South America: Observations and Impressions / New edition corrected and revised

by Viscount James Bryce Bryce

Alexander Hamilton bade his fellow citizens to think continentally; and Herodotus, in the short introduction prefixed to his history, explains its theme as being an account of the relations of two great continents, Europe and Asia, and of the reasons which produced such recurring strife between them. Let us attempt to think a little of the southern part of the Western world as a whole, in its relations as a continent to the other continents, and especially to that continent with which it is connected by a narrow neck of land, the Isthmus of Panama, and which has drawn its name from the same navigator. The series of incidents by which the name of a Florentine adventurer was given, first, to a continent he probably did not discover, and then to another which he never saw, is as curious as anything in geographical history.

Everybody knows that Christopher Columbus sailed out into the west in search of new lands, expecting them to be a part of Asia, and that to the day of his death, after four voyages, he believed that he had found India.[124] In the last of those voyages, when he was wearily beating up along the coast of Darien against the currents, he fancied himself near the Straits of Malacca. It is natural, therefore, that neither he nor his first successors in exploration should have given a name to the new western land south of the Caribbean Sea, even when, some while later, they had explored enough of it to recognize it for a continent. They named particular regions, but a general name was not needed because it was expected that the parts seen would turn out to be parts of Asia. Then in 1497 other voyagers who sailed forth to explore said that they found a new land, far off in the ocean to the southwest of the Canary Islands. Next year Columbus discovered on the south side of the Caribbean Sea the "Tierra Firma," which we call Venezuela. Americus Vespuccius of Florence, one of the ship's company of the 1497 voyage, wrote letters, giving an account of this (and of a later voyage, also) to the new land far to the southwest, in which he described it as "a New World, a New Fourth Part of the Globe," Europe, Asia, and Africa being the other three. The letters made a great sensation; and one of them was made the basis of a book called Cosmographiæ Introductio, published in 1507, at St. Dié in France, by a certain Waldseemüller (Hylacomylus), a professor there, who suggested that as Americus was the discoverer of this Fourth Part of the World, it should be called after him.[125] The book was read far and wide; the name took. It was not intended to be applied to the lands west and south of the Caribbean Sea, which between 1497 and 1507 had been discovered by Columbus and others; still less to the lands discovered by John Cabot in the far north, but to an entirely different piece of land much to the south and east of what Columbus had discovered. But when all the lands bordering on that part of the Atlantic had been sufficiently explored and the records of the voyages compared, it appeared that the lands lying in the part of the ocean to which the descriptions of Americus referred, were, in fact, continuous with the coasts of the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico. Thereupon all the land from the Rio de la Plata (discovered in 1516) northward to the Isthmus of Panama, came to be included under the name America, just because there was no other general name for what had been, at least till 1513, when the Pacific was discovered by crossing the Isthmus at Darien, still believed to be part of Asia. As soon as the Pacific had been reached, and still more when the ever famous voyage of Magellan had shewn that Asia lay thousands of miles further away beyond the Pacific, a general name began to be wanted. Much later, and again, just because there was no other competing name, the term America was extended to include everything north of the Gulf of Mexico up to the Arctic regions, and when the need was felt for distinguishing the two parts, the words North and South were added. Although applied earlier to the southern than to the northern continent, the name when used alone now denotes to most Europeans the latter.

How much simpler and better it would have been if each continent had received a name of its own. South America might have been called after Columbus, as the first man who saw its terra firma, and North America might have received the name of Cabotia or Pinzonia or Ponceana, whichever navigator may be best entitled to be deemed its first and true discoverer. How much trouble would have been saved and how many mistakes avoided! Italian peasants would not have fancied that a cousin who had gone to Buenos Aires was the near neighbour of another who had gone to New York. Similarities would not have been imagined where differences exist. The South Americans would not have resented the assumption by the people of the United States of the name to which they claim an equal right, and the people of the United States would not have formed the habit of believing that the Spanish and Portuguese speaking inhabitants of the southern continent are their affectionate relatives, because they share in the same family name.

These, however, are vain regrets. The names have long been fixed, though for a great while the Spaniards declined to talk of North America. The thing is one instance among many to shew how much may flow from a name which is itself the result of a mere accident.

Now let us turn from names to things, and consider in what respect the two Americas, and their peoples, resemble and differ from one another, and how far they constitute, politically or otherwise, one whole world apart, and what are the relations of the southern, or Spanish and Portuguese, continent to the other, now mainly Teutonic, continent, and to the countries of Europe, and whether the term "Pan Americanism" describes a fact or merely conveys an interesting aspiration. Some points in the history of each continent may come out more clearly, and become more significant when the two are compared, for the history of each illustrates that of the other.

The physical structure of the two continents shews certain similarities. Each is traversed from north to south by a great mountain chain, sometimes breaking into parallel ridges and sometimes widening out into high tablelands. In each this chain is much nearer to the western than to the eastern coast, and in each there are volcanic outbursts at various points along the lines of elevation, these being more continuous and on a vaster scale in the southern continent. In each there is, moreover, an independent mountain mass on the eastern side, the Appalachian system in North America, the Brazilian highlands in South America. Each has, nearer to its western than to its eastern coast, a desert, and in that desert an inland river basin with lakes, Great Salt Lake in Utah corresponding roughly to Lakes Titicaca and Poopo in Bolivia. Each has two gigantic rivers, though the Mississippi and St. Lawrence are not equal in volume to the Amazon and the Paraná. The shores of both are washed by mighty ocean currents, but while the Gulf Stream warms the east coast of the northern, the Antarctic current chills the west coast of the southern, continent.[126] Their climates are so far similar that in both the east side of the continent receives more rain than the west, but South America, having its greatest breadth in the tropics, lies more largely within the torrid zone.

It is, however, with the settlement and subsequent history of the two continents that the real interest of the comparison begins. There are three remarkable points of similarity, but the points of difference are more numerous and instructive, and, in noting them, we shall see how potent each point of difference has been in directing the course of events and in forming the character of the communities that have grown up.

The points of similarity are these. Both continents were when discovered inhabited by races entirely unlike those of Europe, who over the greater part of this area were in the savage state, but had in a few regions favoured by nature made some progress towards civilization. Both were conquered by Europeans, and easily conquered, owing to the superiority of the invaders in arms and discipline. The peoples of both (with one important exception in the northern and three unimportant exceptions in the southern continent) ultimately revolted against the kingdoms whence the European part of their population had come and have ever since managed their own affairs as republics, seven republics in North, eleven in South America.

Having noted these general resemblances in the fortunes of the two, let us enquire what were the differences, natural and political, which made the lines of their subsequent development diverge.

At this point, however, it is proper to leave off talking of North and South America, for the southern part of the former continent belongs historically and to some extent physically also, to the latter continent. As Alexandre Dumas said in writing of his journey to Spain, "Africa begins at the Pyrenees,"—it is a saying which the Spaniards have never forgiven,—so we may say, "South America begins at the Rio Grande del Norte." Mexico and the states of Central America down to the Isthmus of Panama were parts of the Spanish colonial Empire, conquered, settled, and administered in much the same way as the still larger part of that Empire which lay farther south. We must, therefore, group the regions that once belonged to that Empire under the general name of Spanish, or, when it is desired to include Brazil (a Portuguese country), "Latin" America, referring to the other parts of the northern continent as "Teutonic America."[127]