Story of the Nations
A Series of Historical Studies intended to present in graphic narratives the stories of the different nations that have attained prominence in history.
In the story form the current of each national life is distinctly indicated, and its picturesque and noteworthy periods and episodes are presented for the reader in their philosophical relations to each other as well as to universal history.
FOR FULL LIST SEE END OF THIS VOLUME.
Frontispiece
CAPE HORN.[From a steel engraving.]
THE STORY OF THE NATIONS
THE SOUTH AMERICAN
REPUBLICS
BY
THOMAS C. DAWSON
Secretary of the United States Legation to Brazil
IN TWO PARTS
PART I
ARGENTINA, PARAGUAY, URUGUAY, BRAZIL
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
The Knickerbocker Press
Copyright 1903
BY
THOMAS C. DAWSON
Eighth Printing
The Knickerbocker Press, New York
TO MY WIFE
I DEDICATE THIS STUDY OF THE HISTORY
OF HER NATIVE CONTINENT
PREFACE
The question most frequently asked me since I began my stay in South America has been: "Why do they have so many revolutions there?" Possibly the events recounted in the following pages may help the reader to answer this for himself. I hope that he will share my conviction that militarism has already definitely disappeared from more than half the continent and is slowly becoming less powerful in the remainder. Constitutional traditions, inherited from Spain and Portugal, implanted a tendency toward disintegration; Spanish and Portuguese tyranny bred in the people a distrust of all rulers and governments; the war of independence brought to the front military adventurers; civil disorders were inevitable, and the search for forms of government that should be final and stable has been very painful. On the other hand, the generous impulse that prompted the movement toward independence has grown into an earnest desire for ordered liberty, which is steadily spreading among all classes. Civic capacity is increasing among the body of South Americans and immigration is raising the industrial level. They are slowly evolving among themselves the best form of government for their special needs and conditions, and a citizen of the United States must rejoice to see that that form is and will surely remain republican.
It is hard to secure from the tangle of events called South American history a clearly defined picture. At the risk of repetition I have tried to tell separately the story of each country, because each has its special history and its peculiar characteristics. All of these states have, however, had much in common and it is only in the case of the larger nations that social and political conditions have been described in detail. A study of either Argentina, Brazil, Chile, or Venezuela is likely to throw most light on the political development of the continent, while Peru, Bolivia, and Colombia are more interesting to the seeker for local colour and the lover of the dramatic.
The South American histories so far written treat of special periods, and few authorities exist for post-revolution times. Personal observations through a residence of six years in South America; conversations with public men, scholars, merchants, and proprietors; newspapers and reviews, political pamphlets, books of travel, and official publications, have furnished me with most of my material for the period since 1825. The following books have been of use in the preparation of the first volume, and are recommended to those who care to follow up the subject:
Argentina: Mitre's Historia de Belgrano and Historia de San Martin, in Spanish; Torrente's Revolucion Hispano-Americano, in Spanish; Lozano's Conquista del Paraguay, La Plata y Tucuman, in Spanish; Funes's Historia de Buenos Aires y Tucuman, in Spanish; Lopez's Manuel de Historia Argentina, in Spanish; Page's La Plata, in English; Graham's A Vanished Arcadia, in English.
Paraguay: All of the above and Thompson's Paraguayan War, in English; Washburn's History of Paraguay, in English; Fix's Guerra de Paraguay, in Portuguese.
Uruguay: Bauza's Dominacion Espanola, in Spanish; Berra's Bosquejo Historico, in Spanish; Saint-Foix's L'Uruguay, in French.
Brazil: Southey's History of the Brazil, in English; Varnhagem's Historia do Brasil, in Portuguese; Pereira da Silva's Fundacao do Imperio, Segundo Periodo, Historia do Brasil, e Historia do Meu Tempo, in Portuguese; Nabuco's Estadista do Imperio, in Portuguese; Rio Branco's sketch in Le Bresil en 1889, in French; Oliveira Lima's Pernambuco, in Portuguese.
All of the above books may be found in the Columbian Memorial Library of the Bureau of American Republics at Washington, which, taken as a whole, is one of the best collections on South America in existence.
T. C. D.
Washington, January 22, 1903.
CONTENTS
ARGENTINA I. THE ARGENTINE LAND
PARAGUAY I. PARAGUAY UNTIL 1632 165 II. THE JESUIT REPUBLIC AND COLONIAL PARAGUAY 177 III. FRANCIA'S REIGN 188 IV. THE REIGN OF THE ELDER LOPEZ 198 V. THE WAR 206 VI. PARAGUAY SINCE 1870 220
URUGUAY I. INTRODUCTION 227 II. PORTUGUESE AGGRESSIONS AND THE SETTLEMENT OF THE COUNTRY 239 III. THE REVOLUTION 247 IV. INDEPENDENCE AND CIVIL WAR 259 V. CIVIL WAR AND ARGENTINE INTERVENTION 265 VI. COLORADOS AND BLANCOS 272
BRAZIL I. PORTUGAL 287 II. DISCOVERY 295 III. DESCRIPTION 305 IV. EARLY COLONISATION 316 V. THE JESUITS 326 VI. FRENCH OCCUPATION OF RIO 333 VII. EXPANSION 342 VIII. THE DUTCH CONQUEST 350 IX. EXPULSION OF THE DUTCH
INDEX 513
ILLUSTRATIONS
From a steel engraving. Frontispiece FERDINAND, KING OF SPAIN
Redrawn from an old print. 6 FRANCISCO PIZARRO
From Montain's "America." 9 THE AUTHENTIC PORTRAIT OF CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 11 MINING SCENE
Redrawn from Gottfriedt's "Neue Welt." 16 A YOUNG GAUCHO
From a lithograph. 28 FOREST SCENE IN ARGENTINA
From a steel print. 39 DOCKS AT BUENOS AIRES 44 AN OLD SPANISH CORNER IN BUENOS AIRES 76 MANUEL BELGRANO
From an oil painting. 95 GENERAL SAN MARTIN
From a steel engraving. 99 PLAZA DE MAYO AND CATHEDRAL AT BUENOS AIRES
From a lithograph. 113 BUENOS AIRES IN 1845
From a steel engraving. 127 BARTOLOMÉ MITRE
From a steel engraving.
From a lithograph. 151 A RIVER ROAD IN ARGENTINA
From a lithograph. 159 ASUNCION 167 GUAYRÁ FALLS 179 JOSÉ RODRIGUEZ GASPAR FRANCIA
From an old woodcut. 193 FRANCISCO SOLANO LOPEZ
From a photograph taken in 1849. 211 PALM GROVES IN EL CHACO 217 HARBOUR AT MONTEVIDEO 231 MONTEVIDEO
From an old print. 243 BRIDGE AT MALDONADO 249 GENERAL DON JOSÉ GERVASIO ARTIGAS
From an old woodcut. 257 THE SOLIS THEATRE 275 THE CATHEDRAL, MONTEVIDEO 283 OLD TOWER AT LISBON WHENCE THE FLEET SAILED 296 A TUPI VILLAGE 299 A GARDEN IN PETROPOLIS 307 BAHIA 324 PADRE JOSÉ DE ANCHIETA
From an old-woodcut. 330 PLANTERS GOING TO CHURCH
From an old print. 337 A CADEIRA 340 OLD FORT AT BAHIA 353 RIO GRANDE DO SUL 387 OLD RANCH IN RIO GRANDE 390 WASHING DIAMONDS 391 BOATS ON THE RIO GRANDE
From a steel print. 395 DOM JOHN VI.
From an old woodcut. 403 DOM PEDRO I.
From an old woodcut. 414 DOM JOSÉ BONIFACIO DE ANDRADA
From a steel print. 418 EVARISTO FERREIRA DA VEIGA
From a steel engraving. 431 DONNA JANUARIA
From a steel engraving. 445 DOM PEDRO II.
From a steel engraving.
From an old woodcut. 453 PRINCESS ISABEL IN 1889 456 PAMPAS OF THE RIO GRANDE 460 OLD MARKET IN SÃO PAULO 465 GOVERNER'S PALACE IN SÃO PAULO 469 HOSPITAL AND OLD CHURCH AT PORTO ALEGRE 475 BRIDGE AT MENDANHA 480 CITY OF OURO PRETO 483 EMPEROR DOM PEDRO IN 1889 491 MILITARY SCHOOL OF RIO JANEIRO 493 GENERAL BENJAMIN CONSTANT
From a woodcut. 496 THE EMPRESS IN 1889 498 AMERICAN LEGATION NEAR RIO 505 CAMPOS SALLES
From a woodcut. 510 MAPS MAP OF ARGENTINA, PARAGUAY, URUGUAY, BOLIVIA, AND CHILE 38 OUTLINE MAP OF BRAZIL 288 MAP OF SOUTH AMERICA
Showing the progress of settlement and present populated area. At end
INTRODUCTORY
THE DISCOVERIES AND THE CONQUEST
INTRODUCTORY
THE DISCOVERIES AND THE CONQUEST
Spain's Discovery of America.—Town or communal government has been characteristic of Spain since before the Roman conquest. The Visigoths, who destroyed the advanced civilisation they found in the Peninsula, never really amalgamated with the subject population, and, happily, they did not succeed in destroying the municipalities. The liberal, civilised, and tolerant Saracens who drove out the Goths, left their Christian subjects free to enjoy their own laws and customs. The municipalities gave efficient local self-government while a system of small proprietorships made the Peninsula prosper, as in the best days of the Roman dominion. The population of Spain reached twenty millions under the Moors, but finally dynastic civil wars enabled the remnant of Visigoths who had taken refuge in the northern mountains to begin the gradual expulsion of the Mahometans. In the midst of these currents of war and conquest setting to and fro, the old municipalities survived unchangeable, and always supplying local self-government.
A tendency toward decentralisation was ingrained in the Spanish people from the earliest times. It was increased by the method in which the Christian conquest of Mahometan Spain was achieved. The Visigothic nobility, starting from separate points in Asturias and Navarre, advanced into Saracen territory and established counties and earldoms which were virtually independent of their mother-kingdoms. The Asturians expanded into Leon and thence over Galicia, northern Portugal, Old and New Castile. The power of the Leonese monarch over Galicia was nominal; Castile and Portugal separated from Leon almost as soon as they were wrested from the Mahometans. The Basques were always independent, and Navarre, though it became the mother of Aragon, had little connection with the latter region. On the Mediterranean shore Charlemagne drove the Moors from Catalonia and made it a province of his empire, but no sooner was he dead than it became independent. Toward the end of the thirteenth century. The Christian conquest was virtually completed, and the Peninsula had been divided into four kingdoms. Each of these was, however, in reality only a federation of semi-independent feudal divisions and municipalities united by personal allegiance to a single sovereign. In the course of the continual quarrelling of the monarchs their kingdoms frequently divided, coalesced, and separated again. The death of a king or the marriage of his daughter was often the signal for war and a readjustment of boundaries, but these overturnings did not much affect the component and really vital political units.
More significant than the political kingdoms were the linguistic divisions. Spain then spoke, and still speaks, three
By 1300 A.D. two great political divisions, Castile and Aragon, covered three-fourths of the Peninsula, and their boundaries were well established; each, however, was a mere loose aggregation of provinces, and every province had its own laws and customs, its jealously guarded privileges, its legislative assembly, and its free municipalities. Galicia had never become incorporated with Leon; the Basques ruled themselves; Catalonia was really independent of Aragon; Castile had, from the beginning, been virtually independent, although under the same monarch as Leon, and, indeed, had taken the latter's place as the metropolitan province of the kingdom.
[Redrawn from an old print.]
The one great unifying force was religious sentiment, stimulated into fanaticism by centuries of wars against the infidels. Nevertheless, during the two centuries before the discovery of America the Spaniards absorbed much culture from their Moorish subjects. In 1479, the whole Peninsula, except Portugal and Granada, was politically united by the accession of Ferdinand to the throne of Aragon, and of Isabella to that of Castile and Leon. With local liberties intact, and peace prevailing throughout its whole extent, the Peninsula enjoyed a prosperity unknown since the golden era of the Moors. The population rose to twelve millions; Andalusia, Galicia, Catalonia, and Valencia were among the most flourishing and thickly settled parts of Europe, while the military qualities of the aristocracy of Castile and Leon and Aragon gave the new power the best armies of the time.
Colonies founded by a monarchy so organised could never be firmly knit to each other nor to the mother country. The nobility of the sword would try to establish feudal principalities; the new cities would endeavour to exercise the local functions of the old Peninsular municipalities; and the spirit of local independence still animating Catalonians, Basques, Galicians, and Andalusians would be repeated on a new continent. The only bond of union would be personal allegiance to the monarch.
In the fourteenth century, Christian navigators reached the Canary Islands—sixty miles from the African coast and six hundred south-east of Gibraltar. The assurance that land did really exist below the horizon of that western ocean, so mysterious and terrible to the early navigators, gave them confidence to push farther into the deep. In navigation, the Spaniards lagged behind their Portuguese neighbours. But among the Spanish kingdoms Castile took the lead because her Andalusian ports of Cadiz, San Lucar, Palos, and Huelva faced on the open Atlantic. These towns swarmed with sailors who had followed in the track of the Portuguese and visited their new possessions. The Castilians and Andalusians were naturally jealous of the successful Portuguese. Madeira, the Azores, the Cape Verdes, and the gold mines of the Guinea coast had fallen to the latter, while the Spaniards had only the Canaries. They gave an eager ear to the rumours that were rife in the Portuguese islands of more marvellous discoveries still to be made—of islands beyonds the Azores. An adventurous Italian, Christopher Columbus, wandering among the Portuguese possessions, heard the stories. Happily for Spain, he believed them and resolved to lead an expedition to the farther side of the Atlantic. He entered her service and proved to be an enthusiast of rare pertinacity. It is immaterial whether the idea of a route to the East Indies by the west occurred to him at the same time he became convinced that there were islands in the far Atlantic waiting to be discovered. That which is certain is that he devoted his life to persuading someone in authority to entrust him with ships and men to make a voyage to the far West. The pilots at Palos backed him, and he finally secured the desired permission and means from Isabella of Castile. Her interest in exploration and colonisation had been shown fifteen years before, in her energetic measures in conquering the Canaries and forcing the Portuguese to renounce their claims to those islands, and she well deserves the title of founder of the colonial empire of Spain.
The story of Columbus's first voyage needs no retelling. He journeyed so far to the west that he returned convinced he had reached the longitude of eastern Asia, and the noise of his great discovery resounded through Europe and began the transformation of the world. Since the last great century—the thirteenth—Christendom had retrograded. The Tartars dominated Russia and the Turks were pressing hard on Germany. Unless the Christian world could find an outlet—unless it could create other resources for itself and outside of itself; unless feudalism should find an employment for its military energies outside of the vicious circle of fruitless and purposeless dynastic wars, it seemed not improbable that Mahometan aggression would continue until all Europe lay under the deadening influence of the Turk. Only in the Peninsula was apparent that spirit of expansion which is the best indication of internal vitality in a nation. The military nobility, whose determined fanaticism, magnificent courage, and spirit of individual initiative had driven the Moors out of Spain in the thirteenth century, welcomed this fresh opportunity to slay the infidel and carve out new fiefs for themselves.
Conquest of the Andes.—Columbus showed strategic genius of the highest order in choosing Hayti as the site of the first settlement. That island afforded an admirable base for the conquest of the New World. It was large enough to furnish provisions, and was conveniently situated with reference to the coasts and islands of the Caribbean. Gold washings were soon discovered in the interior and the unwarlike inhabitants were at once impressed into slavery to dig in the mines. The news of gold stimulated interest as nothing else could have done. The Castilian government took immediate steps to exclude all other nations. The Pope divided the globe between Spain and Portugal, and a treaty to this effect was negotiated between the two countries. Spaniards swarmed over to Hayti, and thence expeditions were sent out in every direction, headed by private adventurers bearing their sovereign's commission. The other Antilles were soon explored and, by the end of the century, the Spaniards had reached the South American mainland and rapidly explored its coast from the Amazon up to the Isthmus. Gold was picked up in the streams flowing from the Columbian Andes into the Caribbean. A few years later the north-western coast of South America was granted out to