His opportunity came in 1853, when conservatives and clericals indulged the fatuous hope that he would both sustain their privileges and lift Mexico out of its sore distress. Either their memories were short or else distance had cast a halo about his figure. At all events, he returned from exile and a.s.sumed, for the ninth and last time, a presidency which he intended to be something more than a mere dictatorship. Scorning the formality of a Congress, he had himself ent.i.tled "Most Serene Highness," as indicative of his ambition to become a monarch in name as well as in fact.
Royal or imperial designs had long since brought one military upstart to grief. They were now to cut Santa Anna"s residence in Mexico similarly short. Eruptions of discontent broke out all over the country. Unable to make them subside, Santa Anna fell back upon an expedient which recalls practices elsewhere in Spanish America. He opened registries in which all citizens might record "freely" their approval or disapproval of his continuance in power. Though he obtained the huge majority of affirmative votes to be expected in such cases, he found that these pen-and-ink signatures were no more serviceable than his soldiers. Accordingly the dictator of many a day, fallen from his former estate of highness, decided to abandon his serenity also, and in 1854 fled the country-for its good and his own.
CHAPTER VI. PERIL FROM ABROAD
Apart from the spoliation of Mexico by the United States, the independence of the Hispanic nations had not been menaced for more than thirty years. Now comes a period in which the plight of their big northern neighbor, rent in twain by civil war and powerless to enforce the spirit of the Monroe Doctrine, caused two of the countries to become subject a while to European control. One of these was the Dominican Republic.
In 1844 the Spanish-speaking population of the eastern part of the island of Santo Domingo, writhing under the despotic yoke of Haiti, had seized a favorable occasion to regain their freedom. But the magic word "independence" could not give stability to the new state any more than it had done in the case of its western foes. The Haitians had lapsed long since into a condition resembling that of their African forefathers. They reveled in the barbarities of Voodoo, a sort of snake worship, and they groveled before "presidents" and "emperors" who rose and fell on the tide of decaying civilization. The Dominicans unhappily were not much more progressive. Revolutions alternated with invasions and counter-invasions and effectually prevented enduring progress.
On several occasions the Dominicans had sought reannexation to Spain or had craved the protection of France as a defense against continual menace from their negro enemies and as a relief from domestic turmoil. But every move in this direction failed because of a natural reluctance on the part of Spain and France, which was heightened by a refusal of the United States to permit what it regarded as a violation of the Monroe Doctrine. In 1861, however, the outbreak of civil war in the United States appeared to present a favorable opportunity to obtain protection from abroad. If the Dominican Republic could not remain independent anyway, reunion with the old mother country seemed altogether preferable to reconquest by Haiti. The President, therefore, entered into negotiations with the Spanish Governor and Captain General of Cuba, and then issued a proclamation signed by himself and four of his ministers announcing that by the "free and spontaneous will" of its citizens, who had conferred upon him the power to do so, the nation recognized Queen Isabella II as its lawful sovereign! Practically no protest was made by the Dominicans against this loss of their independence.
Difficulties which should have been foreseen by Spain were quick to reveal themselves. It fell to the exPresident, now a colonial governor and captain general, to appoint a host of officials and, not unnaturally, he named his own henchmen. By so doing he not only aroused the animosity of the disappointed but stimulated that of the otherwise disaffected as well, until both the aggrieved factions began to plot rebellion. Spain, too, sent over a crowd of officials who could not adjust themselves to local conditions. The failure of the mother country to allow the Dominicans representation in the Spanish Cortes and its readiness to levy taxes stirred up resentment that soon ended in revolution. Unable to check this new trouble, and awed by the threatening att.i.tude of the United States, Spain decided to withdraw in 1865. The Dominicans thus were left with their independence and a chance-which they promptly seized-to renew their commotions. So serious did these disturbances become that in 1869 the President of the reconst.i.tuted republic sought annexation to the United States but without success. American efforts, on the other hand, were equally futile to restore peace and order in the troubled country until many years later.
The intervention of Spain in Santo Domingo and its subsequent withdrawal could not fail to have disastrous consequences in its colony of Cuba, the "Pearl of the Antilles" as it was proudly called. Here abundant crops of sugar and tobacco had brought wealth and luxury, but not many immigrants because of the havoc made by epidemics of yellow fever. Nearly a third of the insular population was still composed of negro slaves, who could hardly relish the thought that, while the mother country had tolerated the suppression of the hateful inst.i.tution in Santo Domingo, she still maintained it in Cuba. A bureaucracy, also, p.r.o.ne to corruption owing to the temptations of loose accounting at the custom house, governed in routinary, if not in arbitrary, fashion. Under these circ.u.mstances dislike for the suspicious and repressive administration of Spain grew apace, and secret societies renewed their agitation for its overthrow. The symptoms of unrest were aggravated by the forced retirement of Spain from Santo Domingo. If the Dominicans had succeeded so well, it ought not to be difficult for a prolonged rebellion to wear Spain out and compel it to abandon Cuba also. At this critical moment news was brought of a Spanish revolution across the seas.
Just as the plight of Spain in 1808, and again in 1820, had afforded a favorable opportunity for its colonies on the continents of America to win their independence, so now in 1868 the tidings that Queen Isabella had been dethroned by a liberal uprising aroused the Cubans to action under their devoted leader, Carlos Manuel de Cespedes. The insurrection had not gained much headway, however, when the provisional government of the mother country instructed a new Governor and Captain General-whose name, Dulce (Sweet), had an auspicious sound-to open negotiations with the insurgents and to hold out the hope of reforms. But the royalists, now as formerly, would listen to no compromise. Organizing themselves into bodies of volunteers, they drove Dulce out. He was succeeded by one Caballero de Rodas (Knight of Rhodes) who lived up to his name by trying to ride roughshod over the rebellious Cubans. Thus began the Ten Years" War-a war of skirmishes and brief encounters, rarely involving a decisive action, which drenched the soil of Cuba with blood and laid waste its fields in a fury of destruction.
Among the radicals and liberals who tried to retain a fleeting control over Mexico after the final departure of Santa Anna was the first genuine statesman it had ever known in its history as a republic-Benito Pablo Juarez, an Indian. At twelve years of age he could not read or write or even speak Spanish. His employer, however, noted his intelligence and had him educated. Becoming a lawyer, Juarez entered the political arena and rose to prominence by dint of natural talent for leadership, an indomitable perseverance, and a st.u.r.dy patriotism. A radical by conviction, he felt that the salvation of Mexico could never be attained until clericalism and militarism had been banished from its soil forever.
Under his influence a provisional government had already begun a policy of lessening the privileges of the Church, when the conservative elements, with a cry that religion was being attacked, rose up in arms again. This movement repressed, a Congress proceeded in 1857 to issue a liberal const.i.tution which was destined to last for sixty years. It established the federal system in a definite fashion, abolished special privileges, both ecclesiastical and military, and organized the country on sound bases worthy of a modern nation. Mexico seemed about to enter upon a rational development. But the newly elected President, yielding to the importunities of the clergy, abolished the const.i.tution, dissolved the legislature, and set up a dictatorship, in spite of the energetic protests of Juarez, who had been chosen Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and who, in accordance with the terms of the temporarily discarded instrument, was authorized to a.s.sume the presidency should that office fall vacant. The rule of the usurper was short-lived, however. Various improvised "generals" of conservative stripe put themselves at the head of a movement to "save country, religion, and the rights of the army," drove the would-be dictator out, and restored the old regime.
Juarez now proclaimed himself acting President, as he was legally ent.i.tled to do, and set up his government at Vera Cruz while one "provisional president" followed another. Throughout this trying time Juarez defended his position vigorously and rejected every offer of compromise. In 1859 he promulgated his famous Reform Laws which nationalized ecclesiastical property, secularized cemeteries, suppressed religious communities, granted freedom of worship, and made marriage a civil contract. For Mexico, however, as for other Spanish American countries, measures of the sort were far too much in advance of their time to insure a ready acceptance. Although Juarez obtained a great moral victory when his government was recognized by the United States, he had to struggle two years more before he could gain possession of the capital. Triumphant in 1861, he carried his anticlerical program to the point of actually expelling the Papal Nuncio and other ecclesiastics who refused to obey his decrees. By so doing he leveled the way for the clericals, conservatives, and the militarists to invite foreign intervention on behalf of their desperate cause. But, even if they had not been guilty of behavior so unpatriotic, the anger of the Pope over the treatment of his Church, the wrath of Spain over the conduct of Juarez, who had expelled the Spanish minister for siding with the ecclesiastics, the desire of Great Britain to collect debts due to her subjects, and above all the imperialistic ambitions of Napoleon III, who dreamt of converting the intellectual influence of France in Hispanic America into a political ascendancy, would probably have led to European occupation in any event, so long at least as the United States was slit asunder and incapable of action.
Some years before, the Mexican Government under the clerical and militarist regime had made a contract with a Swiss banker who for a payment of $500,000 had received bonds worth more than fifteen times the value of the loan. When, therefore, the Mexican Congress undertook to defer payments on a foreign debt that included the proceeds of this outrageous contract, the Governments of France, Great Britain, and Spain decided to intervene. According to their agreement the three powers were simply to hold the seaports of Mexico and collect the customs duties until their pecuniary demands had been satisfied. Learning, however, that Napoleon III had ulterior designs, Great Britain and Spain withdrew their forces and left him to proceed with his scheme of conquest. After capturing Puebla in May, 1863, a French army numbering some thirty thousand men entered the capital and installed an a.s.semblage of notables belonging to the clerical and conservative groups. This body thereupon proclaimed the establishment of a const.i.tutional monarchy under an emperor. The t.i.tle was to be offered to Maximilian, Archduke of Austria. In case he should not accept, the matter was to be referred to the "benevolence of his majesty, the Emperor of the French," who might then select some other Catholic prince.
On his arrival, a year later, the amiable and well-meaning Maximilian soon discovered that, instead of being an "Emperor," he was actually little more than a precarious chief of a faction sustained by the bayonets of a foreign army. In the northern part of Mexico, Juarez, Porfirio Diaz,-later to become the most renowned of presidential autocrats,-and other patriot leaders, though hunted from place to place, held firmly to their resolve never to bow to the yoke of the pretender. Nor could Maximilian be sure of the loyalty of even his supposed adherents. Little by little the unpleasant conviction intruded itself upon him that he must either abdicate or crush all resistance in the hope that eventually time and good will might win over the Mexicans. But do what they would, his foreign legions could not catch the wary and stubborn Juarez and his guerrilla lieutenants, who persistently wore down the forces of their enemies. Then the financial situation became grave. Still more menacing was the att.i.tude of the United States now that its civil war was at an end. On May 31, 1866, Maximilian received word that Napoleon III had decided to withdraw the French troops. He then determined to abdicate, but he was restrained by the unhappy Empress Carlotta, who hastened to Europe to plead his cause with Napoleon. Meantime, as the French troops were withdrawn, Juarez occupied the territory.
Feebly the "Emperor" strove to enlist the favor of his adversaries by a number of liberal decrees; but their sole result was his abandonment by many a lukewarm conservative. Inexorably the patriot armies closed around him until in May, 1867, he was captured at Queretaro, where he had sought refuge. Denied the privilege of leaving the country on a promise never to return, he asked Escobedo, his captor, to treat him as a prisoner of war. "That"s my business," was the grim reply. On the pretext that Maximilian had refused to recognize the competence of the military court chosen to try him, Juarez gave the order to shoot him. On the 19th of June the Austrian archduke paid for a fleeting glory with his life. Thus failed the second attempt at erecting an empire in Mexico. For thirty-four years diplomatic relations between that country and Austria-Hungary were severed. The clerical-military combination had been overthrown, and the Mexican people had rearmed their independence. As Juarez declared: "Peace means respect for the rights of others."
Even if foreign dreams of empire in Mexico had vanished so abruptly, it could hardly be expected that a land torn for many years by convulsions could become suddenly tranquil. With Diaz and other aspirants to presidential power, or with chieftains who aimed at setting up little republics of their own in the several states, Juarez had to contend for some time before he could establish a fair amount of order. Under his successor, who also was a civilian, an era of effective reform began. In 1873 amendments to the const.i.tution declared Church and State absolutely separate and provided for the abolition of peonage-a provision which was more honored in, the breach than in the observance.
CHAPTER VII. GREATER STATES AND LESSER
During the half century that had elapsed since 1826, the nations of Hispanic America had pa.s.sed through dark ages. Their evolution had always been accompanied by growing pains and had at times been arrested altogether or unduly hastened by harsh injections of radicalism. It was not an orderly development through gradual modifications in the social and economic structure, but rather a fitful progress now a.s.sisted and now r.e.t.a.r.ded by the arbitrary deeds of men of action, good and bad, who had seized power. Dictators, however, steadily decreased in number and gave place often to presidential autocrats who were continued in office by constant reelection and who were imbued with modern ideas. In 1876 these Hispanic nations stood on the threshold of a new era. Some were destined to advance rapidly beyond it; others, to move slowly onward; and a few to make little or no progress.
The most remarkable feature in the new era was the rise of four states-Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, and Chile-to a position of eminence among their fellows. Extent of territory, development of natural resources, the character of the inhabitants and the increase of their numbers, and the amount of popular intelligence and prosperity, all contributed to this end. Each of the four nations belonged to a fairly well-defined historical and geographical group in southern North America, and in eastern and western South America, respectively. In the first group were Mexico, the republics of Central America, and the island countries of the Caribbean; in the second, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay; and in the third, Chile, Peru, and Bolivia. In a fourth group were Ecuador, Colombia, and Venezuela.
When the President of Mexico proceeded, in 1876, to violate the const.i.tution by securing his reelection, the people were prepared by their earlier experiences and by the rule of Juarez to defend their const.i.tutional rights. A widespread rebellion headed by Diaz broke out. In the so-called "Plan of Tuxtepec" the revolutionists declared themselves in favor of the principle of absolutely no reelection. Meantime the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court handed down a decision that the action of the Congress in sustaining the President was illegal, since in reality no elections had been held because of the abstention of voters and the seizure of the polls by revolutionists or government forces. "Above the const.i.tution, nothing; above the const.i.tution, no one," he declared. But as this a.s.sumption of a power of judgment on matters of purely political concern was equally a violation of the const.i.tution and concealed, besides, an attempt to make the Chief Justice President, Diaz and his followers drove both of the pretenders out. Then in 1876 he managed to bring about his own election instead.
Porfirio Diaz was a soldier who had seen active service in nearly every important campaign since the war with the United States. Often himself in revolt against presidents, legal and illegal, Diaz was vastly more than an ordinary partisan chieftain. Schooled by a long experience, he had come to appreciate the fact that what Mexico required for its national development was freedom from internal disorders and a fair chance for recuperation. Justice, order, and prosperity, he felt, could be a.s.sured only by imposing upon the country the heavy weight of an iron hand. Foreign capital must be invested in Mexico and then protected; immigration must be encouraged, and other material, moral, and intellectual aid of all sorts must be drawn from abroad for the upbuilding of the nation.
To effect such a transformation in a land so tormented and impoverished as Mexico-a country which, within the span of fifty-five years had lived under two "emperors," and some thirty-six presidents, nine "provisional presidents," ten dictators, twelve "regents," and five "supreme councilors"-required indeed a masterful intelligence and a masterful authority. Porfirio Diaz possessed and exercised both. He was, in fact, just the man for the times. An able administrator, stern and severe but just, rather reserved in manner and guarded in utterance, shrewd in the selection of a.s.sociates, and singularly successful in his dealings with foreigners, he entered upon a "presidential reign" of thirty-five years broken by but one intermission of four-which brought Mexico out upon the highway to new national life.
Under the stable and efficient rulership of Diaz, "plans," "p.r.o.nunciamentos," "revolutions," and similar devices of professional trouble makers, had short shrift. Whenever an uprising started, it was promptly quelled, either by a well-disciplined army or by the rurales, a mounted police made up to some extent of former bandits to whom the President gave the choice of police service or of sharp punishment for their crimes. Order, in fact, was not always maintained, nor was justice always meted out, by recourse to judges and courts. Instead, a novel kind of lynch law was invoked. The name it bore was the ley fuga, or "flight law," in accordance with which malefactors or political suspects taken by government agents from one locality to another, on the excuse of securing readier justice, were given by their captors a pretended chance to escape and were then shot while they ran! The only difference between this method and others of the sort employed by Spanish American autocrats to enforce obedience lay in its purpose. Of Diaz one might say what Bacon said of King Henry VII: "He drew blood as physicians do, to save life rather than to spill it." If need be, here and there, disorder and revolt were stamped out by terrorism; but the Mexican people did not yield to authority from terror but rather from a thorough loyalty to the new regime.
Among the numerous measures of material improvement which Diaz undertook during his first term, the construction of railways was the most important. The size of the country, its want of navigable rivers, and its relatively small and widely scattered population, made imperative the establishment of these means of communication. Despite the misgivings of many intelligent Mexicans that the presence of foreign capital would impair local independence in some way, Diaz laid the foundations of future national prosperity by granting concessions to the Mexican Central and National Mexican companies, which soon began construction. Under his successor a national bank was created; and when Diaz was again elected he readjusted the existing foreign debt and boldly contracted new debts abroad.
At the close of his first term, in 1880, a surplus in the treasury was not so great a novelty as the circ.u.mstance altogether unique in the political annals of Mexico-that Diaz turned over the presidency in peaceful fashion to his properly elected successor! He did so reluctantly, to be sure, but he could not afford just yet to ignore his own avowed principle, which had been made a part of the const.i.tution shortly after his accession. Although the confidence he reposed in that successor was not entirely justified, the immense personal popularity of Diaz saved the prestige of the new chief magistrate. Under his administration the const.i.tution was amended in such a way as to deprive the Chief Justice of the privilege of replacing the President in case of a vacancy, thus eliminating that official from politics. After his resumption of office, Diaz had the fundamental law modified anew, so as to permit the reelection of a President for one term only! For this change, inconsistent though it may seem, Diaz was not alone responsible. Circ.u.mstances had changed, and the const.i.tution had to change with them.
Had the "United Provinces of Central America," as they came forth from under the rule of Spain, seen fit to abstain from following in the unsteady footsteps of Mexico up to the time of the accession of Diaz to power, had they done nothing more than develop their natural wealth and utilize their admirable geographical situation, they might have become prosperous and kept their corporate name. As it was, their history for upwards of forty years had little to record other than a momentary cohesion and a subsequent lapse into five quarrelsome little republics-the "Balkan States" of America. Among them Costa Rica had suffered least from arbitrary management or internal commotion and showed the greatest signs of advancement.
In Guatemala, however, there had arisen another Diaz, though a man quite inferior in many respects to his northern counterpart. When Justo Rufino Barrios became President of that republic in 1873 he was believed to have conservative leanings. Ere long, however, he astounded his compatriots by showing them that he was a thoroughgoing radical with methods of action to correspond to his convictions. Not only did he keep the Jesuits out of the country but he abolished monastic orders altogether and converted their buildings to public use. He made marriage a civil contract and he secularized the burying grounds. Education he encouraged by engaging the services of foreign instructors, and he brought about a better observance of the law by the promulgation of new codes. He also introduced railways and telegraph lines. Since the manufacture of aniline dyes abroad had diminished the demand for cochineal, Barrios decided to replace this export by cultivating coffee. To this end, he distributed seeds among the planters and furnished financial aid besides, with a promise to inspect the fields in due season and see what had been accomplished. Finding that in many cases the seeds had been thrown away and the money wasted in drink and gambling, he ordered the guilty planters to be given fifty lashes, with the a.s.surance that on a second offense he would shoot them on sight. Coffee planting in Guatemala was pursued thereafter with much alacrity!
Posts in the government service Barrios distributed quite impartially among Conservatives and Democrats, deserving or otherwise, for he had them both well under control. At his behest a permanent const.i.tution was promulgated in 1880. While he affected to dislike continual reelection, he saw to it nevertheless that he himself should be the sole candidate who was likely to win.
Barrios doubtless could have remained President of Guatemala for the term of his natural life if he had not raised up the ghost of federation. All the republics of Central America accepted his invitation in 1876 to send delegates to his capital to discuss the project. But nothing was accomplished because Barrios and the President of Salvador were soon at loggerheads. Nine years later, feeling himself stronger, Barrios again proposed federation. But the other republics had by this time learned too much of the methods of the autocrat of Guatemala, even while they admired his progressive policy, to relish the thought of a federation dominated by Guatemala and its masterful President. Though he "persuaded" Honduras to accept the plan, the three other republics preferred to unite in self-defense, and in the ensuing struggle the quixotic Barrios was killed. A few years later the project was revived and the const.i.tution of a "Republic of Central America" was agreed upon, when war between Guatemala and Salvador again frustrated its execution.
In Brazil two great movements were by this time under way: the total abolition of slavery and the establishment of a republic. Despite the tenacious opposition of many of the planters, from about the year 1883 the movement for emanc.i.p.ation made great headway. There was a growing determination on the part of the majority of the inhabitants to remove the blot that made the country an object of reproach among the civilized states of the world. Provinces and towns, one after another, freed the slaves within their borders. The imperial Government, on its part, hastened the process by liberating its own slaves and by imposing upon those still in bondage taxes higher than their market value; it fixed a price for other slaves; it decreed that the older slaves should be set free; and it increased the funds already appropriated to compensate owners of slaves who should be emanc.i.p.ated. In 1887 the number of slaves had fallen to about 720,000, worth legally about $650 each. A year later came the final blow, when the Princess Regent a.s.sented to a measure which abolished slavery outright and repealed all former acts relating to slavery. So radical a proceeding wrought havoc in the coffee-growing southern provinces in particular, from which the negroes now freed migrated by tens of thousands to the northern provinces. Their places, however, were taken by Italians and other Europeans who came to work the plantations on a cooperative basis. All through the eighties, in fact, immigrants from Italy poured into the temperate regions of southern Brazil, to the number of nearly two hundred thousand, supplementing the many thousands of Germans who had settled, chiefly in the province of Rio Grande do Sul, thirty years before.
Apart from the industrial problem thus created by the abolition of slavery, there seemed to be no serious political or economic questions before the country. Ever since 1881, when a law providing for direct elections was pa.s.sed, the Liberals had been in full control. The old Dom Pedro, who had endeared himself to his people, was as much liked and respected as ever. But as he had grown feeble and almost blind, the heiress to the throne, who had marked absolutist and clerical tendencies, was disposed to take advantage of his infirmities.
For many years, on the other hand, doctrines opposed to the principle of monarchy had been spread in zealous fashion by members of the military cla.s.s, notable among whom was Deodoro da Fonseca. And now some of the planters longed to wreak vengeance on a ruler who had dared to thwart their will by emanc.i.p.ating the slaves. Besides this persistent discontent, radical republican newspapers continually stirred up fresh agitation. Whatever the personal service rendered by the Emperor to the welfare of the country, to them he represented a political system which deprived the provinces of much of their local autonomy and the Brazilian people at large of self-government.
But the chief reason for the momentous change which was about to take place was the fact that the const.i.tutional monarchy had really completed its work as a transitional government. Under that regime Brazil had reached a condition of stability and had attained a level of progress which might well enable it to govern itself. During all this time the influence of the Spanish American nations had been growing apace. Even if they had fallen into many a political calamity, they were nevertheless "republics," and to the South American this word had a magic sound. Above all, there was the potent suggestion of the success of the United States of North America, whose extension of its federal system over a vast territory suggested what Brazil with its provinces might accomplish in the southern continent. Hence the vast majority of intelligent Brazilians felt that they had become self-reliant enough to establish a republic without fear of lapsing into the unfortunate experiences of the other Hispanic countries.
In 1889, when provision was made for a speedy abdication of the Emperor in favor of his daughter, the republican newspapers declared that a scheme was being concocted to exile the chief military agitators and to interfere with any effort on the part of the army to prevent the accession of the new ruler. Thereupon, on the 15th of November, the radicals at Rio de Janeiro, aided by the garrison, broke out in open revolt. Proclaiming the establishment of a federal republic under the name of the "United States of Brazil," they deposed the imperial ministry, set up a provisional government with Deodoro da Fonseca at its head, arranged for the election of a const.i.tutional convention, and bade Dom Pedro and his family leave the country within twenty-four hours.
On the 17th of November, before daybreak, the summons was obeyed. Not a soul appeared to bid the old Emperor farewell as he and his family boarded the steamer that was to bear them to exile in Europe. Though seemingly an act of heartlessness and ingrat.i.tude, the precaution was a wise one in that it averted, possible conflict and bloodshed. For the second time in its history, a fundamental change had been wrought in the political system of the nation without a resort to war! The United States of Brazil accordingly took its place peacefully among its fellow republics of the New World.
Meanwhile Argentina, the great neighbor of Brazil to the southwest, had been gaining territory and new resources. Since the definite adoption of a federal const.i.tution in 1853, this state had attained to a considerable degree of national consciousness under the leadership of able presidents such as Bartolome Mitre, the soldier and historian, and Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, the publicist and promoter of popular education. One evidence of this new nationalism was a widespread belief in the necessity of territorial expansion. Knowing that Chile entertained designs upon Patagonia, the Argentine Government forestalled any action by conducting a war of practical extermination against the Indian tribes of that region and by adding it to the national domain. The so-called "conquest of the desert" in the far south of the continent opened to civilization a vast habitable area of untold economic possibilities.
In the electoral campaign of 1880 the presidential candidates were Julio Argentino Roca and the Governor of the province of Buenos Aires. The former, an able officer skilled in both arms and politics, had on his side the advantage of a reputation won in the struggle with the Patagonian Indians, the approval of the national Government, and the support of most of the provinces. Feeling certain of defeat at the polls, the partisans of the latter candidate resorted to the timeworn expedient of a revolt. Though the uprising lasted but twenty days, the diplomatic corps at the capital proffered its mediation between the contestants, in order to avoid any further bloodshed. The result was that the fractious Governor withdrew his candidacy and a radical change was effected in the relations of Buenos Aires, city and province, to the country at large. The city, together with its environs, was converted into a federal district and became solely and distinctively the national capital. Its public buildings, railways, and telegraph service, as well as the provincial debt, were taken over by the general Government. The seat of provincial authority was transferred to the village of Ensenada, which thereupon was rechristened La Plata.
A veritable tide of wealth and general prosperity was now rolling over Argentina. By 1885 its population had risen to upwards of 3,000,000. Immigration increased to a point far beyond the wildest expectations. In 1889 alone about 300,000 newcomers arrived and lent their aid in the promotion of industry and commerce. Fields. .h.i.therto uncultivated or given over to grazing now bore vast crops of wheat, maize, linseed, and sugar. Large quant.i.ties of capital, chiefly from Great Britain, also poured into the country. As a result, the price of land rose high, and feverish speculation became the order of the day. Banks and other inst.i.tutions of credit were set up, colonizing schemes were devised, and railways were laid out. To meet the demands of all these enterprises, the Government borrowed immense sums from foreign capitalists and issued vast quant.i.ties of paper money, with little regard for its ultimate redemption. Argentina spent huge sums in prodigal fashion on all sorts of public improvements in an effort to attract still more capital and immigration, and thus entered upon a dangerous era of inflation.
Of the near neighbors of Argentina, Uruguay continued along the tortuous path of alternate disturbance and progress, losing many of its inhabitants to the greater states beyond, where they sought relative peace and security; while Paraguay, on the other hand, enjoyed freedom from civil strife, though weighed down with a war debt and untold millions in indemnities exacted by Argentina and Brazil, which it could never hope to pay. In consequence, this indebtedness was a useful club to brandish over powerless Paraguay whenever that little country might venture to question the right of either of its big neighbors to break the promise they had made of keeping its territory intact. Argentina, however, consented in 1878 to refer certain claims to the decision of the President of the United States. When Paraguay won the arbitration, it showed its grat.i.tude by naming one of its localities Villa Hayes. As time went on, however, its population increased and hid many of the scars of war.
On the western side of South America there broke out the struggle known as the "War of the Pacific" between Chile, on the one side, and Peru and Bolivia as allies on the other. In Peru unstable and corrupt governments had contracted foreign loans under conditions that made their repayment almost impossible and had spent the proceeds in so reckless and extravagant a fashion as to bring the country to the verge of bankruptcy. Bolivia, similarly governed, was still the scene of the orgies and carnivals which had for some time characterized its unfortunate history. One of its buffoon "presidents," moreover, had entered into boundary agreements with both Chile and Brazil, under which the nation lost several important areas and some of its territory on the Pacific. The boundaries of Bolivia, indeed, were run almost everywhere on purely arbitrary lines drawn with scant regard for the physical features of the country and with many a frontier question left wholly unsettled. For some years Chilean companies and speculators, aided by foreign capital mainly British in origin, had been working deposits of nitrate of soda in the province of Antof.a.gasta, or "the desert of Atacama," a region along the coast to the northward belonging to Bolivia, and also in the provinces of Tacna, Arica, and Tarapaca, still farther to the northward, belonging to Peru. Because boundary lines were not altogether clear and because the three countries were all eager to exploit these deposits, controversies over this debatable ground were sure to rise. For the privilege of developing portions of this region, individuals and companies had obtained concessions from the various governments concerned; elsewhere, industrial free lances dug away without reference to such formalities.
It is quite likely that Chile, whose motto was "By Right or by Might," was prepared to sustain the claims of its citizens by either alternative. At all events, scenting a prospective conflict, Chile had devoted much attention to the development of its naval and military establishment-a state of affairs which did not escape the observation of its suspicious neighbors.
The policy of Peru was determined partly by personal motives and partly by reasons of state. In 1873 the President, lacking sufficient financial and political support to keep himself in office, resolved upon the risky expedient of arousing popular pa.s.sion against Chile, in the hope that he might thereby replenish the national treasury. Accordingly he proceeded to pick a quarrel by ordering the deposits in Tarapaca to be expropriated with scant respect for the concessions made to the Chilean miners. Realizing, however, the possible consequences of such an action, he entered into an alliance with Bolivia. This country thereupon proceeded to levy an increased duty on the exportation of nitrates from the Atacama region. Chile, already aware of the hostile combination which had been formed, protested so vigorously that a year later Bolivia agreed to withdraw the new regulations and to submit the dispute to arbitration.
Such were the relations of these three states in 1878, when Bolivia, taking advantage of differences of opinion between Chile and Argentina regarding the Patagonian region, reimposed its export duty, canceled the Chilean concessions, and confiscated the nitrate deposits. Chile then declared war in February, 1879, and within two months occupied the entire coast of Bolivia up to the frontiers of Peru. On his part the President of Bolivia was too much engrossed in the festivities connected with a masquerade to bother about notifying the people that their land had been invaded until several days after the event had occurred!
Misfortunes far worse than anything which had fallen to the lot of its ally now awaited Peru, which first attempted an officious mediation and then declared war on the 4th of April. Since Peru and Bolivia together had a population double that of Chile, and since Peru possessed a much larger army and navy than Chile, the allies counted confidently on victory. But Peru"s army of eight thousand-having within four hundred as many officers as men, directed by no fewer than twenty-six generals, and presided over by a civil government altogether inept-was no match for an army less than a third of its size to be sure, but well drilled and commanded, and with a stable, progressive, and efficient government at its back. The Peruvian forces, lacking any substantial support from Bolivia, crumpled under the terrific attacks of their adversaries. Efforts on the part of the United States to mediate in the struggle were blocked by the dogged refusal of Chile to abate its demands for annexation. Early in 1881 its army entered Lima in triumph, and the war was over.
For a while the victors treated the Peruvians and their capital city shamefully. The Chilean soldiers stripped the national library of its contents, tore up the lamp-posts in the streets, carried away the benches in the parks, and even shipped off the local menagerie to Santiago! What they did not remove or destroy was disposed of by the rabble of Lima itself. But in two years so utterly chaotic did the conditions in the hapless country become that Chile at length had to set up a government in order to conclude a peace. It was not until October 20, 1883, that the treaty was signed at Lima and ratified later at Ancon. Peru was forced to cede Tarapaca outright and to agree that Tacna and Arica should be held by Chile for ten years. At the expiration of this period the inhabitants of the two provinces were to be allowed to choose by vote the country to which they would prefer to belong, and the nation that won the election was to pay the loser 10,000,000 pesos. In April, 1884, Bolivia, also, entered into an arrangement with Chile, according to which a portion of its seacoast should be ceded absolutely and the remainder should be occupied by Chile until a more definite understanding on the matter could be reached.
Chile emerged from the war not only triumphant over its northern rivals but dominant on the west coast of South America. Important developments in Chilean national policy followed. To maintain its vantage and to guard against reprisals, the victorious state had to keep in military readiness on land and sea. It therefore looked to Prussia for a pattern for its army and to Great Britain for a model for its navy.