THE NORTHERN COLONIES
It is, to a certain extent, difficult for one familiar with the South
America of to-day to realize the New Granada of the Spanish colonial
period. From Guiana westward along the northern coast was an extensive
and, for the most part, unexploited stretch of territory, devoid of such
arbitrary boundaries as characterize it to-day, and limited only on the
north and west by the sea, and on the south by the Portuguese colony of
Brazil and the great Spanish territory of Peru. Venezuela, Colombia, and
Ecuador, and the sharply defined limits these names represent, are, of
course, modern creations, comparatively speaking. For centuries the
landward boundaries of Spanish New Granada remained shadowy, indefinite
limits. There was a Viceroyalty of New Granada, so named from the
resemblance between the plains around Bogota and the _Vega_ of the
Moorish capital, and there was a Captain-Generalship of Venezuela. New
Granada was estimated as comprising all the country between 60 deg. and 78 deg.
west longitude, and between 6 deg. to 15 deg. north latitude. In this was
included Venezuela, under which name was comprised an extent of
territory far less important than is at present the case.
As has been related, Ximines de Quesada, together with Benalcazar, the
Governor of Quito, conquered the district of Bogota, and founded that
city in 1538. After this followed the banishment of Quesada by the
Spanish authorities, his return and his wise rule of the country--over
which he was appointed Marshal--from 1551 onwards. Later, after his
appointment as Adelantado, he devoted three years of toil and an
enormous amount of wealth to the quest of El Dorado. Three hundred
Spaniards, 2,000 Indians, and 1,200 horses set out on this quest; 24 men
and 32 horses only returned. The costly myth of El Dorado, from the
earliest days of its conception, was insatiable in the matter of human
lives.
Quesada died, like one or two other great figures of medieval times, of
leprosy, after having founded the city of Santa Aguda in 1572. He left
behind him a will in which he requested that no extravagant monument
should be erected over his grave--a rather superfluous request as it
turned out, since he also left debts to the value of 60,000 ducats! The
city of Bogota holds his remains, which were conveyed to that city after
his death.
The value of New Granada in the eyes of Spain lay in its being the chief
emerald-producing centre of the world. The _conquistadores_ of Peru had
met with emeralds, and had gathered the impression that the real emerald
was as hard as a diamond, a belief which led them to submit all the
green gems they found to the test of hammering--with disastrous results
to the stones. The loss occasioned by this procedure was intensified by
the fact that for a long while it was found impossible to discover the
mine from which the Incas had procured their emeralds. It was not until
the discovery of New Granada that the source was revealed from which the
stones had been obtained. The wealth of the land did not end here. From
Popayan and Choco, provinces of the north-west, "placer" gold was
obtainable in fairly large quantities by the simple expedient of
washing. Thus, on the whole, New Granada promised the Spaniards ample
supplies of the minerals which they coveted, and which they sought
without intermission.
By reason of these things the Spanish Government, ever fearful of undue
colonial strength, came to the conclusion that the Viceroyalty of Peru
was quite powerful enough and wealthy enough without these newer
possessions. In the year 1718 the limits of the Viceroyalty of New
Granada were defined, rendering the tract of land which now forms the
republics of Venezuela, Colombia, and Ecuador, quite independent of the
Peruvian Viceroyalty; for, notwithstanding the fact that the Peruvian
authority had every claim to the retention of the inland province of
Quito, that also was assigned to the newer government.
The conquests of Quesada and Benalcazar had established centres of
Spanish influence, but they had not gone far towards organizing the
control of the country. Consequently, the establishment of a central
authority at Bogota, independent of all but the Spanish Crown, was a
decidedly advantageous move. As was the case elsewhere in the Continent,
one of the chief evils requiring stringent treatment was that of
smuggling. It was said, for instance, that in the early days half the
great gold output of the colony was smuggled abroad by way of the Rivers
Atrato and Hacha. The first Viceroy of New Granada caused forts to be
erected on these and other streams, with a view to stopping the illegal
traffic, and this measure mitigated the evil which nothing--in view of
the half-settled state of the country--could quite subdue.
So little under control was the greater part of New Granada, that the
good results of establishing a separate Viceroyalty only became apparent
slowly. The conquest of the Chibchas, effected as it was with all the
refinements of cruelty familiar to the _conquistadores_, had added
fierce resentment to the natural racial antipathy already existing in
the savage tribes of the country, and communication between provinces
and towns was difficult in all cases, while in many it was altogether
impracticable. There remained numerous bands of roving savages, fierce
and predatory, to render travel unsafe; and though the efforts of the
missionaries and others brought gentler ways to some in course of time,
the whole of the colonial era was characterized by the presence of
utterly fierce and vindictive bodies of aboriginals, while sufficient
reprisals were indulged in by the Spaniards to keep alive the flame of
hostility.
[Illustration: AN ISLAND PASSAGE OF THE RIVER AMAZON.
_From the "Narrative of a Journey from Lima to Para, 1836."_]
There is something in the transportation of the European to tropical
climates and the control of an inferior race which, in certain
circumstances, appears to loose and to intensify all the most cruel
instincts and desires of which humanity is capable. In reckoning up the
racial contests in New Granada, reader and historian alike must give the
aboriginal his due. He was by no means the gentle savage such as he is
frequently depicted. Indeed, many of his native customs were completely
brutal. Nevertheless, it is necessary to debit against the invader
numerous excesses and deeds of cruelty directed against the inferior or
subject race. And since popular feeling, which ranges on the side of the
oppressed to-day, was undoubtedly on the side of the oppressor during
the earlier centuries, there can be little doubt that the ferocity of
the Indians of New Granada, and their hesitating acceptance of the
missionary's doctrine, were not without excuse.
Although the soil of New Granada offered endless possibilities to the
colonists, the cost of transport and the difficulties attendant on this
necessary commercial operation rendered agriculture in the interior of
little importance as an industry. Each settlement grew sufficient for
its own needs, and no more. Other factors in the slight use made of the
rich soil were the natural indolence and the improvident habits of the
people--habits not yet quite eradicated, since at the present day
Venezuela, although it possesses some of the richest and best
maize-growing lands in the world, still imports maize from the United
States. From the creation of the Viceroyalty onward, attempts were made
by the Spanish authorities to make the people industrious and thrifty,
but these met with scant success.
The power and character of the aboriginal tribes may be estimated from
the fact that, up to the end of the colonial period, Spanish authority
in the immense territory of Quito was only exercised over a valley,
formed by two spurs of the Andes, which reached some eighty leagues in
length, with an average breadth of fifteen leagues. At the beginning of
the eighteenth century a number of towns were established by Catholic
missionaries on the Atlantic coast and on the rivers emptying into the
Gulf of San Miguel; but the Indians destroyed them all, and remained so
little dominated by the white race that a treaty of peace, concluded
between Spaniards and native chiefs in 1790, contained a clause by which
the Spaniards consented to abandon all their forts in Darien.
Beyond these there were other foes to be feared, quite as grim and even
more dangerous. In 1670 the famous buccaneer, Captain Morgan, destroyed
the castle of San Lorenzo at Chagres. This, of course, was in addition
to his feat of capturing and burning the town of Panama. Ten years later
another party of buccaneers captured the city of Santa Maria, in
consequence of which the mines of Cana were closed in 1685.
Towards the end of the seventeenth century William Paterson established
a Scottish colony on the Bay of Caledonia, at Puerto Escoces, but the
venture scarcely proved a success. Ill-fate seems to have pursued most
of the attempts at settlement in New Granada while the Spanish rule
lasted. Yet the town of Santa Fe de Bogota flourished, and has continued
to flourish to this day, so that no less an authority than Mr. R.B.
Cunninghame Graham has described it as the chief literary centre south
of Panama.
The town is set at the foot of the hills, facing a vast plain, and
towards the end of the colonial period was represented as a city of
3,250 families--a population of upwards of 16,000. It was the centre of
archiepiscopal authority, with jurisdiction over the Dioceses of
Cartagena, Santa Marta, Panama, Caracas, and Quito. The route from
Bogota to Europe lay by way of Cartagena, 300 miles distant from the
capital.
Next in order of importance was Quito. The immense province was--and is
at the present day--made up for the most part of dense jungle growth,
alternating with marshy and desert stretches, with nomadic tribes
inhabiting the more open areas. The city of Quito itself, set in
perpetual spring, is considered one of the most beautiful spots in the
world, almost its only drawbacks being the tremendous violence of the
tropical storms to which it is subject, and occasional earthquake
shocks.
The poverty of the mines of Quito freed the Indian inhabitants from
mining labour, a form of industry which, under Spanish rule, depopulated
so many native centres. In consequence of this Quito was reputed to be
the most thickly populated province of South America. Various
manufactures were pursued, and there were several towns with populations
of over 10,000. The products of the land were exchanged for wine, oil,
and other extraneous products, but so inefficient was the colonial
administration that in 1790 Quito was one of the poorest of South
American cities.
The article of chief value--for rubber had not then come into
prominence--was the _quinquina_, or cinchona bark, at first considered
peculiar to the territory of Loxa, but subsequently found to exist at
Bogota, Riobamba, and many other parts of New Granada. It was first
introduced to Europe by the Jesuits in 1639, and after its use had been
established at the Spanish Court in 1640, it commanded a price of 100
crowns a pound. In these circumstances _quinquina_ was, as a matter of
course, subject to adulteration and substitution--practices which
brought their own reward, since the quinine of Loxa, at one time
considered of the highest quality, fell into disrepute when the
gatherers in that province mixed with the real article the bark of other
trees. Perpetually increasing demand led to more careful search for
supplies, and the New Granada of the colonial era owed almost all its
prosperity to the exports of the famed bark, for the output of minerals
dwindled almost to vanishing point.
The Captain-Generalship of Venezuela was chiefly noteworthy for the
Spanish settlements on the Orinoco, where over 4,000 Spaniards were
contained in a dozen or so of villages rather indolently engaged in
cattle raising. Together with tributary Indians, the settlers made up a
total population of nearly 17,000, with over 70,000 head of cattle among
them. Their trade was with the Dutch of Curacoa, who supplied goods in
exchange for cattle, hides, and tobacco.
Caracas was then, as it is now, the head-quarters of the colony, which
was separated from the Viceroyalty of New Granada in 1731. Three years
previously--in 1728--some merchants of Guipiscoa obtained exclusive
trading rights with Caracas, conditionally on their putting an end to
the trade with Curacoa, and landing all cargoes at Cadiz. So
successfully did they fulfil these conditions, and to such an extent did
they increase the development of the colony, that it was deemed
necessary to separate it from New Granada, and form an entirely new
administration.
[Illustration: POTOSI, IN BOLIVIA.
The famous centre of the silver-mining region which supplied the Spanish
Empire with bullion for three centuries.
_From a seventeenth-century engraving._]
Yet the climate, or some obscure effect of the mingling and
cross-breeding of conquerors and conquered, seems to have paralyzed
human effort in these colonies of the northern coast. The land was
something of an earthly paradise, and men were tempted to doze in it
rather than to develop its resources. The cacao of Venezuela takes first
place in the markets of the world, and has done so since its initial
cultivation there; but not one-tenth of the area available for the
growth of the bean has ever been utilized.
Caracas itself, earthquake shaken from time to time, was never--even in
the most favourable periods of colonial rule--a flourishing city, but
rather a centre of trade for scattered settlements. The town could claim
little literary or educational movement to mark it as the capital of a
potentially rich country. It was concerned, moreover, with scarcely a
trace of the social and erudite development that characterized Bogota
almost from the time of its foundation by Quesada. In so far as it had
to be, Caracas existed, but there its ambition ended.
Except for some isolated centres, this was true of the whole of New
Granada and Venezuela. Under Spanish rule the Viceroyalty and its
dependent Captain-Generalship formed a great area into which Spaniards
had come to hunt for mineral wealth, and while that wealth was
obtainable there was a vast amount of activity. The aborigines, save for
the Chibcha race, numbered among them some of the lowest types on the
Continent, and where gold or emeralds or other valuable minerals were to
be obtained these unfortunates were pressed into service, or rather into
slavery.
When the minerals were exhausted, enterprise ceased. Sufficient
cultivation for material needs--an easy matter in this productive
land--was carried on, and in certain districts a definite amount of
cacao growing was practised. For the rest, little was achieved, while
farther south development was proceeding along the lines which have
brought into being the great republics of to-day.
Then Venezuela gave to South America Simon Bolivar, and the storm of
revolution which swept the Continent shook these northern dependencies
into transient wakefulness and energy, until the great day of Boyaca
dawned, and New Granada and Venezuela, as Spanish colonies, ceased to
be. Fit or unfit as they might have been for self-government at the
time, these peoples set out to make histories as independent States, and
the Spanish colonial era, having lasted over two and a half centuries,
came to an end.