FROM INDEPENDENCE TO THE CHILEAN WAR
If ever country began an independent existence without any basis for a
strong, ordered, and stable government, that country was the Peru of
1826. The interior inhabited by Indians long held in abject subjection
by the Spanish generals, the long strip of coast divided by local and
factional jealousies, the nation had already miserably failed to unite
in face of defeats suffered from the Spaniards, or of the military
preponderance first of the Argentines and then of the Colombians.
In 1825 all thought of open resistance to Bolivar was manifest folly.
Peru was his to do with as he pleased. He went through the farce of
summoning a congress and offering to resign his dictatorship, but with
thousands of Colombian troops encamped at Lima, it was natural that he
should be begged to retain the direction of affairs on his own terms.
The "liberator" devoted all his energies to laying the foundations for a
great military confederation with himself as its life head. Venezuela,
New Granada, and Ecuador were already united under the name of the
United States of Colombia, of which he was president. He hoped to make
his tenure permanent by imposing an aristocratic and centralising
constitution providing for a life president. The submissive Peruvian
congress agreed to adopt his system, and the dictator set out on a
triumphal tour to put it in application in upper Peru. Travelling along
the coast to Arequipa, he crossed the Cordillera to La Paz, and thence
proceeded over the Titicacan plateau to Charcas and Potosi. There he
created a new nation which, in his honour, was named Bolivia; wrote its
Constitution with his own hand; and, having installed Sucre as life
president, returned to Lima at the beginning of 1826.
Apparently Bolivar's system was dominant from the Caribbean to the
Argentine pampas, and he regarded himself as certain soon to be virtual
emperor of all South America. But the instinct of local pride was
growing; the signs of Peru's wish to be rid of him could not be ignored,
and the new congress he had summoned was abruptly dismissed. In
September the news of disturbances in Venezuela, which foreshadowed the
breaking up of Colombia, made it necessary for Bolivar to hasten north.
He left General Lara at Lima, but that officer failed to keep the unruly
mercenaries upon whom his power depended in good humour. A mutiny broke
out; Lara was arrested and deported, and the mutineers entered into
negotiations with the Peruvian leaders. The money demanded was soon
raised and the Colombian soldiers shortly embarked, leaving the field
free for the local chiefs to fight among themselves for supreme power.
General Santa Cruz, though by birth a Bolivian, had great influence
anions the few Peruvian troops, and tried to forestall his competitors
by seizing the direction of affairs and summoning a congress, but
General La Mar, himself born at Cuenca in Ecuador, was stronger. The
latter secured the selection of his friends, and when congress met he
had a two-thirds majority and became president. So long as Sucre
remained in control of Bolivia there could, however, be no certainty
that Colombian rule might not be re-established, but he was already in
trouble on account of the mutinous disposition of his troops. When the
Peruvians sent against him a hastily gathered force he was compelled to
withdraw, the Bolivarian Constitution was abolished, and Santa Cruz made
himself supreme in Bolivia.
[Illustration: VILLAGE OF CHICLAY ON THE OROYA RAILWAY, 12,200 FEET
ABOVE THE SEA.]
Encouraged by this success, La Mar determined to wrest Guayaquil and
Cuenca from Colombia. Bolivar, already furious over the defection of
Peru and Bolivia, made a formal declaration of war, although he was too
much occupied with his own troubles in New Granada and Venezuela to go
in person to the frontier. General Flores, whom he had put in charge of
Ecuador, made preparations to resist La Mar, Sucre came to direct the
operations, a Peruvian naval expedition captured Guayaquil, and La Mar's
main army of four thousand men occupied the province of Loja and
penetrated within forty miles of Cuenca, only to be defeated. The
Peruvian president signed a treaty giving up his conquests, but he was
no sooner safe in his own country than he repudiated it and refused to
surrender Guayaquil. His defeat had, however, cost him his prestige at
home, and one of his generals, Gamarra, revolted and declared himself
dictator.
Gamarra had been chief of staff at Ayacucho; he was a good soldier, but,
like most of his companions, had no conception of constitutional
government, and thought the men whose bravery had redeemed Peru from the
Spaniards' _ipso facto_ entitled to govern. Force was the only method he
knew to secure obedience, and under his administration taxes were
arbitrarily increased, citizens exiled without trial, and the country
virtually governed by martial law. Until the last year of his
administration Gamarra held the country fairly quiet, but as the end of
his legal term in 1833 approached, the question of the succession
plunged Peru into an indescribable anarchy. Gamarra's enemies got
control of the assembly called to frame a permanent Constitution and
illegally named a president, while Gamarra proclaimed one of his own
partisans. Every military chief who could command the support of a few
soldiers acted on his own responsibility. Dictators and _soi-disant_
presidents were put up and pulled down one after another in a
bewildering succession. Orbegoso, La Fuente, Vista Florida, Nieto, San
Roman, Vidal, Gamarra, and Salaverry were each proclaimed supreme within
the next year. Combinations of the different chiefs formed, dissolved,
and re-formed with perplexing rapidity. Two bands would fight a bloody
battle one day and the next would fall into each other's arms and swear
eternal friendship.
Salaverry, a chief only thirty years old and remarkable for his dash and
energy, succeeded in establishing himself pretty firmly at Lima, while
Gamarra held Cuzco. Orbegoso, who had received a majority of votes in
congress, entered into negotiations with Santa Cruz, the strong dictator
of Bolivia, agreeing to everything to get help against Salaverry and
Gamarra. The wily Bolivian had planned to divide Peru and unite the
fragments with Bolivia into a confederation. At the head of five
thousand men he advanced on Cuzco and wiped out Gamarra. The fiery
Salaverry did not wait to be trapped at Lima, but left the capital with
his whole force and hastened south. Not daring to attack Santa Cruz's
vastly superior army, he slipped around to Arequipa, laying that unhappy
town under contribution and impressing its citizens into his army. The
Bolivians followed; he evacuated Arequipa, and evaded them for a time,
but they finally caught him as he was making a daring attempt to cut
their line of communication. His army was dispersed and destroyed and he
and his principal officers were taken prisoners and mercilessly shot.
It seemed as if Peru might now, under the strong rule of Santa Cruz,
enjoy the peace and order with which he had blessed Bolivia. The country
was partitioned, Orbegoso becoming sub-president of North Peru, which
included Lima, and General Herrera of South Peru. Santa Cruz was
proclaimed protector of the Peru-Bolivian confederation and the new
government formally inaugurated in the fall of 1836. He was an able and
laborious administrator, zealous for economy and purity in public
affairs, a friend of orderly government, a ruler who knew how to
organise an efficient army while maintaining it in due subordination.
But from the beginning it was evident that he held supremacy by a very
uncertain tenure. The Peruvian military classes, so long and so
absolutely dominant, were unanimously against him and his methods. The
mercantile, professional, and moneyed classes were bound by a hundred
ties to the officers, and the agricultural peasantry, composed of
Indians and negroes, took no part in public affairs. Sooner or later he
must have come again into conflict with men of the Gamarra-Salaverry
type, but the immediate peril was from Chile, whose power and
energy--great even then, but so far unknown and underestimated--were
thrown into the balance against him. The civil war of 1831 had resulted
in the defeat of the Chilean liberals, and Freire, their leader, had
fled to Peru and there received aid and comfort. The Chilean
remonstrances remained unnoticed, and Santa Cruz's commercial policy was
adverse. The defeated Peruvian generals swarmed into Chile and promised
to aid an invasion.
The Chilean aristocracy could not resist this temptation to make their
country the dominant power on the Pacific coast, and without any warning
their ships sailed up from Valparaiso and captured the Peruvian fleet at
Callao. This left the way clear to land troops on the Bolivian or
Peruvian coasts. The first expedition went against the province of
Arequipa. It landed without resistance and climbed to the city, while
Santa Cruz's army maintained a defensive attitude. Lack of provisions
soon compelled the Chilean general to promise that the war should not be
renewed if he were allowed to depart. His government refused to ratify
this agreement, and sent another expedition to the neighbourhood of
Lima, which was accompanied by Gamarra and a large number of Peruvian
exiles. Orbegoso declared his independence of Santa Cruz and gave
battle to the Chileans on his own responsibility, but was defeated and
fled to Guayaquil.
A year elapsed before Santa Cruz could march an adequate army to the
neighbourhood of Lima. As he approached, Gamarra and the Chileans
evacuated the capital, retiring up the coast, whither the Bolivians
followed. Repulsed in an attack on the rearguard of the fleeing allies,
and feeling that he could not rely upon the Peruvians in his army, he
took the defensive and posted his forces near the town of Yungay,
occupying a hill called the Sugar Loaf. The allies stormed this hill by
a brilliant assault in which they suffered greatly, but their unexpected
success completely demoralised Santa Cruz's army. His men scattered in
all directions, and though he escaped with his life, his prestige was
destroyed. Gamarra became president of Peru, Bolivia revolted, and Santa
Cruz made his way to a European exile.
During two years Gamarra kept his turbulent rivals in check, but he then
rashly undertook a campaign against Bolivia, giving as a pretext the
refusal of its government to expel the old adherents of Santa Cruz. The
Peruvian army advanced into Bolivian territory, only to be overthrown in
the bloody battle of Yngavi. Gamarra was killed and his best officers
taken prisoners. The Bolivians made a counter-invasion, but a treaty of
peace was soon signed. The removal of the common danger was the starting
signal for a race to power among the Peruvian generals. Each of them had
raised troops on his own account and now proposed to use them for his
own benefit. They ignored the claims of Gamarra's constitutional
successor. La Fuente, Vivanco, and Vidal formed an alliance and
proclaimed the latter dictator; Torico seized Lima and declared himself
supreme chief; Vidal hastened down from Guamanga and defeated him; then
Vivanco rebelled against Vidal and in his turn descended on the capital.
Twenty years of independence had brought Peru no nearer a stable
government. Anarchy and civil war had been her lot, and the situation
seemed to grow more desperate year by year. The country's only hope was
a man in whom military talent would be combined with such strength of
will and pertinacity of purpose that he would crush out lesser despots
and restore and maintain order by the strong hand.
[Illustration: DON RAMON CASTILLA]
The Porfirio Diaz of Peru was at hand, a little, quiet, rough, and
unpretentious soldier, who for twenty years had been modestly doing his
duty, observing events and slowly maturing in character. All Peruvians
knew him as one of the heroes of Ayacucho, but none appreciated his
latent possibilities, and he had been passed by while his more showy
companions of that historic day had pushed themselves to the front.
Ramon Castilla had been a colonel on Gamarra's staff at Ayacucho,
and was rewarded by being appointed prefect of his native
province--Tarapaca, the most southern part of Peru. About 1830 he began
to take part in the civil wars, but he never started a revolution on his
own account, and always seems to have chosen the side that best promised
stability and respect for the Constitution. To Orbegoso. Castilla was
long faithful but abandoned him when he made alliance with the
Bolivians. He went into exile when Santa Cruz was victorious, and
returned with Gamarra and the Chileans. At the battle of Yungay he
commanded the Peruvian contingent of the allied cavalry, and when
Gamarra became president gave him his adhesion; but was taken prisoner
at the fatal battle of Yngavi, where his chief was killed. Returning
from captivity he found Peru torn to pieces by the armed rivalry of
contending generals, and Menendez, the legal president, a fugitive.
Unhesitatingly he threw himself into the conflict against those whose
claims rested on their own pronunciamentos. Landing at Arica with only
five men, his cool audacity saved his life in the first attack; his
little band increased; Vivanco's partisans were confounded by the
rapidity of his movements; their opponents hastened to join him.
Castilla obtained control of Arequipa and Cuzco, and finally, in July,
1844, completely overthrew Vivanco's army, putting an end to the civil
war. The first use he made of his victory was to declare a general
amnesty; the second to restore Menendez to the position of acting
president. The latter called a convention, and ten months later Castilla
was elected president of Peru without opposition.
The country realised at once that it was in the hands of a master--a man
strong enough to be generous, but with whom it was not safe to trifle.
Almost instantaneously commerce felt the impulse which assured peace
always gives. The turbulent military leaders found their occupation
slipping away, while the orderly elements of the community grew in
power. At heart the vast majority of the people were law-abiding, and
the class which promoted revolutions was numerically an insignificant
element of the population. But it was not alone Castilla's personal
force of character, his shrewdness as a politician, his prestige as a
general, his popularity so nobly won by generosity and moderation, which
made his position secure. At the moment he assumed supreme power
bountiful Providence placed in his hands riches untold. Holding the
strings of a purse into which poured the millions from the guano and
nitrate deposits, he could reward his friends, keep his troops contented
by regular pay, relieve agriculture of taxation, place the disordered
finances on a sound footing, and promote general prosperity by works of
public utility. Europe suddenly realised the value of the bird manure
found on the desert islands of the Peruvian coast, and soon hundreds of
ships were coming annually to load the precious fertiliser.
Instead of squandering this fairy gift on the enrichment of his
creatures, or on the creation of a vast, useless, and wasteful swarm of
office-holders,--the hardest of all temptations for a South American
politician to resist,--Castilla paid interest on the foreign debt which
Peru had incurred during the war of independence, and refunded it, with
the accrued interest, that already amounted to more than the principal.
The internal debt was also consolidated, care being taken to admit no
fictitious claims; telegraphs and railways were constructed; steam
vessels added to the navy; and all legitimate branches of the
administration adequately provided for. But the moment Castilla's strong
hand was removed, extravagance and corruption grew to alarming
proportions. Under General Echenique, his successor, public offices and
pensions were multiplied; concessions were granted not to promote
honestly new industries, but to favourites to be sold for what they
would bring; and finally a measure was rushed through congress to extend
the time fixed by Castilla for presenting claims to be funded in the
internal debt. It was openly charged that the ministerial ring had
arranged to put themselves on the roll of national creditors. Public
opinion was scandalised, and the discontent and jealousy soon showed
itself in open revolt. The first insurrection was suppressed, but in the
beginning of 1854 Castilla decided to put himself at the head of the
movement against Echenique. Though the government regulars were better
armed and provided than the militia which rallied around Castilla, the
latter advanced from one position to another and finally overthrew the
president in the decisive battle of La Palma. Echenique fled the country
and Castilla assumed the reins of power once more, not to lay them down
until 1862, when he voluntarily retired to private life. His second
administration was as orderly as his first except for a local
insurrection at Arequipa. He was not, however, so successful in
restraining the predatory disposition of the Peruvian politicians and
was unable to restore the administration to its old economical basis.
The eighteen years of almost uninterrupted peace which elapsed between
the beginning of Castilla's first administration and his retirement
changed the face of Peru. A generation had grown up to whom the early
years of independence were only a tradition. War, age, banishment,
discouragement had thinned the ranks of the Ayacucho veterans, and the
days were gone when one of them had merely to issue a pronunciamento to
be forthwith hailed as president, dictator, supreme chief, protector,
regenerator, by a turbulent soldiery and a fickle, ambitious Creole
aristocracy. Peru's subsequent troubles have been financial, not
military.
In 1860 the Constitution which still governs the country was adopted.
Framed under Castilla's influence it retains the centralised system of
provincial government through prefects appointed from Lima, and gives
the executive preponderant powers, although it is liberal and humane in
its guaranties to the citizen. Slavery and Indian tribute, which
continued to exist until 1855, are forbidden; forced recruiting, the
scourge of old revolutionary days, is a crime; all Peruvians who can
read and write, who own property or pay taxes, are entitled to vote.
Castilla was succeeded by his old friend and companion in arms, General
San Roman, a straightforward soldier who resembled his chief in his
unquestioning obedience to lawful authority, but whose unfortunate death
six months after his inauguration prevented him from demonstrating
whether he possessed the same statesmanlike qualities. Vice-President
Pezet peacefully took his place. Castilla had encouraged foreign
immigration into the coast valleys, so admirably adapted to cotton and
sugar, but where labour was scarce. Chinese coolies had come in large
numbers, and the flattering offers had also attracted some Europeans.
Among the latter were seventy Basque families, who shortly claimed that
they were badly treated. Making a protest against a breach of contract
committed by the proprietor of the estate on which they were working,
they were attacked and some of them killed. The criminals escaped
punishment, and the Spanish government made an international question of
the affair, finally demanding an apology and three millions of dollars
as indemnity. This being refused Spain broke off diplomatic relations
and sent a powerful fleet, which seized the Chincha guano islands. Too
weak alone to bid defiance to the Spanish ships, Pezet temporised,
meanwhile asking Chile for help, and hoping for the early arrival of
war-ships ordered in Europe. But the Spaniards pressed him so hard that
he thought himself forced to yield to their demands. He concluded an
agreement derogatory to the national honour, and a terrific outburst of
public indignation followed. Prado, prefect of Arequipa, made
preparations to march on Lima and depose the pusillanimous president;
the Chileans, who had meantime determined to join in resistance to
Spanish aggression, supported the insurrection; the terrible old
Castilla went himself to the presidential mansion and gave Pezet a sound
rating. The latter gave in and offered his resignation. Prado became
supreme chief, issued a declaration of war against Spain, and signed a
treaty of alliance with Chile. During the absence of the Spanish fleet
the batteries at Callao were heavily reinforced, and an immense force of
volunteers flocked to man the guns. When the Spanish ships appeared and,
gallantly running into range, opened fire on the 2d of May, 1866, they
were met by a determined resistance. Though the Peruvians suffered most
severely--two thousand being killed and wounded--their opponents were
unable to effect a landing or obtain the slightest concession, and their
ships were so badly damaged that they abandoned further hostilities.
Prado now found that the unconstitutional character of his position had
only temporarily been ignored when he attempted to hold the power
against General Canseco, second vice-president, who was Pezet's lawful
successor. Castilla, now over seventy years old, landed in his native
province, determined to unseat him. But the enfeebled frame of the aged
warrior was unable to withstand fatigues and he died of exposure on the
march. Canseco, however, roused Arequipa. Prado failed to take the place
by assault, and gave up further opposition. Meanwhile Colonel Balta had
headed a formidable insurrection in the north, and though Canseco was
allowed to fill out his legal term, Balta's friends controlled the
electoral college, and he was inaugurated president in August, 1868.
With his accession Peru entered definitely upon a new era. The race for
fortune absorbed the energies of the ruling class; cane and cotton
planting, nitrate mining, railroad building under foreign direction,
opened up vistas of profit without labour; social and civil intrigue
replaced fighting and pronunciamentos. Castilla's liberal refunding of
the old debt, the scrupulous regularity with which international
obligations had been met, and the immense and increasing revenue from
nitrate and guano, gave Peru credit in the money markets of Europe.
Balta and his advisers were full of schemes for the material progress of
the country and their own enrichment. A great railway system was
projected and more than two thousand miles constructed at a cost of near
forty million pounds. Enormous sums were spent on port works; expensive
moles and piers built in the wave-lashed roadsteads which are Peru's
only harbours; for the first time serious efforts were made to explore
and develop the forested plain east of the Andes; the city of Iquitos
was built at the head of deep-water navigation on the Amazon;
office-holders multiplied; and new parks and public buildings
embellished the cities. English capitalists eagerly took the bonds which
the Peruvian government recklessly issued, and the foreign debt
increased from five millions sterling to forty-nine millions before the
end of Balta's term--a sum upon which two-thirds of the gross revenue
would hardly suffice to pay interest. Such a debt was truly stupendous
for a country most of whose population of scant two millions and a half
was poor, non-commercial, non-industrial, and without other resources
than a rude agriculture. Leaving out the proceeds of the guano monopoly
and the nitrate royalties, the total revenues could not pay the
interest.
[Illustration: STATUE OF BOLIVAR--LIMA, PERU]
Don Manuel Pardo, Peru's first civilian president, had already been
constitutionally selected as Balta's successor, and the latter was
within a few days of the end of his term, when a terrible catastrophe
happened. Among the poor relations whom the luckless president had
preferred to positions in the army were four brothers named
Gutierrez--the sons of a muleteer near Arequipa. Suddenly one brother
appeared at the head of his battalion and took possession of the great
square in the centre of the capital, while another forced his way into
the president's study, revolver in hand, arrested the chief of state,
and locked him up. Warned in time the president-elect escaped on board a
man-of-war, and the eldest Gutierrez was proclaimed supreme chief. The
people of Lima soon recovered from their stupefaction and a scene of
terrific street-fighting followed. One of the conspirators was shot by
the mob as he went to the railway station on his way to Callao. His
brothers retaliated by murdering the captive president, but they soon
fell before the rifles of the populace. Their bodies were hung up in the
cathedral by the infuriated people, while the president-elect returned
and assumed his functions.
Pardo's four years were one continual struggle against impending
bankruptcy. Though he brought some order into public accounts, it was
only by all sorts of expedients that he managed to keep up interest
payments. He easily suppressed an insurrection led by Pierola in 1874;
his intellectual and moral force united about him the educated and
property-holding classes in a party which survives to this day; and he
left the reputation of having been the best president who ever ruled
Peru. However, no efforts could avail more than merely to put off the
evil day of reckoning. The rapid exhaustion of the guano deposits
precipitated the disaster. Payment of interest was suspended in 1876 and
the same year Pardo turned over the government to General Prado with the
currency at fifty-per-cent. discount and Peruvian bonds selling in
London at twelve.