South Americans,

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PRINCETON • NEW JERSEY

I Vl'irAI, I. VriN-AMKRICAN A K( ' 1 1 I I K( Tl' K K

SOUTH the

AMERICANS

W. H. KOEBEL

AUTHOR or ‘‘arointina: past and prisent"; “modern chile”; “druoday,"

ETC. ETC.

WITH TWELVE ILLUSTRATIONS AND A MAP

NEW YORK

DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY

Index

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

MAP OF SOUTH AMERICA . . . Fwnt End Paper

TYPICAL LATIN-AMERICAN ARCHITECTURE . Frontispiece

FACING PAGE

IN A GUIANA FOREST

EUCALYPTUS AVENUE ON THE URUGUAYAN COAST MAGUEY PLANTS IN FLOWER ....

PLAZA : MONTEVIDEO

A SOUTHERN CHILEAN WATERFALL . .

LOADING COFFEE ; SANTOS ....

RIO DE JANEIRO : FROM THE MOUNTAINS

A BUENOS AIRES STREET ....

A BIT OF OLD ASUNCION ....

URUGUAYAN WATERS : NEAR MERCEDES

GOVERNMENT HOUSE, SANTIAGO DE CHILE i f

Chapter I

Waves of Industry — The Line of Least Resistance — Engineering Feats — The Romance of Industry — Doctrine of the Spanish Regime — The Advent of Agriculture — Minerals and Their Lure — The Selection of Ports — Circumstances which Guided This — The Treasures of the Respective States — The Introduction of New Vegetation — The Past and Present of the Continent — A Comparison of the Era of Chaos with the Order of To-day — Reasons for Political Unrest — Influence Bequeathed by the Spanish Policy — An Hereditary Incubns — The South American Nations and Their Respective Rates of Progress — Political Circumstances in Brazil and in Spanish-speaking States — The Monarchical Form of Government Versus the Republican — Natural Trend of the Latin Races — The Disorganising Power of Distance — Difficulties Experienced in Brazil — Geographical Influence on Politics — Problems of Yesterday and To-day — The Sufirage — Temperament of the South American — Some Distinctions and Difierences — ^The Influence of National Spirit — Circumstances of the Various Republics — Questions of Language — Temperaments of the Spanish American and of the Brazilian — Some Emigrant Statistics — Various Constitutions — Forms of Government Best Suited to the Latin Temperament — Power Entrusted to the President.

IT is a curious coincidence that just a hundred years after the liberation of Spanish South America and the transition of the colonies to the status of Republics the Continent should again find itself on the threshold of changes and revolutions that are in their way almost as important. The waves of industry and scientific progress, having enveloped Argentina, Chile, and Brazil, and to a less wholesale degree several other States, have paused preparatory to surging over the remoter parts of the Continent. Bolivia, Paraguay, Colombia, and the remoter portions of Peru are the hitherto backward States which seem first of all destined to be swept, garnished, and pulled out into the full light of the industrial and commercial to-day.

The general advance of the Continent, rapid in itself, has so far followed to a large extent the line of least resistance. Although this line has passed through such wealthy territories, this circumstance, it must be admitted, was more by good luck than by good management. Both colonists and capitalists have, naturally enough, dealt first of all with that which came most easily to their hand. It is true that, notwithstanding this, numerous engineering feats and other industrial triumphs of the kind may be pointed to. The harnessing by the iron rail of the Andes at so rapidly growing a number of points counts among the many achievements of which any Continent might be proud. Nevertheless, the main tides of progress have so far been most evident in the plains and along the great river systems of South America.

The turn of the mountains to be dealt with in something approaching a comprehensive fashion is now at hand, and in the opinion of various experts the wealth that has already been extracted from the soil of the Continent represents but an insignificant proportion of that which lies undiscovered within its remoter fastnesses.

The romance of industry has probably nothing to show comparable with that worked out in the Americas. So far as the original enterprise on the part of white men was concerned, the field was virgin, and the aboriginals as new, and almost as strange, as beings from another planet. But for the efforts of the Incas and the Aztecs, all that has been produced in both the Americas has been the work of the races of Eiurope and of their progeny, the present-day Americans.

We are now deaUng with South America alone, and here the spectacle is, in its own way, a stirring one. We see the mountains, valleys, plains, and rivers of a new Continent un worked and unharnessed offering themselves to the enterprise of a race already civilized and expert in practical progress. The Europeans who first trod the land were not, of course, in the least concerned with its development for its own sake and that of its inhabitants. They sought gold, silver, diamonds, and other riches of the kind, and all that was effected in the way of progress and conquest was done in order that the white man might subsist in the land and be enabled to despoil it of its natural wealth.

In the earhest days of colonisation South America was regarded by the Spaniards much as we look upon India now. It was a country to live in, but not one in which to die. Portions of the Continent have proved this theory well-founded ; the temperate climate and healthful circumstances of others have subsequently vindicated in triumph their fitness to shelter European strains of humanity. But, of course, both time and experience were required to make certain of this.

Agriculture, pasture, and the more general industries came into being only as an afterthought, and in many parts of the Continent almost reluctantly, since these pursuits were followed lacking any better — or such indeed was the contemporary verdict. Thus the system of general industrial development has been tardy and prolonged in the extreme, and not until the nineteenth century did the ratio of its march increase to any appreciable extent. The silver of Potosi, the gold of the Incas, the diamonds of Brazil, the pearls of the Northern Islands : these and their kindred treasures were for centuries the sole incentives of labour, research, and ingenuity.

The search and traffic in connection with minerals and gems such as these were responsible for the choice and growth of ports, for the selection of ocean routes, and, more important still, for the direction of the various roads which soon began to cross the Continent and to lead from one great centre to another. Brazil alone can provide the exception to this rule, since it is true that the pioneers of Brazil were more concerned, in the first place, with its forests of valuable timber than with the inland mines, of the existence of which they remained in ignorance for some while. On the other hand, the Portuguese concerned with the discovery of Brazil had very little idea of the real wealth of the new country. They never dreamed, for instance, of comparing its riches with those of their possessions in the gorgeous eastern climes.

It was only little by httle that the great Continent consented to reveal its less obvious treasure and to yield up the secrets of its vegetation and its wealth of flora and fauna. Gradually the cattle spread themselves over the great plains of Venezuela and the River Plate ; while sheep came to flourish in the farther South. The soil of Brazil and aU the other tropical lands received the banana and plantain with a warmth that gave riches to their planters ; while the golden orange came to take its place beside the huge banana leaves.

Peru gave up the secret of its famous bark ; pineapples flourished and increased in the centre and North in company with the multitudinous tropical fruits natural to the region or imported from Asia or from Africa. Sugar-cane and tobacco flourished with a generosity that completely changed the face of entire districts. At a later date lucerne, once planted in the temperate climes, gave forth so dense and repeated a carpet as to alter the entire pastoral outlook where it flourished. The Eucalyptus and Paraiso trees stretched their respective tall and lowly groves in all directions, affording a welcome shade to both flocks and humanity. Moreover, the introduction of coffee into Brazil was attended by a productive success of sufficient magnitude to bring about a revolution in the coffee market of the world.

With the progress of science the secondary uses of many of the products developed, and in many cases exceeded the importance of the first. Thus the quebracho wood of the North of Argentina and of Paraguay, employed in the earlier days purely for its hard and durable qualities as railway sleepers and the hke, has now become of too great a value on account of its tannin properties to be used in quantities for any other purposes than that of extract. And the cattle, which were originally slain merely for the sake of their horns and hides, are, of course, now bred chiefly on account of the meat their carcasses yield.

The industrial development of South America has, indeed, been of a startling nature, since although the Continent has now been discovered for more than four hundred years, its genuine development according to European ideas has come about only during the last half century.

If we go back for the length of a hundred years, the South America of the early nineteenth century will be found to have practically nothing in common with that of to-day. In Europe a hundred years ago the main roads were much as they are to-day ; the power of steam was already being tested and found practical ; the broad bases of various governments, although less broad, were modelled on similar lines ; trade and manufactures, save that they were on a scale less complex and less vast, had much in common with the corresponding occupations of to-day ; and as for the sports, occupations, and pastimes, there has perhaps been less change in these social amenities than in any other attributes of civilisation.

As a contrast let us turn to the South America of a hundred years ago. A hundred years ago Spanish South America was in a condition of chaos, not only as regards its various governments, but as regards its industries. Until the War of Independence almost every industry except that of mining had been discouraged rather than fostered by the mother country. In spite of this, certain occupations such as that of grazing had persisted in a primitive and somewhat neglected fashion, it is true. But even such progress as had been made in this as well as in all other directions was shattered and brought to nothing in the course of the struggle with Spain, and the subsequent civil wars.

Thus during the first years of its independence Spanish South America found itself a confused mass of States and factions, each more or less isolated from its neighbours in the chaos, and each with the beginnings of its industrial progress swept clean away. It was first of all the policy of Spain, and afterwards a surfeit of politics in the new Republics which held in leash the energies of the Spanish South Americans.

It will be seen from this that political unrest has in the past been the chief characteristic of the South American States. Although the Latin, speaking generally, is accustomed to apply himself to politics with a deeper enthusiasm than the Anglo-Saxon, there has, perhaps, been greater intrinsic reason for the internal disturbances which have occurred in this Continent than has existed elsewhere in the world.

Flung suddenly on their own resources after the War of Liberation, the bulk of South Americans had perforce to become politicians whether they would or no. The patriotic victories had this result : that the entire onus of national existence suddenly fell on a community which until then the Spaniards had strenuously prevented from taking any serious part in the management of their own affairs. With the advent of the stormy periods of Civil War which occurred after the liberation from Spain, the rapid formation of parties and separate communities sufficed to keep the attention of the various States on matters of politics and of Government. Thus the mere industrial and commercial circumstances of necessity suffered.

This atmosphere bequeathed by the early years of the nineteenth century continued in the main until three-quarters of the century had elapsed ; and in some isolated cases its malignant effects persevere to this day. Speaking generally, therefore, it may be said that it was nothing beyond the obsession of these very acute politics which has kept the Continent in a backward condition in the past. It is certain that the trammels of this incubus have been both weighty and powerful. This is sufficiently proved by the fact that as each State has succeeded in shaking off the yoke of internal unrest it has leaped ahead, and the pace of its progress has amazed the world.

There are some States, as I have said, which have not yet fully shaken off their incubus, and these circumstances have to be taken into consideration in attempting to judge the prospects of the Continent’s future prosperity. Certainly there has never existed a collection of States the future of which could so inadequately be judged by their past. It must be remembered that every one of the South American Republics without exception is rich in natural resources, and that, speaking from the point of view of actual national assets and wealth, some of the countries which are to-day in the most backward condition are even more favourably placed as regards inherent wealth than others of those which at present are in the vanguard of South American progress. No question arises concerning the ultimate industrial and financial standing of the former. The only doubt involved is connected with the actual period at which prosperity will arrive. For there is always the danger of mistaking the false financial dawn for the true.

Quite apart from the unexplored portions of the Continent, which present a different problem altogether, this aspect of the general situation of South America should never be lost to sight. Moreover, the introduction, as explained elsewhere, of railways and other modern means of communication, as well as of an all-round up-to-date industrial equipment, has an automatic effect of sweeping away the greatest incentives to unrest and revolution, and goes towards achieving the attainment of tranquillity and firm Government.

In Brazil the circumstances, of course, have been rather different from those of the Spanish-speaking South American States. When these latter were turning themselves into Republics, the colony of Brazil became first of all a Kingdom in itself, and then an Empire. Thus Brazil’s most stable form of Government obtained, curiously enough, just at the time when chaos reigned in all the Spanish South American States.

Moreover, since Brazil did not assume the Republican form of Government until the quite recent year of 1889, the consequences of the upheaval resultant on the new form of Government were comparatively subdued and infinitely less marked than in the case of the Spanish States, which had undergone this process more than three-quarters of a century earlier, when men and customs were both considerably harder to tame than now.

Nevertheless, it cannot be said that the Republican system of Government has brought continuous peace to Brazil. There is no doubt that at its first institution methods of repression were employed — of necessity perhaps

— such as the monarchy and empire had never known. It was only after the establishment of the Republic that the various serious outbreaks of civil war occurred, and that the jealousies which had always prevailed between the various States broke out into wider and more violent flames.

There is no doubt that Brazil constitutes a country so vast and of such varied circumstances as to be one of the most difficult in the world to govern from any one central point. Thus, not only is the distance between the federal capital of Rio de Janeiro and such States as Para and Amazonas so great as to necessitate a journey of several weeks, even by sea, but there is very little in common save the language between the inhabitants of the far N orth and of the South.

Speaking very roughly, it may be said that the call of the most languid lotus-eating provinces comes from the Amazon basin, and the far North. Rio de Janeiro, the federal capital, reclines just on the edge of the torrid zone, and just outside the temperate zone to the South. SSo Paolo, on the other hand, perhaps the most ambitious, energetic, and virile town of the great Republic, stands in somewhat of a halo of proud independence still further to the South, and is, perhaps, a little inclined to chafe at the occasional touches from the governmental reins of Rio de J aneiro.

Such political troubles as have existed in Brazil, indeed, have nearly all arisen between the federal State and the provincial Governments. At times owing to this cause the Federal and Provincial troops have found themselves in active opposition, and before now armed conflicts have arisen between the local police and Federal troops especially imported on the occasion of local disturbances. The problem is certainly no easy one to solve. As a Statesman, the average Brazihan is extremely enhghtened, and the heads of many departments are patently imbued not only with talent but with brilliancy. Nevertheless, no permanent remedy seems to have been found for the situation. Indeed such friction as occurs from time to time seems undoubtedly to be due as much to distances and geographical circumstances as to anything else.

With the rapid improvement in communications, distance alone may be annihilated, and this is surely but, in a country of the extraordinary magnitude of Brazil, very slowly occurring in the great Republic at the present time. It would seem that when Para is brought, as it will be one day, to within a couple of days of Rio, Brazil will automatically become consolidated and her most widely diffused interests will be concentrated into a common cause.

In Europe these geographical circumstances are as a rule not sufficiently taken into consideration in judging the political careers of the late empire and present Republic. Indeed, considering the great natural handicaps under which they have laboured, the work of many of the Brazilian statesmen has certainly not received its full meed of appreciation.

In Argentina, although in the past one of the chief sources of internal strife was this same jealousy between the Federal and Provincial Governments, no further problems of this kind arise. Of the various political parties which exist, the two which at the present moment are most prominently in evidence, and between whom the combat is most keen, have their corresponding types in most European countries. They are the representatives of the class of estancieros, bankers, and, indeed, the generally well-to-do elite and bourgeosie of the Republic, and that other party which, imbued strongly with the most modern popular ideas, somewhat touched with socialism, is fighting to replace what they term government by the aristocracy by a more plebeian form of control.

The contest between these, however, is fought out on strictly parhamentary lines, and, indeed, in Argentina the power of the vote has now for a long while been fully realized. As a matter of fact, this republic can lay claim to a law which, I think, is unique among nations. Within the last few years a measure has passed through both houses to the effect that at a General Election it is a punishable offence not to vote ! By this means all the valuable but more diffident votes are prevented from being hid beneath a bushel, and every elector, whether he will or no, has perforce to betake himself to the voting-booth, and to place his vote on record. The result of this legislation has been a marked increase in the numbers of the party in opposition to the old regime.

Although Uruguay, as is explained elsewhere, lacks the political peace of Argentina, Chile possesses this in the fullest degree. With the exception of the Civil War in the time of President Balmaceda, this republic may be said never to have indulged in modern times in internal strife. Here the Government is of a very stable order, tending slightly towards Conservatism.

Peru, it must be admitted, has afforded some rather unpleasant political surprises of late. To those financially and sentimentally interested in the welfare of this Republic the various coups-d’ etat which have occurred within the past year or two recall a period from out of which it was hoped the State had passed. Not that such occurrences need be viewed with concern by those who fear that local industries will suffer seriously from these rapid and irregular changes of Government. Judging by what has occurred in past political upheavals of this kind in countries such as Peru, the property of foreigners in such lands is wont to meet with a respect in the course even of a revolution which rivals that accorded to it in normal times of peace. This respect, very sound in itself from a commercial point of view, has now been a feature of the pohcy of the less settled States of South America for some while, and applies naturally with far greater force to a civilized State such as Peru.

While on this topic it may be as well to take the first passing glimpse at the South American himself. Perhaps no human beings have been the object of so many and varied impressions and imaginings as the inhabitants of the Southern Continent. It may be asked : how far has the temperament of the average South American grown to differ from that of his Spanish or Portuguese ancestor who originally left the Old World to found this family in the New ? This is a species of question which is frequently asked by those not familiar with the circumstances of the great Continent of South America. It is one which, as a matter of fact, it is quite impossible to answer, at all events in this form.

There is, for instance, an infinitely greater difference between the Argentine or Chilean and the average South American dweller in the north of the Continent than there is between the Argentine or Chilean and the Spaniard. In the way of energy and enterprise the Argentine or Chilean has probably gone ahead of the sons of the mother country, though there is no doubt that in the light of these days the Spaniard is giving some e\ddence of a certain renewal of the youth of his race. Its railways, its industrial enterprises, and, incidentally, its King, have of late years shaken Spain into a froth of effervescence which it is to be hoped will mature into permanent activity.

There is certainly no reason why anything of this kind should not happen, having regard to the great possibilities which have for centuries been latent in the average Spaniard.

GUIANA FOREST

Nevertheless, as regards energy, enterprise, the advantages of world-wide travel, and even of wealth and education, it cannot be denied that there are certain sections of South America which have outdone the western Peninsula of Europe. In others, on the other hand, the primitive circumstances and customs still represent an era which Europe, and Southern South America, regard as altogether ancient and almost forgotten history.

Until the present day it has always been customary to speak of South America in the mass, just as though it were a single country and not a Continent. Perhaps Macaulay’s New Zealander, in the altered circumstances and traditions of his day, will, when he does actually sit astride the ruins of London Bridge, shake up Great Britain and the Balkans in a single mental basket ! It is not very much less ridiculous to attempt to speak of South America as a single entity.

It may be taken for granted that the most progressive States are those which have been continuously refreshed by importations of new blood from Western Europe. And here we must again turn to Argentina, Chile, and to a rather lesser extent to Uruguay. Southern and Central Brazil do, of course, enter most emphatically into this category ; nevertheless, here it must be admitted that the chmatic circumstances, though sufficiently favourable, are not quite so invigorating as those of the countries previously mentioned.

To the North of these countries, with the exception, of course, of the central districts of Peru, we get for the most part territories where a small white and educated aristocracy governs of necessity the population of Indians, Mestizos, or even negroes ; and thus we enter into a new and different phase which does not permit of comparison with European circumstances.

The distinctions between the various South American States, moreover, do not he in tradition alone. We have, for instance, that very broad hne which separates the inhabitants of Brazil from those of all the rest of the Continent. This, of course, has its chief origin in the difference of language, to say nothing of the difference in race. For the Portuguese, after all, though originally sprung from the same stock as the Spaniard, has in the course of centuries grown into a quite distinct nation. A certain similarity, it is true, is apparent in both languages. Thus a Portuguese would confess that he understands Spanish when spoken, but complains somewhat bitterly when the Spaniard refuses (so he alleges) to understand in return the Portuguese language.

This is conceivable enough without crediting the Spaniard with intentional maUce, since to the ordinary person the Portuguese language is undoubtedly more difficult to understand than the Spanish.

To retmn to South America. So wide is the gap between the respective races of Spanish and Portuguese descent in South America, that — although the understanding is now friendly — the intercourse between them is extremely rare. It is true that Brazil receives much meat and dairy produce and other objects of the kind from the Spanish Repubhcs to the South of the Continent, and that these in return obtain a certain amount of metal, diamonds, and other such treasures from Brazil. Nevertheless, such commercial relations do not appear to have brought the races into any very close and intimate contact. It is thus a rare thing to discover either a Spanish South- American resident in Brazil, or a Brazihan resident in Spanish South America, save, of course, in such districts of Uruguay and elsewhere that fringe the actual frontier of Brazil.

Indeed, in the past, so far from any friendship, an acute bitterness has frequently existed between Brazil and the neighbouring States. But this is now fortunately an affair of mere history, and this rivalry, a circumstance in itself most unnecessary and unprofitable, would actually seem to be buried beneath the practical exigencies of to-day. Thus it is that relations between Argentina and Brazil are now satisfactory and sometimes cordial.

The distinctions between the various Spanish-speaking republics are, of course, far more subtle and more difficult to explain. Thus we may take in the first instance those particular characteristics which differentiate the inhabitants of the two perhaps most progressive Spanish RepubUcs in the Continent, Argentina and Chile. This is decidedly not easy ; both are essentially “ white men’s countries,” and the principles of education, pohtics, and general philosophy which govern both would seem almost identical. Nevertheless, there is some subtle difference between the Argentine and the Chilean.

On the whole the Argentine is perhaps the graver of the two. Although he reciprocates a friendship which he acknowledges firmly and fully, he is possibly rather slower to grasp the extended hand than is the Ught-hearted and more happy-go-lucky Chilean. Beyond such temperamental differences as these, minor though they may be, there are also various affectations of speech which characterize the one or the other. Thus the Argentine — claiming that the more progressive a nation, the worse the Castihan — has his own method of pronunciation ; while the Chilean, although he has added to his vocabulary numerous expressions which are purely of local significance, chngs rather more closely to the language of European Spain.

The Peruvian, on the other hand, retains a certain atmosphere of the old Colonial days which would seem quite to have died aw^ay in the more Southern Repubhcs.

He is conservative so far as society is concerned, and although the average Peruvian of good birth is by no means blind to the practical benefits of the modem life, he is still given to indulge in certain graces and somewhat airy fantasies of the older- fashioned kind which have long been thrown overboard as useless lumber by the majority of the other republics.

Uruguay should, some say, have been included in Argentina since a distinction between the inhabitants of, say Buenos Aires and Monte Video, would seem practically an impossibihty. Such differences between the sister Republics as exist are only to be met with in the North and among the countrymen of the humbler orders, the introduction of African blood, much of which has filtered over the Brazihan border, having been far greater in the North of the Republic than in any part of Argentina.

As we proceed further North, it is possible to compare only the aristocracy of the tropical republics with the general population of the Southern States ; since here we arrive at a population of Indians at the head of which is only a small proportion of whites, and in some instances of mestizos. Here the intermixture of blood from Europe has of course been very small. For instance, the immigration from Europe into Paraguay, Bolivia, Colombia, and similar States has been comparatively insignificant.