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CHAPTER IV
REVOLUTION

For three hundred years Spain governed the rich possessions which she had so easily won. At the close of that period the population was about sixteen million – a number very much smaller than the conquerors found on island and continent. The increase of three centuries had not repaired the waste of thirty years. Of the sixteen million two were Spaniards; the remainder were Indians, negroes, or persons of mixed descent.

Spain ruled in a spirit of blind selfishness. Her aim was to wring from her tributary provinces the largest possible advantage to herself. Her administration was conducted by men sent out from Spain for that purpose, and no man was eligible for office unless he could prove his descent from ancestors of unblemished orthodoxy. It was held that men circumstanced as these were must remain for ever true to the pleasant system of which they formed part, and were in no danger of becoming tainted with colonial sympathies. This expectation was not disappointed. During all the years of her sordid and unintelligent rule, the servants of Spain were scarcely ever tempted, by any concern for the welfare of the colonists, to deviate from the traditional policy of the parent State. Corruption fostered by a system of government which inculcated the wisdom of a rapid fortune and an early return to Spain was excessive and audacious. Those Spaniards who had made their home in the colonies were admitted to no share in the administration. Many of them had amassed great wealth; but yielding to the influences of an enervating climate and a repressive Government, they had become a luxurious, languid class, devoid of enterprise or intelligence.

In course of years the poor remnants of the native population which had been bestowed, for a certain number of lives, upon the conquerors, reverted to the Crown, and their annual tribute formed a considerable branch of revenue.³⁵ The Indians had been long recognized by the law as freemen, but they were still in the remoter districts subjected to compulsory service on the fields and in the mines. They were no longer, however, exposed to the unrestrained brutality of a race which they were too feeble to resist. Officers were appointed in every district to inquire into their grievances and protect them from wrong. In their villages they were governed by their own chiefs, who were salaried by the Spanish Government; and they lived in tolerable contentment, avoiding, so far as that was possible, the unequal companionship which had brought misery so great upon their race.

In the early years of the conquest, negroes were imported from Africa on the suggestion of Las Casas,³⁶ and for the purpose of staying the destruction of the native population. Negro labour was soon found to be indispensable, and the importation of slaves became a lucrative trade. The demand was large and constant; for the negroes perished so rapidly in their merciless bondage that in some of the islands one negro in every six died annually. France enjoyed for many years the advantage of supplying these victims. 1713 A.D. But England having been victorious over Spain in a great war, wrung from her the guilty privilege of procuring for her the slaves who were to toil and die in her cruel service. After the Treaty of Utrecht, the Spanish colonists were forbidden to purchase negroes excepting from English vessels.

Down to the period of the conquest the Indians had utterly failed to establish dominion over the lower animals. Excepting in Peru, there was almost no attempt made to domesticate, and in Peru it extended no higher than to the sheep. There was no horse on the continent; there were no cattle. It was the fatal disadvantage of being without mounted soldiers which made the subjugation of the Indians so easy. The Spaniards introduced the horse as the chief instrument of their success in war. From time to time as riders were killed in battle, or died smitten by disease, their neglected horses escaped into the wilderness. 1548 A.D. Fifty years after the discovery of the New World a Spaniard introduced cattle. On the boundless plains of the southern continent the increase of both races was enormous. In course of years countless millions of horses and of cattle wandered masterless among the luxuriant vegetation of the pampas. Their presence introduced an element which was wanting before in the population. The pastoral natives of the pampas, to whose ancestors the horse was unknown, have become the best horsemen in the world. They may almost be said to live in the saddle. They support themselves mainly by hunting and slaughtering wild cattle. The submissiveness of their fathers has passed away. They are rude, passionate, fierce; and, as the Spaniards found to their cost, they furnish an effective and formidable cavalry for the purposes of war. A few thousands of such horsemen would have rendered Spanish conquest impossible, and given a widely different course to the history of the continent.

In spite of the indolence of the colonial Spaniards and the mischievous restrictions imposed by the mother country, the trade of the colonies had largely increased. Especially was this the case when certain ameliorations, which even Spain could no longer withhold, were introduced. 1748 A.D. The annual fleet was discontinued; single trading ships registered for that purpose sailed as their owners found encouragement to send them. 1765 A.D. By successive steps the trade of the islands was opened to all Spaniards trading from the principal Spanish ports; the continental colonies were permitted to trade freely with one another, and 1774 A.D. a few years later they were permitted to trade with the islands. These tardy concessions to the growing enlightenment of mankind resulted in immediate expansion, and increased the colonial traffic to dimensions of vast importance. 1809 A.D. At the time when the colonies raised the standard of revolt their annual purchases from Spain amounted to fifteen million sterling, and the annual exports of their own products amounted to eighteen million. The colonial revenue was in a position so flourishing that, after providing for all expenses on a scale of profuse and corrupt extravagance, Spain found that her American colonies yielded her a net annual profit of two million sterling.

The Spaniards, although, as one of the results of their prolonged religious war against the Moorish invaders, they had fallen under a debasing subserviency to their priests, cherished a hereditary love of civil liberty. The Visigoths, from whom they sprang, brought with them into Spain an elective monarchy, a large measure of personal freedom, and even the germs of a representative system. During the war of independence the cities enjoyed the privilege of self-government, and were represented in the national councils. 1504 A.D. Queen Isabella, in her will, spoke of “the free consent of the people” as being essential to the lawfulness of taxation. A few years afterwards, the King’s Preachers, in their noble pleading for the Indians, assert that “a King’s title depends upon his rendering service to his people, or being chosen by them.” Three centuries later, the Spaniards gave unexpected evidence that their inherited love of democracy had not been extinguished by ages of blind superstition and despotism. 1812 A.D. While Europe still accepted the practice and even the theory of personal government, there issued from the Spanish people a democratic constitution, which served as a rallying cry to the nations of Southern Europe in their early struggles for liberty and representation.

The successful assertion of their independence by the thirteen English colonies of the northern continent appealed to the slumbering democracy of the Spanish colonists, and increased the general discontent with the political system under which they lived. 1780 A.D. A revolt in Peru gave to Spain a warning which she was not sufficiently wise to understand. The revolt was suppressed. Its leader, after he had been compelled to witness the death by burning of his wife and children, was himself torn to pieces by wild horses in the great square of Lima. The Spanish Government, satisfied with its triumph, made no effort to remove the grievances which estranged its subjects and threatened the overthrow of its colonial empire.

For thirty years more, although discontent continued to increase, the languid tranquillity of the Spanish colonies was undisturbed. But there had now arisen in Europe a power which was destined to shatter the decaying political systems of the Old World, and whose influences, undiminished by distance, were to introduce changes equally vast upon the institutions of the New World. Napoleon had cast greedy eyes upon the colonial dominion of Spain, and coveted, for the lavish expenditure which he maintained, the treasure yielded by the mines of Peru and Mexico. 1808 A.D. He placed his brother on the throne of Spain; he attempted to gain over the Viceroys to his side. Spain was now a dependency of France. The colonists might have continued for many years longer in subjection to Spain, but they utterly refused to transfer their allegiance to her conqueror. With one accord they rejected the authority of France; and, having no rightful monarch to serve, they set up government for themselves. At first they did not claim to be independent, but continued to avow loyalty to the dethroned King, and even sent money to strengthen the patriot cause. But meantime they tasted the sweetness of liberty. Four years later the usurpers were cast out, and the old King was brought back to Madrid. Spain sought to replace her yoke upon the emancipated colonies, making it plain that she had no thought of lightening their burdens or widening their liberties. The time had passed when it was possible for Spanish despotism to regain its footing on American soil. Many of the provinces had already claimed their independence, and the others were prepared for the same decisive step. The ascendency of Europe over the American continent had ceased. But Spain followed England in her attempt to compel the allegiance of subjects whose affection she had forfeited. In her deep poverty and exhaustion she entered upon a costly war, which, after inflicting for sixteen years vast evils on both the Old World and the New, terminated in her ignominious defeat.

The provinces which bordered on the Gulf of Mexico had a larger intercourse with Europe than their sister States, and were the first to become imbued with the liberal ideas which were now gaining prevalence among the European people. They had constant communication with the West India islands, on one of which they had long been familiar with the mild rule of England, while on another they had seen a free Negro State arise and vindicate its liberties against the power of France. 1797 A.D. The island of Trinidad, lying near their shores, had been conquered by England, who used her new possession as a centre from which revolutionary impulses could be conveniently diffused among the subjects of her enemy. Bordering thus upon territories where freedom was enjoyed, the Colombian provinces learned more quickly than the remoter colonies to hate the despotism of Spain, and were first to enter the path which led to independence.

1810 A.D. Seven of these northern provinces formed themselves into a union, which they styled the Confederation of Venezuela. They did not yet assert independence of Spain. But they abolished the tax which had been levied from the Indians; they declared commerce to be free; they gathered up the Spanish Governor and his councillors, and, having put them on board ship, sent them decisively out of the country. Only one step remained, and it was speedily taken. Next year Venezuela declared her independence, and prepared as she best might to assert it in arms against the forces of Spain.

One of the fathers of South American independence was Francis Miranda. He was a native of Caraccas, and now a man in middle life. In his youth he had fought under the French for the independence of the English colonies on the Northern Continent. When he had seen the victorious close of that war he returned to Venezuela, carrying with him sympathies which made it impossible to bear in quietness the despotism of Spain. A few years later Miranda offered his sword to the young French republic, and took part in some of her battles. But he lost the favour of the new rulers of France, and betook himself to England, where he sought to gain English countenance to the efforts of the Venezuelan patriots. He mustered a force of five hundred English and Americans, and he expected that his countrymen would flock to his standard. But his countrymen were not yet prepared for action so decisive, and his efforts proved for the time abortive. It was this man who laid the foundations of independence, but he himself was not permitted to see the triumph of the great cause. 1812 A.D. The patriot arms had made some progress, and high hopes were entertained; but the province was smitten by an earthquake, which overthrew several towns and destroyed twenty thousand lives. The priests interpreted this calamity as the judgment of Heaven upon rebellion, and the credulous people accepted their teaching. The cause of independence, thus supernaturally discredited, was for the time abandoned. Miranda himself fell into the hands of his enemies, and perished in a Spanish dungeon.

His lieutenant, Don Simon Bolivar, was the destined vindicator of the liberties of the South American Continent. Bolivar was still a young man; his birth was noble; his disposition was ardent and enterprising; among military leaders he claims a high place. His love of liberty, enkindled by the great deliverance which the United States and France had lately achieved, was the grand animating impulse of his life. But his heart was unsoftened by civilizing influences. Under his savage guidance, the story of the war of independence becomes a record not only of battles ably and bravely fought, but of ruthless massacres habitually perpetrated.

For ten years the war, with varying fortune, held on its destructive course. Spain, blindly tenacious of the rich possessions which were passing from her grasp, continued to squander the substance of her people in vain efforts to reconquer the empire with which Columbus and Cortes and Pizarro had crowned her, and which her own incapacity had destroyed. She was utterly wasted by the prolonged war which Napoleon had forced upon her. She was miserably poor. Her unpaid soldiers, inspired by revolutionary sympathies, rose in mutiny against the service to which they were destined. But still Spain maintained the hopeless and desolating strife.

When the terrors of the earthquake had passed away, the patriots threw themselves once more into the contest, with energy which made their final success sure. On both sides a savage and ferocious cruelty was constantly practised. The Royalists slaughtered as rebels the prisoners who fell into their hands. Bolivar announced that “the chief purpose of the war was to destroy in Venezuela the cursed race of Spaniards.” Soldiers who presented a certain number of Spanish heads were raised to the rank of officers. The decree of extirpation was enforced against multitudes of unoffending Spaniards – even against men in helpless age, so infirm that they could not stand to receive the fatal bullet, and were therefore placed in chairs and thus executed. In South America, as in France, the revolt against the cruel despotism of ages was itself without restraint of pity or remorse. The severity which despotism calmly imposes, under due form of law, is in the fulness of time responded to by the passionate and savage outburst of the sufferers’ rage. It is lamentable that it should be so; but while tyrant and victim remain, Nature’s stern method of deliverance must be accepted.

When Miranda first sought the help of England, he received a certain amount of encouragement. Englishmen served in the ranks of his first army, and English money contributed to their equipment. 1810 A.D. A little later England was in league with Spain for the overthrow of Napoleon, and her Government frowned upon “any attempt to dismember the Spanish monarchy.” But when the purposes of this union were served, the inalienable sympathy of the British people with men struggling for liberty asserted itself openly and energetically. 1819-20 A.D. Ample loans were made to the insurgent Governments; recruiting stations were established in the chief towns of England; many veterans who had fought under Wellington offered to the patriot cause the invaluable aid of their disciplined and experienced courage.

Thus reinforced, Bolivar was able to press hard upon the discouraged Royalists. The protracted struggle was about to close. June, 1821 A.D. Four thousand Spaniards, unable now to meet their enemies in the field, lay in a strong position near Carabobo. Bolivar with a force of eight thousand watched during many days for an opportunity to attack. Of his troops twelve hundred were British veterans. Bolivar succeeded at length in placing his forces on the flank of the enemy and compelling him to accept battle. The Spaniards at the outset gained important advantage, and broke the first line of the assailants. Unaware of the presence of British auxiliaries, they advanced as to assured victory. But when they saw, through the smoke of battle, the advancing ranks and levelled bayonets of the British, and heard the loud and defiant cheers of men confident in their own superior prowess, their hearts failed them and they fled. The victory of Carabobo closed the war in the northern provinces. Henceforth the liberty of Venezuela was secure.

The revolutionary movement which originated on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico extended itself quickly into all the continental possessions of Spanish America. The overthrow of government in Spain imposed upon every province the necessity of determining for itself the political system under which its affairs should be conducted. The course pursued in all was substantially identical. There came first the establishment of a native government, administered in the King’s name. Gradually this insincere acceptance of an abhorred yoke was discarded, and the colonies were unanimous in their resolution to become independent. In each there was a Royalist element which struggled bravely and bitterly to uphold the ancient rule of the mother country, with all its pleasant abuses and unfathomable evils. In each it was the care of Spain to strengthen the Royalists and maintain the contest. During many years Spanish America was the theatre of universal civil war. Evils of appalling magnitude flowed from the prolonged and envenomed strife. Population sunk in many localities to little more than one-half of what it had formerly been. The scanty agriculture of the continent became yet more insignificant. Commerce lost more than one-half its accustomed volume. The supply of gold and silver well-nigh ceased. In some years it fell to one-tenth, and during the whole revolutionary period it was less than one-third of what it had been in quieter times. Never before had war inflicted greater miseries upon its victims or extended its devastations over a wider field.

Peru was the last stronghold of Spanish authority. Spain put forth her utmost effort to maintain her hold upon the mineral treasures which were almost essential to her existence. The desire for independence was less enthusiastic here than in the other provinces; the insurrectionary movement was more fitful and more easily suppressed. When independence had triumphed everywhere besides, the Peruvian republic was struggling, hopelessly, for existence. The Spaniards had possessed themselves of the capital; a reactionary impulse had spread itself among the soldiers, and numerous desertions had weakened and discouraged the patriot ranks. The cause of liberty seemed almost lost in Peru; the old despotism which had been cast out of the other provinces seemed to regain its power over the land of the Incas, and threatened to establish itself there as a standing menace to the liberty and peace of the continent.

1820 A.D. But at this juncture circumstances occurred in Europe whose influences reinforced the patriot cause and led to its early and decisive victory. A revolutionary movement had broken out in Spain, and attained strength so formidable that the Bourbon King was forced to accept universal suffrage. The restored monarchy of France sent an army into Spain to suppress these disorders and re-establish the accustomed despotism. The expedition, led by a French prince, achieved a success which was regarded as brilliant, and which naturally gained for France a large increase of influence in the affairs of the Peninsula. England, not delivered even by Waterloo from her hereditary jealousy of France, regarded this gain with displeasure. Mr. Canning, who then directed the foreign policy of England, resolved that since France now predominated over Spain, it should be over Spain shorn of her American possessions. As he grandly boasted, he “called the New World into existence to redress the balance of the Old.” 1823 A.D. In simple prose, he acknowledged the independence of the revolted Spanish provinces, and entered into relations with them by means of consuls. As a consequence of this recognition, large supplies of money and of arms were received by the insurgents, and many veteran British and French soldiers joined their ranks.

1823 A.D. These reinforcements made it possible for Bolivar to equip a strong force and hasten to the support of the sinking republic of Peru. He arrived at Lima with an army of ten thousand men, many of whom had gained their knowledge of war under Napoleon and Wellington. Here he made his preparations for the arduous undertaking of carrying his army across the Andes. When Pizarro entered upon the same enterprise, he marched across a plain made fertile by the industry of the people; among the mountains his progress was aided by the great roads of the barbarians and the frequent magazines and places of shelter which they had providently erected. But three centuries of Spanish dominion had effaced the works of the Incas, and had carried the land, by great strides, back towards desolation. The roads and the canals for irrigation had fallen into decay; the fruitful plain was now an arid and sterile wilderness. Bolivar had to make roads, to build sheds, to lay up stores of food along his line of march, before he could venture to set out. The toil of the ascent was extreme, and the men suffered much from the cold into which they advanced. The Royalists did not wait for their descent, but met them among the mountains at an elevation of twelve thousand feet above sea-level. During many months there was fighting without decisive result. At length the armies met for a conflict which it was now perceived must be final. Dec. 9, 1824 A.D. On the plain of Ayacucho, twelve thousand Royalists encountered the Republican army, numbering now scarcely more than one-half the opposing forces. The outnumbered Independents fought bravely, but the fortune of war seemed to declare against them, and they were being driven from the field with a defeat which must soon have become a rout. At that perilous moment an English general commanding the Republican cavalry struck with all his force on the flank of the victorious but disordered Spaniards. The charge could not be resisted. The Spaniards fled from the field, leaving their artillery and many prisoners, among whom was the Viceroy. A final and decisive victory had been gained. The war ceased; Peru and Chili were given over by treaty to the friends of liberty, and the authority which Spain had so vilely abused had no longer a foothold on the soil of the great South American Continent.

The process by which Spain was stripped of her American possessions, and of which we have now seen the close, had begun within a hundred years after the conquest. When she ceased to obtain gold and silver from the islands of the Gulf of Mexico, Spain ceased to concern herself about these portions of her empire. The other nations of Europe, guided by a wiser estimate, sought to possess themselves of the neglected islands. Soon after the death of Queen Elizabeth, the English established themselves on Barbadoes, and began industriously to cultivate tobacco, indigo, and the sugar-cane. A little later, the French formed settlements on Martinique and Guadaloupe, as the English did on St. Christopher, and held them against all the efforts of Spain. Oliver Cromwell seized Jamaica, and peopled the island with “idle and disaffected” persons, who were sent out with slight regard to their own wishes.³⁷ The buccaneers formed many settlements, which were assailed but could not be extirpated. 1665 to 1671 A.D. One of these, on the island of St. Domingo, was taken under the protection of France. The Danes possessed themselves of St. Thomas. During the ceaseless wars of the eighteenth century France and England competed keenly for dominion in the Gulf of Mexico, and the maritime supremacy of England gave her decisive advantage in the contest. Few wars closed without a new cession of colonial lands by France or by Spain to England. 1763 A.D. On the Northern Continent, Florida was added to the English possessions. The vast territory known as Mississippi passed into the hands of the United States. The revolutionary movement of the nineteenth century wrenched from Spain all the rich provinces which she owned on the Southern Continent, and the battle of Ayacucho left her with only an inconsiderable fragment of those boundless possessions which, by a strange fortune, had fallen into her unworthy hands.

Only Cuba and Puerto Rico remain, to preserve the humiliating memory of a magnificent colonial dominion gained and held without difficulty; governed in shameless selfishness; lost by utter incapacity. Puerto Rico is an inconsiderable island, scarcely larger than the largest of our English counties, lying off the northern shores of the continent. It holds a population of six or seven hundred thousand persons, one-half of whom are slaves.³⁸ Its people occupy themselves in the cultivation of sugar and tobacco, and are still governed by Spain according to the traditions which guided her policy during the darkest period of her colonial history.

Cuba is the noblest of all the islands which Columbus found in the West. It lies in the entrance to the Gulf of Mexico, where Yucatan on the Southern Continent draws towards Florida on the Northern to form the seaward boundaries of the Gulf. Its area is about one-half that of Great Britain. Its population is one million four hundred thousand,³⁹ of whom one-fourth are slaves. The rich soil yields two and even three crops of corn annually; the perpetual summer of its genial climate clothes in blossom throughout the whole year the aromatic plants and trees which beautify its plains. The sugar-cane, whose cultivation is the leading industry of the island, is a source of vast wealth. To the extent of one-half its area the island is covered with dense forests of valuable timber still untouched by the axe. The orange tree, the citron, the pomegranate yield, spontaneously, their rich harvest of precious fruits.

But the bounty of Nature has been neutralized by the unworthiness of man. The blight of Spanish government has fallen heavily on this lovely island. When the other American possessions of Spain threw aside the yoke, the leading Cubans assembled and swore solemnly to maintain for ever the authority of the parent State. They still plume themselves on their loyalty, and speak fondly of Cuba as “the ever-faithful isle.” But neither the obedience of Cuba nor the rebellion of the other colonies moved the blind rulers of Spain to mitigate the evils which their authority inflicted. The ancient system was enforced on Cuba when she became the sole care of Spain precisely as it had been when she was still a member of a great colonial dominion. All offices were still occupied by natives of Spain; all Spaniards born in Cuba were still regarded with contempt by their haughty countrymen from beyond the sea. Governors still exercised a purely despotic authority; the home Government still claimed a large gain from the colonial revenue; all religions but one were still excluded. The loss of a continent had taught no lesson to incapable Spain.

After the successful assertion of independence by the continental States, frequent insurrections testified to the presence of a liberal spirit in Cuba. These were suppressed without difficulty, but not without much needless cruelty. 1868 A.D. At length there burst out an insurrection which surpassed all the others in dimensions and duration. It continued to rage during eight years; it cost Spain one hundred and fifty thousand of her best soldiers; nearly one-half the sugar plantations of the island were destroyed; population decreased; trade decayed; poverty and famine scourged the unhappy island.

1876 A.D. Spain was able at length to crush out the rebellion and maintain her grasp over this poor remnant of her American empire. Cuba emerged from those miserable years in a state of utter exhaustion. Many of her people had perished by famine or by the sword; many others had fled from a land blighted by a government which they were not able either to reject or to endure. Spain sought to make Cuba defray the costs of her own subjugation, and taxation became enormous. The expenditure of Cuba is at the rate of fifteen pounds for each of the population, or six times the rate of that of Great Britain. Only three-fourths of the total sum can be wrung from the impoverished people, even by a severity of taxation which is steadily crushing out the agriculture of the island; and a large annual deficit is rapidly increasing the public debt.⁴⁰ Already that debt has been trebled by the rebellion and its consequences. None of the devices to which distressed States are accustomed to resort have been omitted, and an inconvertible currency, so large as to be hopelessly unmanageable, presses heavily upon the sinking industries of Cuba.⁴¹