The South American Republics, Part 2 of 2

by Thomas Cleland Dawson

STEAMERS ON THE MAGDALENA RIVER.

After a short ad interim administration in which Nuñez's influence predominated, he was re-elected to the presidency and installed in 1884. By this time his centralising tendencies were manifest, and the measures he adopted unmistakably pointed to the substitution of a unified republic for the old loose confederation. Many of his liberal supporters fell away and he was driven into an alliance with the conservatives. Appointments of members of that party to important positions were followed by the great revolt of 1885. The insurrectionists delivered their main attack on the Caribbean coast, whither the importation of arms was easy. Much of the department of Magdalena fell into their hands, and they besieged Cartagena in force. But when one of their expeditions invaded the Isthmus, burning Colon, and interrupting traffic on the Panama Railway, the president appealed to the United States, as previous presidents had done in similar cases, to carry out the guaranty of free transit contained in the treaty of 1846. At the same time the government troops attacked and defeated the isolated insurrectionists at Colon, and shortly afterwards the latter's main army suffered a bloody repulse in an assault on Cartagena. This broke the back of the movement against Nuñez, and the liberals abandoned the hopeless struggle.

The insurrection had been undertaken for the purpose of defending the 1863 Constitution, and its defeat meant the destruction of departmental independence. As the logical and natural result of his victory, the president proclaimed the abolishment of the Constitution and summoned a convention to adopt a new one. Thenceforward until his death ten years later Rafael Nuñez and his political ideas were supreme in Colombia, and Panama was held in the most rigid subjection. The old "United States of Colombia" was replaced by the "Republic of Columbia," one and indivisible; the departments became mere administrative divisions whose governors were appointed from Bogotá; the presidential term was increased to six years; the radical liberal projects were abandoned; the clergy regained many of their privileges; and the historical conservatives continued the dominant party.

As long as Nuñez lived there were few outbreaks and no serious civil war, though the ousted liberals never ceased to plot the government's overthrow. The centralising system held the departments in a rigid control from whose inconveniences Panama suffered far more than the mountain districts. Practically she was allowed no voice in either her own or general affairs; the very delegates who nominally represented her in the constitutional convention of 1885 were residents of Bogotá appointed by Nuñez; military rule became a permanent thing on the Isthmus; all officials were strangers sent from the Andean plateau; and the million dollars of taxes wrung each year from the people of Panama were spent on maintaining the soldiers who kept them in subjection. In January, 1895, the harassed province broke out in a rebellion which was suppressed by an overwhelming force of Colombian troops in April.

Meanwhile in Colombia proper the opposition to the ruling clique grew stronger and stronger. Persecution united the liberals, and they began organising for revolt all over the republic. The conservatives themselves divided into two parties, one of which opposed the administration. Nuñez did not live to finish the second term to which he had been elected in 1892, but his successor managed to suppress the premature revolt of 1895, and in 1898 Sanclemente was elected, the opposition refraining from going to the polls. The new president soon found his position very difficult, and, unlike Nuñez, was unable to dominate his own party and hold the opposition in check. The French Canal Company, whose concession, granted in 1878, would expire in 1904, offered a million dollars for a renewal, desiring to recoup, by a sale to the United States, a part of the two hundred millions sunk by De Lesseps. Sanclemente's government wished to accept, but the opposition and even the conservative congress insisted on the forfeiture of the French rights. The administration rapidly lost prestige, the discontented elements saw their opportunity, and the long-brewing storm now broke on the hapless country. The liberals hurriedly completed their preparations, and in the fall of 1899 a civil war began—the most terrible and destructive that has ever devastated the republic. Before it ended in 1902, more than two hundred battles and armed encounters had been fought, and thirty thousand Colombians slain. The detailed history of the campaigns has not yet been written, but it is apparent that the insurrectionists at first gained many successes. The president declared martial law, suspending the functions of congress, and the extension desired by the French Canal Company was granted by executive decree. But the pecuniary relief thus obtained did not materially help the floundering administration. Sanclemente became a mere figurehead for his more resolute ministers, and in July, 1900, the vigorous vice-president, Marroquin, seized power by a coup d'état, throwing Sanclemente into a prison, where he remained until his death. Thereafter the war against the rebels was prosecuted with more energy, and the tide turned with the defeat of an army of Venezuelans, eight thousand strong, which had invaded the eastern provinces, to co-operate with the insurrectionists.

NATIVE VILLAGE ON THE PANAMA R. R.

However, the liberals were still strong in the west and north. On the Isthmus four insurrections had broken out from October, 1899, to September, 1901, and though each had been promptly suppressed, in 1902 the liberals were able to make a last great effort to establish themselves at Panama. They had considerable forces near the mouth of the Magdalena, and gunboats on the Pacific. The secure possession of the Isthmus would have enabled them to reinforce this Magdalena army, cut off Marroquin from the sea, and undertake a campaign against the interior. At first all went well for them; their gunboats captured the government's vessels on the Pacific side; they concentrated a respectable army there and finally defeated and captured two thousand of Marroquin's troops at Agua Dulce, near Panama. But this was their last success. Marroquin poured reinforcements into Colon, and though the American admiral at first refused to allow them to be transported over the railroad to Panama, permission was granted when it became evident that there would be no fighting near the line. News came of the defeat of the liberal army near the Magdalena, and General Herrera, the victor at Agua Dulce, found himself isolated. In desperation he sent an expedition in October which surprised and captured Colon, but French and American marines were promptly landed to prevent fighting in that city. The expedition had no alternative but to surrender, and a few days later General Herrera with the main body capitulated on the Pacific side.

The three years of war left Colombia in frightful demoralisation. The victorious government was little better off than the defeated liberals. Commerce and industry had been prostrated; revenues had dwindled to nothing; the paper currency was worth less than one per cent. The exhaustion of its adversaries, not its own strength, enabled Marroquin's government to continue in power. In such a situation the administration welcomed the opportunity which now offered of renewing the building of the Isthmian canal. The United States government determined to undertake this great work itself, and finally decided in favour of Panama as against the Nicaragua route. Forty million dollars was agreed upon as a just price for the work already done by the French Company, and nothing remained but to obtain Colombia's consent to the transfer. The civil war helped to delay the negotiation of a satisfactory treaty, but as soon as it was over the Marroquin administration lost little time in coming to an agreement with the United States. Colombia was to receive a bonus of ten million dollars for consenting to the transfer and enlarging the terms of the original concession; her sovereign rights were reserved and guaranteed, although she agreed to police and sanitary control of the canal strip by the United States.

When this treaty was submitted to the Colombian Senate for ratification, opposition developed which the administration was not strong or resolute enough to overcome. Among the politicians at Bogotá, the opinion was almost universal that the executive should have demanded more. The Colombian people have ever regarded the political control of the Isthmus as their most valuable national heritage, and cherished extravagant hopes that some day they would be vastly enriched by the sale or rental of this strategic bit of ground for its natural use as the greatest artery of the world's commerce. Many now insisted, as they had done in 1898, on enforcing a forfeiture of the French rights, or at least on receiving a proportion of the $40,000,000 to be paid for them. It was also said that the Americans could well afford a larger bonus, and the opponents of the treaty made the further point that the agreement was unconstitutional and contained insufficient guaranties of Colombian sovereignty. Against this storm the feeble administration probably could do little and certainly did nothing. The Senate was allowed to adjourn without ratifying the treaty, and an attempt was made to negotiate a new one providing for a larger bonus and more stringent guarantees of Colombian sovereignty.