Spanish and Portuguese South America during the Colonial Period; Vol. 2 of 2

by Robert Grant Watson

1726.

Under the above-detailed circumstances of contention between the Crowns of Spain and Portugal, represented by their respective establishments at Buenos Ayres and in Brazil, and which were so typical of its future history, was founded the healthy and agreeable city of Monte Video. Some families were transported thither from the Canaries, whilst others removed to there from Buenos Ayres. Large sums of money from the mines of Potosí were sent by the Viceroy to carry on the works; whilst the Guaranís were despatched in numbers from Paraguay to lend their labour to the fortifications. The Portuguese, however, were not dismayed, and laboured, on the other hand, to increase their own establishments, fixing themselves permanently on the Rio Grande, from which they carried on the contraband trade with more impunity than ever. The value of this trade is estimated by Dean Funes at two millions of dollars yearly to the Portuguese, being so much loss to Spain.

1750.

The inevitable consequence of this state of things was fresh antagonism between the two countries, which it was sought to put an end to by a treaty between the two nations concluded in 1750. One of the articles stipulated that Portugal should cede to Spain all of her establishments on the eastern bank of the Plata; in return for which she was to receive the seven missionary towns on the Uruguay. But, as is told in another chapter of this work, the inhabitants of the Misiones naturally rebelled against the idea of being handed over to a people known to them only by their slave-dealing atrocities; and they made a gallant resistance against the united forces of the two powers, which appeared to enforce the conditions of the treaty. The result was that when two thousand natives had been slaughtered and their settlements reduced to ruins, the Portuguese repudiated the compact, as they could no longer receive their equivalent, and they still therefore retained Colonia.

1776.

When hostilities were renewed in 1762, the governor of Buenos Ayres succeeded in possessing himself of Colonia; but in the following year it was restored to the Portuguese, who continued in possession until 1777, when it was definitively ceded to Spain. The continual encroachments to the Portuguese in the Rio de La Plata, and the impunity with which the contraband trade was carried on, together with the questions to which it constantly gave rise with foreign governments, had long shown the necessity for a change in the government of that colony; for it was still under the superintendence of the Viceroy of Peru, residing at Lima, three thousand miles distant. The Spanish authorities accordingly resolved to give fresh force to their representatives in the Rio de La Plata; and in 1776 they took the important resolution to sever the connection between the provinces of La Plata and the Viceroyalty of Peru. The former were now erected into a new Viceroyalty, the capital of which was Buenos Ayres. It comprised the province of its own name, together with those of Paraguay, Cordova, Salta, Potosí, La Plata, Santa Cruz de la Sierra, or Cochabamba, La Paz, and Puno, besides the subordinate governments of Monte Video, Moxos, and Chiquitos, and the Missions on the Rivers Uruguay and Paraná.

To this Viceroyalty was appointed Don Pedro Cevallos, a former governor of Buenos Ayres. A formidable armament was placed under his command; twelve men-of-war escorting a numerous fleet of transports, sailed from Spain, with ten thousand men. The first act of Cevallos was to take possession of the island of St. Katherine, the most important Portuguese possession on the coast of Brazil. Proceeding thence to the Plate, he razed the fortifications of Colonia to the ground, and drove the Portuguese from the neighbourhood. In October of the following year, 1777, a treaty of peace was signed at St. Ildefonso, between Queen Maria of Portugal and Charles III. of Spain, by virtue of which St. Katherine’s was restored to the latter country, whilst Portugal withdrew from the Banda Oriental or Uruguay, and relinquished all pretensions to the right of navigating the Rio de La Plata and its affluents beyond its own frontier line.

About the same time some important changes took place in the commercial regulations affecting the Spanish colonies. Various relaxations had from time to time been made of the old system by which the entire trade of Spain was left almost as a monopoly to the merchants of Seville and of Cadiz. Periodical packets had been established between Coruña and the principal colonial ports, with permission to export and to import Spanish and colonial goods. Direct intercourse was also permitted between Cuba and the other West Indian Islands; and, in 1774, the several colonies were allowed to open up a trade with each other. The above measures originated with the enlightened minister for the department of the Indies, De Galvez, who had himself passed many years in America, and who had personally witnessed to how great an extent Spain was a loser by her former system. They were followed in 1778 by the promulgation of an entirely new commercial code. The trade was still exclusively to belong to Spain and to Spanish shipping, and the tariff was based upon the principle of protection to native industry and of furthering the sale of Spanish productions. Nine ports of Spain and twenty-four in the colonies were declared ports of entry.

By these regulations it was likewise provided that for ten years Spanish manufactures of wool, cotton, linen, steel, glass, &c., should be shipped, duty free, for the colonies, which might export in return their principal articles of raw produce, such as cotton, coffee, sugar, cochineal, indigo, bark, and copper. The duty on the import of gold was reduced from 5 to 2 per cent.; that on the import of silver from 10 to 5½ per cent.; whilst vessels laden solely with natural produce were exempted from one-third of the duties. The shipment of certain articles of foreign production, such as cottons, stuffs, oil, wines, and brandies, which might interfere with those of Spain, were totally prohibited. These regulations contained, however, certain clauses framed in the old restrictive spirit. Some obsolete edicts were renewed restricting the cultivation of certain colonial productions—such as the vine and olive, hemp and flax—lest they should compete with the growth of the same articles in the mother country. The South Americans were not allowed to make their own cloth, and were debarred from the use of the wool of the vicuña, which was to be collected for the King’s account.

Under the administration of the above-named minister the Creoles had to complain of the great partiality shown to Spaniards over themselves in the distribution of appointments, both civil and military, in the colonies—a mistake on the part of the Spanish Government all the greater on account of the period at which it took place, namely, whilst a struggle arising in the question of colonial rights was pending between Great Britain and her North-American possessions. It is certainly singular—indeed, it seems inexplicable—that Spain, of all countries, should have determined at this time to join with France in espousing the cause of the North Americans against England, whilst she herself was pursuing in her own colonies the very policy complained of. It was not long before the Spanish Crown was reminded by the South Americans that it had itself sanctioned the principle of the subject’s right to resistance against his sovereign on the plea of wrongs unredressed.