of light, reddish brown, sometimes approaching white. They had a
copious language, cooked their food, made bread and brewed a
dozen kinds of spirituous liquors. Cities, in the Peruvian
sense, they had none, but lived in patriarchal hamlets, ruled by
_ulmens_, who were in turn subject to a _cacique_ of the tribe.
Each farmer was master of his own field; there was none of that
land ownership by the state that obtained in Peru.... They made
cloth garments, which their women adorned with embroidery and
dyed with vegetable or animal extracts. They manufactured a kind
of soap, and their utensils were of well-fashioned pottery, wood
and marble.... They went to sea in canoes and fished with fish
hooks. They knew something of astronomy and physics and had some
rather crude notions of drawing and carving. They called
themselves Children of the Sun, and are supposed to have
worshiped the sun and moon; they had the red man’s vision of
happy hunting grounds after death, and believed that those who
died fighting in battle were certain of a happy immortality....
Cleanly they were in the extreme, in this respect offering a
sharp contrast to their invaders.... They took particular pains
to keep their magnificent teeth white and clean, and were
careful to remove all hairs from their faces and bodies. The
women were dressed in woolen garments of a green color, with a
cloak and girdle; the men wore shirts and breeches, woolen caps
and footgear, and over all capacious woolen _ponchos_ (capes).
The military system was efficiently organized.”
Having learned that the Araucanians and Promaucians were hereditary
enemies, Valdivia’s first step toward the conquest of the former’s
country was to form an alliance with the latter and to establish a base
of supplies at the mouth of the Bio-bio, where he founded the city of
Concepcion, and, during the year 1551, occupied himself in fortifying it
and making preparations for the invasion. On the arrival of
reinforcements he had sent for, he advanced a hundred and fifty miles
south, and, encountering but little opposition, founded the city of
Imperial, and from that point pushed on a hundred miles farther and
founded the city to which he gave his name. On the way back in 1553 he
built several forts and at Santiago found awaiting him a fresh body of
troops and horses. Two hundred of the men, with an Indian contingent, he
sent across the Andes to begin the conquest of what is now the Province
of Mendoza in Argentina; and then, as Hawthorne relates it—
“The Araucanians, uniting with local tribes, made ready to clear
the country of Spaniards. An army of four thousand Indians
crossed the bloody Bio-bio and gave battle to Valdivia, but that
stout warrior succeeded, after a desperate conflict, in driving
them back for the time. In the following year he carried the war
into the enemy’s country.... There was among them a remarkable
old Ulysses named Colocolo, who added to ardent patriotism a
wonderful sagacity in both war and intrigue. He traveled over
the country preaching a crusade against the invaders. A great
conference was held among the various tribes, and a chief named
Caupolican was, at Colocolo’s suggestion, chosen commander in
chief. This hero was modest and valiant, a giant in stature, and
wise in counsel as he was brave. His first exploit was the
capture of the fort of Arauco, which he accomplished by an
unexpected attack, compelling the garrison, after severe
fighting, to evacuate and retire to the fort at Puren. The
garrison at Tucapel fort was in like manner driven to Puren,
from which place word was sent to Valdivia of their peril.
“He started for the seat of war with two hundred men and five
thousand Indians.... The two armies came in sight of each other
on the 3d of December, 1553, and maneuvered for position. The
right wing of the Araucanians was led by Mariantu, the left by
Tucapel, the Murat of the host. At the opening of the battle
Mariantu attacked and cut to pieces the Spanish left, and served
in the same manner a detachment sent to their support. At the
same time Tucapel swept down on the Spanish right. The latter’s
artillery wrought terrible havoc among the Indians and they were
thrice repulsed, though without being thrown into confusion. At
the critical moment of the fight, a young man saved the day for
the Araucanians. His name was Lautero. He had been previously
captured by Valdivia, baptized and made a page, but he seized
this opportunity to escape from the enemies of his country and
join his friends. He called on them to follow him in a final
charge. They caught the contagion of his valor, and, collecting
themselves, swept the Spaniards and their allies from the field
with awful carnage.
“Valdivia himself was captured. He begged hard for his life,
even promising, if he were spared, to quit Chile with all his
followers. Nor did he scruple to entreat Lautero to intercede
for him. This the magnanimous former page did, but in vain. The
grim old _ulmens_ knew too well the worth of Spanish promises,
and, disregarding Valdivia’s screams for mercy, one of them
crushed his skull with his war club. And the next day the trees
that grew in the great plain again bore Spanish heads as fruit,
and Lautero was appointed Caupolican’s second in command. At the
council which was forthwith held, it was resolved, in accordance
with the advice of old Colocolo, to make a general attack upon
all the Spanish strongholds. Angol and Puren were promptly
abandoned by the invaders, who congregated in Valdivia and
Imperial. Lautero fortified himself on the precipitous mountain
of Mariguenu, in order to prevent possible Spanish incursions
southward. Of a band of fourteen Spanish cavaliers who were
riding from Imperial to Tucapel, seven were slain by the
Araucanian Lincoyan.
“The inhabitants of Concepcion were terrified at these
catastrophes. Villagran was chosen Valdivia’s successor. He made
careful preparations and advanced with a strong army of
Spaniards and native allies toward Mariguenu. In a narrow defile
Lautero fell upon him. The Spaniards tried to scale the mountain
but were checked by slings and arrows, and a body of the
Indians, falling furiously upon the Spanish cannoneers, captured
the guns. An attack was then delivered upon the Spanish front
and it gave way, Villagran flying headlong with the rest and
barely making good his escape. The remnant of the Spanish army
was pursued by Lautero to the river Bio-bio, where the
Araucanians paused, and the fugitives staggered into Concepcion.
There Villagran stayed only long enough to gather together what
property he could, and then, with all the inhabitants, he fled
to Santiago. When Lautero entered Concepcion the next day, he
found nothing but empty houses, which he destroyed. The seven
cities were having a hard life of it.
“An attempt some time afterward to retake and rebuild Concepcion
was prevented by the Araucanians, who met and defeated the
Spaniards in open plain and again drove them back to
Santiago.... In the next campaign Lautero went against Santiago,
while Caupolican attempted the siege of Imperial and Valdivia.
Lautero laid waste the country of the Promaucians and fortified
himself on the Claro. A Spanish reconnoitering party was
surprised and cut to pieces and Santiago was in danger.
Villagran, being ill, gave the command to his son Pedro, who was
led into an ambuscade by Lautero and his army slaughtered. But
this was Lautero’s last victory, for a few days later, standing
on his battlements to watch the approach of a Spanish party, he
was killed by a chance shot, and though in the battle that
followed the Araucanians fought valiantly, they were finally
overpowered. The death of Lautero was for three days celebrated
by the Spaniards; and indeed his fall meant much to them. He had
invariably defeated them in battle and outgeneraled them in
maneuvers, and at the age of only nineteen had made a reputation
as a warrior such as any veteran might envy.”
From then on the war continued with varying success, the Spaniards
stubbornly persisting in their efforts to conquer their indomitable
opponents, the Araucanians always resisting, and, when beaten for a
time, retreating to the mountains, only to recruit and return to the
contest with renewed vigor, and this even when their enemies had grown
so numerous that they could put thousands of their well armed and
trained soldiers into the field instead of hundreds. Gradually, in the
course of many years, the Spaniards secured more and more of a foothold,
until the great leader Paillamachu took command of the Indians and began
an uninterrupted series of victories. He burned Concepcion and Chillan,
a hundred miles to the north, ravaged the whole country as far up as the
Maule, carried Valdivia by storm and captured, besides the garrison and
inhabitants, $2,000,000 of booty and a large store of arms and
ammunition, afterward reduced Imperial, Osorno, Villarica, Cañete,
Angol, Coya and Arauco, and, by the time of his death in 1603, every one
of their cities and forts on the mainland; and, at last, when the
Spaniards, after many other attempts, had failed to recover the lost
ground they were forced to resort to a treaty. Says Hawthorne:
“Another term of raids and reprisals ensued, with no conclusive
results to either party. Spanish governors and Araucanian chiefs
succeeded one another year after year; the operations now
favored one side, now another, but the Spaniards on the whole
lost more than did the Indians. It was not until 1640, about a
hundred years since the outbreak of the war, that anything
approaching a settlement was made, and the initiative came from
the Spaniards. At the village of Quillin the Spanish Governor,
the Marquis of Baides, met the Araucanian chief Lincopichion,
both being attended by a great retinue. The treaty was ratified
by speeches and the sacrifice of a llama. The Spaniards and
Araucanians were mutually to refrain from incursions and the
Araucanians were not to permit the troops of foreign powers to
land on their coasts or to furnish supplies to the enemies of
Spain. This clause was inserted in view of recent attempts of
the Dutch to effect a lodgment in Chile. This compact was kept
by the Indians, in spite of temptations to break it, for ten or
a dozen years, when hostilities broke out afresh owing to bad
faith on the part of Spain. The Spanish were overwhelmingly
defeated in 1655 and during ten years the power of Spain in
lower Chile was broken. In 1665 the Spaniards were glad to make
another treaty with the Indians, which was kept for half a
century. The invaders from the first had gained much more by
their treaties than by their arms.”
“Thenceforward,” says Dawson—
“The Bio-bio remained the southern boundary of the Spanish
possessions. An army of two thousand men and a line of forts
guarded the frontier; and, though hostilities were frequent, for
centuries no real progress was made toward depriving the
Araucanians of their independence. In the progress of time the
slow infiltration of Spanish blood and Spanish customs modified
their characteristics, but it was not until 1882 that they
became real subjects of the Chilean government.”
It may be that the Spaniards ought not to be blamed for these efforts to
complete their conquest of Chile and the appalling amount of bloodshed
and distress they caused. After all, they only did what the Aztecs,
Caras, and Incas had already done to the peoples of their neighboring
countries, what the European peoples were constantly doing to each
other, what England soon afterward did in India, and what, within the
last century, our own people did in Mexico, the French in Algiers, and
the English in South Africa. It may be true, as is asserted by their
apologists, that the motive that actuated the Spanish in their conquests
was not alone greed of land and gold, but in large part to Christianize
a pagan people and bring them into the true fold; but for the long,
brave fight these Araucanians made, for their high standard of
patriotism, for their adherence to their convictions, both religious and
political, we can feel only admiration and sympathy. For these things,
as Hawthorne puts it, “they merit the thanks of all friends of manhood
and liberty.”
The northern areas of Argentina submitted more quietly to the
conquerors. In 1542, Diego de Rojas led the first expedition from Peru
down through the Humahuaca Valley. Though he was killed in a fight with
a wild tribe near the main Cordillera, his followers continued their
march. Near the site of the present city of Tucumán they passed out from
the mountain defiles, and, leaving the desert to their right, penetrated
through Córdoba to the Paraná River country beyond. Lured by the reports
of peaceful and wealthy native communities in the irrigated valleys and
the magnificent pasture lands in the pampas stretching away to the
east—now the scene of Argentina’s enormous stock-raising and wheat
industries—other adventurers soon followed from Peru and Chile and were
met by expeditions from the Atlantic coast, marching west in quest of
another Peru. No permanent settlement was made on the site of the
present city of Buenos Aires until 1580. The two parties that had
attempted it, the first commanded by Juan Diaz de Solis, the other by
Pedro de Mendoza, had been defeated by the Indians and driven off, but
Mendoza had penetrated into the interior, and his lieutenant, Domingo
Irala, who remained and founded a colony, became the dominant figure of
the new agricultural empire.
XI
The system adopted by Spain for the government of her vast colonial
possessions is set forth in the famous code known as the Compilation of
Laws of the Kingdoms of the Indies, framed in the reign of Philip IV and
published in 1680 in the reign of Charles II. The American possessions
had originally been divided into two great political entities by the
Emperor Charles V in 1542. These were known as New Spain and New Castile
and were governed only by _Real Audiencias_, (royal audiences, or
tribunals that had both legislative and judicial functions). Later they
were created Viceroyalties, and the name New Castile was changed to
Peru. “We order and decree,” said the King in Law 1, Title 3, Book III
of the Compilation, “that the Kingdoms of Peru and New Spain be ruled
and governed by Viceroys who shall represent our royal person. These
shall exercise superior power, do and administer justice equally to all
our subjects and vassals and apply themselves to all that will promote
the tranquillity, repose, ennoblement and pacification of these
provinces.”
At that time the Viceroyalty of New Spain embraced all the provinces of
Central America and the islands of the Caribbean, and Mexico and (west
of the Mississippi) pretty much all the land to the north, and in the
Viceroyalty of Peru were included Panama and all the land in South
America, except, of course, Brazil. These viceroyalties themselves were
subdivided into great provincial districts, each administered by a _Real
Audiencia_. These audiencia districts were in turn divided into lesser
governmental jurisdictions known as _Gobernaciones_ (provincial
sub-districts), _Alcaldias Mayores_, _Alcaldias Ordinarias_ and
_Corregimientos_ (municipal districts of greater and lesser extent),
and, in harmony with this political arrangement, there was also an
ecclesiastical division: into Archbishoprics, coextensive with the
audiencia districts, Bishoprics, corresponding with the _gobernaciones_
and _alcaldias mayores_; and Parishes and Curacies, corresponding with
the _alcaldias ordinarias_ and _corregimientos_. The Viceroys were
respectively Presidents of the Audiencias and Captains-General of the
military forces at Lima and the City of Mexico, the viceregal capitals;
the provincial audiencia districts were presided over by Gowned
Presidents (_Ministros Togado_) and were under the military command of
Captains-General, both of which officers were subordinate to the
Viceroys.
Within the jurisdiction of the Viceroy of Peru were seven royal
audiencias: Panama (created in 1535), Lima (created in 1542), Santa Fé
de Bogotá, now Colombia (created in 1549), Charcas, now Bolivia (created
in 1559), San Francisco de Quito, now Ecuador (created in 1563), Chile
(created in 1609) and Buenos Aires, now Argentina (created in 1661). In
the eighteenth century two more viceroyalties were created from
districts withdrawn from the Viceroyalty of Peru: New Granada and Buenos
Aires. That of New Granada, established in 1717, was made up of the
Audiencias of Santa Fé de Bogotá, Panama, San Francisco de Quito and
Venezuela; that of Buenos Aires, established in 1778, included the
territory now embraced in Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Patagonia,
Bolivia (Charcas) and the southern part of Chile. Afterward the
Audiencias of Venezuela and Chile were constituted independent
Captaincies-General, subordinate only to the Council of the Indies in
Spain, and the Audiencia of Charcas was returned by royal decree of 1810
to the Viceroyalty of Peru. From these colonial divisions logically
sprang the South American republics as they exist to-day—of course,
again excepting Brazil, which, after she had secured her independence in
1822, retained a monarchial form of government until 1889, when she
became a republic like the others.
Under this Spanish colonial system, therefore, _the King was absolute
sovereign_, and governed, not through his ministers of the cabinet—for
the various provinces were regarded as appanages of the Crown—but
primarily through his Council of the Indies, to which his officers in
America reported directly, and secondarily through these officers
themselves—the Viceroys and Captains-General, and their subordinates. In
addition to these executive officers and the royal audiences, there were
_Cabildos_ (municipal councils), which had jurisdiction of local affairs
in their respective communities, but there were no _elective_ officers
or tribunals, or legislative bodies representing the people. The King
regarded the provinces as his personal property and their occupants as
instruments for their development for his benefit alone. Incidentally,
they might derive for themselves what profit out of it they could, but
only in ways consistent with his interests and policies.
Consequently, during this colonial period, the Spanish Americans had no
opportunity to develop a representative and self-sustaining body
politic, which, in the course of time, might by peaceful means have
altered this theory and corrected the evils of such a system—as was the
case in Brazil, where the Portuguese King in person resided in the
country for several years (during the period of Napoleon’s Peninsula
invasion) and in that way became familiar with local conditions and the
needs of his people. He, on his return to Portugal, opened the Brazilian
ports to the commerce of the world and created Brazil a vassal kingdom,
with a form of government almost wholly autonomous.
In contrast with this, no Spaniard (and certainly no foreign trader) was
allowed to freight ships for the colonies, or to buy a pound of goods
anywhere else, without obtaining special permission and paying well for
the privilege. Cadiz was the only port in Europe from which ships were
permitted to sail for America, and the whole trade was farmed out to a
ring of Cadiz merchants. Every port in Spanish South America was closed
to transatlantic traffic except Nombre de Dios on the Caribbean side of
the Isthmus of Panamá, near the present city of Colon. Not a merchant
ship could enter Buenos Aires, Valparaiso, Callao or Guayaquil. Imports
from Spain must first go to the Isthmus, there be disembarked and
transported over the Andean passes and the Bolivian plateaux on the
backs of llamas, and finally be carried down over the Argentina pampas
to Buenos Aires, or along the arid coast to the Peruvian and Chilean
settlements. Under such conditions in the southern provinces European
manufactures, agricultural and mining implements, and other essentials
for a people’s advancement were to be had only at fabulous prices.
On the other hand, also, the system made exports impossible, except the
precious metals mined in the north, and drugs, and other easily
transportable products. Hides, hair, wool, agricultural products and
hard woods would not stand the cost of such long and difficult hauls.
The Peninsula authorities acted upon the theory that America should be
confined to producing gold and silver. The Plata settlements,
especially, and all others south and east of the Peruvian-Bolivian
mining region, suffered from this ruinous suppression. Having no mines,
they were considered worthless, so far as the royal treasury was
concerned, and were in consequence ignored—until they came in conflict
with home industries by the cultivation of olives and grapes, and then,
to protect the Peninsula growers, the Argentinos were forced to cut down
their olive trees and uproot their vines. The inevitable results
followed. Smuggling, bribe-giving, evasion and contempt for all law, and
hostility to the fiscal authorities of the Peninsula grew up when, in
their stead, the colonists could have been developed into a bulwark for
Spain, which was so soon to totter from her proud position as the
greatest of the world powers. Where science of government and national
up-building should have been taught and fostered, revolution became the
only political refuge.
In 1808, when Napoleon forced the abdication of Charles IV, held him and
his successor, Ferdinand VII, prisoners in France, and established his
brother Joseph on the throne, came the colonists’ opportunity. In April,
1809, a _Junta_ (national assembly) was formed in Caracas; in July of
the same year the example was followed in Peru, and in August at Quito;
in May of the next year, Santa Fé de Bogotá and Buenos Aires followed,
and Santiago elected the Chilean _Junta_ in September. The colonists
expected by these steps to release the Indians from slavery in the mines
in the north and west; to restore and develop the cultivation of grapes,
olives and tobacco, and build up their grazing and agricultural industry
in the south and east; also to open their ports to commerce with Europe,
so that they might buy commodities essential to their growth, and export
their own products by way of exchange; also to lighten the crushing
imposts and internal taxation, to abolish the tithe system, and reclaim
and parcel out the vast feudal estates which had gradually been absorbed
by the Spanish officials in the course of an administration which could
only be likened to that of the rapacious Roman proconsuls against which
Cicero inveighed so impotently.
But the ambitious attempts at reform met with immediate and successful
opposition. The country was full of Spanish office-holders who saw in
them their dismissal and the death blow to their spoils system. In the
short struggle that followed, the success of the royal forces was almost
universal. The colonists had had no training in warfare, nor had they
yet developed as a people the unity of purpose and sturdy
self-dependence which was eventually to bring them their freedom. The
_junta_ governments were everywhere effectively suppressed, except in
Bogotá and Buenos Aires, where the fires of revolution smouldered during
the succeeding years of Peninsula chaos that preceded Waterloo, and the
colonists, with eyes opened at last to the true and only remedy for
their ills, were formulating their great resolve to separate themselves
entirely from the mother country; for, while their measures of reform
had been suppressed, the ideas that called them into being could not be
obliterated. Furthermore their unsuccessful clash with the viceroys and
lesser officials brought even more glaringly before their eyes the
extortions and brutal indifference of the ruling class. The attitude of
the Peninsulares toward the creoles and _mestizos_ of the colonies had
always been contemptuous, and now at last the creoles, being for the
most part of unmixed Spanish descent (they were called creoles only
because born in America) found their resentment of that attitude more
than they could endure.