The movement which led eventually to the emancipation of the colonies
differed from the local uprisings which occurred in various parts
of South America during the eighteenth century. Either the arbitrary
conduct of individual governors or excessive taxation had caused the
earlier revolts. To the final revolution foreign nations and foreign
ideas gave the necessary impulse. A few members of the intellectual
class had read in secret the writings of French and English
philosophers. Others had traveled abroad and came home to whisper to
their countrymen what they had seen and heard in lands more progressive
than Spain and Portugal. The commercial relations, both licit and
illicit, which Great Britain had maintained with several of the colonies
had served to diffuse among them some notions of what went on in the
busy world outside.
By gaining its independence, the United States had set a practical
example of what might be done elsewhere in America. Translated into
French, the Declaration of Independence was read and commented upon by
enthusiasts who dreamed of the possibility of applying its principles
in their own lands. More powerful still were the ideas liberated by the
French Revolution and Napoleon. Borne across the ocean, the doctrines of
"Liberty, Fraternity, Equality" stirred the ardent-minded to thoughts
of action, though the Spanish and Portuguese Americans who schemed
and plotted were the merest handful. The seed they planted was slow to
germinate among peoples who had been taught to regard things foreign as
outlandish and heretical. Many years therefore elapsed before the ideas
of the few became the convictions of the masses, for the conservatism
and loyalty of the common people were unbelieveably steadfast.
Not Spanish and Portuguese America, but Santo Domingo, an island which
had been under French rule since 1795 and which was tenanted chiefly
by ignorant and brutalized negro slaves, was the scene of the first
effectual assertion of independence in the lands originally colonized
by Spain. Rising in revolt against their masters, the negroes had
won complete control under their remarkable commander, Toussaint
L'Ouverture, when Napoleon Bonaparte, then First Consul, decided to
restore the old regime. But the huge expedition which was sent to reduce
the island ended in absolute failure. After a ruthless racial warfare,
characterized by ferocity on both sides, the French retired. In 1804 the
negro leaders proclaimed the independence of the island as the "Republic
of Haiti," under a President who, appreciative of the example just set
by Napoleon, informed his followers that he too had assumed the august
title of "Emperor"! His immediate successor in African royalty was the
notorious Henri Christophe, who gathered about him a nobility garish
in color and taste--including their sable lordships, the "Duke of
Marmalade" and the "Count of Lemonade"; and who built the palace of
"Sans Souci" and the countryseats of "Queen's Delight" and "King's
Beautiful View," about which cluster tales of barbaric pleasure that
rival the grim legends clinging to the parapets and enshrouding the
dungeons of his mountain fortress of "La Ferriere." None of these black
or mulatto potentates, however, could expel French authority from
the eastern part of Santo Domingo. That task was taken in hand by the
inhabitants themselves, and in 1809 they succeeded in restoring the
control of Spain. Meanwhile events which had been occurring in South
America prepared the way for the movement that was ultimately to banish
the flags of both Spain and Portugal from the continents of the New
World. As the one country had fallen more or less tinder the influence
of France, so the other had become practically dependent upon Great
Britain. Interested in the expansion of its commerce and viewing the
outlying possessions of peoples who submitted to French guidance as
legitimate objects for seizure, Great Britain in 1797 wrested Trinidad
from the feeble grip of Spain and thus acquired a strategic position
very near South America itself. Haiti, Trinidad, and Jamaica, in fact,
all became Centers of revolutionary agitation and havens of refuge for.
Spanish American radicals in the troublous years to follow.
Foremost among the early conspirators was the Venezuelan, Francisco
de Miranda, known to his fellow Americans of Spanish stock as the
"Precursor." Napoleon once remarked of him: "He is a Don Quixote, with
this difference--he is not crazy.... The man has sacred fire in his
soul." An officer in the armies of Spain and of revolutionary France
and later a resident of London, Miranda devoted thirty years of his
adventurous life to the cause of independence for his countrymen. With
officials of the British Government he labored long and zealously,
eliciting from them vague promises of armed support and some financial
aid. It was in London, also, that he organized a group of sympathizers
into the secret society called the "Grand Lodge of America." With it,
or with its branches in France and Spain, many of the leaders of the
subsequent revolution came to be identified.
In 1806, availing himself of the negligence of the United States and
having the connivance of the British authorities in Trinidad, Miranda
headed two expeditions to the coast of Venezuela. He had hoped that his
appearance would be the signal for a general uprising; instead, he was
treated with indifference. His countrymen seemed to regard him as a tool
of Great Britain, and no one felt disposed to accept the blessings
of liberty under that guise. Humiliated, but not despairing, Miranda
returned to London to await a happier day.
Two British expeditions which attempted to conquer the region about
the Rio de la Plata in 1806 and 1807 were also frustrated by this
same stubborn loyalty. When the Spanish viceroy fled, the inhabitants
themselves rallied to the defense of the country and drove out the
invaders. Thereupon the people of Buenos Aires, assembled in cabildo
abierto, or town meeting, deposed the viceroy and chose their victorious
leader in his stead until a successor could be regularly appointed.
Then, in 1808, fell the blow which was to shatter the bonds uniting
Spain to its continental dominions in America. The discord and
corruption which prevailed in that unfortunate country afforded
Napoleon an opportunity to oust its feeble king and his incompetent son,
Ferdinand, and to place Joseph Bonaparte on the throne. But the master
of Europe underestimated the fighting ability of Spaniards. Instead of
humbly complying with his mandate, they rose in arms against the usurper
and created a central junta, or revolutionary committee, to govern in
the name of Ferdinand VII, as their rightful ruler.
The news of this French aggression aroused in the colonies a spirit of
resistance as vehement as that in the mother country. Both Spaniards and
Creoles repudiated the "intruder king." Believing, as did their comrades
oversea, that Ferdinand was a helpless victim in the hands of Napoleon,
they recognized the revolutionary government and sent great sums of
money to Spain to aid in the struggle against the French. Envoys from
Joseph Bonaparte seeking an acknowledgment of his rule were angrily
rejected and were forced to leave.
The situation on both sides of the ocean was now an extraordinary
one. Just as the junta in Spain had no legal right to govern, so the
officials in the colonies, holding their posts by appointment from a
deposed king, had no legal authority, and the people would not allow
them to accept new commissions from a usurper. The Church, too,
detesting Napoleon as the heir of a revolution that had undermined the
Catholic faith and regarding him as a godless despot who had made
the Pope a captive, refused to recognize the French pretender. Until
Ferdinand VII could be restored to his throne, therefore, the colonists
had to choose whether they would carry on the administration under
the guidance of the self-constituted authorities in Spain, or should
themselves create similar organizations in each of the colonies to take
charge of affairs. The former course was favored by the official element
and its supporters among the conservative classes, the latter by the
liberals, who felt that they had as much right as the people of the
mother country to choose the form of government best suited to their
interests.
Each party viewed the other with distrust. Opposition to the more
democratic procedure, it was felt, could mean nothing less than
secret submission to the pretensions of Joseph Bonaparte; whereas the
establishment in America of any organizations like those in Spain surely
indicated a spirit of disloyalty toward Ferdinand VII himself. Under
circumstances like these, when the junta and its successor, the council
of regency, refused to make substantial concessions to the colonies,
both parties were inevitably drifting toward independence. In the phrase
of Manuel Belgrano, one of the great leaders in the viceroyalty of La
Plata, "our old King or none" became the watchword that gradually shaped
the thoughts of Spanish Americans.
When, therefore, in 1810, the news came that the French army had overrun
Spain, democratic ideas so long cherished in secret and propagated so
industriously by Miranda and his followers at last found expression in
a series of uprisings in the four viceroyalties of La Plata, Peru,
New Granada, and New Spain. But in each of these viceroyalties the
revolution ran a different course. Sometimes it was the capital
city that led off; sometimes a provincial town; sometimes a group of
individuals in the country districts. Among the actual participants
in the various movements very little harmony was to be found. Here
a particular leader claimed obedience; there a board of self-chosen
magistrates held sway; elsewhere a town or province refused to
acknowledge the central authority. To add to these complications, in
1812, a revolutionary Cortes, or legislative body, assembled at Cadiz,
adopted for Spain and its dominions a constitution providing for
direct representation of the colonies in oversea administration. Since
arrangements of this sort contented many of the Spanish Americans who
had protested against existing abuses, they were quite unwilling to
press their grievances further. Given all these evidences of division
in activity and counsel, one does not find it difficult to foresee the
outcome.
On May 25, 1810, popular agitation at Buenos Aires forced the Spanish
viceroy of La Plata to resign. The central authority was thereupon
vested in an elected junta that was to govern in the name of Ferdinand
VII. Opposition broke out immediately. The northern and eastern parts
of the viceroyalty showed themselves quite unwilling to obey these
upstarts. Meantime, urged on by radicals who revived the Jacobin
doctrines of revolutionary France, the junta strove to suppress in
rigorous fashion any symptoms of disaffection; but it could do nothing
to stem the tide of separation in the rest of the viceroyalty--in
Charcas (Bolivia), Paraguay, and the Banda Oriental, or East Bank, of
the Uruguay.
At Buenos Aires acute difference of opinion--about the extent to
which the movement should be carried and about the permanent form
of government to be adopted as well as the method of establishing
it--produced a series of political commotions little short of anarchy.
Triumvirates followed the junta into power; supreme directors alternated
with triumvirates; and constituent assemblies came and went. Under one
authority or another the name of the viceroyalty was changed to "United
Provinces of La Plata River"; a seal, a flag, and a coat of arms were
chosen; and numerous features of the Spanish regime were abolished,
including titles of nobility, the Inquisition, the slave trade, and
restrictions on the press. But so chaotic were the conditions within and
so disastrous the campaigns without, that eventually commissioners were
sent to Europe, bearing instructions to seek a king for the distracted
country.
When Charcas fell under the control of the viceroy of Peru, Paraguay
set up a regime for itself. At Asuncion, the capital, a revolutionary
outbreak in 1811 replaced the Spanish intendant by a triumvirate,
of which the most prominent member was Dr. Jose Gaspar Rodriguez de
Francia. A lawyer by profession, familiar with the history of Rome, an
admirer of France and Napoleon, a misanthrope and a recluse, possessing
a blind faith in himself and actuated by a sense of implacable hatred
for all who might venture to thwart his will, this extraordinary
personage speedily made himself master of the country. A population
composed chiefly of Indians, docile in temperament and submissive for
many years to the paternal rule of Jesuit missionaries, could not fail
to become pliant instruments in his hands. At his direction, therefore,
Paraguay declared itself independent of both Spain and La Plata. This
done, an obedient Congress elected Francia consul of the republic and
later invested him with the title of dictator. In the Banda Oriental two
distinct movements appeared. Montevideo, the capital, long a center
of royalist sympathies and for some years hostile to the revolutionary
government in Buenos Aires, was reunited with La Plata in 1814.
Elsewhere the people of the province followed the fortunes of Jose
Gervasio Artigas, an able and valiant cavalry officer, who roamed
through it at will, bidding defiance to any authority not his own.
Most of the former viceroyalty of La Plata had thus, to all intents and
purposes, thrown off the yoke of Spain.
Chile was the only other province that for a while gave promise of
similar action. Here again it was the capital city that took the lead.
On receipt of the news of the occurrences at Buenos Aires in May, 1810,
the people of Santiago forced the captain general to resign and, on the
18th of September, replaced him by a junta of their own choosing.
But neither this body, nor its successors, nor even the Congress that
assembled the following year, could establish a permanent and effective
government. Nowhere in Spanish America, perhaps, did the lower classes
count for so little, and the upper class for so much, as in Chile.
Though the great landholders were disposed to favor a reasonable amount
of local autonomy for the country, they refused to heed the demands
of the radicals for complete independence and the establishment of a
republic. Accordingly, in proportion as their opponents resorted to
measures of compulsion, the gentry gradually withdrew their support and
offered little resistance when troops dispatched by the viceroy of
Peru restored the Spanish regime in 1814. The irreconcilable among the
patriots fled over the Andes to the western part of La Plata, where they
found hospitable refuge.
But of all the Spanish dominions in South America none witnessed so
desperate a struggle for emancipation as the viceroyalty of New Granada.
Learning of the catastrophe that had befallen the mother country, the
leading citizens of Caracas, acting in conjunction with the cabildo,
deposed the captain general on April 19, 1810, and created a junta
in his stead. The example was quickly followed by most of the smaller
divisions of the province. Then when Miranda returned from England to
head the revolutionary movement, a Congress, on July 5, 1811, declared
Venezuela independent of Spain. Carried away, also, by the enthusiasm
of the moment, and forgetful of the utter unpreparedness of the country,
the Congress promulgated a federal constitution modeled on that of the
United States, which set forth all the approved doctrines of the rights
of man.
Neither Miranda nor his youthful coadjutor, Simon Bolivar, soon to
become famous in the annals of Spanish American history, approved of
this plunge into democracy. Ardent as their patriotism was, they knew
that the country needed centralized control and not experiments in
confederation or theoretical liberty. They speedily found out, also,
that they could not count on the support of the people at large. Then,
almost as if Nature herself disapproved of the whole proceeding, a
frightful earthquake in the following year shook many a Venezuelan town
into ruins. Everywhere the royalists took heart. Dissensions broke out
between Miranda and his subordinates. Betrayed into the hands of his
enemies, the old warrior himself was sent away to die in a Spanish
dungeon. And so the "earthquake" republic collapsed.
But the rigorous measures adopted by the royalists to sustain their
triumph enabled Bolivar to renew the struggle in 1813. He entered upon
a campaign which was signalized by acts of barbarity on both sides.
His declaration of "war to the death" was answered in kind. Wholesale
slaughter of prisoners, indiscriminate pillage, and wanton destruction
of property spread terror and desolation throughout the country.
Acclaimed "Liberator of Venezuela" and made dictator by the people of
Caracas, Bolivar strove in vain to overcome the half-savage llaneros,
or cowboys of the plains, who despised the innovating aristocrats of
the capital. Though he won a few victories, he did not make the cause
of independence popular, and, realizing his failure, he retired into New
Granada.
In this region an astounding series of revolutions and
counter-revolutions had taken place. Unmindful of pleas for cooperation,
the Creole leaders in town and district, from 1810 onward, seized
control of affairs in a fashion that betokened a speedy disintegration
of the country. Though the viceroy was deposed and a general Congress
was summoned to meet at the capital, Bogota, efforts at centralization
encountered opposition in every quarter. Only the royalists managed to
preserve a semblance of unity. Separate republics sprang into being and
in 1813 declared their independence of Spain. Presidents and congresses
were pitted against one another. Towns fought among themselves. Even
parishes demanded local autonomy. For a while the services of Bolivar
were invoked to force rebellious areas into obedience to the principle
of confederation, but with scant result. Unable to agree with his fellow
officers and displaying traits of moral weakness which at this time as
on previous occasions showed that he had not yet risen to a full sense
of responsibility, the Liberator renounced the task and fled to Jamaica.
The scene now shifts northward to the viceroyalty of New Spain. Unlike
the struggles already described, the uprisings that began in 1810 in
central Mexico were substantially revolts of Indians and half-castes
against white domination. On the 16th of September, a crowd of natives
rose under the leadership of Miguel Hidalgo, a parish priest of the
village of Dolores. Bearing on their banners the slogan, "Long live
Ferdinand VII and down with bad government," the undisciplined crowd,
soon to number tens of thousands, aroused such terror by their behavior
that the whites were compelled to unite in self-defense. It mattered not
whether Hidalgo hoped to establish a republic or simply to secure for
his followers relief from oppression: in either case the whites could
expect only Indian domination. Before the trained forces of the whites a
horde of natives, so ignorant of modern warfare that some of them tried
to stop cannon balls by clapping their straw hats over the mouths of the
guns, could not stand their ground. Hidalgo was captured and shot, but
he was succeeded by Jose Maria Morelos, also a priest. Reviving the
old Aztec name for central Mexico, he summoned a "Congress of Anahuac,"
which in 1813 asserted that dependence on the throne of Spain was
"forever broken and dissolved." Abler and more humane than Hidalgo, he
set up a revolutionary government that the authorities of Mexico failed
for a while to suppress.
In 1814, therefore, Spain still held the bulk of its dominions.
Trinidad, to be sure, had been lost to Great Britain, and both Louisiana
and West Florida to the United States. Royalist control, furthermore,
had ceased in parts of the viceroyalties of La Plata and New Granada.
To regain Trinidad and Louisiana was hopeless: but a wise policy
conciliation or an 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 independence was given by the Portuguese royal
family. Terrified by the prospective invasion of the country by a French
army, late in 1807 the Prince Regent, the royal family, and a host of
Portuguese nobles and commoners took passage on British vessels and
sailed to Rio de Janeiro. Brazil thereupon became the seat of royal
government and immediately assumed an importance which it could never
have attained as a mere dependency. Acting under the advice of the
British minister, the Prince Regent threw open the ports of the colony
to the ships of all nations friendly to Portugal, gave his sanction to
a variety of reforms beneficial to commerce and industry, and even
permitted a printing press to be set up, though only for official
purposes. From all these benevolent activities Brazil derived great
advantages. On the other hand, the Prince Regent's aversion to popular
education or anything that might savor of democracy and the greed of
his followers for place and distinction alienated his colonial subjects.
They could not fail to contrast autocracy in Brazil with the liberal
ideas that had made headway elsewhere in Spanish America. As a
consequence a spirit of unrest arose which boded ill for the maintenance
of Portuguese rule.