SPANISH HISTORICAL PROGRESS OF SOUTH AMERICA-REVOLUTIONS U. COLOMBIA ECUADOR-GRANADA--VENEZUELA--PARAGUAY--PERU- URUGUAY-PATAGONIA, ETC. We have had occasion before, to pass under review the historical and statistical progress of the United States, and of those contiguous islands which remain still in the possession of foreign powers, but which it is not too great a stretch of probability to suppose, may ultimately be attached to the government of these states.* Our intention is to prosecute these investigations in regard to every other division of America, and furnish the reader as late, as reliable, and as thorough information upon them, as can be had from any or from all sources together. It is important that we, who occupy so large a portion of it, and are so intimately and closely connected with the rest, should know well and minutely everything that concerns or is likely to affect the interests of this western world. It is a theatre, far removed from all the old limits of civilization, upon which a new and somewhat different people are called upon to perform their parts, amid circumstances and influences widely different from those of nations with whom they are most nearly allied. The history of this population, in all its different manifestations, is as unique as it is interesting, and furnishes materials for additional chapters in the history of man, of society, and of human progress. The cold and inhospitable regions of the north, which are known as BRITISH AMERICA; and those which, amid mountains of ice, slope away to the Pacific and to the ASIATIC POSSESSIONS OF RUSSIA; the intermediate and but lately well explored divisions of CENTRAL AMERICA and MEXICO, and the vast SEMI-CONTINENT, stretching from the * Vide COMMERCIAL REVIEW, vol. ii. : Art. Progress of American Commerce; vol. iv. Progress of the Great West; vol. v.: The West India Islands. These are all elaborate papers, : Equator to the South Seas, will furnish abundant fields for investigation in this and succeeding numbers of the Review. However important the subjects here announced, it must be said, with great regret, that they have hitherto commanded a degree of interest with our countrymen altogether disproportioned to that importance. We have been pleased to know the states of our own confederation, and even that imperfectly, whilst, as to all the remaining portions of America, they have constituted a far more perfect terra incognita than those of a fabulous antiquity. The ancient resources of Greece and Rome, and the modern European states, are far more familiarly known and assiduously studied. To be sure, the difficulties of obtaining reliable information in the one case, have been far greater than in the other. From vain jealousies, indifference or indolence, it happens that little has been given to the world calculated to show, in any adequate manner, the true condition and statistical progress or decadence of these divisions of the Western World. Of their discovery, and of the adventurous spirits who found an arena for the highest romance, there has been no dearth of knowledge. Every one can speak of Cortez and Pizarro. Even travellers, who, in general, do so much in extending information of the countries visited, aid us little here. Books have not multiplied upon these points. In fact, we know of scarcely any sufficiently elaborate and reliable for all the purposes desired. However, a thirst for knowledge has been excited by the contests about Oregon and the wars in Mexico, which will eventually result, we doubt not, in the most complete and perfect developments. On this occasion, we shall confine our attention entirely to SOUTH AMERICA, a text sufficiently comprehensive for much greater space than that to which we find ourselves necessarily restricted. The discovery and early settlement of this vast region, whilst it presents little in common with the discovery and settlement of the country to the northward by other European powers, excepting Florida and Mexico, furnishes one of the most romantic and thrilling chapters in the history of mankind:-Valor, endurance, intrepidity in the most trying and terrible exigencies, induced by the basest considerations of rapacity and plunder!-the loftiest spirit, and the most criminal and groveling desires. Not all the attractions of poetry or of chivalry can veil the deformities of a picture in which avarice, blood and slaughter, command so prominent a place. No cruelty could be more refined; no tyranny more systematic and heartless. The Spaniards profited by the feuds existing among the natives at the period of discovery, and made them the instruments of conquest. They sold the Indians into slavery, and destroyed thousands by the harshest abuse. On the suggestion of Las Casas, commissioners were sent from Madrid to inquire into these abuses, and several regulations were made for their protection, and for the distribution of their labors. These established a less odious but yet perfect system of slavery. Thousands of these unfortunate people, says the Hon. Joel R. Poinsett, in a paper prepared by him, in 1818, at the request of the government of Mr. Monroe, were marched every year to Potosi; and although the period of service was only eighteen months, they were attended by a numerous train of friends and relations, who, on the eve of their entering the mines, sang melancholy dirges, and sounding a horn in solemn strains, mourned over them with all the ceremonies with which they used to evince their sorrow on the death of a relative. Their wives and children remained with the conscripts, who, harrassed by a long march, seldom resisted more than a year the excessive labor and noxious air of the mines. But with this period we will not long delay, since the reader has been for some time in possession of the valuable works of Mr. Prescott, which entirely exhaust the subject. Our observations upon South America begin at a period much more modern, and will be brought down as nearly as possible to the present day. They include all the states and provinces, except those of French, English and Dutch Guiana, already considered in our last number. The contrast furnished by the picture, when viewed in connection with that we have previously submitted, of the United States of North America, is the most striking and instructive. In the year 1818, the question of South American affairs was brought before Congress by Mr. Monroe, who submitted the correspondence between Mr. Adams and Mr. Aguirre, the agent of the Government of La Plata, in regard to acknowledging the independence of that republic, then in actual revolution against the Spanish authorities. The papers which were submitted on that interesting occasion, embrace the diplomatic correspondence, the able letter of Mr. Poinsett, and the elaborate returns of a commission, consisting of Messrs. Rodney, Graham and Bland, who were sent on a special embassy to South America, in order to learn the true state of affairs and condition of the country. These, with the able speeches of that liberal and enlightened statesman, Henry Clay, upon the same subject, are upon the table before us. For later information, we are indebted to the Digest of American Statistics, which, with little system, but great labor, the Hon. John McGregor, of London, has lately made and published. Up to the period of the Revolution of 1790, in France, South America submitted quietly to its European governors in every particular, however arbitrary the exactions or revoltive the principles of government. A hope of liberty would have seemed visionary and absurd in so grinding a despotism. Force and fear, and a sense of weakness and dependence, suppressed every other feeling than that of passive endurance. Two viceroys were set up by the Spaniards over their American possessions; the Viceroy of Mexico and the Viceroy of Peru, under whose jurisdiction all things were placed. To these were added, in 1718, the Viceroyalty of Santa Fé de Bogota; in 1731, the Captain Generalship of Caraccas; in 1768, the Captain Generalship of Chili; in 1778, the Viceroyalty of Buenos Ayres. In 1797, disturbances began to occur in Venezuela, induced by the spread of French revolutionary principles. They were succeeded, in the early part of the next century, by the attack of the British army, under General Whitlocke, during the English and Spanish war, most gallantly repulsed by the South Americans, who, in this feat of arms and valor, seem for the first time to have been taught their true strength and importance. Such a lesson was not likely to be lost. When Charles IV. and Ferdinand VII. of Spain renounced authority in favor of the brother of Napoleon, the act was met with loud protestations in the colonies. Neglected by the mother country in the pressing difficulties which surrounded her, and conceiving themselves abandoned entirely, a Junta was established in Buenos Ayres, in 1810, which assumed, in its own hands, the reins of government. In 1815, a Congress, at Tucuman, and afterwards in Buenos Ayres, was employed in framing a republican constitution. A declaration of independence was signed on the 9th July, 1816, and soon after followed by a similar declaration from Chili. We are, however, anticipating, and return to a detail of those facts which minutely mark the progress of the revolution. In the first republican government of Buenos Ayres, the executive and legislative powers were vested in the Deputies; afterwards in an Assembly of Deputies from all the chief towns. This assembly having vested its executive powers in a Junta of three, which took the title of the Superior Provisional Government of the United Provinces of the River of the La Plata, in the name of Ferdinand VII., and after dissolving several assemblies, were finally abolished themselves, and a supreme director chosen, with regal powers. The capital and provinces maintained a continual struggle, in which the former preserved the supremacy. Paraguay established an independent government, consisting of a Senate and two Consuls. The eastern shore of the La Plata, comprising the Banda Oriental, or Montevideo, refused its adhesion to the capital, and resisted by force of arms. They asserted an independence of Buenos Ayres as well as of Spain. The people of Peru took no active part in the revolution, from causes growing out of the organization, etc. of that province. The power of the church in Chili and its opposition to the revolution, as well as the factions between, the powerful families of the Carreras and Larrains, are stated, by Mr. Poinsett, as having been unfavorable to the establishment of independence. The South American colonies were an object of great interest with Great Britain from a very early period. Their emancipation was a favored project with Mr. Pitt, and proposals are said to have been made by him to the administration of John Adams upon the subject. The first outbreak at Caraccas was encouraged by a proclamation from Trinidad. The expedition of Miranda, and the occupation of Buenos Ayres, in 1806, by Sir Home Popham, were countenanced by the British government. Emboldened by their success, the British now determined upon the entire conquest of South America, as is evinced in the instructions given to Generals Whitlocke and Crawford, whose expedition sailed immediately after, and was repulsed, as we have seen. The expedition of General Whitlocke, says Mr. Poinsett, might have secured the emancipation of these colonies, but was not adequate to transfer the dominions to the crown of Great Britain. After the downfall of the Spanish throne, manifestoes were pub lished by the Princess Charlotte of Portugal, and the infant Don Pedro, claiming the Spanish American dominions. The first scheme of revolution was founded upon this pretension, and the delivery of the country to the Princess Charlotte, it was thought, would have been soon followed by its absolute independence. The matter, however, made but little progress. We have already seen the formation of the Junta, and subsequent revolutionary governments. Years of anarchy and blood were destined to result to the almost irretrievable ruin of the colonies. The monarchial and patriot party, in their dissensions, added no little to the fearful disorders of the times. Civil wars raged between the different sections with various success and carnage. Portuguese and Spanish armies ravaged the country. Everything at times seemed hopeless for the republican cause. The Spanish yoke seemed but too likely to be imposed again. Almost any government would have been a blessing. Remarking upon this dark chapter, Mr. Poinsett continues: "Their dissensions and ambition render them, in the opinion of some, unworthy to be free; but let us recollect that the virtues that adorn society and brighten the page of history, are the offspring of freedom and science, and that when a people have been for centuries kept in subjection by ignorance and superstition, the first effort to burst their fetters will call into action the most violent of the human passions, and hurry men to commit the greatest excesses. The course of such a revolution will be too often stained by cruelties and crimes, and will almost inevitably terminate in a military despotism." "In contemplating," said the Hon. Henry Clay, in his noble speech in the House of Representatives in 1818, on the appointment of a minister to the La Plata, "in contemplating the great struggle in which Spanish America is now engaged, our attention is first fixed by the immensity and character of the country which Spain seeks again to subjugate. Stretching on the Pacific Ocean from about the fortieth degree of north latitude to about the fifty-ninth degree of south latitude, and extending from the mouth of the Rio del Norte (exclusive of East Florida) around the Gulf of Mexico, and along the South Atlantic to near Cape Horn; it is about five thousand miles in length, and in some places near three thousand in breadth. Within this vast region we behold the most sublime and interesting objects of creation; the loftiest mountains, the most majestic rivers in the world; the richest mines of the precious metals, and the choicest productions of the earth. We behold there a spectacle still more interesting and sublime-the glorious spectacle of eighteen millions of people, struggling to burst their chains and to be free. When we take a little nearer and more detailed view, we perceive that nature has, as it were, ordained that this people and this country shall ultimately constitute several different nations. Leaving the United States on the north, we come to New Spain, or the vice-royalty of Mexico on the south; passing by Guatemala, we reach the vice-royalty of New Granada, the late Captain-Generalship of Venezuela and Guiana, lying on the east side of the Andes. Stepping over the Brazils we arrive at the United Provinces of La Plata, and crossing the Andes, we find Chili on their west side, and further north, the vice-royalty of Lima or Peru. Each of these several parts is sufficient in itself, in point of limits, to constitute a powerful state; and in point of population, that which has the smallest, contains enough to make it respectable. Throughout all the extent of that great portion of the world, which I have attempted thus hastily to describe, the spirit of revolt against the dominion of Spain has manifested itself. The revo |