SPANIARD AND NATIVE
The collisions with the various peoples of the Continent had now
afforded the _conquistadores_ an opportunity of testing the power of
each. The force of the impact had, it is true, swept into the background
the first peoples with whom they had come into contact; but, as the
scanty numbers of the pioneers filtered across the new territories, they
found that the task of annexation was by no means so easy in every case.
So far as a warlike spirit was concerned, the difference between the
aboriginal tribes of the tropics and those of the southern regions was
most marked. The Incas were, in many respects, a warlike race--that is
to say, they had possessed themselves by force of arms of the country in
the neighbourhood of Lake Titicaca, wresting this from whatever tribe of
the Aymaras it was which, highly civilized, had held the land before
them. This nucleus of empire, once obtained, they had spread to the
south and to the north, and to a certain extent to the east, conquering
all with whom they had come into contact, with the notable exception of
the Araucanians in Southern Chile.
The Chibchas, too, in the far north, whose civilization in some respects
equalled that of the Incas, might be termed a conquering race. They
dominated the north of the Continent, and upheld their empire securely
by force of arms. Yet it is curious that both these nations,
representing the chief civilizing and inventive powers of the Continent,
presented nothing beyond the most futile resistance to the invaders.
Their gods desecrated, their faith outraged, stung to utter fury and
hate, even these passions failed to lead them to a single victory of
consequence, notwithstanding the fact that their tens of thousands of
warriors were faced by no more than a few dozen Spaniards. Disheartened
by the terrifying onslaught of the men in mail mounted on gigantic
horses, they appear to have reconciled themselves with melancholy
submission to a fate which only on two or three occasions during the
following centuries they endeavoured with any earnestness at all to
disturb.
How different were the battles of the south! The Spaniards who found
themselves face to face with the Araucanian Indians, and with those of
the Pampa on the other side of the Andes, had a far more strenuous tale
to tell. The armour which had resisted with such contempt the more
delicate weapons of the Peruvians and of the northern warriors in
general was crushed in and dented beneath the tremendous blows dealt by
the clubs of the muscular and warlike Araucanians, who charged into the
battle with a wild joy that left them as drunk with triumph at the end
of the combat as they had been with their native spirit at the
beginning.
These Araucanians were, indeed, born fighters. In common with the
general run of mankind, it was their lot to be defeated from time to
time. Nevertheless, they repaid the defeats frequently with very tragic
interest; in any case, subdued by force of arms they certainly never
were. Much the same may be said of the Indians of the Argentine and
Uruguayan plains. The aggressive tactics here were by no means confined
to the Spaniards. On the first landing of the _conquistadores_, these
found themselves, after having given provocation in the first instance,
cooped up within the flimsy walls of their new settlements, surrounded
by fierce and vindictive enemies, who charged on them from time to time
with bewildering fury, choosing as often as not for the purpose the hour
just before dawn, which they would make horrid with their warlike cries
and shrill yells. These, too, remained entirely unsubdued to the last.
They had the ill-fortune to be favoured with fewer natural advantages
than the Araucanians. They had neither woodland valleys nor mountains in
which to take shelter in the time of need. They fought on a plain which
was as open as day, and as flat as a table from horizon to horizon. No
crude strategy was possible--at all events, in the daytime--and the
attack of the charging Indians was necessarily visible from a distance
of leagues.
From time to time a certain number of these fierce tribesmen were
captured, but their fiery spirits could brook no domestic tasks, and
when, at a very much later date, some of them were shipped upon a
Spanish man-of-war with the purpose of testing their value as sailors,
they rose in mutiny and slew many officers and men, and, indeed,
obtained temporary control of the ship, until, seeing the uselessness of
further efforts, they flung themselves overboard in a body.
It was the ancestors of such men as these who had in the first instance
disputed the soil with the Spaniards. There is no doubt that, while the
metal-bearing lands fell into the opened mouths of the Spaniards as
easily as over-ripe plums, the maintaining of a foothold in the southern
plains was a precarious and desperate matter. As has been said, the
natural topographical advantages of Southern Chile made the wars here
the grimmest and fiercest of all those waged throughout the Continent.
The mere names of Caupolican and Lautaro suffice to recall a galaxy of
Homeric feats. The deeds of the two deserve a passing word of
explanation.
It was the Chief Caupolican who organized the first resistance to the
invaders on a large scale, and who led his armies with a marvellous
intrepidity against the Spaniards. He initiated a new species of attack,
which proved very trying to the white troops. He would divide his men
into a number of companies, and send one after another to engage the
Spanish forces. Thus the first company would charge, and would engage
for awhile, fighting desperately. Then they would retire at their
leisure, to be succeeded without pause by the second, and so on.
According to some of the older historians, it was by this method that
Valdivia's forces were overcome on the occasion when the entire Spanish
army, including its brave leader, was massacred.
The other famous chief, Lautaro, received his baptism of spears and of
fire under the leadership of Caupolican. Lautaro was probably the
greatest scourge from which the Spaniards in Chile ever suffered. Twice
he demolished the town of Concepcion, and once he pursued their
retreating forces as far as Santiago itself. In an engagement on the
outskirts of this city the victorious chief was killed, and after his
death a certain amount of the triumphant spirit of the Indians deserted
them. But only for a while. The indomitable spirit of the race awoke
afresh, and asserted itself with renewed ardour in the course of the
next series of the interminable struggles.
Compared with all this, the sun-bathed peaks of the centre and of the
north breathed dreams and soft romance. Naturally the temperament of the
inhabitants had tuned themselves to fit in with this. The few savage
customs which had intruded themselves among the quaint rites and
mysticism of these peoples had failed to inculcate a genuine warlike
ardour or lust for blood. Their dreamily brooding natures revolted
against the strain of prolonged strife. What measure of violent
resistance was to be expected from the dwellers on the shores of Lake
Guatavita?
The Lake of Guatavita had been a sacred water of the Indians of Colombia
before the advent of the Spaniards. It was on this peaceful sheet that
the cacique and his chiefs were rowed out in canoes while the people
clustered in their thousands about the mountainous sides of the lake.
When the canoes had arrived at the centre of the lake the chiefs were
accustomed to anoint the cacique, and to powder him with a great
profusion of gold-dust. Then came the moment for the supreme ceremony.
The multitude turned their backs on the lake, and the cacique dived from
the canoe and plunged into its waters; at the same time the people threw
over their shoulders their offerings of gold and precious stones, which
fell with a splash into the waters.
The lake was further enriched after the arrival of the _conquistadores_,
when the natives, tortured and ill-treated in order that gold should be
wrung from them, conceived such a hatred of the metal that they threw
all they had wholesale into the sacred waters. It is said that some
Indians, goaded beyond endurance, taunted their conquerors and told them
to search at the bottom of the lake, where they would find gold. They
had no idea that the Spaniards would actually attempt this, but this the
_conquistadores_ did, and were digging in order, apparently, to drain
the water off when the sides fell in and put an end to the attempt. It
is said that even then they procured a large amount of gold and some
magnificent emeralds.
[Illustration: DEATH OF ATAHUALPA.
The final tragedy as shown in a seventeenth-century engraving.]
As may well be imagined, it was people such as these who suffered most
of all from the violence of the strange, pale beings who had descended
into their midst to subdue them, first of all by means of the sword, and
then by the ceaseless wielding of the more intimate and degrading thong.
Since, notwithstanding all that has been urged to the contrary, the
average Spaniard of those days--even those of his number who had to do
with the Americas--was provided with the ordinary sentiments and
passions of humanity, it was inevitable that in the course of the
oppression and warfare waged against the natives some devoted being
should sooner or later rise up to espouse the cause of the Indians.
This intermediary, of course, was Bartolome de las Casas, so widely
known as the Apostle of the Indies. There are many who fling themselves
heart and soul into a cause of which they know nothing, and who, from
the sheer impetus of good-hearted ignorance, cause infinite mischief.
The case of Las Casas was different. Before he took up his spiritual
labours he had lived for years at the theatre of his future work, and
understood the conditions of the colonial and native life.
As a matter of fact, Las Casas' mission did not dawn upon him until he
had enjoyed a very considerable practical experience in the industrial
affairs of the New World. His connection with this latter did not begin
with his own generation. He was the son of a shipmate of Columbus, who
had sailed with the great explorer in his first voyage, and who had
accompanied Ovando when that knight sailed out from Spain to take up his
Governorship of the Indies.
It was in Hispaniola, it appears, that Las Casas was ordained priest. In
the first place he lived the ordinary life of the Spanish settler in the
island. In common with everyone else, he accepted a
_repartimiento_--that is to say, a supply of Indian labourers--and was
undoubtedly on the road to riches when, little by little, the
inhumanity of slave-owning became clear to him. To one of his
enthusiastic temperament no half measures were possible. He gave up his
Indians forthwith, allowed his estate to revert to Nature, and began his
strenuous campaign, that had as its object the freedom of the native
races.
By 1517 he had succeeded in attracting a wide attention to his efforts.
Journeying to Spain, he persisted in his cause, and gave the high
authorities of that country little peace until they lent an ear to the
grievances of his dusky proteges. Las Casas was endowed to an unusual
extent with both eloquence and fervour, and both these attributes he
employed to the utmost of his powers in the service of the American
aborigines. Thus he painted the sufferings and the terrible mortality of
these unfortunate people with a fire and a force that left very few
unmoved. Nevertheless, as was only to be expected, he met with
considerable opposition from various quarters where the financial
interests dependent on the New World outweighed all other
considerations. In the end, rendered desperate by this opposition and by
the active hostility which he encountered in these quarters, he
determined to lead the way by the foundation of a model colony of his
own in South America.
He obtained the cordial sanction of the Spanish King to this end.
Nevertheless, when put into practice, the scheme failed utterly. The
reasons for this were to be sought for in the poorness of the soil
chosen and in the intrigues of the white settlers rather than in any
fundamental fault of the plan itself. For all that, its failure came as
a severe blow to Las Casas. After experiences such as these, the
majority of men would probably have given up the attempt in despair. Las
Casas, it is true, sought the refuge of a monastery for a while in order
to recover his health and spirits, which had suffered from the shock.
Once again in possession of these, he returned to the field, and,
undaunted, continued to carry on his work.
This campaign of Las Casas is famous for a curious anomaly. That his
work of mercy should have resulted in the introduction into the
Continent of a greater number of dusky labourers than before appears on
the face of it paradoxical. Yet so it was. For Las Casas, determined
that the mortality among the Indians should cease, advocated the
importation of African slaves into Central and South America. His idea
was that the labours spread over so many more thousands of human bodies
would prove by comparison bearable, and would thus end in fewer
fatalities. It is certain enough that this introduction of the sturdy
negro tended considerably to this end, and that many thousands of lives
were prolonged, if nothing more, by this plan. For all that, it must be
admitted that the venture was a daring one to emanate from the mind of a
preacher who was fighting against the slave trade. But Las Casas, urged
by his own experience, took a broad view, and none even of his
contemporaries were able for one moment to impugn his motives.
Las Casas was as much a product of the period and place as were the wild
and daring _conquistadores_ themselves. The new Continent undoubtedly
exerted a curious influence over its visitors from the Old World. It
seemed to possess the knack of bringing out the virtues as well as the
defects with an amazing and frequently disconcerting prodigality.
Several of Las Casas' biographers have wondered at the reason why the
Apostle of the Indies was never made a saint. Certainly hundreds of
lesser heads have been kept warm by a halo which has never graced that
of Las Casas.