In Caraccas the natives were enslaved, and carried to the plantations in the West Indies, from which they were not freed till after the repeated remonstrances of Las Casas, Montesino, Cordova and others; these remonstrances gave rise to the establishment of the royal audiences and the council of the Indies; the jurisdiction of the latter extending to every department; all laws and ordinances relative to the government and police of the colonies originate in it, and must be approved by two-thirds of the members; all the offices, of which the nomination is reserved as a royal prerogative, are conferred on this council, and to it every person employed in Spanish America is responsible.
It receives all dispatches, &c., and is in fact the government of the Indies.
Since the establishment of this council, the royal audiences or superior tribunals, and the regular succession of viceroys and captain-generals, the Americas have been governed, if not with less rigour, at least with more beneficial results to the Indians. They are left to manage their own concerns as they please, and no one can interfere in the disposal of their property. In Peru alone they are subjected to the mita, a law obliging them to furnish certain quotas for the mining operations, but for which they are well paid, and generally become resident miners; they are not under the controul of the inquisition, and pay no other tax than a capitation tribute, which is very moderate, and rather a mark of vassalage or distinction from the other classes, than a burden.
In their towns the Indians are always the magistrates, and they are allowed to enter into holy orders: but no Spaniard or white is permitted by the law to intermarry with them or to settle in their towns, the Indians always residing in a distinct quarter from the Europeans, and other castes. The Indians and their descendants are the only people in this part of the world who can endure the unwholesomeness and fatigues attendant on the mining operations, as the Spaniards and Negroes sink under the toil in a short time; but the number of Indians has decreased since the conquest to an alarming extent from the ravages of the small-pox, and from the fatal effects of intoxicating liquors, though according to the statements of late travellers this branch of the population is again on the increase, probably owing to the general introduction of vaccination, and to the gradual abolition of the mita in most of the governments.
The total population of Spanish America is reckoned at about 15,000,000, of which three millions are Creoles, or the descendants of European whites, 200,000 are Spaniards, and the rest are Indians, negroes, and the mixed descendants of these and the whites, the Indians bearing the greatest proportion, as Peru alone contains 600,000; but the negroes are not very numerous, and exist principally in the provinces of Caraccas and New Granada.
Till the end of the last century the ports of Spanish America were shut against the whole world, the commerce of the country being carried on exclusively by two or three large ships called galleons from Manilla, and by an annual fleet to Spain; but these vessels falling continually into the hands of enemies, and generally containing all the treasure on which the Spanish court relied, they were at last abolished, and special licences were granted by some of the governors to carry on a trade with the Antilles, and in 1797 the court of Madrid was obliged to open some of the ports. Urged by extreme necessity Cisneros the Viceroy of La Plata in 1809, declared the port of Buenos Ayres free to all nations in alliance with Spain.
The power of Spain was maintained for a long while in her trans-Atlantic colonies, by a very small number of Spanish troops, who acted with the national militia on any unforeseen disturbances; the most profound tranquillity reigned in these happy regions till the year 1797, with the exception of the revolt of Tupac Amaru in 1780, and some other trifling occurrences. Three prisoners of state, who had been banished from Spain for revolutionary crimes, arrived at La Guayra, the port of Caraccas, in the first mentioned year; by dint of argument these men gained over the soldiers by whom they were guarded, and they were permitted to hold forth the doctrines at that time so dangerously afloat in Europe, to the people who came from all parts to hear them, and finding many admirers among the creoles and mestizoes, formed at last the daring plan of revolutionizing the country.
These men, instead of remaining to head the revolt, retired to the islands in the Caribbean sea, on which active measures being taken by the government the plot was discovered; several who were concerned in it were executed, and others banished. Previous to this, in 1781, some reforms and additional taxes which were introduced in New Granada created such dissatisfaction that 17,000 men collecting themselves together marched against the city of Santa Fé de Bogota exclaiming "Long live the King, but death to our bad governors," but this insurrection was soon quelled by politic measures.
After the disturbances in 1797, the country was again tranquil, until the period when Napoleon Buonaparte, assuming upon the numerous victories which the French troops had gained, grasped at the sceptre of Europe. After subduing, in part, the mother country, and depriving the king of his liberty, he dispatched his emissaries in every direction to America; these men were, in general, of acknowledged talents, and endeavoured by every means in their power, under assumed characters, to widen the breach which had gradually been opening between Spain and her colonies.
The Americans, instigated by such advisers, and finding themselves cut off from all communication with Spain, now intent solely on her own preservation, were dubious how to act; but the mass of the people resisted all idea of throwing off their allegiance, and would not consent to their country being under French controul. Accordingly, they established juntas in Caraccas, New Granada and Buenos Ayres, in imitation of similar acts on the part of their Spanish brethren.