The Emancipation of South America

by Bartolomé Mitre

Hardly was Peru conquered by the Spanish race, than it became the theatre of civil war. The conquerors, headed by Gonzalo Pizarro, rebelled against their king in the name of their rights as conquerors, cut off the head of the king’s representative and burned the Royal Standard. Hardly had one generation time to grow up in America, ere a son of Hernan Cortez, in whose veins flowed the blood of the celebrated Indian Doña Marina, conspired to give independence to Mexico in the name of the same territorial rights invoked by Pizarro. The far off colony of Paraguay was from the first a turbulent municipal republic. The colonists deposed their royally appointed governors with shouts of “Death to Tyrants,” elected rulers of their own, and did as they liked for more than twenty-five years (1535-60). These and many other similar facts, prove that the colonization of South America was imbued from the commencement with the principle of individuality and with the instinct of independence, which naturally resulted in emancipation and democracy.

These insurrections were outbursts of Castillian spirit, but early in the eighteenth century, Creoles begin to call themselves with pride Americans, and for the first time is heard in Potosi the cry of Liberty. In 1711 the half-breeds proclaimed a mulatto King of Venezuela. In 1733 the Creoles rose in arms and compelled the abrogation of the commercial monopoly of the “Compania Guipuzcoana de Caracas.” In 1730 two thousand half-breeds at Cochabamba (Upper Peru), made armed protest against the poll-tax, and acquired the right to elect Creoles as officers of justice to the exclusion of Spaniards. In 1765 the Creoles of Quito rose in armed insurrection against the imposition of direct taxes. None of these outbreaks had as yet any definite political character. The embryonic republic of Paraguay gave the first example of a revolutionary movement based upon the sovereignty of the people.

José Antequera, by birth an American but educated in Spain, appeared on the scene during a dispute between the governor of Paraguay and the Cabildo of Asuncion. The people named him governor by acclamation. He placed himself at their head, in opposition to the theocratic rule of the Jesuits, who were ruining the country. He fought pitched battles against the royal troops and was blessed as a saviour, but died on the scaffold as a traitor to his king.

After his death, his pupil Fernando Mompox organized the popular party under the name of the Comuneros, deposed another governor and established a governing Junta, but was also overcome.

In 1781 the Comuneros broke out in insurrection in New Granada, but the movement was suppressed.

These were not events of great historical importance, but they show that throughout the period of Spanish domination, the rule of the mother country was irksome to the Spaniards themselves, and was hateful to all Americans.

The Moral Revolution of South America.

There can be no revolution until the ideas of men become the conscience of the mass, and until the passions of men become a public force, because “it is man and not events which constitute the world.” The revolution was accomplished in the man of South America before the end of the eighteenth century; after that all his actions have one object and one meaning. Emancipation was no longer an instinct, it became an active passion.

Spain through jealousy of England joined France in aiding the rebels of the North, and her recognition of the independence of the new republic was virtually the abdication of her own authority over the South. Aranda, one of the first statesmen of his time, advised his sovereign in 1783 to forestall the inevitable future by making one infante King of Mexico, one King of Peru, and one King of the Mainland, taking to himself the rank of Emperor. The King of Spain shut his ears to these counsels.

The revolution of 1789 proved that the ideas embodied in the Declaration of Independence were of universal application. The monarchs of Europe took the alarm and formed reactionary leagues. To South America these ideas were conveyed by educated Creoles, who travelling in Europe learned them from French writers. “The Rights of Man” was translated, printed in secret, and circulated through New Granada by Antonio Nariño. Charged with this as a crime, no proof could be brought against him as no copy of the book could be found, tortures failing to extract information from suspects. He was banished to Africa, his property confiscated, and his original copy of the work was burnt by the public executioner. From the men of culture the new ideas filtered to the masses, transforming their minds by the creation of an ideal, which each one interpreted in accordance with his own talents, interests, or prejudices.