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Title: The Hispanic Nations of the New World

Author: William R. Shepherd

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

Author: William R. Shepherd

THIS BOOK, VOLUME 50 IN THE CHRONICLES OF AMERICA SERIES, ALLEN
JOHNSON, EDITOR, WAS DONATED TO PROJECT GUTENBERG BY THE JAMES J.
KELLY LIBRARY OF ST. GREGORY'S UNIVERSITY; THANKS TO ALEV AKMAN.

Scanned by Dianne Bean. Proofed by Joseph Buersmeyer.


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. Othershad 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 asmblies
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
establishwent 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 overwheming
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  "INDEPNDENCE 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 eolonies 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. Tkough 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 wellto-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
counterinvasions 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 stimlated 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 clericalmilitary 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 an
d 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 obligations of a
pecuniary sort, American officials were to take charge of the
custom house send apportion the receipts from that source in such
a manner as to satisfy domestic needs and pay foreign creditors.*

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



CHAPTER IX. THE REPUBLICS OF SOUTH AMERICA

Even so huge and conservative a country as Brazil could not start
out upon the pathway of republican freedom without some unrest;
but the political experience gained under a regime of limited
monarchy had a steadying effect. Besides, the Revolution of 1889
had been effected by a combination of army officers and civilian
enthusiasts who knew that the provinces were ready for a radical
change in the form of government, but who were wise enough to
make haste slowly. If a motto could mean anything, the adoption
of the positivist device, "Order and Progress," displayed on the
national flag seemed a happy augury.

The constitution promulgated in 1891 set up a federal union
broadly similar to that of the United States, except that the
powers of the general Government were somewhat more restricted.
Qualifications for the suffrage were directly fixed in the
fundamental law itself, but the educational tests imposed
excluded the great bulk of the population from the right to vote.
In the constitution, also, Church and State were declared
absolutely separate, and civil marriage was prescribed.

Well adapted as the constitution was to the particular needs of
Brazil, the Government erected under it had to contend awhile
with political disturbances. Though conflicts occurred between
the president and the Congress, between the federal authority and
the States, and between the civil administration and naval and
military officials, none were so constant, so prolonged, or so
disastrous as in the Spanish American republics. Even when
elected by the connivance of government officials, the chief
magistrate governed in accordance with republican forms.
Presidential power, in fact, was restrained both by the huge size
of the country and by the spirit of local autonomy upheld by the
States.

Ever since the war with Paraguay the financial credit of Brazil
had been impaired. The chronic deficit in the treasury had been
further increased by a serious lowering in the rate of exchange,
which was due to an excessive issue of paper money. In order to
save the nation from bankruptcy Manoel Ferraz de Campos Salles, a
distinguished jurist, was commissioned to effect an adjustment
with the British creditors. As a result of his negotiations a
"funding loan" was obtained, in return for which an equivalent
amount in paper money was to be turned over for cancellation at a
fixed rate of exchange. Under this arrangement depreciation
ceased for awhile and the financial outlook became brighter.

The election of Campos Salles to the presidency in 1898, as a
reward for his success, was accompanied by the rise of definite
political parties. Among them the Radicals or Progressists
favored a policy of centralization under military auspices and
exhibited certain antiforeign tendencies. The Moderates or
Republicans, on the contrary, with Campos Salles as their
candidate, declared for the existing constitution and advocated a
gradual adoption of such reforms as reason and time might
suggest. When the latter party won the election, confidence in
the stability of Brazil returned.

As if Uruguay had not already suffered enough from internal
discords, two more serious conflicts demonstrated once again that
this little country, in which political power had been held
substantially by one party alone since 1865, could not hope for
permanent peace until either the excluded and apparently
irreconcilable party had been finally and utterly crushed, or,
far better still, until the two factions could manage to agree
upon some satisfactory arrangement for rotation in office. The
struggle of 1897 ended in the assassination of the president and
in a division of the republic into two practically separate
areas, one ruled by the Colorados at Montevideo, the other by the
Blancos. A renewal of civil war in 1904 seemed altogether
preferable to an indefinite continuance of this dualism in
government, even at the risk of friction with Argentina, which
was charged with not having observed strict neutrality. This
second struggle came to a close with the death of the insurgent
leader; but it cost the lives of thousands and did irreparable
damage to the commerce and industry of the country.

Uruguay then enjoyed a respite from party upheavals until 1910,
when Jose Batlle, the able, resolute, and radical-minded head of
the Colorados, announced that he would be a candidate for the
presidency. As he had held the office before and had never ceased
to wield a strong personal influence over the administration of
his successor, the Blancos decided that now was the time to
attempt once more to oust their opponents from the control which
they had monopolized for half a century. Accusing the Government
of an unconstitutional centralization of power in the executive,
of preventing free elections, and of crippling the pastoral
industries of the country, they started a revolt, which ran a
brief course. Batlle proved himself equal to the situation and
quickly suppressed the insurrection. Though he did make a wide
use of his authority, the President refrained from indulging in
political persecution and allowed the press all the liberty it
desired in so far as was consistent with the law. It was under
his direction that Uruguay entered upon a remarkable series of
experiments in the nationalization of business enterprises.
Further, more or less at the suggestion of Battle, a new
constitution was ratified by popular vote in 1917. It provided
for a division of the executive power between the President and a
National Council of Administration, forbade the election of
administrative and military officials to the Congress, granted to
that body a considerable increase of power, and enlarged the
facilities for local self-government. In addition, it established
the principle of minority representation and of secrecy of the
ballot, permitted the Congress to extend the right of suffrage to
women, and dissolved the union between Church and State. If the
terms of the new instrument are faithfully observed, the old
struggle between Blancos and Colorados will have been brought
definitely to a close.

Paraguay lapsed after 1898 into the earlier sins of Spanish
America. Upon a comparatively placid presidential regime followed
a series of barrack uprisings or attacks by Congress on the
executive. The constitution became a farce. No longer, to be
sure, an abode of Arcadian seclusion as in colonial times, or a
sort of territorial cobweb from the center of which a spiderlike
Francia hung motionless or darted upon his hapless prey, or even
a battle ground on which fanatical warriors might fight and die
at the behest of a savage Lopez, Paraguay now took on the aspect
of an arena in which petty political gamecocks might try out
their spurs. Happily, the opposing parties spent their energies
in high words and vehement gestures rather than in blows and
bloodshed. The credit of the country sank lower and lower until
its paper money stood at a discount of several hundred per cent
compared with gold.

European bankers had begun to view the financial future of
Argentina also with great alarm. In 1890 the mad careering of
private speculation and public expenditure along the roseate
pathway of limitless credit reached a veritable "crisis of
progress." A frightful panic ensued. Paper money fell to less
than a quarter of its former value in gold. Many a firm became
bankrupt, and many a fortune shriveled. As is usual in such
cases, the Government had to shoulder the blame. A four-day
revolution broke out in Buenos Aires, and the President became
the scapegoat; but the panic went on, nevertheless, until gold
stood at nearly five to one. Most of the banks suspended payment;
the national debt underwent a huge increase; and immigration
practically ceased.

By 1895, however, the country had more or less resumed its normal
condition. A new census showed that the population had risen to
four million, about a sixth of whom resided in the capital. The
importance which agriculture had attained was attested by the
establishment of a separate ministry in the presidential cabinet.
Industry, too, made such rapid strides at this time that
organized labor began to take a hand in politics. The short-lived
"revolution" of 1905, for example, was not primarily the work of
politicians but of strikers organized into a workingmen's
federation. For three months civil guarantees were suspended, and
by a so-called "law of residence," enacted some years before and
now put into effect, the Government was authorized to expel
summarily any foreigner guilty of fomenting strikes or of
disturbing public order in any other fashion.

Political agitation soon assumed a new form. Since the
Autonomist-National party had been in control for thirty years or
more, it seemed to the Civic-Nationalists, now known as
Republicans, to the Autonomists proper, and to various other
factions, that they ought to do something to break the hold of
that powerful organization. Accordingly in 1906 the President,
supported by a coalition of these factions, started what was
termed an "upward-downward revolution"--in other words, a series
of interventions by which local governors and members of
legislatures suspected of Autonomist-National leanings were to be
replaced by individuals who enjoyed the confidence of the
Administration. Pretexts for such action were not hard to find
under the terms of the constitution; but their political
interests suffered so much in the effort that the promoters had
to abandon it.

Owing to persistent obstruction on the part of Congress, which
took the form of a refusal either to sanction his appointments or
to approve the budget, the President suspended the sessions of
that body in 1908 and decreed a continuance of the estimates for
the preceding year. The antagonism between the chief executive
and the legislature became so violent that, if his opponents had
not been split up into factions, civil war might have ensued in
Argentina.

To remedy a situation made worse by the absence-- usual in most
of the Hispanic republics--of a secret ballot and by the refusal
of political malcontents to take part in elections, voting was
made both obligatory and secret in 1911, and the principle of
minority representation was introduced. Legislation of this sort
was designed to check bribery and intimidation and to enable the
radical-minded to do their duty at the polls. Its effect was
shown five years later, when the secret ballot was used
substantially for the first time. The radicals won both the
presidency and a majority in the Congress.

One of the secrets of the prosperity of Argentina, as of Brazil,
in recent years has been its abstention from warlike ventures
beyond its borders and its endeavor to adjust boundary conflicts
by arbitration. Even when its attitude toward its huge neighbor
had become embittered in consequence of a boundary decision
rendered by the President of the United States in 1895, it abated
none of its enthusiasm for the principle of a peaceful settlement
of international disputes. Four years later, in a treaty with
Uruguay, the so-called "Argentine Formula" appeared. To quote its
language: "The contracting parties agree to submit to arbitration
all questions of any nature which may arise between them,
provided they do not affect provisions of the constitution of
either state, and cannot be adjusted by direct negotiation." This
Formula was soon put to the test in a serious dispute with Chile.

In the Treaty of 1881, in partitioning Patagonia, the crest of
the Andes had been assumed to be the true continental watershed
between the Atlantic and the Pacific and hence was made the
boundary line between Argentina and Chile. The entire Atlantic
coast was to belong to Argentina, the Pacific coast to Chile; the
island of Tierra del Fuego was to be divided between them. At the
same time the Strait of Magellan was declared a neutral waterway,
open to the ships of all nations. Ere long, however, it was
ascertained that the crest of the Andes did not actually coincide
with the continental divide. Thereupon Argentina insisted that
the boundary line should be made to run along the crest, while
Chile demanded that it be traced along the watershed. Since the
mountainous area concerned was of little value, the question at
bottom was simply one of power and prestige between rival states.

As the dispute waxed warmer, a noisy press and populace clamored
for war. The Governments of the two nations spent large sums in
increasing their armaments; and Argentina, in imitation of its
western neighbor, made military service compulsory. But, as the
conviction gradually spread that a struggle would leave the
victor as prostrate as the vanquished, wiser counsels prevailed.
In 1899, accordingly, the matter was referred to the King of
Great Britain for decision. Though the award was a compromise,
Chile was the actual gainer in territory.

By their treaties of 1902 both republics declared their intention
to uphold the principle of arbitration and to refrain from
interfering in each other's affairs along their respective
coasts. They also agreed upon a limitation of armaments--the sole
example on record of a realization of the purpose of the First
Hague Conference. To commemorate still further their
international accord, in 1904 they erected on the summit of the
Uspallata Pass, over which San Martin had crossed with his army
of liberation in 1817, a bronze statue of Christ the Redeemer.
There, amid the snow-capped peaks of the giant Andes, one may
read inscribed upon the pedestal: "Sooner shall these mountains
crumble to dust than Argentinos and Chileans break the peace
which at the feet of Christ the Redeemer they have sworn to
maintain!" Nor has the peace been broken.

Though hostilities with Argentina had thus been averted, Chile
had experienced within its own frontiers the most serious
revolution it had known in sixty years. The struggle was not one
of partisan chieftains or political groups but a genuine contest
to determine which of two theories of government should
prevail--the presidential or the parliamentary, a presidential
autocracy with the spread of real democracy or a congressional
oligarchy based on the existing order. The sincerity and public
spirit of both contestants helped to lend dignity to the
conflict.

Jose Manuel Balmaceda, a man of marked ability, who became
President in 1886, had devoted much of his political life to
urging an enlargement of the executive power, a greater freedom
to municipalities in the management of their local affairs, and a
broadening of the suffrage. He had even advocated a separation of
Church and State. Most of these proposals so conservative a land
as Chile was not prepared to accept. Though civil marriage was
authorized and ecclesiastical influence was lessened in other
respects, the Church stood firm. During his administration
Balmaceda introduced many reforms, both material and educational.
He gave a great impetus to the construction of public works,
enhanced the national credit by a favorable conversion of the
public debt, fostered immigration, and devoted especial attention
to the establishment of secondary schools. Excellent as the
administration of Balmaceda had been in other respects, he
nevertheless failed to combine the liberal factions into a party
willing to support the plans of reform which he had steadily
favored. The parliamentary system made Cabinets altogether
unstable, as political groups in the lower house of the Congress
alternately cohered and fell apart. This defect, Balmaceda
thought, should be corrected by making the members of his
official family independent of the legislative branch. The
Council of State, a somewhat anomalous body placed between the
President and Cabinet on the one side and the Congress on the
other, was an additional obstruction to a smooth-running
administration. For it he would substitute a tribunal charged
with the duty of resolving conflicts between the two chief
branches of government. Balmaceda believed, also, that greater
liberty should be given to the press and that existing taxes
should be altered as rarely as possible. On its side, the
Congress felt that the President was trying to establish a
dictatorship and to replace the unitary system by a federal
union, the probable weakness of which would enable him to retain
his power more securely.

Toward the close of his term in January, 1891, when the Liberals
declined to support his candidate for the presidency, Balmaceda,
furious at the opposition which he had encountered, took matters
into his own hands. Since the Congress refused to pass the
appropriation bills, he declared that body dissolved and
proceeded to levy the taxes by decree. To this arbitrary and
altogether unconstitutional performance the Congress retorted by
declaring the President deposed. Civil war broke out forthwith,
and a strange spectacle presented itself. The two chief cities,
Santiago and Valparaiso, and most of the army backed Balmaceda,
whereas the country districts, especially in the north, and
practically all the navy upheld the Congress.

These were, indeed, dark days for Chile. During a struggle of
about eight months the nation suffered more than it had done in
years of warfare with Peru and Bolivia. Though the bulk of the
army stood by Balmaceda, the Congress was able to raise and
organize a much stronger fighting force under a Prussian
drillmaster. The tide of battle turned; Santiago and Valparaiso
capitulated; and the presidential cause was lost. Balmaceda, who
had taken refuge in the Argentina legation, committed suicide.
But the Balmacedists, who were included in a general amnesty,
still maintained themselves as a party to advocate in a peaceful
fashion the principles of their fallen leader.

Chile had its reputation for stability well tested in 1910 when
the executive changed four times without the slightest political
disturbance. According to the constitution, the officer who takes
the place of the President in case of the latter's death or
disability, though vested with full authority, has the title of
Vice President only. It so happened that after the death of the
President two members of the Cabinet in succession held the vice
presidency, and they were followed by the chief magistrate, who
was duly elected and installed at the close of the year. In 1915,
for the first time since their leader had committed suicide, one
of the followers of Balmaceda was chosen President--by a strange
coalition of Liberal-Democrats, or Balmacedists, Conservatives,
and Nationalists, over the candidate of the Radicals, Liberals,
and Democrats. The maintenance of the parliamentary system,
however, continued to produce frequent alterations in the
personnel of the Cabinet.

In its foreign relations, apart from the adjustment reached with
Argentina, Chile managed to settle the difficulties with Bolivia
arising out of the War of the Pacific. By the terms of treaties
concluded in 1895 and 1905, the region tentatively transferred by
the armistice of 1884 was ceded outright to Chile in return for a
seaport and a narrow right of way to it through the former
Peruvian province of Tarapaca. With Peru, Chile was not so
fortunate. Though the tension over the ultimate disposal of the
Tacna and Arica question was somewhat reduced, it was far from
being removed. Chile absolutely refused to submit the matter to
arbitration, on the ground that such a procedure could not
properly be applied to a question arising out of a war that had
taken place so many years before. Chile did not wish to give the
region up, lest by so doing it might expose Tarapaca to a
possible attack from Peru. The investment of large amounts of
foreign capital in the exploitation of the deposits of nitrate of
soda had made that province economically very valuable, and the
export tax levied on the product was the chief source of the
national revenue. These were all potent reasons why Chile wanted
to keep its hold on Tacna and Arica. Besides, possession was nine
points in the law!

On the other hand, the original plan of having the question
decided by a vote of the inhabitants of the provinces concerned
was not carried into effect, partly because both claimants
cherished a conviction that whichever lost the election would
deny its validity, and partly because they could not agree upon
the precise method of holding it. Chile suggested that the
international commission which was selected to take charge of the
plebiscite, and which was composed of a Chilean, a Peruvian, and
a neutral, should be presided over by the Chilean member as
representative of the country actually in possession, whereas
Peru insisted that the neutral should act as chairman. Chile
proposed also that Chileans, Peruvians, and foreigners resident
in the area six months before the date of the elections should
vote, provided that they had the right to do so under the terms
of the constitutions of both states. Peru, on its part, objected
to the length of residence, and wished to limit carefully the
number of Chilean voters, to exclude foreigners altogether from
the election, and to disregard qualifications for the suffrage
which required an ability to read and write. Both countries,
moreover, appeared to have a lurking suspicion that in any event
the other would try to secure a majority at the polls by
supplying a requisite number of voters drawn from their
respective citizenry who were not ordinarily resident in Tacna
and Arica! Unable to overcome the deadlock, Chile and Peru agreed
in 1913 to postpone the settlement for twenty years longer. At
the expiration of this period, when Chile would have held the
provinces for half a century, the question should be finally
adjusted on bases mutually satisfactory. Officially amicable
relations were then restored.

While the political situation in Bolivia remained stable, so much
could not be said of that in Peru and Ecuador. If the troubles in
the former were more or less military, a persistence of the
conflict between clericals and radicals characterized the
commotions in the latter, because of certain liberal provisions
in the Constitution of 1907. Peru, on the other hand, in 1915
guaranteed its people the enjoyment of religious liberty.

Next to the Tacna and Arica question, the dubious boundaries of
Ecuador constituted the most serious international problem in
South America. The so-called Oriente region, lying east of the
Andes and claimed by Peru, Brazil, and Colombia, appeared
differently on different maps, according as one claimant nation
or another set forth its own case. Had all three been satisfied,
nothing would have been left of Ecuador but the strip between the
Andes and the Pacific coast, including the cities of Quito and
Guayaquil. The Ecuadorians, therefore, were bitterly sensitive on
the subject.

Protracted negotiations over the boundaries became alike tedious
and listless. But the moment that the respective diplomats had
agreed upon some knotty point, the Congress of one litigant or
another was almost sure to reject the decision and start the
controversy all over again. Even reference of the matter to the
arbitral judgment of European monarchs produced, so far as
Ecuador and Peru were concerned, riotous attacks upon the
Peruvian legation and consulates, charges and countercharges of
invasion of each other's territory, and the suspension of
diplomatic relations. Though the United States, Argentina, and
Brazil had interposed to ward off an armed conflict between the
two republics and, in 1911, had urged that the dispute be
submitted to the Hague Tribunal, nothing would induce Ecuador to
comply.

Colombia was even more unfortunate than its southern neighbor,
for in addition to political convulsions it suffered financial
disaster and an actual deprivation of territory. Struggles among
factions, official influence at the elections, dictatorships, and
fighting between the departments and the national Government
plunged the country, in 1899, into the worst civil war it had
known for many a day. Paper money, issued in unlimited amounts
and given a forced circulation, made the distress still more
acute. Then came the hardest blow of all. Since 1830 Panama, as
province or state, had tried many times to secede from Colombia.
In 1903 the opportunity it sought became altogether favorable.
The parent nation, just beginning to recover from the disasters
of civil strife, would probably be unable to prevent a new
attempt at withdrawal. The people of Panama, of course, knew how
eager the United States was to acquire the region of the proposed
Canal Zone, since it had failed to win it by negotiation with
Colombia. Accordingly, if they were to start a "revolution," they
had reason to believe that it would not lack support--or at
least, connivance--from that quarter.

On the 3d of November the projected "revolution" occurred, on
schedule time, and the United States recognized the independence
of the "Republic of Panama" three days later! In return for a
guarantee of independence, however, the United States stipulated,
in the convention concluded on the 18th of November, that,
besides authority to enforce sanitary regulations in the Canal
Zone, it should also have the right of intervention to maintain
order in the republic itself. More than once, indeed, after
Panama adopted its constitution in 1904, elections threatened to
become tumultuous; whereupon the United States saw to it that
they passed off quietly.

Having no wish to flout their huge neighbor to the northward, the
Hispanic nations at large hastened to acknowledge the
independence of the new republic, despite the indignation that
prevailed in press and public over what was regarded as an act of
despoilment. In view of the resentful attitude of Colombia and
mindful also of the opinion of many Americans that a gross
injustice had been committed, the United States eventually
offered terms of settlement. It agreed to express regret for the
ill feeling between the two countries which had arisen out of the
Panama incident, provided that such expression were made mutual;
and, as a species of indemnity, it agreed to pay for canal rights
to be acquired in Colombian territory and for the lease of
certain islands as naval stations. But neither the terms nor the
amount of the compensation proved acceptable. Instead, Colombia
urged that the whole matter be referred to the judgment of the
tribunal at The Hague.

Alluding to the use made of the liberties won in the struggle for
emancipation from Spain by the native land of Miranda, Bolivar,
and Sucre, on the part of the country which had been in the
vanguard of the fight for freedom from a foreign yoke, a writer
of Venezuela once declared that it had not elected legally a
single President; had not put democratic ideas or institutions
into practice; had lived wholly under dictatorships; had
neglected public instruction; and had set up a large number of
oppressive commercial monopolies, including the navigation of
rivers, the coastwise trade, the pearl fisheries, and the sale of
tobacco, salt, sugar, liquor, matches, explosives, butter,
grease, cement, shoes, meat, and flour. Exaggerated as the
indictment is and applicable also, though in less degree, to some
of the other backward countries of Hispanic America, it contains
unfortunately a large measure of truth. Indeed, so far as
Venezuela itself is concerned, this critic might have added that
every time a "restorer," "regenerator," or "liberator" succumbed
there, the old craze for federalism again broke out and menaced
the nation with piecemeal destruction. Obedient, furthermore, to
the whims of a presidential despot, Venezuela perpetrated more
outrages on foreigners and created more international friction
after 1899 than any other land in Spanish America had ever done.

While the formidable Guzman Blanco was still alive, the various
Presidents acted cautiously. No sooner had he passed away than
disorder broke out afresh. Since a new dictator thought he needed
a longer term of office and divers other administrative
advantages, a constitution incorporating them was framed and
published in the due and customary manner. This had hardly gone
into operation when, in 1895, a contest arose with Great Britain
about the boundaries between Venezuela and British Guiana. Under
pressure from the United States, however, the matter was referred
to arbitration, and Venezuela came out substantially the loser.

In 1899 there appeared on the scene a personage compared with
whom Zelaya was the merest novice in the art of making trouble.
This was Cipriano Castro, the greatest international nuisance of
the early twentieth century. A rude, arrogant, fearless,
energetic, capricious mountaineer and cattleman, he regarded
foreigners no less than his own countryfolk, it would seem, as
objects for his particular scorn, displeasure, exploitation, or
amusement, as the case might be. He was greatly angered by the
way in which foreigners in dispute with local officials avoided a
resort to Venezuelan courts and--still worse--rejected their
decisions and appealed instead to their diplomatic
representatives for protection. He declared such a procedure to
be an affront to the national dignity. Yet foreigners were
usually correct in arming that judges appointed by an arbitrary
President were little more than figureheads, incapable of
dispensing justice, even were they so inclined.

Jealous not only of his personal prestige but of what he
imagined, or pretended to imagine, were the rights of a small
nation, Castro tried throughout to portray the situation in such
a light as to induce the other Hispanic republics also to view
foreign interference as a dire peril to their own independence
and sovereignty; and he further endeavored to involve the United
States in a struggle with European powers as a means possibly of
testing the efficacy of the Monroe Doctrine or of laying bare
before the world the evil nature of American imperialistic
designs.

By the year 1901, in which Venezuela adopted another
constitution, the revolutionary disturbances had materially
diminished the revenues from the customs. Furthermore Castro's
regulations exacting military service of all males between
fourteen and sixty years of age had filled the prisons to
overflowing. Many foreigners who had suffered in consequence
resorted to measures of self-defense--among them representatives
of certain American and British asphalt companies which were
working concessions granted by Castro's predecessors. Though
familiar with what commonly happens to those who handle pitch,
they had not scrupled to aid some of Castro's enemies. Castro
forthwith imposed on them enormous fines which amounted
practically to a confiscation of their rights.

While the United States and Great Britain were expostulating over
this behavior of the despot, France broke off diplomatic
relations with Venezuela because of Castro's refusal either to
pay or to submit to arbitration certain claims which had
originated in previous revolutions. Germany, aggrieved in similar
fashion, contemplated a seizure of the customs until its demands
for redress were satisfied. And then came Italy with like causes
of complaint. As if these complications were not sufficient,
Venezuela came to blows with Colombia.

As the foreign pressure on Castro steadily increased, Luis Maria
Drago, the Argentine Minister of Foreign Affairs, formulated in
1902 the doctrine with which his name has been associated. It
stated in substance that force should never be employed between
nations for the collection of contractual debts. Encouraged by
this apparent token of support from a sister republic, Castro
defied his array of foreign adversaries more vigorously than
ever, declaring that he might find it needful to invade the
United States, by way of New Orleans, to teach it the lesson it
deserved! But when he attempted, in the following year, to close
the ports of Venezuela as a means of bringing his native
antagonists to terms, Great Britain, Germany, and Italy seized
his warships, blockaded the coast, and bombarded some of his
forts. Thereupon the United States interposed with a suggestion
that the dispute be laid before the Hague Tribunal. Although
Castro yielded, he did not fail to have a clause inserted in a
new "constitution" requiring foreigners who might wish to enter
the republic to show certificates of good character from the
Governments of their respective countries.

These incidents gave much food for thought to Castro as well as
to his soberer compatriots. The European powers had displayed an
apparent willingness to have the United States, if it chose to do
so, assume the role of a New World policeman and financial
guarantor. Were it to assume these duties, backward republics in
the Caribbean and its vicinity were likely to have their affairs,
internal as well as external, supervised by the big nation in
order to ward off European intervention. At this moment, indeed,
the United States was intervening in Panama. The prospect aroused
in many Hispanic countries the fear of a "Yankee peril" greater
even than that emanating from Europe. Instead of being a kindly
and disinterested protector of small neighbors, the "Colossus of
the North" appeared rather to resemble a political and commercial
ogre bent upon swallowing them to satisfy "manifest destiny."

Having succeeded in putting around his head an aureole of local
popularity, Castro in 1905 picked a new set of partially
justified quarrels with the United States, Great Britain, France,
Italy, Colombia, and even with the Netherlands, arising out of
the depredations of revolutionists; but an armed menace from the
United States induced him to desist from his plans. He contented
himself accordingly with issuing a decree of amnesty for all
political offenders except the leaders. When "reelected," he
carried his magnanimity so far as to resign awhile in favor of
the Vice President, stating that, if his retirement were to bring
peace and concord, he would make it permanent. But as he saw to
it that his temporary withdrawal should not have this happy
result, he came back again to his firmer position a few months
later.

Venting his wrath upon the Netherlands because its minister had
reported to his Government an outbreak of cholera at La Guaira,
the chief seaport of Venezuela, the dictator laid an embargo on
Dutch commerce, seized its ships, and denounced the Dutch for
their alleged failure to check filibustering from their islands
off the coast. When the minister protested, Castro expelled him.
Thereupon the Netherlands instituted a blockade of the Venezuelan
ports. What might have happened if Castro had remained much
longer in charge, may be guessed. Toward the close of 1908,
however, he departed for Europe to undergo a course of medical
treatment. Hardly had he left Venezuelan shores when Juan Vicente
Gomez, the able, astute, and vigorous Vice President, managed to
secure his own election to the presidency and an immediate
recognition from foreign states. Under his direction all of the
international tangles of Venezuela were straightened out.

In 1914 the country adopted its eleventh constitution and thereby
lengthened the presidential term to seven years, shortened that
of members of the lower house of the Congress to four, determined
definitely the number of States in the union, altered the
apportionment of their congressional representation, and enlarged
the powers of the federal Government--or, rather, those of its
executive branch! In 1914 Gomez resigned office in favor of the
Vice President, and secured an appointment instead as commander
in chief of the army. This procedure was promptly denounced as a
trick to evade the constitutional prohibition of two consecutive
terms. A year later he was unanimously elected President, though
he never formally took the oath of office.

Whatever may be thought of the political ways and means of this
new Guzmin Blanco to maintain himself as a power behind or on the
presidential throne, Gomez gave Venezuela an administration of a
sort very different from that of his immediate predecessor. He
suppressed various government monopolies, removed other obstacles
to the material advancement of the country, and reduced the
national debt. He did much also to improve the sanitary
conditions at La Guaira, and he promoted education, especially
the teaching of foreign languages.

Gomez nevertheless had to keep a watchful eye on the partisans of
Castro, who broke out in revolt whenever they had an opportunity.
The United States, Great Britain, France, the Netherlands,
Denmark, Cuba, and Colombia eyed the movements of the ex-dictator
nervously, as European powers long ago were wont to do in the
case of a certain Man of Destiny, and barred him out of both
their possessions and Venezuela itself. International patience,
never Job-like, had been too sorely vexed to permit his return.
Nevertheless, after the manner of the ancient persecutor of the
Biblical martyr, Castro did not refrain from going to and fro in
the earth. In fact he still "walketh about" seeking to recover
his hold upon Venezuela!



CHAPTER X. MEXICO IN REVOLUTION

When, in 1910, like several of its sister republics, Mexico
celebrated the centennial anniversary of its independence, the
era of peace and progress inaugurated by Porfirio Diaz seemed
likely to last indefinitely, for he was entering upon his eighth
term as President. Brilliant as his career had been, however, and
greatly as Mexico had prospered under his rigid rule, a sullen
discontent had been brewing. The country that had had but one
continuous President in twenty-six years was destined to have
some fourteen chief magistrates in less than a quarter of that
time, and to surpass all its previous records for rapidity in
presidential succession, by having one executive who is said to
have held office for precisely fifty-six minutes!

It has often been asserted that the reason for the downfall of
Diaz and the lapse of Mexico into the unhappy conditions of a
half century earlier was that he had grown too old to keep a firm
grip on the situation. It has also been declared that his
insistence upon reelection and upon the elevation of his own
personal candidate to the vice presidency, as a successor in case
of his retirement, occasioned his overthrow. The truth of the
matter is that these circumstances were only incidental to his
downfall; the real causes of revolution lay deeprooted in the
history of these twenty-six years. The most significant feature
of the revolt was its civilian character. A widespread public
opinion had been created; a national consciousness had been
awakened which was intolerant of abuses and determined upon their
removal at any cost; and this public opinion and national
consciousness were products of general education, which had
brought to the fore a number of intelligent men eager to
participate in public affairs and yet barred out because of their
unwillingness to support the existing regime.

Some one has remarked, and rightly, that Diaz in his zeal for the
material advancement of Mexico, mistook the tangible wealth of
the country for its welfare. Desirable and even necessary as that
material progress was, it produced only a one-sided prosperity.
Diaz was singularly deaf to the just complaints of the people of
the laboring classes, who, as manufacturing and other industrial
enterprises developed, were resolved to better their conditions.
In the country at large the discontent was still stronger.
Throughout many of the rural districts general advancement had
been retarded because of the holding of huge areas of fertile
land by a comparatively few rich families, who did little to
improve it and were content with small returns from the labor of
throngs of unskilled native cultivators. Wretchedly paid and
housed, and toiling long hours, the workers lived like the serfs
of medieval days or as their own ancestors did in colonial times.
Ignorant, poverty-stricken, liable at any moment to be
dispossessed of the tiny patch of ground on which they raised a
few hills of corn or beans, most of them were naturally a simple,
peaceful folk who, in spite of their misfortunes, might have gone
on indefinitely with their drudgery in a hopeless apathetic
fashion, unless their latent savage instincts happened to be
aroused by drink and the prospect of plunder. On the other hand,
the intelligent among them, knowing that in some of the northern
States of the republic wages were higher and treatment fairer,
felt a sense of wrong which, like that of the laboring class in
the towns, was all the more dangerous because it was not allowed
to find expression.

Diaz thought that what Mexico required above everything else was
the development of industrial efficiency and financial strength,
assured by a maintenance of absolute order. Though disposed to do
justice in individual cases, he would tolerate no class movements
of any kind. Labor unions, strikes, and other efforts at
lightening the burden of the workers he regarded as seditious and
deserving of severe punishment. In order to attract capital from
abroad as the best means of exploiting the vast resources of the
country, he was willing to go to any length, it would seem, in
guaranteeing protection. Small wonder, therefore, that the people
who shared in none of the immediate advantages from that source
should have muttered that Mexico was the "mother of foreigners
and the stepmother of Mexicans." And, since so much of the
capital came from the United States, the antiforeign sentiment
singled Americans out for its particular dislike.

If Diaz appeared unable to appreciate the significance of the
educational and industrial awakening, he was no less oblivious of
the political outcome. He knew, of course, that the Mexican
constitution made impossible demands upon the political capacity
of the people. He was himself mainly of Indian blood and he
believed that he understood the temperament and limitations of
most Mexicans. Knowing how tenaciously they clung to political
notions, he believed that it was safer and wiser to forego, at
least for a time, real popular government and to concentrate
power in the hands of a strong man who could maintain order.

Accordingly, backed by his political adherents, known as
cientificos (doctrinaires), some of whom had acquired a sinister
ascendancy over him, and also by the Church, the landed
proprietors, and the foreign capitalists, Diaz centered the
entire administration more and more in himself. Elections became
mere farces. Not only the federal officials themselves but the
state governors, the members of the state legislatures, and all
others in authority during the later years of his rule owed their
selection primarily to him and held their positions only if
personally loyal to him. Confident of his support and certain
that protests against misgovernment would be regarded by the
President as seditious, many of them abused their power at will.
Notable among them were the local officials, called jefes
politicos, whose control of the police force enabled them to
indulge in practices of intimidation and extortion which
ultimately became unendurable.

Though symptoms of popular wrath against the Diaz regime, or
diazpotism as the Mexicans termed it, were apparent as early as
1908, it was not until January, 1911, that the actual revolution
came. It was headed by Francisco I. Madero, a member of a wealthy
and distinguished family of landed proprietors in one of the
northern States. What the revolutionists demanded in substance
was the retirement of the President, Vice President, and Cabinet;
a return to the principle of no reelection to the chief
magistracy; a guarantee of fair elections at all times; the
choice of capable, honest, and impartial judges, jefes politicos,
and other officials; and, in particular, a series of agrarian and
industrial reforms which would break up the great estates, create
peasant proprietorships, and better the conditions of the working
classes. Disposed at first to treat the insurrection lightly,
Diaz soon found that he had underestimated its strength. Grants
of some of the demands and promises of reform were met with a
dogged insistence upon his own resignation. Then, as the
rebellion spread to the southward, the masterful old man realized
that his thirty-one years of rule were at an end. On the 25th of
May, therefore, he gave up his power and sailed for Europe.

Madero was chosen President five months later, but the revolution
soon passed beyond his control. He was a sincere idealist, if not
something of a visionary, actuated by humane and kindly
sentiments, but he lacked resoluteness and the art of managing
men. He was too prolific, also, of promises which he must have
known he could not keep. Yielding to family influence, he let his
followers get out of hand. Ambitious chieftains and groups of
Radicals blocked and thwarted him at every turn. When he could
find no means of carrying out his program without wholesale
confiscation and the disruption of business interests, he was
accused of abandoning his duty. One officer after another
deserted him and turned rebel. Brigandage and insurrection swept
over the country and threatened to involve it in ugly
complications with the United States and European powers. At
length, in February, 1913, came the blow that put an end to all
of Madero's efforts and aspirations. A military uprising in the
city of Mexico made him prisoner, forced him to resign, and set
up a provisional government under the dictatorship of Victoriano
Huerta, one of his chief lieutenants. Two weeks later both Madero
and the Vice President were assassinated while on their way
supposedly to a place of safety.

Huerta was a rough soldier of Indian origin, possessed of unusual
force of character and strength of will, ruthless, cunning, and
in bearing alternately dignified and vulgar. A cientifico in
political faith, he was disposed to restore the Diaz regime, so
far as an application of shrewdness and force could make it
possible. But from the outset he found an obstacle confronting
him that he could not surmount. Though acknowledged by European
countries and by many of the Hispanic republics, he could not win
recognition from the United States, either as provisional
President or as a candidate for regular election to the office.
Whether personally responsible for the murder of Madero or not,
he was not regarded by the American Government as entitled to
recognition, on the ground that he was not the choice of the
Mexican people. In its refusal to recognize an administration set
up merely by brute force, the United States was upheld by
Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Cuba. The elimination of Huerta
became the chief feature for a while of its Mexican policy.

Meanwhile the followers of Madero and the pronounced Radicals had
found a new northern leader in the person of Venustiano Carranza.
They called themselves Constitutionalists, as indicative of their
purpose to reestablish the constitution and to choose a successor
to Madero in a constitutional manner. What they really desired
was those radical changes along social, industrial, and political
lines, which Madero had championed in theory. They sought to
introduce a species of socialistic regime that would provide the
Mexicans with an opportunity for self-regeneration. While Diaz
had believed in economic progress supported by the great landed
proprietors, the moral influence of the Church, and the
application of foreign capital, the Constitutionalists,
personified in Carranza, were convinced that these agencies, if
left free and undisturbed to work their will, would ruin Mexico.
Though not exactly antiforeign in their attitude, they wished to
curb the power of the foreigner; they would accept his aid
whenever desirable for the economic development of the country,
but they would not submit to his virtual control of public
affairs. In any case they would tolerate no interference by the
United States. Compromise with the Huerta regime, therefore, was
impossible. Huerta, the "strong man" of the Diaz type, must go.
On this point, at least, the Constitutionalists were in thorough
agreement with the United States.

A variety of international complications ensued. Both Huertistas
and Carranzistas perpetrated outrages on foreigners, which evoked
sharp protests and threats from the United States and European
powers. While careful not to recognize his opponents officially,
the American Government resorted to all kinds of means to oust
the dictator. An embargo was laid on the export of arms and
munitions; all efforts to procure financial help from abroad were
balked. The power of Huerta was waning perceptibly and that of
the Constitutionalists was increasing when an incident that
occurred in April, 1914, at Tampico brought matters to a climax.
A number of American sailors who had gone ashore to obtain
supplies were arrested and temporarily detained. The United
States demanded that the American flag be saluted as reparation
for the insult. Upon the refusal of Huerta to comply, the United
States sent a naval expedition to occupy Vera Cruz.

Both Carranza and Huerta regarded this move as equivalent to an
act of war. Argentina, Brazil, and Chile then offered their
mediation. But the conference arranged for this purpose at
Niagara Falls, Canada, had before it a task altogether impossible
of accomplishment. Though Carranza was willing to have the
Constitutionalists represented, if the discussion related solely
to the immediate issue between the United States and Huerta, he
declined to extend the scope of the conference so as to admit the
right of the United States to interfere in the internal affairs
of Mexico. The conference accomplished nothing so far as the
immediate issue was concerned. The dictator did not make
reparation for the "affronts and indignities" he had committed;
but his day was over. The advance of the Constitutionalists
southward compelled him in July to abandon the capital and leave
the country. Four months later the American forces were withdrawn
from Vera Cruz. The "A B C" Conference, however barren it was of
direct results, helped to allay suspicions of the United States
in Hispanic America and brought appreciably nearer a "concert of
the western world."

While far from exercising full control throughout Mexico, the
"first chief" of the Constitutionalists was easily the dominant
figure in the situation. At home a ranchman, in public affairs a
statesman of considerable ability, knowing how to insist and yet
how to temporize, Carranza carried on a struggle, both in arms
and in diplomacy, which singled him out as a remarkable
character. Shrewdly aware of the advantageous circumstances
afforded him by the war in Europe, he turned them to account with
a degree of skill that blocked every attempt at defeat or
compromise. No matter how serious the opposition to him in Mexico
itself, how menacing the attitude of the United States, or how
persuasive the conciliatory disposition of Hispanic American
nations, he clung stubbornly and tenaciously to his program.

Even after Huerta had been eliminated, Carranza's position was
not assured, for Francisco, or "Pancho," Villa, a chieftain whose
personal qualities resembled those of the fallen dictator, was
equally determined to eliminate him. For a brief moment, indeed,
peace reigned. Under an alleged agreement between them, a
convention of Constitutionalist officers was to choose a
provisional President, who should be ineligible as a candidate
for the permanent presidency at the regular elections. When
Carranza assumed both of these positions, Villa declared his act
a violation of their understanding and insisted upon his
retirement. Inasmuch as the convention was dominated by Villa,
the "first chief" decided to ignore its election of a provisional
President.

The struggle between the Conventionalists headed by Villa and the
Constitutionalists under Carranza plunged Mexico into worse
discord and misery than ever. Indeed it became a sort of
three-cornered contest. The third party was Emiliano Zapata, an
Indian bandit, nominally a supporter of Villa but actually
favorable to neither of the rivals. Operating near the capital,
he plundered Conventionalists and Constitutionalists with equal
impartiality, and as a diversion occasionally occupied the city
itself. These circumstances gave force to the saying that Mexico
was a "land where peace breaks out once in a while!"

Early in 1915 Carranza proceeded to issue a number of radical
decrees that exasperated foreigners almost beyond endurance.
Rather than resort to extreme measures again, however, the United
States invoked the cooperation of the Hispanic republics and
proposed a conference to devise some solution of the Mexican
problem. To give the proposed conference a wider representation,
it invited not only the "A B C" powers, but Bolivia, Uruguay, and
Guatemala to participate. Meeting at Washington in August, the
mediators encountered the same difficulty which had confronted
their predecessors at Niagara Falls. Though the other chieftains
assented, Carranza, now certain of success, declined to heed any
proposal of conciliation. Characterizing efforts of the kind as
an unwarranted interference in the internal affairs of a sister
nation, he warned the Hispanic republics against setting up so
dangerous a precedent. In reply Argentina stated that the
conference obeyed a "lofty inspiration of Pan-American
solidarity, and, instead of finding any cause for alarm, the
Mexican people should see in it a proof of their friendly
consideration that her fate evokes in us, and calls forth our
good wishes for her pacification and development." However, as
the only apparent escape from more watchful waiting or from armed
intervention on the part of the United States, in October the
seven Governments decided to accept the facts as they stood, and
accordingly recognized Carranza as the de facto ruler of Mexico.

Enraged at this favor shown to his rival, Villa determined
deliberately to provoke American intervention by a murderous raid
on a town in New Mexico in March, 1916. When the United States
dispatched an expedition to avenge the outrage, Carranza
protested energetically against its violation of Mexican
territory and demanded its withdrawal. Several clashes, in fact,
occurred between American soldiers and Carranzistas. Neither the
expedition itself, however, nor diplomatic efforts to find some
method of cooperation which would prevent constant trouble along
the frontier served any useful purpose, since Villa apparently
could not be captured and Carranza refused to yield to diplomatic
persuasion. Carranza then proposed that a joint commission be
appointed to settle these vexed questions. Even this device
proved wholly unsatisfactory. The Mexicans would not concede the
right of the United States to send an armed expedition into their
country at any time, and the Americans refused to accept
limitations on the kind of troops that they might employ or on
the zone of their operations. In January, 1917, the joint
commission was dissolved and the American soldiers were
withdrawn. Again the "first chief" had won!

On the 5th of February a convention assembled at Queretaro
promulgated a constitution embodying substantially all of the
radical program that Carranza had anticipated in his decrees.
Besides providing for an elaborate improvement in the condition
of the laboring classes and for such a division of great estates
as might satisfy their particular needs, the new constitution
imposed drastic restrictions upon foreigners and religious
bodies. Under its terms, foreigners could not acquire industrial
concessions unless they waived their treaty rights and consented
to regard themselves for the purpose as Mexican citizens. In all
such cases preference was to be shown Mexicans over foreigners.
Ecclesiastical corporations were forbidden to own real property.
No primary school and no charitable institution could be
conducted by any religious mission or denomination, and religious
publications must refrain from commenting on public affairs. The
presidential term was reduced from six years to four; reelection
was prohibited; and the office of Vice President was abolished.

When, on the 1st of May, Venustiano Carranza was chosen
President, Mexico had its first constitutional executive in four
years. After a cruel and obstinately intolerant struggle that had
occasioned indescribable suffering from disease and starvation,
as well as the usual slaughter and destruction incident to war,
the country began to enjoy once more a measure of peace.
Financial exhaustion, however, had to be overcome before
recuperation was possible. Industrial progress had become almost
paralyzed; vast quantities of depreciated paper money had to be
withdrawn from circulation; and an enormous array of claims for
the loss of foreign life and property had rolled up.



CHAPTER XI. THE REPUBLICS OF THE CARIBBEAN

The course of events in certain of the republics in and around
the Caribbean Sea warned the Hispanic nations that independence
was a relative condition and that it might vary in direct ratio
with nearness to the United States. After 1906 this powerful
northern neighbor showed an unmistakable tendency to extend its
influence in various ways. Here fiscal and police control was
established; there official recognition was withheld from a
President who had secured office by unconstitutional methods.
Nonrecognition promised to be an effective way of maintaining a
regime of law and order, as the United States understood those
terms. Assurances from the United States of the full political
equality of all republics, big or little, in the western
hemisphere did not always carry conviction to Spanish American
ears. The smaller countries in and around the Caribbean Sea, at
least, seemed likely to become virtually American protectorates.

Like their Hispanic neighbor on the north, the little republics
of Central America were also scenes of political disturbance.
None of them except Panama escaped revolutionary uprisings,
though the loss of life and property was insignificant. On the
other hand, in these early years of the century the five
countries north of Panama made substantial progress toward
federation. As a South American writer has expressed it, their
previous efforts in that direction "amid sumptuous festivals,
banquets and other solemn public acts" at which they "intoned in
lyric accents daily hymns for the imperishable reunion of the
isthmian republics," had been as illusory as they were frequent.
Despite the mediation of the United States and Mexico in 1906,
while the latter was still ruled by Diaz, the struggle in which
Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, and Salvador had been engaged was
soon renewed between the first two belligerents. Since diplomatic
interposition no longer availed, American marines were landed in
Nicaragua, and the bumptious Zelaya was induced to have his
country meet its neighbors in a conference at Washington. Under
the auspices of the United States and Mexico, in December, 1907,
representatives of the five republics signed a series of
conventions providing for peace and cooperation. An arbitral
court of justice, to be erected in Costa Rica and composed of one
judge from each nation, was to decide all matters of dispute
which could not be adjusted through ordinary diplomatic means.
Here, also, an institute for the training of Central American
teachers was to be established. Annual conferences were to
discuss, and an office in Guatemala was to record, measures
designed to secure uniformity in financial, commercial,
industrial, sanitary, and educational regulations. Honduras, the
storm center of weakness, was to be neutralized. None of the
States was thereafter to recognize in any of them a government
which had been set up in an illegal fashion. A "Constitutional
Act of Central American Fraternity," moreover, was adopted on
behalf of peace, harmony, and progress. Toward a realization of
the several objects of the conference, the Presidents of the five
republics were to invite their colleagues of the United States
and Mexico, whenever needful, to appoint representatives, to
"lend their good offices in a purely friendly way."

Though most of these agencies were promptly put into operation,
the results were not altogether satisfactory. Some discords, to
be sure, were removed by treaties settling boundary questions and
providing for reciprocal trade advantages; but it is doubtful
whether the arrangements devised at Washington would have worked
at all if the United States had not kept the little countries
under a certain amount of observation. What the Central Americans
apparently preferred was to be left alone, some of them to mind
their own business, others to mind their neighbor's affairs.

Of all the Central American countries Honduras was, perhaps, the
one most afflicted with pecuniary misfortunes. In 1909 its
foreign debt, along with arrears of interest unpaid for
thirty-seven years, was estimated at upwards of $110,000,000. Of
this amount a large part consisted of loans obtained from foreign
capitalists, at more or less extortionate rates, for the
construction of a short railway, of which less than half had been
built. That revolutions should be rather chronic in a land where
so much money could be squandered and where the temperaments of
Presidents and ex-Presidents were so bellicose, was natural
enough. When the United States could not induce the warring
rivals to abide by fair elections, it sent a force of marines to
overawe them and gave warning that further disturbances would not
be allowed.

In Nicaragua the conditions were similar. Here Zelaya, restive
under the limitations set by the conference at Washington,
yearned to become the "strong man" of Central America, who would
teach the Yankees to stop their meddling. But his downfall was
imminent. In 1909, as the result of his execution of two American
soldiers of fortune who had taken part in a recent insurrection,
the United States resolved to tolerate Zelaya no longer. Openly
recognizing the insurgents, it forced the dictator out of the
country. Three years later, when a President-elect started to
assume office before the legally appointed time, a force of
American marines at the capital convinced him that such a
procedure was undesirable. The "corrupt and barbarous" conditions
prevailing in Zelaya's time, he was informed, could not be
tolerated. The United States, in fact, notified all parties in
Nicaragua that, under the terms of the Washington conventions, it
had a "moral mandate to exert its influence for the preservation
of the general peace of Central America." Since those agreements
had vested no one with authority to enforce them, such an
interpretation of their language, aimed apparently at all
disturbances, foreign as well as domestic, was rather elastic! At
all events, after 1912, when a new constitution was adopted, the
country became relatively quiet and somewhat progressive.
Whenever a political flurry did take place, American marines were
employed to preserve the peace. Many citizens, therefore,
declined to vote, on the ground that the moral and material
support thus furnished by the great nation to the northward
rendered it futile for them to assume political responsibilities.

Meanwhile negotiations began which were ultimately to make
Nicaragua a fiscal protectorate of the United States. American
officials were chosen to act as financial advisers and collectors
of customs, and favorable arrangements were concluded with
American bankers regarding the monetary situation; but it was not
until 1916 that a treaty covering this situation was ratified.
According to its provisions, in return for a stipulated sum to be
expended under American direction, Nicaragua was to grant to the
United States the exclusive privilege of constructing a canal
through the territory of the republic and to lease to it the Corn
Islands and a part of Fonseca Bay, on the Pacific coast, for use
as naval stations. The prospect of American intervention alarmed
the neighboring republics. Asserting that the treaty infringed
upon their respective boundaries, Costa Rica, and Salvador
brought suit against Nicaragua before the Central American Court.
With the exception of the Nicaraguan representative, the judges
upheld the contention of the plaintiffs that the defendant had no
right to make any such concessions without previous consultation
with Costa Rica, Salvador, and Honduras, since all three alike
were affected by them. The Court observed, however, that it could
not declare the treaty void because the United States, one of the
parties concerned, was not subject to its jurisdiction. Nicaragua
declined to accept the decision; and the United States, the
country responsible for the existence of the Court and presumably
interested in helping to enforce its judgment, allowed it to go
out of existence in 1918 on the expiration of its ten-year term.

The economic situation of Costa Rica brought about a state of
affairs wholly unusual in Central American politics. The
President, Alfredo Gonzalez, wished to reform the system of
taxation so that a fairer share of the public burdens should fall
on the great landholders who, like most of their brethren in the
Hispanic countries, were practically exempt. This project,
coupled with the fact that certain American citizens seeking an
oil concession had undermined the power of the President by
wholesale bribery, induced the Minister of War, in 1917, to start
a revolt against him. Rather than shed the blood of his fellow
citizens for mere personal advantages, Gonzalez sustained the
good reputation of Costa Rica for freedom from civil commotions
by quietly leaving the country and going to the United States to
present his case. In consequence, the American Government
declined to recognize the de facto ruler.

Police and fiscal supervision by the United States has
characterized the recent history of Panama. Not only has a
proposed increase in the customs duties been disallowed, but more
than once the unrest attending presidential elections has
required the calming presence of American officials. As a means
of forestalling outbreaks, particularly in view of the
cosmopolitan population resident on the Isthmus, the republic
enacted a law in 1914 which forbade foreigners to mix in local
politics and authorized the expulsion of naturalized citizens who
attacked the Government through the press or otherwise. With the
approval of the United States, Panama entered into an agreement
with American financiers providing for the creation of a national
bank, one-fourth of the directors of which should be named by the
Government of the republic.

The second period of American rule in Cuba lasted till 1909.
Control of the Government was then formally transferred to Jose
Miguel Gomez, the President who had been chosen by the Liberals
at the elections held in the previous year; but the United States
did not cease to watch over its chief Caribbean ward. A bitter
controversy soon developed in the Cuban Congress over measures to
forbid the further purchase of land by aliens, and to insure that
a certain percentage of the public offices should be held by
colored citizens. Though both projects were defeated, they
revealed a strong antiforeign sentiment and much dissatisfaction
on the part of the negro population. It was clear also that
Gomez, intended to oust all conservatives from office, for an
obedient Congress passed a bill suspending the civil service
rules.

The partisanship of Gomez, and his supporters, together with the
constant interference of military veterans in political affairs,
provoked numerous outbreaks, which led the United States, in
1912, to warn Cuba that it might again be compelled to intervene.
Eventually, when a negro insurrection in the eastern part of the
island menaced the safety of foreigners, American marines were
landed. Another instance of intervention was the objection by the
United States to an employers' liability law that would have
given a monopoly of the insurance business to a Cuban company to
the detriment of American firms.

After the election of Mario Menocal, the Conservative candidate,
to the presidency in 1912, another occasion for intervention
presented itself. An amnesty bill, originally drafted for the
purpose of freeing the colored insurgents and other offenders,
was amended so as to empower the retiring President to grant
pardon before trial to persons whom his successor wished to
prosecute for wholesale corruption in financial transactions.
Before the bill passed, however, notice was sent from Washington
that, since the American Government had the authority to
supervise the finances of the republic, Gomez would better veto
the bill, and this he accordingly did.

A sharp struggle arose when it became known that Menocal would be
a candidate for reelection. The Liberal majority in the Congress
passed a bill requiring that a President who sought to succeed
himself should resign two months before the elections. When
Menocal vetoed this measure, his opponents demanded that the
United States supervise the elections. As the result of the
elections was doubtful, Gomez and his followers resorted in 1917
to the usual insurrection; whereupon the American Government
warned the rebels that it would not recognize their claims if
they won by force. Active aid from that quarter, as well as the
capture of the insurgent leader, caused the movement to collapse
after the electoral college had decided in favor of Menocal.

In the Dominican Republic disturbances were frequent,
notwithstanding the fact that American officials were in charge
of the customhouses and by their presence were expected to exert
a quieting influence. Even the adoption, in 1908, of a new
constitution which provided for the prolongation of the
presidential term to six years and for the abolition of the
office of Vice President--two stabilizing devices quite common in
Hispanic countries where personal ambition is prone to be a
source of political trouble--did not help much to restore order.
The assassination of the President and the persistence of
age-long quarrels with Haiti over boundaries made matters worse.
Thereupon, in 1913, the United States served formal notice on the
rebellious parties that it would not only refuse to recognize any
Government set up by force but would withhold any share in the
receipts from the customs. As this procedure did not prevent a
revolutionary leader from demanding half a million dollars as a
financial sedative for his political nerves and from creating
more trouble when the President failed to dispense it, the heavy
hand of an American naval force administered another kind of
specific, until commissioners from Porto Rico could arrive to
superintend the selection of a new chief magistrate.
Notwithstanding the protest of the Dominican Government, the
"fairest and freest" elections ever known in the country were
held under the direction of those officials--as a "body of
friendly observers"!

However amicable this arrangement seemed, it did not smother the
flames of discord. In 1916, when an American naval commander
suggested that a rebellious Minister of War leave the capital, he
agreed to do so if the "fairest and freest" of chosen Presidents
would resign. Even after both of them had complied with the
suggestions, the individuals who assumed their respective offices
were soon at loggerheads. Accordingly the United States placed
the republic under military rule, until a President could be
elected who might be able to retain his post without too much
"friendly observation" from Washington, and a Minister of War
could be appointed who would refrain from making war on the
President! Then the organization of a new party to combat the
previous inordinate display of personalities in politics created
some hope that the republic would accomplish its own redemption.

Only because of its relation to the wars of emancipation and to
the Dominican Republic, need the negro state of Haiti, occupying
the western part of the Caribbean island, be mentioned in
connection with the story of the Hispanic nations. Suffice it to
say that the fact that their color was different and that they
spoke a variant of French instead of Spanish did not prevent the
inhabitants of this state from offering a far worse spectacle of
political and financial demoralization than did their neighbors
to the eastward. Perpetual commotions and repeated interventions
by American and European naval forces on behalf of the foreign
residents, eventually made it imperative for the United States to
take direct charge of the republic. In 1916, by a convention
which placed the finances under American control, created a
native constabulary under American officers, and imposed a number
of other restraints, the United States converted Haiti into what
is practically a protectorate.



CHAPTER XII. PAN-AMERICANISM AND THE GREAT WAR

While the Hispanic republics were entering upon the second
century of their independent life, the idea of a certain
community of interests between themselves and the United States
began to assume a fairly definite form. Though emphasized by
American statesmen and publicists in particular, the new point of
view was not generally understood or appreciated by the people of
either this country or its fellow nations to the southward. It
seemed, nevertheless, to promise an effective cooperation in
spirit and action between them and came therefore to be called
"Pan-Americanism."

This sentiment of inter-American solidarity sprang from several
sources. The periodical conferences of the United States and its
sister republics gave occasion for an interchange of official
courtesies and expressions of good feeling. Doubtless, also, the
presence of delegates from the Hispanic countries at the
international gatherings at The Hague served to acquaint the
world at large with the stability, strength, wealth, and culture
of their respective lands. Individual Americans took an active
interest in their fellows of Hispanic stock and found their
interest reciprocated. Motives of business or pleasure and a
desire to obtain personal knowledge about one another led to
visits and countervisits that became steadily more frequent.
Societies were created to encourage the friendship and
acquaintance thus formed. Scientific congresses were held and
institutes were founded in which both the United States and
Hispanic America were represented. Books, articles, and newspaper
accounts about one another's countries were published in
increasing volume. Educational institutions devoted a constantly
growing attention to inter-American affairs. Individuals and
commissions were dispatched by the Hispanic nations and the
United States to study one another's conditions and to confer
about matters of mutual concern. Secretaries of State, Ministers
of Foreign Affairs, and other distinguished personages
interchanged visits. Above all, the common dangers and
responsibilities falling upon the Americas at large as a
consequence of the European war seemed likely to bring the
several nations into a harmony of feeling and relationship to
which they had never before attained.

Pan-Americanism, however, was destined to remain largely a
generous ideal. The action of the United States in extending its
direct influence over the small republics in and around the
Caribbean aroused the suspicion and alarm of Hispanic Americans,
who still feared imperialistic designs on the part of that
country now more than ever the Colossus of the North. "The art of
oratory among the Yankees," declared a South American critic, "is
lavish with a fraternal idealism; but strong wills enforce their
imperialistic ambitions." Impassioned speakers and writers
adjured the ghost of Hispanic confederation to rise and confront
the new northern peril. They even advocated an appeal to Great
Britain, Germany, or Japan, and they urged closer economic,
social, and intellectual relations with the countries of Europe.

It was while the United States was thus widening the sphere of
its influence in the Caribbean that the "A B C"
powers--Argentina, Brazil, and Chile--reached an understanding
which was in a sense a measure of self-defense. For some years
cordial relations had existed among these three nations which had
grown so remarkably in strength and prestige. It was felt that by
united action they might set up in the New World the European
principle of a balance of power, assume the leadership in
Hispanic America, and serve in some degree as a counterpoise to
the United States. Nevertheless they were disposed to cooperate
with their northern neighbor in the peaceable adjustment of
conflicts in which other Hispanic countries were concerned,
provided that the mediation carried on by such a "concert of the
western world" did not include actual intervention in the
internal affairs of the countries involved.

With this attitude of the public mind, it is not strange that the
Hispanic republics at large should have been inclined to look
with scant favor upon proposals made by the United States, in
1916, to render the spirit of Pan-Americanism more precise in its
operation. The proposals in substance were these: that all the
nations of America "mutually agree to guarantee the territorial
integrity" of one another; to "maintain a republican form of
government"; to prohibit the "exportation of arms to any but the
legally constituted governments"; and to adopt laws of neutrality
which would make it "impossible to filibustering expeditions to
threaten or carry on revolutions in neighboring republics." These
proposals appear to have received no formal approval beyond what
is signified by the diplomatic expression "in principle."
Considering the disparity in strength, wealth, and prestige
between the northern country and its southern fellows,
suggestions of the sort could be made practicable only by letting
the United States do whatever it might think needful to
accomplish the objects which it sought. Obviously the Hispanic
nations, singly or collectively, would hardly venture to take any
such action within the borders of the United States itself, if,
for example, it failed to maintain what, in their opinion, was "a
republican form of government." A full acceptance of the plan
accordingly would have amounted to a recognition of American
overlordship, and this they were naturally not disposed to admit.

The common perils and duties confronting the Americas as a result
of the Great War, however, made close cooperation between the
Hispanic republics and the United States up to a certain point
indispensable. Toward that transatlantic struggle the attitude of
all the nations of the New World at the outset was substantially
the same. Though strongly sympathetic on the whole with the
"Allies" and notably with France, the southern countries
nevertheless declared their neutrality. More than that, they
tried to convert neutrality into a Pan-American policy, instead
of regarding it as an official attitude to be adopted by the
republics separately. Thus when the conflict overseas began to
injure the rights of neutrals, Argentina and other nations urged
that the countries of the New World jointly agree to declare that
direct maritime commerce between American lands should be
considered as "inter-American coastwise trade," and that the
merchant ships engaged in it, whatever the flag under which they
sailed, should be looked upon as neutral. Though the South
American countries failed to enlist the support of their northern
neighbor in this bold departure from international precedent,
they found some compensation for their disappointment in the
closer commercial and financial relations which they established
with the United States.

Because of the dependence of the Hispanic nations, and especially
those of the southern group, on the intimacy of their economic
ties with the belligerents overseas, they suffered from the
ravages of the struggle more perhaps than other lands outside of
Europe. Negotiations for prospective loans were dropped.
Industries were suspended, work on public improvements was
checked, and commerce brought almost to a standstill. As the
revenues fell off and ready money became scarce, drastic measures
had to be devised to meet the financial strain. For the
protection of credit, bank holidays were declared, stock
exchanges were closed, moratoria were set up in nearly all the
countries, taxes and duties were increased, radical reductions in
expenditure were undertaken, and in a few cases large quantities
of paper money were issued.

With the European market thus wholly or partially cut off, the
Hispanic republics were forced to supply the consequent shortage
with manufactured articles and other goods from the United States
and to send thither their raw materials in exchange. To their
northern neighbor they had to turn also for pecuniary aid. A
Pan-American financial conference was held at Washington in 1915,
and an international high commission was appointed to carry its
recommendations into effect. Gradually most of the Hispanic
countries came to show a favorable trade balance. Then, as the
war drew into its fourth year, several of them even began to
enjoy great prosperity. That Pan-Americanism had not meant much
more than cooperation for economic ends seemed evident when, on
April 6, 1917, the United States declared war on Germany. Instead
of following spontaneously in the wake of their great northern
neighbor, the Hispanic republics were divided by conflicting
currents of opinion and hesitated as to their proper course of
procedure. While a majority of them expressed approval of what
the United States had done, and while Uruguay for its part
asserted that "no American country, which in defense of its own
rights should find itself in a state of war with nations of other
continents, would be treated as a belligerent," Mexico veered
almost to the other extreme by proposing that the republics of
America agree to lay an embargo on the shipment of munitions to
the warring powers.

As a matter of fact, only seven out of the nineteen Hispanic
nations saw fit to imitate the example set by their northern
neighbor and to declare war on Germany. These were Cuba--in view
of its "duty toward the United States," Panama, Guatemala,
Brazil, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica. Since the Dominican
Republic at the time was under American military control, it was
not in a position to choose its course. Four countries Ecuador,
Peru, Bolivia, and Uruguay--broke off diplomatic relations with
Germany. The other seven republics--Mexico, Salvador, Colombia,
Venezuela, Chile, Argentina, and Paraguay--continued their formal
neutrality. In spite of a disclosure made by the United States of
insulting and threatening utterances on the part of the German
charge d'affaires in Argentina, which led to popular outbreaks at
the capital and induced the national Congress to declare in favor
of a severance of diplomatic relations with that functionary's
Government, the President of the republic stood firm in his
resolution to maintain neutrality. If Pan-Americanism had ever
involved the idea of political cooperation among the nations of
the New World, it broke down just when it might have served the
greatest of purposes. Even the "A B C" combination itself had
apparently been shattered.

A century and more had now passed since the Spanish and
Portuguese peoples of the New World had achieved their
independence. Eighteen political children of various sizes and
stages of advancement, or backwardness, were born of Spain in
America, and one acknowledged the maternity of Portugal. Big
Brazil has always maintained the happiest relations with the
little mother in Europe, who still watches with pride the growth
of her strapping youngster. Between Spain and her descendants,
however, animosity endured for many years after they had thrown
off the parental yoke. Yet of late, much has been done on both
sides to render the relationship cordial. The graceful act of
Spain in sending the much-beloved Infanta Isabel to represent her
in Argentina and Chile at the celebration of the centennial
anniversary of their cry for independence, and to wish them
Godspeed on their onward journey, was typical of the yearning of
the mother country for her children overseas, despite the lapse
of years and political ties. So, too, her ablest men of intellect
have striven nobly and with marked success to revive among them a
sense of filial affection and gratitude for all that Spain
contributed to mold the mind and heart of her kindred in distant
lands. On their part, the Hispanic Americans have come to a
clearer consciousness of the fact that on the continents of the
New World there are two distinct types of civilization, with all
that each connotes of differences in race, psychology, tradition,
language, and custom--their own, and that represented by the
United States. Appreciative though the southern countries are of
their northern neighbor, they cling nevertheless to their
heritage from Spain and Portugal in whatever seems conducive to
the maintenance of their own ideals of life and thought.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

For anything like a detailed study of the history of the Hispanic
nations of America, obviously one must consult works written in
Spanish and Portuguese. There are many important books, also, in
French and German; but, with few exceptions, the recommendations
for the general reader will be limited to accounts in English.

A very useful outline and guide to recent literature on the
subject is W. W. Pierson, Jr., "A Syllabus of Latin-American
History" (Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 1917). A brief
introduction to the history and present aspects of Hispanic
American civilization is W. R. Shepherd, "Latin America" (New
York, 1914). The best general accounts of the Spanish and
Portuguese colonial systems will be found in Charles de Lannoy
and Herman van der Linden, "Histoire de L'Expansion Coloniale des
Peuples Europeens: Portugal et Espagne" (Brussels and Paris,
1907), and Kurt Simon, "Spanien and Portugal als See and
Kolonialmdchte" (Hamburg, 1913). For the Spanish colonial regime
alone, E. G. Bourne, "Spain in America" (New York, 1904) is
excellent. The situation in southern South America toward the
close of Spanish rule is well described in Bernard Moses, "South
America on the Eve of Emancipation" (New York, 1908). Among
contemporary accounts of that period, Alexander von Humboldt and
Aime Bonpland, "Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial
Regions of America", 3 vols. (London, 1881); Alexander von
Humboldt, "Political Essay on the Kingdom of New Spain", 4 vols.
(London,1811-1822); and F. R. J. de Pons, "Travels in South
America", 2 vols. (London, 1807), are authoritative, even if not
always easy to read.

On the wars of independence, see the scholarly treatise by W. S.
Robertson, "Rise of the Spanish-American Republics as Told in the
Lives of their Liberators" (New York, 1918); Bartolome Mitre,
"The Emancipation of South America" (London, 1893)--a condensed
translation of the author's "Historia de San Martin", and wholly
favorable to that patriot; and F. L. Petre, "Simon Bolivar"
(London, 1910)--impartial at the expense of the imagination.
Among the numerous contemporary accounts, the following will be
found serviceable: W. D. Robinson, "Memoirs of the Mexican
Revolution" (Philadelphia, 1890); J. R. Poinsett, "Notes on
Mexico" (London, 1825); H. M. Brackenridge, "Voyage to South
America, 2 vols. (London, 1820); W. B. Stevenson, "Historical and
Descriptive Narrative of Twenty Years' Residence in South
America", 3 vols. (London, 1895); J. Miller, "Memoirs of General
Miller in the Service of the Republic of Peru", 2 vols. (London,
1828); H. L. V. Ducoudray Holstein, "Memoirs of Simon Bolivar", 2
vols. (London, 1830), and John Armitage, "History of Brazil", 2
vols. (London, 1836).

The best books on the history of the republics as a whole since
the attainment of independence, and written from an Hispanic
American viewpoint, are F. Garcia Calderon, "Latin America, its
Rise and Progress" (New York, 1913), and M. de Oliveira Lima,
"The Evolution of Brazil Compared with that of Spanish and
Anglo-Saxon America" (Stanford University, California, 1914). The
countries of Central America are dealt with by W. H. Koebel,
"Central America" (New York, 1917), and of South America by T. C.
Dawson, "The South American Republics", 2 vols. (New York,
1903-1904), and C. E. Akers, "History of South America" (London,
1912), though in a manner that often confuses rather than
enlightens.

Among the histories and descriptions of individual countries,
arranged in alphabetical order, the following are probably the
most useful to the general reader: W. A. Hirst, "Argentina" (New
York, 1910); Paul Walle, "Bolivia" (New York, 1914); Pierre
Denis, "Brazil" (New York, 1911); G. F. S. Elliot, "Chile" (New
York, 1907); P. J. Eder, "Colombia" (New York, 1913); J. B.
Calvo, "The Republic of Costa Rica" (Chicago, 1890); A. G.
Robinson, "Cuba, Old and New" (New York, 1915); Otto Schoenrich,
"Santo Domingo" (New York, 1918); C. R. Enock, "Ecuador" (New
York, 1914); C. R. Enock, "Mexico" (New York, 1909); W. H.
Koebel, "Paraguay" (New York, 1917); C. R. Enock, "Peru" (New
York, 1910); W. H. Koebel, "Uruguay" (New York, 1911), and L. V.
Dalton, "Venezuela" (New York, 1912). Of these, the books by
Robinson and Eder, on Cuba and Colombia, respectively, are the
most readable and reliable.

For additional bibliographical references see "South America" and
the articles on individual countries in "The Encyclopaedia
Britannica", 11th edition, and in Marrion Wilcox and G. E. Rines,
"Encyclopedia of Latin America" (New York, 1917).

Of contemporary or later works descriptive of the life and times
of eminent characters in the history of the Hispanic American
republics since 1830, a few may be taken as representative.
Rosas: J. A. King, "Twenty-four Years in the Argentine Republic"
(London, 1846), and Woodbine Parish, "Buenos Ayres and the
Provinces of the Rio de la Plata" (London, 1850). Francia: J. R.
Rengger, "Reign of Dr. Joseph Gaspard Roderick [!] de Francia in
Paraguay" (London, 1827); J. P. and W. P. Robertson, "Letters on
South America", 3 vols. (London, 1843), and E. L. White, "El
Supremo", a novel (New York, 1916). Santa Anna: Waddy Thompson,
"Recollections of Mexico" (New York, 1846), and F. E. Ingles,
Calderon de la Barca, "Life in Mexico" (London, 1859.). Juarez:
U. R. Burke, "Life of Benito Juarez" (London, 1894). Solano
Lopez: T. J. Hutchinson, "Parana; with Incidents of the
Paraguayan War and South American Recollections" (London, 1868);
George Thompson, "The War in Paraguay" (London, 1869); R. F.
Burton, "Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay" (London,
1870), and C. A. Washburn, "The History of Paraguay", 2 vols.
(Boston, 1871). Pedro II: J. C. Fletcher and D. P. Kidder,
"Brazil and the Brazilians" (Boston, 1879), and Frank Bennett,
"Forty Years in Brazil "(London, 1914). Garcia Moreno: Frederick
Hassaurek, "Four Years among Spanish Americans "(New York, 1867).
Guzman Blanco: C. D. Dance, "Recollections of Four Years in
Venezuela" (London, 1876). Diaz: James Creelman, "Diaz, Master of
Mexico" (New York, 1911). Balmaceda: M. H. Hervey, "Dark Days in
Chile" (London, 1891-1890. Carranza: L. Gutierrez de Lara and
Edgcumb Pinchon, "The Mexican People: their Struggle for Freedom"
(New York, 1914).

End of the Project Gutenberg etext of The Hispanic Nations of the
New World.




End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Hispanic Nations of the New World
by William R. Shepherd

