 |
Fortunately during the night 50 head of cattle and 20 horses were driven in from the surrounding country.
From the 26th to the 29th the enemy busied himself landing troops, digging trenches, and planting 6 pieces of cannon on a height called "the Calvary." Then he began firing at the fort, which replied, doing considerable damage.
At 9 o'clock on the morning of the 30th, a drummer under a flag of truce presented himself before the castle with a letter addressed to the governor. It was couched in the following terms:
"Senor Governor Don Juan Faro, you must be well aware of the reasons of our coming so near and of our intentions. Therefore, I, Bowdoin Hendrick, general of these forces, in the name of the States General and of his Highness the Prince of Orange, do hereby demand that you deliver this castle and garrison into our hands, which doing we will not fail to come to terms with you. And if not, I give you notice, that from this day forward we will spare neither old nor young, woman nor child; and to this we wait your answer in a few words.
"BOWDOIN HENDRICK."
To which epistle the governor replied:
"I have seen your paper, and am surprised that you should ask such a thing of me, seeing that I have served thirteen years in Flanders, where I have learned to value your boastings and know what sieges are. On the contrary, if you will deliver the ships in which you have come to me, I will let you have one to return with. And these are the orders of my King and Master, and none other, with which I have answered your paper, in the Castle of San Felipe del Morro, the 30th of September, 1625.
"JUAN DE HARO."
The next day a heavy cannonading commenced, the Hollanders firing over 150 shots at the castle with small effect. The same day a Spanish ship arrived with wine and provisions, but seeing the danger it ran of being taken, did not enter the port, but steered to la Espanola, to the great disappointment of the people in the fort.
On the 4th of October the governor ordered a sortie of 80 men in three parties. On the 5th Captain Juan de Amezquita led another sortie, and so between sorties, surprises, night attacks, and mutual cannonadings things continued till the 21st of October.
On that day Bowdoin sent another letter announcing his intention of burning the city if no understanding was arrived at. To which letter the governor replied that there was building material enough in the island to construct another city, and that he wished the whole army of Holland might be here to witness Spanish bravery.
Bowdoin carried his threat into effect, and the next day over a hundred houses were burned. Bishop Balbueno's palace and library and the city archives were also destroyed. To put a stop to this wanton destruction Captains Amezquita and Botello led a sortie of 200 men. They attacked the enemy in front and rear with such elan that they drove them from their trenches and into the water in their haste to reach their launches.
This, and other remarkable exploits, related by the native chroniclers, so discouraged the Hollanders that they abandoned the siege on the 2d of November, leaving behind them one of their largest ships, stranded, and over 400 dead.
The fleet repaired to la Aguada to refit. Bowdoin, who, apparently, was a better letter writer than general, sent a third missive to the governor, asking permission to purchase victuals, which was, of course, flatly refused.
The king duly recompensed the brave defenders. The governor was made Chevalier of the Order of Santiago and received a money grant of 2,000 ducats. Captain Amezquita received 1,000 ducats, and was later appointed Governor of Cuba. Captain Botello also received 1,000 ducats, and others who had distinguished themselves received corresponding rewards.
Puerto Rico's successful resistance to this invasion encouraged the belief that, provided the mother country should furnish the necessary means of defense, the island would end by commanding the respect of its enemies and be left unmolested. But the mother country's wars with England, France, and Holland absorbed all its attention in Europe and consumed all its resources. The colonies remained dependent for their defense on their own efforts, while privateers, freebooters, and pirates of the three nations at war with Spain settled like swarms of hornets in every available island in the West Indies.
CHAPTER XX
DECLINE OF SPAIN'S POWER—BUCCANEERS AND FILIBUSTERS
1625-1780
The power of Spain received its death-blow during the course of the war with England. The destruction of the Armada and of the fleets subsequently equipped by Philip II for the invasion of Ireland were calamities from which Spain never recovered.
The wars with almost every European nation in turn, which raged during the reigns of the third and fourth Philips, swallowed up all the blood-stained treasure that the colonial governors could wring from the natives of the New World. The flower of the German and Italian legions had left their bones in the marshes of Holland, and Spain, the proudest nation in Europe, had been humiliated to the point of treating for peace, on an equal footing, with a handful of rebels and recognizing their independence. France had four armies in the field against her (1637). A fleet equipped with great sacrifice and difficulty was destroyed by the Hollanders in the waters of Brazil (1630). Van Tromp annihilated another in the English Channel, consisting of 70 ships, with 10,000 of Spain's best troops on board. Cataluna was in open revolt (1640). The Italian provinces followed (1641). Portugal fought and achieved her emancipation from Spanish rule. The treasury was empty, the people starving. Yet, while all these calamities were befalling the land, the king and his court, under the guidance of an inept minister (the Duke of Olivares), were wasting the country's resources in rounds of frivolous and immoral pleasures, in dances, theatrical representations, and bull-fights. The court was corrupt; vice and crime were rampant in the streets of Madrid.[40]
Under such a regime the colonists were naturally left to take care of themselves, and this, coupled with the policy of excluding them from all foreign commerce, justified Spain's enemies in seeking to wrest from her the possessions from which she drew the revenues that enabled her to make war on them. Englishmen, Frenchmen, and Hollanders made of the Antilles their trysting-ground for the purpose of preying upon the common enemy.
These were the buccaneers and filibusters of that period, the most lawless class of men in an age of universal lawlessness, the refuse from the seaports of northern Europe, as cruel miscreants as ever blackened the pages of history.
The buccaneers derived their name from the Carib word "boucan," a kind of gridiron on which, like the natives, they cooked their meat, hence, bou-canier. The word filibuster comes from the Spanish "fee-lee-bote," English "fly-boat," a small, swift sailing-vessel with a large mainsail, which enabled the buccaneers to pursue merchantmen in the open sea and escape among the shoals and shallows of the archipelago when pursued in their turn by men-of-war.
They recognized no authority, no law but force. They obeyed a leader only when on their plundering expeditions. The spoils were equally divided, the captain's share being double that of the men. The maimed in battle received a compensation proportionate to the injury received. The captains were naturally distinguished by the qualities of character that alone could command obedience from crews who feared neither God nor man.
One of the most dreaded among them was a Frenchman, a native of Sables d'Olonne, hence called l'Olonais. He had been a prisoner of the Spaniards, and the treatment he received at their hands had filled his soul with such deadly hatred, that when he regained his liberty he swore a solemn oath to live henceforth for revenge alone. And he did. He never spared sex or age, and took a hellish pleasure in torturing his victims. He made several descents on the coast of this island, burned Maracaibo, Puerto Cabello, Veragua, and other places, and was killed at last by the Indians of Darien.
Sir Henry Morgan, a Welsh aristocrat turned pirate, was another famous scourge of the Spanish colonies. His inhuman treatment of the inhabitants of Puerto Principe, in 1668, is a matter of history. He plundered Porto Bello, Chagres, Panama, and extended his depredations to the coast of Costa Rica. He used to subject his victims to torture to make them declare where they had hidden their valuables, and many a poor wretch who had no valuables to hide was ruthlessly tortured to death.
Pierre Legrand was another Frenchman who, after committing all kinds of outrages in the West Indies, passed with his robber crew to the Pacific and scoured the coasts as far as California.
The atrocities committed by a certain Montbras, of Languedoc, earned him the name of "the Exterminator."
* * * * *
When the first buccaneers made their appearance in the Antilles (1520), the Windward Islands were still occupied by the Caribs. Here they formed temporary settlements, which, by degrees, grew into permanent pirates' nests. In some of these islands they found large herds of cattle, the progeny of the first few heads introduced by the early Spanish colonists, who afterward abandoned them. In 1625 a party of English and French occupied the island San Cristobal. Four years later Puerto Rico, being well garrisoned at the time, the governor, Enrique Henriquez, fitted out an expedition to dislodge them, in which he succeeded only to make them take up new quarters in Antigua.
The next year the French and English buccaneers who occupied the small island of Tortuga made a descent upon the western part of la Espanola, called Haiti by the natives (mountainous land), and maintained themselves there till that part of the island was ceded to France by the treaty of Ryswyk, in 1697.
Spain equipped a fleet to clear the West Indies from pirates in 1630, and placed it under the command of Don Federico de Toledo. He was met in the neighborhood of San Cristobal by a numerous fleet of small craft, which had the advantage over the unwieldy Spanish ships in that they could maneuver with greater rapidity and precision. There are no reliable details of the result of the engagement. Abbad tells us that the Spaniards were victorious, but the buccaneers continued to occupy all the islands which they had occupied before.
In 1634 they took possession of Curagao, Aruba, and Bonaire, near the coast of Venezuela, and established themselves in 1638 in San Eustaquio, Saba, San Martin, and Santa Cruz.
In 1640 the Governor of Puerto Rico sought to expel them from the last-named island. He defeated them, killing many and taking others prisoners; but as soon as he returned to Puerto Rico the Hollanders from San Eustaquio and San Martin reoccupied Santa Cruz, and he was compelled to equip another expedition to dislodge them, in which he was completely successful. This time he left a garrison, but in the same year the French commander, Poincy, came with a strong force and compelled the garrison to capitulate. The island remained a French possession under the name of Saint Croix until it was sold to Denmark, in 1733, for $150,000. Another expedition set out from Puerto Rico in 1650, to oust the French and Hollanders from San Martin. The Spaniards destroyed a fort that had been constructed there, but as soon as they returned to this island the pirates reoccupied their nest. In 1657 an Englishman named Cook came with a sufficient force and San Martin became an English possession.
About 1665 the French Governor of Tortuga, Beltran Ogeron, planned the conquest of Puerto Rico. He appeared off the coast with 3 ships, but one of the hurricanes so frequent in these latitudes came to the island's rescue. The ships were stranded, and the surviving Frenchmen made prisoners. Among them was Ogeron himself, but his men shielded him by saying that he was drowned. On the march to the capital he and his ship's surgeon managed to escape, and, after killing the owner of a fishing-smack, returned to Tortuga, where he immediately commenced preparations for another invasion of Puerto Rico. When he came back he was so well received by the armed peasantry (jibaros) that he was forced to reembark.
From this time to 1679 several expeditions were fitted out in San Juan to drive the filibusters from one or another of the islands in the neighborhood. In 1780 a fleet was equipped with the object of definitely destroying all the pirates' nests. The greater part of the garrison, all the Puerto Ricans most distinguished for bravery, intelligence, and experience, took part in the expedition. The fleet was accompanied by the Spanish battle-ship Carlos V, which carried 50 cannon and 500 men. Of this expedition not a soul returned. It was totally destroyed by a hurricane, and the island was once more plunged in mourning, ruin, and poverty, from which it did not emerge till nearly a century later.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 40: In fifteen days 110 men and women were assassinated in the capital alone, some of them persons of distinction. Canovas, Decadencia de Espana, Libro VI.]
CHAPTER XXI
BRITISH ATTACKS ON PUERTO RICO—SIEGE OF SAN JUAN BY SIR RALPH ABERCROMBIE
1678-1797
The entente cordiale which had existed between England under Charles I and Spain under Philip IV ceased with the tragic death of the first-named monarch.[41]
Immediately after Cromwell's elevation both France and Spain made overtures for an alliance with England. But the Protector well knew that in the event of war with either power, Spain's colonies and treasure-laden galleons offered a better chance for obtaining booty than the poor possessions of France. He favored an alliance with Louis XIV, and ended by signing a treaty with him in 1657.
The first result of the hostilities that ensued was the capture by the English Admirals Blake and Stayner of several richly laden galleons.
From that time to the end of the eighteenth century England's attempts to secure the two most-coveted Antilles (Cuba and Puerto Rico) continued with short intervals of peace.
In 1768 an English fleet of 22 ships, with a landing force under the command of the Earl of Estren, appeared before San Juan and demanded its surrender. Before a formal attack could be made a furious hurricane wrecked the fleet on Bird Island, and everybody on board perished excepting a few soldiers and marines, who escaped a watery grave only to be made prisoners.[42]
It is certain, however, that on August 5, 1702, an English brigantine and a sloop came to Arecibo and landed 30 men, who were forced to reembark with considerable loss, though the details of this affair, as given by Friar Abbad, and repeated by Mr. Neuman, are evidently largely drawn from imagination.
In September of the following year (1703) there were landings of Englishmen near Loiza and in the neighborhood of San German, of which we know only that they were stoutly opposed; and we learn from an official document that there was another landing at Boca Chica on the south coast in 1743, when the English were once more obliged to reembark with the loss of a pilot-boat.
These incessant attacks, not on Puerto Rico only, but on all the other Spanish possessions, and the reprisals they provoked, created such animosity between the people of both countries that hostilities had practically commenced before the declaration of war (October 23, 1739). In November Admiral Vernon was already in the Antilles with a large fleet. He took Porto Bello, laid siege to Cartagena, but was forced to withdraw; then he made an ineffectual attack on Cuba, after which he passed round Cape Horn into the Pacific, caused great consternation in Chile, sacked and burned Payta, captured the galleon Covadonga with a cargo worth $1,500,000, and finally returned to England with a few ships only and less than half his men.
The next war between the two nations was the result of the famous Bourbon family compact, and lasted from 1761 to 1763.
Two powerful fleets sailed from England for the Antilles; the one under the orders of Admiral Rodney attacked the French colonies and took Martinique, Granada, Santa Lucia, San Vicente, and Tabago; the other under Admiral Pocock appeared before Havana, June 2, 1762, with a fleet of 30 line-of-battle ships, 100 transports, and 14,000 landing troops under the command of the Earl of Albemarle. In four days the English took "la Cabana," which Prado, the governor, considered the key to the city. For some unexplained reason the Spanish fleet became useless; but Captain Louis Velasco defended the Morro, and for two months and ten days he kept the English at bay, till they undermined the walls of the fort and blew them up. Then Prado capitulated (August 13), and Havana with its forts and defenses, with 60 leagues of territory to the west of the city, with $15,000,000, an immense quantity of naval and military stores, 9 line-of-battle ships and 3 frigates, was delivered into Albemarle's hands. It was Puerto Rico's turn next, and preparations were made for an attack, when the signing of the treaty of peace in Paris (February, 1763) averted the imminent danger.
By the stipulations of that treaty England returned Havana and Manila[43] to Spain in exchange for Florida and some territories on the Mississippi; she also returned to France part of her conquered possessions.
In 1778 Charles III joined France in a war against England, the motives for which, as explained by the king's minister, were frivolous in the extreme. The real reason was England's refusal to admit Spain as mediator in the differences with her North American colonies. This war lasted till 1783, and though the Antilles, as usual, became the principal scene of war, Puerto Rico happily escaped attack.
Not so during the hostilities that broke out anew in consequence of Charles IV's offensive and defensive alliance with the French Republic, signed in San Ildefonso on the 18th of August, 1796.
In February, 1797, Admiral Henry Harvey, with 60 ships, including transports and small craft, and from 6,000 to 7,000 troops under the orders of Sir Ralph Abercrombie, appeared before the island of Trinidad and took possession of it with but little resistance from the Spanish garrison. On the 17th of April the whole fleet appeared before San Juan.
The capital was well prepared for defense. The forts, as now existing, were completed, and the city surrounded by a wall the strength of which may be estimated by the appearance of the parts still intact. On these defenses 376 pieces of cannon of different caliber were planted, besides 35 mortars, 4 howitzers, and 3 swivel guns. The garrison was reduced to about 200 men, part of the troops having been sent to la Espanola to quell the insurrection of the negro population led by Toussaint L'Ouverture. There were, besides these 200 veteran troops, 4,000 militiamen, about 2,000 men from the towns in the interior (urbanos) armed with lances and machetes, 12 gunboats and several French privateers, the crews of which numbered about 300.
Abercrombie landed on the 18th at Cangrejos (Santurce) with 3,000 men, and demanded the surrender of the city. Governor Castro, in polite but energetic language, refused, and hostilities commenced. For the next thirteen days there were skirmishes and more or less serious encounters on land and sea. On the morning of the 1st of May the defenders of the city were preparing a general attack on the English lines, when, lo! the enemy had reembarked during the night, leaving behind his spiked guns and a considerable quantity of stores and ammunition.
The people ascribed this unexpected deliverance from their foes to the miraculous intervention of the Virgin, but the real reason for the raising of the siege was the strength of the fortifications. "Whoever has viewed these fortifications," says Colonel Flinter,[44] "must feel surprised that the English with a force of less than 5,000 men should lay siege to the place, a force not sufficient for a single line along the coast on the opposite side of the bay to prevent provisions from being sent to the garrison from the surrounding country. Sir Ralph's object in landing, surely, could only have been to try whether he could surprise or intimidate the scanty garrison. Had he not reembarked very soon, he would have had to repent his temerity, for the shipping could not safely remain at anchor where there was no harbor and where a dangerous coast threatened destruction. His communication with the country was cut off by the armed peasantry, who rose en masse, and to the number of not less than 20,000 threw themselves into the fortress in less than a week after the invasion, so that the British forces would, most undoubtedly, have been obliged to surrender at discretion had the commander not effected a timely retreat."
The enemy's retreat was celebrated with a solemn Te Deum in the cathedral, at which the governor, the municipal authorities, and all the troops assisted. The municipality addressed the king, giving due credit to the brilliant military qualities displayed during the siege by the governor and his officers. The governor was promoted to the rank of field-marshal and the officers correspondingly. To the municipality the privilege was granted to encircle the city's coat of arms with the words: "For its constancy, love, and fidelity, this city is yclept very noble and very loyal."
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 41: He was decapitated February 9, 1649.]
[Footnote 42: So says Abbad. No mention is made of this episode in Senor Acosta's notes, nor is the name of Earl Estren to be found among those of the British commanders of that period.]
[Footnote 43: Manila was taken in October, 1762.]
[Footnote 44: An Account of Puerto Rico. London, 1834,]
CHAPTER XXII
BRITISH ATTACKS ON PUERTO RICO (continued)—INVASIONS BY COLOMBIAN INSURGENTS
1797-1829
The raising of the siege of San Juan by Abercrombie did not raise at the same time the blockade of the island. Communications with the metropolis were cut off, and the remittances from Mexico which, under the appellation of "situados," constituted the only means of carrying on the Government, were suspended.[45] In San Juan the garrison was kept on half pay, provisions were scarce, and the influx of immigrants from la Espanola, where a bloody civil war raged at the time, increased the consumption and the price. The militia corps was disbanded to prevent serious injury to the island's agricultural interests, although English attacks on different points of the coast continued, and kept the inhabitants in a state of constant fear and alarm.
In December, 1797, an English three-decker and a frigate menaced Aguadilla, but an attempt at landing was repulsed. Another attempt to land was made at Guayanilla with the same result, and in June, 1801, Guayanilla was again attacked. This time an English frigate sent several launches full of men ashore, but they were beaten off by the people, who, armed only with lances and machetes, pursued them into the water, "swimming or wading up to their necks," says Mr. Neuman.[46]
From 1801 to 1808 England's navy and English privateers pursued both French and Spanish ships with dogged pertinacity. In August, 1803, British privateers boarded and captured a French frigate in the port of Salinas in this island. Four Spanish homeward-bound frigates fell into their hands about the same time. Another English frigate captured a French privateer in what is now the port of Ponce (November 12, 1804) and rescued a British craft which the privateer had captured. Even the negroes of Haiti armed seven privateers under British auspices and preyed upon the French and Spanish merchant ships in these Antilles.
Governor Castro, during the whole of his period of service, had vainly importuned the home Government for money and arms and ships to defend this island against the ceaseless attacks of the English. When he handed over the command to his successor, Field-Marshal Toribio Montes, in 1804, the treasury was empty. He himself had long ceased to draw his salary, and the money necessary to attend to the most pressing needs for the defense was obtained by contributions from the inhabitants.
While the people of Puerto Rico were thus giving proofs of their loyalty to Spain, and sacrificing their lives and property to preserve their poverty-stricken island to the Spanish crown, the other colonies, rich and important, were breaking the bonds that united them to the mother country.
The example of the English colonies had long since awakened among the more enlightened class of creoles on the continent a desire for emancipation, which the events in France on the one hand, and the ill-advised, often cruel measures adopted by the Spanish authorities to quench that aspiration, on the other hand, had only served to make irresistible. But Puerto Rico did not aspire to emancipation. It never had been a colony, there was no creole class, and the only indigenous population—the "jibaros," the mixed descendants of Indians, negroes, and Spaniards—were too poor, too illiterate, too ignorant of everything concerning the outside world to look with anything but suspicion upon the invitations of the insurgents of Colombia and Venezuela to join them or imitate their example. They, nor the great majority of the masses whom Bolivar, San Martin, Hidalgo, and others liberated from an oppressive yoke, cared little for the rights of man. When the Colombian insurgents landed on the coast of Puerto Rico, to encourage and assist the people to shake off a yoke which did not gall them, they were looked upon by the natives as freebooters of another class who came to plunder them.
On the 20th of December, 1819, an insurgent brigantine and a sloop attempted a landing at Aguadilla. They were beaten back by a Spanish sergeant at the head of a detachment of twenty men, while a Mr. Domeneck with his servants attended to the artillery in Fort San Carlos, constructed during Castro's administration. In February, 1825, some insurgent ships landed fifty marines at night near Point Boriquen, where the lighthouse now is. They captured the fort by surprise and dismounted the guns, but the people of Aguadilla replaced them on their carriages the next day and offered such energetic resistance to the landing parties that they had to retreat.
Another landing was effected at Patillas in November, 1829. This port was opened to commerce by royal decree December 30, 1821. There were several small trading craft in the port at the time of the attack. They fell a prey to the invaders; but when they landed they were met by the armed inhabitants, and after a sharp fight, in which the Colombians had 8 men killed, they reembarked.
* * * * *
The beginning of the nineteenth century found Spain deprived of all that beautiful island world which Columbus had laid at the foot of the throne of Ferdinand and Isabel four centuries ago, of all but a part of the "Espanola," since called Santo Domingo, and of the two Antilles. Before the first quarter of the century had passed all the continental colonies had broken the bonds that united them to the mother country, and before the twentieth century the last vestiges of the most extensive and the richest colonial empire ever possessed by any nation refused further allegiance, as the logical result of four centuries of political, religious, and financial myopia.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 45: They ceased altogether in 1810, as a result of the revolution in Mexico.]
[Footnote 46: Benefactores and Hombres Illustres de Puerto Rico, p. 289.]
CHAPTER XXIII
REVIEW OF THE SOCIAL CONDITIONS IN PUERTO RICO AND THE POLITICAL EVENTS IN SPAIN FROM
1765 TO 1820
After the conquest of Mexico and Peru with their apparently inexhaustible mineral wealth, Spain attached very little importance to the archipelago of the Antilles. The largest and finest only of these islands were selected for colonization, the small and comparatively sterile ones were neglected, and fell an easy prey to pirates and privateers.
Puerto Rico, notwithstanding its advantages of soil and situation, was considered for the space of three centuries only as a fit place of banishment (a presidio) for the malefactors of the mother country. Agriculture did not emerge from primitive simplicity. The inhabitants led a pastoral life, cultivating food barely sufficient for their support, because there was no stimulus to exertion. They looked passively upon the riches centered in their soil, and rocked themselves to sleep in their hammocks. The commerce carried on scarcely deserved that name. The few wants of the people were supplied by a contraband trade with St. Thomas and Santa Cruz. In the island's finances a system of fraud and peculation prevailed, and the amount of public revenue was so inadequate to meet the expenses of maintaining the garrison that the officers' and soldiers' pay was reduced to one-fourth of its just amount, and they often received only a miserable ration.
His Excellency Alexander O'Reilly, who came to the Antilles on a commission from Charles IV, in his report on Puerto Rico (1765) gives the following description of the condition of the inhabitants at that time:
" ... To form an idea of how these natives have lived and still live, it is enough to say that there are only two schools in the whole island; that outside of the capital and San German few know how to read; that they count time by changes in the Government, hurricanes, visits from bishops, arrivals of 'situados,' etc. They do not know what a league is. Each one reckons distance according to his own speed in traveling. The principal ones among them, including those of the capital, when they are in the country go barefooted and barelegged. The whites show no reluctance at being mixed up with the colored population. In the towns (the capital included) there are few permanent inhabitants besides the curate; the others are always in the country, except Sundays and feast-days, when those living near to where there is a church come to hear mass. During these feast-days they occupy houses that look like hen-coops. They consist of a couple of rooms, most of them without doors or windows, and therefore open day and night. Their furniture is so scant that they can move in an instant. The country houses are of the same description. There is little distinction among the people. The only difference between them consists in the possession of a little more or less property, and, perhaps, the rank of a subaltern officer in the militia."
Abbad makes some suggestions for increasing the population. He proposes the distribution of the unoccupied lands among the "agregados" or idle "hangers-on" of each family; among the convicts who have served out their time and can not or will not return to the Peninsula; among the freed slaves, who have purchased their own freedom or have been manumitted by their masters; and, finally, among the great number of individuals who, having deserted from ships or being left behind, wandered about from place to place or became contrabandists, pirates, or thieves.
"Their numbers are so small and the soil so fruitful they generally have an abundance of bananas, maize, beans, and other food. Fish is abundant, and few are without a cow or two. The only furniture they have and need is a hammock and a cooking-pot. Plates, spoons, jugs, and basins they make of the bark of the 'totumo,' a tree which is found in every forest. A saber or a 'machete,' as they call it, is the only agricultural implement they use. The construction of their houses does not occupy them more than a day or two."
The good friar goes on to tell us that, through indolence, they have not even learned from the Indians how to protect their plantations from the fierce heat of the sun and avoid consequent failure of crops in time of drought, by making the plantations in clearings in the forest, so that the surrounding walls of verdure may give moisture and shade to the plants. "Nor have they learned to build their bohios (huts) to windward of swamps or clearings to avoid the fever-laden emanations."
* * * * *
The stirring events in Europe that marked the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries did not find these conditions much changed, though some advance had been made and was being made in spite of the prohibitive measures of the Government, which were well calculated to check all advance. To prevent the spread of the ideas that had given birth to the French Revolution, absolute powers were granted to the captains-general, odious restrictions were placed upon all communication with the interior, sacrifices in men and money were demanded on the plea of patriotism, and a policy of suspicion and distrust adopted toward the colonies which in the end fomented the very political aspirations it was intended to suppress.
From the outbreak of the French Revolution, Spain was entangled in a maze of political difficulties. The natural sympathy of Charles IV for the unfortunate King of France well-nigh provoked hostilities between the two nations from the very beginning. The king gave public expression to his opinion that to make war on France was as legitimate as to make war on pirates and bandits; and the Directory, though it took little notice at the time, remembered it when Godoy, the favorite, in his endeavors to save the lives of Louis XVI and his family entered into correspondence with the French emigres. Then war was declared.
The war was popular. All classes contended to make the greatest sacrifices to aid the Government. Men and money came in abundantly, and before long three army corps crossed the Pyrenees into French territory ... They had to recross the next year, followed by the victorious soldiers of the Republic, who planted the tricolor on some of the principal Spanish frontier fortresses. Then the peace of Basilia was signed, and, as one of the conditions of that peace, Spain ceded to France the part she still held of Santo Domingo.
From this period Charles, in the terror inspired by the excesses of the Revolution and the probable fear for his own safety, forgot that he was a Bourbon and began to seek an alliance with the executioners of his family. As a result, the treaty of San Ildefonso was signed (1796). Spain became the enemy of England, and the first effects thereof which she experienced were the bombardment of Cadiz by an English fleet, the loss of the island of Trinidad, and the siege of Puerto Rico by Abercrombie.
Spain also became the willing vassal, rather than the ally, of the military genius whom the French Revolution had revealed, and obeyed his mandates without a murmur. In 1803 Napoleon demanded a subsidy of 6,000,000 francs per month as the price of Spain's neutrality, but in the following year he insisted on the renewal of the alliance against England (treaty of Paris, 1804). The total destruction of the Spanish fleet at the battles of Saint Vincent and Trafalgar was the result.
Godoy, who in his ambitious dreams had seen a crown and a throne somewhere in Portugal to be bestowed on him by the man to whose triumphal car he had attached his king and his country, began to suspect Napoleon's intentions.
Seeing the war-clouds gather in the north of Europe, he thought that the coalition of the powers against the tyrant was the presage of his downfall, and he now hastened to send an emissary to England.
The war-clouds burst, and from amid the thunder and smoke of battle at Jena, Eylau, and Friedland, the victor's figure arose more imperious than ever. All the crowned heads of Europe but one[47] hastened to do him homage, among them Charles IV of Spain and the Prince of Asturias, his son.
The next step in the grand drama that was being enacted was the occupation of Spanish territory by what Bonaparte was pleased to call an army of observation. This time Godoy's suspicions became confirmed, and to save the royal family he counsels the king to withdraw to Andalusia. Ferdinand conspires to dethrone his father, the people become excited, riots take place, Godoy's residence in Aranguez is attacked by the mob, and the king abdicates in favor of his son. Napoleon himself now lands at Bayona. Charles and his son hasten thither to salute Europe's master, and, after declaring that his abdication was imposed on him by violence, the king resumes his crown and humbly lays it at the feet of the arbiter of the fate of kings, who stoops to pick it up only to offer it to his brother Louis, who refuses it. Then he places it on the head of his younger brother Joseph.
Thus fared the crown of Spain, the erstwhile proud mistress of half the world, and the degenerate successors of Charles V accept an asylum in France from the hands of a soldier of fortune.
But if their rulers had lost all sense of dignity, all feeling of national pride, the Spanish nation remained true to itself, and when the doings at Bayona became known a cry of indignation went up from the Pyrenees to the Mediterranean. On May 2, 1808, the people of Spain commenced a six years' struggle full of heroic and terrible episodes. At the end of that period the necessity of withdrawing the French troops from Spain to confront the second coalition, and the assistance of the English under Lord Wellesley cleared the Peninsula of French soldiers. After the battle of Leipzig (1813) a treaty between Ferdinand VII and Napoleon was signed in Valencia, and Spain's independence was recognized and guaranteed by the allies.
* * * * *
From the beginning of the war many officers and privates, residents of Puerto Rico, enlisted to serve against the French, and large sums of money, considering the island's poverty, were subscribed among the inhabitants to aid in the defense of the mother country.
Ferdinand VII reentered Madrid as king on March 24, 1814, accompanied by a coterie of retrograde, revengeful priests, of whom his confessor, Victor Saez, was the leader. He made this priest Minister of State, and soon proved the truth of the saying that the Bourbons forget nothing, forgive nothing, and learn nothing from experience.
He commenced by ignoring the regency and the Cortes. These had preserved his kingdom for him while he was an exile. He refused to recognize the constitution which they had framed, and at once initiated an epoch of cruel persecution against such as had distinguished themselves by their talents, love of liberty, and progressive ideas. The public press was completely silenced, the Inquisition reestablished, the convents reopened, provincial deputations and municipalities abolished, distinguished men were surprised in their beds at night and torn from the arms of their wives and children, to be conducted by soldiers to the fortress of Ceuta—in short, the Government was a civil dictatorship occupied in hanging the most distinguished citizens, while the military authorities busied themselves in shooting them.
In the colonies the king's lackeys repeated the same outrages. Puerto Rico suffered like the rest, and many of the best families emigrated to the neighboring English and French possessions.
The result of the royal turpitude was the revolution headed by Rafael Diego, seconded by General O'Daly, a Puerto Rican by birth, who had greatly distinguished himself in the war against the French. Other generals and their troops followed, and when General Labisbal, sent by Ferdinand to quell the insurrection, joined his comrades, the trembling tyrant was only too glad to save his throne by swearing to maintain the constitution of 1812. O'Daly's share in these events raised him to the rank of field-marshal, and the people of Puerto Rico elected him their deputy to Cortes by a large majority (1820).
The first constitutional regime in Puerto Rico was not abolished till December 3, 1814. For the great majority of the inhabitants of the island at that time the privileges of citizenship had neither meaning nor value. They were still too profoundly ignorant, too desperately poor, to take any interest in what was passing outside of their island. Cock-fighting and horse-racing occupied most of their time. Schools had not increased much since O'Reilly reported the existence of two in 1765. There was an official periodical, the Gazette, in which the Government offered spelling-books for sale to those who wished to learn to read.[48]
During the second constitutional period, Puerto Rico was divided by a resolution in Cortes into 7 judicial districts, and tablets with the constitutional prescriptions on them were ordered to be placed in the plazas of the towns in the interior. Public spirit began to awaken, several patriotic associations were formed, among them those of "the Lovers of Science," "the Liberals, Lovers of their Country," and others. But the dawn of progress was eclipsed again toward the end of 1823, when the news of the fall of the second constitutional regime reached Puerto Rico a few months after the people had elected their deputies to Cortes.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 47: The King of England.]
[Footnote 48: Neuman, p. 354.]
CHAPTER XXIV
GENERAL CONDITION OF THE ISLAND
FROM 1815 TO 1833
That Ferdinand should, while engaged in cruel persecution of his best subjects in the Peninsula, think of dictating liberal laws for this island is an anomaly which can be explained only by its small political importance.
In August, 1815, there appeared a decree entitled "Regulations for promoting the population, commerce, industry, and agriculture of Puerto Rico." It embraced every object, and provided for all the various incidents that could instil life and vigor into an infant colony. It held out the most flattering prospects to industrious and enterprising foreigners. It conferred the rights and privileges of Spaniards on them and their children. Lands were granted to them gratis, and no expenses attended the issue of titles and legal documents constituting it private property. The quantity of land allotted was in proportion to the number of slaves introduced by each new settler. The new colonists were not to be subject to taxes or export duty on their produce, or import duties on their agricultural implements. If war should be declared between Spain and their native country, their persons and properties were to be respected, and if they wished to leave the island they were permitted to realize on their property and carry its value along with them, paying 10 per cent on the surplus of the capital they had brought. They were exempted from the capitation tax or personal tribute. Each slave was to pay a tax of one dollar yearly after having been ten years in the island. During the first five years the colonists had liberty to return to their former places of residence, and in this case could carry with them all that they had brought without being obliged to pay export duty. Those who should die in the island without heirs might leave their property to their friends and relations in other countries. The heirs had the privilege of remaining on the same conditions as the testators, or if they preferred to take away their inheritance they might do so on paying a duty of 15 per cent.
The colonists were likewise exonerated from the payment of tithes for fifteen years, and at the end of that period they were to pay only 2 12 per cent. They were equally free, for the same period, from the payment of alcabala,[49] and at the expiration of the specified term they were to pay 2 12 per cent, but if they shipped their produce to Spain, nothing. The introduction of negroes into the island was to be perpetually free. Direct commerce with Spain and the other Spanish possessions was to be free for fifteen years, and after that period Puerto Rico was to be placed on the same footing with the other Spanish colonies. These concessions and exemptions were contained in thirty-three articles, and though, at the present day, they may seem but the abolition of unwarrantable abuses, at the time the concessions were made they were real and important and produced salutary effects. They brought foreigners possessing capital and agricultural knowledge into the country, whose habits of industry and skill in cultivation soon began to be imitated and acquired by the natives.
The effects of the revolution of 1820 were felt in Puerto Rico as well as in Spain. The concentration of civil and military power in the hands of the captains-general ceased, but party spirit began to show its disturbing influence. The press, hitherto muffled by political and ecclesiastical censors, often went to the extremes of abuse and personalities. Mechanics and artisans began to neglect their workshops to listen to the harangues of politicians on the nature of governments and laws. Agriculture and commerce diminished. Great but ineffectual efforts were made to induce the people of Puerto Rico to follow the example of the colonies on the continent and proclaim their independence.
This state of affairs lasted till 1823, when, through French intervention, the constitutional Government in Spain was overthrown, and a second reactionary period set in even worse in its manifestations of odium to progress and liberty than the one of 1814. The leading men of the fallen government, to escape death or imprisonment, emigrated. Among them was O'Daly, who, after living some time in London, settled in Saint Thomas, where he earned a precarious living as teacher of languages.[50]
* * * * *
In 1825 the island's governor was Lieutenant-General Miguel de la Torre, Count de Torrepando, who was invested by the king with viceregal powers, which he used in the first place to put a stop to the organized system of defalcation that existed. The proof of the efficacy of the timely and vigorous proceedings which he employed was the immediate increase of the public revenue, which from that day continued rapidly to advance. The troops in garrison and all persons employed in the public service were regularly paid, nearly half the arrears of back pay were gradually paid off, confidence was restored, and "more was accomplished for the island during the last seven years of Governor La Torre's administration (from 1827 to 1834), and more money arising from its revenues was expended on works of public utility, than the total amounts furnished for the same object during the preceding 300 years." [51]
The era of prosperity which marked the period of Count de Torrepando's administration, and which at the same time prevailed in Cuba also, was largely due to the advent in these Antilles of many of the best and wealthiest citizens of Venezuela, Colombia, and Santo Domingo, who, driven from their homes by the incessant revolutions, to escape persecution settled in them, and infused a new and healthier element in the lower classes of the population.
The condition of Puerto Rican society at this period, though much improved since 1815, still left much to be desired. The leaders of society were the Spanish civil and military officers, who, with little prospect of returning to the Peninsula, married wealthy creole women and made the island their home. Their descendants form the aristocracy of today. Next came the merchants and shopkeepers, active and industrious Catalans, Gallegos, Mallorquins, who seldom married but returned to the Peninsula as soon as they had made sufficient money. These and the soldiers of the garrison made a transitory population. Tradesmen and artisans, as a rule, were creoles. Besides these, the island swarmed with adventurers of all countries, who came and went as fortune favored or frowned.
There was another class of "whites" who made up no inconsiderable portion of the population—namely, the convicts who had served out their time in the island's fortress. Few of them had any inducements to return to their native land. They generally succeeded in finding a refuge with some family of colored people, and it may be supposed that this ingraftment did not enhance the morality of the class with whom they mixed. The evil reputation which Puerto Rico had in the French and English Antilles as being an island where rape, robbery, and assassination were rife was probably due to this circumstance, and not altogether undeserved, for we read[52] that in 1827 the municipal corporation of Aguadilla discussed the convenience of granting or refusing permission for the celebration of the annual Feast of the Conception, which had been suspended since 1820 at the request of the curate, "on account of the gambling, rapes, and robberies that accompanied it."
Horse-racing and cock-fighting remained the principal amusement of the populace. Every house and cabin had its game-cock, every village its licensed cockpit. The houses of all classes were built of wood; the cabins of the "jibaros" were mere bamboo hovels, where the family, males and females of all ages, slept huddled together on a platform of boards. There were no inns in country or town, except one in the capital. Schools for both sexes were wanting, a few youths were sent by their parents to be educated in France or Spain or the United States, and after two or three years returned with a little superficial knowledge.
About this time the formation of a militia corps of 7,000 men was a step in the right direction. The people, dispersed over the face of the country, living in isolated houses, had little incentive to industry. Their wants were few and easily satisfied, and their time was spent swinging in a hammock or in their favorite amusements. The obligation to serve in the militia forced them to abandon their indolent and unsocial habits and appear in the towns on Sundays for drill. They were thus compelled to be better dressed, and a salutary spirit of emulation was produced. This created new wants, which had to be supplied by increased labor, their manners were softened, and if their morals did not gain, they were, at least, aroused from the listless inactivity of an almost savage life to exertion and social intercourse.
Such were the social conditions of the island when the death of Ferdinand VII gave rise to an uninterrupted succession of political upheavals, the baneful effects of which were felt here.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 49: Duty on the sale of produce or articles of commerce.]
[Footnote 50: In 1834 the Queen Regent, Maria Christina, gave him permission to reside in Puerto Rico. Two years later he was reinstated in favor and was made Military Governor of Cartagena. He died in Madrid a few years later.]
[Footnote 51: Colonel Flinter. An Account of the Present State of the Island of Puerto Rico. London, 1834.]
[Footnote 52: Brau, p. 284.]
CHAPTER XXV
POLITICAL EVENTS IN SPAIN AND THEIR INFLUENCE ON AFFAIRS IN PUERTO RICO
1833-1874
THE French Revolution of 1830 and the expulsion of Charles X revived the hopes of the liberal party in Spain, which party the bigoted absolutism of the king and his minister had vainly endeavored to exterminate. The liberals saluted that event as a promise that the nineteenth century should see the realization of their aspirations, and the exiled members of the party at once came to France to attempt an invasion of Spain, counting upon the sympathy of the French Government, which was denied them. The attempt only brought renewed persecution to the members at home.
Fortunately, the king's failing health and subsequent death transferred the reins of government to the hands of the queen, who, less absolutist than her consort, reopened the universities, which had long been closed, and proclaimed a general amnesty, thus bringing the expatriated and imprisoned Liberals back to political life.
After the king's death the pretensions of Don Carlos, his brother, lit the torch of civil war, which blazed fiercely till 1836, when a revolution changed the Government's policy and the constitution of 1812 was again declared in force. In 1837 the Cortes, though nearly all the Deputies were Progressists, by a vote of 90 to 60, deprived Cuba and Puerto Rico of the right of representation.
Another Carlist campaign was initiated in 1838. In 1839 Maria Christina, having lost her prestige, was obliged to abdicate; then followed the regency of the Duke de la Victoria Espartero, an insurrection in Barcelona, the Cortes of 1843, an attack on Madrid, and the fall of the regency, a period of seven years marked by a series of military pronunciamentos, the last of which was headed by General Prim.
Isabel II was now declared of age (1843), and from the date of her accession two political parties, the Progressists and the Moderates, under the leadership of Espartero and Narvaez respectively, contended for control, until, in 1865, the insurrection of Vicalvaro gave the direction of affairs to O'Donnell, Canovas del Castillo, and others, who represented the liberal Unionist party. They remained in power till 1866, when Prim and Gonzales Bravo raised the standard of revolt once more and Isabel II was dethroned. Then another provisional government was formed under a triumvirate composed of Generals Prim, Serrano, and Topete, who represented the Progressist and the democratic parties (September, 1868). They steered the ship of state till 1871, and, seeing the rocks of revolution still ahead, offered the Spanish crown to Amadeo, who, after wearing it scarce two years, found it too heavy for his brow, and abdicated. He had changed ministeriums six times in less than two years, and came to the conclusion that the modern Spaniards were ungovernable.
A republican form of government was now established (February 11, 1873), and it was understood by all parties that it should be a Federal Republic, in which each of the provinces should enjoy the largest possible amount of autonomy, subject to the authority of the central government.
This proved to be the stumbling-block; the deputies could not agree on the details, passions were aroused, violent discussions took place. The Carlists, seeing a favorable opportunity, plunged the Basque provinces, Navarra, Cataluna, lower Aragon, and part of Castilla and Valencia, into civil war. At the same time, the Radicals promoted what were called "cantonnal" insurrections in Cartagena, and Spain seemed on the verge of social chaos and ruin.
A coup d'etat saved the country. General Pavia, the Captain-General of Madrid, with a body of guards forced an entrance into the halls of congress and turned the Deputies out (January 3, 1874). A provisional government was once more constituted with Serrano at the head. His first act was to dissolve the Cortes.
* * * * *
The events just summarized exercised a baneful influence on the social, political, and economic conditions of this and of its more important sister Antilla.
Royalists, Carlists, Liberals, Reformists, Unionists, Moderates, and men of other political parties disputed over the direction of the nation's affairs at the point of the sword, and as each party obtained an ephemeral victory it hastened to send its partizans to govern these islands. The new governors invariably proceeded at once to undo what their predecessors had wrought before them.
They succeeded each other at short intervals. From 1837 to 1874 twenty-six captains-general came to Puerto Rico, only six of whom left any grateful memories behind. The others looked upon the people as always watching for an opportunity to follow the example of the continental colonies. They pursued a policy of distrust, suspicion, and of uncompromising antagonism to the people's most legitimate aspirations.
The reactionists, in their implacable odium of progress and liberty, considered every measure calculated to give greater freedom to the people or raise their moral and intellectual status as a crime against the mother country; hence the utter absence of the means of education, and a systematic demoralization of the masses.
Don Angel Acosta[53] mentions the Count de Torrepando as an example of this. He came from Venezuela to govern this island in 1837, with the express purpose, he declared, of diverting the attention of the inhabitants from the revolutionary doings of Bolivar.
Gambling was, and is still, one of the ruling vices of the common people. He encouraged it, established cockpits in every town and instituted the carnival games. He also established the feast of San Juan, which lasted, and still lasts, the whole month of June; and when some respectable people, Insulars as well as Peninsulars, protested against this official propaganda of vice and idleness, he replied: "Let them be—while they dance and gamble they don't conspire; ... these people must be governed by three B's—Barraja, Botella, and Berijo." [54] General Pezuela, a man of liberal disposition and literary attainments,[55] stigmatized the people of Puerto Rico as a people without faith, without thought, and without religion, and, though he afterward did something for the intellectual development of the inhabitants, in the beginning of his administration (1848-1851) thought it expedient not to discourage cock-fighting, but regulated it.
In 1865 gambling was public and universal. In the capital there was a gambling-house in almost every street. One in the upper story of the house at the corner of San Francisco and Cruz Streets, kept by an Italian, was crowded day and night. The bank could be distinctly seen from the Plaza, and the noise, the oaths, the foul language, mixing with the chink of money distinctly heard. When the governor's attention (General Felix Messina) was called to the scandalous exhibition, his answer was: "Let them gamble, ... while they are at it they will not occupy themselves with politics, and if they get ruined it is for the benefit of others."
This systematic villification of the people completely neutralized the effect of the measures adopted from time to time by progressist governors, such as the Count of Mirasol, Norzagaray, Cotoner, and Pavia, and not even the revolution of September, 1868, materially affected the disgraceful condition of affairs in the island. Only those who paid twenty-five pesos direct contribution had the right of suffrage. The press remained subject to previous censorship, its principal function being to swing the incense-burner; the right of public reunion was unknown, and if known would have been impracticable; the majority of the respectable citizens lived under constant apprehension lest they should be secretly accused of disloyalty and prosecuted. Rumors of conspiracies, filibustering expeditions, clandestine introductions of arms, and attempts at insurrection were the order of the day. Every Liberal was sure to be inscribed on the lists of "suspects," harassed and persecuted.
A seditious movement among the garrison on the 7th of June, 1867, gave Governor Marchessi a pretext for banishing about a dozen of the leading inhabitants of the capital, an arbitrary proceeding which was afterward disapproved by the Government in Madrid.
Such a situation naturally affected the economic conditions of the island. Confidence there was none. Credit was refused. Capital emigrated with its possessors. Commerce and agriculture languished. Misery spread over the land. The treasury was empty, for no contributions could be collected from an impoverished population, and the island's future was compromised by loans at usurious rates.
The dethronement of Isabel II, and the revolution of September, 1868, brought a change for the better. The injustice done to the Antilles by the Cortes of 1873 was repaired, and the island was again called upon to elect representatives. The first meetings with that object were held in February, 1869.
The ideas and tendencies of the Liberal and Conservative parties among the native Puerto Ricans were now beginning to be defined. Each party had its organ in the press[56] and advocated its principles; the authorities stood aloof; the elections came off in an orderly manner (May, 1869); the Conservatives carried the first and third districts, the Liberals the second.
It may be said that the political education of the Puerto Ricans commenced with the royal decree of 1865, which authorized the minister of ultramarine affairs, Canovas del Castillo, to draw up a report from the information to be furnished by special commissioners to be elected in Puerto Rico and Cuba, which information was to serve as a basis for the enactment of special laws for the government of each island. This gave the commissioners an opportunity to discuss their views on insular government with the leading public men of Spain, and they profited by these discussions till 1867, when they returned.
The question of the abolition of slavery had not been brought to a decision. The insular deputies were almost equally divided in their opinions for and against, but the revolutionary committee in its manifesto declared that from September 19, 1868, all children born of a slave mother should be free.
In Puerto Rico this measure remained without effect owing to the arbitrary and reactionist character of the governor who was appointed to succeed Don Julian Pavia, during whose just and prudent administration the so-called Insurrection of Lares happened. It was originally planned by an ex-commissioner to Cortes, Don Ruiz Belviz, and his friend Betances, who had incurred the resentment of Governor Marchessi, and who were banished in consequence. They obtained the remission of their sentences in Madrid. Betances returned to Santo Domingo and Belviz started on a tour through Spanish-American republics to solicit assistance in his secessionist plan; but he died in Valparaiso, and Betances was left to carry it out alone.
September 20, 1868, two or three hundred individuals of all classes and colors, many of them negro slaves brought along by their masters under promise of liberation, met at the coffee plantation of a Mr. Bruckman, an American, who provided them with knives and machetes, of which he had a large stock in readiness. Thus armed they proceeded to the plantation of a Mr. Rosas, who saluted them as "the army of liberators," and announced himself as their general-in-chief, in token whereof he was dressed in the uniform of an American fireman, with a tri-colored scarf across his breast, a flaming sash around his waist, with sword, revolver, and cavalry boots. During the day detachments of men from different parts of the district joined the party and brought the numbers to from eight to ten hundred. The commissariat, not yet being organized, the general-in-chief generously provided an abundant meal for his men, which, washed down with copious drafts of rum, put them in excellent condition to undertake the march on Lares that same evening.
At midnight the peaceful inhabitants of that small town, which lies nestled among precipitous mountains in the interior, were startled from their sleep by loud yells and cries of "Long live Puerto Rico independent! Down with Spain! Death to the Spaniards!" The alcalde and his secretary, who came out in the street to see what the noise was about, were made prisoners and placed in the stocks, where they were soon joined by a number of Spaniards who lived in the town.
The contents of two or three wine and provision shops (pulperias) that were plundered kept the "enthusiasm" alive.
The next day the Republic of Boriquen was proclaimed. To give solemnity to the occasion, the curate was forced to hold a thanksgiving service and sing a Te Deum, after which the Provisional Government was installed. Francisco Ramirez, a small landholder, was the president. The justice of the peace was made secretary of government, his clerk became secretary of finance, another clerk was made secretary of justice, and the lessee of a cockpit secretary of state. The "alcaldia" was the executive's palace, and the queen's portrait, which hung in the room, was replaced by a white flag with the inscription: "Long live free Puerto Rico! Liberty or Death! 1868."
The declaration of independence came next. All Spaniards were ordered to leave the island with their families within three days, failing which they would be considered as citizens of the new-born republic and obliged to take arms in its defense; in case of refusal they would be treated as traitors.
The next important step was to form a plan of campaign. It was agreed to divide "the army" in two columns and march them the following day on the towns of Pepino and Camuy; but when morning came it appeared that the night air had cooled the enthusiasm of more than half the number of "liberators," and that, considering discretion the better part of valor, they had returned to their homes.
However, there were about three hundred men left, and with these the "commander-in-chief" marched upon Pepino. When the inhabitants became aware of the approach of their liberators they ran to shut themselves up in their houses. The column made a short halt at a "pulperia" in the outskirts of the town, to take some "refreshment," and then boldly penetrated to the plaza, where it was met by sixteen loyal militiamen. A number of shots were exchanged. One "libertador" was killed and two or three wounded, when suddenly some one cried: "The soldiers are coming!" This was the signal for a general sauve qui peut, and soon Commander Rojas with a few of his "officers" were left alone. It is said that he tried to rally his panic-stricken warriors, but they would not listen to him. Then he returned to his plantation a sadder, but, presumably, a wiser man.[57]
As soon as the news of the disturbance reached San Juan, the Governor sent Lieutenant-Colonel Gamar in pursuit of the rebels, with orders to investigate the details of the movement and make a list of names of all those implicated. Rosas and all his followers were taken prisoners without resistance. Bruckman and a Venezuelan resisted and were shot down.
Here was an opportunity for the reactionists to visit on the heads of all the members of the reform party the offense of a few misguided jibaros, and they tried hard to persuade the governor to adopt severe measures against their enemies; but General Pavia was a just and a prudent man, and he placed the rebels at the disposition of the civil court. They were imprisoned in Lares, Arecibo, and Aguadilla, and, while awaiting their trial, an epidemic, brought on by the unsanitary conditions of the prisons in which they were packed, speedily carried off seventy-nine of them.
Of the rest seven were condemned to death, but the governor pardoned five. The remaining two were pardoned by his successor.
So ended the insurrection of Lares. During the trial of the rebels, the same members of the reform party who had been banished by Governor Marchessi, Don Julian Blanco, Don Jose Julian Acosta, Don Pedro Goico, Don Rufino Goenaga, and Don Calixto Romero, were denounced as the leaders of the Separatist movement. They were imprisoned, but were soon after found to have been falsely accused and liberated.
Until the arrival of General Don Gabriel Baldrich as governor (May, 1870), Puerto Rico benefited little by the revolution of September, 1868. The insurrection in Cuba, which coincided with the movement in Lares, made Sanz, the successor of Pavia, a man of arbitrary character and reactionary principles, adopt a policy more suspicious and intransigent than ever (from 1869 to 1870), but Governor Baldrich was a staunch Liberal, and the Separatist phantom which had haunted his predecessor had no terrors for him. From the day of his arrival, the dense atmosphere of obstruction, distrust, and jealousy in which the island was suffocating cleared. The rumors of conspiracies ceased, political opinions were respected, the Liberals could publicly express their desire for reform without being subjected to insult and persecution. The gag was removed from the mouth of the press and each party had its proper organ. The municipal elections came off peaceably, and the Provincial Deputation, composed entirely of Liberal reformists, was inaugurated April 1, 1871.
General Baldrich was terribly harassed by the intransigents here and in the Peninsula. He was accused of being an enemy of Spain and of protecting the Separatists. Meetings were held denouncing his administration, menaces of expulsion were uttered, and he was insulted even in his own palace. Violent opposition to his reform measures were carried to such an extent that he was at last obliged to declare the capital in a state of siege (July 26, 1871).
On September 27th of the same year he left Puerto Rico disgusted, much to the regret of the enlightened part of the population, which had, for the first time, enjoyed for a short period the benefits of political freedom. As a proof of the disposition of the majority of the people they had elected eighteen Liberal reformists as Deputies to Cortes out of the nineteen that corresponded to the island.
Baldrich's successor was General Ramon Gomez Pulido, nicknamed "coco seco" (dried coconut) on account of his shriveled appearance. Although appointed by a Radical Ministry, he inaugurated a reactionary policy. He ordered new elections to be held at once, and soon filled the prisons of the island with Liberal reformists. He was followed by General Don Simon de la Torre (1872). His reform measures met with still fiercer opposition than that which General Baldrich encountered. He also was forced to declare the state of siege in the capital and landed the marines of a Spanish war-ship that happened to be in the port. He posted them in the Morro and San Cristobal forts, with the guns pointed on the city, threatening to bombard it if the "inconditionals" who had tried to suborn the garrison carried their intention of promoting an insurrection into effect. He removed the chief of the staff from his post and sent him to Spain, relieved the colonel of the Puerto Rican battalion and the two colonels in Mayaguez and Ponce from their respective commands, and maintained order with a strong hand till he was recalled by the Government in Madrid through the machinations of his opponents.
During the interval between the departure of General Baldrich and the arrival in April, 1873, of Lieutenant-General Primo de Rivero, there happened what was called "the insurrection of Camuy," in which three men were killed, two wounded, and sixteen taken prisoners, which turned out to have been an unwarrantable aggression on the part of the reactionists, falsely reported as an attempt at insurrection.
General Primo de Rivero brought with him the proclamation of the abolition of slavery and Article I of the Constitution of 1869, whereby the inhabitants of the island were recognized as Spaniards.
Great popular rejoicings followed these proclamations. In San Juan processions paraded the streets amid "vivas" to Spain, to the Republic, and to Liberty. In Ponce the people and the soldiers fraternized, and the long-cherished aspirations of the inhabitants seemed to be realized at last.
But they were soon to be undeceived. The Republican authorities in the metropolis sent Sanz, the reactionist, as governor for the second time. His first act was to suspend the individual guarantees granted by the Constitution, then he abolished the Provincial Deputation, dissolved the municipalities in which the Liberal reformists had a majority, and a new period of persecution set in, in which teachers, clergymen, lawyers, and judges—in short, all who were distinguished by superior education and their liberal ideas—were punished for the crime of having striven with deed or tongue or pen for the progress and welfare of the land of their birth.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 53: Estudio Historico. San Juan, 1899.]
[Footnote 54: Cards, rum, and women.]
[Footnote 55: He had been President of the Royal Academy.]
[Footnote 56: El Porvenir, for the Liberals, the Boletin Mercantil, for the Conservatives.]
[Footnote 57: Extracts from the History of the Insurrection of Lares, by Jose Perez Moris.]
CHAPTER XXVI
GENERAL CONDITIONS OF THE ISLAND—THE DAWN OF FREEDOM
1874-1898
The Spanish Republic was but short lived. From the day of its proclamation (February 11, 1873) to the landing in Barcelona of Alphonso XII in the early days of 1876 its history is the record of an uninterrupted series of popular tumults.
The political restlessness in the Peninsula, accentuating as it did the party antagonisms in Cuba and Puerto Rico, led the governors, most of whom were chosen for their adherence to conservative principles, to endeavor, but in vain, to stem the tide of revolutionary and Separatist ideas with more and more drastic measures of repression.
This persistence of the colonial authorities in the maintenance of an obsolete system of administration, in the face of a universal recognition of the principles of liberty and self-government, added to the immediate effect on the economic and social conditions in this island of the abolition of slavery, for which it was unprepared,[58] brought it once more to the brink of ruin.
From 1873 to 1880 the resources of the island grew gradually less, the country's capital was being consumed without profit, credit became depressed, the best business forecasts turned out illusive, the most intelligent industrial efforts remained sterile. The sun of prosperity which rose over the island in 1815 set again in gloom during this period of seven years.
The causes were clear to every unbiased mind and must have been so even to the prejudiced officials of the Government. They consisted in the anomalous restrictions on the coasting trade, the unjustifiable difference in the duties on Spanish and island produce, the high duty on flour from the United States, the export duties, the extravagant expenditure in the administration, irritating monopolies, and countless abuses, vexatious formalities, and ruinous exactions.
Mr. James McCormick, an intelligent Scotchman, for many years a resident of the island, who, in 1880, was commissioned by the Provincial Deputation to draw up a report on the causes of the agricultural depression in this island and its removal by the introduction of the system of central sugar factories, describes the situation as follows:
" ... The truth is, that the country is in a pitiable condition. Throughout its extent it resents the many drains upon its vitality. Its strength is wasted, and the activities that utilized its favorable natural conditions are paralyzed. The damages sustained have been enormous and it is scarcely possible to appraise them at their true value. With the produce of the soil diminished and the sale thereof at losing prices the value of real estate throughout the island has decreased in alarming proportions. Everybody's resources have been wasted and spent uselessly, and many landholders, wealthy but yesterday, have been ruined if not reduced to misery. The leading merchants and proprietors, men who were identified with the progress of the country and had vast resources at their command, after a long and tenacious struggle have succumbed at last under the accumulation of misfortunes banded against them."
Such was the situation in 1880.
To relieve the financial distress of the country a series of ordinances were enacted[59] which culminated in the reform laws of March 15, 1895, and if royal decrees had had power to cure the incurable or remove the causes that for four centuries had undermined the foundations of Spain's colonial empire, they might, possibly, have sustained the crumbling edifice for some time longer.
But they came too late. The Antilles were slipping from Spain's grasp; nor could Weyler's inhuman proceedings in Cuba nor the tardy concession of a pseudo-autonomy to Puerto Rico arrest the movement.
The laws of March 15, 1895, for the administrative reorganization of Cuba and Puerto Rico, the basis of which was approved by a unanimous vote of the leaders of the Peninsula and Antillean parties in Cortes, remained without application in Cuba because of the insurrection, and in Puerto Rico because of the influence upon the inhabitants of this island of the events in the neighboring island.
After the death of Maceo and of Marti, the two most influential leaders of the revolution, and the terrible measures for suppressing the revolt adopted by Weyler, the Spanish Colonial Minister, Don Tomas Castellano y Villaroya, addressed the Queen Regent December 31, 1896. He declared his belief in the proximate pacification of Cuba, and said: That the moment had arrived for the Government to show to the world (vide licet United States) its firm resolution to comply with the spontaneous promises made by the nation by introducing and amplifying in Puerto Rico the reforms in civil government and administration which had been voted by Cortes.
He further stated that the inconditional party in Puerto Rico, guided by the patriotism which distinguished it, showed its complete conformity with the reforms proposed by the Government, and that the "autonomist" party, which, in the beginning, looked upon the proposed reforms with indifference, had also accepted and declared its conformity with them.
Therefore, the minister continued: "It would not be just in the Government to indefinitely postpone the application in Puerto Rico of a law which awakens so many hopes of a better future."
The minister assures the Queen Regent that the proposed laws respond to an ample spirit of decentralization, and expresses confidence that, as soon as possible, her Majesty will introduce in Cuba also, not only the reforms intended by the law of March 15th, but will extend to Puerto Rico the promised measures to provide the Antilles with an exclusively local administration and economic personnel. "The reform laws," the minister adds, "will be the foundation of the new regimen, but an additional decree, to be laid before the Cortes, will amplify them in such a way that a truly autonomous administration will be established in our Antilles." Then follow the proposed laws, which are to apply, explain, and complement in Puerto Rico, the reform laws of March 15th—namely, the Provincial law, the Municipal law, and the Electoral law.
The Peninsular electoral law of June, 1890, was adapted to Cuba and Puerto Rico at the suggestion of Sagasta, who, in the exposition to the Queen Regent, which accompanied the project of autonomy, stated: That the inhabitants of the Antilles frequently complained of, and lamented the irritating inequalities which alone were enough to obstruct or entirely prevent the exercise of constitutional privileges, and he concludes with these remarkable words: " ... So that, if by arbitrary dispositions without appeal, by penalties imposed by proclamations of the governors-general, or by simply ignoring the laws of procedure, the citizen may be restrained, harassed, deported even to distant territories, it is impossible for him to exercise the right of free speech, free thought, or free writing, or the freedom of instruction, or religious tolerance, nor can he practise the right of union and association." These words constitute a synopsis of the causes that made the Spanish Government's tardy attempts at reform in the administration of its ultramarine possessions illusive; that mocked the people's legitimate aspirations, destroyed their confidence in the promises of the home Government, and made the people of Puerto Rico look upon the American soldiers, when they landed, not as men in search of conquest and spoliation, but as the representatives of a nation enjoying a full measure of the liberties and privileges, for a moderate share of which they had vainly petitioned the mother country through long years of unquestioning loyalty.
The royal decree conceding autonomy to Puerto Rico was signed on November 25, 1897. On April 21, 1898, Governor-General Manuel Macias, suspended the constitutional guarantees and declared the island in state of war. A few months later Puerto Rico, recognized too late as ripe for self-government by the mother country, became a part of the territory of the United States.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 58: The slaveholders were paid in Government bonds (schedules), redeemable in ten years. They lost their labor supply, and had neither capital nor other means to replace it. Their ruin became inevitable. An English or German syndicate bought up the bonds at 15 per cent.]
[Footnote 59: See Part II, chapter on Finances.]
PART II
THE PEOPLE AND THEIR INSTITUTIONS
CHAPTER XXVII
SITUATION AND GENERAL APPEARANCE OF PUERTO RICO
The island of Puerto Rico, situated in the Atlantic Ocean, is about 1,420 miles from New York, 1,000 miles from Havana, 1,050 miles from Key West, 1,200 miles from Panama, 3,450 miles from Land's End in England, and 3,180 from the port of Cadiz. It is about 104 miles in length from east to west, by 34 miles in average breadth, and has an area of 2,970 square miles. It lies eastward of the other greater Antilles, Cuba, Haiti, and Jamaica, and although inferior even to the last of these islands in population and extent, it yields to none of them in fertility.
By its geographical position Puerto Rico is peculiarly adapted to become the center of an extensive commerce. It lies to the windward of Cuba, Santo Domingo, and Jamaica, and of the Gulf of Mexico and Bay of Honduras. It is contiguous to all the English and French Windward Islands, only a few hours distant from the former Danish islands Saint Thomas, Saint John, and Santa Cruz, and a few days' sail from the coast of Venezuela.
Puerto Rico is the fourth in size of the greater Antilles. Its first appearance to the eye of the stranger is striking and picturesque. Nature here offers herself to his contemplation clothed in the splendid vesture of tropical vegetation. The chain of mountains which intersects the island from east to west seems at first sight to form two distinct chains parallel to each other, but closer observation makes it evident that they are in reality corresponding parts of the same chain, with upland valleys and tablelands in the center, which again rise gradually and incorporate themselves with the higher ridges. The height of these mountains is lofty, if compared with those of the other Antilles. The loftiest part is that of Luguillo, or Loquillo, at the northeast extremity of the island, which measures 1,334 Castilian yards, and the highest point, denominated El Yunque, can be seen at the distance of 68 miles at sea. The summit of this ridge is almost always enveloped in mist, and when its sides are overhung by white fleecy clouds it is the certain precursor of the heavy showers which fertilize the northern coast. The soil in the center of the mountains is excellent, and the mountains themselves are susceptible of cultivation to their summits. Several towns and villages are situated among these mountains, where the inhabitants enjoy the coolness of a European spring and a pure and salubrious atmosphere. The town of Albonito, built on a table-land about eight leagues from Ponce, on the southern coast, enjoys a delightful climate. |
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