Spain and Her Colonies, Compiled from the Best Authorities

by Unknown

Of totally different and vastly inferior fiber was the conqueror of Peru. Pizarro was without either education or address—a rough, ambitious, and avaricious soldier. He, too, was favored by internal dissensions, of which he could not possibly have known anything when he set forth on his errand. After a long period of peaceful and undisputed sway, the Inca dynasty was split by a feud between two brothers, one of whom, Atahualpa, had just asserted his superiority by force of arms, when the European conquerors appeared on the scene. A word from him, and not a man of them would have escaped alive. But at the critical moment an unaccountable paralysis overtook him, whether or not arising from a curiosity to see and interview the strangers it is impossible to say. He realized his danger too late, for Pizarro, imitating Cortes, seized the person of the Inca, and the rest was rendered comparatively easy. Accustomed, like Montezuma, to exact unqualified obedience, he employed his subjects in collecting his ransom instead of fighting for his deliverance; and when the debt was almost paid, he found himself doomed to death instead of released from captivity. The forces of the empire were then scattered, and without a leader who could assume full authority. Still, many a desperate bid was subsequently made for freedom, but each time with less prospect of success, as the conquerors secured a firmer grip upon the country, until the execution of Tapac Amara, the last direct descendant of the Incas, in 1571, left that solitude which Cæsar called peace.

But after all it was not the opposition of the Indians, whether of the islands, of Mexico, or Peru, that proved the greatest danger to Spanish sovereignty. Enmity to Columbus, who was the accredited representative of the crown and legal governor of the Indies, did not necessarily infer enmity to the crown itself; indeed, those who rebelled against him were loud in their protestations of loyalty. Nevertheless, the turbulent factions fought for their own hand, and would have been equally opposed to any other governor who sought to place the necessary restraint upon their license. By permitting, and even compelling, many of the discontented to return home, as well as by the temporary removal of Columbus himself, something like quiet was restored; but it is more than probable that had not the colonists been largely dependent upon Spain for many necessaries, not excluding food, they would have cut themselves adrift and refused to submit to the exactions upon their industry, or rather upon that of the natives from which they profited. More than once in the early days, the home government had to stop cautiously, and commissions were dispatched to ascertain where the grievances lay, and if possible redress them. They were mostly connected with labor; the majority of the clergy, to their credit be it said, ranging themselves on the side of humanity, and using all their influence to obtain ordinances favorable to the natives. This difficulty was smoothed away to a great extent by the introduction of the African negro, which began as early as the year 1503.

The followers of Cortes were remarkably loyal to him in prosperity and adversity alike; and though for a long time he was unaware how his proceedings would be received at court, he remained consistent in his devotion to his sovereign. His dispatches breathe an almost effusive submission to their will and interests, and only his enemies ever laid any charges against him, while his own actions too obviously refuted them. It was only when some of his officers were removed from his influence and intrusted with commissions of their own that they thought of kicking over the traces, and then it invariably happened that they were not in situations where any great harm could result. Mexico once subdued, long rendered the most willing obedience of any of the colonies, partly perhaps because under the direct influence of good and great viceroys, who acted both with intelligence and discretion.

It was far otherwise in Peru, where the duplicity of Pizarro in excluding Almagro from his proper share in the governorship roused the suspicion, then the ire, and finally the opposition of that honest and gallant soldier. When Pizarro returned from his visit to Spain, he was either accompanied or immediately followed by several of his brothers, who, among them, formed a family compact for the protection and promotion of their own interests. To rid themselves of the rivalry of Almagro, they obtained for him the governorship of the country which now comprises the Republic of Chili. This, however, had still to be conquered, and the obstacles which presented themselves to the enterprise appeared so insurmountable that Almagro and his followers abandoned it and returned to Cuzco, the rich capital of Peru, which, the former maintained, fell within the latitude of the patent granted to him. This assertion was naturally contested by the Pizarros, and in the civil war that followed both Francisco Pizarro, the eldest and foremost of the brothers, and Almagro met with violent deaths. The Indians looked on with amazement at this strife between the white men, but failed to profit by it. Had they shown anything like the energy displayed in the warfare among themselves, or that of their Mexican brothers, they must inevitably have recaptured their kingdom, which it would have been extremely difficult to reconquer; but having allowed the golden opportunity to slip, it never again offered.

But the most serious menace to the supremacy of Spain in the New World occurred shortly after the promulgation of the edicts of Charles V. in 1542. The clauses guaranteeing the Indians their freedom, and protecting them against undue imposition, either of taxation or forced labor, were so obnoxious to the colonists that something like a general rising was threatened. The tact of the Mexican viceroy pacified those under his rule, but Peru experienced the full force of an armed rebellion with all its evil consequences. The leader in this instance was Gonzales Pizarro, who had inherited the immense estates conferred upon the family by a grateful sovereign, and who now undoubtedly aimed at establishing a separate kingdom with himself its supreme head. Fortunately, the right man was again sent from Spain to deal effectively with this uprising, and though a cleric, Vaca de Castro exhibited the skill of a general and the diplomacy of a statesman. With the execution of Gonzales, the last of the Pizarro brothers, peace was restored; and by the middle of the sixteenth century the various governments were so effectively consolidated that not for upward of a hundred and fifty years did any revolt, Indian or Creole, meet with more than temporary success.

It was far otherwise with the Philippines, which have never been free for any length of time from disturbances of some kind. No effort indeed has ever been made to thoroughly subdue the turbulent natives; and there is no similar extent of territory under the control of a European government, about which so little is known regarding its natural resources and mineral wealth as the important islands of Luzon and Mindanao, which embrace half the total area of the archipelago. The principal ports have been strongly fortified, and reliance placed upon them to retain possession. The immunities enjoyed by the natives would, under ordinary circumstances, offer little inducement to revolt, but unfortunately the Philippines have from the very first been particularly subject to ecclesiastical influence and jurisdiction, and in its missionary and persecuting zeal the priesthood has made itself thoroughly obnoxious. The religious orders were the special object of animosity in the latest rising, and unless they are either suppressed or placed under more effective political control, there will be little prospect of peace in the islands.

In an epoch when most of the nations of Europe are struggling to add to their territories in the remotest corners of the earth, it seems almost incredible that four centuries ago a single one of them should have been permitted to annex a whole continent unchallenged. It was not so much the Pope’s Bull that frightened competitors away as the fact that they were too deeply absorbed in their own affairs. The importunity of Columbus had to wear itself nearly out before the fortunate completion of the Moorish conquest won it a more ready ear; and most other countries were about the same time either engaged in, or just recovering from, some similar internecine strife. Moreover, it was the energy of private adventurers rather than of the Spanish crown which won for the latter a vast empire beyond the seas; nor was it until its value became plainly apparent that it was thought worth while to go to any great amount of trouble or expense in its development.

Similarly, the first external enemies the Spanish colonies had to encounter were private and unattached adventurers. Piracy was an institution which had already flourished for many centuries. The Barbary corsairs were far more feared by the merchants of Venice and Genoa than the fiercest storms that ever visited the Mediterranean; and they had their counterpart in the Baltic, where the Hanseatic League carried on so extensive a commerce. It was only to be expected that they would sally forth from their inland seas when so much more valuable spoil was to be secured on the open ocean beyond, but strange to say, with the rapid decline of the trade which they had so long harried, their activity slackened, and their principles and profession were largely inherited by more civilized races. Some excuse was offered for this by the almost constant warfare that prevailed during the reign of Charles V., when France and Spain were at perpetual enmity, and England was found, first on one side, then on the other. The first important loss that befell Spain was the capture of the vessel conveying home the royal share of the treasures of Mexico by a French privateer, or pirate, as the Spaniards always preferred to call the ships which despoiled their fleets, a designation that was more often than not amply justified.

To begin with, these pirate ships were content to hang about the Azores, on the chance of meeting a caravel laden with treasure homeward bound. They gradually ventured further west, until they actually arrived among the West Indian Islands, where they were surprised to find that altogether undreamed-of facilities awaited them for the pursuit of their nefarious trade. Though the entire archipelago belonged nominally to Spain, only the larger islands were actually occupied, the smaller not being regarded as worthy of attention, until the Indian population of Hispaniola, Cuba and Porto Rico began to fail, and then they were raided for their inhabitants to supply the vacant places. With a scanty Spanish population, it would have been utterly impossible to fortify and inhabit all, even had colonists been found so self-denying as to banish themselves to places where the only chance of accumulating wealth was by hard work and steady application to agricultural pursuits.

For a long time these scattered islands were merely places of call, where fresh water and fruit could be obtained. No attempt was made at annexation in the name of any foreign power, and it would have been folly for any ship’s company, even had they been disposed to relinquish their buccaneering career, to settle down and defy the Spanish power, whose forces would quickly have been put in motion to expel them.