The United States and Latin America. John Holladay Latané
a prince of the House of Bourbon. Louis Philippe, Duke of Orleans, was suggested as the most suitable person for the new crown. Some thirty years prior to this, immediately upon the recognition by Spain of the independence of the United States, Count de Aranda had advised Charles III to forestall the movement for independence, which must inevitably come in his own provinces, by establishing among them three great empires—one in Mexico, one in Peru, and one on the Main—each to be ruled by a prince of the royal family of Spain.[28]
Chateaubriand brought forward a similar plan several years later at the Congress of Verona. The present scheme was suggested by General Dumouriez in the interests of his friend, the Duke of Orleans. Several memorials on the subject, both by Dumouriez and the duke, were presented to the British government in 1807 and 1808.[29]
Napoleon's invasion of Spain constitutes at once the most contemptible and the most disastrous chapter in his career. In 1807, under the terms of an agreement with Godoy, the unworthy favorite of the queen and the virtual ruler of Spain, a French army was introduced into the kingdom for the nominal purpose of punishing Portugal for her refusal to join the continental system. The Portuguese royal family, fully appreciating the danger in which they stood, fled to America and founded the empire of Brazil, which in 1815 was declared independent of Portugal. The Spanish rulers attempted to follow their example, but their intended flight became known and they were prevented by the populace from leaving the capital. In the meantime a disgraceful quarrel having arisen between the old king, Charles IV, and Prince Ferdinand, Napoleon, whose troops were now firmly established in Spain, stepped in as arbiter between father and son and summoned them both to meet him on the northern frontier. Having purposely lingered in France beyond the appointed time, he succeeded in enticing them over the border to Bayonne, where he compelled both to renounce forever the crown of Spain and the Indies, which he forthwith bestowed upon his brother Joseph. When the truth dawned upon them, the Spanish nation rose to a man. Napoleon had unwittingly aroused the latent principle of nationality; he had put into action a force which was new and one which the statesmen of Europe had hitherto left out of account, but which was to prove the most potent factor in the new epoch of political history introduced by the French Revolution.
Provisional juntas were rapidly organized in the various provinces of the kingdom of Spain and affairs administered in the name of Ferdinand VII. The Junta, or as it is better known, the Regency of Cadiz, rapidly gained a position of national importance and became the chief executive body of the Spanish nation. The American provinces, which had long been restive under Spanish rule, now claimed the same right of self-government that the provinces of the Peninsula had assumed, and began to depose the Spanish governors and to set up juntas of their own, still acting in the name of Ferdinand VII. The Americans claimed that they were not politically a part of Spain, but connected only through the sovereign, and that with the removal of the sovereign the connection ceased. The Regency of Cadiz, on the other hand, maintained that the colonies were integral parts of Spain, and claimed, therefore, the right to govern them in the absence of the sovereign.
The first throes of revolution were felt in 1809, almost simultaneously in Upper Peru, Quito, and Mexico. These movements were quickly suppressed with great cruelty. In the year 1810 the revolution opened upon a vast scale. All the Spanish colonies on the mainland, with the exception of Lower Peru, revolted at the same time and proclaimed their independence of Spain, although still professing allegiance to Ferdinand VII, the dethroned king.
The colonial authorities were deposed in most cases by force of public opinion and without violence. The revolution was municipal in character, that is to say, the cabildos, or town councils, the only popularly constituted political bodies in the colonies, assumed the initiative in the work of revolution and named the juntas. The junta of the capital city in each province was usually recognized as the chief executive body for that province, and assumed for the time being all the functions of government. National conventions were then called in many cases to decide upon the form of government. These in most cases entrusted the executive power to regencies or triumvirates, almost all of which rapidly gave way to military dictatorships.
The Regency of Cadiz had anticipated trouble from the colonies and had recognized their rights as freemen by inviting them to send deputies to the national Cortes, but at the same time had abridged those rights by allowing them only a very limited representation, absurdly out of proportion to their population and commercial importance. Upon the establishment of the provisional governments or juntas in the colonies, the Regency refused them the freedom of trade that had been promised, declined the proffered mediation of England, and proceeded to stigmatize the Americans as rebels and to declare them guilty of high treason, although they had been guilty only of the same conduct that the Spaniards themselves were pursuing at home.
Venezuela then (1811) declared herself independent of both the Spanish nation and of the Spanish monarch, and adopted a republican constitution. The promulgation of the Spanish constitution of 1812 further encouraged the spirit of independence in the colonies, but when Ferdinand was restored in 1814, the colonies were still governed in his name, for the revolution of Venezuela, which alone had declared for independence, had been crushed out. Had Ferdinand acted with any moderation or judgment, his American possessions would have been saved to his crown. But the refusal of the colonies, which had now enjoyed practical self-government for several years, to take upon them without conditions the yoke of absolute authority, was met with the proclamation of a war of reconquest. Reconciliation was thereafter no longer possible, and independence only a question of time. By the close of 1815 the revolution had been put down in all the provinces except La Plata. There it was never suppressed. For this reason we shall first trace rapidly the course of the revolution in the south, of which San Martin was the directing power.
José de San Martin was born in 1778 in Paraguay, his father being the governor of Misiones. When eight years of age, his family went to Spain and he was entered as a pupil in the Seminary of Nobles at Madrid. At the age of twelve, he joined a regiment as cadet and saw his first service in Africa. He served in the Spanish army for more than twenty years, and won promotion as well as special distinction for bravery. In the battle of Baylen, where a detachment of Napoleon's disciplined troops was beaten by an army of recruits inspired by patriotism, San Martin, then a captain, won a gold medal and a commission as lieutenant-colonel for his conduct. Hearing of the struggle for liberty in his native land, he resigned his commission and returned to America. He was almost unknown personally, but his reputation as a brave soldier and a skilful tactician procured for him immediate employment. At this time the Argentine Republic had two armies in the field, the one operating near at home against the Portuguese in Uruguay and the Spanish in Montevideo, and the other in Upper Peru (Bolivia) against the forces sent by the viceroy of Peru to suppress the Argentine revolution. San Martin was soon given the command of this army in the north, succeeding General Belgrano. He soon placed his army in an excellent state of discipline and put a check to the advances of the Peruvian army.[30]
On May 16, 1814, the Argentine naval force, under command of an Irishman named Brown, defeated and almost entirely destroyed the Spanish squadron stationed at Montevideo, and that city soon after surrendered to the besieging army of Alvear, San Martin's old comrade in the Spanish army. Alvear, whose political influence was much greater than San Martin's, now aspired to the conquest of Peru, and therefore desired the command in the north. This San Martin willingly relinquished to him. He had other plans in mind, and the state of his health demanded rest. Upper Peru had been the high-road from Peru to Buenos Aires in times of peace, and was, therefore, naturally looked upon as the line of advance for the liberating army. San Martin, however, after a careful study of the question, had become convinced that this was not the strategic line of approach, that the Argentine Republic would never succeed in conquering Peru from this quarter. His idea was to carry the war to the west, to cross the Andes, occupy Chile, and, having secured a naval base there, to attack Peru from the coast, continuing military operations in the north merely as a diversion. The success of this plan depended upon the performance of two apparently impossible tasks—the passage of the Andes and the creation of a navy on the Pacific. San Martin was by far too shrewd