America. A history

Juarez was again elected President, and returned with his Congress to the city of Mexico. During his whole term of office he had to maintain the Liberal cause in arms against the tenacious priesthood and its followers. 1872 A.D. When he died, a Liberal President was chosen to succeed him. The war has never ceased, and the clerical party has occasionally gained important advantages. It is evident, however, that its power is being gradually exhausted, and that the final triumph of Liberalism is not now remote. For sixty years Mexico has been the opprobrium of Christendom. It is possible now to entertain the hope that ere many years pass, this unhappy country, purged of those clerical and military elements which have been her curse, will begin to take her fitting place among peaceable, industrious, and prosperous States.

The area of Mexico is six times larger than that of Great Britain and Ireland. Her population is between nine and ten million. Two-thirds of these are pure Indians, the descendants of the men on whom the thunderbolt of Spanish invasion fell nearly four hundred years ago. Two and a half million are of mixed origin; five hundred thousand are pure European. At the time of the conquest there were among the Mexicans thirty different races and languages, and these distinctions still survive. The Indians have regained the cheerfulness which was crushed out of their dispositions by Spanish cruelty, and under due superintendence they make excellent artisans and servants. The work of the country is performed by them; and as their ambition has not been awakened and their wants are few, labour is cheap. It is only recently that anything at all has been done for their education, and they are still profoundly ignorant.46 But they furnish abundant evidence of high capability. The race from which President Juarez sprang may reasonably hope that, after all its miseries, a creditable future is in store.

The whites are the aristocracy of the country; the mixed breeds are its turbulent element. They are ordinarily quiet and indolent, but they are easily inflamed to revolt. To a large extent the constant revolutionary movements which waste the country have been sustained by them.

The reforming laws of Juarez have been well enforced in the great centres of population. No monk or nun, nor any Jesuit is tolerated; no priest is to be seen in the streets in the garb of his office; reformatories and schools are being established; the youth of Mexico are being rescued from the priest, and made over to the schoolmaster. In the remote provinces the execution of the law is extremely imperfect. There the clerical party is still powerful, and forbidden taxes are still levied in defiance of law. The subordinate officers of Government are inordinately corrupt. Import duties are excessive, and the temptations to evasion are irresistible. The officers of the custom-house habitually conspire with merchants to defraud the revenue, and share with them the unlawful gain. The financial condition of the country is lamentable. Only a small portion of the public debt is recognized by the Government, and upon that portion no interest is paid. Expenditure constantly exceeds revenue. Ordinarily the cost of civil war absorbs more than one-half the national income; frequently it absorbs the whole.

The country is surpassingly rich, but its progress is hindered by insufficient means of communication. The most urgent requirement of this inland region was that it should be brought within easy reach of the sea-coast. The pressure of this necessity led, so long ago as in 1852, to the attempted construction of a railway from the city of Mexico to Vera Cruz. But the works were stopped by the habitual national convulsions; and when Maximilian ascended the throne, he found nothing accomplished excepting a few miles at either end of the projected line. While he reigned, the works were carried on, and they were stopped when his fall drew near. They were resumed by the Liberal Government, but the progress of any useful work is slow in a country tormented by incessant revolution. It was seven years more till the railway was completed for the whole distance of two hundred and sixty-three miles. Besides this line, there are no more than three or four hundred miles of railway yet opened in Mexico.

The silver-mines of Mexico, which ceased to produce during the war of independence, have resumed their former importance. They now yield silver to the annual value of three million sterling. Besides the export of this commodity, Mexico exports two million annually of cochineal, indigo, hides, and mahogany. Her entire imports do not amount to more than five and a half million. Her foreign commerce, to the extent of two-thirds its value, is transacted with her once hated neighbour the United States.

If Mexico has been the least fortunate of all the Spanish provinces of America, Chili furnishes the best example of a well-ordered, settled, and prosperous State. Its area is only one-fifth and its population one-fourth that of Mexico, but its foreign commerce is nearly one-half larger.47 For this commerce its situation is peculiarly favourable. Chili, a long and narrow country, lies on the Pacific, with which it communicates by upwards of fifty sea-ports. It is therefore only in small measure dependent for its progress upon railways and navigable rivers.

For sixteen years after throwing off the Spanish yoke,48 Chili was governed, despotically, without a constitution. During those years constant disorders prevailed. At length the general wish of the nation was gratified. 1833 A.D. A constitution was promulgated, under which the franchise was bestowed on every married man of twenty-one years, and on every unmarried man of twenty-five who was able to read and write. With this constitution the people have been satisfied. The government has been throughout in the hands of a moderate Conservative party, which has directed public affairs with firmness and wisdom, and has manifested zeal in the correction of abuses. Opposing parties have not in Chili, as in the neighbouring States, wasted the country by their fierce contentions for ascendency. In the exercise of a wise but rare moderation, the views of either party have been modified by those of the other. A method of government has thus been reached which men of all shades of opinion have been able to accept, and under which the prosperous development of the country has advanced with surprising rapidity.

During the last thirty years the population of Chili has quadrupled, and her revenue has increased still more largely. Immigration from Europe, especially from Germany, has been successfully promoted. Formerly almost all land was held by large owners. This pernicious system has been in great measure destroyed. Estates have been subdivided, and the system of small proprietorship is now widely prevalent. The public debt of Chili is twelve million sterling; but as she, unlike her sister republics, meets her obligations punctually, her name stands high on the Stock Exchanges of Europe. The education of her people receives a fair measure of attention. Of her revenue of three and a half million, she expends a quarter million upon schools – a proportion not equalled in Europe. But this liberal expenditure is recent, and has not yet had time to produce its proper results. Only one in twenty-four of the population attends school; only one in seven can read. Even in the cities the proportion is no greater than one in four.

The neighbouring State of Peru has an area four times that of Chili, but her population is scarcely larger. And while Chili has a very inconsiderable proportion of Indians, it is estimated that fifty-seven per cent. of the Peruvian population are of the aboriginal races, and twenty-three per cent. are of mixed origin. The remainder are native Spaniards, Negroes, Chinese, with a very few Germans and Italians. From a nation so composed, a wise management of public affairs can scarcely be hoped for. The government of Peru has been, since the era of independence, a reproach to humanity. Elsewhere on the continent there has been the hopeful spectacle of a people imperfectly enlightened, but animated by a sincere love of liberty, and struggling against tremendous obstacles towards a happier political situation. The incessant strifes which have devastated Peru have no such justification. They have no political significance at all; they do not originate in any regard to national interests. Turbulent military chiefs have, in constant succession and with shameless selfishness, contended for power and plunder. A debased and slothful people, wholly devoid of political intelligence, have become the senseless weapons with which these ignoble strifes have been waged. The vast wealth with which Nature has endowed the land has lain undeveloped; the labour, with which the country is so inadequately supplied, has been absorbed by the wars of a vulgar and profligate ambition: Peru remains almost worthless to the human family.

Spain took courage, from the disorders of Peru, to meditate the restoration of her lost colonial empire. She attacked Peru; but her fleet was utterly defeated, after a severe engagement. 1866 A.D. This victory roused the spirit of the Peruvian people, and for a short space it seemed as if impulses had been communicated which would open an era of progress. For some years real industrial advance was made. But the fair prospect was quickly marred. Two Presidents, who manifested a patriotic desire to begin the work of reform, were murdered. An insane war against Chili was begun. Chili had imposed certain duties on products imported from Bolivia; and Peru, disapproving of these duties, went to war to avenge or annul the proceeding. The fortune of that war has been decisively against the aggressor. Chili has proved not merely equal to the task of holding her own; she has defeated her enemy in many battles; she has seized portions of her territory; she has captured her most powerful iron-clad ship of war. The progress of Peru has utterly ceased. 1880 A.D. Her finances are in the wildest disorder. Her paper currency is worth no more than one-tenth its nominal value. Her ports are blockaded; her commerce is well-nigh abolished. But her misguided rulers will listen to no suggestion of peace, and seem resolved to maintain this discreditable contest to the extremity of prostration and misery.

Peru is believed to extract silver from her mines to the annual value of a million sterling; an amount somewhat smaller than these mines yielded down to the war of independence. Peru exports chiefly articles which can be obtained without labour or thought. The guano, heaped in millions of tons on the islands which stud her coasts, was sold to European speculators, and carried away by European ships. But these vast stores seem to approach exhaustion. Fortunately for this spendthrift Government, discovery was made some years ago of large deposits of nitrate of soda, from the sale of which an important revenue is gained.

For Peru, lying chiefly between lofty mountain ranges remote from the sea, railway communication is of prime importance. In the time of one of her best Presidents there was devised a scheme of singular boldness; and by the help of borrowed money, on which no interest is paid, it has been partially executed. A railway line, setting out from Lima, on the Pacific, crosses the barren plain which adjoins the coast, climbs the western range of the Andes to a height of nearly sixteen thousand feet, and traverses the table-land which lies between the great lines of mountain. When completed, it will reach some of the tributaries of the Amazon, at points where these become navigable – thus connecting the Pacific with the Atlantic where the continent is at the broadest. There are, in all, about fourteen hundred miles of railway open for traffic in Peru, three-fourths of which are Government works.

1811 A.D. Paraguay, a State with an area nearly twice that of England, and a population of a million and a half, had the good fortune to assume her independence without any resistance from the mother country, and therefore without requiring to undergo the sacrifices of war. For nearly thirty years she was ruled by a despotism not less absolute than that of Spain. Dr. Francia became Dictator for life. He had been educated as a theologian, and was a silent, stern, relentless man, who inspired his people with such fear that even after his death they scarcely ventured to pronounce his name. Francia did something to develop the resources of the State. But progress was slow, for the Dictator permitted no intercourse with other nations. Paraguay was to supply all her own wants – depending for nothing on the outside world. Whosoever came within her borders must remain; he who obtained permission to go out might not return. 1840 A.D. When this strange ruler died his power fell to Carlos Lopez, who maintained for twenty-two years a despotism not less absolute, but guided by a policy greatly more enlightened. He encouraged intercourse with foreigners; he constructed roads and railways; he cared for education; he created defences and a revenue. 1862 A.D. Before he died he bequeathed his authority to his son.

This new ruler had been sent, when a young man, to Europe to acquire the ideas which animated the enlightened Powers of the Old World. He arrived at the time of the Crimean War, to find a love of glory and of empire occupying the public mind of England and of France. He was not able to withstand the malign influence. He went home resolved to emulate the career of the Emperor Napoleon. He, too, would become a conqueror; he, too, would found an empire. He occupied himself in forming a large army, in accumulating military stores. 1865 A.D. When the death of his father raised him to absolute authority, he lost no time in attacking Brazil, which he had marked as his first victim. The Argentine Republic and Uruguay made common cause with Brazil against a disturber of the peace, in whose ambition they recognized a common danger.

The war continued for five years. It brought upon Paraguay calamities more appalling than have fallen in modern times on any State. Her territory was occupied by a victorious foe, and one-half of it was taken away from her for ever. Her debt had swelled to an amount which utterly precluded hope of payment.49 Her population had sunk from a million and a half to two hundred and twenty thousand. Of these it was estimated that four-fifths were females. War and its attendant miseries had almost annihilated the adult male population.50 Paraguay yielded herself as the base instrument of an insane ambition, and she was destroyed.

Buenos Ayres, a city founded during the early years of the conquest, was the seat of one of the vice-royalties by which the Spaniards conducted the government of the continent. It stands on the right bank of the river Plate, not far from the ocean. The Plate and its tributary rivers flow through vast treeless plains, where myriads of horses and cattle roam at will among grass which attains a height equal to their own. When the dominion of Spain ceased, Buenos Ayres naturally assumed a preponderating influence in the new Government. The provinces which had composed the old vice-royalty formed themselves into a Confederation, with a constitution modelled on that of the United States. Buenos Ayres was the only port of shipment for the inland provinces. Her commercial importance as well as her metropolitan dignity soon aroused jealousies which could not be allayed. Within a few years the Confederation was repudiated by nearly all its members, and for some time each of the provinces governed itself independently of the others.

1821 A.D. The next experiment was a representative Republic under President-General Rivadavia, with Buenos Ayres as the seat of Government. Rivadavia was a man of enlightened views. He encouraged immigration, established liberty of religion, took some steps to educate the people, entered into commercial treaties with foreign powers. 1827 A.D. But his liberal policy was regarded unfavourably by a people not sufficiently wise to comprehend it; and he resigned his office after having held it for six years.

The influence of Buenos Ayres now waned, and the provinces of the interior gained what the capital lost. These provinces were occupied by a half-savage race of mixed origin, who lived by the capture and slaughter of wild cattle. These fierce hunters were trained to the saddle almost from infancy, and lived on horseback. Excellence in horsemanship was a sufficient passport to their favour. 1829 A.D. The government of the country now fell into the hands of General Rosas, a Gaucho chief, whose feats in the saddle have probably never been equalled by the most accomplished of circus-riders.51 For twenty-three years this man – cruel, treacherous, but full of rugged vigour – maintained over the fourteen provinces a despotism which soon lapsed into an absolute reign of terror. One of the methods of this wretched man’s government was the systematic employment of a gang of assassins, who murdered according to his orders, and under whose knives many thousands of innocent persons perished. His troops overran the neighbouring province of Uruguay; but Monte Video, the capital of that State, was successfully held against him, chiefly by the skill and courage of Garibaldi. France and England declared war against the tyrant, and for several years vainly blockaded the city of Buenos Ayres. At length (1848) a determined rebellion broke out and raged for four years. 1852 A.D. A great battle was fought; the army of Rosas was scattered; the capital, wild with joy, received the thrilling news that the tyrant had fled52 and that the country was free.

The twenty-three years of despotism had done nothing to solve the political problems which still demanded solution at the hands of the Argentine people. The tedious and painful work had now to be resumed. The province of Buenos Ayres declared itself out of the Confederation, and entered upon a separate career. The single State was wisely governed, and made rapid progress in all the elements of prosperity. In especial it copied the New England common-school system. The thirteen States from which it had severed itself strove to repress or to rival its increasing greatness. But their utmost efforts could scarcely avert decay. 1859 A.D. They declared war, in the barbarous hope of crushing their too prosperous neighbour. Buenos Ayres was strong enough to inflict defeat upon her assailants. 1861 A.D. She now, on her own terms, reëntered the Confederation, of which her chief city became once more the capital.

1865 A.D. The career of the reconstructed Confederation has not been, thus far, a wholly peaceful one. There has been a lengthened war with Paraguay. There was a Gaucho revolt, which it was not hard to suppress. 1870-72 A.D. The important province of Entre Rios rose in arms, and was brought back to her duty after two years of war. Still later (1874) a rebellion broke out on the election of a new President. But the energy which formerly inspired revolutionary movements seems to decay, and this latest disorder was trampled out in a campaign of no greater duration than seventy-six days. A milder temper now prevails, especially in the cities of the Confederation. There are still divisions of opinion. One party is eager to promote a consolidated and effectively national life; another would maintain and enhance provincial separations; a third – the party of disorder, whose strength is being sapped by the growing prosperity of the country – seeks to foment revolutionary movements in the hope of advantage, or in sheer restlessness of spirit. But these antagonisms have in large measure lost the envenomed character which they once bore. The only habitual disturbers of the national tranquillity are the Indians, who are suffered to hold possession of almost one-half the Argentine territory, and against whom murderous frontier wars are incessantly waged.

It is, however, obvious that the union of the fourteen provinces rests upon no satisfactory or permanent basis, and that the final adjustment can scarcely be effected otherwise than by the customary method of force. The province of Buenos Ayres, although it contains only one-fourth of the population, contains three-fourths of the wealth,53 and bears fully nine-tenths of the taxation of the confederate provinces. The other thirteen provinces have absolute control over the government; and the expenditure has largely increased, as it needs must when the persons who enjoy the privilege of expending funds are exempt from the burden of providing them. This arrangement is highly and not unreasonably displeasing to the rich province of Buenos Ayres; and it seems probable that the people of this province will sooner or later force their way out of a Confederation whose burdens and whose advantages are so unequally distributed.

The fourteen provinces of the Argentine Confederation cover an area of 515,700 square miles, and are thus almost equal to six countries as large as Great Britain. The population which occupies this huge territory numbers only two million. Every variety of temperature prevails within their borders. In South Patagonia the cold is nearly as intense as that of Labrador. Southern Buenos Ayres has the climate of England; farther north the delicious climate of the south of France and the north of Italy is enjoyed. Yet farther north comes the fierce heat of the tropics. Westward, on the slopes of the Andes, little rain falls; eastward, toward the sea, the rainfall is excessive.

The Argentine States have promoted immigration so successfully that they have received in some years accessions to their numbers of from sixty to ninety thousand persons – British, Italian, French, German, and Swiss. They have thus the presence of a large European element, which gives energy to every liberal and progressive impulse. The great city of Buenos Ayres is, to the extent of half its population (of 220,000), a city of Europeans. In most of the other cities this European element is present and influential. Far in the interior are many little colonies composed of Europeans, settled on lands bestowed by Government, engaged in sheep or cattle farming, growing rich by the rapid increase of their herds on that fertile soil. Full religious liberty is enjoyed, and all the various shades of Protestantism are represented in the chapels of Buenos Ayres or in the rural colonies of the interior. Two thousand five hundred miles of railway are in operation; direct telegraphic communication with England is enjoyed; the provinces are being drawn more closely together by the construction of roads and bridges; the vast river systems of the Confederation are traversed by multitudes of steamers. The people have entered, seemingly, with earnestness on the task of developing the illimitable resources of the great territory which Providence has committed to their care.

Our survey of South American history since the era of Independence discloses much that is lamentable. It discloses nothing, however, that is fitted to surprise, and little that is fitted to discourage. We see priest-directed and therefore utterly ignorant people throwing aside the yoke of an abhorred tyranny. We see them assume the function of self-government without a single qualification for the task. We see them become the prey of lawless and turbulent chiefs, of a selfish military and priestly oligarchy. We watch their struggles as they grope in blind fury, but still under the guidance of a healthy instinct, after the freedom of which they have been defrauded. At length we are permitted to mark, with rejoicing, that they begin to emerge from the unprecedented difficulties by which they have been beset. The path by which they must gain the position of orderly and prosperous States is yet long and toilsome. It is now, however, at least possible to believe that they have entered upon it.

[The disturbed condition of the Western States continues without abatement, and without prospect of settlement. Both Peru and Bolivia are practically at the mercy of Chili. The war is over, but peace is made impossible by the anarchy that prevails in the vanquished States. The President of Peru is a fugitive. The President of Bolivia has absconded. There is no settled government in either country with which the Chilians can safely make terms. What seems most certain is, that the provinces which yield most abundantly that nitrate of soda about the export of which the war originated will be permanently annexed to Chili. Indeed, these districts are now administered by Chilian functionaries.