Latin America: Its Rise and Progress

by Francisco García Calderón

II. Revolutionary ideology—Influence of Rousseau—The Rights of Man—The example of the United States—English ideas in the constitutional projects of Miranda and Bolivar—European action: Canning.

I. Oppressed by theocracy and monopoly, by privileged castes and Peninsular functionaries, the Spanish and Portuguese colonies aspired towards independence. The English provinces of the North separated themselves from England for practical reasons; in the struggles of the South we see a double economic and political motive. In some vice-royalties, such as that of La Plata, the struggle was due chiefly to an opposition of interests; in other provinces, as in Venezuela, ideas of political reform were predominant.

Writers have attempted to explain the unanimity of the liberative movement by a "historical materialism" analogous to that of Karl Marx and Labriola; but the reality, richer and more complex, does not submit itself to this logical simplicity. The revolution was not merely an economic protest; it nourished concrete social ambitions. An equalising movement, it aimed at the destruction of privileges, of the arbitrary Spanish hierarchy, and finally, when its levelling instinct was aroused and irritated, the destruction of authority to the profit of anarchy. The Creoles, deprived of all political function, revolted; in matters of economics they condemned excessive taxation and monopoly; in matters of politics they attacked slavery, the Inquisition, and moral tutelage. Charles III. had recognised, in 1783, in spite of the counsels of his minister Aranda, the independence of the United States, which were to serve his own colonies as precedent, and he expelled the Jesuits from America, the defence of the Indians against the oppression of Spanish governors. The corruption of the courts, the sale of offices, and the tyranny of the viceroys, all added to the causes of discontent, disturbance, and poverty.

The Creoles opposed nationality to patriotism, the half-castes opposed democracy to the oligarchies. These were two phases of a great revolution. The first battle was over in 1830, and the conflict between the privileged class and the democracy commenced. It reached its culminating point about 1860, with the enfranchisement of the slaves, but it continued during the rest of the century and engendered an interminable civil discord.

The Spanish provinces, subjected to a political absolutism, transformed themselves into republics, a change of system that was not effected without a moral crisis. Even while fighting their battles the Creoles sought uneasily for a new mould into which to pour their liberalism. In the face of increasing disorder they had thoughts of a monarchy, of an oligarchic republic, of a permanent presidency: of various forms which might possess the necessary stability. Three phases may be distinguished in the movement of liberation: the colonial, the monarchical, and the republican.

During the first phase the colonists manifested their loyalty to the Peninsular monarchy.

The first colonial juntas, in 1809 and 1810, desired the Spanish suzerainty to be preserved. They invoked the feudal tie which bound them to the monarch, the imprisoned Ferdinand VII. The French were triumphant in the Peninsula, but they swore fidelity to the absent king. Vassalage having been destroyed by the foreign invasion, the colonies, in accordance with the law of las partidas, acquired the right of self-government; they were reserved for the king. The juntas disguised their radical ambitions under legal forms. Their effort towards traditionalism was perhaps sincere on some occasions, but the current of revolution, which was gathering itself together in the womb of history, destroyed these provisional vistas. Thus the cabildo of Buenos-Ayres declared that "no obligations would be recognised other than those due to his person" (the King's). Spaniards and Americans joined in taking an oath of fidelity to Ferdinand VII. The captain-general of Venezuela, deprived of his functions in 1810, was replaced by a "Supreme Junta," preserving the rights of the sovereign, and the oath of fidelity to the monarch was observed. In 1809 the Junta of La Paz, which emancipated the Creoles, and the revolt of Quito, recognised the same royal tutelage. The Chilian regulations of 1811 enacted that the executive power should govern in the name of the king. In 1821 Iturbide proclaimed his submission to the king upon founding the empire of Mexico.

It was an ephemeral loyalty, given to a king who had abdicated, who had suffered exile, and who, after the liberal Cortes of Cadiz, re-established a despotic government. These immense colonies did not revolt merely in order to restore an incapable prince to his throne. While newly-created generals were winning battles political autonomy was becoming a fact. The Creoles, who had directed the revolutionary movement, concealed their bold ambitions from a populace that was passive, a slave to routine, and largely royalist.