THE INVASION OF CORRIENTES
The South American Indian, as a soldier, is a being about whom we
English know very little. Of course we know that, centuries ago, he
was a force to be reckoned with locally; we know that when his
civilisation was stamped out of him he became a mere savage, ignorant,
dirty, brutal and crafty; but it is something of a surprise to us to
learn that, during the first quarter of the nineteenth century, he
occasionally shook off much of his savagery, and showed himself the
equal of the white soldier in discipline, generalship, staying-power
and chivalry. A case in point is that of Andresito Artegas, one of the
most striking figures in modern South American history.
Andresito, who belonged to the Guaycuru branch of the great Guaranian
tribe, was the adopted son of the celebrated insurgent leader,
Artegas, who seems to have given him some education and to have
developed in him the great natural foresight and controlling power
which he was to exhibit later in the war between the Guaranians and
the Portuguese of Argentina.
This petty war, which lasted roughly from 1818 to 1820, was
largely a "coming to a head" of the constant bickerings, forays,
and persecutions which, for years, had been interchanged between the
white man and the red; and though, in the end, the Indians were
badly beaten and the tribe almost annihilated, in the early and
middle stages of the contest there seemed every likelihood of the
Portuguese being driven out of La Plata. In 1819, emboldened by a
train of minor successes, Andresito, with a force of seven hundred
Guaycurus, determined to seize the city of Corrientes.
Next to Buenos Ayres, this was the wealthiest and most important of
the Argentine towns, and much of the commerce was in the hands of
British merchants, such as the well-known brothers Robertson, and
their friend and sometime patron Thomas Postlethwaite. To men like
this the news of Andresito's advance was alarming enough, for it would
probably mean financial ruin, if nothing worse; but to the more
excitable Portuguese residents it was absolute paralysis. People went
stark mad with panic; the seven hundred Indians became seven, and even
seventy, thousand. Tales went from mouth to mouth of massacres
unspeakable in every village and town on Andresito's line of march,
and it was said that the Paraguay boundary and the Parana River--the
only means of safety hitherto open to fugitives--were already in
Indian hands.
Mr. Postlethwaite, disappointed in the hopes of being able to send his
two daughters down the river to Buenos Ayres, resolved to take matters
into his own hands as far as possible, and saw that all the Europeans
were armed and ready to band together in self-defence. But before
anything in the way of concerted effort could be agreed upon, rumour
became fact; Andresito and his Indian cavalry were within half a mile
of the city. Two Portuguese men dropped dead in the street with
fright; Francisco Bedoya, commandant of the colonial troops, lost his
head altogether; collected all the money and plate he could lay his
hands on and buried it in the garden, then began to run about the
streets like a rat in a trap.
As a last resource, Mr. Postlethwaite sent one of his servants to
Andresito with a letter, warning him that our Government might mete
out a terrible punishment if British life and property were not
respected; and, to his great relief, the man soon came riding back
with a courteous message from the young chief, to the effect that no
violence was intended to anyone, least of all to British subjects.
The Englishman was imparting this message to his friends when the
steady trot of a large body of horse was heard, and everyone either
rushed to hiding-places or swarmed into the streets. Postlethwaite and
his daughters reached the _Plaza_ in time to see the Indian soldiers
take possession of it. Nothing could less resemble a horde of
uncivilised invaders than these seven hundred men. Headed by the
handsome young Andresito and his Spanish-Peruvian secretary, Mexias,
the Guaycurus halted and dismounted at the sound of the bugle, and it
could be seen that they were a set of well-trained fellows, armed like
a European cavalry troop, dressed like civilised people, and
apparently no more ready for outrage than if they had been loyalist
soldiers come to rescue the town.
The rear of the procession was certainly remarkable, being composed of
four hundred boys of from six to fourteen years, half of them the
children of white people, round whom thronged a mixed group of
farmers and their wives, screaming, threatening, and entreating. The
Indian boys were liberated slaves, and it appeared that wherever
Andresito had found a native child in captivity, he had freed him and
taken a white boy prisoner. It is interesting to know that, not many
days later, the Indian chief gathered together the distressed parents
who had been able to keep up with or to follow his march, and handed
the white children over to them.
"I have given you a lesson, he said. In future, try to remember that
Indian parents have hearts as well as you."
Andresito's first act on arriving at the _Plaza_ was certainly not
that of a bloodthirsty tyrant; for, marshalling his men on foot, he
led them straight into the cathedral to hear Mass, and as soon as the
service was ended, began to converse amicably with the principal
inhabitants of the town. The cowardly commandant, Bedoya, had found a
place of concealment; perhaps his conscience pricked him, for only a
few weeks before he had instigated the massacre of an entire Indian
village. At any rate, he would not face the Guaycurus, and in
imitation of their valiant leader, the whole garrison deserted their
barracks, leaving them at the new-comers' disposal.
In Mr. Postlethwaite, Andresito speedily recognised a far-seeing,
wise, and courageous old man, whose advice would be worth listening
to; and after a few days, the Englishman's influence over him became
so great that, during the young leader's occasional outbursts of
ungovernable temper or drunkenness, his followers would invariably
send for the tactful merchant and beg him to manage their chief for
them.
No doubt this peaceful state of things might have lasted indefinitely
but for two unpleasant factors; the first of which was the spite and
jealousy of Mexias, the Indian chief's secretary--a vulgar toady and
adventurer who could not be loyal to white man or red, and who,
alarmed at the willingness with which Andresito listened to
Postlethwaite's counsels, lost no opportunity of poisoning his mind
against the honest merchant.
The second probable cause of trouble was the ill-bred conduct of the
Spanish and Portuguese residents towards the Indian chiefs. We all
know, either from history or experience, that it is dangerous and
unwise to ignore the natural barrier that exists between the white and
the coloured races; but that is no reason why a man should be
gratuitously insulted because he is an Indian; and when Andresito
found himself regarded socially with contempt and ridicule by people
who, a fortnight earlier, would have knelt and grovelled to him for
their lives, he was not unnaturally out of temper.
From these two causes, relations became more and more strained, and
one morning a file of soldiers appeared at Postlethwaite's house,
arrested him on a variety of stupid and trumped-up charges, and lodged
him in the common prison among criminals of the lowest type. His elder
daughter at once went to Andresito's hotel, but could not obtain an
interview with him till the next day. Then the chief happened to be in
a good humour, and after some little argument, admitted that the
arrest was due to Mexias' having told him that her father meditated
escaping to Buenos Ayres to warn the Portuguese; and on the girl's
indignantly denying this, the prisoner was set at liberty.
As a peace-offering for this affront to the Europeans, Andresito gave
a great dinner-party to the chief residents, which was to be followed
by a display of picturesque Indian dances. Very few of the Spaniards
or Portuguese accepted the invitation, and those who did were
particularly offensive in their comments on the dancing. Andresito
left the hall in a towering rage.
The following morning the Postlethwaite household was again disturbed
by a visit from Indian soldiers.
"What now?" asked the merchant, losing patience.
"All those who received invitations to the General's entertainment
last night are to come and report themselves; the gentlemen at the
_Plaza_ and the ladies at the barracks," said a soldier civilly.
The two English girls followed their conductors to the barracks, and
there found all the best-known white women of Corrientes guarded by a
troop of soldiers. Andresito soon made his appearance.
"Ladies, he said, I understand that you disapprove of Indian dances;
therefore I have invited you here to teach us better. When each lady
has condescended to dance with an Indian soldier she will be set at
liberty."
Miss Postlethwaite and her sister had the good sense to regard the
affair as one of humour rather than of humiliation, and not stopping
to point out that they were being punished for the misdeeds of
others, they readily yielded to the chief's whim, and were the first
to be dismissed. They hurried at once to the _Plaza_, and here a very
unlooked-for sight awaited them.
Guarded by a hundred soldiers under Mexias, all the well-to-do men of
the town were at work on their hands and knees, weeding the square,
rooting out, with fingers or penknives, the tufts of shabby grass that
grew plentifully between the cobble-stones! The heat was so
suffocating that their father and other elderly men were well-nigh
fainting; but there all were obliged to remain till the task was
finished, shortly before sundown.
This indignity so enraged Postlethwaite that he was tempted to
persuade the white men to combine against their persecutors and rid
the town of them, but was deterred by the irresolution and petty
jealousies of the Corrientes men, and by the thought of the terrible
amount of bloodshed for which he would be making himself responsible.
Abandoning that idea, he fell back on plans for escape. This would be
difficult, if not impossible, for Indians were said to be in
possession of the country all round, and flight by water was out of
the question, because all the boats had been destroyed or sent adrift,
and the larger craft from Buenos Ayres seldom came farther north than
Goya.
By way of lulling any suspicions on Andresito's part as to his
schemes, he invited him and his staff to dinner one evening. The
Indians conducted themselves with great dignity and politeness, and
were very loud in their praise of British fare--particularly of the
"plom puddin Ingles" with which the host regaled them. Andresito's
bearing towards his young hostesses was gallantry itself; he even
styled them his _paysanitas_ or countrywomen, as well as _Indias
rubias_ (fair Indians.)
"But what makes you think we are your compatriots, Senor?" asked the
younger girl.
"Ah, Senorita," said Andresito, "I fear you have not studied the
history of England as I have done. Did you not know that _all_ the
people in your country were Indians till the Spanish king, Julius
Caesar, conquered it?"
The dinner passed off very brightly and merrily, and at last the
English merchant proposed the health of the Indian chief. This was
drunk heartily; but Mexias, who had much of the mischief-maker and
still more of the cad in him, having emptied his glass, broke it and
threw the pieces over his shoulder, calling on the Indians to do the
same. Now this was not at all an uncommon Spanish custom; but Miss
Postlethwaite had strong objections to seeing every glass in the house
broken, at a time when communication with the capital was cut off, and
even the simplest household necessaries difficult to procure. She
whispered a hint to Andresito, at which the hot-headed fellow sprang
up, drew his sword, and vowed that he would kill the next man who
broke a glass.
In revenge for this snub, the Peruvian asked the Postlethwaite ladies
and others to a dinner; and when all had partaken of and commended the
soup and entrees, he took occasion to inform his guests with great
insolence that the substance of all the savouries was horse-beef.
This elegant practical joke was his last. The following evening he was
met by the brother of one of the Spanish ladies, who promptly avenged
the insult in a manner not unusual among people of Latin blood--by
plunging a knife into his back.
This incident was the beginning of general anarchy. Indians and
Argentines alike took the law into their own hands, the latter
emboldened by rumours that white armies were marching on the city, the
former restless and demoralised through their leader's inability to
press on to further conquests till he was reinforced by the troops of
Indians, half-castes, or insurgent whites for which he was waiting. To
Mr. Postlethwaite there now seemed no more risk in flight than in
remaining in the city; so, secreting his portable wealth, and sending
his daughters forward with horses and two armed menservants as
occasion offered, he managed to join them at nightfall near the river
and well beyond the town.
They made excellent pace, and soon after daybreak had reached the
strip of desolate, hilly country that runs along the west bank of the
Parana. Then Postlethwaite called a halt, and had decided that they
would rest themselves and their horses for a few hours, when Juan, his
Spanish cook, pointed back to some moving objects at the foot of the
long hill whose summit they had just reached--Indians, from the way
they sat their horses, though the distance was too great for the
watchers to distinguish whether they were the half-naked savages of
the country or the better-dressed, better-armed cavalry of Andresito.
[Illustration: A NARROW ESCAPE
When Corrientes was seized by Andresito and his Indians Mr. Postlethwaite
and his daughters succeeded in escaping to the banks of the Parana. A
pursuing body of Indians almost captured them, but the boat's crew of a
ship which happened to be lying in the river kept them at bay with oars
and boat-stretchers.]
"In either case we must not risk falling into their hands," said
Postlethwaite. "Up with you all again."
"But the horses are so beaten," urged his elder daughter.
"Not more so than theirs, probably," he said. "And they have a good
mile or more of hill to climb."
The jaded beasts were hastily mounted again, and, always keeping the
river in sight, the party made what speed they could towards the
nearest white station or landing-stage. The hill which their pursuers
had yet to climb would double the value of the start they had of them,
to be sure; but there would be no means of hiding from them when they
again reached the high level, and unless the Indians' horses were
extraordinarily fatigued, it was to be feared that they would soon
make up for lost time.
For the next half-hour there was no sign of redskins. Then one head,
then another, straggled into view, but still so far distant that the
fugitives could not see whether they were moving or stationary. Their
own horses were on their last legs, so much so that it was becoming
sheer brutality to urge them on. The two girls dismounted and turned
their poor beasts loose and the servants followed their example--as
did also Postlethwaite himself when, on looking back once more, he
could see at least ten figures--moving now, beyond all doubt--not much
more than a mile behind.
"We shall have to run for it," he said.
"A ship, Senor; a ship!" cried one of the men hysterically, pointing
ahead; and sure enough there were the two naked topmasts of a brig, a
mile or more farther down the river.
No one else remarked on the sight; no one had breath to spare for
anything but running.
Five minutes went by, and they seemed no nearer. The Englishman
glanced behind him; the Indians had not appreciably lessened the
distance between them. Another five minutes, and then voices were
becoming distinctly audible, though whether those of seamen or
pursuers it was difficult to say. Postlethwaite began to stumble.
"I'm--done for," he panted. "You must go on--and send help back."
"No, no, give me your hand," cried his elder daughter. "Look; look
behind you!"
He obeyed. The two foremost Indians had abandoned their horses and
come within gunshot; and one was coolly taking aim at them with his
musket.
"Only another minute or two," said the girl soothingly.
"Where are you going? Where are you going?" cried a voice in Spanish.
They were running exactly parallel to the river, but about thirty
yards from the water-edge. Looking to their left they saw for the
first time that one of the brig's boats had drawn up as close as
possible to the bank and that her coxswain was beckoning to them.
They needed no further warning, but made a dash for the boat. As they
did so a bullet whistled past their ears, and the younger girl sank
down on the dry grass.
"She is wounded; she is killed," shouted Postlethwaite.
"No, Senor; only faint and frightened," panted the stalwart cook, and,
hastily picking his young mistress up in his arms, he caught up the
others, who were dragged on board as a second bullet flew over their
heads. Juan handed in his burden and was about to vault over the
gunwale, when his foot slipped on the mud and he fell sideways into
the water.
With drawn swords the two Indians--emissaries of Andresito--made a
dash at him, but were kept aloof by oars and boat-stretchers; and as
one of them drew a pistol, Juan's fellow-servant did likewise and sent
a bullet through his arm, just as the plucky cook was dragged into
safety and the boat pushed into the stream.
Not long afterwards a strong Portuguese force drove the Guaycurus out
of Corrientes and took Andresito prisoner. He was conveyed to the
coast and eventually liberated; but he died not long after, and with
him the hopes of independence which the Guaranian Indians had been
cherishing.