A long, broad black line stretches across the page as if to put it in mourning.
'A revolution in substance,' he says, 'is nothing more than the organisation of a people's discontent.'
If that be so, there has never been a revolution in Peru; a statement which will be doubted by nearly all who hear it for the first time. We may perhaps make an exception in the revolution which made Col. Prado dictator of Peru in November, 1865. No doubt the enthusiasm of the Peruvian people for going to war with Spain was genuine, and Prado, not at all a man of revolutionary tastes, easily overthrew Canseco, because of his Spanish tendencies. Prado was subsequently elected President in 1867, but was overthrown by Balta and Canseco the year following, and Colonel (now General) Prado fled to Chile for his life. Still, let us be thankful that we can find one authentic instance of Peruvian patriotism in the course of fifty years, and that out of the hundreds of revolutions which have occurred, one was for the good of the country—and most certainly to its honour.
The anniversary of the 2nd of May, 1866, is kept with pride by every loyal Peruvian in all parts of the world, wherever one may find himself. Had there been among the Peruvian soldiers on that day as much knowledge of gunnery as there was of personal valour, not more than one or two ships of the Spanish fleet which bombarded Callao had escaped destruction.
It has been contended by a few anxious Peruvians that the revolution made by General Castilla, in 1854, against General Echenique was also a popular revolution. Perhaps it was. Echenique was notoriously very fond of money, and it is said that so freely did he help himself to the proceeds of the public guano that the people rose against him, flocked to the standard of Castilla, whom they kept in power for twelve years, and sent Echenique into ignoble exile. If that could be proved in favour of the Peruvian people, it should be done at once. But no one from sheer laughter can discuss the question. Castilla was as fond of money as Echenique; Castilla, however, did one or two liberal things; he liberated the slaves, and abolished the poll-tax, and in that sense the revolution of 1854 may be said to have been a popular one.
No Peruvian who supported those two famous acts of General Castilla's Government looks back upon them with anything but bitter regret. The negro slaves were well off—they were, moreover, a people with much affection for their masters, and slavery existed only in name. When the blacks, however, were 'liberated,' they became like a mob of mules without burdens, without guide or master, and they wandered about the earth and died miserably. Those who survived were certainly very little credit to their friends, for many of them became the terror of the highways which converge on the capital of the Republic.
The Indians who paid the poll-tax did then do some work, and they were made to feel some of the responsibilities of being republicans—they were kept under rule—they could be induced to labour in 'some of the richest silver mines in the world.' Now they will do nothing of the kind, and the Government has not only lost an income of 2,000,000 dols. a year, they have lost the services of the entire indigenous population, which may be called, in classical language, a pretty kettle of fish, especially for a country whose riches depend upon the industry of a free and happy people.
One immediate consequence of Castilla's emancipation policy was that it speedily became a profitable business for a few adventurous persons in Lima to proceed to China, where they kidnapped some of the superfluous Chinese population. This traffic prospered for a while, but as it is the property of murder to make itself known—somehow or anyhow—the profits fell off, owing to the interference of one or two civilised Governments. When the Celestial Empire no longer offered a safe field for the Peruvian men-snatchers, attempts were made on the inoffensive people of the diocese of modern evangelisation, and in the course of time the rich people of Lima had the opportunity of buying a few men, women, and girls, who had been stolen from some of the islands of the Pacific. But these for some mysterious reasons died off, after having cost the Peruvian Government a serious sum of money, and some people their reputation. It was, however, imperatively necessary, owing to the demands of the British farmer for guano, and the exigences of the Government of Peru to obtain men from China somehow for the important work of shovelling Peruvian dung into European ships; and there may be reckoned to-day among the motley population of the Republic not less than 60,000 men who cultivate sugar and pig-tails, and indulge in opium. This, therefore, might be called a popular revolution, and the friends of General Castilla can claim for him the honour and glory of having brought it about.
General Castilla deserves to be better known; but this is not the place to speak of him at any length. He introduced a new era into Peruvian politics—he was the first native Peruvian with no Spanish blood in his veins who assumed supreme power. If there had been no guano to demoralise everybody, himself included, Castilla might have become a great man, and the Peruvian people been lifted up by him in the scale of humanity. As it is, Castilla and everybody else fulfilled the prediction of the Hebrew prophet in a manner that might be stated in Spanish, but which no gentleman can write in English. It should be stated that although Castilla had nothing of Spanish blood in his veins, yet his father was an Italian, and his mother one of the pure Indian women of Moquegua.
All this, however, does not help us to answer the momentous questions with which this chapter opens.—If Peru is not a Republic, and there have not been more than two revolutions in the whole of its wild and chequered history, what is it?