The old and the new Peru

by Marie Robinson Wright

PLAZA OF THE INQUISITION, LIMA.

The great distance that lay between Spain and America rendered it impossible for the mother country to be closely in touch with the colonies of the Pacific Coast; and, as time went on, the traditions of their ancestors became dimmed in the minds of succeeding generations of Spanish-Americans. Gradually the influence of the clergy and nobility of Peruvian birth began to be exerted in patriotic measures. In 1750, schools were placed in charge of the secular clergy, who were nearly all native Peruvians, with a natural sympathy for the welfare of their country. The enormous prestige of the home government suffered successive shocks in consequence of scandals that rang from one end of the colony to the other, reporting evils practised by the highest colonial officials, both of the Church and State. The Inquisition, the banishment of the Jesuits and the declining influence of Spain among the European powers, all tended toward a weakening of the royal authority; and though the effects were more perceptible in the provinces remote from the centre of Spanish power, yet even in Lima, under the very shadow of the viceroy’s palace, the patriotic spirit found expression. In the tertulias of the Spanish-American nobility, as well as in the private councils of educators—who were forbidden to bring into the country any scientific books, or even the necessary apparatus for teaching physics, astronomy, and mechanics—the question of national independence began to be discussed, as early as the period of the French Revolution. Dr. Toribio Rodriguez de Mendoza, rector of the college of San Carlos, and Bishop Pedro José Chavez, of Arequipa, were powerful advocates of reform; and the bishop’s disciples, Luna Pizarro, afterward Archbishop of Lima, and Gonzalez Vigil, exercised great influence in favor of national liberty. Dr. Unánue, president of the School of Medicine, Don José Gregorio Paredes, Don Gavino Chacaltana of Ica and Don José Pezet, editor of La Gaceta de Lima, were among the leading men of science and letters who declared themselves in favor of independence, though their reunions had to be suspended in consequence of the viceroy’s opposition. Two young lawyers, named Pardo and Silva, were arrested for holding patriotic meetings, the former being banished and the latter imprisoned for ten years. Secret societies were formed under the protection of the colonial nobility, and even in the drawing-rooms of noble dames the forbidden topic was discussed. The cause had its innocent victims, as all great reforms have had,—visionaries, whose aspirations were their only crime. José Gabriel Aguilar, of Huánuco, and Manuel Ubalde, of Cuzco, were put to death in the plaza of Cuzco, in 1805, for having interpreted a dream to signify that America would rise up against Spain and that they would be the chiefs of the insurrection.

The emancipation of the Spanish-Americans, especially in the viceroyalty of Peru, was not the result of a development out of a condition of dependence; it came about rather in consequence of a disillusion, which turned them from the unquestioning allegiance they had always shown their sovereigns, and led them to demand a recognition to which they had long been entitled. With the enormous wealth which they had held in their possession from the time of the Conquest, the heirs to the Inca’s treasures could have established their independence centuries earlier; but the same sentiment that made Gonzalo Pizarro’s followers flock to the standard of Pedro de la Gasca, when he arrived in the simple garb of a priest, with the king’s pardon in his hand, kept them blindly obedient to the monarchy for three centuries, until the march of civilization drew them away from the worship of aristocratic ideals and their attention became directed to the existence of new conditions which were already shaping the destiny of modern empires.

Since the accession of the Bourbons to the Spanish throne, when there were “no longer any Pyrenees between France and Spain,” the influence of less conservative neighbors had increased within the hitherto exclusive circles of the proudest aristocracy of Europe. The ideas of the French liberals had penetrated even into its universities, in spite of the Inquisition, and had crossed the seas to the colonies of America. There was something in the atmosphere of the New World which fostered the growth of liberal sentiments. News of the independence of the North American colonies, as well as echoes of the French revolution, stirred the imagination of patriotic Spanish-Americans, and aroused in the hearts of a few determined souls an unquenchable desire to lead their compatriots out of the bondage of monarchical rule, that their country might enjoy the blessings of national independence. For years before their purpose became generally known, it was nourished in secret, and when the opportunity arose to proclaim it, the plans of campaign were quickly matured and put in operation in Alto Peru and Quito, throughout the viceroyalties of Santa Fé and Buenos Aires, and in Chile, the patriotic armies finally concentrating their forces in Peru itself, the first and last stronghold of viceregal authority in South America.

During the government of the Viceroy Abascal, whose administration lasted from 1806 to 1816, events occurred in Spain which precipitated the revolution in South America, though under all circumstances it could not have been long delayed. Napoleon had taken advantage of the debility and corruption of the Spanish monarchy under Charles IV. to invade Spain, hoping that the flight of the Braganzas to America would be followed by that of the Bourbons, and that the sceptres of both Spain and Portugal would thus easily be placed within his grasp. Charles, however, abdicated, in 1808, in favor of his son, Ferdinand VII.; and, in order to carry out his ambitious designs, Napoleon was obliged to resort to perfidy. After attracting the monarch and his father to Bayonne with specious promises, he sent General Murat to occupy Madrid at the point of the sword. All Spain was roused to rebellion against the invader, but the arrival of Napoleon himself with his veterans secured a final victory for the French, and Joseph Bonaparte was crowned king, orders being sent out from Bayonne that the Spanish-American colonists should transfer their allegiance to the new ruler.

By a decree of Charles V., in 1530, confirmed by his successor in 1563, the American colonies were authorized, in cases of emergency, to convoke general Juntas or political assemblies; and in the present crisis, when the imprisonment of their rightful sovereign had caused the authority of the Crown to be suspended, this right was exercised, in order to save the colonies from the yoke of a usurping power. The leaders of the revolution saw beyond this purpose the greater one, which was to achieve the final independence of the colonies. But the masses could not be led into any radical measures against their sovereign. The influence of the monarchy, which had excited strong religious as well as political claims to their allegiance for three centuries, was all-powerful on the minds of a naturally conservative and loyal people; and it was only through fidelity to their king that the Spanish-Americans were first induced to take up arms against the constituted authorities of their country.

The result of the convocation of government Juntas in the various colonial capitals was a general declaration of loyalty to the banished King Ferdinand, and a refusal to recognize the authority of Spain so long as its government remained in the power of the usurper. In Peru, all the vigilance of the viceroy was employed in stifling the efforts of the patriots, which became ever more persistent. In 1810, a young nobleman of Lima, Don José de la Riva-Agüero, the leader of one of the secret societies formed for the purpose of promoting the revolutionary cause, was taken prisoner and banished to the interior. Another colonial grandee, Don José Baquijano, Count de Vista Florida, a poet and historian, the son of rich parents, joined the patriots and used his talents in behalf of the cause of freedom, his influence contributing to increase its popularity among the aristocracy. The Spanish government having proclaimed liberty of the press in 1810, a patriotic newspaper was started, called El Peruano, but it was immediately suppressed by the Viceroy Abascal. When the order arrived for the abolition of the Inquisition, the people went en masse to the building in which the court had been held, and ransacked its rooms, breaking to pieces the instruments of torture and destroying the archives.

Royalist troops had to be sent to Quito in 1809 to oppose the patriots, who had driven out the chief authority and had assumed the national government; and an army was also despatched, under command of General Goyeneche, to Alto Peru, where the revolutionists had imprisoned the president of the Audiencia. In both campaigns the struggle was so unequal that notwithstanding the heroism and determination of the colonists they were finally overcome. News of the defeat of the patriots at Guaqui, on the border of Lake Titicaca, reached Tacna when the army organized by the Limeño, Don Francisco Antonio Zela, was about to set out for Alto Peru; and, a detachment of royalist troops arriving soon afterward, Zela was captured by them and delivered to the authorities, who condemned him to exile in 1811. The following year, on the 13th of February, the Independence was proclaimed in Huánuco, but the ardent patriots who led the movement, Castilla, Araos, and Rodriguez, were supported only by raw recruits from the sierra and their campaign met with disaster, the chiefs being put to death.

Cuzco made its proclamation of independence in 1814. The leader of the patriots was one of the Caciques who had joined the Bishop of Cuzco in repelling the forces of Tupac Amaru thirty years earlier. He was known as Mateo Garcia Pumacagua, a brave warrior and an honest patriot. With him were Mariano, Vicente and José Angulo, Gabriel Bejar, Hurtado de Mendoza, Padre Muñecas, Luis Astete, Pinelo, and others. Their armies were despatched in three divisions, one of which, under command of Pinelo and Muñecas, marched to La Paz, besieged it and took possession.