THE EXECUTION.
Towards the end of the year 1450, Chili was invaded by Prince
Sinchiroca, afterwards Inca, who gained possession of the valley of
Mapocho, then called Promocaces, that is to say, the place of dancing
and rejoicing. The Peruvian government, however, was never able to
establish itself in the country, on account of the armed opposition of
the Promocians, then encamped between the rivers Rapel and Maulé. Hence,
though the historian Garcilasso de la Vega may place the limits of the
territory conquered by the Incas upon the river Maulé, everything proves
they were upon the Rapel, for, near the confluence of the Cachapeul with
the Tingerica, which from this point takes the name of Rapel, start the
ruins of an ancient Peruvian fortress, constructed exactly like those of
Callao and Asseray, in the province of Quito. These fortresses served to
mark the frontier.
The Spanish conqueror, Don Pedro de Valdivia, founded, on the 24th of
February, 1541, the city of Santiago in a delightful position upon the
left bank of the Rio Mapocho, at the entrance of a plain a hundred miles
in extent, bounded by the Rio Parahuel, and the mountain of El Pardo,
which has an elevation of not less than four thousand feet. This plain,
which is also bathed by the Rio Maypo, forms a natural reservoir, in
which the light soil brought down from the neighbouring heights has
found a level, and created one of the richest territories of the New
World.
Santiago, which at a later period became the capital of Chili, is one of
the finest cities in Spanish America. Its streets are broad, built in
straight lines, and refreshed by _acequias_; or rivulets of clear and
limpid water; while the houses, built of _adobes_, only one story high,
on account of the earthquakes so frequent in this country, are vast,
airy, and well situated. It possesses a great number of monuments, the
most remarkable of which are the stone bridge of five arches, thrown
over the Mapocho, and the Tajamar, or breakwater, formed of two brick
walls, the interior one of which is filled with earth, and serves to
protect the inhabitants from inundations. The Cordilleras, with their
eternally snow-crowned summits, although eighty miles distant from
the city, appear suspended over it, and present an aspect of the most
majestic and imposing kind.
On the 5th of May, 1835, towards ten o'clock in the evening, stifling
heat oppressed the city; there was not a breath in the air, or a cloud
in the heavens. Santiago, generally so joyous at this hour of the
night, when beams from black eyes and smiles from rosy lips are seen at
every balcony, and each window seems to challenge the passer-by with
the twanging of _sambecuejas,_ and snatches of Creole songs, appeared
plunged in the deepest sadness. The balconies and the windows were
filled, it is true, with the heads of men and women, packed together as
closely as possible, but the expression of every face was serious, every
look was thoughtful and uneasy: no smile, no joy could be witnessed; but
on all sides were sorrowful brows, pale cheeks, and eyes filled with
tears.
Here and there in the streets numerous groups were stationed in the
middle of the causeway, or upon the steps of the doors, conversing in a
low voice, but with great vivacity. At every instant, orderly officers
left the government palace, and galloped off in various directions.
Detachments of troops quitted their barracks, and marched, with drums
beating, to the Plaza Mayor, where they formed in line, passing silently
amidst the terrified inhabitants. The Plaza Mayor on this evening
afforded an exceptional appearance. Torches, waved about by individuals
mixed with the crowd, threw their red dull reflections upon the
assembled people, who seemed to be in expectation of some great event.
But among all these people assembled on one spot, and whose number
increased every second, not a cry, not a word could be heard. Only, at
intervals, there arose a nameless murmur--a noise of the sea before a
tempest--the whisper of a whole anxious people--the hoarse fury of a
storm lashing all these oppressed breasts. The clock of the cathedral
heavily and slowly struck ten.
Scarce had the _serenos_, according to custom, chanted the hour, ere
military commands were heard, and the crowd violently driven back in all
directions, with cries and oaths, accompanied by blows from gunstocks,
divided in two nearly equal parts, leaving between them a wide, free
space. At this moment arose the sounds of religious chants, murmured in
a low, monotonous tone, and a long procession of monks debouched upon
the square. These monks all belonged to the order of the Brothers of
Mercy. They walked slowly in two lines, with their hoods pulled down
over their faces, their arms crossed upon their breasts, their heads
hanging down, and chanting the _De Profundis_. In the middle of them ten
penitents each bore an open coffin. Then came a squadron of cavalry,
preceding a battalion of militiamen, in the centre of which body, ten
men, bare headed, with their arms bound behind them, were conducted,
each riding with his face toward the tail of a donkey, whose bridle
was held by a monk of the order of Mercy; a detachment of lancers came
immediately after, and closed this lugubrious procession.
At the cry of halt, given by the commander of the troops drawn up
upon the Plaza, the monks separated to the right and left, without
interrupting their funeral chant, and the condemned remained alone in
the middle of the space left free for them. These men were patriots,
who had attempted to overthrow the established government, in order to
substitute another, the more broad and democratic basis of which would
be, as they thought, in better accordance with ideas of progress and the
welfare of the nation. These patriots belonged to the first families of
the country.
The population of Santiago viewed with sullen despair the death of
the men whom they considered as martyrs. It is even probable that a
rising in their favour would have taken place, if General Don Poncho
Bustamente, the minister at war, had not drawn out a military force
capable of imposing upon the most determined, and obliging them to be
silent spectators of the execution of men whom they could not save, but
whom they entertained a fierce hope of avenging at a future day.
The condemned alighted; they piously knelt, and confessed themselves to
the monks of Mercy nearest to them, whilst a platoon of fifty soldiers
took up a position within twenty paces of them. When their confession
was completed, they rose up bravely, and taking each other by the hand,
ranged themselves in a single line in front of the soldiers appointed
to put them to death. In spite, however, of the great numbers of troops
assembled on the Plaza, an ominous fermentation prevailed among the
people. The crowd rocked about in all directions. Murmurs of sinister
augury and curses, pronounced aloud against the agents of power, seemed
to remind the latter that they had better finish the affair at once, if
they did not wish to have their victims torn from their hands.
General Bustamente, who calmly and stoically presided over this
dismal ceremony, smiled with disdain at this expression of popular
disapprobation. He waved his sword over his head and commanded "right
about face," which was executed with the rapidity of lightning. The
troops faced the insurgents on all sides; the front rank pointing their
muskets at the citizens crowded together before them, whilst the others
appeared to take aim at the balconies encumbered with people. This was
followed by so dead a silence, that not a word was lost of the sentence
read by the proper officer to the patriots--a sentence which condemned
them to be shot as traitors, or accomplices in a conspiracy designed
to overthrow the constituted government, and plunge their country into
anarchy.
The conspirators listened to their sentence with silent firmness; but
when the officer, who trembled in every limb, had finished reading it,
they all cried, as with one voice,
"Viva la Patria! Viva la Libertad!"
The General gave a signal, and a loud rolling of the drums drowned the
voices of the condemned. A discharge of musketry resounded like a clap
of thunder, and the ten martyrs fell, once again shouting their cry of
liberty, a cry doomed to find an echo in the hearts of their terrified
compatriots.
The troops filed off, with shouldered arms, ensigns flying, and band at
their head, past the dead bodies, and regained their barracks. When the
General had disappeared with his escort, and the troops had left the
Plaza, the people rushed in a mass towards the spot where the martyrs
of their cause lay in a confused heap. Every one wished to offer them a
last farewell, and to swear over their bodies to avenge them, or to fall
in their turn.
At length, by degrees, the crowd became less compact, the groups
dispersed, the last torches were extinguished, and the spot where,
scarce an hour before, an awful drama had been accomplished, was left
completely deserted. A considerable time elapsed before any noise
disturbed the solemn silence which brooded over the Plaza Mayor.
Suddenly, a heavy sigh escaped from the heap of bodies, and a pale head,
disfigured by the blood and dirt which stained it, arose slowly from
this human slaughterhouse, pushing aside with difficulty the carcasses
which had covered it. The victim, who, by a miracle, survived this
bloody hecatomb, cast an anxious look around him, and passing his hand
over his brow, which was bathed in a dark perspiration, said vehemently--
"My God! my God! grant me strength to live, that I may avenge myself and
my country!"
Then, with incredible courage, this man, too weak from the blood he had
lost, and was still losing, to stand, or to escape by walking away,
began to crawl along upon his hands and knees, leaving behind him a long
wet track, and directing his course towards the cathedral. At every yard
he stopped to take breath, and to place his hands upon his wounds, which
motion rendered more painful. Scarce had he left the centre of the Plaza
and its horrid sacrifice fifty paces behind him, and that with immense
difficulty, when, from a street which opened just before him, issued two
men, who advanced with hasty steps towards him.
"Oh!" the unhappy man cried, in utter despair, "I am lost! I am lost!
Heaven is not just!"--And he fainted.
The two men, on coming up to him, stopped with great surprise; they
leant over him, and examined him with care and in an anxious manner.
"Well?" said one of them, at the end of a minute or two.
"He is alive!" the other replied, in a tone of conviction.
Without uttering another word, they rolled up the wounded man in a
_poncho_, lifted him on their shoulders, and disappeared in the gloomy
depths of the street by which they had come, and which led to the
Canadilla suburb.