The assassination of Almagro stirred up indignation among his friends, who determined, that when the official explanations were presented in Spain by Pizarro’s emissaries, their side should be given a hearing. In the mother country, the authorities refused to distinguish between the claims of the two factions. What was plain was that dissensions in the colony could only damage Spanish control, and might lead to a restoration of Indian rule there. Accordingly a royal commissioner was sent out with ample powers.

Before the new official arrived, Pizarro showed his characteristic industry in expanding the sphere of Spanish influence. Groups of adventurers were sent out in different directions, and plans were made which ended in the foundation of Santiago in Chili. One of Pizarro’s brothers was sent off with an army of 340 Europeans and 4000 Indians to conquer the country east of the Andes. Led by the usual stories of the existence of gold and precious stones in far-distant regions, the Spaniards in this expedition, overcoming the most extraordinary natural difficulties in their march, succeeded in reaching one of the tributaries of the Amazon. A boat was then built by means of which one of the members of the party, Orellana, with a few companions, made the long trip to the ocean, and finally succeeded in reaching a Spanish colony on one of the islands of the Antilles. This was a unique achievement, for the vessel in which he sailed was constructed of green timber, there was no compass, no pilot was to be had, and provisions had to be collected from the natives along the bank of the river, who sometimes received the strangers with no friendly welcome. Orellana, in relating his achievements, demonstrated the creative power of his imagination as well as his heroism. He told of seeing nations so rich that the roofs of their temples were covered with plates of gold, and also related how he had passed through a republic controlled by women, who by the force of their arms had acquired the rule over a considerable tract of country. From these fictions of Orellana originated the belief in the existence of a region called El Dorado, and the conviction that somewhere in the center of South America there existed a community of Amazons.

In 1545 the silver mines of Potosi were discovered, an event which played an enormous rôle in the colonization of the country, because its wealth realized the most sanguine hopes of the adventurers. Upper Peru—or as it is now called, Bolivia—became the greatest silver mining country in the known world. Meanwhile the success of Pizarro’s administration stirred up among Almagro’s friends increasing bitterness, for they saw no chance of receiving a share of the good fortune which was being showered upon the governor, his brothers, and his favorites. Almagro’s son, who was in Lima, made that town the central point of the faction that was bent on Pizarro’s ruin. The governor, though aware of the existence of these intrigues, affected to treat them with disdain. He relied on the possession of absolute power as the complete protection against any plot. This foolhardy attitude was taken advantage of by the conspirators, who, without much difficulty, penetrated into his house and put him to death June 26, 1541. Even Pizarro’s own followers, the men who had shared with him the dangers of the conquest and the spoils of victory, raised no hand to avenge his murder. His Borgia-like character had alienated all, except his immediate relatives whom, as has been said, he had elevated to high positions.

When the governor from Spain, Vaca de Castro, reached the country, he proceeded to inflict strict justice on the conspirators. After an armed conflict near Cuzco, between the partisans of Almagro and the upholders of the authority of the home government, most of those who were guilty of the murder of Pizarro fell into the governor’s hands, who promptly executed them as rebels (1542). But the country was not destined to enjoy tranquillity long. Gonzalo Pizarro, the brother of the “conquistador,” acquired by force the possession of the colony, and succeeded in extending his rule over Peru and its various dependencies. He even sent north a fleet which captured Panama and so got command of the western ocean. But the usurper’s rule did not last long, for, when he was disowned by the home government, he found himself unable to maintain his authority over the colonists. Like his more famous brother, Gonzalo died the death of a malefactor, and the vast possessions acquired on the west coast of South America by the adventurers of the earlier period of Spanish conquest came under the systematic and regular control of the Spanish bureaucratic machinery.

By the middle of the sixteenth century the spectacular features of the conquest of Spanish America vanished away. Large and unexplored territories were indeed added to the monarchy of Spain, but as the lands so annexed were populated by Indian tribes in no higher state of culture than those found in the lesser Antilles, the methods of conquest were but a repetition of those employed by the adventurers of an earlier period. On the whole it may be said that the treatment of the natives improved, especially in those districts where there was no mining or where gold could be discovered near the surface. Long after the complete administrative organization of the conquered lands in Mexico, of Central America, of the northern portions of South America, and of the Pacific slope of that continent, the colonies on the Atlantic side, even if they were founded earlier, were less attractive to the colonist. The Jesuits first appeared in Paraguay in 1586, though Uruguay was opened up for settlement some time before. The town of Buenos Ayres was established in 1538 amid surroundings which gave little hope to colonial settlement. The original group of 3000 Europeans who entered the new Province of La Plata were almost exterminated by disease and by the fatiguing and incessant warfare with the savage races about them.

From the point of view of the old mercantile system of political economy, Spain’s colonial policy was advantageous to the home government. It is usual to expose the failure of the government of Madrid to manage its vast empire under any other ideals than those of absolutism, but when one considers the size and novelty of the experiment that Spain was making in these Western lands, and when one estimates broadly the stage of civilization so soon reached in a large number of new communities, it must be allowed that to the government of the peninsula is to be ascribed the credit of accomplishing a task practically unparalleled in modern history. The work was not thoroughly done; there were grave and deplorable defects. Yet without accepting at all the truth of the dictum that whatever is, is right, it can be said that no colonial possessions of other powers during the same century offered the same problems as those confronted by Spain, and nowhere in North America was the progress of extensive occupation and intensive civilization so definitely marked.

The Spanish colonial empire has had the misfortune of being exposed to much the same sort of depreciation as the Byzantine Empire; in both cases investigation has diminished the weight of conventional hostile criticism. Doctrinaire theories of government, and unfounded social contrasts, are apt to produce false standards. It is easy to detect faults in Spain’s management of her colonies, but it is not easy to reconstruct for her a policy that might have produced on Spanish soil the sturdy independence of the New England town meeting, or the collective wisdom of the founders of the American Constitution.

NAPOLEON

I
EARLY YEARS

Corsica, during a large part of the eighteenth century, had drawn upon itself the attention of Europe, on account of its heroic struggle for independence. Its champion was Pasquale Paoli, whose character and patriotism provoked the same sort of enthusiastic attention from his contemporaries that centered upon Garibaldi 100 years later. The cause of the islanders against the city of Genoa, which exercised the right of overlordship over them, was so successfully defended that had not the kingdom of France interfered as the ally of Genoa, the establishment of an independent Corsican republic would have been assured. But unfortunately the Genoese surrendered the sovereignty of the island to France. The French occupied the harbors, the Corsicans were defeated in a pitched battle, and Paoli retired as a fugitive to England. All further resistance was abandoned, and the island was annexed to France.