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The Hispanic Nations of the New World: A Chronicle of Our Southern Neighbors

by William R. Shepherd · English · Gutenberg #3042 · 310,613 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Hispanic Nations of the New World: A Chronicle of Our Southern Neighbors

Author: William R. Shepherd


        
Release date: January 1, 2002 [eBook #3042]
                Most recently updated: February 1, 2009

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3042

Credits: Produced by The James J. Kelly Library Of St. Gregory's
        University, Dianne Bean, Joseph Buersmeyer, Alev Akman, and David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HISPANIC NATIONS OF THE NEW WORLD: A CHRONICLE OF OUR SOUTHERN NEIGHBORS ***




Produced by The James J. Kelly Library Of St. Gregory's
University, Dianne Bean, Joseph Buersmeyer, and Alev Akman






THE HISPANIC NATIONS OF THE NEW WORLD,

A CHRONICLE OF OUR SOUTHERN NEIGHBORS

By William R. Shepherd

New Haven: Yale University Press

Toronto: Glasgow, Brook & Co.

London: Humphrey Milford

Oxford University Press

1919



CONTENTS

     I. THE HERITAGE FROM SPAIN AND PORTUGAL

     II. "OUR OLD KING OR NONE"

     III. "INDEPENDENCE OR DEATH"

     IV. PLOUGHING THE SEA

     V. THE AGE OF THE DICTATORS

     VI. PERIL FROM ABROAD

     VII. GREATER STATES AND LESSER

     VIII. "ON THE MARGIN OF INTERNATIONAL LIFE"

     IX. THE REPUBLICS OF SOUTH AMERICA

     X. MEXICO IN REVOLUTION

     XI. THE REPUBLICS OF THE CARIBBEAN

     XII. PAN-AMERICANISM AND THE GREAT WAR

     BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE




THE HISPANIC NATIONS OF THE NEW WORLD




CHAPTER I. THE HERITAGE FROM SPAIN AND PORTUGAL

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



CHAPTER II. "OUR OLD KING OR NONE"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



CHAPTER III "INDEPENDENCE OR DEATH"

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

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

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

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

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

By January, 1817, the "Army of the Andes" was ready. To cross the
mountains meant to transport men, horses, artillery, and stores to an
altitude of thirteen thousand feet, where the Uspallata Pass afforded
an outlet to Chilean soil. This pass was nearly a mile higher than
the Great St. Bernard in the Alps, the crossing of which gave Napoleon
Bonaparte such renown. On the 12th of February the hosts of San Martin
hurled themselves upon the royalists entrenched on the slopes of
Chacabuco and routed them utterly. The battle proved decisive not of the
fortunes of Chile alone but of those of all Spanish South America. As a
viceroy of Peru later confessed, "it marked the moment when the cause of
Spain in the Indies began to recede."

Named supreme director by the people of Santiago, O'Higgins fought
vigorously though ineffectually to drive out the royalists who,
reinforced from Peru, held the region south of the capital. That
he failed did not deter him from having a vote taken under military
auspices, on the strength of which, on February 12, 1818, he declared
Chile an independent nation, the date of the proclamation being changed
to the 1st of January, so as to make the inauguration of the new era
coincident with the entry of the new year. San Martin, meanwhile, had
been collecting reinforcements with which to strike the final blow. On
the 5th of April, the Battle of Maipo gave him the victory he desired.
Except for a few isolated points to the southward, the power of Spain
had fallen.

Until the fall of Napoleon in 1815 it had been the native loyalists who
had supported the cause of the mother country in the Spanish dominions.
Henceforth, free from the menace of the European dictator, Spain
could look to her affairs in America, and during the next three years
dispatched twenty-five thousand men to bring the colonies to obedience.
These soldiers began their task in the northern part of South America,
and there they ended it--in failure. To this failure the defection of
native royalists contributed, for they were alienated not so much by the
presence of the Spanish troops as by the often merciless severity that
marked their conduct. The atrocities may have been provoked by the
behavior of their opponents; but, be this as it may, the patriots gained
recruits after each victory.

A Spanish army of more than ten thousand, under the command of Pablo
Morillo, arrived in Venezuela in April, 1815. He found the province
relatively tranquil and even disposed to welcome the full restoration
of royal government. Leaving a garrison sufficient for the purpose
of military occupation, Morillo sailed for Cartagena, the key to
New Granada. Besieged by land and sea, the inhabitants of the town
maintained for upwards of three months a resistance which, in its
heroism, privation, and sacrifice, recalled the memorable defense of
Saragossa in the mother country against the French seven years before.
With Cartagena taken, regulars and loyalists united to stamp out the
rebellion elsewhere. At Bogoth, in particular, the new Spanish viceroy
installed by Morillo waged a savage war on all suspected of aiding the
patriot cause. He did not spare even women, and one of his victims was a
young heroine, Policarpa Salavarrieta by name. Though for her execution
three thousand soldiers were detailed, the girl was unterrified by her
doom and was earnestly beseeching the loyalists among them to turn their
arms against the enemies of their country when a volley stretched her
lifeless on the ground.

Meanwhile Bolivar had been fitting out, in Haiti and in the Dutch island
of Curacao, an expedition to take up anew the work of freeing Venezuela.
Hardly had the Liberator landed in May, 1816, when dissensions with his
fellow officers frustrated any prospect of success. Indeed they obliged
him to seek refuge once more in Haiti. Eventually, however, most of the
patriot leaders became convinced that, if they were to entertain a
hope of success, they must entrust their fortunes to Bolivar as supreme
commander. Their chances of success were increased furthermore by
the support of the llaneros who had been won over to the cause of
independence. Under their redoubtable chieftain, Jose Antonio Paez,
these fierce and ruthless horsemen performed many a feat of valor in the
campaigns which followed.

Once again on Venezuelan soil, Bolivar determined to transfer his
operations to the eastern part of the country, which seemed to offer
better strategic advantages than the region about Caracas. But even here
the jealousy of his officers, the insubordination of the free lances,
the stubborn resistance of the loyalists--upheld by the wealthy and
conservative classes and the able generalship of Morillo, who had
returned from New Granada--made the situation of the Liberator all
through 1817 and 1818 extremely precarious. Happily for his fading
fortunes, his hands were strengthened from abroad. The United States had
recognized the belligerency of several of the revolutionary governments
in South America and had sent diplomatic agents to them. Great Britain
had blocked every attempt of Ferdinand VII to obtain help from the Holy
Alliance in reconquering his dominions. And Ferdinand had contributed
to his own undoing by failing to heed the urgent requests of Morillo for
reinforcements to fill his dwindling ranks. More decisive still were
the services of some five thousand British, Irish, French, and German
volunteers, who were often the mainstay of Bolivar and his lieutenants
during the later phases of the struggle, both in Venezuela and
elsewhere.

For some time the Liberator had been evolving a plan of attack upon the
royalists in New Granada, similar to the offensive campaign which San
Martin had conducted in Chile. More than that, he had conceived the
idea, once independence had been attained, of uniting the western part
of the viceroyalty with Venezuela into a single republic. The latter
plan he laid down before a Congress which assembled at Angostura in
February, 1819, and which promptly chose him President of the republic
and vested him with the powers of dictator. In June, at the head of 2100
men, he started on his perilous journey over the Andes.

Up through the passes and across bleak plateaus the little army
struggled till it reached the banks of the rivulet of Boyaca, in the
very heart of New Granada. Here, on the 7th of August, Bolivar inflicted
on the royalist forces a tremendous defeat that gave the deathblow to
the domination of Spain in northern South America. On his triumphal
return to Angostura, the Congress signalized the victory by declaring
the whole of the viceroyalty an independent state under the name of
the "Republic of Colombia" and chose the Liberator as its provisional
President. Two years later, a fundamental law it had adopted was
ratified with certain changes by another Congress assembled at Rosario
de Cucuta, and Bolivar was made permanent President.

Southward of Colombia lay the viceroyalty of Peru, the oldest, richest,
and most conservative of the larger Spanish dominions on the continent.
Intact, except for the loss of Chile, it had found territorial
compensation by stretching its power over the provinces of Quito and
Charcas, the one wrenched off from the former New Granada, the other
torn away from what had been La Plata. Predominantly royalist
in sentiment, it was like a huge wedge thrust in between the two
independent areas. By thus cutting off the patriots of the north from
their comrades in the south, it threatened both with destruction of
their liberty.

Again fortune intervened from abroad, this time directly from Spain
itself. Ferdinand VII, who had gathered an army of twenty thousand men
at Cadiz, was ready to deliver a crushing blow at the colonies when in
January, 1890, a mutiny among the troops and revolution throughout the
country entirely frustrated the plan. But although that reactionary
monarch was compelled to accept the Constitution of 1819, the Spanish
liberals were unwilling to concede to their fellows in America anything
more substantial than representation in the Cortes. Independence they
would not tolerate. On the other hand, the example of the mother country
in arms against its King in the name of liberty could not fail to give
heart to the cause of liberation in the provinces oversea and to hasten
its achievement.

The first important efforts to profit by this situation were made by the
patriots in Chile. Both San Martin and O'Higgins had perceived that the
only effective way to eliminate the Peruvian wedge was to gain control
of its approaches by sea. The Chileans had already won some success
in this direction when the fiery and imperious Scotch sailor, Thomas
Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald, appeared on the scene and offered to
organize a navy. At length a squadron was put under his command. With
upwards of four thousand troops in charge of San Martin the expedition
set sail for Peru late in August, 1820.

While Cochrane busied himself in destroying the Spanish blockade, his
comrade in arms marched up to the very gates of Lima, the capital, and
everywhere aroused enthusiasm for emancipation. When negotiations, which
had been begun by the viceroy and continued by a special commissioner
from Spain, failed to swerve the patriot leader from his demand for a
recognition of independence, the royalists decided to evacuate the town
and to withdraw into the mountainous region of the interior. San Martin,
thereupon, entered the capital at the head of his army of liberation and
summoned the inhabitants to a town meeting at which they might determine
for themselves what action should be taken. The result was easily
foreseen. On July 28, 1821, Peru was declared independent, and a few
days later San Martin was invested with supreme command under the title
of "Protector."

But the triumph of the new Protector did not last long. For some reason
he failed to understand that the withdrawal of the royalists from the
neighborhood of the coast was merely a strategic retreat that made the
occupation of the capital a more or less empty performance. This blunder
and a variety of other mishaps proved destined to blight his military
career. Unfortunate in the choice of his subordinates and unable to
retain their confidence; accused of irresolution and even of cowardice;
abandoned by Cochrane, who sailed off to Chile and left the army
stranded; incapable of restraining his soldiers from indulgence in
the pleasures of Lima; now severe, now lax in an administration that
alienated the sympathies of the influential class, San Martin was indeed
an unhappy figure. It soon became clear that he must abandon all hope of
ever conquering the citadel of Spanish power in South America unless he
could prevail upon Bolivar to help him.

A junction of the forces of the two great leaders was perfectly
feasible, after the last important foothold of the Spaniards on the
coast of Venezuela had been broken by the Battle of Carabobo, on July
24, 1821. Whether such a union would be made, however, depended upon two
things: the ultimate disposition of the province of Quito, lying
between Colombia and Peru, and the attitude which Bolivar and San Martin
themselves should assume toward each other. A revolution of the previous
year at the seaport town of Guayaquil in that province had installed
an independent government which besought the Liberator to sustain its
existence. Prompt to avail himself of so auspicious an opportunity of
uniting this former division of the viceroyalty of New Granada to his
republic of Colombia, Bolivar appointed Antonio Jose de Sucre, his
ablest lieutenant and probably the most efficient of all Spanish
American soldiers of the time, to assume charge of the campaign. On his
arrival at Guayaquil, this officer found the inhabitants at odds among
themselves. Some, hearkening to the pleas of an agent of San Martin,
favored union with Peru; others, yielding to the arguments of a
representative of Bolivar, urged annexation to Colombia; still
others regarded absolute independence as most desirable. Under these
circumstances Sucre for a while made little headway against the
royalists concentrated in the mountainous parts of the country despite
the partial support he received from troops which were sent by the
southern commander. At length, on May 24, 1822, scaling the flanks of
the volcano of Pichincha, near the capital town of Quito itself, he
delivered the blow for freedom. Here Bolivar, who had fought his way
overland amid tremendous difficulties, joined him and started for
Guayaquil, where he and San Martin were to hold their memorable
interview.

No characters in Spanish American history have called forth so much
controversy about their respective merits and demerits as these two
heroes of independence--Bolivar and San Martin. Even now it seems quite
impossible to obtain from the admirers of either an opinion that does
full justice to both; and foreigners who venture to pass judgment are
almost certain to provoke criticism from one set of partisans or the
other. Both Bolivar and San Martin were sons of country gentlemen,
aristocratic by lineage and devoted to the cause of independence.
Bolivar was alert, dauntless, brilliant, impetuous, vehemently
patriotic, and yet often capricious, domineering, vain, ostentatious,
and disdainful of moral considerations--a masterful man, fertile in
intellect, fluent in speech and with pen, an inspiring leader and one
born to command in state and army. Quite as earnest, equally courageous,
and upholding in private life a higher standard of morals, San Martin
was relatively calm, cautious, almost taciturn in manner, and slower in
thought and action. He was primarily a soldier, fitted to organize
and conduct expeditions, rather than, a man endowed with that supreme
confidence in himself which brings enthusiasm, affection, and loyalty in
its train.

When San Martin arrived at Guayaquil, late in July, 1822, his hope of
annexing the province of Quito to Peru was rudely shattered by the news
that Bolivar had already declared it a part of Colombia. Though it was
outwardly cordial and even effusive, the meeting of the two men held out
no prospect of accord. In an interchange of views which lasted but a
few hours, mutual suspicion, jealousy, and resentment prevented their
reaching an effective understanding. The Protector, it would seem,
thought the Liberator actuated by a boundless ambition that would not
endure resistance. Bolivar fancied San Martin a crafty schemer plotting
for his own advancement. They failed to agree on the three fundamental
points essential to their further cooperation. Bolivar declined to give
up the province of Quito. He refused also to send an army into Peru
unless he could command it in person, and then he declined to undertake
the expedition on the ground that as President of Colombia he ought
not to leave the territory of the republic. Divining this pretext, San
Martin offered to serve under his orders--a feint that Bolivar parried
by protesting that he would not hear of any such self-denial on the part
of a brother officer.

Above all, the two men differed about the political form to be adopted
for the new independent states. Both of them realized that anything like
genuine democracies was quite impossible of attainment for many years
to come, and that strong administrations would be needful to tide the
Spanish Americans over from the political inexperience of colonial days
and the disorders of revolution to intelligent self-government, which
could come only after a practical acquaintance with public concerns on
a large scale. San Martin believed that a limited monarchy was the best
form of government under the circumstances. Bolivar held fast to the
idea of a centralized or unitary republic, in which actual power should
be exercised by a life president and an hereditary senate until the
people, represented in a lower house, should have gained a sufficient
amount of political experience.

When San Martin returned to Lima he found affairs in a worse state than
ever. The tyrannical conduct of the officer he had left in charge had
provoked an uprising that made his position insupportable. Conscious
that his mission had come to an end and certain that, unless he gave
way, a collision with Bolivar was inevitable, San Martin resolved to
sacrifice himself lest harm befall the common cause in which both had
done such yeoman service. Accordingly he resigned his power into the
hands of a constituent congress and left the country. But when he found
that no happier fortune awaited him in Chile and in his own native
land, San Martin decided to abandon Spanish America forever and go into
selfimposed exile. Broken in health and spirit, he took up his residence
in France, a recipient of bounty from a Spaniard who had once been his
comrade in arms.

Meanwhile in the Mexican part of the viceroyalty of New Spain the cry
of independence raised by Morelos and his bands of Indian followers had
been stifled by the capture and execution of the leader. But the cause
of independence was not dead even if its achievement was to be entrusted
to other hands. Eager to emulate the example of their brethren in South
America, small parties of Spaniards and Creoles fought to overturn
the despotic rule of Ferdinand VII, only to encounter defeat from the
royalists. Then came the Revolution of 1820 in the mother country.
Forthwith demands were heard for a recognition of the liberal regime.
Fearful of being displaced from power, the viceroy with the support of
the clergy and aristocracy ordered Agustin de Iturbide, a Creole
officer who had been an active royalist, to quell an insurrection in the
southern part of the country.

The choice of this soldier was unfortunate. Personally ambitious and
cherishing in secret the thought of independence, Iturbide, faithless
to his trust, entered into negotiations with the insurgents which
culminated February 24, 1821, in what was called the "Plan of Iguala."
It contained three main provisions, or "guarantees," as they were
termed: the maintenance of the Catholic religion to the exclusion of
all others; the establishment of a constitutional monarchy separate from
Spain and ruled by Ferdinand himself, or, if he declined the honor,
by some other European prince; and the union of Mexicans and Spaniards
without distinction of caste or privilege. A temporary government also,
in the form of a junta presided over by the viceroy, was to be created;
and provision was made for the organization of an "Army of the Three
Guarantees."

Despite opposition from the royalists, the plan won increasing favor.
Powerless to thwart it and inclined besides to a policy of conciliation,
the new viceroy, Juan O'Donoju, agreed to ratify it on condition--in
obedience to a suggestion from Iturbide--that the parties concerned
should be at liberty, if they desired, to choose any one as emperor,
whether he were of a reigning family or not. Thereupon, on the 28th of
September, the provisional government installed at the city of Mexico
announced the consummation of an "enterprise rendered eternally
memorable, which a genius beyond all admiration and eulogy, love and
glory of his country, began at Iguala, prosecuted and carried into
effect, overcoming obstacles almost insuparable"--and declared the
independence of a "Mexican Empire." The act was followed by the
appointment of a regency to govern until the accession of Ferdinand VII,
or some other personage, to the imperial throne. Of this body Iturbide
assumed the presidency, which carried with it the powers of commander in
chief and a salary of 120,000 pesos, paid from the day on which the Plan
of Iguala was signed. O'Donoju contented himself with membership on the
board and a salary of one-twelfth that amount, until his speedy demise
removed from the scene the last of the Spanish viceroys in North
America.

One step more was needed. Learning that the Cortes in Spain had rejected
the entire scheme, Iturbide allowed his soldiers to acclaim him emperor,
and an unwilling Congress saw itself obliged to ratify the choice. On
July 21, 1822, the destinies of the country were committed to the charge
of Agustin the First.

As in the area of Mexico proper, so in the Central American part of the
viceroyalty of New Spain, the Spanish Revolution of 1820 had unexpected
results. Here in the five little provinces composing the captaincy
general of Guatemala there was much unrest, but nothing of a serious
nature occurred until after news had been brought of the Plan of Iguala
and its immediate outcome. Thereupon a popular assembly met at the
capital town of Guatemala, and on September 15, 1821, declared the
country an independent state. This radical act accomplished, the patriot
leaders were unable to proceed further. Demands for the establishment
of a federation, for a recognition of local autonomy, for annexation to
Mexico, were all heard, and none, except the last, was answered. While
the "Imperialists" and "Republicans" were arguing it out, a message
from Emperor Agustin announced that he would not allow the new state
to remain independent. On submission of the matter to a vote of the
cabildos, most of them approved reunion with the northern neighbor.
Salvador alone among the provinces held out until troops from Mexico
overcame its resistance.

On the continents of America, Spain had now lost nearly all its its
possessions. In 1822 the United States had already acquired East Florida
on its own account, led off in recognizing the independence of the
several republics. Only in Peru and Charcas the royalists still battled
on behalf of the mother country. In the West Indies, Santo Domingo
followed the lead of its sister colonies on the mainland by asserting in
1821 its independence; but its brief independent life was snuffed out
by the negroes of Haiti, once more a republic, who spread their control
over the entire island. Cuba also felt the impulse of the times. But,
apart from the agitation of secret societies like the "Rays and Suns of
Bolivar," which was soon checked, the colony remained tranquil.

In Portuguese America the knowledge of what had occurred throughout the
Spanish dominions could not fail to awaken a desire for independence.
The Prince Regent was well aware of the discontent of the Brazilians,
but he thought to allay it by substantial concessions. In 1815 he
proceeded to elevate the colony to substantial equality with the mother
country by joining them under the title of "United Kingdom of Portugal,
Brazil, and the Algarves." The next year the Prince Regent himself
became King under the name of John IV. The flame of discontent,
nevertheless, continued to smolder. Republican outbreaks, though quelled
without much difficulty, recurred. Even the reforms which had been
instituted by John himself while Regent, and which had assured freer
communication with the world at large, only emphasized more and more the
absurdity of permitting a feeble little land like Portugal to retain its
hold upon a region so extensive and valuable as Brazil.

The events of 1820 in Portugal hastened the movement toward
independence. Fired by the success of their Spanish comrades, the
Portuguese liberals forthwith rose in revolt, demanded the establishment
of a limited monarchy, and insisted that the King return to his people.
In similar fashion, also, they drew up a constitution which provided for
the representation of Brazil by deputies in a future Cortes. Beyond this
they would concede no special privileges to the colony. Indeed their
idea seems to have been that, with the King once more in Lisbon, their
own liberties would be secure and those of Brazil would be reduced to
what were befitting a mere dependency. Yielding to the inevitable, the
King decided to return to Portugal, leaving the young Crown Prince to
act as Regent in the colony. A critical moment for the little country
and its big dominion oversea had indubitably arrived. John understood
the trend of the times, for on the eve of his departure he said to his
son: "Pedro, if Brazil is to separate itself from Portugal, as seems
likely, you take the crown yourself before any one else gets it!"

Pedro was liberal in sentiment, popular among the Brazilians, and
well-disposed toward the aspirations of the country for a larger
measure of freedom, and yet not blind to the interests of the dynasty of
Braganza. He readily listened to the urgent pleas of the leaders of the
separatist party against obeying the repressive mandaes of the Cortes.
Laws which abolished the central government of the colony and made
the various provinces individually subject to Portugal he declined to
notice. With equal promptness he refused to heed an order bidding him
return to Portugal immediately. To a delegation of prominent Brazilians
he said emphatically: "For the good of all and the general welfare of
the nation, I shall stay." More than that, in May, 1822, he accepted
from the municipality of Rio de Janeiro the title of "Perpetual and
Constitutional Defender of Brazil," and in a series of proclamations
urged the people of the country to begin the great work of emancipation
by forcibly resisting, if needful, any attempt at coercion.

Pedro now believed the moment had come to take the final step. While on
a journey through the province of Sao Paulo, he was overtaken on the 7th
of September, near a little stream called the Ypiranga, by messengers
with dispatches from Portugal. Finding that the Cortes had annulled
his acts and declared his ministers guilty of treason, Pedro forthwith
proclaimed Brazil an independent state. The "cry of Ypiranga" was echoed
with tremendous enthusiasm throughout the country. When Pedro appeared
in the theater at Rio de Janeiro, a few days later, wearing on his arm a
ribbon on which were inscribed the words "Independence or Death," he was
given a tumultuous ovation. On the first day of December the youthful
monarch assumed the title of Emperor, and Brazil thereupon took its
place among the nations of America.



CHAPTER IV. PLOUGHING THE SEA

When the La Plata Congress at Tucuman took the decisive action that
severed the bond with Spain, it uttered a prophecy for all Spanish
America. To quote its language: "Vast and fertile regions, climates
benign and varied, abundant means of subsistence, treasures of gold
and silver... and fine productions of every sort will attract to our
continent innumerable thousands of immigrants, to whom we shall open a
safe place of refuge and extend a beneficent protection." More hopeful
still were the words of a spokesman for another independent country:
"United, neither the empire of the Assyrians, the Medes or the Persians,
the Macedonian or the Roman Empire, can ever be compared with this
colossal republic."

Very different was the vision of Bolivar. While a refugee in Jamaica he
wrote: "We are a little human species; we possess a world apart... new
in almost all the arts and sciences, and yet old, after a fashion, in
the uses of civil society.... Neither Indians nor Europeans, we are a
species that lies midway .... Is it conceivable that a people recently
freed of its chains can launch itself into the sphere of liberty without
shattering its wings, like Icarus, and plunging into the abyss? Such a
prodigy is inconceivable, never beheld." Toward the close of his
career he declared: "The majority are mestizos, mulattoes, Indians,
and negroes. An ignorant people is a blunt instrument for its own
destruction. To it liberty means license, patriotism means disloyalty,
and justice means vengeance." "Independence," he exclaimed, "is the only
good we have achieved, at the cost of everything else."

Whether the abounding confidence of the prophecy or the anxious doubt of
the vision would come true, only the future could tell. In 1822, at all
events, optimism was the watchword and the total exclusion of Spain from
South America the goal of Bolivar and his lieutenants, as they started
southward to complete the work of emancipation which had been begun by
San Martin.

The patriots of Peru, indeed, had fallen into straits so desperate that
an appeal to the Liberator offered the only hope of salvation. While the
royalists under their able and vigilant leader, Jose Canterac, continued
to strengthen their grasp upon the interior of the country and to uphold
the power of the viceroy, the President chosen by the Congress had been
driven by the enemy from Lima. A number of the legislators in wrath
thereupon declared the President deposed. Not to be outdone, that
functionary on his part declared the Congress dissolved. The malcontents
immediately proceeded to elect a new chief magistrate, thus bringing
two Presidents into the field and inaugurating a spectacle destined to
become all too common in the subsequent annals of Spanish America.

When Bolivar arrived at Callao, the seaport of Lima, in September, 1823,
he acted with prompt vigor. He expelled one President, converted the
other into a passive instrument of his will, declined to promulgate a
constitution that the Congress had prepared, and, after obtaining from
that body an appointment to supreme command, dissolved the Congress
without further ado. Unfortunately none of these radical measures had
any perceptible effect upon the military situation. Though Bolivar
gathered together an army made up of Colombians, Peruvians, and remnants
of San Martin's force, many months elapsed before he could venture upon
a serious campaign. Then events in Spain played into his hands. The
reaction that had followed the restoration of Ferdinand VII to absolute
power crossed the ocean and split the royalists into opposing factions.
Quick to seize the chance thus afforded, Bolivar marched over the
Andes to the plain of Junin. There, on August 6, 1824, he repelled an
onslaught by Canterac and drove that leader back in headlong flight.
Believing, however, that the position he held was too perilous to risk
an offensive, he entrusted the military command to Sucre and returned to
headquarters.

The royalists had now come to realize that only a supreme effort could
save them. They must overwhelm Sucre before reinforcements could reach
him, and to this end an army of upwards of ten thousand was assembled.
On the 9th of December it encountered Sucre and his six thousand
soldiers in the valley of Ayacucho, or "Corner of Death," where the
patriot general had entrenched his army with admirable skill. The result
was a total defeat for the royalists--the Waterloo of Spain in South
America. The battle thus won by ragged and hungry soldiers--whose
countersign the night before had been "bread and cheese"--threw off the
yoke of the mother country forever. The viceroy fell wounded into their
hands and Canterac surrendered. On receipt of the glorious news,
the people of Lima greeted Bolivar with wild enthusiasm. A Congress
prolonged his dictatorship amid adulations that bordered on the
grotesque.

Eastward of Peru in the vast mountainous region of Charcas, on the
very heights of South America, the royalists still found a refuge. In
January, 1825, a patriot general at the town of La Paz undertook on his
own responsibility to declare the entire province independent, alike of
Spain, Peru, and the United Provinces of La Plata. This action was too
precipitous, not to say presumptuous, to suit Bolivar and Sucre. The
better to control the situation, the former went up to La Paz and the
latter to Chuquisaca, the capital, where a Congress was to assemble
for the purpose of imparting a more orderly turn to affairs. Under the
direction of the "Marshal of Ayacucho," as Sucre was now called,
the Congress issued on the 6th of August a formal declaration of
independence. In honor of the Liberator it christened the new republic
"Bolivar"--later Latinized into "Bolivia"--and conferred upon him the
presidency so long as he might choose to remain. In November, 1896, a
new Congress which had been summoned to draft a constitution accepted,
with slight modifications, an instrument that the Liberator himself had
prepared. That body also renamed the capital "Sucre" and chose the hero
of Ayacucho as President of the republic.

Now, the Liberator thought, was the opportune moment to impose upon
his territorial namesake a constitution embodying his ideas of a stable
government which would give Spanish Americans eventually the political
experience they needed. Providing for an autocracy represented by a life
President, it ran the gamut of aristocracy and democracy, all the way
from "censors" for life, who were to watch over the due enforcement of
the laws, down to senators and "tribunes" chosen by electors, who in
turn were to be named by a select citizenry. Whenever actually present
in the territory of the republic, the Liberator was to enjoy supreme
command, in case he wished to exercise it.

In 1826 Simon Bolivar stood at the zenith of his glory and power. No
adherents of the Spanish regime were left in South America to menace the
freedom of its independent states. In January a resistance kept up for
nine years by a handful of royalists lodged on the remote island of
Chiloe, off the southern coast of Chile, had been broken, and the
garrison at the fortress of Callao had laid down its arms after a
valiant struggle. Among Spanish Americans no one was comparable to the
marvelous man who had founded three great republics stretching from the
Caribbean Sea to the Tropic of Capricorn. Hailed as the "Liberator"
and the "Terror of Despots," he was also acclaimed by the people as the
"Redeemer, the First-Born Son of the New World!" National destinies
were committed to his charge, and equestrian statues were erected in
his honor. In the popular imagination he was ranked with Napoleon as a
peerless conqueror, and with Washington as the father of his country.
That megalomania should have seized the mind of the Liberator under
circumstances like these is not strange.

Ever a zealous advocate of large states, Bolivar was an equally ardent
partisan of confederation. As president of three republics--of
Colombia actually, and of its satellites, Peru and Bolivia, through his
lieutenants--he could afford now to carry out the plan that he had long
since cherished of assembling at the town of Panama, on Colombian soil,
an "august congress" representative of the independent countries of
America. Here, on the isthmus created by nature to join the continents,
the nations created by men should foregather and proclaim fraternal
accord. Presenting to the autocratic governments of Europe a solid front
of resistance to their pretensions as well as a visible symbol of unity
in sentiment, such a Congress by meeting periodically would also promote
friendship among the republics of the western hemisphere and supply a
convenient means of settling their disputes.

At this time the United States was regarded by its sister republics with
all the affection which gratitude for services rendered to the cause
of emancipation could evoke. Was it not itself a republic, its people a
democracy, its development astounding, and its future radiant with
hope? The pronouncement of President Monroe, in 1823, protesting against
interference on the part of European powers with the liberties of
independent America, afforded the clearest possible proof that the
great northern republic was a natural protector, guide, and friend
whose advice and cooperation ought to be invoked. The United States was
accordingly asked to take part in the assembly--not to concert military
measures, but simply to join its fellows to the southward in a solemn
proclamation of the Monroe Doctrine by America at large and to discuss
means of suppressing the slave trade.

The Congress that met at Panama, in June, 1826, afforded scant
encouragement to Bolivar's roseate hope of interAmerican solidarity.
Whether because of the difficulties of travel, or because of internal
dissensions, or because of the suspicion that the megalomania of the
Liberator had awakened in Spanish America, only the four continental
countries nearest the isthmus--Mexico, Central America, Colombia, and
Peru--were represented. The delegates, nevertheless, signed a compact
of "perpetual union, league, and confederation," provided for mutual
assistance to be rendered by the several nations in time of war, and
arranged to have the Areopagus of the Americas transferred to Mexico.
None of the acts of this Congress was ratified by the republics
concerned, except the agreement for union, which was adopted by
Colombia.

Disheartening to Bolivar as this spectacle was, it proved merely the
first of a series of calamities which were to overshadow the later years
of the Liberator. His grandiose political structure began to crumble,
for it was built on the shifting sands of a fickle popularity. The
more he urged a general acceptance of the principles of his autocratic
constitution, the surer were his followers that he coveted royal honors.
In December he imposed his instrument upon Peru. Then he learned that
a meeting in Venezuela, presided over by Paez, had declared itself in
favor of separation from Colombia. Hardly had he left Peru to check this
movement when an uprising at Lima deposed his representative and led
to the summons of a Congress which, in June, 1827, restored the former
constitution and chose a new President. In Quito, also, the government
of the unstable dictator was overthrown.

Alarmed by symptoms of disaffection which also appeared in the western
part of the republic, Bolivar hurried to Bogota. There in the hope
of removing the growing antagonism, he offered his "irrevocable"
resignation, as he had done on more than one occasion before. Though the
malcontents declined to accept his withdrawal from office, they insisted
upon his calling a constitutional convention. Meeting at Ocana, in
April, 1828, that body proceeded to abolish the life tenure of the
presidency, to limit the powers of the executive, and to increase
those of the legislature. Bolivar managed to quell the opposition in
dictatorial fashion; but his prestige had by this time fallen so low
that an attempt was made to assassinate him. The severity with which he
punished the conspirators served only to diminish still more the popular
confidence which he had once enjoyed. Even in Bolivia his star of
destiny had set. An outbreak of Colombian troops at the capital forced
the faithful Sucre to resign and leave the country. The constitution was
then modified to meet the demand for a less autocratic government, and a
new chief magistrate was installed.

Desperately the Liberator strove to ward off the impending collapse.
Though he recovered possession of the division of Quito, a year of
warfare failed to win back Peru, and he was compelled to renounce all
pretense of governing it. Feeble in body and distracted in mind, he
condemned bitterly the machinations of his enemies. "There is no good
faith in Colombia," he exclaimed, "neither among men nor among nations.
Treaties are paper; constitutions, books; elections, combats; liberty,
anarchy, and life itself a torment."

But the hardest blow was yet to fall. Late in December, 1829, an
assembly at Caracas declared Venezuela a separate state. The great
republic was rent in twain, and even what was left soon split apart.
In May, 1830, came the final crash. The Congress at Bogota drafted a
constitution, providing for a separate republic to bear the old Spanish
name of "New Granada," accepted definitely the resignation of Bolivar,
and granted him a pension. Venezuela, his native land, set up a congress
of its own and demanded that he be exiled. The division of Quito
declared itself independent, under the name of the "Republic of the
Equator" (Ecuador). Everywhere the artificial handiwork of the Liberator
lay in ruins. "America is ungovernable. Those who have served in the
revolution have ploughed the sea," was his despairing cry.

Stricken to death, the fallen hero retired to an estate near Santa
Marta. Here, like his famous rival, San Martin, in France, he found
hospitality at the hands of a Spaniard. On December 17, 1830, the
Liberator gave up his troubled soul.

While Bolivar's great republic was falling apart, the United Provinces
of La Plata had lost practically all semblance of cohesion. So broad
were their notions of liberty that the several provinces maintained a
substantial independence of one another, while within each province the
caudillos, or partisan chieftains, fought among themselves.

Buenos Aires alone managed to preserve a measure of stability. This
comparative peace was due to the financial and commercial measures
devised by Bernardino Rivadavia, one of the most capable statesmen of
the time, and to the energetic manner in which disorder was suppressed
by Juan Manuel de Rosas, commander of the gaucho, or cowboy, militia.
Thanks also to the former leader, the provinces were induced in 1826 to
join in framing a constitution of a unitary character, which vested in
the administration at Buenos Aires the power of appointing the local
governors and of controlling foreign affairs. The name of the
country was at the same time changed to that of the "Argentine
Confederation"(c)-a Latin rendering of "La Plata."

No sooner had Rivadavia assumed the presidency under the new order of
things than dissension at home and warfare abroad threatened to destroy
all that he had accomplished. Ignoring the terms of the constitution,
the provinces had already begun to reject the supremacy of Buenos
Aires, when the outbreak of a struggle with Brazil forced the contending
parties for a while to unite in the face of the common enemy. As
before, the object of international dispute was the region of the Banda
Oriental. The rule of Brazil had not been oppressive, but the people
of its Cisplatine Province, attached by language and sympathy to their
western neighbors, longed nevertheless to be free of foreign control. In
April, 1825, a band of thirty-three refugees arrived from Buenos Aires
and started a revolution which spread throughout the country. Organizing
a provisional government, the insurgents proclaimed independence of
Brazil and incorporation with the United Provinces of La Plata. As soon
as the authorities at Buenos Aires had approved this action, war was
inevitable. Though the Brazilians were decisively beaten at the Battle
of Ituzaingo, on February 20, 1827, the struggle lasted until August 28,
1828, when mediation by Great Britain led to the conclusion of a treaty
at Rio de Janeiro, by which both Brazil and the Argentine Confederation
recognized the absolute independence of the disputed province as the
republic of Uruguay.

Instead of quieting the discord that prevailed among the Argentinos,
these victories only fomented trouble. The federalists had ousted
Rivadavia and discarded the constitution, but the federal idea for
which they stood had several meanings. To an inhabitant of Buenos Aires
federalism meant domination by the capital, not only over the province
of the same name but over the other provinces; whereas, to the people of
the provinces, and even to many of federalist faith in the province
of Buenos Aires itself, the term stood for the idea of a loose
confederation in which each provincial governor or chieftain should be
practically supreme in his own district, so long as he could maintain
himself. The Unitaries were opponents of both, except in so far as their
insistence upon a centralized form of government for the nation would
necessarily lead to the location of that government at Buenos Aires.
This peculiar dual contest between the town and the province of Buenos
Aires, and of the other provinces against either or both, persisted for
the next sixty years. In 1829, however, a prolonged lull set in, when
Rosas, the gaucho leader, having won in company with other caudillos
a decisive triumph over the Unitaries, entered the capital and took
supreme command.

In Chile the course of events had assumed quite a different aspect.
Here, in 1818, a species of constitution had been adopted by popular
vote in a manner that appeared to show remarkable unanimity, for the
books in which the "ayes" and "noes" were to be recorded contained
no entries in the negative! What the records really prove is that
O'Higgins, the Supreme Director, enjoyed the confidence of the ruling
class. In exercise of the autocratic power entrusted to him, he now
proceeded to introduce a variety of administrative reforms of signal
advantage to the moral and material welfare of the country. But as the
danger of conquest from any quarter lessened, the demand for a more
democratic organization grew louder, until in 1822 it became so
persistent that O'Higgins called a convention to draft a new fundamental
law. But its provisions suited neither himself nor his opponents.
Thereupon, realizing that his views of the political capacity of the
people resembled those of Bolivar and were no longer applicable, and
that his reforms had aroused too much hostility, the Supreme Director
resigned his post and retired to Peru. Thus another hero of emancipation
had met the ingratitude for which republics are notorious.

Political convulsions in the country followed the abdication of
O'Higgins. Not only had the spirit of the strife between Unitaries and
Federalists been communicated to Chile from the neighboring republic
to the eastward, but two other parties or factions, divided on still
different lines, had arisen. These were the Conservative and the
Liberal, or Bigwigs (pelucones) and Greenhorns (pipiolos), as the
adherents of the one derisively dubbed the partisans of the other.
Although in the ups and downs of the struggle two constitutions were
adopted, neither sufficed to quiet the agitation. Not until 1830, when
the Liberals sustained an utter defeat on the field of battle, did the
country enter upon a period of quiet progress along conservative lines.
From that time onward it presented a surprising contrast to its fellow
republics, which were beset with afflictions.

Far to the northward, the Empire of Mexico set up by Iturbide in 1822
was doomed to a speedy fall. "Emperor by divine providence," that
ambitious adventurer inscribed on his coins, but his countrymen knew
that the bayonets of his soldiers were the actual mainstay of his
pretentious title. Neither his earlier career nor the size of his
following was sufficiently impressive to assure him popular support if
the military prop gave way. His lavish expenditures, furthermore, and
his arbitrary replacement of the Congress by a docile body which would
authorize forced loans at his command, steadily undermined his position.
Apart from the faults of Iturbide himself, the popular sentiment of a
country bordering immediately upon the United States could not fail to
be colored by the ideas and institutions of its great neighbor. So, too,
the example of what had been accomplished, in form at least, by their
kinsmen elsewhere in America was bound to wield a potent influence on
the minds of the Mexicans. As a result, their desire for a republic grew
stronger from day to day.

Iturbide, in fact, had not enjoyed his exalted rank five months when
Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, a young officer destined later to become a
conspicuous figure in Mexican history, started a revolt to replace
the "Empire" by a republic. Though he failed in his object, two of
Iturbide's generals joined the insurgents in demanding a restoration of
the Congress--an act which, as the hapless "Emperor" perceived, would
amount to his dethronement. Realizing his impotence, Iturbide summoned
the Congress and announced his abdication. But instead of recognizing
this procedure, that body declared his accession itself null and void;
it agreed, however, to grant him a pension if he would leave the country
and reside in Italy. With this disposition of his person Iturbide
complied; but he soon wearied of exile and persuaded himself that he
would not lack supporters if he tried to regain his former control
in Mexico. This venture he decided to make in complete ignorance of a
decree ordering his summary execution if he dared to set foot again on
Mexican soil. He had hardly landed in July, 1824, when he was seized and
shot.

Since a constituent assembly had declared itself in favor of
establishing a federal form of republic patterned after that of the
United States, the promulgation of a constitution followed on October 4,
1824, and Guadalupe Victoria, one of the leaders in the revolt against
Iturbide, was chosen President of the United Mexican States. Though
considerable unrest prevailed toward the close of his term, the new
President managed to retain his office for the allotted four years. In
most respects, however, the new order of things opened auspiciously. In
November, 1825, the surrender of the fortress of San Juan de Ulua, in
the harbor of Vera Cruz, banished the last remnant of Spanish power,
and two years later the suppression of plots for the restoration
of Ferdinand VII, coupled with the expulsion of a large number of
Spaniards, helped to restore calm. There were those even who dared to
hope that the federal system would operate as smoothly in Mexico as it
had done in the United States.

But the political organization of a country so different from its
northern neighbor in population, traditions, and practices, could not
rest merely on a basis of imitation, even more or less modified. The
artificiality of the fabric became apparent enough as soon as ambitious
individuals and groups of malcontents concerted measures to mold it into
a likeness of reality. Two main political factions soon appeared. For
the form they assumed British and American influences were responsible.
Adopting a kind of Masonic organization, the Conservatives and
Centralists called themselves Escoceses (Scottish-Rite Men), whereas
the Radicals and Federalists took the name of Yorkinos (York-Rite Men).
Whatever their respective slogans and professions of political faith,
they were little more than personal followers of rival generals or
politicians who yearned to occupy the presidential chair.

Upon the downfall of Iturbide, the malcontents in Central America
bestirred themselves to throw off the Mexican yoke. On July 1,1823, a
Congress declared the region an independent republic under the name of
the "United Provinces of Central America." In November of the next year,
following the precedent established in Mexico, and obedient also to
local demand, the new republic issued a constitution, in accordance
with which the five little divisions of Guatemala, Honduras, Salvador,
Nicaragua, and Costa Rica were to become states of a federal union, each
having the privilege of choosing its own local authorities. Immediately
Federalists and Centralists, Radicals and Conservatives, all wished, it
would seem, to impose their particular viewpoint upon their fellows.
The situation was not unlike that in the Argentine Confederation. The
efforts of Guatemala--the province in which power had been concentrated
under the colonial regime--to assert supremacy over its fellow states,
and their refusal to respect either the federal bond or one another's
rights made civil war inevitable. The struggle which broke out among
Guatemala, Salvador, and Honduras, lasted until 1829, when Francisco
Morazan, at the head of the "Allied Army, Upholder of the Law," entered
the capital of the republic and assumed dictatorial power.

Of all the Hispanic nations, however, Brazil was easily the most stable.
Here the leaders, while clinging to independence, strove to avoid
dangerous innovations in government. Rather than create a political
system for which the country was not prepared, they established a
constitutional monarchy. But Brazil itself was too vast and its interior
too difficult of access to allow it to become all at once a unit, either
in organization or in spirit. The idea of national solidarity had as yet
made scant progress. The old rivalry which existed between the provinces
of the north, dominated by Bahia or Pernambuco, and those of the south,
controlled by Rio de Janeiro or Sao Paulo, still made itself felt. What
the Empire amounted to, therefore, was an agglomeration of provinces,
held together by the personal prestige of a young monarch.

Since the mother country still held parts of northern Brazil, the
Emperor entrusted the energetic Cochrane, who had performed such valiant
service for Chile and Peru, with the task of expelling the foreign
soldiery. When this had been accomplished and a republican outbreak
in the same region had been suppressed, the more difficult task of
satisfying all parties by a constitution had to be undertaken. There
were partisans of monarchy and advocates of republicanism, men of
conservative and of liberal sympathies; disagreements, also, between the
Brazilians and the native Portuguese residents were frequent. So far as
possible Pedro desired to meet popular desires, and yet without imposing
too many limitations on the monarchy itself. But in the assembly called
to draft the constitution the liberal members made a determined effort
to introduce republican forms. Pedro thereupon dissolved that body and
in 1826 promulgated a constitution of his own.

The popularity of the Emperor thereafter soon began to wane, partly
because of the scandalous character of his private life, and partly
because he declined to observe constitutional restrictions and chose his
ministers at will. His insistent war in Portugal to uphold the claims
of his daughter to the throne betrayed, or seemed to betray, dynastic
ambitions. His inability to hold Uruguay as a Brazilian province, and
his continued retention of foreign soldiers who had been employed in the
struggle with the Argentine Confederation, for the apparent purpose of
quelling possible insurrections in the future, bred much discontent. So
also did the restraints he laid upon the press, which had been infected
by the liberal movements in neighboring republics. When he failed
to subdue these outbreaks, his rule became all the more discredited.
Thereupon, menaced by a dangerous uprising at Rio de Janeiro in 1831, he
abdicated the throne in favor of his son, Pedro, then five years of age,
and set sail for Portugal.

Under the influence of Great Britain the small European mother country
had in 1825 recognized the independence of its big transatlantic
dominion; but it was not until 1836 that the Cortes of Spain authorized
the Crown to enter upon negotiations looking to the same action in
regard to the eleven republics which had sprung out of its colonial
domain. Even then many years elapsed before the mother country
acknowledged the independence of them all.



CHAPTER V. THE AGE OF THE DICTATORS

Independence without liberty and statehood without respect for law are
phrases which sum up the situation in Spanish America after the failure
of Bolivar's "great design." The outcome was a collection of
crude republics, racked by internal dissension and torn by mutual
jealousy--patrias bobas, or "foolish fatherlands," as one of their own
writers has termed them.

Now that the bond of unity once supplied by Spain had been broken, the
entire region which had been its continental domain in America dissolved
awhile into its elements. The Spanish language, the traditions and
customs of the dominant class, and a "republican" form of government,
were practically the sole ties which remained. Laws, to be sure, had
been enacted, providing for the immediate or gradual abolition of
negro slavery and for an improvement in the status of the Indian and
half-caste; but the bulk of the inhabitants, as in colonial times,
remained outside of the body politic and social. Though the so-called
"constitutions" might confer upon the colored inhabitants all the
privileges and immunities of citizens if they could read and write,
and even a chance to hold office if they could show possession of a
sufficient income or of a professional title of some sort, their usual
inability to do either made their privileges illusory. Their only share
in public concerns lay in performing military service at the behest of
their superiors. Even where the language of the constitutions did
not exclude the colored inhabitants directly or indirectly, practical
authority was exercised by dictators who played the autocrat, or by
"liberators" who aimed at the enjoyment of that function themselves.

Not all the dictators, however, were selfish tyrants, nor all the
liberators mere pretenders. Disturbed conditions bred by twenty years
of warfare, antique methods of industry, a backward commerce, inadequate
means of communication, and a population ignorant, superstitious, and
scant, made a strong ruler more or less indispensable. Whatever his
official designation, the dictator was the logical successor of
the Spanish viceroy or captain general, but without the sense of
responsibility or the legal restraint of either. These circumstances
account for that curious political phase in the development of the
Spanish American nations--the presidential despotism.

On the other hand, the men who denounced oppression, unscrupulousness,
and venality, and who in rhetorical pronunciamentos urged the
"people" to overthrow the dictators, were often actuated by motives of
patriotism, even though they based their declarations on assumptions
and assertions, rather than on principles and facts. Not infrequently a
liberator of this sort became "provisional president" until he
himself, or some person of his choice, could be elected "constitutional
president"--two other institutions more or less peculiar to Spanish
America.

In an atmosphere of political theorizing mingled with ambition for
personal advancement, both leaders and followers were professed devotees
of constitutions. No people, it was thought, could maintain a real
republic and be a true democracy if they did not possess a written
constitution. The longer this was, the more precise its definition
of powers and liberties, the more authentic the republic and the more
genuine the democracy was thought to be. In some countries the notion
was carried still farther by an insistence upon frequent changes in the
fundamental law or in the actual form of government, not so much to meet
imperative needs as to satisfy a zest for experimentation or to suit the
whims of mercurial temperaments. The congresses, constituent assemblies,
and the like, which drew these instruments, were supposed to be faithful
reproductions of similar bodies abroad and to represent the popular
will. In fact, however, they were substantially colonial cabildos,
enlarged into the semblance of a legislature, intent upon local or
personal concerns, and lacking any national consciousness. In any case
the members were apt to be creatures of a republican despot or else
delegates of politicians or petty factions.

Assuming that the leaders had a fairly clear conception of what they
wanted, even if the mass of their adherents did not, it is possible to
aline the factions or parties somewhat as follows: on the one hand, the
unitary, the military, the clerical, the conservative, and the moderate;
on the other, the federalist, the civilian, the lay, the liberal, and the
radical. Interspersed among them were the advocates of a presidential or
congressional system like that of the United States, the upholders of a
parliamentary regime like that of European nations, and the supporters
of methods of government of a more experimental kind. Broadly speaking,
the line of cleavage was made by opinions, concerning the form of
government and by convictions regarding the relations of Church and
State. These opinions were mainly a product of revolutionary experience;
these convictions, on the other hand, were a bequest from colonial
times.

The Unitaries wished to have a system of government modeled upon that
of France. They wanted the various provinces made into administrative
districts over which the national authority should exercise full sway.
Their direct opponents, the Federalists, resembled to some extent the
Antifederalists rather than the party bearing the former title in the
earlier history of the United States; but even here an exact
analogy fails. They did not seek to have the provinces enjoy local
self-government or to have perpetuated the traditions of a sort of
municipal home rule handed down from the colonial cabildos, so much
as to secure the recognition of a number of isolated villages or small
towns as sovereign states--which meant turning them over as fiefs to
their local chieftains. Federalism, therefore, was the Spanish American
expression for a feudalism upheld by military lordlets and their
retainers.

Among the measures of reform introduced by one republic or another
during the revolutionary period, abolition of the Inquisition had been
one of the foremost; otherwise comparatively little was done to curb
the influence of the Church. Indeed the earlier constitutions regularly
contained articles declaring Roman Catholicism the sole legal faith as
well as the religion of the state, and safeguarding in other respects
its prestige in the community. Here was an institution, wealthy, proud,
and influential, which declined to yield its ancient prerogatives and
privileges and to that end relied upon the support of clericals and
conservatives who disliked innovations of a democratic sort and viewed
askance the entry of immigrants professing an alien faith. Opposed
to the Church stood governments verging on bankruptcy, desirous of
exercising supreme control, and dominated by individuals eager to put
theories of democracy into practice and to throw open the doors of the
republic freely to newcomers from other lands. In the opinion of these
radicals the Church ought to be deprived both of its property and of its
monopoly of education. The one should be turned over to the nation,
to which it properly belonged, and should be converted into public
utilities; the other should be made absolutely secular, in order to
destroy clerical influence over the youthful mind. In this program
radicals and liberals concurred with varying degrees of intensity,
while the moderates strove to hold the balance between them and their
opponents.

Out of this complex situation civil commotions were bound to arise.
Occasionally these were real wars, but as a rule only skirmishes or
sporadic insurrections occurred. They were called "revolutions," not
because some great principle was actually at stake but because the term
had been popular ever since the struggle with Spain. As a designation
for movements aimed at securing rotation in office, and hence control of
the treasury, it was appropriate enough! At all events, whether serious
or farcical, the commotions often involved an expenditure in life and
money far beyond the value of the interests affected. Further, both
the prevalent disorder and the centralization of authority impelled the
educated and well-to-do classes to take up their residence at the seat
of government. Not a few of the uprisings were, in fact, protests on
the part of the neglected folk in the interior of the country against
concentration of population, wealth, intellect, and power in the Spanish
American capitals.

Among the towns of this sort was Buenos Aires. Here, in 1829, Rosas
inaugurated a career of rulership over the Argentine Confederation,
culminating in a despotism that made him the most extraordinary figure
of his time. Originally a stockfarmer and skilled in all the exercises
of the cowboy, he developed an unusual talent for administration. His
keen intelligence, supple statecraft, inflexibility of purpose, and
vigor of action, united to a shrewd understanding of human follies and
passions, gave to his personality a dominance that awed and to his word
of command a power that humbled. Over his fellow chieftains who held the
provinces in terrorized subjection, he won an ascendancy that insured
compliance with his will. The instincts of the multitude he flattered
by his generous simplicity, while he enlisted the support of the
responsible class by maintaining order in the countryside. The desire,
also, of Buenos Aires to be paramount over the other provinces had no
small share in strengthening his power.

Relatively honest in money matters, and a stickler for precision and
uniformity, Rosas sought to govern a nation in the rough-and-ready
fashion of the stock farm. A creature of his environment, no better
and no worse than his associates, but only more capable than they,
and absolutely convinced that pitiless autocracy was the sole means of
creating a nation out of chaotic fragments, this "Robespierre of
South America" carried on his despotic sway, regardless of the fury of
opponents and the menace of foreign intervention.

During the first three years of his control, however, except for the
rigorous suppression of unitary movements and the muzzling of the press,
few signs appeared of the "black night of Argentine history" which was
soon to close down on the land. Realizing that the auspicious moment had
not yet arrived for him to exercise the limitless power that he
thought needful, he declined an offer of reelection from the provincial
legislature, in the hope that, through a policy of conciliation, his
successor might fall a prey to the designs of the Unitaries. When this
happened, he secretly stirred up the provinces into a renewal of the
earlier disturbances, until the evidence became overwhelming that Rosas
alone could bring peace and progress out of turmoil and backwardness.
Reluctantly the legislature yielded him the power it knew he wanted.
This he would not accept until a "popular" vote of some 9000 to 4
confirmed the choice. In 1835, accordingly, he became dictator for the
first of four successive terms of five years.

Then ensued, notably in Buenos Aires itself, a state of affairs at once
grotesque and frightful. Not content with hunting down and inflicting
every possible, outrage upon those suspected of sympathy with the
Unitaries, Rosas forbade them to display the light blue and white colors
of their party device and directed that red, the sign of Federalism,
should be displayed on all occasions. Pink he would not tolerate as
being too attenuated a shade and altogether too suggestive of political
trimming! A band of his followers, made up of ruffians, and called the
Mazorca, or "Ear of Corn," because of the resemblance of their close
fellowship to its adhering grains, broke into private houses, destroyed
everything light blue within reach, and maltreated the unfortunate
occupants at will. No man was safe also who did not give his face a
leonine aspect by wearing a mustache and sidewhiskers--emblems, the one
of "federalism," and the other of "independence." To possess a visage
bare of these hirsute adornments or a countenance too efflorescent
in that respect was, under a regime of tonsorial politics, to invite
personal disaster! Nothing apparently was too cringing or servile to
show how submissive the people were to the mastery of Rosas. Private
vengeance and defamation of the innocent did their sinister work
unchecked. Even when his arbitrary treatment of foreigners had compelled
France for a while to institute a blockade of Buenos Aires, the wily
dictator utilized the incident to turn patriotic resentment to his own
advantage.

Meanwhile matters in Uruguay had come to such a pass that Rosas saw an
opportunity to extend his control in that direction also. Placed
between Brazil and the Argentine Confederation and so often a bone of
contention, the little country was hardly free from the rule of the
former state when it came near falling under the domination of the
latter. Only a few years of relative tranquillity had elapsed when two
parties sprang up in Uruguay: the "Reds" (Colorados) and the "Whites"
(Blancos). Of these, the one was supposed to represent the liberal and
the other the conservative element. In fact, they were the followings
of partisan chieftains, whose struggles for the presidency during many
years to come retarded the advancement of a country to which nature had
been generous.

When Fructuoso Rivera, the President up to 1835, thought of choosing
some one to be elected in constitutional fashion as his successor, he
unwisely singled out Manuel Oribe, one of the famous "Thirty-three" who
had raised the cry of independence a decade before. But instead of a
henchman he found a rival. Both of them straightway adopted the colors
and bid for the support of one of the local factions; and both appealed
to the factions of the Argentine Confederation for aid, Rivera to the
Unitaries and Oribe to the Federalists. In 1843, Oribe, at the head of
an army of Blancos and Federalists and with the moral support of Rosas,
laid siege to Montevideo. Defended by Colorados, Unitaries, and numerous
foreigners, including Giuseppe Garibaldi, the town held out valiantly
for eight years--a feat that earned for it the title of the "New Troy."
Anxious to stop the slaughter and destruction that were injuring their
nationals, France, Great Britain, and Brazil offered their mediation;
but Rosas would have none of it. What the antagonists did he cared
little, so long as they enfeebled the country and increased his
chances of dominating it. At length, in 1845, the two European powers
established a blockade of Argentine ports, which was not lifted
until the dictator grudgingly agreed to withdraw his troops from the
neighboring republic.

More than any other single factor, this intervention of France and Great
Britain administered a blow to Rosas from which he could not recover.
The operations of their fleets and the resistance of Montevideo had
lowered the prestige of the dictator and had raised the hopes of
the Unitaries that a last desperate effort might shake off his hated
control. In May, 1851, Justo Jose de Urquiza, one of his most trusted
lieutenants, declared the independence of his own province and called
upon the others to rise against the tyrant. Enlisting the support
of Brazil, Uruguay, and Paraguay, he assembled a "great army of
liberation," composed of about twenty-five thousand men, at whose head
he marched to meet the redoubtable Rosas. On February 3,1852, at a spot
near Buenos Aires, the man of might who, like his contemporary Francia
in Paraguay, had held the Argentine Confederation in thralldom for so
many years, went down to final defeat. Embarking on a British warship he
sailed for England, there to become a quiet country gentleman in a land
where gauchos and dictators were unhonored.

In the meantime Paraguay, spared from such convulsion as racked its
neighbor on the east, dragged on its secluded existence of backwardness
and stagnation. Indians and half-castes vegetated in ignorance and
docility, and the handful of whites quaked in terror, while the
inexorable Francia tightened the reins of commercial and industrial
restriction and erected forts along the frontiers to keep out the
pernicious foreigner. At his death, in 1840, men and women wept at his
funeral in fear perchance, as one historian remarks, lest he come
back to life; and the priest who officiated at the service likened the
departed dictator to Caesar and Augustus!

Paraguay was destined, however, to fall under a despot far worse than
Francia when in 1862 Francisco Solano Lopez became President. The new
ruler was a man of considerable intelligence and education. While a
traveler in Europe he had seen much of its military organizations, and
he had also gained no slight acquaintance with the vices of its capital
cities. This acquired knowledge he joined to evil propensities until
he became a veritable monster of wickedness. Vain, arrogant, reckless,
absolutely devoid of scruple, swaggering in victory, dogged in defeat,
ferociously cruel at all times, he murdered his brothers and his best
friends; he executed, imprisoned, or banished any one whom he thought
too influential; he tortured his mother and sisters; and, like the
French Terrorists, he impaled his officers upon the unpleasant dilemma
of winning victories or losing their lives. Even members of the American
legation suffered torment at his hands, and the minister himself barely
escaped death.

Over his people, Lopez wielded a marvelous power, compounded of
persuasive eloquence and brute force. If the Paraguayans had obeyed
their earlier masters blindly, they were dumb before this new despot
and deaf to other than his word of command. To them he was the "Great
Father," who talked to them in their own tongue of Guarani, who was
the personification of the nation, the greatest ruler in the world, the
invincible champion who inspired them with a loathing and contempt for
their enemies. Such were the traits of a man and such the traits of a
people who waged for six years a warfare among the most extraordinary in
human annals.

What prompted Lopez to embark on his career of international madness and
prosecute it with the rage of a demon is not entirely clear. A vision
of himself as the Napoleon of southern South America, who might cause
Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay to cringe before his footstool, while he
disposed at will of their territory and fortunes, doubtless stirred his
imagination. So, too, the thought of his country, wedged in between two
huge neighbors and threatened with suffocation between their overlapping
folds, may well have suggested the wisdom of conquering overland a
highway to the sea. At all events, he assembled an army of upwards of
ninety thousand men, the greatest military array that Hispanic America
had ever seen. Though admirably drilled and disciplined, they were
poorly armed, mostly with flintlock muskets, and they were also
deficient in artillery except that of antiquated pattern. With this
mighty force at his back, yet knowing that the neighboring countries
could eventually call into the field armies much larger in size equipped
with repeating rifles and supplied with modern artillery, the "Jupiter
of Paraguay" nevertheless made ready to launch his thunderbolt.

The primary object at which he aimed was Uruguay. In this little state
the Colorados, upheld openly or secretly by Brazil and Argentina, were
conducting a "crusade of liberty" against the Blanco government at
Montevideo, which was favored by Paraguay. Neither of the two great
powers wished to see an alliance formed between Uruguay and Paraguay,
lest when united in this manner the smaller nations might become too
strong to tolerate further intervention in their affairs. For her part,
Brazil had motives for resentment arising out of boundary disputes with
Paraguay and Uruguay, as well as out of the inevitable injury to its
nationals inflicted by the commotions in the latter country; whereas
Argentina cherished grievances against Lopez for the audacity with which
his troops roamed through her provinces and the impudence with which his
vessels, plying on the lower Parana, ignored the customs regulations.
Thus it happened that obscure civil discords in one little republic
exploded into a terrific international struggle which shook South
America to its foundations.

In 1864, scorning the arts of diplomacy which he did not apparently
understand, Lopez sent down an order for the two big states to leave the
matter of Uruguayan politics to his impartial adjustment. At both Rio
de Janeiro and Buenos Aires a roar of laughter went up from the press at
this notion of an obscure chieftain of a band of Indians in the tropical
backwoods daring to poise the equilibrium of much more than half a
continent on his insolent hand. But the merriment soon subsided, as
Brazilians and Argentinos came to realize what their peril might be
from a huge army of skilled and valiant soldiers, a veritable horde of
fighting fanatics, drawn up in a compact little land, centrally located
and affording in other respects every kind of strategic advantage.

When Brazil invaded Uruguay and restored the Colorados to power, Lopez
demanded permission from Argentina to cross its frontier, for the
purpose of assailing his enemy from another quarter. When the permission
was denied, Lopez declared war on Argentina also. It was in every
respect a daring step, but Lopez knew that Argentina was not so well
prepared as his own state for a war of endurance. Uruguay then entered
into an alliance in 1865 with its two big "protectors." In accordance
with its terms, the allies agreed not to conclude peace until Lopez had
been overthrown, heavy indemnities had been exacted of Paraguay, its
fortifications demolished, its army disbanded, and the country forced to
accept any boundaries that the victors might see fit to impose.

Into the details of the campaigns in the frightful conflict that
ensued it is not necessary to enter. Although, in 1866, the allies had
assembled an army of some fifty thousand men, Lopez continued taking
the offensive until, as the number and determination of his adversaries
increased, he was compelled to retreat into his own country. Here he and
his Indian legions levied terrific toll upon the lives of their enemies
who pressed onward, up or down the rivers and through tropical swamps
and forests. Inch by inch he contested their entry upon Paraguayan
soil. When the able-bodied men gave out, old men, boys, women, and girls
fought on with stubborn fury, and died before they would surrender. The
wounded escaped if they could, or, cursing their captors, tore off
their bandages and bled to death. Disease wrought awful havoc in all the
armies engaged; yet the struggle continued until flesh and blood could
endure no more. Flying before his pursuers into the wilds of the north
and frantically dragging along with him masses of fugitive men, women,
and children, whom he remorselessly shot, or starved to death, or left
to perish of exhaustion, Lopez turned finally at bay, and, on March 1,
1870, was felled by the lance of a cavalryman. He had sworn to die for
his country and he did, though his country might perish with him.

No land in modern times has ever reached a point so near annihilation as
Paraguay. Added to the utter ruin of its industries and the devastation
of its fields, dwellings, and towns, hundreds of thousands of men,
women, and children had perished. Indeed, the horrors that had befallen
it might well have led the allies to ask themselves whether it was worth
while to destroy a country in order to change its rulers. Five years
before Lopez came into power the population of Paraguay had been
reckoned at something between 800,000 and 1,400,000--so unreliable were
census returns in those days. In 1878 it was estimated at about 230,000,
of whom women over fifteen years of age outnumbered the men nearly four
to one. Loose polygamy was the inevitable consequence, and women became
the breadwinners. Even today in this country the excess of females over
males is very great. All in all, it is not strange that Paraguay should
be called the "Niobe among nations."

Unlike many nations of Spanish America in which a more or less
anticlerical regime was in the ascendant, Ecuador fell under a sort
of theocracy. Here appeared one of the strangest characters in a story
already full of extraordinary personages--Gabriel Garcia Moreno,
who became President of that republic in 1861. In some respects the
counterpart of Francia of Paraguay, in others both a medieval mystic
and an enlightened ruler of modern type, he was a man of remarkable
intellect, constructive ability, earnest patriotism, and disinterested
zeal for orderliness and progress. On his presidential sash were
inscribed the words: "My Power in the Constitution"; but is real power
lay in himself and in the system which he implanted.

Garcia Moreno had a varied career. He had been a student of chemistry
and other natural sciences. He had spent his youth in exile in Europe,
where he prepared himself for his subsequent career as a journalist and
a university professor. Through it all he had been an active participant
in public affairs. Grim of countenance, austere in bearing, violent of
temper, relentless in severity, he was a devoted believer in the Roman
Catholic faith and in this Church as the sole effective basis upon which
a state could be founded or social and political regeneration could be
assured. In order to render effective his concept of what a nation
ought to be, Garcia Moreno introduced and upheld in all rigidity an
administration the like of which had been known hardly anywhere since
the Middle Ages. He recalled the Jesuits, established schools of the
"Brothers of the Christian Doctrine," and made education a matter wholly
under ecclesiastical control. He forbade heretical worship, called the
country the "Republic of the Sacred Heart," and entered into a concordat
with the Pope under which the Church in Ecuador became more subject to
the will of the supreme pontiff than western Europe had been in the days
of Innocent III.

Liberals in and outside of Ecuador tried feebly to shake off this
masterful theocracy, for the friendship which Garcia Moreno displayed
toward the diplomatic representatives of the Catholic powers of Europe,
notably those of Spain and France, excited the neighboring republics.
Colombia, indeed, sent an army to liberate the "brother democrats of
Ecuador from the rule of Professor Garcia Moreno," but the mass of the
people stood loyally by their President. For this astounding obedience
to an administration apparently so unrelated to modern ideas, the
ecclesiastical domination was not solely or even chiefly responsible.
In more ways than one Garcia Moreno, the professor President, was a
statesman of vision and deed. He put down brigandage and lawlessness;
reformed the finances; erected hospitals; promoted education; and
encouraged the study of natural science. Even his salary he gave over to
public improvements. His successors in the presidential office found it
impossible to govern the country without Garcia Moreno. Elected for a
third term to carry on his curious policy of conservatism and reaction
blended with modern advancement, he fell by the hand of an assassin in
1875. But the system which he had done so much to establish in Ecuador
survived him for many years.

Although Brazil did not escape the evils of insurrection which retarded
the growth of nearly all of its neighbors, none of its numerous
commotions shook the stability of the nation to a perilous degree. By
1850 all danger of revolution had vanished. The country began to enter
upon a career of peace and progress under a regime which combined
broadly the federal organization of the United States with the form of
a constitutional monarchy. Brazil enjoyed one of the few enlightened
despotisms in South America. Adopting at the outset the parliamentary
system, the Emperor Pedro II chose his ministers from among the liberals
or conservatives, as one party or the other might possess a majority
in the lower house of the Congress. Though the legislative power of the
nation was enjoyed almost entirely by the planters and their associates
who formed the dominant social class, individual liberty was fully
guaranteed, and even freedom of conscience and of the press was allowed.
Negro slavery, though tolerated, was not expressly recognized.

Thanks to the political discretion and unusual personal qualities of
"Dom Pedro," his popularity became more and more marked as the years
went on. A patron of science and literature, a scholar rather than a
ruler, a placid and somewhat eccentric philosopher, careless of the
trappings of state, he devoted himself without stint to the public
welfare. Shrewdly divining that the monarchical system might not survive
much longer, he kept his realm pacified by a policy of conciliation.
Pedro II even went so far as to call himself the best republican in the
Empire. He might have said, with justice perhaps, that he was the best
republican in the whole of Hispanic America. What he really accomplished
was the successful exercise of a paternal autocracy of kindness and
liberality over his subjects.

If more or less permanent dictators and occasional liberators were the
order of the day in most of the Spanish American republics, intermittent
dictators and liberators dashed across the stage in Mexico from 1829
well beyond the middle of the century. The other countries could show
numerous instances in which the occupant of the chief magistracy held
office to the close of his constitutional term; but Mexico could not
show a single one! What Mexico furnished, instead, was a kaleidoscopic
spectacle of successive presidents or dictators, an unstable array of
self-styled "generals" without a presidential succession. There were
no fewer than fifty such transient rulers in thirty-two years, with
anywhere from one to six a year, with even the same incumbent twice in
one year, or, in the case of the repetitious Santa Anna, nine times
in twenty years--in spite of the fact that the constitutional term of
office was four years. This was a record that made the most turbulent
South American states seem, by comparison, lands of methodical
regularity in the choice of their national executive. And as if this
instability in the chief magistracy were not enough, the form of
government in Mexico shifted violently from federal to centralized, and
back again to federal. Mad struggles raged between partisan chieftains
and their bands of Escoceses and Yorkinos, crying out upon the
"President" in power because of his undue influence upon the choice of a
successor, backing their respective candidates if they lost, and waiting
for a chance to oust them if they won.

This tumultuous epoch had scarcely begun when Spain in 1829 made a final
attempt to recover her lost dominion in Mexico. Local quarrels were
straightway dropped for two months until the invaders had surrendered.
Thereupon the great landholders, who disliked the prevailing Yorkino
regime for its democratic policies and for favoring the abolition
of slavery, rallied to the aid of a "general" who issued a manifesto
demanding an observance of the constitution and the laws! After Santa
Anna, who was playing the role of a Mexican Warwick, had disposed of
this aspirant, he switched blithely over to the Escoceses, reduced the
federal system almost to a nullity, and in 1836 marched away to conquer
the revolting Texans. But, instead, they conquered him and gained their
independence, so that his reward was exile.

Now the Escoceses were free to promulgate a new constitution, to abolish
the federal arrangement altogether, and to replace it by a strongly
centralized government under which the individual States became mere
administrative districts. Hardly had this radical change been effected
when in 1838 war broke out with France on account of the injuries which
its nationals, among whom were certain pastry cooks, had suffered during
the interminable commotions. Mexico was forced to pay a heavy indemnity;
and Santa Anna, who had returned to fight the invader, was unfortunate
enough to lose a leg in the struggle. This physical deprivation,
however, did not interfere with that doughty hero's zest for tilting
with other unquiet spirits who yearned to assure national regeneration
by continuing to elevate and depose "presidents."

Another swing of the political pendulum had restored the federal system
when again everything was overturned by the disastrous war with the
United States. Once more Santa Anna returned, this time, however,
to joust in vain with the "Yankee despoilers" who were destined to
dismember Mexico and to annex two-thirds of its territory. Again Santa
Anna was banished--to dream of a more favorable opportunity when he
might become the savior of a country which had fallen into bankruptcy
and impotence.

His opportunity came in 1853, when conservatives and clericals indulged
the fatuous hope that he would both sustain their privileges and lift
Mexico out of its sore distress. Either their memories were short
or else distance had cast a halo about his figure. At all events,
he returned from exile and assumed, for the ninth and last time,
a presidency which he intended to be something more than a mere
dictatorship. Scorning the formality of a Congress, he had himself
entitled "Most Serene Highness," as indicative of his ambition to become
a monarch in name as well as in fact.

Royal or imperial designs had long since brought one military upstart to
grief. They were now to cut Santa Anna's residence in Mexico similarly
short. Eruptions of discontent broke out all over the country. Unable to
make them subside, Santa Anna fell back upon an expedient which recalls
practices elsewhere in Spanish America. He opened registries in which
all citizens might record "freely" their approval or disapproval of
his continuance in power. Though he obtained the huge majority of
affirmative votes to be expected in such cases, he found that these
pen-and-ink signatures were no more serviceable than his soldiers.
Accordingly the dictator of many a day, fallen from his former estate
of highness, decided to abandon his serenity also, and in 1854 fled the
country--for its good and his own.



CHAPTER VI. PERIL FROM ABROAD

Apart from the spoliation of Mexico by the United States, the
independence of the Hispanic nations had not been menaced for more
than thirty years. Now comes a period in which the plight of their big
northern neighbor, rent in twain by civil war and powerless to enforce
the spirit of the Monroe Doctrine, caused two of the countries to become
subject a while to European control. One of these was the Dominican
Republic.

In 1844 the Spanish-speaking population of the eastern part of the
island of Santo Domingo, writhing under the despotic yoke of Haiti, had
seized a favorable occasion to regain their freedom. But the magic word
"independence" could not give stability to the new state any more than
it had done in the case of its western foes. The Haitians had
lapsed long since into a condition resembling that of their African
forefathers. They reveled in the barbarities of Voodoo, a sort of snake
worship, and they groveled before "presidents" and "emperors" who rose
and fell on the tide of decaying civilization. The Dominicans unhappily
were not much more progressive. Revolutions alternated with invasions
and counter-invasions and effectually prevented enduring progress.

On several occasions the Dominicans had sought reannexation to Spain
or had craved the protection of France as a defense against continual
menace from their negro enemies and as a relief from domestic turmoil.
But every move in this direction failed because of a natural reluctance
on the part of Spain and France, which was heightened by a refusal
of the United States to permit what it regarded as a violation of the
Monroe Doctrine. In 1861, however, the outbreak of civil war in the
United States appeared to present a favorable opportunity to obtain
protection from abroad. If the Dominican Republic could not remain
independent anyway, reunion with the old mother country seemed
altogether preferable to reconquest by Haiti. The President, therefore,
entered into negotiations with the Spanish Governor and Captain General
of Cuba, and then issued a proclamation signed by himself and four of
his ministers announcing that by the "free and spontaneous will" of
its citizens, who had conferred upon him the power to do so, the nation
recognized Queen Isabella II as its lawful sovereign! Practically
no protest was made by the Dominicans against this loss of their
independence.

Difficulties which should have been foreseen by Spain were quick to
reveal themselves. It fell to the exPresident, now a colonial
governor and captain general, to appoint a host of officials and, not
unnaturally, he named his own henchmen. By so doing he not only aroused
the animosity of the disappointed but stimulated that of the otherwise
disaffected as well, until both the aggrieved factions began to plot
rebellion. Spain, too, sent over a crowd of officials who could not
adjust themselves to local conditions. The failure of the mother country
to allow the Dominicans representation in the Spanish Cortes and
its readiness to levy taxes stirred up resentment that soon ended
in revolution. Unable to check this new trouble, and awed by the
threatening attitude of the United States, Spain decided to withdraw
in 1865. The Dominicans thus were left with their independence and
a chance--which they promptly seized--to renew their commotions. So
serious did these disturbances become that in 1869 the President of
the reconstituted republic sought annexation to the United States but
without success. American efforts, on the other hand, were equally
futile to restore peace and order in the troubled country until many
years later.

The intervention of Spain in Santo Domingo and its subsequent withdrawal
could not fail to have disastrous consequences in its colony of Cuba,
the "Pearl of the Antilles" as it was proudly called. Here abundant
crops of sugar and tobacco had brought wealth and luxury, but not many
immigrants because of the havoc made by epidemics of yellow fever.
Nearly a third of the insular population was still composed of negro
slaves, who could hardly relish the thought that, while the mother
country had tolerated the suppression of the hateful institution in
Santo Domingo, she still maintained it in Cuba. A bureaucracy, also,
prone to corruption owing to the temptations of loose accounting at the
custom house, governed in routinary, if not in arbitrary, fashion.
Under these circumstances dislike for the suspicious and repressive
administration of Spain grew apace, and secret societies renewed their
agitation for its overthrow. The symptoms of unrest were aggravated by
the forced retirement of Spain from Santo Domingo. If the Dominicans
had succeeded so well, it ought not to be difficult for a prolonged
rebellion to wear Spain out and compel it to abandon Cuba also. At this
critical moment news was brought of a Spanish revolution across the
seas.

Just as the plight of Spain in 1808, and again in 1820, had afforded a
favorable opportunity for its colonies on the continents of America to
win their independence, so now in 1868 the tidings that Queen Isabella
had been dethroned by a liberal uprising aroused the Cubans to action
under their devoted leader, Carlos Manuel de Cespedes. The insurrection
had not gained much headway, however, when the provisional government of
the mother country instructed a new Governor and Captain General--whose
name, Dulce (Sweet), had an auspicious sound--to open negotiations with
the insurgents and to hold out the hope of reforms. But the royalists,
now as formerly, would listen to no compromise. Organizing themselves
into bodies of volunteers, they drove Dulce out. He was succeeded by one
Caballero de Rodas (Knight of Rhodes) who lived up to his name by trying
to ride roughshod over the rebellious Cubans. Thus began the Ten Years'
War--a war of skirmishes and brief encounters, rarely involving a
decisive action, which drenched the soil of Cuba with blood and laid
waste its fields in a fury of destruction.

Among the radicals and liberals who tried to retain a fleeting control
over Mexico after the final departure of Santa Anna was the first
genuine statesman it had ever known in its history as a republic--Benito
Pablo Juarez, an Indian. At twelve years of age he could not read
or write or even speak Spanish. His employer, however, noted his
intelligence and had him educated. Becoming a lawyer, Juarez entered
the political arena and rose to prominence by dint of natural talent
for leadership, an indomitable perseverance, and a sturdy patriotism. A
radical by conviction, he felt that the salvation of Mexico could never
be attained until clericalism and militarism had been banished from its
soil forever.

Under his influence a provisional government had already begun a
policy of lessening the privileges of the Church, when the conservative
elements, with a cry that religion was being attacked, rose up in arms
again. This movement repressed, a Congress proceeded in 1857 to issue
a liberal constitution which was destined to last for sixty years. It
established the federal system in a definite fashion, abolished special
privileges, both ecclesiastical and military, and organized the country
on sound bases worthy of a modern nation. Mexico seemed about to enter
upon a rational development. But the newly elected President, yielding
to the importunities of the clergy, abolished the constitution,
dissolved the legislature, and set up a dictatorship, in spite of the
energetic protests of Juarez, who had been chosen Chief Justice of the
Supreme Court, and who, in accordance with the terms of the temporarily
discarded instrument, was authorized to assume the presidency should
that office fall vacant. The rule of the usurper was short-lived,
however. Various improvised "generals" of conservative stripe put
themselves at the head of a movement to "save country, religion, and the
rights of the army," drove the would-be dictator out, and restored the
old regime.

Juarez now proclaimed himself acting President, as he was legally
entitled to do, and set up his government at Vera Cruz while one
"provisional president" followed another. Throughout this trying time
Juarez defended his position vigorously and rejected every offer
of compromise. In 1859 he promulgated his famous Reform Laws which
nationalized ecclesiastical property, secularized cemeteries, suppressed
religious communities, granted freedom of worship, and made marriage
a civil contract. For Mexico, however, as for other Spanish American
countries, measures of the sort were far too much in advance of their
time to insure a ready acceptance. Although Juarez obtained a great
moral victory when his government was recognized by the United States,
he had to struggle two years more before he could gain possession of the
capital. Triumphant in 1861, he carried his anticlerical program to the
point of actually expelling the Papal Nuncio and other ecclesiastics
who refused to obey his decrees. By so doing he leveled the way for
the clericals, conservatives, and the militarists to invite foreign
intervention on behalf of their desperate cause. But, even if they had
not been guilty of behavior so unpatriotic, the anger of the Pope over
the treatment of his Church, the wrath of Spain over the conduct of
Juarez, who had expelled the Spanish minister for siding with the
ecclesiastics, the desire of Great Britain to collect debts due to her
subjects, and above all the imperialistic ambitions of Napoleon III, who
dreamt of converting the intellectual influence of France in Hispanic
America into a political ascendancy, would probably have led to European
occupation in any event, so long at least as the United States was slit
asunder and incapable of action.

Some years before, the Mexican Government under the clerical and
militarist regime had made a contract with a Swiss banker who for a
payment of $500,000 had received bonds worth more than fifteen times the
value of the loan. When, therefore, the Mexican Congress undertook to
defer payments on a foreign debt that included the proceeds of this
outrageous contract, the Governments of France, Great Britain, and Spain
decided to intervene. According to their agreement the three powers were
simply to hold the seaports of Mexico and collect the customs duties
until their pecuniary demands had been satisfied. Learning, however,
that Napoleon III had ulterior designs, Great Britain and Spain withdrew
their forces and left him to proceed with his scheme of conquest. After
capturing Puebla in May, 1863, a French army numbering some thirty
thousand men entered the capital and installed an assemblage of notables
belonging to the clerical and conservative groups. This body thereupon
proclaimed the establishment of a constitutional monarchy under an
emperor. The title was to be offered to Maximilian, Archduke of Austria.
In case he should not accept, the matter was to be referred to the
"benevolence of his majesty, the Emperor of the French," who might then
select some other Catholic prince.

On his arrival, a year later, the amiable and well-meaning Maximilian
soon discovered that, instead of being an "Emperor," he was actually
little more than a precarious chief of a faction sustained by the
bayonets of a foreign army. In the northern part of Mexico, Juarez,
Porfirio Diaz,--later to become the most renowned of presidential
autocrats,--and other patriot leaders, though hunted from place to
place, held firmly to their resolve never to bow to the yoke of the
pretender. Nor could Maximilian be sure of the loyalty of even his
supposed adherents. Little by little the unpleasant conviction intruded
itself upon him that he must either abdicate or crush all resistance in
the hope that eventually time and good will might win over the Mexicans.
But do what they would, his foreign legions could not catch the wary
and stubborn Juarez and his guerrilla lieutenants, who persistently wore
down the forces of their enemies. Then the financial situation became
grave. Still more menacing was the attitude of the United States now
that its civil war was at an end. On May 31, 1866, Maximilian received
word that Napoleon III had decided to withdraw the French troops.
He then determined to abdicate, but he was restrained by the unhappy
Empress Carlotta, who hastened to Europe to plead his cause with
Napoleon. Meantime, as the French troops were withdrawn, Juarez occupied
the territory.

Feebly the "Emperor" strove to enlist the favor of his adversaries by a
number of liberal decrees; but their sole result was his abandonment
by many a lukewarm conservative. Inexorably the patriot armies closed
around him until in May, 1867, he was captured at Queretaro, where he
had sought refuge. Denied the privilege of leaving the country on a
promise never to return, he asked Escobedo, his captor, to treat him
as a prisoner of war. "That's my business," was the grim reply. On the
pretext that Maximilian had refused to recognize the competence of the
military court chosen to try him, Juarez gave the order to shoot him.
On the 19th of June the Austrian archduke paid for a fleeting glory
with his life. Thus failed the second attempt at erecting an empire in
Mexico. For thirty-four years diplomatic relations between that country
and Austria-Hungary were severed. The clerical-military combination had
been overthrown, and the Mexican people had rearmed their independence.
As Juarez declared: "Peace means respect for the rights of others."

Even if foreign dreams of empire in Mexico had vanished so abruptly, it
could hardly be expected that a land torn for many years by convulsions
could become suddenly tranquil. With Diaz and other aspirants to
presidential power, or with chieftains who aimed at setting up little
republics of their own in the several states, Juarez had to contend for
some time before he could establish a fair amount of order. Under his
successor, who also was a civilian, an era of effective reform began. In
1873 amendments to the constitution declared Church and State absolutely
separate and provided for the abolition of peonage--a provision which
was more honored in, the breach than in the observance.



CHAPTER VII. GREATER STATES AND LESSER

During the half century that had elapsed since 1826, the nations of
Hispanic America had passed through dark ages. Their evolution had
always been accompanied by growing pains and had at times been arrested
altogether or unduly hastened by harsh injections of radicalism. It was
not an orderly development through gradual modifications in the social
and economic structure, but rather a fitful progress now assisted and
now retarded by the arbitrary deeds of men of action, good and bad, who
had seized power. Dictators, however, steadily decreased in number and
gave place often to presidential autocrats who were continued in office
by constant reelection and who were imbued with modern ideas. In 1876
these Hispanic nations stood on the threshold of a new era. Some were
destined to advance rapidly beyond it; others, to move slowly onward;
and a few to make little or no progress.

The most remarkable feature in the new era was the rise of four
states--Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, and Chile--to a position of eminence
among their fellows. Extent of territory, development of natural
resources, the character of the inhabitants and the increase of their
numbers, and the amount of popular intelligence and prosperity, all
contributed to this end. Each of the four nations belonged to a fairly
well-defined historical and geographical group in southern North
America, and in eastern and western South America, respectively. In
the first group were Mexico, the republics of Central America, and the
island countries of the Caribbean; in the second, Brazil, Argentina,
Uruguay, and Paraguay; and in the third, Chile, Peru, and Bolivia. In a
fourth group were Ecuador, Colombia, and Venezuela.

When the President of Mexico proceeded, in 1876, to violate the
constitution by securing his reelection, the people were prepared by
their earlier experiences and by the rule of Juarez to defend their
constitutional rights. A widespread rebellion headed by Diaz broke
out. In the so-called "Plan of Tuxtepec" the revolutionists declared
themselves in favor of the principle of absolutely no reelection.
Meantime the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court handed down a decision
that the action of the Congress in sustaining the President was illegal,
since in reality no elections had been held because of the abstention
of voters and the seizure of the polls by revolutionists or government
forces. "Above the constitution, nothing; above the constitution, no
one," he declared. But as this assumption of a power of judgment on
matters of purely political concern was equally a violation of the
constitution and concealed, besides, an attempt to make the Chief
Justice President, Diaz and his followers drove both of the pretenders
out. Then in 1876 he managed to bring about his own election instead.

Porfirio Diaz was a soldier who had seen active service in nearly every
important campaign since the war with the United States. Often himself
in revolt against presidents, legal and illegal, Diaz was vastly more
than an ordinary partisan chieftain. Schooled by a long experience,
he had come to appreciate the fact that what Mexico required for its
national development was freedom from internal disorders and a fair
chance for recuperation. Justice, order, and prosperity, he felt, could
be assured only by imposing upon the country the heavy weight of an iron
hand. Foreign capital must be invested in Mexico and then protected;
immigration must be encouraged, and other material, moral, and
intellectual aid of all sorts must be drawn from abroad for the
upbuilding of the nation.

To effect such a transformation in a land so tormented and impoverished
as Mexico--a country which, within the span of fifty-five years had
lived under two "emperors," and some thirty-six presidents, nine
"provisional presidents," ten dictators, twelve "regents," and five
"supreme councilors"--required indeed a masterful intelligence and a
masterful authority. Porfirio Diaz possessed and exercised both. He was,
in fact, just the man for the times. An able administrator, stern and
severe but just, rather reserved in manner and guarded in utterance,
shrewd in the selection of associates, and singularly successful in
his dealings with foreigners, he entered upon a "presidential reign" of
thirty-five years broken by but one intermission of four--which brought
Mexico out upon the highway to new national life.

Under the stable and efficient rulership of Diaz, "plans,"
"pronunciamentos," "revolutions," and similar devices of professional
trouble makers, had short shrift. Whenever an uprising started, it was
promptly quelled, either by a well-disciplined army or by the rurales,
a mounted police made up to some extent of former bandits to whom the
President gave the choice of police service or of sharp punishment for
their crimes. Order, in fact, was not always maintained, nor was justice
always meted out, by recourse to judges and courts. Instead, a novel
kind of lynch law was invoked. The name it bore was the ley fuga, or
"flight law," in accordance with which malefactors or political suspects
taken by government agents from one locality to another, on the excuse
of securing readier justice, were given by their captors a pretended
chance to escape and were then shot while they ran! The only difference
between this method and others of the sort employed by Spanish American
autocrats to enforce obedience lay in its purpose. Of Diaz one might say
what Bacon said of King Henry VII: "He drew blood as physicians do, to
save life rather than to spill it." If need be, here and there, disorder
and revolt were stamped out by terrorism; but the Mexican people did not
yield to authority from terror but rather from a thorough loyalty to the
new regime.

Among the numerous measures of material improvement which Diaz undertook
during his first term, the construction of railways was the most
important. The size of the country, its want of navigable rivers, and
its relatively small and widely scattered population, made imperative
the establishment of these means of communication. Despite the
misgivings of many intelligent Mexicans that the presence of foreign
capital would impair local independence in some way, Diaz laid the
foundations of future national prosperity by granting concessions to
the Mexican Central and National Mexican companies, which soon began
construction. Under his successor a national bank was created; and
when Diaz was again elected he readjusted the existing foreign debt and
boldly contracted new debts abroad.

At the close of his first term, in 1880, a surplus in the treasury was
not so great a novelty as the circumstance altogether unique in the
political annals of Mexico-that Diaz turned over the presidency
in peaceful fashion to his properly elected successor! He did so
reluctantly, to be sure, but he could not afford just yet to ignore his
own avowed principle, which had been made a part of the constitution
shortly after his accession. Although the confidence he reposed in that
successor was not entirely justified, the immense personal popularity
of Diaz saved the prestige of the new chief magistrate. Under his
administration the constitution was amended in such a way as to deprive
the Chief Justice of the privilege of replacing the President in case
of a vacancy, thus eliminating that official from politics. After his
resumption of office, Diaz had the fundamental law modified anew, so
as to permit the reelection of a President for one term only! For this
change, inconsistent though it may seem, Diaz was not alone responsible.
Circumstances had changed, and the constitution had to change with them.

Had the "United Provinces of Central America," as they came forth from
under the rule of Spain, seen fit to abstain from following in the
unsteady footsteps of Mexico up to the time of the accession of Diaz to
power, had they done nothing more than develop their natural wealth and
utilize their admirable geographical situation, they might have become
prosperous and kept their corporate name. As it was, their history
for upwards of forty years had little to record other than a
momentary cohesion and a subsequent lapse into five quarrelsome little
republics--the "Balkan States" of America. Among them Costa Rica had
suffered least from arbitrary management or internal commotion and
showed the greatest signs of advancement.

In Guatemala, however, there had arisen another Diaz, though a man quite
inferior in many respects to his northern counterpart. When Justo Rufino
Barrios became President of that republic in 1873 he was believed
to have conservative leanings. Ere long, however, he astounded his
compatriots by showing them that he was a thoroughgoing radical with
methods of action to correspond to his convictions. Not only did he
keep the Jesuits out of the country but he abolished monastic orders
altogether and converted their buildings to public use. He made marriage
a civil contract and he secularized the burying grounds. Education
he encouraged by engaging the services of foreign instructors, and he
brought about a better observance of the law by the promulgation of
new codes. He also introduced railways and telegraph lines. Since
the manufacture of aniline dyes abroad had diminished the demand for
cochineal, Barrios decided to replace this export by cultivating coffee.
To this end, he distributed seeds among the planters and furnished
financial aid besides, with a promise to inspect the fields in due
season and see what had been accomplished. Finding that in many cases
the seeds had been thrown away and the money wasted in drink and
gambling, he ordered the guilty planters to be given fifty lashes, with
the assurance that on a second offense he would shoot them on sight.
Coffee planting in Guatemala was pursued thereafter with much alacrity!

Posts in the government service Barrios distributed quite impartially
among Conservatives and Democrats, deserving or otherwise, for he had
them both well under control. At his behest a permanent constitution was
promulgated in 1880. While he affected to dislike continual reelection,
he saw to it nevertheless that he himself should be the sole candidate
who was likely to win.

Barrios doubtless could have remained President of Guatemala for
the term of his natural life if he had not raised up the ghost of
federation. All the republics of Central America accepted his invitation
in 1876 to send delegates to his capital to discuss the project. But
nothing was accomplished because Barrios and the President of Salvador
were soon at loggerheads. Nine years later, feeling himself stronger,
Barrios again proposed federation. But the other republics had by this
time learned too much of the methods of the autocrat of Guatemala, even
while they admired his progressive policy, to relish the thought of a
federation dominated by Guatemala and its masterful President. Though
he "persuaded" Honduras to accept the plan, the three other republics
preferred to unite in self-defense, and in the ensuing struggle the
quixotic Barrios was killed. A few years later the project was revived
and the constitution of a "Republic of Central America" was agreed upon,
when war between Guatemala and Salvador again frustrated its execution.

In Brazil two great movements were by this time under way: the total
abolition of slavery and the establishment of a republic. Despite the
tenacious opposition of many of the planters, from about the year 1883
the movement for emancipation made great headway. There was a growing
determination on the part of the majority of the inhabitants to remove
the blot that made the country an object of reproach among the civilized
states of the world. Provinces and towns, one after another, freed
the slaves within their borders. The imperial Government, on its part,
hastened the process by liberating its own slaves and by imposing upon
those still in bondage taxes higher than their market value; it fixed a
price for other slaves; it decreed that the older slaves should be set
free; and it increased the funds already appropriated to compensate
owners of slaves who should be emancipated. In 1887 the number of slaves
had fallen to about 720,000, worth legally about $650 each. A year later
came the final blow, when the Princess Regent assented to a measure
which abolished slavery outright and repealed all former acts relating
to slavery. So radical a proceeding wrought havoc in the coffee-growing
southern provinces in particular, from which the negroes now freed
migrated by tens of thousands to the northern provinces. Their places,
however, were taken by Italians and other Europeans who came to work the
plantations on a cooperative basis. All through the eighties, in fact,
immigrants from Italy poured into the temperate regions of southern
Brazil, to the number of nearly two hundred thousand, supplementing the
many thousands of Germans who had settled, chiefly in the province of
Rio Grande do Sul, thirty years before.

Apart from the industrial problem thus created by the abolition of
slavery, there seemed to be no serious political or economic questions
before the country. Ever since 1881, when a law providing for direct
elections was passed, the Liberals had been in full control. The old
Dom Pedro, who had endeared himself to his people, was as much liked
and respected as ever. But as he had grown feeble and almost blind,
the heiress to the throne, who had marked absolutist and clerical
tendencies, was disposed to take advantage of his infirmities.

For many years, on the other hand, doctrines opposed to the principle of
monarchy had been spread in zealous fashion by members of the military
class, notable among whom was Deodoro da Fonseca. And now some of the
planters longed to wreak vengeance on a ruler who had dared to
thwart their will by emancipating the slaves. Besides this persistent
discontent, radical republican newspapers continually stirred up fresh
agitation. Whatever the personal service rendered by the Emperor to the
welfare of the country, to them he represented a political system which
deprived the provinces of much of their local autonomy and the Brazilian
people at large of self-government.

But the chief reason for the momentous change which was about to take
place was the fact that the constitutional monarchy had really completed
its work as a transitional government. Under that regime Brazil had
reached a condition of stability and had attained a level of progress
which might well enable it to govern itself. During all this time the
influence of the Spanish American nations had been growing apace.
Even if they had fallen into many a political calamity, they were
nevertheless "republics," and to the South American this word had a
magic sound. Above all, there was the potent suggestion of the success
of the United States of North America, whose extension of its federal
system over a vast territory suggested what Brazil with its provinces
might accomplish in the southern continent. Hence the vast majority of
intelligent Brazilians felt that they had become self-reliant enough
to establish a republic without fear of lapsing into the unfortunate
experiences of the other Hispanic countries.

In 1889, when provision was made for a speedy abdication of the Emperor
in favor of his daughter, the republican newspapers declared that a
scheme was being concocted to exile the chief military agitators and
to interfere with any effort on the part of the army to prevent the
accession of the new ruler. Thereupon, on the 15th of November, the
radicals at Rio de Janeiro, aided by the garrison, broke out in open
revolt. Proclaiming the establishment of a federal republic under
the name of the "United States of Brazil," they deposed the imperial
ministry, set up a provisional government with Deodoro da Fonseca at its
head, arranged for the election of a constitutional convention, and bade
Dom Pedro and his family leave the country within twenty-four hours.

On the 17th of November, before daybreak, the summons was obeyed. Not
a soul appeared to bid the old Emperor farewell as he and his family
boarded the steamer that was to bear them to exile in Europe. Though
seemingly an act of heartlessness and ingratitude, the precaution was
a wise one in that it averted, possible conflict and bloodshed. For the
second time in its history, a fundamental change had been wrought in
the political system of the nation without a resort to war! The United
States of Brazil accordingly took its place peacefully among its fellow
republics of the New World.

Meanwhile Argentina, the great neighbor of Brazil to the southwest, had
been gaining territory and new resources. Since the definite adoption
of a federal constitution in 1853, this state had attained to a
considerable degree of national consciousness under the leadership of
able presidents such as Bartolome Mitre, the soldier and historian,
and Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, the publicist and promoter of popular
education. One evidence of this new nationalism was a widespread
belief in the necessity of territorial expansion. Knowing that Chile
entertained designs upon Patagonia, the Argentine Government forestalled
any action by conducting a war of practical extermination against the
Indian tribes of that region and by adding it to the national domain.
The so-called "conquest of the desert" in the far south of the continent
opened to civilization a vast habitable area of untold economic
possibilities.

In the electoral campaign of 1880 the presidential candidates were Julio
Argentino Roca and the Governor of the province of Buenos Aires. The
former, an able officer skilled in both arms and politics, had on
his side the advantage of a reputation won in the struggle with the
Patagonian Indians, the approval of the national Government, and the
support of most of the provinces. Feeling certain of defeat at the
polls, the partisans of the latter candidate resorted to the timeworn
expedient of a revolt. Though the uprising lasted but twenty days, the
diplomatic corps at the capital proffered its mediation between the
contestants, in order to avoid any further bloodshed. The result was
that the fractious Governor withdrew his candidacy and a radical change
was effected in the relations of Buenos Aires, city and province, to the
country at large. The city, together with its environs, was converted
into a federal district and became solely and distinctively the national
capital. Its public buildings, railways, and telegraph service, as well
as the provincial debt, were taken over by the general Government. The
seat of provincial authority was transferred to the village of Ensenada,
which thereupon was rechristened La Plata.

A veritable tide of wealth and general prosperity was now rolling over
Argentina. By 1885 its population had risen to upwards of 3,000,000.
Immigration increased to a point far beyond the wildest expectations.
In 1889 alone about 300,000 newcomers arrived and lent their aid in
the promotion of industry and commerce. Fields hitherto uncultivated or
given over to grazing now bore vast crops of wheat, maize, linseed, and
sugar. Large quantities of capital, chiefly from Great Britain, also
poured into the country. As a result, the price of land rose high,
and feverish speculation became the order of the day. Banks and other
institutions of credit were set up, colonizing schemes were devised, and
railways were laid out. To meet the demands of all these enterprises,
the Government borrowed immense sums from foreign capitalists and issued
vast quantities of paper money, with little regard for its ultimate
redemption. Argentina spent huge sums in prodigal fashion on all sorts
of public improvements in an effort to attract still more capital and
immigration, and thus entered upon a dangerous era of inflation.

Of the near neighbors of Argentina, Uruguay continued along the
tortuous path of alternate disturbance and progress, losing many of its
inhabitants to the greater states beyond, where they sought relative
peace and security; while Paraguay, on the other hand, enjoyed freedom
from civil strife, though weighed down with a war debt and untold
millions in indemnities exacted by Argentina and Brazil, which it could
never hope to pay. In consequence, this indebtedness was a useful club
to brandish over powerless Paraguay whenever that little country might
venture to question the right of either of its big neighbors to break
the promise they had made of keeping its territory intact. Argentina,
however, consented in 1878 to refer certain claims to the decision of
the President of the United States. When Paraguay won the arbitration,
it showed its gratitude by naming one of its localities Villa Hayes.
As time went on, however, its population increased and hid many of the
scars of war.

On the western side of South America there broke out the struggle known
as the "War of the Pacific" between Chile, on the one side, and Peru and
Bolivia as allies on the other. In Peru unstable and corrupt governments
had contracted foreign loans under conditions that made their repayment
almost impossible and had spent the proceeds in so reckless and
extravagant a fashion as to bring the country to the verge of
bankruptcy. Bolivia, similarly governed, was still the scene of
the orgies and carnivals which had for some time characterized its
unfortunate history. One of its buffoon "presidents," moreover, had
entered into boundary agreements with both Chile and Brazil, under which
the nation lost several important areas and some of its territory on the
Pacific. The boundaries of Bolivia, indeed, were run almost everywhere
on purely arbitrary lines drawn with scant regard for the physical
features of the country and with many a frontier question left wholly
unsettled. For some years Chilean companies and speculators, aided by
foreign capital mainly British in origin, had been working deposits
of nitrate of soda in the province of Antofagasta, or "the desert
of Atacama," a region along the coast to the northward belonging to
Bolivia, and also in the provinces of Tacna, Arica, and Tarapaca, still
farther to the northward, belonging to Peru. Because boundary lines were
not altogether clear and because the three countries were all eager to
exploit these deposits, controversies over this debatable ground were
sure to rise. For the privilege of developing portions of this region,
individuals and companies had obtained concessions from the various
governments concerned; elsewhere, industrial free lances dug away
without reference to such formalities.

It is quite likely that Chile, whose motto was "By Right or by
Might," was prepared to sustain the claims of its citizens by either
alternative. At all events, scenting a prospective conflict, Chile had
devoted much attention to the development of its naval and military
establishment--a state of affairs which did not escape the observation
of its suspicious neighbors.

The policy of Peru was determined partly by personal motives and partly
by reasons of state. In 1873 the President, lacking sufficient financial
and political support to keep himself in office, resolved upon the risky
expedient of arousing popular passion against Chile, in the hope that he
might thereby replenish the national treasury. Accordingly he
proceeded to pick a quarrel by ordering the deposits in Tarapaca to be
expropriated with scant respect for the concessions made to the Chilean
miners. Realizing, however, the possible consequences of such an
action, he entered into an alliance with Bolivia. This country thereupon
proceeded to levy an increased duty on the exportation of nitrates from
the Atacama region. Chile, already aware of the hostile combination
which had been formed, protested so vigorously that a year later Bolivia
agreed to withdraw the new regulations and to submit the dispute to
arbitration.

Such were the relations of these three states in 1878, when Bolivia,
taking advantage of differences of opinion between Chile and Argentina
regarding the Patagonian region, reimposed its export duty, canceled the
Chilean concessions, and confiscated the nitrate deposits. Chile then
declared war in February, 1879, and within two months occupied the
entire coast of Bolivia up to the frontiers of Peru. On his part the
President of Bolivia was too much engrossed in the festivities connected
with a masquerade to bother about notifying the people that their land
had been invaded until several days after the event had occurred!

Misfortunes far worse than anything which had fallen to the lot of its
ally now awaited Peru, which first attempted an officious mediation and
then declared war on the 4th of April. Since Peru and Bolivia together
had a population double that of Chile, and since Peru possessed a much
larger army and navy than Chile, the allies counted confidently on
victory. But Peru's army of eight thousand--having within four hundred
as many officers as men, directed by no fewer than twenty-six generals,
and presided over by a civil government altogether inept--was no match
for an army less than a third of its size to be sure, but well drilled
and commanded, and with a stable, progressive, and efficient government
at its back. The Peruvian forces, lacking any substantial support from
Bolivia, crumpled under the terrific attacks of their adversaries.
Efforts on the part of the United States to mediate in the struggle
were blocked by the dogged refusal of Chile to abate its demands for
annexation. Early in 1881 its army entered Lima in triumph, and the war
was over.

For a while the victors treated the Peruvians and their capital city
shamefully. The Chilean soldiers stripped the national library of
its contents, tore up the lamp-posts in the streets, carried away
the benches in the parks, and even shipped off the local menagerie to
Santiago! What they did not remove or destroy was disposed of by the
rabble of Lima itself. But in two years so utterly chaotic did the
conditions in the hapless country become that Chile at length had to set
up a government in order to conclude a peace. It was not until October
20, 1883, that the treaty was signed at Lima and ratified later at
Ancon. Peru was forced to cede Tarapaca outright and to agree that Tacna
and Arica should be held by Chile for ten years. At the expiration of
this period the inhabitants of the two provinces were to be allowed to
choose by vote the country to which they would prefer to belong, and the
nation that won the election was to pay the loser 10,000,000 pesos.
In April, 1884, Bolivia, also, entered into an arrangement with Chile,
according to which a portion of its seacoast should be ceded absolutely
and the remainder should be occupied by Chile until a more definite
understanding on the matter could be reached.

Chile emerged from the war not only triumphant over its northern rivals
but dominant on the west coast of South America. Important developments
in Chilean national policy followed. To maintain its vantage and to
guard against reprisals, the victorious state had to keep in military
readiness on land and sea. It therefore looked to Prussia for a pattern
for its army and to Great Britain for a model for its navy.

Peru had suffered cruelly from the war. Its territorial losses deprived
it of an opportunity to satisfy its foreign creditors through a grant
of concessions. The public treasury, too, was empty, and many a private
fortune had melted away. Not until a military hand stronger than its
competitors managed to secure a firm grip on affairs did Peru begin once
more its toilsome journey toward material betterment.

Bolivia, on its part, had emerged from the struggle practically a
landlocked country. Though bereft of access to the sea except by
permission of its neighbors, it had, however, not endured anything
like the calamities of its ally. In 1880 it had adopted a permanent
constitution and it now entered upon a course of slow and relatively
peaceful progress.

In the republics to the northward struggles between clericals and
radicals caused sharp, abrupt alternations in government. In Ecuador the
hostility between clericals and radicals was all the more bitter because
of the rivalry of the two chief towns, Guayaquil the seaport and Quito
the capital, each of which sheltered a faction. No sooner therefore had
Garcia Moreno fallen than the radicals of Guayaquil rose up against the
clericals at Quito. Once in power, they hunted their enemies down until
order under a dictator could be restored. The military President who
assumed power in 1876 was too radical to suit the clericals and too
clerical to suit the radicals. Accordingly his opponents decided to make
the contest three-cornered by fighting the dictator and one another.
When the President had been forced out, a conservative took charge until
parties of bushwhackers and mutinous soldiers were able to install a
military leader, whose retention of power was brief. In 1888 another
conservative, who had been absent from the country when elected and who
was an adept in law and diplomacy, managed to win sufficient support
from all three factions to retain office for the constitutional period.

In Colombia a financial crisis had been approaching ever since the
price of coffee, cocoa, and other Colombian products had fallen in the
European markets. This decrease had caused a serious diminution in
the export trade and had forced gold and silver practically out of
circulation. At the same time the various "states" were increasing their
powers at the expense of the federal Government, and the country was
rent by factions. In order to give the republic a thoroughly centralized
administration which would restore financial confidence and bring back
the influence of the Church as a social and political factor, a genuine
revolution, which was started in 1876, eventually put an end to both
radicalism and states' rights. At the outset Rafael Nunez, the unitary
and clerical candidate and a lawyer by profession, was beaten on the
field, but at a subsequent election he obtained the requisite number of
votes and, in 1880, assumed the presidency. That the loser in war should
become the victor in peace showed the futility of bloodshed in such
revolutions.

Not until Nunez came into office again did he feel himself strong enough
to uproot altogether the radicalism and disunion which had flourished
since 1860. Ignoring the national Legislature, he called a Congress
of his own, which in 1886 framed a constitution that converted the
"sovereign states" into "departments," or mere administrative
districts, to be ruled as the national Government saw fit. Further, the
presidential term was lengthened from two years to six, and the name of
the country was changed, finally, to "Republic of Colombia." Two years
later the power of the Church was strengthened by a concordat with the
Pope.

Venezuela on its part had undergone changes no less marked. A liberal
constitution promulgated in 1864 had provided for the reorganization
of the country on a federal basis. The name chosen for the republic was
"United States of Venezuela." More than that, it had anticipated Mexico
and Guatemala in being the first of the Hispanic nations to witness
the establishment of a presidential autocracy of the continuous and
enlightened type.

Antonio Guzman Blanco was the man who imposed upon Venezuela for about
nineteen years a regime of obedience to law, and, to some extent, of
modern ideas of administration such as the country had never known
before. A person of much versatility, he had studied medicine and law
before he became a soldier and a politician. Later he displayed another
kind of versatility by letting henchmen hold the presidential office
while he remained the power behind the throne. Endowed with a masterful
will and a pronounced taste for minute supervision, he had exactly the
ability necessary to rule Venezuela wisely and well.

Amid considerable opposition he began, in 1870, the first of his
three periods of administration--the Septennium, as it was termed. The
"sovereign" states he governed through "sovereign" officials of his
own selection. He stopped the plundering of farms and the dragging
of laborers off to military service. He established in Venezuela an
excellent monetary system. Great sums were expended in the erection
of public and private buildings and in the embellishment of Caracas.
European capital and immigration were encouraged to venture into a
country hitherto so torn by chronic disorder as to deprive both labor
and property of all guarantees. Roads, railways, and telegraph lines
were constructed. The ministers of the Church were rendered submissive
to the civil power. Primary education became alike free and compulsory.
As the phrase went, Guzman Blanco "taught Venezuela to read." At the end
of his term of office he went into voluntary retirement.

In 1879 Guzman Blanco put himself at the head of a movement which he
called a "revolution of replevin"--which meant, presumably, that he
was opposed to presidential "continuism," and in favor of republican
institutions! Although a constitution promulgated in 1881 fixed the
chief magistrate's term of office at two years, the success which Guzman
Blanco had attained enabled him to control affairs for five years--the
Quinquennium, as it was called. Thereupon he procured his appointment to
a diplomatic post in Europe; but the popular demand for his presence
was too strong for him to remain away. In 1886 he was elected by
acclamation. He held office two years more and then, finding that his
influence had waned, he left Venezuela for good. Whatever his faults
in other respects, Guzman Blanco--be it said to his credit--tried to
destroy the pest of periodical revolutions in his country. Thanks to
his vigorous suppression of these uprisings, some years of at least
comparative security were made possible. More than any other President
the nation had ever had, he was entitled to the distinction of having
been a benefactor, if not altogether a regenerator, of his native land.



CHAPTER VIII. "ON THE MARGIN OF INTERNATIONAL LIFE"

During the period from 1889 to 1907 two incidents revealed the standing
that the republics of Hispanic America had now acquired in the world
at large. In 1889 at Washington, and later in their own capital cities,
they met with the United States in council. In 1899, and again in 1907,
they joined their great northern neighbor and the nations of Europe and
Asia at The Hague for deliberation on mutual concerns, and they were
admitted to an international fellowship and cooperation far beyond
a mere recognition of their independence and a formal interchange of
diplomats and consuls.

Since attempts of the Hispanic countries themselves to realize the aims
of Bolivar in calling the Congress at Panama had failed, the United
States now undertook to call into existence a sort of inter-American
Congress. Instead of being merely a supporter, the great republic of the
north had resolved to become the director of the movement for greater
solidarity in thought and action. By linking up the concerns of the
Hispanic nations with its own destinies it would assert not so much its
position as guardian of the Monroe Doctrine as its headship, if not its
actual dominance, in the New World, and would so widen the bounds of its
political and commercial influence--a tendency known as "imperialism."
Such was the way, at least, in which the Hispanic republics came to
view the action of the "Colossus of the North" in inviting them to
participate in an assemblage meeting more or less periodically and
termed officially the "International Conference of American States," and
popularly the "Pan-American Conference."

Whether the mistrust the smaller countries felt at the outset was
lessened in any degree by the attendance of their delegates at the
sessions of this conference remains open to question. Although these
representatives, in common with their colleagues from the United States,
assented to a variety of conventions and passed a much larger number of
resolutions, their acquiescence seemed due to a desire to gratify their
powerful associate, rather than to a belief in the possible utility of
such measures. The experience of the earlier gatherings had demonstrated
that political issues would have to be excluded from consideration.
Propositions, for example, such as that to extend the basic idea of the
Monroe Doctrine into a sort of self-denying ordinance, under which all
the nations of America should agree to abstain thereafter from acquiring
any part of one another's territory by conquest, and to adopt, also, the
principle of compulsory arbitration, proved impossible of acceptance.
Accordingly, from that time onward the matters treated by the Conference
dealt for the most part with innocuous, though often praiseworthy,
projects for bringing the United States and its sister republics into
closer commercial, industrial, and intellectual relations.

The gathering itself, on the other hand, became to a large extent a
fiesta, a festive occasion for the display of social amenities. Much
as the Hispanic Americans missed their favorite topic of politics, they
found consolation in entertaining the distinguished foreign visitors
with the genial courtesy and generous hospitality for which they
are famous. As one of their periodicals later expressed it, since
a discussion of politics was tabooed, it were better to devote the
sessions of the Conference to talking about music and lyric poetry!
At all events, as far as the outcome was concerned, their national
legislatures ratified comparatively few of the conventions.

Among the Hispanic nations of America only Mexico took part in the First
Conference at The Hague. Practically all of them were represented at the
second. The appearance of their delegates at these august assemblages
of the powers of earth was viewed for a while with mixed feelings. The
attitude of the Great Powers towards them resembled that of parents of
the old regime: children at the international table should be "seen and
not heard." As a matter of fact, the Hispanic Americans were both seen
and heard--especially the latter! They were able to show the Europeans
that, even if they did happen to come from relatively weak states, they
possessed a skillful intelligence, a breadth of knowledge, a capacity
for expression, and a consciousness of national character, which would
not allow them simply to play "Man Friday" to an international Crusoe.
The president of the second conference, indeed, confessed that they had
been a "revelation" to him.

Hence, as time went on, the progress and possibilities of the republics
of Hispanic America came to be appreciated more and more by the world at
large. Gradually people began to realize that the countries south of the
United States were not merely an indistinguishable block on the map,
to be referred to vaguely as "Central and South America" or as "Latin
America." The reading public at least knew that these countries were
quite different from one another, both in achievements and in prospects.

Yet the fact remains that, despite their active part in these American
and European conferences, the Hispanic countries of the New World
did not receive the recognition which they felt was their due. Their
national associates in the European gatherings were disinclined to admit
that the possession of independence and sovereignty entitled them to
equal representation on international council boards. To a greater or
less degree, therefore, they continued to stay in the borderland where
no one either affirmed or denied their individuality. To quote
the phrase of an Hispanic American, they stood "on the margin of
international life." How far they might pass beyond it into the full
privileges of recognition and association on equal terms, would depend
upon the readiness with which they could atone for the errors or
recover from the misfortunes of the past, and upon their power to attain
stability, prosperity, strength, and responsibility.

Certain of the Hispanic republics, however, were not allowed to remain
alone on their side of "the margin of international life." Though
nothing so extreme as the earlier French intervention took place,
foreign nations were not at all averse to crossing over the marginal
line and teaching them what a failure to comply with international
obligations meant. The period from 1889 to 1907, therefore, is
characterized also by interference on the part of European powers, and
by interposition on the part of the United States, in the affairs of
countries in and around the Caribbean Sea. Because of the action taken
by the United States two more republics--Cuba and Panama--came into
being, thus increasing the number of political offshoots from Spain
in America to eighteen. Another result of this interposition was the
creation of what were substantially American protectorates. Here
the United States did not deprive the countries concerned of their
independence and sovereignty, but subjected them to a kind of
guardianship or tutelage, so far as it thought needful to insure
stability, solvency, health, and welfare in general. Foremost in the
northern group of Hispanic nations, Mexico, under the guidance of
Diaz, marched steadily onward. Peace, order, and law; an increasing
population; internal wealth and well-being; a flourishing industry
and commerce; suitable care for things mental as well as material; the
respect and confidence of foreigners--these were blessings which the
country had hitherto never beheld. The Mexicans, once in anarchy and
enmity created by militarists and clericals, came to know one another in
friendship, and arrived at something like a national consciousness.

In 1889 there was held the first conference on educational problems
which the republic had ever had. Three years later a mining code was
drawn up which made ownership inviolable on payment of lawful dues,
removed uncertainties of operation, and stimulated the industry in
a remarkable fashion. Far less beneficial in the long run was a law
enacted in 1894. Instead of granting a legal title to lands held by
prescriptive rights through an occupation of many years, it made such
property part of the public domain, which might be acquired, like
a mining claim, by any one who could secure a grant of it from the
Government. Though hailed at the time as a piece of constructive
legislation, its unfortunate effect was to enable large landowners who
wished to increase their possessions to oust poor cultivators of
the soil from their humble holdings. On the other hand, under the
statesmanlike management of Jose Yves Limantour, the Minister of
Finance, the monetary situation at home and abroad was strengthened
beyond measure, and banking interests were promoted accordingly.
Further, an act abolishing the alcabala, a vexatious internal revenue
tax, gave a great stimulus to freedom of commerce throughout the
country. In order to insure a continuance of the new regime, the
constitution was altered in three important respects. The amendment of
1890 restored the original clause of 1857, which permitted indefinite
reelection to the presidency; that of 1896 established a presidential
succession in case of a vacancy, beginning with the Minister of Foreign
Affairs; and that of 1904 lengthened the term of the chief magistrate
from four years to six and created the office of Vice President.

In Central America two republics, Guatemala and Costa Rica, set an
excellent example both because they were free from internal commotions
and because they refrained from interference in the affairs of their
neighbors. The contrast between these two quiet little nations, under
their lawyer Presidents, and the bellicose but equally small Nicaragua,
Honduras, and Salvador, under their chieftains, military and juristic,
was quite remarkable. Nevertheless another attempt at confederation
was made. In 1895 the ruler of Honduras, declaring that reunion was a
"primordial necessity," invited his fellow potentates of Nicaragua and
Salvador to unite in creating the "Greater Republic of Central America"
and asked Guatemala and Costa Rica to join. Delegates actually appeared
from all five republics, attended fiestas, gave expression to pious
wishes, and went home! Later still, in 1902, the respective Presidents
signed a "convention of peace and obligatory arbitration" as a means
of adjusting perpetual disagreements about politics and boundaries; but
nothing was done to carry these ideas into effect.

The personage mainly responsible for these failures was Jose Santos
Zelaya, one of the most arrant military lordlets and meddlers that
Central America had produced in a long time. Since 1893 he had been
dictator of Nicaragua, a country not only entangled in continuous
wrangles among its towns and factions, but bowed under an enormous
burden of debt created by excessive emissions of paper money and by the
contraction of more or less scandalous foreign loans. Quite undisturbed
by the financial situation, Zelaya promptly silenced local bickerings
and devoted his energies to altering the constitution for his
presidential benefit and to making trouble for his neighbors. Nor did
he refrain from displays of arbitrary conduct that were sure to provoke
foreign intervention. Great Britain, for example, on two occasions
exacted reparation at the cannon's mouth for ill treatment of its
citizens.

Zelaya waxed wroth at the spectacle of Guatemala, once so active in
revolutionary arts but now quietly minding its own business. In
1906, therefore, along with parties of Hondurans, Salvadoreans, and
disaffected Guatemalans, he began an invasion of that country and
continued operations with decreasing success until, the United States
and Mexico offering their mediation, peace was signed aboard an American
cruiser. Then, when Costa Rica invited the other republics to discuss
confederation within its calm frontiers, Zelaya preferred his own
particular occupation to any such procedure. Accordingly, displeased
with a recent boundary decision, he started along with Salvador to fight
Honduras. Once more the United States and Mexico tendered their good
offices, and again a Central American conflict was closed aboard an
American warship. About the only real achievement of Zelaya was the
signing of a treaty by which Great Britain recognized the complete
sovereignty of Nicaragua over the Mosquito Indians, whose buzzing for a
larger amount of freedom and more tribute had been disturbing unduly the
"repose" of that small nation!

To the eastward the new republic of Cuba was about to be born. Here a
promise of adequate representation in the Spanish Cortes and of a
local legislature had failed to satisfy the aspirations of many of its
inhabitants. The discontent was aggravated by lax and corrupt methods of
administration as well as by financial difficulties. Swarms of Spanish
officials enjoyed large salaries without performing duties of equivalent
value. Not a few of them had come over to enrich themselves at
public expense and under conditions altogether scandalous. On Cuba,
furthermore, was saddled the debt incurred by the Ten Years' War, while
the island continued to be a lucrative market for Spanish goods without
obtaining from Spain a corresponding advantage for its own products.

As the insistence upon a removal of these abuses and upon a grant of
genuine self-government became steadily more clamorous, three political
groups appeared. The Constitutional Unionists, or "Austrianizers," as
they were dubbed because of their avowed loyalty to the royal house of
Bourbon-Hapsburg, were made up of the Spanish and conservative elements
and represented the large economic interests and the Church. The
Liberals, or "Autonomists," desired such reforms in the administration
as would assure the exercise of self-government and yet preserve the
bond with the mother country. On the other hand, the Radicals, or
"Nationalists"--the party of "Cuba Free"--would be satisfied with
nothing short of absolute independence. All these differences of opinion
were sharpened by the activities of a sensational press.

From about 1890 onward the movement toward independence gathered
tremendous strength, especially when the Cubans found popular sentiment
in the United States so favorable to it. Excitement rose still higher
when the Spanish Government proposed to bestow a larger measure
of autonomy. When, however, the Cortes decided upon less liberal
arrangements, the Autonomists declared that they had been deceived, and
the Nationalists denounced the utter unreliability of Spanish promises.
Even if the concessions had been generous, the result probably would
have been the same, for by this time the plot to set Cuba free had
become so widespread, both in the island itself and among the refugees
in the United States, that the inevitable struggle could not have been
deferred.

In 1895 the revolution broke out. The whites, headed by Maximo Gomez,
and the negroes and mulattoes by their chieftain, Antonio Maceo, both
of whom had done valiant service in the earlier war, started upon a
campaign of deliberate terrorism. This time they were resolved to win
at any cost. Spurning every offer of conciliation, they burned, ravaged,
and laid waste, spread desolation along their pathway, and reduced
thousands to abject poverty and want.

Then the Spanish Government came to the conclusion that nothing but the
most rigorous sort of reprisals would check the excesses of the rebels.
In 1896 it commissioned Valeriano Weyler, an officer who personified
ferocity, to put down the rebellion. If the insurgents had fancied that
the conciliatory spirit hitherto displayed by the Spaniards was due to
irresolution or weakness, they found that these were not the qualities
of their new opponent. Weyler, instead of trying to suppress the
rebellion by hurrying detachments of troops first to one spot and
then to another in pursuit of enemies accustomed to guerrilla tactics,
determined to stamp it out province by province. To this end he planted
his army firmly in one particular area, prohibited the planting or
harvesting of crops there, and ordered the inhabitants to assemble in
camps which they were not permitted to leave on any pretext whatever.
This was his policy of "reconcentration." Deficient food supply, lack of
sanitary precautions, and absence of moral safeguards made conditions
of life in these camps appalling. Death was a welcome relief.
Reconcentration, combined with executions and deportations, could have
but one result--the "pacification" of Cuba by converting it into a
desert.

Not in the United States alone but in Spain itself the story of these
drastic measures kindled popular indignation to such an extent that, in
1897, the Government was forced to recall the ferocious Weyler and
to send over a new Governor and Captain General, with instructions to
abandon the worst features of his predecessor's policy and to establish
a complete system of autonomy in both Cuba and Porto Rico. Feeling
assured, however, that an ally was at hand who would soon make
their independence certain, the Cuban patriots flatly rejected these
overtures. In their expectations they were not mistaken. By its armed
intervention, in the following year the United States acquired Porto
Rico for itself and compelled Spain to withdraw from Cuba. *

     * See "The Path of Empire", by Carl Russell Fish (in "The
     Chronicles of America").

The island then became a republic, subject only to such limitations on
its freedom of action as its big guardian might see fit to impose. Not
only was Cuba placed under American rule from 1899 to 1902, but it had
to insert in the Constitution of 1901 certain clauses that could not
fail to be galling to Cuban pride. Among them two were of special
significance. One imposed limitations on the financial powers of the
Government of the new nation, and the other authorized the United
States, at its discretion, to intervene in Cuban affairs for the purpose
of maintaining public order. The Cubans, it would seem, had exchanged a
dependence on Spain for a restricted independence measured by the will
of a country infinitely stronger.

Cuba began its life as a republic in 1902, under a government for which
a form both unitary and federal had been provided. Tomas Estrada Palma,
the first President and long the head of the Cuban junta in the
United States, showed himself disposed from the outset to continue the
beneficial reforms in administration which had been introduced under
American rule. Prudent and conciliatory in temperament, he tried to
dispel as best he could the bitter recollections of the war and to
repair its ravages. In this policy he was upheld by the conservative
class, or Moderates. Their opponents, the Liberals, dominated by men
of radical tendencies, were eager to assert the right, to which they
thought Cuba entitled as an independent sovereign nation, to make
possible mistakes and correct them without having the United States
forever holding the ferule of the schoolmaster over it. They were well
aware, however, that they were not at liberty to have their country pass
through the tempestuous experience which had been the lot of so many
Hispanic republics. They could vent a natural anger and disappointment,
nevertheless, on the President and his supporters. Rather than continue
to be governed by Cubans not to their liking, they were willing to bring
about a renewal of American rule. In this respect the wishes of the
Radicals were soon gratified. Hardly had Estrada Palma, in 1906, assumed
office for a second time, when parties of malcontents, declaring that
he had secured his reelection by fraudulent means, rose up in arms and
demanded that he annul the vote and hold a fair election. The President
accepted the challenge and waged a futile conflict, and again the United
States intervened. Upon the resignation of Estrada Palma, an American
Governor was again installed, and Cuba was told in unmistakable fashion
that the next intervention might be permanent.

Less drastic but quite as effectual a method of assuring order and
regularity in administration was the action taken by the United States
in another Caribbean island. A little country like the Dominican
Republic, in which few Presidents managed to retain their offices for
terms fixed by changeable constitutions, could not resist the temptation
to rid itself of a ruler who had held power for nearly a quarter of a
century. After he had been disposed of by assassination in 1899, the
government of his successor undertook to repudiate a depreciated paper
currency by ordering the customs duties to be paid in specie; and it
also tried to prevent the consul of an aggrieved foreign nation from
attaching certain revenues as security for the payment of the arrears
of an indemnity. Thereupon, in 1905, the President of the United States
entered into an arrangement with the Dominican Government whereby, in
return for a pledge from the former country to guarantee the territorial
integrity of the republic and an agreement to adjust all of its external

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