Arriving at the great valley of Chile, in that favoured region he founded the city of Santiago, which has ever since remained the capital and most important place in the country. The people of the neighbourhood attacked the settlement and burned half the houses, but they were soon decisively defeated. Nevertheless, the invaders position was critical; many of them wished to return; a mutiny was on the point of breaking out; but at this juncture the fortunate discovery of valuable gold mines near Santiago hushed all talk of abandoning the country.
Firmly established at Santiago, Valdivia next turned his attention to the northern provinces, and founded a city at Coquimbo, about two hundred and fifty miles north of the capital, which became the centre of Spanish power in that region. In 1545 he advanced into the country south of Santiago, where the Promaucians welcomed him as an ally against their hereditary foes, the Araucanians, a fierce and powerful confederacy dwelling beyond the river Biobio, which flows into the Pacific in lat.i.tude 37. By the following year Spanish influence was dominant north of that river. Valdivia, with many of his men, temporarily returned to Peru to aid in the suppression of Gonzalo"s revolt, but as soon as civil war was over he came back to Chile with his t.i.tle of governor confirmed by viceregal authority. He had found Lima swarming with hungry adventurers who eagerly followed him, hoping for grants of lands and Indian slaves, or to make their fortunes in mining. With their help the conquest and settlement of all Chile as far south as the Maule was effectually completed. The land was apportioned among the cavaliers, each becoming a sort of feudal baron, and in effect creating a landed aristocracy which has continued to rule the country to the present day.
The process of incorporation did not stop at the Maule, but included the Promaucians and most of the other tribes between that river and the Biobio. Beyond the latter stretched the Araucanian territory for two hundred miles, and Valdivia now undertook the conquest of the southern forests where the Inca arms had never been able to penetrate. His first step was to found Concepcion near the mouth of the Biobio. The neighbouring territory belonged to allies of the confederacy, and the Araucanians felt great alarm at such an aggression. The grand council was summoned, composed of the head-chiefs of the four nations, and the chiefs--called ulmens--of the provinces and tribes into which these nations were divided and subdivided. In accordance with immemorial custom, the deliberations lasted three days, and the humblest warrior was permitted to give his opinion before war was voted. Once the determination reached and a general, or "toqui," elected, each soldier put on his leather cuira.s.s, picked up his heavy war club, and, four thousand strong, the tribesmen sallied forth to attack the Spaniards.
Musketry volley and cavalry charge compelled the Araucanians to retreat, after a hotly contested combat which lasted several hours. These Indians, strong and st.u.r.dy dwellers in an invigorating climate, were more formidable foes than the Spaniards had yet encountered in South America. Though amazed at the deadly effect of the strange weapons which the invaders used, they were not demoralised. Like the Saracens they believed that death in battle was a pa.s.sport to paradise, war was their princ.i.p.al business, and the youth were trained up to the trade of arms.
At close quarters they were almost irresistible; their clubs and spears, wielded with reckless bravery, matched the swords of the Spaniards, and as soon as they learned how to take advantage of cover in approaching an enemy provided with firearms, the result of a battle between them and the Castilians became doubtful.
During the year 1551 Valdivia occupied himself in fortifying Concepcion and making preparations for an invasion of Araucania. Heavy reinforcements came and he advanced encountering at first no serious opposition. He founded the city of Imperial, one hundred and fifty miles south of Concepcion, and thence pushed a hundred miles farther on, where he established a seaport, calling it by his own name. Returning north in 1553, on his way he built several forts in the Araucanian territory, and at Santiago found a fresh body of troops, and, what was even more important, a supply of horses. Two hundred men were despatched across the Andes to begin the conquest of what is now known as the province of Mendoza in the Argentine Republic. Fancying that he had practically completed the subjection of Chile, Valdivia sent a messenger to Spain to sue for the t.i.tle of Marquis and a perpetual governorship, and fitted out an exploring expedition to the Straits of Magellan in the vain hope of opening up direct sea communication with the mother country.
The Araucanians had, however, not relaxed their determination to rid themselves of the white invaders. News came that the confederacy had put an army of ten thousand men in the field, and that the outlying forts had been stormed. Valdivia at once advanced from Concepcion at the head of his forces, numbering two hundred Spaniards and five thousand Indian auxiliaries. A hundred miles south of the city he came in sight of the Araucanian army. For some time the Indian commander manoeuvred cautiously, endeavouring to draw the Spaniards into a position where he could charge without suffering too much from the dreaded artillery.
Finally battle was joined, and despite the destructive fire the Indians managed to come to close quarters. As soon as these fierce warriors reached the enemy"s line all was up with the invaders. The Spanish army was literally annihilated. Valdivia himself fled, but was pursued and quickly captured. Brought before the Indian general he begged for his life, agreeing to quit Chile with all the Spaniards, but his protestations were cut short by the war club of an old chief standing near.
The Spanish settlers south of Concepcion fled for refuge to the ports of Imperial and Valdivia, abandoning the other towns and forts. A young chief named Lautaro, who had been captured and baptised years before by Valdivia, but who had escaped to his own people, led a considerable army to the Biobio, destroyed an expedition sent against him, and drove the enemy out of Concepcion. If the Indians had understood the art of besieging fortified places, Imperial and Valdivia and probably Santiago itself would now have fallen, and the Spaniards would have been expelled from the southern and better half of Chile. Lautaro led north two thousand Araucanians, ravaged the lands of the Promaucians beyond the Maule, and penetrated to the neighbourhood of the capital. Repeated expeditions sent against him were defeated; the dismayed Spaniards urgently called for help from Peru and recalled the adventurers from Argentina. Happily the civilised tribes of northern and central Chile remained faithful, and the bulk of the Araucanian forces was occupied besieging Valdivia and Imperial,--a fruitless undertaking so long as provisions could be thrown in by sea. Worst of all for the Indians smallpox broke out among them. At last the Spaniards surprised Lautaro"s encampment near Santiago; the Araucanian leader fell dead, pierced by a dart; and his companions fought like wild beasts until every man was slain. This victory secured the safety of Santiago, and the Araucanians retired behind the Biobio.
Meanwhile Mendoza, the great pacificator and organiser, had come out to Lima and a.s.sumed the viceroyalty. Turbulent adventurers swarmed into Peru whom he thought could be better employed elsewhere. Southern Chile seemed just the place for these reckless, needy cavaliers, who were so anxious to carve out fiefs for themselves. Early in 1557, Garcia de Mendoza, son of the viceroy, was appointed captain-general and enjoined to reduce the Araucanians to obedience. He came accompanied by ten ships and a considerable force of Spaniards. Still larger forces were on their way overland from Peru. Cautiously landing troops and artillery at the deserted city of Concepcion, he had finished his defences before the confederacy could mobilise its army. Though the Araucanians attacked with desperate fury, their charges were beaten back by the artillery fire. Re-forming on the other side of the Biobio, the Indians waited until Mendoza, who had meanwhile received a large reinforcement of cavalry, advanced. In the battle which followed they were defeated, but they had learned a lesson of prudence and they fought in front of forests into whose depths the Spanish cavalry could not pursue.
Retreating slowly, they again gave battle, and, though again defeated, inflicted great losses on the Spanish infantry. Mendoza hanged his prisoners, and once more advanced, this time to the place where Valdivia had met his death. Here he founded a fortified town, naming it Canete, after the hereditary t.i.tle of his family. Leaving it heavily garrisoned, he went on to Imperial for provisions. In his absence the Indians unsuccessfully tried to carry Canete by a.s.sault, and seeing the hopelessness of aggressive movements, they withdrew to the wooded districts and mountains, abandoning the open country and the sea-coast to the Spaniards. Mendoza pushed on beyond the southern limits of the Araucanian territory and discovered and explored the populous archipelago of Chiloe. On his way back he founded, on the mainland a hundred miles south of Valdivia, the city of Osorno.
The Araucanians were now shut in between the Andes and a semicircle of towns and forts; it seemed as if their final subjection would only be a question of time. Mendoza returned to Santiago, leaving a lieutenant to undertake a campaign of raids and surprises. A few of the Araucanians remained in the field, and it was not until their veteran chief, Caupolican, was betrayed and pitilessly shot to death with arrows, that the whole confederacy again flew to arms under the command of his son.
Marching on Concepcion, the Indians cut to pieces first one Spanish force of five hundred men and then another; and blockaded the city from the land side. The Spaniards, holding the sea, had no difficulty in pouring in reinforcements from Peru and Valparaiso, and the Indian army finally retreated. At Quiapo, between Concepcion and Canete, it was defeated and nearly annihilated, its most celebrated chiefs and heroes perishing in the slaughter. Once more the Araucanians retired to their forests and mountains while the Spaniards rebuilt and improved the line of fortifications and took possession of the valuable gold mines of Villarica. But they could make no further impression on these indomitable Indians. For forty years the war continued, sometimes active, sometimes desultory, and with constantly varying fortunes. Year after year the Spaniards poured in reinforcements, and their expeditions more than once ravaged the remotest parts of the Araucanian territory.
But as soon as the armies retired the unflagging Indians would return to the attack, cutting off isolated bands of settlers and surprising forts and towns.
About 1593, the able chieftain Paillamachu was toqui of the confederacy.
The incessant wars against the Araucanians had made the province such a continual drain on the Peruvian treasury, that Mendoza, who had been promoted to the viceregal throne, determined to end this impossible situation in one way or another. A general was sent to Chile with full powers either to treat or fight, but the haughty and intractable Indians rejected with scorn his overtures for peace. He then fortified the line of the Biobio and erected new fortresses to serve as bases for a campaign of extermination to be undertaken as soon as reinforcements arrived. These came slowly and the Indians themselves took the offensive, considerable bands invading the Spanish settlements, storming some forts and blockading others. The Spanish general exerted himself to concentrate his scattered forces, but while making a hasty journey, accompanied only by a small escort, from Imperial toward Concepcion, he was surprised and killed by a band of Indians. Forty-eight hours later not only the whole of Araucania, but also the provinces south of Valdivia, rose in arms. All the Spanish towns south of the Biobio--Osorno, Valdivia, Villarica, Imperial, Canete, Angol, Coya, and Arauco--were simultaneously besieged. Paillamachu crossed the river and burned first Concepcion and then Chillan, a town a hundred miles north of the Araucanian boundary, ravaging the country to the river Maule.
Alarmed for the safety of Santiago, the Lima viceroy sent a new governor with a well-equipped army, but it was as much as he could do to force the Indians back into their own territory. The Indian general suddenly a.s.saulted the city of Valdivia, carried it by storm, slaughtered or captured the inhabitants, and seized two millions of booty with many arms and cannon. Villarica and Imperial managed to hold out for three years but finally they, with Osorno, were reduced by starvation. When Paillamachu died in 1603 the Spaniards had no foothold on the mainland south of the Biobio except the Valdivia citadel.
[Ill.u.s.tration: INDIAN ENCAMPMENT.]
Two or three years later the government made a last effort to reduce the Araucanians. An army of three thousand Spaniards besides a large contingent of natives advanced across the Biobio. To such an overwhelming force the Araucanians dared not offer open battle, but they hung on its flanks, skirmishing and hara.s.sing, and the host was compelled to return without having accomplished anything decisive. From the protection of the forts on the Biobio, the Spanish general sent expeditions to lay waste the Indian country, but these smaller bodies were roughly handled and the first period of Araucanian wars closed with the nearly complete destruction of the Spanish forces operating in southern Chile. The authorities at Lima and Madrid gave it up as a bad job. Thenceforward the Biobio remained the southern boundary of the Spanish possessions. An army of two thousand men and a line of forts guarded the frontier, and though hostilities were frequent, for centuries no real progress was made toward depriving the Araucanians of their independence. In the progress of time the slow infiltration of Spanish blood and Spanish customs modified their characteristics, but it was not until 1882 that they became real subjects of the Chilean government.
CHAPTER II
THE COLONIAL PERIOD
The Araucanian wars made Chile a school of arms for all South America.
The appointment to its captaincy-general was eagerly sought by ambitious soldiers, and the place, especially after the seventeenth century, was a stepping-stone to the magnificent and lucrative position of viceroy at Lima. Preoccupied with the southern wars, pa.s.sing most of their time on the frontiers, the governors paid little attention to central and northern Chile. The Indians peacefully cultivated the great estates of their feudal masters; and although the mining industry was considerable it never threatened the extinction of the neighbouring population. The few towns were mere villages, built of one-story, thatch-covered houses, commerce was insignificant, portable wealth small, money almost unknown.
However, the landed proprietors of Chile mostly lived upon their estates, and came into more intimate contact with their Indian tenants than in the richer and more tropical provinces, a circ.u.mstance which has had a profound effect upon the character and racial composition of the modern Chilean.
Although unsuccessful in Araucania, the governors prospered in their efforts to extend the Spanish dominion east of the Andes and before the end of the sixteenth century the fertile valleys of the province of Cuyo--Mendoza, San Juan, and San Luiz--as far as the central desert which separates them from the gra.s.s-covered pampas of Buenos Aires, were incorporated with Chile. At the same time the green and populous island of Chiloe--the Ireland of the Pacific--was added to the captaincy-general.
The first comers were adventurous soldiers looking for sudden riches, but Chile furnished these gentlemen small returns for hard knocks. The reasons which led the Spanish government to discourage emigration to Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador, did not apply to Chile, and when, early in the seventeenth century, the Madrid authorities abandoned the useless and expensive effort to conquer Araucania, they permitted a considerable number of real colonists. A heavy immigration followed--composed mostly of Basques and Aragonese--hardy and industrious settlers who made thrifty farmers and merchants. These people were no mere army of occupation--a privileged cla.s.s living parasitically upon the Indians; they set about developing the real resources of the country, and their blood, mixing into the fine and strong aboriginal strain, vastly improved it. The lower cla.s.ses in Chile are industrious, enduring, and brave, and though at times they show a touch of that primitive ferocity characteristic of young peoples, their innate energy and great physical strength have been of incalculable value to the nation.
Little worth detailing is recorded in the annals of Chile during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. For many years the Araucanians refused to make any treaty with the Spaniards. The chronicles are filled with accounts of the incursions made by the Indians into Spanish territory--often successful, more often repulsed, with sieges, ambushes--tales of reckless valour and unspeakable cruelty. Sometimes the Europeans carried the war over the Biobio, and during the ten years prior to 1640 they were so successful in carrying fire, slaughter, and pillage to the homes of the Araucanians, that the latter finally consented to an armistice and a formal treaty of peace. The Spanish governor went to the plain of Quillin, escorted by more than ten thousand persons, and the Araucanian general appeared in state at the head of all the toquis, ulmens, and chief warriors of the confederacy.
Into the open s.p.a.ce between the high contracting parties was led a llama for sacrifice, whose sprinkled blood remained a pledge that the historic Biobio would henceforth be respected by both nations as the boundary, and that the Araucanians would never permit colonists of third nations upon their sh.o.r.es, or aid the English and Dutch buccaneers. The Indians faithfully adhered to this pact of friendship and refused to furnish the Dutch with provisions when the latter took possession of Valdivia in 1643. But in 1655 the cupidity of Spanish officers caused trouble, and war devastated both sides of the border for the next ten years. In 1665 a new treaty, identical in terms, was negotiated, which continued in force until 1722. However, Spanish priests pushed their evangelising among the Indians, and officers, called "Capitanos de los amigos,"
appointed to guard the interests of the missionaries, a.s.sumed authority highly offensive to the Araucanians. The great council was summoned, a general selected, and the missionaries expelled. When the Spanish governor marched to the frontier with five thousand men the Indians offered battle which the Spaniards dared not accept. The former continued firm in their demands, and peace was only re-established by abolishing the obnoxious officials.
Meanwhile nothing of moment had disturbed the slow and even current of colonial progress in northern and central Chile. The country was poor, its exports small and its imports smaller. Great fortunes were not acc.u.mulated as in other South American countries, though the national life rested on a broader, surer basis. The wheat and cattle, the fruits and poultry introduced by the Spaniards raised the standard of alimentation and the vitality of the people, while the continual admixture of Spanish blood augmented individual initiative and intelligence. The towns at first grew very slowly. Santiago itself had only eight thousand inhabitants at the end of the seventeenth century, while the other so-called cities, Coquimbo, Castro, Valparaiso, Chillan, Concepcion, and Valdivia, were in fact little more than villages. The rural districts were populous, for the soil was fertile, the climate healthful, and the means of a simple subsistence abounded. Imported vices and diseases, and the oppressions suffered at the hands of the first Spanish proprietors, had somewhat thinned out the native population, but these losses were largely made up by a rapid increase of the element which boasted white descent, and in the latter part of the eighteenth century Spanish Chile was more densely populated than the Atlantic seaboard of North America.
[Ill.u.s.tration: HOUSE OF CONGRESS, SANTIAGO.]
Spanish legislation gave a monopoly of South American commerce to a favoured ring of merchants at Cadiz, forbidding any communication with Chile except by the circuitous Isthmian route. Freights were enormous, profits and taxes exorbitant, and in spite of the repressive measures of the Spanish authorities, smuggling was carried on by way of the route over the Andes to Buenos Aires and Colonia. The war of the Spanish Succession, following the death of the last of the descendants of Charles V., disorganised Spanish administration, and during the confusion of the first few years of the eighteenth century illicit trading increased apace. The triumph of Louis XIV., and the seating of a French prince on the throne of Madrid, resulted in a temporary permission to French ships to trade with South America. For a time French manufactures were brought directly to Chile by way of Cape Horn.
The customs receipts--hitherto merely nominal--rapidly increased, and although the license was soon revoked at the demand of the Cadiz monopolists, a permanent impetus had been given to commerce. Improving conditions gave a fresh start to immigration, and the comparatively rational policy of the Bourbon dynasty removed many of the more crying abuses of colonial administration. A little before the middle of the eighteenth century Governor Manso, with the approval of Madrid, founded a dozen cities scattered through all the provinces as far south as the Biobio, and settlements spread to the frontier of Araucania. Manso"s successor, Rosas, was even more diligent in establishing new towns and received the t.i.tle of "Conde de Poblaciones." He founded the University of San Felipe at Santiago, and stimulated commerce by opening a mint. In his administration occurred the great earthquake of 1751, which engulfed and destroyed Concepcion by a tremendous wave from the sea, and inflicted great damage upon Santiago and many other towns. These convulsions are very frequent in Chile and in early times people supposed that it was not safe to build houses of more than one story. It has since been ascertained that two-story edifices are as secure as lower ones and Chilean cities contain many handsome buildings.
Rosas" successor was Don Manuel Amat. Under his administration the erection of new cities continued, and he is remembered as the captain-general who helped suppress the robbers and bandits who had infested the country. Vigilance committees were organised, volunteer patrols guarded the city streets and country roads, and a coast militia fought the pirates who infested the seash.o.r.e. Chile in the middle of the eighteenth century presents the characteristics of a frontier country--rapid founding of towns, disorders and lawlessness effectively suppressed by lynch law, and a childish display of newly acquired wealth.
The encroachments upon the Araucanians finally grew irksome to those indomitable and intractable savages. What the Spanish armies and priests had failed in, the settlers who poured into the fertile plains and valleys of southern Chile seemed about to achieve. The next captain-general even tried to incorporate the independent tribes into the Spanish system, but when he attempted to gather them into towns the spirit which had animated their forefathers proved too strong. A war broke out which lasted several years and ended only when the Spanish government renewed the treaties guaranteeing them practical independence, and allowing them to keep an amba.s.sador at Santiago. Just about this time the trans-Andean province of Cuyo was separated from Chile and transferred to the newly created Buenos Aires viceroyalty.
Taken purely for reasons of administrative convenience, this measure resulted in shutting off Chile from expansion over the vast plains of the Plate Valley, confining her between the Andes and the sea, and ultimately securing to the Argentine a territorial and numerical preponderance among Spanish-American republics.
CHAPTER III
THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE
The last years of Spanish rule were the most prosperous Chile had known.
A brisk coasting trade sprang into being; a small merchant marine grew up; the removal of the prohibition against free commerce with the rest of Spanish South America raised prices. The opening of Buenos Aires reacted upon her western neighbour, and Chile ceased to depend on the Isthmus route. A spirit of enterprise was awakened by a freer intercourse with the outside world and by the immigration of hardy adventurers who came through Buenos Aires, the great South American rendezvous of that day.
[Ill.u.s.tration: PLAZA DEL ARMAS, SANTIAGO.]
Among these immigrants was the famous Ambrose O"Higgins, a poor Irish lad, who landed at Buenos Aires, made his way to Chile, started as a peddler, became an army contractor, made a fortune, got a commission in the army, distinguished himself in an expedition against the Araucanians, ingratiated himself with everybody by his wit, courage, and good-natured shrewdness, and finally was selected as captain-general.
He ruled the country wisely and well until promoted to be viceroy at Lima. His successors were mostly able and honest men, and under their government the natural causes making for the prosperity of Chile had free scope. Wealth increased, and with it love of display, honours, and letters. Santiago became a real capital, the favourite residence of the landed aristocracy and a social centre where fashions were prescribed.
The English war into which France pushed Spain in 1796 much damaged Chilean commerce, but not sufficiently to stop the impulse already received. The old ignorant content with Spanish rule gave place to a growing demand for the removal of all restrictions, and the appet.i.te for commercial freedom grew with what it fed on.
Chile was still comparatively poor and backward. The rude population were engaged in a harsh struggle with fierce savages and in laying the foundations of material prosperity. Most of these people were the descendants of Indians accustomed for centuries to implicit obedience to a rustic, unlettered aristocracy. The genius of the race was rather practical than ideal, and the long, careless government by men invariably chosen for their military abilities rather than their qualities as civil administrators had not tended to make Chile a fertile soil for the development of revolutionary ideas. Chilean society was less favourably const.i.tuted for sudden changes than that of Buenos Aires--the boom town of the time, with its active commerce, its restless recently arrived population,--or that of the northern viceroyalties, controlled by professional and office-holding cla.s.ses and parish priests.
Two or three hundred families held most of the lands of Chile, and the power of this aristocracy was especially predominant in the provinces around Santiago. In the southern provinces long wars had thinned the native population and dispossessed the original grantees. Estates were more widely distributed and opinion more radical, but in the rest of the country the newer immigrants had been forced to accept the system, and the comparatively few families who owned the land and thereby controlled the means of subsistence of the whole people, enjoyed unquestioned ascendancy. But conservative as this aristocracy was, among its members there rankled a profound jealousy of the Spanish officials who wrung excessive taxes from their reluctant fingers; who enforced the Spanish regulations forbidding the culture of grapes, olives, and tobacco; who until recently had closed the ports, cutting off the profitable sale of crops, and compelling the payment of extravagant prices for manufactured goods; and most irritating of all, who still monopolised the lucrative offices.
The news of Ferdinand"s imprisonment and the invasion of Spain by Napoleon"s armies reached Chile in the late summer of 1809, creating great excitement among the Spanish office-holders and the Creole aristocracy. Sentiment was universal against submission to the French usurpation and discussion at once began of how the government should be carried on during the King"s captivity. Carrasco, the captain-general, hesitated and vacillated between the conflicting suggestions.
In preparation for an emergency, whose exact nature no one could foresee, the city authorities gathered arms, drilled troops, and levied extra taxes. The property-owning and governing cla.s.ses divided into two currents of opinion. The government officials, with their friends and hangers-on, saw that their interests would best be served by the recognition of the revolutionary juntas which had a.s.sumed the _ad interim_ direction of affairs in Spain. The leading Creole families proposed the establishment of an independent junta, pending Ferdinand"s return, or the definite defeat of the national cause in Spain. Although the latter party warmly protested their faithfulness to the mother-country, at bottom they designed to secure for Chile and Chileans virtual independence while Spain"s troubles lasted, and the Spanish officials did not hesitate to characterise their opponents as rebels.
Feeling rapidly grew intense, and in May, 1810, the captain-general ordered the arrest of several prominent Creoles. This arbitrary measure aroused such a fierce clamour that Carrasco lost his nerve, and consented to the release of the prisoners. This indication of weakness encouraged the agitators, and when news came across the Andes that the people of Buenos Aires had deposed their viceroy, Santiago broke into revolution.
The captain-general had summoned an open cabildo to enjoin obedience to certain orders received from Spain, but this a.s.sembly tumultuously demanded his resignation. Helpless against the popular outcry and the hostile att.i.tude of the city government, he turned over his authority to Toro, a wealthy n.o.bleman, whose venerable age and pacific disposition seemed likely to preserve the peace. Nevertheless, the Creoles persisted in their demand for an independent Chilean junta. Another meeting of all the qualified electors was called; the arrival of a representative of the new junta at Buenos Aires, who strongly urged Chile to follow Argentina"s example, had its influence; and on the 18th of September, the date observed as the anniversary of Chilean independence, Toro resigned his authority to the cabildo. The office of captain-general was abolished and power pa.s.sed to a junta of seven. Chile"s ports were opened to all nations, quadrupling the customs receipts in a single year, and the country began a virtually separate existence, although the acts of the junta ran in the name of the Spanish King.
However, the junta"s power rested upon a basis too narrow for stability.
Representing only the Santiago aristocracy, there was no certainty that its orders would be respected in the provinces, or that independent juntas would not be set up in other cities. To remedy this difficulty a national congress was summoned, but the junta allotted to Santiago almost as many members as to all the other munic.i.p.alities together. The elections took place in April, 1811, and while they were going on the Spanish officer in command of a detachment at Santiago revolted. A member of the junta, Jose Carrera by name, an active and ambitious young man, who belonged to one of the most influential Creole families, distinguished himself by attacking and defeating the Spaniard with an improvised force of armed patriots. When congress met it voted many reforms; abolishing slavery, reorganising the judiciary, freeing commerce of vexatious restrictions, decreeing the payment of the clergy out of the public treasury instead of by t.i.thes, and conferring on the elective bodies of the munic.i.p.alities the right to elect their own city officers. However, divisions soon arose among the members. The representatives of the outside provinces bitterly complained of the unfairness of the apportionment; the radicals wished to reorganise everything, while the conservatives insisted on preserving many of the old inst.i.tutions. The Santiago representatives, chosen from the landed aristocracy, were mostly conservative, while the members from the South were largely radical. Under the leadership of Doctor Rosas, the latter withdrew. The Santiago conservatives, left in undisputed control of congress, displaced the old junta, but Carrera and his two brothers had made themselves all powerful in the army by cleverly seizing its Spanish officers. He determined to ally himself with the radicals and a.s.sume supreme power. Marching to the hall of congress at the head of his troops, he compelled the selection of a new junta with himself as chief, and expelled the members upon whom he could not rely. Rosas had meanwhile established a radical junta at Concepcion, and Carrera offered to a.s.sociate him in the government. Rosas declined, and the Santiago leader, now frankly a military dictator, advanced with an army to reduce the South to obedience. But the news that the Spanish party had gained the ascendancy in Valdivia and Chiloe intimidated him, and he made peace with Rosas, retiring to Santiago. His emissaries nevertheless continued to intrigue in Concepcion and finally stirred up a riot which resulted in Rosas" expulsion.
For nearly two years Carrera and his brothers remained in power, governing by military force, confiscating the property of their enemies, allowing their friends to loot the public funds, and committing many enormities. Conspiracy after conspiracy was formed against them, only to be detected and suppressed, while the patriots divided into hostile factions each selfishly ambitious for control. Meanwhile Abascal, the able and resolute viceroy at Lima, had succeeded in keeping Peru submissive, in crushing out the revolution in Ecuador and Bolivia, and in repelling the northward march of the Argentine patriots. He now prepared to send an army to re-establish royal authority in Chile. Early in 1813 a large force landed at Talcahuano and, advancing to Concepcion, was joined by the garrison of that place. Reinforcements came up from Valdivia and Chiloe, and the Spanish general took the road for Santiago at the head of four thousand men. In the face of this imminent danger the bickerings of the patriots were hushed. Carrera advanced to the South in command of twelve thousand men, poorly armed and disciplined.
On the Spanish side the officers were, however, suspicious, and had little confidence in their raw levies. A sudden and successful attack on an outpost near the river Maule was followed by a panic among the royalists, and they retreated in disorder, but with no great loss, to the fortifications of Chillan, only fifty miles from Concepcion.
Detachments of patriots pushed on to Concepcion and captured that place and Talcahuano. The Spanish army was completely isolated in Chillan, but had found there an abundant supply of provisions, and successfully resisted Carrera"s efforts to take the place. His hastily gathered levies, without means of sheltering themselves from the rain and cold, melted away by desertion. Finally he retired toward Concepcion followed by the Spaniards and the remnants of his army were only saved from total rout by the gallantry and steadiness of Bernardo O"Higgins. This military chief, a natural son of the old Irish captain-general, and heir to his Chilean estates, had made common cause with the patriots at the beginning of the revolution, and attached himself to the fortunes of Rosas, the leader of the Concepcion radicals. When the latter was banished by Carrera, O"Higgins retired from the army. The Spanish invasion had roused him; he offered his sword to Carrera, and his dashing military talents sent him quickly to the front.
[Ill.u.s.tration: BERNARDO O"HIGGINS.]
Carrera"s failure at Chillan cost him his prestige, his rivals at Santiago took advantage of his absence to expel him from the junta, his violent measures at Concepcion exasperated its people to revolt, and his own troops became mutinous. The new Santiago junta formally nominated O"Higgins to the chief command and Carrera was compelled to withdraw.