and subjected them to a rigid
discipline. After his ruthless pruning only the born soldiers remained,
and this select corps furnished generals and officers for the wars that
followed. On succeeding Belgrano in command of the army of the north,
San Martin saw at once that all attempts to conquer Peru by an advance
through Bolivia were foredoomed to failure. A campaign over a
mountainous plateau, with the Spaniards in possession of the strategic
points, and the inhabitants divided in their sympathies, would be
suicidal. On the other hand, to attack and defeat the Spanish forces in
Peru itself was absolutely necessary. The three hundred thousand
inhabitants of Argentina, distracted by intestine warfare, could not
hope indefinitely to resist the Spanish power, backed by secure
possession of the rest of the continent. Decisive victories were
necessary to encourage the partisans of independence in Chile, Peru,
Bolivia, and Ecuador.
San Martin's solution of the problem was to organise an army on the
eastern slope of the Andes; to invade Chile; to drive the Spaniards
thence, and make that country the base of further operations; to
improvise a fleet and with it gain command of the Pacific; and, finally,
to attack Peru from the coast. The scheme seemed complicated, but San
Martin was one of those rare geniuses born with a capacity for taking
infinite pains, and his pertinacity was indefatigable. He foresaw and
provided against every contingency and carried his plan to a triumphant
conclusion. The story of the liberation of South America within the
succeeding eight years might be completely told in the form of two
biographies--San Martin's and Bolivar's.
Trusting the defence of the Bolivian frontier to a few line soldiers and
the gauchos of Salta, San Martin solicited and obtained an appointment
as Governor of Cuyo. This province was directly east of the populous
central part of Chile, and was the refuge of the patriot Chileans who
had been compelled to flee into exile after quarrels among themselves
had delivered their country to the Spaniards. His authority was purely
military and derived only from the dictum of the revolutionary
government at Buenos Aires, but San Martin was not a man to hesitate on
account of scruples over constitutional questions. He laid the province
under contribution and started to create an army capable of crossing the
Andes and coping with the Spanish regulars in Chile. The inhabitants of
Cuyo were determinedly anti-Spanish, brave, enduring, and enthusiastic.
It was a good recruiting ground in itself; the Chilean exiles were
numerous and all anxious to join in an effort to redeem their country.
The government at Buenos Aires sent him a valuable addition in a corps
of manumitted negro slaves, but his nucleus was the regiments which he
himself had drilled at Buenos Aires. Though civil wars went on in the
coast provinces, he was not to be diverted from his purpose. He kept
aloof from them, and for three years laboured steadily, building his
great war machine--recruiting, drilling, instructing officers, taxing
his province, gathering provisions, building portable bridges, making
powder, casting guns, organising his transport and commissariat.
Meanwhile, Alvear, his old colleague in the Spanish army, had assumed
the leading position in the oligarchy that ruled at Buenos Aires. He
suppressed the triumvirate and placed his relative, Posadas, at the head
of the government. The patriot armies were besieging Montevideo from the
land side, but it was not until a fighting demon of an Irish merchant
captain, William Brown, had been placed in command of a few ships which
the Buenos Aireans had gathered, that there was any hope of reducing the
place. This remarkable man was nearly as important a factor as San
Martin himself in the war against Spain. With incredible audacity he
attacked the Spanish ships wherever he found them. Numbers and odds made
no difference, and he was never so dangerous as just after an apparent
reverse. His victory of the 14th of June put the Spanish fleet out of
commission; the reduction of Montevideo followed, as a matter of course;
and the destruction of the Spanish sea power on the Atlantic side made
San Martin's campaign on the Pacific coast possible.
Civil wars broke out between the Buenos Aires oligarchy and local
military chiefs in the gaucho provinces and soon hurled Posadas from
power. He was succeeded by Alvear, but the commanders of the armies
refused to recognise the latter's authority and an insurrection in
Buenos Aires itself drove him, too, into exile. One military dictator
succeeded another, while the provinces more and more ignored the Buenos
Aires pretensions to hegemony. The frail fabric of the confederation
fast crumbled into fragments. With the end of the Napoleonic wars
re-enforcements began to arrive from Spain, and the royal arms were
again victorious and threatened to wipe out the distracted Republic.
Rondeau, one of the generals who had helped depose Posadas and Alvear,
had been rewarded with command of the army of the north. Disregarding
the experience of his predecessors, he made the third great effort to
conquer Bolivia and strike at the heart of Spanish power in Peru by the
overland route. His campaign ended with the crushing defeat at
Sipe-Sipe. Considerable Spanish forces followed him down into the
Argentine plains, but, as San Martin had predicted, the gaucho cavalry
under Guëmes were able to keep back their advance.
Belgrano and Rivadavia had been sent to Spain in 1813 to try to arrange
terms on the basis of autonomy, or the making of Buenos Aires a separate
kingdom under some member of the Spanish family. They were informed that
nothing except unconditional submission would be accepted, and they were
then ordered to leave Madrid. Scheme after scheme was presented in
Buenos Aires, discussed, and abandoned. Belgrano wanted to make a
descendant of the Incas emperor of South America. Others wished to offer
submission to Great Britain in return for a protectorate. The English
government rejected the overtures. A more popular idea was to elect a
monarch from the Portuguese Braganza family, then reigning in Brazil.
The only definite result of all these confused negotiations was a formal
declaration of independence made on the 9th of July, 1816, by a Congress
at which most of the provinces were represented, and which met in the
city of Tucuman. Many of the members had no hope of being able to
enforce such a declaration. However, it cleared the way for obtaining
foreign help, and negotiations were continued with a view to inducing
some European prince to accept the throne.
Artigas, the independent military chieftain of Uruguay and Entre Rios,
attacked in 1813 the Missions to the left of Upper Uruguay which the Rio
Grande Brazilians had seized twelve years before. He was defeated by the
troops of John VI., who followed him into Uruguay proper and in 1816
captured Montevideo. Though the Buenos Aireans had been compelled to
concede Uruguay's independence, this movement excited among them an
intense jealousy of the Portuguese. The scheme for a Braganza monarch at
once became unpopular and impracticable.
The taciturn general in Cuyo was, however, preparing a thunderbolt that
would clear the Argentine sky of all these clouds except that most
portentous of all--civil war. After three years of incessant
preparation, San Martin believed that his army was ready to undertake
the great campaign. Though it numbered only four thousand men, it was
the most efficient body of troops that ever gathered on South American
soil. Among the Argentine contingent were the picked youth of Buenos
Aires and the provinces--reckless, enthusiastic youths whose ambition,
patriotism, or love of adventure made them willing to follow anywhere
San Martin might dare to lead. Not inferior to their white comrades were
the manumitted negroes. The cruelest charges and the heaviest losses
fell to their lot and few of them ever returned over the Andes. The
Chilean exiles were picked men--those who preferred death to submission,
or who had offended so deeply that their only hope of seeing their homes
was to return sword in hand. This force had been drilled and instructed
in all the art of war as practised during the Napoleonic era by San
Martin himself, a veteran soldier of the great European campaigns--one
who had fought with Wellington and against Massena and Soult. He was
indefatigable in attending to details, and he seems to have foreseen
everything. The last months were spent in preparing rations of parched
corn and dried beef; in gathering mules for mountain transportation, and
in making sledges to be used on the slopes which were too steep for
cannon on wheels. The most careful calculations were made of the
distances to be traversed; every route was surveyed; spies were in every
pass; the Spaniards were kept in uncertainty as to which of the numerous
passes along hundreds of miles of frontier would be used for the attack.
San Martin's real intentions were not revealed by him even to the
members of his staff until the very eve of the advance.
When summer came in 1817, and all the passes were freed from snow, he
was ready. In the middle of January he broke camp at Mendoza and divided
his army into two divisions. Directly to the west was the Uspallata
Pass, then as now the usual route between western Argentina and central
Chile. Its Chilean outlet opens into the plain of Aconcagua, which is
north of Santiago and only separated from that capital by one transverse
spur of the Andes. Off to the north was the more difficult pass of
Patos, its eastern entrance also easily accessible from Mendoza, though
by a longer detour, and opening at its other end into the same valley of
Aconcagua. The smaller of the two divisions was to advance over the
Uspallata Pass, so timing its movements as to reach the open ground of
the Aconcagua valley at the same time as the larger division, which,
under San Martin himself, went to the north around the Patos route. The
Spaniards had a guard at the summit of the Uspallata Pass, but the
advance troops of the Argentines charged it. Before re-enforcements
could come up, the division was over and advancing confidently down the
cañon on the Chilean side. Had the Spaniards sent up a force sufficient
to prevent the Uspallata division from debouching on to the Aconcagua
plain it would have been caught in a trap. The second division could
have bottled it up from below by leaving a small body at the mouth of
the cañon. But before the Spanish commander had made up his mind what to
do, news came that another army was rapidly coming down the valley
leading into the Aconcagua valley from the north. Disconcerted by this
attack from an unexpected direction, the Spanish commander hastened off
with an inadequate force to repel it. He did not reach a defensible
point in time; his vanguard was defeated and he retreated along the
highroad to Santiago, leaving San Martin to reunite his two divisions at
his leisure in the broad Aconcagua plain. Though the army had crossed
the Andes over two of the loftiest and steepest passes in the world, so
admirably had all dispositions been made that hardly a stop was
necessary to refit and recruit. Artillery and cavalry, as well as
infantry, were ready within four days after reaching the Chilean side to
take up the pursuit of the Spaniards.
Marco, the Spanish governor, had not had sufficient time to concentrate
his scattered regiments since the first news had come that San Martin
was coming in force by the northern passes. Of his five thousand men
only two thousand were able to get between San Martin's advance and
Santiago. The Argentine general was sure of having the largest numbers
at the point of conflict, but the Spanish troops were veterans of the
Peninsula and were commanded by a skilful and resolute general. He
concentrated his force in a strong position in a valley on the south
side of the transverse range that separates Santiago from the Aconcagua
valley. He had hoped to make his stand at the top of the pass, there
four thousand feet high, but San Martin had been too quick for him.
However, the position was admirable for a stubborn defence. The highroad
to Santiago descended from the pass down a narrow valley, which, just in
front of the Spanish position, opened into a larger valley running at
right angles. The artillery of the Spaniards commanded the narrow mouth
of the upper valley, and on a side hill there was room to deploy the
infantry and cavalry. The Argentine troops would be enfiladed in the
close gut before they could form in line of battle. San Martin employed
the tactics of the Persians at Thermopylæ. There was an abandoned road
running over the summit a little to the west of the travelled route and
debouching into the same valley a little below the Spanish position.
Through this O'Higgins, the chief of San Martin's Chilean allies, at two
o'clock in the morning of February 12th, started with eighteen hundred
men. By eleven he had reached the main valley and turned up it to attack
the Spaniards on their left flank. His first assault, made without
waiting for the other division to come down in front, was repulsed. San
Martin, sitting on his war-horse on the heights above, galloped down the
slope, leaving orders to hasten the descent of the main body. As he
reached the lower ground and joined the Chileans, he saw the head of his
main column appear through the mouth of the pass. O'Higgins again
attacked, and the Spaniards, taken in flank and with their centre
assailed in _échelon_ by the Argentine squadrons and battalions, were at
a hopeless disadvantage. The position of their infantry was carried by
the bayonet, while the patriot cavalry charged the artillery and sabred
the men at their guns. The infantry were the flower of the Spanish
regulars; they formed a square and for a time held their stand. Finally,
surrounded on three sides, their artillery gone, and fighting against
double their number, they broke and retreated over the broken ground in
their rear. Less than half escaped and a quarter were killed on the
field and in the pursuit. The patriots lost only twelve killed and one
hundred and twenty wounded.
Though the numbers engaged were insignificant, and though the victory
was easily won, the battle of Chacabuco was decisive in the struggle
between Spain and her revolted subjects in the southern colonies. Since
the outbreak of 1810 the revolutionary cause had been losing not alone
territory but morale, conviction, and self-confidence. Spanish authority
seemed certain finally to be completely re-established, perhaps by a
compromise and concession of autonomy, but still on a basis gratifying
to the pride of the mother country. The day before San Martin started on
his march over the Andes, Chile was quietly submissive; Uruguay was
occupied by Portuguese troops; Argentina was a mere loose aggregation of
discordant and warring provinces, whose most intelligent statesmen had
nearly given up hope of peace and autonomy, except by foreign aid or
submission to some alien monarch. But the day after Chacabuco the
Spanish governor was flying from Santiago to the coast; Chile had
become, and has remained, independent. In Argentina there was no more
talk of Portuguese princes, of British protectorates, of compromise with
Spain. The declaration of Tucuman had become a reality. There was much
more hard fighting still to be done, and time after time during the next
seven years the final result seemed to tremble in the balance, but hope
and national spirit had been so aroused in South America that defeat was
never irremediable.
The rest of San Martin's military career belongs rather to the history
of Chile and Peru than to that of Argentina. It is enough to say that
he established his friend O'Higgins as dictator of Chile, thus assuring
her co-operation in the prosecution of the war against Peru. Spanish
successes in Chile and civil war in Argentina delayed for years his
overmatching the Spanish naval power on the Pacific. Without command of
the sea he would have had to march his army up a desert coast between
the Cordillera and the ocean--an undertaking almost impossible. The help
of the Buenos Aires fleet was essential and so was the aid of the
Argentine treasury in buying more ships and paying foreign seamen. His
friends at Buenos Aires were struggling for their lives against their
rivals for supreme power. To San Martin's demand for assistance they
responded by begging him first to use his army to crush the rebellion.
That he refused them in their hour of bitter need has been pointed out
as a blot upon his fame, but his resolution was Spartan. Not even
the considerations of gratitude to personal friends diverted him
from his great purpose. He had that element of supremely great
achievement--steadfastness to adhere to a purpose once conceived that
nothing could shake. Puerreyedon might be driven into exile; the warring
factions might tear Argentina into fragments, and jealous Cochrane might
unjustly accuse him; the ambitious and selfish Bolívar might regard him
only as an obstacle to his own supremacy; none of these things could
change his course or alter his devotion to the one great purpose of his
life.
In 1820 he finally started up the coast, and in four months, without a
pitched battle, he had rendered the Spanish position on the coast of
Peru untenable. He met Bolívar at Guayaquil, and the personal interview
between the liberators of the northern and southern halves of South
America was the end of San Martin's public career. He went to it with
the purpose of arranging a joint campaign to drive the Spanish from
their last stronghold, the highlands of Peru. But Bolívar did not see
his own way clear to co-operation. San Martin explained his predicament
to no one; he uttered no word of complaint or regret; he simply gave up
the command of the army which he had led for seven years and resigned
the Dictatorship of Peru. There was no place for him in distracted
Argentina except as a leader in the civil wars--a rôle he disdained. He
went into exile without saying a word as to the reasons for his action.
Rather than precipitate a division between the patriots before the last
Spaniard had been driven from South America, he submitted in silence to
the reproach of cowardice. Rather than jeopard independence he
sacrificed home, money, honours, even reputation itself. The history of
the world records few examples of finer civic virtue.
The rest of his life he spent poverty-stricken in Paris. Only once he
tried to return to his native country. At Montevideo he heard that
Buenos Aires was in the throes of another revolution and that his
presence might be misconstrued. Without a word, he took the next ship
back to Europe. For many years his struggles against poverty and
ill-health were pathetic. It was the generosity of a Spaniard, and not
a fellow-countryman, that relieved the last days of his life. But
throughout those weary thirty years he never wavered in his devotion to
South America. His last utterance about public affairs was a vehement
laudation of Rosas--tyrant though he thought him--because the latter had
defied France and England when they disregarded Argentina's rights as a
sovereign member of the family of nations.
[Illustration: PLAZADE MAYO AND CATHEDRAL AT BUENOS AIRES.
[From a lithograph.]]
Reading was the only resource left to lighten his old age, and his last
months were embittered by the approach of blindness. His heart began to
be affected, symptoms of an aneurism appeared, and he went to Boulogne
to take the sea air. Standing one day on the beach he felt the awful
shock of pain that announced his approaching end. "Gasping and raising
his hand to his heart, he turned with a touching smile to that daughter
who ever followed him like a latter-day Antigone, and said, '_C'est
l'orage qui mene au port_.' On the 17th of August, 1850, being
seventy-two years of age, he expired in the arms of his beloved
daughter. Chile and Argentina have raised him statues; Peru has decreed
a monument to his memory. The Argentine nation, at last one and united
as he had ever desired, has brought back his sacred remains and
celebrated his apotheosis. To-day his tomb may be seen in the
metropolitan cathedral, bearing witness for Argentina to his just
distinction as the greatest of all her men of action."
CHAPTER VII
THE ERA OF CIVIL WARS
For half a century, from 1812 to 1862, the story of Argentina is one of
almost continual civil wars, of disturbances, and armed revolutions
affecting every part of the Republic. But through the confused records
of this half-century there runs the thread of a steady tendency and
purpose. The nation was instinctively seeking to establish an
equilibrium between its centripetal and centrifugal forces, between the
spirit of local autonomy and the necessity for union. At the same time,
the irrepressible conflict between military and civil principles of
government was fought out. Argentina emerged strong and united, while
the provinces retained the right of local self-government, and the
military classes were relegated to their proper subordinate position as
servants of the civil and industrial interests of the community. When
studied in detail the story of the civil wars is confusing and tedious:
it is my purpose to omit all that does not bear on the final rational
and beneficent result.
At the outset of the revolution against Spain, the oligarchy of
liberals who ruled Buenos Aires assumed the sovereignty of the whole
Viceroyalty. They regarded themselves as successors to the power of the
Viceroy himself, and attempted to rule the outlying provinces with no
more regard for the latter's interests than if they had been delegates
of an absolute monarch. Though the people of the city of Buenos Aires
often quarrelled as to what individual should exercise the supreme
power, they were united in insisting that the capital should continue to
enjoy the privileges and exclusive commercial rights with which the
Spanish system had endowed it. Hardly had the revolution begun when the
districts in the neighbourhood of Buenos Aires showed symptoms of revolt
against the central authorities. The cities of Santa Fé, Concepcion, and
Corrientes, each with its dependent territory, aspired to the status of
independent provinces. Military chieftains, called "caudillos,"
organised the gauchos, who were excellent cavalry ready-made to their
hands, and defied the Buenos Aires oligarchy. José Artigas, a fierce
chieftain of the plains on the Lower Uruguay, gathered about him a
considerable army from among the gauchos east of the Paraná, and did
more than the Buenos Aireans themselves to shut up the Spaniards in the
fortress of Montevideo. He refused to accept the concessions offered by
the Buenos Aires oligarchy, and a desperate civil war broke out. Buenos
Aires successively lost Uruguay, Entre Rios, Corrientes, and Santa Fé.
The fighting was bloody and these districts were all terribly
devastated. Cordoba and the Andean provinces also refused to recognise
the validity of orders emanating from Buenos Aires. By the year 1818 all
the provinces were practically independent of Buenos Aires, though the
latter abated not a jot of her pretensions to hegemony, and continued to
send troops against the various caudillos. Her armies obeyed their own
generals rather than the orders of the central government. In
desperation the oligarchy finally peremptorily ordered San Martin and
Belgrano to bring down their armies from the western and northern
frontiers and suppress the independent chiefs. San Martin refused to
obey, but the imaginative, warm-hearted Belgrano was not made of the
same sterling stuff. He managed to lead the army of the north as far as
the province of Cordoba, but at Arequito the troops, at the instigation
of ambitious officers, revolted and scattered. Many joined the
caudillos, and on the 1st of February the provincials completely
overthrew the Buenos Aires militia in the decisive battle of Cepeda.
This ended for a time the capital's pretensions to hegemony.
Decentralisation went on apace. Cuyo dissolved into the three provinces
of Mendoza, San Luiz, and San Juan; the old intendencia of Salta became
four new provinces,--Santiago del Estero, Tucuman, Catamarca, and
Salta,--to which a fifth was added when the city of Jujuy erected itself
into a separate jurisdiction in 1834. From the Cordoba of colonial times
Rioja split off, while the intendencia of Buenos Aires had been divided
into four great provinces, Santa Fé, Corrientes, Entre Rios, and Buenos
Aires, besides the independent nation of Uruguay. Each of these
provinces practically corresponded with the leading city and its
dependent territory, and the Cabildo of each municipality was the basis
of new local government.
This process was spontaneous, and the provinces then formed have ever
since been the units of the Argentine confederation. To many intelligent
patriots of the time, however, decentralisation seemed to be only a sure
sign of swiftly approaching anarchy. Power fell more and more into the
hands of the military leaders, and war became almost the normal
condition of the country. During the four years from 1820 to 1824, there
was no material change in the position of the contending forces. The
provinces much desired to make a confederation of which Buenos Aires
should be an equal member, but the latter refused and only waited for an
opportunity in order to renew her pretensions to hegemony.
Two opposing tendencies were, however, at work which soon created two
parties within the walls of Buenos Aires itself. Commercial interests
had suffered so severely in the civil wars, and communications were so
uncertain and so burdened with arbitrary exactions by the provincials,
that the property-holding classes began to press hard upon the
office-holders of the oligarchy with demands for an accommodation and
some sort of a union with the provinces. This was the beginning of the
federalist party, which naturally found efficient support among the
cattle-herding inhabitants on the great pampas of the province of Buenos
Aires.
On the other hand, the unitarians were becoming more compact, more
determined, and more definite in their purposes. Rivadavia, the greatest
constructive statesman of the era, undertook the reform of the laws and
the administration. He created the University of Buenos Aires; founded
hospitals and asylums; introduced ecclesiastical and military reform;
bettered the land laws, and infused into the legislation a modern
spirit. The improved tone of political thought tended to stimulate a
more general and rational discussion of a _modus vivendi_ with the
provinces. The federalists favoured the establishment of a system like
that of the United States, while the unitarians clung to the idea of a
nation organised more after the model of the French Republic.
In 1825 the provinces were represented at a general constituent congress
which assembled in Buenos Aires. After much discussion the unitarians,
with Rivadavia at their head, finally obtained control. In 1826 he was
elected executive chief of the federation. This election, however, did
not make him president in fact. Recognition from the Cabildos and the
caudillos was practically of greater importance than the vote of a
congress of delegates who were unable to insure the acquiescence of
their constituencies. Rivadavia's favourite plan of placing the city of
Buenos Aires directly under the control of the central government
excited bitter opposition among the federalists of Buenos Aires. Under
their leader, Manuel Dorrego, they protested vehemently against the
dismemberment of their home province.
Meanwhile the crazy fabric was subjected to the strain of a serious
foreign war. In 1825 the country districts of Uruguay rose against their
Brazilian rulers. The Argentines went wild with joy when they heard of
the victory which the gauchos won over the imperial forces at Sarandi.
Congress promptly decreed that Uruguay had reunited herself to the
confederation. The Emperor's answer was a declaration of war and a
blockade of Buenos Aires. The fighting Irish sailor, Admiral William
Brown, again came to the front, and his daring seamanship rendered the
Brazilian blockade ineffective. He destroyed a large division of their
fleet at the battle of Juncal, while fast Baltimore clippers, commanded
by English and Yankee privateer captains, swept Brazilian commerce from
the seas. Late in 1826 an Argentine army of eight thousand men was
assembled for the invasion of Rio Grande do Sul. Alvear, now returned
from exile, was entrusted with its command, and on the 20th of February,
1827, the Brazilians were overwhelmingly defeated at Ituzaingo, far
within their own boundary. The Argentines were not able to follow up
their victory, and shortly returned to Uruguayan territory, but the
Emperor was never again able to undertake an aggressive campaign.
Negotiations for peace were begun, and Rivadavia's envoy signed a treaty
by which Uruguay was to remain a part of the empire of Brazil. A storm
of indignation broke forth at Buenos Aires, and Rivadavia had to disavow
his minister and continue the war. The blow to his prestige was,
however, mortal; the federalists had, indeed, never ceased to make war
against him; and the unitarian constitution which Congress had adopted
at his dictation was rejected unanimously by the provinces. He resigned,
and Dorrego, chief of the unitarians, succeeded him as nominal executive
chief of the confederation. In reality, however, the Republic was
divided into five quasi-independent military states. Dorrego ruled in
Buenos Aires, Lopez in Santa Fé, Ibarra in Santiago, Bustos in Cordoba,
and Quiroga in Cuyo.
Many of the officers of the army which had been victorious at Ituzaingo
were dissatisfied with the triumph of Dorrego at Buenos Aires. They
belonged to the unitarian party, and they were anxious themselves to
usurp the places of the various caudillos. The first division that
reached Buenos Aires after the signing of the preliminary peace with
Brazil raised the standard of rebellion in the city itself. General
Lavalle declared himself Governor, while Dorrego fled to the interior,
only to be pursued, captured, and shot, without the form of trial, by
Lavalle's personal order. This began the fiercest and bloodiest civil
war which ever desolated the Argentine. The gauchos of the southern
provinces rose _en masse_ to fight the unitarian regulars, while the
generals of the latter began a series of campaigns against all the
federalist provincial governments and caudillos. General Paz advanced on
Cordoba to give battle to Bustos, while Lavalle's forces invaded Santa
Fé. Rosas, the chief of southern Buenos Aires, had rallied the
federalists of that province. He himself joined Lopez, the caudillo of
Santa Fé, while he left behind a considerable force of his gauchos to
threaten the city from the south. Lavalle sent some of his best
regiments against the latter body, but to his surprise his veterans were
completely cut to pieces by the fierce riders of the plains. He himself
had to retreat to Buenos Aires, while Rosas and Lopez defeated him under
the very walls of the city.
These victories made the Buenos Aires federalist leader, Juan Manuel
Rosas, the chief figure in Argentine affairs. Thenceforth, for more than
twenty years, he was the absolute dictator and tyrant of Buenos Aires.
The most bitterly hated man in Argentine history, probably no other
leader had as profound an influence in preparing the Argentine nation
for the consolidation which was so shortly to follow his own fall from
power. His personal characteristics and his public career are equally
interesting. The scion of a wealthy Buenos Aires family, from his
childhood he devoted himself to cattle-raising on the vast family
estates of the southern pampas. He became the model and idol of the
gauchos. By the time he was twenty-five, he was the acknowledged king of
the southern pampas, with a thousand hard-riding, half-savage horsemen
obeying his orders. In 1820 he and his regiment were chief factors in
the revolution that placed General Rodriguez in power at Buenos Aires.
Through the more peaceful years that followed, his power grew until he
was the acknowledged head of the country people of Buenos Aires province
and their champion against the city. He had been fairly well educated,
his information was wide, and his intellectual abilities were of a high
order. But he thoroughly identified his tastes and prejudices with those
of his rude followers, and in politics he was fiercely unitarian. The
victories of 1829 over Lavalle placed him in supreme power at Buenos
Aires and made him the nominal head of the whole Argentine.
His real power was, however, far from extending over the whole
territory. General Paz with his veterans of the Brazilian war had
expelled Bustos from Cordoba and firmly established himself as ruler of
that province. Quiroga, the redoubtable caudillo of the Cuyo province,
gathered his swarms of fierce gauchos from the western pampas in the
slopes of the Andes, and descended to the very walls of Cordoba, there
to be twice defeated with awful slaughter by General Paz. The latter
followed up his victories by establishing unitarian governments in the
north-western provinces. In Cuyo he was not so successful, and Quiroga
managed to sustain himself. Rosas came to the rescue of the despairing
federalists with the whole force of Buenos Aires. In that province all
opposition to him had been crushed and he was able to send a strong army
against Cordoba which surprised and captured General Paz himself. This
misfortune demoralised the unitarians. The federalists and the terrible
Quiroga again triumphed in most of the western provinces. It is
estimated that more than twenty-three thousand unitarians fell in
battle. Part of Paz's army retired to Tucuman and were there surrounded
by an overwhelming force under Quiroga. Though their position was
hopeless they did not offer to surrender, nor would quarter have been
given them had they asked it. In these internecine conflicts, the beaten
side usually fought it out to the last man, selling their lives as
dearly as possible. Five hundred prisoners taken at Tucuman were shot in
cold blood, and only a few small bands escaped to Bolivia.
Rosas filled the offices in the provinces with his partisans, while the
obsequious authorities of the capital conferred upon him the
high-sounding title, "Restorer of the Laws." He made a feint or two of
resigning the governorship, and in fact left it in other hands while he
led an army against the Indians of the South. He soon returned with the
prestige of having extended white domination far beyond its former
boundaries. After much show of reluctance, in 1835 he accepted the title
of Governor and Captain-General, and a special statute expressly
confided to him the whole "sum of the public power."
The thousands of murders, betrayals, and treasons of the long civil wars
had sapped the foundations of good faith in human kindness. The
unitarians were mere outlaws, their property was constantly subject to
confiscation, and their lives were never safe. Rosas himself, least of
all, could confide in the faithfulness of his partisans. Things had come
to such a pass that no one could rule except by force. Whoever was in
power was sure to be hated by the majority and plotted against by many,
though he might have been raised to command by the acclamation of the
whole population. Rosas was a product of the conditions that surrounded
him. Belgrano, Rivadavia, and every one who had tried to establish a
civil government had failed. The forces of militarism and federalism had
been too strong for them. From among the ambitious military chieftains
the strongest and fittest survived. Rosas understood the conditions
under which he held power and took the measures his experience had
taught him would be most effective in preserving it. He undertook to
forestall revolt by creating a reign of terror; he replaced the blue and
white of Buenos Aires by red--the colour of his own faction; the wearing
of a scrap of blue was considered proof of treason. A club of
desperadoes, called the Massorca, was formed of men sworn to do his
bidding, even though it might be to murder their own relatives. No one
suspected of disaffection was safe for a day. Sometimes a warning was
given so that the victim might flee, leaving his property to be
confiscated; sometimes he was dragged from his bed and stabbed. The
charge of deliberate bloodthirstiness against Rosas is, however, hardly
borne out by the facts. For political reasons he did not hesitate to
kill, and to kill cruelly, but he did not kill for the mere sake of
killing.
He was passionately jealous of foreign interference. Early in his reign
he quarrelled with the government of France over questions in regard to
the domicile and obligations of foreign residents. The French fleet,
assisted later by that of Great Britain, blockaded Buenos Aires. But
Rosas defied their combined power; although in this very year (1835) he
was menaced by a formidable invasion from the banished unitarians. In
Uruguay the "colorados" occupied Montevideo and had formed a close
alliance with the Argentine exiles. Montevideo was the centre of
resistance to Rosas and from its walls went out expeditions to end the
revolts which continually broke forth. In 1842 the allied unitarians and
colorados suffered a great defeat from Rosas's right arm in the field,
General Urquiza, and thenceforth Oribe, chief of the Uruguayan "blancos"
besieged the colorados in Montevideo and controlled the country
districts. This apparently ended all hope of expelling Rosas from power.
The emigration of the intelligent and high-spirited youth of Buenos
Aires to Montevideo and Chile increased. Among these exiles and martyrs
to their devotion to constitutional government were many Argentines who
shortly rose to the top in politics and whose abilities gave a great
impulse to the intellectual movement. Among them were Mitre, Vicente
Lopez, Sarmiento, Valera, and Echeverria, who share the honour of
establishing civil government in Buenos Aires, and who aided Urquiza in
preventing South America from becoming a military empire, and in uniting
the Argentine province into a stable nation.
[Illustration: BUENOS AIRES IN 1845.
[From a steel engraving.]]
The longer the tyrant reigned, the less men remembered their own
factional divisions. Practically the whole civil population of the
capital was ready to support a rebellion. Rosas, however, was to fall,
not by a revolution in Buenos Aires, but because his system was
inconsistent with the local autonomy of the provinces. He put his
partisans into power as military governors, but no bond was strong
enough to keep them faithful to his interests. As soon as they were well
established in their satrapies, they became jealous of their own
prerogatives and of the rights of their people. Rosas ceased to be a
real federalist when he made Buenos Aires the centre of his power. He
lived there, he raised most of his revenue there, and the city's
interests became in a sense synonymous with his own. He excluded
foreigners from the provinces, he forbade direct communication between
the banks of the Paraná and Uruguay and the outside world. Everything
was required to be trans-shipped at Buenos Aires so that it might be
subject to duty.
The chief lieutenant of Rosas was General Urquiza, whom he had appointed
governor of Entre Rios. The latter's generalship overcame the unitarian
rebellions in that province and repelled the invasions from Uruguay.
Under his wise and moderate rule the province flourished and recovered
from the devastations of the previous civil wars. Its fertile plains
were covered with magnificent herds of cattle and horses, which fed and
mounted an admirable cavalry. Urquiza himself was the greatest rancher
in the province and could raise an army from his own estates. Entrenched
between the vast-moving floods of the Uruguay and Paraguay, he was
practically safe from attack, and his relations with his neighbours in
Corrientes, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Brazil were those of warm friendship
and alliance, as soon as he had declared against the tyrant, who, seated
at the mouth of the Plate, cut off the countries above from free access
to the sea. Though Urquiza was a caudillo he had no such ambition for
supreme power as plagued Rosas. He was even-tempered, of simple tastes,
and careless of military glory.
In 1846 the rupture between him and Rosas came, and thenceforth he
devoted himself to the overthrow of the tyrant. Three times his attacks
failed; but, in 1851, he arranged an alliance with Brazil and with the
colorado faction in Uruguay. The war was opened by Urquiza's crossing
the Uruguay and, in conjunction with a Brazilian army, suddenly falling
upon the blancos, who, in alliance with Rosas, were besieging
Montevideo. Most of the defeated forces joined his army, and accompanied
by his Brazilian and Uruguayan allies he recrossed the Uruguay and moved
over the Entre Rios plains to a point on the Paraná just at the head of
the delta. The Brazilian fleet penetrated up the river to protect his
crossing, and on the 24th of December the entire force of twenty-four
thousand men, the largest which up to that time had ever assembled in
South America, was safely over and encamped on the dry pampas of Santa
Fé. The road to Buenos Aires was open. Rosas could do nothing but wait
there and trust all to the result of a single battle. On the 3rd of
February he was crushingly defeated in the battle of Caseros, fought
within a few miles of the city. Of the twenty thousand men he led into
action half proved treacherous, and many of his principal officers
betrayed him. He took refuge at the British Legation, and thence was
sent on board a man-of-war which carried him into exile.
CHAPTER VIII
CONSOLIDATION
After forty years of struggle no formula had been found which would
satisfy the aspirations for local self-government and at the same time
secure the external union so essential to the welfare of the whole
country. The questions between the provinces and Buenos Aires, and
between the different cities which were rivals in the race for national
leadership, seemed to a superficial glance to be as far as ever from
solution. There had, however, been a shifting of the material balance of
power which was soon to change the situation. The provinces had suffered
most severely from the long civil wars. Corrientes was well-nigh a
desert, in Santa Fé the Indians roamed up to the gates of the capital
town, and the Andean provinces were isolated and poor. The long peace
under Rosas's rule had increased the wealth and population of Buenos
Aires. The city lost hundreds of enthusiastic young liberals, but it
gained thousands who fled from the disorders of the interior. Its
population had doubled since his accession. Thirty thousand English,
Irish, and Scotch had crowded in to engage in sheep-raising, and the
rural population of Buenos Aires province was nearly two hundred
thousand. City and country together had doubled, while the rest of the
confederation had only increased one-half. The capital province now
contained twenty-seven per cent. of the total population, and the
disproportion in wealth and percentage of foreigners was far greater.
The number of sheep increased from two and a half million in 1830 to
five times that number, and by 1850 there were eight million cattle and
three million horses in the single province.
All over the country rational ideas about government had made progress.
The people were thoroughly sickened of military rule. Civilisation,
education, and general intelligence were spreading their beneficent
influences; industry, commerce, and the pursuit of wealth were absorbing
more of the national energies.
Urquiza, greatest of the caudillos, saw that without peace and union
Entre Rios could not be insured prosperity. He had no sooner entered
Buenos Aires than he took measures looking to the framing and adoption
of a federal constitution. After his victory he was named provisional
director of the confederation, but he showed no wish to play the rôle of
a Rosas. All the governors met and agreed to the calling of a
Constituent Congress, in which each province was to have an equal vote.
As a further precaution against the predominance of Buenos Aires the
session was to be held in Santa Fé. The provinces were anxious to form a
strong federation and the only opposition came from Buenos Aires. Her
statesmen did not realise that she was bound to be the centre of the
system and that the pull of her superior mass would, before many years,
be sufficient to control the aberrations of the satellites. Though the
governor of Buenos Aires had agreed on behalf of his province, and
though Urquiza's military power was overwhelming, the legislature of
that province refused its assent. It was clear that Buenos Aires and the
other provinces would not be able to agree upon a basis of union. The
ambitious cities of the interior each aspired to take the place of
Buenos Aires as the capital, and to this humiliation the latter city
would never submit unless after another civil war.
Urquiza determined not to use force, and retired to his ranch. As soon
as he was out of sight, the city rose in arms against his nominees. The
broad-minded Entre Rios chieftain sent back word that he had won the
battle of Caseros for the sole purpose of giving Buenos Aires her
liberty and that he would not now intervene to prevent her making the
use of it she chose. He even disbanded his troops. However, when the
Buenos Aireans marched an army to the attack of Santa Fé where the
Constituent Congress, attended by delegates from all the other
provinces, was holding its sessions, he again took the field. A
counter-revolution broke out in the rural districts of the Buenos Aires
province against the faction dominant in the city. Urquiza joined his
forces to theirs and besieged the town. A land siege was useless without
a blockade on the water side, and Urquiza tried to establish one. He
was unsuccessful because the commanders of his ships treacherously
betrayed him, surrendering to the city party for a heavy bribe. He
raised the siege and retired to the northern provinces.
Buenos Aires virtually declared her independence of the other provinces
by this action, but the latter took no further steps to force her into
their union. Urquiza and his followers had, however, accomplished more
toward uniting the Argentine into a firmly knit nation than had been
done in the previous forty years. The opposition of Buenos Aires helped
convince the other provinces of the necessity of a union. With the mouth
of the river in the hands of a hostile state more powerful than any one
of them separately, the position of Entre Rios, Santa Fé, or any one of
the others, would have been critical. Only by uniting could they hope to
maintain themselves and avoid absorption in detail. Intelligent
Argentines had long been convinced of the desirability of a firm and
enduring union, and the present danger crystallised that conviction in
men's minds. Back of all this was Urquiza's influence. At last a
military chief had come to the possession of supreme power who was
willing to aid his country in establishing a stable and free government,
and whose purpose was not merely the gratification of his own love of
power. Argentine writers are divided in their opinion of Urquiza's real
abilities, and many think that ignorance and irresolution, rather than a
lofty patriotism, caused his moderation after his victory over Rosas.
Intelligent foreigners, however, who saw the Plate for themselves
during this period are unanimous in praising his character, his
dignified bearing, his liberality, and his capacities. Argentina had
passed the stage when a military dictator was her natural chief. The day
for constitutional government had arrived; Urquiza was a product of his
time, and consciously or unconsciously embodied the changed political
sentiments of his countrymen.
On the 1st of May, 1853, the Constituent Congress adopted a constitution
substantially copied from that of the United States of North
America--and that constitution, with a few amendments, has continued to
be the fundamental law of the Argentine Republic. The navigation of the
Paraná and the Uruguay was declared free to all the world, largely as a
reward to Brazil for her assistance against Rosas, although she
protested against the extension of that liberty to any nations except
those who had territory on the banks. The city of Paraná, in the
province of Entre Rios and on the eastern shore of the Paraná River, was
made temporary capital of the Republic. The various provincial capitals
had been unable to agree that any one of them should have the honour and
profit of being the political metropolis, and the city of Buenos Aires
was selected as the permanent capital, to become such as soon as the
province of that name should enter the confederation. The delegates had
a double purpose in making this selection. Buenos Aires was the natural
commercial and political centre, and, all things considered, the most
convenient location in the provinces. In the second place, they desired
to weaken the great province of Buenos Aires by cutting it in two, and
to curb the city's political influence by placing it directly under the
control of the federal government.
Urquiza was naturally selected as the first President, and was
recognised by foreign nations. Buenos Aires protested, claiming still to
be, for international purposes, the Argentine nation. She did not,
however, formally declare her independence and seek for recognition as a
new power. Buenos Aires, as well as the confederation, looked forward to
the time when she would join the latter. Throughout Urquiza's six-year
term, the provinces prospered amazingly. His administration of his
province had guaranteed the security of property, and now as President
he extended the blessings of peace to much of the rest of the
confederation. The new bonds sat lightly on the outlying provinces of
the Andean regions, but Urquiza did not stretch his constitutional
authority to interfere with them, satisfied to let them learn by degrees
that the right of local self-government guaranteed by the paper
constitution would be respected in practice. The freedom of navigation
caused unprecedented prosperity in the river provinces. The towns on the
Paraná and Uruguay doubled in population during his six-years' service.
Corrientes had been continually ravaged by the civil wars as lately as
the last few years of Rosas's reign, but the assurance of peace was all
that was needed to start the rebuilding of the houses and the restocking
of the ranches. The impulse in population, wealth, and commerce then
given to the river provinces has never since lost its force. Foreign
capital and immigration were invited and the rivers and harbours
carefully surveyed. Rosario, in Santa Fé, was made a port of entry and
began a growth that has made it second only to Buenos Aires itself.
In Buenos Aires events were gradually shaping themselves toward
reuniting that province with the confederation. A liberal provincial
constitution was adopted, and though the ruling bureaucracy preferred
the _statu quo_, fearing that their own fall from power would follow any
triumph of the provincials, they were unable to hold the city in check.
It was too evident that the real interests of the city, and even her
future commercial supremacy, were menaced by a continuance of the
separation. In 1859 the situation became so strained that Buenos Aires
marched an army to attack the federal government. Urquiza met it near
the borders of Santa Fé and Buenos Aires, and administered a defeat. He
advanced to the city and required his vanquished opponents to agree to
accept the constitution of 1853, and to consent that Buenos Aires should
become a member of the confederation. He yielded, however, to the wishes
of many Buenos Aireans and consented in the interests of harmony, that
the question of the dismembering of the city from the province and
capitalising the former should remain open for future determination. The
essential justice in all other respects of the constitution of 1853 had
long been admitted even in Buenos Aires and there remained no reason
why the latter should not enter the confederation once and for all. On
the 21st of October, 1860, General Bartolomé Mitre, Governor of Buenos
Aires, swore to the constitution, saying: "This is the permanent organic
law, the real expression of the perpetual union of the members of the
Argentine family, so long separated by civil war and bloodshed."
Meanwhile, Urquiza's term had expired. Dr. Derqui, his successor, was
suspected of designs against the autonomy of the provincial governments.
The assassination of the Governor of San Juan and the succession of a
member of an opposite faction, was made the occasion for Federal
intervention in the affairs of that province. The government of Buenos
Aires protested and it became evident that this untoward event was soon
to disturb the peace of the newly formed confederation. The Federal
Congress, under Derqui influence, refused to admit the members from
Buenos Aires. Mitre marched out at the head of her forces and at the
battle of Pavon, September 17, 1861, he overthrew the provincial forces.
Buenos Aires remained mistress of the situation. The governments of
certain provinces had been imposed on their people by the Derqui
administration, or they were obnoxious to the triumphant Buenos Aires
party. They were overthrown and Derqui was deposed. Happily for the
Argentine, Mitre was a sincere patriot and, though young, was moderate
and conciliatory. Made president of the republic as the representative
of the victorious Buenos Aireans, he set about the final reorganisation
of constitutional government in a spirit of unselfishness and with a
foresight and skill that greatly aided to save his country from the
sterilising anarchy of civil war.
The accession of Mitre in 1862 marked the end of the period of
uncertainty. The government of the Argentine Republic was now finally
and definitely established and fixed, after fifty-two years of conflict.
The constitution of 1853 was left unamended, except that Buenos Aires
became the seat of federal government without being separated from its
province or ceasing to be the provincial capital. The free international
navigation of the rivers was not interfered with, and Buenos Aires
abandoned her pretensions to special commercial privileges. She was
thenceforward more and more the centre of gravitation and power for the
whole republic, but her influence came from legitimate natural causes
and was exercised within constitutional limits. The autonomy of the
provinces was not interfered with, and it was no longer possible, even
in the remotest districts, for a caudillo to rally at his call the
gauchos, always ready for a raid, a campaign, or an invasion.
[Illustration: BARTOLOMÉ MITRE.
[From a steel engraving.]]
Though the form of the federal government was fixed and its theoretical
supremacy has never since been questioned, its real power at first was
feeble. Urquiza was master in the mesopotamian provinces, and in case of
need Mitre could count on little military help except from his own
province. The only result of the battle of Pavon which was immediately
apparent was the shifting of the centre of power from Urquiza's capital
to Buenos Aires. Nevertheless, henceforth the tendency was constantly
toward strengthening the bonds of union. Urquiza and the other
provincial governors showed no disposition to attack the central
authority, and in turn the latter was careful to avoid useless
aggressions against them. The problem of reconciling provincial rights
with the existence of an adequate federal government had at last been
solved. The nation passed on to a still more difficult question,--the
smooth and satisfactory working of democratic representative
institutions in the absence of an effective participation in public
affairs on the part of the bulk of the population. Elections have not
carried the prestige of being the expression of the majority will. The
ruling classes have been anxious enough to obey the popular voice and to
govern wisely, but people can only gradually be trained into the habit
of expressing their will clearly and indisputably at regular elections.
The insignificant disturbances to public order which have occurred since
1862 have been indications of dissatisfaction with the imperfect detail
workings of the complicated system of ascertaining the popular wishes,
or hasty protests against mistakes on the part of those in power. Never
have they endangered the Federal constitution nor diverted the steady
course of the nation's progress in the art of self-government.
CHAPTER IX
THE MODERN ARGENTINE
General Mitre's administration is memorable for the beginning of that
tremendous industrial development which in thirty years made Argentina,
in proportion to population, the greatest exporting country in the
world. Foreign capital and immigration were chief factors in the
transformation that within a few decades changed an isolated and
industrially backward community into a nation possessing all the
appliances and luxuries of the most advanced material civilisation.
In 1865 circumstances forced Mitre into the Paraguayan war. Lopez, the
Paraguayan dictator, hated the Buenos Aireans quite as much as he did
the Brazilians with whom he was constantly quarrelling, and he was only
awaiting a favourable opportunity to vent his dislike on either or both.
He counted on the coolness that naturally existed between Urquiza and
Mitre to insure him the former's aid. In 1864 Brazil intervened in the
affairs of Uruguay by assisting one of the parties in the civil war then
raging. Lopez regarded the action of Brazil as endangering the balance
of power in the Plate regions. In retaliation he seized the Brazilian
province of Matto Grosso, which lay along the Paraguay north of his own
territory. Mitre wished to remain neutral, although he had no sympathy
with the brutal despot, and had an understanding about Brazil's action
in Uruguay which safeguarded the interests of Argentina. Lopez, however,
insolently demanded free passage across Argentine territory for the
troops which he wished to send against Brazil and Uruguay. Mitre's
refusal was followed by a Paraguayan invasion, and national honour
required that this violation of territory be resented. Brazil and the
Flores faction in Uruguay welcomed the alliance of Argentina. The
Paraguayan invasion was repulsed by their combined forces, and the
allies advanced up the Paraná against Lopez in his own dominions. It was
natural that Mitre should be commander-in-chief of the allied armies,
although Brazil furnished the bulk of the troops and bore the brunt of
the expense. Urquiza disappointed Lopez in refusing to revolt against
Buenos Aires, and although he took no great personal interest in the war
he co-operated in many ways with Mitre.
The enormous expenditures of the Brazilian government furnished a
splendid cash market for Argentine stock and produce, and the resulting
profits compensated for the pecuniary sacrifices involved. In two years'
fighting both the Argentine and the Brazilian armies suffered tremendous
losses on the field and in the cholera hospitals. After the great
repulse at Curupayty in 1867 the number of Argentine troops was largely
reduced. When the Brazilian fleet finally forced the passage of the
river, opening the way to Asuncion, Mitre resigned the command into the
hands of the Brazilian general Caxias, and the last two years of the war
were carried on principally by Brazilian troops. By the peace of 1870
Argentina's title to certain valuable territory was quieted, and she
gained an important commercial advantage by the opening of Paraguay to
her trade. Her commercial and industrial leadership in the Plate valley
has never since been endangered. Politically also the indirect results
were gratifying. The tremendous sacrifices in men and money had sickened
the Brazilian government and people of foreign complications.
Thereafter, the emperor pursued a policy of non-interference, which has
left to his Spanish neighbours a free hand among themselves. With the
withdrawal of the Brazilian troops from Paraguay, the balance of
political power began slowly to pass from Rio to Buenos Aires.
Sarmiento, the "schoolmaster president," succeeded Mitre in 1868. His
election is said to have been the freest and most peaceful ever held in
the republic and to have represented as nearly as any the will of the
electors. The development of population, wealth, and industry continued
in increasing geometrical proportion. During forty-five years before
1857 the population had only a little more than doubled; during the
forty-five years since that date, the increase has been four hundred and
fifty per cent. The yearly increment holds fairly steady at four per
cent., which is as large as that of any country in the world. In 1869
the city of Buenos Aires had one hundred and eighty thousand people, and
in 1902 it contained eight hundred and fifty thousand. Immigration had
begun to pour in at the rate of twenty thousand per annum, and had
rapidly increased to over a hundred thousand, when the great crisis of
1890 temporarily interrupted the flow. The years from 1868 to 1872 were
prosperous over much of the civilised world, but nowhere more so than in
Argentina. Sarmiento's administration was, however, characterised by the
beginning of that policy of governmental and commercial extravagance
which has so deeply mortgaged the future of Argentina, and has
repeatedly hampered the legitimate development of this marvellously
fertile region. In the ten years prior to 1872 foreign commerce doubled,
but the foreign debt increased fivefold.
The last of the caudillos, Lopez Jordan of Entre Rios, revolted in 1870
against Urquiza, who was still governor of that province. The
redoubtable old patriot was captured by the rebels and assassinated. In
1901 a monument was erected to his memory in the city of Paraná, his old
capital, and the day of the unveiling was a national festival in all the
republic. The Federal government avenged his death and suppressed the
insurrection after an obstinate, expensive, and bloody little war.
Sarmiento's administration was, however, not popular, and the news that
he had virtually determined to name his successor created much
dissatisfaction. Mitre headed the opposition in the city, while in the
provinces some of the discontented went so far as to take up arms. Julio
Roca, then a young colonel, defeated them at Santa Rosa, and Sarmiento
was able to hand over the reins of government to Dr. Avellaneda without
any further serious opposition.
[Illustration: JULIO ROCA.]
A commercial crisis was beginning when the new President took office in
1874. He initiated a policy of retrenchment, under which the government
managed to pay its obligations and weather the storm. General Roca was
made Minister of War and came into further prominence as the conqueror
of the Indians, who had hitherto prevented white men from settling on
the vast and valuable southern pampas. In 1854, after the fall of Rosas,
the Indians recovered most of the territory from which he had driven
them twenty years before. Later, the frontier was advanced very slowly,
but in 1877 Alsina, one of the most successful governors Buenos Aires
ever had, undertook a vigorous campaign. In the following year General
Roca threw the power of the Federal government into this vastly
important enterprise. He carried the frontier south to the Rio Negro and
west to the Andes, attacking the Indians in their fortresses--a policy
which insured permanent white domination. The ultimate consequences of
opening up to civilised settlement the immense territories comprised in
Roca's conquests cannot yet properly be estimated. The vast region of
Patagonia, that was marked on the maps in our boyhood as an unclaimed
and uninhabitable arctic waste, has since been added to Argentina as an
indirect result of Roca's campaign of 1878. Buenos Aires put in a claim
for the whole of the territory conquered from the Indians, but the
Federal statesmen refused to allow one province to become well-nigh as
large as all the rest together. By a compromise her area was increased
to sixty-three thousand square miles, while most of the new acquisition
was divided into territories under the direct administration of the
Federal government.
As the time for the presidential election of 1880 approached, political
matters began to look ugly. It was evident that Avellaneda intended to
choose his successor. Through the provincial governors, the police, the
army, the employees on the public works, and the officials of all kinds
he had easy control of the election machinery. Even the most scrupulous
President often cannot prevent the exercise of coercion in his name and
without his knowledge. The opposition in South America usually refrain
from voting: indeed, it is considered almost indelicate for outsiders to
interfere in a matter so strictly official as an election. The privilege
of voting is not so highly prized and so jealously guarded as in the
United States and the northern countries of Europe.
Avellaneda and his adherents had fixed upon General Roca as the next
President. The principal opposing candidate was Dr. Tejedor, governor of
Buenos Aires, who was supported by Mitre's party and also by many of the
other Buenos Aires party, the "autonomists." The contest was really
between Buenos Aires and the provinces. General Roca was strong with the
army and with the country, but so tremendously had Buenos Aires grown
that the result appeared doubtful. Her population, city and province,
had in 1880 reached six hundred and fifty thousand,--more than a quarter
of the total in the whole Confederation. The next three provinces put
together did not equal her numbers and lagged still farther behind in
wealth and ability to concentrate their forces.
Radical counsels prevailed in Buenos Aires. Roca's opponents, seeing
that they were at a hopeless disadvantage with the election machinery in
Avellaneda's hands, determined to use violence. In June, 1880, the
partisans of Tejedor rose against the Federal government. The police and
militia of the city joined them and paraded the streets, while the alarm
flew to the country, and the troops of the line began to concentrate
outside the city. Presently the President and his Cabinet fled for
safety to the Federal camp. For a few weeks there was some skirmishing
and much negotiating, and in one encounter near the south end of the
city a thousand Buenos Aireans were killed. Finally, the two sides came
to an agreement by which the Roca party retained substantially all that
they had been contending for. The General succeeded to the Presidency
without further opposition, and the city of Buenos Aires was detached
from the province. The federalisation of the great city was the last
step in the process of adaptation that had been going on ever since the
expulsion of the Spaniards. Political equilibrium between the provinces
and Buenos Aires had been reached. Thenceforth the latter's direct
predominance was to be purely intellectual, commercial, and social. For
the privilege of being capital of the republic, the city exchanged her
provincial autonomy. Buenos Aires province, as formerly constituted, was
the greatest menace to a peaceful federal union. In an assembly where
the rights and influence of all the provinces were supposed to be equal,
the magnitude of Buenos Aires was a constant occasion for the jealousy
of her smaller sisters and for aggressions on her own part. Deprived of
the city, the remainder of the province was not powerful enough to be
dangerous. Now that it is federalised, the city itself proves to be the
strongest tie binding together the different parts of the Confederation.
The greatest of all the waves of material prosperity reached its
culmination during Roca's first administration. Business fairly boomed;
foreign commerce increased seventy-five per cent. from 1875 to 1885; the
exports of hides, cattle, wool, and wheat swelled from year to year; the
railroad mileage tripled in ten years; the revenues mounted sixty per
cent. in five years; the use of the post-office, that excellent measure
of education, wealth, and higher national energies, tripled. All danger
of disturbances serious enough to affect property rights had long since
passed; the provincial governors worked harmoniously with the Federal
authorities. A part of Roca's system was to rest his power as chief
executive on the co-operation of the governors; the members of Congress
also bore somewhat the same relation to the President. As a rule, a
majority in Congress supported his measures.
In spite of present prosperity, dangers had been inherited from past
administrations. There were weak spots in the political and financial
structure that had grown too rapidly to be altogether well built. The
people still lacked the hard and continued training in business that
older nations have had, and the national temperament tended toward a
reckless optimism. European money lenders stood ready to stimulate this
tendency by offering easy credit facilities in return for careless
promises of exaggerated interest rates. The medium of exchange was a
vastly inflated and fluctuating paper currency. From the beginning
Argentine rulers had resorted to note issues to tide over their
pecuniary difficulties. When Rosas assumed power in 1829 the paper
dollar was worth fifteen cents, and by 1846 he had driven it down to
four cents. In 1866, Mitre's administration had established a new
arbitrary par at twenty-five paper dollars for one gold dollar.
Sarmiento's extravagances made suspension necessary and sent gold to a
premium. In 1883 President Roca remodelled the currency, issuing new
notes convertible into gold, and exchanging them for the old paper at
the rate of twenty-five for one. But his effort to contract and steady
the circulating medium excited protests from a community that was
growing rich in the rapid inflation of values. Foreign money was being
loaned to all sorts of Argentine enterprises on a scale that,
considering the small population of the country, has never been
precedented anywhere. Railroads, ranches, commercial houses, banks, land
schemes, building enterprises, were capitalised for the asking. The
provincial governments borrowed money recklessly, while interest was
guaranteed on new railroads, and charters granted to all sorts of
speculative enterprises. The nation undertook to supply itself in a
single decade with the drainage works, the docks, the public buildings,
the parks, the railroads, that older countries have needed a generation
to provide. So much capital was being fixed that the attempt at specie
resumption cramped the speculative world. Within two years it was given
up, and issues of paper money resumed.
General Roca retired from office in 1886, and was succeeded by his
brother-in-law, Juarez Celman. The four years during which the latter
remained in office are memorable for reckless private and public
borrowing. The healthy activity of General Roca's administration gave
place to a mad fever of speculation. Congress passed a national banking
act, and under its provisions banks of issue were established in nearly
every province. The paper circulation almost quadrupled and the premium
on gold doubled. The Federal government followed the example set by the
provinces and municipalities, and burdened the country with an
indebtedness which has mortgaged the future of the country for years to
come. Between 1885 and 1891 the foreign debt was increased nearly
threefold.
[Illustration: GATEWAY OF THE CEMETERY AT BUENOS AIRES.
[From a lithograph.]]
During 1887 and 1888 few apprehensions of the inevitable result of the
inflation seem to have been entertained. Up to the very day of the crash
of 1889 the government cheerfully continued to borrow, to plan
magnificent public improvements, and to build expensive railways. The
public speculated confidently in the mortgage scrip issued through the
provincial mortgage banks. Early in 1889 the government began to have
difficulty in meeting some of the enormous obligations which it had
undertaken. Conservative people became apprehensive; the independent
press raised a warning voice. A ministerial crisis was followed by a
panic in the Exchange. The new Secretary of the Treasury, in an effort
to prevent further depreciation of the currency, diverted the redemption
fund held by the government for bank issues. The currency dropped with
sickening rapidity; the bubble companies collapsed; the public realised
that many of the banks were unable to meet their obligations.
At this crisis public alarm and indignation found a vent in the
formation of a revolutionary society, called the Civic Union, which was
pledged to overthrow President Celman. On July 26, 1890, disturbances
began and there was a little fighting in the streets. Police and troops,
however, put no spirit into their efforts to suppress the rioters. The
President's best friends urged him to resign, and Congress passed a
formal memorial to that effect. There was nothing for him to do but to
obey the manifest wish of the people; he handed in his resignation and
the Vice-President, Dr. Carlos Pellegrini, peacefully succeeded him.
The situation went from bad to worse; in 1891 the currency dropped to
twenty-three cents on the dollar, the banks failed, and the laws for
collection of debts were suspended for two months. The most which Dr.
Pellegrini could hope to do was to hold things together until the
general election should be held fifteen months later. No human wisdom
could devise measures that would give immediate prosperity, and the
public would be satisfied with nothing less. Dr. Pellegrini had to wait
until later years for a proper appreciation of his labours. The other
two great national figures were General Roca and General Mitre. The
first had the prestige of his strong and successful administration; he
enjoyed the confidence of the army, and he was the head of the great
Nationalist party which was especially powerful in the provinces.
General Mitre, the most eminent citizen of Buenos Aires, and in a way
the living embodiment of the previous forty years of national history,
had inevitably been selected as chief of the Civic Union. He had
therefore led the movement through which the public opinion of the
capital had overthrown Celman.
Mitre and Roca had co-operated in securing a peaceful transfer of the
government from Celman to Pellegrini. Roca was inclined to favour Mitre
for the presidency, but it soon became evident that the latter could
not control the more radical members of the Civic Union, and that his
candidacy would not reconcile all parties. February 19, 1891, an attempt
to assassinate Roca was perpetrated in the streets of Buenos Aires. The
spirit of mutiny grew alarmingly, and a state of siege was proclaimed;
the Civic Union split into warring camps; trouble broke out in Cordoba,
and successful revolutions overthrew the legal state governments in
Catamarca and Santiago del Estero. Mitre and Roca formally withdrew from
active political life in the hope that this might placate the dissident
politicians.
The candidate fixed upon by the wing of Nationals who adhered to Roca,
and the moderates of the Civic Union led by Mitre, was Doctor Luiz Saenz
Peña, ex-Justice of the Supreme Court. The Pellegrini government gave
him its earnest support, and charges were made by the Radicals that
their votes would be forcibly suppressed in the election of October,
1891. They determined to anticipate violence with violence, but, on the
eve of the election in October, 1891, their leaders were imprisoned and
a state of siege declared. Saenz Peña was elected, but the Radicals
began to intrigue to obtain control of the provincial governments, which
would enable them to force his resignation or his compliance with their
wishes. Serious trouble broke out early in 1892 in the province of
Corrientes, with which the Buenos Aires radicals openly sympathised. The
new President quickly cut loose from the Roca wing of the Nationalist
party and allied himself closely with the moderate Civic Unionists, now
usually called "Mitristas." The President's own son, who had been a
candidate against him, headed the faction of the Nationalist party that
had renounced Roca's leadership. Revolutionary movements against the
governors who belonged to the Roca faction began in several provinces.
In February there were armed protests in Santa Fé against a new wheat
tax; a revolt broke out in Catamarca in April; by July the Saenz Peña
administration was in the gravest difficulties. San Luiz and Santa Fé
rebelled, and in August Salta and Tucuman followed. It was manifest that
the President was not strong enough to hold down the selfish factions
who saw in the general dissatisfaction and financial distress only an
opportunity to get into office by force of arms.
Congress remained neutral until it became evident that no accommodation
could be reached between the President and his opponents, and that the
latter would press on to overthrowing the government and probably
precipitate a serious civil war. In this crisis, however, the majority
agreed to laws which authorised armed Federal intervention in the
troubles in San Luiz and Santa Fé. But in September the national troops
themselves showed symptoms of mutiny and by this time most of the
provinces were convulsed by revolutionary movements which the central
government was manifestly not strong enough to suppress or control.
On September 25th, General Roca took command of the army; the most
dangerous radical leaders in Buenos Aires were thrown into prison; and
on October 1st he captured Rosario, the second city of the Republic,
and the chief place in Santa Fé, which for months had been in the hands
of revolutionists. This was a beginning of the end of the troubles that
menaced public order. Six million dollars had been expended by the
government in fruitless marchings to and fro of troops, but no serious
harm had been done. The scene of the contest between the ambitious
factions was transferred to Congress, the Cabinet, and the Press.
Throughout 1893 and 1894 the President struggled with his factional and
financial difficulties, and gradually lost control of Congress and
prestige in the country.
Meanwhile, commercial liquidation was proceeding normally and, as
always, painfully. The great Provincial Mortgage Bank, through the
agency of which a vast amount of the land scrip had been issued in the
Celman days, was granted a moratorium for five years. Other actual
bankruptcies were legally admitted and enforced. The mortgage scrip
payable in gold was replaced by currency obligations. The government had
proved unequal to the task of balancing its own receipts and expenses.
Taxes were increased until rebellion seemed imminent, but expenditures
still outran them. The deficits mounted in spite of the efforts toward
economy and the returning prosperity of the business world. The boundary
dispute with Chile had assumed a threatening aspect; war seemed
imminent, and the military and naval estimates were largely increased.
In January, 1895, President Saenz Peña called an extra session of
Congress to vote supplies for the expected war with Chile and to
consider the financial proposals of the government. Congress demanded
that political grievances should be redressed. The President had been
persecuting the army officers who had been implicated in the
revolutionary disturbances, and a vast majority of Congress insisted
that a complete amnesty be granted to all political offenders. When the
President refused, the Cabinet resigned in a body and Congress and the
opposition brought every pressure to bear. It was soon evident that
Congress must win, and on January 22, 1895, the President resigned.
The Vice-President, Doctor Uriburu, succeeded for the unexpired period
of three years, during which little progress was made toward a
settlement of the nation's financial difficulties. Symptoms of renewed
extravagance appeared. In 1897, the issuance of $10,000,000 of mortgage
scrip was authorised, and the city of Buenos Aires received permission
to borrow $5,000,000. Work on the great docks of Buenos Aires, costing
$35,000,000, was pushed to completion, and in February the paper dollars
dropped back to 33 cents, while the deficit for the year was over
$20,000,000.
In July, 1897, General Roca was nominated for the Presidency by the
Convention of the National party, with Dr. Pellegrini in the chair.
There was no real opposition to his election. Again and again during a
quarter of a century he had proved himself able to cope with the most
difficult situations which had arisen in Argentine affairs. In 1890, his
firmness and adroitness had saved the country from the agony of a
useless political upheaval after the failure of the Celman
administration. During the anxious months that followed the panic, his
generosity had secured a co-operation of the moderates of Buenos Aires
with his own immediate followers in holding back the Radicals and
revolutionists in check. During the critical year of 1892, the outbreaks
against the Saenz Peña administration increased in violence until it
seemed as if the country would be convulsed with a serious civil war,
but when Roca stepped in the tide of disorganisation turned, and his
firm hand re-established the authority of the Federal government. His
prestige and his personality enabled him to count upon an obedience from
the chiefs of the provincial factions which was of inestimable value. He
possessed those rare and indispensable qualities which make a man a
centre around which other men can rally. He had built up the one really
national party in the country and was faithful to his friends and his
adherents, but sufficiently broad-minded to combine with other parties
when the interests of the whole country demanded it.
General Roca entered upon his second presidential term in the beginning
of 1898. One of his first acts was to intervene in Buenos Aires province
and put an end to a deadlock between the governor and the Provincial
Assembly. The boundary dispute with Chile, a question which, in spite of
the earnest desire of both governments for peace, might at any time
precipitate a ruinous war, was submitted for settlement by arbitration.
W. J. Buchanan, the United States Minister at Buenos Aires, named as
arbitrator for the northern frontier, quickly announced a decision
which was promptly accepted by both parties. The more complicated
southern frontier could not so easily be prepared for submission; a
serious misunderstanding arose, and both countries felt compelled to
spend large sums for armaments which they knew they could ill afford.
Happily, a decision was at last rendered in 1902. No question now
remains open which is likely to involve the external peace of Argentina.
[Illustration: A RIVER ROAD IN ARGENTINA.
[From a lithograph.]]
Internal peace has not been menaced during General Roca's term. The
commercial situation of the country has vastly improved. Immigration,
which had largely ceased after 1890, has again risen to over a hundred
thousand a year. Wheat exports rose from 4,000,000 bushels in 1897 to
61,000,000 in 1900. The total exports in 1899 were $185,000,000, twice
as great per capita as the record export of the United States. There
have been no issues of paper money, and the value of the currency has
risen to forty cents. The government has established a new artificial
par at a little more than this sum, and has begun accumulating a gold
reserve. A resumption of specie payments is soon expected.
Nevertheless the chief difficulties and preoccupations of the Roca
administration have been with financial questions. A deficit of
$70,000,000 had accumulated in the few years before 1898, and the
interest on the immense public debt makes an equilibrium in the budget
almost impossible. Many of the provincial governments have defaulted,
and the national government has had to carry their burdens in addition
to its own, to satisfy clamorous foreign creditors. In 1901 it was
proposed to unify the debt, refunding the whole at a lower rate of
interest, and specifically pledging certain sources of public income.
This plan had the approval of the government, but the national pride was
touched by the latter feature. The populace could not bear the idea of
giving a sort of mortgage on the country. The passage of the bill by
Congress was met with so many demonstrations of popular disapproval that
it was abandoned. This change of front was accompanied by the formation
of an alliance between the followers of General Mitre and those of
General Roca.
The industrial impetus already acquired by the Argentine Republic is
sufficient to carry it over all obstacles, and it seems assured that
there will be a rapid settlement of the whole of this immense and
fertile plain. Here nature has done everything to make communication
easy, and a temperate climate insures crops suited to modern European
civilisation. Two grave perils have so far been encountered--namely, a
tendency toward political disintegration and an abuse of the taxing
power. The former is now remote, for since the railways began to
concentrate wealth and influence at Buenos Aires, and to destroy the
prestige and political power of the provincial capitals, the national
structure built by the patriots of 1853 has stood firmer each year.
The Argentine has had a bitter lesson of the evils of governmental
extravagance, and still groans under the burden of a debt which seems
disproportionately heavy, but the growth of population and wealth will
soon overtake it, and the very difficulties of meeting interest are the
cause of an economy in administration, of which the good effects will be
felt long after the debt itself has been reduced to a reasonable per
capita. A nation is in the process of formation in the Plate valley
whose material greatness is certain, and whose moral and intellectual
characteristics will have the widest influence on the rest of South
America.
PARAGUAY
CHAPTER I
PARAGUAY UNTIL 1632
The beginnings of the settlements in Paraguay have been sketched in the
introductory chapter on the discoveries and conquest. In 1526, Cabot,
searching to find a route to the gold and silver mines of the centre of
the continent, penetrated as far as the site of the present city of
Asuncion. He had already, in the exploration of the Upper Paraná,
skirted the southern and eastern boundary of what has since become the
country of Paraguay. Ten years later the exhausted and discouraged
remnants of Mendoza's great expedition sought rest and refuge among the
peaceful agricultural tribes of this region. Under Domingos Irala, these
six hundred surviving Spanish adventurers founded Asuncion in 1536, the
first settlement of the valley of the Plate. They reduced the Indians to
a mild slavery, compelling them to build houses, perform menial
services, and cultivate the soil. The country was divided into great
tracts called "encomiendas," which, with the Indians that inhabited
them, were distributed among the settlers. Few women had been able to
follow Mendoza's expedition, so the Spaniards of Asuncion took wives
from among the Indians. Subsequent immigration was small, and the
proportion of Spanish blood has always been inconsiderable, compared
with the number of aborigines. The children of the marriages between the
Spanish conquerors and Indian women were proud of their white descent.
The superior strain of blood easily dominated, and the mixed Paraguayan
Creoles became Spaniards to all intents and purposes. Spaniards and
Creoles, however, learned the Indian language; Guarany rather than
Spanish became, and has remained, the most usual method of
communication.
The Spaniards of Asuncion were turbulent and disinclined to submit to
authority. They paid scant respect to the adelantados, whom the
Castilian king sent out one after another as feudal proprietors. Until
his death Irala was the most influential man in the colony, but his
power rested on his own energy and capacity, and on the fear and respect
in which he was held by his companions, more than on the royal
commission that finally could not be withheld from him.
[Illustration: ASUNCION.]
Across the river from Asuncion stretched away to the west the vast and
swampy plains of the great Chaco. It was inhabited by wandering tribes
of Indians whom the Spaniards could not subdue. They fled before the
expeditions like scared wild beasts, only to turn and mercilessly
massacre every man when a chance was offered for ambush or surprise. To
the east of the Paraguay River the country was dry, rolling, and
extremely fertile. Though covered with magnificent forests it was easily
penetrable all the way across to the Paraná. Its inhabitants were the
docile Guaranies, who knew something of agriculture and in whose
villages considerable stores of food were to be found. The population
was dense for savages, but they had no political or military
organisation. Divided into small tribes which did not co-operate, they
rendered little respect or obedience to their chiefs. Under these
conditions Spanish authority rapidly spread over central and southern
Paraguay. Before Irala died, in 1557, the settlers had reached the
Paraná on the western boundary and founded settlements nearly as far
north as the Grand Cataract.
Shortly afterwards, the Creoles of Asuncion began their expeditions to
the South. By 1580 they controlled the Paraná River from its confluence
with the Paraguay to the ocean, had established Santa Fé and Buenos
Aires on its right bank, and opened up the southern pampa. The pastoral
provinces on the Lower Paraná were slowly peopled. A large proportion of
the energetic Paraguayan Creoles preferred the semi-nomadic life of the
plains to indolence among their Indian slaves in the tropical forests of
Paraguay. The two regions were distinct in climate, habits of life,
social and industrial organisation. They became separated in interests
and soon were to be divided politically. Though, until 1619, the whole
province continued to bear the name of Paraguay, the usual residence of
the governor was Buenos Aires. Asuncion was often forced to be content
with a lieutenant-governor, and was fast relegated to the position of a
neglected and isolated district.
In the days of the Spanish conquest, Franciscan monks were the priests
who most often accompanied the expeditions, and they took the most
prominent part in the earliest establishment of religion. The members of
this Order, however, with a few notable exceptions, took no special
interest in the evangelisation of the aborigines. On the contrary, they
were as fierce as the soldiers themselves in their cruelties to the poor
Indians. The shouts of a Franciscan monk set on Pizarro's ruffians to
the slaughter of the Incas that surrounded Atahualpa. Those that came to
Paraguay preferred to live in the towns, and their conduct toward the
Indians differed little from that of the lay Spaniards. It was the
genius of Ignatius Loyola that conceived and perfected a machine able to
carry Christianity and civilisation to these remote and inaccessible
peoples and regions. Within a few years after its foundation, the
Society of Jesus turned its attention to the evangelisation of South
America; in 1550 the Jesuit Fathers began their work in Brazil. Their
successes and failures in that country had little relation with their
work in Spanish South America. It is curious, however, that their most
successful early work in Brazil should have been done in São Paulo, on
the extreme eastern border of the wide plateau which drains to the west
into the Paraná. For a decade or two after 1550, they laboured hard to
gather the Indians of that region into villages, to teach them
Christianity, and protect them against the tyrannies and exactions of
the Portuguese settlers. The contest was unequal; the Jesuits were not
long able to prevent the enslavement of their proselytes. The Paulistas
destroyed the Jesuit missions in their neighbourhood and became the most
expert in Indian warfare and the most terrible foes of the Jesuit system
of all the colonists of South America. Their determined opposition was
the most potent cause in preventing the subjection of South America to a
theocratic system of government.
About 1586 the Jesuit Fathers entered Paraguay for the purpose of
beginning the evangelisation of the Indians of the Plate valley. They
established a school in Asuncion and pushed out on foot into the remoter
districts. Their success was phenomenal. They spared no pains to learn
the language of the savages so that they might teach them in their own
tongue. They approached them with kindness and benevolence showing in
every gesture. They availed themselves of the Indians' love of bright
colours and showy processions. They went unarmed and alone, offering
useful and attractive presents, conforming to savage customs and
prejudices, and imposing on the vivid savage imagination with the pomp
of Catholic worship. They taught their savage pupils how to cultivate
the ground to get greater results, how to save themselves unnecessary
labour, and how to live comfortably. They persuaded them to gather into
towns, where they built comfortable houses and tight warehouses, while
the men cultivated the soil and the women spun and wove cotton.
The Jesuits came almost immediately into conflict with the interests of
the Spanish colonists. They were welcomed at first, because they were
expected to lend themselves to the enslavement of the Indians. When
their real purposes were discovered feeling against them rose high. The
Creoles clearly saw that it was going to be far more difficult to extend
their power over the Indians gathered together in villages under Jesuit
protection than over unorganised and friendless bands of unconverted
savages.
Before 1610 the number of Jesuits that had come to Paraguay was very
small. Among the first was the Father named Thomas Fields, a Scotchman.
As a matter of fact, the Jesuits were recruited from all the nations of
Europe and under their military system had to go wherever they might be
sent. English, Irish, and German names, as well as Spanish, are to be
found in the lists of Jesuits who laboured in Paraguay.
In 1608 Philip III. of Spain attended to the complaints that came to him
through the powerful chiefs of the Order of the indifference and
opposition shown by the settlers and colonial authorities, and gave his
royal and official sanction to the Jesuit conversion of the Indians
along the Upper Paraná. By this time the Fathers had penetrated across
to the Paraná and had followed up that stream far north of the Grand
Cataract in latitude 24°, which marks the northern boundary of Paraguay
proper. It is hard to understand how they overcame the difficulties of
travelling. To this day it is well-nigh impossible to reach the Grand
Cataract, and years pass without that wonder of nature's being seen by
the eyes of civilised man. No part of the world, outside the Arctic
regions, is less accessible than the Paraná above the Grand Cataract.
Yet these heroic priests made that region the principal theatre of their
operations in the early years of the seventeenth century. The territory
is now all Brazilian,--the boundaries of that republic extend on the
east bank of the Paraná south nearly to the twenty-sixth degree and on
the west bank to the twenty-fourth. The rivers Paranapanema and Ivahy
are great tributaries coming down from the east between the
twenty-second and twenty-third degrees, and draining a vast extent of
the plateau that extends to the Brazilian coast mountains between
Curitiba and São Paulo, and on their banks the Jesuits established their
principal missions.
In those days there were no clearly defined boundaries between the
Portuguese and Spanish dominions. From 1580 to 1640 the king of Spain
was also monarch of Portugal. The Jesuits held his royal letters patent
for the conversion of the Indians of the province of Guayrá--the name
which this remote region bore. They had no reason to anticipate that
they would be accused of being invaders of Portuguese territory, or that
they would be interfered with by any Portuguese subjects of the Spanish
Crown. The nearest Portuguese settlement was at São Paulo, from which
Guayrá could be reached only by the long and tedious descent of the
Tieté River to its confluence with the Paraná, and thence down that
river to the Ivahy. Months would be necessary to make such a journey,
great difficulties encountered with waterfalls and rapids, and great
privations from want of food in the vast uninhabited regions on the
route.
The first Jesuits to arrive after the granting of formal authorisation
by the Spanish king were two Italians. They left Asuncion October 10,
1609, and it took them five months of incessant travelling to reach the
Paranapanema. The work already done there by the earlier Fathers had
borne some fruit. The Indians were prepared for the coming of the new
missionaries and readily gathered into the towns which they founded in
rapid succession. For the first few years all went well, and within a
very short time they claimed to have at least forty thousand souls under
their guidance. In 1614 there were 119 Jesuits in Paraguay and Guayrá,
and the work of evangelising and reducing to obedience the whole Guarany
population of the Paraná valley went on apace. For twenty years these
Guayrá missions spread and prospered, while to the east and south the
Jesuits acquired more and more influence with the Indians in Paraguay
proper, and more and more hemmed in the Creoles of Asuncion.
In 1629 a thunderbolt burst upon Guayrá out of a clear sky. The
Portuguese from São Paulo appeared before the Mission of San Antonio and
destroyed it utterly, burning the church and houses and driving off the
Indians as slaves. Other missions shortly suffered the same fate, and
within the short space of three years the towns had been sacked, most
of the inhabitants of the region carried off or killed, and the remnants
had fled down the river under the leadership of the Fathers. The
Paulistas were animated by motives, some good, some bad. Primarily they
wished to capture slaves. They hated the Jesuits and had themselves
suffered from the latter's system of segregating the aborigines. Only a
few decades before, their fathers had destroyed the Jesuit missions near
São Paulo, and they were determined not to permit themselves to be
hemmed in and crowded out by Indians ruled and protected by Jesuits.
They believed in the doctrine of "Brazil for the White Brazilians," and
they regarded the Jesuits and their neophytes as natural enemies and
fair prey. The sentiment of nationality also animated them. As
descendants of Portuguese they hated the Spaniards and their rule. Their
allegiance to the Spanish dynasty that had usurped the crown of Portugal
sat lightly. The Jesuits came by way of Asuncion, their communications
were with the Spanish authorities, and most of them were Spaniards. The
Paulistas, as Portuguese, viewed with alarm a rapid spread of Spanish
ecclesiastics up the Paraná valley, which threatened soon to reach their
own neighbourhood. Avarice, love of adventure, race pride, patriotism,
hatred of priestly domination, all co-operated to push them on to
undertaking these memorable expeditions.
The great extension of the Jesuits over the northern and eastern regions
of the Paraná valley occurred during the period when Hernandarias was
the dominant figure of the Plate. Creole though he was, this remarkable
man was a friend to the Indian and to the missionary work of the
Jesuits. His aid and encouragement in 1609 were essential to the
latter's success, for he might easily have nullified the effect of the
royal permission to evangelise Guayrá, a formal document that would have
been of little value against the delays and excuses of an unwilling
governor aided by the jealous people. After his first term as governor
at Buenos Aires, the Spanish government determined to put a stop to the
more flagrant of the abuses practised against the savages and created
the office of "Protector of the Indians." Hernandarias was named to fill
it, and carried out his instructions in a moderate spirit. He understood
the country and the situation of the colony well, and did not undertake
to abolish Indian slavery. In that tropical climate the whites will not
labour in the fields so long as there are Indians who can be forced to
work, and the Spaniards still regarded the Indian as little better than
an animal.
On the other hand, Hernandarias was too intelligent not to see that
there must be restraints on the cruelties and exactions of the Creoles
if the Indians of Paraguay were to be saved from the extermination that
had been the fate of the Haytians a century before. The outcome was,
that though a new code of laws was promulgated by the impracticable
Spanish king, which forbade any further enslavement of the aborigines,
its provisions were largely disregarded. At the same time, however, the
Indians acquired a legal status, and their condition was gradually
improved until it became not much worse than that of the
contemporaneous European peasantry. The Jesuits were guaranteed against
interference and allowed to go out into the remoter wilderness and give
to the yet unslaved inhabitants the invaluable protection of membership
in their missions.
In 1619 the natural and commercial division between Paraguay proper and
the rest of the province was officially recognised. The region between
the Paraguay and the Paraná rivers was made a separate province,
directly dependent upon the Viceroy at Lima and the Audiencia at Charcas
in Bolivia. It included officially the Jesuit missions south-east of the
Paraná as well as the present territory of Paraguay.
When the Paulistas began their terrible attacks on the Guayrá missions
in 1629, the governor of Paraguay refused to send any assistance to the
Jesuits. The latter charged him with a corrupt understanding with the
invaders, by which he was to share in the profits of the slaves sold.
The Order had agreed with the Spanish government not to put any arms
into the hands of the Indians, so the latter were defenceless against
the Paulistas, who attacked musket in hand. The Creoles and Spaniards in
Asuncion resented more and more the presence and power of the Jesuits,
and viewed with ill-concealed satisfaction the misfortunes that now
overwhelmed the priests. The governor, in declining to send help, was
only carrying out the wishes of the people around him. Had the number of
whites in Paraguay not been so very small the Jesuits might have been
expelled as they were in São Paulo.
CHAPTER II
THE JESUIT REPUBLIC AND COLONIAL PARAGUAY
We have no accounts of the Jesuit missions in Guayrá, or of the tragedy
of their destruction, except those that were written by the Fathers
themselves. These are filled with manifest exaggerations and marred by
omissions which we have few means of correcting. Nevertheless, the bold
outlines of a story that for bravery, pathos, and devotion rivals any
ever told are clear and indisputable. Within such a short period as
twenty years the Jesuits had not succeeded in training the Guayrá
Indians to any very high degree of civilisation. They complain that the
Indians were still prone to return to the worship of their devils.
Nevertheless, the massive walls of churches which have survived the
devastation wrought by three centuries of tropical rains bear witness
that the Jesuits had gathered together a multitude of people and had
taught them a measure of skilled labour.
Of the completeness of the victory of the Paulistas there is no doubt.
Within three years, tens of thousands of Indians were carried off to São
Paulo, and hardly a town was left standing in the province of Guayrá.
Father Montoya, chief Jesuit, has left an account of the Hegira which he
led down the river. Though he is silent as to the part he took himself,
it is hard to read his pages and not give him a place among the world's
great heroes. Twelve thousand Indians of every sex and age assembled on
the Paranapanema with the few belongings which they had been able to
bring from the homes that they were forced to abandon. The Paulistas
were daily expected to return, and the only hope of escape was to float
down the river and get beyond the Grand Cataract of the Paraná. The
journey to the beginning of the falls was made without any great losses;
there the difficulties began. Ninety miles of falls and rapids intervene
between navigable water above and below the Grand Cataract. Across the
river valley extends a mountain chain with slopes rugged and covered
with dense vegetation. The river divides into various channels, and the
sides of the gorges are clothed in cane-brakes and tangled forests
through which a path had to be cut with machetes. These poor Jesuits and
their thousands of scared, patient Indians had no boats awaiting them at
the foot of the falls, so they had to continue their dreary passage
through the gorges and cane-brakes, where wild Indians lay in ambush
with poisoned arrows, until at last a place was reached where canoes
could be built. Still they struggled on, the indomitable Jesuits taking
every precaution. Though out of immediate danger from the Paulistas when
they had passed the cataract, the Spaniards on the right bank below
were hardly less to be feared. They were waiting on the shore of the
Paraná for news of the fugitives in order to pounce on them and make a
rich haul of slaves. The provisions were exhausted, but the Jesuits
dared not apply for help to the Creoles. Fever broke out and, sick and
starving, the devoted Jesuits and their uncomplaining followers worked
away on their boats and rafts. At last they got them ready, and,
slipping past the Spanish settlements in the night, they finally reached
some small Jesuit missions near the mouth of the Iguassú, five hundred
miles from their starting-point.
[Illustration: GUAYRÁ FALLS.]
The Jesuits resolved to evacuate Guayrá completely and to build up their
power anew in the country between the Paraná and the Uruguay. Within the
next few years they had occupied the country that is now the Argentine
Territory of the missions. This tract lay directly across the Paraná,
from that part of Paraguay proper in which the Jesuits were most
powerful, to the other side of the Uruguay, where was a fertile
territory which proved an excellent field for the extension of the
settlement. Before many years these missions stretched in a broad band
from the centre of Paraguay three hundred miles to the south-east; they
dominated southern Paraguay and half the present Brazilian state of Rio
Grande do Sul with the country that lies between, while their towns
lined both banks of the Upper Uruguay and the Middle Paraná, cutting off
the Creoles from extending their settlements up either of these great
rivers.
Now that the priests had concentrated their forces so near, the alarm
of the Creoles became acute. The Jesuits managed to obtain the dismissal
of the governor who had refused to send them aid when they were attacked
by the Paulistas and were driven from Guayrá, but his successor also
became a partisan of the Creoles as soon as he reached Asuncion. He
visited the missions near the river Paraná and ordered that they be
secularised on the ground that these regions had already been subjected
by Spanish arms before its occupation by the priests. But the Jesuits
were good lawyers and had powerful friends at every Court, so the
governor was forced to reverse his action.
The next governor helped to make the Jesuits secure from Paulista
interference below the Grand Cataract, by defeating an important
expedition which had reached the new missions. The Paulistas did not
confine their aggressions to the missions, but alarmed the Spanish
Creoles themselves by penetrating west of the Paraná into Paraguay
proper. Even Asuncion did not feel safe for a time. The Jesuits had now
begun to arm and drill the Indians. Though the Paulistas made
expeditions from time to time, and the Spanish and Jesuit frontier
settlements were frequently aroused by the news of a bloody raid and of
the rapid depredations of a band of these dreaded marauders, there was
never again such wholesale destruction as had taken place in Guayrá. The
frontiers of the Spanish and Portuguese peoples on the Paraná remain to
this day substantially as they were fixed by the Paulista expeditions of
1630 to 1640.
In their conflict with the Jesuits, the Creoles shortly received a
valuable reinforcement in Bishop Cardenas, a very able and energetic
prelate, and a man gifted as a ruler and statesman. Born in the city of
Charcas, on the Bolivian plateau, he was a Creole of the Creoles. He
became a great missionary and evangelist throughout Upper Peru and
Tucuman, acquiring wonderful fame and popularity by his eloquence. In
spite of the fact that he was a Creole, he was immensely popular among
the Indians, and seems to have been a natural leader of both branches of
the native population. He bitterly hated the Jesuits. As a member of the
rival Franciscan Order, his professional jealousy was aroused by their
success, and his Creole prejudices were outraged by their efforts to
prevent the extension of white power among the aborigines.
By sheer force of ability and eloquence, he rose into great prominence
in southern Spanish America, and was rewarded for his successful labours
in Tucuman by being appointed Bishop of Paraguay. There the Creoles
accepted him as their leader, and he soon became the dominant figure in
the community. He quarrelled repeatedly with the governor, but such was
his force of character, and the skill with which he took advantage of
the superstitious reverence for his apostolic office, that he invariably
achieved his ends. Once the governor, at the head of a file of soldiers,
presented himself at the bishop's door to arrest a fugitive whom the
bishop had undertaken to protect. When the door was opened there stood
the dauntless priest in full canonicals, defying the governor to cross
his threshold. He excommunicated the governor and every soldier who had
dared take part in this affront to his dignity, and, like Hildebrand,
was only appeased when the governor had begged for pardon on his knees.
When the governor died, Bishop Cardenas succeeded _ad interim_. His
popularity and prestige were unbounded, and his audacity and courage
unprecedented. Uniting in himself the religious, civil, and popular
power, he controlled the forces of the community more completely than
any one who had preceded him. His great work was the humiliation and
destruction of the Jesuits. He hampered their insidious spread on the
hither side of the Paraná, and attempted the secularisation of many of
their missions. In 1649 he took the audacious step of issuing a decree
expelling all the members of the Society of Jesus, and he actually drove
the Fathers from their churches and schools in Asuncion itself. The
Jesuits appealed to the Viceroy, and a governor was sent out to depose
him.
Twenty years had now elapsed since the Jesuits had armed the Mission
Indians and organised them into an efficient militia. An army was,
therefore, ready to the new governor's hand. The Creoles of western
Paraguay were riotous and tumultuous, but in that tropical climate they
had lost much of the military capacity of their Spanish ancestors. The
number of people of Spanish descent was small and while the secular
Indians made admirable soldiers when disciplined and well led, they had
never been organised by the Creoles for serious warfare. The military
system of the Jesuits immediately proved its superiority. Aided by the
prestige of his Viceregal commission, the new governor at the head of
the Jesuit army quickly overcame the hastily gathered levies of the
Bishop.
For the next one hundred and twenty years the Jesuits maintained their
system in south-eastern Paraguay and the regions on both banks of the
Paraná and the Upper Uruguay. Until 1728 their territory was nominally
under the jurisdiction of the governor of Asuncion. Really, however, it
was an independent republic ruled by a superior whose capital was at
Candelaria, and who was actually responsible to no one except his
General at Rome and the authorities at Madrid. In the secular part of
Paraguay, the formerly turbulent and secular Creoles sank more and more
into the indifference characteristic of the Indians who surrounded them.
Early in the eighteenth century a governor named Antequera, whom the
Viceregal authorities attempted to depose, was forcibly maintained for a
time by the Paraguayan Creoles--probably the earliest instance of an
important movement toward independence which occurred in South America.
The Paraguayans only yielded when a compromise was offered. The old
ferocity which the original conquerors had felt against the Indians gave
place gradually to kindlier sentiments. From slaves the Indians rose
into serfs and then into peasants, living on good terms with the
proprietors of their lands, and not more oppressed by Spanish officials
than the whites themselves. Secular Paraguay, shut in on the west by
the impenetrable Chaco with its hordes of dreaded wild Indians, and on
the east by the Jesuit territory, could not expand. Indeed the impulse
toward conquest and exploration which so distinguished the Paraguayan
Creoles in the latter part of the sixteenth century, had completely died
out as early as the middle of the seventeenth century.
In 1728, the Jesuit republic was formally detached from the jurisdiction
of Paraguay and placed under that of the government of Buenos Aires. The
missions were all situated on or near the banks of the Upper Paraná and
Uruguay, and their line of communication with the outside world ran
directly to Buenos Aires. They had few commercial relations with
Asuncion and it was inconvenient to maintain even a shadow of political
relation with that capital. The Jesuit missions prospered, although,
curiously enough, their population remained stationary. South and east
of the Paraná, the country which they occupied was mostly an open,
rolling plain admirably suited for pasturage. Herding cattle was the
chief employment of the Indians and the chief source of the exports.
However, in the forests north-west of the Paraná, agriculture was more
practised, and the principal exports thence were the matte tea and
timber. In the pastoral country the Jesuits did not expand farther. They
had already gathered most of the Indians who inhabited that region into
their missions, and the natural increase of population did not justify
any new settlements. But in the wooded country across the Paraná a few
tribes of Guaranies had hitherto escaped subjection to either Creoles or
Jesuits, and farther to the west, in the great Chaco, there were many
tribes of savage and intractable Indians. In both these directions the
Jesuits kept up their missionary efforts. In Paraguay, they were
successful and converted many tribes of the northern part of that
country, but in the Chaco they could make little progress.
In 1769 the king of Spain issued his famous decree banishing the Jesuits
from all his dominions. It was feared that in the centre of their power
on the Upper Paraná they might offer resistance. They commanded a
population of more than two hundred thousand Indians, fairly well armed
and disciplined and absolutely devoted to them; nevertheless, they
submitted quietly. Spanish officials replaced the Jesuits in control of
the civil and commercial interests of the mission towns, and priests of
other Orders were sent up to continue spiritual instruction. The Spanish
officials were, however, not successful in holding the Indians together.
Their exactions and cruelties drove the Indians to despair, and within a
very few years emigration began. The seven missions to the east of the
Uruguay had been traded by Spain to Portugal in 1750, and most of their
inhabitants had then been killed or driven across the Uruguay. The most
populous missions lay between the Uruguay and the Paraná, in the
territory that to-day forms the upper part of Corrientes, and the
Missions Territory. A large proportion of their inhabitants fled down
the Uruguay into Entre Rios and Uruguay proper. Those on the west side
of the Paraná largely remained or removed only far enough to coalesce
with the secular Indians of Paraguay; some of the outlying and more
remote missions were abandoned altogether, and Paraguay then assumed its
present extent.
The population was fairly homogeneous, and its vast majority was
composed of descendants of the aborigines, with comparatively few
Spaniards and Creoles of mixed blood forming the upper strata of
society. The country felt few of the quickening and disturbing
influences which were already animating the regions at the mouth of the
river toward the end of the eighteenth century. Little effort was
necessary to get a subsistence from the teeming soil, and, content with
their luscious oranges, their matte, and their unlimited tobacco, the
Paraguayans led an idyllic existence. They had little sympathy with the
turbulent, active-minded population which was crowding into Buenos Aires
and making it a commercial, political, and intellectual focus.
Agricultural in their habits, they disliked the hard-riding gauchos of
the southern plains hardly less than the turbulent Indians of the Chaco.
In the movements that preceded the revolution of 1810 they took no part.
CHAPTER III
FRANCIA'S REIGN
On the 25th of May, 1810, a revolutionary movement in Buenos Aires
overthrew the Spanish Viceroy. Its leaders were young Creole liberals,
natives of Buenos Aires, and a junta was formed from their number which
undertook the supreme direction of affairs. Prompt measures were taken
to overthrow the Spanish provincial authorities and to secure the
co-operation and obedience of all the subdivisions of the Viceroyalty.
Manuel Belgrano, one of the enthusiastic leaders of the movement, was
sent up the river to take possession of Entre Rios and Corrientes for
the junta, and to attack the Spanish governor of Paraguay. He was
accompanied by only a few hundred troops, but he counted on the sympathy
and help of the people among whom he was going.
In Entre Rios and Corrientes, which were mere administrative divisions
of the province of Buenos Aires, he encountered no difficulty. The
gauchos, who formed almost the whole population, hated outside control
and cared little who claimed to be supreme at Buenos Aires. Belgrano
marched through the centre of these districts and reached the Paraná at
the old Jesuit capital of Candelaria. Once across the river he found a
different atmosphere. The home-loving Indian population regarded
Belgrano's band as invaders and responded promptly to the call of the
Spanish governor, old Velasco, to take up arms and repel the aggression.
The Paraguayans hated the Buenos Aireans with an intensity born of
ignorance and isolation, and a considerable force of militia assembled
for the defence of Asuncion. Among its most popular leaders was a native
Paraguayan named Yegros. Belgrano was not opposed until he approached
within sixty miles of Asuncion, but on the 19th of January, 1811, the
Paraguayans turned and crushed his little army. He retreated to the
south and on March 9th was captured with his whole force.
This repulse ended, once for all, the hope cherished by the Buenos Aires
liberals of persuading or compelling the submission of Paraguay. The
battle of the 19th of January, and the hostile attitude of the whole
Paraguayan people, definitely assured Paraguay's independence from
Buenos Aires. It soon became evident that independence from Spain had
been secured as well. In contact with their Argentine prisoners, the
more intelligent Paraguayan leaders were quickly convinced of the
advantages which home rule would bring to Paraguay, and that they
themselves ought to control the government until affairs in Spain should
be settled. The governor had no Spanish troops nor any hope of
receiving help, either from the distracted mother-country or from the
governors of other parts of South America. Each of them had enough to do
in taking care of himself. Velasco's secretary was an educated Buenos
Airean, a liberal, and an autonomist. He plotted the overthrow of his
chief in connection with a Paraguayan officer who was popular with the
troops in Asuncion.
Two months after Belgrano's surrender, a bloodless revolution occurred.
The governor offered no resistance; he simply stepped to one side and
became a private citizen, while the patriots took possession of the
barracks and began casting about blindly for a solid basis for a new
government. After a good deal of confusion the prominent citizens of the
province were called together in a sort of rude Constituent Congress,
and a junta was formed. General Yegros and Dr. Francia were the two most
prominent and popular men in the country, and they were naturally and
inevitably selected as chief members. Yegros had been the principal
leader of the militia, and Francia was considered the most learned and
able man in the community. He was a lawyer who had become a sort of
demigod to the lower classes by his fearless advocacy of their rights,
and inspired almost superstitious reverence by his reputation for
learning and disinterestedness. He was selected as secretary, while
Yegros, an ignorant soldier, became president of the junta. Francia's
abilities and courage immediately made him the dominating figure.
Jealousies arose and he stepped out for a while, but the weaker men who
succeeded him could not control the situation. Two years later a
popular assembly met which was ready to submit to his advice in
everything. The junta was dismissed and he and Yegros were invested with
supreme power under the title of Consuls. A year later he forced Yegros
out and with general consent assumed the position of sole executive, and
in 1816 he was formally declared supreme and perpetual dictator.
For the next twenty-five years he was the Government of Paraguay.
History does not record another instance in which a single man so
dominated and controlled a people. A solitary, mysterious figure, of
whose thoughts, purposes, and real character little is known, the worst
acts of his life were the most picturesque and alone have been recorded.
Although the great Carlyle includes him among the heroes whose memory
mankind should worship, the opinion of his detractors is likely to
triumph. Francia will go down to history as a bloody-minded, implacable
despot, whose influence and purposes were wholly evil. After reading all
that has been written about this singular character, my mind inclines
more to the judgment of Carlyle. I feel that the vivid imagination of
the great Scotchman has pierced the clouds which enshrouded the spirit
of a great and lonely man and has seen the soul of Francia as he was.
Cruel, suspicious, ruthless, and heartless as he undeniably became, his
acts will not bear the interpretation that his purposes were selfish or
that he was animated by mere vulgar ambition.
The population over which he ruled had for centuries been trained to
obedience by the Jesuits and the Creole landowners. The Creoles were
few and the Spaniards still fewer. Francia based his power upon the
Indian population and not on the little aristocracy whose members
boasted of white blood. Convinced that the Indians were not fit for
self-government, he also believed that it would be disastrous to permit
the white oligarchy to rule. He proposed to save Paraguay from the civil
disturbances that distracted the rest of South America. He therefore
absorbed all power in his own hands and ruthlessly repressed any
indications of insubordination among those of Spanish blood. The Indians
blindly obeyed him, and he relentlessly pursued the Creoles and the
priests, seeming to regard them only as dangerous firebrands who might
at any time start up a conflagration in the peaceful body politic, and
not as citizens entitled to the protection of the State.
He absorbed in his own person all the functions of government; he had no
confidants and no assistants; he allowed no Paraguayan to approach him
on terms of equality. When he died, a careful search failed to reveal
any records of the immense amount of governmental business which he had
transacted during thirty years. The orders for executions were simply
messages signed by him and returned, to be destroyed as soon as they had
been carried out. The longer he lived the more completely did he apply
his system of absolutism, and the more confident he became that he alone
could govern his people for his people's good. He adopted a policy of
commercial isolation, and intercourse with the outside world was
absolutely forbidden. Foreigners were not permitted to enter the country
without a special permit, and once there were rarely allowed to leave.
[Illustration: JOSÉ RODRIGUEZ GASPAR FRANCIA.
[From an old wood-cut.]]
He neither sent nor received consuls nor ministers to foreign nations.
Foreign vessels were excluded from the Paraguay River and allowed to
visit only one port in the south-eastern corner of the country. He was
the sole foreign merchant. The communistic system inherited from the
Jesuits was developed and extended to the secular parts of the country.
The government owned two-thirds of the land and conducted great farms
and ranches in various parts of the territory. If labour was needed in
gathering crops, Francia had recourse to forced enlistment. Those Indian
missions which remained free he brought gradually under his own control
and followed the old Jesuit policy of compelling the wild Indians to
work like other citizens. Dreading interference by Spain, Brazil, or
Buenos Aires, he improved the military forces and began the organisation
of the whole population into a militia. His policy, however, was
peaceful, and the difficulty of getting arms up the river, past the
forces of the Argentine warring factions, prevented his organising an
army fit for offensive operations even if he had desired to have one.
As he grew older he became more solitary and ferocious. Always a gloomy
and peculiar man, absorbed in his studies and making no account of the
ordinary pleasures and interests of mankind, he had reached the age of
fifty-five and assumed supreme power, without marrying. His public
labours still further cut him off from thoughts of family and friends;
and, although it has been asserted that he married a young Frenchwoman
when he was past seventy, nothing is known about her. It is certain that
he left no children and died attended only by servants. His severities
against the educated classes increased; he suffered from frequent fits
of hypochondria; he ordered wholesale executions, and seven hundred
political prisoners filled the jails when he died. His moroseness
increased year by year. He feared assassination and occupied several
houses, letting no one know where he was going to sleep from one night
to another, and when walking the streets kept his guards at a distance
before and behind him. Woe to the enemy or suspect who attracted his
attention! Such was the terror inspired by this dreadful old man that
the news that he was out would clear the streets. A white Paraguayan
literally dared not utter his name; during his lifetime he was "El
Supremo," and after he was dead for generations he was referred to
simply as "El Defunto." For years when men spoke of him they looked
behind them and crossed themselves, as if dreading that the mighty old
man could send devils to spy upon them,--at least this is the story of
Francia's enemies who have made it their business to hand his name down
to execration. The real reason may have been that Francia's successors
regarded defamation of "El Defunto" as an indication of unfriendliness
to themselves.
Devil or saint, hypochondriac or hero, actuated by morbid vanity or by
the purest altruism, there is no difficulty in estimating the results of
Francia's work and the extent of his abilities. That he had a will of
iron and a capacity beyond the ordinary is proven by his life before he
became dictator, as well as his successes afterwards. All authorities
agree that he had acquired as a lawyer a remarkable ascendancy over the
common people by his fearlessness in maintaining their causes before the
courts and corrupt officials. He did not rise by any sycophant arts;
indeed, he never veiled the contempt he felt for the party schemers and
officials around him. When he had supreme power in his hands he used it
for no selfish indulgences. His life was austere and abstemious;
parsimonious for himself, he was lavish for the public. He would accept
no present, and either returned those sent him, or sent back their value
in money. Though he had been educated for the priesthood and had never
been out of South America he had absorbed liberal religious principles
from his reading. Nothing could have been more likely to offend the
Catholic Indians, upon whose good will his power rested, than his
refusal to attend mass, but he was honest enough with himself and with
them not to simulate a sentiment which he did not feel. In his manners
and life he was absolutely modest; he received any who chose to see him;
if he was terrible it was to the wealthy and the powerful; the humblest
Indian received a hearing and justice. During his reign Paraguay
remained undisturbed, wrapped in a profound peace; the population
rapidly increased, and though commerce and manufactures did not
flourish, nor the new ideas which were transforming the face of the
civilised world penetrate within his barriers, food and clothing were
plenty and cheap, and the Paraguayans prospered in their own humble
fashion. Though they might not sell their delicious matte, there was no
limitation on its domestic use, and although money was not plentiful and
foreign goods were a rarity, a fat steer could be bought for a dollar,
and want was unknown.
The old man lived until 1840 in the full possession of unquestioned
supreme power, dying at the age of eighty-three years. His final illness
lasted only a few days, and he went on attending to business to the very
end. When asked to appoint a successor he refused, bitterly saying that
there would be no lack of heirs. His legitimate and natural successor
could only be that man who could raise himself through the mass by his
force of character and prove himself capable of dominating the
disorganising elements of Creole society.
CHAPTER IV
THE REIGN OF THE ELDER LOPEZ
Once the breath was out of the old man's body, his secretary attempted
to seize the government. He concealed Francia's death for several hours
and issued orders in the dead man's name. But as soon as the news came
out, the army officers, whose assistance was essential, refused to obey
him. The poor secretary escaped a worse fate by hanging himself in
prison, and the troops amused themselves setting up and pulling down
would-be dictators. After several months of anarchy, it was determined
to assemble a Congress in imitation of the first Congress which had
named Francia consul. A real representative government was, of course,
impossible in Paraguay, but the Creoles, who naturally formed the bulk
of the Congress, were desirous of insuring themselves against another
dictatorship. They wanted a government where the offices would be passed
around. However, an executive was necessary and the only executive they
knew was an irresponsible one. The title borne by Yegros and Francia in
the early days seemed a good one, and so it was agreed that two consuls
should be elected for a limited period, during which, however, they were
to exercise very limited power.
Among the ambitious and turbulent deputies a directing spirit arose in
the person of Carlos Antonio Lopez, a well-to-do rancher who had
received a lawyer's education and had been careful to keep out of public
view during Francia's reign. At this juncture he inevitably came to the
front, because he was the most learned and far-sighted among his fellow
Creoles. He was a man of great natural ability and shrewdness, highly
intelligent, well read, agreeable and affable in his manners. Selected
as one of the two Consuls by the Congress of 1841, he soon pushed his
colleague to one side, and became dominant. In 1844 an obsequious
Congress which had been summoned by him and whose members he virtually
named, conferred upon him the title of President for the nominal term of
ten years, which really was intended to be for life. It is, however,
significant of the milder character of Lopez and the increased power of
the office-holding class that he preferred the more republican title of
President, held for a nominally limited period, to the semi-monarchical
one of "El Supremo," borne by his terrible predecessor. As a matter of
fact, Lopez succeeded to all the absolute power and prerogatives of
Francia.
The new ruler was no such determined _doctrinaire_ as Francia. He was
rather a clever opportunist than a gloomy idealist. He adopted many
liberal measures, such as the law providing that all negroes thereafter
born should be free, and he even attempted to frame a regular
constitution. He abandoned the policy of isolation, so dear to Francia,
and opened the country in 1845. He loved appreciation and especially
wished the approbation of foreigners. Though cautious and reluctant to
engage in outside complications, he was by nature and taste a diplomat,
and he welcomed the opportunity to try his wits in wider competition
than Paraguay afforded. In 1844, Rosas, the tyrant of Buenos Aires, was
engaged in a contest with revolutionists in Corrientes. His ultimate
purpose was manifestly to unite the whole Plate valley under his
authority. Lopez shared the uneasiness of other neighbouring rulers at
the growth of Rosas's power. The latter promulgated a decree forbidding
the navigation of the Paraná to any but Argentine vessels. This decree
was an attack on Paraguay's very plain and natural right to reach the
ocean, and absolutely shut her off from the outside world. Lopez
resented the aggression, and after many protests declared war against
Buenos Aires in 1849. Nothing came of it, however, except to give his
oldest son a chance to see actual service and to emphasise Lopez's
enmity to Rosas and his policy. The way was prepared for his friendship
with Urquiza, the great leader of the Argentine provincials, and for the
opening of Paraguay to foreign commerce.
Permission was granted in 1845 for foreign ships to ascend the Paraguay
as far as Asuncion, and foreigners were no longer forbidden to enter the
country. On the contrary, Lopez evinced a marked desire for their
society and encouraged them to come and engage in trade. His manners
were engaging and his courtesies untiring, unless his will was crossed
or his suspicions aroused, when he could be very unreasonable and
arbitrary.
The spirit of the Paraguayan Creoles had been so broken by the terrible
proscriptions of Francia's reign that Lopez did not experience much
difficulty in ruling them. His milder methods and the terror of a
renewal of the cruelties of Francia's time succeeded in holding all
demonstrations of lawlessness or rebellion in check. He was averse to
shedding blood, and his subjects enjoyed substantial liberty in their
goings and comings. Justice was well and regularly administered, and
life and property were almost absolutely safe. Over every kind of
affairs, however, he exercised a patriarchal supervision. One
trustworthy traveller tells of being waited on at table in a remote part
of Paraguay by a fine-appearing man whose face was very sad and who
seemed very awkward in handling the dishes. On inquiry, it turned out
that the waiter was the richest man in eastern Paraguay and had been
condemned by the President to serve in a menial capacity as a punishment
for insulting a woman. Lopez's ideas of freedom did not contemplate that
his people might engage in politics or the discussion of any public
affairs. During the civil war in Corrientes, Paraguayans were forbidden
to speak of what was going on across the river. Sometimes farmers were
required to cultivate a certain area in a certain crop. He maintained
the government monopoly of yerba and completed Francia's work of
incorporating the free Indians.
An instance of his ready interest in foreigners was his connection with
a young American, named Hopkins, who had been sent out in 1845 by the
United States Government to investigate the advisability of recognising
Paraguay, then accessible for the first time. This enterprising young
man fired Lopez's imagination with his accounts of the material progress
of the United States, and Lopez even lent him money to return and form a
company for the purpose of introducing American goods and cigar
manufacture into Paraguay. Hopkins, after several years, succeeded in
interesting some American capitalists and came back and established his
factory. At first Lopez was delighted, but he soon quarrelled with the
Americans. The etiquette in Paraguay was that the President should
remain seated with his hat on when he granted an audience, and the
manners of the visitor were expected to be correspondingly humble. The
Americans mortally offended him by forgetting themselves in his
presence. The situation soon became intolerable and the company retired.
After the overthrow of Rosas in 1851 the Paraná was declared free for
navigation to vessels of all nations by Argentine law and by treaties to
which Brazil and Uruguay were parties, although Paraguay was not.
Nevertheless, Lopez permitted ships to ascend freely to Asuncion. Lopez
wished to concentrate all trade at Asuncion and opened no ports north of
his capital. The upper course of the river belonged to Brazil, but the
boundary between Brazil and Paraguay had remained unsettled from
colonial times. In his control of the Lower Paraguay, Lopez had a lever
to force Brazil to terms. He steadfastly refused to permit ships to
ascend into Brazil in spite of the latter's persistent efforts to
procure the natural and necessary right of egress to the ocean by an
international river. While this matter still remained unsettled,
Lieutenant Page of the United States Navy appeared in the _Water Witch_
at Asuncion on his survey of the Paraguay. Lopez was delighted, and
extended every facility to the officer as far as the northern boundary
of Paraguay. Page went on up to Brazil. Lopez was offended, for he
feared that he would be at a disadvantage in his further negotiations
with Brazil by having apparently granted to an American ship the
permission which he had steadily refused to Brazilians. Unfortunately,
just at this time occurred the quarrel with the American promoter,
Hopkins. The American officer took his countryman's side, giving him
refuge on board the _Water Witch_. This so enraged Lopez that he issued
a decree prohibiting foreign war-vessels from entering Paraguayan
waters, and one of his forts fired at the Lieutenant's vessel, killing a
man. This outrage brought about Lopez's ears a naval expedition which
compelled him to apologise and to agree to reimburse the Hopkins
Company.
Brazil also sent a fleet up the Paraná to coerce Lopez into granting
free transit along the Paraguay, but he cleverly held the Brazilians in
parley until he had an opportunity to fortify the river. England's
gunboats at Buenos Aires virtually held the Paraguayan flagship, with
Lopez's eldest son on board as hostage for a young British subject named
Canstatt, who had been imprisoned and condemned to death for complicity
in a conspiracy at Asuncion. Lopez was forced to release him and pay
damages.
These humiliations changed his love for foreigners into a bitter hatred,
and he began to prepare his country to resist their aggressions more
effectively. From his youth he had trained his sons to succeed him.
Francisco, the eldest, early evinced a taste for military affairs. When
only eighteen years of age, he commanded the expedition of 1849 into the
Argentine, and thenceforward continued to be his father's
general-in-chief and minister-of-war and the active agent in improving
Paraguay's military resources. The second son, Venancio, was commander
of the garrison at Asuncion, and the third, Benigno, was Admiral. Though
so rigid with his other subjects, he gave both his sons and daughters
unlimited license and they grew up to regard themselves as members of a
royal family. They enriched themselves at the public expense. The sons
took as many mistresses as they pleased and gave free rein to all their
cruel and bad instincts. The selfishness, obstinacy, unspeakable
cruelty, and hard-heartedness of Francisco were soon to bring the
guiltless Paraguayan people to the verge of extinction.
In 1854 Lopez had sent Francisco to Europe as ambassador. The young man
spent eighteen months in the different Courts of Europe, and returned
an expert in the vices of great capitals and enamoured of military
glory. After seeing the reviews of European armies, he became convinced
that Paraguay could be made an efficient military power and that he
himself might play a Napoleonic rôle in South America. His father,
exasperated by the repeated humiliations put upon him by other
countries, gave hearty support to his plans for the improvement of the
Paraguayan army. In 1862, after a long and painful illness, the elder
Lopez died. Francisco took possession of his effects and papers and
produced a will naming himself Vice-President. Word sent to the military
chiefs of the different towns insured the assembling of an obedient
Congress at Asuncion, by which he was formally elected and proclaimed
President and invested with all the absolute power wielded by his father
and Francia.
CHAPTER V
THE WAR
The new President was thirty-five years old, good-looking, careful of
his appearance, fond of military finery, and strutted as he walked. He
spoke French and Spanish fluently, but with his officers and men used
only Guarany. He was an eloquent speaker and had the gift of inspiring
his troops with confidence in himself and contempt for the enemy. He had
a will of iron; his pride was intense; he was absolutely unscrupulous,
and had no regard for the truth. He never showed any feeling of kindness
to his most devoted subjects. He ordered his best friends to execution;
he tortured his mother and sisters and murdered his brothers. The only
natural affection he ever evinced was a fondness for Madame Lynch, a
woman whom he had picked up in Paris, and for her children. He seems to
have treated her well to the last, but his numerous other mistresses and
their children he heartlessly abandoned. Though physically an arrant
coward, no defeats could discourage him. He fought to the last against
overwhelming odds and was able to retain his personal ascendancy over
his followers, even after he had been driven into the woods and all
reasonable hope was lost.
He began his reign like a Mahometan sultan by ridding himself of his
father's most trusted counsellors, imprisoning and executing the most
intelligent and powerful citizens, and banishing his brothers. The
military preparations which he had begun as his father's Minister of War
were continued with increased vigour. The warlike Argentines and
Uruguayans and the powerful empire of Brazil laughed at his pretensions
to become a real factor in South American international affairs, but
their laughter soon cost them dear. He was a monarch of a compact little
state whose position behind rivers in the centre of the continent made
it admirably defensible. Its eight hundred thousand inhabitants were
obedient, brave, and physically vigorous. Accustomed for generations to
regard their dictator as the greatest ruler in the world, knowing no
duty except absolute compliance with his will, they never doubted that
under his leadership they would be invincible. He knew that he could
raise an army out of all proportion to the size of his country. The
problem was how to arm it. With Buenos Aires commanding the only route
of ingress from abroad it had been difficult for his father and himself
to obtain war material from Europe. For years, however, they had been
buying all that they could and had accumulated several hundred cannon,
most of them antiquated cast-iron smooth-bores. They had fortified the
point of Humaitá which admirably protected the Paraguay River from
naval attacks, and had established an arsenal at Asuncion.
Against Brazil Lopez had serious cause of complaint. The boundary
question was still unsettled and his possession of the Lower Paraguay
placed the great province of Matto Grosso at his mercy, while the
existence of that province, geographically a mere northern extension of
Paraguay, was a menace to his own safety. Against the Argentines his
hatred was not so well founded, but none the less bitter.
The usual civil war was going on in Uruguay in 1863. The party which
held the capital was out of favour at Rio and at Buenos Aires, and
Brazil and Argentine were both inclined to support the pretensions of
Florés, who led the revolutionists. Lopez thought that his own interests
were concerned and asserted his right to be consulted as to Uruguayan
affairs. A mighty shout of laughter went up from the Buenos Aires press
at the pretensions of the cacique of an Indian tribe to the position of
guardian of the equilibrium of South America. Brazil ignored his
protests and calmly went on with her preparations to establish her
protégé in Montevideo. In the beginning of 1864 Lopez began active
preparations for war. His army already numbered twenty-eight thousand
men, and by the end of August sixty-four thousand more had been enrolled
and drilled. Although ill provided with artillery and horses, and
although the infantry were mostly armed with old-fashioned flintlocks,
no such formidable force had ever assembled in South America. The news
of Lopez's preparations exasperated and somewhat alarmed the people of
Buenos Aires, though no one knew his exact intentions. Lopez had, in
fact, determined to compel the Brazilian and Argentine governments to
accept his wishes as to Uruguay or to risk all in the hazard of war.
Perhaps hazy dreams of himself as emperor of a domain extending from the
southern sources of the Amazon far down the Plate valley and over to the
Atlantic coast passed through his brain. Possibly he foresaw clearly
that Paraguay had come to the parting of the ways, and that she must
either fight her way to the sea or reconcile herself to slow suffocation
between the immense masses of Brazil and Argentina. In such a contest
the only allies he could hope for would be revolutionary factions in
Uruguay and Corrientes, and possibly the virtually independent ruler of
Entre Rios. In case of a war with Brazil alone, the neutrality of
Argentina might have been secured by careful management, but in the
freer countries the feeling against him as a despot was strong, and the
extension of his system would have been regarded as a menace to
civilisation.
Late in 1864 the Brazilian forces marched into Uruguay and joined
Florés. Lopez promptly retaliated by seizing a Brazilian steamer which
was passing Asuncion on its way to Matto Grosso and followed up this
aggression by an invasion of the latter province. His forces quickly
reduced the towns on the banks of the Paraguay as far as steamers could
penetrate. It was impossible to send reinforcements overland from Rio;
Brazil's counter-attack must be delivered from the south. The empire was
unprepared, but its troops poured into Uruguay and Rio Grande as fast as
they could be mobilised. The anti-Florés party were crushed by the siege
and capture of Paysandu late in 1864. The Argentine government under
Mitre proclaimed its neutrality. Lopez was flushed with his easy success
in Matto Grosso. The forces he had on foot overwhelmingly outnumbered
those of the Brazilians in Uruguay and Rio Grande. He wished to strike
the latter before they could be re-enforced, overrun Rio Grande, and, as
master of one of Brazil's most valuable provinces, dictate terms. To
reach the Brazilians it was necessary to cross the Argentine province of
Corrientes. He asked for permission to do so and Mitre refused.
Notwithstanding the risk involved, he promptly decided to finish up both
Argentine and Brazil at the same time. Sending his troops across the
Paraná he virtually annexed Corrientes and declared war on Buenos Aires.
Lopez destined twenty-five thousand men for the invasion of Corrientes
and the conquest of the Lower Uruguay valley, but the difficulties of
getting so large an army across the river and ready for an advance into
a hostile country were unexpectedly great. The gauchos of Corrientes,
trained for generations in civil wars, quickly assembled to oppose the
Paraguayans. Meanwhile, a Brazilian fleet came up; and, on June 2, 1865,
at Riachuelo, decisively defeated the Paraguayan naval forces. Lopez
thereby lost all hope of commanding the river. The communications of his
army in Corrientes might be cut off at any time and an advance became
impossible. The battle of Riachuelo threw Paraguay on the defensive and
made Lopez's great plan of carrying the war to the Uruguay
impracticable.
[Illustration: FRANCISCO SOLANO LOPEZ.
[From a photograph taken in 1849.]]
Nevertheless, Lopez did not recall the twelve thousand men he had sent
across the missions to invade the valley of the Upper Uruguay and the
state of Rio Grande. The Brazilians were taken unprepared, and early in
August the Paraguayans had captured the chief Brazilian town in that
region--Uruguayana. The failure of the Corrientes army to reach the
Lower Uruguay left the route up that river free. The Brazilian and
Uruguayan army, which had been victorious at Paysandú, marched up the
west bank and defeated and destroyed the rear-guard which the
Paraguayans had left on the Argentine side opposite Uruguayana. Lopez's
army was therefore cut off from retreat. It was promptly surrounded, and
on the 17th of September, 1865, had to surrender.
This put an end to Lopez's plan of an offensive campaign. Indignant at
the invasion of her soil, Argentina had allied herself with Brazil
against him. A secret treaty was signed between Brazil, Argentina, and
Florés, now recognised as ruler of Uruguay, to prosecute the war to a
finish, to depose Lopez from his throne, and to disarm the Paraguayan
fortifications. Lopez withdrew his army from Corrientes and concentrated
all his forces in the south-west angle of his own territory.
The position was admirable for defence. North of the Paraná and east of
the Paraguay stretched a low, wooded country subject to overflow, and
intersected by shallow, mud-bottomed lagoons, which were old abandoned
beds of the rivers. The Paraguay protected his right flank and afforded
him a direct and easy communication with Asuncion. Batteries on the
point of Humaitá, which the Brazilian fleet did not dare to try to pass,
insured this line of communication. West of the Paraguay the great
Chaco, there impenetrable, prevented a movement to get north of Humaitá
on that side. To the east the swamps along the Paraná extended
indefinitely, and an advance of the enemy in that direction would have
had its communications cut by an army encamped near Humaitá. Humaitá
was, therefore, the key to the situation, and the allies could not
advance until they captured it or, by running the batteries with their
fleet, destroyed Lopez's control of the Paraguay.
By March, 1866, the allies had concentrated a force of forty thousand
men just south of the fork of the rivers. About twenty-five thousand
were Brazilians, twelve thousand Argentines and three thousand
Uruguayans. The Brazilian fleet, numbering eighteen steam gunboats
carrying one hundred and twenty-five guns, lay near at hand ready to
co-operate. Protected by the fire of the gunboats, the whole allied army
had little difficulty in crossing the Paraná and establishing itself on
Paraguayan soil. Lopez lost heavily in vain attempts to prevent this
landing. On May 2nd, a force of Paraguayans surprised the allies a few
miles north of the river and badly cut up the vanguard. The allies,
however, continued advancing and took a strong position just south of a
great lagoon. Here, on the 24th of May, they were attacked by the whole
Paraguayan army of twenty-five thousand men, who fought with desperate
valour, but at a hopeless disadvantage. A quarter of the Paraguayan
soldiers were left dead on the field, and another quarter were badly
wounded, while the loss of the allies was half as great. The Paraguayan
army was apparently destroyed, but the allies had suffered so severely,
and the difficulties of transportation through the swamps were so great,
that they did not make the sudden dash upon the trenches at Humaitá
which might have ended the war. Lopez did his utmost to reorganise his
army. Practically the whole male population was impressed into service.
The river line of communication to Asuncion, and the strategic railroad
thence up into the most fertile and populous interior of the country,
enabled him comfortably to command all the resources of the country,
both in men and provisions.
Humaitá had already been well fortified on the land side, and Lopez now
threw up the trenches at the top of the bluff at Curupayty, the first
high land on the Paraguay River north of the allied army and south of
Humaitá, and connected it with the latter fortress. Lopez had the
advantage of the services of a clever English civil engineer; and the
fortifications, though rude, were soon made practically impregnable to
assault. In spite of their defeats, the Paraguayans were as ready as
ever to attack when Lopez commanded, or to stand up and be shot down to
the last man. They were the most obedient soldiers imaginable; they
never complained of an injustice and never questioned an order when
given. Even if a soldier were flogged, he consoled himself by saying,
"If my father did not flog me, who would?" Every one called his superior
officer his "father," and Lopez was the "Great Father." Each officer was
responsible with his life for the faithfulness and conduct of his men
and had orders to shoot any that wavered. Each soldier knew that the men
who touched shoulders with him right and left were instructed to shoot
him if he tried to desert or fly, and those two knew that the men beyond
them would shoot them if they failed to kill the poor fellow in the
centre of the five. This cruel system answered perfectly with the
Paraguayans, and to the very end of the war they never refused to fight
steadily against the most hopeless odds.
Meanwhile, the allies awaited reinforcements and supplies in the noisome
swamps, dying meantime by thousands of fever. By the end of June, when
the allies finally determined to assault the fortifications around
Humaitá, Lopez had twenty thousand men on the ground. After some bloody
and indecisive fighting in the swamps, General Mitre, the
Commander-in-Chief, ordered a grand attack upon the entrenchments at
Curupayty. On the 22nd of September, 1866, it began with the bombardment
by the Brazilian ironclads. Eighteen thousand men in four columns
advanced from the south, and threw themselves blindly against the
fortifications. When they came to close quarters they were thrown into
disorder by the terrible artillery fire from the Paraguayan trenches,
which cross-enfiladed them in different directions. The enormous
canisters discharged from the eight-inch guns point-blank, at a distance
of two or three hundred yards, wrought fearful execution. The rifle fire
of the allies was useless, and the Paraguayans simply waited behind
their trenches until the Brazilians and Argentines were close at hand
and then fired. The allies retired in good order, after suffering a loss
of one-third their number. The soldiers obediently kept rushing on to
certain death until their officers, seeing that success was hopeless,
told them that they might retreat. The courage of the Paraguayans had
been proved in their unsuccessful assaults on the allies the year
before, and now the Argentines and Brazilians showed even in this awful
defeat what a stomach they, too, had for hand-to-hand fighting.
After the battle of Curupayty, nothing was attempted on either side for
fourteen months. Both sides had had enough of attacking fortified
positions. The Paraguayans lay in Humaitá and the allies occupied
themselves with fortifying their camps. The imperial government made
tremendous exertions to reinforce the army. The Argentines also did
their best, but the efforts of both were hardly sufficient to make good
the terrible ravages of the cholera, which by the beginning of May,
1867, had put thirteen thousand Brazilians in hospitals. It was not
until July that the allies felt themselves again ready to take the
offensive. A division marched up the Paraná with the purpose of
outflanking Humaitá on the east, while cavalry raids were sent out to
the north and rendered the outlying positions of the Paraguayans unsafe.
Finally, in November, 1867, the Brazilian troops succeeded in getting
over to the Paraguay River, north and in the rear of Lopez, and General
Barreto captured and fortified a strong position on the bank fifteen
miles north of Humaitá. This was fatal to the security and
communications of Lopez. He made one more desperate and unsuccessful
assault on the main position of the allies, and then began to plan to
retire toward Asuncion. At the same time the Brazilian ironclads passed
the batteries at Curupayty, compelling Lopez to withdraw his troops up
the river to Humaitá. The war became virtually a siege of the latter
place, which was constantly bombarded by the fleet from the front and by
the army from the rear. The Brazilian position on the river to the north
cut Lopez off from direct river communication with Asuncion, and he had
to transport his supplies on a new road built in the Chaco swamps. He
began preparations to evacuate Humaitá and retreat to the north. In
January, 1868, Mitre definitely retired from the command of the allies
and was succeeded by the Brazilian Marshal Caxias. A month later
(February 18th) the Brazilian fleet of ironclads finally succeeded in
running the batteries at Humaitá, and after throwing a few bombs at
Asuncion, devoted themselves to the more useful task of cutting off the
transports to Lopez's army.
[Illustration: PALM GROVES IN EL CHACO.]
Lopez's line of river communication was now completely at the enemies'
mercy, and a large force could not be maintained at Humaitá. He
transported his army to the right bank of the Paraguay, recrossing when
he got beyond the Brazilian positions. The garrison of three thousand
men which he left at Humaitá defended itself for six months. In the
meantime, he had fortified a new position less than fifty miles from
Asuncion and accessible across the country from his base of supplies in
central Paraguay. On his right flank a river battery was erected which
again prevented the Brazilians from reaching the upper river. Opposite
this point, however, the Chaco is penetrable, and Caxias landed a force
on the west bank and, marching up, crossed the river in the rear of
Lopez's position. The Brazilians closed in from the north and south on
the few thousand Paraguayans, who were all that survived, and after
several days of desperate fighting, December 27, 1868, the Brazilians
carried Lopez's position and he fled for his life to the interior,
followed by a thousand men.
Even after such a defeat he was indomitable and succeeded in gathering
another small army which was pursued and destroyed in August, 1869.
Lopez again escaped and took refuge in the wild and mountainous
regions in the north of Paraguay. The Brazilian cavalry pursued him
relentlessly, but it was not until March 1, 1870, that he was caught.
In an attempt to escape he was speared by a common soldier.
CHAPTER VI
PARAGUAY SINCE 1870
No modern nation has ever come so near to complete annihilation as
Paraguay during her five years' war against the Triple Alliance. Out of
two hundred and fifty thousand able-bodied men who were living in 1864,
less than twenty-five thousand survived in 1870. Not less than two
hundred and twenty-five thousand Paraguayan men--the fathers and
bread-winners, the farmers and labourers--had perished in battle, by
disease or exposure or starvation. One hundred thousand adult women had
died of hardship and hunger, and there were less than ninety thousand
children under fifteen in the country. The surviving women outnumbered
the men five to one; the practice of polygamy naturally increased, and
women were forced to become the labourers and bread-winners for the
community.
The slaughter was greatest in proportion among the people of white
blood. When Lopez was waiting in 1868 for the final attack of the
Brazilians, he made use of the last months of his power to arrest,
torture, and murder nearly every white man left in Paraguay, including
his own brother, his brother-in-law, and the generals who had served him
best, and the friends who had enjoyed his most intimate confidence. Even
women and foreigners did not escape the cold, deliberate
bloodthirstiness of this demon. He had his own sister beaten with clubs
and exposed her naked in the forest; had the wife of the brave general
who was forced to surrender at Humaitá speared, and subjected two
members of the American Legation to the most sickening tortures. The
Minister himself barely escaped with his life.
When the Brazilians captured Asuncion in 1868 they installed a
provisional triumvirate of Paraguayans, but the country was really under
their military government until after the death of Lopez. A new
constitution was proclaimed on November 25, 1870, but it was not until a
year later that the provisional government was superseded by Salvador
Jovellanos, the first President. The new President had no elements with
which to establish a government,--neither money nor men. The country
Paraguayans refused to recognise his authority and he was shut up in
Asuncion. There were three so-called revolutions in 1872, which were
suppressed by the Brazilian troops. The country really remained under a
Brazilian protectorate for the first few years after the war, and the
government was largely a convenience to make treaties and to try to
place loans abroad. Toward the end of 1874 Jovellanos was succeeded by
Gill, and by 1876 the country was finally enjoying peace and freedom
from foreign control. The integrity of Paraguay and her continuance as
an independent power had been mutually guaranteed by Brazil and
Argentina when they began the war against Lopez, and neither of them
could afford to let the other take possession of her territory. So
Paraguay was left substantially intact, although she was compelled to
give up the territorial claims the Lopezes had so long made against
Brazil and the Argentine. The latter even submitted to arbitration her
right to a portion of the Chaco north of the Pilocomayo. President Hayes
was the arbitrator and he decided in favour of Paraguay in 1878. In the
treaty of peace Paraguay had agreed to bear the war expenses of the
allies and these immense sums are still nominally due from her. As a
matter of fact, she has not been able to pay anything thereon, and the
matter of forgiving the debt is one frequently discussed in Brazil.
Population rapidly increased after peace was thoroughly established, and
has more than doubled in the last thirty years. In the late eighties the
influence of the Buenos Aires boom extended to Paraguay, and the
government offered great inducements to attract immigration. The
movement was not very successful, but it had the indirect effect of
transferring great tracts of land from government to private ownership.
Previously, two-thirds of the land belonged to the State. One of the
colonies was composed of socialists from Australia who promptly split on
their arrival over the question of total abstinence. Those who insisted
on being allowed to drink were obliged to leave. Subsequently,
disagreements about doctrine and the application of the principles of
socialism drove out others. The soil of Paraguay is marvellously
fertile, but its isolation and the want of markets for the national
products make it unattractive to European immigrants.
Happily Paraguay has not suffered from civil disorders during the slow
process of national regeneration which has been going on since 1870.
Most of the Presidents have served out their full four-years term, and
the one or two changes which have occurred have not been accompanied by
any bloodshed or interruption in administration. The chief difficulties
of the government have been financial. Revenue is small and paper
currency has been issued until it is at a discount of several hundred
per cent. compared with its nominal value in gold; but since foreign
commerce is inconsiderable and the population lives off the products of
its own farms the results of inflation have not been so disastrous as
they might have been in a commercial country.
The wave of twentieth-century progress and immigration may strike this
Arcadian region at any moment, but up to the present time the body of
the Paraguayans live much as their ancestors. Existence can be
maintained with hardly an effort; the people can always get oranges in
default of more nourishing food; the climate is lovely; the forests
surrounding the peasant's cabin beautiful. Why should a Paraguayan work
when he can live happily and comfortably without labour, merely to
procure things which to him are superfluities? It must be remembered
that the bulk of the Paraguayan people are descended from the Indians
which were found crowded into this garden spot three centuries ago by
the Spaniards and the Jesuits. They have never lost their simple,
submissive, stoical character, and the rule of the three dictators did
not tend to change them. The modern improvements of which they saw most
during the reign of Lopez were muskets and cannon, and they can hardly
be blamed for preferring old-fashioned ways after their experience
during the war. Though the nation was almost destroyed, the surviving
remnants show the same characteristics which distinguished their
ancestors. The new Paraguay, however, is not ruled by any bloody-minded
despot, and the military possibilities of the people will never again be
a menace to the liberties of the surrounding nations. Rather is the
present ruling class disposed to welcome foreign influences and
immigration, and this beautiful, fertile, and easily accessible country
stands open to the world.
URUGUAY
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
The most fertile parts of the globe have always been fought for the
most. Uruguay has been the Flanders of South America. Her admirable
commercial position at the mouth of the river Plate has made her capital
one of the great emporiums of the continent. On the track of the world's
commerce, open to the currents of intellectual and industrial life which
sweep from Europe into the luxuriant country of the southern half of
South America or around to the Pacific, her people have always been in
the vanguard of Spanish-American civilisation. Her productive,
well-watered, and gently rolling plains are well adapted for agriculture
and unsurpassed for pasturage. Here the Indians struggled hardest to
maintain themselves and longest resisted the Spanish conquest. From
colonial times, Argentines have crowded in from the west, Brazilians
from the north, and Buenos Aireans and Europeans from the coast, until
this favoured spot has become the most thickly populated country of
South America.
The very strategic and industrial desirability of this region, and the
ease with which it can be invaded, have made it the scene of constant
armed conflict. Uruguay has been the cockpit of the southern half of the
continent, and its people have been fighting continually through the one
hundred and fifty years during which the country has been inhabited.
They fought for their independence against the Spaniards, then against
the Buenos Aireans, then against the Brazilians, then against the Buenos
Aireans again, and in the intervals they have fought pretty constantly
among themselves. In colonial times Montevideo was Spain's chief
fortress on this coast, and that city has always been the favourite
refuge for the unsuccessful revolutionists and exiles from the
neighbouring states. The blood of the bravest and most turbulent
Argentines and Rio Grandenses has constantly mixed with its population.
By habit, tradition, and inheritance the older generation of Uruguayans
in both city and country are warlike.
Though the military spirit had been vastly stimulated by peculiar
political and racial circumstances, in later times commercialism has
been nourished by geographical situation and the fertility of the soil
and by European immigration. The interplay of these contending forces
has been producing a marked people--a vigorous, turbulent race whose
energies have apparently been chiefly employed in war, but who have
found time in the intervals of foreign and civil conflict to make their
country one of the wealthiest and most industrially progressive
countries in South America. They are like the Dutch in their turbulence
and in their eagerness to make money; and they are also like the Dutch
in their determination to maintain at all hazards their separate
national existence. Nevertheless, the origin of Uruguay was artificial.
The reason for the country's separation from Buenos Aires was that
Brazil regarded it as unsafe to permit Argentina to spread north of the
Plate.
The territory of Uruguay is that irregular polygon which is bounded on
the south by the Plate estuary; on the west by the Uruguay River; on the
south-east by the Atlantic; and on the north-east by the artificial line
which separates it from Brazil. Though the most favoured in soil,
climate, and geographical position, it is the smallest country in South
America, the area being only seventy-three thousand square miles. In
prehistoric days, when a vast inland sea occupied what is now the
Argentine pampa, Uruguay was the northern shore of the great strait
which opened into the pampean sea. It is the southern extremity of the
eastern continental uplift of South America. The last outlying ramparts
of the Brazilian mountain system, greatly eroded and planed down into
low-swelling masses little elevated above the sea, run south-west from
Rio Grande into Uruguay, dipping into the Plate at the southern border.
The north shore of the Plate estuary is bold, and not flat as is the
opposite shore of Buenos Aires. There are, however, no mountains,
properly so-called, in Uruguay, and nearly the whole surface is a
succession of gently undulating plains and broad ridges intersected by
countless streams, and covered, for the most part, with luxuriant
pasture. The abundance of wood and water is an immense advantage to
settlers, whether pastoral or agricultural. The extreme south-western
corner, near the mouth of the Uruguay River, is alluvial. On the
Atlantic coast there are level, marshy plains, due to the slow secular
rising of the land and consequent baring of the ocean's bed.
The country is easily penetrable in every part. There are no mountain
ridges or dense forests to interrupt travel, and most of the rivers are
easily fordable. On the west, the broad flood of the Uruguay River gives
easy communication to the ocean, while it affords protection against
sudden invasions from the Argentine province of Entre Rios. The low and
sandy foreshore of the Atlantic has no harbours, but after rounding Cape
Santa Maria and entering the estuary of the Plate, there are several
bays which afford some shelter for shipping. Maldonado, Montevideo, and
Colonia are the principal ports, but the extreme shallowness of the
Plate prevents them from being classed as first-rate harbours for modern
vessels. At Montevideo itself, large modern steamers must anchor several
miles out.
[Illustration: HARBOUR AT MONTEVIDEO.]
Possibly the present territory of Uruguay was reached by the Portuguese
navigators who reconnoitred the coast of Brazil in the first few years
of the sixteenth century, but they certainly made no settlements and
left no clear record of their voyagings. In 1515, Juan Diaz de Solis,
Grand Pilot of Spain, was sent out by Charles V. to reconnoitre the
Brazilian coast in Spanish interests. He did not land on the shore of
Brazil proper, but kept on to the south until he reached Cape Santa
Maria, which marks the northern side of the entrance to the river Plate.
To his left hand stretched beyond the horizon a flood of yellow fresh
water flowing gently over a shifting, sandy bottom nowhere more than a
few fathoms below the surface. It was evident that he was out of the
ocean and sailing up a river of such magnitude as had never been dreamed
of before. He followed along the coast, skirting the whole southern
boundary of what is now the republic of Uruguay and finally reached the
head of the estuary. Directly from the north the Uruguay, a river five
miles wide, clear and deep, seemed a continuation of the Plate, but from
the west the numerous channels of the Paraná delta poured in an immense
muddy discharge double the volume of the wider river. At the junction
was an island which Solis named _Martin Garcia_ after his pilot. He
resolved to take possession of the country in the name of the Crown of
Castile, and to explore the coast. He disembarked with nine companions
on the Uruguayan shore: here the little party was unexpectedly attacked
by Indians; Solis and all his men but one were killed, and the ships
sailed back to Spain without their commander.
Three years later Ferdinand Magellan, on his epoch-making voyage around
the world, visited the coast of Uruguay. On the 15th of January, 1520,
he came in sight of a high hill overlooking a commodious bay. This he
called Montevideo--a name which has been extended to the city which
long after grew up on the other side of the harbour. Magellan ascended
the estuary, hoping that he might find a passage through to the Pacific
Ocean, but after he had entered the Uruguay its clear water, rapid
current, and want of tides convinced him that it was only an ordinary
river and not a strait.
Spain determined to take possession of the Plate, and in 1526 sent out
an expedition for that purpose under Diego Garcia. At the same time
Sebastian Cabot was preparing another expedition, which was ordered to
follow in Magellan's track and to make observations of longitude on the
Atlantic coast of South America and in the East Indies. Spain and
Portugal had already begun to dispute about the correct location of the
line which they had agreed should divide the world into a Spanish and a
Portuguese hemisphere, and which was believed to pass near the Plate.
Garcia was delayed on the coast of Brazil, so Cabot reached the mouth of
the estuary first. The latter had encountered bad weather and lost his
best ship, and when he sighted the coast of Uruguay his men were
discouraged. They remained in the mouth of the river for some time, and
to their surprise a solitary Spaniard was encountered on the shore, who
proved to be the only survivor of the party that had gone ashore with
Solis ten years before.
Soon Cabot and his men heard tales of silver mines far up the river, and
of the existence of a great civilised empire on its remote headwaters.
Silver ornaments were shown which had come down hand to hand from Peru
or Bolivia. Cabot determined to abandon his commission to the Moluccas,
and to find the country whence the silver came. Naturally, his first
effort was directed up the broad channel of the Uruguay, but on
ascending this river it was soon evident that the mines and civilised
country he was seeking did not lie on its banks. Fifty miles up the
river at San Salvador the Spaniards attempted to establish a little post
which is sometimes referred to as the earliest settlement in Uruguay or
Argentina. It was probably intended as a mere supply depot and point of
refuge, conveniently near the sea to aid the up-river expedition.
However, the warlike Indians of Uruguay soon left no trace of it. Cabot
entered the Paraná, where he spent three years in an unsuccessful effort
to reach Bolivia. He and Garcia sailed back to Spain without leaving
even a settlement behind them, but they were thoroughly convinced that
an adequate expedition could find the silver country.
The tribes who inhabited Uruguay were the fiercest Indians encountered
by the conquerors of South America. For two centuries they succeeded in
preventing the establishment of settlements in their territory and kept
out Spanish intruders at the point of the sword. The Spaniards greatly
coveted the north bank of the Plate and made effort after effort to get
a foothold there, but these savages managed to maintain themselves for a
hundred and fifty years in the very face of Buenos Aires. The river
shore itself was the last accessible and fertile region to be subjected
to the whites. A century elapsed after the foundation of Buenos Aires
before Colonia was occupied by the Portuguese, and another fifty years
went by before Montevideo had been settled and fortified. Uruguay in
pre-Spanish times, as well as since, was a meeting-ground for different
peoples. One after another the Guarany tribes crowded into this favoured
region from the north and west, and the old inhabitants had to fight and
conquer, or be thrust into the sea. The bravest, best armed, and best
organised tribes survived in the harsh struggle. Of the Indians
inhabiting Uruguay when the Spaniards discovered the Plate, the
principal ones were the Charruas. They occupied a zone extending around
from the Atlantic, along the Plate, and a short distance up the Uruguay.
This strong and valiant race never submitted to the Spaniards, and when
at last they were defeated and crowded back from the coast well on in
the eighteenth century, they retired to the north and maintained their
freedom for many years. They belonged to the great family of
Tupi-Guaranies, who occupied most of eastern South America at the white
man's advent, but they were more nomadic in their habits and had
developed the art of war to greater perfection than the mother tribes of
the more tropical parts of South America.
In their fights against the Spaniards, they sometimes gathered armies of
several hundreds which fought with a rude sort of discipline, forming in
column and attacking in mass with clubs after discharging their arrows
and stones. Possibly they learned some of their tactics from the white
men, but it is certain that before the invasion they had developed a
tribal organisation which enabled them to bring far larger bodies into
the field than the tribes to the north, and that soon after the arrival
of the whites they learned the military uses of the horse. Personal
bravery and fortitude were the virtues most admired among the Charruas,
and they chose their chiefs from those who had most distinguished
themselves in battle. They did not practise cannibalism like their
brother Guaranies on the Brazilian coast; they killed defective children
at birth; they were moderate in their eating, lived in huts, and in
winter covered themselves with the skins of animals. Altogether, they
seem to have much resembled the more warlike tribes among the North
American Indians and to have made the same effective resistance to the
whites as did the Iroquois or Creeks. Such a fierce and indomitable
people terrorised the Creoles, and settlement proceeded on lines of less
resistance. The coast of Uruguay was long known as the abode of red
demons who showed little mercy to the adventurous white who dared build
a cabin on the shore, or ride the plains in chase of cattle. The forts
established from time to time by the Spanish authorities in the early
days were invariably starved out and abandoned, and the white man
obtained a foothold only after the Portuguese and Spanish governments
had fortified towns with walls, ditches, and artillery, which could be
supplied with provisions from the water side, and after Entre Rios had
been overrun by the gauchos.
Warned by the experiences of Solis and Cabot on the north shore,
Mendoza, the first adelantado of the Plate, on his arrival in 1535,
selected the south bank of the river as the site of the fortified port
which he proposed to establish at the mouth of the Paraná as a base for
his projected expedition up the river. His effort failed completely; he
abandoned Buenos Aires, and the remnants of his expedition fled to
Paraguay and founded Asuncion. In 1573 Zarate, the third adelantado,
made a serious effort to establish a post in Uruguay. He had three
hundred and fifty well-armed Spanish soldiers, more than the number with
which Pizarro had conquered the empire of Peru, but they were not enough
to make any impression on the Charruas. A company of forty men hunting
wood was set upon and massacred, and when the main body tried to avenge
this defeat, it, too, was driven back and only escaped to the island of
Martin Garcia after losing a hundred men. The survivors were rescued by
Garay, the most expert and successful Indian fighter of the time.
This experienced and far-sighted officer wisely left the Charruas alone
and devoted his efforts to the other side of the river, where, in 1580,
he founded the city of Buenos Aires. Hernandarias, the Creole governor
of Buenos Aires, who shares with Garay the honour of establishing the
Spanish power in Argentina, and who had already defeated the Pampa
Indians from the Great Chaco in the north to the Tandil Range in Buenos
Aires province, attempted, in the early years of the seventeenth
century, to subdue the Charruas. He disembarked at the head of five
hundred men in the western part of Uruguay. Few details of the campaign
which followed have been preserved, but it is certain that the Spanish
force was destroyed and that Hernandarias himself barely escaped with
his life. Thenceforth, for more than a century, the Spaniards made no
serious attempts to interfere with the Charruas; the coast of Uruguay
was shunned by European ships, and the interior remained absolutely
unknown.
It is probable, although not certain, that the Jesuits on the Upper
Uruguay established some villages of peaceable Indians in the
north-western corner of Uruguay proper, in the middle of the seventeenth
century. A few Indians, it is certain, gathered under Jesuit control on
an island in the Lower Uruguay, some fifty miles above Martin Garcia,
about 1650. This was known as the Pueblo of Soriano, and is often
referred to by Uruguayan historians as the first permanent settlement in
their country. However, no real progress was made toward getting
possession of Uruguay. The Charruas proved refractory to Jesuit
influence, and only the milder Yaros and the tribes on the Brazilian
border could be converted.
The horses and cattle which the Spaniards had introduced multiplied into
hundreds of thousands and roamed undisturbed over the rolling, grassy
plains of Uruguay, and occasionally parties of Creoles would land on the
shore of the Plate and at the risk of their lives kill some steers and
strip them of their hides. As time went on, the Indians became used to
the white men and some trading sprang up, but for a full century after
Buenos Aires had been in existence Uruguay remained unsettled by
civilised man.
CHAPTER II
PORTUGUESE AGGRESSIONS AND THE SETTLEMENT OF THE COUNTRY
In 1680 the governor of Rio de Janeiro sent some ships and a force of
soldiers to the Plate, with orders to occupy a point on the north bank
in the name of the king of Portugal. Spain claimed that her dominions
extended as far up the coast as the southern border of the present state
of São Paulo, and Portugal was equally stubborn in insisting that her
rightful territory extended west and south as far as the mouth of the
Uruguay. Neither country had made any settlements in the disputed
region, and Portugal had determined to take advantage of the negligence
of the Spanish government and be first in the field. To establish a post
only twenty miles from the capital of the Spanish possessions and more
than a thousand miles south of the last Portuguese town seemed an
audacious step, but its success would secure for Portugal the whole
intermediate territory, as well as give her a port which would insure
her merchants the command of the trade of the Plate valley.
The Portuguese commander landed unopposed on the shore of the estuary
directly opposite Buenos Aires, and immediately began to throw up walls,
dig a ditch, and lay out a town called Colonia. When the news reached
Buenos Aires, the indignant governor raised a force of two hundred and
sixty Spaniards and three thousand Indians, crossed the river, and fell
upon the little body of Portuguese in the midst of their delving and
shovelling. The attack was at first repulsed, but superior numbers were
soon effective. The enemy surrendered, and the Spaniards threw down the
walls and destroyed the beginnings of the town. The Portuguese
government protested, claiming that the governor's action was a wilful
and inexcusable aggression against the forces of a friendly power
operating in territory which had never been occupied by Spain. The
Madrid government disavowed the act, and the Portuguese resumed
possession of Colonia in 1683. They rebuilt its walls and made the place
safe against the attacks of Indians. At once it became a centre for
contraband traffic. The Spanish laws and colonial policy forbade vessels
to land at Buenos Aires. In defiance of the prohibition, illegal trade
had been carried on, but the lading of vessels lying in the Buenos Aires
roads was conducted at great risk. Officials might order the seizure of
the goods, and enormous bribes had to be paid to functionaries; often
the governor was the smuggler's partner, but he was a partner who
demanded an exorbitant share of the profit. In Colonia, however,
merchandise could be safely stored and embarked at leisure, so the
latter place rapidly absorbed the export trade and became an _entrepôt_
for imported goods destined for sale in the valley of the Plate and in
Bolivia.
Spain had restored Colonia under protest and without prejudice,
explicitly reiterating her own claim to exclusive proprietorship of the
north bank of the Plate. The diplomatists agreed that the question of
right should remain open for determination at some future day, but all
Spanish subjects considered the existence of Colonia as a violation of
Spanish soil, and whenever a war broke out in Europe between the mother
countries, the Buenos Aireans were in the habit of promptly sending an
expedition across the river to capture the Portuguese town. Three times
was it wrenched from the Portuguese, and three times was it restored on
the conclusion of peace.
In 1705, Spain and Portugal being engaged in war, the governor of Buenos
Aires dislodged the Portuguese garrison from Colonia and the place
remained in Spanish possession until after the conclusion of the Peace
of Utrecht. Their eleven years' possession at last convinced the
Spaniards that the settlement of the north bank was feasible. By 1708
the Charrua raids had so far lost their terrors that the Jesuit mission
at Soriano was safely removed from the island in the Uruguay River to
the mainland opposite. The trade in Uruguayan hides and horsehair
increased, and private expeditions henceforth frequently crossed the
estuary.
It had long been known that the best harbours on the Uruguayan coast
were at Montevideo and Maldonado, where partially sheltered bays, with
water deep enough for the vessels of the eighteenth century, were
overlooked by beautiful and defensible town sites. Montevideo is a
hundred miles east of Colonia, and Maldonado another hundred miles
farther on toward the Atlantic. The advisability of seizing and
fortifying one or both of these places was frequently mooted in Buenos
Aires, after the restoration of Colonia in 1716. Nothing, however, was
done until 1723, when word came that the Portuguese had again
anticipated the Spanish authorities and had occupied and begun to
fortify Montevideo for themselves. The governor of Buenos Aires
immediately sent an overwhelming force which compelled the Portuguese to
retire. This time neither dilatory diplomacy nor official ineptitude
prevented his doing the right thing to save Uruguay to the Spanish
Crown, and the following year he finished the Portuguese walls at
Montevideo, and in 1726 the ground plan of a town was laid out and a few
families were brought from Buenos Aires and the Canary Islands. Within a
few years there were a thousand people in the place, and it had been
surrounded with walls and defended by artillery. Four years later,
Maldonado was established. No serious trouble was experienced with the
Indians at either place, and the Spaniards began to spread their ranches
over the neighbouring south-eastern part of Uruguay.
[Illustration: MONTEVIDEO.
[From an old print.]]
Almost simultaneously with this important event, the Creoles from Santa
Fé province crossed over into the wide plains which lie between the
Paraná and the Uruguay, and defeated the Charrua tribes who had kept
the Spanish out of that region for one hundred and fifty years. Soon the
gauchos were in possession of Entre Rios as far as the Uruguay. The
Charruas east of the Uruguay could not prevent the gauchos from making
their way across the river to build their cabins and ride the plains
after cattle. The settlement of western Uruguay began, but, except
Colonia and Soriano, no towns were founded. The half-Indian gauchos
lived a semi-nomadic life and needed and received little help from the
authorities in their constant fights against the Indians.
Shortly after the foundation of Montevideo, a Portuguese expedition
tried to recover the place, but it was found to be too strong to attack,
and the party resolved to establish a town farther up the coast. Three
hundred miles to the north-west is found the only opening into the great
system of lagoons which stretches along the seaward side of Rio Grande
do Sul, and at that strategic point the Portuguese, in 1735, built a
fort and town.
By the middle of the eighteenth century, the situation between Spain and
Portugal in the whole region between the Plate, the Uruguay, and the sea
had become very strained. Colonia was completely isolated and the
Spaniards controlled all the rest of Uruguay's western and southern
water-front. The Portuguese settlements in the seaward half of Rio
Grande were prospering and multiplying, soon to furnish thousands of
gauchos, as ready as any who rode the Argentine pampas to sally forth
for war or plunder. The territory which the Jesuits had held for more
than a century on the east bank of the Upper Uruguay lay directly back
of these Portuguese settlements and was more easily accessible therefrom
than from Montevideo. In 1750 Spain agreed to exchange the Seven
Missions for Colonia. The Portuguese promptly took measures to secure
the ceded territory, attacked the Indian villages, and massacred or
drove off most of the inhabitants. The Jesuits vigorously protested, and
outraged Spanish public opinion demanded the abrogation of the treaty,
so a few years later the desolated territory was restored to Spanish
possession and Colonia remained Portuguese.
In 1762 Spain and Portugal were again engaged in war, and the governor
of Buenos Aires attacked Colonia with a force of twenty-seven hundred
men and thirty-two ships. The fortifications were strong and the
Portuguese offered a tenacious resistance. After a well-contested siege
the place surrendered, only to be given back to Portugal the ensuing
year. Meanwhile, troops had been sent up from Montevideo against Rio
Grande and the Portuguese settlers driven back to the north-east corner
of the state, only to rise again when the Spanish troops were gone and
to begin a guerrilla warfare which never ceased until they had regained
their towns.
The eighteenth century had entered on its last quarter before the
Spanish home government took any real steps to drive the Portuguese out
of Colonia and to reclaim the disputed territory as far north as São
Paulo. The Atlantic slope of Spanish South America was erected into a
Viceroyalty, and in 1777 the greatest fleet and army ever sent by Spain
to America reached Buenos Aires under command of the new Viceroy. The
Portuguese had no forces able to cope with his army and fleet, and he
carried all before him. The island of Santa Catharina in the north of
the disputed territory was captured, Colonia was taken, and an army of
four thousand men started on a triumphal march north-westward to sweep
the Portuguese from the coast. The Spaniards were at the gates of Rio
Grande when news came that peace had been declared. Orders from home
compelled the Viceroy to stop his northward progress while the diplomats
agreed on a division. The treaty of San Ildefonso in the main gave each
country the territory its citizens actually occupied. The Seven Missions
remained Spanish, and the Portuguese were deprived of the southern half
of the great lagoon and of Colonia. Santa Catharina was restored, and
the right of Portugal to the vast interior and to the regions of the
Upper Paraná and Paraguay were confirmed. Rio Grande remained Portuguese
and Uruguay was assured of being thenceforth and for ever Spanish in
blood and speech.
CHAPTER III
THE REVOLUTION
With the treaty of San Ildefonso, Uruguay began her real existence.
Montevideo was made the greatest fortress on the Atlantic coast,
commanded by its own military governor, strongly garrisoned and
provisioned, and with over one hundred cannon mounted on its walls. The
Charruas had long been driven back from the coast, and as soon as the
danger of Portuguese interference was over settlements spread rapidly
along the whole southern border. Prior to 1777 there were only five
towns in Uruguay, but within the next five years the number tripled. By
the year 1810 there were seventy-five hundred people living in the city
of Montevideo, seventy-five hundred in its immediate district, and
sixteen thousand in the outlying settlements. Outside of Montevideo,
cattle-herding was the sole business, and the people were a hard-riding,
meat-eating, bellicose race. Immediately to the north-east lived fifty
thousand Rio Grandenses of Portuguese blood and speech, who, in like
surroundings, had acquired the same pastoral and semi-nomadic habits as
their Argentine and Uruguayan neighbours, and who constantly made
incursions over the Spanish border. The Uruguayan gauchos retaliated,
and for nearly a century continuous partisan warfare went on, for these
half-savage cattle-herders recked little of treaties or boundary lines.
The Spanish guerrillas bore the name of _blandenques_, and in this
school of arms the future generals of Uruguay's war of independence were
trained. Most of the forays were only for the purpose of stealing cattle
or burning cabins built in coveted regions; nevertheless, one of these
expeditions changed the nationality of a territory larger than England.
In 1801 the Rio Grandenses conquered the Seven Missions, thus doubling
at a single stroke the area of their own state and reducing Uruguay to
substantially its present dimensions.
As the seat of the largest Spanish garrison, Montevideo naturally became
the centre of pro-Spanish feeling and influence in the Plate and the
home of families who boasted distinguished Castilian descent and
conservative principles. In the interior settlements Creole influences
predominated, and the population was substantially homogeneous with that
of the Argentine provinces on the other side of the Uruguay River.
Between the aristocratic Montevideans and the gauchos of the country
districts there was little sympathy.
[Illustration: BRIDGE AT MALDONADO.]
In 1806, the English captured Buenos Aires, and many Spanish officials
and officers fled to Montevideo for refuge. The garrison of Montevideo
furnished troops and arms for the expedition which soon went across
the Plate and triumphantly recaptured Buenos Aires. Late that same year,
British troops from the Cape of Good Hope seized Maldonado harbour in
eastern Uruguay. As soon as re-enforcements arrived a movement was made
against Montevideo. On the 14th of January, 1807, the city was besieged
by sea and land. The attacking and defending forces were about equal in
number, although the British regulars were far superior in discipline
and effectiveness to their opponents, half of whom were militia. A
sortie in force was completely defeated, with a loss of one thousand
men, and after eight days of bombardment the British effected a breach
in the wall and took the town by assault, the Spaniards losing half
their force and the remainder scattering. A great fleet of merchant
vessels had accompanied the British expedition, and as soon as the town
surrendered their goods were landed, and the English traders took
possession of the shops almost as completely as the British soldiers did
of the fortifications. Uruguay was opened up to free trade, the gauchos
were soon selling their hides and horsehair for higher prices than they
had ever received, and buying clothes, tools, and the comforts and
luxuries of civilised life at rates they had never dreamed possible.
A few months later the English attacked Buenos Aires, but were
overwhelmingly defeated, and the British general found himself in such
an awkward situation that, in order to obtain permission to withdraw his
army, he had to agree to evacuate Montevideo. The convention was carried
out and the British soldiers left the Plate forever, but the British
merchants remained behind. Although the English occupation of the city
had lasted so short a time, it created an unwonted animation in
Montevideo by the establishment of a great number of mercantile and
industrial houses. From this time, Montevideo's commerce assumed greater
proportions and it became a place of real commercial importance, as well
as a military post. Both city and country had tasted the delights of
commercial freedom, and material civilisation had received its first
great impulse.
Elio, the Spanish military governor of Montevideo, suspected the loyalty
of Liniers, the Frenchman, who, because he had led in the fighting
against the English, had been created viceroy at Buenos Aires. Spanish
affairs at home were in confusion and fast becoming worse confounded.
The old king had abdicated in favour of his son; civil war had broken
out on the Peninsula; the new king had been compelled by Napoleon to
resign, and Joseph Bonaparte was proclaimed monarch of Spain. The
Spanish nation refused to accept Joseph and a revolutionary government
was set up in Seville. Elio, as a patriotic Spaniard, promptly swore
allegiance to this junta, but the Viceroy and the Buenos Aires Creoles
hesitated as to their course of action. The Montevidean governor and the
Buenos Aires Viceroy quarrelled; the former accused the latter of
unfaithfulness to Spain and disavowed his authority, and the latter
retaliated by issuing a decree deposing Elio. On receiving news of this
act, which was strictly legal under Spanish law, the Montevideo Cabildo
met in extraordinary session and appointed a junta, which was to be
dependent solely and directly upon the authority of the banished
legitimate king and in no way upon Buenos Aires so long as Liniers
remained Viceroy. Thus early did Montevideo act independently of Buenos
Aires.
Although the sentiment of loyalty was much stronger in Montevideo than
in Buenos Aires, the English invasion was no sooner over than there
became manifest something of the same profound division between Creoles
and Spaniards. Three years, however, passed without disturbances; and
even when the news of the overthrow of the new Spanish Viceroy by the
populace of Buenos Aires on the 25th of May, 1810, reached Montevideo,
the governor was able to prevent any revolutionary manifestations of
sympathy. On the 12th of July a small part of the garrison rose in a
mutiny, which was easily suppressed. In January, 1811, Elio returned to
Montevideo with a commission as Viceroy and bringing considerable
re-enforcements. He declared war on Creole revolutionists at Buenos
Aires and imprisoned the Montevideans suspected of Creole sympathies and
revolutionary ideas.
Among those who escaped to Buenos Aires was one destined to be the
founder of Uruguayan nationality. This was José Artigas, then captain of
guerrilla cavalry. Although born in Montevideo he had lived the life of
a gaucho from boyhood, and since 1797 had been a leader of the gaucho
bands who were continually fighting the Rio Grandenses. He happened to
be in Colonia on the occasion of Elio's declaration of war against the
Creoles and at once fled to Buenos Aires. The junta there gave him a
lieutenant-colonel's commission and some substantial help. The gauchos
of the south-eastern part of Uruguay had meanwhile risen against the
Spanish governor, and within a few weeks Artigas was back on Uruguayan
soil at the head of a considerable force, while all around him bands of
gauchos under other chiefs were preparing to resist the Spaniards. His
bravery, energy, and good luck in the field, and his ruthless
maintenance of discipline, gave him an ascendancy over all the others.
In April, 1811, Belgrano, the chief general of Buenos Aires, arrived
with re-enforcements. Shortly after, a Spanish detachment, which had
reached the western part of Uruguay, was captured, and the gaucho
leaders advanced almost to the walls of Montevideo. A force of one
thousand Spaniards started out to meet them and, on the 18th of May, met
with complete defeat at the battle of Las Piedras. For this victory
Artigas was promoted by the Buenos Aires Junta, and became the greatest
military figure on the patriot side. With a considerable army of gauchos
from both banks of the Uruguay and of patriots from Buenos Aires he
began a siege of Montevideo.
The siege, however, did not last long. The great expedition sent by the
patriots to Bolivia was overwhelmingly defeated in the battle of Huaqui,
and the Buenos Aires Junta, horribly alarmed for their own safety,
ordered all the troops under their control to return and help defend
that city. At the same time a Portuguese army advanced from Brazil with
the avowed purpose of saving Montevideo from being lost to Spain, but
really to take possession of Uruguay for King John's own benefit.
Artigas was compelled to retire to the Argentine, and Uruguayan
historians say that on his long retreat to the Uruguay River he was
accompanied by practically the whole rural population of the country.
The semi-nomadic habits of the gauchos made such a migration easy, and
they quickly found new homes on the opposite shore in Entre Rios, whence
it would be easy to return as soon as the Portuguese troops retired.
Considerations of international politics and English pressure compelled
King John to withdraw his troops from Uruguay in the middle of the year
1812, and the Buenos Aires government immediately began to assemble an
army on the right bank of the Uruguay. Artigas was still encamped with
his Uruguayan forces in the same neighbourhood, and although he held an
Argentine commission he was virtually independent. The Argentine army,
under the command of José Rondeau, who in colonial days had been captain
of guerrillas alongside Artigas, advanced against Montevideo, and on the
last day of 1812 won the bloody battle of Cerrito, in sight of the city,
and shut the Spaniards up within its walls. Artigas followed and
assisted in the siege, but he refused to unite his forces with those of
Rondeau until his own claims should be recognised and his demands
complied with. He assumed a dictatorship and sent delegates to Buenos
Aires to advocate the formation of a federal republic, of which Buenos
Aires was to be simply one member. Buenos Aires refused to receive his
delegates, and civil war broke out. Rondeau adhered to the Buenos Aires
interest; and after a year of disputes, in the beginning of January,
1814, Artigas withdrew his own followers from Montevideo, leaving the
partisans of Buenos Aires to continue the siege alone. In May the
celebrated Irish admiral, William Brown, destroyed the Spanish fleet,
which had hitherto dominated the Plate. Montevideo's communications with
both land and sea were shut off, and the fortress shortly afterwards
surrendered to General Carlos Alvear, the Argentine general who was then
commanding the besieging forces.
Meanwhile, Artigas had retired to the west, and the gauchos, not only of
western Uruguay, but also of Entre Rios, Corrientes, the Missions, and
Santa Fé, rallied around his standard. Independent chiefs in these
various provinces had been resisting the efforts of Buenos Aires to
reduce them to obedience. Artigas was, in a way, recognised as their
leader, but only as the greatest among equals. The conflict with the
Buenos Aires party went on throughout the year 1814, and the federalists
continually gained ground. In January, 1815, Fructuoso Rivera, one of
the lieutenants of Artigas, defeated an Argentine force at the battle of
Guayabos, and the Buenos Aires Junta was compelled to withdraw its
troops from Montevideo.
This, however, did not amount to a separation of Uruguay from the
Confederation. It only marked a triumph of the provinces in their
efforts to prevent Buenos Aires from establishing a centralised
government. Artigas had his friends in Entre Rios, Corrientes, the
Missions, and Santa Fé, and even as far as Cordoba; and Francia,
dictator of Paraguay, was another of his allies in this struggle against
Buenos Aires. However, he was nothing more than a military chief,
without the capacity or even the desire of uniting these vast
territories under a rational and stable government.
At the very height of his power he made the fatal mistake of embroiling
himself with Brazil. In 1815 he invaded the territory of the Seven
Missions, which the Rio Grandenses had conquered fourteen years before.
The Portuguese king retaliated by sending a well-equipped army of
several thousand men, and in October, 1816, the forces of Artigas were
overwhelmed and driven with great slaughter from the disputed territory.
Artigas made stupendous efforts to retrieve this loss, but the four
thousand men which he assembled to resist the Portuguese army, which was
now advancing upon Montevideo itself, were defeated and scattered in
January, 1817. The Portuguese occupied Montevideo, and Artigas and his
lieutenants, Rivera, Lavelleja, and Oribe, each of whom later became a
great figure in the civil wars, retreated to the interior, where they
maintained themselves for two years. After many defeats, Artigas himself
lost the support of the chiefs of Entre Rios and Santa Fé. He was
finally driven out of Uruguay and attempted to establish himself in the
Argentine provinces, only to be completely overwhelmed by his rivals.
On the 23rd of September, 1820, he presented himself with forty men, all
who remained faithful to him, at the Paraguayan town of Candelaria on
the Paraná, begging hospitality of Francia. Francia granted him asylum,
and this indomitable guerrilla chief, who for twenty-five years had kept
the soil of Uruguay and of the Argentine mesopotamia soaked in blood,
spent the rest of his life peacefully cultivating his garden in the
depths of the Paraguayan forests. He died in 1850 at the age of
eighty-six years; six years later his remains were brought from Paraguay
to Montevideo and interred in the national pantheon. On the sarcophagus
are engraved these words: "Artigas, Founder of the Uruguayan Nation."
[Illustration: GENERAL DON JOSÉ GERVASIO ARTIGAS.
[From an old wood-cut.]]
Rivera was the last Uruguayan chief to lay down his arms before the
Portuguese. When he surrendered, early in 1820, most of the other
leaders had already given up and accepted service in the Portuguese army
of occupation. In 1821, a Uruguayan Congress, selected for this purpose,
declared the country incorporated with the Portuguese dominions under
the name of the Cisplatine Province. For five years Montevideo and the
country remained quiet under the Portuguese dominion, and Uruguay
peacefully became a province of Brazil when that country declared her
independence. The most celebrated chiefs of the civil war were officers
in the Brazilian army, and few external signs of dissatisfaction were
apparent. Underneath the surface, however, fermented a hatred of the
foreign rule, and the proud Creoles only awaited an opportunity to
revolt.
CHAPTER IV
INDEPENDENCE AND CIVIL WAR
In the beginning of 1825 a group of patriots met in Buenos Aires and
planned an invasion of Uruguayan territory. Word was sent to different
chiefs in the country districts, and on the night of the 19th of April
thirty-three adventurers, with Lavalleja at their head, landed on the
shore of the river in the extreme south-western corner of the country.
No sooner had they landed than the country rose; the troops sent from
Montevideo to meet the band of revolutionists refused to fight, and,
deserting the Brazilian banner, joined their compatriots. The
revolutionists advanced east along the Negro and the Yi to Durazno, one
hundred and thirty miles north of Montevideo, where they found Rivera,
then general in the Brazilian service. He promptly deserted and was at
once associated with Lavalleja in the command.
Lavalleja advanced to the south, calling the population to arms, while
the northern detachments rose in response to Rivera. Only fifteen days
after the thirty-three had crossed the Uruguay, the flag of the
revolution was floating over the Cerrito Hill in front of Montevideo,
and Brazilian power was virtually confined to the walls of that city and
Colonia. The military chiefs formally declared Uruguay separated from
Brazil, and proclaimed its reincorporation with the Argentine. The
number of Brazilians then in Uruguay was small, and infantry could not
be expected to do much fighting on the plains against gaucho cavalry led
by such experienced guerrilla fighters as Rivera and Lavalleja. A
division of Rio Grandense cavalry, under their own chiefs, Bento Manoel
and Bento Goncalvez, met the Uruguayans at Sarandi. The two armies used
substantially the same methods, charging into each other, sword in hand
and carbine at shoulder. The Brazilians were caught in a disadvantageous
position and suffered a complete and bloody overthrow.
The result of this battle was to insure to the revolutionists the
continuation of their complete dominance in the country. Their cavalry
bands roamed at will up to the very walls of Montevideo. Buenos Aires
received the news with extravagant demonstrations of joy, and formal
notice was given to Brazil that Uruguay would henceforth be recognised
as an integral part of the Argentine Confederation. The emperor promptly
responded with a declaration of war. His fleet blockaded Buenos Aires,
while he poured re-enforcements into Montevideo and sent an army to
invade northern Uruguay. Argentine troops likewise swarmed across the
Uruguay River into the country, and the Brazilians could make little
progress. On sea they were not more successful, and by the beginning of
1826 Admiral Brown was blockading Colonia and menacing the
communications of Montevideo.
In August, 1826, the famous Argentine general, Carlos Alvear, took
command of the patriot forces. Jealousies and quarrels had meantime
broken out between Lavalleja and Rivera. Alvear took the former's side
and Rivera's partisans revolted. But the arrival of more re-enforcements
for the Brazilians hushed up for the moment the intestine quarrels of
the Spanish-Americans. Alvear determined to carry the war into Brazil,
and early in January, 1827, succeeded in passing between the northern
and southern Brazilian armies, and penetrated across the frontier to the
north-east. He had sacked Bagé, the principal town of that region,
before the Brazilian general, the Marquis of Barbacena, was able to
concentrate his forces and start in pursuit. Alvear turned north toward
the Missions, but he was in a hostile country where defeat meant total
destruction. Though his army numbered eight thousand men he had cut
himself off from his base, and an enemy in equal force was close at his
heels. He resolved to turn and give battle, and on the 20th of February,
1827, his army met that of Barbacena in the decisive battle of
Ituzaingo, which ended in the defeat of the Brazilians. Although
Barbacena was able to withdraw his army without material loss, and
Alvear retired at once to Uruguayan soil, the Brazilians were never
afterwards able to undertake a vigorous offensive. The result of that
battle insured that the north bank of the Plate should remain Spanish
in blood, language, and government.
A few days before Ituzaingo, Admiral Brown had won the great naval fight
of Juncal at the mouth of the river Uruguay, and thenceforth the
Brazilian blockade of Buenos Aires was entirely ineffective. If it had
not been for the civil disturbances in Argentina that paralysed the
Buenos Aires government, the Brazilians might have been swept out of
Montevideo at the point of the sword, and the Argentines might have
undertaken the conquest of Rio Grande itself. Though considerable
Argentine forces remained in Uruguay during 1827 and 1828, they put no
vigour into their operations, and on their part the Brazilians were able
to do little more than hold Montevideo. So hampered was Rivadavia, the
president of Buenos Aires, by revolts, uprisings, and disorders
throughout Argentina that he thought himself obliged to agree to abandon
Uruguay. Public opinion in Argentina would not accept the treaty which
he made; he was deposed, and a leader of the opposite party installed in
power.
Rivera, operating on his own account, had undertaken a campaign against
the western Rio Grande, but so bitter was factional feeling that his
rival, Lavalleja, sent a force to pursue and fight him, while the new
Buenos Aires government was induced to sign a treaty of peace largely
because Rivera's success against the Brazilians might make him strong
enough to be dangerous. Both Brazil and Argentina were tired of the
tedious, expensive war, and both governments had preoccupations within
their own territories. Through the intervention of the British Minister
the terms were agreed upon. Brazil and Argentina both gave up their
claims to Uruguay, the region was erected into an independent republic,
and Brazil and Argentina pledged themselves to guarantee its
independence during five years.
At that time Argentina was convulsed by the struggle between the
federalists and the unitarians, and the Uruguayans were also divided
into two camps--the followers of Lavalleja and those of Rivera. Neither
in Argentina nor in Uruguay were these divisions parties in any proper
sense of that term. They were military factions, whose ambitious leaders
seem to have been always willing to sacrifice the interests of the
country at large to secure a partisan advantage. The Argentine troops
who returned home from the war against Brazil promptly plunged their
country into the bloodiest civil war known in her history, and Uruguay
did not delay in following the example.
The first chief magistrate of independent Uruguay was José Rondeau, an
Uruguayan who had become one of the greatest Argentine generals.
However, Lavalleja and Rivera were the real factors in the situation,
and Rondeau's efforts to conciliate both at the same time failed. The
Constituent Assembly, which soon met and framed a paper constitution,
was controlled by Lavalleja's partisans. Rondeau was deposed and
Lavalleja assumed the reins of power. Rivera prepared to march on
Montevideo and dispute the matter by arms, but the representatives of
Argentina and Brazil intervened and a compromise was effected. Rivera
got the best of the bargain, being given command of the army, and after
the constitution had been declared (July 18, 1830), he became, as a
matter of course, the first president of Uruguay.
CHAPTER V
CIVIL WAR AND ARGENTINE INTERVENTION
Except for an expedition against the remnants of the once formidable
Charrua Indians, the first two years of independence passed in peace.
Since the expulsion of Artigas, the country had prospered and its
population had risen nearly threefold within twenty-five years, in spite
of the bloody fighting which occurred from 1811 to 1817 and from 1825 to
1828. The settlements had spread far back from the coast, and many of
the principal interior towns date from this period.
In 1832 the civil wars began again. Lavalleja's partisans organised a
conspiracy, and a certain Colonel Garzon took advantage of Rivera's
absence from Montevideo to raise a mutiny in the garrison and to issue a
pronunciamento deposing the president. The latter soon recovered the
city, and after two years of intermittent fighting the Lavalleja party
was overthrown for the moment and Rivera finished his term in peace.
Manuel Oribe, a chief of the anti-Rivera faction, succeeded to the
presidency by a compromise agreement, but the breach between the two
factions had really grown wider and their mutual hatred became
irrepressibly bitter. Oribe soon began to persecute his opponents.
Meanwhile, the five years had expired during which Uruguayan
independence had been guaranteed by the treaty between Argentina and
Brazil. Argentina was free to solicit the reincorporation of Uruguay
into the Confederation. Rosas, the head of the federalist party, had
made himself master of Buenos Aires, and his authority was recognised in
most of the Argentine provinces, although the unitarians continued their
ineffectual revolts. The new Uruguayan president sympathised with the
federalists, while his rival, Rivera, could count on the unitarians. The
plan of Rosas was to establish Oribe firmly in Uruguay and through his
aid to incorporate that country with Argentina, while the unitarians
were desperately anxious that Rivera should triumph, knowing that
Montevideo would be a base for the organisation of their own forces for
invasions of Buenos Aires and central Argentina.
Thenceforward for many years Uruguay's history is inexplicably entwined
with the story of the struggle between the two great Argentine factions.
The little country became the storm-centre of South American politics
and the chief battlefield of the contending forces. Now for the first
time we encounter references to "blancos" and "colorados," which remain
to this day the names of Uruguayan political parties. All the forces of
the community lined up on either side and never have political parties
fought more determinedly and relentlessly. The divisions between them
entered into all social and business relations, and even friendly
intercourse between the members of the two factions was almost
impossible. Men have often been more blanco or colorado than Uruguayan.
The old conservative resident Spanish families were the basis of the
blanco, or Oribe party, while the colorados, or partisans of Rivera,
were the progressive faction. The latter attracted the Argentine
refugees fleeing from the tyranny of Rosas, and could count upon the
support of resident Europeans and upon the sympathy of foreign
governments. Rosas in Argentina and the blancos in Uruguay represented
the spirit of exclusivism and opposition to foreign influences.
After Oribe's accession to power Rivera hastened to raise a revolt in
the western districts. He obtained help from the unitarians, and his
invasion was accompanied by many Argentine generals who had
distinguished themselves in the wars against Rosas. The Argentine
dictator sent help to Oribe, but for two years the tide of battle set in
favour of the colorados and unitarians. Rivera had obtained so decided
an advantage by 1838 that Oribe abandoned Montevideo and embarked for
Buenos Aires, followed by the chiefs of his party. The colorado chief,
now in control of all Uruguay, celebrated a formal alliance with the
province of Corrientes, then in revolt against Rosas, and war was
declared against the latter. A large Argentine army, accompanied by many
blancos, invaded Uruguay, but was decisively defeated at the battle of
Cagancha, December 10, 1839.
The interval of unquestioned colorado supremacy which followed was one
of the most flourishing periods in the history of Uruguay. Large numbers
of the intellectual élite of Buenos Aires swarmed across the river;
Montevideo became the centre of arts and letters of Spanish America; the
civil wars of the last few years had not been severe, and even during
their continuance property had suffered little. Immigration from
England, France, and Italy began on a large scale, and the population
increased at the rate of four per cent. per annum. In the year 1840 nine
hundred ocean-going ships entered the port of Montevideo, more than
three thousand houses were erected, and twenty-seven great meat-curing
establishments were in active operation. However, Rosas and the blancos
were only awaiting a good opportunity to attack.
In 1841 Oribe, in command of one of Rosas's armies, defeated the
Argentine unitarians under General Lavalle, and marched into Entre Rios
to suppress the insurrection in that province. In January, 1842, Rivera
took an army of three thousand men to the rescue of his unitarian
allies. He crossed the river Uruguay and united his forces to those of
General Paz, but after a year's desperate fighting on Argentine soil he
and the unitarian general were overthrown and their armies completely
destroyed in the battle of Arroya Grande. The way was open to
Montevideo; the colorados and Argentine exiles shut themselves up in
that city, and the so-called nine-years' siege began. Rosas's power
seemed overwhelming, and although Rivera and other colorado chiefs at
the head of scattered bands managed to make some headway in the outlying
departments, they were finally driven into Brazil, while the unhappy
country was given up to pillage and slaughter. This _guerra grande_ was
the bloodiest, longest, and most stubborn war ever fought on Uruguayan
soil.
Montevideo seemed doomed to an early surrender when an opportune
intervention by France and England upset the plans of Rosas. He had
embroiled himself with the ministers of those powers by refusing to give
satisfaction for certain alleged injuries to foreign merchants and naval
officers, and the dispute became so acrimonious that the European powers
finally resorted to the most drastic coercive measures. A French, and
later a British, fleet blockaded Buenos Aires and drove Rosas's vessels
from the Plate. Under these circumstances it was impossible for him to
land re-enforcements on the Uruguayan shore. In 1845 the European navies
forced a passage at the head of the estuary into the Paraná and Uruguay,
destroying the batteries which Rosas had erected there and opening up
those rivers to foreign navigation. Thereafter, troops could be sent
from Argentina into Uruguay only by a long détour to the north.
In spite of this hampering of his military operations, and the injury
which the blockade caused to the commerce of Buenos Aires, the Argentine
dictator stubbornly refused to yield an inch to foreign pressure.
France and England were finally tired out; they raised the blockade;
Rosas regained his control of the Plate and the early capture of
Montevideo seemed certain. Just at this time, however, General Urquiza,
governor of Entre Rios, and Rosas's best lieutenant and most successful
general, broke with his chief. Entre Rios became a virtually independent
state, and Rosas's efforts to reduce it were unavailing. Urquiza's
defection again rendered it impossible properly to reinforce Oribe's
army. The colorados of the interior plucked up courage and during four
years no material progress was made on either side. A tedious and
exhausting partisan warfare went on in the interior; guerrilla bands
scoured the country in every direction; inhabitants of the same town
were arrayed against each other, and surprises, treasons, and massacres
were almost daily occurrences. One of the most successful leaders on the
colorado side was the famous Giuseppe Garibaldi. The future liberator of
Italy had made his début as a revolutionist in the insurrection which
broke out in 1835 in the Brazilian province of Rio Grande. Later he
crossed the Uruguayan border and fought against Rosas for several years.
Early in 1851 a grand combination to overthrow Rosas was made between
Entre Rios, Corrientes, the unitarians, the colorados, and Brazil. The
constant policy of the latter power had been to secure and maintain the
independence of Uruguay, and she welcomed the opportunity to open up the
Paraná and Uruguay, on whose headwaters she had great territories,
inaccessible except along those rivers. Urquiza naturally became the
general-in-chief of the alliance. On the 18th of July he crossed the
Uruguay, followed by a large army from his own provinces. A Brazilian
army soon joined him and the colorados flocked to his standard. The
Brazilian fleet came down the coast and controlled the estuary. An
overwhelming force advanced on Montevideo and the blanco army found
itself with a hostile city and fleet in front, a superior army behind,
and deprived of the hope of receiving help from Buenos Aires. The
officers hastened to make terms with Urquiza. Whole divisions deserted,
and Oribe himself was obliged to surrender. Many of the soldiers who had
been fighting in the blanco ranks joined Urquiza, and the latter, after
a vain attempt to reconcile the Uruguayan factions among themselves,
marched his army back through Uruguay and Entre Rios, crossed the
Paraná, and, descending to Buenos Aires, defeated Rosas in the great
battle of Monte Caseros.
CHAPTER VI
COLORADOS AND BLANCOS
The overthrow of Rosas and Oribe marked the end of the effort to
re-incorporate Uruguay with the Argentine Confederation. Uruguay was no
longer in peril from foreign aggression, but she was far from being
united. The blancos had apparently been completely crushed, but their
wealth, prestige, and numbers still made them formidable. The seeds of
division lay thickly in the soil of the national society and character,
sure to spring up and bear many crops of wars and pronunciamentos.
For the moment, however, the fierce Uruguayan partisans had had enough
of fighting. The colorados were dominant and the blancos disorganised
and discouraged. It seemed likely that Uruguay would enjoy a prolonged
peace. The wars which lasted almost continuously from 1843 to 1851 had
interrupted immigration from Europe; unitarians had, however, crossed in
multitudes from Buenos Aires and many of their families remained after
the proclamation of peace. To this day Montevideo is full of families
descended from Buenos Aires refugees; the same names constantly recur
on both banks of the Plate, and the social ties uniting the two cities
are intimate. Uruguay's herds of cattle and sheep had suffered from the
depredations of the armed marauding bands which had scoured the country
districts for nine years, but man's cruel destructiveness could not
injure the magnificent pasturage with which nature had endowed the
nation, and animals quickly multiplied again by hundreds of thousands.
In 1860 the cattle in Uruguay numbered more than five millions, the
sheep two millions, and the horses nearly one million. The population
increased at the almost incredible ratio of nine per cent. per annum
after the overthrow of Oribe in 1851 until civil war again broke out in
1863.
During these years colorado chiefs occupied the presidency, sometimes
succeeding one another, sometimes by pronunciamento, and sometimes by a
form of election. General Venancio Flores, an able and ruthless officer,
became the principal figure among the colorados. In 1853 he was a member
of a triumvirate which forced the legal president to withdraw, and in
1854 he was himself raised to the presidency, only to be obliged to
resign the following year. As is usual in South America, the dominant
party split into factions, led by ambitious chiefs, and lost popularity.
The blancos, as soon as they got into power, obtained control of the
senate, and their prestige and wealth soon balanced the military force
of their opponents. In 1860 they finally prevailed, and their leader,
Berro, became constitutional president of the republic.
The colorados, however, did not propose to submit. Massed upon the
Argentine frontier, they held themselves ready to fall upon their
successful opponents at the first opportunity. Flores had been exiled
and joined the Argentine army, but in 1863 he obtained aid in Buenos
Aires and disembarked upon the Uruguayan coast with a considerable
force. His partisans rose and he obtained possession of a large portion
of the country and set up a government of his own. For a year the
contest went on with varying fortunes, and then this fight between
blancos and colorados involved all the neighbouring nations and brought
on the greatest war which has ever devastated South America and which
resulted in the nearly complete destruction of the Paraguayan people.
[Illustration: THE SOLIS THEATRE.]
The unitarians, then in power at Buenos Aires, naturally sympathised
with the leader of their old colorado allies, and were inclined to aid
Flores's attempt to regain control of Montevideo. Brazil favoured his
pretensions even more actively. The Brazilians of Rio Grande owned most
of the land and cattle just over the Uruguayan border, a third of all
the rural properties in the republic being taxed to them, and complaints
of extortion often came to the Rio government. The blanco president
refused the satisfaction demanded, and Brazil determined to enforce the
claims of her citizens. Flores was formally recognised as the legitimate
ruler of the country, and a fleet and army were sent to his assistance.
Lopez, dictator of Paraguay, thought Brazil's intervention in Uruguay
dangerous to the international equilibrium of South America. He
protested, and when the Brazilian government persisted and sent its army
over the border he began war. The Brazilians advanced to Montevideo and
their fleet came down the coast. The city was blockaded by sea and
besieged by land, while the main body of the allies advanced against the
town of Paysandù on the Uruguay River, where the blancos had assembled
in force. The place was taken by assault and given up to a horrible
pillage, the recollection of which is still graven in the memory of
Uruguayans. The blanco party never recovered from the slaughter. Those
in Montevideo saved themselves by surrendering the town without
resistance. Flores entered in triumph and the blanco leaders fled into
exile.
Flores was under obligations to lead a division in the war against
Paraguay, and he absented himself for that purpose for nearly two years,
during which the country districts were somewhat disturbed. In 1867 he
returned and restored order with a strong hand. This short lease of
undisturbed power was employed in making many important improvements.
Great public edifices were completed, the telegraph cable was laid to
Buenos Aires, the building of railroads was begun, and a new civil code
adopted. Immigration was resumed on a large scale and the country felt
the economic impulse that was already transforming the whole Plate
valley. Although the country rapidly prospered under the military
administration of Flores, the feeling of the blancos remained intensely
bitter, and on the 15th of February, 1868, the colorado president was
assassinated in the streets of Montevideo.
Flores's death was the signal for wholesale executions and for the
outbreak of another long blanco insurrection. Although the growth of
wealth and population had never been more rapid than at this very time,
the country was not free from civil disturbance until 1872, when an
armistice was signed. A year later troubles broke out again and the
troops refused to march against the insurgents. To the bitterness of
party feeling and the official corruption which diminished the revenue
and hampered commerce was added the embarrassment of the financial
difficulties which followed the great panic of 1873. The public debt had
doubled in the ten years between 1860 and 1870 and now reached the
enormous figure of over forty million dollars, nearly $150 for each
inhabitant in the country. One president after another was unable to
maintain himself in the face of the financial and political difficulties
of the situation, but in 1876 General Lorenzo Latorre, an intelligent
and determined colorado chief, became dictator. For economy's sake, he
reduced the number of army officers, of whom there were over twelve
hundred for two thousand privates. He rooted out the worst frauds in the
customs service, and refunded the public debt, compelling the foreign
creditors to accept six instead of twelve per cent. interest. At the
same time he rigidly suppressed the disorders which had harassed the
country since the murder of Flores. The bands of marauders, assassins,
and bandits, who had exercised their nefarious occupations under cover
of belonging to the insurrectionists, were relentlessly pursued and
brought to justice. For the first time in years a traveller could
traverse the country from end to end without arms. Like Flores, Latorre
often used brute force to secure peace and order, and the Uruguayans
were too turbulent to submit long to such dictation. Countless
conspiracies were formed which were bloodily suppressed, but public fear
and dislike of Latorre grew continually more menacing. In 1880, tired
out with constant anxieties and grieved over what he considered the
ingratitude of his countrymen, Latorre resigned his office and went into
exile.
His successor, Dr. Vidal, held the presidency for only two years, when
he, too, was forced to resign. The next president, Maximo Santos, served
his complete term of four full years, ending in 1886. Then Vidal managed
to get back into power for a few months and was again replaced by
Santos, who, in turn, was succeeded by Tajes, who governed the country
until 1890. The ten years succeeding the resignation of Latorre were
materially very prosperous. The sheep industry developed tremendously;
the production of wheat was more than doubled; immigration ran up to
nearly 20,000 a year; the population of the country reached 700,000,
having increased from 400,000 in twelve years. Immigration had been so
great that the number of the foreign-born almost equalled the natives,
even when including in the latter those of foreign parentage. In the
mixture of nationalities the foundations have been laid for a race of
unusual vigour and of pure Caucasian descent.
The bitterness of the old factional feeling largely died out during the
disturbances which succeeded the murder of Flores. The blancos had
suffered terrible losses in 1864, and the colorados had become far the
more numerous party. During Latorre's dictatorship the distinctions
between the two were almost lost, and the blanco party, by that name at
least, ceased to be an active factor in politics. New factions, however,
took their place, but the struggles for place and power lacked the
conviction and ferocity of the old civil wars. The gaucho and Creole
element, although still politically dominant, was diluted by the
infiltration of a more industrially minded population. The people were
not so exclusively pastoral and had ceased to be so military in their
tastes. The foreign immigrants wanted peace,--a chance to sow their
wheat and tend their sheep undisturbed,--and the gaucho, living on his
horse, feeding on beef alone, and always ready to ride off to fight by
the side of his favourite chief, ceased in many of the departments to be
the dominant factor. Politics became largely a game played by the ruling
Spanish-American caste and did not directly interfere with the material
interests of the country, and rarely affected the maintenance of law and
order.
The prosperity of the eighties had been accompanied by an enormous
increase in governmental expenditures and debt. The economies so
painfully enforced in Latorre's administration were abandoned. Nearly
as much money was spent in ten years as had been in the previous fifty
years of the republic's existence. The debt more than doubled, and the
deficit each year equalled fifty per cent. of the receipts. The Buenos
Aires panic of 1890 brought on grave commercial difficulties; real
estate dropped one-half; prices fell, and, as usual, the people blamed
the government. Political disturbances began with an attempt at a blanco
uprising in Montevideo in 1891. The clergy were active in fomenting
dissatisfaction, but the trouble was suppressed for the time. Herrera y
Obes, elected in 1890, served his term out, but the government was
getting deeper and deeper into the financial mire, in spite of having
cut down the rate of interest on the public debt fifty per cent. The
murmurs of the public grew constantly more menacing against a taxation
which had become so excessive that it almost threatened the destruction
of industries.
When the election came on in 1894 the outgoing president found that he
had not control of Congress, the body which elects the president. A
deadlock ensued and the ballots were taken amid confusion and fears of
intimidation. Ellaure, the president's candidate, dared not accept
because of the threatening attitude of the opposition. Finally, Juan
Idiarte Borda was declared elected, amid outcries and protests against
dictation and terrorism. The new president pledged himself to reform the
finances and pursue a conciliatory policy toward the different factions,
but he was soon accused of extravagance and favouritism. The blancos had
again become a formidable party after twenty years of eclipse, and they
believed that they were being deprived of their political rights by the
colorado president. In 1896 he procured the election of a Congress
completely under his control, and early in 1897, seeing no hope of a
constitutional change, a blanco colonel named Lamas raised the standard
of revolt, assembled a force in the western provinces, and gained a
victory over the president's soldiers. He marched east and joined
Aparicio Saraiva, a chief belonging to a family celebrated in the
military annals of Brazil, who had brought a considerable force over the
border. The rebels soon had possession of the eastern departments and
menaced Montevideo, while Borda borrowed money right and left and armed
and drilled regiment after regiment to prosecute the war against them.
Nevertheless, the rebels maintained themselves and roamed the country at
will. They would listen to no terms that did not include Borda's
resignation, and it seemed as if the country was doomed to pass through
another long and bloody civil war.
On August 25, 1897, President Borda was assassinated in the streets of
Montevideo by a respectable grocer's clerk. The vice-president, Juan L.
Cuestas, succeeded peacefully to the control of the government in
Montevideo, and at once entered into negotiations with the leaders of
the insurrectionists in the departments. Terms were quickly agreed upon.
Cuestas conceded minority representation and electoral reform, and in a
very short time the rebels had laid down their arms. The few months of
war had cost Uruguay dear. Thirteen million dollars had been spent by
the government, the collection of the revenue had been interrupted, and
internal transportation had been demoralised. Now, however, industry and
commerce resumed their usual course, and, since President Cuestas's
accession to power, the peace of the country has been undisturbed.
Political manifestations have been confined to disputes in Congress and
the press. They became so violent that in 1898 the president dissolved
the chambers and declared himself dictator. He reorganised the army on a
basis which insured that there would be no mutinies, and at the same
time pursued a policy of administrative reform which has done much to
bring order out of the financial confusion. The obligations of the
government have been religiously performed, and Uruguay's currency is on
a gold basis. In 1899 Cuestas was elected president according to the
forms of the Constitution. He carried out the pledge he had given the
blancos not to interfere with the elections, and in 1900 they made great
gains and elected enough members to control the Senate. The political
situation has, therefore, been somewhat strained, but there seems to be
no danger that the congressional opposition will try to interfere with
the executive functions of the president.
[Illustration: THE CATHEDRAL, MONTEVIDEO.]
This gallant and pugnacious little people will continue to play a rôle
in South American affairs out of all proportion to the size of their
country. Uruguay seems certain to continue to be the political
storm-centre of the Atlantic coast. Climate, soil, and geographical
position insure a rapid increase in population and wealth, while its
political independence must continue to be an object of constant
solicitude on the part of its gigantic neighbours, Argentina and Brazil.
Montevideo is a formidable trade rival to Buenos Aires, and must always
be, as it has so often been in the past, the base for any attach at the
heart of the Argentine Republic. To the north nothing but an artificial
boundary separates Uruguay from Rio Grande do Sul, and the two regions
are alike in everything except language. Should the Portuguese-Americans
again evince those tendencies toward expansion which distinguished them
in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Uruguay would be the
natural point of attack, and if Brazil should ever divide into its
component parts, as it came so near doing in 1822 and again in 1837, Rio
Grande and Uruguay might find it necessary to coalesce, or possibly wars
might ensue between them which would change the face of South America. A
not improbable alternative would be the establishment of a power on the
north bank of the Plate strong enough to hold its own, and which might
play the same rôle in the interaction of Spanish and Portuguese
Americans as did Flanders between the Teutons and Latins in Europe.
BRAZIL
CHAPTER I
PORTUGAL
The motherland of Brazil is Portugal. Profound as were the changes
incident to transplanting a people to a virgin continent;
notwithstanding Spanish dominion and Dutch conquests; large as were the
admixtures of negro, Indian, and alien blood; in spite of independence
and Republicanism; the language, customs, religion, and laws of Brazil
are to-day substantially like those of Portugal.
The parallel between the United States and Britain is not closer. Brazil
has diverged even less than her model. Her population may have a larger
admixture of non-Portuguese blood than the North Americans have of
non-British, but politically there was less opportunity for divergence,
for Brazil was kept under much closer subordination. The discovery of
Brazil coincided with the destruction of popular liberties in the
mother-country. Thereafter, the Portuguese government was a centralised
despotism, and its hand lay heavy on the Brazilian provinces. They were
forbidden intercourse with the rest of the world; functionaries of every
kind were continually imported; the provinces never dreamed of
asserting any right to self-government; from the beginning the system
was centralising and stifling. The North American colonies of England
were left to grow up by themselves; they were never under a colonial
government properly so called; a revolt followed the first serious
attempt to subject them to a real colonial régime. But the independence
of Brazil came because liberties were finally granted, not because they
were threatened to be taken away. The country remained under a tutelage,
growing continually more rigorous, and which ceased only after the
Portuguese monarch had fled from Lisbon and the colony had become
greater than the mother-country.
[Illustration: OUTLINE MAP OF BRAZIL]
It is, therefore, in the little peninsular kingdom, during the centuries
before Cabral caught sight of the South American coast, that we must
look for the beginnings of Brazil. Rome gave to Portugal laws, language,
religion, and architecture; the forests of Germany modified her
political institutions; the Saracens gave her the arts, navigation, and
material civilisation. Her happy geographical position near the Straits
of Gibraltar made her the meeting-place for the Mohammedan and Christian
religions--of Levantine civilisation with Teutonic barbarism and
liberty. That position also enabled the qualities of daring and
enterprise and the scientific knowledge acquired in centuries of long
conflicts and intercourse with the Moors to be turned to immediate
advantage when the Renaissance came. Portugal was the pioneer of Europe
in discovery and colonisation, though Spain followed close after.
Together they led in making Western European civilisation dominant
beyond seas. The nations who followed in their track have long since
passed them, but Portugal had once the opportunity of spreading her
influence and institutions over half the planet. In Brazil she mixed
success with the failure that was her fate elsewhere. Brazil is to-day
the nation which has inherited Roman civilisation in the least modified
form, and is the country where the genuine Latin spirit has the best
opportunity for growth and survival.
The study of Portugal takes on a new dignity and importance when we
reflect that she has given language, institutions, and laws to half of
South America and to a population that already outnumbers her own four
to one. She is entitled to the interest of the world if only because she
has placed her indelible imprint on a region which is as large as Europe
and as fertile as Java, and which is destined within the next two
centuries to support the largest population of any of the great
political divisions of the globe.
In the twelfth century, the coalescence of a fragment of the kingdom of
Leon with the Moorish territory near the mouth of the Tagus originated
Portugal as a separate country. The race was very mixed. Its principal
elements were the Leonese and the Mosarabes--the latter being the
Christians of Moorish Portugal left undisturbed from Visigothic times by
their tolerant Mohammedan conquerors. Each of these elements was, in its
turn, of mixed origin. To the original Iberian population, which had
occupied the Peninsula two thousand years before the Christian era, had
been successively added Phenicians, Greeks, Celts, Ligurians,
Carthaginians, Latins,--and in Roman times,--officials, soldiers, and
slaves from all over the empire, including many Jews. The long Roman
dominion welded all these together into a homogeneous mass. Later, the
Visigothic conquest added a large Teutonic contingent, which is
especially evident in northern and Leonese Portugal. Still later, the
Saracens intermarried in considerable numbers with the Mosarabes of
southern Portugal. After the formation of the modern kingdom, another
element was added in the French, Provençals, Flemings, and English who
came in large numbers to aid in the final expulsion of the Moors. By the
end of the fourteenth century, the Portuguese had become a distinct
nation. Racial and religious tolerance were more advanced than in the
rest of Europe; self-governing municipalities covered the greatest part
of the country, each privileged within a definite territory. The nobles,
prelates, and monastic and military orders were still privileged, and
their property was not subject to tribute, but their power was not
predominant. The king was chief of the army and the proprietor of a very
considerable proportion of the land, but he was under constant pressure
to grant it to the religious orders and to the nobles. The people were
everywhere heavily taxed--in the municipalities and Crown lands by the
king, and on the estates of the privileged orders for the benefit of
their great proprietors. The nobles were under no enforceable
obligation to perform military service. A great general deliberative and
representative assembly--the Cortes--had come into being when the
monarchy was founded. It included representatives of the municipalities
as well as nobles and clergy, and its importance and vitality are shown
by the fact that from 1250 to 1376 it met twenty-five times. By the
latter date, jurisprudence had become generalised and its administration
had fallen into the hands of the Crown. The nation had developed out of
local and class privilege a reasonably consistent and uniform
administration. The municipalities were the basis of the governmental
structure, and a rude but effective local self-government existed
through their instrumentality. The norm for the centralisation and
organisation had not been, as in nearly all the rest of Europe, the
feudal system, but the surviving fragments of the Roman structure. To
the municipalities was largely due the astonishing vigour shown by the
Portuguese people in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The norm
even survived the destruction of liberty, and its influence can be seen
in every step of the subsequent development of Portugal and also of
Brazil.
Portugal's heroic era began near the close of the fourteenth century.
The great King John I., founder of the dynasty of Aviz, secured Portugal
for ever from absorption by Spain when he won the battle of Aljubarrota
in 1385. This was the signal for a rapid transformation of the character
and policies of the Portuguese people. The thirst for war and adventure
grew. The old Portugal--laborious, agricultural, home-loving,
conservative--was replaced by a new Portugal--adventurous, seafaring,
eager, romantic, longing for conquest, glory, and wealth, its eyes
straining over the sea, the embodiment of the spirit of the Renaissance
on its material side. The meeting of the Levant and the Baltic, the East
and the West, Mohammedans and Christianity, the arts and knowledge of
the old races with the energy of the new, had at last produced its
perfect work. In 1415 an army was sent into Africa, and Ceuta was
conquered; and there began that marvellous series of voyages which not
only transformed Portugal into an empire, but gave a new world to Europe
and revolutionised the planet. Modern scientific navigation began with
the sailors instructed in the school which was set up at Sagres by
Prince Henry, King John's son. Until then, European nautical knowledge
had been very meagre. The compass served only to indicate direction, not
distance or position, and did not suffice for the systematic navigation
of the open Atlantic. The Portuguese first made that possible by using
astronomical observations and inventing the quadrant and the astrolabe.
This knowledge, once acquired, was promptly applied to the work of
navigation. Madeira was discovered in 1418; the Canaries in 1427; the
Azores in 1432. The first and last were colonised and rapidly became
populous. To the West the explorers pushed no farther for the present,
but to the south they reached Cape Blanco in 1441, Senegambia and Cape
Verde in 1445, and the Cape Verde Islands in 1460. In 1469, they turned
into the Gulf of Guinea, and in 1471 were the first Europeans to cross
the Equator. Their search, at first random, now became definite. They
believed it was only necessary to keep on and they would round the
southern extremity of Africa and reach Abyssinia and India by sea, a
hope which became a certainty in 1487, when Bartholomew Diaz finally
reached the Cape of Good Hope.
Meanwhile, a political revolution had been going on. The strong kings of
the line of Aviz had won for the Crown a moral preponderance over the
nobility and clergy. The latter resisted the royal encroachments, but
the municipalities joined the monarchs in the struggle against them. The
king who established centralised despotism--the Richelieu of
Portugal--was John II., the third of the Aviz dynasty, and who reigned
from 1481 to 1495. Under his rule, the whole military power was
concentrated in the Crown; the nobility became a class living at Court;
the king was the fountain of all honour and advancement; local officers
were replaced by officials appointed by and responsible to the central
government; piece by piece the independent functions of the
municipalities were taken away.
Concentration of power in the hands of monarch and bureaucracy produced
its inevitable effect. A short period of marvellous brilliancy in arms,
statecraft, literature, and the arts was followed by sudden decay. The
self-governing municipalities had nurtured a multitude of men whom small
power and responsibility fitted for great things. The nation turned
eagerly to the work of exploration and conquest and prosecuted it
efficiently.
Such a people would undertake conquest for their king, rather than
colonisation on their own account; they would emigrate under military
leadership and forms; their colonies would tolerate a close control by
the mother country; they would seek to convert the aborigines and reduce
them to slavery; private initiative would be stifled and overshadowed by
that of the government; large proprietorship would be the rule; the
colonies would be burdened with functionaries sent in successive swarms
from home; taxation would be excessive; the best talent would go into
the bureau and not concern itself with industrial matters; invention and
originality would be discouraged; agriculture would not be diversified,
nor manufactures thrive. To this day a few staple crops predominate in
Brazil; small landownership is the exception, and the people show little
aptitude for change when unfavourable circumstances make their crops
unprofitable. Brazilian Creoles have little taste for manual pursuits,
and not much more for commerce. Non-Portuguese immigration has supplied
most of the labour; foreigners have always conducted most of the trade.
CHAPTER II
DISCOVERY
On the 9th of March, 1500, Pedro Alvarez Cabral, a Portuguese nobleman
of illustrious birth, but not yet distinguished by any notable feats in
war or seamanship, sailed from Lisbon for the East Indies. This
expedition was sent out to continue the work begun by Vasco da Gama in
the first all-sea voyage to India. It was an advance-guard for the
larger armament that two years later founded the Portuguese empire on
the coasts of India. Vasco da Gama himself wrote Cabral's sailing
orders. The latter was instructed, after passing the Cape Verde Islands
in 14° North, to sail directly south, as long as the wind was
favourable. If forced to change his course, he was ordered to keep on
the starboard tack, even though it led him south-west. When he reached
the latitude of the Cape of Good Hope--34° South--he was to bear away to
the east.
These sailing instructions have been the subject of much discussion.
Many believe their sole purpose was to enable Cabral to avoid the Guinea
calms, so annoying to sailing ships near the African coast. Others
contend that Da Gama had seen signs of land to the west on his own
voyage, and that its discovery was a real, though secondary, object of
the expedition. In any event the Brazilian coast is too near the natural
route around Africa to have escaped encounter, and would infallibly have
shortly been seen by some one else.
[Illustration: OLD TOWER AT LISBON WHENCE THE FLEET SAILED.]
Forty-two days after leaving Lisbon, Cabral's fleet saw unmistakable
signs of land, being then in latitude 17 degrees south and longitude 36
degrees west. From the Cape Verde Islands, just off the western point of
Africa, he had made 2300 miles, and had come 500 miles to the west. The
next day a mountain was sighted, which he called Paschoal, because it
was Easter week. This mountain is in the southern part of the state of
Bahia, about four hundred miles north-east of Rio, and on a coast that
to this day is sparsely inhabited and rarely visited. The following day
the whole fleet came to an anchor a mile and a half from the shore, and
just north of the dangerous Abrolhos reefs. This was the 23rd of April,
Old Style, which corresponds with the 3rd of May in the Gregorian
calendar. The date is a national holiday in Brazil, and the anniversary
for the annual convening of Congress.
Because no quadrupeds or large rivers were seen, Cabral thought he had
discovered an island and named it the "Island of the True Cross." The
name has not survived except in poetry. He stopped ten days on the
coast, took formal possession, and sent expeditions on shore which
entered into communication with the Indians, who were seen in
considerable numbers. It is characteristic that the first question asked
of the Indians was if they knew what gold and silver were. They were
peaceable and friendly, and the old chronicle describes them as of a
dark reddish complexion with good features, and muscular, well-shaped
bodies. They wore no clothes, their lower lips and cheeks were
perforated to carry great ornaments of white bone, and their hair was
elaborately dressed and adorned with feathers.
These were fair specimens of the Tupi-Guaranies, the largest of the four
great families into which the Brazilian aborigines have been classified.
The others are the Caribs, the Arawaks, and the Botacudos. There are
also traces of tribes who inhabited the country remote centuries ago. In
caves in Minas Geraes skeletons have been found remarkably like those of
the earliest Europeans. The theory is that these Indians came from
Europe by land in that remote geological epoch when Scandinavia was
joined to Greenland. Later came Mongoloids, probably by way of the
Behring Strait, who appear largely to have exterminated their European
predecessors, and to have been the ancestors of the modern Indians.
When America was discovered, the four great families were spread in
scattering and widely differing tribes over the whole of Brazil and the
adjacent countries. Their state of culture varied from that of the most
squalid tribes of Botacudos, who had not even reached the Stone Age,
lived in brush shelters, slept in the ashes of their fires, practised
promiscuous marriage, and had no idea of religion except a fear of
malignant spirits; up to Arawaks, who were cleanly, had a well-defined
tribal organisation, and built marvellous canoes, or Tupis, who
cultivated the soil, built fair houses, used rude machinery for making
mandioc flour, spun cotton, wove cloth, and were good potters. But the
civilisation of the best of them was stationary. No Brazilian tribe ever
got beyond the condition where the struggle to obtain food was its sole
preoccupation. No civilisation like that of Mexico, Peru, or Yucatan
ever existed. Disaggregation, failure, and obliteration were the rule.
Organically unfitted to cope with their surroundings they never devised
a method of getting a good and permanent food-supply. Defective
nutrition sapped their powers to resist strains. Their muscular
appearance was not accompanied by corresponding endurance. Their
European taskmasters could never understand why they died from the
effects of exertion to which a white man would easily have been equal.
The vast majority had no regular agriculture and lived on the
spontaneous products of the forests and the streams. Land game is not
abundant in the tropics, and they had developed only few good food
plants. What they did procure was spoiled by bad preparation. Such a
people had no chance of successfully resisting the Portuguese invaders,
and their only hope of survival was in contact and admixture with the
more vigorous white and black races.
[Illustration: A TUPI VILLAGE.]
The Tupi-Guaranies occupied one-fourth of Brazil, all of Paraguay and
Uruguay, and much of Bolivia and the Argentine, and it is probable that
the original seats of this family were in the central table-lands or in
Paraguay. All Tupi Indians spoke dialects of one language, which the
Jesuit missionaries soon reduced to grammatical and literary form, and
which became a _lingua franca_ that was understood from the Plate to the
Amazon. Back of the coast Tupis were the Botacudos, the most degraded
and intractable of Brazilian savages, remnants of whom still survive in
their original seats in Espirito Santo, Minas, and São Paulo. The
Caribs, with whom students of the history of the Caribbean Sea are
familiar, originated in the plains of Goyaz and Matto Grosso and
emigrated as far north as the Antilles. The Arawaks were most numerous
in Guiana and on the Lower Amazon, but were also spread over central
Brazil.
The Brazilian Indians did not survive the white man's coming to as large
an extent as in Spanish-America. The pure Indian is found in Brazil only
in regions where the white man has not thought it worth while to take
possession, and the proportion of Indian blood is much smaller than in
surrounding countries. In many localities, evidences of Indian descent
are so rare as to be remarkable.
Cabral's voyage was the real discovery of Brazil, if we consider
historical and political consequences. It was the first reported to
Europe; and the Portuguese Crown immediately made formal claim to the
territory. But, as a matter of fact, land which to-day is a part of
Brazilian territory had been seen by Europeans before Cabral landed. In
January, 1500, Vincente Yanez Pinzon, who had commanded the _Niña_ on
the first voyage of Columbus, saw land in the neigbourhood of Cape St.
Roque. Bound westward, he bore away to the west and north, following the
prevailing winds and currents as far as the Orange Cape, the present
extreme northern limits of Brazil. He was, therefore, the discoverer of
the great estuary which forms the mouth of the Amazon. He named it the
"Fresh-Water Sea," because the great river freshens the open ocean far
out of sight of land, but he did not ascend, nor even see, the river
proper. It is also claimed on good evidence that, six months before
Pinzon, another Spanish navigator, Alonso de Ojeda, accompanied by
Amerigo Vespucci, had made the South American coast not far from Cape
St. Roque; and that a month later still another, Diego de Lepe, did the
same.
None of these Spanish voyages produced any results. They were not
reported until after the news of Cabral's discovery had been solemnly
promulgated to the Courts of Europe, and were soon forgotten. The honour
of making Brazil known to Europe belongs to Cabral just as certainly as
that of discovering America does to Columbus. The Spanish voyages are
interesting to antiquarians, but neither they nor the Norwegian voyages
of the eleventh century were followed up, or produced any permanent
results.
The news reached Portugal in the fall of 1500, and no time was lost in
sending out a small fleet to ascertain definitely the extent, value, and
resources of the region. The Portuguese hoped to find a wealthy and
civilised population like that of India--rich and unwarlike nations,
such as the Spaniards did encounter a few years later in Peru and
Mexico. The exploring expedition was under the command of Amerigo
Vespucci, the greatest technical navigator of the age. He shaped his
course so as to keep to the windward and south of the redoubtable
promontory of St. Roque, which the clumsy ships of that day could not
weather in the teeth of the trade-winds and the equatorial current, and,
turning to the south, made a systematic examination of the coast nearly
as far as the river Plate, employing five months in the task. In naming
the rivers, capes and harbours, he saved his inventive faculty and
gratified the popular religious sentiment by calling each one by the
name of the saint on whose anniversary it was reached. Most of these
names have survived. For example, the São Francisco, the largest river
between the Amazon and the Plate, is so called because Vespucci reached
it on October 1, 1501, which date is sacred to St. Francis in the Roman
calendar. Rio de Janeiro is so named because he saw the great bay, whose
entrance is narrower than many rivers, on New Year's Day, 1501. He
coasted along for two thousand miles, looking eagerly for gold, silver,
spices, and civilised inhabitants. He was disappointed. The only thing
found which seemed to have an immediate market value was brazil-wood--a
dye-wood that had been used in Europe for centuries and was in great
demand. Its colour was a bright red--hence its name, which means "wood
the colour of fire." It was found in such abundance that the world's
supply has since been drawn from this coast, and among sailors and
merchants the country soon became known as "the Country of Brazil-wood."
The name almost immediately supplanted "Santa Cruz." Vespucci saw that
the country was fertile and the climate pleasant. This was not enough to
satisfy his greedy employers. A government whose coffers were beginning
to overflow with the profits of the Indian spice-trade and the African
mines was not inclined to pay much attention to a region without the
precious metals, and inhabited only by naked savages. The reports of the
abundance of brazil-wood, however, induced private adventurers to go and
cut that valuable commodity. The government declared it a Portuguese
monopoly, but the high price of the article made the trade so enormously
profitable, that ships of other nationalities, especially French, could
not be excluded.
The coast soon became well known, but the Portuguese government did not
extend its explorations to the south. It was left to the Spaniards to
find the passage into the Pacific Ocean and to explore the tributaries
of the Plate. The southern extension of the continent became and remains
Spanish. No exact records exist of the earliest Portuguese explorations
of the northern coast from Cape St. Roque to the mouth of the Amazon. We
only know that some Portuguese ships navigated those waters and that
Spain never seriously disputed Portugal's title to that region.
For thirty years Brazil remained unsettled, though the fleets going to
the East Indies often stopped in its admirable harbours to refit and
take water. Private adventurers came for brazil-wood and the French
poached more and more frequently. Soon the latter began to establish
little factories to which they returned year after year, and got on good
terms with the aborigines. It became evident that Portugal must
establish fortified, self-sustaining posts if she expected to retain the
territory.
CHAPTER III
DESCRIPTION
Cabral's discovery bequeathed to the Portuguese race one of the largest,
most productive, and valuable political divisions of the globe. The area
is 3,150,000 square miles--larger than the United States without Alaska,
and surpassed only by the British, Russian, Chinese, and American
empires. From north to south it extends 2600 miles, and east and west
2700. Lying across the equator and traversed by no very high mountain
ranges, its climate is more uniform than any other equally large
inhabited region, but its extent is so immense that there are very
considerable variations.
Compact in form, with a continuous seacoast, unsurpassable harbours, and
a great extension of navigable rivers, water communication between the
different parts is easy and the danger of dismemberment by external
attack a minimum. Occupying the central portion of South America it
touches all the other countries of the continent except Chile, uniting
them geographically, and to a large extent controlling land
communication among them. It is nearer Europe and Africa than any other
South American country, and is also on the direct route between the
North Atlantic and both coasts of South America. Situated in latitudes
where evaporation and precipitation are largest, where the trade-winds
unfailingly bring moisture from the Atlantic, and on the eastern and
windward slope of the narrowest of the continents, Brazil has the
steadiest and most uniformly distributed rainfall of any large part of
the globe.
The exuberance of life in Brazil must be seen to be realised. The early
voyagers related the wonder and admiration which they felt. Amerigo
Vespucci said that if Paradise did exist on this planet it could not be
far from the Brazilian coast. Agassiz believed that the future centre of
the civilisation of the world would be in the Amazon valley. The plants
useful for food, and in industry, commerce, and medicine, are
innumerable. Nowhere except in Ceylon does the palm flourish so. There
are more plants indigenous to Brazil than to any other country, and many
species, like coffee, transplanted there have doubled in productiveness.
Indian corn and mandioc were already cultivated by the Indians when
Cabral landed, and both upland and lowland rice grew wild. The soil
lends itself kindly to any kind of culture, and in most cases two crops
may be reaped annually. In a word the subsoil, the soil, the atmosphere,
the forests, and the waters of Brazil are teeming with life and full of
potential wealth--too much so, perhaps, for the most wholesome
development of the human race.
[Illustration: A GARDEN IN PETROPOLIS.]
The most extensive and the least-developed part of Brazil is the Amazon
valley. The Brazilian portion of the Amazon basin comprises forty-five
per cent. of the whole territory of the republic. The northern and
south-eastern borders slope up to the surrounding mountains, but the
rest is an early level plain, little elevated above the sea. The plains
are covered with dense forests, much of the country is frequently
flooded, and communication is only possible by the streams. In their
neighbourhood the climate is in many localities unhealthful, and is
everywhere tropical and rainy. Back from the rivers is an unexplored and
unknown wilderness. The Amazon with its tributaries forms the greatest
of all navigable fluvial systems. Ten thousand seven hundred miles are
already known to be suitable for navigation by steamboats, and four
thousand eight hundred more for smaller boats.
It is in the narrow coast-plain on the Atlantic, and in the high regions
lying to the east and south of the great central depression, that the
Brazilian people live.
The main orographical feature of non-Amazonian Brazil is the great
mountain system which extends uninterruptedly from the northern coast
through the whole country. This continental uplift corresponds to the
Andes on the west coast, just as the Apalachians do to the Rockies in
North America. Its relative importance is many times greater on account
of its great width, and because a broad plateau nearly connects it with
the Andes between the headwaters of the Amazon and Plate river systems.
The joint result is that two-thirds of Brazil is high enough to have a
moderate and healthful climate, but the cataracts in the rivers and the
steep escarpments of the mountains make it difficult of access.
The promontory of South America which reaches out to the north-east,
looking in a direct line to the western extremity of Africa, is a region
of gentle slopes, of wide, sparsely wooded plateaux, and of
brush-covered hills. At long intervals, the interior is subject to
severe drouths. The soil is fertile as a rule and the rainfall generally
sufficient for cereal crops. Nearing the sea precipitation increases,
and cotton and sugar thrive. The mountain ranges rarely exceed three
thousand feet in height, and lie far back from the coast, from which the
country slopes up gradually. This region was the first in Brazil to
contain a large population, and the Dutch fought hard for it during the
seventeenth century. In its area of 430,000 square miles seven of the
Brazilian states are included--Maranhão, Piauhy, Ceará, Rio Grande do
Norte, Parahyba, Pernambuco, and Alagoas. The promontory of St. Roque,
where the coast turns from an east-and-west direction to a
north-and-south, marks a commercial division. Sailing vessels found it
difficult to round this cape from the north, and consequently the
commercial relations of Maranhão, Piauhy, and Ceará have been rather
with the Amazon than southern Brazil. South of St. Roque the region is
most easily accessible from Europe and is on the direct line of
communication between both sides of the North Atlantic and the coasts to
the south.
The region drained by the Tocantins and Araguaya very nearly corresponds
with the state of Goyaz. It is the western slope of the Brazilian
Cordillera, and differs radically from the Amazonian plain, which it
adjoins. As one ascends the Tocantins and Araguaya from their mouths in
the Amazon estuary the altitude rapidly rises and navigation is quickly
interrupted by cataracts. In the south the level rises to over four
thousand feet, and the climate shows a considerable range of
temperature, with the thermometer sometimes falling below freezing in
the higher mountains. Though the area is 350,000 square miles, the
population hardly reaches a quarter of a million, and has not been
increasing rapidly since the exhaustion of the alluvial gold deposits.
Roughly speaking, it may be described as a region well adapted to cattle
and agriculture, and composed of high, open, rolling plateaux traversed
by low mountain ranges and well-wooded river valleys.
The next natural division comprises the oval depression lying between
the great central watershed and the high range which runs straight north
from Rio within a few hundred miles of the coast. This is the São
Francisco valley. Politically and commercially connected is the adjacent
coast-plain. Valley and plain are divided into the four states of Minas,
Bahia, Sergipe, and Espirito Santo, with 430,000 square miles and
6,000,000 inhabitants. In the coast-plain the rainfall is greater than
farther north, and the soil is very fertile, producing not only cotton,
sugar, and tobacco, but coffee, maize, and mandioc. The slopes are more
abrupt and the mountains begin closer to the sea. The interior is a
great plateau traversed by high mountain ranges and the tributaries of
the São Francisco River. Most of this plateau is included in the great
state of Minas, the most populous member of the Brazilian union, which
is agriculturally self-sufficing, and one of the great mineral regions
of the world. The rainfall is abundant, the climate is healthful and
bracing, the birth-rate is large, and the region is admirably adapted to
the white races. Its general character is a rolling plateau, three to
four thousand feet above the ocean, forming extensive, treeless plains,
which are interspersed with wooded mountain chains, river valleys, and
extensive tracts of brush-land. The European who visits the São
Francisco valley is astonished to find a country where the climate is
temperate and the soil fitted to the production of all sorts of food
crops including the cereals, and where, nevertheless, proximity to the
equator makes practicable a multiplicity of crops in a single year. The
coast-plain, which forms the greatest part of Bahia, Sergipe, and
Espirito Santo, is fertile, but the climate is enervating to Europeans,
and the proportion of black blood there is the largest in Brazil.
About the twentieth degree the mountains approach close to the coast,
and from Victoria south to the thirtieth degree the Atlantic border of
Brazil is steep and mountainous, often rising directly from the sea to a
height of two thousand to six thousand feet. It is a coast of splendid
harbours and magnificent scenery. The drainage is mostly inland into the
Plate system, and water falling within a dozen miles of the ocean flows
2500 miles before reaching the sea.
To this rule there is but one important exception--the Parahyba River,
the basin of which is practically coterminous with the state of Rio de
Janeiro and the federal district. This state is commercially and
politically very important, although its area is small. The surface is
very mountainous and the soil mostly inferior to that of the divisions
to the north and south. However, it is still an immense producer of
coffee and sugar. Its geographical situation and great harbour have made
it the most thickly settled part of the country. The rainfall is very
large, especially on the mountains nearest the sea, which are covered
with magnificent forests. The coast-plain is warm though not
unhealthful, save in the vicinity of the infected city of Rio, and in
the higher regions the climate is delightful and in temperature almost
European. The northern boundary is the Mantiqueira range which divides
the Parahyba basin from the valleys of the Paraná and São Francisco.
This range is the highest in Brazil, and its culminating
peak--Itatiaya--is ten thousand feet high, though it is only seventy
miles from the sea. Slightly lower ranges lie between the Mantiqueira
and the ocean, and of these the highest is Pedro d'Assu--7365
feet--which overlooks Rio harbour, only twenty miles away.
The Brazilian portion of the great Paraná valley presents a remarkable
uniformity of general characteristics. Bordering the sea is a range of
mountains, or rather the abrupt escarpment of the plateau, some three
thousand feet high. From its summit the surface slopes gently to the
west, draining into the Paraná by a hundred streams, many of which are
navigable in their middle courses. This great plateau--with its area of
about 250,000 square miles--is mostly treeless toward the north, but in
the south is covered with pine forests. It lies in the temperate zone
and snow sometimes falls on the higher peaks and _chapadas_ of São
Paulo. The soil is remarkably fertile, and this is the coffee region
_par excellence_ of the world. A coffee tree in São Paulo produces two
to four times as much as in other parts of the globe. Food crops grow
well, and the country might be economically independent of the rest of
the world. The contour of the country is favourable to railroad-building
and the region is easily penetrable. From their settlements on the
seaward border of this plateau the Paulistas of the seventeenth century
roamed over the whole interior of South America, enslaving the Indians
and driving out the Spanish Jesuits. The rainfall diminishes toward the
interior, and there is an ill-defined limit where it ceases to be
sufficient for coffee. The coffee district is also limited by the
lowering of average temperature with increasing latitude. The three
states of São Paulo, Paraná, and Santa Catharina contain most of the
region under description, but south-western Minas and extreme southern
Goyaz also belong to it.
The great plateau gradually dies away to the south ending with a low
escarpment across the state of Rio Grand do Sul. Physically and
geographically, this State is different from the rest of Brazil. Most
of its area is drained by the Uruguay River, and its natural relations
and affinities are with the republic of that name. Rio Grande's
ninety-five thousand square miles contain over a million inhabitants,
and the open, rolling plains, nowhere much elevated above the sea, are
excellently adapted to cattle. The northern portion is higher, more
broken, and more wooded than the southern, and agriculture has made
greater progress. The climate is distinctly that of the temperate
zone--hot in summer, cold in winter, and subject to sudden variations on
account of the winds which sweep up from the vast Argentine pampas. The
inhabitants are big, vigorous, and hardy, and great riders. All the
products of the temperate zone, including the cereals, flourish, and
this part of Brazil seems destined to great things in the near future.
From Bolivia around to Uruguay sweeps in a great semicircle, convex to
the north, a plateau that nearly unites the Andes with the Eastern
Cordillera, and forms the watershed between the Amazon and the Plate.
Its eastern horn has already been described as forming the states of São
Paulo, Paraná, and Santa Catharina; its western and central portions
form the great interior state of Matto Grosso. Here the headwaters of
the Madeira, Tapajos, and Xingu, tributaries of the Amazon, intertwine
with those of the Paraguay and Paraná. The narrow depression which the
Upper Paraguay forms across it is the only portion that has yet been
described. The rest of the 410,000 square miles of Matto Grosso is
abandoned to Indians and wild beasts. Only enough is known of these
solitudes to prove that in the centre of the continent exists a
well-watered, fertile, and healthful region, capable of sustaining an
immense population, but which is shut off from development by lack of
means of communication. The northwestern part could be reached from the
Amazon if the Falls of the Madeira could be overcome, a route which
would also open up a great and now inaccessible portion of Bolivia.
CHAPTER IV
EARLY COLONISATION
The permanent settlement of Brazil was begun by deserters and mutineers
set on shore from ships on their way to India or to cut brazil-wood. In
1509 a certain Diego Alvarez, nicknamed by the Indians "Caramuru," or
"man of lightning," landed at Bahia and escaped being eaten by
frightening the Indians with his musket. He married a chief's daughter,
and when a real colony was established years later he and his numerous
half-breed descendants proved of great use to his compatriots. Two years
later John Ramalho did much the same near Santos, hundreds of miles to
the south. The story of the last of the three authentic _degradados_ is
even more romantic. His name was Aleixo Garcia, and with three
companions he landed about 1526 in the present state of Santa Catharina.
Collecting an army of Indians he led them on a conquering and
gold-hunting expedition over the coast-range, across the great plateau,
into the valley of the Paraguay, and even penetrated ten years before
Pizarro into territory tributary to the Incas of Peru. He finally
perished in the centre of the continent, but when, years afterwards, the
Spaniards penetrated the valley of the Paraná they found that the
Indians already knew of white men and firearms.
As early as 1516 the Portuguese government offered to give farming
utensils free to settlers in Brazil, and it is probable that shortly
afterwards some sugar was planted. The first serious and official effort
to cultivate sugar was made in 1526. Christovão Jaques founded a factory
on the island of Itamarica, a few miles north of Pernambuco. It was
shortly destroyed by the French brazil-wood hunters, and the settlers
fled to the site of Pernambuco and renewed the effort pending the
arrival of re-enforcements. Seekers of brazil-wood hailing from Honfleur
and Dieppe were swarming along the coast. The value of the region for
sugar raising began to be appreciated. When the news came of the failure
of the Spanish expedition which Cabot had led to the Plate, the
Portuguese government determined to fit out a considerable expedition,
composed of colonists and families as well as soldiers and adventurers.
Seduced by the cry, "We are going to the Silver River," four hundred
persons enlisted. The five vessels were commanded by Martim Affonso da
Souza, a great general and navigator, who had already proved his
capacity and who later went to the very top in the East Indian wars. He
was instructed to expel all intruders and establish a permanent
fortified colony. Early in 1531 he reached the coast near Pernambuco,
captured three French ships laden with brazil-wood, and sent two
caravels north to explore the coast beyond Cape St. Roque, while he
himself sailed south with the idea of founding a colony on the Plate.
But after passing Santa Catharina he was unfortunate in losing his
largest ship with most of his provisions, and deemed it safer to return
toward the north. At São Vicente, now a little town near the great
coffee port of Santos, he dropped anchor, and there, January, 1532,
founded the first Portuguese colony in Brazil. Near this point lived the
solitary Portuguese, John Ramalho, surrounded by his half-breed
descendants, and he gave his countrymen a glad reception. He soon showed
them the way up the mountains to the high plateau which begins only a
few miles from the sea. Another settlement was founded on these fertile
plains near the site of the present city of São Paulo.
In the west of Brazil the settlements were established at a striking
distance from the coast, but in São Paulo the colonists could more
easily spread over the open plains of the interior than along the
mountainous coast. On top of their plateau they were cut off from ready
communication with the mother country; they struck out for themselves,
and their development was something like that of the British in North
America. They were the pioneers of Brazil, corresponding closely in
character and habits, in the virtues of daring, hospitality, and
self-confidence, and in the vices of cruelty, rudeness, and ignorance,
with the pioneers of the Mississippi valley.
The Paulistas were all profoundly influenced by their intimate
association with the Indian tribes. In the early days intermarriages
were frequent, but the continual re-enforcement of the European
element, and the inferiority in capacity of reproduction which the
Indian has shown in Brazil, make the traces of that intermixture hard to
discover at the present time. The Paulistas and their descendants in the
interior states are taller, slenderer, darker, and more active and
graceful than the modern Portuguese. Their hands and feet are smaller,
their movements more nervous, their manners more self-confident.
The successful founding of a considerable colony in Brazil aroused
interest at home, and many courtiers solicited the Crown for grants. It
was decided to partition the whole coast into feudal fiefs, each
proprietor undertaking the expenses of colonisation and being given
virtually sovereign powers in return for a tax on the expected
production. Each of these "captaincies" measured fifty leagues along the
coast, and extended indefinitely into the interior. In 1534 twelve such
fiefs were created, covering the whole coast from the mouth of the
Amazon to the island of Santa Catharina--these being the points where
the Tordesillas line met the seaboard.
Six of these proprietors succeeded in establishing permanent colonies.
Martim Affonso's settlement has already been described. In 1536 his
brother, Pero Lopes, established Santo Amaro within a few miles of São
Vicente. Naturally its history soon became confounded with that of the
larger settlement. Duarte Coelho founded Pernambuco in 1535, and in it
was soon absorbed Itamarica, the second of the two colonies founded by
Pero Lopes in 1536. The other three permanent settlements were
Victoria, the nucleus of the present state of Espirito Santo, Porto
Seguro, and Ilheos. No one of them prospered, and their territories are
still among the most backward parts of the Brazilian coast. The donatory
of the territory which included the bay of Bahia, started a town, but it
was destroyed by Indians. The other five captaincies were not taken hold
of seriously by their proprietors. The four nuclei for the settlement of
Brazil were São Paulo, Pernambuco, and the later colonies of Bahia and
Rio de Janeiro.
Martim Affonso recked little of his fief or its revenues and left his
Paulistas to work out their own destiny. Pernambuco was on the track of
every ship which came to South America, the neighbouring interior was
level and easily accessible from the coast, the soil and climate were
suitable for sugar, and from the beginning relations with the mother
country were intimate and continuous. Its proprietor, Duarte Coelho,
determined to devote himself to his colony, and he personally headed a
numerous and carefully selected colonising expedition. He spent the rest
of his life there, and died twenty years later, surrounded by a large
and prosperous colony, which was already a self-supporting state with
all the elements of permanence. A good business man and liberal for that
age, he granted land on easy terms; its possession was secure;
contributions were moderate; and he resolutely defended himself and his
grantees from the exactions of the Crown.
The Portuguese occupation of Brazil was induced solely by commercial
considerations. Explorers and emigrants went out to make their fortunes,
not to escape religious or political tyranny. When the first voyagers
were disappointed in not finding gold mines, they turned their attention
to brazil-wood. Soon the suitability of the territory for sugar was
discovered. The European demand for this luxury was increasing, and the
Portuguese had become familiar with its culture in Africa. Cane was
taken from Madeira and the Cape Verdes to Brazil before 1525, and there
is a record of exportation at least as early as 1526. Here was found the
basis for the real colonisation. From the very start the industry
prospered in Pernambuco, and Brazil became the main source of the
world's supply.
Near Pernambuco little trouble was experienced with the Indians. Many of
the tribes were allies of the Portuguese, though the fierce Aymorés
fought the settlers and once reduced the infant colony to the verge of
destruction. Although the law of Portugal forbade the enslavement of
Indians except as a punishment for crime, they were reduced to bondage
on a large scale in Pernambuco, and the Paulistas never paid any
attention to this prohibition.
By the middle of the sixteenth century Brazil contained one rapidly
expanding colony of sugar-planters, Pernambuco, which gave sure promise
of wealth if not attacked from without,--a half dozen moribund
settlements on the thousand miles of coast to the south, and an isolated
but vigorous and self-sufficing group in São Paulo, whose inhabitants
produced little for export, but who were reducing the aborigines to
slavery in an expanding circle. In the last there was a considerable
proportion of Indian blood and in the first a large number of negroes.
The smaller captaincies were little more than resorts for pirates and
contraband traders in brazil-wood. The settlers were powerless to
prevent the French expeditions which yearly became more numerous.
Serious apprehensions were felt that the French would occupy the coast
and make Brazil a basis for attacks on Portugal's African and Indian
empires.
The best blood of the Portuguese nation was being drained away in
exhausting wars and expeditions to India and Africa; absolute government
was sapping civic vitality; the extravagances of Court and nobles were
impoverishing the country. However, enough vitality remained, before the
terrific destruction of Portuguese power and pride at Alcacer-Kibir in
1580, to secure such a firm establishment of the Portuguese race on the
whole coast of Brazil that it never has been dislodged, and only once
seriously threatened. This result was largely due to the founding of a
strong military and naval post at Bahia, around which grew up a
prosperous colony, and under whose protection Pernambuco spread out over
the north-east coast, São Paulo developed uninterruptedly, and Rio Bay
was saved from the French.
The first proprietary settlement in Bahia Bay had been destroyed by the
Indians, but this magnificent and central harbour was manifestly the
most convenient point whence to send assistance to the other
settlements and guard the whole coast. In 1549 the king determined to
build a fortress and city there. Thomas de Souza, the illegitimate scion
of a great house, was chosen the first governor-general. He sailed in
April, 1549, with six vessels, and accompanied by three hundred and
twenty officials and a number of colonists. The new capital commanded
the entrance to a magnificent inland sea which offered splendid
facilities for the establishment of a flourishing state. Bahia Bay is
nearly a hundred miles in circumference; its shores are fertile and
penetrated by rivers; each plantation has its own wharves. Within a few
months a town of a hundred houses had been built, surrounded by a wall
and defended by batteries; a cathedral, a custom house, a Jesuit
college, and a governor's residence were under way.
Thomas de Souza was instructed to strike at the root of the difficulties
that were supposed to have prevented the success of the proprietary
captaincies. He was the direct representative of the king and had
supreme supervisory power. Other officers, however, were associated with
him who were independently responsible in judicial, financial, and naval
matters. He was closely bound by instructions covering every detail that
could be foreseen, and these instructions clearly show the centralising
and jealous spirit of Portuguese institutions and ideas.
Few Portuguese of that age were capable of rising to an appreciation of
the economical advantages of freedom. The liberal concessions to the
original proprietors--free trade with the mother country, the right of
communication with foreign countries, and judicial and administrative
independence--availed nothing. Neither colonists, proprietors, nor the
central government could understand or apply them. Brazil was subjected
to a systematic and continually more rigorous exploitation by the home
government, and to the irresponsible and uncontrolled military despotism
of little satraps.
[Illustration: BAHIA.]
In Bahia, as in Pernambuco, the sugar industry prospered from the
beginning. Bahia is close to Africa and navigation across is safe and
easy. The importation of blacks began immediately, and the port
continued to be the greatest _entrepôt_ and distributing point for the
trade during three centuries. Bahia's population is more largely black
than that of any other city in Brazil, and the pure African type is
frequently seen on its streets. The local cuisine includes many dishes
of African origin, and the local dialect many African words. Certain
African dialects are spoken to this day, and a few Mohammedan negroes
there still perform the rites of the Koran in the most absolute secrecy.
The municipal government of the town, though under the overshadowing
power of the governor, showed some vitality and independence. The
fertile island of Itaparica, just opposite the city, had been granted to
the mother of a minister. Though the donation was repeatedly confirmed
by the king himself, she and her heirs were never able to put their
agents in possession. The municipal council successfully insisted that
the original royal instructions to the governor required all grantees to
occupy their estates in person.
CHAPTER V
THE JESUITS
One of John III.'s strongest reasons for undertaking a more extensive
colonisation of Brazil was the pious conviction that it was his
Christian duty to promote the dissemination of the true religion in
dominions which he owed to the gift of the Holy Father. He was the first
and most steadfast friend of the Jesuits, then just organised and San
Francisco Xavier, the Apostle of the East Indies, was sent out to one
hemisphere, while the conversion of the Brazilian aborigines was
determined upon in the other. With Thomas de Souza sailed an able
Jesuit, Manuel Nobrega, accompanied by several other Fathers. They began
a carefully planned campaign to convert the Indians and, incidentally,
to exploit them in the interests of the Order.
It is impossible not to admire the courage, shrewdness, and devotion of
the Jesuits. They went out alone among the savage tribes, living with
them, learning their languages, preaching to them, captivating their
imaginations by the pomp of religious paraphernalia and processions,
baptising them, and exhorting them to abandon cannibalism and polygamy.
Tireless and fearless, they plunged into an interior hitherto
unpenetrated by white men. The reports they made to their superiors
frequently afford the best information that is yet extant as to the
customs of the Indians and the resources of the regions they explored.
The Indians were easily induced to conform to the externals of the
Christian cult. Wherever the Jesuits penetrated, the aborigines soon
adopted Christianity, but to hold the Indians to Christianity the
Fathers were obliged to fix them to the soil. As soon as a tribe was
converted, a rude church building was erected, and a Jesuit installed,
who remained to teach agriculture and the arts as well as ritual and
morals. His moral and intellectual superiority made him perforce an
absolute ruler in miniature. Thus that strange theocracy came into
being, which, starting on the Brazilian coast, spread over most of
central South America. In the early part of the seventeenth century the
theocratic seemed likely to become the dominant form of government south
of the Amazon and east of the Andes.
The Jesuit wanted the Indian to himself, and fought against the
interference or enslavement by the lay Portuguese. The colonists wanted
the Indians to work on their plantations, to incorporate them as slaves,
or in some analogous capacity, with the white man's industrial and civil
organisation. The home government stood by the Jesuits, but the
colonists constantly evaded restrictions and steadily fought the
priests. The encouragement of the negro slave trade was an attempt at a
compromise--intended to induce the colonists to leave the Indians alone
by furnishing another supply of labour.
Primarily, at least, the Jesuit purpose was altruistic, though the
material advantages and the fascination of exercising authority were
soon potent motives. The Jesuits gave the South American Indian the
greatest measure of peace and justice he ever enjoyed, but they reduced
him to blind obedience and made him a tenant and a servant. Though
virtually a slave, he was, however, little exposed to infection from the
vices and diseases of civilisation; he was not put at tasks too hard for
him; and under Jesuit rule he prospered. On the other hand, if this
system had prevailed there would have been little white immigration, the
Indian race would have remained in possession of the country, and real
civilisation would never have gained a foothold.
Immediately after the founding of Bahia, Nobrega sent members of the
Order to the other colonies. He himself visited Pernambuco, where the
stout old proprietor met him with effective opposition. Duarte did not
welcome a clergy responsible solely to a foreign corporation, and over
which he could have no control. In Bahia and the south the Jesuits,
however, prospered amazingly. In São Paulo they laboured hard, spread
widely, converted a large number of Indians, and perfected their system,
but it was there they came most sharply in conflict with the spirit of
individualism, and there they suffered their first and most crushing
overthrow.
[Illustration: PADRE JOSE DE ANCHIETA.
[From an old wood-cut.]]
Thomas de Souza laboured diligently during the four years of his
administration, fortifying posts, driving away contraband traders,
dismissing incompetent officials, and even building jails and
straightening streets where the local authorities had neglected them. He
visited all the captaincies south of Bahia and entered Rio Bay, then the
principal rendezvous for the French privateers and traders. He
appreciated its strategic and commercial importance, and was only
prevented by lack of means from establishing a strong post there. In São
Paulo he prohibited the flourishing trade which had grown with the
Spaniards in Paraguay and Buenos Aires. Duarte da Costa, his successor,
was accompanied by a large re-enforcement of Jesuits. Among them was
Anchieta, one of the most notable men in the history of the Order, whose
genius, devotion, and pertinacious courage laid the foundations of
Jesuit power so deeply in South America that its effects remain to this
day. This remarkable man was born in Teneriffe, the son of a banished
nobleman, who had married a native of the island. Educated at home, from
his infancy he showed marvellous talents. At fourteen, his father, not
daring to risk his son's life in Spain, sent him to the Portuguese
University at Coimbra. His career was so brilliant, the reputation he
acquired for profound and ready intelligence, his eloquence, and his
pure and elevated ideals so remarkable, that he attracted the attention
of Simon Rodrigues, John III.'s great Jesuit minister, who, like all the
leaders of the Order, was on the watch for talented young men. The
ardent youth was easily convinced that no career was so glorious as
that of a missionary, and when only twenty years old he solicited and
obtained permission to go to Brazil. Nobrega, the Provincial, selected
him to go to São Paulo and establish a school to train neophytes and
proselytes into evangelists. His own letter to Nobrega best tells what a
life he found and what sort of man he was:
"Here we are, sometimes more than twenty of us together in a little
hut of mud and wicker, roofed with straw, fourteen paces long and
ten wide. This is at once the school, the infirmary, dormitory,
refectory, kitchen, and store-room. Yet we covet not the more
spacious dwellings which our brethren have in other parts. Our Lord
Jesus Christ was in a far straiter place when it was His pleasure
to be born among beasts in a manger, and in a still straiter when
He deigned to die upon the cross."
They herded together to keep warm, for in winter it is cold on the São
Paulo plateau. They had no food except the mandioc flour, fish, and game
which the Indians gave them. To the little college came Creoles and
half-breeds and learned Latin, Portuguese, Spanish, and Tupi. Anchieta
was indefatigable. Within a year he had acquired a complete mastery of
the Indian tongue, and had devised a grammar for it. He wrote his own
text-books, and employed his great poetical talents in composing hymns
and verses to be chanted to the pupils, recounting the stories of Holy
Scripture. He visited the most savage tribes in person, and acquired a
marvellous moral supremacy over them. When the Tamoyos attacked the
Portuguese, and the destruction of all the southern settlements seemed
inevitable, he fearlessly went to the Indian camps and persuaded the
chiefs to consent to a truce while he remained among them three years as
a hostage to guarantee its faithful performance by his countrymen. The
savages regarded him as more than human, and tradition tells of the
miracles he performed. It is related that during these three years of
solitary captivity he composed, without the aid of pen or paper, his
Latin "Hymn to the Virgin," celebrated as one of the masterpieces of
ecclesiastical poetry.
He and his companions did not disdain to labour with their hands. They
used the spade and trowel, made their own shoes, taught the Indians
agriculture, introduced new plants from Europe, practised medicine, and
studied the botany, topography, and geology of the country. The villages
of converted Indians under their government and protection rapidly
spread over the São Paulo plains, and they were refuges for Indians
flying from slavery on the plantations. The colonists pursued their
fugitive slaves, and soon were at open war with the Jesuits. In the
course of this conflict the original half-breed settlement on the
plateau was destroyed and the lay Portuguese came near being wiped out.
Peace was temporarily patched up, but the Paulistas soon turned the
tables and compelled the Jesuits to devote themselves to their
educational institutions in the towns, or to withdraw farther and
farther into the wilderness.
CHAPTER VI
FRENCH OCCUPATION OF RIO
During Duarte's administration troubles with the Indians broke out along
the whole coast. In Bahia itself the new governor had disobeyed the
orders of the home government to protect the Indians. He joined with the
colonists in exploiting them. A formidable Indian conspiracy was formed
and the settlements on both sides of the city were simultaneously
attacked. Many farms and villages were sacked, but soon the Indians were
finally and crushingly defeated. The coast towns of São Paulo were
menaced by a great confederation of tribes who used war canoes and had
learned to overcome their terror of firearms. At Espirito Santo the
Indian slaves rose _en masse_, killed most of the Portuguese, and
destroyed the sugar plantations.
A more serious danger was the settlement of the French at Rio de
Janeiro. They had formed friendly relations with the Indians, and the
name of Frenchman was sufficient to insure good treatment from most of
the tribes, while that of Portuguese was a signal for its bearer to be
killed and devoured. This was the epoch of the religious wars in
France, and the traders to Brazil came mostly from Huguenot ports.
Admiral Coligny conceived the idea of establishing a Huguenot settlement
in South America, and Rio was chosen as the most available site. In 1555
a considerable expedition was sent under the command of Nicolas
Villegagnon, a celebrated adventurer, who had distinguished himself in
escorting Mary Queen of Scots from France to Scotland. He fortified the
island in Rio harbour that still bears his name--a barren rock which
commanded the entrance and was safe from attacks by land. The French
kept on good terms with the neighbouring Indians, and remained
unmolested by the Portuguese for four years. But Villegagnon was not
faithful to his employers, though most of his party were Protestants,
and Huguenot leaders had furnished the money for the expedition. He
quarrelled with the Huguenots and finally gave up the command and
returned to France in the Guise interest. Coligny's project of
establishing a new and Protestant France in South America lost its very
good chance of success. It is interesting to conjecture what would have
been the history of Brazil if Villegagnon had stuck to the Huguenot
side. In all probability re-enforcements would have been sent, and St.
Bartholomew's Day--fourteen years later--might have been followed by a
great emigration like that which went to New England during the Laud
persecution. Rio and perhaps the whole of South Brazil would have become
a French possession or a French-speaking state.
Not until 1558 was a strong and able Portuguese governor selected, and
vigorous measures taken to expel the French. The new governor was Mem da
Sa, a nobleman of the highest birth, a soldier, a scholar, and an
experienced administrator. His name will always be associated with the
establishment of the Portuguese power in Brazil on a footing firm and
broad enough to enable it to withstand the Dutch attacks and the lean
years of Spanish domination.
Upon his arrival he took measures to quiet the Indian slavery question
by reducing the import duties on black slaves and by aiding each planter
to acquire as many negroes as he needed to work his plantation. When his
ships and armament arrived he proceeded to the south. He found that the
French, though weak in numbers, could count on Indian allies. As he
himself writes to the Court: "The French do not treat the natives as we
do. They are very liberal to them, observing strict justice, so that the
commander is feared by his countrymen and beloved by the Indians.
Measures have been taken to instruct the latter in the use of arms, and
as the aborigines are very numerous the French may soon make themselves
very strong." He harassed the French and destroyed their fortifications
but could not completely dislodge them, and returned to Bahia with his
work only half accomplished. Porto Seguro and Ilheos were attacked by
the ferocious Aymorés and with difficulty saved from total destruction.
In the South another great Tamoyo confederation had been formed with
the deliberate purpose of rooting the Paulistas out of the country and
putting a stop once for all to their slave-hunting. When all seemed
lost, Anchieta intervened, and succeeded in fixing up a peace. The
Tamoyos were cajoled into becoming allies of the Portuguese in a final
attempt to expel the French from Rio. Mem da Sa's nephew appeared with a
considerable fleet, and after a desultory campaign of a year the French
were obliged to retire. France did nothing to prevent or recover this
inestimable loss, and Mem da Sa immediately laid out and fortified a
city on a site which to-day is the business centre of the capital of
Brazil. From the time of its founding Rio was the most important place
in southern Brazil and the key to the whole region, but its great
prosperity dates from a hundred and fifty years later, when gold was
discovered in Minas Geraes.
Mem da Sa continued to rule Brazil until his death in 1572. The work of
centralisation went on apace, fiscal and administrative officers were
multiplied, and taxes and restrictions imposed at will. The Lisbon
government laid the foundations of that restrictive system which finally
confined Brazil to communication with the mother country. Nevertheless
most of the settlements grew rapidly. Sugar-planting, cattle-raising,
and general agriculture flourished. The Indians were expelled or reduced
to impotence within striking distance of the centres of population.
[Illustration: PLANTERS GOING TO CHURCH.
[From an old print.]]
At Mem da Sa's death the civilised population numbered about sixty
thousand, of whom twenty thousand were white. The provinces of
Pernambuco and Bahia had each twenty-five thousand inhabitants. Rio had
some two thousand and São Paulo perhaps five, the remainder being
divided between the smaller settlements--Parahyba, Rio Real, Ilheos,
Porto Seguro, and Espirito Santo. Except in São Paulo most of the
inhabitants were engaged in sugar-raising. The hundred and twenty
plantations produced annually forty-five thousand tons of sugar, while
Portuguese goods to the value of a million dollars a year were imported.
A sugar _fazenda_, or plantation, constituted a little independent
village, where the owner lived surrounded by his slaves in their cabins,
his shops and stables, mills and mandioc fields. The grantees had paid
no purchase price for the land, and held it on condition of paying a
tenth of the product and a tenth of that tenth, a tax which survives to
the present time, only it is now called an export duty of eleven per
cent. Land was not otherwise taxed, and to this day direct taxes on farm
property are almost unknown, though imposts of every other conceivable
kind have been multiplied. The tracts granted were large; the owner
could hold them unused without expense; the most powerful incentive to
sale and division of land did not, therefore, exist. Brazil became and
remains a country of large rural proprietorship. Landowners are
reluctant to sell or divide their estates, taxes on transfers are
excessive, and land is not freely bought and sold. Consequently the
rural population is widely scattered, grants extend far beyond the
limits of actual settlement, there are few small farmers and very
little careful culture. Brazil is a country of staple crops and
non-diversified agriculture. A fall in sugar or coffee produces a
disproportionate disturbance in financial conditions, and land not
suitable to the staple crop of a region is left to lie idle. Immigration
has been retarded because land has been hard to obtain except by special
government concession, and because private owners do not care to sell
their land to settlers. Except in restricted cases, the rural
immigration--negro and South European--has been for the purpose of
furnishing labour for the large proprietors, and not to form a
landowning and permanently established population.
The Jesuit travellers describe the Brazilian people in 1584 as
pleasure-loving and extravagant. In the sugar provinces fortunes were
very unequal. In Pernambuco alone more than a hundred planters had
incomes of ten thousand dollars a year. Their capital, Olinda--now the
northern suburb of the city of Pernambuco--was the largest town in
Brazil and the one where there was most luxurious living and the most
polite society. In general the people were spendthrifts, and
notwithstanding large incomes were heavily in debt. Great sums were
spent on fêtes, religious processions, fairs, and dinners. The simple
Jesuit Fathers were shocked to see such velvets and silks, such
luxurious beds of crimson damask, such extravagance in the trappings of
the saddle-horses. Carriages were unknown, and instead litters and sedan
chairs were used, and these remained in common use in Bahia until very
recent times.
[Illustration: A CADEIRA.]
From Pernambuco and Bahia communication with the mother country was
constant and easy. São Paulo, however, differed radically from the sugar
districts. Wheat, barley, and European fruits grew on the São Paulo
plateau, but there was little export to Portugal, and imported clothes
were scarce and dear. The Paulistas were constantly on horseback and
wore the old Portuguese costume of cloak and close-fitting doublet long
after it had been disused at home.
Bahia and Pernambuco were fairly well built towns, though unfortunately
in the Portuguese style of architecture, whose solid walls, few
windows, and contiguous houses make it ill adapted to a tropical
climate. In spite of its unsuitability it was universally adopted, and
even yet largely prevails in Brazil.
CHAPTER VII
EXPANSION
In 1581 Philip II. of Spain succeeded in establishing himself on the
throne of Portugal as the successor of the rash Sebastian, dead fighting
the Moors at Alcacer-Kebir. The decadent and demoralised Portuguese
nation made hardly the semblance of a struggle for its independence. The
very ease with which Philip obtained the kingdom left him no pretext for
depriving it of administrative independence. Native Portuguese continued
to hold office in the colonies and to enjoy a monopoly of Brazilian
commerce. Internally, therefore, the change did not much affect Brazil.
But in foreign relations the effect was profound. Brazil became a part
of a well-nigh universal monarchy, and one of the battle-fields of the
struggle which had begun between Spain and the Protestant powers.
All South America was now under the same monarch; boundary questions
between Portuguese and Spanish America apparently ceased to have any
importance. The enormous extension of Brazil toward the interior over
territory formerly conceded to be Spanish occurred during the sixty
years of Spanish domination. The Spanish monarch did not have time to
spend on Brazilian matters, and the colonists were less interfered with
from Lisbon and Madrid than might have been expected. Portuguese
historians have much exaggerated the evil effects of the English, Dutch,
and French half filibustering, half-trading descents on the coast, which
occurred during this period. The pillage of a few towns was more than
compensated by the commerce that sprang up; much Brazilian sugar escaped
paying the heavy export duties; settlement extended rapidly over new
territory, and the importation of negroes continued.
As early as 1575 a settlement had been made in Sergipe, but the great
expansion over northern Brazil began under the rule of Philip's first
governor-general. In 1583 he sent troops to take possession of the
important port of Parahyba, where some French traders had obtained a
foothold that prevented the inhabitants of Pernambuco from spreading
north beyond Itamarica. The Spanish mercenaries were at first
successful, but they could not stifle the serious Indian war which broke
out. The Pernambucanos had better success, because they knew how to take
advantage of the dissensions among the savages. Fortifying a town at
Parahyba, they permanently established their sugar plantations in its
neighbourhood, and then these indefatigable and land-hungry Creoles
pushed on farther to the north. In 1597 Jeronymo de Albuquerque, the
greatest of Brazilian colonial generals, attacked and defeated the
powerful Pitagoares Indians, and established the colony of Natal, the
nucleus of the present state of Rio Grande do Norte. This brought the
Pernambucanos to Cape St. Roque. To the south they had spread as far as
the San Francisco River, there meeting the Bahianos who, by 1589, had
taken possession of the present state of Sergipe.
North of St. Roque the Portuguese so far had done nothing except make
some desultory voyages of observation, though they claimed the coast to
and beyond the mouth of the Amazon. The donatories of the captaincies in
that region had not succeeded in establishing any settlements. In 1541,
Orellana, one of those recklessly heroic Spaniards who had helped
Pizarro conquer the empire of the Incas, was a member of an expedition
which crossed the Andes near Quito and descended into the forested
plains, looking for another Peru--the fabled El Dorado. They finally
found themselves on a great river flowing to the east, and, since their
provisions were exhausted, boats were built and Orellana was sent on
ahead to try to find supplies. He could not find enough to feed the main
body and decided to float on down the river, well knowing it must
finally bring him to the ocean. After a voyage of more than three
thousand miles he came to the great estuary of the Amazon and thence
made his way to Spain. No important results followed this wonderful
discovery. Orellana himself shortly returned to the mouth of the river,
but he could not find his way up the labyrinth of waters.
To reach the plains from the Pacific or Caribbean settlements is nearly
impracticable, and the Amazon valley remained unsettled. Meanwhile the
seed planted by old Duarte Coelho germinated and grew into a vigorous
tree whose branches were spreading out over all North Brazil. The
seventeenth century had hardly begun when the hardy Pernambucanos
invaded the country lying north and west of St. Roque, hunting Indian
slaves, and good places for cattle- and sugar-raising. In 1603 Pero
Coelho, an adventurous Brazilian then living at Parahyba, made a
settlement far to the north-west of Natal, on the coast of Ceará, and
penetrated eight hundred miles from Pernambuco. Unreasonable aggressions
against the Indians brought on temporary reverses, but the Pernambucanos
persevered, and the Jesuits also established missions. By 1610 the
region was pretty well under white control, the Indians being
incorporated to a greater extent than was usual in the settlements
farther south.
The next forward movement was precipitated by a formidable French
attempt to colonise Maranhão. Daniel de la Rivardière, a Huguenot
nobleman, conceived the idea of carrying out on the north coast
Coligny's plan of a French Protestant colony. In 1612 he landed on the
island of Maranhão with a large and well-appointed expedition.
Jeronymo de Albuquerque fortunately happened to be on the north coast
when news came of this alarming intrusion. Sending his ships on to
ascertain the truth of the report, he hastened overland to Pernambuco to
get a force together. With three hundred whites and two hundred Indians
he started to expel the French. An assault on a fort defended with
artillery was out of the question, so in his turn he fortified himself,
cut off the French from access to the sea, and ambushed their foraging
expeditions. In such a game, his men, inured to the climate, had an
immense advantage. Forced to assault Albuquerque's position, the French
were repulsed. They begged for a truce, and went home at the end of a
year. Albuquerque took possession of the French town, and in 1616
secured all the rest of the northern coast to Portugal by founding Pará,
just to the south of the mouth of the Amazon. Several settlements were
made along the coast east of Pará and also west in the estuary itself.
The Indians proved docile and were easily incorporated to so great an
extent that the Indian element is more predominant in Pará than in any
other state on the Brazilian littoral.
On the island and around the bay of Maranhão a prosperous colony grew
up. Certain enterprising business men made a contract with the
government and started a regular propaganda for immigrants, and induced
a large number to come from the Azores. The state thus founded was one
of the most prosperous in Brazil, and was especially celebrated for the
politeness and cultivation of its inhabitants. Some of the greatest
names in Portuguese literature are those of Maranhenses. It is commonly
said that the best Portuguese is spoken in Maranhão, and not in Lisbon,
Rio, or Porto--just as the English of Dublin, Aberdeen, or Boston is
considered better than that of London or New York, and the Spanish of
Lima and Bogotá better than that of Madrid, Barcelona, or Buenos Aires.
Meanwhile population and wealth had been increasing satisfactorily in
the older provinces south of Cape St. Roque. By 1626 Pernambuco and
Bahia had grown to be towns of something like ten thousand inhabitants,
and the people of the respective provinces numbered about a hundred
thousand. Ilheos, Porto Seguro, and Espirito Santo had made no progress,
but Rio had become a city of six thousand, while the shores of her bay
and the adjacent coast were now fairly settled. Rio and Santos really
performed the function of ports for the foreign commerce of Paraguay and
the Argentine because the Spanish laws did not permit these colonies to
have ports of their own. Campos was now settled and its sugar industry
was prospering. On the São Paulo plains the Paulistas had spread to the
north-east to the headwaters of the Parahyba and borders of the present
state of Rio, and north-west down the navigable Tieté, along which they
found an easy track for their expeditions in search of slaves. The
Jesuits had long since been unable to control or check the Paulistas,
and had abandoned the missions near the coast. In the remote interior,
along the Paraná and its great tributaries, the defeated priests thought
that they would be safe, and about the end of the sixteenth century they
entered that region by way of Paraguay. The Paulistas recked little of
the government, especially now that the king was Spanish, and, advancing
the claim that Spanish Jesuits had established missions on Portuguese
territory, they proceeded to wipe out the new missions.
It seems incredible that their little bands could have penetrated such
distances and accomplished such results, but it is on record that they
tracked nearly to the Andes, and practically exterminated, the
aboriginal population of half Brazil. The Jesuits tell us that between
1614 and 1639 four hundred Paulistas with two thousand Indian allies
captured and killed three hundred thousand natives. In 1632 they utterly
destroyed the great Jesuit settlements on the Upper Paraná, though this
involved an expedition of fifteen hundred miles, much of which is to
this day rarely penetrable. One of their expeditions was like an
ambulating village--women, children, and domestic animals accompanying
it. They sometimes were obliged to stop, sow a crop, and wait for it to
mature before they could proceed. For the time being, these predatory
Paulistas almost reverted to the nomadic stage.
Naturally, no complete record of these expeditions survives. Their
members were not literate men, and it is only when they fought the
Jesuits, or when they discovered minerals, that a record of their routes
has been preserved. We know that before 1632 they had traversed all of
southern Brazil, and Paraguay, and even eastern Argentina and Uruguay.
Incursions to the north and west followed shortly. There is an authentic
record of an expedition reaching Goyaz as early as 1647, and it is
probable that by that time they had penetrated the central plateau which
stretches across to the Andes, had seen the headwaters of the southern
tributaries of the Amazon, and had followed the eastern mountain chain
almost to the northern ocean. The Paulistas secured to their country and
their race more than a million square miles of fertile and salubrious
territory.
CHAPTER VIII
THE DUTCH CONQUEST
By the end of the sixteenth century Holland was practically independent,
and the "Beggars of the Sea" were carrying her arms and trade all over
the world. Numerous private companies of Dutch merchants made war
against Spain on their own account, and great fortunes were made in the
capture of Spanish fleets and in trade with Spanish and Portuguese
colonies. The Dutch East India Company within a few years possessed
itself of the better part of the Portuguese empire in the Indian Ocean,
and the West India Company was organised to do the same in South
America. Incorporated in 1621, it included various smaller companies
already engaged in trade and privateering, and was an immense
corporation which finally owned more than eight hundred ships, and sent
to Brazil alone more than seventy thousand troops. Although protected,
subsidised, and conceded a monopoly by the Dutch government, it always
remained essentially a company for private profit.
The Company's primary object was to capture the Spanish treasure
fleets; its secondary object was to conquer the possessions of Spain and
Portugal in South America. Brazil furnished the best base for the
operations that were intended to make the South Atlantic a Dutch lake;
Bahia and Pernambuco were near Europe, had good harbours, lay on the
direct route to the Plate and the Pacific, and from them Africa could be
conveniently attacked. The sugar trade was a large thing in itself and
the daring Dutch traders believed that the Portuguese colonists might
welcome a deliverance from Spanish domination. Spain's power was a
rotten shell, and impulses lying deep in the national spirit pushed the
Dutch on to aggression. The peoples of Western Europe had finally felt
all the stimulating influences of the Renaissance, of the Lutheran and
Jesuit Reformations, and of the Era of Discovery. It was the epoch of
the Thirty Years' War, of the League of Avignon, and of that confused
fighting caused by the more vigorous peoples grasping for a share of the
spoils of the New World.
In 1623 news came of the equipping by the West India Company of an
expedition whose destination was manifestly to be Bahia. The Spanish
government took no measures for defence. The local authorities
half-heartedly began to fortify the city, but there were no troops
except militia to man the works, and when the Dutch fleet hove in sight
a panic ensued. The governor was captured, but many of the inhabitants
fled into the back country, and a guerrilla warfare was kept up which
shut up the Dutch inside the fortifications. They made use of their
time in improving the defences, and soon made Bahia the best fortress in
South America.
The news of the capture created consternation in Lisbon. Great exertions
were made by the Portuguese merchants, as well as by the Spanish
government, and the most formidable armament which up to that time had
crossed the equator was prepared. It was composed of fifty-two ships and
of twelve thousand men--the latter being mercenaries gathered from every
country in Europe. The Dutch commander had not yet been re-enforced and
made little resistance when such an overwhelming force arrived in Bahia
harbour. He surrendered with the honours of war and the Spanish fleet
retired. In a few weeks another Dutch fleet appeared, bringing
provisions and re-enforcements. It was too late, however, and the Dutch
did not venture to attack an enemy whom they themselves had furnished
with such excellent re-enforcements. The Dutch, driven from the land,
remained undisputed masters of the sea, and the Spanish and Portuguese
could no longer trade except in convoys. In 1627 the celebrated Piet
Heyn--the Dutch Sir Francis Drake--sailed boldly into Bahia harbour, and
despising the fire of the forty guns of the forts, captured twenty-six
ships within pistol-shot of the shore cannon. He ran his own ship right
in between the two best Portuguese men-of-war, the forts did not dare
fire for fear of wounding their own men, the Portuguese flagship was
sunk, and the rest surrendered in terror. Among the spoils were three
thousand hogsheads of sugar, which Piet Heyn sent home at his leisure,
while he ravaged the shores of the bay. The following year he fell in
with the Mexican treasure fleet and captured it bodily. This was the
greatest capture ever made at sea. The West India Company declared a
dividend of fifty per cent. after paying the expenses of the
unsuccessful Bahia expedition, and resumed its plans of conquest with
more vigour than ever.
[Illustration: OLD FORT AT BAHIA.]
After careful consideration Pernambuco was selected as a more vulnerable
point of attack than Bahia. The fortifications were feeble, and there
were numerous Jewish merchants in the city whose friendship could be
counted on. Once more the Spanish government did nothing to avert the
threatened blow, and in February, 1630, a Dutch fleet of fifty sail with
seven thousand men arrived in front of Pernambuco. Three thousand men
were landed to the north of the town and easily defeated the militia
which tried to prevent their taking the place from the rear. The
inhabitants fled to the interior, and after a creditable resistance the
forts fell. The property captured was estimated at near ten million
dollars. In the meantime, Albuquerque, the Brazilian commander, had
retired to a defensible ranch commanding the road between Recife and
Olinda, and whence communication could be kept up with the sea by way of
Cape St. Augustine. This ranch is celebrated in Brazilian tradition as
the "Arraial de Bom Jesus." The Brazilians rallied and from this
vantage-ground began to harass the Dutch. The promises of commercial,
religious, and political tolerance had produced little effect on the
more ardent spirits. The Indians remained faithful to the Portuguese,
and with the negroes did good service in the guerrilla warfare. For the
first two years the Dutch could accomplish little except to improve the
fortifications around the town, and the Brazilians acquired a confidence
in their own ability to make head against regular troops which later
stood them in good stead.
In 1631 a fleet of twenty ships appeared from Spain, but the Dutch
Admiral sailed boldly out and gave them battle. The net results to the
Spaniards were the landing of only a thousand men, who, after some
difficulty, joined the militia at Bom Jesus. But the seeds of discontent
were germinating among the Brazilians. On closer contact the heretics
proved to be human. The planters wanted peace and an opportunity to sell
their sugar. The Indians, negroes, and other adventurous spirits
composing the guerrilla bands robbed both friend and foe. The soldiers
were tired of serving without pay. A half-breed named Calabar, a man of
remarkable bravery, cunning, and skill in woodcraft, deserted to the
Dutch and gave them valuable assistance. Re-enforcements came from
Holland, and under Calabar's guidance the Dutch learned the value of
ambuscading and made sudden expeditions which took the important
settlements by surprise.
In 1633 two special representatives of the Company came with
instructions to prosecute the war vigorously and to endeavour to
conciliate the Brazilians. The latters' resistance weakened; many of
Albuquerque's volunteers deserted; the Dutch expeditions up and down the
coast were successful. The island of Itamarica, Rio Grande do Norte,
Parahyba, and the settlements in Alagoas were successively reduced.
Resistance was soon confined to the country just back of Pernambuco
itself, and in 1635 the last posts which held out--Bom Jesus and St.
Augustine--surrendered. The whole coast from the San Francisco River
north to Cape St. Roque was in the hands of the Dutch. There was nothing
for it but submission or emigration. Many laid down their arms, but
Albuquerque and his faithful lieutenants, the negro Dias and the Indian
Camarrão, reluctantly took their way toward Bahia, the only place of
refuge. The Brazilian historians claim that ten thousand Pernambucanos,
men, women, and children, accompanied Albuquerque, preferring to leave
their homes, property, and friends rather than accept the foreign and
heretic yoke. A sweet bit of revenge awaited them on their journey.
Encountering and overpowering a small Dutch garrison at Porto Calvo,
they took its members prisoners, and among them found the traitor,
Calabar. Him they hanged, while the Dutchmen were let go unharmed.
When Albuquerque reached the San Francisco he was replaced by a
Spaniard, Rojas, who had brought re-enforcements of seventeen hundred
Spanish troops. The new commander gave battle to the Hollanders, but in
the first action was utterly defeated and lost his own life. For the
next two years Pernambuco was ravaged by the most frightful burnings and
massacres. The Spanish mercenaries and the bands of negroes and Indians
scoured the interior, and the Dutch retaliated with the same methods.
The prosperous colony was fast being depopulated and its industries
ruined. It became manifest that a policy at once vigorous and
conciliatory was necessary, and the Company determined to send out a
governor-general with vice-regal powers.
The merchants of the Directory chose Count John Maurice, of
Nassau-Siegen, a scion of the reigning house, and a descendant of
William the Silent. A more fortunate selection could not have been made.
Though only thirty-two years old, Count Maurice had already proved
himself a brave and skilful soldier; he was a man of culture, a thorough
son of the Renaissance, a lover of the arts, and, like most of his
house, religiously tolerant and liberal to an extent extraordinary for
that bitter age. He was one of those few spirits, in advance of their
time, to whom Catholic and Protestant, Jew and Gentile were the same--to
whose instincts religious and commercial intolerance was repugnant.
He arrived in 1637, and his keen eye at once saw that the two obstacles
to pacification were the military raids which the new Spanish commander,
Bagnuoli, was directing from his position near the San Francisco; and
the fear of the Pernambuco sugar planters that Dutch dominion meant
their forcible conversion to Calvinism. The Dutch troops were now well
equipped and seasoned for warfare in the tropical woods, and their
officers had learned how to exercise their trade under these difficult
circumstances with all the coolness, shrewdness, and steadiness of their
race. Commanded by Maurice they easily inflicted a crushing defeat upon
the motley crew Bagnuoli had been able to gather. The whole country
north of the San Francisco fell into Maurice's hands, and he crossed
that river and destroyed the Brazilian base of supplies in Sergipe. The
next year he was ordered by the Directory to attack Bahia with
insufficient forces, and was compelled to retire after a forty-days
siege. Two years later, however, his fleet defeated and nearly destroyed
the largest naval force Spain had sent out since the Invincible Armada.
Of the six thousand soldiers on board who had been expected to drive him
from Brazil, only one thousand were landed, away north of Cape St.
Roque, whence they barely managed to reach Bahia after a march of over a
thousand miles through the wilderness, suffering the most frightful
hardships. Maurice followed up this victory by occupying Sergipe (1640)
and Maranhão (1641). Ceará had fallen into his hands in 1637. The whole
of Brazil from the 3rd to the 12th degree of latitude, a solid body of
territory containing more than two-thirds of the population and
developed resources, was apparently irretrievably lost to the
Portuguese. They only retained Bahia and the isolated settlements in
Pará and the southern provinces.
In internal administration Maurice was equally vigorous. He suppressed
the exactions of Dutch soldiers and functionaries, and established law,
order, and justice. Agriculture, industry, and commerce flourished as
never before. He found Recife a miserable port village and left it a
city of two thousand houses. He does not seem to have made any especial
exertions to secure Dutch immigration. The Brazilians were not displaced
as landed proprietors, and most of the plantations confiscated from the
persistently rebellious were resold to Brazilians who accepted the Dutch
rule. He permitted to Romanists and Jews the free and public exercise of
their faith. Many Jews came to Pernambuco, and with their characteristic
capacity soon became prominent and useful in the commercial life of the
colony. The courts were so organised as to secure representation for
Brazilians. He summoned a sort of legislature of the principal
colonists--the first representative assembly on South American soil--and
put into effect the measures it proposed. Local administration was
entrusted to Brazilians, and his aim was evidently to make the colony
self-governing.
But this positivist of the seventeenth century, this genial pagan who
had caught the essential spirit of the Renaissance and had the courage
to put it into practice centuries before it became dominant even in the
realm of thought, was too far in advance of his time. His countrymen
could not understand him or his ideas, and the Portuguese colonists were
equally incapable of appreciating what he was trying to do for them. His
edifice scattered like a card house the moment he left. To all
appearances every vestige of his work was swept away; it is only a
memory and an example; a wave that dashed far up the beach at the
beginning of the flood-tide, leaving a mark that long served only to
show how far the water had once come. It remained for the nineteenth
century and another nation of shopmen to put into practice, on a scale
large enough to convince the world, the great principle of
non-interference by the central government with the religious beliefs
and the local self-government of colonies.
The moneyed aristocrats of the West India Company distrusted Maurice as
a member of a reigning family which was maintained in power by its
popularity with the masses. The Directory wanted immediate profits, not
an empire established on a broad and sure foundation. In their hearts
they preferred a steward and bookkeeper to a prince and a statesman. The
Calvinist clergy bitterly complained of the liberties conceded their
Catholic competitors for tithes, and succeeded in imposing on Maurice
the execution of the prohibition against religious processions--then as
now so dear to the Brazilian heart. Spies were sent out to report on him
and he was continually hampered.
Among the Brazilians he was equally misunderstood. While personally so
popular that not one of their chroniclers has a word of dispraise for
him, they could not forget that he was of a different race and religion,
and he did not succeed in converting them to his ideas. His best
personal friends were among those most influential, after his departure,
in stirring up the exclusive Brazilian feeling.
Maurice was not a man to be easily daunted. For seven years he remained
in office, fighting the Directory, the Calvinist ministers, the corrupt
officials, trying to reconcile the jealousies between Dutchmen and
Brazilians, and to create a homogeneous community. But after the power
of the Nassau family began to decline with the rise of the Witt
oligarchy, the Directory determined to be rid of him. In 1644 he made a
vigorous demand for more troops, and when it was refused sent in a
Bismarckian resignation, which, to his surprise, was immediately
accepted with many polite protestations of thanks for his services.
CHAPTER IX
EXPULSION OF THE DUTCH
Four years before Maurice's retirement Portugal broke loose from Spain,
and that part of Brazil which had escaped conquest by the Dutch promptly
threw off the Spanish yoke. In Europe Holland and the new Portugal were
naturally in alliance, but the former was not magnanimous enough to stop
her aggressions in Brazil, and the latter was too weak to resent them.
Among the Brazilians dissatisfaction began to brew as soon as Maurice
left. The prohibition of religious processions, the severe financial
crisis among planters who were unable to pay off the heavy mortgages
which they had given when they purchased confiscated plantations, the
low price of sugar, and the impulse to national feeling given by the
news of the success of the mother country in achieving independence all
co-operated.
The opportunity brought forth the man. The head of the rebellion was
John Fernandes Vieira, who is the great creator of the Brazilian
nationality. A native of Madeira, he ran away as a boy to seek his
fortune in Brazil. Engaged at first in menial employments, his honesty
and capacity soon enabled him to strike out for himself as a sugar
planter. When the Dutch attacked Pernambuco in 1630 he took up arms, and
only surrendered when Bom Jesus fell. Convinced that further resistance
was useless he returned to his business and within ten years was the
richest man in the colony. Though a devoted Catholic and a patriotic
Portuguese, he was one of Maurice's most trusted advisers. When the
Prince departed John Fernandes thenceforward devoted his life to the
expulsion of the Dutch.
The first revolt occurred in Maranhão, where the small Dutch garrison
had to abandon that captaincy as early as 1644. In Pernambuco John
Fernandes organised a formidable conspiracy, and letters were despatched
to the new Portuguese king asking his aid. John IV. did not dare to
comply openly, for such action might have involved him in a war with the
States-General, but the governor-general at Bahia was as unscrupulous as
he was patriotic, and secretly afforded the conspirators every facility
in his power. The celebrated chiefs of the guerrilla fighting of 1630 to
1635, Vidal, Camarrão, and Dias, were only too anxious to have another
chance, and gathered their bands in the wilderness. Arms were obtained
from Bahia, and in 1645 the insurrection broke out. The first move was
to have been the massacre of the principal Hollanders, but the plot was
discovered and the conspirators fled for their lives to the interior. At
a place called Tabocas John Fernandes gathered a motley crew of a few
hundred together. Only three hundred of his followers had muskets, but
they were protected by marshy ground in front, and the hill was
surrounded by almost impenetrable cane-brakes. There on the 3rd of
August the Dutch troops to the number of a thousand found and attacked
the Brazilians. The bulk of the population was standing aloof, his camp
was full of mutiny, nevertheless John Fernandes stood firm. The Dutch
charged confidently, but they could not use their firearms to advantage,
and the Brazilians showed the traditional valour of their race in the
use of pike and sword. The Dutch were not able to dislodge the rebels,
and after losing three hundred and seventy men they retreated to
Pernambuco, leaving the insurgents with all the moral prestige of
victory.
The whole province rose; the troops, which had come from Bahia
ostensibly to aid the Dutch in pacifying the province, went over _en
masse_ to the patriots; the Dutch garrisons in the outlying towns were
everywhere attacked and everywhere retreated. A few grudgingly paid
mercenaries were not the material with which to defend such an empire.
Within a few months the Dutch were expelled from the interior and shut
themselves up in the fortified seaports waiting for re-enforcements. The
Indians and guerrillas spread fire and destruction through Itamarica,
Parahyba, Rio Grande do Norte, and Ceará. In spite of this sudden
success the position of the patriots was very critical. Without the aid
of regular troops they could hardly hope to make head against the Dutch
so soon as the latter received adequate re-enforcements. The news of
the insurrection aroused great indignation in Holland. The house of the
Portuguese ambassador was surrounded by an infuriated mob, and his
government had to disavow the rebellion. Willing as John IV. might be to
help the Brazilians, he dare not. By the middle of 1646 an able
commander, von Schoppke, arrived from Holland with a fine army. At first
John Fernandes and the militia did not dare meet him in the field. The
provincials hovered about the Dutch columns, cutting off detachments,
and burning sugar plantations in the line of march. John Fernandes set
the example by ordering the destruction of his own property.
In 1647 Barreto de Menezes, an able professional soldier, arrived in
Brazil bearing a secret commission from the Portuguese king. The
bickering and despairing provincials made no difficulty about
recognising it, and Barreto at once began uniting the scattered militia
bands and the few regulars who had clandestinely come up from Bahia.
A few miles south of Pernambuco the low hills encroach on the
coast-plain, leaving only a narrow pass between themselves and the
marshes. Schoppke made a sortie along the coast road with the largest
part of his force,--about four thousand men,--and there at the hills of
Guararapes found the patriot army, numbering two thousand two hundred.
Encamped across the level ground they barred his way, with the evident
intention of giving him battle, and there on the 18th of August, 1648,
was fought out the question whether Brazil should be Dutch or
Portuguese. The defeat of the patriots would have meant the hopeless
collapse of the rebellion and the giving up by poor little Portugal of
the last vestige of her claim to Brazil. Success meant that they might
prolong the war for years and finally tire out Holland, or give the
Portuguese government a chance to do something by negotiation.
The battle began with the Dutch taking possession of the higher ground
whence their artillery inflicted some damage, but when they charged down
the hill, attempting to outflank and surround the Brazilians, there
ensued a confused and desperate struggle with cold steel. The regulars
proved no match for these farmers, who were fighting for their homes and
religion. The Dutch battalions broke and fled up the hill, followed by
the Brazilians. Then the Dutch reserve came into action and the battle
rolled back to the low ground, where the result was decided face to face
and man to man. Some of the braver of the Dutch imprudently went through
the Brazilian lines into the marshes, where they suffered terrible
slaughter at the hands of the reserve. More than a thousand Hollanders
perished, with seventy-four officers. Thirty-three standards remained in
the hands of the Brazilians, and the remnants of the Dutch army fled to
the shelter of the walls of Pernambuco. The cowardice shown by many of
his troops is the only excuse offered by the Dutch general for this
shameful defeat suffered at the hands of a militia inferior not only in
equipment and artillery, but in numbers and advantage of position.
The descendants of the victors at Guararapes have never forgotten that
it was a Brazilian and not a Portuguese triumph. The Brazilians proved
to their own satisfaction that their resources were sufficient to defend
their institutions, and it has been well said that on that day the
Brazilian nation was born.
The parsimonious merchants whose money was invested in the Company made
a half-hearted effort to retrieve this unexpected reverse, but
re-enforcements were sent out so grudgingly that a similar sortie next
year was even more overwhelmingly defeated at the very same place. Even
then the Brazilian hopes of ultimate success would have been small if at
this very juncture the world-power of Holland had not received its first
great check by the breaking out of the war with Oliver Cromwell. With
English fleets sweeping the North Sea and Blake's cannon thundering at
the Texel, the States-General had no forces to spare on far-away Brazil.
The patriots kept the Dutch shut up in Pernambuco and were undisputed
masters of the rest of the province. So long as communication by sea
remained open the Dutch, however, could maintain themselves
indefinitely. Re-enforcements might come at any time from Holland and
the negotiations by Portugal were uncertain, and might, indeed, lead to
Brazil's being exchanged for an advantage elsewhere.
John Fernandes steadfastly maintained the siege, urging his followers
not to lay down their arms so long as a Dutchman remained in Brazil. The
pusillanimous Portuguese king did not dare help the Pernambucanos, and
neither was he honest enough to abide by the treaties he had made with
Holland, giving up all claim to North Brazil. Matters remained in this
anomalous position until 1654, when John Fernandes by a single audacious
stroke cut through the tangle made by complicated and timid European
diplomacy.
In the fall of 1653 the annual Bahia fleet sailed from the Tagus,
convoyed by powerful men-of-war. The Dutch had no naval force on the
South American coast able to cope with it. When the Portuguese fleet
hove in sight of Pernambuco, the Brazilian commanders from their
fortified besieging camp just to the south of the city entered into
communication with the Admiral. John Fernandes begged the latter to lend
him some cannon for a few days and meanwhile to blockade the port. The
patriot leader saw that the isolated garrison of mercenaries would have
no heart to hold out for long. The Portuguese Admiral refused, saying,
truly enough, that he had no instructions to aid the insurgent
Brazilians, and that he did not care to risk his head by precipitating a
war between Portugal and Holland. Fernandes answered that with or
without his aid the assault would be made, and the Admiral yielded to
his natural feelings and lent the Brazilians some big guns. John
Fernandes planted them where they commanded an outlying fort he knew to
be vital to the city's defences. Schoppke was compelled to retire within
the central city; the Brazilians made successful night assaults on
several positions, and drew their lines closer and closer until the
place was untenable. On the 26th of January, 1655, the Dutch general
signed a capitulation, surrendering not only Pernambuco, but all the
other places held by the Dutch in Brazil. His twelve hundred troops were
given safe passage home, and all resident Hollanders were allowed three
months to settle their affairs before leaving.
Thus ended the Dutch dominion in Brazil. Four provinces, three cities,
eight towns, fourteen fortified places, and three hundred leagues of
coast were definitely restored to the Portuguese Crown. A gigantic
commercial speculation had failed before the obstinate resistance of a
few farmers animated by a love of country and religion. Twenty-five
years of bloody warfare or sulky acquiescence in alien rule had welded
the Portuguese colonists along the Brazilian coast into a nation.
Directly from the Dutch they had learned little or nothing. Rather were
the traits which have ever since been the cause of Brazil's industrial
backwardness intensified.
The characteristics of the leaders in the Pernambuco war of independence
epitomise the races of Brazil. Vidal is the type of a high-class
Brazilian--generous, jealous, spendthrift, proud, intelligent, quick at
expedients, and not too scrupulous in his use of them. Camarrão, the
Indian, perished before the final victory as if to show symbolically
that his race had not the stamina to hold out in competition with white
or black. Dias represents the negro--unsurpassable in fidelity and
personal courage, and needing only leadership to show transcendent
military qualities.
John Fernandes was a curious mixture of the mediæval and modern. His
wealth did not make him cautious where his country was concerned; he
had been honoured with the intimate confidence of those whom he fought;
he was grave, silent, reserved, strongest when others were most
discouraged; no feeling of vanity ever interfered with his purposes; if
another man could do a piece of work better than he, he stepped aside;
when success was in sight he imperturbably let showier men have the
glory. Religious faith and feudal loyalty were the mainsprings of his
nature; nevertheless in war he was cautious, indefatigable, and
calculating. In crises he struck like a sledge-hammer, though he could
wait patiently and uncomplainingly for an opportunity. His was not a
pride that disdains artifices. He conspired secretly and subtly, and
with all his apparent moderation of character he blindly and
unreasoningly hated everything Protestant and non-Portuguese. On the
hill at Tabocas his battle-cry was: "Portuguese! At the heretics! God is
with us!" When the Dutch made their last desperate charge, and it seemed
as if all was up with his band of insurgents, he refused to flee, but
stood beside the crucifix, calling on the Virgin and the saints, and
exhorting his companions to die rather than yield to the unbelievers.
When the Dutch gave back he fell on his knees and intoned a hymn. With
each new victory gained he vowed a church to the Virgin. When desperate
over the hesitation of the Admiral in the last scene of the war, his
final argument, made in all sincerity, was that failure to expel the
Dutch meant exposing thousands of Catholics to the temptation of denying
their faith by a renewal of the heretic rule, and that for himself,
rather than share the responsibility for the murder of thousands of
souls, he would lead his Brazilians to certain death.
Relentless to his enemies, to his friends and dependents he was kindness
itself. It is related that a Portuguese, landed with hardly clothes
enough to cover him, and seeking a protector, was directed to Fernandes.
The latter was mounting his horse to go on a journey. To the man's offer
of allegiance and appeal for help, he answered: "I am going to my house
ten miles away and have no leisure now to relieve you, but follow me
thither on foot. If you are too weak to walk, take this horse I am on.
If you are faithful you shall have support as long as my means hold out;
if they fail, and there should be nothing else to eat, I will cut off a
leg and we will eat it together." This was said with so grave a face and
severe a manner that the poor Portuguese thought he meant to repulse
him. But on inquiry he found that Fernandes rarely smiled and that
literally all that he had was at the service of his adherents.
CHAPTER X
THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
In 1621 the northern provinces, Ceará, Maranhão, and Pará, had been
separated from the rest of Brazil and erected into an independent
government called the State of Maranhão. In Ceará the cattle-industry
flourished; around the beautiful bay of Maranhão the Azoreans multiplied
their colonies. Cotton, mandioc, and sugar were grown in large
quantities; the cotton manufacture soon became an important industry.
But the mysterious Amazon, whose entrance was guarded by the town of
Pará, seemed most attractive of all. No civilised man had penetrated its
length since Orellana's adventurous voyage of a century before. In 1638
Jacomé Raymundo, an able Brazilian, temporarily acting as governor of
Pará, determined to explore the great river. The expedition which he
sent out found its way up the windings of the multitudinous channels,
and after eight months reached the first Spanish settlement in the east
of Ecuador. The Spanish authorities at Lima and Quito saw no particular
value in a route through a territory in which no gold or silver had
been discovered, and which by the Spanish policy could not be used for
commerce. But when, two years, later Portugal regained her independence
the expedition turned out to have been of vast importance. The
Portuguese had found the practicable route into the great river valley;
they controlled the mouth of the stream; and though the whole territory
lay west of the Tordesillas line Spain never asserted any effective
claim to it.
Meanwhile the conquest of the great interior plateaux to the south was
rapidly proceeding. The wars with the Dutch rather stimulated than
retarded it, for, so long as the Dutch commanded the sea, the widely
separated provinces were obliged to communicate by land, and the Indian
routes became better known to the Brazilians. Settlers driven from the
sugar plantations on the coast took up cattle-raising in the interior of
the northern provinces. In the extreme South, as early as 1635 the
Paulistas had rooted out the Jesuit settlements from the whole region of
the Paraná. To the North they traversed the São Francisco valley and the
plateau of Goyaz. Manoel Correa explored the latter region in 1647, and
in 1671 another Paulista, Domingos Jorge, penetrated with a force of
subject Indians into the great treeless plains which extend beyond the
mountain ranges bounding the São Francisco valley on the north. These
plains are now the state of Piauhy. At about the same time the
cattle-raisers who had established themselves on the lower São Francisco
in Bahia, crossed over into the same territory of Piauhy. Within a short
time the Indians were reduced to submission, and the cattle ranges were
extended over the plains of Piauhy, southern Ceará, and the adjacent
provinces. This great conquest completed the junction of southern and
central Brazil with Maranhão and Pará. Long lines of land communication
were established, and over them travel was more frequent than would seem
likely. Piauhy and Ceará soon produced an enormous surplus of cattle
whose export into other provinces brought about a revolution in the
alimentation of the coast Brazilians. The Indians along the north-east
coast were gradually incorporated, destroyed, or pushed back, though it
was not until 1699 that they were finally subdued in Rio Grande do
Norte. From this time dates the astonishing development of the
population of Ceará, who during this century have furnished nearly all
the labour for the gathering of rubber.
In the South, settlements multiplied up and down the coast from Rio
until nearly the whole of the present state was occupied. Rio and São
Paulo flourished with the profits of the clandestine trade with the
Spanish colonies. The Paulistas continued to spread in every direction.
By 1654 they had occupied the headwaters of the Parahyba and west as far
as Soracaba.
During the period just following the expulsion of the Dutch the
Portuguese government was not able to enforce its policy of commercial
exclusivism. Treaties with Holland and England gave the citizens of
those countries a right to trade with Brazil, and the colonists kept up
their commerce with the Spanish possessions. Municipal charters were
freely granted to Brazilian towns, and the existing franchises reformed
according to the most liberal model in Portugal--that of Porto.
Brazilians were relieved of the absurd feudal distinctions which
exempted nobles alone from liability to torture, and regulated the
clothes a man might wear. The extraordinary rapidity of Brazil's
increase in population and territory during the middle of the
seventeenth century was largely due to comparative freedom from
vexatious restrictions and exactions--commercial and governmental. By
the end of the century there were three-quarters of a million people in
Brazil--a fivefold increase in seventy years, in spite of the fact that
the most populous provinces had been the scene of war for twenty-four
years of that time.
But the Portuguese government lost little time in returning to the old
restrictive conditions. Since the loss of the Indies, Brazil was
Portugal's principal source of wealth, and aristocracy and Court made
the most of the unhappy colony.
Navigation companies were chartered and given a monopoly of all
commerce--export and import. The Jesuits renewed their efforts to gain
control of the Indians. In São Paulo they had no chance of success, but
in the North the celebrated Padre Antonio Vieira, one of the greatest
geniuses that Portugal has ever produced, was given a free hand. He
nearly smothered the whites of Maranhão and Pará with a ring of
missions, and his successors established settlements on the Amazon which
finally spread so as to communicate with the Spanish missions in Peru,
Bolivia, and Paraguay. The Brazilians of Maranhão and Pará did not
object to the occupation of the valley of the Amazon, but they bitterly
resented the Jesuit encroachments in their own neighbourhood. In 1684 a
rebellion finally broke out in Maranhão under the leadership of Manoel
Beckman. He paid the forfeit with his life, but his work had warned the
Portuguese authorities that they must not push their favours to the
Jesuits too far.
During the long Dutch war many Pernambucan negroes had fled into the
interior, where they had established themselves in independent
communities and refused to recognise white supremacy. They fortified
their villages with palisades, obtained wives by raids on the
plantations, elected chiefs, devised rude forms of administering
justice, and adopted a religion which was a mixture of the nature
worship of their African ancestors with the outward forms of
Christianity. In spite of numerous efforts to destroy them, these
strange republics lasted fifty years. It was not until 1697 that a
Paulista chief, Domingos Jorge, who was employed after the regulars had
failed, succeeded in shutting the negroes up in their great palisade at
Palmares. Seven thousand men took part in the assault, and of the ten
thousand negroes who defended it none were spared.
This was the only serious attempt at revolt on the part of the blacks
which ever occurred in Brazil. Except for a few easily suppressed
insurrections which mostly occurred in Bahia among the recent arrivals,
the negroes remained in abject submission until nearly the end of the
nineteenth century. The comparative mildness of the Brazilian treatment
of negroes, the practice of voluntary manumission, and the fact that no
impenetrable race barrier existed all contributed to make slavery a less
fearful thing in Brazil than in North America.
Both Spain and Portugal claimed the coast between Santos and the river
Plate under the treaty of Tordesillas, but neither nation had made any
serious attempt to take possession up to the end of the seventeenth
century. As a matter of fact, the Tordesillas line passed near the
southern boundary of the Brazilian state of São Paulo, but the
Portuguese maps pushed all Brazil eight degrees to the east, and
Portugal claimed that the line passed near the point where the Paraná
and Uruguay unite to form the Plate. The Paulistas had made this claim
effective over much of the disputed territory.
For a century after the foundation of Buenos Aires the Spaniards failed
to occupy the north margin of the Plate, and in 1680 the Portuguese
fore-stalled them by founding a colony and fort, called Colonia,
directly opposite Buenos Aires. The Spanish governor promptly resented
this piece of audacity and captured the place, but was compelled to
restore it immediately by orders from Madrid. Louis XIV., who was then
arbiter of Europe, had no mind to allow a war to be precipitated over so
insignificant a matter as a post in an uninhabited part of South
America. However, the question of right to the territory was left open
for future determination. Colonia at that time was chiefly valued as an
_entrepôt_ for clandestine trade with the Spanish provinces, but to its
existence can be traced Brazilian possession of the great states of
Paraná, Santa Catharina, and Rio Grande do Sul, and even Brazil's
dominance in the Upper Paraná valley, a dominance which would have been
lost had Spain insisted upon the true Tordesillas line.
CHAPTER XI
GOLD DISCOVERIES--REVOLTS--FRENCH ATTACKS
The early attempts to find gold and silver had not been successful. A
little gold was found in São Paulo in the sixteenth century, but no
great discoveries were made until nearly the end of the seventeenth. The
Paulistas, who scoured the interior in their slave-hunts, occasionally
came across indications of gold, and rumours constantly reached the
coast. But for a long time the Paulistas failed, either through
ignorance or design, to give sufficiently exact information. After 1670
the rumours became so circumstantial that no doubt was felt that the
mountain ranges around the headwaters of the São Francisco River were
gold-bearing. Stimulated by government promises of liberal treatment,
the Paulistas undertook the hunt in earnest. About 1690 they found the
rich gold washings of Sabará, where to-day is one of the great mines of
the world--the Morro Velho. This is three hundred miles directly north
of Rio. In 1693, Antonio Arzão, a Paulista, penetrated west from this
region to the seacoast at Victoria, bringing with him native gold in
large nuggets. These were sent to Portugal and created intense
excitement. The Paulistas followed up these first discoveries by soon
finding half a dozen other fields--all of them yielding gold in
abundance to the crudest processes. A rush started that threatened to
depopulate the seacoast and even Portugal itself. The find was the
greatest gold discovery which had been made in the history of the world
up to that time. The one province of Minas Geraes produced seven million
five hundred thousand ounces within the first fifty years, and its total
product to the present time has been twenty-five million ounces.
The Paulista discoverers of the mines soon became involved in quarrels
with the swarms of adventurers who poured in from Portugal. The
government at first did not establish any regular control over the
mining region, and disputes arose between the old and new comers as to
proprietorship of claims. Anarchy and civil war ensued, but the foreign
element, nicknamed the "emboabas," came out on top with a strong man,
Nunes Vianna, at the head of affairs. He became the virtual ruler of the
region, and the Portuguese authorities at Rio, seeing their perquisites
endangered, tried to get rid of him by force. They were unsuccessful,
but finally managed to seduce his followers and secure a recognition of
their own paramount authority by solemn promises to concede the
reasonable demands of the miners. These promises were not kept. Vianna,
though he had been induced to surrender on assurances that his life
would be spared, was assassinated.
The mining laws, at first liberal, were narrowed until exploration was
discouraged and production oppressed. For years the authorities tried to
collect a fixed amount for each slave employed--a provision which
discouraged searches for new deposits. Then the system of requiring all
gold to be taken to government melting-houses was enforced. Export in
dust or nuggets was forbidden, and no gold was allowed in circulation
except that which bore the government stamp showing it had paid the
king's fifth. This involved the searching of every traveller's pockets
and the posting of detachments of soldiers at every crossroads. So
oppressive and inconvenient was this that finally the chief miners and
municipal authorities agreed to be responsible for a lump sum yearly.
The war of the emboabas ended in 1709, but troubles broke out in the
mining regions from time to time down to the end of the colonial period.
These struggles for local self-government--for the right to exist--were
not confined to Minas. In various forms and at various times they were
repeated in most of the provinces, and a strong belief in local autonomy
never died out, though for long periods it was apparently crushed out of
existence.
Simultaneously with the overthrow of the semi-independent government of
Minas, which had been set up by the emboabas, a civil war broke out in
the old province of Pernambuco. This was a struggle of the oligarchy of
native Brazilian sugar-planters against the rigorous and corrupt rule of
the royal governors and against the encroachments of the newly arrived
Portuguese. Then, as now, foreigners conducted the trade of Brazil; the
Brazilian aristocrats remained on their plantations, disdaining the
small economies and anxieties of commerce. The Portuguese were the
peddlers, shopkeepers, and money-lenders for the community, as well as
the officials of the government. In both capacities they pressed hard on
the extravagant Brazilians. Olinda, the old capital, was the
headquarters of the latter. Recife, three miles south, was the port and
chiefly inhabited by native Portuguese. It had outrun Olinda during the
Dutch occupation, but was legally only an administrative dependency of
the older and smaller town. In 1709 the Portuguese government made
Recife a separate city--a step which was bitterly resented by the
Brazilians and especially by the close corporation of native families
who controlled the Olinda municipal government. Hostilities broke out
between them and the governor. Two thousand Pernambucanos invaded
Recife; the troops deserted and the governor fled for his life, while
the royal charter to Recife was torn to bits by the mob. The heads of
the insurrection met to determine what form of government should be
adopted. Bernardo Vieira, the best soldier in the colony, proposed that
a republic should be founded on the plan of Venice, probably the first
time a republic was ever advocated on American soil. The proposition met
with much favour, but the conservatives shrank from so radical a
departure. The bishop was made acting-governor, but his hand proved not
firm enough to control the divergent interests and ambitions. The
Portuguese--"mascates" they were called--revolted in their turn and
drove him from Recife. The Pernambucanos besieged the place, but the
loss of the seaport was a heavy blow. The Olinda oligarchy was not able
to secure the co-operation of the smaller municipalities, and civil war
spread throughout the province. When a new governor appeared with a
commission from the king, he had little difficulty, by promises of fair
treatment, in inducing all parties to lay down their arms. No sooner,
however, was he safely in power than he imprisoned and banished the
chiefs of the revolt, especially selecting those who had favoured an
independent republic.
All three great revolts--Beckman's in Maranhão, that of the emboabas in
Minas, and the Olinda rebellion of 1710--followed substantially the same
course. Local feeling was strong enough to sweep all before it for a
time, but lack of capacity for organisation, intestine quarrels, want of
persistency, soon enabled the Portuguese officials to re-establish
themselves more firmly than ever.
Meanwhile Portugal had become involved in the War of the Spanish
Succession. Colonia was again captured by the Spanish of Buenos Aires,
and though it was restored at the end of the war its trade was never so
prosperous afterwards. In the Upper Amazon Spanish Jesuits had come down
from Quito, but the Portuguese expelled them, thereby confirming
Portugal's title as far as the foothills of the Andes. The Spaniards of
the eighteenth century no more than the Peruvians and Bolivians of the
nineteenth were able to cope with the difficulties of transit from the
Pacific side of the mountains. Portugal's effective possession reached
to the 70th meridian from Greenwich--sixteen hundred miles west of the
Tordesillas line.
Rio was the only important Brazilian port which had escaped attack by
hostile fleets during the preceding century, and the discovery of the
gold mines gave a tremendous impetus to its prosperity and wealth. The
only gateway to the mining territory, its population of over twelve
thousand was soon one of the richest and busiest in all America. The
opportunity was too tempting to be neglected by the French
prize-hunters. A daring Frenchman, named Duclerc, appeared before the
city in 1710, but, seeing that he had not ships strong enough to force
the entrance, landed with a thousand marines forty miles down the coast.
They met with no resistance in their march through the woods and arrived
back of the city without loss. Thence they proceeded coolly to charge
into the narrow streets in the face of the artillery fire from the
hilltop forts that surround the city. The audacious enterprise was very
nearly successful. The Portuguese regulars offered no effective
resistance, and the main body of the French penetrated to the very
centre of the city. There they were checked by a little party of
students who had climbed into the governor's palace and were firing out
of the windows. The French finally took the palace by assault, but
meanwhile the city had risen behind them, their scattered detachments
were massacred in detail, and the main body in the palace had to
surrender at discretion. The Portuguese sullied their victory by acts of
mediæval cruelty--killing most of the prisoners.
The victims did not long remain unavenged. As soon as the news reached
France, Admiral Duguay-Trouin, one of the ablest seamen his nation has
produced, volunteered to lead an expedition to Rio. Wealthy merchants of
St. Malo supplied the money, and in June, 1711, he sailed with seven
line-of-battle ships, six frigates, and four smaller vessels, manned by
five thousand picked men. Secretly as the expedition had been
despatched, the Portuguese had received warning. The garrison had been
re-enforced and the narrow-mouthed harbour and hill-commanded city were
defended by three forts and eleven batteries, besides four ships of the
line and four frigates. Favoured by a foggy morning he ran boldly in,
suffering little loss. Of the Portuguese men-of-war not one escaped.
Fort Villegagnon was blown up by the mismanagement of its garrison, the
Portuguese became demoralised, Trouin put a battery on an unoccupied
island within cannon-shot of the city, and disembarked troops to the
left of the town where a range of hills made it easy to dominate the low
ground. The poor governor knew no better tactics than to let the French
enter the streets and then overpower them in fighting from the houses.
But Trouin was too old a soldier to be caught like his fellow-countrymen
the year before. He coolly advanced his batteries and soon had the town
commanded on three sides; it was only a question of getting his cannon
into position when he could batter the place at his leisure. Panic
extended from the citizens to the soldiers, and a week after the French
had entered the harbour the governor fled ignominiously to the interior,
and the French took possession unopposed.
Revenge and plunder had been the objects of the expedition. It would
have been very difficult for the French to have remained in permanent
possession of the city, and a conquest of the interior, with its large
population and mountainous character, was not to be thought of. The city
was admitted to ransom on giving up the surviving prisoners of the
Duclerc expedition. Duguay-Trouin sailed triumphantly back to France
with a treasure which netted the Norman merchants who had fitted him out
ninety-two per cent. on their investment, in spite of the wrecking of
the biggest ship on the homeward voyage.
CHAPTER XII
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
Montevideo was founded in 1726 and became the nucleus of the Spanish
settlements which have grown into the modern country of Uruguay. Except
Colonia, the only Portuguese settlements south of the 25th degree were
the town of Santa Catharina Island, the unimportant village of Laguna on
the coast-plain, and the scattered ranches of a few adventurous
Paulistas on the plateau.
The founding of Montevideo drew the serious attention of the Rio
government to the valuable country between the Plate and Santa
Catharina. The Paulistas had thoroughly explored the plains and found
them swarming with cattle. The chief obstacle to the foundation of a
military post as a nucleus for the settlement of Rio Grande and eastern
Uruguay was the lack of a harbour on that sandy coast. When the next
European war broke out, in 1735, the Spaniards again besieged Colonia,
and established forts and settlements along the Uruguayan coast, from
Montevideo to the present Brazilian border. In 1737, the Portuguese
authorities sent an expedition to take Montevideo, which failed. On the
way back the Portuguese built a little fort at the only entrance which
gives access to the great series of lagoons which run parallel to the
coast for two hundred and fifty miles north of the southern Brazilian
frontier. This is the site of the present city of Rio Grande do Sul. A
few years later, a considerable number of settlers from the Azores
Islands were introduced, who engaged in agriculture along the fertile
borders of the great Duck Lagoon.
[Illustration: RIO GRANDE DO SUL.]
In 1750, Spain and Portugal made an attempt to reach an amicable and
rational agreement about their South American boundaries. Up to that
time, Spain had stubbornly claimed the territory as far north and east
as Santos, and Portugal was even more unreasonable in asserting her
exclusive right to the coast as far south and west as the mouth of the
Uruguay. The treaty of 1750 virtually recognised the _uti possidetis_.
Portugal agreed to give up Colonia, and the boundary to her possessions
and those of Spain was drawn between the Spanish settlements in Uruguay
and the Portuguese settlements in Rio Grande. The seven Jesuit missions
in the interior, two hundred miles to the north, were abandoned by the
Spanish government. Spain deliberately ceded these tens of thousands of
peaceful and prosperous civilised Indians, and even agreed that her
troops should assist the Portuguese in the cruel dispossession. The
Indians fought desperately and unavailingly. But this iniquitous
provision of the treaty was the only part of it which was ever carried
into effect. Spanish public opinion protested, the boundary commissions
could not agree, Portugal put off the surrender of Colonia on one
pretext or another, and in 1761 the treaty fell to the ground and all
the questions were left open.
That year Spain and Portugal became embroiled on opposite sides in the
Seven Years' War, and the Spaniards from Buenos Aires invaded the
disputed territory in overwhelming force. Colonia was taken and in 1763
the Spanish governor led his army against the Portuguese settlements in
Rio Grande. The fortified town of Rio Grande fell, the superior
Argentine cavalry drove the Rio Grandenses back to the coast, and the
Portuguese territory was reduced to the north-east quarter of the state.
The flourishing farms of the Azorean settlers were laid waste, and from
this invasion dates the adoption by the Rio Grandenses of pastoral
habits. The Treaty of Paris put an end to the war in Europe. The
Spaniards ceased their advance, they restored Colonia once more, but
retained their conquests in southern Rio Grande.
The Rio Grandenses made good use of the breathing-spell. They cared
little whether there was peace or war in Europe, and four years later
made a desperate effort to recapture their old capital and regain their
farms in the south. Disavowed by their government, they still kept on
fighting; soon they made a regular business of raiding the territory
occupied by the Spaniards; the beef they found on the plains was their
food; they were always in the saddle and soon became the finest of
irregular cavalry and partisan fighters.
The Spaniards retaliated by invading northern Rio Grande, but never
succeeded in routing the Rio Grandenses from their last strongholds. In
1775 the Brazilians were re-enforced from São Paulo and Rio and took the
aggressive, and the following year recaptured the city of Rio Grande.
The Spanish government took prompt steps to avenge this loss. A great
fleet was sent out, Santa Catharina was captured, an army of four
thousand men was on the march up from Montevideo to sweep the Portuguese
out of all southern Brazil once and for all. But in this crisis European
politics again saved Brazil from dismemberment. France and Spain were
forming a coalition against England in the War of American Independence.
Spain wished to have her hands free and to isolate England. The Spanish
fleet and army were at the gates of Rio Grande when the Treaty of San
Ildefonso was signed in 1777. The Portuguese definitely relinquished
Colonia; Uruguay and the Seven Missions remained Spanish, but most of
southern Rio Grande which the Portuguese had lost in 1763, as well as
Santa Catharina, was restored to them.
[Illustration: OLD RANCH IN RIO GRANDE.]
The thirty-four years of peace which followed in Rio Grande were
employed in steady growth. A craze for cattle-raising set in, and the
plains were divided up into great _estancias_ which were distributed
among the governor's favourites or those who had distinguished
themselves during the war. Substantially the entire population engaged
in the cattle business. The Rio Grandenses and their cattle multiplied
so rapidly that they spread out over the western part of the state,
which was still Spanish, and to the south. In 1780 the curing of beef by
drying and salting was introduced, which permitted its shipment, and
afforded a stable market.
[Illustration: WASHING DIAMONDS.]
After the great gold discoveries in Minas during the late years of the
seventeenth and early years of the eighteenth centuries, the prospectors
ranged north from Sabará along the great Backbone Mountains, finding
washings at many places in North Minas and Bahia. By 1740 the fields in
Bahia were producing fifty to a hundred thousand ounces a year. As early
as 1718 an expedition had penetrated fifteen hundred miles to the west
and discovered good placers on the plateau where the headwaters of the
Madeira and the Paraguay intertwine. This was the beginning of Cuyabá
and the state of Matto Grosso. In ten years a million five hundred
thousand ounces were taken out from these diggings. A little later
still other fields were discovered farther west on the Madeira
watershed.
The miners at the gold camp of Tijuca in North Minas had noticed some
curious little shining stones in the bottom of their pans and thought
them so pretty that they used them for counters in games. Soon a
wandering friar who had been in India recognised them as diamonds. This
occurred in 1729, and the field thus opened up supplied the world with
diamonds until the discovery of Kimberley. In the years from 1730 to
1770 five million carats were taken from the original Diamantina
district, and the deposits are still second in productiveness only to
those of South Africa. The diamond region was at once declared Crown
property and a deadline drawn around it which none except officials were
allowed to cross.
In 1716 an exploring expedition ascended the Madeira, and in the years
following the Tocantins, the Araguaya, the Rio Negro, and the principal
tributaries of the Upper Amazon were navigated. The Jesuit settlements
in the Amazon valley continued to flourish. While the interior and the
South were expanding rapidly, the coast provinces were relatively
declining. The growing competition of the West Indies reduced the price
of sugar. During the seventeenth century Brazil had furnished the bulk
of European sugar consumption, selling her product at non-competitive
prices. But the growth of the English and Dutch colonial empires brought
into the field competitors who possessed as good a climate and soil and
enjoyed the inestimable advantage of better government. Portugal's
vicious and narrow-minded colonial system was not changed until Brazil's
competitors had so far passed her that she has never since been able to
make up lost ground.
The wealth from mines and taxes that Brazil poured into the Portuguese
treasury was squandered by the dissipated bigot, John V. When he died in
1750 he left Portugal in a bad way, and though Brazil had managed to
grow in spite of mismanagement, the outlook was discouraging. The
Spaniards were threatening the new settlements in the South; São Paulo
had been depopulated by the migration to the mines; Bahia's and
Pernambuco's sugar and tobacco industries were decadent; in Ceará and
Piauhy the golden days of the cattle business had passed; Maranhão and
Pará had stopped short in their development, and their spread into the
interior had been cut off by the Jesuits.
Contemporary documents prove the horrible corruption. From ministers of
State down to the humblest subordinate every official had his share in
the pickings. The farmers of the revenues openly paid bribes and might
exact what they pleased from the taxpayers. All trade except that with
Portugal was forbidden, and this was hampered in a hundred ways. Salt,
wine, soap, rum, tobacco, olive oil, and hides were monopolies. All
legal transactions were burdened with heavy fees; slaves paid so much a
head; every river on a road was the occasion for a new toll; the
exercise of professions and trades was forbidden except on the payment
of heavy fees; anything that could compete with Portugal was prohibited
altogether. Taxation shut off industrial enterprise at its very sources,
and many of the worst features of the system then put in vogue have
never been discontinued.
The governors and military commanders interfered constantly with the
administration of justice in favour of their friends and favourites;
they accepted bribes for allowing contraband trade and permitting the
immigration of foreigners; they misappropriated the funds of widows and
orphans; they ignored the franchises of the municipalities; they imposed
unauthorised taxes; they forced loans from suitors having claims before
them; they obliged free men to work without pay; they forcibly took
wives away from their husbands; they impressed the young men for the
wars on the Spanish border, required every able bodied man to serve in
the militia, and commonly practised arbitrary imprisonment. How even one
of the best of them interfered to regulate private affairs can best be
shown by his own words:
"I promoted the good of the people by forcibly compelling them to
plant maize and pulse, and threatening to take away their lands
altogether if they did not cultivate them diligently; I required
the militia colonels to make exact reports about this matter and
thus brought about a great increase in the production of food crops
and sugar. I called the militia together for exercise on Sundays
and holidays, days which otherwise the people would have spent in
idleness and pleasure. Many have complained, but I have never
given their complaints the slightest attention, having always
followed the system of taking no notice whatever of the people's
murmurs."
He describes the Brazilians as vain, but indolent and easily subdued;
robust and supporting labour well, but inclined to an inaction from
which only extreme poverty or the command of their superiors could rouse
them. They had no education, for the only schools were a few Jesuit
seminaries, and no printing-press existed. They were licentious, had no
aristocracy, were unaccustomed to social subordination, and would obey
no authority except the military.
[Illustration: BOATS ON THE RIO GRANDE.
[From a steel print.]]
Underneath the surface fermented a deep disgust. Even in the seaports
the very name of government was hated, and in the interior the people
withdrew themselves as much as possible from contact or participation
with it. A dull hatred of Portugal and Portuguese spread among all
classes of natives. In much of the country the only law was the
patriarchal influence of the heads of the landed families, who often
exercised powers of life and death. Instances are on record where
fathers ordered their sons to kill their own sisters when the latter had
dishonoured the family name.
With the death of John V. in 1750 the great Marquis of Pombal became
prime minister. The enormous energy and activity of this remarkable man
revolutionised the administration of Portugal and Brazil. Official
corruption was severely punished; order replaced confusion; agriculture,
industry, and commerce were protected and encouraged. In spite of the
threatened exhaustion of the placers mining flourished. Maranhão and
Pará took a new start; the worst monopolies were abolished; the price of
sugar rose with the great colonial wars and the adoption of reasonable
regulations. Wealth and revenues increased apace and peace and security
were self-guarded. When Pombal fell, after twenty-seven years in power,
Brazil's population had risen to two millions; Rio was a city of fifty
thousand and the capital had been transferred there; Bahia had forty
thousand; Minas contained four hundred thousand people; the yield of
gold was four hundred thousand carats yearly, and the diamond production
one hundred and fifty thousand carats, and, finally, Santa Catharina and
Rio Grande had been saved from the Spaniards and settled. Pombal had
made short work of the Jesuits. In 1755 he took away their rights over
their Indians, and four years later issued an order for their immediate
and unconditional expulsion and the confiscation of their property.
Pombal had no favourites; he spared no individuals and no classes in his
work of ruthlessly concentrating all power in the Crown. But he built a
Frankenstein of which he himself was the helpless victim the moment his
old master died. Unwittingly he prepared the way for the triumph of the
ideas of the French Revolution both in Portugal and Brazil, and his most
beneficent measures were the most fatal to the permanence of his
despotic system. Commercial prosperity gave the Brazilian people
resources; the impartial administration of law gave them some
conceptions of civic pride and independence; the encouragement of
education, small as it was, helped start an intellectual movement which
spread over the wilds of Brazil the liberal principle then fermenting in
Europe.
Immediately upon his fall in 1777 the Portuguese government reverted to
most of the old abuses, but the economic impulse did not at once die
out.
Pombal had not only expelled the Jesuits, but had taken effective
measures against enslaving the Indians. The latter separated themselves
from the whites, and miscegenation largely decreased. On the other hand,
the importation of negro slaves had been continued on a large scale
throughout the eighteenth century and the proportion of blacks in the
mining and sugar districts had increased. Intermixture with negroes was
stimulated by the seclusion of the white women. The young men often took
mistresses from among the slaves, and these unions sometimes subsisted
after legitimate marriage. The system of double _ménages_, however,
decreased as manners became more liberal, and opportunities for social
intercourse between the sexes increased.
The more energetic Brazilians acquired the rudiments of learning in the
Jesuit schools, and a few fortunate youths were sent to the University
at Coimbra in Portugal. In the early decades of the eighteenth century
societies for the discussion of literary and scientific questions were
established in Rio and Bahia. In the centres of population little groups
of scholars began to gather who surreptitiously obtained the writings
of French and English political philosophers. Suddenly, in the latter
half of the century, a dazzling literary outburst occurred. Its seat was
not in Rio, the political, nor Bahia, the ecclesiastical capital, nor
yet in Pernambuco, the cradle of the nationality, but in Ouro Preto, the
chief place of the mining province of Minas, twenty days' journey on
muleback from the coast, and among a rude and unlettered population.
Within a few years appeared six of the foremost poets of the Portuguese
language: the lyrics, Gonzaga, Claudio, Silva Alvarengo, and Alvarengo
Peixoto, and the epics, Basilio da Gama and Santa Rita Durão. He who
writes the songs of a people rather records their history than
influences it. The writings of the Minas lyric poets are the best
documents extant on the character of the Brazilians of the colonial
period. They clearly reveal that culture was only at its beginnings;
that patriotism and national pride were indefinite and shadowy; that
religion was neither dogmatic nor absorbing; that polite society had not
come into being, and that the intellectual element entered little into
the relations of the sexes.
The independence of the United States suggested to a few Brazilians the
possibility of freeing their country from Portugal. In 1785 a dozen
Brazilian students at Coimbra formed a club for this purpose, and one of
them wrote to Thomas Jefferson, then Minister to France, asking American
aid. Jefferson was interested, but answered that nothing could be done
until the Brazilians themselves had risen in arms. A like impulse was
working in the minds of the poets and their friends at Ouro Preto. A
child-like conspiracy was formed whose object was to found a republic
with San John d'El Rei as capital and Ouro Preto as the seat of a
university. A few practical men listened to the plans of the
conspirators probably with a view of turning a disturbance to account in
preventing the government from putting into effect an obnoxious gold tax
then being threatened. Among those let into the inner circle was a young
sergeant nicknamed "Tiradentes." He undertook the task of fomenting an
uprising among the troops, but before anything practical had been done
the whole thing had been given away to the authorities. The conspirators
were arrested and taken to Rio, where the frightened governor instituted
a formal and elaborate trial and took a fearful vengeance upon the
helpless boys and poets. Poor Tiradentes, being without powerful
connections, was hanged and quartered. His memory is now revered in
Brazil as that of the first martyr to independence and the precursor of
the republic. The gentle Claudio hanged himself in prison after having
been tortured into a confession implicating his friends. Gonzaga and
Alvarengo, with several others, were banished to Africa.
Republican and separatist ideas had, however, made no headway among the
Brazilian masses. Brazil's independence was to come by the force of
circumstances and not by any deliberate national effort, and for a
republic she was destined to wait a century more.
CHAPTER XIII
THE PORTUGUESE COURT IN RIO
The political development of colonial Brazil may be divided into three
epochs. First, there was the confusion of early colonisation, the
unsuccessful attempt to establish a system of feudal captaincies, the
struggles against the Indians, French, and Jesuits, and the search for a
solid economic foundation for the new commonwealth. On the whole, this
era contained the promise of the ultimate development of a freer
governmental system than that of Portugal.
Next followed the Spanish dynasty and the wars against the Dutch.
Control of Brazil by the home government was weakened, and the colonists
learned their own military power. The years following the expulsion of
the Dutch--1655 to 1700--were the brightest politically in Brazil's
colonial history. The municipalities, governed by local oligarchies of
landowners, exercised functions not contemplated by the Portuguese code.
Though the military governors were continually encroaching, and the
system was imperfect, it was in essence thoroughly local. Its
fundamental defect was the want of co-operation between the towns.
The third period began with the consolidation of Portugal's
international position in the closing years of the seventeenth century.
Once secure from foreign attacks, she renewed the exploitation of Brazil
with redoubled eagerness. The discovery of the mines made the plunder
enormous. At first there were resistance and even formidable rebellions
like Beckman's in Maranhão, of the mascates in Pernambuco, or of the
emboabas in Minas. But the civic vitality of the people was not great
enough to sustain any continuous and effective opposition. Early in the
eighteenth century the municipalities were already at the mercy of the
military governors, and Brazil was governed partly by petty despots and
partly by numerous feeble local bodies who were without cohesion or
power to resist interference. Brazil would have remained a dependency of
Portugal during an indefinite period had it not been for a series of
events which arose in Europe out of the French Revolution.
[Illustration: DOM JOHN VI.
[From an old woodcut.]]
By 1807 England was the only power which still defied Napoleon. Portugal
had been Great Britain's ally for a century, but Napoleon found it
necessary to have command of Lisbon and Porto in order to enforce his
Berlin and Milan decrees. He peremptorily commanded Portugal to give up
her English alliance. The pusillanimous John, who had been prince regent
since the insanity of his mother in 1792, hesitated and shuffled,
seeking to put off the emperor with negotiations and evasions and a show
of hostility to England. A single despatch indicating his double
dealing was enough for Napoleon, who promptly made an agreement with
Spain for the division of Portugal and ordered Junot to march on Lisbon.
The people were ready to make a desperate resistance, but their king was
in two minds each day, and the army had been withdrawn from the frontier
to bid the British fleet a hypocritical defiance. John shed tears over
his unhappy country, but prepared to save his own person by a flight to
Rio. Junot had passed the frontier and was advancing on Lisbon by forced
marches. The Prince Regent and his Court huddled their movable property
on board the men-of-war lying in the Tagus. Fifteen thousand persons,
including most of the nobility, and fifty millions of property and
treasure were embarked. Junot's advance guard arrived at the mouth of
the river on the 27th of November, 1807, in time to see the fleet just
outside and bearing south under British convoy.
Six weeks later the exiles caught sight of the coast of Brazil, destined
thereafter to be the principal seat of the Portuguese race. The Prince
Regent disembarked at Bahia, where the people received him with
enthusiastic demonstrations of loyalty and tried desperately hard to
induce him to make their city his capital. He adhered to the original
plan, and on the 7th of March, 1808, arrived at Rio, where he was
received with equal cordiality. No conditions were imposed on the
helpless fugitives. The first acts of the prince regent proved that the
removal would be of inestimable advantage to Brazil. He promulgated a
decree opening the five great ports to the commerce of all friendly
nations. The system of seclusion and monopolies fell to the ground at a
single blow. Other decrees removed the prohibitions on manufacturing and
on trades. Foreigners were allowed to come to Brazil either for travel
or residence, and were guaranteed personal and property rights; a
national bank was established; commercial corporations were given
franchises; a printing-press was set up; military and naval schools and
a medical college were founded. Foreigners were encouraged to immigrate
and that improvement in art, industries, civilisation, and manners began
which can only result from the daily contact of different types of
humanity. For the first time Brazil was opened to scientific
investigation, and scholars, engineers, and artists were imported to aid
in making its resources known. The commercial nations lost no time in
trying to get a foothold in this virgin market; they sent their consuls
and salesmen, and within a few months importations, principally from
Great Britain, far exceeded any possible demand.
The prince regent found his South American empire divided into eighteen
provinces. These constitute the present states of the Brazilian
union--the only changes having been the separation of Alagoas from
Pernambuco and of Paraná from São Paulo, besides the erection of the
city of Rio into a neutral district. Of the three millions of people
one-third were negro slaves, and the free negroes and mulattos numbered
as many more. The proportion of whites in the whole country was not more
than a fourth, and in the larger coast cities, in the sugar districts,
and the mining regions, it descended to a seventh and even a tenth.
Civilised Indians were most numerous in Pará and Amazonas, and whites
predominated most in the extreme South and in the stock-raising
interior. In the century since, the whites have increased to forty per
cent. and the negroes have fallen to less than twenty-five, in spite of
the large slave importation in the first half of the nineteenth century.
Sugar was still the great staple. Exports of gold and precious stones
had fallen with the exhaustion of the best placers late in the preceding
century. Tobacco was largely produced, especially in Bahia, and Maranhão
and Pará were centres of a flourishing cotton trade. Rice, indigo, and
pepper were exported on a considerable scale, and the production of
coffee had been carried from Pará to Rio, and was rapidly increasing.
The people of the interior were mostly clothed in coarse cottons
manufactured at home; probably nine-tenths went barefoot and lived in
rude houses without ornamentation and conveniences. The slave system,
the large landed estates, the want of diversification of industry, the
general apathy, the ease of maintaining one's self in the mild
climate--all these causes co-operated to lessen consuming power and to
diminish Brazil's value as a market for imported merchandise.
Great estates, many of them owned by religious corporations, were the
rule. Only the best parts of these estates were cultivated. Enclosures
were almost unknown, and the farm buildings were dilapidated. Though
next to sugar the chief wealth, cattle were neglected, breeds were not
kept up, and the making of butter was so little understood that it was
worth a dollar a pound. The proprietors of the sugar ranches left
everything to their slaves. Ploughs were unknown; lumber was sawed by
hand; water power was rarely used for any purpose, though so abundant.
The only schools were a few in the towns; artificial light was
practically unused; the cities were dilapidated, and their filthy
streets were full of stagnant water. Horsemen rode on the sidewalks in
the centre of Rio itself.
Freight was brought from the interior on muleback over narrow trails,
and hardly any roads for wheeled vehicles existed. The mountains and
heavily forested coast regions were extremely difficult to penetrate,
but in the sparsely forested interior the old Indian trails furnished
facilities for constant communication, which was astonishingly rapid
considering the circumstances.
The people were very hospitable; to receive a guest was an honour; each
ranch had special quarters for travellers, and the only pay the stranger
could offer was to tell the news. Outside the ports no foreigner had
ever been seen, and the first Englishman who visited São Paulo in 1809
was as much of a curiosity as an Esquimau would be to-day.
During John's stay in Rio, Brazil was little involved in foreign
difficulties. In 1808 an expedition was sent from Pará, which took
possession of Cayenne, but the place was restored to the French in 1815.
In the south the breaking out of the Argentine revolution in 1810 was a
temptation for the Prince Regent to increase Brazil's territory. After
the expulsion of the Spaniards by the populace of Buenos Aires, the
Spanish forces in Montevideo held that place against the patriots for
four years. John sent an army into Uruguay in 1811 nominally to help the
Spaniards, but he had to withdraw it because of British pressure. After
the surrender of Montevideo by the Spaniards a civil war broke out
amongst the patriots of Uruguay and the adjacent Argentine provinces.
The warring factions trespassed on the territory of their Brazilian
neighbours. John determined to seize the coveted north bank of the Plate
for himself. In 1815 the celebrated guerrilla chief, Artigas, invaded
the Seven Missions, which had been seized in 1801, and throughout that
year and the next the Rio Grandenses fought desperately to expel him.
Finally Artigas was decisively defeated, and the Portuguese army marched
down the coast and entered Montevideo without opposition. They were
welcomed by the factions opposed to Artigas, but the Buenos Aires
government protested and Artigas kept up a resistance in the interior
until he was overthrown by rival Argentine chieftains. From 1817 to 1821
Uruguay remained in the military occupation of Brazilian troops, and in
the latter year it was formally annexed under the title of the
Cisplatine Province.
Brazil had had to assume the burdens as well as reap the advantages of
being an independent nation. The whole extravagant government with its
swarm of hangers-on, who had bankrupted both nations together, was now
saddled on Brazil alone. John's advisers regarded liberal principles as
dangerous to civil order, and considered all French and North Americans
as firebrands whose presence in Brazil might start the flame of
revolution. The United States minister was treated as if he were a
Jacobin agent, and American ships were searched for Napoleon's spies.
However, the removal of the Court to Rio had set forces in motion which
ultimately transformed Brazil. Free ports were open doors for ideas and
education as well as merchandise. Free manufacturing and immigration
diversified industry and spread energetic habits. The influx of so many
educated Portuguese and the introduction of the printing-press
stimulated a desire for instruction among the Brazilians. Ambition for
employment in the public service, the road to which, under the
Portuguese system, has always lain through the gates of a university,
co-operated. A considerable educated class began to be formed, though
the intellectual movement never extended into the body of the people.
Through the former class the nation found a means of expression. A
spirit of inquiry and unrest was roused, but the movement was
intellectual rather than instinctive; theoretical rather than practical;
from the top down, and directed more toward revolutionising the central
government than developing local administration.
The first outbreak on Brazilian soil against absolutism was the
Pernambuco revolution of 1817. Five lodges of Free Masons existed in the
city; the priests themselves were most earnest preachers of political
freedom; merchants and sugar-planters wanted lower taxes; the prosperity
of the sugar trade had made the people self-confident. A conspiracy was
formed which had the sympathy of many of the clergy and influential
citizens. An attempt to arrest the principal agitators resulted in a
riot; the troops were mostly Brazilian, and rose in favour of their
compatriots, and the populace joined them. The governor fled, leaving
the public departments, and the treasury containing a million dollars in
the hands of the revolutionists. The movement became at once frankly
separatist and republican. A Committee of Public Safety was named; the
Portuguese flags were torn down; a temporary constitution proclaimed; a
printing-press set up to publish a liberal newspaper. Messengers were
despatched to the interior and to the neighbouring provinces to announce
the overthrow of despotism and to invite co-operation, but they met with
no enthusiastic reception. Fear of the aggressive Jacobinism of the city
of Pernambuco cooled the slave-owners and conservatives, and the
dignitaries on the revolutionary committee were shocked by the
impetuosity of their radical colleagues. The insurgents had not had time
to provide themselves with arms, and a Portuguese fleet from Bahia
quickly blockaded the port. When the royal troops came up they found the
interior of the province in civil war, and the radicals were soon backed
into the city, where a short siege compelled them to capitulate. The
more aggressive leaders were shot by court-martial and a military
government was set up. Hundreds of prisoners were carried off to Bahia,
where they remained until the great reaction of 1821.
CHAPTER XIV
INDEPENDENCE
In 1820 the standard of revolt was raised in Cadiz against the Spanish
Bourbons, who, with the aid of the Holy Alliance, had re-established
absolutism after the fall of Napoleon. The feeble Ferdinand was
compelled to accept a liberal constitution. When the news reached Lisbon
the Regency, acting there for King John, was panic-stricken.
Communication with Spain was forbidden and word sent off post-haste to
John to urge his immediate return to Portugal, or at least the sending
of his eldest son, as the only means of pacifying the deep
dissatisfaction felt because of the absence of the Court and government.
In Porto--always the centre of liberal movements--a formidable
conspiracy was formed which included the leading citizens and the
officers of the garrison, and in August, 1820, the royal authority was
overthrown after scarcely a show of resistance, and a provisional junta
installed. The movement spread over the northern provinces and thence to
Lisbon, where a junta assumed power in December. After some confusion it
was agreed temporarily to adopt the Spanish Constitution, to summon the
Cortes, and to retain the Braganza dynasty as constitutional monarchs.
The news of the rising in Porto spread like wildfire through the
Portuguese possessions beyond sea. Madeira and the Azores immediately
installed revolutionary juntas, and some of the Brazilian provinces
could not wait until the assembling of the Cortes before establishing
free governments. Among native Brazilians and immigrated Portuguese,
among soldiers and citizens alike, the enthusiasm for a constitution was
well-nigh universal. In Pará, Pernambuco, and Rio Grande do Sul, the
royal governors were dispossessed by the united soldiers and people, and
the Spanish Constitution proclaimed as the law of the land. Rio,
however, lay quiet, and it was not until February, 1821, that the Bahia
garrison deposed the governor, and installed a provisional junta, which,
protesting allegiance to the House of Braganza, proclaimed the Spanish
Constitution, nominated deputies to the Cortes, and promised to adopt
whatever definite constitution might be framed by that body.
The action of Bahia was decisive. Throughout the interior it met with
approval. That John could hope for no support from Brazil in case he
decided to make a struggle against the Portuguese revolutionists, was
evident. Reluctantly he issued a proclamation announcing his intention
to send Dom Pedro, his eldest son, to treat with the Cortes, and he
promised to adopt such parts of the new constitution as might be found
expedient for Brazil. To such delay native Brazilians and the
Portuguese-born were alike opposed. In Rio the troops and people arose,
demanding an unconditional promise to ratify any constitution the Cortes
might adopt. On the 26th of February a great crowd assembled in the
streets, and while the cowardly King skulked in his suburban palace, the
Prince Pedro addressed the people, swearing in his father's name and his
own to accept unreservedly the expected constitution. The multitude
insisted on marching out to the King's palace to show their enthusiastic
gratitude. Trembling with fear John was forced to get into his carriage,
and the miserable man was frightened out of his wits when the crowd took
the horses out to drag him with their own hands. He fainted away and,
when he recovered his senses, sat snivelling, protesting between his
sobs his willingness to agree to anything, and sure that he was going to
suffer the fate of Louis XVI.
[Illustration: DOM PEDRO I.
[From an old woodcut.]]
Thereafter Dom Pedro, though only twenty-two years old, was the
principal figure in Brazil. He resembled his passionate, unrestrained,
and unscrupulous mother rather than his vacillating, pusillanimous
father. He had grown up neglected and uncontrolled in the midst of his
parents' quarrelling and the confusion of the removal to Brazil,
receiving no education except that of a soldier, and hardly able to
write his native tongue correctly. He was handsome, brave, wilful,
arrogant, loved riding and driving, was eager and shameless in the
pursuit of pleasure. His manners were frank and attractive and he was
active-minded, quick to absorb new impressions, enterprising,
strong-willed, loved popularity, and intensely enjoyed being the
principal dramatic figure in any crisis. His personal courage was
unquestionable, and he was prompt of decision in the face of dangers and
difficulties. While capable of warm friendships and with strong impulses
of devotion and gratitude, he lacked real faithfulness. Between him and
his father little love and no sympathy existed. Prior to the events of
1821 he had not been admitted to the councils in state affairs, and his
closest friends were among the young Portuguese officers, who, like most
of their class, sympathised with the constitutional movement. Pedro was
a Free Mason, and the Liberal opinions advocated in the lodges greatly
influenced him. To Pedro, therefore,--young, ardent, popular, holding
progressive notions,--both Brazilian and Portuguese Liberals naturally
turned.
Seeing the rôle of leader and ruler of Brazil ready to his hand, Pedro
favoured the departure of his father for Portugal. A meeting of the Rio
electors, held on the 21st of April, to elect members to the Cortes
suddenly changed into a tumult, and demanded that the King assent to the
Spanish Constitution before his departure. He had no choice but to
yield, though probably neither he nor the popular leaders had ever read
the document. The demonstrations continuing, Pedro became uneasy lest
his father's journey should be delayed, and marched his troops into the
square and cleared the people out at the point of the bayonet. This
audacious move was followed by general stupefaction, and the King
quietly escaped, leaving Pedro as regent. As his vessel weighed anchor
he said to his son: "I fear Brazil before long will separate herself
from Portugal; if so, rather than allow the crown to fall to some
adventurer, place it on thy own head."
The grasping policy of the Portuguese members of the Cortes furnished
the impulse that drove the Brazilians into union and independence. The
Cortes met in Lisbon, and, although most of the Brazilian delegates had
not arrived, immediately undertook to pass measures touching the most
important interests of the younger kingdom. In December, 1821, news
reached Brazil that decrees had been enacted requiring the prince to
leave Brazil, abolishing the appeal courts at Rio, creating governors
who were to supersede the juntas and be independent of local control,
and sending garrisons to the principal cities. Tremendous popular
excitement followed. The coupling of the order for Pedro's retirement
with the provisions for the enslavement and disintegration of Brazil,
made the provinces realise that he was the only centre around which they
could rally for effective resistance. A cry rose up from the whole
country, praying Pedro not to abandon them. The address sent by the
provincial junta of São Paulo was penned by the hand of José Bonifacio
de Andrada, and may well be called the Brazilian declaration of
independence.
"How dare these Portuguese deputies, without waiting for the
Brazilian members, promulgate laws which affect the dearest
interests of this realm? How dare they dismember Brazil into
isolated parts possessing no common centre of strength and union?
How dare they deprive your Royal Highness of the Regency with which
your august father, our Monarch, had invested you? How dare they
deprive Brazil of the tribunals instituted for the interpretation
and modification of laws; for the general administration of
ecclesiastical affairs, of finance, commerce, and so many
institutions of public utility? To whom are the unhappy people
hereafter to address themselves for redress touching their business
and judicial interests?"
José Bonifacio, whose voice and example, more than any other man's, gave
expression and direction to the aspiration for independence, belonged to
the English parliamentary school which was dominant then in liberal
thought. The elevation of the young and progressive prince to an
independent throne seemed an easy method of establishing constitutional
government, as well as of securing Brazil's autonomy. Pedro did not
hesitate long in acceding to the wish of the Brazilians. On January 9,
1822, he formally announced that he would remain in Brazil--thus defying
the Portuguese Cortes. The word "independence" had not yet been
employed, and there was a very general hope that the Portuguese would
listen to reason when the Brazilian deputies arrived in Lisbon. The only
active resistance to Pedro in Brazil came from the Portuguese soldiers,
some of whom revolted and went so far as to march under arms to a point
commanding the city of Rio, but their nerve failed them in face of the
immense concourse of citizens who were preparing to fight.
[Illustration: DOM JOSÉ BONIFACIO DE ANDRADA.
[From a steel print.]]
Pedro threw himself unreservedly into the hands of the patriots. José
Bonifacio was made Prime Minister, and measures taken to re-establish
the control of the central over the provincial governments. But the
ruling groups in the various capitals were not very ready to surrender
their authority. Pedro called a council, but representatives from only
four provinces responded. Bahia and Pernambuco were held in check by
Portuguese garrisons, and other provinces hesitated before committing
themselves. Meanwhile the Portuguese majority in the Cortes paid no
attention to the warnings of the Brazilian members, but ruthlessly
pushed forward the measures for the commercial and political subjection
of Brazil. Most of the Brazilian members withdrew, while a squadron was
sent to Rio to escort the prince back to Portugal. On May 13 1822, he
assumed the title of "Perpetual Defender and Protector of Brazil," and
from this to a formal declaration of independence was only a step. In
June he notified the Cortes that Brazil must have her own legislative
body, and, on his own responsibility, issued writs for a constituent
assembly. The Cortes responded by re-enforcing the Bahia garrison, and
the Bahianos retaliated by attacking the Portuguese troops. The
Pernambucanos expelled their garrison and sent promises of adhesion to
the prince. On the 7th of September Pedro was in São Paulo, and there
received despatches telling of still more violent measures taken by the
Cortes, accompanied by letters from José Bonifacio urging that the
opportunity they had so often planned for together had at last arrived.
Pedro reflected but a moment, and then, dramatically drawing his sword,
cried, "Independence or Death!" Everything had been carefully timed, and
his entrance into Rio a few days later, wearing a cockade with the new
device, was greeted with enthusiasm. On the 12th of October he was
solemnly crowned "Constitutional Emperor of Brazil," announcing that he
would accept the constitution to be drawn up by the approaching
constituent assembly.
Prompt and efficient measures for the expulsion of the Portuguese
garrisons from Bahia, Maranhão, Pará, and Montevideo were taken. The
militia came forward enthusiastically; the regular forces were rapidly
increased; Lord Cochrane, the celebrated free-lance English admiral, was
placed in command of a fair-sized fleet which sailed at once for Bahia,
and, defeating the ships which remained faithful to the Portuguese
cause, established a blockade that soon enabled the land forces
besieging the city to reduce the place. At Maranhão Cochrane's success
was still easier; Pará also fell without resistance at the summons of
one of his captains; and the news of these successes was followed by
that of the surrender of the garrison at Montevideo. Within less than a
year from the declaration of independence not a hostile Portuguese
soldier remained on Brazilian soil.
CHAPTER XV
REIGN OF PEDRO I.
Independence was the result of a plan carefully arranged by José
Bonifacio and his Brazilian associates. Pedro had declared himself
emperor in an access of dramatic enthusiasm. He wanted the glory of
founding a great empire and he loved to think of his name as that of the
first legitimate monarch who was really self-abnegating enough to
establish constitutional government of his own free will. The rôle of a
Washington, with the added glory of unselfishly resigning absolute
power, appealed to his boyish vanity. But the cold fit came on when he
undertook to perform his promises. His loud protestations of
constitutionalism turned out to be mere windy mouthings. Though his
reign largely assisted in maintaining Brazil's territorial unity, it cut
off the promise of local self-government and helped bring on twenty
years of bloody revolts. He was not exactly a hypocrite; he loved to
hear sonorous periods about liberty rolling out of his mouth, but he had
no idea of what they really meant.
José Bonifacio and his brothers remained at the head of affairs when
independence was declared, but, ardent and successful as the older
Andrada had been in that movement, he proved no statesman, and had not
the strength to oppose his wilful young master. Almost immediately the
Andradas engaged in bitter quarrels with the other leaders of the
independence party, and summarily banished the five ablest advocates of
a liberal constitution. They used their power to revenge themselves on
their personal enemies, their secret police was worse than anything John
had maintained, and they forcibly suppressed the newspapers which dared
criticise their acts. Pedro's authority was accepted slowly outside of
Rio. The ties binding the northern provinces to him were especially
feeble. A constituent assembly had been summoned, but great difficulty
was experienced in securing a full representation. Pernambuco and the
neighbouring provinces hesitated long before consenting to have anything
to do with it, and Pará, Maranhão, and Piauhy were never represented. It
finally met in May, 1823, with only fifty out of the one hundred members
in their seats. The Emperor opened the session with an arrogant and
dictatorial speech. "I promise to adopt and defend the constitution
which you may frame if it should be worthy of Brazil and myself. We need
a constitution that will be an insurmountable barrier against any
invasion of the imperial prerogatives." Such language excited an
unexpected protest even among the members of this humble and
inexperienced assembly. Though a majority were magistrates, they were
not without a sense of the dignity of their functions as legislators,
and were eager for liberty--a liberty interpreted according to their own
undigested theories.
The Andradas bitterly attacked those who dared protest against the
Emperor's language, and a majority was only obtained for the government
programme by the lavish distribution of decorations. Pedro soon tired of
the Andradas and their fiercely anti-Portuguese policy, and summarily
dismissed them. The disgraced ministers passed at once into the most
virulent opposition, and they inflamed popular prejudice against the
resident Portuguese and aroused fears that the Emperor was plotting a
reunion of Brazil with Portugal. As the session went on, the assembly
showed a more independent spirit, and Pedro became more and more
irritated. The Brazilian newspapers insulted his Portuguese officers and
the assembly took the part of the former. In November matters reached a
crisis. Pedro drew up his troops in front of the assembly's
meeting-house and demanded immediate satisfaction to the insulted
officers and the expulsion of the Andradas. The answer was a brave
refusal, but against his cannon nothing availed. He sent up an order for
an instant and unconditional dissolution, and, arresting the Andradas
and other Liberals as they came out of the building, deported them on
board ship without the formality of charge or trial.
Pedro ordered a paper constitution to be drawn up by his ministers. In
form it was liberal, but he had no serious intention of putting it in
force.
Even in Rio, the people ignored the invitation to give their formal
adhesion to this delusive document. A show of acceptance was sought to
be obtained from the provinces by going through the form of submitting
it to the municipal councils. These councils were then close
corporations, largely self-elective, and dominated by the bureaucratic
caste, but even so, north of Bahia they paid no attention to the
Emperor's communication, and in the South some members had to be
imprisoned before their consent could be extorted. The Emperor swore to
the constitution, and it was gravely promulgated as the nation's
fundamental law, but no congress was summoned, as a matter of fact the
government continued a pure despotism wherever the Emperor's power
extended. The press, which had sprung into existence during the
agitation for independence, and which, after having been throttled by
the Andradas, had partly revived during the session of the constituent
assembly was now definitely suppressed. Taxes were levied on the sole
authority of the monarch; laws were put into force without other
sanction than his will; citizens were arbitrarily banished, and military
tribunals condemned civilians to death in time of peace.
We can never know the extent of the shock felt by the Liberals on
hearing of the forcible dissolution of the constituent assembly. In
Pernambuco it was one of the stimulating causes of a rebellion. In that
city the press had not been suppressed and the spirit of 1817 was still
alive. A strong separatist feeling existed, and when the junta resigned,
the popular choice made Carvalho Paes, who had been engaged in the
former rebellion, governor. The Emperor sent up his own man, but
authorities and people refused to recognise him. An open breach
followed, and Pedro, with his usual vigour, undertook to establish his
dominion over the hitherto aloof North.
In July, 1824, the Pernambucanos threw down the gauntlet by proclaiming
the "Confederation of the Equator." This was intended to be a federal
republic after the model of the union between the provinces of
Venezuela, Colombia, and Ecuador. The adhesion of Pernambuco, Parahyba,
Rio Grande do Norte, and Ceará could be counted upon, and that of
Maranhão, Pará, and Bahia was hoped for. Bahia, however, remained
apathetic, and that city furnished Pedro a convenient base for his
operations. He sent Admiral Cochrane to blockade and bombard Pernambuco,
while an army marched up the coast. Factional civil war had broken out
in the interior of the revolted provinces, and the imperial forces were
joined by Carvalho's local enemies. The patriots fought desperately, but
were overwhelmed before they could provide themselves with arms or
organise their resistance. The city had to surrender on the 17th of
September, though fighting was kept up for a long time in the interior.
Cochrane sailed north, reducing the ports one by one, and by the end of
the year the serious resistance was at an end.
The victorious Emperor punished the patriots with ruthless severity,
sending many of the leaders to the scaffold, and establishing military
tribunals which inaugurated a reign of terror. An Englishman named
Ratcliff was brought to Rio and hanged, not so much for his part in the
insurrection as because he had once offended Pedro's mother in Portugal.
"She offered a reward for his head," said the Emperor as he signed the
death-warrant, "but now she shall have it for nothing." In the spring of
1825 it seemed as if Pedro was certain to establish himself at the head
of a military despotism extending from the Amazon to the Plate. Before
the Pernambuco insurrection his revenue and recruits had been drawn
solely from Rio and the adjacent provinces. Now his fleet and
disciplined army, recruited by impressment and concentrated under his
eye, enabled him to get revenue from all the ports and to hold the
provinces in check. His sea-power and his possession of the
purse-strings gave him a tremendous advantage. He imported Germans,
Swiss, and Irish with a view to forming a corps of janizaries. All
Brazil seemed submissive, and the enthusiasm which had flamed out among
the Brazilians in 1821 and 1822 had died down, leaving as its only
permanent effect a strong sentiment against reunion with Portugal.
Externally his position seemed secure. He was assured of Canning's
active support in securing formal recognition as an independent monarch;
Portugal was helpless; though his application for a defensive and
offensive alliance had been refused by Henry Clay, the United States was
the first to recognise Brazil's independence; even the Holy Alliance had
little objection to an independent American state ruled by a legitimate
monarch. In the summer of 1825 a treaty of peace was framed between
Portugal and Brazil through the intermediation of England. Independence
was formally recognised, but Pedro made the error of consenting that his
father should take the honorary title of Emperor of Brazil, and by a
secret article he pledged Brazil to assume ten millions of the
Portuguese debt, though it had been incurred in war against herself.
In March, 1825, a rebellion against Pedro broke out in Uruguay, and the
Argentine gauchos swarmed over the border. The Brazilians easily held
the fortified city of Montevideo, but the Spanish-Americans were
successful in the open field, and after six months of harassing fighting
caught the imperial army in a disadvantageous position and cut it to
pieces in the decisive battle of Sarandy. The Buenos Aires government at
once gave notice that it must recognise that Uruguay had reunited itself
to the Argentine, and Pedro responded with a declaration of war and a
blockade.
The preparations for war involved him in unprecedented expenditures,
which piled up the debt already accumulated in his father's time and
added to by the war of independence and the suppression of the
"Confederation of the Equator." He decided to call together the
representatives of the people and insist that they bear a share of the
responsibility. So little interest was taken that it was hard to hold
the elections, and the members had to be urged to present themselves. On
the 3rd of May, 1826, the first Brazilian Congress met. Intended as a
mere instrument to furnish supplies for the war, and meeting with the
fear of the fate of the constituent assembly before its eyes, it
hesitatingly began the work of parliamentary government. Except for the
revolution of 1889, the sessions have never since been interrupted.
A week before the assembling of Congress the news reached Brazil that
King John was dead. Pedro was the eldest son, but his brother Miguel was
a candidate for the vacant throne. Pedro had to make an immediate choice
between the two crowns. He decided to keep that of Brazil and to
transfer that of Portugal to his daughter, Maria Gloria, then a child
seven years old. He tried to head off Miguel by making the latter regent
and promising that Maria should marry him as soon as she was old enough,
while he tied his brother's hands by promulgating a constitution for
Portugal. The scheme failed to preserve the peace, and the Portuguese
absolutists, supporting Miguel, and the constitutionalists, Maria
Gloria, almost immediately became involved in a civil war. During the
latter part of Pedro's reign he was continually preoccupied with
Portuguese affairs and trying to promote his daughter's fortunes in
Europe.
The war on the Plate turned out difficult and disastrous.
Notwithstanding that great land forces were sent, no progress was made
toward reducing Uruguay to obedience, and the overwhelming naval force
blockading Buenos Aires was harassed by a small fleet improvised by an
able Irishman--Admiral Brown--in the Argentine service. Fast-sailing
Baltimore clippers fitted out as privateers infested the whole Brazilian
coast, often venturing in sight of Rio and soon sweeping the coasting
trade out of existence. Fruitless attempts to enforce the blockade
involved Pedro in difficulties with neutral powers; Brazilian merchants
were disgusted with the war, and communication between the provinces
became nearly impossible.
The Brazilian land forces in Uruguay were increased to twenty thousand,
but the Argentines under General Carlos Alvear audaciously averted the
danger of an invasion of their territory by planning and effecting an
inroad into Rio Grande itself. The Brazilian general allowed Alvear to
slip between his main body and Montevideo, and the latter penetrated to
the East, sacked the important town of Bagé, and was off to the North
with the whole Brazilian army in hot pursuit. On the 20th of February,
1827, the Argentines turned and attacked the Brazilians at a
disadvantage, defeating them with great loss. In this battle of
Ituzaingo sixteen thousand men took part, and the armies were nearly
equal in numbers. The Brazilians escaped without serious pursuit, while
the Argentines retired at their leisure, assured that no aggressive
operations would soon be undertaken against them. Pedro's hope of
dominance on the south shore of the Plate was ended. Naval disasters
suffered at the hands of the indefatigable Brown made him still more
anxious for peace. Negotiations were begun with the Argentine government
which was only prevented by lack of money and internal factional
quarrels from undertaking an aggressive war against Brazilian territory.
Operations were kept up languidly on both sides for a year, and finally
Pedro in 1828 consented to a preliminary treaty by which he relinquished
his sovereignty over Uruguay, obtaining in return Argentine consent that
it be erected into an independent country.
The first session of the Brazilian Congress had been very timid and
voted as the Emperor desired. The session of 1827 was not so respectful;
the news of Ituzaingo had made him seem less formidable. For the first
time the chamber became a forum for the discussion of governmental
theories, and the voice of Vasconcellos, the great champion of
parliamentary government, was heard. In the fall of 1827 independent
newspapers began to make their appearance and Pedro dared not interfere
with them. The tone of most of them was exaggerated, but in December the
_Aurora Fluminense_, with Evaristo da Veiga as editor, issued its first
number. By universal consent he is recognised as the most influential
journalist who ever wielded a pen in Brazil. His profound and temperate
discussions of public affairs gave him an ascendency over opinion which
can hardly be understood in countries where party conventions and set
speeches give opportunities for authoritatively outlining policies.
[Illustration: EVARISTO FERREIRA DA VEIGA.
[From a steel engraving.]]
When Congress met in May, 1828, the Emperor and his government had
completely lost prestige. The public's and Chamber's consciousness of
their rights and their power had made a distinct advance. Vasconcellos
infused into the debates an independent and statesmanlike spirit not
unworthy the great popular assemblies of the most advanced countries.
The youth of this remarkable man had been passed in pleasure-seeking,
but his election to Congress gave him an object in life commensurate
with his great abilities, and he applied himself with unquenchable
ardour to the study of political science. Corrupt in morals, inordinate
in ambition, his venality notorious, his constitution ruined by disease,
his skin withered, his hair grey, and his appearance that of a man of
sixty, though he was but thirty, the spirit within rose superior to all
physical and moral defects. His rôle was peculiarly that of champion of
the prerogatives of Congress. By his side was Padre Feijó, afterwards
regent--incorruptible in morals and unyielding in will--the champion of
federation and democracy, and the earliest Brazilian positivist.
This Chamber of 1828 made a real beginning toward making ministries
responsible to Congress, and started legal and administrative reforms,
but the Emperor insisted that its sole attention be given to increasing
taxes. When the Chamber definitely refused in 1829 he dissolved it in
the hope that the next might prove more tractable. This act destroyed
the last remnants of Pedro's popularity. From that moment his abdication
or expulsion was inevitable. His friends tried to create a reaction by
organising societies in favour of absolutism, and governors of
retrograde principles were appointed, but the popular irritation against
him because he was a Portuguese by birth and sympathy constantly grew.
Brazil divided into two parties--all the Brazilians belonged to one and
only the resident Portuguese to the other. The new Chamber was harder to
manage than the old one. The Andradas had returned from exile, and most
of the new members were bitterly prejudiced against Pedro. In the midst
of the discontent came the news of the July revolution in Paris, giving
the liberal propaganda a tremendous impetus. The assassination of a
newspaper man named Badaro in November, 1830, aroused popular
indignation to a fearful pitch. Pedro made a last effort to regain his
popularity by making a journey through the province of Minas. His cold
reception convinced him that the disaffection was not merely local, and
he returned to Rio sick at heart. In March, 1831, disturbances broke out
in the Rio streets between the radicals and the Portuguese. Vasconcellos
and Feijó were absent, but Evaristo drew up a manifesto demanding
immediate reparation for the outrages committed by the rioting
Portuguese. The Emperor tried to still the rising storm by dismissing
his ministry, but the rioting continued and he suddenly again changed
front and appointed a ministry of known reactionary principles. The
announcement was followed on the 7th of April by the assembling of a
mob, among whose members were professional men, public employees, and
even soldiers and deputies. Pedro's proclamation was torn from the
messengers' hands and trampled under foot beneath the windows of his
palace. The troops were all on the popular side. A committee crowded its
way into the Emperor's presence, but he would yield nothing to
compulsion, saying with dignity: "I will do everything for the people,
but nothing by the people." The news of the desertion of the very troops
guarding his person he received with equanimity, but the populace showed
equal stubbornness. Throughout the night the crowd stuck to their posts,
and about two o'clock in the morning he suddenly drew up to a table and,
without consulting any one, wrote out an unconditional abdication in
favour of his infant son. The ministers of France and Great Britain had
remained with him during this night of anxiety, and when the morning
came they were reluctant to accept his abdication as final. All the
foreign diplomats except the representatives of the United States and
Colombia followed him on board the British warship, where he took
refuge. They wished to give him their moral support in case a
counter-revolution were attempted.
The most potent cause for Pedro's loss of popularity was that he was a
Portuguese. He offended the self-love of a jealous people in a hundred
ways by favouring his Portuguese friends. Almost as fatal was his
treatment of his blameless wife. One mistress after another succeeded to
his favours, and he acknowledged and ennobled his illegitimate children.
Most of his concubines did not hold him long, but the last, who was said
to be of English descent, acquired a complete ascendancy over him. He
publicly installed her as his mistress; created her a marchioness;
forced the Empress to accept her as a lady-in-waiting and submit to ride
in the same carriage with her. The court attended in a body the baptism
of her child, and some of his love letters to her are indescribable.
They could have been written only by a degenerate. In the fall of 1826
the poor Empress was _enceinte_ with her seventh child in nine years,
and while in this condition Pedro brutally abused her. She never
recovered and died in the most fearful agony. Pedro was absent looking
after the war in the Plate, but the marchioness had the heartless
effrontery to demand admittance to the sick-room, and Pedro on his
return dismissed the ministers who had dared to approve the action of
the official who refused to let his mistress gloat over the tortured
deathbed of his wife.
Pedro was too boyish, talkative, and familiar to maintain an ascendancy
over such a people as the Brazilians. At all hours of the day and night
he was to be seen driving furiously about the streets, and he constantly
showed himself in the theatres. He liked to drill his troops himself,
and frequently beat the soldiers with his own imperial hand. Once he
nearly maimed himself striking at a stupid recruit with his sword, and,
missing the blow, catching his own foot. On another occasion he almost
killed himself and two members of his family by overturning his
carriage. He was always ready to explain to any mob at hand his reasons
for his official policy, and was too fond of excitement and applause to
refrain from making a speech whenever he had a chance. The inmost
emotions of his heart were too cheaply exhibited on the Rio streets for
the populace to have much respect for them. He was a belated
knight-errant with a decided touch of the demagogue.
CHAPTER XVI
THE REGENCY
After Pedro's expulsion the country was left in a very insecure
situation. In Rio the Portuguese were as numerous as the native
Brazilians. A great part of the population was under arms and radicalism
and revolution were in the air; but, for the moment, fear of the
Portuguese and of Pedro's restoration enabled cool-headed, conservative
leaders to maintain peace. The members of Congress in the city selected
a provisional regency. The ministry, whose dismissal had been the
occasion of the outbreak against Pedro, returned to power and, so far as
Rio was concerned, government proceeded without interruption. Within a
few weeks Congress met in regular session, and a permanent regency was
elected. Bahia had revolted and expelled the pro-Portuguese military
commander even before Pedro's deposition by Rio. When the news of the
events of the 7th of April reached Pernambuco and Pará the troops
promptly renounced their commanders.
In Congress grave differences of opinion appeared. The Brazilian party
quickly divided into two factions--the conservatives, who were faithful
to the dynasty and wanted the fewest possible changes, and the radicals.
The former had stepped into control ahead of the latter, but they had
not the real force of the country behind them. There was a growing
demand for a larger measure of self-government by the provinces and for
sweeping democratic reforms.
The regency had no real prestige, the military soon became jealous and
dissatisfied, and the party in favour of the Emperor's restoration began
to assume a formidably menacing attitude. In July Rio seemed on the
point of plunging into a bloody and desperate civil war. The Regency
called upon Padre Feijó, the great patriot priest and leader of
democratic opinion, and gave him absolute power as minister of justice.
His firm measures soon suppressed the disorders in Rio, and the national
guard which he organised among the better classes of the people held the
revolting regiments in check. In the provinces, however, the local
authorities often ignored the commands of the governors appointed by the
regency; ambitious local leaders plotted to turn the situation to their
personal advantage; and the soldiers and disorderly elements were
inflammable material ready to their hands.
In nearly every province civil wars broke out. The typical process was
for a military officer, a national-guard colonel, or any other person
who had acquired local prestige, to issue a pronunciamento and announce
the establishment of a liberal government whose scope was only limited
by the imagination and knowledge of constitutional law possessed by the
writer of the pronunciamento. If the municipal authorities resisted they
were expelled, and creatures of the head of the insurrection put in
their places. This overturning of legally existing authority would
usually be resented by some neighbouring official or some rival of the
petty dictator, and a confused conflict would ensue in which the rank
and file of neither side would have a very clear conception of what they
were fighting about, although the words of "liberty" and "local rights,"
"constitutionalism" and "union," were overworked in speeches and
proclamations. It is not worth while to give the detailed story of these
monotonous and tedious uprisings, massacres, encounters, and
usurpations, though the operations often rose to the dignity of
campaigns and pitched battles. Hardly a province escaped. In Pernambuco
in 1831 the soldiery sacked the city and the people avenged themselves
by killing three hundred and banishing the rest. Next year another
military revolt broke out in the same city, which soon became an
insurrection whose nominal purpose was to restore the Emperor, and which
lasted four years. Two hundred persons were killed in Pará in 1831
during a single night of street fighting. A bitter little civil war in
Maranhão lasted all through the winter of 1831-32, and was only put down
by a general sent from Rio. In Ceará the partisans of the Emperor kept
the province in a state of anarchy for several months. In Minas Geraes
the friends of Pedro obtained possession of the capital, and the
patriots had to fight hard to get the better of them. Though most of
these insurrections were suppressed by the people of the state
concerned, disrespect for the central government was increasing, and a
blind and jealous hatred of the Portuguese and everything foreign grew
continuously.
During the four stormy years which succeeded Pedro's expulsion, Congress
discussed violently the terms of the constitutional revision which all
saw to be inevitable. Though the radical elements predominated, the
conservatives and the senate succeeded in bringing about a compromise. A
single regent was substituted for the triple system; he was to be
elected by universal though indirect suffrage; and, most important of
all, each province was given its own assembly with power to levy taxes
and conduct most of the affairs of local government. The conservatives
managed to preserve the life senate and the nomination of the provincial
governors by the central government.
The party in favour of Pedro's restoration had been gaining ground. The
Andradas, always in the most extreme opposition when out of power, went
over to it, and the conservatives were gravitating in the same direction
when Pedro's own death in 1834 put an end to the movement. He died at a
happy moment for his fame,--covered with the laurels he had just won by
driving out his usurping and absolutist brother, Miguel, and by using
that opportunity to endow Portugal with a constitution. By a curious
irony of fate, this reckless soldier and descendant of a hundred
absolute kings was the instrument through which constitutional
government was given to both branches of the Portuguese race.
The statesman who had proved himself most nearly master of the situation
during these stormy years was Padre Feijó. He represented the average
Brazilian--the disinterested and honest public. He had energy and
intrepidity; his eloquence was peculiar and commanding; his advocacy of
his beliefs was uncompromising; he had been a leader in sustaining
liberal ideas; and he had proven his practical courage and capacity in
putting down the counter-revolution in Rio. He naturally became a
candidate for sole regent after the passage of the _Acto Addicional_, or
amendment to the constitution. It seemed appropriate that to him should
be entrusted the putting into force of the law which was expected to
change Brazil into a federation of democracies united under a
constitutional monarchy. Elected after a close contest, he took office
in the latter part of 1835, sincerely anxious to rule well and sustained
by a popular love and confidence such as few Brazilian statesmen have
enjoyed. However, from the beginning he was unable to count on the
support of a majority of the Chamber. He was not the man to manage by
adroit manipulation and skilful distribution of patronage, but his own
work and that of Vasconcellos had borne fruit, and the popular branch of
the legislature had become the dominating political force in the
Brazilian system. The tide was now setting toward conservatism; the
heroic impulses that had brought about the revolution of 1831 had lost
their force; the nation's temper was cooled; the politicians had
forgotten their fine enthusiasm and were busily engaged in personal
intrigues.
Feijó inherited from the former regency the two most formidable
revolutions which so far had broken out--that of Vinagre and Malcher in
Pará, and the great rebellion in Rio Grande do Sul. He was hardly fitted
to deal with such a complicated situation as that of Brazil in 1836. He
himself said: "I am a man to break, never to bend." Though he gave the
officeholders of Brazil an object-lesson in unblemished integrity, his
actions were often harsh and arbitrary. When on the floor of the Chamber
he had been the chief exponent of democracy, but as chief executive he
rode roughshod over his inferiors, refused to be guided by others, even
in matters where no principle was involved, and proved that he had the
true Latin tendency to centralise administration.
Vasconcellos soon outgeneralled Feijó. A dread of innovation was
spreading among the landholding classes. The merchants and Portuguese of
the cities naturally gravitated away from the radical regent. The
opposition majority in the Chamber, compactly organised by
Vasconcellos's skilful management, was encouraged, feeling that it was
backed by the mercantile and office-holding classes, and by the persons
of highest intelligence and best social position. It clung together with
a cohesion unusual in South America, and was the foundation upon which
the historical parties were built whose names are constantly
encountered in Brazilian political history for the next fifty years.
For two years Feijó struggled against the adverse conditions. For the
Pará revolution he found a clever and faithful general in Andrea, and
managed to keep him well supplied with money and troops, so that a
vigorous pursuit of the guerrilla chiefs resulted in their capture and
the pacification of the province. But in Rio Grande the people were too
strong and too independent to be reduced by troops sent from without,
and Congress hampered him by refusing votes of credit. The revolution
which had broken out there three months before he assumed the regency
had been occasioned by anti-Portuguese feeling and the unpopularity of
the governor. The latter was obliged to flee from Porto Alegre with
hardly a semblance of resistance. At first Feijó wisely limited his
interference to the nomination of a new governor. It was not safe to
irritate the half-feudal chiefs, backed by their bands of gauchos
trained in constant raids over the Uruguayan border and who were too
accustomed to seeing revolutions on the Spanish side to hesitate much
about undertaking one on their own account. But the new governor was
ambitious and tried to take advantage of the jealousies among the gaucho
leaders to make himself supreme. He got some of the ablest of them on
his side, but the others were stimulated into more determined fighting.
The rebels kept the field in formidable numbers, and among their able
partisan chiefs was Giuseppe Garibaldi, who here took part in his first
war for freedom. At first evil fortune followed the patriots, and they
were badly defeated in the battle of Fanfa, where their greatest leader,
Bento Gonçalves, was captured and carried to Rio. His lieutenants
rallied again and declared Rio Grande an independent republic.
Feijó despatched a new governor, whose oppressive measures soon brought
about a wholesale desertion by the Rio Grandenses, who had hitherto
supported the union side. By the middle of 1837 Rio Grande seemed
hopelessly lost to Brazil, and the government only held the coast towns.
His bad management of affairs in Rio Grande was the immediate occasion
of Feijó's resignation (September, 1837). The victorious conservative
majority immediately stepped into power. Bernardo de Vasconcellos reaped
at length a personal reward for his years of labour and intrigue, and
became the ruling force in the Chamber, and Prime Minister, though a
wealthy senator, Araujo Lima by name, had been elected regent. But
Vasconcellos was merely the first among equals and held his power only
so long as he could command the support of the conservative majority. A
sort of oligarchy grew up which directed the work of reaction without
much more regard for outside opinion than Pedro himself had shown.
However, Brazil had finally entered upon a stage of government which in
form was parliamentary and in substance was partly so. It was rather the
parliamentarism of Walpole than of Gladstone; the members owed their
seats to the administration; they were a sort of self-nominating and
self-renewing body; and departmental and judicial administration
continued in much the same old way.
The great task before the conservative regency was to undo most of the
work which had been wrought by the federalist and democratic movement of
the early 30's. The amendments to the constitution, known as the _Acto
Addicional_, had apparently established the autonomy of the provinces in
their local affairs. If these amendments had been put into effect,
Brazil would have become a federated state like Switzerland or the
United States. The conservatives were alarmed at the length to which the
provincial assemblies were already going in managing their own affairs,
and succeeded in turning the country back on the road toward
centralisation and unification. A law was passed which interpreted the
_Acto Addicional_ so as nearly to destroy provincial autonomy. The
provincial assemblies were forbidden to interfere with the magistracy;
their resolutions could be vetoed by the governors or the national
Congress; their power of controlling the administration of justice was
taken away. They became little more than advisory bodies completely
under the dominance of governors appointed from Rio, and who rarely were
citizens of the states they ruled. At first there was little opposition,
and the regency easily suppressed a separatist movement in Bahia which
proposed to establish a republic until the boy emperor should come of
age.
[Illustration: DONNA JANUARIA.
[From a steel engraving.]]
The reorganised regency was, however, weak. The attitude of the nation
was merely tolerant and expectant. The war in Rio Grande, continued and
the attacks of the Liberals in the Chamber increased in force and
effectiveness. Ministers began to change and shift; the conviction grew
that the conservative oligarchy would not long rule the country.
Liberals and conservatives alike inclined to the idea that the best
thing was to return to a ruler selected from the legitimate royal
family. According to the constitution the boy emperor would not become
of age until he reached eighteen, in 1843. If the constitution were
strictly followed the country would have to be governed for years by a
hybrid executive--a regent who was neither a ruler by popular choice nor
yet a monarch by blood and succession. Many advocated declaring the
Emperor's eldest sister, Januaria, regent, though the young lady
protested tearfully against being turned into such a thing as she
imagined a regent to be. More insisted that the Emperor, in spite of his
tender years, immediately assume the functions of supreme ruler.
The politicians in opposition, with the two surviving Andradas at their
head, took advantage of this feeling. Bills were introduced in Congress
authorising the Emperor to take the reins at once. The regent's
ministers did not dare directly oppose these measures; they only tried
to compromise as long as possible. But difficulties and dissatisfaction
increased; a formidable revolution broke out in Maranhão; the Rio
Grandenses invaded Santa Catharina. It was evident that the regency
could not continue to hold the clashing provinces together. While the
intellectual conviction had never been stronger that union between the
provinces was an advantage, circumstances were increasing
dissatisfaction and insubordination in every part of the empire.
[Illustration: DOM PEDRO II.
[From a steel engraving.]]
The contest in Congress over the Emperor's majority assumed an acute
phase as soon as the session of 1840 began. The ministry in desperation
sought to prevent immediate action by calling Vasconcellos back to power
and proroguing the session. The announcement of this step was followed
by an outburst that left no recourse but a submission of the matter in
dispute to the boy emperor himself. The opposition deputies went out in
a body to see him, and begged him to consent to assume his imperial
functions at once. Though entirely unauthorised by the constitution, no
one made serious objection to such a revolutionary way of proceeding.
The young Pedro accepted with dignity and confidence; the city and
country went wild with delight, and on the 23rd of July, 1840, Congress
assembled in a sort of extraordinary constituent assembly and without a
dissenting voice proclaimed him of age.
Although the ten years of the regency were the stormiest in Brazilian
history, they were in many respects the most fruitful. The nation was
serving an apprenticeship in governing itself; its public men were being
trained; the value of self-restraint and of peace were being learned.
The freedom of the press and of parliament was definitely established.
The production of literature began; professional schools were put on a
footing not unworthy of any civilised country; learned societies were
organised; the study of the resources of the country was continued;
social intercourse developed; communication between the provinces
increased; the study of foreign languages became general among the
polite classes.
Industrially, too, the period was one of germination of those seeds from
which subsequently grew the prosperity of the country. Though foreign
commerce increased little during the civil wars, the cultivation of
coffee assumed large proportions, and while sugar and cotton, food crops
and tobacco, suffered much from foreign competition and civil
disturbances, nevertheless they held up pretty well. The confusion of
the times and the weakness of the central government prevented any great
improvement in the public finances, but neither taxes nor debt were
piled up as they had been under Pedro I. Though the efficiency and
honesty of the administration left much to be desired, the small
resources of which the central government disposed brought about an era
of comparative economy in the departments.
CHAPTER XVII
PEDRO II.
The so-called Liberals went into power on the declaration of the
Emperor's majority, and proved to be more tyrannical and centralising
than the Conservatives whom they had replaced. Provincial governors were
dismissed wholesale solely for factional advantage. The Chamber of
Deputies was dissolved and a new one elected in the fall of 1840, and in
the choice of deputies the Andradas interfered, securing an overwhelming
Liberal majority.
In reality, however, the Andradas had not won the confidence of the
ruling _coteries_, nor of the boy emperor. When they quarrelled with
Aureliano, one of their colleagues, the matter was submitted to Pedro,
who was then only fifteen and a half years old. His decision was against
the Andradas. They resigned, and from that moment until his mental
powers began to fail Pedro II. was the supreme authority in the State.
He governed parliamentarily as far as he deemed it possible, left most
matters to his Cabinets, kept out of view, and was careful to ascertain
public opinion. None the less he was the final arbiter in matters of
the first importance. In the politics of the next fifty years he was
incomparably the most potent Brazilian.
Happily for his country he resembled his mother rather than his father.
Studious and laborious, books were his great occupation. He was an
indefatigable and omnivorous reader, and, though especially fond of
history and sociology, few subjects and few literatures escaped him. No
fact ever failed to interest him, but his mind was too discursive and
his studies too widespread and too superficial to give him a store of
sound and well-digested knowledge. Morally he was a complete contrast to
his dissipated father. He was a monarch of the conscientious
nineteenth-century type. He as a little boy had been obedient to the
priests and ladies to whom his rearing had been entrusted, but they
retained no great influence over him. Though thoroughly respectful
toward religion he was not especially devout, and his political ideas
were gathered rather from his own reading than from direct teaching. As
a father and husband he was good and kind, and conscientiously devoted
all his energies to the performance of his duties, public and private.
His first act on assuming power was to forbid the people of his
household to ask any favours of him in regard to public affairs.
His manners were democratic. Though tall and handsome he cared little
for his personal appearance; his clothing was ill-fitting and ill cared
for; he drove about in rickety old carriages with absurd-looking horses;
he kept no Court properly so called; he would gobble through his state
dinners in a hurry to get back to his books; he would call Cabinet
meetings at inconvenient hours of the night if an idea struck him.
Though his subjects loved and trusted him, the general tendency was
rather to laugh at his peculiarities. It could hardly be said that
people personally stood much in awe of him. At the same time, when
action was to be taken in a crisis, he could be as arbitrary as any
czar. He took no pride in imposing his will over that of others, and his
manners and methods were always mild and gentle. Some believe that he
deliberately assumed careless, democratic ways, thinking them best
adapted to maintaining himself in power, and it is certain that he
showed little anxiety about his position and seemed to value it
slightly. Intellectually restless though he was, his judgment was sound
enough to enable him soon to foresee that the inevitable tendency was
toward a republic, and in the latter part of his life he often said that
he was the best republican in the empire, and that his main function was
to prepare the way for it. At bottom he was not a man of strong passions
or intense will, but was rather a mild-mannered and philosophic
opportunist whose greatest merit was that he loved peace, and whose
greatest achievement was that Brazil remained internally quiet during
his long reign.
With the fall of the Andradas the Conservative party returned to power,
and a reactionary parliamentary government, with the Emperor as a sort
of regulating and controlling _deus ex machina_, was definitely
installed. Great things were hoped for from the new régime, and loyalty
to the young Emperor was enthusiastic, sincere, and universal. However,
the internal disturbances were too serious to be calmed in a day. The
revolution in Maranhão, which had been bequeathed by the Regency, was
formidable. In pacifying it a general named Luiz Lima e Silva first came
to the front, and was named Baron of Caxias for his services. This
officer was less than forty years of age, and came of a family of
soldiers, one of whom had been the military member of the first Regency.
He had served in all the wars and most of the insurrections since 1822,
and had always shown solid though not especially brilliant qualities. He
was a good manager of men, and a steady, pertinacious, and shrewd
negotiator. His detractors accuse him of unscrupulous bribery, and it is
certain that he was extraordinarily successful in sowing discord among
his opponents. He obeyed the orders of his superiors and was faithful to
the Emperor. Probably the limitations of his character were as important
as his affirmative abilities in enabling him to grow into the great
military consolidator of the distracted empire. His work in the first
years of the forties was hardly inferior in importance to that of the
Emperor himself.
[Illustration: BARON OF CAXIAS.
[From an old woodcut.]]
The return to power of the Conservatives in 1841 caused great
dissatisfaction among the displaced Liberals and the advocates of
provincial autonomy. The Conservatives seemed to have captured the young
emperor, and the Liberals began to insist on the application to Brazil
of the English maxim, "The king reigns but does not govern." In 1842 a
revolution broke out in Sorocaba, the home of Padre Feijó, in the state
of São Paulo. The trouble was aggravated by the harsh measures taken by
the Conservative governor to suppress it, and soon spread to various
points in the province and thence to Minas Geraes. The revolutionists
announced that their objects were to free the Emperor from the coercion
of the Conservative oligarchy; to maintain the autonomy of the
provinces; and to preserve the constitution, whose guarantees were being
rendered nugatory. Fighting only lasted two months, but there were
fifteen important fights in Minas and five in São Paulo. The government
forces under Caxias were completely victorious, and in the final and
decisive battle of Santa Luzia he overwhelmed and dispersed three
thousand men and captured all the principal leaders. The Emperor and
Caxias adopted a magnanimous and conciliatory policy toward the defeated
rebels, though the Conservative ministers persisted in advocating harsh
measures.
Only Rio Grande do Sul remained under arms, and even there the rebels
were not averse to accepting the Emperor's authority. As soon as Caxias
had finished the pacification of Minas, he was ordered south. The
campaign began by his winning two important victories, and he followed
them up by promises of amnesty which detached some of the most
formidable rebel chiefs. Finally, in the spring of 1845, Rio Grande
returned to the Brazilian union on the concession of a full and complete
amnesty. That province has ever since enjoyed a larger measure of
autonomy than any other part of Brazil.
By the beginning of 1844 the disintegrating effects of a long
continuance in power showed itself among the Conservatives. The Cabinet
came to an issue with the Emperor over a question of an appointment, and
he called the Liberals to power. The new government was ready to carry
out the Emperor's policy of full and free amnesty and pacification by
concession. With the collapse of the revolution in Rio Grande the
central government seemed at length to have passed all danger. The
demands for a juster interpretation of the _Acto Addicional_ and for a
larger measure of autonomy to the provinces and municipalities died out
altogether, or took a peaceful form. The Liberals in power turned out to
be as conservative as the Conservatives themselves, and the work of
consolidation and centralisation proceeded uninterruptedly.
The Liberal ministry, was, however, in a false situation. The very name
they bore was an implied promise to effect reforms. Their majority soon
split up into warring factions. Congress spent the session of 1848 in
quarrelsome debates; the fall of Louis Philippe had diffused a spirit of
revolution in the air; the municipal elections were accompanied by
riots, and the ministry itself deliberately encouraged a renewal of the
anti-Portuguese agitation. The Emperor thought himself obliged to
intervene, and appointed a Conservative Cabinet. In Pernambuco the new
Conservative governor displaced the Liberal officials who had been
holding office for the last three years. The latter were anti-Rio and
anti-Portuguese, and they and their partisans started an insurrection
known as that of the _praieiros_. It quickly assumed a formidable
character and as many as two thousand revolutionists took part in a
single battle, but after three months of fighting they were completely
defeated. Little difficulty was experienced in restoring public order.
The movement had been rather a partisan uprising than a general popular
revolution.
This was the last attempt for more than forty years to establish a
federal system. The necessities of the stormy period from 1827 to 1848
had led, step by step, to a form of government which was centralised and
yet not absolute. The imperial system had been the result of a natural
growth. When the fabric reached stability the professional ruling
classes feared to disturb it, and the people were too inert and
indifferent to afford support to agitators and reformers.
[Illustration: PRINCESS ISABEL IN 1889.]
Agriculture, commerce, and industry advanced only slowly during the
first eight years of Pedro's rule. The country was getting ready for the
activity which followed. Great Britain's efforts to induce the Brazilian
government to carry out its treaty obligations for the suppression of
the slave-trade had been futile. In 1845 the British Parliament passed
the Aberdeen Bill, which authorised British men-of-war to capture
slavers even in territorial waters. This measure was especially directed
at Brazil, whose coast had become practically the sole market for the
horrible traffic. The bill did not immediately effect its purpose, and
the slavers made the most of the opportunity. In 1848 over sixty
thousand negroes were imported into Brazil. Immigration from Europe had
practically ceased with the expulsion of Pedro I. and the anti-foreign
demonstrations of the Regency, but it now slowly began again. In 1843
Dom Pedro, being then not quite eighteen years old, was married by proxy
to Theresina Christina, daughter of Francis, King of Naples. There is a
tradition that the Emperor turned his back when he saw his bride's face.
Nevertheless, he made her a good husband. Their two boys died in
infancy, but in 1846 Isabel was born, who still survives and lives in
Paris with her husband, a grandson of Louis Philippe, and with her three
sons, the eldest of whom is named for his grandfather and was
twenty-seven years old in 1902.
CHAPTER XVIII
EVENTS OF 1849 TO 1864
After the final pacification of the country prosperity came with a rush.
In the six years from 1849 to 1856 foreign commerce more than doubled.
The circulating medium was brought to a sound basis. Coffee had doubled
in value by 1850, and its culture was rapidly extended. The profits of
sugar-raising had not risen in the same proportion, and Rio, São Paulo,
and Minas drew slaves from the northern provinces. The decline of mining
in the late years of the eighteenth century and the profitableness of
sugar and tobacco during the great wars had made Maranhão, Pernambuco,
and Bahia overshadow the South for a time, but now the tide turned the
other way. Brazil's drift has ever since been to the South.
The Emperor and government followed an enlightened and vigorous
progressive commercial policy. The subjects of internal communication,
of colonisation, of better steamship facilities, of the opening of
public lands to settlement, of public instruction, of liberal treatment
to foreigners, and of administrative and financial reforms were taken
up intelligently. So far as the government was concerned the suspicious
and jealous exclusive policy was abandoned, and large amounts of foreign
capital began to be invested in commercial houses, preparing the way for
the great government loans and railroad building soon to come. The
British had the lion's share of the importing and the Americans of the
carrying trade.
The history of Brazil for the next few decades contains examples of
devotion, of high-mindedness, and of great capacities worthily employed,
of which any country might well be proud. The higher officials as a rule
left office poorer than they had entered it. However, in the lower ranks
of the magistracy and the government departments there was much to be
desired. The public service became more and more the one career sought
by young men of ability. The mercantile and property-owning classes in
general kept out of politics. Only the landowning and slaveholding
aristocracy owed a nominal allegiance to the two parties whose active
members were the officeholders or those who hoped to become
officeholders. The most promising and prominent young men were selected
from the graduates of the universities, placed in the magistracy, thence
to be promoted to the Chamber of Deputies, and to be governors of
provinces. The final goal was a nomination to the senate, where, from
the dignified security of a life position, the successful Brazilian
politician watched the struggles of those below him.
[Illustration: PAMPAS OF THE RIO GRANDE.]
The bright young magistrates were preoccupied with their own ambitions
and were not responsible to the people of the localities they happened
to be governing for the moment. Real local interests were not studied.
Those who reached the highest positions applied their well-trained minds
to larger problems, but their work was too much from above down--they
produced admirable reports and framed admirable laws, but among the lazy
magistracy and indifferent people the energy to put them into effect was
too often wanting. But the level of political well-being rose
noticeably, though fitfully. The Brazil of 1850 had progressed far
beyond the Brazil of colonial times. Liberty of speech was unquestioned
and unquestionable; arbitrary imprisonment had died out; the grosser
forms of tyranny had vanished; property rights and the administration of
civil justice had much improved. Judges no longer openly received
presents from litigants, though the nation had not risen to the
conception of a judiciary independent of the executive.
In 1850 the Emperor chose a new Conservative Cabinet, which proved the
most efficient the country had known. Its first great act was to abolish
the slave trade.
The year 1850 is also memorable as that in which the yellow fever began
those terrible ravages on the Brazilian coast which have never since
entirely ceased. The first epidemic is said to have been the worst which
ever visited Rio. Two hundred persons fell sick daily, and the wealthier
classes were especially attacked. Among the victims was the great
statesman, Bernardo de Vasconcellos, and many deputies, senators, and
diplomatic representatives. Congress adjourned in terror. In the earlier
epidemics the citizens of Rio were just as susceptible as foreigners.
Later, however, they acquired a relative immunity--an immunity which is
not shared by Brazilians who have lived in non-infected districts.
Brazil and Argentina had agreed in 1828 that Uruguay should be an
independent and neutral buffer state between them. But the Buenos
Aireans never forgot that for geographical and historical reasons
Uruguay naturally belonged to them. Rosas, the Argentine dictator,
assisted the Oribe faction, which openly advocated entering the
confederation, while the Rio Grande Brazilians who owned much property
on the Uruguayan side of the border aided the Rivera faction.
To protect the property interests of its citizens and prevent Rosas from
conquering Uruguay the Brazilian government quietly made military
preparations and formed an alliance with the Rivera party and with
Urquiza, the ruler of the province of Entre Rios, to which the dictator
of Paraguay and the president of Bolivia gave a passive adhesion. It
amounted to a coalition to forestall Rosas's plan of uniting the whole
of the old Viceroyalty and the Plate valley under his rule. Brazil was
virtually the instigator of a combination of the weaker Spanish-American
states against the strongest one.
Urquiza crossed the Uruguay, and with the aid of the Brazilian troops
made short work of Oribe's army, which was besieging Rivera in
Montevideo. Rosas responded with a declaration of war and began
collecting a formidable army. Urquiza resolved to carry the war to the
gates of Buenos Aires. The allies gathered in camp on the left bank of
the Paraná, a hundred miles above Rosario, a great army which numbered
four thousand Brazilians, eighteen thousand Argentines, mostly from the
half-Indian provinces of Entre Rios and Corrientes, and a contingent of
Uruguayans. A Brazilian fleet under Admiral Grenfell had penetrated up
the Paraná and protected their crossing of the great river. On the 17th
of December they got safely over the Paraná, and out of the low country
of Entre Rios on to the dry pampas of the right bank. Thence they
marched down on Buenos Aires, where Rosas was awaiting them. On the 3rd
of February, 1852, he gave them battle in the suburbs of that city. He
was completely defeated and fled to England.
Brazil found herself in a peculiarly advantageous situation. The war had
cost her little in money or men. Buenos Aires might no longer hope to
dominate the other Argentine provinces, and seemed likely to offer small
resistance to the unified and centralised empire. Uruguay's independence
of Buenos Aires, and Brazil's preponderance in Montevideo were assured.
The Rio Grandenses flocked over the border, bought large amounts of
property, and enjoyed peculiar privileges, while the Uruguayan
government accepted subsidies from that of Brazil.
The country's commercial development continued even more rapidly after
the war. In 1853 the Bank of Brazil was authorised to issue circulating
notes, and the expansion of credit stimulated business. The same year
the Conservative ministry, which had so brilliantly governed the nation
since 1848, was forced to resign on account of the constant interference
by the Emperor. It was replaced by the "Conciliation Cabinet"--whose
chief, the Marquis of Paraná, adopted the policy of admitting Liberals
to administrative positions. He remained in power until 1858, and his
name will always be associated with one of the most prosperous epochs in
Brazilian history. The first railway systems were inaugurated; the
receipts of the treasury grew fifty per cent.; European immigration
amounted to twenty thousand a year; private wealth and luxury
increased; and numerous theatres, balls, and social reunions furnished
an indication of the rise of the level of culture.
One of Brazil's reasons for entering on the war against Rosas was to
open up the navigation of the Paraguay, Paraná, and Uruguay, upon which
she depended for access to a large part of her territory. The treaties
made at the conclusion of the war assured, against her protest, free
navigation to all nations. Brazil has intermittently attempted to
confine the navigation of the international rivers of South America to
the nations having territory on their banks.
Paraná's "conciliation" policy seems to have suited the Emperor very
well, although it tended to hamper the development of two great parties
in clearly defined opposition to each other. The elections came more and
more under the control of the bureaucracy and were mere ratifications of
selections made by the ministers. Congress lost rather than gained in
influence, and the whole system became steadily more centripetal.
[Illustration: OLD MARKET IN SÃO PAULO.]
From 1849 the country had been having prosperous times, but in 1856 the
inevitable commercial crisis came. Prosperity had brought about
extravagances in governmental administration; the budgets showed
deficits; foreign loans were resorted to; the currency fluctuated
violently. Brazil entered upon seven lean years, during which foreign
trade remained stationary, the revenues increased only at the cost of
heavy impositions, and the public debt grew. With the death of the
Marquis of Paraná in 1858 the regular Conservatives returned to power.
He had been the dominant figure in politics since the Regency, and his
personal prestige and the confidence the Emperor reposed in him had had
much to do with holding the government together during the panic. But
the new ministry could not make headway against the difficulties. A new
currency law was necessary, but the mercantile and speculating classes
bitterly opposed the rigid measures proposed by successive Cabinets.
Paraná's neutral policy had given the opposition a hold in some of the
most important provinces, and the following elections showed a vast
increase in the number of Liberals and of dissident Conservatives.
Conservative Cabinets succeeded each other rapidly from 1858 to 1862.
The opposition to a contraction of the currency grew in force, and the
dissidents and Liberals finally obtained a majority. The Emperor at last
called upon the leader of the dissident Conservatives--Zacarias--to form
a government. But he was as powerless as his predecessors, and as a last
resort the Emperor temporarily gave up the effort to govern after the
English system, and selected a Cabinet outside of the Chamber of
Deputies.
The elections of 1863 resulted in a complete defeat of the
Conservatives, but the victorious Liberals did not need to pass any
radical currency legislation. Hard times had disappeared by the
operation of natural law. The bank-notes approached par and the budgets
nearly balanced. With 1864 the country entered upon a new era of
prosperity. The production of coffee had doubled from 1840 to 1851, and
then had remained stationary. But with the cessation of the Civil War in
the United States an era of high prices was inaugurated which coincided
with Brazil's financial rehabilitation, and stimulated planting.
Although real activity in the building of railroads did not begin until
after the Paraguayan war, four short lines had been started before 1862.
The years of peace and order had disaccustomed the people to the thought
of violence, and a steady advance had been made toward government by
law. The highly educated statesmen placed by the Emperor at the head of
affairs understood the most important principles of good government and
tried conscientiously to put them in practice. In transportation,
banking, posts, and telegraphs, commercial methods, etc., the
improvements of modern civilisation were easily introduced, though in
agriculture the indolence of proprietors and the apathetic ignorance of
the slaves prevented any rapid advance.
On the whole, Brazil had made greater political and industrial progress
when the Paraguayan war broke out than any other South American country,
though grave vices remained to hamper her further development. The mass
of the people were apathetic and ignorant; slavery tended to discredit
industrious habits, at best so difficult to maintain in the tropics; the
upper classes showed little interest in or aptitude for commercial
matters: commerce, banking, railroads, mining, and engineering prospered
only where foreigners personally engaged in them. The people themselves,
in spite of the enlightenment of the educated classes, showed little
initiative or energy.
CHAPTER XIX
THE PARAGUAYAN WAR
Brazilian statesmen might well have been pardoned if, in 1865, they had
claimed for their country the hegemony of South America. The result of
the war against Rosas had been brilliant; the Argentine had only just
emerged from half a century of civil war; Uruguay was almost a Brazilian
protectorate; Brazil's internal condition was settled; in concentration
of power, as well as in wealth, population, and extent, she was at the
head of the continent. With the republics on the west she maintained
good relations, while all the time she was firmly pressing her
territorial claims on toward the foot of the Andes. She even attempted
to control the navigation of the great waterways of South America.
[Illustration: GOVERNOR'S PALACE IN SÃO PAULO.]
In 1863, Florés, a defeated chief, returned from Buenos Aires and set up
the standard of revolt in Uruguay. Penetrating as far as the Brazilian
border he received assistance, and Aguirre, the Montevidean president,
protested. At the same time the latter ruler refused to settle certain
claims on behalf of Brazilian citizens which the Rio government had
been pressing. The Emperor decided to intervene and help Florés, and
thereupon sent a man-of-war up the Uruguay River, which blockaded a port
and destroyed Uruguayan public property. Aguirre declared war, and
Brazil and Florés in alliance besieged and took the principal towns in
western Uruguay. The Argentine received satisfactory assurances and
remained neutral.
This high-handed adjustment of Uruguayan affairs furnished a pretext to
the Paraguayan dictator, Francisco Lopez, to intervene in his turn.
Under a line of vigorous dictators who concentrated all the forces of
the nation into their own hands, that country had become menacing to the
loosely organised Argentine Republic. Lopez even thought he was strong
enough to bid defiance to Brazil. The tyrant was, in fact, an impossible
neighbour for the two more progressive and civilised powers. For years
he had been preparing for war and at the moment was stronger in a
military way than either of his bulky neighbours. He hated both
Argentines and Brazilians, and his people had been taught to despise the
courage of the latter. Though Brazil's intervention in Uruguay was a
matter in which he had an interest, a dignified protest would have
obtained ample assurances that the latter's independence would be
respected, for there is no evidence that the imperial government
intended to do anything more than to replace its enemy Aguirre by the
friendly Florés. But the arrogant tyrant wanted to draw the world's
attention to himself. He appreciated how difficult it would be for
Brazil to send an army against him and how much more difficult it would
be to maintain one, and he also knew that she was unprepared to
undertake a serious war on foreign soil.
Without any declaration of war, in the fall of 1864 he seized a
Brazilian steamer which was making its regular trip up the Paraguay
River to Matto Grosso. The crew were imprisoned, and only the
intervention of the American minister saved the lives of the Brazilian
minister and his family. This outrage left Brazil no alternative. Lopez
followed up the seizure of the boat by an expedition up the Paraguay
River against Matto Grosso, and easily conquered the principal southern
settlements in that province.
The geographical position of the Argentine made her attitude of decisive
importance to both belligerents. Uruguay and the southern provinces of
Brazil were separated from Paraguay by the Argentine provinces of
Corrientes and the Missions. Argentina had favoured Florés's
pretensions, and Lopez was so obnoxious that the secret sympathies of
Buenos Aires were with Brazil. Further than neutrality, Mitre, then
president of Argentina, would not go. He declared that no permission
would be given either belligerent to cross Argentine territory with
troops. Lopez was made desperately angry at this refusal; he thought he
could count on the alliance and support of Urquiza, the virtually
independent ruler of the province of Entre Rios and Mitre's enemy, and
seems to have believed that he might as well finish up with both
Argentina and Brazil at one sitting. In March, 1865, he deliberately
declared war on the Argentine, and eighteen thousand Paraguayan troops
crossed the Paraná and began offensive operations against Corrientes,
Uruguay, and Brazil.
Instead of rising against Mitre, Urquiza declared himself against the
Paraguayan dictator, and as his province of Entre Rios controlled access
to Paraguay by water, Lopez found that the only result of his rash act
was to open up the way by which his enemies could most conveniently
reach him. On the first of May, 1865, a formal alliance was made between
Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay. Mitre was agreed upon as
commander-in-chief; the allies promised not to lay down their arms until
Lopez should be overthrown and expelled from Paraguay; and pledges were
given to respect Paraguay's independence. Of the three allies Brazil was
the only one which could be expected to give its whole force. Florés
could only answer for the colorado faction of Uruguay. Argentina did not
represent much more than Buenos Aires. Entre Rios was Urquiza's, and the
other outside provinces had no great interest in the result.
Nevertheless, the alliance was very advantageous to Brazil. It would
have been well-nigh impossible to wage a successful war against an enemy
shut up in the middle of the continent, and accessible only by a
three-months' march across nearly impassable country, or by tedious
navigation up a single river running through a third country, and where
an army would have to be disembarked direct from ships on the enemy's
soil. The adhesion of Argentina made an aggressive war possible, and the
event proved how hopeless would have been a campaign by Brazil alone.
The story of the military operations belongs to the history of Paraguay,
and only those events which bore a direct relation to internal affairs
in Brazil will be mentioned here. The successful naval battle of
Riachuelo, on the Paraná, just below the southern end of Paraguayan
territory, in June, 1865, aroused great enthusiasm in Brazil. National
feeling was hardly cooled by the news which soon followed of a
Paraguayan invasion of Rio Grande, and rose again with the defeat of
that invasion. Brazil's regular army numbered less than fifteen thousand
men before the war, but at the Emperor's call fifty-seven battalions of
volunteers were organised in the fall of 1865. A loan of five million
pounds was arranged in London, and no expense was spared in fitting out
the army and in strengthening the fleet. By the end of the war Brazil
had eighty-five ships, not counting transports, of which thirteen were
ironclads. The voyage from Rio de Janeiro to Paraguay takes a month, and
the transportation of men and material was tedious and extremely
expensive. The government resorted to the issue of paper money, and
outraged the feelings of the financial world by compelling the Bank of
Brazil to give up the reserve it was maintaining for the redemption of
its note issues. The premium on gold rose and the currency fluctuated
wildly, although general trade continued to boom.
In September, 1865, the Paraguayan army which had invaded Rio Grande was
captured in a body, and peace was confidently expected. Lopez, however,
decided to fight it out to the bitter end, and it was April, 1866,
before the allies could gain a foothold on Paraguayan soil. For the next
six months Brazil was sickened with accounts of desperately bloody and
indecisive battles, of which the last was an awful repulse before
Curupayty. For more than a year thereafter the allies lay motionless in
their camps in the south-western corner of Paraguay, while the cholera
carried off thousands.
Though his favourite general, Marshal Caxias, was a Conservative, and
not on good terms with the Liberal Cabinet, the Emperor insisted that he
be sent to take command. Re-enforcements were vigorously recruited from
all over the empire, and in July, 1867, the cautious Caxias began a slow
advance. The expenses were mounting up to sixty millions a year; the
country chafed at the delays, Caxias quarrelled with the ministers. In
July, 1868, the Emperor dismissed them on his own responsibility, and,
though the Liberals had still a large majority in the Chamber, called in
a Conservative Cabinet. On this occasion the Emperor's pressure was not
influential enough to change a minority into a majority, and the Chamber
preferred dissolution to submission. Meanwhile Caxias had at last begun
to win victories. The very month of the fall of the Liberals he took the
great fortress of Humaitá, which guarded the passage up the Paraguay,
and Lopez retreated to the neighbourhood of his capital accompanied by
almost all the surviving Paraguayans. In November Caxias cleverly
outflanked him and taking him in the rear compelled him to fight outside
of his trenches until hardly any Paraguayans were left. By the beginning
of 1869 Lopez was a fugitive, the Brazilians were in possession of
Asuncion, and the war was over except for pursuing Lopez and the few
starving soldiers who followed him through the woods.
[Illustration: HOSPITAL AND OLD CHURCH AT PORTO ALEGRE.]
Elections were held in March, but it was not worth while for the
Liberals to make even the show of a contest. The Liberal leaders issued
a manifesto declining to take any part, and, censuring the Emperor for
calling the Conservatives to power against the known wishes of the
majority of a legally elected Chamber, announced that they would respect
the laws and would confine themselves to a non-parliamentary propagation
of the doctrines of anti-absolutism, liberalism, and emancipation. From
this time dates the systematic propaganda for the republic. The war
ended with the Emperor's son-in-law hunting down the Paraguayan bands.
In March, 1870, Lopez was caught with the last few hundred men who
remained faithful and speared by a common soldier as he tried to escape
through the woods.
The war had cost Brazil three hundred million dollars and over fifty
thousand lives. She had gained no substantial result except assuring the
safety of Matto Grosso and securing the free navigation of the Paraguay.
The Emperor did not attempt to use his victory by establishing a
hegemony over South America. Rather did the end of the Paraguayan war
mark the beginning of a policy of systematic abstention from
intermeddling with outside matters. Paraguay and Uruguay were left in
full enjoyment of their independence, and the Argentine then began her
marvellous industrial progress and political consolidation. The Plate
republics reaped the benefits of the war, while Brazil bore its heaviest
burdens. Most of the Argentine provinces had taken little part except to
furnish provisions and horses at high prices, and the opening up of
Paraguay redounded to the benefit of Buenos Aires and Montevideo--not to
that of Rio. No spirit of imperialism spread among the Brazilian
people, though they are still proud of the record their soldiers and
sailors then made. Their bravery in field fighting and the assault of
fortified places was proved beyond question, no matter how poorly they
may have been commanded, and how deficient their organisation. The
history of no war contains more examples of heroic and hopeless charges,
or stories of more desperate hand-to-hand fighting. But a successful
battle was followed by torpor; Brazilian tenacity was shown in the
patience with which defeats were sustained, and in holding on month
after month in camp, rotting in the miasmatic swamps, rather than in
pursuing advantages obtained in the field.
CHAPTER XX
REPUBLICANISM AND EMANCIPATION
From 1808 to 1837 the tendency had been in the direction of democracy
and decentralisation. Then the tide turned and from 1837 to the
Paraguayan war the central government grew stronger and federalism
weaker. The power of the Emperor reached its apogee in 1870. The
senators had been personally selected by him and he could count on their
gratitude and friendship. Deputies were elected indirectly by electors
chosen by a suffrage nominally universal, but the elections--primary and
secondary--were mere farces, absolutely controlled by the ministry which
happened to be in power. The local governors and magistrates, the
officers of the national guard, and the police, all dependent on the
central government for their positions, formed a machine against which
opposition was useless. If intimidation was not sufficient, the baldest
frauds were shamelessly resorted to--false polling lists, manufactured
returns, and the seating of contestants by the majority in the Chamber
or the returning boards. Of this system the Emperor was the real
beneficiary, for the Cabinets held at his pleasure, and if the majority
of a Chamber did not sustain a ministry which he desired to keep in
power, all he had to do was to order a dissolution. But this hybrid
system contained in itself the elements of sure decay. The Emperor was
no arbitrary despot and neither wished nor would he have been able to
govern in complete defiance of public opinion. On the other hand, the
system afforded no sure method of ascertaining public opinion nor of
throwing a proper responsibility upon well-organised political parties.
With the close of the Paraguayan war a series of movements began which
ended twenty years later with the overthrow of the empire. Brazil's
history during those twenty years is an account of the republican
propaganda, the abolition movement, the attempt to reform the elections,
the religious agitation, the growth of positivist doctrines, the demand
for economic independence by the great provinces, and finally the
infiltration of liberalism and insubordination into the army. This
evolution, however, affected principally the educated classes. The
masses of the people were and still remain largely indifferent to the
march of public events.
Commerce and industry continued to expand throughout the Paraguayan war.
From 1865 to 1872 the annual revenues doubled, and though in 1868 the
emissions of paper money had reduced its value one-half, it steadily
rose thereafter until in 1873 it again reached par. Just after the war
the budget balanced, and the production of coffee rose one-half. But
with relief from financial pressure the Conservative ministers became
extravagant, and when the great world panic of 1873 came both government
and country were badly caught. A foreign loan of five millions sterling
made in 1875 was not enough to meet the mounting deficits. In 1878 new
issues of paper money were resorted to, and exchange dropped, remaining
below par for ten years in spite of a subsequent doubling of coffee
production and a great increase in the value of exports. Population,
however, which had increased from five to ten millions from 1840 to
1870, in the next twenty years mounted to fifteen millions.
[Illustration: BRIDGE AT MENDANHA.]
The suppression of the slave trade by the Aberdeen Act and the Queiroz
law made it probable that the institution itself would ultimately
disappear. Brazilian character and customs had always stimulated
voluntary emancipation, and in Brazil the negro does not reproduce as
rapidly as the white. In 1856 the slaves numbered two millions and a
half, being nearly forty per cent. of the population, but in 1873 their
number had fallen to 1,584,000, or only sixteen per cent. The
institution was, however, socially and politically very strong. Slaves
furnished nearly all the labour employed in the production of staple
exports, and it was believed that emancipation would be followed by
agricultural collapse. But the Emperor was too enlightened a Christian
and too susceptible to the good opinion of the civilised world not be at
heart an abolitionist. However, it was only at the height of his
influence that he deemed it wise to force the consideration of abolition
on the reluctant nation. Agitation had begun modestly in 1864; in 1866
gradual emancipation was seriously proposed, but the breaking out of the
war caused the matter to be adjourned. In 1869 Joaquim Nabuco, father of
the present Brazilian minister to Great Britain, succeeded in virtually
committing the Liberal party to emancipation. With the return of peace
the question was taken up vigorously. The reactionary Conservative
Cabinet resigned rather than be an instrument of the Emperor's wishes as
to emancipation, and Pimenta Bueno was appointed Prime Minister for the
especial purpose of getting a law through Congress declaring all
children born thereafter free. This statesman failed, but Rio Branco,
father of the present Minister for Foreign Affairs, was more successful.
After a bitter and prolonged parliamentary struggle, in which Rio Branco
used every weapon that his position gave him in gaining and holding
doubtful Congressional votes, the law was passed in 1871. Thereafter all
children born of slave mothers were free, though they remained bound to
service until twenty-one. The proprietors were also required to register
all their slaves. Under the influence of these measures the number of
slaves decreased with astonishing rapidity--falling from 1,584,000 in
1873 to 743,000 in 1887.
Rio Branco's victory disrupted the Conservative party, and after
achieving it he was unable to hold his majority together. The Chamber
was dissolved, and though the new one supported him half-heartedly the
old line Conservatives had become deeply dissatisfied with the radical
tendencies of the government and the Emperor. Public men of all parties
awoke to realisation of the inconsistency between the constitution and
the Emperor's personal power. Not much was said in the Chamber, but
outside the republican propaganda assumed an active form, and the
conviction fast crystallised that the empire could not last for many
years. A republican press came into existence and a republican party was
organised under the leadership of Saldanha Marinho, an able lawyer of
Rio. Republican societies were formed in all the centres of population,
but there was no thought of armed revolution. There is, indeed, no
evidence that the Emperor ever opposed the republican propaganda,
though occasionally he detached some of its able members by promotions
to office.
[Illustration: CITY OF OURO PRETO.]
In 1873, 1874, and 1875 the question which most absorbed public
attention was the imprisonment of the bishops of Pará and Pernambuco by
the civil authorities. The lower ranks of the priesthood were
uneducated, and real interest in religion had largely been confined to
women and the lower classes. With the growth of liberal ideas among the
laity the Church awoke to the necessity of a reformation. These two
bishops were leaders in this counter-movement, and they selected the
Masonic Lodges as a point of attack. In spite of the nominal prohibition
of the Church, Free-Masonry had been permitted in Brazil since 1821, and
the lodges had become mere social clubs and philanthropic societies.
Free-Masons were members of those semi-religious brotherhoods which take
charge of local church feasts and constitute the most important link
between the lay and spiritual worlds in Brazilian communities. The two
militant bishops ordered that the brotherhoods should expel their
Masonic members or suffer the penalty of losing their right to use the
church edifices. Where these orders were not obeyed interdicts were
laid. The progressive element and the magistracy took the side of the
Masons, but the bishops were not without their supporters. The
government insisted that the obnoxious interdicts be withdrawn: the
bishops refused to yield, and were prosecuted in the civil courts and
sent to prison. The Princess Isabel was believed to be on the priests'
side, and while the excitement gradually died out and things went on as
before, a wider breach than ever had been created between the
progressive and conservative classes. Like the slave-owners devout
Catholics now felt that they could no longer depend on the imperial
system to protect them against the rising tide of radicalism.
The financial difficulties growing out of the great panic drove Rio
Branco from power in 1875, and a succession of Conservative Cabinets
struggled along until 1878. The question of electoral reform came to the
front, for every one was sick of the absurd system in vogue, and the
leaders of both the historical parties hoped for great things from a
radical change. The Emperor was opposed to giving up the indirect method
of voting, but was anxious to try some lesser reforms. On his return
from the United States and Europe in 1877 he virtually instructed the
Cabinet to put through a bill drawn after his suggestions, but the Prime
Minister resigned because the Emperor insisted that the change could not
be made by an ordinary statute, but must go through the tedious process
of an amendment to the constitution. The Emperor called in a Liberal
Cabinet and a new Chamber was elected.
The Liberal ministry continued in power until 1880, and then fell,
partly because it had lost its hold with the Liberal majority, and
partly because of the riots in Rio over the street-car tax. A law had
been passed compelling each passenger to pay a cent in addition to the
regular fare. The people refused, burned the cars, cut the harness in
pieces, threw the conductors off, and fought the police until the
business of the city was brought to a standstill. The Emperor called
upon a cool and experienced politician, José Antonio Saraiva. But the
latter refused to take office unless he should be allowed to push
through the election bill in the form of an ordinary law. Right here the
Emperor suffered a great defeat. He thought himself obliged to yield,
and the vigorous minister at once secured the passage of a radical law
which completely transformed the electoral system. Suffrage was confined
to the educated and property-holding classes, but the electors voted
directly for deputies, and the country was divided into districts each
of which chose a single deputy. The electoral body was now permanent,
and each deputy was responsible to a definite constituency. Saraiva
resigned the moment his bill was enacted into law, and every precaution
was taken to ensure that the election of 1881 should be free from any
suspicion of official pressure. The result was a revelation to the
small-bore politicians of the old régime. One hundred and fifty thousand
voters registered out of an adult male population of about three
millions, and ninety-six thousand voted. The new members were divided
nearly equally between the two historical parties--the Liberals getting
sixty-eight and the Conservatives fifty-four. Two ministers were
defeated for re-election and many of the contests were decided by small
majorities. In subsequent elections the Saraiva law proved not to be so
effective, and since it is not in the Latin nature to be satisfied with
gradual improvement, the liberal movement, of which the electoral law
was a symptom, swept on with increasing violence until the beneficent
law was uprooted along with the mistaken system on which it had been
painfully grafted.
As soon as electoral reform was out of the way abolition became once
more the dominant question in Brazilian politics. Though the majority of
Liberals were abolitionists and the doctrine was one of the official
principles of the party, the various Liberal Cabinets which succeeded
each other from 1881 to 1884 managed to dodge the dangerous issue.
Finally the Dantas ministry faced it squarely. A bill was introduced
prohibiting the sale of slaves, establishing an emancipation fund, and
freeing slaves as fast as they reached the age of sixty. A terrific
parliamentary battle followed and the project was defeated by only seven
votes--forty-eight Liberals and four Conservatives voting for it, and
seventeen Liberals and forty-two Conservatives against. The Emperor
dissolved the Chamber and the excitement over abolition became national.
The abolitionists subsidised newspapers, held public meetings, and
marched through the streets in procession carrying pictures representing
the torturing of slaves. No means were spared which might aid to rouse
the national conscience. The negroes were advised to revolt, and
assistance was openly promised to them. The elections of 1884 were
violently contested, instead of being free from fraud and protest like
those of 1881. Nor did the government so conscientiously abstain from
interference. Nevertheless the Chamber elected did not differ materially
in its composition from that which had preceded it. Sixty-five of the
one hundred and twenty members of the new House were Liberals, but of
these fifteen were opposed to abolition. For the first time avowed
republican members were elected--three being returned, and two of them
came from São Paulo--Prudente Moraes and Campos Salles, the first two
Brazilians to hold office avowedly as republicans and who reaped their
reward by becoming two decades later the first two civil presidents of
the republic. No election was ever held in Brazil which was so earnestly
contested and which constituted so genuine an expression of the wishes
of the people. Nevertheless, on the main question--that of
abolition--the result was apparently a drawn battle.
With the meeting of the Chamber in 1885 the agitation broke out afresh.
The crowds on the Rio streets hissed anti-emancipation deputies, and
there was a bitter fight for the control of the organisation of the
Chamber. It was soon evident that the Dantas ministry could not force
abolition through, and it resigned. Saraiva was called in and he
skilfully arranged a compromise. With the aid of Conservative votes he
passed a bill for gradual and compensated emancipation. This done, he
resigned. The Liberal party was disorganised and dissatisfied with him,
and he did not deem it worth his while to try and hold it together. The
quarrelling Liberal majority was aghast when it was announced that a
Conservative Cabinet would take the reins of government. The Emperor had
begun to show decided symptoms of a failure of his mental powers and
was ceasing to be a controlling factor in parliamentary affairs.
Saraiva's resignation further exacerbated the Liberal leaders against
the imperial system, and at the same time continued to lose ground with
the slaveholders.
In the election the Liberals had no chance and largely refrained from
voting. The governing classes shrank from the probable consequences of
abolition; the temper of the country seemed to have cooled; the election
reform of 1881 had not proven in practice to be of much value. Though
not so absolute as before, the provincial governors resumed their
control of the result, and returns were made according to the wishes of
the ministry in power. One hundred and three Conservatives received
certificates and only twenty-two Liberals, and most of the latter came
from the interior where official pressure could least easily be applied.
Not a republican was returned, and the declared abolitionists had almost
disappeared, although every one knew that the final blow to slavery
could not long be deferred.
The new administration devoted itself to the finances. Since 1871 the
deficits had been continuous; one sarcastic statesman said amid applause
that "the empire is the deficit." The issue of paper money had been
excessive. Better times began in 1886. A loan of six millions sterling
was contracted for on favourable terms; from forty per cent. below par
the currency rose to par in the succeeding three years; imports and
exports increased by leaps and bounds; and the revenue grew seventy-five
per cent. in a single year. The production of coffee in São Paulo, and
of rubber in Pará and Amazonas reached unprecedented figures; foreign
immigration was subsidised and a systematic propaganda to secure it
undertaken. From thirty thousand it ran up to one hundred thousand a
year, and the apprehensions that emancipation would cause a dearth of
labour were largely quieted. Government subsidies had kept up the
building of railroads during the years when the treasury was most
embarrassed, and naturally went on more rapidly when prosperity came.
When the Paraguayan war ended there were only 450 miles of railroad in
the country. In the decade that followed 1450 were built, while from
1880 to 1889 five hundred miles a year were constructed.
The Conservative Prime Minister, Baron Cotegipe, struggled hard through
1886 and 1887 to save the remnants of slavery, but intelligent and
unprejudiced opinion was nearly unanimous for the entire abolition of
the disgraceful and barbarous institution. Project after project was
presented, each one more radical than the last. The slaves began to flee
from the plantations. The army refused to aid the police in capturing
them. The poor old Emperor had gone abroad, sick and failing, leaving
Isabel as regent. Her advisers, mostly priests and foreigners, told her
that the delay was endangering the dynasty. Cotegipe resigned and John
Alfredo was made Prime Minister for the especial purpose of passing an
emancipation act. When Congress met in May, 1888, the speech from the
throne announced that the imperial programme was absolute, immediate,
and uncompensated emancipation. The prestige of the Crown was sufficient
to hush nearly all opposition. Within eight days the law had passed both
Houses and been signed by the princess. The votes against it were hardly
numerous enough to be worth counting. Only Cotegipe and a few devoted
monarchists stood in their places and read aloud the handwriting on the
wall, prophesying the sure and speedy overthrow of a monarchy which had
thus cast off its surest and most natural supporters.
[Illustration: EMPEROR DOM PEDRO IN 1889.]
CHAPTER XXI
THE REVOLUTION--THE DICTATORSHIP--THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE REPUBLIC
Every intelligent man in Brazil had long recognised the force of the
permanently working causes which were undermining the empire. Affonso
Celso, in 1902 considered the ablest advocate of restoration, and the
son of the last Prime Minister of the empire, said, in 1886, from his
place as national deputy, that the empire maintained itself only through
the tolerance of its enemies. Neither one of the two great parties of
office-holders was really monarchical, although the members of both
co-operated with the Emperor for the sake of the patronage. But the
Brazilian masses were too apathetic to take any violent measures for the
overthrow of the worn-out institution without some definite stimulus.
This was furnished by the "military question" in 1889.
[Illustration: MILITARY SCHOOL AT RIO JANEIRO.]
The teachings of Benjamin Constant, a professor of the military school
at Rio, had thoroughly impregnated the younger officers of the army with
republican doctrine. The officers were extremely sensitive about their
professional rights, and a spirit of disaffection and insubordination
was rife among them. In 1886 there was great indignation in the army
because an officer, who had engaged in an undignified newspaper
controversy with a deputy, was reprimanded by the secretary of war. A
little later another officer insisted on attacking through the press a
pension law advocated by the war department, and his cause was taken up
by the highest generals with the Marshal Deodoro de Fonseca at their
head. This general was transferred from his post to a less desirable
one, and a new outburst of indignation among the officers agitated army
circles. The ministry thought it best not to push the matter. In 1888
the bad feeling was further exacerbated by the police arresting some
officers for disorderly conduct in the streets. Again the army demanded
satisfaction, and again it was given. The favourite champion of military
dignity, Deodoro, was sent off to Matto Grosso in the spring of 1889,
and this was taken as equivalent to a punishment for his activity in
maintaining the privileges of his profession. Again the government
thought it prudent to yield, and he was allowed to return.
In the meantime, the Emperor's health had grown more feeble and the
Princess Isabel was in power. Herself unpopular, her parsimonious
husband, the Comte d'Eu, was bitterly disliked by most Brazilians. The
rumour gained credence that there was a plan to have the sick Emperor
resign in her favour. Though the general feeling was that so long as the
old man lived and reigned he ought not to be disturbed, the hot-headed
republican officers were in no humour to allow the princess to succeed
to the throne. The Conservative Cabinet had been met with a flat refusal
from the army when they ordered it to assist in capturing fugitive
slaves. The government's hand was thus forced on the slavery question.
John Alfredo's Cabinet succeeded to Cotegipe's, but was no happier in
its dealings with the "military question." The princess determined to
call in the Liberals, and their hard-headed leader, Ouro Preto, was made
Prime Minister. By many this was believed to be a part of the plot for
an abdication--that the princess's friends wanted a strong man at the
head of affairs when the _coup d'état_ came.
Ouro Preto took charge of the government in June, 1889, and shortly
dissolved the Chamber after some bitter debates in which, for the first
time in Brazil, the cry of "Viva a Republica!" was heard on the floor of
Parliament. The new ministry had no trouble in controlling the
elections, and the new Chamber that met in August was Liberal. Ouro
Preto felt strong enough to undertake to reduce the malcontents to
submission. He began by strengthening the police force and the national
guard, and removing certain regiments from the capital. But in September
Deodoro returned from the remote wilds of Matto Grosso and was received
with great demonstrations by his comrades. Secret meetings of officers
were held, and they pledged themselves to sustain at all hazards the
prestige of the military class. Professor Constant, whose influence with
the younger officers was predominant, openly threatened the ministry.
Early in November still another battalion was ordered off from the
capital to the north of Brazil, and this was the immediate occasion for
the formation of a military conspiracy in which Professor Constant and
Deodoro were the original chiefs. They determined to make an alliance
with the republicans and invited the co-operation of Quintino Bocayuva,
the chief of the militant republicans; of Aristides Lobo, a republican
editor of Rio; of Glycerio, one of the republican chiefs in São Paulo;
of Ruy Barbosa, a great lawyer and editor, whose attacks on the
government had been very effective, though he had not yet declared
himself a republican; and of Admiral Wandenkolk, who was expected to
secure the help of the navy.
[Illustration: GENERAL BENJAMIN CONSTANT.
[From a woodcut.]]
Deodoro and Constant could absolutely count upon one brigade--the
second--and were well assured of the sympathy of all the regular forces
in Rio. Of course the plan could not be kept secret from the government
police, though the public seems to have known nothing of the gravity of
what was going on. On the 14th of November, the rumour spread that
Deodoro and Constant would be arrested. Orders had, in fact, been given
for the transfer of the disaffected brigade, and the ministers were
warned that it was preparing to resist. That night the members of the
Cabinet did not sleep, and the morning found them still in anxious
council at the War Department, which faces the great square of Rio.
Constant had ridden out to the quarters of the Second Brigade, and
early in the morning led it to the square and drew up in front of the
War Department. Deodoro took command of the insurgent troops, sending an
officer to demand the surrender of the ministers. Ouro Preto called upon
the adjutant-general, Floriano Peixoto, to lead against the revolters
the troops which were in the general barracks. Floriano, after a little
hesitation, refused, and it is doubtful whether the troops would have
followed him had he consented. There was no one to raise a hand for the
ministers. They surrendered and sent their resignations by telegraph to
the Emperor at Petropolis, twenty-five miles away in the mountains.
Their impression seems to have been that the insurrection was simply a
military mutiny and that its object was solely to secure their own
downfall. But the fact that Constant, Bocayuva, and others had been let
into the inside enabled these republicans to direct the movement so that
a permanent change in the form of government was possible.
The troops in the barracks joined the Second Brigade and all together
marched through the centre of the city cheering for the army, for
Deodoro, and the republic, amid the astonishment of the people, most of
whom knew nothing of any trouble until they saw the parade. No
resistance was offered, and when the Emperor reached the city at three
o'clock in the afternoon the revolution was an accomplished fact. The
chiefs of the revolt had met and organised a provisional government,
naming themselves ministers. They at once took possession of their
different departments and the public buildings. A decree was issued
announcing that henceforth Brazil was to be a federal republic. The
feeble old Emperor was visited by a few friends, but there was no one to
raise a hand or strike a blow for him or the dynasty. He himself would
have shrunk from being the occasion for the shedding of the blood of any
of his people.
[Illustration: THE EMPRESS IN 1889.]
When night fell, the provisional government formally announced to the
Emperor his deposition, and that he and his family would be compelled to
leave the country, though their lives would be guaranteed and ample
pecuniary provision be made for them. The palace was guarded and no one
allowed to enter, though there were no indications of any
counter-revolution. The municipal council of the city promptly gave its
adherence to the new order of things, and telegrams were coming in
hourly from the provinces to the effect that the latter were universally
satisfied and that republican sympathisers were taking possession of the
local governments without opposition. During the night of the 16th, the
Emperor and his family were placed on board ship and sent off to Lisbon.
The new government was, in fact, a centralised military dictatorship,
but the names of most of its members were guarantees that the promises
of the establishment of a republic would be carried out. In all the
provinces the new situation was accepted peacefully. The Rio government
named new governors by telegraph, and the imperial authorities turned
things over to them without resistance. Persons known to have been
advocates of republican principles were preferred, and a rapid
displacement of the old governing classes ensued.
The provisional government continued in power for fourteen months, and
in that time promulgated a series of laws touching almost every subject
of social or political interest. The provinces were organised into
states after the model of the members of the North American Union;
universal suffrage was established; Church and State were entirely
separated; civil marriage was introduced; a new and humane criminal
code was adopted; the judicial system was reorganised after the American
fashion; and, in general, monarchical characteristics were removed from
the statutes, and the most modern reforms enacted. A project for a
constitution was carefully framed, and this was submitted to a congress,
which had been summoned to meet early in 1891. This congress was
composed of 205 deputies, elected by states and not by districts, and of
three senators from each state. Acting as a constituent assembly, it
adopted with few modifications the constitution proposed. The members of
the constituent congress had been almost universally selected from among
those who had been prominent in connection with the new government, or
had given it an enthusiastic adhesion. With few exceptions, the new
constitution is a copy of that of the United States. The only important
difference is that in Brazil the enactment of general civil and criminal
law is a federal and not a state attribute. The revenues of the newly
created states were made much larger than those of the imperial
provinces, principally by transferring to them the duties on exports.
Though the constitution of February 24, 1891, nominally went into effect
at once, as a matter of fact the government continued military. Deodoro
was elected president, and Marshal Floriano Peixoto vice-president, and
the dictatorship was effective, except so far as it was managed and
controlled by a few leaders who had power in the army, navy, or
financial world. The provisional government had conceded to banks in
every important centre of the country the right to issue circulating
notes. The markets were flooded with money; credit was easy; an
extraordinary speculative boom set in; values rose tremendously. The
last years of the empire had been prosperous and exchange had gone to
par. Within three years after the empire was overthrown, the amount of
paper money in circulation was more than tripled, but though exchange
had fallen tremendously, no ill effects were yet apparent. The nation
was drunk with suddenly acquired wealth. Companies of all sorts were
granted government concessions--railroad companies, mining companies,
harbour improvement companies, banks, factories, and even sugar and
coffee plantation companies. The price of coffee and rubber was rising
in gold, while the cost of production was falling with the depreciation
of the currency. The flood of Italian immigration which had been going
to the Argentine was largely diverted to Brazil. Rio, Pará, and São
Paulo were the centres of the prosperity. Business men from the
provinces swarmed into these cities, and the fortunate owners of
plantations emigrated to Paris to spend their easily acquired wealth.
During 1891 and 1892 Deodoro became involved in disputes with republican
leaders. To these political difficulties were added quarrels over the
government concessions which were expected to make every one rich.
Deodoro offended the moneyed powers by not granting such concessions as
freely as was desired by many influential persons. Finally Deodoro found
that he could no longer count on a majority in Congress, so he
arbitrarily dissolved it. But revolutions broke out in the different
states against the governors who stood by the dictator, and he also
found that he could not rely upon the unquestioning support of the army.
The navy was decidedly disaffected. After some hesitation he yielded to
the signed demand of a powerful junta and resigned in favour of the
vice-president, whom the speculators and promoters thought they could
easily control. They were grievously disappointed in Floriano. The
radical republicans found him more to their liking than did the
wealthier classes and the bureaucrats. The navy has always been
recruited among the aristocrats and looked down upon the army and soon
developed a dislike for the plebeian and illiterate president. An effort
was made to pass and put into effect a law expelling Floriano from
office before the expiration of the four-years' term for which Deodoro
and he had been elected, but he flatly announced that he would serve out
the term to which he believed himself constitutionally entitled.
In the meantime a rebellion had broken out in Rio Grande do Sul against
Julio de Castilhos, the radical republican governor. Gaspar Silveira
Martims, the local leader of the old Liberal party, had been banished,
but from Montevideo he organised the insurrection. The adherents of the
two historical imperial parties and the gauchos of the southern part of
the state joined the movement enthusiastically. Presently the pampas
were swept from one end to the other by bands of federalists, under
dreaded leaders like Gomercindo Saraiva, a ranchman from near the
Uruguayan border. The republicans stood firm, and Pinheiro Machado and
other gaucho chiefs showed that they, too, possessed the fighting
qualities which have always distinguished the hard-riding, meat-eating
Rio Grandenses. With the aid of federal troops the republicans had
decidedly the upper hand, but the federalists kept the field for three
years, while the country was harried and the most frightful destruction
of life and property took place.
Meanwhile the intriguers against Floriano at Rio took advantage of this
formidable complication. The mercantile classes, the Conservatives, the
moderate republicans, and those who regretted the empire were opposed to
him. The navy was ready to revolt at any time. A number of powerful men
had bluffed Deodoro into resigning, and they thought that they could
easily do the same with Floriano. A majority in Congress was against him
and he seemed to be almost isolated. But he had no thought of yielding
or withdrawing. His subsequent actions show that he certainly was not
actuated by any vaulting personal ambition. His was rather the instinct
of a soldier who stands where he is and fights to the last without
reasoning why. The real crisis in the establishment of the Republic had,
in fact, arrived. Floriano's overthrow would have meant anarchy and
disintegration, government by pronunciamento, short-lived
administrations established and overthrown by military force.
Early in September, 1893, the entire navy, under the lead of Admiral
Mello, revolted. The guns of the fleet commanded the harbour and seemed
to make the city untenable. Floriano acted with great energy. The army
stood by him and he recruited vigorously. The fleet would not seriously
bombard the city, full of sympathisers with the revolt, and Floriano
held the fortifications around the bay so that it was difficult for
Mello to obtain supplies. Though the European naval forces, which
quickly assembled, sympathised with the insurgents, they could hardly
give any efficient help so long as Floriano held the capital. Mello
hesitated about attempting to establish a blockade. At first the
insurgents disclaimed any intention of re-establishing the empire, but
soon the revolt began to take on a frankly monarchical character. The
friends of the old régime, however, nowhere showed the same energy and
conviction as the republicans who stood by Floriano.
[Illustration: AMERICAN LEGATION NEAR RIO.]
In Rio harbour matters came to a stand. Neither side could deal a
decisive blow to the other, but in the end Floriano and the land forces
were sure to win, because without a base of supplies the fleet could not
maintain itself indefinitely. It was necessary for Mello to start a fire
in the rear and to open communication with the Rio Grande federalists.
He escaped through the harbour entrance with one of his ironclads, and
went to Santa Catharina, where he established the seat of the
revolutionary government. Gomercindo Saraiva, the able federalist chief,
eluded the superior republican forces in the north of Rio Grande and
attempted an invasion of Santa Catharina, Paraná, and São Paulo, where
it was hoped that the monarchical plantation owners would rise. But he
was vigorously pursued and his forces defeated and scattered. The
failure of this daring expedition was the death-knell of the revolt.
Mello returned to Rio and there his position fast became untenable. The
final crisis came with the refusal of the American admiral to permit him
to establish a commercial blockade. This took away his last hope of
being able to coerce Floriano to terms. The naval revolt collapsed in
March, 1894: some of the ironclads escaped from Rio harbour and fled to
Santa Catharina, where they were captured by the republicans. The Rio
Grande federalists kept up a partisan warfare for a few months longer,
but by 1895 they were completely stamped out.
Floriano was supreme, but instead of establishing a permanent military
dictatorship he declined to be a candidate for re-election, and selected
Prudente Moraes as his successor for the term beginning in 1894.
Prudente had been one of the two republican deputies elected from São
Paulo in 1886, and had acted as president of the Constitutional Assembly
which framed the new constitution. Moderate and conservative in his
opinions and methods, his selection was a recognition of the
advisability of civil government and an abandonment of the system of
military dictatorship. With his assumption of office the Republic may be
said to have been at last definitely established.
The state governments were now functioning regularly, and their
governors soon began to assume a great importance in the political
system. These executives are selected by local cliques instead of by the
central government, as in imperial times; their command of the police
and state patronage enables them to control elections, name their own
successors, and exercise a predominant influence in the choice of
deputies and senators to the national Congress. They are the chief
instruments through which the president's control of politics is
exercised.
The majority in Congress, composed of the leaders of the republican
movement, and known as the Federal Republican party, supported Prudente
in the early part of his administration, but he was too liberal to suit
the Radicals in drawing into participation in public affairs capable
Brazilians of other antecedents. This policy and the jealousies that
always arise in a dominant party brought about a rupture between him and
the leader of the House majority. In the trial of strength which
followed, the Federal Republican party was split, and though the
president was victorious by a small margin, his position became very
precarious.
The Republic had started out on a scale of unprecedented extravagance.
The old provincial governments had been given only the fragments from
the imperial table, but the republican constitution multiplied the
revenues of the new states many fold. The issues of paper money, the
high prices of coffee and rubber, and the speculative boom gave both
state and federal government for a while plenty of money to spend. The
Union and the states vied with each other in multiplying employees, in
making loans, in spending money on public edifices, and in building and
guaranteeing railroads. The larger the deficits grew the more paper
money was issued, and exchange fell with sickening rapidity. A larger
and larger proportion of the paper revenue had to be devoted to the
purchase of gold bills for the payment of the interest on the foreign
debt. The deficits increased in geometrical progression. By 1895 signs
of the coming trouble were apparent, though the business of the country
was still prosperous. In 1896 came an outbreak of religious fanaticism
in the interior of Bahia, which grew into an armed revolt--small, it is
true, but which cost much money to suppress. The necessity for
retrenchment was evident; railroad building was interrupted; schemes to
rehabilitate the currency were brought forward and discussed.
The governments of the poorer states looked for help to the impoverished
federal treasury, and some of the stronger states showed impatience at
being hampered by an unprofitable connection with their weak sisters.
The president was not on sympathetic terms with the victorious Radicals
in Rio Grande, and the uncompromising republicans all over the Union
felt that they were not sufficiently favoured. In the fall of 1897 an
attempt was made in broad daylight to assassinate Prudente, and
prominent opposition politicians were strongly suspected of complicity
in the plot. A state of siege was declared, but the country remained
quiet, and no serious opposition was apparent when Prudente announced
that his support would be given to Campos Salles as his successor in
office and presumably the continuer of his policies.
A great drop in the price of coffee began, and the financial situation
of the government grew worse and worse. Brazil grows about two-thirds of
the world's coffee and her crop was enormously increasing. Consequently
the production of coffee was outrunning the world's consuming capacity.
The enormous profits of preceding years and the abundant supply of good
Italian labour had stimulated planting beyond all reason. New and
fertile districts were opened up in the interior of São Paulo, with
which the older plantations of Rio and the coast regions could not
compete. The poorer districts were reduced to poverty, while even the
more fertile could not hold their own.
In government finances the lowest point was reached in 1898. The paper
money had fallen to seventy-nine per cent. below par and it had become
clearly impossible to continue payments on the foreign debt. The last
act of Prudente's administration was to make an agreement by which the
foreign creditors consented to waive the receipt of their interest for
three years and the government pledged itself to reduce the volume of
paper currency and to accumulate a fund for the resumption of interest
payments.
No contest was made against Campos Salles's election in the spring of
1898. He took office finding an empty treasury, a government without
financial credit, and the country in the midst of a severe commercial
crisis. He showed great shrewdness in maintaining an ascendancy over
the politicians and controlling a majority in both branches of Congress,
and, through his minister of finance, relentlessly followed the policy
of contracting the currency and increasing taxes. In 1901 the payment of
interest on the foreign debt was resumed, and though that debt had been
increased fifty million dollars the currency had doubled in value and
become relatively stable. The state governments are more dependent on
the Union than in the days of their wealth; there is little present
danger of disintegration; no real sentiment for the re-establishment of
the empire exists. The same habits of political subordination which have
kept Brazil together so long are increasing rather than diminishing in
force.
[Illustration: CAMPOS SALLES.
[From a wood-cut.]]
The commercial crisis and the high taxes have created great discontent
among merchants. Coffee-planters and rubber-gatherers have still further
suffered by the rise of the currency. Immigration has practically
ceased, and there is little water left in speculative enterprises. The
great Bank of the Republic failed in 1900, dragging down many industrial
concerns and ruining thousands of small investors, and the government's
connection with the bank caused much scandal. Other banks, which had too
much extended their agricultural and industrial credits, have also
failed, and there is great want of confidence among investors. However,
capital is slowly accumulating, and a healthful tendency toward
industrious habits and the employment of reasonable and moderate methods
in exploiting the great untouched natural resources of the country is
evident.
Rodrigues Alves, the third civil president of the Republic, was
peaceably elected in the spring of 1902, and took his seat on November
15th, the thirteenth anniversary of the Republic. Like both his
predecessors he is from São Paulo, and was virtually named by his
immediate predecessor. His policy is expected to be the same as Campos
Salles's--that is, to keep expenses within revenue and to maintain the
political _status quo_.
Leaving out immigration, the Brazilian people have shown a steady
natural increase of nearly two per cent. per annum during this century.
The total population has multiplied from less than three to more than
eighteen millions. Not a fiftieth part of the territory is cultivated;
its resources have never been studied, much less developed; the positive
checks hardly exist; the preventive checks are yet indefinitely remote.
Modern altruism makes wars of extermination unthinkable; the colonial
experiences of the last century have demonstrated that races possessing
a reasonably efficient industrial organisation do not tend to disappear,
even though nations whose physical force is greater may reduce them to
political subordination. The Brazilians have the additional advantage of
inheriting directly a European civilisation. They are too firmly
established, too numerous and prolific, and possess a too highly
organised and deeply rooted civilisation to be in danger of expulsion or
political absorption. Immense immigration into South America is
inevitable, as soon as the pressure of population is strongly felt in
Western Europe and North America. This may transform Brazil
economically, but the new conditions will have to fit themselves into
the political and social framework already in existence.
[Illustration: MAP OF SOUTH AMERICA
_SHOWING THE PROGRESS OF SETTLEMENT AND PRESENT POPULATED AREA_]
[Illustration]
INDEX
A
Absolutism, of King of Castile in America, 53;
of Francia, 192;
of Lopez, 199, 201;
of John II., 293;
of Pombal, 397;
of Pedro I., 421, 424;
revolt against, 411, 412
"Adelantados," 23, 34, 166
Affonso Celso, 492
Agassiz, Louis, 306
Agricultural methods, 338, 394, 406, 467
Alagoas, 309, 355, 405
Albuquerque, Jeronymo de, 343, 345, 354, 355
Alcacer-Kibir, battle of, 322, 342
Alvarengo Peixoto, poet, 399
Alvarengo, Silva, poet, 399
Alvear, General Carlos, leader in Buenos Aires, 96, 102;
exiled, 103;
in battle of Ituzaingo, 120, 261, 429;
Montevideo surrenders to, 255
Amazon, the, estuary discovered, 301;
extent navigable, 308;
explored, 344, 371;
settlements along, 374;
Upper, 382, 392
Amazonas, state of, 405, 490
Anchieta, Padre, 329, 336
Anti-foreign sentiment among Creoles, in Argentina, 34, 86, 267;
in Uruguay, 267;
in Brazil, 396, 417, 423, 426, 432, 433, 439, 442, 455
Araguaya River, 310, 392
Arawak Indians, 300
Architecture, 341
Argentina, 37-161;
settlement of, 14, 15, 17, 18, 22, 24, 29, 32, 43;
rainfall in, 40;
agriculture and grazing in, 40, 43;
climate in, 41;
area of, 43;
prosperity of, 45, 144, 148;
exports of, 49, 148, 159;
population of, 79, 131, 143, 147, 185;
national colours of, 90,
independence of, 90, 96, 100, 104;
revolt of May 25, 1810, 90, 188, 252, 407;
federalism in, 94, 115, 130, 132, 136, 138, 148, 255;
proposals to make it a monarchy, 104;
civil wars in, 115 _et seq._;
war with Brazil, 120, 129, 260, 427, 428, 462;
constitution of, 134, 137, 138;
industrial development in, 141, 160;
war with Paraguay, 141, 142, 189, 200, 206-219, 276, 471;
finances of, 149-153, 156, 157, 160;
war with Chile threatened, 156;
war with Uruguay, 255, 267
Arroyo Grande, battle of, 268
Artigas, José, 92, 105, 252-258, 407, 408
Assassinations, 277, 281, 379, 508
Asuncion, 22, 33;
founded, 25, 165;
way opened to, 143;
in possession of Brazil, 475
Audiencia, of Charcas, 16, 53, 61, 176;
of Buenos Aires, 84
Ayohuma, battle of, 97
Azores, 8, 292, 346, 387, 412
B
Bahia (city), early settlement of Brazil, 320;
military and naval post, 322;
population, 324;
industries, 324, 393;
growth, 347;
captured by the Dutch, 351;
captured by the Portuguese, 352;
place of refuge, 355;
siege of, 357;
held by Portuguese, 358, 418;
guerrillas obtain arms in, 362;
ecclesiastical capital, 399;
reception of the Prince Regent, 404;
deposes governor, 412, 436;
garrison re-enforced, 419;
expulsion of Portuguese garrison from, 420
Bahia (province), position, 310;
Jesuits in, 328;
population, 338;
cattle-raisers of, 372;
insurrections in, 375;
gold-fields in, 391;
attitude toward "Confederation of the Equator," 425;
separatist movement in, 444
Balboa, Nuñez de, 12
Basques, 4, 5, 26, 30
Beckman's rebellion, 375
Belgrano, Manuel, Creole leader, 89, 93;
expeditions to Paraguay, 91, 92, 188-190;
expedition to Tucuman, 93, 94, 96;
invasion of Bolivia, 97;
commission to Spain, 104;
in Uruguay, 253
Beresford, General, 83
Blancos, 126, 129, 266, 272 _et seq._
_Blandenques_, 248
Bohorquez. _See_ Huallpa Inca.
Bolivar, Simon, 101, 111, 112
Bolivia (Upper Peru), irrigation in, 14;
silver in, 16, 22, 78, 233;
division of, 75;
gold in, 78;
inhabitants of, 80;
resists revolutionary movement, 91;
Spanish power in, 100;
Rondeau's effort to conquer, 104;
route to, 315
Bom Jesus stockade, 354, 355
Bonaparte, Joseph, 87, 251
Bonaparte, Napoleon, 86, 89, 402
Bonifacio de Andrada, José, and independence of Brazil, 416, 421;
made prime minister, 418;
letters to Pedro, 419;
and brothers, 423, 432, 439, 446, 449
Borda, Juan Idiarte, 280, 281
Botacudo (Aymoré) Indians, 300, 321
Boundary questions, between Spain and Portugal, 66-68, 72, 77, 172,
181, 233, 239, 244, 245, 342, 372, 376, 387;
between Argentina and Chile, 156, 158;
between Brazil and Paraguay, 203, 208;
between Paraguay and Brazil and Argentina, 222;
of Brazil, 407, 468
Brazil, 287-512;
settlement of, 23, 316, 318, 319, 321, 323, 336, 342, 372-374, 387,
397;
war with Argentina, 120, 129, 260, 427, 428, 462;
war with Uruguay, 120, 209, 256, 260, 470;
war with Paraguay, 141, 142, 206-219, 276, 471;
area of, 305, 309, 310, 313, 314;
climate, 305, 308-313;
rainfall in, 306, 309-313;
population, 310, 314, 336, 347, 374, 397, 405, 480, 511;
Spanish possession of, 342;
efforts to establish republic in, 381, 399, 409, 476, 479, 482, 488,
492, 495;
independence of, 416, 417, 419, 426, 427;
Constituent Assembly of, 419, 422, 423;
constitution of, 422-424, 439, 444, 500;
Congress of, 427, 430, 432, 440, 443, 447, 449, 451, 464, 466, 475,
486, 500, 507;
regency in, 436 _et seq._;
hegemony of, 463, 468, 476;
republic established in, 497, 503, 506
Brazil-wood, 302-304, 317, 321, 322
Brazilian Creoles, at war with Spanish Creoles, 66, 68, 105, 240, 242,
245, 248, 254, 256, 382, 388, 389, 408
Brazilian states, power of governors of, 507
Brazilians, character and habits, 294, 318, 319, 323, 339, 359, 368,
376, 396, 399, 406, 407, 459, 460, 464, 467, 479, 492, 512
Brown, William, Admiral, 103, 120, 255, 261, 428
Buenos Aires (city), founded, 24, 25, 30-32, 168;
foreign commerce forbidden to, 50;
smuggling, 60;
prosperity, 72;
commercial centre, 75, 78;
captured by the British, 83;
captured by the Argentine Creoles, 84;
battle of, 85;
hegemony of, 90, 103;
blockades of, 120, 125, 132, 262, 269, 270;
detached from province, 148
Buenos Aires (province), division of Argentina, 34;
independent, 61;
Indians exiled to, 63;
intendencia, 75, 79
C
Cabeza de Vaca, 26
Cabildos, in Buenos Aires, 32, 90;
organisation and functions, 53-56;
nationality of members, 57;
influence of, 78, 119;
in Montevideo, 252
Cabot, Sebastian, 22, 165, 233, 317
Cabral, Pedro Alvares, 295
Cacao, 78
Cagancha, battle of, 268
Calabar (guerrilla chief), 355, 356
Calchaquie Indians, 63
Callao, 49
Camarrão (guerrilla chief), 355, 362
Campos (city), 347
Campos Salles, Manoel Ferraz de, 488, 508-510
Canary Islands, 7, 8, 242, 292, 329
Cape Horn, 48
Cape Verde Islands, 8, 292
Captaincies, 53, 319
Cardenas, Bishop of Paraguay, 182
Carib Indians, 300
Caseros, battle of, 129, 271, 463
Castilhos, Julio de, 502
Catamarca, 15, 63, 154
Cattle industry, in Argentina, 17, 29, 40, 71, 131, 148;
in Uruguay, 238, 268, 273;
in Brazil, 310, 371-373, 390, 393, 406
Caudillos, 116, 119, 138, 144, 255
Caxias, Marshal, 143, 218, 452, 453, 475
Cayenne, 407
Ceará, location, 309;
settlement in, 345;
Dutch control of, 357;
devastated, 363;
separated from Brazil, 371;
surplus of cattle in, 373;
decline of cattle business in, 393;
adhesion to "Confederation of the Equator," 425;
anarchy in, 438
Cerrito, battle of, 254
Chacabuco, battle of, 108
Chaco, the, 37, 58, 213, 237;
plains of, 166, 186;
matter of arbitration, 222
Charles IV. of Spain, 86
Charrua Indians, 71, 235, 244, 247, 265
Chile, 15, 42, 78, 100, 110
Cholera in Brazilian army, 216
Cisplatine Province, 258, 408
City life, taste for, 56
Claudio (poet), 399
Cochrane, Thomas, Admiral, 111, 420, 425
Coelho, Duarte, 319, 328
Coffee, productiveness, 306, 313;
districts of cultivation of, 310, 312, 313, 406;
increased production of, 448, 458, 466, 479, 489, 509;
plantation companies, 501;
trade affected by rise of currency, 511
Colombia, 434
Colonia de Sacramento, founded, 68, 240, 376;
held by Portuguese, 70, 72, 234, 240;
taken by Spaniards, 77, 246, 388, 389;
port, 230;
attacked, 245
Colonial governors, corruption of, 56, 64, 65, 393
Colonial trade, restrictions on, imposed, 48, 49, 63;
evil effects of, 49, 52;
how enforced, 50, 65, 71;
removed, 78, 88, 404;
among colonies, 82;
of Brazil with Portugal, 287, 336, 342, 373, 393
Colorados, 126, 129, 266, 272 _et seq._
Columbus, Christopher, 8
Commercial routes to Pacific, 21, 47, 48
Concepcion (Argentina), 116
"Confederation of the Equator," 425
Constant, Benjamin, General, 492, 495-497
Contraband trade, in Argentina, 51, 52, 63-66, 69, 75;
at Colonia, 240, 377;
and Thomas de Souza, 329;
in Brazil, 347, 373, 394
Copper, 78
Copper-pan amalgamation process, 16
Cordoba (city), founded, 30;
rainfall in, 40;
on trade route, 50, 51;
prosperity of, 62, 63
Cordoba (province), Spaniards pass through, 14;
settled, 15;
intendencia, 75;
Indian stock in, 80;
revolution in, 91, 154;
military state, 121;
governor expelled, 123
Corrientes (city), founded, 33;
defence of, 58;
desire for independence, 116
Corrientes (province), flourishing, 34;
ravaged by war, 130, 135;
troubles in, 154;
missions in, 186;
Belgrano in, 188;
invasion of, 210;
relations with Artigas, 255;
alliance with Rivera, 267
Cortes, Hernando, 12, 20
Cortes (Portuguese Parliament), 291, 412, 415, 416, 418
Cotegipe, Baron of, 490, 491
Cotton, cultivation of, 14, 41, 309, 310, 371, 448;
manufacture, 170, 371, 406;
trade, 405
Council of the Indies, 53
Cromwell, Oliver, 366
Cruelties in war, 91, 93, 276, 384
Cuestas, Juan L., 281
Curitiba, 172
Curupayty, battle of, 142, 215, 475
Cuyabá, 391
Cuyo, province of Argentina, 15, 64;
industries in, 17;
political dependency, 17, 33;
detached from Chile, 74;
products of, 78;
inhabitants of, 102;
ruler of, 121, 123
Cuzco, 41
D
December 27, 1868, battle of, 219
Democracy, 56, 81, 83, 432, 437
Diamond mining, 392, 397
Dias, Henrique, 355, 362
Diaz, Bartholomew, 293
Discoveries, 8, 12, 19, 296
Drake, Sir Francis, 47
Drugs, 49
Duarte Coelho. _See_ Coelho, Duarte.
Duguay-Trouin, Admiral, 384
Durão, Santa Rita. _See_ Santa Rita Durão.
E
Education, popular, 73;
lack of, among Brazilians, 396;
encouraged in Brazil, 398;
schools, 404, 406, 448;
desire for, 409
Elections, in Argentina, 140, 143, 146, 154;
in Uruguay, 280;
in Brazil, 464, 475, 478, 485-487, 489, 495, 507
Emancipation of slaves, in Paraguay, 199;
in Brazil, 456, 461, 476, 479, 481, 482, 490, 491
Emboaba rebellion, 379
Encomiendas, 165
Entre Rios, province of Argentina, 34;
Indians in, 62, 71, 74, 186;
gauchos in, 92, 236, 244, 254, 255;
governor of, 128;
revolutionary movement in, 188;
independent, 270;
ruler of, 471, 472
Espirito Santo, 310, 333, 338, 347
F
Federalist party, 119, 121, 123, 126, 263
Feijó, Padre, Regent of Brazil, 432, 433, 437, 440, 443
Ferdinand VII. of Spain, 87, 90, 93, 96, 411
Fernandes Vieira, 361 _et seq._
Florés, Venancio, leader of revolutionists in Uruguay, 208, 468;
ruler of Uruguay, 212, 273;
government of his own, 274;
in war against Paraguay, 276;
death, 277
Fonseca, Deodoro da, 493-497, 500, 501
Foreign debts, of Argentina, increased, 144, 160,
how met, 149, 152, 157, 160, 161;
of Uruguay, doubled, 277, 280;
of Brazil, increased, 464, 474, 509,
how met, 480, 489, 510
France, intervenes in Uruguayan civil war, 269;
poaches, 304, 317;
French traders in Brazil, 322, 329, 343;
settlement at Rio, 333;
measures to expel, from Rio, 335;
attempts to colonise Maranhâo, 345;
takes Rio, 383;
ministers of, with Pedro I., 434
Francia, José Gaspar, 190-197, 256, 258
Franciscans, 58, 169, 182
Free Masonry, 409, 415, 484
French Revolution, 82
G
Gama, Basilio da, poet, 399
Gama, Vasco da, 295
Garay, Juan de, founder of Buenos Aires, 30-33, 58, 237
Garcia, Aleixo, 316
Garibaldi, Giuseppe, 270, 442
Gauchos, origin of, 81;
element in Argentine army, 94, 116;
defend Bolivian frontier, 101, 104;
in Entre Rios, 236, 244;
Uruguayan, 248, 279, 442;
in Rio Grande do Sul, 502
Glycerio, Francisco, 495
Goes, Zacarias de, 466
Gold, in Africa, 8;
in Hayti, 10, 12;
Spain's desire for, 49;
value of, 50;
in Peru, 78;
in Brazil, 310, 378-380, 391-393, 397, 405
Gonzaga, poet, 399
Goyaz, 310, 313, 348, 372
Great Britain, fleet of, before Montevideo, 83-86;
gunboats of, hold Paraguayan flagship, 204;
captured Buenos Aires, 248;
besiege Montevideo, 250, 251;
blockade Buenos Aires, 269;
filibustering of, along Brazilian coast, 343;
importations of, into Brazil, 405, 459;
ministers of, 434;
relations with Brazil, 456
Guarany (Tupi), Indians, 42, 297
Guararapes, battle of, 364
Guayabos, battle of, 255
Guayaquil, 112
Guayrá cataract, 171, 178, 179
Guayrá province, 173, 177, 180
H
Hayes, Rutherford B., 222
Hayti, 10, 12
Henry the Navigator, 292
Hernandarias Saavedra, 58, 174, 237
Heyn, Piet, Admiral, 352
Hides, 49, 60, 78, 148, 241
Holland, 309, 343, 350 _et seq._
Horses, 32, 33, 43, 131, 238
Huallpa Inca (Bohorquez), 63
Huaqui, battle of, 92, 253
Huguenots, 334, 345
Humaitá, 207, 212-218, 475
I
Iguassu River, 67, 180
Ilheos, 320, 344
Immigration, into Argentina, 45, 130, 136, 141, 144, 159;
into Paraguay, 222;
into Uruguay, 268, 276, 278;
into Brazil, 339, 346, 404, 408, 463, 490, 501, 512
Incas, 13, 14, 41, 42
Indian corn, 41, 306, 310
Indian language, 18, 166, 300, 331
Indian wars, with Guaranies, 29;
with inferior tribes, 43;
with Andean, 58, 59;
in Argentine, 62, 124, 145;
in Uruguay, 62, 232, 234, 237;
with Calchaquies, 63;
Paulistas' raids, 67, 72, 170, 173, 348;
with Charruas, 71, 244;
in the plains of the Chaco, 166;
with Aymorés, 321, 335;
with Tamoyos, 331;
in Brazil, 333, 343, 373
Indians, flourishing communities, 18;
Irala's dealing with, 27;
Andean and inferior tribes 42;
Jesuits and, 73, 74, 173, 331;
civilised, 168, 405;
evangelisation of, 170, 173, 327;
social status of, 184;
employment, 185;
Cabral and, 297;
relations with the French, 333, 335;
Brazilian, 298-300
Indigo, 405
Intendencias, 75
Intermixture with Indians, in coast provinces, 18;
in Argentina, 45, 80;
in Paraguay, 166, 192;
in Jesuit Republic, 187;
in Brazil, 318, 346, 398
Irrigation, 14, 42
Isabel, Princess of Brazil, 456, 457, 484, 490, 494
Itamarica, 317, 319, 355, 363
Ituzaingo, battle of, 120, 261, 429
J
Januaria, Princess of Brazil, 445, 446
January 19, 1811, battle of, 189
Jesuits, their work in Paraguay, 34, 170-176;
republic, 60, 73, 74, 177;
and Bohorquez, 64;
and Paulistas, 66-68, 72, 347, 348;
their work in Uruguay, 71, 238, 245;
their work in Brazil, 169, 326 _et seq._;
missions in northern Brazil, 374;
missions on Amazon, 374, 382, 392;
Pombal and, 397
Jews, 353, 358
John VI. of Portugal and Brazil, his troops defeat Artigas, 105;
withdraws troops from Uruguay, 254;
relations with Napoleon, 402;
flight to Rio, 403, 404;
Brazil's foreign relations under, 407;
called back to Portugal, 411;
unsupported by Brazil, 412;
in fear of the people, 413;
news of his death, 428
Jujuy, 15, 94
Juncal, battle of, 120, 262
L
Labour, enforced, 194, 201
Laguna, 386
Land grants, 56, 338, 390, 406
Las Piedras, battle of, 92, 253
Latorre, Lorenzo, 277
Lautaro society, 96
Lavalle, General, 268
Lavalleja, General, 256, 259, 261, 262
Lima, 16, 51
Liniers, General, 83, 85, 87, 91, 251
Local self-government, strong sentiment in favour of, 34;
right of, 115;
struggles for, 380;
effected, 401, 402, 439, 454;
impaired, 444
Lopez II., unnatural cruelties of, 221
Lopez, Carlos Antonio, President of Paraguay, 199-205
Lopez, Francisco Solano, 141, 204-221, 274, 470
Lynch, Madame, 206
M
Madeira Islands, 8, 37, 292, 361, 412
Madeira River, 314, 391, 392
Magellan, Fernando, 20, 21, 232
Magellan, Strait of, 21, 47
Maldonado, 230, 242, 250
Mandioc, 41, 306, 310, 371
Maranhão, location of, 309;
French attempt to colonise, 345;
captured by the Brazilian Creoles, 346;
occupied by Maurice, 357;
revolt in, 362, 375;
new state, 371;
Jesuits in, 374;
development hindered, 393;
takes a new start, 397;
Portuguese expelled from, 420;
not represented in Constituent Assembly, 422;
adhesion to "Confederation of the Equator," 425;
civil war in, 438;
revolution in, 446, 452
Maria Gloria of Portugal, 428
Mascate rebellion, 381
Matte (Paraguayan) tea, 78
Matto Grosso, seized by Lopez, 142, 210;
at the mercy of Lopez, 208;
location of, 314;
beginning of the state, 391;
expedition against, 471;
safety of, assured, 476
Maurice of Nassau, 356
Mello, Admiral, 504, 505
Mem da Sa, 335, 337
Mendoza, Pedro de, 23, 165, 236
Mendoza (city), 15, 41, 64, 106
Miguel, pretender to Portuguese crown, 428, 439
Military operations among uncivilised Indians, 18, 26
Minas Geraes, location of, 310,
description of, 311, 313;
gold in, 379, 391, 392, 397;
population of, 397;
literature in, 399;
attitude of, toward Pedro I., 433, 438;
revolution in, 453
Missions, negotiations concerning, 72, 77, 186, 245, 246, 388, 390;
attacked, 105;
established in Paraguay, 180;
conquered by Rio Grandenses, 248;
loyal to Artigas, 255;
invaded, 407
Mitre, Bartolomé, resistance of Rioja to, 64;
historian, 98;
established civil government in Buenos Aires, 126;
on Argentine constitution, 137;
in Paraguayan war, 141, 142, 153, 160, 471;
party leader, 154
Mohammedanism, 325
Monopolies, of Cadiz merchants, 48, 50, 51, 82;
Portuguese, 374, 393;
abolished, 397, 404
Montevideo, harbours, 31, 241;
taken by the Spanish, 70;
population of, 78;
sieges of, 92, 250, 253, 254, 269;
captured by the patriots, 103, 255;
captured by the Portuguese, 105, 408;
named, 232;
fortified, 242;
captured by the British, 250;
blockaded, 276;
founded, 386;
Portuguese garrison expelled from, 420
Montoya, Father, 178
Moors, 3-5, 288, 290
Moraes, Prudente, President, 488, 506, 507, 508
Mules, trade in, 63
Municipal government, characteristic of Spain, 3, 53;
adaptation of, 44;
Spanish form of, 54;
in Portugal, 290, 291;
of Bahia, 325;
granted to Brazilian towns, 374;
character of, 424
N
Nabuco, Joaquim, 481
Napoleon Bonaparte. _See_ Bonaparte, Napoleon.
Natal, 344
Negroes, 102, 105, 311, 375, 405
New Granada, 100
Nobrega, Padre Manuel, 326, 328, 330
O
Office-holding, 52, 409, 459
O'Higgins, Bernard, 109, 111
Ojeda, Alonso de, 301
Orellana, discoverer of the Amazon, 344
Oribe, Manuel, retreat of, 256;
president of Uruguay, 265;
leader of party, 265, 267, 461;
defeated Argentine unitarians, 268;
surrendered, 271
Oruro, 16
Ouro Preto, Viscount of, 494, 495, 497
Ouro Preto (city), 399
P
Pacific, Spanish control of, 21
Pampas, explored, 32;
character of, 38;
description, 40, 41;
expedition over, 58
Pampean sea, prehistoric, 229
Panama, Isthmus of, 12, 21, 48, 49
Paper currency, in Argentine, 149, 150, 157, 160;
in Paraguay, 223;
in Uruguay, 282;
in Brazil, 458, 463, 464, 466, 473, 479, 480, 501, 507, 509, 510
Pará, Indians in, 346, 405;
Portuguese possession of, 358;
part of Maranhão, 371;
Jesuits in, 374;
development hindered, 393;
takes a new start, 397;
cotton trade in, 405;
coffee in, 406;
expedition from, to Cayenne, 407;
Spanish constitution in, 412;
Portuguese garrison expelled from, 420;
and Constituent Assembly, 422;
attitude toward "Confederation of the Equator," 425;
action of troops in, 436, 441;
production of rubber in, 490;
prosperity of, 501
Paraguay (country), 165-224;
settlement of, 25, 27;
Jesuit missions in, 34;
Indians in, 42, 80;
separate province, 61;
intendencia, 75;
population, 75, 220;
products of, 78;
attitude toward revolutionary movement, 91;
war against Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay, 141, 142, 206-219, 276,
471;
independence of, 184, 189, 190, 222, 476;
commercial isolation of, 192, 197;
Brazilian protectorate of, 221;
Paulistas in, 348
Paraguay River, the, explorations along, 22, 26;
settlement on, 33;
watershed of, 37;
description of, 38;
free navigation on, 200, 464, 471, 476
Paraguayan army, discipline in, 214
Parahyba do Norte, location, 309;
population, 338;
Spaniards take possession of, 343;
reduced by the Dutch, 355;
devastated, 363;
adhesion to the "Confederation of the Equator," 425
Parahyba do Sul, 312, 347, 373
Paraná, Marquis of, 463, 464, 465
Paraná (Brazilian state), 313, 377, 405
Paraná (city), 134
Paraná River, the, explorations of, 14, 22, 26, 30, 31, 165;
settlements on, 27, 33, 34, 62, 134, 168;
description of, 38;
Jesuit missions on, 60, 171;
Paulistas on, 67;
open only to Argentine vessels, 200;
free navigation on, 202, 270, 464;
European navies enter, 269;
valley of, 312, 313, 377
Patagonia, 40, 41, 43, 146
Paulista pioneers, 318, 348
Pavon, battle of, 64, 137
Paysandu, capture of, 210
Pedro I. of Brazil, 412-416, 421-435, 439
Pedro II. of Brazil, infancy, 433, 444, 446;
assumes imperial functions, 447;
emperor, 449-457;
power of, 478;
declining health, 488, 494;
speech of, 490;
deposition, 498, 499
Peixoto, Floriano, 497, 500, 502-505
Pepper, 406
Pernambuco (city), founded, 319;
nucleus of settlement of Brazil, 320;
Nobrega visits, 328;
architecture of, 340;
population of, 347;
advantageous position of, 351;
taken by the Dutch, 353, 354;
taken by the Brazilian Creoles, 367;
military revolts in, 438
Pernambuco (province), location of, 309;
population of, 338, 347;
rich planters of, 339;
Jews in, 358;
civil war in, 380;
sugar industry in, 393;
revolution in, 409;
Spanish constitution in, 412;
Portuguese garrison in, 418;
garrison expelled from, 419;
and Constituent Assembly, 422, 424;
action of troops in, 436;
conservative governor of, 455
Peru, Pizarro in, 12, 13, 23;
irrigation in, 14;
silver in, 16, 22, 78, 233;
gold in, 78;
Spanish power in, 100;
war against, 111
Philip II. of Spain, 342
Piauhy, 309, 372, 393, 422
Pilocomayo River, 222
Pinheiro Machado, General, 503
Pinzon, Vincente Yanez, 301
Pitagoares Indians, 344
Pizarro, 13, 23, 316
Polygamy, 220
Pombal, Marquis of, 396
Pope's division of the world, 12, 19, 21, 319
Porto Seguro, 320, 338, 347
Portugal, separated from Leon, 4;
and Granada united, 6;
joined to Spanish crown, 47;
general survey of the history of, 288-292;
Philip II., of Spain on the throne of, 342;
separated from Spain, 361;
war with Spain, 382;
revolt of 1820 in, 411
Portuguese Court, flight of, to Rio, 403
Portuguese discoveries and conquests, 7, 8, 292;
in South America, 19, 67, 68, 77, 302
Potatoes, 41
Potosí, 16, 51
Press, freedom of, in Brazil, 410, 430, 448, 460, 482;
restricted, 422, 424
Printing-press in Brazil, 404, 408, 409
Provincial organisation, 54, 61, 74, 77, 405
Q
Quicksilver mines, 16
Quintino Bocayuva, 495, 497
R
Race elements in population, 405
Railways, mileage in Argentina, 148;
source of wealth, 161;
building of, in Brazil, 463, 466, 490;
building of, interrupted, 508
Ramalho, John, pioneer, 316, 318
Religious lay brotherhoods, 484
Religious sentiment, in Spain, 5;
in Argentina, 81;
in Portugal, 290;
of Count John Maurice, 356, 358;
in Brazil, 359, 361;
of Fernandez Vieira, 369
Riachuelo, battle of, 210, 474
Rice, 78, 306, 405
Rio Branco, Baron of, 482, 485
Rio de Janeiro (city), commercial port, 51;
population of, 347, 397;
prosperity of, 373, 501;
attacked and taken by the French, 383;
its reception of the Prince Regent, 404
Rio de Janeiro (province), why so named, 302;
description of, 312;
nucleus of the settlement of Brazil, 320;
French occupation of, 333 _et seq._;
captured by the Portuguese, 336;
population of, 338;
uprising in, 413
Rio Grande city, captured by the Spaniards, 388;
by the Brazilian Creoles, 389
Rio Grande do Norte, location, 309;
nucleus of, 344;
reduced by the Dutch, 355;
devastated, 363;
Indians subdued in, 373;
adhesion to the "Confederation of the Equator," 425
Rio Grande do Sul (city), 387
Rio Grande do Sul (province), Jesuit missions in, 72, 180;
held by the Portuguese, 77, 244;
people of, 247;
Brazilian province, 270;
and Uruguay, 284;
description of, 313, 314;
Brazilian possession of, 377;
settled, 397;
Spanish Constitution in, 412;
Argentine invasion of, 429;
rebellions in, 441, 442, 454, 502, 504;
Paraguayan invasion of, 473, 474
Rioja, 15, 63, 64
Rio Negro, 392
Rio Real, 338
Rivadavia, Bernardino, 104, 119, 120, 262
Rivera, Fructuoso, 255, 259, 261-269, 461
Roca, Julio, General, successes of, 145;
candidate for president, 147, 157;
his first administration, 150;
party leader, 153;
took command of army, 155;
his second administration, 158, 160;
his followers, 160
Rodrigues, Alves, President, 511
Rojas, Diego de, 14
Rondeau, José, General, 254, 263
Rosario, 40, 63, 136, 155
Rosas, Juan Manuel, laudation of, 114;
federalist leader in Buenos Aires, 122 _et seq._, 266;
growth of his power, 200;
and Montevideo, 268;
relations with Entre Rios, 270;
and Oribe faction, 461
Rubber, 490, 501, 511
S
Sabará, 378, 391
Saldanha Marinho, 482
Salta, province of Argentina, 15;
intendencia, 75;
social conditions in, 80;
Buenos Airean army passes through, 91;
warfare in, 94;
rebellion in, 155
San Ildefonso, treaty of, 246, 389
San John d'El Rei, 400
San Juan, 15, 40, 64, 137
San Luiz, 64, 155
San Martin, José, General, 77, 96-114
Santa Catharina, 19, 26;
captured by Spain, 77, 246;
description of, 313;
exploration of, 316;
Brazilian possession of, 377;
settlement of, 386, 397;
captured by the Spaniards, 389;
restored to Portugal, 390;
invasion of, 446, 504, 506;
seat of revolutionary government, 504
Santa Fé, Argentina (city), Spanish settlement of, 29;
desire of, for independence, 116;
founded, 168
Santa Fé, Argentina (province),
governor of, sent Indians and supplies to Buenos Aires, 31;
Indians in, 63, 130;
a part of intendencia of Buenos Aires, 75;
invasion of, 121;
Brazilian army in, 129;
Congress held in, 131;
revolution in, 155;
Creoles of, defeat Charruas, 242;
loyal to Artigas, 255
Santa Luzia, battle of, 453
Santa Rita Durão (poet), 399
Santiago de Chile, 42, 51, 107
Santiago del Estero (Argentina), 14, 15, 63, 121, 154
Santo Amaro, 319
Santos, 51, 316, 318
São Francisco River, the, why so named, 302;
valley of, 310, 311;
Pernambucos on, 344;
military raids near, 357;
cattle-raisers established on, 372;
gold around headwaters of, 378
São Paulo (city), menaced by Indians, 333;
prosperity of, 501,
the home of Rodrigues Alvez, 511
São Paulo (province),
opposition to the extension of Spanish dominions, 66;
Jesuits in, 169, 328, 330, 347, 374;
description of, 313;
conditions of, for settlement, 318;
nucleus of settlement of Brazil, 320;
inhabitants of, 322;
spread of Indians in, 332;
not a sugar-raising province, 338;
profits by secret trade, 373;
gold in, 378;
depopulated, 393;
an Englishman in, 407;
revolution in, 453;
representation of, in Chamber of Brazil, 488;
coffee in, 489
São Vicente, 23, 318
Saraiva, Aparcicio, 280
Saraiva, Gomercindo, 503, 504
Saraiva, José Antonio, 486, 488
Sarandi, battle of, 120, 260, 427
Schouten, 48
Sea-power, of England, 82, 269, 366;
of Spain, 93, 103, 111, 255;
of France, 269;
of Brazil, 426, 462;
of Argentina, 428
Sergipe, 310, 343, 344, 357
Seville Junta, 88, 251
Sheep-raising, 131, 148, 278
Silver mining, in Bolivia and Peru, 16, 22, 78, 233;
Spain's desire for, 49;
value of, 50
Sipe-Sipe, battle of, 104
Slavery, Indian, in Argentine provinces, 17, 33;
tendency of, 56;
Hernandarias opposed to, 59;
forbidden by Spanish Government, 60, 175;
under Spaniards, 165;
Paulistas and, 174, 322, 347;
forbidden by Portuguese Government, 321;
Jesuits fought against, 327;
Mem da Sa and, 335;
Pombal and, 398
Slavery, negro, 82, 324, 458;
encouraged, 328, 335;
increased, 398;
proportion of slaves in population of Brazil, 405.
_See_ Emancipation of slaves.
Solis, Juan Diaz de, 19, 230
Soracaba, 373, 453
Soriano, first settlement in Uruguay, 238, 241
Souza, Thomas de, 323, 329
Spain, war with Portugal, 382;
revolt of 1820 in, 411
Spanish authority unquestioned, 52
Spanish Creoles at war with Brazilian Creoles, 66, 68, 105, 240, 242,
245, 248, 254, 256, 382, 388, 389, 409
Spanish discoveries and conquests, 7, 8, 12-15, 301
Spanish monarchy, structure of, 4, 7, 20
Spanish possession of Portugal and Brazil, 342
Spanish treasure fleet, capture of, by the Dutch, 353
Street-car tax riots, 485
Sucré (Charcas), 16, 33, 89, 182
Sugar, districts of cultivation of, 78, 309, 310, 312, 321, 343, 371;
first cultivation of, 317, 321;
industry prosperous, 321, 324, 336, 448:
annual production of, 338;
trade, 351;
price, 361, 392, 397;
industry decadent, 393;
staple production, 405;
comparative cultivation, 458;
plantation companies, 501
Suipacha, battle of, 91
T
Tabocas, battle of, 362
Tamoyo Indians, 331, 335
Tandil Mountains, 237
Tapajos River, 314
Taxation, 338, 393
Theresina Christina, Empress of Brazil, 457, 498
"Thirty-three," the, 259
Tierra del Fuego, 41
Tieté River, 347
Tiradentes, 400
Tobacco, 78, 310, 393, 405, 448
Tocantins River, 310, 392
Tucuman, battle of, 94
Tucuman (city), founded, 15;
Congress at, 105;
Paz's army in, 123, 124
Tucuman (province), Spanish rule in, 15, 17;
political dependency, 17, 33, 61;
thriving towns in, 62, 63;
revolt in, 155;
missionary work in, 182
U
Unitarian party, 119, 121, 123, 126, 263
United States of America, and Lopez, 202, 203;
arbitrator, 222;
influence of, on Brazil, 399, 500;
recognises Brazil's independence, 426;
does not support Pedro, 434;
prevents commercial blockade, 506
Urquiza, Justo José, General,
defeats allied unitarians and colorados, 126;
governor of Entre Rios, 128;
forms alliance with Brazil and colorado faction in Uruguay, 129,
462, 472;
favours federal constitution, 131-134;
first president of Argentine Republic, 135;
his term expires, 137;
refuses to revolt against Buenos Aires, 142;
revolt against, 144;
his friendship with Lopez, 200;
general-in-chief, 271;
successes in Uruguay, 271, 462;
Lopez angry with, 471
Uruguay, 34, 75, 227-284;
Indians in, 62, 71, 74;
first settlement, 68;
Spanish territory, 77, 100;
Portuguese troops in, 110;
war with Brazil, 120, 209, 256, 260, 470;
war with Paraguay, 141, 142, 206-219, 276, 471;
area of, 229;
settlement of, 238, 239, 242, 386;
population of, 247, 265, 273, 278;
war with Argentina, 255, 267;
independence of, 255, 259, 260, 263, 430, 461, 463, 476;
Brazilian occupation of, 258, 408;
constitution of, 264;
Brazilian intervention in, 270, 274, 407, 462;
Paulistas in, 348;
rebellion against Pedro, 427;
Brazilian protectorate of, 468
Uruguay River, the, explored, 22;
harbours, 31;
course of, 38;
Jesuit missions along, 60, 68;
navigation of, 134, 464
Uruguayana, capture of, 212
Uspallata Pass, 106
V
Vasco da Gama. _See_ Gama, Vasco da.
Vasconcellos, Bernardo, in Congress of Brazil, 430, 446;
absent from Rio, 433;
result of work, 440, 441, 443;
death, 461
Veiga, Evaristo da, 430, 433
Venezuela, 100
Vespucci, Amerigo, 302, 306
Viceroyalties, divided into provinces, 53;
Peru, 61, 74, 176;
Buenos Aires, 74, 75, 80;
Atlantic slope of Spanish South America, 246
Victoria, 311, 320, 378
Vidal, guerrilla chief, 362
Vieira, Antonio, 374
Vieira, Fernandes. _See_ Fernandes Vieira.
Vilapugio, battle of, 97
Villegagnon, French adventurer, 334
Visigoths, 3, 290
W
_Water Witch_, incident, 203
Wheat, 148, 159, 278, 340
Whitelocke, General, 85
X
Xingú River, 314
Y
Yellow fever, 461
Z
Zeballos, Pedro de, 77
* * * * *
_A Selection from the Catalogue of_
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
Complete Catalogues sent on application
The Story of the Nations
In the story form the current of each National life is distinctly
indicated, and its picturesque and noteworthy periods and episodes are
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as well as to universal history.
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that the set when completed will present in a comprehensive narrative
the chief events in the great STORY OF THE NATIONS; but it is, of
course, not always practicable to issue the several volumes in their
chronological order.
_For list of volumes see next page._
GREECE. Prof. Jas. A. Harrison.
ROME. Arthur Gilman.
THE JEWS. Prof. James K. Hosmer.
CHALDEA. Z. A. Ragozin.
GERMANY. S. Baring-Gould.
NORWAY. Hjalmar H. Boyesen.
SPAIN. Rev. E. E. and Susan Hale.
HUNGARY. Prof. A. Vámbéry.
CARTHAGE. Prof. Alfred J. Church.
THE SARACENS. Arthur Gilman.
THE MOORS IN SPAIN. Stanley Lane-Poole.
THE NORMANS. Sarah Orne Jewett.
PERSIA. S. G. W. Benjamin.
ANCIENT EGYPT. Prof. Geo. Rawlinson.
ALEXANDER'S EMPIRE. Prof. J. P. Mahaffy.
ASSYRIA. Z. A. Ragozin.
THE GOTHS. Henry Bradley.
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MEDIA, BABYLON, AND PERSIA Z. A. Ragozin.
MEDIÆVAL FRANCE. Prof. Gustave Masson.
HOLLAND. Prof. J. Thorold Rogers.
MEXICO. Susan Hale.
PHOENICIA. George Rawlinson.
THE HANSA TOWNS. Helen Zimmern.
EARLY BRITAIN. Prof. Alfred J. Church.
THE BARBARY CORSAIRS. Stanley Lane-Poole.
RUSSIA. W. R. Morfill.
THE JEWS UNDER ROME. W. D. Morrison.
SCOTLAND. John Mackintosh.
SWITZERLAND. R. Stead and Mrs. A. Hug.
PORTUGAL. H. Morse-Stephens.
THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE. C. W. C. Oman.
SICILY. E. A. Freeman.
THE TUSCAN REPUBLICS. Bella Duffy.
POLAND. W. R. Morfill.
PARTHIA. Geo. Rawlinson.
JAPAN. David Murray.
THE CHRISTIAN RECOVERY OF SPAIN. H. E. Watts.
AUSTRALASIA. Greville Tregarthen.
SOUTHERN AFRICA. Geo. M. Theal.
VENICE. Alethea Wiel.
THE CRUSADES. T. S. Archer and C. L. Kingsford.
VEDIC INDIA. Z. A. Ragozin.
BOHEMIA. C. E. Maurice.
CANADA. J. G. Bourinot.
THE BALKAN STATES. William Miller.
BRITISH RULE IN INDIA. R. W. Frazer.
MODERN FRANCE. André LeBon.
THE BRITISH EMPIRE. Alfred T. Story. Two vols.
THE FRANKS. Lewis Sergeant.
THE WEST INDIES. Amos K. Fiske.
THE PEOPLE OF ENGLAND. Justin McCarthy, M.P. Two vols.
AUSTRIA. Sidney Whitman.
CHINA. Robt. K. Douglass.
MODERN SPAIN. Major Martin A. S. Hume.
MODERN ITALY. Pietro Orsi.
THE THIRTEEN COLONIES. Helen A. Smith. Two vols.
WALES AND CORNWALL. Owne M. Edwards.
MEDIÆVAL ROME. Wm. Miller.
THE PAPAL MONARCHY. Wm. Barry.
MEDIÆVAL INDIA. Stanley Lane-Poole.
BUDDHIST INDIA. T. W. Rhys-Davids.
THE SOUTH AMERICAN REPUBLICS. Thomas C. Dawson. Two vols.
PARLIAMENTARY ENGLAND. Edward Jenks.
MEDIÆVAL ENGLAND. Mary Bateson.
THE UNITED STATES. Edward Earle Sparks. Two vols.
ENGLAND: THE COMING OF PARLIAMENT. L. Cecil Jane.
GREECE TO A. D. 14. E. S. Shuckburgh.
ROMAN EMPIRE. Stuart Jones.
SWEDEN AND DENMARK, with FINLAND AND ICELAND. Jon Stefansson.
Heroes of the Nations
A series of biographical studies of the lives and work of a number
of representative historical characters about whom have gathered the
great traditions of the Nations to which they belonged, and who have
been accepted, in many instances, as types of the several National
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The narratives are the work of writers who are recognized authorities
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To the Life of each "Hero" is given one duodecimo volume, handsomely
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_For full list of volumes see next page._
NELSON. By W. Clark Russell.
GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. By C. R. L. Fletcher.
PERICLES. By Evelyn Abbott.
THEODORIC THE GOTH. By Thomas Hodgkin.
SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. By H. R. Fox-Bourne.
JULIUS CÆSAR. By W. Ward Fowler.
WYCLIF By Lewis Sargeant.
NAPOLEON. By W. O'Connor Morris.
HENRY OF NAVARRE. By P. F. Willert.
CICERO. By J. L. Strachan-Davidson.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN. By Noah Brooks.
PRINCE HENRY (OF PORTUGAL) THE NAVIGATOR. By C. R. Beazley.
JULIAN THE PHILOSOPHER. By Alice Gardner.
LOUIS XIV. By Arthur Hassall.
CHARLES XII. By R. Nisbet Bain.
LORENZO DE' MEDICI. By Edward Armstrong.
JEANNE D'ARC. By Mrs. Oliphant.
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. By Washington Irving.
ROBERT THE BRUCE. By Sir Herbert Maxwell.
HANNIBAL. By. W. O'Connor Morris.
ULYSSES S. GRANT. By William Conant Church.
ROBERT E. LEE. By Henry Alexander White.
THE CID CAMPEADOR. By H. Butler Clarke.
SALADIN. By Stanley Lane-Poole.
BISMARCK. By J. W. Headlam.
ALEXANDER THE GREAT. By Benjamin I. Wheeler.
CHARLEMAGNE. By H. W. C. Davis.
OLIVER CROMWELL. By Charles Firth.
RICHELIEU. By James B. Perkins.
DANIEL O'CONNELL. By Robert Dunlap.
SAINT LOUIS (Louis IX. of France). By Frederick Perry.
LORD CHATHAM. By Walford David Green.
OWEN GLYNDWR. By Arthur G. Bradley.
HENRY V. By Charles L. Kingsford.
EDWARD I. By Edward Jenks.
AUGUSTUS CÆSAR. By J. B. Firth.
FREDERICK THE GREAT. By W. F. Reddaway.
WELLINGTON. By W. O'Connor Morris.
CONSTANTINE THE GREAT. By J. B. Firth.
MOHAMMED. D. S. Margoliouth.
GEORGE WASHINGTON. By J. A. Harrison.
CHARLES THE BOLD. By Ruth Putnam.
WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. By F. B. Stanton.
FERNANDO CORTES. By F. A. MacNutt.
WILLIAM THE SILENT. By R. Putnam.
BLÜCHER. By E. F. Henderson.
ROGER THE GREAT. By E. Curtis.
CANUTE THE GREAT. By L. M. Larson.
CAVOUR. By Pietro Orsi.
DEMOSTHENES. By A. W. Pickard-Cambridge.
* * * * *
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:
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. The word PHOENICIA uses an OE ligature in the original.
4. The punctuation has been normalized within index.
5. The following misprints have been corrected:
"completly" corrected to "completely" (page 81)
"int rests" corrected to "interests" (page 87)
"equilibriumin" corrected to "equilibrium in" (page 160)
"it ecame" corrected to "it became" (page 251)
"county" corrected to "country" (page 294)
"though" corrected to "thought" (page 297)
"commerical" corrected to "commercial" (page 374)
"municpalities" corrected to "municipalities" (page 454)
"in creased" corrected to "increased" (page 508)
6. Other than the corrections listed above, printer's inconsistencies
in spelling, punctuation, hyphenation, and ligature usage have been
retained.
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The South American Republics Part I of II" ***
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