The Emancipation of South America being a condensed translation by William Pilling of the History of San Martin

Front matter

"Serás lo que debes ser, Y sinó, no serás nada."

San Martin.

THE EMANCIPATION OF

Translator's Preface

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.

The title of this translation is the second title of the original "History of San Martin." This transposition of title is an index to the relation which the translation bears to the original. This latter is truly a biography of San Martin, whose life could not be understood unless very full account were given of the events in which he took so prominent a part, therefore the biography is also a history.

No man who plays a prominent part in the history of a revolution can escape becoming involved in disputes with his contemporaries, and in many intricate questions which are of interest only to a very small number of their successors. These disputes and these questions greatly affect the career of a man, but have small influence upon the history of a Nation. Of such troubles San Martin had his full share, his biographer has entered fully into them, and with much detail has given proofs of the correctness of the view he takes of them. These details are, for the most part, suppressed in the translation, and all matters concerning San Martin himself are greatly curtailed, while prominence is given to the events of the times in which the scene passes. The translation is thus a history in which enter the biographies of the two principal personages, San Martin and Bolívar.

This translation is intended only for the general mass of English-speaking readers, to whom minute details are wearisome, and is thus in every part a condensation of the copious accounts which are given in the original of the stirring events described. The student of history will not find in it that ample information which he requires, in order fully to understand the subject in all its bearings; for him the original provides a mine of historic wealth, enriched as it is with notes and with a voluminous appendix.

William Pilling.

London, March, 1893.

Prologue

PROLOGUE.

The object of this book is to give a biography of General José de San Martin, combining therewith the history of the emancipation of South America. It is a necessary complement to the History of Belgrano, written thirty years ago. These two histories display the Argentine Revolution in its two principal aspects; one relates the development of a nation, the other the effect of this development upon the emancipation of a continent.

This history is based, for the most part, upon documents hitherto unpublished, some of which are truly posthumous revelations which throw new light upon mysterious or little known events, or correct errors resulting from defective information.

I believe I have consulted all the books, pamphlets, newspapers and fly-sheets which have ever been printed concerning San Martin, and of manuscripts I have a collection of at least 10,000 documents, bound in 73 thick volumes, which it is my purpose to deposit in the National Library.

The most important of these sources of information has been the archive of General San Martin himself, which was placed at my disposal by his son-in-law, the late Don Mariano Balcarce. I have also consulted the archives of this city from the year 1812 to the year 1824, without which it would have been impossible to compile a complete history. The archives of the Director Pueyrredón, which were given to me by his son, have also been of great service to me, as also those of General O'Higgins, Don Tomás Godoy Cruz, General Las Heras, and others. I have also acquired much verbal information from conversations held with many of the contemporaries of San Martin, and with some of his companions in arms.

In addition to consulting all available maps and plans relating to the campaigns of San Martin, I have inspected in person the routes followed by the army of the Andes and have made sketches myself of the scene of memorable events when plans were not forthcoming.

This book will not be the historical monument which posterity will some day consecrate to the immortal memory of San Martin, but those who do at some future date erect it, will herein find abundant materials, stones finished or but roughly cut, with which solidly to lay out the foundations.

Bartolomé Mitre.

Buenos Ayres, 1887.

Here follows, on 25 pages, a list of unpublished manuscripts consulted in the compilation of this work, which manuscripts will be deposited in the National Library of Buenos Ayres.

William Pilling.

Chapter I.

THE EMANCIPATION OF SOUTH AMERICA.

CHAPTER I.

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.

The Argument of the Book.

Three great names stand forth conspicuous in the annals of America, those of Washington, Bolivar, San Martin. Of Washington, the great leader of the Democracy of the North; of Bolívar and of San Martin, who were the emancipators of the southern half of the continent. The story of the life-work of the latter of these two is the Argument of this book.

The scene of action passes on a vast theatre, a territory extending for more than fifty degrees of latitude, from Cape Horn to the Tropic of Cancer, and occupies twenty years of strife. The starting-point of this history is the Argentine revolution; it follows the course of this revolution as it spreads over the continent, and its object is to explain the laws which governed the establishment of a family of new Republics, and the fundamental principles from which they sprang.

This argument is dual and complex, for it treats both of political revolution and of social evolution. It shows how the Argentine revolution became a propaganda to the world outside, of the principles upon which it was based, and how under these auspices independent and sovereign nations sprang into existence, with forms and tendencies in the same likeness and similitude. It shows the proclamation of a new international law, which only permits of alliance against an enemy in the name of a common destiny, and forbids conquests and annexations. It shows also the failure of the attempt in Columbia to unite the emancipated colonies artificially into a monocracy in opposition to natural law and to the new idea of the rights of man inaugurated by the Argentine revolution.

The two hegemonies, the Argentine and the Columbian, unite to set the seal upon the emancipation of South America. San Martin and Bolívar cross the continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific by different routes, giving liberty to enslaved peoples, founding new nations, and meeting as together they enclose the colonial system in its last entrenchments, they bring the two opposing systems face to face, the shock resulting in the triumph of the superior principle.

Thus considered, the history of the emancipation of South America presents a homogeneous character, with unity of action and with one dominant idea, which in the midst of accidental deviations reveals the existence of a law giving one accordant significance to facts accomplished.

The study of the theatre of the war of independence shows that the scene passes in two distinct revolutionary areas—one at the south, comprehending the United Provinces of the River Plate, Chile, and Upper Peru; the other, at the north, comprehending Venezuela, New Granada, and Quito. The strife and the triumph proceed simultaneously in each area until the two revolutions, like to two masses obeying a reciprocal attraction, converge towards the centre. This plan, drawn up and carried out by the two great Liberators, emancipates South America by the combined military action of the revolted colonies, which action has at once the ideal unity of a poem and the precision of a machine.

The unity of this action is clearly displayed in the general lines of the life of San Martin, and gives to his historic figure an importance far transcending both his deeds and his designs. He was born in an obscure American town, which disappeared as he commenced to figure upon the scene; thus America in its entirety became his country. He grew up as a soldier in the Old World, fighting by sea and on land in company with the first soldiers of the age, and so prepared himself for his warlike mission, unwitting of his destiny. In the New World he commenced his career by establishing tactics and discipline as his base of operations, and from their combination produced his machine of war. He consolidated the independence of the United Provinces of the River Plate as the point from which he might start for the conquest of South America. In command of the army of the North, his name is associated with the revolution of Upper Peru; as he passed the Andes in prosecution of his own plan, he became identified with the revolution of Chile, and after consolidating the independence of this country he initiated the first international alliance in America. He secured the command of the Pacific, without which the independence of America was at that time impossible, and gave liberty to Lower Peru. He then carried the revolutionary standard of the allies to the foot of Pichincha, where he met the liberator of Columbia. Under the equator, which divides the two theatres of the war, he clasped hands with Bolívar. Thus ended his grand campaign; at the apogee of his power he disappeared from the scene, knowing that his mission was fulfilled, that his strength was exhausted, and condemned himself to exile, faithful to the ruling maxim of his life, Serás lo que debes ser; y sinó, no serás nada.

From exile he looked upon the results of his life-work: the definitive political organization of South America in accordance with geographical divisions, the foundation of a new constellation of independent States in obedience to natural laws as by him instinctively foreseen. He saw without envy that Bolívar, with whom he shared the glory of the redemption of a new world, wore the crown of the final triumph, though he knew that both as a politician and as a soldier he was his superior. Then the wild dream of Bolívar that he could found an empire of dependent republics under the auspices of Columbia faded away, and gave place to the Argentine plan of independent republics heralded by San Martin.

Synopsis of the South American Revolution.

It has been said that posterity will look upon the emancipation of South America as the most important political phenomenon of the nineteenth century, both in itself and from the probable extent of its future consequences. The immediate result was to bring into existence a new group of independent nations, founded on democratic principles, in open opposition to the right of conquest and to the dogmas of monarchy and absolutism which yet prevailed in the Old World. These new nations were organized on the principle of equality, and were emancipated from privilege, and thus offered an entirely fresh field for experiment in the development of the physical and moral faculties of man. This movement thus constitutes one of the most drastic changes ever effected in the condition of the human race.

The first throes of this revolution were felt at the two extremities and in the centre of South America in the year 1809. In 1810 all the Spanish American colonies rose up in rebellion as by one innate impulse, and proclaimed the principle of self-government. Six years later all, save one, of these insurrections were quelled.

The United Provinces of the River Plate alone maintained their position, and after declaring their own inde they gave to the conquered colonies the signal for the great and final struggle by making common cause with them.

In 1817 the Argentine revolution drew up a plan for the emancipation of the continent, took the offensive, crossed the Andes, and liberated Chile; in union with Chile obtained command of the Pacific, liberated Peru and carried her arms to the equator in aid of the revolution of Columbia. This vigorous impulse was felt in the extreme north of this southern continent, which in its turn defeated and expelled the champions of the old system, went through a similar evolution, and crossed the Andes to the point where the two forces united. The Highlands of Peru became the scene of the final struggle. Then the Spanish American colonies were free by their own strength, and from the chaos sprang up a new world.

During the progress of these events, the United States of the North, the pioneers of the Republican era, recognised the independence of the new republics (1822), as "an expression of the simple truth," and declared—

"The peoples of South America have a right to break the chains which bind them to their mother country, to assume the rank of nations among the sovereign nations of the world, and to establish institutions in accordance with natural laws dictated by God himself."

As a consequence of this recognition the United States, in the year 1823, promulgated the famous Monroe Doctrine which, in opposition to the Bull of Alexander VI., established a new principle of international law under the formula—"America for the Americans."

Free England, who at first looked favourably upon the revolution, began, in 1818, to lean towards Spain and the Holy Alliance, advocating an arrangement on the basis of the "commercial freedom" of the colonies. The diplomatists of Washington interfered in favour of their complete emancipation, and Lafayette, in support of this idea, declared to the Government of France:—

"Any opposition which may be made to the independence of the New World may cause suffering but will not imperil the idea."

Thus, much before the final triumph, the emancipation of the new continent was accepted as an accomplished fact, and the attitude of the United States supported by England turned the scales of diplomacy in its favour in 1823. When at the Congress of Verona the party of reaction proposed a contrary policy, Canning, Prime Minister of Great Britain, wrote to Grenville those memorable words which re-echoed through two hemispheres:—

"The battle has been fierce, but it is won. The nail is clenched; Spanish America is free. Novus sæclorum nascitur ordo!"

The battle of Ayacucho was the response to these words, and Canning could then exclaim:—

"I have called a new world into existence to redress the balance of the old."

The Action of America upon Europe.

The land discovered by Christopher Columbus, which completed the physical world, was destined to re-establish its general equilibrium at the moment the base thereof was shaken.

Before the end of the fifteenth century Europe had lost its moral and political equilibrium. After the invasion of the barbarians, which imbued it with a new principle of life without destroying the germ of decay left by the fall of the Roman Empire, its civilization was again on the point of collapse. Not one homogeneous nation there existed, her productive energy was exhausted, liberty was but a latent hope, privilege was the dominant law, politics were founded on the principles of Macchiavelli, all healthy evolution in the path of progress was impossible. A fresh invasion from the East advanced under the standard of the Crescent, and the despotism of Mussulman fanaticism was the last hope of the people. Europe, shut in between the Danube and the Pillars of Hercules, seemed lost; the discovery of a new world alone could save her.

This discovery restored harmony to the discordant elements, gave new life to Christianity, and saved the liberties of mankind. The Reformation, which came immediately afterwards, engrafted upon the consciences of men the germ of the democratic principles of the Bible, which, transplanted to a new world, later on regenerated the effete civilization brought from Europe, and spread it as a vital principle of politics all the world over.

The popular belief that the fountain of eternal youth was to be found on the new continent discovered by Columbus, was no vain imagination. The decrepit civilization of the Old World drew fresh youth and strength from the virgin soil of America, the genius of progress therein latent developed rapidly in the genial air. The opening of this new and vast field to human activity, was truly a renovation of social order in accordance with natural law, and resulted in the organization of a democracy based upon labour. To this end it was only necessary that the European, leaving his old traditions behind him, should, on a vacant continent, work out his own destiny under the guidance of healthy instinct.

The Colonization of Spanish America.

In the repartition of the new continent the worst lot fell to the southern half. Spain and Portugal carried their feudal absolutism to their colonies, but they could not plant there their systems of privilege, of aristocracy, or of social inequality. The good and the bad seed alike were modified by cultivation in a new soil, the natural product being democracy. The mode of colonization contributed to this result. The most trustworthy annals of the Indies recognise the fact that the conquest was achieved at the expense of the conquerors, without any drafts on the royal treasury. Hence arose that spirit of self-reliance which they bequeathed to their descendants. A rebel world grew up under the auspices of absolutism. The colonial constitution, which inculcated a personal despotism and excluded the idea of a common country, contributed fatally to this result. Spanish America was looked upon as the personal property of the Spanish monarch, in virtue of the Bull of Alexander VI. Thus the colony did not form a part of the nation, and was united to her only by allegiance to a common sovereign. When the monarch disappeared, his power lapsed to his vassals; the logical and legal result being the separation of the colonies from the mother country.

The government of the colonies was entrusted to the Council of the Indies, represented politically by a Viceroy, and in law by the Audiencia, the bounds of whose authority were iil-defined. In municipal affairs, the Cabildos, derived from the free communities of the mother country, were nominally the representatives of the people. In them lay the germs of democracy, as they possessed the right to call public meetings for the settlement of their own affairs by vote, which right, for long in abeyance, became an active power when supported by popular force.

The great extent of the country, the want of moral cohesion, the admixture of races, the general corruption of manners, the absence of an ideal, the lack of political and industrial activity, and the profound ignorance of the masses, all contributed to produce a state of semi-barbarism by the side of a weakly civilization, and vitiated the entire social organism. From this embryo was to spring a new republican world, the product of the germs latent within it.

The Colonization of North America.

North America, more fortunate, was colonized by a nation which had practical notions of liberty, and by a race better prepared for self-government. The process commenced a century later. The colonists easily adapted themselves to a climate similar to that of the mother country, and founded there a new home to which they were bound by free institutions. Originally the English colonies were looked upon as Crown provinces, and were ruled by privileged companies, and by a Council similar to that of the Indies, the monarch reserving to himself, as in Spain, the supreme legislative authority and the right of appointment, without giving any legislative rights. The colonists of Virginia, by their own energy, soon acquired some political rights, which were secured to them by royal charters. This example was followed by the colonists of Maryland. Colonial assemblies absorbed the privileges of the companies, and the royal charters formed later on the basis of republican institutions.

After the planters of Virginia and Maryland came the Pilgrim Fathers of New England, who, flying from persecution in Europe, sought liberty of conscience in the New World. Authors of the great revolution, they were deeply imbued with the republican spirit, and with the democratic spirit of Switzerland and of the Netherlands, in which latter country they had seen their ideal of the ruler of a free people in the austere person of William of Orange, the antetype of Washington. In accordance with these ideas, they established at once a form of popular government hitherto unknown, based upon just laws. Finally came the Quakers, who proclaimed freedom of the intellect as an innate and inalienable right, and drew up their constitution on the basis of democratic equality, absolute and universal; in this anticipating the most advanced of the modern era. Under William Penn they established the representative colony of Pennsylvania, the nucleus and the type of the great republic of the United States.

Such was the genesis of democratic liberty, destined to become universal.

Colonial Policy in both Americas.

The commercial monopoly which Spain adopted as a system on the discovery of America, had an influence quite as evil upon herself as upon her colonies. The intention was that Spain should draw to herself the wealth of the New World, by keeping in her own hands the exchange of European manufactures for the products of America. Every industry which might compete with those of the Peninsula was prohibited in America. At first Seville, and afterwards Cadiz, was declared to be the only port from which ships laden with merchandise could sail, or at which they could land cargoes of colonial produce. All direct trade between the colonies themselves was forbidden. The restrictive system was completed by collecting all the merchant vessels into annual or biennial convoys sailing in charge of ships of war to or from Portobello and Panama. Merchandise so introduced, was carried across the isthmus and distributed by way of the Pacific and by land to Potosi, where the Southern and Atlantic Provinces could supply themselves at prices five or six hundred percent, over the original cost. Such a system could only spring from a mind enfeebled by the possession of absolute power, and could only be tolerated by a race of slaves.

Before one century had elapsed, the population of Spain was reduced by one-half, her manufacturing industries were ruined, her mercantile marine no longer existed, her trade was in the hands of foreign smugglers, and the gold and silver of the New World went everywhere except to Spain. When Spain, taught by experience, sought to remedy the evil, it was already too late, her colonies on the southern continent were lost to her. Neither force nor love, nor a common interest, bound the disinherited children to their parent; the separation was complete, and the independence of the colonies a question of time and of opportunity.

The colonial system of Spain was not an invention, it was an ancient tradition, it was the economic theory of the epoch reduced to practice. England followed the same system, committing even greater errors in the establishment of privileged companies, such as the East India Company, giving territories to them on a feudal basis, the monarch reserving absolute authority over commercial relations.

In practice these errors furnished their own remedies. Tyrannical laws fell into disuse from the resistance of colonies armed with municipal rights. Thus the results sought by England were achieved without great violence and with advantage both to the mother country and to her colonies. The navigation laws of 1650—1666 gave supremacy to the mercantile marine of England, and by shutting out foreign competition from her markets, monopolised the trade with the colonies. This monopoly in skilful hands, colonized North America and corrected to some extent the errors of the system. In 1652, under Cromwell, freedom of commerce was established between England and her colonies, the right being given to the colonists to tax themselves by the votes of their representatives and to regulate their own Customs duties. This was almost independence. Even when their charters were mutilated or abrogated by the Stuarts, this doctrine was respected by common consent. When England disregarded it came the revolution.

The Emancipation of North America.

A special question of constitutional law concerning Customs duties, was the immediate cause of the revolution in North America. The revolution of South America arose from a question of fundamental principles.

The Stamp Tax imposed by England on her colonies was repealed on the ground that it was an internal tax, but Parliament sanctioned the imposition of Customs duties on the ground that they were an external tax, the produce of the colonies being subject to the will of the king. The colonists protested and took a further step by declaring that the Mutiny Act had nothing to do with them, as it was sanctioned by a Parliament in which they were not represented. They called out their municipal militia, and so in 1774 commenced the great struggle for the emancipation of America. During ten years their resistance had been kept within the limits of the laws, but from this moment they took their stand on the wide basis of natural and ideal right, independent of law and of tradition.

The Declaration of Independence on the 4th July, 1776, was the proclamation of an innate universal human right, of a new theory of government independent of precedent, inspired by natural law, by philosophy, and by political science. This declaration became, as has been said,

"The profession of faith of all the liberals of the world."

The echo of these theories was heard in France, and by her was transmitted to the Latin nations of both hemispheres. The people embraced them with enthusiasm. Up to that time two schools of politics had divided the empire of free thought. The historical school, led by Montesquieu, looked upon the constitution of England as the finished work of experience and of human logic. The philosophical school, led by Rousseau, denied the value of experience and thought to establish liberty and the sovereignty of the people by seeking "the best form of association for the defence and protection of each associate against the force of all, so that each one should obey only himself and remain free as before." This second doctrine formulated in the constitution of the United States, became a new principle in political science, and as such met with general acceptance throughout the colonies of South America.

The most important feature of the revolution of North America is not the achievement of her national independence, but her emancipation, political, intellectual, and moral, in the name of human rights and in constitutional form. From this moment, English constitutionalism ceased to be a model, and the English constitution to be an ideal, even among the English themselves, who have had to recognise their descendants and political pupils as their masters.

The spirit of free England, anticipating the verdict of posterity, justified insurrection in America. Statesmen and thinkers such as Chatham and Burke, sympathised in the movement, declaring, "There is no monopoly of principle," but its effect upon France was still more marked, being the outcome of the reasonings of her philosophers.

Thus it was that America reacted for the second time upon Europe with most beneficial effect. On the third occasion the part of teacher is played by South America.

The Affiliation of the Revolution of South America.

Hardly was Peru conquered by the Spanish race, than it became the theatre of civil war. The conquerors, headed by Gonzalo Pizarro, rebelled against their king in the name of their rights as conquerors, cut off the head of the king's representative and burned the Royal Standard. Hardly had one generation time to grow up in America, ere a son of Hernan Cortez, in whose veins flowed the blood of the celebrated Indian Doña Marina, conspired to give independence to Mexico in the name of the same territorial rights invoked by Pizarro. The far off colony of Paraguay was from the first a turbulent municipal republic. The colonists deposed their royally appointed governors with shouts of "Death to Tyrants," elected rulers of their own, and did as they liked for more than twenty-five years (1535–60). These and many other similar facts, prove that the colonization of South America was imbued from the commencement with the principle of individuality and with the instinct of independence, which naturally resulted in emancipation and democracy.

These insurrections were outbursts of Castillian spirit, but early in the eighteenth century, Creoles begin to call themselves with pride Americans, and for the first time is heard in Potosi the cry of Liberty. In 1711 the half-breeds proclaimed a mulatto King of Venezuela. In 1733 the Creoles rose in arms and compelled the abrogation of the commercial monopoly of the "Compania Guipuzcoana de Caracas." In 1730 two thousand half-breeds at Cochabamba (Upper Peru), made armed protest against the poll-tax, and acquired the right to elect Creoles as officers of justice to the exclusion of Spaniards. In 1765 the Creoles of Quito rose in armed insurrection against the imposition of direct taxes. None of these outbreaks had as yet any definite political character. The embryonic republic of Paraguay gave the first example of a revolutionary movement based upon the sovereignty of the people.

José Antequera, by birth an American but educated in Spain, appeared on the scene during a dispute between the governor of Paraguay and the Cabildo of Asuncion. The people named him governor by acclamation. He placed himself at their head, in opposition to the theocratic rule of the Jesuits, who were ruining the country. He fought pitched battles against the royal troops and was blessed as a saviour, but died on the scaffold as a traitor to his king.

After his death, his pupil Fernando Mompox organized the popular party under the name of the Comuneros, deposed another governor and established a governing Junta, but was also overcome.

In 1781 the Comuneros broke out in insurrection in New Granada, but the movement was suppressed.

These were not events of great historical importance, but they show that throughout the period of Spanish domination, the rule of the mother country was irksome to the Spaniards themselves, and was hateful to all Americans.

The Moral Revolution of South America.