Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. II, No. X., March 1851

by Various

One of the glaring defects of the Argentine character is the thirst for power, which possesses the inhabitants, to obtain which no obstacle will restrain them. Previous to attaining to the supreme power, though recognized as the chief of the country party, Rosas was surrounded by caudillos, whose devotion to his interests did not appear to him to be completely absolute; in fact, he well knew that on the very first occasion which should present itself, each of them, profiting by the ascendency which he individually exercised over his partisans, would make no scruple of disputing with him the power he envied. It was absolutely necessary that he should rid himself of this obnoxious body-guard, and this step he at once resolved upon, and forthwith put into execution. In a very brief space of time, steel and poison had done their work, and delivered him from all those rivals which his ambition had to dread, while the provinces very soon lost, under the terror which they experienced at this wholesale slaughter, the bare idea of resistance. There still remained, however, the city: Buenos Ayres had not supported Lavalle as it ought to have done, nevertheless it inclosed within its walls a goodly number of men who, though they had indeed reason to manifest indifference for the Unitarian government, were too enlightened not to feel a bitter regret for their own culpable weakness. It was as a fire smouldering within the city, which sooner or later would not fail to burst forth into a flame. Rosas comprehended this movement, and bethought himself of the means of stifling it in the bud. It was then that he founded the famous popular society of the mashorca. It has been asserted, and we believe with reason, that this society by its number of outrages on human life, merits in the criminal annals of the world a renown greater than that of the celebrated Jacobin Club, and the revolutionary tribunal of the first French Revolution. Recruited from among the ranks of the savage, ignorant, and cruel men who surrounded the new Dictator, the members of the mashorca set to work with ardor to moralize the country according to the will of General Rosas. By the mere terror which this formidable mashorca inspired, Rosas was enabled to make the world believe, that he was at once the elect of his fellow citizens and the depository of their wishes and desires. It served him also to drill the nation to the manifestation of either enthusiasm or furious rage, of which he might, according to circumstances, stand in need.

The people, docile as a flock of sheep, accordingly howled or applauded in the streets, or upon the public places, at the will of the dictator. The means of action of the mashorqueros upon the multitude are well known—they consist in violence and assassination. Although in appearance mute and devoted to Rosas, the city of Buenos Ayres still bears mourning for the victims which were then sacrificed to his fury and ambition. Obedient to the resentments of the elect of the people, the mashorqueros, at certain days and certain hours, would spread themselves far and wide throughout the streets, poinard in hand, and, penetrating into the dwellings pointed out to them, would pitilessly immolate the Unitarian savages which the federal pacificator had previously marked as victims for their homicidal fury. The precise number of these victims of the blind rage of a sanguinary party is unknown; but it must have been considerable, for during an entire week the blood flowed unceasingly, and at that period it was no uncommon sight to behold the decapitated heads of the slain exposed in the public market-place; at length, one day, a cart, preceded by musicians, made the circuit of the city, to collect the dead bodies which lay in piles before the houses.

It is not difficult to comprehend the effect of a similar system of government upon a population by no means numerous, exhausted by long civil dissensions, and which would have been completely annihilated at the very first symptom of any thing approaching resistance. It submitted in silence. Rosas, now certain from henceforth of being able to reign by terror, began to moderate his excesses, and only from time to time had recourse to violence, in order to intimidate those among the population in whose breasts there might still lurk the remnants of some generous or patriotic sentiment.

Rosas possesses an incredible power of continuous labor: he sleeps during the greater part of the day, and passes the night in his cabinet. It is not until four o'clock in the afternoon that he quits his bedroom. During the summer, when he is in the country, he may be seen from this hour until six o'clock galloping through the gardens, open to all comers, or playing in front of the house with an enormous tigress, which, though of the greatest ferocity with strangers, trembles and crouches to the earth, at his voice. At six o'clock he takes a light repast; after which he sits down to work, and does not leave off until five or six in the morning. It is at this hour that he dines in company with a couple of jesters, dressed in an eccentric manner, one of whom goes by the name of the governor, who seek to amuse him by their witticisms, their grotesque games, and sometimes by fighting. It has been said that Rosas is surrounded by guards. But this is utterly false. His house, which is vast and elegant, stands upon the highway, and the doors, according to the general custom of the country, are always wide open. So far from it being the case that he keeps his person carefully guarded, it is, on the contrary, frequently a very difficult matter on entering the house to meet with even a domestic to announce you; and the visitor could with as much ease reach his private cabinet or his bed-chamber as he could the courts upon which these apartments open. There is not even a sentry or a porter at the principal door.

Next to Rosas, the personage who plays the most important part in all the Confederation, is his daughter, Manuelita. The position which this woman has acquired for herself is unique, like that of her father, although relatively less important, since she is not consulted upon State affairs. She possesses, nevertheless, with regard to all that appertains to the second rank, a liberty of action entirely her own. Manuelita is, as it were, an under Secretary of State in the cabinet of a minister in charge of a vast administration. She has her secretaries, her offices, her correspondence; and is well able to attend to a vast amount of important business without neglecting those duties toward society, which her intellectual acquirements and natural amiability of disposition impose upon her. By many writers, Manuelita has been portrayed as a species of bacchante, unceasingly exciting her father to the commission of acts of violence, giving herself up to all the irregularities of a life of dissipation, and scandalizing society by the spectacle of incessant orgies. Now nothing can be less true, nothing more false, than this. It is not necessary to know Manuelita, it is sufficient to have seen her but for a few moments to be convinced of the utter falsehood of these mendacious travelers' tales. Manuelita is Rosas' daughter, and consequently has many prejudices to overcome, many hatreds to conquer: yet she is esteemed and loved by all, which, be it remarked, is no mean praise in a country where it may be said that no one is esteemed. This is, in our idea, the best reply to offer to the various calumnies it has pleased the "many-headed" to heap upon her. And how, we may ask, can it be otherwise? If there is a being on the earth who can soften the rigors of Rosas' tyrannical government, can solicit and obtain mercy or justice, it is Manuelita. She is the sole hope of the unfortunate, of the oppressed, of the poor, and rarely is this hope deceived.

Manuelita is tall and elegantly formed. Her age has been stated to be about four-and-thirty although she looks no more than twenty-seven or twenty-eight. Her features are regular and bear the Spanish impress, that is to say, that they are strongly marked. Her large black eyes announce great strength of mind, yet the glances which shoot therefrom have an expression of infinite gentleness and kindness. Her jet black hair serves to bring out in more prominent relief the ivory fairness of her skin. Her entire person, in short, breathes an air of grace and refinement to be met with only in the Spanish women, who possess the rare art of being able to join to the charms of beauty a certain abandon unknown to the women of other countries.

Manuelita possesses in a high degree the "knowledge of the salons," as the French would call it; she speaks English, French, and Italian, as her mother tongue, and whatever turn the conversation may take, whether "grave or gay, lively or severe," she is equally enabled to shine in it either by judicious observations, or brilliant repartee. Manuelita entertains for her father a degree of affection amounting to absolute devotion; often has she been seen to shed tears on learning the cruelties practiced by Rosas. In the excess of grief which the acts of the Dictator caused her, she has sometimes let her indignation burst forth before her friends, but nothing can sever the bonds of that filial love which bind her to her father. And happy is it for the country that this is the case, for it is very evident that were it not for her, the fury of Rosas would have displayed itself more fatally than it has yet done. We have heard related by two eye-witnesses a scene which took place between her and her father, during the period of the first mashorca executions, which shows the degree of dominion which the latter exercises over her. One evening while Manuelita was seated at her piano-forte singing to her auditors some Spanish romance, Rosas entered the room holding in his hand a silver salver, upon which was deposited a pair of human ears cut from the head of a savage Unitarian; advancing slowly to the instrument he placed the salver upon the piano before the eyes of his daughter. Manuelita started up violently from her seat and with features almost livid with rage and horror, she seized her piece of music and cast it over the plate, then turning round she was about to give free course to her indignation, when her eyes met the fixed and terrible glance of the general; she ceded to this power and fell fainting to the ground.

We could relate a thousand facts of this nature, which abundantly prove the falsity of the many imputations directed against the character of Manuelita.

We have just said that the two individuals alone worthy of attention and study throughout the whole of the Argentine Confederation, are first of all General Rosas, and afterward, his daughter, Manuelita. In fact it is in them, in their will or their caprices, that are concentrated the entire policy and administration of the republic. The men who, below them nominally fill the higher offices of the State, are but mutes, divested alike of either power or will. Like the stage representatives of noble knights and powerful monarchs, the higher functionaries of the republic and especially the secretaries of state hold office without filling any character. They serve occasionally to make known the will of the governor without being permitted in any case to interpret it. Even the general officers in command of the armed forces dispersed over the territory are obliged to keep near their persons certain subaltern agents enjoying the confidence of the governor, whose orders and directions they are obliged implicitly to follow. Although nominally and apparently holding appointments which seem to invest them with a certain degree of authority, the state functionaries are in this respect no better off than their less fortunate countrymen, but are like all the rest of the Argentines, in a state of absolute and slavish dependence.

When General Rosas seized the reins of government, his first and principal care was to transform completely the Argentine society. In place of the enlightened men whom Rivadavia had applied himself to seek out, Rosas has raised to the first rank, the crew of unlettered ignorant men, stained with every crime which disgraces human nature, who had seconded his ambitious views. The biographies of the individuals who formed the mashorca are well known to every one, but such is the terror inspired by the Dictator, that each, even the sons, brothers, and widows of those who fell beneath their murderous knives, eagerly hasten to show all the civility and deference in their power for the particular friends of the governor. Never in any country have we had so many examples of abject and shameful servility as in this. The Argentine society possesses neither morality, religion, honor, nor courage. All look forward to the day when the country shall be delivered from the reign of despotism and tyranny which has so long oppressed it; but there is not a man in all Buenos Ayres who has the courage to manifest his feelings of disgust and repugnance for those who aid the governor in retaining power. And let not the reader imagine that it is only a tacit assent which is rendered to the tyrant's iron rule; each after venting curses "not loud but deep" when he is certain of not being heard, against the Dictator and his acolytes, rushes into the streets to take part in the public manifestations commanded by Rosas. The savage device that we read upon the cinta[2] is the cry which the watchmen shout aloud every hour of the night in the streets of the city; it is the cry which the actors give utterance to upon the stage on federal days, by way of prologue, previous to the commencement of the piece; it is the shout which the troops and militia under arms howl forth when the governor rides down the ranks, and as if the threat of death to the Unitarians which it contains was not sufficient, it is augmented according to circumstances by similar denunciations directed against any particular marked individual who may have rendered himself obnoxious to the government, and also against foreigners, as well as by vivats in honor of the immortal warrior, of the king of justice, of the restorer of the laws, of the great, the magnificent, the high and mighty Rosas, in a word.