CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY THE ANNA 8S. GURLEY MEMORIAL BOOK FUND FOR THE PURCHASE OF BOOKS IN THE FIELD OF THE DRAMA THE GIFT OF WILLIAM F. E. GurLey CLASS OF 1877 5) niversity Libra “ii iil i | THE HISPANIC NATIONS OF THE NEW WORLD GRADUATES’ EDITION VOLUME 50 THE CHRONICLES OF AMERICA SERIES ALLEN JOHNSON EDITOR GERHARD R. LOMER CHARLES W. JEFFERYS ASSISTANT EDITORS SIMON BOLIVAR © Engraving. 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 1920 Copyright, 1919, by Yale Uniwersity Press II. Til. IV. VI. VII. VITl. XI. XII. CONTENTS THE HERITAGE FROM SPAIN AND PORTUGAL Page “OUR OLD KING OR NONE” : “INDEPENDENCE OR DEATH” re PLOUGHING THE SEA e THE AGE OF THE DICTATORS = PERIL FROM ABROAD . GREATER STATES AND LESSER Me “ON THE MARGIN OF INTERNATIONAL LIFE >> ce THE REPUBLICS OF SOUTH AMERICA e MEXICO IN REVOLUTION - THE REPUBLICS OF THE CARIBBEAN a PAN-AMERICANISM AND THE GREAT WAR ee é BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE “ce INDEX vil 1 12 30 56 80 108 120 148 166 196 213 227 239 243 ILLUSTRATIONS SIMON BOLIVAR. Engraving. Frontispiece HISPANIC AMERICA IN 1783 Map by W. L. G. Joerg, American Geographical Society. Facing page 2 HISPANIC AMERICA IN 1828 Map by W. L. G. Joerg, American Geographical Society. s “60 HISPANIC AMERICA IN 1919 Map by W. L. G. Joerg, American Geographical Society. us “* 236 1X 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 Portu- gal, 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 man- kind had ever yet known rivaled in size the illim- itable domains of Spain and Portugal in the New World; and none displayed such remarkable con- trasts 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 1 2 THE HISPANIC NATIONS west of the Mississippi down to the steaming low- lands of Central America, then up through table- lands 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 pre- dominating in the lands bordering on the Carib- bean Sea and along the shores of Brazil. Possibly one-fourth of the inhabitants came of European stock, including not only Spaniards and their de- scendants 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 SPAIN AND-PORTUGAL. IN COMPARISON WITH HISPANIC AMERICA SEA CARIBBEAN AL \ HISPANIC AMERICA IN 1783 (EIT span Possessions: [ese] Portuguese Possessions list J 10 320 ‘10 PREPARED FOR THE CHRONICLES OF AMERICA UNDER THE JULIUS BIEN LITH. N.Y, DIRECTION OF W.L.G.JOERG, AMERIGAN GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY HERITAGE FROM SPAIN AND PORTUGAL 3 became half-caste. Only in the more temperate regions of the far north and south, where the aborigines were comparatively few or had disap- peared altogether, did the whites remain racial- ly 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 commu- nity, though his social position remained a sub- ordinate one. Most of the negroes were slaves and were more kindly treated by the Spaniards than by the Portuguese. Though divided among themselves, the Euro- peans 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 preju- dice. The dweller in the uplands and the resi- dent on the coast were wont to view each other 4 THE HISPANIC NATIONS with disfavor. The one was thought heavy and stupid, the other frivolous and lazy. Native Span- iards 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 Span- iards 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 Span- iards 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 sus- picion and dislike. In Brazil the relation of classes HERITAGE FROM SPAIN AND PORTUGAL 5 was much the same, except that here the native ele- ment 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 un- welcome, even though he obtained a grudging per- mission 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 Span- ish America. The Spaniard was unwilling that lands so rich in natural treasures should be thrown open to exploitation by others, even if the new- comer 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 discordant factions into a society which had com- mon desires and aspirations. With the develop- ment of commerce and industry, with the growth of activities which bring men into touch with each other in everyday affairs, something like a solidar- ity of sentiment might have been awakened. In its 6 THE HISPANIC NATIONS 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 dis- dain, provided that superintendence and not actual work was the main requisite. The economic or- ganization 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 graz- ing became the chief occupations. Domestic ani- mals and many kinds of plants brought from Europe throve wonderfully in their new home. Huge estates were the rule; small farms, the ex- ception. 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 HERITAGE FROM SPAIN AND PORTUGAL 7 the fields, tended the droves, and dug the earth for precious metals and stones. Originally the natives had been forced to work under conditions approxi- mating 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 sun- dried 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 la- borer 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, en- livened 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 re- vealed a power of action which, if properly guided, could be turned to excellent account. Asacowboy, 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 8 THE HISPANIC NATIONS 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 ir- regular. 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 stran- gers to their neighbors. Matters of the mind and of the soul were un- der the guardianship of the Church. More than merely a spiritual mentor, it controlled education and determined in large measure the course of in- tellectual 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 vil- lage 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 HERITAGE FROM SPAIN AND PORTUGAL 9 pointing heavenward, the sign and symbol of tri- umphant power. The Church, in fact, was the greatest civilizing agency that Spain and Portugal had at their dis- posal. It inculcated a reverence for the monarch and his ministers and fostered a deep-rooted senti- ment of conservatism which made disloyalty and innovation almost sacrilegious. In the Spanish colonies in particular the Church not only pro- tected 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 gath- ered together groups of neophytes whom they rendered docile and industrious, it is true, but whom they often deprived of initiative and self- reliance and kept illiterate and superstitious. Education was reserved commonly for members of the ruling class. As imparted in the universi- ties and schools, it savored strongly of medieval- ism. 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 publi- cations came under ecclesiastical inspection, and a 10 THE HISPANIC NATIONS 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 captain- cles general, presidencies, and intendancies. Asso- ciated 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 else- where, 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. HERITAGE FROM SPAIN AND PORTUGAL 11 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 expres- sion of the popular will and often proved intrac- table. Its membership was appointive, elective, hereditary, and even purchasable, but the form did not affect the substance. The Spanish Ameri- cans 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 eman- cipation 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 mem- bers of the intellectual class had read in secret the writings of French and English philosophers. Others had traveled abroad and came home to whis- per 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. 12 “OUR OLD KING OR NONE” 13 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 com- mented 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, Fra- ternity, Equality” stirred the ardent-minded to thoughts of action, though the Spanish and Por- tuguese 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 unbelievably 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 14 THE HISPANIC NATIONS won complete control under their remarkable com- mander, Toussaint L’Ouverture, when Napoleon Bonaparte, then First Consul, decided to restore the old régime. But the huge expedition which was sent to reduce the island ended in absolute failure. After a ruthless racial warfare, charac- terized 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 Chris- tophe, who gathered about him a nobility garish in color and taste — including their sable lord- ships, 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 Ferriére.’ None of these black or mulatto po- tentates, however, could expel French authority from the eastern part of Santo Domingo. That “OUR OLD KING OR NONE” 15 task was taken in hand by the inhabitants them- selves, 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 move- ment 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 under 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 ob- jects 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 agita- tion 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 “‘Pre- cursor.”” 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.”’ 16 THE HISPANIC NATIONS An officer in the armies of Spain and of revolu- tionary France and later a resident of London, Miranda devoted thirty years of his adventurous life to the cause of independence for his country- men. With officials of the British Government he labored long and zealously, eliciting from them vague promises of armed support and some finan- cial 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, Mi- randa returned to London to await a happier day. Two British expeditions which attempted to con- quer the region about the Rio de la Plata in 1806 ‘OUR OLD KING OR NONE” 17 and 1807 were also frustrated by this same stub- born 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 ahierto, 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 shat- ter the bonds uniting Spain to its continental dominions in America. The discord and corrup- tion which prevailed in that unfortunate country afforded Napoleon an opportunity to oust its fee- ble 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 2 18 THE HISPANIC NATIONS 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 Bona- parte 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 pre- tender. 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 authori- ties 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 con- servative classes, the latter by the liberals, who “OUR OLD KING OR NONE” 19 felt that they had as much right as the people of the mother country to choose the form of govern- ment best suited to their interests. Kach party viewed the other with distrust. Op- position to the more democratic procedure, it was felt, could mean nothing less than secret sub- mission to the pretensions of Joseph Bonaparte; whereas the establishment in America of any or- ganizations like those in Spain surely indicated a spirit of disloyalty toward Ferdinand VII him- self. 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 to- ward independence. In the phrase of Manuel Bel- grano, 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 20 THE HISPANIC NATIONS the revolution ran a different course. Sometimes it was the capital city that led off; sometimes a provincial town; sometimes a group of individu- als in the country districts. Among the actual participants in the various movements very little harmony was to befound. Here a particular leader claimed obedience; there a board of self-chosen magistrates held sway; elsewhere a town or prov- ince refused to acknowledge the central author- ity. To add to these complications, in 1812, a rey- olutionary 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 ‘OUR OLD KING OR NONE” 21 the viceroyalty showed themselves quite unwilling to obey these upstarts. Meantime, urged on by radicals who revived the Jacobin doctrines of rev- olutionary France, the junta strove to suppress in rigorous fashion any symptoms of disaffection; but it could do nothing to stem the tide of separa- tion 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 as- semblies 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 numer- ous features of the Spanish régime 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 dis- astrous the campaigns without, that eventually ge THE HISPANIC NATIONS commissioners were sent to Europe, bearing in- structions to seek a king for the distracted country. When Charcas fell under the control of the vice- roy of Peru, Paraguay set up a régime for itself. At Asuncion, the capital, a revolutionary outbreak in 1811 replaced the Spanish intendant by a trium- virate, of which the most prominent member was Dr. José 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 sub- missive for many years to the paternal rule of Jesuit missionaries, could not fail to become pliant instruments in his hands. At his direction, there- fore, Paraguay declared itself independent of both Spain and La Plata. This done, an obedient Con- gress elected Francia consul of the republic and later invested him with the title of dictator. In the Banda Oriental two distinct movements ap- peared. Montevideo, the capital, long a center of royalist sympathies and for some years hostile to “OUR OLD KING OR NONE” 23 the revolutionary government in Buenos Aires, was reunited with La Plata in 1814. Elsewhere the people of the province followed the fortunes of José Gervasio Artigas, an able and valiant cavalry of- ficer, who roamed through it at will, bidding de- fiance to any authority not his own. Most of the former viceroyalty of La Plata had thus, to all in- tents 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 re- ceipt 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, per- haps, 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 rea- sonable amount of local autonomy for the country, they refused to heed the demands of the radi- cals for complete independence and the establish- ment of a republic. Accordingly, in proportion as UA THE HISPANIC NATIONS their opponents resorted to measures of compul- sion, the gentry gradually withdrew their support and offered little resistance when troops dispatched by the viceroy of Peru restored the Spanish régime 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, “OUR OLD KING OR NONE” 25 Simén Bolivar, soon to become famous in the annals of Spanish American history, approved of this plunge into democracy. Ardent as their pa- triotism was, they knew that the country needed centralized control and not experiments in con- federation 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. Dzissensions broke out between Miranda and his subordinates. Betrayed into the hands of his enemies, the old warrior him- self was sent away to die in a Spanish dungeon. And so the “‘earthquake”’ republic collapsed. But the rigorous measures adopted by the royal- ists 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 slaugh- ter of prisoners, indiscriminate pillage, and wanton destruction of property spread terror and desola- tion throughout the country. Acclaimed “ Libera- tor of Venezuela”’ and made dictator by the people 26 THE HISPANIC NATIONS 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. Un- mindful of pleas for codperation, the Creole lead- ers 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 them- selves. Even parishes demanded local autonomy. For a while the services of Bolivar were invoked to force rebellious areas into obedience to the prin- ciple of confederation, but with scant result. Un- able to agree with his fellow officers and displaying traits of moral weakness which at this time as on ‘“QUR OLD KING OR NONE” Q7 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 vice- royalty of New Spain. Unlike the struggles al- ready 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 repub- lic 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 José Maria Morelos, ‘also a 28 THE HISPANIC NATIONS 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 dis- solved.” Abler and more humane than Hidalgo, he set up a revolutionary government that the au- thorities 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 vice- royalties of La Plata and New Granada. To regain Trinidad and Louisiana was hopeless; but a wise policy of conciliation or an overwhelming display of armed force might yet restore Spanish rule where it had been merely suspended. Very different was the course of events in Brazil. Strangely enough, the first impulse toward inde- pendence was given by the Portuguese royal family. Terrified by the prospective invasion of the coun- try by a French army, late in 1807 the Prince Re- gent, the royal family, and a host of Portuguese nobles and commoners took passage on Brit- ish vessels and sailed to Rio de Janeiro. Brazil thereupon became the seat of royal government “OUR OLD KING OR NONE” 29 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 democ- racy and the greed of his followers for place and distinction alienated his colonial subjects. They could not fail to contrast autocracy in Brazil with the liberal ideas that had made headway elsewhere in Spanish America. As a consequence a spirit of unrest arose which boded ill for the maintenance of Portuguese rule. CHAPTER III ““INDEPENDENCE OR DEATH’”’ Tue 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 govern- ment, 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 typ- ical Bourbon. Nothing less than an absolute re- establishment of the earlier régime 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 codperate with each other. Independence was to be the fortune of the Spanish Americans, 30 “INDEPENDENCE OR DEATH ” 31 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 com- plete 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”’ independ- ent. 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 auton- omy, failure to agree upon a particular kind of republican government, and a lingering inclina- tion to monarchy made progress toward national unity impossible. In 1819, to be sure, a con- stitution was adopted, providing for a centralized government, but in the country at large it encoun- tered too much resistance from those who favored a federal government to become effective. In the Banda Oriental, over most of which Arti- gas and his horsemen held sway, chaotic conditions 32 THE HISPANIC NATIONS invited aggression from the direction of Brazil. This East Bank of the Uruguay had long been dis- puted territory between Spain and Portugal; and now its definite acquisition by the latter seemed an easy undertaking. Instead, however, the task turned out to bea truly formidable one. Monte- video, feebly defended by the forces of the Gov- ernment 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 wil’. 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 ““INDEPENDENCE OR DEATH ” 33 reading and study, changing his bedroom fre- quently to avoid assassination. Religious func- tions that might disturb the public peace he forbade. Compelling the bishop of Asuncién 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 at- tained his object. Paraguay became a quiet state, whatever might be said of its neighbors! Elsewhere in southern Spanish America a bril- liant feat of arms brought to the fore its most distinguished soldier. This was José de San Mar- tin 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 3 34 THE HISPANIC NATIONS Bernardo O’Higgins, son of an Irish officer who had been viceroy of Peru. Codperating 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. Tocrossthe 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 Febru- ary 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 San- tiago, O'Higgins fought vigorously though ineffec- tually to drive out the royalists who, reinforced from Peru, held the region south of the capital. “INDEPENDENCE OR DEATH” 35 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 Ist 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 Euro- pean dictator, Spain could look to her affairs in America, and during the next three years dis- patched twenty-five thousand men to bring the colonies to obedience. These soldiers began their task in the northern part of South America, and there they ended it —in failure. To this failure the defection of native royalists contrib- uted, for they were alienated not so much by the presence of the Spanish troops as by the 36 THE HISPANIC NATIONS often merciless severity that marked their con- duct. 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 prov- ince relatively tranquil and even disposed to welcome the full restoration of royal govern- ment. Leaving a garrison sufficient for the pur- pose 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 resist- ance which, in its heroism, privation, and sacri- fice, 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 Bogota, in particular, the new Span- ish 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 vic- tims was a young heroine, Policarpa Salavarrieta by name. Though for her execution three thou- sand soldiers were detailed, the girl was unterrified “INDEPENDENCE OR DEATH” 37 by her doom and was earnestly beseeching the loy- alists 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 con- vinced 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 chief- tain, José Antonio P4ez, these fierce and ruthless horsemen performed many a feat of valor in the campaigns which followed. Once again on Venezuelan soil, Bolivar deter- mined to transfer his operations to the eastern part of the country, which seemed to offer better strategic advantages than the region about Cara- cas. But even here the jealousy of his officers, the 38 THE HISPANIC NATIONS insubordination of the free lances, the stubborn re- sistance 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 gov- ernments in South America and had sent diplo- matic agents to them. Great Britain had blocked every attempt of Ferdinand VII to obtain help from the Holy Alliance in reconquering his domin- ions. 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 Mar- tin had conducted in Chile. More than that, he had conceived the idea, once independence had “INDEPENDENCE OR DEATH” 39 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 re- public 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 Boyacé, in the very heart of New Granada. Here, on the 7th of August, Bolivar in- flicted on the royalist forces a tremendous defeat that gave the deathblow to the domination of Spain in northern South America. On his trium- phal return to Angostura, the Congress signalized the victory by declaring the whole of the viceroy- alty 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 assem- bled at Rosario de Ciicuta, and Bolivar was made permanent President. Southward of Colombia lay the viceroyalty of Peru, the oldest, richest, and most conservative 40 THE HISPANIC NATIONS 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, 1820,a mutiny among the troops and revolution throughout the country en- tirely frustrated the plan. But although that re- actionary monarch was compelled to accept the Constitution of 1812, the Spanish liberals were un- willing to concede to their fellows in America any- thing 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 “INDEPENDENCE OR DEATH ” 41 of liberation in the provinces oversea and to hasten its achievement. The first important efforts to profit by this sit- uation 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 di- rection 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 every- where 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 inte- rior. San Martin, thereupon, entered the capital 42 THE HISPANIC NATIONS at the head of his army of liberation and sum- moned the inhabitants to a town meeting at which they might determine for themselves what action should be taken. The result was easily fore- seen. On July 28, 1821, Peru was declared inde- pendent, 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 lastlong. 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 ad- ministration that alienated the sympathies of the influential class, San Martin was indeed an un- happy figure. It soon became clear that he must abandon all hope of ever conquering the citadel of “INDEPENDENCE OR DEATH” 43 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 foot- hold 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, how- ever, depended upon two things: the ultimate dis- position 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 oppor- tunity of uniting this former division of the viceroy- alty of New Granada to his republic of Colombia, Bolivar appointed Antonio José 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 Guaya- quil, 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 44 THE HISPANIC NATIONS representative of Bolivar, urged annexation to Co- lombia; 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 com- mander. 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 re- spective 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 judg- ment are almost certain to provoke criticism from one set of partisans or the other. Both Bolivar and San Martin were sons of country gentlemen, aristo- cratic by lineage and devoted to the cause of inde- pendence. Bolivar was alert, dauntless, brilliant, “INDEPENDENCE OR DEATH” 45 impetuous, vehemently patriotic, and yet often ca- pricious, domineering, vain, ostentatious, and dis- dainful of moral considerations — a masterful man, fertile in intellect, fuent in speech and with pen, an inspiring leader and one born to command in state and army. Quite as earnest, equally cou- rageous, 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 con- fidence in himself which brings enthusiasm, affec- tion, 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 afew hours, mutual suspicion, jeal- ousy, and resentment prevented their reaching an effective understanding. The Protector, it would seem, thought the Liberator actuated by a bound- less ambition that would not endure resistance. 46 THE HISPANIC NATIONS Bolivar fancied San Martin a crafty schemer plot- ting for his own advancement. They failed to agree on the three fundamental points essential to their further codperation. 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 ex- pedition on the ground that as President of Colom- bia he ought not to leave the territory of the repub- lic. Divining this pretext, San Martin offered to serve under his orders — a feint that Bolivar par- ried 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 polliti- cal form to be adopted for the new independent states. Both of them realized that anything like genuine democracies was quite impossible of attain- ment for many years to come, and that strong ad- ministrations would be needful to tide the Spanish Americans over from the political inexperience of colonial days and the disorders of revolution to in- telligent self-government, which could come only af- tera practical acquaintance with public concernson 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 ‘“ INDEPENDENCE OR DEATH” 47 of a centralized or unitary republic, in which ac- tual power should be exercised by a life president and an hereditary senate until the people, repre- sented 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 pro- voked an uprising that made his position insup- portable. 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 yeo- man 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 self-imposed exile. Broken in health and spirit, he took up his resi- dence in France, a recipient of bounty from a Spaniard who had once been his comrade in arms. Meanwhile in the Mexican part of the vice- royalty of New Spain the cry of independence 48 _ THE HISPANIC NATIONS raised by Morelos and his bands of Indian followers had been stifled by the capture and execution of theleader. 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 Revolu- tion of 1820 in the mother country. Forthwith demands were heard for a recognition of the liberal régime. Fearful of being displaced from power, the viceroy with the support of the clergy and aris- tocracy ordered Agustin de Iturbide, a Creole of- ficer 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 “INDEPENDENCE OR DEATH” 49 and ruled by Ferdinand himself, or, if he declined the honor, by some other European prince; and the union of Mexicans and Spaniards without distinc- tion of caste or privilege. A temporary govern- ment 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’Donoji, agreed to ratify it on con- dition— in obedience to a suggestion from Itur- bide — that the parties concerned should be at lib- erty, if they desired, to choose any one as emperor, whether he were of a reigning family or not. There- upon, on the 28th of September, the provisional Government installed at the city of Mexico an- nounced the consummation of an “enterprise rendered eternally memorable, which a genius be- yond all admiration and eulogy, love and glory of his country, began at Iguala, prosecuted and car- ried into effect, overcoming obstacles almost in- superable’’ — and declared the independence of the “‘ Mexican Empire.’ the appointment of a regency to govern until the 4 > The act was followed by 50 THE HISPANIC NATIONS accession of Ferdinand VII, or some other person- age, to the imperial throne. Of this body Itur- bide 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’Donojt 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 em- peror, 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 com- posing 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. There- upon a popular assembly met at the capital town of “INDEPENDENCE OR DEATH ” 51 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 auton- omy, for annexation to Mexico, were all heard, and none, except the last, was answered. While the “Imperialists”’ and “Republicans” were argu- ing it out, a message from Emperor Agustin an- nounced that he would not allow the new state to remain independent. Onsubmission 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 possessions. In 1822 the United States, which had already acquired East Florida on its own account, led off in recognizing the inde- pendence of the several republics. Only in Peru and Charcas the royalists still battled on behalf of the mother country. Inthe 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 52 THE HISPANIC NATIONS 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 discon- tent 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 re- forms which had been instituted by John himself while Regent, and which had assured freer com- munication with the world at large, only empha- sized 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. “INDEPENDENCE OR DEATH” 53 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 es- tablishment 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 depu- ties in a future Cortes. Beyond this they would concede no special privileges to the colony. In- deed 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 re- duced 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 under- stood 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 as- pirations of the country for a larger measure of 54 THE HISPANIC NATIONS 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 mandates of the Cortes. Laws which abolished the central govern- ment 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 imme- diately. 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 ‘‘Per- petual and Constitutional Defender of Brazil,” and in a series of proclamations urged the people of the country to begin the great work of emancipa- tion 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 So 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 ‘ INDEPENDENCE OR DEATH ” 56 treason, Pedro forthwith proclaimed Brazil an inde- pendent state. The “cry of Ypiranga” was echoed with tremendous enthusiasm throughout the coun- try. 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 “‘Inde- pendence or Death,” he was given a tumultuous ovation. On the first day of December the youth- ful 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 Tucum4n 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, cli- mates 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 56 PLOUGHING THE SEA 57 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 ne- groes. 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 proph- ecy 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 south- ward 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 58 THE HISPANIC NATIONS offered the only hope of salvation. While the roy- alists under their able and vigilant leader, José 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 de- clared the President deposed. Not to be outdone, that functionary on his part declared the Congress dissolved. The malcontents immediately pro- ceeded to elect a new chief magistrate, thus bring- ing 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 ef- fect upon the military situation. Though Bolivar gathered together an army made up of Colombians, Peruvians, and remnants of San Martin’s force, PLOUGHING THE SEA 59 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 pow- er crossed the ocean and split the royalists into op- posing factions. Quick to seize the chance thus afforded, Bolivar marched over the Andes to the plain of Junin. There, on August 6, 1824, he re- pelled an onslaught by Canterac and drove that leader back in headlong flight. Believing, how- ever, that the position he held was too perilous to risk an offensive, he entrusted the military com- mand to Sucre and returned to headquarters. The royalists had now come to realize that only a supreme effort could save them. They must over- whelm 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 de- feat 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 60 THE HISPANIC NATIONS the yoke of the mother country forever. The vice- roy fell wounded into their hands and Canterac surrendered. On receipt of the glorious news, the people of Lima greeted Bolivar with wild enthusi- asm. 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 Amer- ica, the royalists still found a refuge. In January, 1825, a patriot general at the town of La Paz under- took 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 situa- tion, 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 or- derly 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 Lib- erator 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, 1826, a new Congress HISPANIC AMERICA IN 1828 ma Spanish-American Republics ho” [a Empire of Brazil "| Spanish Colonies % Battle of Spanish-American Wars of Independence 130 0 0 100" : 40 : ae PREPARED FOR THE CHRONICLES OF AMERICA UNDER THE JULIUS BIEN LITH. N.Y. DIRECTION. OF W.L.G.JOERG, AMERICAN GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY, PLOUGHING THE SEA 61 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 régime 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 Chiloé, off 62 THE HISPANIC NATIONS 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 stretch- ing from the Caribbean Sea to the Tropic of Capri- corn. 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 coun- try. 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 Colom- bian soil, an ‘“‘august congress” representative of the independent countries of America. Here, on the PLOUGHING THE SEA 63 isthmus created by nature to join the continents, the nations created by men should foregather and proclaim fraternal accord. Presenting to the au- tocratic 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 friend- ship among the republics of the western hemi- sphere 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 grati- tude for services rendered to the cause of emancipa- tion could evoke. Was it not itself a republic, its people a democracy, its development astounding, and its future radiant with hope? The pronounce- ment 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 codperation ought to be invoked. The United States was accordingly asked to take part in the assembly — not to con- cert military measures, but simply to join its fel- lows to the southward in a solemn proclamation of 64 THE HISPANIC NATIONS 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 inter-American solidarity. Whether be- cause of the difficulties of travel, or because of internal dissensions, or because of the suspicion that the megalomania of the Liberator had awak- ened 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 to be merely the first of a series of calam- ities 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 PLOUGHING THE SEA 65 a general acceptance of the principles of his auto- cratic 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 de- posed 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, Boli- var hurried to Bogota. ‘There in the hope of re- moving the growing antagonism, he offered his “‘ir- revocable”’ resignation, as he had done on more than one occasion before. Though the malcon- tents declined to accept his withdrawal from office, they insisted upon his calling a constitutional con- vention. Meeting at Ocafia, in April, 1828, that body proceeded to abolish the life tenure of the residency, to limit the powers of the executive, and to increase those of the legislature. Bolivar managed to quell the opposition in dictatorial 5 66 THE HISPANIC NATIONS 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 conspira- tors 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 faith- ful Sucre to resign and leave the country. The con- stitution was then modified to meet the demand for a less autocratic government, and a new chief magistrate was installed. Desperately the Liberator strove to ward off the impending collapse. Though he recovered pos- session 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 bit- terly the machinations of his enemies. ‘“‘There is no good faith in Colombia, ”’ he exclaimed, “‘neither among men nor among nations. ‘Treaties are pa- per; constitutions, books; elections, combats; lib- erty, 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 PLOUGHING THE SEA 67 apart. In May, 1830, came the final crash. The Congress at Bogota drafted a constitution, provid- ing for a separate republic to bear the old Span- ish name of ““New Granada,”’ accepted definitely the resignation of Bolivar, and granted him a pen- sion. Venezuela, his native land, set up a con- gress 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 ungov- ernable. 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 prac- tically 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. G8 THE HISPANIC NATIONS 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 control- ling foreign affairs. The name of the country was at the same time changed to that of the ‘Argentine Confederation’? — a Latin rendering of ‘‘La Plata.” No sooner had Rivadavia assumed the presi- dency under the new order of things than dissen- sion 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 PLOUGHING THE SEA 69 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 through- out thecountry. Organizing a provisional govern- ment, 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 media- tion by Great Britain led to the conclusion of a treaty at Rio de Janeiro, by which both Brazil and the Argentine Confederation recognized the abso- lute independence of the disputed province as the republic of Uruguay. Instead of quieting the discord that prevailed among the Argentinos, these victories only fo- mented trouble. The federalists had ousted Riva- davia and discarded the constitution, but the federal idea for which they stood had several mean- ings. oan inhabitant of Buenos Aires federalism 70 THE HISPANIC NATIONS 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 gov- ernor 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 central- ized form of government for the nation would necessarily lead to the location of that government at Buenos Aires. This peculiar dual contest be- tween 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, how- ever, 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 con- stitution had been adopted by popular vote in a manner that appeared to show remarkable unanim- ity, for the books'in which the “‘ayes”’ and “‘noes” were to be recorded contained no entries in the PLOUGHING THE SEA 71 negative! What the records really prove is that O’Higgins, the Supreme Director, enjoyed the con- fidence of the ruling class. In exercise of the auto- cratic power entrusted to him, he now proceeded to introduce a variety of administrative reforms of sig- nal 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 demo- cratic organization grew louder, until in 1822 it became so persistent that O’Higgins called a con- vention 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 Di- rector resigned his post and retired to Peru. Thus another hero of emancipation had met the ingrati- tude 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 72 THE HISPANIC NATIONS Bigwigs (pelucones) and Greenhorns (pzpiolos), 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 con- servative lines. From that time onward it pre- sented 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 am- bitious 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 follow- ing was sufficiently impressive to assure him popu- lar 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 PLOUGHING THE SEA 73 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 kmsmen 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 Lépez 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, Itur- bide summoned the Congress and announced his abdication. But instead of recognizing this pro- cedure, 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 com- plied; but he soon wearied of exile and persuaded himself that he would not lack supporters if he 74 THE HISPANIC NATIONS 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 pro- mulgation 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 considera- ble unrest prevailed toward the close of his term, the new President managed to retain his office for the allotted four years. In most respects, how- ever, the new order of things opened auspiciously. In November, 1825, the surrender of the fortress of San Juan de Ulta, in the harbor of Vera Cruz, ban- ished the last remnant of Spanish power, and two years later the suppression of plots for the restora- tion 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. PLOUGHING THE SEA 75 But the political organization of a country so different from its northern neighbor in popu- lation, traditions, and practices, could not rest merely on a basis of imitation, even more or less modified. The artificiality of the fabric became ap- parent 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 as- sumed British and American influences were responsible. Adopting a kind of Masonic organi- zation, 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 re- spective slogans and professions of political faith, they were little more than personal followers of ri- val 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, fol- lowing the precedent established in Mexico, and 76 THE HISPANIC NATIONS obedient also to local demand, the new republic issued a constitution, in accordance with which the five little divisions of Guatemala, Honduras, Salva- dor, 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 Con- servatives, 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 régime — 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 Hon- duras, 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 cling- ing to independence, strove to avoid dangerous in- novations in government. Rather than create a PLOUGHING THE SEA 77 political system for which the country was not prepared, they established a constitutional mon- archy. But Brazil itself was too vast and its inte- rior 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 ener- getic Cochrane, who had performed such valiant service for Chile and Peru, with the task of expel- ling 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 mon- archy and advocates of republicanism, men of con- servative and of liberal sympathies; disagreements, also, between the Brazilians and the native Portu- guese residents were frequent. So far as possible 78 THE HISPANIC NATIONS Pedro desired to meet popular desires, and yet without imposing too many limitations on the mon- archy itself. But in the assembly called to draft the constitution the liberal members made a deter- mined effort to introduce republican forms. Pe- dro 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 neigh- boring 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 PLOUGHING THE SEA 79 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 domin- ion; but it was not until. 1836 that the Cortes of Spain authorized the Crown to enter upon nego- tiations looking to the same action in regard to the eleven republics which had sprung out of its colo- nial domain. Even then many years elapsed before the mother country acknowledged the independ- ence 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 im- mediate or gradual abolition of negro slavery and for an improvement in the status of the Indian 80 THE AGE OF THE DICTATORS 81 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 ‘‘constitu- tions”” 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 ilusory. Their only share in public concerns lay in performing military service at the behest of their superiors. Even where the language of the con- stitutions did not exclude the colored inhabitants directly or indirectly, practical authority was ex- ercised 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 wartare, 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 6 82 THE HISPANIC NATIONS captain general, but without the sense of responsi- bility or the legal restraint of either. These cir- cumstances account for that curious political phase in the development of the Spanish American na- tions — the presidential despotism. On the other hand, the men who denounced op- pression, 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 infre- quently a liberator of this sort became “provi- sional 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, and the more precise its definition of powers and liberties, the more authentic the republic and the more genuine the democracy was THE AGE OF THE DICTATORS 83 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 impera- tive 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 con- ception 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 con- servative, and the moderate; on the other,the fed- eralist, the civilian, the lay, the liberal, and the radical. Interspersed among them were the ad- vocates of a presidential or congressional system like that of the United States, the upholders of 84 THE HISPANIC NATIONS a parliamentary régime like that of European nations, and the supporters of methods of govern- ment of a more experimental kind. Broadly speak- ing, the line of cleavage was made by opinions concerning the form of government and by convic- tions regarding the relations of Church and State. These opinions were mainly a product of revolu- tionary experience; these convictions, on the other hand, were a bequest from colonial times. The Unitaries wished to have a system of gov- ernment modeled upon that of France. They wanted the various provinces made into adminis- trative districts over which the national authority should exercise full sway. Their direct opponents, the Federalists, resembled to some extent the Anti- federalists 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-govern- ment 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 recogni- tion 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 THE AGE OF THE DICTATORS 85 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 arti- cles declaring Roman Catholicism the sole legal faith as well as the religion of the state, and safe- guarding in other respects its prestige in the com- munity. 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 profess- ing an alien faith. Opposed to the Church stood governments verging on bankruptcy, desirous of exercising supreme control, and dominated by in- dividuals eager to put theories of democracy into practice and to throw open the doors of the repub- lic 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 monop- oly of education. The one should be turned over 86 THE HISPANIC NATIONS 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 de- stroy clerical influence over the youthful mind. In this program radicals and liberals concurred with varying degrees of intensity, while the moder- ates 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 in- surrections occurred. They were called “‘revolu- tions,’ not because some great principle was actually at stake but because the term had been popular ever since the struggle with Spain. Asa designation for movements aimed at securing rota- tion in office, and hence control of the treasury, it was appropriate enough! At all events, whether serious or farcical, the commotions often involved an expenditure in life and money far beyond the value of the interests affected. Further, both the prevalent disorder and the centralization of authority impelled the educated and well-to-do classes to take up their residence at the seat of government. Not a few of the uprisings were, in fact, protests on the part of the neglected folk in THE AGE OF THE DICTATORS 87 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 ru- lership over the Argentine Confederation, culmi- nating in a despotism that made him the most extraordinary figure of histime. Originally a stock- farmer and skilled in all the exercises of the cowboy, he developed an unusual talent for administration. His keen intelligence, supple statecraft, inflexibil- ity of purpose, and vigor of action, united to a shrewd understanding of human follies and pas- sions, 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 88 THE HISPANIC NATIONS 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 con- vinced 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, how- ever, 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 reélection 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 ear- lier disturbances, until the evidence became over- whelming that Rosas alone could bring peace and progress out of turmoil and backwardness. Reluc- tantly the legislature yielded him the power it THE AGE OF THE DICTATORS 89 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 attenu- ated a shade and altogether too suggestive of polit- ical trimming! A band of his followers, made up of ruffans, 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 side- whiskers — emblems, the one of “federalism,” and the other of “independence.” To possess a visage bare of these hirsute adornments or a countenance too efHorescent in that respect was, under a régime 90 THE HISPANIC NATIONS of tonsorial politics, to invite personal disaster! Nothing apparently was too cringing or servile to show how submissive the people were to the mas- tery 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 uti- lized 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 afew 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 coun- try to which nature had been generous. THE AGE OF THE DICTATORS 91 When Fructuoso Rivera, the President up to 1835, thought of choosing some one to be elected in constitutional fashion as his successor, he un- wisely singled out Manuel Oribe, one of the famous “Thirty-three”? who had raised the cry of inde- pendence a decade before. But instead of a hench- man 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 Federal- ists. In 1843, Oribe, at the head of an army of Blancos and Federalists and with the moral sup- port 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 92 THE HISPANIC NATIONS dictator grudgingly agreed to withdraw his troops from the neighboring republic. More than any other single factor, this interven- tion 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 dic- tator and had raised the hopes of the Unitaries that a last desperate effort might shake off his hated control. In May, 1851, Justo José de Ur- quiza, one of his most trusted lieutenants, declared the independence of his own province and called upon the others to rise against the tyrant. En- listing the support of Brazil, Uruguay, and Para- guay, 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 aspot near Buenos Aires, the man of might who, like his contemporary Francia in Paraguay, had held the Argentine Con- federation 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 THE AGE OF THE DICTATORS 98 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 Cesar and Augustus! Paraguay was destined, however, to fall under a despot far worse than Francia when in 1862 Fran- cisco Solano Lépez 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 94 THE HISPANIC NATIONS executed, imprisoned, or banished any one whom he thought too influential; he tortured his mother and sisters; and, like the French Terrorists, he im- paled his officers upon the unpleasant dilemma of winning victories or losing their lives. Even members of the American legation suffered tor- ment at his hands, and the minister himself barely escaped death. Over his people, Lépez 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 com- mand. 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 Lépez 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 THE AGE OF THE DICTATORS 95 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 ”’ never- theless made ready to launch his thunderbolt. The primary object at which he aimed was Uruguay. In this little state the Colorados, up- held openly or secretly by Brazil and Argentina, were conducting a “crusade of liberty” against the Blanco government at Montevideo, which was 96 THE HISPANIC NATIONS 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 re- sentment arising out of boundary disputes with Paraguay and Uruguay, as well as out of the in- evitable injury to its nationals inflicted by the com- motions in the latter country; whereas Argentina cherished grievances against Lopez for the au- dacity 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 ob- scure 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 tropi- cal backwoods daring to poise the equilibrium of THE AGE OF THE DICTATORS 97 much more than half a continent on his insolent hand. But the merriment soon subsided, as Brazil- ians and Argentinos came to realize what their peril might be from a huge army of skilled and valiant soldiers, a veritable horde of fighting fa- natics, drawn up ina 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 endur- ance. 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 in- demnities had been exacted of Paraguay, its forti- fications 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 fright- ful conflict that ensued it is not necessary to enter. 7 98 THE HISPANIC NATIONS Although, in 1866, the allies had assembled an army of some fifty thousand men, Lépez continued taking the offensive until, as the number and deter- mination of his adversaries increased, he was com- pelled 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 Para- guayan soil. When the able-bodied men gave out, old men, boys, women, and girls fought on with stubborn fury, and died before they would sur- render. 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 fugi- tive men, women, and children, whom he remorse- lessly 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 cavalry- man. 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 THE AGE OF THE DICTATORS 99 point so near annihilation as Paraguay. Added to the utter ruin of its industries and the devasta- tion of its fields, dwellings, and towns, hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children had per- ished. 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 1873 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 Para- guay should be called the *‘ Niobe among nations.”’ Unlike many nations of Spanish America in which a more or less anticlerical régime 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 100 THE HISPANIC NATIONS that republic in 1861. In some respects the coun- terpart 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 dis- interested zeal for orderliness and progress. On his presidential sash were inscribed the words: “My Power in the Constitution”; but his 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 Eu- rope, 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 THE AGE OF THE DICTATORS 101 of the “Brothers of the Christian Doctrine,” and made education a matter wholly under ecclesiasti- cal 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 friend- ship which Garcia Moreno displayed toward the diplomatic representatives of the Catholic powers of Europe, notably those of Spain and France, ex- cited 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 Pres- ident, was a statesman of vision and deed. He put down brigandage and lawlessness; reformed the finances; erected hospitals; promoted educa- tion; and encouraged the study of natural science. 102 THE HISPANIC NATIONS Even his salary he gave over to public improve- ments. 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 in- surrection which retarded the growth of nearly all of its neighbors, none of its numerous commotions shook the stability of the nation to a perilous de- gree. By 1850 all danger of revolution had van- ished. The country began to enter upon a career of peace and progress under a régime which com- bined broadly the federal organization of the United States with the form of a constitutional monarchy. Brazil enjoyed one of the few enlight- ened despotisms in South America. Adopting at the outset the parliamentary system, the Emperor Pedro II chose his ministers from among the liber- als 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 THE AGE OF THE DICTATORS 103 nation was enjoyed almost entirely by the planters and their associates who formed the dominant so- cial 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 eccen- tric 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 re- publican 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 occa- sional liberators were the order of the day in most 104 THE HISPANIC NATIONS 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 numer- ous instances in which the occupant of the chief magistracy held office to the close of his constitu- tional term; but Mexico could not show a single one! What Mexico furnished, instead, was a ka- leidoscopic spectacle of successive presidents or dictators, an unstable array of self-styled “‘gen- erals’’ 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 fed- eral to centralized, and back again to federal. Mad struggles raged between partisan chieftains and their bands of Escoceses and Yorkinos, crying THE AGE OF THE DICTATORS 105 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 régime 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 réle of a Mexi- can 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 arrange- ment altogether, and to replace it by a strongly centralized government under which the individ- ual States became mere administrative districts. 106 THE HISPANIC NATIONS 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 inter- minable 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 dis- member 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 conserva- tives and clericals indulged the fatuous hope that he would both sustain their privileges and lift THE AGE OF THE DICTATORS 107 Mexico out of its sore distress. Either their mem- ories 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 for- mality 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 con- tinuance 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. Ac- cordingly 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 Doc- trine, caused two of the countries to become sub- ject 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, writh- ing 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 108 PERIL FROM ABROAD 109 the barbarities of Voodoo, a sort of snake worship, and they groveled before “‘presidents”’ and “‘em- perors”’ 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 effectu- ally 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 direc- tion 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 op- portunity to obtain protection from abroad. If the Dominican Republic could not remain inde- pendent 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 Cap- tain General of Cuba, and then issued a proclama- tion signed by himself and four of his ministers 110 THE HISPANIC NATIONS 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 ex-President, now a colonial governor and cap- tain general, to appoint a host of officials and, not unnaturally, he named his own henchmen. By so doing he not only aroused the animosity of the disappointed but stimulated that of the otherwise disaffected as well, until both the aggrieved fac- tions 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 coun- try to allow the Dominicans representation in the Spanish Cortes and its readiness to levy taxes stirred up resentment that soon ended in revolu- tion. 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 independ- ence and a chance — which they promptly seized — to renew their commotions. So serious did these PERIL FROM ABROAD 111 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 immi- grants because of the havoc made by epidemics of yellow fever. Nearly a third of the insular popula- tion was still composed of negro slaves, who could hardly relish the thought that, while the mother country had tolerated the suppression of the hate- ful institution in Santo Domingo, she still main- tained it in Cuba. A bureaucracy, also, prone to corruption owing to the temptations of loose accounting at the custom house, governed in rou- tinary, if not in arbitrary, fashion. Under these circumstances dislike for the suspicious and repres- sive administration of Spain grew apace, and secret societies renewed their agitation for its overthrow. 112 THE HISPANIC NATIONS 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 Céspedes. 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 tonocompromise. Organizing themselves in- to 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 PERIL FROM ABROAD 113 began the Ten Years’ War — a war of skirmishes and brief encounters, rarely involving a decisive ac- tion, 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 Judérez, 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. Be- coming a lawyer, Judrez 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 privi- leges of the Church, when the conservative ele- ments, 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 & 114 THE HISPANIC NATIONS constitution which was destined to last for sixty years. It established the federal system in a definite fashion, abolished special privileges, both ecclesi- astical and military, and organized the country on sound bases worthy of a modern nation. Mexico seemed about to enter upona rational development. But the newly elected President, yielding to the importunities of the clergy, abolished the constitu- tion, dissolved the legislature, and set up a dic- tatorship, 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 “gen- erals”’ 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 régime. 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 Judrez defended his position vigor- ously and rejected every offer of compromise. In PERIL FROM ABROAD 115 1859 he promulgated his famous Reform Laws which nationalized ecclesiastical property, secu- larized cemeteries, suppressed religious communi- ties, granted freedom of worship, and made mar- riage 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 aready acceptance. Although Juarez ob- tained 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, conserva- tives, and 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 116 THE HISPANIC NATIONS 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 split asunder and inca- pable of action. Some years before, the Mexican Government under the clerical and militarist régime 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, there- fore, the Mexican Congress undertook to defer payments on a foreign debt that included the pro- ceeds 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 pecuni- ary demands had been satisfied. Learning, how- ever, 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 PERIL FROM ABROAD 117 of a constitutional monarchy under an emperor. The title was to be offered to Maximilian, Arch- duke 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 bayoneis 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 sup- posed adherents. Little by little the unpleasant conviction intruded itself upon him that he must elther 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 for- eign legions could not catch the wary and stubborn Juarez and his guerrilla lieutenants, who persist- ently wore down the forces of their enemies. Then the financial situation became grave. Still 118 THE HISPANIC NATIONS 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 IIT 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. Mean- time, 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 Querétaro, where he had sought refuge. Denied the privilege of leaving the country on a promise never to return, he asked Escobedo, his cap- tor, 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 compe- tence of the military court chosen to try him, Jua- rez 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 PERIL FROM ABROAD 119 and Austria-Hungary were severed. The clerical- military combination had been overthrown, and the Mexican people had reaffirmed their inde- pendence. 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 chief- tains who aimed at setting up little republics of their own in the several states, Juarez had to con- tend for some time before he could establish a fair amount of order. Under his successor, who also was acivilian, an era of effective reform began. In 1873 amendments to the constitution declared Church and State absolutely separate and pro- vided 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 modifica- tions in the social and economic structure, but rather a fitful progress now assisted and now re- tarded 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 reélection 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 be- yond it; others, to move slowly onward; and a few to make little or no progress. 120 GREATER STATES AND LESSER 121 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 nat- ural 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 Bo- livia. In a fourth group were Ecuador, Colombia, and Venezuela. When the President of Mexico proceeded, in 1876, to violate the constitution by securing his reélec- tion, the people were prepared by their earlier ex- periences and by the rule of Juarez to defend their constitutional rights. A widespread rebellion head- ed by Diaz broke out. In the so-called “ Plan of Tuxtepec”’ the revolutionists declared themselves in favor of the principle of absolutely no reélection. 122 THE HISPANIC NATIONS Meantime the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court handed down a decision that the action of the Con- gress 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 chief- tain. Schooled by a long experience, he had come to appreciate the fact that what Mexico required for its national development was freedom from in- ternal disorders and a fair chance for recuperation. Justice, order, and prosperity, he felt, could be as- sured only by imposing upon the country the heavy weight of an iron hand. Foreign capital must be GREATER STATES AND LESSER 123 invested in Mexico and then protected; immigra- tion 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 tor- mented and impoverished as Mexico — a country which, within the span of fifty-five years had lived under two “‘emperors,’’ and some thirty-six presi- dents, 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. Anable 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 for- eigners, he entered upon a “presidential reign”’ of thirty-five years — broken by but one intermis- sion of four — which brought Mexico out upon the highway to new national life. Under the stable and efficient rulership of Diaz, “‘plans,’”’ “ 99 66 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 124 THE HISPANIC NATIONS 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. In- stead, 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 pre- tended 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 régime. Among the numerous measures of material im- provement which Diaz undertook during his first term, the construction of railways was the most GREATER STATES AND LESSER 125 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 Mexi- cans 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 prest- dency 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. Al- though the confidence he reposed in that successor was not entirely justified, the immense personal popularity of Diaz saved the prestige of the new 126 THE HISPANIC NATIONS chief magistrate. Under his administration the constitution was amended in such a way as to deprive the Chief Justice of the privilege of re- placing the President in case of a vacancy, thus eliminating that official from politics. After his resumption of office, Diaz had the fundamen- tal law modified anew, so as to permit the re- election 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 Amer- ica,” 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. Asit was, their history for upwards of forty years had little to record other than a momentary cohesion and a subsequent lapse into five quarrel- some little republics — the ‘“‘Balkan States” of America. Among them Costa Rica had suffered GREATER STATES AND LESSER 127 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 pub- lic use. He made marriage a civil contract and he secularized the burying grounds. Education he encouraged by engaging the services of foreign in- structors, and he brought about a better observ- ance 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 de- cided 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 128 THE HISPANIC NATIONS and see what had been accomplished. Finding that in many cases the seeds had been thrown away and the money wasted in drink and gam- bling, 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 dis- tributed 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 reélection, 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 invita- tion in 1876 to send delegates to his capital to dis- cuss the project. But nothing was accomplished because Barrios and the President of Salvador were soon at loggerheads. Nine years later, feeling him- self stronger, Barrios again proposed federation. But the other republics had by this time learned GREATER STATES AND LESSER 129 too much of the methods of the autocrat of Gua- temala, even while they admired his progressive policy, to relish the thought of a federation domi- nated 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 determina- tion 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 Gov- ernment, on its part, hastened the process by liberating its own slaves and by imposing upon 9 180 THE HISPANIC NATIONS 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 eman- cipated. 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 re- lating 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 codperative 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, sup- plementing 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 GREATER STATES AND LESSER 131 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 mili- tary 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. Be- sides 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 132 THE HISPANIC NATIONS régime 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 po- tent 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 laps- ing 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 newruler. Thereupon, on the 15th of November, the radicals at Rio de Janeiro, aided by the garri- son, broke out in open revolt. Proclaiming the GREATER STATES AND LESSER 138 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. Nota 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 heartless- ness 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 peace- fully 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 at- tained to a considerable degree of national con- sciousness under the leadership of able presidents 134 THE HISPANIC NATIONS such as Bartolomé 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 presiden- tial 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 reputa- tion won in the struggle with the Patagonian In- dians, 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 expe- dient of a revolt. Though the uprising lasted but twenty days, the diplomatic corps at the capital proffered its mediation between the contestants, GREATER STATES AND LESSER 135 in order to avoid any further bloodshed. The re- sult 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 capi- tal. 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 popu- lation had risen to upwards of 3,000,000. Immigra- tion increased to a point far beyond the wildest expectations. In 1889 alone about 300,000 new- comers arrived and lent their aid in the promo- tion 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. Asa result, the price of land rose high, and feverish speculation became the order of the day. Banks and other institutions 136 THE HISPANIC NATIONS of credit were set up, colonizing schemes were de- vised, 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. Ar- gentina spent huge sums in prodigal fashion on all sorts of public improvements in an effort to at- tract 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 in- habitants 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 Argen- tina and Brazil, which it could never hope to pay. In consequence, this indebtedness was a useful club to brandish over powerless Paraguay when- ever 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 GREATER STATES AND LESSER 137 of the United States. When Paraguay won the arbitration, 1t 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 un- stable and corrupt governments had contracted foreign loans under conditions that made their re- payment 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 bound- aries of Bolivia, indeed, wererun 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. 138 THE HISPANIC NATIONS For some years Chilean companies and specula- tors, aided by foreign capital mainly British in ori- gin, 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 north- ward 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 de- posits, 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 govern- ments 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. GREATER STATES AND LESSER 139 In 1873 the President, lacking sufficient financial and political support to keep himself in office, re- solved upon the risky expedient of arousing popu- lar passion against Chile, in the hope that he might thereby replenish the national treasury. Accord- ingly 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 ex- portation of nitrates from the Atacama region. Chile, already aware of the hostile combination which had been formed, protested so vigor- ously 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 dif- ferences 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 te 140 THE HISPANIC NATIONS the frontiers of Peru. On his part the President of Bolivia was too much engrossed in the fes- tivities 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 sta- ble, progressive, and efficient government at its back. The Peruvian forces, lacking any substan- tial support from Bolivia, crumpled under the ter- rific attacks of their adversaries. Efforts on the part of the United States to mediate in the strug- gle were blocked by the dogged refusal of Chile to GREATER STATES AND LESSER 141 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 sol- diers 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 rati- fied laterat Ancon. Peru was forced to cede Tara- paca outright and to agree that Tacna and Arica should be held by Chile forten years. At the ex- piration 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 142 THE HISPANIC NATIONS 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 vic- torious 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 con- cessions. ‘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 strug- gle practically a landlocked country. Though be- reft of access to the sea except by permission of its neighbors, it had, however, not endured any- thing like the calamities of its ally. In 1880 it had adopted a permanent constitution and it GREATER STATES AND LESSER 143 now entered upon a course of slow and relatively peaceful progress. In the republics to the northward struggles be- tween clericals and radicals caused sharp, abrupt alternations in government. In Ecuador the hos- tility between clericals and radicals was all the more bitter because of the rivalry of the two chief towns, Guayaquil the seaport and Quito the capi- tal, each of which sheltered a faction. No sooner therefore had Garcia Moreno fallen than the radi- cals of Guayaquil rose up against the clericals at Quito. Once in power, they hunted their ene- mies 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 conser- vative took charge until parties of bushwhackers and mutinous soldiers were able to install a mili- tary leader, whose retention of power was brief. In 1888 another conservative, who had been ab- sent from the country when elected and who was an adept in law and diplomacy, managed to win 144 THE HISPANIC NATIONS sufficient support from all three factions to retain office for the constitutional period. In Colombia a financial crisis had been approach- ing 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 Govern- ment, and the country was rent by factions. In order to give the republic a thoroughly centralized administration which would restore financial con- fidence and bring back the influence of the Church as a social and political factor, a genuine revolu- tion, which was started in 1876, eventually put an end to both radicalism and states’ rights. At the outset Rafael Nujiez, the unitary and clerical can- didate and a lawyer by profession, was beaten on the field, but at a subsequent election he ob- tained 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 Nijfiez came into office again did he feel himself strong enough to uproot altogether the GREATER STATES AND LESSER 145 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 dis- tricts, 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 promul- gated in 1864 had provided for the reorganiza- tion 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 im- posed upon Venezuela for about nineteen years a régime of obedience to law, and, to some extent, of modern ideas of administration such as the country had never known before. A person of 190 146 THE HISPANIC NATIONS 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 re- mained 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 itwas termed. The “sov- 3 ereign’’ states he governed through “sovereign” officials of his own selection. He stopped the plun- dering 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 encour- aged 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 GREATER STATES AND LESSER 147 “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 re- plevin’’— 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 Guz- man Blanco had attained enabled him to control af- fairs for five years — the Quinquennium, as it was called. Thereupon he procured his appointment to a diplomatic post in Europe; but the popular de- mand for his presence was too strong for him to re- main 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 upris- ings, some years of at least comparative security were made possible. More than any other Presi- dent 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” Durinc the period from 1889 to 1907 two incidents revealed the standing that the republics of His- panic 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 coép- eration far beyond a mere recognition of their in- dependence and a formal interchange of diplomats and consuls. Since attempts of the Hispanic countries them- selves 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 148 INTERNATIONAL LIFE 149 supporter, the great republic of the north had re- solved to become the director of the movement for greater solidarity in thought and action. By link- ing 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 po- litical 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 invit- ing 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 col- leagues 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 150 THE HISPANIC NATIONS 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 ar- bitration, proved impossible of acceptance. Ac- cordingly, from that time onward the matters treated by the Conference dealt for the most part with innocuous, though often praiseworthy, proj- ects 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 distin- guished foreign visitors with the genial courtesy and generous hospitality for which they are fa- mous. 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 INTERNATIONAL LIFE 151 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 re- sembled that of parents of the old régime: children at the international table should be “seen and not heard.” As a matter of fact, the Hispanic Ameri- cans were both seen and heard — especially the latter! They were able to show the Europeans that, even if they did happen to come from rela- tively weak states, they possessed a skillful in- telligence, a breadth of knowledge, a capacity for expression, and a consciousness of national char- acter, which would not allow them simply to play “Man Friday” to an international Crusoe. The president of the second conference, indeed, con- fessed that they had been a “‘revelation”’ to him. Hence, as time went on, the progress and possi- bilities of the republics of Hispanic America came 152 THE HISPANIC NATIONS 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 en- titled them to equal representation on international council boards. Toa greater or less degree, there- fore, they continued to stay in the borderland where no one either affirmed or denied their in- dividuality. To quote the phrase of an Hispanic American, they stood “‘on the margin of interna- How far they might pass beyond it 93 tional life. into the full privileges of recognition and associa- tion on equal terms, would depend upon the readi- ness with which they could atone for the errors INTERNATIONAL LIFE 153 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 obliga- tions meant. The period from 1889 to 1907, there- fore, 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 politi- cal offshoots from Spain in America to eighteen. Another result of this interposition was the crea- tion of what were substantially American protec- torates. Here the United States did not deprive the countries concerned of their independence and sov- ereignty, but subjected them to a kind of guardian- ship or tutelage, so far as it thought needful to insure stability, solvency, health, and welfare in general. 154 THE HISPANIC NATIONS Foremost in the northern group of Hispanic na- tions, Mexico, under the guidance of Diaz, marched steadily onward. Peace, order, and law; an increas- ing 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 bless- ings 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 opera- tion, 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 prop- erty part of the public domain, which might be acquired, like a mining claim, by any one who could secure a grant of itfrom the Government. Though hailed at the time as a piece of constructive INTERNATIONAL LIFE 155 legislation, its unfortunate effect was to enable large landowners who wished to increase their posses- sions to oust poor cultivators of the soil from their humble holdings. On the other hand, under the statesmanlike management of José Yves Liman- tour, the Minister of Finance, the monetary situa- tion at home and abroad was strengthened beyond measure, and banking interests were promoted accordingly. Further, an act abolishing the alca- bala, 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 régime, the constitution was altered in three important respects. The amendment of 1890 re- stored the original clause of 1857, which permitted indefinite reélection 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. InCentralAmerica two republics, Guatemala and Costa Rica, set an excellent example both because they were free from internal commotions and be- cause they refrained from interference in the af- fairs of theirneighbors. Thecontrast between these 156 THE HISPANIC NATIONS two quiet little nations, under their lawyer Presi- dents, and the bellicose but equally small Nicara- gua, Honduras, and Salvador, under their chief- tains, 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 José 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 INTERNATIONAL LIFE 157 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 alter- ing 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 re- paration at the cannon’s mouth for ill treatment of its citizens. Zelaya waxed wroth at the spectacle of Guate- mala, once so active in revolutionary arts but now quietly minding its own business. In 1906, there- fore, along with parties of Hondurans, Salvado- reans, 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 pre- ferred 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 158 THE HISPANIC NATIONS and Mexico tendered their good offices, and again a Central American conflict was closed aboard an American warship. About the only real achieve- ment 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 ag- gravated by lax and corrupt methods of adminis- tration as well as by financial difficulties. Swarms of Spanish officials enjoyed large salaries without performing duties of equivalent value. Not afew 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 INTERNATIONAL LIFE 159 and upon a grant of genuine self-government be- came 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 Bour- bon-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, es- pecially when the Cubans found popular sentiment in the United States so favorable to it. Excite- ment rose still higher when the Spanish Govern- ment 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 160 THE HISPANIC NATIONS 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 M4ximo Gomez, and the negroes and mulattoes by their chieftain, Antonio Macéo, 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 con- clusion 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 Span- iards was due to irresolution or weakness, they INTERNATIONAL LIFE 161 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, deter- mined to stamp it out province by province. To this end he planted his army firmly in one par- ticular area, prohibited the planting or harvesting of crops there, and ordered the inhabitants to as- semble in camps which they were not permitted to leave on any pretext whatever. This was his pol- icy 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. Reconcen- tration, combined with executions and deporta- tions, could have but one result —the “‘pacifica- tion”’ 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 popu- lar 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 II 162 THE HISPANIC NATIONS 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 expecta- tions they were not mistaken. By its armed in- tervention, in the following year the United States acquired Porto Rico for itself and compelled Spain to withdraw from Cuba.’ 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 finan- cial 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 ™See The Path of Empire, by Carl Russell Fish (in The Chronicles of America). INTERNATIONAL LIFE 163 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 dis- posed from the outset to continue the beneficial reforms in administration which had been intro- duced under American rule. Prudent and concilia- tory 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 op- ponents, the Liberals, dominated by men of radi- cal tendencies, were eager to assert the right, to which they thought Cuba entitled as an indepen- dent 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 anatural 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. 164 THE HISPANIC NATIONS 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 re- election 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 Es- trada Palma, an American Governor was again in- stalled, 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 Domin- ican 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 con- sul of an aggrieved foreign nation from attaching INTERNATIONAL LIFE 165 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 ex- ternal obligations of a pecuniary sort, American officials were to take charge of the custom house and apportion the receipts from that source in such a manner as to satisfy domestic needs and pay foreign creditors.' tSee 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 repub- lican freedom without some unrest; but the political experience gained under a régime of limited mon- archy had a steadying effect. Besides, the Revolu- tion 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 Gov- ernment were somewhat more restricted. Quali- fications for the suffrage were directly fixed in 166 THE REPUBLICS OF SOUTH AMERICA 167 the fundamental law itself, but the educational tests imposed excluded the great bulk of the popu- lation 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 par- ticular needs of Brazil, the Government erected under it had to contend awhile with political dis- turbances. Though conflicts occurred between the President and the Congress, between the federal au- thority and the States, and between the civil ad- ministration 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 republicanforms. 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 168 THE HISPANIC NATIONS Ferraz de Campos Salles, a distinguished jurist, was commissioned to effect an adjustment with the British creditors. Asa 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 be- came brighter. The election of Campos Salles to the presidency in 1898, as a reward for his success, was accom- panied 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 THE REPUBLICS OF SOUTH AMERICA 169 permanent peace until either the excluded and ap- parently irreconcilable party had been finally and utterly crushed, or, far better still, until the two factions could manage to agree upon some satis- factory 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 Colo- rados 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 fric- tion 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 up- heavals until 1910, when José Batlle, the able, reso- lute, 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 influ- ence over the administration of his successor, the Blancos decided that now was the time to attempt 170 THE HISPANIC NATIONS 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 prevent- ing 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 in- dulging 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 direc- tion that Uruguay entered upon a remarkable series of experiments in the nationalization of busi- ness enterprises. Further, more or less at the sug- gestion of Batlle, 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 THE REPUBLICS OF SOUTH AMERICA 171 extend the right of suffrage to women, and dissolved the union between Church and State. Ifthe 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. Uponacomparatively placid presidential régime followed a series of barrack uprisings or attacks by Congress on the executive. The constitution became afarce. No longer, tobe sure, an abode of Arcadian seclusion as in colonial times, or a sort of territorial cobweb from the cen- ter 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 coun- try 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 finan- cial future of Argentina also with great alarm. In 172 THE HISPANIC NATIONS 1890 the mad careering of private speculation and public expenditure along the roseate pathway of limitless credit reached a veritable “crisis of prog- ress.”” 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 mil- lion, 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 organ- ized 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. THE REPUBLICS OF SOUTH AMERICA 173 For three months civil guarantees were suspended, and by aso-called “law of residence, ’’ enacted some years before and now put into effect, the Govern- ment was authorized to expel summarily any for- eigner 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 fac- tions, that they ought to do something to break the hold of that powerful organization. Accord- ingly in 1906 the President, supported by a coali- tion 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 174 THE HISPANIC NATIONS 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 antago- nism between the chief executive and the legisla- ture 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 ab- sence — 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 intro- duced. 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 ma- jority 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 arbitra- tion. Even when its attitude toward its huge THE REPUBLICS OF SOUTH AMERICA 175 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 settle- ment of international disputes. Four years later, in a treaty with Uruguay, the so-called “ Argen- tine Formula” appeared. To quote its language: “The contracting parties agree to submit to ar- bitration 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 176 THE HISPANIC NATIONS the continental divide. Thereupon Argentina in- sisted that the boundary line should be made to run along the crest, while Chile demanded that it be traced along the watershed. Since the moun- tainous 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 compul- sory. But, as the conviction gradually spread that a struggle would leave the victor as prostrate as the vanquished, wiser counsels prevailed. In 1899, ac- cordingly, 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 arbitra- tion 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 THE REPUBLICS OF SOUTH AMERICA 177 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 lib- eration in 1817, a bronze statue of Christ the Re- deemer. 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 fron- tiers 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 parlia- mentary, 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. José Manuel Balmaceda, a man of marked abil- ity, who became President in 1886, had devoted much of his political life to urging an enlargement 72 178 THE HISPANIC NATIONS of the executive power, a greater freedom to munic- ipalities in the management of their local affairs, and a broadening of the suffrage. He had even ad- vocated 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 Cabi- nets 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 THE REPUBLICS OF SOUTH AMERICA 179 placed between the President and Cabinet on the one side and the Congress on the other, was an additional obstruction to a smooth-running admin- istration. For it he would substitute a tribunal charged with the duty of resolving conflicts be- tween the two chief branches of government. Bal- maceda 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 unit- ary system by a federal union, the probable weak- ness 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 op- position which he had encountered, took matters into hisown 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 180 THE HISPANIC NATIONS 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 astruggle 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 presi- dential cause was lost. Balmaceda, who had taken refuge in theArgentina legation, committed suicide. But the Balmacedists, who were included in a gen- eral amnesty, still maintained themselves as a party to advocate in a peaceful fashion the prin- ciples 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. Ac- cording 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 author- ity, has the title of Vice President only. It so hap- pened that after the death of the President two members of the Cabinet in succession held the THE REPUBLICS OF SOUTH AMERICA 181 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 Demo- crats. 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 adjust- ment 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 out- right to Chile in return for a seaport and a narrow right of way to it through the former Peruvian province of Tarapacaé. With Peru, Chile was not sofortunate. Though the tension over the ultimate disposal of the Tacna and Arica question was some- what reduced, it was far from being removed. Chile absolutely refused to submit the matter to arbitra- tion, on the ground that such a procedure could not properly be applied to a question arising out of 182 THE HISPANIC NATIONS 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 economi- cally 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. Be- sides, 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 convic- tion that whichever lost the election would deny its validity, and partly becausethey could not agree upon the precise method of holding it. Chile sug- gested that the international commission which was selected to take charge of the plebiscite, and which was composed of a Chilean, a Peruvian, and a neu- tral, should be presided over by the Chilean member as representative of the country actually in posses- sion, whereas Peru insisted that the neutral should act aschairman. Chile proposed also that Chile- ans, Peruvians, and foreigners resident in the area THE REPUBLICS OF SOUTH AMERICA 183 six months before the date of the elections should vote, provided that they had the right to do so un- der 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 suf- frage which required an ability to read and write. Both countries, moreover, appeared to have a lurk- ing suspicion that in any event the other would try to secure a majority at the polls by supplying a req- uisite 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 thesettle- ment for twenty years longer. At the expiration of this period, when Chile would have held the pro- vinces 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 184 THE HISPANIC NATIONS 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 du- bious boundaries of Ecuador constituted the most serious international problem in South America. The so-called Oriente region, lying east of the An- des and claimed by Peru, Brazil, and Colombia, ap- peared 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 be- came 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 refer- ence 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 THE REPUBLICS OF SOUTH AMERICA 185 territory, and the suspension of diplomatic relations. Though the United States, Argentina, and Brazil had interposed te ward off an armed conflict be- tween 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 con- vulsions 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 186 THE HISPANIC NATIONS 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 “‘revolu- tion”’ occurred, on schedule time, and the United States recognized the independence of the “‘ Repub- lic 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 main- tain 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 has- tened 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 THE REPUBLICS OF SOUTH AMERICA 187 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 com- pensation 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 le- gally a single President; had not put democratic ideas or institutions into practice; had lived wholly under dictatorships; had neglected public instruc- tion; and had set up a large number of oppressive commercial monopolies, including the navigation of rivers, the coastwise trade, the pear! fisheries, and the sale of tobacco, salt, sugar, liquor, matches, ex- plosives, butter, grease, cement, shoes, meat, and 188 THE HISPANIC NATIONS flour. Exaggerated as the indictment is and ap- plicable 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 “re- 99 66 storer,”’ “regenerator,” or “liberator”? succumbed there, the old craze for federalism again broke out and menaced the nation with piecemeal destruc- tion. Obedient, furthermore, to the whims of a presidential despot, Venezuela perpetrated more outrages on foreigners and created more interna- tional 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 admini- strative advantages, a constitution incorporating them was framed and published in the due and cus- tomary manner. This had hardly gone into opera- tion 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 THE REPUBLICS OF SOUTH AMERICA 189 to arbitration, and Venezuela came out substan- tially 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, fear- less, energetic, capricious mountaineer and cattle- man, he regarded foreigners no less than his own countryfolk, it would seem, as objects for his par- ticular scorn, displeasure, exploitation, or amuse- ment, 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 ap- pealed instead to their diplomatic representatives for protection. Hedeclared such a procedure to be an affront to the national dignity. Yet foreigners were usually correct in affirming that judges ap- pointed 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 through- out to portray the situation in such a light as to 190 THE HISPANIC NATIONS induce the other Hispanic republics also to view foreign interference as a dire peril to their own independence and sovereignty; and he further en- deavored to involve the United States in a strug- gle 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 disturb- ances had materially diminished the revenues from the customs. Furthermore Castro’s regulations ex- acting military service of all males between four- teen 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 work- ing concessions granted by Castro’s predecessors. Though familiar with what commonly happens to those who handle pitch, they had not scrupled to ald 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, THE REPUBLICS OF SOUTH AMERICA 191 France broke off diplomatic relations with Vene- zuela because of Castro’s refusal either to pay or to submit to arbitration certain claims which had originated in previous revolutions. Germany, ag- grieved 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 suffi- cient, Venezuela came to blows with Colombia. As the foreign pressure on Castro steadily in- creased, 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 sup- port 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 Vene- zuela as a means of bringing his native antago- nists to terms, Great Britain, Germany, and Italy seized his warships, blockaded the coast, and bom- barded some of his forts. Thereupon the United 192 THE HISPANIC NATIONS States interposed with a suggestion that the dis- pute be laid before the Hague Tribunal. Although Castro yielded, he did not fail to have a clause in- serted in a new “‘constitution’’ requiring foreigners. who might wish to enter the republic to show cer- tificates 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 will- ingness to have the United States, if it chose to do so, assume the réle 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 or- der to ward off European intervention. At this mo- ment, 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”’ ap- peared rather to resemble a political and commer- cial ogre bent upon swallowing them to satisfy “manifest destiny.” THE REPUBLICS OF SOUTH AMERICA 193 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, Co- lombia, 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 ac- cordingly with issuing a decree of amnesty for all political offenders except the leaders. When “‘re- elected,’’ he carried his magnanimity so far as to resign awhile in favor of the Vice President, stat- ing 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 former position a few months later. Venting his wrath upon the Netherlands because its minister had reported to his Government an out- break of cholera at La Guaira, the chief seaport of Venezuela, the dictator laid an embargo on Dutch commerce, seized itsships, and denounced the Dutch for their alleged failure to check filibustering from their islands off the coast. When the minister pro- tested, Castro expelled him. Thereupon the Nether- lands instituted a blockade of the Venezuelan ports. Tg 194 THE HISPANIC NATIONS What might have happened if Castro had re- mained 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 Gdmez, 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 inter- national tangles of Venezuela were straightened out. In 1914 the country adopted its eleventh consti- tution 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, al- tered the apportionment of their congressional rep- resentation, and enlarged the powers of the federal Government — or, rather, those of its executive branch! In 1914 Gémez 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 con- secutive terms. A year later he was unanimously elected President, though he never formally took the oath of office. THE REPUBLICS OF SOUTH AMERICA 195 Whatever may be thought of the political ways and means of this new Guzmén Blanco to maintain himself as a power behind or on the presidential throne, Gdmez gave Venezuela an administration of asortvery different from that of his immediate pred- ecessor. He suppressed various government mo- nopolies, removed other obstacles to the material advancement of the country, and reduced the na- tional debt. He did much also to improve the sani- tary conditions at La Guaira, and he promoted edu- cation, 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 move- ments 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. Interna- tional 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 froin 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 in- augurated 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 con- tinuous 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 pre- vious records for rapidity in presidential succes- sion, 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 196 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION 197 that he had grown too old to keep a firm grip on the situation. It has also been declared that his in- sistence upon reélection 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 deep- rooted 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 be- cause of their unwillingness to support the existing régime. 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 ma- terial progress was, it produced only a one-sided prosperity. Diaz was singularly deaf to the just 198 THE HISPANIC NATIONS complaints of the people of the laboring classes, who, as manufacturing and other industrial enter- prises developed, were resolved to better their con- ditions. 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 cul- tivators. Wretchedly paid and housed, and toil- ing 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 cornor beans, most of them were naturally a simple, peace- ful folk who, in spite of their misfortunes, might have gone on indefinitely with their drudgery in a hopeless apathetic fashion, unless their latent sav- age 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, MEXICO IN REVOLUTION 199 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 main- tenance 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 de- serving of severe punishment. In order to at- tract 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 immedi- ate advantages from that source should have mut- tered that Mexico was the “‘mother of foreigners and the stepmother of Mexicans.” much of the capital came from the United States, And, since so the antiforeign sentiment singled Americans out for its particular dislike. If Diaz appeared unable to appreciate the sig- nificance of the educational and industrial awaken- ing, hewas no less oblivious of the politicaloutcome. He knew, of course, that the Mexican constitution 200 THE HISPANIC NATIONS made impossible demands upon the political ca- _ pacity of the people. He was himself mainly of Indian blood and he believed that he understood the temperament and limitations of most Mexi- cans. 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 ad- ministration 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 selec- tion primarily to him and held their positions only if personally loyal to him. Confident of his sup- port and certain that protests against misgov- ernment 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 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION 201 enabled them to indulge in practices of intimi- dation and extortion which ultimately became unendurable. Though symptoms of popular wrath against the Diaz régime, or dtazpotism 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 reélection to the chief magistracy; a guarantee of fair elec- tions at all times; the choice of capable, honest, and impartial judges, jefes politicos, and other officials; and, in particular, a series of agrarian and indus- trial 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 202 THE HISPANIC NATIONS 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 vi- sionary, actuated by humane and kindlysentiments, 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 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION 203 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, pos- sessed 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 régime, 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 sur- mount. Though acknowledged by European coun- tries 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 Ar- gentina, 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 204 THE HISPANIC NATIONS pronounced Radicals had found a new northern leader in the person of Venustiano Carranza. They called themselves Constitutionalists, as in- dicative of their purpose to reéstablish the con- stitution 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 régime 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 capi- tal, 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 inter- ference by the United States. Compromise with the Huerta régime, therefore, was impossible. Huerta, the “strong man”’ of the Diaz type, must go. On MEXICO IN REVOLUTION 205 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 out- rages on foreigners, which evoked sharp protests and threats from the United States and European powers. While careful not to recognize his op- ponents officially, the American Government re- sorted 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 Constitu- tionalists was increasing when an incident that occurred in April, 1914, at Tampico brought mat- ters to a climax. A number of American sailors who had gone ashore to obtain supplies were ar- rested 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 206 THE HISPANIC NATIONS Falls, Canada, had before it a task altogether im- possible of accomplishment. Though Carranza was willing to have the Constitutionalists repre- sented, if the discussion related solely to the im- mediate 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 in- dignities’’ 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 BC” 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 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION 207 yet how to temporize, Carranza carried on a strug- gle, 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 ac- count with a degree of skill that blocked every at- tempt 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, Car- ranza’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 pro- visional 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 vio- lation of their understanding and insisted upon his retirement. Inasmuch as the convention was 208 ' THE HISPANIC NATIONS 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 ni- vals. Operating near the capital, he plundered Conventionalists and Constitutionalists with equal impartiality, and as a diversion occasionally oc- cupied 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 for- eigners almost beyond endurance. Rather than resort to extreme measures again, however, the United States invoked the co6peration of the His- panic republics and proposed a conference to de- vise some solution of the Mexican problem. To give the proposed conference a wider representa- tion, it invited not only the ““A B C”’ powers, but Bolivia, Uruguay, and Guatemala to participate. Meeting at Washington in August, the mediators MEXICO IN REVOLUTION 209 encountered the same difficulty which had con- fronted their predecessors at Niagara Falls. Though the other chieftains assented, Carranza, now certain of success, declined to heed any pro- posal 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 prece- dent. In reply Argentina stated that the confer- ence 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 paci- fication 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 in- tervention by a murderous raid on a town in New Mexico in March, 1916. When the United States dispatched an expedition to avenge the out- rage, Carranza protested energetically against its v4 210 THE HISPANIC NATIONS violation of Mexican territory and demanded its withdrawal. Several clashes, in fact, occurred be- tween American soldiers and Carranzistas. Neither the expedition itself, however, nor diplomatic efforts to find some method of codperation 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 Ameri- can soldiers were withdrawn. Again the ‘“‘first chief’’ had won! On the 5th of February a convention assembled at Querétaro promulgated a constitution embody- ing substantially all of the radical program that Carranza had anticipated in his decrees. Besides providing for an elaborate improvement in the con- dition of the laboring classes and for such a division MEXICO IN REVOLUTION 211 = of great estates as might satisfy their particular needs, the new constitution imposed drastic re- strictions upon foreigners and religious bodies. Under its terms, foreigners could not acquire in- dustrialconcessions 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 foreign- ers. 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; reélection was prohibited; and the office of Vice President was abolished. When, on the Ist of May, Venustiano Carranza was chosen President, Mexico had its first con- stitutional executive in four years. After a cruel and obstinately intolerant struggle that had oc- casioned indescribable suffering from disease and starvation, as well as the usual slaughter and de- struction 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 212 THE HISPANIC NATIONS become almost paralyzed; vast quantities of de- preciated 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 His- panic 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 unmis- takable tendency to extend its influence in various ways. Here fiscal and police control was estab- lished; there official recognition was withheld from a President who had secured office by unconstitu- tional methods. Nonrecognition promised to be an effective way of maintaining a régime 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 lit- tle, in the western hemisphere did not always carry conviction to Spanish American ears. The smaller countries in and around the Caribbean 213 214 THE HISPANIC NATIONS 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 cen- tury the five countries north of Panama madesub- stantial progress toward federation. As a South American writer has expressed it, their previous efforts in that direction “‘amid sumptuous festi- vals, banquets and other solemn public acts” at which they “‘intoned in lyric accents daily hymns for the imperishable reunion of the isthmian repub- lics,’’ 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 THE REPUBLICS OF THE CARIBBEAN 215 States and Mexico, in December, 1907, representa- tives of the five republics signed a series of con- ventions providing for peace and codperation. 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 oftice in Guatemala was to record, measures designed to secure uniformity in financial, commercial, in- dustrial, 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. 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 na- tions, and especially those of the southern group, on the intimacy of their economic ties with the belliger- ents overseas, they suffered from the ravages of the struggle more perhaps than other lands outside of PAN-AMERICANISM 233 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, mora- toria were set up in nearly all the countries, taxes and duties were increased, radical reductions in ex- penditure were undertaken, and in a few cases large quantities of paper money were issued. With the European market thus wholly or par- tially 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 con- ference 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 fa- vorable trade balance. Then, as the war drew into its fourth year, several of them even began to enjoy great prosperity. 234 THE HISPANIC NATIONS That Pan-Americanism had not meant much more than codperation 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 north- ern 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 coun- try, 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 nine- teen Hispanic nations saw fit to imitate the ex- ample set by their northern neighbor and to de- clare 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, PAN-AMERICANISM 235 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 Para- guay — continued their formal neutrality. In spite of a disclosure made by the United States of insult- ing and threatening utterances on the part of the German chargé 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 codperation among the nations of the New World, it broke down just when it might have served the greatest of purposes. Eventhe “A BC” 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 politi- cal children of various sizes and stages of advance- ment, or backwardness, were born of Spain in America, and one acknowledged the maternity of 236 THE HISPANIC NATIONS 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 de- scendants, 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, tradi- tion, language, and custom — their own, and that Galapagos Is. (to Ecuador) COMPARATIVE AREAS OF THE HISPANIC NATIONS AND THE UNITED STATES ARGENTINA . . . . = All states east of the M ippi and the first tier west Indiana, Mlinois, Michigan, Wis- consin, Minnesota, Iowa, Mis- souri, North Dakota, South Dakota, Kansits. and Nebraska All of the United States, with almost, enough left for a state © the size of Texas Twice the size of California All of the states between ‘the Appalachians and the Missis- sippi, together with Vermont, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island Costa Rica. . . = Vermont, New Hampshire, and : Connecticut Cupa. . = Pennsylvania Dosinican 1 REPUBSI 1c = Vermont, New Hampshire, and lzol Rhode Island Ecuapor:. .°. . - Maine, New Hampshire, Ver- mont, Massachusetts, Connecti- eut, Rhode Island, New York, and New Jersey GUATEMALA . Little larger than New York Honpuras tat Little smaller than New York Mexico . . . . = Ohio, Indiana, Mlinois, Wiscon- sin, Michigan, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Ver- mont, and Connecticut Little larger than North Caro- lina. South Carolina and Delaware Four times the size of Indiana " Bouivia u Braz . CHILE CoLomBra . NIcaRaGua . Panama Paraguay ei La = AS TEXAS IN COMPARISON WITH THE NATIONS OF HISPANIC AMERICA| -Perv. Washington, Idaho, Oregon, California,-Utah, Nevada, and Arizona SALVADOR « = Little smaller than New Jersey Uruevay. 2... North Dakota . VENEZUELA . . = Texas, Kentucky, and Tennessee Ey IN 1919 a eo Spanish-American. tics as: Repu & | Spanish-American Republics formed since 1828 ] United States of Brazil 3 136 io 16 106 90 80 76 20 PREPARED FOR THE CHRONICLES OF AMERICA UNDER THE DIRECTION OF W.L.G.JOERG, AMERICAN GEQGRAPHICAL SOCIETY JULIUS BIEN LITH. N.Y. PAN-AMERICANISM 237 represented by the United States. Appreciative though the southern countries are of their north- ern 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 con- sult works written in Spanish and Portuguese. There are many important books, also, in French and Ger- man; 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 Européens: Portugal et Espagne (Brussels and Paris, 1907), and Kurt Simon, Spanien und Portugal als See und Kolontalmdchte (Hamburg, 1913). For the Span- ish colonial régime alone, E. G. Bourne, Spain in Amer- ica (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 239 240 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE Humboldt and Aimé 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. (Lon- don, 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 trea- tise by W. S. Robertson, Rise of the Spanish-American Republics as Told in the Lives of their Liberators (New York, 1918); Bartolomé Mitre, The Emancipation of South America (London, 1893) — a condensed transla- tion of the author’s Historia de San Martin, and wholly favorable to that patriot; and F. L. Petre, Simén 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 (Phila- delphia, 1820); J. R. Poinsett, Notes on Mexico (Lon- don, 1825); H. M. Brackenridge, Voyage to South America, 2 vols. (London, 1820); W. B. Stevenson, Historical and Descriptive Narrative of Twenty Years’ Residence 1n South America, 3 vols. (London, 1825); J. Miller, Memozrs of General Miller in the Service of the Republic of Peru, 2 vols. (London, 1828); H. L. V. Ducoudray Holstein, Memoirs of Simén 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 Calderén, Latin America, its Rise and Progress (New York, 1913), and M. de Oliveira Lima, The BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 241 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, Boliwia (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 Schoen- rich, 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, respec- tively, are the most readable and reliable. For additional bibliographical references see South America and the articles on individual countries in The Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th edition, and in Marrion Wilcox and G. E. Rines, Encyclopedia of Latin Amer- ica (New York, 1917). Of contemporary or later works descriptive of the life <6 242 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE and times of eminent characters in the history of the Hispanic American republics since 1880, 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, 1852). 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, 1848), 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, Calderén dela Barca, Life in Mexico (London, 1852). Juarez: U. R. Burke, Life of Benito Judrez (London, 1894). So- lano Lépez: T. J. Hutchinson, Parand; with Incidents of the Paraguayan War and South American Recollec- tions (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, 1891-1892). Carranza: L. Gutiérrez de Lara and Edgcumb Pin- chon, The Mexican People: their Struggle for Freedom (New York, 1914). INDEX “A BC” Conference, 205-06 “A BC powers,” set up prin- ciple of balance of power, 229- 230; combination breaks down, 235 Agustin the First, of Mexico, see Iturbide, Agustin de “Andhuac, Congress of,” 28 Ancén, treaty between Chile and Peru signed at, 141 Andes, San Martin crosses, 34; Bolivar crosses, 39, 59; as boundary between Argentina and Chile, 175-76; statue of Christ in, 177 Angostura, Congress at, 39 Antofagasta, nitrate of soda in, 138 Argentina, and Brazil, 68-69, 78, 174-75; politics, 69-70, 173- 174; Rosas as President, 87- 92; and Uruguay, 90-92, 97, 169, 175; and Paraguay, 95-98, 186-37; gains position of eminence, 121, 133-37; revolt of 1880, 134-35; population, 135, 172; immigration, 135; finance, 135-36, 171-72; in- dustry, 172; “revolution” of 1905, 172; and Chile, 175-77; intervenes between Ecuador and Peru, 185; Drago formu- lates doctrine of contract debts, 191; refuses to recognize Huer- ta government in Mexico, 203; offers mediation between United States and Mexico, 205; “ABC” Conference, 206; at 243 Washington Conference (1915), 208-09; ““A BC” combination, 229-30, 235; neutral in Great War, 235; centennial anniver- sary of independence, 236; see also Buenos Aires, La Plata Argentina Formula, 175 Argentine Confederation, La Plata renamed, 68; sce also Argentina, La Plata Arica, 138-42, 181-83 “‘Army of the Andes,’’ 34 “Army of the Three Guaran- tees,” 49 Artigas, José Gervasio, 23, $1, $2 Asuncién, revolutionary break in, 22 Atacama, desert of, 138 Austria-Hungary and Mexico, 118 Ayacucho, valley of, Sucre’s vic- tory in, 59 out- Bahia (city), Brazil, 77 ‘Balkan States”’ of America, 126 Balmaceda, José Manuel, 177- 180; bibliography, 242 Banda Oriental, part of vice- royalty of La Plata, 21; po- litical movements in, 22-28; disputed territory, 31-32, 68- 69; annexed to Brazil, 32; becomes republic of Uruguay, 69; see also Uruguay Barrios, Justo Rufino, President of Guatemala, 127-29 Batlle, José, President of Uru- guay, 169-70 244 Belgrano, Manuel, leader in La Plata, 19 Blanco, Antonio Guzman, see Guzman Blanco, Antonio Bogoté, Congress at, 26, 67; Spanish atrocities at, 36; Bolivar goes to, 65 Bolivar, Simoén, 148; favors cen- tralized control, 25; “‘Libera- tor of Venezuela,” 25; as dictator, 25-27; flees to Ja- maica, 27; expedition to Vene- zuela (1816), 37, 38-39; Pres- ident of Republic of Colom- bia, 39; and San Martin, 43-47; personal characteristics, 44-45; quoted, 56-57; and Peru, 57-60; Bolivia named in honor of, 60; as President of three republics, 61-65; pro- motes Congress at Panama, 62-64; his fall, 65-67; death (1830), 67 Bolivia, 21, 121; Las Charcas becomes, 60-61; and Bolivar, 62, 66; boundaries, 137-38; and Chile, 138-40, 141, 142- 143, 181; constitution adopted (1880), 142; progress, 143, 183; at Washington Confer- ence (1915), 208; breaks off diplomatic relations with Ger- many, 235; see also Charcas Bonaparte, Joseph, 17, 19 Boundary disputes, Argentina and Brazil, 32, 68-69, 174-75; Brazil with Paraguay and Uruguay, 96; Chile with Bo- livia and Peru, 137-43, 181- 183; Argentina and Chile, 175- 176; Peru, Brazil, and Colom- bia, 184; Venezuela and British Guiana, 188-89; Haiti and Dominican Republic, 223_ Boyac&, rivulet of, Bolivar de- feats royalists at, 39 Brazil, subject to Portugal, 1; social organization, 4-9; for- eigners in, 5; education, 9, 29; INDEX government, 10, 28-29, 53- 54, 76-79, 166-67; annexes Banda Oriental, 32; under Pedro I, 53-55, 77-79; pro- claimed independent of Portu- gal, 55; and Argentina, 68-69, 78, 174-75; and Uruguay, 78, 90, 91, 92, 97; and Paraguay, 95, 96, 97, 136, 167; under Pedro II, 102-08; rises to posi- tion of eminence, 121, 129-33; abolition of slavery, 129-80; immigration, 130; becomes United States of Brazil (1889), . 133; and Bolivia, 137; finance, 167-68; politics, 168; interven- tion between Ecuador and Peru, 185; refuses to recognize Huerta government in Mexico, 203; offers mediation between United States and Mexico, 205; at ““A B C”’ Conference, 206; at Washington Confer- ence (1915), 208-09; declares war on Germany, 234; rela- tions with Portugal, 236 British Guiana, boundary dis- pute with Venezuela, 188 Buenos Aires (city), viceroy deposed at, 17, 20; political commotions, 21, 31, 89; hostile to Montevideo, 22-23; suprem- acy of, 68, 69-70, 87; French blockade of, 90; and Lépez, 96; change in city and prov- ince, 135; financial panic, 172 Buenos Aires (province), 70, 87, 135 Callao, Bolivar at, 58, 62 Campos Salles, Manoel Ferraz de, President of Brazil, 167-68 Canterac, José, royalist leader in Peru, 58, 59, 60 Carabobo, Battle of, 43 Caracas, revolution in, 24; and Bolivar, 26, 37; assembly de- clares Venezuela a separate state, 66 INDEX Caribbean, countries of the, 121, 213-26; see also names of countries Carlotta, wife of Maximilian, 118 Carranza, Venustiano, 204-12; bibliography, 242 Cartagena, Spanish victory at, 36 Castro, Cipriano, President of Venezuela, 189-94, 195 Central America, at Panama Congress (1826), 64; throws off Mexican yoke, 75-76; re- publics of, 76, 121; see also Costa Rica, Guatemala, Hon- duras, Nicaragua, Salvador Central America, Republic of, 129 Central American Court, 215, 219 Céspedes, Carlos Manuel de, Cuban leader, 112 Chacabuco, San Martin defeats royalists at, 34 Charcas (Bolivia), province of La Plata, 21; becomes province of Peru, 22, 40; royalists in, 51, 60; becomes Bolivia, 60-61; see also Bolivia Chile, 40, 134; declares inde- pendence (1810), 23; Spanish régime restored (1814), 24, 33; San Martin and O’Higgins in, 34-35, 71; independence de- clared (1818), 35, 70; Coch- rane organizes navy, 41, 42; politics, 71-72, 181; rises to position of eminence, 121; *“War of the Pacific,”’ 137-42, 181-83; and Argentina, 175- 177; under Balmaceda, 177- 180; civil war, 180; recent sta- bility in, 180-81; refuses to recognize Huerta government in Mexico, 203; offers media- tion between United States and Mexico, 205; at “A B C” Conference, 205-06; at Wash- ington Conference (1915), 208— 245 209; “ABC” combination, 229-80, 235; neutral in Great War, 235; centennial anniver- sary, 236 Chiloé, Island of, 61-62 Christ the Redeemer, statue in the Andes, 177 Christophe, Henri, 14 Chuquisaca, capital of Char- cas, 60; renamed Sucre, 61 Cisplatine Province, 32, 69; see also Banda Oriental Cochrane, Thomas, Earl of Dun- donald, 41, 42, 77 Cocoa a Colombian product, 144 Coffee, planting introduced in Guatemala, 127-28; grown in Colombia, 144 Colombia, 121; Republic of, 39, 145; Bolivar as President, 39, 62; and province of Quito, 43, 45; at Congress at Panama, 64; rebels against Bolivar, 66; intervenes in Ecuador, 101; finance, 144, 185; government, 144-45; revolution (1876), 144; boundary disputes, 184; se- cession of Panama (1903), 185- 187; and Venezuela, 191, 193, 195; neutral in Great War, 235; see also Bogoté, New Granada Commerce, 7-8, 12, 232-33 Corn Islands, 218 “*Corner of Death,” 59 Costa Rica, 76, 126-27, 155, 215, 219-20, 234 Creoles, 4, 17, 26 Cuba, 52, 195; slavery in, 111; government, 111; insurrection (1868), 112; Ten Years’ War, 113, 158; becomes a republic, 153, 158-64; United States intervention in, 162, 164, 221, 222; refuses to recognize Huerta government in Mexico, 203; insurrection (1917), 223; declares war on Germany, 234 Curacao, Island of, Bolivar in, 37 246 Denmark, 195 Diaz, Porfirio, 117, 119; heads Mexican rebellion, 121-22; as President of Mexico, 122-26, 154-55, 196-202; downfall, 196, 201-02; bibliography, 242 Dominican Republic, 108-11, 164-65, 223-25, 284-35; see also Haiti Drago, Luis Marfa, 191 Dulce, Governor and Captain General of Cuba, 112 Dundonald, Thomas Cochrane, Earl of, 41, 42, '77 “Earthquake” republic, 25 Ecuador, 121; Quito becomes, 67; theocracy in, 99-102; hos- tility between radicals and cler- icals, 143, 183-84; boundary questions, 184-85; breaks off diplomatic relations with Ger- many, 235; see also Guayaquil, Quito (province), Quito (town) Education, Spanish America, 8, 9-10; Brazil, 29; Ecuador, 100-01; Guatemala, 127; Vene- zuela, 146, 195; Mexico, 154; Central America, 215 Ensenada renamed La Plata, 135 “Equator, Republic of the” (Ecuador), 67 Escobedo, captor of Maximilian, 118 Ferdinand VII of Spain, 17, 18, 19, 20, 27, 30, 38, 40, 48, 59, 74 “Ferriére, La,’’ 14 Finance, Mexico, 116, 125, 155; Argentina, 135-36, 171-72; Colombia, 144, 185; Venezuela, 146; Dominican Republic, 164- 165; Paraguay, 171; Honduras, 216; Nicaragua, 218; Costa Rica, 219-20; Panama, 220- 221; during Great War, 233 Florida, United States acquires, 28, 51 Fonseca, Deodoro da, 131, 133 INDEX Fonseca Bay, part leased to United States, 218 France, and Santo Domingo, 18-14; San Martin retires to, 47; blockades Argentine ports, 90, 91-92; offers mediation between Argentina and Uru- guay, 91; war with Mexico, 106; Napoleon III and Mexico, 115-18; and Venezuela, 193, 195; attitude of Spanish Amer- ica in Great War toward, 282 Francia, Dr. José Gaspar Ro- driguez de, 22, 832-83, 93; bib- liography, 241-42 French Revolution, influence on Spanish America, 13 Garcia Moreno, Gabriel, Presi- dent of Ecuador, 99-102, 148; bibliography, 242 Garibaldi, Giuseppe, 91 Germans in Brazil, 180 Germany, and Venezuela, 191; attitude of Spanish America toward (1918), 234-35 Gémez, José Miguel, President of Cuba, 221-23 Gémez, Juan Vicente, President of Venezuela, 194-95 Gémez, M4ximo, leader of revo- lution in Cuba, 160 Gonzalez, Alfredo, President of Costa Rica, 219-20 “Grand Lodge of America,” 16 Great Britain, commerce with, 12; influence over Portugal, 15; acquires Trinidad, 15; Miranda seeks aid from, 16; sends expedition to Rio de la Plata, 16-17; aids Spanish American and Brazilian inde- pendence, 38, 79; offers media- tion between Argentina and Uruguay, 91; blockades Ar- gentine ports, 91-92; and Mexico, 115, 116; and Nicara- gua, 157, 158; arbitrates be- tween Chile and Argentina, INDEX Great Britain—Continued 176; and Venezuela, 188-89, 190, 191, 198, 195 Great War, relations of Hispanic nations to, 231-35 “Greater Republic of Central America,’”’ 156 Guatemala, independence de- clared, 50-51; in ‘United Provinces of Central America,”’ 76; war with other Central American states, 76, 129, 214; Barrios as President, 127-29; order in, 155-56, 157; at Washington Conference (1915), 208-09; declares war on Ger- many, 234 Guayaguil, 184; Bolivar in, 43, 44; revolution in, 48, 148; San Martin in, 45 Guzman Blanco, Antonio, Presi- dent of Venezuela, 145-47, 188; bibliography, 242 Hague Peace Conferences, 148, 151, 152, 176, 228 Hague Tribunal, 185, 187, 192 Haiti, Republic of, proclaims in- dependence, 14; center of revolutionary agitation, 15; Bolivar in, 37; and Dominican Republic, 51, 108-09, 223; becomes protectorate of United States, 225-26; see also Domini- can Republic, Santo Domingo Hidalgo, Miguel, leader in Mexi- co, 27 Honduras, 219; in ‘United Provinces of Central America,” 76; wars with other Central American states, 76, 214; and Guatemala, 129; tries to form “Greater Republic of Central America,” 156; neutralized, 215; finance, 216; breaks off diplomatic relations with Ger- many, 235 Huerta, Victoriano, 202-03, 204- 206, 207 Q47 “Tguala, Plan of,” 48-49, 50 Immigration, Argentina, 185; Brazil, 180 Indians, 8, 6-7, 184 Inquisition abolished, 21, 85 International Conferences of American States, 148-51, 227 Isabel, Infanta, represents Spain at centennial celebration in Argentina and Chile, 236 Isabella II of Spain, 110, 112 Italy and Venezuela, 191, 193 Iturbide, Agustin de, leader in Mexico, 48-49; assumes presi- dency, 50; emperor, 50, 72~74 Ituzaingé, Battle of, 69 Jamaica, 15; Bolivar in, 27, 56 Jesuits, in Paraguay, 22; in Ecua- dor, 100; in Guatemala, 127 John IV of Portugal, 52-53 Juarez, Benito Pablo, Mexican statesman, 113-15, 117, 118, 119, 121; bibliography, 242 Junin, plain of, Bolivar’s victory on, 59 “King’s Beautiful View,” 14 La Guaira, seaport of Venezuela, 193 La Paz, Bolfvar at, 60 La Plata, revolts from Spain, 19-21, 23, 28, 31; becomes “United Provinces of La Plata River,” 21; and Paraguay, 22; and Banda Oriental, 22-23, 32; Chileans flee to, 24, 33-34; independence declared, 31; San Martin in, 33; and Char- cas, 40, 60; name changed to ‘Argentine Confederation,” 68; see also Argentina La Plata (village), 135 La Plata Congress, 31, 56 Latin America, see Spanish America “Lemonade, Count of,” 14 248 Lima, 58; San Martin in, 41, 42, 47; Bolivar at, 60; uprising in, 65; Chilean army in, 141 Limantour, José Yves, Mexican Minister of Finance, 155 Lépez, Francisco Solano, Presi- dent of Paraguay, 938-99; bibliography, 242 Louisiana, 28 L’Ouverture, Toussaint, 14 Macéo, Antonio, leader in Cuba, 160 Madero, Francisco I, President of Mexico, 201-03 Magellan, Strait of, neutral, 175 Maipo, Battle of, 35 “Marmalade, Duke of,” 14 Maximilian, Archduke of Aus- tria, 117-18 Mazorca, band of followers of Rosas, 89 Mendoza, San Martin at, 34 Menocal, Mario, President of Cuba, 222-23 Mexican Central Railroad Com- pany, 125 “Mexican Empire,” 49, 72; see also Mexico Mexico, revolt under Hidalgo and Morelos, 27-28; “‘ Plan of Iguala,’’ 48; independence de- clared, 49; Empire of, 49-50, 72-74; at Congress at Panama, 64; government (1829-55), 104-07; Spain attempts to recover, 105; under Juarez, 113 et seg.; and Napoleon III, 115-18; finance, 116, 125, 155; and Maximilian, 117-18; under Diaz, 121-26, 154-55; medi- ates between Central Ameri- can states, 157, 158; revolu- tion (1910-17), 196 et seq.; in Great War, 234, 235 Mexico, city of, 49 Miranda, Francisco de, 15-16, Q4-25 declared INDEX Mitre, Bartolomé, 134 Monroe Doctrine, 68-64, 108, 109, 149, 190 Montevideo, and La Plata, 22- 23, 82; Rosas lays siege to, 91, 92; political troubles in, 96, 169 Morazén, Francisco, 76 Morelos, José Maria, 27-28, 48 Moreno, Gabriel Garcia, see Garcia Moreno, Gabriel Morillo, Pablo, 36, 38 Mosquito Indians, 158 Napoleon Bonaparte, 13, 14, 17- 18, 35 Napoleon III aud Mexico, 115- 118 National Mexican Railroad Com- pany, 125 Negroes, 3, 81; see also Haiti, Slavery Netherlands, The, and Vene- zuela, 193, 195 New Granada, uprising against Spain in, 19, 24, 28; Bolivar in, 26; Morillo in, 36, 38; becomes Republic of Colom- bia, 39; provinces of Quito and Charcas formerly part of, 40; name given to new re- public formed at Bogoté, 67; see also Cclombia, Venezuela New Spain, uprising against Spain, 19-20, 27, 47-51; see also Central America, Mexico Niagara Falls (Canada), “A B C”’ Conference at, 205-06, 209 Nicaragua, in “ United Provinces of Central America,” 76; Zelaya in, 156-58, 217; United States intervention in, 214- 216, 217, 218; treaty with United States (1916), 218-19; declares war on Germany, 234 Nitrate of soda, 138, 139, 182 Nunez, Rafael, President of Colombia, 144-45 INDEX Ocafia, constitutional conven- tion at, 65 O’Donoji, Juan, viceroy in Mexico, 49, 50 O’Higgins, Bernardo, 34, 41, 71 Oribe, Manuel, 91 Oriente region, 184 Pacific, War of the, 187, 181 Paez, José Antonio, 37, 65 Palma, Tomas Estrada, 163, 164 Panama (town), Congress at (1826), 62, 64 Panama, Republic of, 153, 185- 187, 214, 220-21, 234 Pan-American Conferences, 148- 161, 227 “Pan-Americanism,”’ 227 et seq. Paraguay, 121; part of La Plata, 21; declares independence, 22; opulation, 22; under Francia, 2, 32-33, 92-93; under Lopez, 93-99; and Argentina, 95-98, 136-37; and Uruguay, 95, 96; and Brazil, 95, 96, 97, 136, 167; after 1898, 171; finance, 171; neutral in Great War, 235 Parana, Lépez on the, 96 Patagonia, 134, 175 Pedro I, Emperor of Brazil, 53- 55, 77-79 Pedro II, Emperor of Brazil, 79, 102, 103, 131, 133; bibliog- raphy, 242 Pernambuco (city), Brazil, 77 Peru, 121; uprising against Spain, 19-20, 41-42; gains Charcas, 22, 40; and Chile, 24, 137- 142, 181-83; royalist, 39-40, 51; and Quito, 40, 43, 45; declared independent, 42; and Bolivar, 57-60, 62, 66, 71; at Congress at Panam4, 64; “War of the Pacific,” 137-42, 181-83; army, 140; political situation, 183-84; breaks off diplomatic relations with Germany, 235; see also Lima Pichincha, volcano of, 44 249 Plata, Rio de la, 16 Plebiscite for Tacna and Arica, 141, 182-83 Political parties, 84; Guatemala, 51; Argentina, 69-70, 89, 173; Chile, 71-72, 181; Mexico, 75, 104-05, 204; Central America, 76; Uruguay, 90, 91, 95, 97, 169; Ecuador, 143; Cuba, 159- 160; Brazil, 168 Porto Rico, United States ac- quires, 162; commissioners su- perintend election in Domini- can Republic, 224 Portugal, extent of dominion in America, 1-2; policy in Brazil, 10-11, 28-29, 52, 53-55; de- pendent upon Great Britain, 15; relations with Brazil, 236 Press, The, Argentina, 21, 88; Brazil, 29, 103; Panama, 220 Puebla (state), Mexico, capture of (1863), 116 ““Queen’s Delight,” 14 Querétaro, Maximilian captured at, 118; constitutional conven- tion at, 210 Quito (province), belongs to Peru, 40; dispute over, 43-44, 45,66; government overthrown, 65; declares independence un- der the name Ecuador, 67; see also Ecuador Quito (town), 44, 143, 184 Railroads, Mexico, 125; Guate- mala, 127 “‘Rays and Suns of Bolivar,’ 52 Religion, 8-9, 85; Mexico, 48; Ecuador, 100-01 Rio de Janeiro (city), 77, 96; Portuguese rulers come to, 28; Pedro I at, 54; treaty with Argentina signed at, 69; up- rising (1831), 78; (1889), 132 Rio Grande do Sul (province), Brazil, Germans in, 130 Rivadavia, Bernardino, 68, 69 250 Rivera, Fructuoso, 91 Roca, Julio Argentino, 134 Rodas, Caballero de, 112 Rosario de Cicuta, Congressat, 39 Rosas, Juan Manuel de, 68, 87- 92; bibliography, 241 Salavarrieta, Policarpa, 36-37 Salvador, and Mexico, 51; in “United Provinces of Central America,” 76; relations with other Central American states, 76, 128, 129, 156, 214; part in United States-Nicaragua con- troversy, 219; neutral in Great War, 235 San Juan de Ulta, surrender of fortress (1825), 74 San Martin, José de, 33-35, 41- 47, 57 “Sans Souci,” 14 Santa Anna, Antonio Lépez de, 73, 104, 105; bibliography, 242 Santa Marta, Bolivar retires to estate near, 67 Santiago, takes lead in revolt against Spain, 23; O’Higgins at, 34; in civil war, 180 Santo Domingo, 13-15, 51, 108, see also Dominican Republic, Haiti Sao Paulo (city), Brazil, 77 Sao Paulo (province), Brazil, 54 Sarmiento, Domingo Faustino, 134 Slave trade, abolished in La Plata, 21; topic for discussion at Panama Congress, 64 Slavery, 3, 80, 103, 111, 129-30 Solano Lépez, Francisco, see Lé- pez, Francisco Solano Spain, extent of dominions in America, 1-2; under influence of France, 15 ; and Napoleon, 17, 35; possessions in 1814, 28; sends Morillo to Venezuela, 35-37; revolution of 1820, 40; Ferdinand VII restored, 59; reannexes Dominican Repub- INDEX lic, 109-10; Isabella dethroned, 112; and Mexico, 115, 116; re- lations with Spanish America, 235-37 Spanish America, extent, 1-2; population, 2-5; economic or- ganization, 6-7; commerce, 7-8; religion, 8-9; education, 9-10; government, 10-11; after Bolivar’s downfall, 80 ct seq.; in 1876, 120-21; republics join in international affairs, 148 et seqg.; during the Great War, 231-35; bibliography, 239-42; see also names of countries Sucre, Antonio José de, 43-44, 59, 60, 61, 66 Sucre (city), 61 Suffrage, 166-67, 183 Tacna-Arica question, 138-42, 181-83 Tampico, American sailors ar- rested at (1914), 205 Tarapacdé (province), 138, 139, 141, 181, 182 Ten Years’ War, 118, 158 Texas, revolt in, 105 Tierra del Fuego divided between Argentina and Chile, 175 Transportation, see Railroads Trinidad, Great Britain acquires, 15, 28; Miranda and, 16 Tucuman, Congress at, 31, 56 Tuxtepec, Plan of, 121 “United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil, and the Algarves,” 52 United Mexican States, 74 “United Provinces in South America,” 31 “United Provinces of Central America,”’ 75, 126 United Provinces of La Plata River, 21, 67 United States, as example of independence, 18, 132, 237; recognizes republics, 37, 61, INDEX ) Valparaiso and Balmaceda, 179, United States—Continued 213; attitude of Spanish Amer- ica toward, 63, 229-31; and Mexico, 106, 118, 203, 204, 205, 206, 208-10; effect of Civil War on Monroe Doc- trine, 108 et seg.; and Domini- can Republic, 111, 164-66, 224-25; seeks to mediate be- tween Chile and Peru, 140; calls Pan-American Confer- ence, 148-51; and Cuba, 153, 159, 161, 162, 163, 164, 221- 223; and Panama, 153, 185-86, 220-21; and Central America, 157, 218 et seg.; acquires Porto Rico, 162; boundary decision for Brazil and Argentina, 175; intervention between Ecuador and Peru, 185; and Colombia, 186-87; and Venezuela, 188, 191-92, 193, 195; “A B C” Conference, 205-06; and Nica- ragua, 214, 217-19; and Haiti, 226; commerce with Hispanic republics, 238; war with Ger- many, 234 United States of Brazil, 133; see also Brazil “United States of Venezuela,” 145; see also Venezuela Urquiza, Justo José de, 92 Uruguay, 121; independence recognized, 69; and Brazil, 78, 90, 91, 92, 97; and Argentina, 90-92, 97, 169, 175; politics, 90; civil war in, 91, 136, 169; and Paraguay, 95, 96; under Batlle, 168-71; at Washing- ton Conference (1915), 208; attitude in Great War, 234, 285; see also Banda Oriental Uspallata Pass, 34, 177 251 180 Venezuela, 121; expeditions of Miranda to, 16; declared in- dependent, 24; Bolivar in, 25- 26, 37-38, 39, 43, 67; Morillo in, 36, 38; separates from Colombia, 65, 66; reorgani- zation (1864), 145; under Guzman Blanco, 145-47, 188; boundary dispute with Great Britain, 188-89; under Castro, 189-95; foreign relations, 190— 194; eleventh constitution adopted (1914), 194; under Gé6mez, 194-95; neutral in Great War, 235; see also Co- lombia, New Granada, United States of Venezuela Vera Cruz, 74, 114, 205, 206 Victoria, Guadalupe, President of Mexico, 74 Villa, Francisco or ‘‘ Pancho,” 207-08, 209-10 Villa Hayes (Paraguay), 137 Washington, conference of South American powers at (1915), 208-09; Pan-American finan- cial conference (1915), 233 West Indies, 51; see also Cuba, Haiti, Jamaica, Porto Rico, Trinidad Weyler, Valeriano, Spanish gen- eral in Cuba, 160-61 Ypiranga, Pedro II at the, 54; Cry of, 55 Zapata, Emiliano, 208 Zelaya, José Santos, dictator of Nicaragua, 156-58, 214