When the La Plata Congress at Tucuman 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, climates
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
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 negroes. 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 prophecy 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
southward 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 offered the only hope of salvation. While the
royalists under their able and vigilant leader, Jose 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 declared the President deposed. Not to be outdone, that
functionary on his part declared the Congress dissolved. The malcontents
immediately proceeded to elect a new chief magistrate, thus bringing
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 effect upon the military situation. Though Bolivar
gathered together an army made up of Colombians, Peruvians, and remnants
of San Martin's force, 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
power crossed the ocean and split the royalists into opposing factions.
Quick to seize the chance thus afforded, Bolivar marched over the
Andes to the plain of Junin. There, on August 6, 1824, he repelled an
onslaught by Canterac and drove that leader back in headlong flight.
Believing, however, that the position he held was too perilous to risk
an offensive, he entrusted the military command to Sucre and returned to
headquarters.
The royalists had now come to realize that only a supreme effort could
save them. They must overwhelm 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 defeat 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 the
yoke of the mother country forever. The viceroy fell wounded into their
hands and Canterac surrendered. On receipt of the glorious news,
the people of Lima greeted Bolivar with wild enthusiasm. 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 America, the royalists still found a refuge. In
January, 1825, a patriot general at the town of La Paz undertook 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 situation, 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 orderly 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 Liberator 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, 1896, a
new Congress 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 regime 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
Chiloe, off 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 stretching from the
Caribbean Sea to the Tropic of Capricorn. 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 country.
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 Colombian soil,
an "august congress" representative of the independent countries of
America. Here, on the isthmus created by nature to join the continents,
the nations created by men should foregather and proclaim fraternal
accord. Presenting to the autocratic 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
friendship among the republics of the western hemisphere 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 gratitude for services rendered to the cause
of emancipation could evoke. Was it not itself a republic, its people a
democracy, its development astounding, and its future radiant with
hope? The pronouncement 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 cooperation ought to be invoked. The United States was
accordingly asked to take part in the assembly--not to concert military
measures, but simply to join its fellows to the southward in a solemn
proclamation of 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 interAmerican solidarity.
Whether because of the difficulties of travel, or because of internal
dissensions, or because of the suspicion that the megalomania of the
Liberator had awakened 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 merely the
first of a series of calamities 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 a general acceptance of the principles of his autocratic
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 deposed 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, Bolivar hurried to Bogota. There in the hope
of removing the growing antagonism, he offered his "irrevocable"
resignation, as he had done on more than one occasion before. Though the
malcontents declined to accept his withdrawal from office, they insisted
upon his calling a constitutional convention. Meeting at Ocana, in
April, 1828, that body proceeded to abolish the life tenure of the
presidency, to limit the powers of the executive, and to increase
those of the legislature. Bolivar managed to quell the opposition in
dictatorial 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 conspirators 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 faithful Sucre to resign and leave the country. The constitution 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 possession 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 bitterly the machinations of his enemies. "There is no good
faith in Colombia," he exclaimed, "neither among men nor among nations.
Treaties are paper; constitutions, books; elections, combats; liberty,
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 apart.
In May, 1830, came the final crash. The Congress at Bogota drafted a
constitution, providing for a separate republic to bear the old Spanish
name of "New Granada," accepted definitely the resignation of Bolivar,
and granted him a pension. Venezuela, his native land, set up a congress
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 ungovernable. 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 practically 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.
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 controlling foreign affairs. The name of the
country was at the same time changed to that of the "Argentine
Confederation"(c)-a Latin rendering of "La Plata."
No sooner had Rivadavia assumed the presidency under the new order of
things than dissension 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 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 throughout the country. Organizing
a provisional government, 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 mediation by Great Britain led to the conclusion of a treaty
at Rio de Janeiro, by which both Brazil and the Argentine Confederation
recognized the absolute independence of the disputed province as the
republic of Uruguay.
Instead of quieting the discord that prevailed among the Argentinos,
these victories only fomented trouble. The federalists had ousted
Rivadavia and discarded the constitution, but the federal idea for
which they stood had several meanings. To an inhabitant of Buenos Aires
federalism 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 governor 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 centralized form of government for the nation would
necessarily lead to the location of that government at Buenos Aires.
This peculiar dual contest between 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, however, 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 constitution had been adopted by popular
vote in a manner that appeared to show remarkable unanimity, for the
books in which the "ayes" and "noes" were to be recorded contained
no entries in the negative! What the records really prove is that
O'Higgins, the Supreme Director, enjoyed the confidence of the ruling
class. In exercise of the autocratic power entrusted to him, he now
proceeded to introduce a variety of administrative reforms of signal
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
democratic organization grew louder, until in 1822 it became so
persistent that O'Higgins called a convention 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 Director
resigned his post and retired to Peru. Thus another hero of emancipation
had met the ingratitude 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 Bigwigs (pelucones) and Greenhorns (pipiolos), 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 conservative lines.
From that time onward it presented 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
ambitious 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
following was sufficiently impressive to assure him popular 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 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
kinsmen 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 Lopez 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, Iturbide summoned
the Congress and announced his abdication. But instead of recognizing
this procedure, 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
complied; but he soon wearied of exile and persuaded himself that he
would not lack supporters if he 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 promulgation 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
considerable unrest prevailed toward the close of his term, the new
President managed to retain his office for the allotted four years. In
most respects, however, the new order of things opened auspiciously. In
November, 1825, the surrender of the fortress of San Juan de Ulua, in
the harbor of Vera Cruz, banished the last remnant of Spanish power,
and two years later the suppression of plots for the restoration
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.
But the political organization of a country so different from its
northern neighbor in population, traditions, and practices, could not
rest merely on a basis of imitation, even more or less modified. The
artificiality of the fabric became apparent 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 assumed British and American influences were responsible.
Adopting a kind of Masonic organization, 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 respective slogans and professions of political faith,
they were little more than personal followers of rival 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,
following the precedent established in Mexico, and obedient also to
local demand, the new republic issued a constitution, in accordance
with which the five little divisions of Guatemala, Honduras, Salvador,
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 Conservatives, 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 regime--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 Honduras, 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 clinging to independence, strove to avoid
dangerous innovations in government. Rather than create a political
system for which the country was not prepared, they established a
constitutional monarchy. But Brazil itself was too vast and its interior
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 energetic Cochrane, who had performed such valiant
service for Chile and Peru, with the task of expelling 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 monarchy and advocates of republicanism, men of
conservative and of liberal sympathies; disagreements, also, between the
Brazilians and the native Portuguese residents were frequent. So far as
possible Pedro desired to meet popular desires, and yet without imposing
too many limitations on the monarchy itself. But in the assembly called
to draft the constitution the liberal members made a determined effort
to introduce republican forms. Pedro 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 neighboring 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 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
dominion; but it was not until 1836 that the Cortes of Spain authorized
the Crown to enter upon negotiations looking to the same action in
regard to the eleven republics which had sprung out of its colonial
domain. Even then many years elapsed before the mother country
acknowledged the independence of them all.