Latin America: Its Rise and Progress

by Francisco García Calderón

England, who might have founded constitutional monarchies in America, in spite of the Holy Alliance, pursued a commercial rather than a political policy. In 1829 Lord Aberdeen announced that his Government would not permit the establishment of a French or English prince, nor a prince of any other European dynasty, in Colombia. He would accept only a Spanish prince, or the monarchy of Bolivar himself.[[1]] The Conde de Aranda proposed to the King of Spain that America should be divided into nations governed by the Infantas, but his plan was not followed up. Once the independence of America was a fact, and the despotism of Ferdinand VII. re-established, no Spanish prince could be acceptable either to Argentina or Colombia. In the face of European indifference the tentative efforts of the monarchists spent themselves in America, and the continent acquired its definitive individuality. In opposition to the monarchies by divine right of the Old World a liberal world came to birth; incoherent and incipient nationalities adopted equalitarian constitutions, which were, in the distant future, to flood their deserted territories with immense moral and material forces.

From Mexico to Chili the same revolutionary fervour engendered the partial movements of 1808 to 1811. Conspirators similar to the Italian carbonari, lodges in which men spoke of liberty in the midst of ingenuous rites, and university students who had read the Encyclopædists, were preparing the great crusade. The year 1809 was the first of the Revolution. On the 1st of January there was a popular rising in Buenos-Ayres; on the 16th of July a revolt at La Paz; on the 2nd of August a meeting took place at Quito. In 1806 an English expedition attacked Buenos-Ayres. At a venture, on his way home from Africa, an officer who entertained ambitions in the direction of new territory and new sources of wealth—Sir Home Popham—invaded the capital of the viceroyalty of La Plata. This city was defended not by the legitimate Spanish authority, but by a noble caudillo, who was soon to be a popular viceroy: Santiago de Liniers, the hero of the "Reconquest." In this struggle against the imperialist invader the Argentine people found the first revelation of nationality. First they freed themselves from the English; then from the Spaniards. On the 25th of May, 1810, the cabildo abierto (the municipality and the people), who had united on the 22nd, demanded the dismissal of the viceroy, and elected a governmental and revolutionary junta, patriotic but undecided. As early as 1808, in Montevideo, a junta formed in the heat of a violent popular commotion had turned against the viceroy of Buenos-Ayres.

Spain implacably condemned these precursors of the Independence. She exiled or strangled the rebels, Zela in Peru; Dr. Espejo in Ecuador; Gual y España in Venezuela; two indomitable priests, Hidalgo and Morelos, in Mexico; Father Camilo Henriquez and Dr. Martinez de Rosas in Chili; Tiradentes in Brazil; Nariño in Colombia; all, between 1780 and 1810, struggled against the governors and viceroys, and in their liberal enthusiasm were precursors of the audacious wars of the future. The most notable of these was a Byronic individual, the Venezuelan Francisco de Miranda. He was born in Caracas in 1756. He had a brilliant career in Europe, knew ministers and monarchs, was the favourite of Catherine of Russia, fought beside Dumouriez in the armies of the French Revolution, went to the United States with the legion which Spain sent thither to fight in the cause of American independence, obtained the sanction of Pitt to lead revolutionary expeditions against the Spanish authorities in Venezuela, and was concerned in all the liberative movements of his time, whether in Caracas or Buenos-Ayres. He formed an alliance between the destinies of the continent and the ambition of England, the gold of the London bankers, and the interests of English merchants, and so contributed, even more than by his abortive enterprises, to the cause of American liberty.

The cycle of the Precursors closed and that of the Liberators opened. The Spanish reaction had not vanquished the revolutionary principle. The first caudillos were dead; they were replaced by fresh leaders: the Directors, energetic and impassioned: Belgrano and San Martin in the Argentine, Dr. Francia in Paraguay, Artigas in Uruguay, Iturbide in Mexico, General Morazan in Central America, King Pedro I. in Brazil, and Bolivar, the liberator of five republics.

GENERAL FRANCISCO DE MIRANDA (VENEZUELA).
Who prepared for the liberation of his country.

Belgrano, an economic reformer, a supporter of commercial liberty, a founder of schools, was the leader of the Argentine emancipation. He fought in Paraguay, where he suggested autonomy; in Uruguay, in the Argentine Sierra, and on the frontiers of Upper Peru. He was not a fortunate leader; he won the battle of Tucuman, but he was defeated by the royalists in other battles: Vilcapugio and Ayohuma. He retired, then returned to the struggle; took part in the civil wars against the dissident leaders, defended the constitutional monarchy at the Congress of Tucuman, and from 1808 to 1820 personified the uncertain progress of the Argentine revolution.

San Martin was his superior as a successful fighter, and in the scope of his action as liberator; he was a continental figure. A great general, able to organise armies and lead them to victory, his mind was methodical and conservative; he disliked abstractions, and was concrete and positive in his plans. He delivered Chili and contributed to the independence of Peru. While others were drawing up political programmes he was winning battles. He recalls Washington by the disinterested nobility of his character; he refused power after liberating two nations, and condemned himself to exile, being surrounded by ambitious generals who quarrelled for the supreme power. In action he was simple and orderly, and progressive; he defeated the Spaniards at San Lorenzo in 1813, giving proof of admirable warlike qualities; he then led the army of the North which fought in Upper Peru, and became the intendant of an Argentine province, Cuyo, in 1814. There he formed an army, and proposed to cross the Andes to the aid of the Chilian patriots. According to a French military critic, M. Charles Malo, "the passage of the Andes was in no way surpassed by the more famous passage of the Alps by the French." The summits of the Cordilleras are over twelve thousand feet high; and it was across them that the army of San Martin, decimated and heroic, victorious over cold and fatigue, made its way into Chili. From that time forward the Argentine leader was an American general. At the foot of the Cordilleras, on the flanks of Chacabuco, he gained a decisive battle over the Spaniards (1817). He dislodged them from the summits which they occupied and entered Santiago in triumph, and was there proclaimed supreme director of Chili. He accepted the command of the armies, and was thereafter victorious at Maipo (1818), where his artillery put the royalists to flight. Chilian independence once assured, he aspired to fresh victories in Peru. American autonomy was his unfaltering ambition.

The Peruvian viceroyalty was the centre of the Spanish power, the treasury and arsenal of the royalists. Bolivar, in Colombia, and San Martin, in Chili, understood that all their victories would remain futile if they did not defeat Spain in the richest and most impregnable of her domains. Lord Cochrane, an English privateer, who had seen service in the Mediterranean, formed a squadron in Chilian waters for the purpose of dominating the Pacific (1819). He defeated the Spanish fleet at Callao, and declared a blockade of the Peruvian ports as far as Guayaquil. During this time San Martin was making ready, with his Argentine and Chilian troops, for his expedition of liberation. The Peruvian revolutionaries were awaiting him. He landed at Pisco (1820) with his army, and proclaimed the independence of Peru at Lima, which the Spaniards had deserted, on the 21st of July, 1821. Appointed Protector of the Republic which he had founded, he promulgated a provisional Constitution. Then from the North came another Liberator, Bolivar, to discuss with San Martin, in that mysterious interview at Guayaquil, the destinies of the Spanish New World.