the junta of Buenos Ayres sent a body of troops to Paraguay to depose
the Spanish governor, but they were compelled to retreat. The
inhabitants, however, themselves deposed the governor, and took the
government into their own hands. In 1813, they proclaimed Paraguay a
republic, under two consuls, the principal of which was Dr. Jose
Gaspar Rodriguez de Francia. At the end of the year, Francia caused
himself to be named dictator for three years, and, at the close of
this term, for life. On the 24th of September, 1826, a formal
declaration of independence was made, though the country, for fourteen
or fifteen years, had been governed independently of Spain.
The administration of Dr. Francia proved to be an absolute and perfect
despotism, and that of a most severe and sanguinary character. He was
a native of Paraguay, and received the degree of doctor of theology at
the University of Cordova, in Tucuman. For nearly thirty years he
acted the tyrant over the inhabitants of the country, and brought the
entire mass into the most unresisting subserviency to his will. No
personage has figured so conspicuously as Dr. Francia, in the modern
history of South America. When, by consummate address, he had
succeeded in getting himself appointed dictator for life, commenced
one of the most extraordinary events on record. "From the moment when
he found his footing firm, and his authority quietly submitted to, his
whole character appeared to undergo a sudden change. Without faltering
or hesitation--without a pause of human weakness, or a thrill of human
feeling--he proceeded to frame the most extraordinary despotism that
the world has ever seen. He reduced all the population of Paraguay to
two classes; of which the dictator constituted one, and his subjects
the other. In the dictator was lodged the whole power, legislative and
executive; the people had no power, no privileges, no rights, and only
one duty, to obey. All was performed rapidly, boldly, and decisively.
He knew the character of the weak and ignorant people at whose head he
had placed himself, and who had the temerity to presume that they had
energy and virtue sufficient to form a republic. The inhabitants of
Paraguay delivered themselves up, bound hand and foot, into the hands
of an absolute and ferocious despot, who reduced them to absolute
slavery, ruined their commerce and agriculture, shut them up from the
rest of the world, and dragged to the prison or the scaffold every man
in the country whose talents, wealth, or knowledge opposed any
obstacle in the way of his tyranny. No human being was allowed to
leave the country, or dispatch a letter abroad." A few only escaped,
by means of the flooding of the country by the rise of the river
Paraguay, and from these individuals the world has learned respecting
the secrets of this more than Dionysian espionage and tyranny. No
attempted conspiracies availed to secure his person or destroy his
life. He managed so as to gain over his soldiers entirely to his
interests. As was to be expected, he lived in constant fear of
assassination or poisoning, ordering his guards sometimes to shoot
those who dared to look at his house in passing along the streets, and
taking the trouble to cook his own victuals. He died at about the age
of eighty, in 1842, having thus enacted the despot during the long
course of twenty-eight years.
The wonder of all is, that the people generally were contented and
happy under this strict and unnatural regime; yet it is partly to be
accounted for from the entire security of person and property which
was felt, so far as the intercourse of the people among themselves was
concerned. Each district was made responsible for every theft
committed in it. All the inhabitants, Indians as well as Creoles, were
taught to read, write, and keep accounts. Public schools were every
where established, and children were required to attend them, until,
in the judgment of the municipal authority, they were sufficiently
instructed. The dictator also established lyceums and other liberal
institutions. Every person was required to labor, and mendicity was
prohibited. It has been represented, however, that there was a
mitigation of the doctor's despotism, in the latter part of his life.
According to the more recent accounts, the government of this country
was administered by five consuls; but this and the other matters
pertaining to Paraguay, are very imperfectly known, as the country
has, for so long a period, been avoided by foreigners.
WEST INDIES.
[Illustration: WEST INDIES.]
SITUATION, Extent, &c.--Inhabitants--Political Divisions.--I.
BRITISH WEST INDIES:
Jamaica--Trinidad--Barbadoes--Bahamas--St.
Christopher--Bermudas or Sommers' Islands--St. Vincent.--II.
SPANISH WEST INDIES: Cuba--Porto Rico.--III. FRENCH WEST
INDIES: Martinique--Guadaloupe.--IV. DUTCH WEST INDIES.--V.
DANISH WEST INDIES.--VI. HAYTI.
_Situation_, _Extent_, _Climate_, _Productions_, _&c._--The West
Indies constitute the great archipelago of the western continent,
extending from latitude ten to twenty-eight degrees north, between the
coast of Florida on the north, and the mouth of the river Orinoco in
South America. They are a large cluster of islands, in their several
portions variously denominated, according to their situations or other
peculiarities, but will here be considered in their political
divisions. The land area of the whole group is over ninety-three
thousand square miles.
These islands have a general sameness of character, in some respects,
from the position which they occupy on the face of the globe. The
climate, as is to be expected, is generally very warm, though moderated
and made comfortable, for the most part, by sea breezes. The thermometer
frequently rises above ninety degrees; but its medium height maybe
stated at about seventy-eight degrees of Fahrenheit. They are visited by
periodical rains, which are often powerful, and in general the humidity
of the atmosphere is very great, causing iron and other metals that are
easily oxydated, to be covered with rust. Hurricanes are common to most
of these islands, and frequently, in their incredible fury, produce the
most desolating effects wherever they extend.
The productions of the West Indies are rich and varied, and constitute
important articles of commerce. From the fertile soil spring the
sugar-cane, the coffee-plant, the allspice or pimento, the nutritive
banana or plantain, the pineapple, the luscious fruit of the anana,
the yam, sweet potato, uca, maize, and cassava or manioc, with cocoa,
tobacco, cotton, various dye-woods and stuffs (fustic, logwood,
indigo, cochineal), and medicinal plants; such as arrow-root,
liquorice-root, ginger, jalap, ipecacuanha, sarsaparilla, &c.; the
mahogany and lignum-vitæ are included in the vegetable productions of
this archipelago; but to this catalogue must still be added the
bread-fruit, cocoa-nut, mango, papaw, guava, orange, lemon, tamarind,
fig, cashew-nut, mammee, grenadilla, panilla, panda-nut, &c.
_Inhabitants._--The white inhabitants of the West Indies are Creoles,
Spanish, English, French, Germans, &c.; but the negroes are the most
numerous class, though the mixed races are quite abundant. The Indians
are extinct, except as mingled with negroes in a part of the island of
St. Vincent. The general classes are those of master and slave, or
were such before the act of emancipation took effect in the British
portion of the islands. From the diversity of nations or races,
several languages are necessarily in use, as the English, the French,
the Spanish, with other European tongues, and the Creole, a jargon
used in Hayti, composed of French and several African dialects.
_Political Divisions._--These consist of the British islands, the
Spanish islands, the French islands, the Dutch islands, the Danish
islands, one Swedish island, and the independent island of Hayti. The
British own twenty-two islands, of various dimensions; the Spanish,
two, viz: the large islands of Cuba and Porto Rico; the French, six;
the Dutch, four; and the single Swedish island is St. Bartholomews.
The last is a small, but fertile, island, which was ceded to Sweden by
France in 1785.
I. BRITISH WEST INDIES.--The government of the British West Indies is
modeled on the constitution of the mother-country. The several islands
have a governor or lieutenant-governor, and a legislative council
appointed by the crown; and the most of them have also a house of
representatives, chosen by the people, who legislate upon all subjects
of a local character.
The West Indies were formerly a great mart of that infamous traffic,
the slave-trade, which, according to M'Culloch, was commenced by the
Portuguese in 1542, and this nation seems disposed to be the last to
relinquish it. By means of the noble exertions of Wilberforce,
Clarkson, Sharp, and others, an act was passed in 1806 by the British
parliament for abolishing the slave-trade; and the present age has
witnessed another act highly honorable to the British nation, for the
total abolition of slavery, at great expense, throughout the British
colonies. By this memorable act, which was passed by parliament in
1833, the slaves were on the 1st of August, 1834, made apprenticed
laborers to continue such, a part of them till the 1st of August,
1838, and a part till the 1st of August, 1840, when they were all to
become completely free. To indemnify the owners of the slaves,
parliament voted the sum of twenty millions pounds, as a compensation,
payable in certain fixed proportions, according as each colony should
be ascertained to have complied with the terms of the act.
Soon after the passing of this act, the slaves in the island of
Antigua and the Bermudas were made free by the colonial governments,
and acts were afterwards passed by the legislatures of Barbadoes,
Jamaica, Nevis, Montserrat, St. Christopher's, St. Vincent, and
Tortola, liberating all the slaves or apprenticed laborers in those
islands on the 1st of August, 1838. Movements of a similar nature
also, about the same time, took place in the other islands, bringing
to a close the apprenticeship which had been established.[88]
A few of the more important British islands will be noticed separately
in a brief manner.
1. _Jamaica._--This island was discovered by Columbus in his second
voyage in 1494. It was first settled by the Spaniards in 1509. A body of
seventy men were sent to it by Diego Columbus, the son of the
discoverer. These were blood-thirsty wretches, who made frequent
assaults on the natives, for the purpose of robbery or revenge. The
progress of settlement was extremely slow--not more than three thousand
inhabitants, of whom half were slaves, being found on the island in
1655, when it was taken by a British force, under Penn and Venables.
Soon after this event, Jamaica was colonized by three thousand
soldiers, disbanded from the parliamentary army, who were followed by
about one thousand five hundred royalists. At the period of its
capture by the English, many of the slaves belonging to the Spanish
settlers fled to the mountains, where they long lived in a kind of
savage independence, and became troublesome to the British colonists.
They have been known by the name of _Maroons_. In 1795 they were
overcome by the English, as they descended from their fastnesses for
the purpose of assaulting the former, and six hundred of them were
sent to Nova Scotia, where they were settled on locations of land
provided for them by the government. Since the occupancy of the island
in 1655, the English have firmly maintained their authority over it.
2. _Trinidad._--This is a fruitful island, producing cotton, sugar, fine
tobacco, indigo, ginger, maize, and various fruits. Its area is nearly
two thousand square miles, and its population over forty-five thousand.
Its climate is unhealthy. This island was taken by Sir Walter Raleigh in
1595, and by the French in 1676. It was captured from the Spaniards in
1797, and ceded to England by the treaty of Amiens in 1802.
3. _Barbadoes._--This island is situated on the eastern border of the
West Indian archipelago. It has a large population for its size,
numbering over one hundred thousand souls, on an area of less than two
hundred square miles. The climate is hot, but the air is pure, and
moderated by the constant trade-winds, which render it salubrious, in
comparison with the other islands. The exports from the island are
sugar, rum, ginger, cotton, aloes, &c. It is subject to tempests,
which at times have occasioned great devastation and loss of life.
Barbadoes is supposed to have been discovered by the Portuguese, and
appears never to have had any aboriginal inhabitants. In 1627, some
English families settled there, but without any authority from the
government. It was soon afterwards supplied with a regular colony by the
Earl of Carlisle. The British settlers at length brought this rich, but
uncultivated, track into entire subjection by the power of industry.
4. _Bahamas._--The Bahama or Lucayos islands consist of about seven
hundred very small islands, extending over a large space of the
archipelago on its northern border. Their soil is generally light and
sandy, and productive only in a few places. The principal products are
cotton, salt, turtle, fruits, mahogany, and dye-woods. The group among
them called Turk's island, is famous for its salt ponds, which annually
yield more than thirty thousand tons of salt for the foreign market.
Guanahani, or Cat island, is celebrated as being the land which Columbus
first discovered. He named it San Salvador. The Spaniards first settled
on these islands, but at length abandoned them, having shipped off the
natives to work in the mines in other places. They remained desolate for
more than a century. In 1629, New Providence was taken possession of by
the English, who remained there till 1641, when they were driven out by
the Spaniards in a cruel and barbarous manner. They, however, changed
owners repeatedly, till, in 1783, they were confirmed to the English by
treaty. For many years previous to the close of the American war, the
Bahamas were the haunts of pirates, buccaniers, and freebooters.
5. _St. Christopher's._--This island, with Montserrat, Nevis, Antigua,
and the Virgin isles, form one government, the governor generally
residing at Antigua. The interior of the country is a rugged mass of
precipices and barren mountains, the loftiest rising to three thousand
seven hundred and ten feet. The island has a productive soil on the
plains.
St. Christopher's is said to have been the nursery of all the English
and French colonies in the West Indies. It was first visited by both
nations on the same day, in 1625. They shared the island between them,
engaging, by treaty, to observe perpetual neutrality and alliance
against the Spaniards, the common enemy. The possession of a common
property in the productions of the island, led eventually to
jealousies and contentions. Whenever war broke out between the
mother-countries, the colonists engaged among themselves, and
alternately drove each other from the plantations; but the treaty of
Utrecht confirmed the British in the possession of the whole island.
6. _Bermudas._--The Bermudas, or Sommers' islands, consist of a
cluster of small islands in the ocean, opposite the coast of North
Carolina, about two hundred leagues distant. They number about four
hundred, but most of them are of no importance. A few of them have
numerous forests, which supply timber for ship-building, thus giving
employment to the inhabitants, in connection with navigation. The
climate is healthful and pleasant, and the fields and trees are clad
in perpetual green. Their population is nearly nine thousand. These
islands were first discovered in 1522, by Juan Bermudez, a Spaniard,
who found them without inhabitants. From him they received the name by
which they are generally known. They were also called Sommers, from
the circumstance that Sir George Sommers was wrecked on them, in 1609.
Shortly after this event, the islands were settled by the English, who
have retained possession of them ever since.
7. _St. Vincent._--St. Vincent is a rugged and elevated island, of
small extent, but extremely fertile, and well adapted to the
cultivation of sugar and indigo.
This island was first colonized, in 1719, by the French, from
Martinique. They had no small difficulty, even at that late period, in
bringing the fierce Carib natives under their authority. It was obtained
by the British, at the peace of 1763, and, though afterwards subjected
to the French arms, it was, in 1783, again confirmed to the British.
II. SPANISH WEST INDIES.--Although Spain had the honor of first
ascertaining the existence of the West Indian islands, and enjoyed the
privilege of settling and holding most of them for a time, yet they
have all passed from her authority, except two, Cuba and Porto Rico.
Cuba, however, is by far the largest of the group, having an extent of
territory equal to nearly one-half of the land area of the entire
archipelago.--The exports of these islands consist of sugar, rum,
molasses, coffee, tobacco, and cigars, with honey, hides, cotton,
fruits, &c.
1. _Cuba._--This island, as being the largest, is, in many respects,
the most important in the whole cluster of the islands of the American
continent. "During the last fifty years, a concurrence of
circumstances has rendered Cuba the richest of the European colonies
in any part of the globe; a more liberal and protecting policy has
been adopted by the mother-country; the ports of the island have been
thrown open; strangers and emigrants have been encouraged to settle
there; and, amid the political agitations of Spain, the expulsion of
the Spanish and French residents from Hispaniola, the cession of
Louisiana and Florida to a foreign power, and the disasters of those
who, in the continental states of America, adhered to the old country,
Cuba has become a place of general refuge." Its growth and increase,
within the above-named period, have been very great. By the census of
1831, it contained eight hundred and thirty thousand inhabitants. The
value of its exports, in 1833, was nearly fourteen millions of
dollars; that of its imports, eighteen millions and a half. In 1838,
the government of Spain levied a subsidy of two millions five hundred
thousand dollars on the island, to assist in defraying the expense of
the civil war. These facts denote a state of things which formerly was
far from existing on this island.
Cuba was discovered by Columbus in his first voyage; but he did not
ascertain whether it was an island or a part of the continent. The
question was not determined until some years afterwards. It was
conquered by the Spaniards, under Velasquez, in 1511. Little progress
was made in the settlement of the island till 1519, when it was found
that the most convenient route between Mexico and Europe would be
through the Bahama channel, and it was desirable to possess a sea-port
on the passage. This led to the foundation of Havana, the harbor of
which is the best in the world. Cuba has ever been a Spanish colony.
2. _Porto Rico._--This island is somewhat large for one of the West
Indian cluster, having four thousand five hundred square miles. It
possesses a great variety of surface, mountains, hills, and valleys. Its
climate and productions are similar to those of the adjacent islands.
Porto Rico was discovered by Columbus in 1493, but the Spaniards made
no attempt to settle it till 1509, when the pursuit after gold carried
them thither from Hispaniola, under the command of Ponce de Leon. The
natives, impressed by the belief of the superior nature of the
Spaniards, made no resistance, but submitted to the yoke of bondage.
Subsequently, they made an insurrection, and massacred a hundred of
the invaders; but they were easily subdued, as soon as the Spaniards
received rëinforcements from St. Domingo. Condemned to the mines, the
wretched natives all finally disappeared from among the living. This
island was taken by the English towards the close of the seventeenth
century, but they found the climate so unhealthy, that they abandoned
the conquest. It is now, with Cuba, under the government of a
captain-general, who resides at Havana.
III. FRENCH WEST INDIES.--The French, at present, possess but few of
the islands of this Western main, having lost some of their most
important ones, as the result of oppression or warfare. Of those that
remain to them, two are of some consequence.
1. _Martinique._--This island is about fifty miles long and sixteen
broad. It has an uneven surface, and, in some instances, mountainous
eminences. Sugar, coffee, cassia, cotton, indigo, cocoa, and ginger,
are among its principal productions.
This island was settled by the French in 1635. The British took it in
1794; it was restored to France in 1802. It changed hands again in
1809, but was finally restored to France in 1815.
2. _Guadaloupe._--This island is somewhat extensive, being seventy
miles long, and twenty-five broad at its widest part. In many parts,
it has a rich soil, and among its productions are enumerated sugar,
coffee, rum, ginger, cocoa, logwood, &c. It has been repeatedly
captured by the British, and as often restored to France.
IV. DUTCH WEST INDIES.--The Dutch possess four islands in the West
Indian group, viz: Curaçoa, St. Eustatius, St. Martin, and Saba.
_Curaçoa_ was first possessed by the Spaniards, in 1527. It was taken
by the Dutch in 1634. It is an island of thirty miles in length and
ten in breadth. Its chief productions are sugar and tobacco, but its
soil is not of the best quality, and for its supply of water it is
dependent on the rains. St. Eustatius is said to be one of the finest
and best-cultivated islands of all the Caribbees. Its chief product is
tobacco. The English captured the island in 1801, but restored it to
the Dutch in 1814.
V. DANISH WEST INDIES.--These islands are three in number, viz: St.
Croix, St. John, and St. Thomas. They are all small, the largest, St.
Croix, having only eighty square miles. St. John is celebrated for its
fine and capacious harbor. It has a number of salt ponds. St. Croix
has a salubrious climate and fertile soil. Every part of it is under
the highest cultivation. The Danes first obtained possession of these
islands, and still retain them.
VI. INDEPENDENT ISLAND, _Hayti_.--The island of Hayti, which now forms
an independent negro republic, was formerly called St. Domingo and
Hispaniola--St. Domingo, from the name of its chief city, and which
became its common appellation in Europe; Hispaniola, meaning _little
Spain_, so called by Columbus. Hayti is its original name, and, after
a lapse of three hundred years, has been revived since the revolution.
The island belonged, the western part of it, to France, and the
eastern to Spain. It is the second in size of the West India islands,
having an area of about thirty thousand square miles. It is traversed
by mountains in two chains, from east to west, with several collateral
branches, from which the rivers pour over the plains below.
Besides the tropical fruits and vegetables which this region affords,
Hayti abounds with many valuable kinds of wood. The mahogany is of a
superior quality, and a species of oak affords planks sixty or seventy
feet long. The pine is also abundant in the mountains. The annual
value of exports is about four millions of dollars, the principal
article being coffee, with mahogany, campeachy-wood, cotton, tobacco,
hides, cacas, tortoise-shell, wax, ginger, &c.
This island was discovered by Columbus in his first voyage, and became
early the scene of many an adventure, as the civilized European
mingled with the native Carib. In the course of about half a century,
however, from the time of their settlement here, the Spaniards
exterminated the whole native population, estimated at more than two
millions. They remained undisputed masters of the island till 1630,
when some English and French, who had been driven out of St.
Christopher's, took refuge there, and established themselves on the
northern coast. The French finally obtained a firm footing on the
island, and, after many ineffectual attempts on the part of the
Spanish government to expel them, were, by the treaty of Ryswick, in
1691, formally confirmed in the possession of the western half of
Hayti. The French portion of the island became, at length, the far
most important part of it in productiveness and wealth.