SIMON BOLl VARCHAPTER I

SOUTH AMERICA UNDER SPANISH RULE

B

EFORE entering upon the life of SimonBolivar,' it is necessary to give a briefaccount of the country in which the greaterpart of it was spent, and of the circum-

stances, the grievances, and the administration which ledup to the Revolution in which he played the most pro-minent part. To give anything like a detailed accountof the system of administration of her American colonies,or more accurately dominions, by Spain during the threecenturies between their first conquest and their finalemancipation from the rule of the mother country wouldrequire a considerable volume to itself. All that we canafford space for here is a mere outline, sufficient to serveas a guide to the motives and interests which promptedthe insurrection throughout Spanish America, fromMexico to Chile and Buenos Aires.

Spain owed the acquisition of her New World king-doms of Mexico and Guatemala, of Venezuela, NewGranada, Peru, Chile, and Buenos Aires to the semi-private adventures of men like Cortés, the Pizarros,Q uesada, and Benalcazar, who have been crowned witha halo of romance which, with the casual reader ofhistory, has served to withdraw attention from the

Bolivar, not BoiIvr, as it is sometimes mispronounced In England.3

4 SIMON BOLIVAR

hideous crimes which stained th Ie annals of most of the"conquistadores." One is apt to fhink of Cortés or Pizarrochiefly as the hero of deeds of daring which surpassedin splendour many of those attributed by romance to itsfavourites. It is easy enough to learn from the delightfulworks of W. H. Prescott, or a dozen other sources, thehistory of the crimes openly per on the peaceableand comparatively defenceless peoples of the New World,to whom the invaders at first appeared as gods from abetter world. But their ruthless cruelty, shamelesstreachery, and unbounded lust o[ riches soon marked theconquerors out as, what many of them were, the scum ofEurope. For the conquering bands were largely recruited,not only from Spain, but fro Germany, Italy, andalmost every other country of Europe. These men,pushed to desperate adventures almost solely by thehope of wealth, encountered anything approachingcivilisation only in Mexico and Peru for the civilisa-tion of the Muyscas of the highlands of New Granadawas of the most elementary description.

It was impossible that men of the class of the "con-quistadores" should be left permanently to rule the vastempire, twice the size of Europe, of which they had laidthe foundations, and in 1542 Spain began the issue oflaws for the government of iher colonial empire inAmerica and the West Indies. Had all the laws pre-scribed in the course of three centuries been carriedout, or been even possible of execution, the lot of theaboriginal inhabitants might 1ave been very differentfrom what it was for it was not due so much to wantof goodwill on the part of the Spanish sovereigns as to theirignorance of how to solve the problems which, at a dis-tance of several thousand miles,

I they failed to understand.

There was in the government of the mother country aperpetual profession of solicitud4 for the welfare, not onlyof its Spanish, but also of its Indian subjects.

SOUTH AMERICA UNDER SPANISH RULEBut the laws which were issued, with innumerable

amendments, soon became too confused and intricatefor comprehension even by administrators of the bestintentions, who unfortunately were rare. The men whowent out from Spain to fill the higher offices in thetransatlantic kingdoms felt that they must make haywhile the sun shone, and their main object was to amassa fortune as some compensation for a period of exile touncongenial surroundings, and often to a bad climateMoreover, in a territory so vast in area, so sparselypopulated, so unprovided with means of communication,the practical control exercised by even the most well-meaning Viceroy or Captain-General must necessarilybe weak. Add to this that many of the laws, especiallythose aiming at the protection of the aborigines, weredirectly opposed to the selfish interests of the immigrants,who looked upon the Indians as created only for the purposeof amassing wealth for their conquerors by their labour.Finding on the spot a people generally endowed withmuscular limbs, the Spanish mine-owner saw in themexcellent labourers for the extraction of the gold andsilver, to which he looked as the only wealth of thecountry. He failed to remember, or, if he remembered,to pay any heed to the fact that such work was fatal tothe health, even the life of men bred in the free upperair. What was the loss of life amongst the Indiansemployed in the mines none can ever know, but it iscertain that it was enormous. The importation of negroslaves aimed at stopping this loss, to some extent, by thesubstitution of their labour in the mines; but it onlysucceeded at all in the lower and hotter places; for thenegro was even more useless than the Indian in the highregions and the cold climates of the Andes.

But we must not fall into the error of imagining thatthe South American Indian, however much he may havesuffered in the mines of Mexico and Peru, disappeared from

SIMON BOLIVARthe face of the earth, or was even reduced to the same ex-tent as his brother in the United States or Canada. Theearly Spaniards were only able to fasten on the coasts andfavourable spots of the great continent, and they neversucceeded in imposing their dominion on great multitudesof tribes on their frontiers. There there was a constantstruggle, and many a Spanish dettiement was wiped outby the savages. The "missions ' were founded, generallyas a sort of advanced guard on these frontiers, in thehope that religion might be able to effect what: forcecould not. Even at the presentl day one may risk deathby a poisoned blow-pipe dart at some places withintwenty miles of the great waterway between Bogota andthe sea, and the explorer of the forests about the headwaters of the Amazon or the ha Plata may still be insome danger of putting in a pot-mortem appearance asa roast at some savage banquet. The mass of the popu-lation of several of the South American republics is stillIndian, or at least has a large admixture of Indian blood.

The population of Spanish South America graduallybecame more and more heteroeneous as time went on.The aboriginal populations were, no doubt, far fromhomogeneous, and there was in reality as wide a differ-ence between the Incas of Peru and the savages who stillroam the forests in the centre ofthe continent as there isbetween the cultivated Brahman of the Indian Deccanand the wildest Bhil of the Nrbadda Valley. But aninvading white race is generallj, unable to distinguishbetween one coloured man and another, and to theSpaniards all these differences were invisible as a rule.It is just the same in India wi 1th the common English.The British soldier or railway ernployd does not realisethe immense gulfs of race, of breeding, and of civilisationwhich separate one Indian from another. A very largeproportion of stay-at-home Englishmen, and even ofthose whose knowledge of India is confined to what they

SOUTH AMERICA UNDER SPANISH RULE 7pick up in the course of a cold weather tour, are equallyunder the delusion that the Indian peoples are one nation,and not an immense number of widely different races,whose only common attribute is a dark skin.

With the Spanish conquest there commenced at oncethe creation of still wider racial differences, which haveresulted in a population, other than the Indians, deeplydivided amongst themselves.

Necessarily, the "conquistadores " carried with themvery few women from their own countries, and the immi-gration of unmarried women was always difficult, andhampered by many restrictions. But, from the first, noprejudice was felt against unions, both legitimate andillegitimate, between Spaniards and Indians, and theresoon began to spring up a mixed race (mestizos), the off-spring of such unions. Between the extremes of theSpaniard and the Indian there intervened, as time wenton, every degree of admixture of the two races. Whenthe negro appeared upon the scene he came as a slave,a mere chattel or a beast of burden, who was soldin the public market alongside of the mule and thehorse, and was described, like them, in advertisements,as 'sound and free from vice." Under such circum-stances, the union of the Spaniard and the negro wasgenerally illegitimate. Its offspring became the" mulatto."Between the negro and the Indian marriage was dis-couraged, and generally made illegal by the Spanish laws.The conquerors had no desire to foster a combination ofthe two races which had suffered so grievously at theirhands. Nevertheless, there sprang up a certain numberof "zambos," half-breeds between the negro and theIndian. With three original colours, white, red, andblack, and the three mixed races, "mestizo," "mulatto,"and "zambo," added to the innumerable shades of colourintroduced by the various combinations of the mixedblood, South America had probably one of the most

8 SIMON BOIJIVARheterogeneous populations in the world of a century ago.This characteristic has increased since then. But therearose a distinction, not of race but of class, which farexceeded in political importance all the variations be-tween white and black and copper coloured. It was thedistinction between the two classes of pure whites, thecreole and the more temporar)J immigrant from Spain,who looked to return to his own country when he hadamassed a fortune. Many people at the present dayassociate the term "creole" with an admixture of darkblood, but the original meanind implied nothing of thesort.' To the Spaniard, coming over from Europe with-out any idea of changing his doMicile, " criollo" signifieda man of the pure blood of his own race, often of bluerblood and higher lineage than himself, who had been bornand bred in the colonies, and as domiciled there. Inthis sense, the founders of the United States were

creoles" when considered fron the point of view ofthe Englishman, and the half-1)reed between the NorthAmerican Indian and the Engl4hman was a "mestizo."

The revolt of the British North American coloniesagainst the dominion of the mother country was thusessentially a "creole" revolt, and the case was preciselysimilar in Spanish America. in both cases the abori-ginal population had ceased t4 be of serious politicalimportance, and, when it foughtj took part on either sideaccording to local circumstances. In both cases the

mestizo" was inclined to side with the creole, and thenegro slave followed his master.

In India the creole problem, which faced England andSpain alike in America, has never cropped up, for theclass practically has never come into existence. The

1 Still the word has always implied some measure of dishonour, and hasnever been held to be creditable. This is perhaps to be accounted for by itsalleged derivation, a corruption from the word criadillo," the diminutive of

criado,' a servant.

SOUTH AMERICA UNDER SPANISH RULE 9"mestizo," represented by the "Eurasian " of India, cannever be a danger there, for he is repudiated by thenative races, and driven perforce into the arms of theEnglishman. Moreover, he is strong neither in numbersnor in qualities. Between Spaniard and creole in SpanishAmerica contempt on the one side, hatred on the other,grew apace. To the Spaniard, brought up in his nativecountry by servants and instructors of his own race, thecreole seemed a contemptible creature. For the youthfufcreole spent the first five or six years of his life in thecharge of a negro slave. After that he was generallymade over to a mulatto teacher, from whom he learnedno good. He acquired from his nurse only the slave'snotion of duty, "which recognises little or no spontaneouseffort for others, but whose rule of action is the commandof the master enforced by the lash. From his teachers heacquired notions of religion which were full of Paganism,without the grace and poetry of Pagan worship. Out-wardly, he adapted himself to the forms of civilised life,but his mind was full of superstitions acquired from thebarbarous companions of his youth." Vanity andcruelty he inherited from his forbears, and they werefostered by the influences to which he was subjected byhis early guardians and instructors.

The policy of Spain kept all the good things of the ad-ministration of the country, not for the creole, but for theneedy Spaniard, who came to it to acquire a fortune and atitle. The creole was not by law barred from high office,but in practice he rarely got it. Of 754 Viceroys and Cap-tains-General, only eighteen were creoles. Consequently,says Captain Basil Hall,' they suffered from" the moral de-gradation consequent upon the absence of all motive to

Professor B. Moses, "South America on the Eve of Emancipation,"p . sos.

Hall's "Travels" (Constable's Miscellany, Edinburgh, 1826), vol. ii.P. 23.

io SIMON BOLIVARgenerous exertion, and the utter hopelessness that anymerit could lead to useful distinction.' Yet many ofthem, especially those educated partially in Europe, werewell suited for responsible empldyment in the service ofthe State. This fact was openl' recognised by some ofthe more intelligent and disinferested Spaniards, whosaw at the same time the danger threatened by theexistence in the colonies of a large body of such men,discontented, not with the dominion of Spain, but withthe tyranny exercised by the a'aricious men whom shesent out. On the other hand, says Professor Moses, theinherent vanity of the creole and his overbearing mannersled him to avoid labour and to refuse to engage in trade.The natural result was a life of idleness, often of vice

In the correction of this the Church was not likelyto do much good for its ministers set the very worstexample, as was reported by Ulloa in the "NoticiasSecretas." Concubinage and luxury were rife amongstthem, and it is stated that they I,,were generally the primemovers in getting up dances, in which they and theirmistresses joined.

The creole, then, was the real originator of themovement for separation from Spain, though, at first,even he was not, as a rule, for throwing off the dominionof the mother country, and miéht still have been con-ciliated by the grant of some measure of autonomy, witha fair share in the good things of office. The" mestizos"joined eventually with the creoles, but, like other mixedraces, they were wanting in the spirit of initiative andthe energy necessary to incite them to make a start ontheir own account. As we shall see presently, therevolution would have succeeded much more rapidlythan it did had the spirit for it been rife in the country.But, generally speaking, owing to apathy, it was dormant,and it was only by the exertions of leaders like Bolivarthat it was galvanised into spasmodic activity. The

SOUTH AMERICA UNDER SPANISH RULE iicountry side was only brought over to the republicancause by success, and when defeat succeeded to victory,province after province relapsed into the tamest submissionto the temporarily restored supremacy of Spain.

And what was the part played by the Indians beforeand during this turmoil of the early nineteenth century?They had no reason to love either the Spaniard or thecreole, for both alike maltreated the Indian, whom theyconsidered as a pariah, as much created to work forthe white man as was the negro. The unfortunateIndians who came under the sway of Spain never, aftertheir final conquest, made any serious attempt to throwoff the yoke.' At last, in 178o, Tupac Amaru II.,goaded to desperation by the tyrannies of a Spanish"corregidor," raised the standard of rebellion ; but evenhe did not aim so much at getting rid of Spanishdominion as at calling attention to, and obtaining someredress of, the grievances of his fellow-countrymen. Theinsurrection, powerful only in its numbers, badly armed,and led by men who had no capacity for organisation,soon collapsed, and was terribly avenged by theSpaniards and creoles. In the War of Independence,where the Indians took a hand, we shall find them servingindifferently on either side. In parts of Venenela, inPasto, and again in the final struggle in Peru, theydisplayed bitter hostility to the republican cause. Inother places they equally supported it. Amongst otherinstances may be quoted the case of the Colombian"Rifles" battalion which, after the death of nearly allthe English rank and file originally composing it, for atime consisted almost entirely of Indians under Britishofficers.

There were many grievances, of course, besides theexclusion of the creoles from high office. Otherwise,

'That is, dating the final conquest from the execution, in 1571, of the firstTupac Amarn.

1 SIMON 130L WARthat alone would not have suffled to raise the bulk ofthe population against Spain. In her commercial policySpain was, after all, not so ver' much worse than herneighbours in her treatment of her colonies. She onlydid like others in treating her Iforeign possessions as amere much cow for the supply to the mother countryof streams of gold and silver, and as a convenientdumping ground for her own produce. No doubt shewent to greater lengths than others in this respect, andwas perhaps even more short-sighted than they. Shewould allow no commercial competition by her colonieswith herself, and they were not allowed to supplythemselves with goods which] could be grown ormanufactured in Spain, and sent out for sale at anenormous profit to the Spanish Iproducer and monopolist,and at a price ruinous to the Arberican consumer. Eng-land had encouraged agriculture in her colonies, for shewanted the raw products for her own manufactures.Even agriculture was often discouraged by Spain. Thegrowing of wheat was encouraged, since Spain herselfand other colonies of hers in America required it ; theculture of the vine, on the other band, was generallyprohibited, for Spain grew excellent grapes and wishedto supply her colonies with wine. The manufacture ofcloth was prohibited, for that co uld be made up in themother country. Trade with the utside world was almostentirely prohibited, with the reskilt of the prevalence ofsmuggling. Sometimes utterly ridiculous reasons wereassigned for the prohibition of trades. In Peru, forinstance, the growth of the coca plant was prohibited ontwo grounds- In the first place, the plant was sacredin the worship of the Incas, and played a considerablepart in their religious ceremonies ; therefore it wasanathema in a Christian countryl in the second place,it grew in unhealthy tracts, where the Indian cultivatorwould suffer or die therefore it must not, on his

SOUTH AMERICA UNDER SPANISH RULE zaccount, be cultivated. Yet such considerations did notprevent his being made to work in the mines, which wasmuch more fatal to him. Another notable abuse in thematter of trade was the grant to the Guipuzcoa Companyof the monopoly of trade with Venezuela, and the generalconfinement of the trade between the mother country andthe colonies to the single Spanish port of Seville.

The original contract between the Spanish Governmentand the "conquistadores" and other early settlers providedfor a sort of feudal tenure of their fiefs or "encomiendas."But the tyranny of the "encomenderos" soon becameso notorious and flagrant that the Spanish sovereigns,beginning with the Emperor Charles V., found it necessarygradually to resume these Iiefs, in exchange for minorcompensations and patents of nobility.

From that time, the dominions in America becameseparate kingdoms under the rule of the Spanish king,who governed through the Viceroys and the Council ofthe Indies.

Whilst the European dominions were officially styled"These Kingdoms," the term "Those Kingdoms" wasapplied to the transmarine possessions of the SpanishCrown. Thus an enactment applicable to both Spainand the colonies was headed as being in force in "Estosy esos reinos" (these and those kingdoms). Though thenatives of the colonies were solemnly declared to be sub-jects of the King, on the same footing as the inhabitantsof Aragon and Castille, and were endowed with a regularcode of laws, they were practically dependent on theofficials appointed from Spain to govern them. Thesemen, almost invariably Spaniards, could with impunityinterpret the laws as they chose, or apply them just somuch or so little as suited their own interests or caprices.Over an official several thousands of miles away, beforethe days of steam and telegraphs, the central authority inEurope could exercise practically no control.

14 SIMON BOLIVAR

The instrument through which the Spanish monarchgoverned his transatlantic possessions was the Council ofthe Indies, sitting in the vicinity of the Court Its powerswere legislative, judicial as the final court of appeal in themost important cases, and execut i ve as adviser of the Kingin such matters.

The management of economic matters was confided toanother body, the it Casa de Contratacion,"' whose busi-ness it was to carry out and enforce the exclusive monopolyof colonial trade which had been kletermined upon. It satat Seville, which became the sole lawful port of tradebetween the mother country and her foreign dependencies.Later on it was transferred to Cadiz, and presently otherports were opened. Similarly, the trade of South Americawith Spain was strictly limited to certain ports in thecolonies.

At the head of the administtation in South America,at first, was the Viceroy of Pert]. residing in royal stateat Lima.2 His unwieldy charge extended from BuenosAires and Chile in the south to 'New Granada and Vene-zuela in the north.

Presently it was found impossible for one man at Limato rule so vast a territory, and two new Viceroys and twoCaptains-General were set up.

The Viceroyalty of New Granada finally came intobeing in 1739. It comprised the two former Presidenciesof Quito and New Granada, corr1esponding to the presentrepublics of Ecuador, Colombia, a nd Panama. The capitalwas at Santa Fe (Bogota). The Captain-Generalcy ofVenezuela (Caracas) was of older date (155o). TheViceroyalty of Buenos Aires was created in 1776. Itsterritory included the present Irepublics of Argentina,

I Freely translated by Professor Moses The India House.' It was olderin origin than the Council, but eventually became subordinate to it

There was another Viceroy of New Spain who concerns us less, for hisjurisdiction did not extend into South America. His capital was Mexico.

SOUTH AMERICA UNDER SPANISH RULE igUruguay, Paraguay, and Bolivia. The Captain-Generalcyof Chile was subordinate to the Viceroy of Peru, who alsodirectly controlled the Province of Guayaquil and thesouthern part of Quito. Quito itself was part of theViceroyalty of New Granada. But the " President ofQuito" enjoyed a certain amount of independence, due,no doubt, largely to the difficulties of the country inter-vening between his territory and the rest of New Granada.Indeed he is sometimes spoken of as the Captain-General.The Peruvian Viceroy never altogether lost some generalpower of supervision and control all over South America,even in the other Viceroyalties and Captain-Generalcies.

The charges of the Viceroys and Captains-General weredivided into Presidencies, Intendencies, and Provinces ) atthe head of which were Presidents, Intendents, Governors,and "Corregidores," according to the importance of thedivision. These officials, like the Viceroy's and Captains-General, were appointed from Spain, but were subordinateto the Viceroys or Captains-General

The next subdivision was into Departments or Can-tons, the heads of which were the delegates of theprovincial chiefs.

As a rule, Viceroys and Captains-General were alsocommanders-in-chief of the military forces of their charge,but in some cases there was a separate military com-mandant.

The Audiencia real" was an authority exercisingfunctions on the judicial side similar to those of aSupreme Court in India or the British colonies. Itwas the final court of appeal in South America, andin some cases exercised original jurisdiction. Appealsfrom an "Audiencia" to the King of Spain only lay inthe most important civil cases. But the powers of the

Audiencias" were much more than judicial, at least inthe case of chief Audiencias," such as that of Lima.The Viceroy was President of the " Audiencia," but

'6 SIMON BOIJIVAR

could not vote in it On his death, or the occurrenceotherwise of a vacancy in his I office, the "Audienciasucceeded temporarily to his powers. There was frequentfriction between Viceroys or Captains- Generaland the"Audiencias," which thus to a certain extent acted, asthey were intended to do, as a check on the head of theadministration. The right of direct correspondence withSpain increased the power of the "Audiencia" as againstthe Viceroy or Captain-General.. Frequent disputes werethe result of failure clearly to distinguish by law thefunctions of the "Audiencia" from those of the Viceroyor Captain- General. The chief" Audiencias" establishedin South America were at Lima, Santa Fe (Bogota),Quito, La Plata, Caracas, Buenos Aires, and Santiagode Chile.

The "Cabildo" or Municipal Council was a veryimportant institution. It was often endowed with veryconsiderable powers; sometimes it was empowered tonominate a governor in case of vacancy. In a specialmeeting called "cabildo abiert?" held in consultationwith the principal civil and ecclesiastical authorities,matters of considerable local importance were oftendiscussed and settled. In the more remote districtsthe cabildo often was practicalljr the only representativeof authority. We shall presently see the authority ofthe cabildo frequently invoked is a starting-point for theformation of a revolutionary "junta." In them creolesfigured largely as members. There was no legislativeauthority in the colonies, in which, according to theory,the King of Spain was the successor of the native rulerswho had been conquered, just as the British Governmentin India is regarded as the successor of the Moghulemperors. The South American Indians were regardedas subjects of the Spanish kitg, entitled to the fullrights of Spanish subjects. Lws were manufacturedfor the government of Spanish ! Americans and Indians

SOUTH AMERICA UNDER SPANISH RULE iby the Council of the Indies in Spain, but they werepoured out in such vast quantities, and were often socontradictory, as to be incomprehensible even to thebest . intentioned and most intelligent administrators.These, indeed, were few and far between, and there wasnothing in the nature of a permanent and adequatelypaid civil service such as exists in India. Though everyadministrator, on leaving office, was bound to have hisconduct during his tenure of it inquired into, there wasprobably little fear of this process, and men openly setthemselves to the making of a fortune, by illegitimatemeans, out of appointments the legal emoluments ofwhich were insufficient for the bare subsistence of theirholders. Corruption was rife, and appointments werefreely sold. In the case of Viceroys and Captains-General, the opportunities of enrichment offered by thecivil, military, and ecclesiastical patronage which theypossessed were enormous.

We have said very little of the oppression of theIndians, which was the work alike of European Spaniards,of creoles, of mulattoes, and of" mestizos "—Indian griev-ances, as we have said, had nothing whatever to do withthe rising against Spain. The revolt of Tupac Amaruwas the last bolt shot by these unfortunate people who,later, became mere pawns in the struggle, when they tookpart in it at all. As for the" mestizos " and "mulattoes,"they were, as a body, almost as incapable of concertedaction as the Indians. The negroes and "zambos"counted for nothing. The revolution was entirelyinitiated by creoles in the sense of Spaniards of pureblood, born and bred in the country, though the"mestizos" and the others followed their lead. Thechief grievances of the creoles are thus summarisedby Cochrane':—

I st. The arbitrary power exercised by the Viceroys1. 266.

B

18 SIMON BOLIVAR

and Captains-General, who very frequently evaded thelaws, and even the orders vhich they received from theKing.

"2nd. That the 'audiencias' were composed solely ofEuropeans, who interpreted the laws as they pleased.

"3rd. That, under the authohty of the 'audiencias,'clandestine decrees in causes wer often made ; nocturnalarrests took place ; persons wei4 banished without trial,and numerous other acts of injustice were committed.

11 4th. That they (the native Spanish Americans) weretreated with distrust by the Government, notwithstandingthe loyalty and courage which upon several occasions,they had manifested in defence of the rights of theCrown of Spain.

"5th. That they were obliged to bear insults from themeanest of the Spaniards, whó, merely on account oftheir European birth, considered themselves superior to,and, as it were, the masters of,the Spanish Americans.As an instance of this kind of feeling, a report is quoted,which was made to the King by his fiscal, upon thepetition of the city of Merida de Maracaibo in Venezuela,to found a university; the opinibn of the fiscal was that'the petition was to be refused, because it was unsuitableto promote learning in Spanish America, where theinhabitants appeared destined by nature to work in themines.' After a pretended solemn deliberation of the'Consulada,' or Board of Trade in Mexico, the membersinformed the Cortes that 'the Indians were a race ofmonkeys, filled with vice andl ignorance; automatonsunworthy of representing or be4ig represented.'

"6th. That, notwithstanding the original compactmade between the King and the first settlers in SpanishAmerica, which stipulated 'thaL in all cases of govern-ment, justice, administration cf finances, commissions,

There seems to be some confusion of ideas in this instance, for the writerquoted puts forward grievances of Indians Imther than of creoles.

SOUTH AMERICA UNDER SPANISH RULE 19etc., the first discoverers, then the Pacificadores, andlastly the settlers and those born in the said provinces,were to be preferred in all appointments and publicemployments,' the creoles were gradually shut out fromall participation in local commands and dignities; thatthey were also prohibited from visiting the mothercountry without the express permission of the King,which could not be obtained but with much difficulty.

"7th. That the South Americans were prohibitedfrom making wine or brandy, or extracting oils, and fromplanting vines or almond trees, except in Peru or Chile,or from cultivating more than a specified and limitednumber of tobacco plants; whilst the wine, almonds, etc.,produced in Peru and Chile were not permitted to besent to Mexico, New Granada, or Tierra Firma ; and itwas forbidden to cultivate tobacco or the sugar canein Chile.

"8th. That, in order to check the progress of popula-tion and to keep distinct the different classes, there weremany laws tending to throw obstacles in the way ofmarriage."

Notwithstanding all these grievances, and the opencontempt with which Spaniards treated every native ofSouth America, from the creole to the Indian, there stillsubsisted amongst the creoles a general feeling of respectfor the royal authority, and of attachment to the mothercountry. The cry was never "down with Spain," butalways, "down with the bad government of her dele-gates." Even in the revolution of the beginning of thenineteenth century, the first movements were invariablyfavourable to the Royal House of Spain, and the newGovernment was set up in the name and on behalf ofFerdinand VII. It was only as it appeared more andmore clearly that all parties in Spain were hostile toreform in the colonies, that the more extreme leaders ofthe revolution were able to gain over public opinion to

20 SIMON I3OJJIVAR

their idea of final separation f l om the mother country.Why is it that) with all the grievances of the SouthAmerican population, serious rbvolt should have beendeferred till the end of the first 'decade of the nineteenthcentury? The causes must be traced partly in SouthAmerica, partly in the comparative strength of Spainherself previous to the catastrophe resulting from theunscrupulous proceedings of Naoleon in 1808-9,

The Indians, as we have already said, were by far thegreatest sufferers, but their intellectual inferiority, theirwant of proper armament, andtheir incapacity for con-certed action on a large scale foredoomed to failure anyattempt they might make to obtain redress by force.The only really serious Indian rising was that of TupacAmaru II. in 1780, and that collapsed before the resist-ance incurred from Spaniards and creoles alike.

Creole apathy and inertia, combined with the narrowlimits of the education allowed in the colonies, served tokeep back the South American Spaniard. Teaching,which was mainly confined to religion, canon law, andliterature of a carefully-selected type, tended to driveits pupils in the direction of legal studies, and to excludefrom their ken scientific subject Is and practical matters)The strictest supervision was exercised over the class ofbooks permitted to enter the colonies, and no pressexisted. What knowledge of the progress of liberalideas reached these countries from the United States orEurope was smuggled in by those creaks who had goneabroad to complete their educatin, and these, under the

It is curious to note the somewhat similar result produced by the stronglyliterary character of the educational system in India during the latter half ofthe nineteenth century. To that we have to attribute mainly the growth of alarge body of impractical lawyers in Bengal and elsewhere. Industrialeducation, it is true, has not been deliberately suppressed as it was in theSpanish colonies, but it has certainty not been encouraged as we think itshould have been. In the Spanish colonies it would have been useless solong as the restrictions on trade remained.

SOUTH AMERICA UNDER SPANISH RULE 21Spanish rule, were strictly limited in numbers. It mighthave been thought that the revolt of the English NorthAmerican colonies would have produced a great andimmediate effect in the adjoining continent, but it wasnot so. North American ideas had to cross the Atlanticfirst, and it was only when they had been developed inFrance into the excesses of the great Revolution thatthey began to return to Spanish America as apowerful influence. The apathy and ignorance of theSouth Americans for long resisted the efforts of the menwho came back from Europe imbued with the spirit ofthe French Revolution, or from the United States underthe influence of the more moderate ideas of that country.

The dominion of Spain in South America was very farfrom being a military one. The Spanish contingentsrarely withstood for long the trials of a bad climate inthe coast ports, and these were the places where theywere usually stationed. Most of the regular troops werethemselves creoles, " mestizos," or mulattoes, and the localmilitias were generally of small fighting value, and mightwell have been looked to as supporters rather thanopponents of a movement for freedom. It was by theclose supervision exercised by Spain, through the courtsof the Inquisition at Lima and Cartagena, and throughthe other instruments of control which she possessed, thatshe was able to nip in the bud such schemes of revolt aswere formulated before 18o8. Up to then, she generallyhad in reserve the power of enforcing her rule by thedespatch of an expeditionary force. The dissolution ofthe Spanish Monarchy in that year, and the conflict withNapoleon, practically put a stop to any considerableexpedition, until the return of Ferdinand VII. to Spain in18 14- It was largely due to Ferdinand's misgovern-ment after that that the possibility of an eventual recon-quest of his American dominions finally disappeared withthe mutiny in the great expedition preparing at Cadiz in

22 SJMON BOLIVARi82o. The utter apathy of thi creole population as awhole is constantly in evidence in the early years of theWar of Independence. The bulk of the Spanish forcesagainst which the revolutionaries had to contend wasSouth American. In several provinces it was impossibleat first to get up a serious opposition to Spanish supre-macy, and in many others a general relapse to theroyalist side occurred the very Moment that there was achange of the fortune of war adverse to the Republicancause. Not only was the re olt, in its inception, ofpurely creole origin, but it had to be engineered by acomparatively few leaders, who' had generally imbibedtheir ideas of liberty in Europe or the United States.

In considering the origin of the revolution, TupacAmaru's insurrection in 1780 mky be left entirely out ofconsideration, as being an Indian movement directed asmuch against the creole as against the European Spaniard.

The first real movement against the Spanish Govern-ment was the insurrection of Leon, a man from theCanary Islands, not a South American creole. Hisinsurrection, in the middle of ! the eighteenth century,aimed at the destruction of the Guipuzcoa Company, towhich the monopoly of trade with Venezuela had beenmade over by Spain. The plot was discovered before itwas ripe, Leon was executed at Caracas, and a monu-ment erected to perpetuate his shame!

In 1781 there was a rising at Socorro, in Central NewGranada, to the cry of "Long Ilive the King Downwith our bad Government " This was so serious thatthe Viceroy was reduced to calling in the ecclesiasticalarm by sending the Archbishop of Santa Fe to negotiatein full canonicals. The malcontents were induced todisperse on promises of redress in the matter of the newtaxes of which they complained. I As might have beenexpected, once the danger was past there was very littlehope of fulfilment of its promises by the Government.

SOUTH AMERICA UNDER SPANISH RULE 23In 1794 a more serious scheme of revolution in

Caracas was set on foot by Antonio Narino, who after-wards played a considerable part in the revolt of NewGranada and subsequent events. It seems, however, tohave been very much delayed in execution ; for, in 1797,it was still not ready when it was discovered by theGovernment. Gual and Espafia, the nominal leaders,fled to Curaçao, whence the latter, thinking the matterhad blown over, returned, two years later, to La Guaira,only to be arrested and hanged. In June 1797 SirThomas Picton, Governor of Trinidad, had, with thesanction of the British Government, then at war withSpain, issued a proclamation promising help to insurrec-tionary movements.

Were the Spanish-American colonies ripe for revolutionand independence in the early nineteenth century, whentheir chance of success came in the collapse of the SpanishMonarchy before the might of Napoleon ? They werecertainly ripe for revolt, for there was general discontentwith a corrupt, tyrannical, and utterly selfish Government.Of improvement there was no hope so long as Spainruled them. The subsequent history of Cuba and thePhilippines has shown that from improvement in Spanishmethods nothing was to be expected for a century tocome.

But when we come to the question of readiness forindependence, especially in the form of a republicangovernment, the case is different. Look back, first onthe history of the last century in the revolted colonies, andcompare it with that of the United States. In the northwe have a nation ready not only for revolt, but alsoqualified to form a true popular Government, under whichinternecine struggles, save for the great one in the sixtiesof last century, have not served to spread misery orretard progress, Then turn to the Spanish colonies, tornby factions in the midst of their revolt against Spain,

24 SIMON BOLIVAR

devastated by civil war long bfore independence hadbeen assured, trampled on by ri4al tyrants, each appeal-ing to the great principles of liberty in support of a causewhich was purely personal. !or the greater part ofa century every one of the former Spanish colonies hasbeen the scene of bloodshed and revolution. Their mostprosperous times have in reality corresponded to thoseperiods when some strong man, proclaiming, with histongue in his cheek all the while, the blessings of populargovernment, has succeeded in imposing his own practi-cally absolute rule. As for progress, where has there beenany among the mass of the peoçile? Primary educationhas been neglected, and probably there is not much moreof it now than there was a century ago. There are manyhighly educated and cultivated men among the upperclasses, but the lower classes know nothing, and still re-main but pawns in the hands bf every ambitious manwho may aspire to be a general or a dictator. One, atleast) of the leaders of the revolt, :San Martin, a republicanto begin with, recognised that popular government wasunsuited to peoples in the backward state of those ofSouth America early in the nineteenth century. Bolivar,indeed, professed throughout to be a republican, but thishistory of him will perhaps show what his conception ofa suitable republic was. If he e 1ver really believed in thepossibility of the success in South America of a genuinerepresentative government, his last ideas were very dif-ferent. His opinion of the future pf South America, said tohave been expressed only a month before his death, is a re-markable prophecy. 'These countries," it says, "willinevitably pass into the hands of an uncurbed multitude,to pass later into those of petty tyrants of all colours andall races."

It is only now, very grad1ually, that the SouthAmerican republics are beginning to improve, and thatlargely thanks to the influence of European and North

DESCRIPTION OF COUNTRY 25

American capital, and, in some cases, of Europeanimmigration.

Here it will be well to give some general descriptionof the vast territories over which, during twenty years,Bolivar operated, whether as a general or as a civiladministrator.

The total area with which he came more or less intodirect contact may be roughly stated as about 181 timesthe size of Great Britain and Ireland, with a populationbetween one-eighth and one-seventh of theirs at thepresent day.

Venezuela, the native country of Bolivar, having beenbrought of late years into somewhat undesirable notorietyby the behaviour of its late President, Don CiprianoCastro, most people are aware of its general situation,a remark which is perhaps not always applicable to someof the other South American republics. It is a countryof vast plains' and mountain ranges, of a climate vary-ing with the altitude above sea-level, from the extremeof tropical heat on the coasts and the great plains,through a sub-tropical temperature at 3000 feet and atemperate climate at from 4000 to 7000 feet, to anAlpine region at the higher levels up to over 15,000feet

The western districts, towards Merida and Trujillo,are generally mountainous, being traversed by a branchof the Andes thrown out eastwards from the easternCordilleras of the adjoining Republic of Colombia. To-wards the coast this range falls in altitude and skirts thenorthern coast right along to opposite Trinidad. Therange forms, as it were, a great wall, shutting out thevast plains of the Orinoco valley from the CaribbeanSea. Even in this coast range there are peaks, such asthe Silla at La Guaira, which rise to over 9000 feet,

According to Codazzi, nearly two-thirds of the whole area consists ofP121119, more than one-fourth of mountains.

26 SIMON BOLIVAR

though the general average is 3cirno or 4000 feet lower.In the south-east in the angle formed by the Orinocoas it changes its course from north to east, lie moremountains, forest-clad and for the most part but im-perfectly known to explorers, forming the Hinterland"of British Guayana. Roughly speaking, the agriculturalportion of Venezuela corresponds with the area coveredby the eastern extension of the Andes and the coastrange. The pastoral portion is the vast plain betweenthe coast range and the Orinoio, and stretching rightback westward all about the Apure, the Arauca, theMeta, and the innumerable other tributaries of theOrinoco, to the foot of the gret range of the EasternCordilleras. The forest region i4 that of the south-easternmountains of Guayana. This division must not be takenas strictly correct, for there are iplenty of forests in theAndean and coast ranges, whilst cultivation is to befound in Guayana and on the banks of the Orinoco.However, the division serves to indicate generally thecharacter of the produce of the c ountry.

The most fertile and least thinly populated tracts werein the early nineteenth century, and indeed still are, inthe coast range, which is almost every'vhere characterisedby broad valleys of abounding fertility, watered bynumerous lakes and innumerable rivers and streams.The largest of the lakes is that of Valencia or Tacarigua,'30 miles long from east to west and 12 milesbroad. Its eastern end is some 5o miles west ofCaracas and lies 1600 feet aboJ.'e sea level. Into thiseastern end flows the little river Aragua, in the fertilevalley of which lay Bolivar's I

estate of San Mateo.From the other side of the s'atershed on which theAragua rises flows eastward the Tuy, with a valley ofequal richness. At the western end of the lake is

1 Excepting, or course, Irfaracatbo, which is an inlet of the sea rather than

a lake.

DESCRIPTION OF COUNTRY 27

Valencia, which was so often the scene of fightingbetween the contending parties in the War ofIndependence.

Caracas, the capital, stands in the midst of a valleyjust south of the port of La Guaira, at an elevation of3000 feet above it. From Caracas to La Guaira is,as the crow flies, but 6 or 7 miles, and in this space,shutting the capital off from its seaport, stands a giganticnatural wall, the mountain known as La Silla, risingsteeply ó000 feet above the city and falling still moresuddenly 9000 feet to La Guaira, which lies crushed intothe narrow space between the foot of the mountain andthe sea.' Nowadays a wonderful railway climbs pain-fully up 5000 feet to the lowest pass in the Silla, andthen descends 2000 feet to the basin of Caracas; inBolivar's time the journey was done on horseback innine miles, whereas the railway requires twenty-fourmiles of sinuous track to cover the distance between thetwo places. On the west of the Captain-Generalcy ofVenezuela lay the Viceroyalty of New Granada, now theRepublic of Colombia. It has been described as themost mountainous country in the world, though to makethat description accurate it would be necessary to leaveout of consideration the vast plains between the easternfoot of the Andes and the Venezuelan border on theUpper Orinoco. In the south, the Andes are unitedinto a single great knot of mountains, stretching fromthe Pacific Ocean to the plains of the Putumayo. Alittle farther north the mountains separate into threegreat ranges—the Western, Central, and Eastern Cor-dilleras—stretching like three great claws over the land,and the two outer ranges throwing out supplementaryclaws westward and eastward, the latter to form theVenezuelan Andes of Merida and Trujillo. The central

La Guaira and La Silla are most graphically described in "WestwardHo!'

28 SIMON BOLIVAR

range alone stops short some I distance south of theCaribbean Sea. There is another great mass of moun-tains about Santa Marta rising above the level ofperpetual snow, even in that torrid climate. Betweenthe western and the central ranges is the valley of theriver Cauca, one of the richest 1 in the world betweenthe Central and the Eastern Cordilleras flows the riverMagdalena, with its fertile valle) still largely covered byforest. The Magdalena is 1300 miles in length, astream as long and as great as the Ganges. In the plainbetween the northern end of the central range and thesea the Cauca joins the Magdalkna and is absorbed init. The capital of this country, perhaps the richest inmineral wealth in South America, is Bogota, or, as theSpaniards called it, Santa Fe de Bogota, perched high upin the Western Cordilleras, 700 or 800 miles from theCaribbean Sea. The characteristic of this part of therange is the chain of broad, open, high-lying valleys,evidently the dry beds of ancient lakes. Bogota itselfstands on such a surface 8706 feet above sea-level,surrounded by hills varying from' 200 or 300 to 4000

or 5000 feet above the plain. On the Caribbean SeaNew Granada had the magnificeçit harbour of Cartagena,with a fortress considered, in: the early nineteenthcentury, the strongest in South' America

In the south of New Granac4t lay the Presidency ofQuito, now the Republic of Ecuadpr, with its capital,Quito,standing in the midst of what Mr Whymper has aptlydescribed as an 'avenue of volcAnoes," in which are in-cluded l'ichincha, Cotopaxi, Chimborazo, and many others.Here again there are great open plains like that ofBogota, only still higher. There is a succession ofthese valleys, 300 miles longnd 40 broad, stretch-ing from north of Quito to Cuenca. The length isdivided by transverse ranges, connecting the two chains,of which the Andes here consist, into the valleys of

DESCRIPTION OF COUNTRY 29Quito, 9500 feet above the sea Ambato, 85oo ; andCuenca, 7800. The first, though the highest, is far themost fertile. The one decent port of the country isGuayaquil in the south-west, whence, at the present day,a railway climbs round the shoulder of Chimborazo tothe great line of valleys, and reaches Quito by them.

Peru comes next to Ecuador, a very different countryin some ways; for, whilst the Ecuadorian coast atGuayaquil or Esmeraldas is moist and rich in tropicalvegetation, the greater part of the Peruvian coast is dry,sandy desert, almost devoid of vegetation, save whererivers flowing from the great chain of the Andes divideone desert from the next by transverse strips of fertileland. The average width of this coast strip is about 20miles. It generally ends on the Pacific margin in loftyCliffs,

Rain rarely falls heavily in this tract; for the south-east trade winds, blowing across the continent from theAtlantic, have had the last drop of moisture wrung fromthem by the cold heights of the Andes, and reach thecoast region as a cool, dry blast hurrying to regain itsmoisture from the Pacific.

On the eastern margin of the coast tract stands themaritime range of the Andes, between which and thecentral range lies the elevated and barren tract known asthe Puna.

The central range is the true watershed of this partof the continent, for it is nowhere cut through by riversflowing to the Pacific, whilst the eastern range isbreached by several of the great streams which go tomake up the Amazon. This region between the centraland eastern Cordilleras is called the "sierra," and is themost fertile met with, so far, as one goes eastward fromthe coast. In this region is the fertile valley of Jauja,south of the Cerro de Pasco, which forms a transversewall connecting the central and eastern ranges. Beyond

30 SIMON BOL.JVARthe eastern range are the great forest-clad slopes leadingdown to the almost unexplored centre of the continent.

With Chile, the continuation southwards of Peru, weneed not trouble ourselves, for olivar's operations neverextended into it. Behind Southern Peru and NorthernChile lies Bolivia, the Republic formed from the territoryof what the Spaniards called Upper Peru. Its westernportion lies amongst the highest regions of the Andes,and is remarkable for its mineral wealth. Agricultureonly flourishes in the central portion of more moderatealtitude, and in the east, vlere the country slopesdown to the "pampas" towards Brazil, Paraguay, andArgentina.

What the population of this ast area was in the firstquarter of the nineteenth century it is impossible to sayindeed, even now, census returns are so unreliable thatstatements of population of the a' rious republics cannot beaccepted as better than shrewd guesses. Miller's memoirsgive an estimate of the populations as follows

Republic of Colombia (Venezuela, NewGranada, and Quito) . . . 2,711,296

Republic of Peru . . . .

Republic of Bolivia . . I 1,200,000

5,648,219

It may be taken for what it is worth, not very muchperhaps.

Restrepo 1 gives details for Colombia alone thus—Venezuela. New Ganada. Quito. Total

Pure whites . . 200,000 S7,000 157,000 1,234,000

Indians . . . 207,000 313,000 393,000 913,000

Free "coloured" 433,000 140,600 42,000 615,000

Slaves . . . . 6o,000 70,000 8,000 138,000

900,000 2 21400,000 600,000 2,900,000

Introduction, P. xiv. n , edition of 18582 A note to the 188 edition reduces this total to Sco,000, and gives the

DESCRIPTION OF COUNTRY 31Miller classifies the population of Peru thus—

Whites - 240,819Indians 998,846"Mestizos" . . 383,782Free mulattoes . - 69,848Slaves . . 43,628

1,736,923

The pure whites, according to these figures, thusconstituted between one-third and one-half of the popu-lation in Colombia, less than one-seventh in Peru.

numbers of pure whites at iz,000 European Spaniards and 200,000 Creoles.The other figures are—Fore Indians, 120,000; negro slaves, 6z,000 mixedraces of all sorts, 406,000,