Capturing Condors in the Chilean Andes.
Guanacos on the Edge of Laja Lake.
Governor O’Higgins called the Parliament of Negrete with the Araucanians, and set about the improvement of Chile; found and rebuilt the ruins of Osorno fort, and made a road from Osorno to Valdivia; another highway from Valparaiso to Santiago; and a third from Santiago to Mendoza. He constructed bridges, notably over the turbulent Mapocho River, and his good Chilean work only ceased when he was created Viceroy of Peru, with the title of Marquis of Osorno. He remained in that post until his death in 1801. A spurt in town foundation during the eighteenth century also bears witness to the growing prosperity of Chile. Between 1736 and 1746 the courtly and wideawake governor Don José Manso de Velasco, Conde de Superunda, founded San Felipe, Melipilla, Rancagua and Cauquenes; the same official encouraged the operation of mines, making cannon for the defence of one of the Concepción forts from local copper, and reopening gold mines at Tiltil (between Santiago and Valparaiso) and developing the copper works of Coquimbo and of Copiapó. His successor, Don Domingo Ortiz, founded Huasco and Curicó, built the University of Santiago and began the Mint, completed during the régime of Don Luis Muñoz between 1802 and 1807. The plans, tradition says, were mixed with those for Lima, and by mistake Chile received authority for a much more splendid building than was intended for her, La Moneda still serving as Government offices in Santiago.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century Europe had undergone violent spiritual as well as material changes that could not fail to affect the world and inevitably produced reactions in the Americas. The independence of the United States had less effect upon South American thought than the French Revolution, for with North America the South was not in touch. There was little commerce, and the language difficulty was a bar, while French literature and French movements were extremely influential. The ideas of the Encyclopedists fell upon fertile soil.
When Napoleon conquered Spain, putting his brother Joseph Buonaparte upon the royal throne of the Bourbons and driving Ferdinand VII into exile, there was little thought upon the West Coast of this misfortune as an opportune time for seizing freedom. Even when the action of Mexico and Buenos Aires pointed the road of independence, Peru and Chile demurred from disloyalty and declared their intention of returning to the king when he should be again upon the Spanish throne. The grievances against Spain of which so much was afterwards heard were not realised by the majority of the populace, and in fact the creoles were well aware that from narrow trading policies, the dictation of officials, sumptuary laws, and the still-existent although waning burden of the Inquisition, Spain suffered even more acutely than her overseas dominions. The rights of mayorazgo, that is the preservation, intact for generation after generation, of enormous estates which could not be broken up among a number of heirs, or divided for sale, were a source of definite complaint; but it was an inheritance from the land tenure laws of Spain, also inelastic, to which they were inured by custom. The most fertile ground for the growth of animosity between the colonies and the mother country seems to have been the tangible annoyance of the stream from the Peninsula, both of officials and merchants or adventurers. Don Antonio Ulloa, writing the “Noticias Secretas” for the King’s eye in 1735, noted that the big towns were “theatres of discord between Spanish and creoles.... It is enough for a man to be a European or chapeton to be at once opposed to the creoles, and sufficient to have been born in the Indies to hate Europeans. This ill-will is raised to so high a grade that in some respects it exceeds the open hatred with which two nations at war abuse and insult each other.” He thought the feeling tended to increase rather than to diminish, and notes that it was more bitter in the interior and mountainous regions, because the coast people were bent to a more liberal spirit by their dependence upon commerce with strangers, had more work to do and something else to think about. He gave as reasons for the mutual dislike, first, the “vanity and presumption” of the creoles; and next, the wretched condition in which many poor Europeans usually arrived in the Indies. The native-born were lazy, thought the Spanish officer, and envied the industrious and intelligent Spaniard the fortune which he presently made. The succession of Peninsular officials to many posts in the colonies was not without its influence in providing grievances also, but as a matter of fact a number of minor berths were frequently filled by the native-born, who also became Inquisitors and clerics, the list of viceroys and governors also providing a few colonial names, and a large number of American-born receiving good positions in Spain. But on the whole the colonies were necessarily still dependent upon Spain for blood, ideas, intercourse with the world, and, but for Napoleon, independence would have been long delayed.
The Fight for Independence
In many parts of Spanish America people had to be almost cudgelled into rebellion, and would never have stirred had they lacked a leader inoculated with a grandiose vision.
But here again the quite accidental figure of Napoleon intervened. It happened that both San Martín and Bolívar, the two most powerful instruments of the South American Revolution, were actual witnesses of triumphal ceremonies of the Napoleonic armies. The day when Simón Bolívar saw the Corsican enter Paris at the head of magnificent conquering troops, greeted with all the hysteric adulation due to a second Alexander, the immediate fate of Spain’s South American colonies was sealed. It is easy to understand that such young men as San Martín and Bolívar, intelligent, trained to arms, well aware of the golden opportunity awaiting in their own countries overseas, and of the force behind the slogan of freedom, beheld themselves with rosy imagination in the same kingly rôle. Statues of these leaders stand all over Latin America, and it is but just that tributes should be paid. But the day of blind homage is past. Critics have dared to arise, and the skies have not fallen upon their blasphemy.