[Illustration: SPANISH NORTH AMERICA.
_Engraved by Sid^y. Hall 14, Dury Str^t. Blooms^y._
_Published as the Act directs, Aug^t. 20, 1818, by Longman, Hurst,
Rees, Orme & Brown, Paternoster Row, London._]
SPANISH AMERICA;
OR A
DESCRIPTIVE, HISTORICAL, AND GEOGRAPHICAL
ACCOUNT
OF
THE DOMINIONS OF SPAIN
IN THE
_Western Hemisphere_,
_CONTINENTAL AND INSULAR_;
ILLUSTRATED BY
A MAP OF SPANISH NORTH AMERICA, AND THE WEST-INDIA ISLANDS;
A MAP OF SPANISH SOUTH AMERICA,
AND AN ENGRAVING, REPRESENTING THE COMPARATIVE ALTITUDES
OF THE MOUNTAINS IN THOSE REGIONS.
BY R. H. BONNYCASTLE,
CAPTAIN IN THE CORPS OF ROYAL ENGINEERS.
“Such of late
Columbus found the American, so girt
With feathered cincture, naked else and wild
Among the trees, on iles and woody shores--
---- In spirit perhaps he also saw
Rich Mexico the seat of Montezume,
And Cusco in Peru, the richer seat
Of Atabalipa, and yet unspoilʼd
Guiana, whose great city Geryonʼs sons
Call El Dorado”-- PARADISE LOST.
_IN TWO VOLUMES._
VOL. I.
LONDON:
PRINTED FOR LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME, AND BROWN,
PATERNOSTER-ROW.
1818.
Printed by A. Strahan,
New-Street-Square, London.
TO
COLONEL J. CARMICHAEL-SMYTH,
OF THE ROYAL ENGINEERS,
C.B., K.M.T., K.ST.W.,
COMMANDING ROYAL ENGINEER
OF THE BRITISH ARMY IN FRANCE UNDER
HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON,
AND
AID-DE-CAMP TO
HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS THE PRINCE REGENT,
&c. &c. &c.
_THIS WORK_
IS MOST RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED
BY HIS MOST OBEDIENT
AND HUMBLE SERVANT
RICHARD HENRY BONNYCASTLE.
PREFACE.
A variety of estimable works have appeared on the subject of
America, which have certainly, in a great degree, extended the
geographical knowledge of the New World. Many of them, however,
were written long ago; the political face of the country has
changed; the journals of recent travellers have opened new sources
of knowledge; and we find, among other things, that North America,
which was supposed to contain mountains only of inferior altitude,
has now been discovered to possess summits of superior elevation to
those of the Alps, or the Peak of Teneriffe.
The publications of the most celebrated writers, as well as those
of recent travellers, on that country, are in general bulky and
expensive, and the mixture of political and abstruse scientific
subjects, renders many of them uninteresting to the generality of
readers.
This work has therefore been undertaken, with the object of forming
a useful and amusing compendium of historical and geographical
information, with respect to the acquisitions of Spain on the
continent and in the islands of America, unmixed with political
suggestions or reflections, and including a simple record of
events, without comment. The Authorʼs inducements to this
undertaking have been principally his fondness for the Spanish
language, and the idea, that the little knowledge he possesses
of it might be usefully employed in giving form to a work on the
Spanish colonies.
Authorities of the first eminence have been carefully consulted
for this purpose, it is therefore hoped that the matter contained
in the work will be found correct and interesting: to the labours
of the enterprising M. de Humboldt, it is highly indebted; his
researches and indefatigable efforts have recently thrown so much
light on the obscure geography of America, that the existence of a
great part of the Spanish colonies would have been still unknown
but for that able and scientific traveller, the most zealous, as
well as the most interesting, of any that ever appeared on the
shores of the western world.
The situation of remarkable places has been laid down with the
greatest possible accuracy, and a copious index at the conclusion
affords an easy reference.
The History of the Invasion and Conquests is only touched upon,
so far as it is deemed generally interesting; to have given
extended details on this head, would have required volumes; such
abridgements have therefore been made as will render all its
remarkable points sufficiently known.
The work is divided into two parts; the First comprehends the
Spanish dominions in North America, including the West India
Islands subject to the crown of Spain.
The Second Part relates to Spanish South America, and the islands
on its coasts.
Each part is illustrated by a map, on both of which the Author
has bestowed great pains, to render them as correct and as useful
to the Reader as possible. The French, the English and M. de
Humboldtʼs maps, which are universally acknowledged to be the best,
have been consulted; from the united positions of which, these have
been constructed.
An engraving, representing the relative heights of the mountains
in Spanish North and South America, accompanies the Work; in which
plate, some of the principal cities, volcanoes and extraordinary
features of those countries are designated upon a new plan.
With these assistances, and from the consideration that no work
of a similar nature exists in the English language, on the
Trans-atlantic colonies of Spain, it is conceived that this will
prove both instructive and useful to those who have not leisure to
consult more voluminous writers on the subject.
Previous to proceeding into the body of the work, it will be
necessary to make some observations on the plan. The possessions
of the Spanish Crown in the Americas being naturally, as well as
geographically, divided from each other by the Isthmus of Darien,
and the two great portions of the New Continent being usually
styled (according to this natural and geographical separation)
North and South America, we have judged it proper to adopt this
rational and clearly defined distinction, in undertaking to give an
account of the territories of a nation, which extend through the
greater part of both divisions; accordingly in the following pages,
our plan will be found to be, that all the Colonies of Spain in
North America will have been described before any thing shall have
been advanced concerning the colonies in South America belonging to
that Power.
The maps are also divided according to this plan, and accompany
their respective portions; thus affording an easy reference to
either. In these maps, the latest subdivisions of territories,
the towns, rivers and objects of most importance are alone marked;
for, as the scale must of necessity be small, too great a confusion
would exist if the names of all the minor towns and rivers were
laid down. The colonies of European powers, and the territories of
the United States, which surround the Spanish dominions in America,
are merely traced out, with the names of a few of their most
remarkable positions.
It not being the intention of this work to give a dull and
uninteresting recapitulation of all the circumstances attending the
various discoveries and conquests of the Spaniards in different
parts of America, which have been detailed by numerous Authors at
much length, and in so many different ways, those events will only
be noticed as eras, occasionally illustrated by a summary of such
circumstances as may be deemed the most interesting and remarkable.
The longitudes of places throughout the work are invariably
reckoned west of the Royal Observatory of Greenwich; and the
principal positions are collected in a table of latitudes and
longitudes which concludes the whole.
INTRODUCTION.
In this enlightened age, GEOGRAPHY has assumed a form so new
and interesting, that it has become the study, as well as, the
amusement of all ranks of society; the philosopher peruses with
admiring attention, the details of the localities of distant
climes; and the mere reader instructs as well as amuses himself in
turning over the pages of a geographical performance.
This science, which till very lately, bore so low a rank in the
scale of intellectual attainment, has arisen by the exertions of
men of genius, and the increasing commerce of the Atlantic states
of Europe to a proud elevation, amid the numerous objects of
scientific research; in fact, it blends itself so minutely with
almost all of them, that in order to acquire a thorough knowledge
of it, it is necessary to study the whole circle of the arts and
sciences.
Philosophy enables the geographic traveller to account for the ever
varying appearances of nature which meet his wondering sight.
Mathematical knowledge gives him the means of calculating with
accuracy the positions and forms of the places which arrest his
attention in his progress; and, with his apparatus of Astronomical
instruments, whether he be in distant Inde, on the snow-capped
summits of the Cordillera of the Andes, or in the frozen regions of
the north, he is still able to fix the exact route which he intends
to follow.
Painting, or rather its twin sister, Drawing, is also an
acquirement absolutely necessary for the man of research in this
science, as by its assistance, he can point out to his brethren,
the surprising features of those distant regions, which it is their
lot to hear of, but never to see; and by this delightful art, which
may well be ranked among the first of gifts to man, he can bring
home to the imagination the forms of things unknown.
Poetry is not without its share in assisting to give just notions
of geographic details, as by its fascinating aid, the ideas which
we form of distant objects are heightened and impressed on our
memories; and without the fellowship of History, Geography would
prove the most uninteresting of studies.
But there are other branches of philosophy, which have of
late given a form and stability to the pursuit of knowledge in
this science, and by whose powerful co-operation the march of
geographical acquisition is daily spreading over a wider and more
noble field.
Chemistry has within the last century, assumed a character so
widely different from its ancient bounds, that the world is as it
were a new region. We have become acquainted with phenomena, which
were not before imagined to exist, and we can trace the causes, and
consequently the effects of many of the operations of nature, which
had hitherto baffled all the efforts of man.
Geology, Mineralogy, and Oryctology, have also, as a consequence
of the advanced state of chemical knowledge, become so universally
studied, that no modern writer of travels ought to be unacquainted
with, at least, their leading principles, and to render his labours
very acceptable to the public, he should possess an accurate and
extended knowledge of these branches of science.
Zoography has a close connection with the details of Modern
Geography, as without a description of the properties and forms of
the various races of animals, which all-bounteous Providence has
placed on the Earth, for the sustenance or the use of man, a mere
outline of the features of kingdoms and states would be, though not
useless, yet uninteresting.
Botany also takes an active part in the formation of works of this
nature, and perhaps, no other science has a more pleasing share in
such undertakings, for every day, and almost every hour, discloses
to the phytologist some new and singular variety of Natureʼs
performance.
It is not our intention to enter into a disquisition on the Origin
and Progress of Geography; this has been so ably performed in
several very recent works, that it would be useless to attempt
it, nor in fact could any thing more be said, to the purpose, on
the subject than what has been already advanced; but instead of
considering the different periods in which the science became
more clearly illustrated, from the early ages; we shall content
ourselves with looking only to its actual state, and to its
connections with the subject of the present work.
Notwithstanding all the assistances which Geography derives from
the maturity to which the sciences have arrived, yet it is still
miserably deficient with respect to descriptions of some of the
countries immediately surrounding us; the vast extent of European
and Asiatic Russia, is also imperfectly known, Africa is yet
unexplored, Tartary and the Chinese empire, have a veil of darkness
drawn over them; New Holland is untraversed, and by far the greater
portion of America remains to be visited by the European traveller.
To other nations it is a matter of little consequence, excepting as
a source of curiosity, whether Englishmen have a thorough knowledge
of the various little groups that surround their isle: but to a
Briton there is no corner of his land, with which he does not wish
to have a minute acquaintance.
Although we possess such an accurate knowledge of England, yet
there are many parts of Scotland, and almost the whole of the
western coast of Ireland, to which we are as much strangers as
though they were situated beyond the Desert of Zahara.
Of Shetland scarcely any thing more than the mere outline of its
coast is known to the British geographer, although it offers some
of the most singular scenes, both natural and artificial, that can
be found in the Northern Ocean.
These scenes consist, in the natural part, of the most fantastic
and exuberant workings of Natureʼs ever varying pencil. Here she
has grouped assemblages of the most extraordinarily formed islets,
twisted and split in every direction; some reaching above the
regions of the clouds, and showing, in their pointed or overhanging
heads, the most dreadful precipices that can be imagined; such is
the island of FOULA, between the Orkneys and Shetland. In another
place, a large island, which rises gradually on all sides from
the sea to a great height, in the form of a parabolic conoid, has
its body severed from the apex to the base, as regularly as if it
had been the work of art; such is the islet EGLESHA, on the west
coast of Shetland. A third form is that of an immense islet rising
perpendicularly on every side from the subjacent ocean to a great
elevation, having its whole body perforated with an arch, of such
dimensions that a large vessel could sail under it without lowering
her topgallant sails. In short it would require a volume to detail
the astonishing operations of nature in these islands.
The artificial scenery of Shetland consists in the numerous remains
of ancient fortresses, hollow towers, castles, &c.
Some of these scenes have been drawn by the author of this work;
others which he had not an opportunity of visiting, he was
furnished with sketches of, by a gentleman resident in UNST, and
the whole he has consigned to the author of a work on Shetland, who
intends publishing them.
But to recur to the primary object of this publication; although
the recent travels of HUMBOLDT, DEPONS, HELMS, &c., have
considerably enlarged the circle of our knowledge of Spanish
American Geography, yet there still remains a wide field for
inquiry in those regions.
When M. DE HUMBOLDT shall publish the remaining parts of his
_Personal Narrative_, we shall certainly, from what he has already
said on the subject, be better acquainted with a very interesting
portion of the Trans-atlantic colonies of Spain, the kingdom of New
Granada, and the province of Guiana, as his route was through the
latter in his exploratory voyage down the Apure to the Rio Negro,
and along the Cassiquiari, down the vast stream of the Orinoco. The
viceroyalty of New Granada was nearly traversed by that illustrious
savan, as he passed through the cities of Bogota and Guayaquil to
the capital of Peru.
Peru is, however, still imperfectly known on its eastern frontier;
and the volcanoes, mountains and other striking features of that
government remain yet to be explored and described.
Chili is also very little known; the immense barrier of the Andean
chain, offers, with the difficulty of crossing the Pampas of
La Plata, many almost insurmountable obstacles to the European
traveller from Buenos Ayres, and the great length of the navigation
round Tierra del Fuego affords a considerable drawback to the
adventurer who should wish to arrive in the Chilian regions by a
sea voyage.
The interior of the vast government of La Plata and the Savannah of
the Amazons is nearly involved in as much obscurity as the central
parts of Africa; inhabited by a tribe of fierce and untameable
Indians, the European traveller cannot hope to make his way; and we
must in all probability remain unacquainted with those countries,
till the increasing stride of colonial population from the
governments of Brazil on the one hand, and from those of Peru and
La Plata on the other, clears the forest of its ancient tenants.
In North America, the kingdom of Guatimala, may be said to be
unknown. A few ports on the Pacific and Atlantic coasts are faintly
described; but of the interior, of the inhabitants, and of the
country itself we are in total ignorance.
It is a curious circumstance to remark, in attentively observing
the present system of government, of population, and of
colonization in Spanish America, how nearly it resembles the same
circumstances in the times when the sceptres of that country were
swayed by their ancient and native kings.
With the exception of Caraccas and Buenos Ayres, every thing
remains in nearly the same state, and Power has universally
confined itself to the western region, seeming as if it wished to
verify the assertion, that Empire constantly verges to the quarter
of the setting sun.
In South America, the Peruvians of old, were undoubtedly the most
civilized of the tribes who inhabited the country, but their empire
extended only to the verge of the eastern declivity of the Andes,
and was bounded in the strip of territory which stretches between
those mountains and the Pacific Ocean.
In Chili, the Chilese had advanced with rapid strides towards that
degree of intellectual attainment which was manifested in their
Peruvian neighbours, they were an independent people, forming a
sort of Federal Republic acknowledging a supreme chief, but this
Republic did not include the tribes who wandered over the vast
steppes of Patagonia, it was confined, as in Peru, to the country
between the Andes and the sea.
In New Granada, the Puruays and the Muyscas were also advancing
with a gradual, though certain step, towards the refinement of the
People of the Sun, but they were also, until a very short period
before the conquest, independent governments, acknowledging kings,
and resembling Monarchical States in their dispensation of the
laws, and in the form of their political constitutions; these races
were however unmixed; and, in fact unknown to the people on the
Savannahs of the Maranon and the Orinoco; and also occupied the
country stretching between the Cordillera of the Andes and the
great Pacific Ocean.
In Mexico, empire likewise verged towards the west; the different
states and governments lay mostly to the west of the capital, which
was itself to the west of the highest summits of the Northern Andes.
No towns or kingdoms of any importance were discovered on the shore
of the gulf of Mexico by Cortez or his followers, and it was not
till after a painful march of many days from the coast, that he saw
the symptoms of that extraordinary degree of civilization at which
the Mexicans had arrived.
In our days, the Spanish empire in Peru is confined to the country
intercepted between the Andes and the Ocean of the South. To the
east of the great Cordillera the tribes still wander over the vast
Savannahs of the Maranon in the same state of untutored nature.
In Chili, the European sway is also confined to the same region
over which the ancient Chilese toquis reigned, and the Patagonians
of Terra Magellanica are yet in a barbarous condition; but in Chili
itself, is offered the singular spectacle of a remnant of the
aboriginal race, who have preserved the manners, the customs, the
dress, the language, and the independence of their forefathers;
these people having, hitherto, resisted every attempt which the
Colonists have made to subdue them, and form with the surrounding
tribes the same kind of Republican Government which existed before
the white and bearded strangers appeared amongst them.
In New Granada, the Spaniards occupy nearly the same positions
which the tribes of old held, and what is still more singular, the
two capitals of the Spanish colonies in that kingdom are precisely
in the same situations which the Puruays and the Muyscas had chosen
as the seats of their Conchocandos and Xaques, or Kings.
In Mexico, the Empire of the Whites is precisely within the same
bounds as those in which it was discovered by Cortez and his
followers; and the capital is seated on the same spot on which the
ancient TENOCHTITLAN stood.
The Spanish acquisitions in the eastern parts of America, though
we have held them up as forming an exception to the general rule,
cannot certainly be said to stand out as very forcible arguments
against it; for the colonies in Florida have never flourished,
and Caraccas has only a trifling population considering its great
extent, whilst the whole of the vast country of Guiana is nearly
untenanted by Europeans.
America certainly offers very singular facts towards the support
of this mystical doctrine, in which, though we have no faith, yet
there is considerable pleasure in tracing the analogy of events in
the Continent, partially described in the ensuing pages; for not
only has the circumstance of Spanish power extending solely towards
the western shores of the New World, a strong shade of likelihood
to bear out the colouring which has been thrown on the assertion
by those who strenuously advocate it, yet there is probably a
much stronger, and more recent event to give a deeper tone to the
picture.
This event which comes more home to our knowledge, is the actual
migration of the Colonists of North America, towards the shores of
the Pacific, for according to details which are recently published,
it is placed almost beyond a doubt that the Government of the
United States of America is shifting its local habitation over the
lengthened summits of the Alleghany mountains.
In Spanish America, a good and indeed an unanswerable reason may be
given why the sway both of the aboriginal chieftains, and of their
white successors has uniformly pointed towards the west; climate in
that country is modified according to the situations of the States
on the higher or lower regions of the immense chain of mountains
which traverses its vast extent.
On the elevated plains of Peru, the atmosphere is not charged
with that excessive heat which reigns in the low Savannahs of the
Maranon, hence man is more capable of exertion, and his mental
faculties become enlarged, in the same proportion as his physical
powers; and we accordingly find the Spaniard or the Indian of
the higher region of the Andes, a very different being from his
compatriot on the plains of Guiana, or Vera Cruz.
It is an acknowledged maxim, that, in all countries in which the
cold predominates over the heat, or in which they bear equal
proportions to each other, civilization, knowledge, and freedom
universally spread themselves; whilst on the contrary, in those
climes where the heat is continual and excessive, or where cold
constantly prevails, man is in a perpetual state of barbarism,
subjection, and ignorance; the reasons are evident; unwilling to
use any considerable exertion for fear of being parched or frozen
to death, he suffers things to proceed always in the same train,
and will allow his government or even his religion to follow
the dictates of those who with the strong arm of power, or of
intellectual attainment bend him to their will.
It is for the former reason that the modern Chilese, or
Araucanians, resist the efforts of the Spanish colonists to subdue
them; living in a country where the climate is always equable and
mild, their bodily and mental faculties required only a strong
motive to bring their full power into display and exertion, this
motive was first given them by the Peruvian Emperor Yupanqui, who,
marching with a powerful army into their territories, from the
north, endeavoured to enslave them; the first action overthrew two
or three of the weakest tribes who inhabited the warmest parts of
the country, but it stimulated the rest, and they became from that
moment the warlike nation they have ever since remained.
New Mexico offers the same picture, the Cumanches of that country,
are yet an unconquered race, holding an eternal war against their
Spanish neighbours, and though from the uncultivated state of their
country, and the constant exertion they are obliged to make to
secure their independence, they are not so far advanced in the arts
of civilized life as the Araucanians, yet the Cumanches are a race
far beyond their neighbours who are enslaved in the missions.
From the latter cause, the tribes of Guiana, of Amazonia, of La
Plata, and of Patagonia, have hitherto remained in the state of
barbarism in which they existed when first discovered, and will in
all probability long continue the only tenants of their scorching
plains and humid forests, unless gold, or some equally powerful
motive induces the European to enlarge his settlements in their
country.
This subject would lead us to a discussion which might occupy a
volume; it will therefore be necessary to close it, at the same
time hoping that it may be resumed and enlarged upon by some abler
hand.
WOOLWICH,
_July 15th, 1818_.
CONTENTS
OF
THE FIRST VOLUME.
PART I.
NORTH AMERICAN DOMINIONS.
GENERAL Description, Era of Discovery and Colonization Page 1
Extent and Boundaries 4
Political Divisions 6
Territorial Divisions 6
FLORIDA (East and West) 6
Extent and Boundaries 6
Discovery and History 7
NEW SPAIN 20
Political and Territorial Divisions 32
Boundaries 33
Extent 34
Climate 34
Features of the Country, Productions, &c. 35
Capital 57
New Mexico 68
California (New and Old) 76
Intendancy of Sonora 86
Pimeria 86
Sonora 88
Hiaqui and Mayo, or Ostimuri 89
Sinaloa, or Cinaloa 90
Intendancy of New Biscay, or Durango 92
---- San Luis Potosi 95
Coaguila 96
New Leon 97
New Santander and Texas, and Panuco, or Potosi 97
Intendancy of Zacatecas 99
---- Guadalaxara 99
---- Guanaxuato 102
---- Mexico 103
---- Valladolid, or Mechoacan 134
---- Tlascala, or Puebla 138
---- Vera Cruz 143
Province of Tabasco 147
Intendancy of Guaxaca, or Oaxaca 151
Yucatan, or the Intendancy of Merida 155
GUATIMALA 158
Capital 160
Guatimala Proper 161
Chiapa 163
Province of Vera Paz 165
---- Nicaragua 166
---- Honduras 169
---- Costa Rica 176
---- Veragua 177
WEST INDIA ISLANDS belonging to the Crown of Spain 179
Political Divisions 180
Puerto Rico 180
Cuba 183
Havannah 188
ISLANDS NEAR THE COASTS of New Spain and Guatimala 192