LIST OF MAPS AND PLATES.
| General Map. | ||||
| Plate of the Glyptodon | opposite | Title | [page.] | |
| Buenos Ayres besieged by the Querandis in 1535 | " | page | [19]. | |
| Plan of the City | " | " | [28]. | |
| Plate of the Megatherium | " | " | [178]. | |
| " | of the Chlamyphorus | " | " | [330]. |
BUENOS AYRES
AND THE
PROVINCES OF LA PLATA.
CHAPTER I.
DIVISIONS AND PRESENT STATE OF THE REPUBLIC.
Extent, Divisions, and General Government of the Provinces of La Plata. Jurisdiction of the old Viceroyalties:—Necessity of dividing and subdividing such vast Governments:—Embarrassments arising out of this necessity. The backwardness in the Political organization of these Provinces, common to all the new Republics of South America; and attributable to the same cause; the Colonial system of the Mother Country. Mistake in comparing the condition of the Creoles with that of the British Colonists of North America. Natural ascendency of Military Power in the new States. Their progress in the last twenty-five years compared with their previous condition.
The United Provinces of La Plata, or, as they are sometimes called, the Argentine Republic, comprise, (with the exception of Paraguay and the Banda Oriental, which have become separate and independent states) the whole of that vast space lying between Brazil and the Cordillera of Chile and Peru, and extending from the 22nd to the 41st degree of south latitude.
The most southern settlement of the Buenos Ayreans as yet is the little town of Del Carmen, upon the river Negro.
The native Indians are in undisturbed possession of all beyond, as far as Cape Horn.
Generally speaking, the Republic may be said to be bounded on the north by Bolivia; on the west by Chile; on the east by Paraguay, the Banda Oriental, and the Atlantic Ocean; and on the south by the Indians of Patagonia. Altogether, it contains about 726,000 square miles English, with a population of from 600,000 to 700,000 inhabitants.
This vast territory is now subdivided into thirteen Provinces, assuming to govern themselves, to a certain degree, independently of each other; though, for all general and national purposes, confederated by conventional agreements.
For want of a more defined National Executive, the Provincial Government of Buenos Ayres is temporarily charged with carrying on the business of the Union with foreign Powers, and with the management of all matters appertaining to the Republic in common. The Executive Power of that Government, as constituted in 1821, is vested in the Governor, or Captain General[6], as he is styled, aided by a Council of ministers appointed by himself—responsible to the junta or legislative Assembly of the Province by whom he is elected. The junta itself consists of forty-four deputies, one-half of whom are annually renewed by popular election.
Geographically, these Provinces may be divided into three principal sections:—1st, the Littorine, or eastern; 2nd, the Central, or northern; 3rd, those to the west of Buenos Ayres, commonly called the provinces of Cuyo.
The Littorine Provinces are, Buenos Ayres, and Santa Fé, to the west, and Entre Rios and Corrientes to the east of the River Paranã. Those in the Central section, on the high road to Peru, are Cordova, Santiago del Estero, Tucuman, and Salta; to which may be added, Catamarca, and La Rioja. Those lying west of Buenos Ayres, and which formerly constituted the Intendency of Cuyo, are San Luis, Mendoza, and San Juan.
All these together now form the confederation of the United Provinces of La Plata.
Under the Spanish rule, the Viceroyalty of Buenos Ayres comprehended further, the provinces of Upper Peru, now called Bolivia; as well as Paraguay, and the Banda Oriental: and immense as this jurisdiction appears for one government, it was but a portion separated from that of the old viceroys of Peru, whose nominal authority at one time extended from Guayaquil to Cape Horn, over 55 degrees of latitude, comprising almost every habitable climate under the sun; innumerable nations, speaking various languages, and every production which can minister to the wants of man.
To Spain, it was a convenience and saving of expense to divide her American possessions into as few governments as possible; and under her colonial system, without a hope of improving their social condition, their native industry discouraged, and the very fruits of the soil forbidden them, in order to ensure a sale for those of the mother country, it was of little consequence to the generality of the people by what viceroy they were ruled, or at what distance from them he resided.
It became, however, a very different matter when that colonial system was overthrown, and succeeded by native governments of their own election. Then, all the many and various distinctions of climate, of language, of habits, and productions, burst into notice; and as they separately put forward their claims to consideration, the difficulty, if not impossibility, became manifest, of adequately providing for them by the newly-constituted authorities, which, although succeeding to all the jurisdiction of the viceroys, repudiated in limine the principles of the system under which such discordant interests had hitherto been controlled and held together.
The consequence has been, that most of the new states in their very infancy have been subjected to the embarrassing necessity of re-casting their governments, and dividing and subdividing their extensive territories, as the varying and distinct interests of their several component parts have shown to be requisite for their due protection and development. Nothing has tended more to retard the organization and improvement of their political institutions than this necessity; and nowhere has it been more strikingly exemplified than in the widely-spread provinces of La Plata. In the first years of the struggle with the mother country, one common object, paramount to all other considerations, the complete establishment of their political independence, bound them together—perhaps I should more correctly say, prevented their separation;—but the very circumstances of that struggle, and the vicissitudes of the war, which often for long periods together cut off their communications with the capital, and with each other; obliging them to provide separately for their own temporary government and security, gave rise in many of them, especially those at a distance, to habits of more or less independence, which, as they imperceptibly acquired strength, produced in some, as in Paraguay and Upper Peru, an entire separation from Buenos Ayres; and in others such an assumption of the management of their own provincial affairs, as ere long reduced the metropolitan government to a nullity.
It is true that, up to 1820, the semblance of a Central Government was maintained at Buenos Ayres, but in that year the unpopularity of the measures of the Directory and of the National Congress led to its final dissolution, under circumstances which precluded all hope of its re-establishment, and terminated in the system of federalism, which has ever since de facto subsisted.
Experience has taught Buenos Ayres the inefficacy of forcible measures to bring back the provinces under her more immediate control; and though congresses have been more than once convoked for the purpose of establishing something more definite as to the form, at least, of their national government, whether central or federal, individual and local interests have always prevailed in thwarting such an arrangement; and the probability now is, that for a long time to come the national organization of this State will be limited to the slender bonds of voluntary confederation, which at present constitute the soi-disant union of the provinces, not only with each other, but with their old metropolis, Buenos Ayres.
It is not my purpose here to enter into the history of the domestic troubles and civil dissensions which brought about this state of things in the new republic: it is an unsatisfactory, and to most of my readers would be a very unintelligible, narrative. Suffice it to say, that whilst the political importance of Buenos Ayres has been apparently not a little diminished; on the other hand, it may be questioned if the provinces have reaped any substantial advantage by shaking off their immediate dependence upon the metropolis. Most of them have suffered all the calamitous consequences of party struggles for power, and have fallen under the arbitrary rule of the military chiefs, who, in turn, have either by fair means or foul obtained the ascendency; and if in some of them the semblance of a representative junta has been set up in imitation of that of Buenos Ayres, it will be found, I believe, that such assemblies have, in most instances, proved little more than an occasional convocation of the partisans of the governor for the time being, much more likely to confirm than to control his despotic sway.
The present political state of the provinces of La Plata is certainly very different from what was expected by the generality of those who originally took an interest in the fate of these new countries. It is, however, a state of things not confined to this republic; we shall find, more or less, the same scenes; the same violent party struggles, the same continual changes of government; the same apparent incapacity for arriving at anything like a settled political organization in almost every one of the several independent states into which the old possessions of Spain on the New Continent have resolved themselves; and this under circumstances, to all appearance, the most dissimilar with regard to the locality, climate, soil, language, wants, and physical condition of the inhabitants; with no one common element, in fact, in their composition, save their having all been brought up in, and habituated to, the same colonial system of the mother country. What, then, is the conclusion we must draw from this fact? Is it not evident that it was that colonial system which, wherever applied, unfitted the people for a state of independence, and left them worse than helpless when thrown upon their own resources?
Well might Spain urge upon other nations, as an argument against the recognition of those countries, that the South Americans were unfit for a state of independence. She knew the full extent of moral degradation to which her own policy had reduced them; but it was futile to allege it, when it had become manifest to all the world that her own power to reduce them again to subjection was gone for ever, and that the people of South America had not only achieved their complete independence, but were resolved and fully able to maintain it. The notoriety of those facts left no alternative to foreign governments whose subjects had any real interest in the question, whatever might be the speculative opinions of some parties as to the eventual prospects of the New States.
In this country our ignorance of the real condition of the people of South America naturally led us to look back to what had taken place in our own North American colonies, and with but little discrimination perhaps, to anticipate the same results, whereas nothing in reality could be more dissimilar than the circumstances of the colonial subjects of Great Britain and Spain when their political emancipation took place.
In the British colonies all the foundations of good government were already laid: the principles of civil administration were perfectly understood, and the transition was almost imperceptible.
On the other hand, in the Spanish colonies the whole policy, as well as the power of the mother country, seems to have been based on perpetuating the servile state and ignorance of the natives: branded as an inferior race, they were systematically excluded from all share in the government, from commerce, and every other pursuit which might tend to the development of native talent or industry. The very history of their own unfortunate country was forbidden them, no doubt lest it should open their eyes to the reality of their own debased condition.
When the struggle came, the question of their independence was soon settled irrevocably; but as to the elements for the construction at once of anything like a good government of their own, they certainly did not exist.
Under these circumstances, what was perfectly natural took place. In the absence of any other real power, that of military command, which had grown out of the war, obtained an ascendency, the influence of which in all the New States became soon apparent. They fell, in fact, all of them more or less under military despotism. The people dazzled with the victories and martial achievements of their leaders, imperceptibly passed from one yoke to another.
It is true that national Congresses and legislative Assemblies were everywhere convoked; but, generally aiming at more than was practicable or compatible with their circumstances, they in most instances failed, and by their failure rather confirmed the absolute power of the military chiefs. They, however, abolished the slave-trade, put an end to the forced service of the mita, so grievous to the Indians, and nominally sanctioned more or less the liberty of the press,—measures which gained them popularity and support amongst men of liberal principles in Europe, who fancied they saw in them expressions of public opinion, and evidences of a fitness amongst the people at large for free institutions; but this was an error.
The people of South America, with the Laws of the Indies still hanging about their necks, shouted indeed with their leaders, "Independence and Liberty," and gallantly fought for and established the first; but as to liberty, in our sense of the word at least, they knew very little about it:—how could they?
They have yet practically to learn that true liberty in a civilized state of society can only really exist where the powers of the ruling authorities are duly defined and balanced; and where the laws—not the colonial laws of Old Spain—are so administered as to ensure to every citizen a prompt redress for wrongs, entire personal security, and the right of freely expressing his political opinions. The working of such laws makes men habitually free and fit for the enjoyment of free institutions. But such a state of things is not brought about in a day or in a generation, nor can it be produced by any parchment constitution, however perfect in theory. The experiment has been tried of late years in some of the oldest states of Europe, and has invariably failed. Is it then reasonable that we should expect it to be more successful in such infant states as these new republics? Time—and we, of all people in the world, ought best to know how long a time—is requisite to bring such good fruit to maturity.
Education, the press, a daily intercourse with the rest of the world, and experience not the less valuable because dearly bought, are all tending gradually to enlighten the inhabitants of these new countries, and to prepare them for their future destinies. And, although from a variety of causes, their advancement may appear slow, and their present state fall far short of what has been expected of them, the truth is, they have made immense progress, compared with their old condition under the colonial yoke of Spain;—and especially, I will say so, of Buenos Ayres.