The South American Republics, Part 2 of 2

by Thomas Cleland Dawson

PLAZA DEL ARMAS, SANTIAGO.

Among these immigrants was the famous Ambrose O'Higgins, a poor Irish lad, who landed at Buenos Aires, made his way to Chile, started as a peddler, became an army contractor, made a fortune, got a commission in the army, distinguished himself in an expedition against the Araucanians, ingratiated himself with everybody by his wit, courage, and good-natured shrewdness, and finally was selected as captain-general. He ruled the country wisely and well until promoted to be viceroy at Lima. His successors were mostly able and honest men, and under their government the natural causes making for the prosperity of Chile had free scope. Wealth increased, and with it love of display, honours, and letters. Santiago became a real capital, the favourite residence of the landed aristocracy and a social centre where fashions were prescribed. The English war into which France pushed Spain in 1796 much damaged Chilean commerce, but not sufficiently to stop the impulse already received. The old ignorant content with Spanish rule gave place to a growing demand for the removal of all restrictions, and the appetite for commercial freedom grew with what it fed on.

Chile was still comparatively poor and backward. The rude population were engaged in a harsh struggle with fierce savages and in laying the foundations of material prosperity. Most of these people were the descendants of Indians accustomed for centuries to implicit obedience to a rustic, unlettered aristocracy. The genius of the race was rather practical than ideal, and the long, careless government by men invariably chosen for their military abilities rather than their qualities as civil administrators had not tended to make Chile a fertile soil for the development of revolutionary ideas. Chilean society was less favourably constituted for sudden changes than that of Buenos Aires—the boom town of the time, with its active commerce, its restless recently arrived population,—or that of the northern viceroyalties, controlled by professional and office-holding classes and parish priests.

Two or three hundred families held most of the lands of Chile, and the power of this aristocracy was especially predominant in the provinces around Santiago. In the southern provinces long wars had thinned the native population and dispossessed the original grantees. Estates were more widely distributed and opinion more radical, but in the rest of the country the newer immigrants had been forced to accept the system, and the comparatively few families who owned the land and thereby controlled the means of subsistence of the whole people, enjoyed unquestioned ascendancy. But conservative as this aristocracy was, among its members there rankled a profound jealousy of the Spanish officials who wrung excessive taxes from their reluctant fingers; who enforced the Spanish regulations forbidding the culture of grapes, olives, and tobacco; who until recently had closed the ports, cutting off the profitable sale of crops, and compelling the payment of extravagant prices for manufactured goods; and most irritating of all, who still monopolised the lucrative offices.

The news of Ferdinand's imprisonment and the invasion of Spain by Napoleon's armies reached Chile in the late summer of 1809, creating great excitement among the Spanish office-holders and the Creole aristocracy. Sentiment was universal against submission to the French usurpation and discussion at once began of how the government should be carried on during the King's captivity. Carrasco, the captain-general, hesitated and vacillated between the conflicting suggestions.

In preparation for an emergency, whose exact nature no one could foresee, the city authorities gathered arms, drilled troops, and levied extra taxes. The property-owning and governing classes divided into two currents of opinion. The government officials, with their friends and hangers-on, saw that their interests would best be served by the recognition of the revolutionary juntas which had assumed the ad interim direction of affairs in Spain. The leading Creole families proposed the establishment of an independent junta, pending Ferdinand's return, or the definite defeat of the national cause in Spain. Although the latter party warmly protested their faithfulness to the mother-country, at bottom they designed to secure for Chile and Chileans virtual independence while Spain's troubles lasted, and the Spanish officials did not hesitate to characterise their opponents as rebels. Feeling rapidly grew intense, and in May, 1810, the captain-general ordered the arrest of several prominent Creoles. This arbitrary measure aroused such a fierce clamour that Carrasco lost his nerve, and consented to the release of the prisoners. This indication of weakness encouraged the agitators, and when news came across the Andes that the people of Buenos Aires had deposed their viceroy, Santiago broke into revolution.

The captain-general had summoned an open cabildo to enjoin obedience to certain orders received from Spain, but this assembly tumultuously demanded his resignation. Helpless against the popular outcry and the hostile attitude of the city government, he turned over his authority to Toro, a wealthy nobleman, whose venerable age and pacific disposition seemed likely to preserve the peace. Nevertheless, the Creoles persisted in their demand for an independent Chilean junta. Another meeting of all the qualified electors was called; the arrival of a representative of the new junta at Buenos Aires, who strongly urged Chile to follow Argentina's example, had its influence; and on the 18th of September, the date observed as the anniversary of Chilean independence, Toro resigned his authority to the cabildo. The office of captain-general was abolished and power passed to a junta of seven. Chile's ports were opened to all nations, quadrupling the customs receipts in a single year, and the country began a virtually separate existence, although the acts of the junta ran in the name of the Spanish King.

However, the junta's power rested upon a basis too narrow for stability. Representing only the Santiago aristocracy, there was no certainty that its orders would be respected in the provinces, or that independent juntas would not be set up in other cities. To remedy this difficulty a national congress was summoned, but the junta allotted to Santiago almost as many members as to all the other municipalities together. The elections took place in April, 1811, and while they were going on the Spanish officer in command of a detachment at Santiago revolted. A member of the junta, José Carrera by name, an active and ambitious young man, who belonged to one of the most influential Creole families, distinguished himself by attacking and defeating the Spaniard with an improvised force of armed patriots. When congress met it voted many reforms; abolishing slavery, reorganising the judiciary, freeing commerce of vexatious restrictions, decreeing the payment of the clergy out of the public treasury instead of by tithes, and conferring on the elective bodies of the municipalities the right to elect their own city officers. However, divisions soon arose among the members. The representatives of the outside provinces bitterly complained of the unfairness of the apportionment; the radicals wished to reorganise everything, while the conservatives insisted on preserving many of the old institutions. The Santiago representatives, chosen from the landed aristocracy, were mostly conservative, while the members from the South were largely radical. Under the leadership of Doctor Rosas, the latter withdrew. The Santiago conservatives, left in undisputed control of congress, displaced the old junta, but Carrera and his two brothers had made themselves all powerful in the army by cleverly seizing its Spanish officers. He determined to ally himself with the radicals and assume supreme power. Marching to the hall of congress at the head of his troops, he compelled the selection of a new junta with himself as chief, and expelled the members upon whom he could not rely. Rosas had meanwhile established a radical junta at Concepcion, and Carrera offered to associate him in the government. Rosas declined, and the Santiago leader, now frankly a military dictator, advanced with an army to reduce the South to obedience. But the news that the Spanish party had gained the ascendancy in Valdivia and Chiloë intimidated him, and he made peace with Rosas, retiring to Santiago. His emissaries nevertheless continued to intrigue in Concepcion and finally stirred up a riot which resulted in Rosas' expulsion.

For nearly two years Carrera and his brothers remained in power, governing by military force, confiscating the property of their enemies, allowing their friends to loot the public funds, and committing many enormities. Conspiracy after conspiracy was formed against them, only to be detected and suppressed, while the patriots divided into hostile factions each selfishly ambitious for control. Meanwhile Abascal, the able and resolute viceroy at Lima, had succeeded in keeping Peru submissive, in crushing out the revolution in Ecuador and Bolivia, and in repelling the northward march of the Argentine patriots. He now prepared to send an army to re-establish royal authority in Chile. Early in 1813 a large force landed at Talcahuano and, advancing to Concepcion, was joined by the garrison of that place. Reinforcements came up from Valdivia and Chiloë, and the Spanish general took the road for Santiago at the head of four thousand men. In the face of this imminent danger the bickerings of the patriots were hushed. Carrera advanced to the South in command of twelve thousand men, poorly armed and disciplined. On the Spanish side the officers were, however, suspicious, and had little confidence in their raw levies. A sudden and successful attack on an outpost near the river Maule was followed by a panic among the royalists, and they retreated in disorder, but with no great loss, to the fortifications of Chillan, only fifty miles from Concepcion. Detachments of patriots pushed on to Concepcion and captured that place and Talcahuano. The Spanish army was completely isolated in Chillan, but had found there an abundant supply of provisions, and successfully resisted Carrera's efforts to take the place. His hastily gathered levies, without means of sheltering themselves from the rain and cold, melted away by desertion. Finally he retired toward Concepcion followed by the Spaniards and the remnants of his army were only saved from total rout by the gallantry and steadiness of Bernardo O'Higgins. This military chief, a natural son of the old Irish captain-general, and heir to his Chilean estates, had made common cause with the patriots at the beginning of the revolution, and attached himself to the fortunes of Rosas, the leader of the Concepcion radicals. When the latter was banished by Carrera, O'Higgins retired from the army. The Spanish invasion had roused him; he offered his sword to Carrera, and his dashing military talents sent him quickly to the front.