FR AX CISCO PIZARRO 
 
 (From an Original Painting in the Palace of the Vice- 
 roys at Lima, Peru)
 
 Makers of South America 
 
 BY 
 
 MARGARETTE DANIELS 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 MISSIONARY EDUCATION MOVEMENT 
 OF THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA 
 
 I916 
 
 AA'^f
 
 Copyright, 191 6, by 
 MISSIONARY EDUCATION MOVEMENT 
 OF THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGB 
 
 Preface v 
 
 I Francisco Pizarro i 
 
 II Jose de Anchieta 21 
 
 III Jose de San Martin 39 
 
 IV Bolivar 59 
 
 V James Thomson 81 
 
 VI Allen Gardiner loi 
 
 VII Juan Manuel Rosas 123 
 
 VIII Domingo F. Sarmiento 141 
 
 IX Dom Pedro II 163 
 
 X David Trumbull 183 
 
 XI Francisco Penzotti 203 
 
 XII W. Barbrooke Grubb 223 
 
 Bibliography 243
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Francisco Pizarro Frontispiece 
 
 Jose de Anchieta 23 
 
 Jose de San Martin, Equestrian Statue in Santiago, Chile.. 41 
 
 Simon Bolivar 61 
 
 The Cathedral, Lima, Peru 83 
 
 Allen F. Gardiner 103 
 
 Juan Manuel Rosas 125 
 
 Domingo F. Sarmiento 143 
 
 Dom Pedro II 165 
 
 David Trumbull 185 
 
 Francisco Penzotti, Imprisoned in Callao, Peru 205 
 
 W. Barbrooke Grubb 225 
 
 Map End
 
 PREFACE 
 
 Some day we are going to know our friends in the 
 other America a great deal better than we do now. 
 Big ships are plying back and forth through the new 
 canal, and every year it grows a little easier to travel 
 in South America. Nowadays a trip to Callao is likely 
 to be advertised by enterprising steamship companies 
 along with tours to Bermuda or over the Great Lakes. 
 
 Here are twelve men who have done big things for 
 those countries beyond Panama — the men who ought 
 to head our list of South American acquaintances. 
 Whether a patriot like San Martin, or a rascal like 
 Pizarro; loved by his countrymen like Bolivar, or 
 hated like Rosas; a brilliant success like Mr. Grubb, 
 or a failure like Allen Gardiner — all had their share 
 in the making of the continent, as Washington and 
 Jackson and Lincoln helped in the making of our 
 country. 
 
 Lord James Bryce, the Englishman who has written 
 the best history of the United States, went down to 
 South America not long ago, prowled around for a 
 few months, and then wrote the finest volume of 
 general information about the whole country that 
 we have ever had. In South America: Observations 
 and Impressions, he has selected just the things about 
 each republic, past and present, that every one wants
 
 VI 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 to know — history, romance, people and places, anec- 
 dotes, adventures and legends. William Prescott's 
 Conquest of Peru, the story of the glorious Inca 
 dynasty and old Pizarro's hairbreadth escapes, we have 
 most of us read long before this in the days when we 
 pored over Ivanhoe and The Last of the Mohicans. 
 For the story of the picturesque old mission towns of 
 Argentine and Paraguay, the Arcadia where the Jesuit 
 fathers once collected the Guarani Indians, there is 
 W. H. Koebel's In Jesuit Land. The best book on the 
 wars for independence will not be so easy to find in 
 your library, but it is worth hunting for. It is called 
 The Emancipation of South America, and Bartolome 
 Mitre, one of the greatest historians of his country, 
 wrote it. The translator has left out some cumber- 
 some details, but if it still seems overdetailed for gen- 
 eral reading, it is easy to skip without missing the 
 main points and the thrilling accounts of men and 
 battles. You will find in it many anecdotes of San 
 Martin and Bolivar, the battles they fought, the men 
 who helped them, and the story of their mysterious 
 interview. In those days it seems to have been the 
 fashion for every sea captain and army officer to 
 keep a journal and find some one to publish it for 
 him. Captain Basil Hall's Journal of Travels in 
 Chile and Peru is the best of dozens you might read. 
 He was cruising along the western coast just at the 
 time that San Martin went to Lima, and he tells story 
 after story of what happened during the campaign, of 
 meeting the great general, of picnics and balls and
 
 PREFACE vii 
 
 merrymaking, and the customs of the people. An 
 Unknown People in an Unknozvn Land, written by 
 Mr. Grubb, is packed full of his adventures in the 
 Chaco, a region where few white men have ever dared 
 to go, and tells how he made friends of the Indians 
 who used to depend on the skulls of intruders for their 
 supply of drinking cups. For a general history of 
 the continent, from the time of the old navigators 
 who discovered the coast of America when they were 
 looking for India and the Spice Islands, down to the 
 present, read South American Republics, by Thomas 
 Dawson. The account of each country is given sepa- 
 rately. 
 
 Thanks are due to the American Bible Society and 
 to the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions for the 
 use of annual reports and correspondence; to the 
 librarian of Fordham University for permission to 
 read a rare book on the life of Padre Anchieta; and 
 to Mr. E. E. Olcott for information which has not 
 been published before, given me in an entertaining 
 interview at his office down on the New York water- 
 front. 
 
 M. D. 
 
 Lower Warner, New Hampshire 
 
 August I, 1916
 
 FRANCISCO PIZARRO
 
 FRANCISCO PIZARRO 
 
 On a large farm in Truxillo, a town of old Spain, 
 about the time that Columbus discovered America, 
 young Francisco Pizarro held the useful but unro- 
 mantic position of swineherd. His parents cared 
 nothing for him, he hardly knew what a piece of 
 money looked like, no one ever thought of teaching 
 him to read or write; but his heart was full of pluck, 
 and his head of vague plans for great adventures. 
 Those were exciting years in Spain, for wonderful 
 stories of her new possessions poured across the 
 Atlantic, and certainly lost nothing in glamour and 
 romance as they were repeated. Sailing off to an 
 unknown land on an uncharted sea held no terrors for 
 Pizarro, and the rumors of gold-mines sounded pleas- 
 antly in his ears. Fired with ambition to begin life 
 afresh, in 1509 he set out from Seville for the New 
 World where all men stood an equal chance of win- 
 ning fame and treasure. His baggage consisted of a 
 sword and a cloak. His two sole assets were pure 
 grit, and a dogged perseverance that knocked difficul- 
 ties out of the way like ninepins. 
 
 As yet only a small fragment of America had been 
 explored : the West Indies where Columbus landed 
 on his first voyage; the Atlantic coast region of 
 
 3
 
 4 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 what is now Central America; and the neighboring 
 South American shore to the east of the Isthmus of 
 Panama, or Darien as it was called then. By the end 
 of ten years Pizarro was neither rich nor famous, but 
 he had made a name and place for himself in the new 
 colony, and was engaged in raising cattle with a busi- 
 ness partner named Almagro. He owned his own 
 house on the outskirts of the city of Panama, his farm 
 and his Indian servants, and was held "as one of the 
 principal people in the land . . . having distinguished 
 himself in the conquest and settling, and in the ser- 
 vices of his Majesty." During these years Pizarro had 
 many times experienced the emergencies and hard- 
 ships of the explorer's life, and he had seen before 
 his eyes the rainbow vision of gold. A hard worker, 
 afraid of nothing under the sun, always dependable, 
 he became the right-hand man of Balboa, who was a 
 leading spirit in many excursions over the isthmus. 
 
 Balboa, unlike most of these Spanish leaders, was 
 diplomatic in his relations with the Indians, and soon 
 made friends with the caciques, or chiefs, of neigh- 
 boring tribes. It was in 151 1, when they were paying 
 a visit in the home of a powerful cacique named 
 Comogre, that Pizarro and Balboa first heard the 
 dazzling tale of the wealth of Peru. As a polite little 
 attention their host presented them with many golden 
 trinkets. At this windfall the guests completely lost 
 their heads and good manners and began such a "brab- 
 bling" about the dividing of the gold, that the digni- 
 fied Indians listened in astonishment and disgust.
 
 FRANCISCO PIZARRO 5 
 
 Finally, as the chief's son stood watching the beautiful 
 ornaments being weighed and haggled over as if each 
 Spaniard's Hfe depended on grabbing the most, he lost 
 his temper and struck the scales with his fist. As the 
 gold scattered about the room he cried the fateful 
 words which led to the conquest of Peru : 
 
 "What is this, Christians; is it for such a little 
 thing that you quarrel? If this is what you prize so 
 much that you are willing to leave your distant homes 
 and to risk life itself, I can tell you of a land where 
 they eat and drink out of golden vessels, and gold is 
 as cheap as iron is with you." The Indian prince 
 pointed toward the west, and told about a sea of 
 which the white men had never heard. It lay beyond 
 the mountains of the isthmus, and whoever would 
 find the land of gold must sail south for a distance of 
 six suns. "But," he added, "it is necessary for this 
 that you should be more in number than you are now, 
 for you would have to fight your way with great 
 kings." 
 
 Two years later Balboa proved the truth of the 
 Indian's words when he crossed the isthmus and dis- 
 covered the Pacific Ocean. Pizarro, his chief lieu- 
 tenant, was the first man to scramble after him to the 
 top of a high peak and look down upon the southern 
 sea. When this news reached the court of Spain the 
 king appointed a governor named Pedrarias to go to 
 the isthmus and superintend the sending out of expe- 
 ditions to the south. Hundreds of adventurers clam- 
 ored to sail with him, for they had heard that in the
 
 6 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 New World "the sands sparkled with gems, and golden 
 pebbles as large as birds' eggs were dragged in nets 
 out of the rivers." 
 
 The 1,500 men who set out for Panama with such 
 high hopes found disease and fever instead of gems, 
 and hunger instead of gold. In the first month 700 
 died. The cavaliers in their brocaded court costumes 
 could be seen in the streets choking down grass to 
 keep themselves alive, or trying to exchange a gor- 
 geous embroidered cloak for a pound of Indian meal. 
 As time went on a few adventurers who had sailed a 
 little way down the coast brought back gloomy reports, 
 and most af the colonists had had enough of expedi- 
 tions which usually turned out to be all danger and no 
 reward. Pizarro saw his opportunity. He was over 
 fifty years old then, but he had lost none of his adven- 
 turous spirit, and if there was any gold in Peru he 
 determined to find it. 
 
 In 1524 he and his partner sold their farm, and 
 with a third associate formed a company to fit out an 
 expedition. Each promised to contribute his entire 
 fortune, and since Pizarro had the least money he 
 agreed to do the most dangerous part of the work, 
 the taking command of the exploring party. It was 
 almost impossible to find volunteers, and the crew had 
 to be made up largely of newcomers who had no idea 
 what lay in store for them, and "black sheep" who 
 felt that they could be no worse off than they already 
 were. 
 
 By the end of the year one little ship was tossing its
 
 FRANCISCO PIZARRO 7 
 
 way through heavy tempests along the shores of an 
 unknown land, and one hundred miserable men were 
 complaining bitterly because Pizarro had brought 
 them on a wild-goose chase. They had found neither 
 food nor inhabitants, only tangled, dripping forests 
 and vast swamps. Sheets of rain closed in about them 
 day and night; they could see nothing but the black, 
 angry ocean and gray sky; none knew where they 
 were going or what worse horrors lay in store for 
 them. The ship had to be sent back for supplies and 
 while it was gone twenty-seven of the men who 
 remained behind with Pizarro died of exposure and 
 starvation. When they finally discovered a few soli- 
 tary hamlets, the Indians were suspicious and un- 
 friendly and attacked the little party. Only Pizarro's 
 fierce bravery, so spectacular that it awed the Indians, 
 saved the expedition from ending then and there. No 
 explorers ever chose a worse time of year or wore a 
 more inappropriate costume; there in the dreadful 
 humidity of the rainy season, right in the region of 
 the equator, these poor soldiers, every time they landed 
 to search for food or villages, had to drag along as 
 best they could under the weight of full suits of 
 armor. 
 
 It was all a dismal failure, but Pizarro had not 
 the slightest intention of going back empty-handed. 
 Instead he went back part of the way and waited until 
 another expedition could be organized by his partners. 
 Then he started out all over again. For 500 miles he 
 sailed along the coast of what is now Colombia, and
 
 8 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 the farther his ship went the more mythical seemed the 
 great empire he was seeking. Again and again the 
 ship would have to be sent back for supplies or repairs, 
 while Pizarro and some of his men stayed behind in 
 the midst of every danger of disease, starvation and 
 Indians. Through all these periods of desolate wait- 
 ing Pizarro never allowed himself to show a moment's 
 discouragement before his soldiers. No one worked 
 harder than he in foraging for food, and in caring 
 for those who were too weak to look out for them- 
 selves. *'In labors and dangers he was ever the first." 
 Whenever he had a chance he would remind the men 
 of the great rewards that lay before them, the gold 
 they were going to find, and the triumph of bringing 
 it home to show the scoffers in Panama. 
 
 When the ship returned they would sail a little 
 farther. One time when Pizarro landed, hoping to 
 have a chat with the Indians, an ominous troop of 
 warriors gathered on the beach. The only thing that 
 saved the Spaniards, too few in number to protect 
 themselves, was a cavalier who fell off his horse. The 
 Indians had never seen a horse before, and supposed 
 that horse and rider were all one great monster. 
 When they saw it divide into two pieces they fell back 
 in alarm and the Spaniards had time to hurry on 
 board their ship. 
 
 The greatest difficulty always came when Almagro 
 would go back for supplies. On one occasion the 
 soldiers, angry at the thought of another long, miser- 
 able wait, wrote letters to their friends protesting
 
 FRANCISCO PIZARRO 9 
 
 against "the cold-blooded manner in which they were 
 to be sacrificed to the obstinate cupidity of their 
 leaders." These letters Pizarro ordered to be de- 
 stroyed, but one ingenious soul wrote a gloomy account 
 of all their sufferings and hid it in a ball of wool which 
 he sent to the governor's wife as a sample of a 
 product of the country. He added a postscript m 
 the form of a rhyme which caused great excitement 
 in Panama : 
 
 "Look out, Senor Governor, 
 
 For the drover while he's near; 
 
 Since he goes home to get the sheep 
 
 For the butcher who stays here." 
 
 This not only prevented any new volunteers from 
 joining the expedition, but the governor was so enraged 
 at the loss of life and at Pizarro's stubbornness that he 
 sent off two ships with orders for every Spaniard to 
 return. When the ships came to take them back to 
 home and comfort, Pizarro and his men were half 
 dead with hunger and exposure, and so haggard and 
 unkempt that they were hardly recognizable. 
 
 Pizarro had sunk his whole fortune in this enter- 
 prise. His good name depended on it. He was not 
 a young man with the world before him. Life would 
 hold nothing more if this great hazard failed. It was 
 an investment and he intended to collect the dividends. 
 With the ships riding at anchor behind him, he stood 
 on the beach and faced his little company. Draw- 
 ing his sword he traced a line in the sand from east 
 to west. "Friends and comrades," he said, pointing
 
 lo MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 with his sword as he spoke, "on that side are toil, 
 hunger, fatigue, the drenching storm, desertion and 
 death ; on this side ease and pleasure. There lies Peru 
 with its riches ; here, Panama and its poverty. Choose, 
 each man, what best becomes a brave Castilian. For 
 my part I go to the south." And he stepped across the 
 line. Thirteen others followed him and together they 
 stood and watched the ships, bearing their compan- 
 ions, vanish on the horizon. They had no food, no 
 shelter,. only the clothes they wore, no ship to take them 
 farther, and they knew nothing of the empire they 
 were seeking. Building a crude raft, they conveyed 
 themselves to an island not far off where they were 
 able to shoot game with their crossbows, and there for 
 seven months they waited for help to come. 
 
 Meanwhile the two partners in Panama argued with 
 the stubborn old governor until they won his consent to 
 fit out a relief ship on condition that within six months 
 Pizarro return and report what he had been able to 
 accomplish. It was on this little ship that Pizarro 
 reached Peru and the Empire of the Incas. 
 
 Just three years after he had sailed from Panama, 
 Pizarro anchored off Tumbez, on the Gulf of Guay- 
 aquil, about where Ecuador joins Peru to-day, and sent 
 friendly messages and presents to the Indians. The 
 messenger returned with such marvelous stories of 
 wealth that none believed him until they had seen for 
 themselves. There were houses of stone, vessels of 
 gold and silver, a temple lined with plates of gold, and 
 gardens adorned with animals carved from gold. The
 
 FRANCISCO PIZARRO ii 
 
 Spaniards went wild with joy; the last grumbling 
 skeptic had to admit that they had found their El 
 Dorado. The Indians were generous and hospitable, 
 and when the six months were nearly over Pizarro had 
 been presented with enough gold ornaments and llamas 
 to convince any one of the glorious success of his expe- 
 dition, and he returned to Panama in triumph. But 
 a new governor now held sway on the isthmus, and he 
 refused to be impressed with Pizarro's report. "I 
 have no desire to build up other states at the expense 
 of my own," he told them ; "nor throw away more lives 
 than have already been sacrificed by the cheap display 
 of gold and silver toys and a few Indian sheep." The 
 three partners had no more money. Yet there lay the 
 magic empire waiting to be plundered, the greatest 
 prize a nation ever dreamed of appropriating. Pizarro 
 made up his mind to go to Spain and tell his wonderful 
 story to the king, Charles V, carrying with him speci- 
 mens of the treasures he had found. Charles, 
 impressed with the sincerity and reliability of the rough 
 old soldier, appointed him governor of Peru with the 
 title of marquis, and put into his capable hands the 
 double duty of converting the Indians and stealing 
 their empire. 
 
 This race of Indians, whose country stretched for 
 2,000 miles along the western coast, were far more 
 intelligent and civilized than any other natives of the 
 western hemisphere with the exception of the Aztecs 
 of Mexico. Their government was orderly and pros- 
 perous, a veritable Utopia founded upon implicit obe-
 
 12 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 dience to their king, called the Inca, and devoted wor- 
 ship of their deity, the sun-god. Land and work were 
 allotted to the head of each family, and rigid laws pro- 
 tected the lives and rights of the people. Not a foot 
 of land was wasted. By a remarkable system of irri- 
 gation dry ground was prepared for cultivation; the 
 Indians had spent years of labor in making land by 
 carrying earth in baskets and covering up the bare 
 rocks. Their fine roads and fortresses, and the plen- 
 tiful provisions of grain which they thriftily stored 
 away in their great granaries each year were used to 
 good purpose by the Spaniards and in no small degree 
 helped them in the conquest. 
 
 Within two years the conquerors, or conquistadores, 
 though at no time numbering more than 300, had sub- 
 dued these hordes of prosperous, contented Indians, 
 and had replaced the Inca dynasty with the first 
 Spanish viceroyalty. The real stimulus behind all 
 their bravery and sacrifice was wealth and fame ; relig- 
 ion was their ostensible reason for the conquest, and 
 in the name of the Church they practised all the cruel- 
 ties and treacheries necessary to crush the empire. 
 
 When Pizarro arrived in Peru an Inca had just died 
 and bequeathed his kingdom to two sons who were 
 now fighting each other. In the midst of the war 
 Atahualpa, Inca of the northern half, heard that a 
 party of strange white men had landed in his country, 
 that they carried extraordinary weapons, and rode 
 upon great, terrifying beasts which galloped over the 
 ground with marvelous speed. He consented to an
 
 FRANCISCO PIZARRO 13 
 
 interview with the white chief. With a force of about 
 150 soldiers the dauntless Pizarro struck into the heart 
 of the Indian territory. In the native city of Caja- 
 marca, 200 miles south of San Miguel, the first Spanish 
 settlement, he met the Inca. 
 
 Pizarro had conceived a plan so daring that an- 
 other man would never have d^-eamed of its possibility. 
 He believed there was only one way for so small a 
 band of men to conquer so great a nation. Atahualpa 
 must be kidnapped. The Indians from the beginning 
 of their national existence had been so completely 
 under the domination of their Inca, whom they believed 
 to be a divine being, that without him they must fall 
 into utter confusion. If, as Pizarro reasoned, the Inca 
 with his huge armies had treacherous designs on the 
 Spaniards, their only hope lay in trapping Atahualpa 
 before he could trap them. In the open square in the 
 middle of the city he pitched his camp and sent word 
 to the Inca that he was waiting to receive him as "a 
 friend and a brother." 
 
 The next morning the royal procession passed 
 through the city gates. First came 300 Indian boys 
 with bows and arrows, singing, followed by 1,000 men 
 resplendent in livery of red and white squares like a 
 chess-board. Other troops wore pure white and carried 
 silver hammers. Eighty chiefs in costumes of azure 
 blue bore the glittering throne of the Inca in an open 
 litter high above their heads. As Atahualpa ap- 
 proached the square not a Spanish soldier was in sight, 
 but a priest, Pizarro's chaplain, stepped forward to
 
 14 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 greet him, with a Bible in one hand and a crucifix in 
 the other. The pope, he announced briskly, had com- 
 missioned the greatest monarch on earth to conquer 
 and convert this land and people, and in a learned theo- 
 logical discourse he pointed out to the Indians the 
 necessity of being baptized at once. The Inca gravely 
 inquired where he had learned these things. 
 
 "In this," said the priest, handing him the Bible. 
 
 The Inca opened the book eagerly and held it up to 
 his ear. 
 
 "This is silent," he said. "It tells me nothing," and 
 he threw it to the ground. 
 
 This so enraged the priest that he cried to the Span- 
 iards : "To arms. Christians, to arms ! Set on at once ! 
 I absolve you." 
 
 The governor gave the signal and the soldiers rushed 
 from their hiding-places. With their horses, muskets 
 and swords, they terrified and slaughtered the helpless 
 Indians until they fled in confusion. Pizarro himself 
 snatched the Inca from his throne and carried him off 
 to the Spanish camp. 
 
 The governor treated the prisoner with much kind- 
 ness. The Indian was quick and intelligent. In 
 twenty days he had learned enough Spanish to con- 
 verse with his jailers, and was a good match for them 
 in chess and cards. He soon perceived that what the 
 Spaniards were after was gold. One day he made a 
 bargain with Pizarro. In return for his freedom he 
 promised to fill the whole room in which they were 
 standing as high as he could reach with gold orna-
 
 FRANCISCO PIZARRO 15 
 
 ments. The room was seventeen feet wide and twenty- 
 two feet long, and the point he had touched on the wall 
 was nine feet from the floor. He dispatched his mes- 
 sengers to all parts of the empire, and the Spaniards 
 marveled at the treasure which was being heaped up 
 in their camp without effort on their part. As the 
 gold in the room rose higher and higher they became 
 too impatient to wait until all of it had been brought; 
 they began the melting and weighing. When all was 
 ready for division the entire amount was valued at the 
 equivalent of $15,500,000, the largest sum in gold 
 that men ever saw in one place at one time. One fifth 
 had to be reserved for the crown; the rest was divided 
 among the men. The outcome of the adventure was 
 far greater than the wildest hopes and dreams of those 
 who shared in it. 
 
 Now that Atahualpa had paid his magnificent ran- 
 som he naturally demanded his freedom. But Pizarro 
 knew too well the danger of allowing the Inca to 
 return to his own people. On the pretext of punish- 
 ment for conspiracy, of which there was never one 
 particle of evidence, he was condemned to death after 
 the formality of a mock trial. 
 
 "What have I or my children done, that I should 
 meet such a fate? From your hands too," he said 
 to Pizarro; "you, who have met with friendship and 
 kindness from my people, with whom I have shared 
 my treasures, who have received nothing but benefits 
 from me !" 
 
 Pizarro was not the man to allow any feelings of
 
 i6 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 sympathy to stand in the way of his great enterprise. 
 Atahualpa, the last of the Inca dynasty, was strangled 
 in the pubHc square. There were many fierce battles 
 with the Indians after that time, but they never recov- 
 ered their power. They had always been dominated 
 by any force which they believed mightier than them- 
 selves — their Inca, the sun-god, and now the Spaniards. 
 They never really believed they were capable of resist- 
 ing the white men whom they thought so vastly superior 
 to themselves; and this racial lack of self-confidence 
 was the reason for their downfall. 
 
 Associated with Pizarro in the conquest were his 
 three brothers, all as valiant and persevering as him- 
 self. While they took command of the Spanish troops, 
 the governor with his extraordinary executive ability 
 began to plan for settlements and cities. In a fine 
 strategical position, near the coast and connected with 
 the Indian cities by the Inca's military roads, Pizarro 
 founded Lima. All the Indians living within a hun- 
 dred-mile radius were mustered to lay out streets and 
 build houses. Farther up the coast Truxillo, named 
 after the governor's birthplace, was founded as head- 
 quarters for the northern region. 
 
 The soldiers explored in all directions, plundering 
 palaces and temples in their search for gold. In Cuzco, 
 capital of the empire, they found a mine of wealth 
 in every building, and in a cavern near the city, where 
 the Indians had tried to conceal them, they found ten 
 statues of women and four of llamas wrought from 
 gold and silver. "Merely to see them," writes one of
 
 FRANCISCO PIZARRO 17 
 
 the Spaniards naively, "was truly a great satisfaction." 
 
 As soon as the Indians found what the Spaniards 
 were hunting for, they began to hide their treasures. 
 All the gold which Atahualpa collected is said to be 
 far less than the amount which the Indians buried or 
 threw into lakes because they could no longer guard 
 it. Many years later an Indian once took a large mea- 
 sure of maize, and dropping one grain out of it, said 
 to the white men : "The Christians have found just 
 so much ; the rest is so concealed that we ourselves do 
 not know the place of it." 
 
 The rough soldiers, most of whom had never known 
 what it meant to have money to spend, now became 
 habitual gamblers, and many a night with one throw 
 of the dice or flip of a card a man would lose all the 
 treasure he had sacrificed so much to win. 
 
 As the news of the conquest reached Europe other 
 adventurers flocked to Peru. One of them wrote : "I 
 detennined to go to Peru, a newly discovered land, 
 where there is an infinite quantity of gold. But the 
 gold is not to be obtained for nothing, for 80 men 
 out of every 100 who go in search of it die. It is very 
 certain that a great prize is never gained at small cost." 
 Another cavalier told his friends : 'T declare, on my 
 faith that, if they offered to make me a king on con- 
 dition that I went through all this again, I would not 
 do it, but I would rather be a doctor's stirrup boy." 
 
 While Pizarro was building his city of Lima, he 
 heard that Cuzco had been burned to the ground by 
 the Indians, and that his brothers were holding the
 
 i8 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 fortress against the besiegers. Before he could send 
 them aid worse news reached him. Ahnagro, who had 
 been granted by royal permit the privilege of con- 
 quering and plundering the southern half of the 
 empire, where Chile is to-day, had returned from a 
 fruitless journey. The tribes in the south, which had 
 been subdued previously by the Incas, were poor and 
 ignorant, and Almagro was dissatisfied with his share 
 of the bargain. Finding Pizarro's men in Cuzco worn 
 out after their months of fighting, he attacked them 
 and took the city himself. Civil war now supplanted 
 Indian wars. The two Spanish factions engaged in a 
 fiercer battle than the natives had ever seen, and from 
 the surrounding heights the Indian spectators yelled in 
 triumph as they watched their enemies kill each other. 
 Almagro was captured and executed by the orders of 
 one of the brothers, Hernando Pizarro, the governor 
 refusing to intercede to save the life of his old friend 
 and business partner. 
 
 The followers of Almagro, called "Men of Chile," 
 who had shared their leader's ambitions, were bitter 
 enemies of Pizarro and stirred up much discontent 
 in Lima. The governor was constantly warned of his 
 personal danger from conspiracies and urged to banish 
 the offenders from the colony, but he hardly gave the 
 matter a second thought. "Be in no pain," he told his 
 friends, "about my life; it is perfectly safe as long as 
 every man in Peru knows that I can in a moment cut 
 off any head which dares to harbor a thought against 
 me.
 
 FRANCISCO PIZARRO 19 
 
 One day in June, 1541, while Pizarro was dining 
 with twenty guests in his own house, a band of "Men 
 of Chile" broke into the entrance hall. "To arms! 
 The Men of Chile are coming to kill the marquis!" 
 cried a page. Most of the guests dropped through 
 the open windows into the garden below. Pizarro 
 rushed forward to meet the assassins as they poured 
 into the dining-room. "What shameful thing is this?" 
 he cried. "Why do you wish to kill me?" He was 
 over seventy years old, but he fought so valiantly that 
 the struggle lasted several minutes, and two of the 
 conspirators were killed. Then some one exclaimed: 
 "Why are we so long about it? Down with the ty- 
 rant!" and they dashed his brains out upon the stone 
 floor. "The old lion died fighting and, in his death 
 agonies, kissed the sign of the cross, which he traced 
 on the floor, in blood which flowed from his own 
 veins." 
 
 The Men of Chile poured into the streets at the 
 news of the governor's death and took possession of 
 the city. 
 
 A viceroy was sent out by the king to rule in Pizar- 
 ro's place, and as settlers began to flock to the new 
 country, Spanish colonies grew up like magic. The in- 
 vaders became a ruling caste dependent for their liveli- 
 hood on the unpaid labor of their Indian serfs, who 
 worked the mines and tilled the land which had once 
 been their own. The race, but a few years back so 
 contented and prosperous, became a race of slaves, al- 
 most without exception treated harshly or cruelly by
 
 20 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 their masters. The atrocities of Spanish officials two 
 and three hundred years later, James Bryce says, "were 
 at once the evidence of what Spanish rule in Peru had 
 been and a prestige of its fall. . , . There were dark 
 sides to the ancient civilization, but was it worth de- 
 stroying in order to erect on its ruins what the Con- 
 querors brought to Peru?"
 
 JOS£ DE ANCHIETA
 
 JOSfi DE AXCHIETA
 
 JOSfi DE ANCHIETA 
 
 In the midst of the ancient forests of Misiones, a 
 province in northern Argentina, half hidden by banks 
 of gorgeous wildfiowers and riots of shrub and fern, 
 are a few remnants of dark stone wall, and bits of 
 broken, moss-covered statue — all that is left of the 
 busy Jesuit mission towns which once stretched from 
 the coast of Brazil inland to the Paraguay and 
 Parana Rivers. To this remote region of the world 
 the Jesuit priests had first penetrated in the sixteenth 
 century, and collected the wild, roving Tupi-Guarani 
 Indians into peaceful villages with such ease and 
 dispatch that "every one published that the new order, 
 whose founder was born at the time Christopher 
 Columbus began to discover the new world, had re- 
 ceived from heaven a special mission." 
 
 The Franciscan monks who came to South America 
 with the conquistadores had forced their religion upon 
 the Indians. A few had even dared to say a good 
 word for the poor natives, and a Dominican bishop 
 named Las Casas had fiercely championed their cause 
 in Mexico and Peru; but the first concentrated effort 
 to make the Indians contented and industrious, as they 
 had been before ever the white man appeared, and to 
 protect them from the cruel exploitation of Portu- 
 
 23
 
 24 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 guese and Spanish settlers, was this great enterprise 
 of the Jesuit fathers, the earhest missionaries on the 
 continent. 
 
 First they came to the BraziHan coast. Brazil was 
 not Spanish territory like all the rest of the New 
 World. A Portuguese nobleman named Cabral had 
 happened upon the eastern shores of South America 
 while he was trying to find the East Indies. A year 
 later Amerigo Vespucci hurried across from Lisbon to 
 inspect this new piece of Portuguese property, and he 
 called the country Brazil, because, instead of the gold 
 and silver he wanted, he found nothing of commercial 
 value except brazil-wood, used in Europe for dyes. 
 One of the earliest large settlements in Brazil was 
 built up on the capacious Bay of Bahia, and when, in 
 1549, several hundred colonists came to live there, 
 among them were a number of Jesuits, sent by John 
 III of Portugal to convert the Indians, just as the 
 Franciscans had been sent with the Spaniards by 
 Charles V. 
 
 The priests were assigned plots of land and with 
 their own hands chopped trees, sawed wood, hauled 
 stones, and built a church, a college, and small houses 
 for themselves. By that time their clothes hung in 
 rags, they had no money, and often they were reduced 
 to begging alms. But they had no desire for prop- 
 erty, or comforts, or even the necessities of life. By 
 law of their order, self-denial and the "acquisition 
 of eternal goods" were the sole aims of a Jesuit. One 
 father describes their early settlements : "What houses
 
 JOS£: DE ANCHIETA 25 
 
 are these that the clergy inhabit? A few miserable 
 straw huts. What furniture do they possess? The 
 breviary and manual to baptize and administer the 
 sacraments. What is their nourishment? Mandioca 
 root, beans and vegetables; and the majesty of God 
 is witness lliat they have passed twenty-four hours 
 without evt-n partaking of roots, in order not to beg 
 of the Indians and thus become a burden to them." 
 
 When a new governor was sent to Bahia, he brought 
 with him more Jesuits, who scattered among the In- 
 dians in all directions, building rude settlements, 
 gathering the tribes together, and teaching them not 
 only good morals but how to work their farms. 
 Among these pioneers was a pale, ascetic youngster, 
 Jose de Anchieta. He had been born in Teneriffe, one 
 of the Canary Islands, of rich and aristocratic parents. 
 They sent him at fourteen to the Portuguese university 
 at Coimbra, where he won many honors, especially in 
 rhetoric, poetry and philosophy. His reputation for 
 brilliancy reached the ears of the Jesuits who were 
 always anxious to discover talented young proteges, 
 and by the time he was seventeen they had persuaded 
 him to join their order and begin training for the 
 priesthood. During his novitiate, part of his day's 
 schedule was to attend mass eight times, and his duties 
 at each service required such constant kneeling that 
 sometimes he would almost faint from exhaustion 
 before night. His knees grew lamer and lamer, yet 
 he refused to give in to what he considered a wicked 
 bodily weakness, and he kept his suffering secret until
 
 26 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 he became dangerously ill. As a result of this neglect 
 his spine was permanently injured, and all the money 
 his father possessed could never smooth out the hump 
 in his back. The fear that he might have to give up 
 his training tortured him more than all the pain of 
 his three years of illness, until he was reassured by 
 one of the priests who predicted : "Do not worry so 
 about it, my boy, for God intends that you shall yet 
 serve him in this order." 
 
 Then in 1553, when the expedition was preparing 
 to sail from Lisbon for Bahia, Anchieta's friends 
 decided to send him along for his health. No one 
 knew much about Brazil, but glowing reports had con- 
 vinced the Portuguese that the climate and food were 
 a sure cure for all ailments. 
 
 Anchieta reached Brazil eager to begin immediately 
 on some branch of the mission work, and the pro- 
 vincial, or chief Jesuit, appointed him to go to the 
 colony of Sao Paulo to start a little college for the 
 training of young settlers who wished to join the 
 order. There in the wilderness this teacher, twenty- 
 one years old, gathered his pupils into the first classical 
 school in America, instructing them in Latin, Spanish, 
 and the Tupi language. Within a year, besides open- 
 ing the school and teaching his classes, he had found 
 time to learn the Indians' language, and to write a 
 Tupi grammar for the use of the Jesuit missionaries. 
 
 In the report which he sent back to the provincial, 
 he said : "Here we are, sometimes more than twenty 
 of us together in a little hut of mud and wicker, roofed
 
 JOSfi DE ANCHIETA 27 
 
 with straw, fourteen paces long and ten wide. This is 
 at once the school, the infirmary, the dormitory, refec- 
 tory, kitchen and storehouse. Yet we covet not the 
 more spacious dwellings which our brethren have in 
 other parts. Our Lord Jesus Christ was in a far 
 straiter place when it was his pleasure to be born 
 among beasts in a manger." 
 
 The little house had no such luxury as a chimney, 
 and was usually so full of smoke that the classes would 
 adjourn to the front yard to recite under the shade 
 trees. A mat, hung at the entrance, served the purpose 
 of a door, and the pupils slept in hammocks slung from 
 the rafters. Banana leaves were the only dishes. 
 
 "I serve here as barber and physician," Anchieta 
 wrote, "physicking and bleeding the Indians, and some 
 of them have recovered under my hands when their 
 lives were despaired of." He also learned to make 
 alpargatas, a variety of tough shoe which could stand 
 hard wear. "I am now a good workman at this," he 
 said, "and have made many for the brethren, for it 
 is not possible to travel with leathern shoes among 
 these wilds." 
 
 There were no textbooks in this little school. The 
 only way of assigning lessons was for x\nchieta to 
 write out on separate leaves copies enough to go 
 around. This sometimes took him all night, and the 
 class, when it arrived in the morning, would find its 
 teacher just where he had been the night before, the 
 pen still in his fingers. For Anchieta persistently 
 ignored every feeling of weariness, and forced himself
 
 28 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 to go without sleep until he grew accustomed to the 
 loss of it. For many hours in the night he would be 
 on his knees in some quiet, remote spot under the 
 stars, praying for strength to do all he saw needed 
 to be done. 
 
 After the Tupi grammar was finished, he com- 
 menced on a dictionary. Both of these were sent to 
 Portugal and printed there for the use of Jesuits who 
 were preparing to work among the Indians in South 
 America, Anchieta was not only the first scholar and 
 the first educator, but the first poet in Brazil and the 
 father of Brazilian literature. Instead of forbidding 
 the Indians and the townspeople to sing their merry, 
 ribald ballads, he wrote beautiful canticles for them 
 which became so popular that the boys whistled them 
 on the street, and they entirely took the place of the 
 old songs. Some of his hymns, chanted daily by his 
 pupils, told whole Bible stories which he had turned 
 into verse. 
 
 Then he wrote a play, and the settlers came from 
 far and wide to the first theatricals ever given in the 
 New World. Like the old English morality plays, 
 Anchieta's comedy was presented for the purpose of 
 teaching the people a lesson, and he chose it as the 
 most vivid way of driving home a few good morals. 
 It was given out-of-doors on a summer afternoon. 
 The acts of the play were written in Portuguese, but 
 interludes in Tupi were inserted between acts so that 
 the Indians in the audience could follow the action. 
 
 The Jesuit priests were always supposed by the
 
 JOSE DE ANCHIETA 29 
 
 simple, ignorant people to be capable of performing 
 wonderful miracles. Legends of the supernatural 
 powers which Anchieta possessed would fill large 
 volumes. All the traditional wonder-stories seem to 
 have collected about his name. At this outdoor play 
 he first won his reputation. After the people were 
 all seated and the actors were about to sally forth, 
 heavy clouds gadiered, and the audience was on the 
 verge of rushing for shelter when Anchieta appeared 
 on the stage and held up his hand for quiet. There 
 would be no rain, he said, until the play was over. 
 For three hours the storm held off, and then, just as 
 the last person reached shelter, the clouds broke and 
 the rain poured down. 
 
 Anchieta really loved the natives and they knew it. 
 He never regarded either an Indian or a half-breed 
 as an inferior being. They were all his friends. Men 
 held him in such reverence that they believed the 
 elements and all living things obeyed his will. "The 
 birds of the air," it was said, "formed a canopy over 
 his head to shade him from the sun. The fish came 
 into his net when he required them. The wild beasts 
 of the forests attended upon him in his journeys, and 
 served him as an escort. The winds and waves obeyed 
 his voice. The fire, at his pleasure, undid the mischief 
 it had done, so that bread which had been burnt to a 
 coal in the oven was drawn out white and soft by his 
 interference." 
 
 Reports of his remarkable powers and his influence 
 over the wild Indians reached the ears of the pro-
 
 30 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 vincial, and he was recalled from Sao Paulo for pro- 
 motion. Though not yet a priest, he was sent out on 
 journeys into the wilderness with the Jesuit fathers 
 who went to convert and collect into villages the roving 
 bands of Indians. One of his feats which won the 
 admiration of his order was the conversion of an old 
 Indian reprobate, aged one hundred years, who had 
 lived long enough, one might suppose, to become set 
 in his ways. 
 
 In small groups, often only two men together, the 
 Jesuits pushed their way through regions where white 
 men had never gone, exploring, learning native cus- 
 toms, establishing settlements. Those who traveled 
 with Anchieta always had a tale worth telling at the 
 end of their trip. One time in the mountains they 
 camped for the night in a tent. Toward dawn An- 
 chieta went out to pray as usual in the open country. 
 When he returned to the tent he took something from 
 the store of provisions and threw it outside. 
 
 "There, my little ones! Take your share!" they 
 heard him say. 
 
 "Whom did you give that to?" they asked. 
 
 "To my companions," 
 
 Next morning in front of the tent they found the 
 footprints of two panthers. While Anchieta prayed 
 they had sat by his side, then followed him home. 
 
 The natives were easily attracted by the elaborate 
 ceremonies and ritual of the church, by the proces- 
 sions, the banners with mysterious words on them, 
 the gorgeous priests' robes, the drums and flutes which
 
 JOS£ DE ANCHIETA 31 
 
 made them want to sing and march and dance. The 
 crude magnificence of the churches filled them with 
 awe. Religion to them meant a series of delightful 
 entertaiimients full of mystery and emotion. Some- 
 times they were allow^ed to vary the monotony of their 
 work-a-day lives by a holiday, which "appeared neces- 
 sary to the missionaries, as well to preserve the 
 health of the Indians as to keep up among them an 
 air of cheerfulness and good humor." Besides all 
 these attractions the Jesuit settlements were the only 
 safe refuges from the plantation owners who wanted 
 slave labor. No wonder, therefore, they flourished 
 mightily ! 
 
 During these years of his wanderings Anchieta con- 
 stantly exerted his influence to keep the peace between 
 the Portuguese and the powerful tribes of Tamoyo 
 Indians who had formed themselves into a confedera- 
 tion to drive out the settlers, and forever put a stop 
 to their slave-hunting. With an immense war fleet of 
 canoes, each one formed of the trunk of a single tree, 
 they attacked and ravaged Portuguese villages. Young 
 Anchieta and two other Jesuits volunteered to enter 
 the territory of the Tamoyos and propose plans for a 
 truce. Fearless and unarmed they marched straight 
 into the haunts of the enemy, and stayed there two 
 months while negotiations were in progress. The 
 chiefs consented to the truce and Anchieta remained 
 with them three years longer as a hostage, pledging 
 with his life the good faith of his countrymen. 
 
 Sometimes the Indians grew restless and wanted to
 
 32 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 break the truce. Those were crucial moments for the 
 young Jesuit. 
 
 "Prepare thyself," they told him one day; "satiate 
 thine eyes with the light of the sun, for we are deter- 
 mined to make a solemn banquet of thee." 
 
 "No," said Anchieta calmly. "You are quite mis- 
 taken. The hour of my death has not yet come." 
 
 With prayer and good works he filled his days, and 
 gradually the Indians became his friends. "The 
 Tamoyos narrowly watched the conduct of the holy 
 young man," says one writer, "and the contrast be- 
 tween his manners and their own filled them with 
 wonder and admiration. They looked upon him as 
 something come from heaven and they loved him ex- 
 ceedingly because in their illnesses he taught them the 
 use of different remedies; in addition to all this several 
 prodigies were witnessed by them, which tended not a 
 little to exalt him in their estimation." 
 
 In his boyhood Anchieta had made a vow to the 
 Virgin to illustrate her life in verse. During the years 
 of his captivity he composed nearly 5,000 stanzas in 
 Latin, writing them out on the sand and then learning 
 them by heart, for, "having neither books nor pens, 
 he could only describe the work on the tablets of his 
 memory." This, his "Hymn to the Virgin," is one 
 of the masterpieces of religious poetry. 
 
 After his release Anchieta served for two years as 
 chaplain of an army sent by the king to protect his 
 colonies from the Tamoyos. Then the provincial 
 called him back to Bahia, where his boyhood ambition
 
 JOSfi DE ANCHIETA 33 
 
 to become a priest, in spite of his crooked back, was 
 fulfilled. 
 
 In the midst of a sermon one day after he had 
 returned to Sao Paulo, Anchieta stopped abruptly and 
 covered his face with his hands. After a pause he 
 seemed to recollect where he was. "Let every one of 
 you recite the Lord's prayer," he said, "in thanksgiv- 
 ing to the Divine Goodness which has this day granted 
 us victory over the Tamoyos." The people were 
 vastly astonished at this revelation, but when the sol- 
 diers returned a few days later, it was found that the 
 battle had been won just at the moment when Anchieta 
 halted his sermon. 
 
 No one in all the community equaled Anchieta in 
 pluck and energy. The districts where he asked to go 
 on preaching trips were always the most dangerous 
 and exhausting. If any of his flock went astray he 
 would drop everything else and go and search for 
 them. Once when two Portuguese soldiers escaped 
 from jail and with some of their followers went off 
 into Indian territory to stir up trouble, he set oif after 
 them to bring them back. On a stream in the wilder- 
 ness his canoe was overturned in deep water, and 
 though he was too crippled to swim, one half hour 
 after the accident he was sitting safely on the bank — 
 a miracle which his friends never tired of recounting. 
 Anchieta never could tell them afterward just what 
 happened or how he got ashore ; he was conscious only 
 of three things, one writer remarks naively: "Christ, 
 Mary, and not to swallow any water." An illuminat-
 
 34 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 ing little comment, perhaps, on the fact that with all 
 his faith in the miraculous, the holy father had con- 
 siderable common sense of his own to depend upon in 
 emergencies ! The story ends with rain coming down 
 in torrents, paths full of rocks and brambles, no sign 
 of shelter or chance for a cozy fire and something to 
 eat, and at last, when the dripping, ragged priest 
 hobbles into their midst, the fugitives straightway re- 
 pent because they have caused him so much pain, and 
 obediently follow him home. 
 
 To the people of Sao Paulo and Sao Vicente, An- 
 chieta had become very nearly a saint. The fame of 
 his good deeds, his bravery, his wonderful powers, 
 spread far and wide, and it was not long before he 
 was appointed superior of the Jesuit colony of Santo 
 Spirito, a district about half way between Bahia and 
 Sao Paulo. Rigid self -discipline by now had become 
 a habit with him. While "thinking on divine matters" 
 he forgot to eat. He slept on the bare boards of his 
 dwelling with his shoes, or perhaps a neat bundle of 
 brambles, for a pillow. The three things he needed 
 the most were a desk, a pen and a horse. The first 
 two he borrowed, for of personal property he wished 
 none; and he refused even the gift of a poor old work 
 horse because it would have been too great a luxury. 
 It suited him better to take his trusty staff and make 
 the rounds of his district barefooted. Day and night 
 he was ready to answer calls for medical aid, though 
 when he was in great pain himself and needed assist- 
 ance he never could bear to disturb any one, and by
 
 JOSfi DE ANCHIETA 35 
 
 sheer will power forced himself not to call for help. 
 Yet Anchieta was by no means a doleful sort of per- 
 son, and discomfort and illness seem never to have 
 put an edge on his disposition. People loved him for 
 his gayety and friendliness and the most miserable 
 old Indian in town would cheer up when the padre 
 came to pass the time of day. 
 
 Once when walking with another priest barefooted 
 through muddy paths, Anchieta said with a simple 
 earnestness : "Some of our fathers wish to be over- 
 taken by death in this college or that, hoping thus for 
 greater security at the last moment and to be helped 
 by the charity of the brethren ; but for my part, I could 
 not desire to be in a better condition to die, than to quit 
 Hfe in one of these quagmires, when sent by obedience 
 to the assistance of my neighbor." 
 
 By piety alone Anchieta could never have reached so 
 high a place in the community life. He was a good 
 business man, and under him the colony grew and 
 prospered. It took a clear head and a high order of 
 executive ability to govern a settlement, with its church 
 and hospital, its schools, its agricultural and industrial 
 activities, and its outlying towns with hundreds of 
 Indians, whose every move had to be directed. The 
 whole structure depended on the Jesuits in charge. 
 
 In the typical Indian village built up by the Jesuits, 
 each inhabitant had his share in the work of the 
 colony, and his plot of land. They were all like happy, 
 contented children whose parents protected them and 
 amused them and saw to it that they were healthy and
 
 36 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 busy. But they had neither initiative nor self-reHance, 
 their rehgion was grafted rather than deeply ingrained, 
 and they became so dependent upon the guidance of 
 the fathers that when, in the beginning of the seven- 
 teenth century, the Jesuits were gradually driven out 
 from Brazil, the Indians fell into hopeless confusion 
 and returned to their old wild life or were snapped 
 up by the slave-hunters, while the neat little villages 
 were left to fall to pieces with neglect. The same 
 process was repeated when the Jesuits centered their 
 efforts in Paraguay and northern Argentina. Town 
 after town was abandoned and the once prosperous 
 Indians scattered, when the entire order was finally 
 driven out from all South America by royal decree 
 in 1769. 
 
 One day, so tradition goes, Anchieta was sitting on 
 a log of wood by the hearth fire with an old woman 
 who had sent for him to come and hear her confes- 
 sions. He was politely offered a stool in place of 
 the log, but declined it. "A far more uneasy seat 
 awaits me than that log," he said. Just then a letter 
 was brought to him, sent post-haste by the provincial, 
 directing him to start for Bahia without delay. It said 
 nothing of the reason for this order, but, with his 
 sixth sense, Anchieta knew. When he arrived he 
 found them preparing to install him as provincial of 
 air Brazil. 
 
 For seven years the little hump-backed priest held 
 the highest religious ofhce in the New World, and 
 Jesuit power in Brazil reached its zenith. Then, as he
 
 JOSfi DE ANCHIETA 37 
 
 grew too ill and feeble to lead the active life of an 
 executive, he resigned, and began on a task of which 
 he had always dreamed, the writing of a history of 
 the Society of Jesus in Brazil. 
 
 In 1597, just before the power of his order was 
 broken in Brazil, Anchieta, the noblest product of as 
 fine and self-sacrificing a band of missionaries as ever 
 lived, died after forty-seven years of constant service, 
 dating from the days of his novitiate in the old univer- 
 sity town of Portugal. "His body was carried and 
 accompanied by all the Indians of the converted 
 hordes, and by hundreds of inhabitants who in two 
 days traversed, on foot, fourteen leagues," as far as 
 the little coast town of Victoria in Santo Spirito, his 
 burial place. 
 
 In the years that followed, open war broke out. The 
 hatred of the Portuguese for the Jesuits, who took 
 away all their slave labor, reached the breaking point. 
 The government which, nominally at least, had always 
 protected the priests, was not powerful enough to 
 hold back the rising tide of rebellion. To save the 
 Indians and mollify the plantation owners, negro 
 slavery had been introduced. It became the most 
 hideous blot on the tablets of Brazilian history, but it 
 accomplished neither of the results hoped from it. 
 The Indian settlements were destroyed, and the raging 
 Paulistas drove the Jesuits further and further back 
 into the wilderness toward the borders of Paraguay. 
 
 It was the end of the prelude of Jesuit activity in 
 South America. During the next century and a half
 
 38 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 the order flourished in Paraguay and the province 
 of Misiones — Arcadia, it has been called — a land of 
 sunshine and plenty, dotted with peaceful little towns 
 where the missionaries had collected their flocks of 
 Indians. Then came the decree which sent the Jesuit 
 fathers quietly and without resistance out of the coun- 
 try forever, and laid waste all they had built up 
 through the years. The crops grew wild, the herds 
 scattered and dwindled, and a whole race of natives 
 turned from civilization back to savagery. "The life, 
 crafts, and arts of the missions were no more. The 
 successors of the Jesuits found themselves flogging a 
 dead horse." The spirit of the enterprise had van- 
 ished, and the Spanish money-makers who expected 
 to reap the profits of the missionaries' industry saw 
 their hopes crumble away. The old missions, the finest 
 heritage of Catholic orders in South America, passed 
 into oblivion.
 
 JOS£ DE SAN MARTIN
 
 JOSfi DE SAN MARTIN 
 ( Equestrian Statue in Santiago, Chile)
 
 JOSfi DE SAN MARTIN 
 
 A few years after George Washington had won his 
 last battle and the North American colonies were lost 
 forever to Great Britain, the Spanish colonies in South 
 America likewise began to feel the oppression of their 
 mother country's supervision. The Spaniards as lords 
 of the land held every desirable government position 
 and picked all the plums of trade for themselves; while 
 the Creoles, those who had been born in South 
 America of pure Spanish descent, were treated as 
 inferior beings quite incapable of managing the affairs 
 of the country which by inheritance belonged to them. 
 
 In Europe a great secret society had been formed 
 by a fiery South American patriot, Francisco Miranda, 
 who dreamed night and day of freeing his country 
 from Spanish oppression. The members pledged 
 themselves to work for this end. Among the initiates 
 of this society was Jose de San Martin, a native of 
 Argentina, who had been sent to Europe for a military 
 education. He had learned the business of war in 
 every branch of the service during almost twenty years 
 of fighting in Spain and France, and he had watched 
 the greatest generals of the day manipulate their troops 
 until he too was master of armies. Yet he had none 
 of that spectacular brilliancy which a great many 
 
 41
 
 42 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 people seem to expect of a hero. His associates never 
 dreamed that this silent young man, who did a good 
 deal of thinking and not so much talking, was to be a 
 leading figure in the war for independence in South 
 America. 
 
 When, in 1812, San Martin arrived in Buenos Aires 
 to help his country fight for liberty, the sparks of 
 revolution had almost been snuffed out in all the 
 colonies except Argentina. Here the Creoles had 
 declared their independence, deposed the Spanish gov- 
 ernor and elected their own officials. The first thing 
 San Martin did was to train a model regiment of 
 cavalry to serve as the backbone for an army, and he 
 showed such splendid powers of leadership that in 
 1813 he was given command of the patriot forces. 
 Peru, of all the colonies, was the most thoroughly 
 Spanish, and it was so hemmed in by mountains and 
 deserts, by fierce Indian tribes and by Spanish strong- 
 holds that no attack on its frontier could ever be 
 successful. San Martin had to plan a way to carry 
 the cause of independence from one small patriotic 
 center, Buenos Aires, right into this heart of Spanish 
 supremacy in America. His solution of the problem 
 he kept as secret as possible so that the Spaniards 
 would be taken by surprise, and even his own staff 
 could only guess at what might happen next. 
 
 First he asked to be appointed governor of Cuyo, 
 an Argentine province lying at the foot of the Andes, 
 and in Mendoza, its capital, he began to organize his 
 campaign. The people of this province, many of them
 
 JOSfi DE SAN MARTIN 43 
 
 exiled Chilean patriots, tlioroughly hated the Spaniards 
 and, as he had wisely foreseen, made excellent helpers. 
 San Martin, with his persuasive personality, could 
 always make others feel as he did. Wherever he went 
 patriots sprang into existence as if by magic, and now 
 the entire community set to work to help him prepare 
 his army. Even tiny children drilled and carried flags ; 
 and the ladies gave their jewels to pay for arms and 
 provisions, worked on uniforms for the soldiers, and 
 made a great battle flag bearing a glowing sun — the 
 ancient symbol of the Incas. 
 
 To only one friend did he reveal the magnificent plan 
 he was working out in the shadow of the mountains : 
 "A small, well-disciplined army in Mendoza to cross 
 to Chile, finish off the Goths (Spaniards) there, and 
 aid a government of trusty friends to put an end to 
 the anarchy which reigns. Allying our forces we 
 shall then go by sea to Lima. This is our course and 
 no other." But between San Martin and Chile 
 stretched the enormous snow-crowned Sierras of the 
 Andes ! No one had ever dreamed that an army with 
 guns, baggage and horses could cross those treacher- 
 ous passes, some of them 12,000 feet above the sea, 
 and often too narrow to allow more than one mounted 
 man to pass at a time. No wonder San Martin once 
 remarked : "What spoils my sleep is not the strength 
 of the enemy, but how to pass those immense moun- 
 tains." 
 
 It took just three years for San Martin, using all 
 the resources of his province, to prepare for his task.
 
 44 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 This meant drilling his troops, gathering provisions, 
 supervising the manufacture of arms and powder ; and 
 planning ahead each move of the army. He gave 
 personal attention to every detail of his plan, from 
 providing portable bridges for use in the mountains, 
 and sledges to carry cannon over the snow, down to 
 hiring the last cook for the commissariat and ordering 
 shoes for every mule in the transport. 
 
 His chief diversion during this time was campaign- 
 ing with chessmen in front of his own hearth fire and 
 many an evening he spent in winning all the games 
 from his friends. He took a fatherly interest in the 
 people, and his quiet kindliness and sympathy were in 
 marked contrast to the tyranny and injustice of 
 Spanish officials. One day a farmer was sentenced 
 for bitterly attacking the patriot cause. There was 
 no room in San Martin's big nature for resent- 
 ment. With a sparkle of fun in his eye he annulled 
 the sentence on condition that the man supply the 
 troops with ten dozen fat pumpkins. Another day a 
 penitent officer came to him to confess that he had 
 lost at cards a sum of money which belonged to his 
 regiment. San Martin quietly turned to a little cabinet 
 in the corner and took from it a number of gold coins. 
 These he gave to the miserable officer, saying sternly : 
 "Pay this money into the regimental chest, and keep 
 the secret; for if General San Martin ever hears that 
 you told of it, he will have you shot upon the spot." 
 
 There were many periods of great discouragement 
 during these years of preparation, when the Royalists
 
 JOSfi DE SAN MARTIN 45 
 
 seemed everywhere victorious, but San Martin had 
 only one way of meeting bad news, to go calmly and 
 confidently ahead as if nothing had happened. When 
 word came of a great defeat of the patriots in the 
 north, San Martin invited all his officers to a banquet, 
 and after the dessert was served he rose to propose a 
 toast : "To the first shot fired beyond the Andes against 
 the oppressors of Chile !" The room rang with cheers, 
 and from that moment there was never a doubt in the 
 hearts of his men. They had caught that contagious 
 enthusiasm from their general which was to lead the 
 army to victory. 
 
 In January, 181 7, all was ready. A pen-and-ink 
 sketch of the route to be followed and written instruc- 
 tions had been handed to each major officer by San 
 Martin himself. From January 14 to 23 the troops, 
 in six divisions, started off from different points in the 
 province to cross the Andes at intervals along the 
 1,300 miles of unbroken mountain ranges. The time 
 it would take each to cross had been so accurately 
 reckoned that on the 6th, 7th, and 8th of February, 
 the entire army poured forth from the six passes upon 
 the Chilean plateau, exactly as planned, to find the 
 Spaniards quite distracted and only half way prepared 
 for defense. The two main divisions of the army filed 
 out from the mountains simultaneously and, uniting 
 on the plain of Chacabuco, defeated the Spanish forces 
 on February 12, and marched into Santiago, then the 
 capital, with flags flying. To this day in the great 
 military schools of the world San Martin's march from
 
 46 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 Cuyo into Chile is used as a model of how a campaign 
 should be conducted. 
 
 San Martin refused the honors which people now 
 wanted to heap upon him, even the commission of 
 brigadier-general, the highest military honor the Ar- 
 gentine government could bestow. The only reward he 
 seems to have accepted was a life pension for his 
 daughter, Marie Mercedes, which he used for her 
 education. With 10,000 ounces of gold given him by 
 the Chileans for his personal use he built a public 
 library in Santiago. And when they unanimously 
 named him as their governor he flatly refused the posi- 
 tion. Neither then nor later did he wish any political 
 office which would not directly help along the cause of 
 independence. Personal conquest, glory and profit had 
 no part in his big plan. 
 
 The Spanish troops were expert soldiers and greatly 
 outnumbered the invaders of Argentine. After send- 
 ing for reenforcements, on March 19, 1818, they 
 defeated the patriot forces at Talca, just outside San- 
 tiago. It was reported that San Martin had been 
 killed and his army scattered to the four winds. The 
 city rang with Royalist celebrations. But even as the 
 shouts of ''Viva el rey!" sounded through the streets, 
 San Martin himself rode calmly into town, drew rein 
 before his own house, and as he dismounted, grimly 
 announced to the excited people that he expected to 
 win the next battle and very soon, too. 
 
 With the help of friends in Santiago who showered 
 him with money for supplies, he re-equipped his army
 
 JOSE DE SAN MARTIN 47 
 
 and marched out to the plain of Maipo to meet the 
 enemy. As he watched their Hnes forming for battle, 
 he exclaimed : "I take the sun for witness that the day 
 is ours!" At that moment, it is said, the sun in a 
 cloudless sky rose over the crests of the Andes and 
 shone full in his face. Before sunset the Spanish 
 army was put to rout, and the Patriots, within seven- 
 teen days of their defeat, had established forever the 
 independence of Chile. 
 
 Before the army could hope to find a foothold in 
 Peru, a patriot fleet must sail up the coast to clear 
 the way. Lord Cochrane, an experienced English 
 admiral, took command of the navy in 1818. His 
 ships swooped down on several towns along the coast 
 of Peru and captured them, and his energy and dar- 
 ing struck terror to the Spanish heart. His fiercest 
 onslaughts were directed against Callao, a seaport, six 
 miles from Lima, capital of Peru and headquarters for 
 the royalist army. By the time then that San Martin's 
 land forces were ready to set out, they had the sea to 
 themselves, and the satisfaction of knowing that the 
 Spanish fleet dared not poke its nose beyond Callao 
 harbor. On August 20, 1820, the United Liberating 
 Army boarded transports at Valparaiso and, under the 
 guidance of Cochrane, sailed for Pisco, a port 150 
 miles south of Lima. Here San Martin divided his 
 army. A force of 1,200 men were detailed to march 
 northward in a great semi-circle around Lima, and to 
 spread the seed of rebellion through the whole country- 
 side. On the way these soldiers defeated a Royalist
 
 48 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 detachment sent against them. This success boomed 
 the patriot cause, which already had friends in the 
 neighborhood, and it became so popular that one entire 
 regiment deserted the Spanish camp and begged to be 
 allowed to fight with the newcomers. With the main 
 part of his army San Martin made the other half circle 
 around Lima by sea. Both sections were to meet at 
 Huacho, some 70 miles north of the capital. It was a 
 splendid pageant which sailed in regular order past 
 the port of Callao : first the ships of war flying the 
 scarlet and white flags, designed by San Martin for 
 the new Republic of Peru; then the transports, their 
 decks crowded with eager soldiers. It seemed as if 
 every one in town had come out to stand on the walls 
 and watch the squadron go by. 
 
 San Martin had no wish to win battles. He issued 
 this proclamation to his men : "Remember that you 
 are come, not to conquer but to liberate a people; the 
 Peruvians are our brothers." Now that he had shown 
 the Spaniards what they might expect of his army and 
 fleet, he planned to stay quietly in the neighborhood of 
 Lima, and by stimulating the Peruvians with a desire 
 for liberty, lead them to assert their own rights. He 
 formed secret societies which carried the new ideas 
 into every nook of the capital, and through his agents 
 and publications acquired enough influence to cut off 
 the supply of provisions from the city. 
 
 Meanwhile Lord Cochrane had put the finishing 
 touch to his naval victory by capturing the Esmeralda, 
 the prize ship of the Spanish fleet. His men in four-
 
 JOSfi DE SAN MARTIN 49 
 
 teen rowboats stole into Callao harbor by night, crept 
 between the twenty-six gunboats which protected the 
 big ship, boarded her before any one knew what was 
 happening, and carried her off right from under the 
 300 guns of Callao Castle. 
 
 The situation in Lima, cut off from supplies by land 
 and sea, where it was treason even to mention the 
 subject of independence, grew worse every day. A 
 merchant, just arrived from independent Chile, com- 
 pared its capital with Lima. "We left Valparaiso 
 harbor filled with shipping; its custom-house wharfs 
 piled high with goods ; the road between port and cap- 
 ital was always crowded with convoys of mules, loaded 
 with every kind of foreign manufacture, while numer- 
 ous ships were busy taking in cargoes. In the harbor 
 of Callao the shipping was crowded into a corner 
 and surrounded by gunboats; the custom house stood 
 empty and its door locked; no bales of goods rose in 
 a pyramid on the quay ; no loaded mules plodded over 
 the road to Lima." Indeed, this visitor concluded, 
 every one in the city w^as miserable except the donkeys, 
 who presumably enjoyed having nothing to do. 
 
 During the first six months of 1821 a truce was 
 declared at the suggestion of the viceroy, who thought 
 that if the situation were explained to the government 
 in Spain some compromise might be possible. There 
 w^as no such word as "compromise" in San Martin's 
 vocabulary, but he consented to the truce because he 
 knew it meant just so much more time for his cause 
 to win adherents.
 
 50 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 During this truce San Martin spent much of his time 
 on board his own Httle yacht which lay at anchor in 
 Callao harbor, and there he received visitors. An Eng- 
 Hsh sea captain named Basil Hall came to talk with 
 him a number of times, and in his Journal — as good 
 reading as any story book — the captain tells his impres- 
 sion of the great general. "There was little at first 
 sight to engage the attention; but when he rose and 
 began to speak, his superiority was apparent. He 
 received us in very homely style, on the deck of his 
 vessel, dressed in a big surtout coat and a large fur 
 cap, and seated at a table made of a few loose planks 
 laid along the top of some empty casks. He is a tall, 
 erect, handsome man with thick black hair and 
 immense, bushy dark whiskers extending from ear to 
 ear under his chin; his eye is jet black; his whole 
 appearance being highly military. He is unaffect- 
 edly simple in his manners; exceedingly cordial and 
 engaging, and possessed evidently of great kindliness 
 of disposition ; in short, I have never seen any person, 
 the enchantment of whose address was more irresist- 
 ible." 
 
 Sitting there at his little table the general explained 
 himself to his friends : "People ask why I don't march 
 to Lima at once ; so I might, and instantly would, were 
 it suitable to my view, but it is not. I do not want 
 military renown, I have no ambition to be conqueror 
 of Peru, I want solely to liberate the country from 
 oppression, I wish to have all thinking men with me, 
 and do not choose to advance a step beyond the march
 
 JOSfi DE SAN MARTIN 51 
 
 of public opinion, I have been gaining, day by day, 
 fresh alHes in the hearts of the people." 
 
 For a long time Spain had been too busy with her 
 own revolution against monarchy to help her colonies. 
 Neither ships nor advice were forthcoming, and on 
 July 6, 1 82 1, the viceroy hurriedly left Lima with his 
 troops, and took to the mountains. The patriotic 
 army, in a semicircle, settled down on the heights to 
 the north of the city, in plain sight of the residents, 
 but made no move to enter. A few prominent citizens 
 immediately sent an invitation to San Martin to come 
 and protect them from threatened uprisings of the 
 slave and Indian population. The general replied most 
 politely that he would not enter the city as a conqueror ; 
 he would come only when the people themselves 
 invited him because they wished to declare their inde- 
 pendence. But to protect them, he ordered his troops 
 to obey any directions given them by the officials of 
 the city. 
 
 When the people heard this splendid offer they could 
 not believe it had been made in good faith. The great 
 general must be mocking them ! They shook their 
 heads suspiciously and solemnly gathered to discuss 
 the matter. Tongues wagged excitedly all night long 
 till at last a bright idea occurred to "a strange little 
 man folded up in an old dingy Spanish cloak, with 
 a broad-brimmed yellow hat, hooked loosely on one 
 corner of his small square head, and shadowing a 
 face plastered all over with snuff which, in the vehe- 
 mence of his agitation, he flung at his nose in hand-
 
 52 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 fuls." This little person proposed that they order a 
 certain troop of San Martin's cavalry to move one 
 league farther away just to see if it would. The 
 messenger who sallied out to carry this order returned 
 to say that the troop had packed up its baggage and 
 moved exactly as ordered. This put the Peruvians in 
 high good humor and San Martin became more popular 
 than ever. A formal deputation invited him with 
 great cordiality to enter the city, and on July 9 the 
 first section of the United Liberating Army marched 
 into the capital of Peru while cheers of welcome rang 
 through the streets. 
 
 San Martin himself rode into the city the next eve- 
 ning in his usual simple, informal manner, accompanied 
 by only one aide. The story is told that he intended 
 to stop on the way and rest for the night at a cottage 
 outside the city. Unluckily this retreat was discovered 
 by two admiring friars who made San Martin miser- 
 able with their extravagant praises. When they 
 began to compare him with Caesar he could bear it no 
 longer. 
 
 "Good heavens! What are we to do? This will 
 never answer," he told his aide. 
 
 "Oh, sir ! Here come two more of the same stamp," 
 warned the aide from the window. 
 
 "Indeed!" replied the general. "Then saddle the 
 horses again and let us be off." 
 
 More praises and compliments were awaiting him 
 in Lima, and the people crowded to greet him. One 
 cold, sedate young priest suddenly forgot his dignity
 
 JOSfi DE SAN MARTIN 53 
 
 as he shook hands with the great general and burst' 
 forth with a loud shout of "Viva! Nuestra General^ 
 
 "No, no," said San Martin, "do not say so; but join 
 with me in calling: 'P'lva la Independencia del Peru!' " 
 
 On July 15 independence was declared, and the 
 scarlet and white flag waved over a new republic. A 
 great question now confronted the Peruvians : "Who 
 shall govern us?" San Martin's policy had always 
 been that as soon as he had liberated the people his 
 task was over and they must work out their own plans 
 for government, as the Chileans had done. But the 
 Creoles in Lima knew as little about organizing a gov- 
 ernment as they had known how to break away from 
 Spanish rule. San Martin believed this backwardness 
 was due to their geographical situation which had 
 cut them off from outside influences, and that they 
 needed his help before they could be able to help them- 
 selves. He issued a decree which temporarily gave 
 himself the title of "Protector of Peru." In a proc- 
 lamation to the people he explained his position : 
 "Since there is still in Peru a foreign enemy to combat, 
 it is a measure of necessity that the political and mili- 
 tary authority should continue united in my person. 
 The religious scrupulousness with which I have kept 
 my word in the course of my public life gives me a 
 right to be believed ; and I again pledge it to the people 
 of Peru, by solemnly promising that the very instant 
 their territory is free, I shall resign the command, in 
 order to make room for the government which they 
 may be pleased to elect."
 
 54 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 By his first act in office, San Martin showed that his 
 definition of independence was big enough to include 
 not part but all the people. He wanted liberty for the 
 slaves in Peru as well as for their masters, so he 
 declared free every person born after Independence 
 Day and every slave who voluntarily enlisted in his 
 army. An English teacher living in Lima during this 
 prosperous year of 1822 wrote: "I never mentioned 
 a wish to San Martin that was not granted in the most 
 obliging manner. After his going away, I scarcely 
 mentioned anything I wished done, that was not 
 refused." 
 
 The harbor now opened to all the world. Ships 
 with rich cargoes sailed in and out ; the donkeys again 
 had great loads to carry from the wharfs; and the 
 shops were filled with inexpensive articles of foreign 
 manufacture which before this had been rare luxuries. 
 But in spite of their sudden prosperity the Peruvians 
 hampered San Martin in his two-fold task of putting 
 affairs at home in good order and planning for further 
 military campaigns. As he well knew, the national 
 spirit which he had aroused might turn against him 
 at any moment, and he had continually to be on his 
 guard against uprisings. The Creoles grew jealous 
 and factious at the slightest pretext. San Martin was 
 after all an outsider and came from a rival republic. 
 Nearly two thirds of his original army, moreover, 
 unaccustomed to living so near the equator, had been 
 ill of fever and were in no condition to fight. 
 
 San Martin now looked for help from quite another
 
 JOSE DE SAN MARTIN 55 
 
 quarter. At this time a patriot general named Bolivar 
 had reached the northern frontier of Peru with his 
 army. He was fighting for the cause of independence 
 in the North as San Martin had fought in the South. 
 Here in Peru, these two great Liberators who between 
 them had aroused all Spanish America met for the 
 first time. San Martin, without a thought of pos- 
 sible rivalry, rejoiced in the strength and support so 
 near at hand and planned an alliance which should 
 speedily bring final victory. With great enthusiasm 
 he arranged for an interview at Guayaquil, a province 
 just over the borderline of Peru. Bolivar, however, 
 found the idea of sharing his military triumphs with 
 another not at all to his liking. He "wanted the glory 
 of driving out the last Spaniard," and he received 
 the proposal of an alliance coldly, even though San 
 Martin offered to take a subordinate position. At the 
 end of the interview Bolivar seemed agitated and rest- 
 less, while San Martin appeared as calm, grave and 
 unruffled as always. That night a banquet was given 
 in honor of the visitor, at which both generals pro- 
 posed toasts. Bolivar's came first : "To the two great- 
 est men of South America — General San Martin and 
 myself." Then San Martin, there at the table of the 
 man who had failed him just as the completion of his 
 career was in sight, again showed the quality of his 
 patriotism. "To the speedy conclusion of the war," he 
 cried; "to the organization of the different republics of 
 the continent; and to the health of Bolivar, the 
 Liberator of Colombia !"
 
 56 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 The only comment San Martin seems to have made 
 on his interview with BoHvar was contained in a mes- 
 sage to his friend O'Higgins : "The Liberator is not 
 the man we took him to be." Without a word to any 
 one of all that had happened, he decided simply to give 
 up his career and leave Peru. If he remained it would 
 mean civil war between himself and Bolivar who would 
 always be intriguing against him. The cause of inde- 
 pendence must not be threatened by quarrels between 
 two rivals. No matter what people said of him he 
 knew he must never tell the real reason for his going, 
 because his own men would turn against Bolivar when 
 they ought to help him. His friends must now be 
 Bolivar's friends. His own career, even his good name, 
 were of small importance compared with the fortunes 
 of the republic. From Lima he wrote his decision to 
 Bolivar: "I have convened the first congress of Peru; 
 the day after its installation I shall leave for Chile, 
 convinced that my presence is the only obstacle which 
 keeps you from coming to Peru with your army." 
 
 For the next few weeks he worked hard to leave 
 things in order. First he put his army in the best pos- 
 sible condition for service, and drew up a careful plan 
 of the campaign in which he would have no other share. 
 Then, on September 20, the representatives from the 
 liberated provinces of Peru met, and before this new 
 congress he took off his scarlet and white sash, the 
 emblem of authority, and resigned his office. "I have 
 witnessed the declaration of independence of Chile and 
 Peru," he said in his farewell address; *T hold in my
 
 JOSfi DE SAN MARTIN 57 
 
 hand the standard which Pizarro brought over to en- 
 slave the empire of the Incas. My promises to the 
 countries in which I made war are fulfilled; I gave 
 them independence and leave them the choice of their 
 government." 
 
 San Martin had only lame excuses to give for his 
 sudden departure, such as : "My health is broken, this 
 climate is killing me ;" and on retiring from office, "My 
 presence in Peru now after the powers I have wielded 
 would be inconsistent with the dignity of Congress 
 and with my own." He was accused of cowardice, 
 and of deserting the republic at the time of its greatest 
 need. No one thought of blaming Bolivar, Not until 
 years later when San Martin's letters were published, 
 and the true reason for his going became known, were 
 the shadows cleared from his name. 
 
 On the night of the 20th he rode away from Lima 
 as quietly as he had first entered it, and boarding his 
 yacht at Callao sailed for Chile. But there was no 
 longer a place for him in South America, even in his 
 own province of Buenos Aires, for he despised the 
 small civil wars in which the Argentines were always 
 entangled. So, besides career and honors and reputa- 
 tion, he gave up home and country. 
 
 In a little house on the banks of the Seine near Paris, 
 San Martin spent many quiet years with his daughter, 
 reading till his eyes grew too dim, caring for his 
 garden, absorbed in his trees and flowers. He died on 
 August 9, 1850. In his will he left his sword — there 
 was very little else to leave — to the Argentine Dictator.
 
 58 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 It was an expression of the deep interest and eager 
 hopes with which he had followed the fortunes of his 
 country to the very end of his life. His last wish came 
 true and is now written upon his tomb in the cathe- 
 dral of the Argentine capital : "I desire that my heart 
 may rest in Buenos Aires." Statues have been 
 erected to him in the three States to which he gave his 
 services, and to-day he is honored as the greatest of all 
 their men. 
 
 San Martin was a good winner. When he won a 
 victory he used it for the glory of his people and the 
 success of his cause, not for his own fame. He was a 
 good loser — there never lived a better. Just before he 
 left Peru for the last time he sent a message and a 
 present to Bolivar. The message read : "Receive, Gen- 
 eral, this remembrance from the first of your admirers, 
 with the expression of my sincere desire that you may 
 have the glory of finishing the war for the indepen- 
 dence of South America." The present was a war 
 horse, the thoroughbred which San Martin himself 
 might have ridden at the head of the victorious patriot 
 armies.
 
 BOLIVAR
 
 SIMOX BOLIVAR
 
 BOLIVAR 
 
 One day on the royal tennis courts at Madrid an 
 alert, athletic lad. brimming over with ner\'0U5 energ\', 
 won all the sets from his host, the young heir to the 
 throne of Spain. It was the first battle between two 
 men whose armies a few years later fought each other 
 in a long and bitter war; for the lad. Simon Bolivar, 
 led the revolution for independence in the northern 
 colonies of Spanish America, and the prince after- 
 ward became King Ferdinand VII whose country-men 
 Bolivar whipped from coast to coast. While San 
 Martin's armies were carrying liberty from Buenos 
 Aires through Chile to Peru, a similar revolt against 
 the tyranny of governors sent over from Spain broke 
 out in \'enezuela, spread through New Granada, or 
 Colombia as it was called later, through Quito, after- 
 ward named Ecuador, and finally concentrated in Peru. 
 
 "The well-informed party in Venezuela." one writer 
 explains, "the rich, the illustrious, sought independence 
 and sacrificed themselves for liberty; but the people, 
 no !'" The prominent, ambitious Creoles had most 
 to gain by a change in government. Their heads 
 were full of republican ideas imported from the 
 mother country, and in Caracas, capital of Venezuela, 
 they held secret meetings and energetically fanned the 
 
 6i
 
 62 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 anti-Spanish feeling which led to civil war. To this 
 party of radicals belonged Simon Bolivar, member of 
 an aristocratic Caracas family. So ardent and im- 
 petuous a patriot was he that long before the time 
 was ripe for revolt he had leaped to his feet during 
 a banquet and proposed a toast to the ''independence 
 of America," right in the presence of the Spanish 
 governor himself. 
 
 Bolivar had always been accustomed to doing and 
 having everything he wanted ; never had there been a 
 restraining influence to check his tempestuous, self- 
 willed Yiature ; for his parents died when he was still 
 a small child, leaving him to run wild on the big 
 country estate where he lived ; and his little seventeen- 
 year-old Spanish wife lived only a few months after 
 he had brought her home. He was used to an active, 
 outdoor life and spent more time in hunting and rid- 
 ing, swimming and sailing, than in studying with his 
 tutor. This tutor, Simon Rodriguez, however, was 
 the strongest influence in Bolivar's life, for he filled 
 the boy's mind with his own enthusiastic belief in a 
 republican form of government. He dreamed of a day 
 when the Creoles should be free from their enforced 
 dependence upon arbitrary, avaricious Spanish govern- 
 ors, and humiliating subjection to hundreds of absurd 
 little laws made away off in Spain by men who 
 understood nothing of the problems of the South 
 American people. Bolivar was brought up on these 
 teachings and he never forgot them. When, like most 
 rich young Creoles, he was sent to travel in Europe,
 
 BOLIVAR 63 
 
 he had a chance to see for himself the workings of 
 the French Repubhc, and he admired it so much that 
 he made a vow when only twenty-two years old to be 
 the liberator of his country. 
 
 Venezuela was the first colony in Spanish America 
 to declare her independence. Until 18 10 no open 
 action was taken. Then, when the news came that 
 the French armies were occupying Spain and that 
 Ferdinand had been deposed in favor of Napoleon's 
 brother, the radical party in Caracas immediately de- 
 manded the resignation of Spanish officials, declared 
 "the right of the provinces of America to rule them- 
 selves," and appointed its own governing committee, 
 or junta, which should control the affairs of the 
 "United Provinces of Venezuela." The first Con- 
 gress was convened in 181 1, and on July 5, the Spanish 
 colors were torn in small pieces, and the flag of the 
 new republic, stripes of yellow, blue, and red, formally 
 adopted. 
 
 Here was the signal for civil war. The rebellious 
 colonies, came the word from Spain, must be sub- 
 dued at any cost. "I do not know to what class of 
 beasts the South Americans belong," remarked one 
 angry Spaniard. "If the Americans," said another, 
 "complain of having been tyrannized over for three 
 hundred years, they shall now experience a similar 
 treatment for three thousand." Of these same South 
 American "beasts" a great Spanish general reported, 
 a few years later: "Twelve pitched battles, in which 
 the best officers and troops of the enemy have fallen,
 
 64 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 have not lowered their pride or lessened the vigor of 
 their attacks." That was the spirit of Simon Bolivar. 
 The whole war for independence was like a great 
 pendulum swinging back and forth. On every other 
 swing things looked black for the patriot cause, and 
 then, out of hopelessness and defeat, Bolivar would 
 rise as undaunted and self-confident as ever, mass his 
 troops together, and hurl them madly at the enemy 
 over and over again. 
 
 When, in 1812, all the brave hopes of the struggling 
 little Republics were dashed to pieces and every one 
 else had completely lost heart, Bolivar saw his chance 
 to realize the two supreme desires of his life. One was 
 the sincere wish to win independence for his country; 
 the other a selfish ambition to keep for himself the 
 entire glory of doing it. In a few months' time he 
 rose from the inconspicuous position of a volunteer 
 officer, who has been ignominiously defeated at his first 
 action, to be a brilliant military ruler. First he went 
 to Cartagena, the one province of New Granada which 
 had declared its independence, and offered his services. 
 With the few men given him he fought his way toward 
 the borderline of his own State. On the way he heard 
 that just across the Andes in Venezuela a royalist 
 army was preparing to march upon New Granada. He 
 was only a minor officer, with not more than 400 men, 
 and he had had almost no military experience. With- 
 out waiting to ask permission, without plans or prep- 
 arations, he marched across the mountains and rushed 
 upon the unsuspecting enemy. So energetic was the
 
 BOLIVAR 65 
 
 attack that the royalists, 6,000 in number, were per- 
 fectly sure a huge army confronted them and they 
 beat a speedy retreat. Delighted at Bolivar's success 
 the Cartagena junta gave him more troops, but 
 prudently ordered him to pause before going any 
 farther. 
 
 Bolivar refused to be held in leash. He saw a pos- 
 sible rival in a Venezuelan patriot named Santiago 
 Marino, who had won a few victories on the east 
 coast, and in a frenzy lest Marino get ahead of him 
 and reach Caracas first Bolivar went right on with his 
 whirlwind campaign across the State. On his own 
 responsibility he issued a terrible proclamation : "Our 
 kindness is now quenched, and as our oppressors force 
 us into a mortal war, they shall disappear from Amer- 
 ica, and our land shall be purged of the monsters who 
 infest it. Our hatred shall be implacable, and tlie war 
 shall be to the death." He began to date his letters : 
 "Third year of Independence and first of the War to 
 the Death." Years later he greatly regretted the spirit 
 of this ferocious declaration and urged instead 
 "humanity and compassion for your most bitter 
 enemies." 
 
 On August 6, 181 3, he entered his native city as 
 he had dreamed of doing, hailed on all sides by "Long 
 live our Liberator ! Long live New Granada ! Long 
 live the Savior of Venezuela!" He was flattered and 
 feted to his heart's content. "A multitude of beauti- 
 ful young women . . . bearing crowns of laurel, 
 pushed their way through the crowd to take hold of
 
 66 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 the bridle of his horse. Bolivar dismounted and was 
 almost overpowered by the crowns cast upon him. 
 The people wept for joy," He was now "far more 
 powerful than any sovereign living in the world, in 
 proportion to the country and the resources of the 
 people." 
 
 But instead of attending strictly to the business of 
 fighting, Bolivar wasted time in enjoying his new 
 honors and establishing himself as Dictator. Even 
 while he was having the inscription "Bolivar, Libera- 
 tor of Venezuela" placed over the entrances of all 
 public offices, the royalists were recovering their wits. 
 Out on the plains, or "llanos," lived a wild, uncivilized 
 race of cattle breeders called Llaneros, who were mag- 
 nificent riders and recklessly brave fighters. Boves, a 
 fierce and brutal Spanish leader, won their allegiance 
 by the promise of large booty, and formed them into 
 an army of invincible cavalry, teaching them "the 
 secret of victory, which was to have no fear of death, 
 to go straight on and never look behind." Bolivar's 
 little force was driven from pillar to post by the 
 terrible Boves till in 1814 once more the patriots had 
 hardly a foothold anywhere in Venezuela. Though 
 the Liberator had some devoted followers, like the 
 man who had written him: "General! If two men 
 are sufficient to liberate the Fatherland I am ready to 
 accompany you," yet he was continually opposed by 
 jealous patriots who were loath to obey orders. He 
 never minced words with such enemies : "March at 
 once," he repeated his command to one of them;
 
 BOLIVAR 67 
 
 "there is no other alternative to marching. If you do 
 not, either you will have to shoot me, or I shall in- 
 fallibly shoot you." These rivals now took advantage 
 of his failures, and even his admirers turned against 
 him. Betrayed on all sides and denounced as a traitor, 
 he was fairly driven from his country. But in this 
 hour of complete humiliation he stood proudly and 
 confidently before the people and made a farewell 
 address: "I swear to you that this title (Liberator) 
 which your gratitude bestowed upon me when I broke 
 your chains shall not be in vain. I swear to you that 
 Liberator or dead, I shall ever merit the honor you 
 have done me; no human power can turn me from 
 my course." 
 
 Then Bolivar returned to New Granada, where he 
 had one loyal friend who still believed in him, Camilo 
 Torres, president of the Republic. "As long as Bolivar 
 lives," he declared, "Venezuela is not lost." The 
 revolutionary junta appointed him Captain-general of 
 the army, and invented for him another of the im- 
 pressive titles he loved so much : "Illustrious Pacifi- 
 cator." On this occasion Bolivar made a speech in 
 which he boasted that the army of New Granada 
 "would break the chains of all the oppressed peoples 
 of South America." 
 
 King Ferdinand, who had won back his throne, 
 now sent 10,000 trained soldiers under General Morillo 
 to put a stop once and for all to the revolutionary 
 antics in which his stubborn colonies were indulging. 
 While this army was landing in Venezuela, in 181 5,
 
 68 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 Bolivar was quarreling bitterly with a rival Republican 
 leader, Castillo, governor of the independent province 
 of Cartagena, who refused to join the confederation 
 of New Granada. Instead of uniting against the com- 
 mon enemy, the two wasted their time in petty in- 
 trigues, till Bolivar, in a wild rage, laid siege to Car- 
 tagena, the strongest fortress on the continent, with 
 only one small mounted gun. Then he suddenly 
 realized the absurdity of his position and. as Morillo's 
 army swept over New Granada, he gave what was left 
 of his army to Castillo and resigned. Still imdaunted 
 by failure, and never admitting that he himself could 
 be at all to blame, he had a parting shot to fire as 
 usual : "Cartagena prefers her own destruction to 
 the duty of obedience to the Federal Government." 
 Then, with his mind still full of plans for renewing 
 the war, he took refuge on the island of Haiti. 
 
 While Bolivar was in exile, the Llaneros were so 
 attracted by the bravery and fair play of a patriotic 
 guerilla chieftain named Paez and so angry at the 
 brutal tyranny of Boves and other Spaniards that 
 they changed their minds and came over to the patriot 
 side. Their successes on the plains of Venezuela put 
 new energy into the revolutionary movement, and 
 Morillo came hurrying back from New Granada in 
 alarm. At this crisis Creole officers had to admit that 
 only one man was great enough to head the revolu- 
 tion, and they petitioned their Liberator to come to the 
 rescue. Bolivar had never left off working desperately 
 to restore the republic, but his expeditions from Haiti
 
 BOLIVAR 69 
 
 were failures. Other patriot refugees intrigued 
 against him and he had narrowly escaped assassina- 
 tion. Now, at the end of 1816, he reappeared among 
 his countrymen, the commander-in-chief of their army, 
 and as confident and enthusiastic as though he had 
 never been scorned and jeered at and defeated. 
 
 The Creole army resembled an armed mob rather 
 than a disciplined body of soldiers. One of Bolivar's 
 officers wrote : "There was much to be done to trans- 
 form these peasants into soldiers and give them a mar- 
 tial aspect. Nothing could be less military than their 
 clothes: a hat of gray wool with a broad brim and a 
 low crown ; . . . and an immense square blanket 
 of coarse wool, with a hole in the middle for the 
 head to pass through, hanging from the shoulders to 
 the knees, giving the impression of an armless man." 
 Many carried no arms, except pikeheads fastened upon 
 short sticks, for it was difficult to teach them "to 
 handle a musket, or to fire it without shutting both 
 eyes, turning the head to the rear, and so causing 
 much greater danger to themselves and their fellows 
 than to the enemy!" Bolivar himself cut a strange 
 figure among his ill-assorted soldiers. He loved to be 
 conspicuous. During one battle he wore a jacket and 
 pantaloons of scarlet decorated with gold lace. On 
 another occasion he "was dressed in a green spencer 
 with red facings and three rows of buttons; on his 
 head was a dragoon's helmet, which had been sent 
 him as a sample; he wore Llanero gaiters, and car- 
 ried in his hand a short lance with a black pennon
 
 70 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 adorned with a skull and cross-bones, under which 
 might be read the inscription, 'Liberty or Death.' " 
 One writer says : "There was nothing heroic in his 
 appearance; he was short in stature, thin and narrow 
 chested; . . . his large black eyes were sunk deep 
 in their orbits, and sparkled with unsteady light, in- 
 dicative of his character. He looked like one pos- 
 sessed of a latent fire, a man of feverish activity." 
 
 He had a tremendous personal influence over his 
 men. In spite of brusque manners and a terrifying 
 temper he was always impulsively generous. One day 
 an officer complained of being robbed of his baggage. 
 Bolivar was unable to recover it, but at once gave 
 him half of his own clothes, which were few enough. 
 
 During the next two years Bolivar's position was 
 desperate; yet without funds or arms or supplies he 
 plunged fiercely ahead. Though the Republic had 
 hardly a leg to stand on, Bolivar issued the most 
 optimistic of proclamations. To the people of New 
 Granada he announced : "The day of America has 
 come. No human power can stay the course of 
 nature guided by Providence. Before the sun has 
 again run his annual course altars to liberty will arise 
 throughout your land." 
 
 The constant turmoil in which Bolivar lived and 
 the intensity of his feelings wore upon his health. 
 Sometimes he became so excited that he hardly knew 
 what he did. He would expose himself "in the most 
 reckless manner wherever the fight was hottest, seem- 
 ing to court death as some expiation of the errors he
 
 BOLIVAR 71 
 
 had committed." During one battle, when everything 
 seemed lost and the Spaniards were plowing their 
 deadly way among his little handful of soldiers, he 
 leaped from his horse and dashed into the ranks, shout- 
 ing to his men that he would die with them. He had 
 many hairbreadth escapes. One time he and his staff 
 ; were attacked as they slept in their hammocks in a wood. 
 All night Bolivar wandered about on foot alone till he 
 was finally picked up by his own retreating troops. 
 Another night he jumped from his hammock just in 
 time to spoil the plans of some spies who had been 
 sent to murder him, and seized a mule on which to 
 escape. The mule kicked him violently, but a negro 
 soldier came to the rescue with a horse, and Bolivar 
 dashed away hatless and coatless. 
 
 By 181 8 Bolivar had learned, from his own failures 
 and predicaments and from the example of San 
 Martin, that if he wanted results he needed dis- 
 ciplined troops. He hired skilled European soldiers 
 who had fought in the Napoleonic wars, and to his 
 own ragged, plucky Creole army he added these 
 trained, sophisticated warriors, who looked, in their 
 brilliant and varied uniforms, "more like a theatrical 
 troupe than a body of soldiers going on active service." 
 
 When the rainy season of 181 9 set in and it looked 
 as though further campaigning would have to be post- 
 poned, the patriots held only the valley and low plains 
 of the Orinoco River in Venezuela. Bolivar, always 
 straining to be off and after the enemy, now evolved 
 a stupendous scheme for an offensive attack. He
 
 ^2 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 meant to take his new army through a pass in the 
 Andes which led right into the heart of Spanish pos- 
 sessions in New Granada and at one blow reconquer 
 the whole territory. This mountain route was con- 
 sidered impassable and the Spaniards never dreamed 
 of guarding the other end. In torrents of rain and 
 most of the time wading up to their waists in water, 
 the soldiers marched across trackless plains to the 
 foot of the great range. Several squadrons deserted 
 on the way. One of Bolivar's officers wrote of him : 
 "He was very active, himself setting the example of 
 labor, and frequently working harder than any com- 
 mon soldier. On passing rapid rivers where there 
 were no fords, he was constantly to be seen assisting 
 the men over, to prevent their being carried away by 
 the force of the torrent; and carrying on his own 
 horse ammunition, arms, and pouches. Whenever, in 
 short, there was any obstacle to be overcome, he was 
 constantly on the spot, both directing others and af- 
 fording the example of his own personal exertions." 
 During the march through the pass over one hundred 
 men and all the animals died of exposure. With this 
 mere skeleton of an army, reinforced by New 
 Granadian soldiers, Bolivar pounced upon the Spanish 
 troops, and on August 7, in less than two hours, won 
 the decisive battle of Boyaca. He had kept his word 
 to the people of New Granada, and a few days later 
 he entered their capital, Bogota, in his usual spec- 
 tacular fashion, a crown of laurel on his head. 
 
 Besides carrying the responsibility of the entire
 
 BOLIVAR 73 
 
 campaign on his shoulders Bolivar had been constantly 
 working to establish what he considered an ideal 
 government. He believed that the republics could 
 never be strong unless they were united. He had set 
 his heart on a federation of Venezuela, New Granada, 
 and Quito as one Republic, called Colombia, with 
 himself as president. When the Venezuelan Congress 
 heard that he had gone to recover New Granada with- 
 out any authority, it branded him as a traitor and 
 appointed another general-in-chief ; when news of the 
 battle of Boyaca came. Congress meekly fell in with 
 his wishes, consented to the union of the three States, 
 and elected him president of the Republic of Colombia. 
 He was given entire control of the army and power 
 to organize as he pleased other provinces which he 
 might liberate. But Bolivar's insatiable ambition 
 wanted more than this; he dreamed of a life presi- 
 dency. Strange paradox of a patriot fighting, as 
 Washington fought in North America, for political 
 liberty and representative government, and at the 
 same time coveting for himself all the privileges of a 
 king except, as he called it, "a seat on the four crim- 
 son-covered planks which are styled a throne !" The 
 sturdy republican representatives of Colombia, how- 
 ever, calmly ignored this undemocratic proposition, 
 and Bolivar was so sensitive to public opinion and so 
 conscious of his own inconsistency that he never tried 
 to force his extreme views upon any congress. 
 
 In 1820 King Ferdinand was again deposed, and 
 the new liberal government in Spain tried to make
 
 74 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 terms with Colombia during a six months' truce. 
 Bolivar used this breathing space very profitably by 
 recruiting troops which were soon going to show the 
 Royalists just what kind of "terms" they might ex- 
 pect. For, only a year later, Bolivar could at last 
 salute his army, as it passed him in review after the 
 great battle of Carabobo in Venezuela, with the words : 
 "Salvadores de mi patria!" Again he entered Caracas 
 in triumph, hailed as El Libertador, the title which, six 
 years before, he had publicly sworn to deserve, or die. 
 The circle of liberated colonies was now almost 
 complete. Separating Bolivar and Colombia from 
 San Martin and Peru were the provinces of Quito and 
 Guayaquil. Part of his army Bolivar sent against 
 Quito by sea, under General Sucre. He himself 
 marched south. Between him and Quito lay a buzz- 
 ing hornet's nest of Spanish troops under a general 
 who confidently promised to destroy the Liberator's 
 approaching army. "That will not be difficult," he 
 was told, "for you have forces equal to Bolivar's and 
 hold impregnable positions." Spurs of the Andes 
 sheltered the Spanish lines, and to make an attack 
 Bolivar would have to cross the unprotected plain of 
 Bombona, leading to a ravine whose one bridge was 
 covered by the enemy's artillery. "Well," remarked 
 Bolivar, "the position is formidable, but we cannot 
 remain here nor can we retreat. We have got to con- 
 quer and we will conquer!" As his army advanced, 
 rank upon rank was almost completely destroyed, till 
 when night came on he called upon his last reserve
 
 BOLIVAR 75 
 
 battalion, named "Vencedor en Boyaca" because of its 
 bravery at that battle. "Battalion Vencedor!" he 
 cried. "Your name alone suffices for victory. For- 
 ward ! and assure our triumph !" As the full moon rose 
 over the plain, word came that the enemy were in re- 
 treat. Sucre's army meanwhile had liberated Quito 
 and the way was now open for another of Bolivar's 
 triumphal entries. 
 
 Bolivar then fixed his covetous eye upon the little 
 independent province of Guayaquil and succeeded in 
 reaching its capital ahead of San Martin who wanted 
 to annex it to Peru. He completely cowed the junta 
 by a defiant note : "Guayaquil knows that it cannot 
 remain an independent State; that Colombia cannot 
 give up any of her legitimate rights; and that there 
 is no human power which can deprive her of a hand- 
 breadth of her territory." So, as the Department of 
 Ecuador, Quito and Guayaquil were added to the 
 elastic Republic of Colombia. Foreign nations now 
 recognized the Republic, and the Liberator addressed 
 a bulletin to the people, full of the flowery language 
 he loved to use in public : "From the banks of the 
 Orinoco to the Andes of Peru the liberating army, 
 marching from one triumph to another, has covered 
 with its protecting arms the whole of Colombia. 
 Share with me the ocean of joy which bathes my 
 heart, and raise in your own hearts altars to this army 
 which has given you glory, peace, and liberty." 
 
 After San Martin had retired in Jiis favor, Bolivar 
 tackled the problem of Peru. The liberating soldiers
 
 76 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 from both north and south, he told Congress at Lima, 
 "will either conquer and leave Peru free, or all will 
 die. I promise it." But the Royalists held most of 
 Peru, the people were apathetic and afraid to assist 
 the Republicans openly, troops deserted, and ambitious 
 patriots seemed to spend all their time in plotting 
 against each other, till Bolivar finally wrote to a 
 friend : "At times I lose all heart. . . . It is only 
 love of country which recalls the courage lost when I 
 contemplate the difficulties. As soon as obstacles are 
 overcome in one direction they increase in another." 
 One day a messenger came to him at his headquarters 
 with the news that the president of Peru had turned 
 traitor and that the patriot garrison of Callao Castle 
 had mutinied. Bolivar was just recovering from a 
 serious illness, from which he had been unconscious 
 six days, and he sat in a rocking-chair in an orchard, 
 his head tied up with a white handkerchief. He was 
 deathly pale and almost too weak to talk. 
 
 "What do you think of doing now?" asked the mes- 
 senger. 
 
 "Of triumphing," replied Bolivar, and the hopeless- 
 ness of the situation seemed to revive him. 
 
 He sent to Colombia for reinforcements, and his 
 letter shows how his impetuous disposition had been 
 tempered during the years : "The interests of all 
 America are at stake; nothing must be trusted to 
 probabilities, still less to chance." In July, 1824, 
 Bolivar's Colombian lancers won the battle of Junin 
 in three quarters of an hour. Not a single shot was
 
 BOLIVAR J7 
 
 fired during the entire engagement, but the victory 
 was so complete that the Spanish general, Canterac, 
 retreated five hundred miles! By 1826 Callao, the 
 last and most stubborn fortress in South America, sur- 
 rendered. Bolivar's name was famous all over the 
 world. "His feats of arms," San Martin had said, 
 "entitle him to be considered the most extraordinary 
 character that South America has produced ; of a con- 
 stancy to which difficulties only add strength." He 
 had fought in more than four hundred battles in the 
 course of twenty years and he had won the freedom 
 of South America, as he once vowed he would. 
 
 What Bolivar could not do was to create a normal, 
 orderly, popular government for his countrymen. He 
 made a great political mistake when he tried to weld a 
 number of States, each inclined to be jealous of the 
 other, into one harmonious Republic. They resented 
 his summary methods. What was the use of getting 
 rid of Spanish government if they were not to be 
 allowed to rule themselves as they pleased? When 
 Bolivar began to plan the union of Colombia, Peru, 
 and Bolivia — the latter named in his honor — into 
 "the Grand Confederation of the Andes," with him- 
 self as supreme authority, rebellion gradually spread 
 through all the north. Venezuela first withdrew from 
 Colombia, and Bolivar was forbidden ever to return 
 to his native State. Ecuador also became a separate 
 Republic. The Congress of Colombia took away his 
 military power because for two years he had man- 
 aged the affairs of Peru, a foreign State. A pan-
 
 78 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 American Congress which he attempted to convene in 
 Panama — the first one ever held — was a failure, as 
 well as a prophecy. On every hand were plots against 
 him. Yet his personal prestige was still immense, and 
 if he could have been in a hundred places at once he 
 might never have lost his hold upon the people. One 
 of the very men who schemed for his overthrow 
 wrote: "Such is his influence and such the secret 
 power of his will, that I myself, on many occasions, 
 have approached him in fury, and, merely on seeing 
 and hearing him, have been disarmed and have left 
 his presence filled with admiration." 
 
 He felt keenly his failure to unite the Republics to 
 which he had devoted his life. "I have plowed in the 
 sand," he admitted bitterly, and discouraged and heart- 
 sick at the anarchy and disorder on every side, he 
 assembled his last Congress at Bogota. His message 
 ended with this plea : "Compatriots ! hear my last 
 word on the termination of my political career. In 
 the name of Colombia I beg, I pray you to remain 
 united, in order not to become the assassins of your 
 country, and your own executioners," His resigna- 
 tion was accepted, and as the "first and best citizen 
 of Colombia," so decreed by Congress, he retired to 
 the country on a government pension, for all his wealth 
 had long ago gone to help the patriot cause. Physically 
 and mentally Bolivar was utterly worn out by his years 
 of incessant campaigning, and by his deep disappoint- 
 ment. "Independence is the only good thing we have 
 gained by the sacrifice of all else," he said in his last
 
 BOLIVAR 79 
 
 public address. In 1830 he died, only 47 years old. 
 "El Illustro Americano" — the simple title has been 
 added to all his others. He had driven the last 
 Royalist from the land and given the countries of 
 Spanish America, after all their years of bondage, a 
 chance to make their own way upward among the 
 Republics of the world.
 
 JAMES THOMSON
 
 i 
 
 f^ 
 
 Copyright by Underwood & Undtrwood 
 
 THE CATHEDRAL, LIMA, PERU 
 
 (Around Which Centered Much of the Bible-Selling 
 Activity of James Thomson )
 
 JAMES THOMSON 
 
 By the brisk tap of his ruler or a toot on the whistle 
 attached to his watch-chain young schoolmaster Thom- 
 son would bring his class of one hundred boys to order 
 every morning promptly at ten o'clock to begin the 
 day's program of "readin', writin', and 'rithmetic." 
 In all Buenos Aires this was the only school where 
 a poor man's son could afford to go, and James Thom- 
 son, a Scotchman, had been sent all the way from 
 London by the English and Foreign School Society, in 
 the year 1818, to start it and others like it in South 
 America. 
 
 At the beginning of the nineteenth century an Eng- 
 lish boy named Joseph Lancaster, although he had 
 almost no money and less education than a high school 
 boy of to-day, opened a little school in his father's 
 house and taught all the children in the neighborhood 
 without requiring any tuition fee. When the classes 
 grew too large for him to manage all alone, he trained 
 his oldest and brightest boys to be teachers themselves 
 and hear the recitations of the smaller children. Early 
 each morning he would hold a special class for his 
 monitors, as he called them, and teach them the lessons 
 which they in turn were to teach that day. Lancaster's 
 
 83
 
 84 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 experiment was so successful that in the United States 
 and in many countries of Europe schools just like his 
 were opened, and he became famous as the inventor of 
 the first public school system. 
 
 Thomson's business was to establish Lancasterian 
 schools. But he had still another errand in South 
 America. As an agent of the British and Foreign 
 Bible Society he had charge of distributing and selling 
 Spanish Bibles and New Testaments wherever he 
 went. These two projects fitted together very con- 
 veniently, for under the popular new school system 
 the Bible was the chief textbook for all reading classes, 
 and even the smallest children learned their a-b-c's 
 from Bible stories. Thomson had home lessons printed 
 on large sheets of foolscap paper, and when the chil- 
 dren gathered around the family lamp at night to 
 study and read aloud the next day's lesson, their par- 
 ents listened, and enjoyed the selections so much that 
 they began to buy Bibles. Every day an imposing 
 array of visitors came to inspect the new school, and 
 before they left had usually ordered reading books, 
 curious to see what the children were studying. An 
 old Indian chief, who came to "visit school," bought 
 a Bible and took it home as a great prize to show his 
 tribe. One enterprising gentleman stole a dozen copies 
 because he knew he could get a good price for them. 
 "It's too bad," said Thomson, "but he will be sure to 
 sell them and so they will be put in circulation any- 
 way." 
 
 Few of the people of South America had ever read
 
 JAMES THOMSON 85 
 
 the Bible, many of the priests knew nothing of what 
 it contained, and it was almost impossible to secure a 
 copy even had it occurred to any one to want to read 
 it. When Thomson arrived in Buenos Aires the cus- 
 tom-house officials frowned darkly upon his boxes of 
 Testaments and hinted that they would have to be 
 examined by the bishop, until he explained that his 
 chief business in their country was to open schools, and 
 that the Bibles were needed for his pupils. This was 
 an "Open Sesame." As he wrote home to his friends : 
 "My prominent object here is the establishment of 
 schools. I freely and openly confess this, and in conse- 
 quence am everywhere hailed as a friend." 
 
 Wherever Thomson went he found encouragement 
 and a warm welcome. He was a Protestant in a Cath- 
 olic country, but he was too broad and sympathetic to 
 try to force his opinions on other people, and he had 
 a genius for making friends. He met only one priest 
 in all his travels who disapproved of his sale of Bibles, 
 although just a few years later the distribution of 
 Bibles was absolutely forbidden by the Catholic 
 Church. This priest thought that the Scriptures ought 
 never to be sold indiscriminately to any one who 
 wanted a good new book to read. It might be misun- 
 derstood, particularly if no notes were added to ex- 
 plain difficult passages. Thomson and the priest be- 
 came good friends and spent many an evening amicably 
 discussing their differences of opinion. 
 
 As soon as his own school Math all its branches in 
 Buenos Aires was running smoothly, Thomson ac-
 
 86 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 cepted an invitation from the officials of the Chilean 
 government. They had been begging him to come and 
 open schools for their young people, and had sent the 
 boat fare for his long journey around the cape. In 
 1 82 1 he left his classes in the care of a priest who had 
 been his right-hand man, and sailed in the brig Dragon 
 for Valparaiso. 
 
 In those days, when South Americans were fighting 
 for their independence, they felt a newly awakened 
 ambition for the privileges so long denied them by the 
 Spanish ruling class, and the first thing they wanted 
 was schools. An editorial appeared in the Chilean 
 press a few days after Thomson had landed, under 
 the title of "Public Education" : 
 
 ^'Ignorance is one of the greatest evils that man can 
 suffer, and it is the principal cause of all his errors and 
 miseries. It is also the grand support of tyranny, 
 and ought, therefore, to be banished by every means 
 from that country which desires a liberty regulated 
 by laws, customs and opinion. . . . The only way 
 we can form an acquaintance with great men is hy 
 reading. The happy day is now arrived when the in- 
 finitely valuable art of reading is to be extended to 
 every individual in Chile. Our benevolent government 
 has brought to this place Mr. James Thomson, who 
 has established in Buenos Aires elementary schools 
 upon that admirable system of Lancaster. . . . He is 
 going to establish schools on the same plan in this 
 city, from which, as a center, this system will be spread 
 through all the towns of the state. There is therefore^
 
 JAMES THOMSON 87 
 
 no obstacle in the way for every one in Chile to obtain 
 education." 
 
 Governor O'Higgins of Chile, San Martin's friend 
 and ally, was the leading spirit in all public enterprise. 
 He met Thomson with the greatest enthusiasm, and 
 reserved for his use the largest classroom in the Uni- 
 versity of Santiago, Within two weeks two hundred 
 children were enrolled in the first school. "They are 
 docile and agreeable," wrote Thomson, "I have just 
 been interrupted by one of my scholars who has called 
 upon me and brought me a ham, a present from his 
 mother." 
 
 All the important men in the city were interested in 
 the new schools and liked to visit Thomson's classes. 
 With General O'Higgins as president, a School Society 
 was founded in Chile, and a little printing office opened 
 so that primers and lesson books, especially prepared 
 by Thomson for the children, could be published for 
 home reading. There were no shelves in the public 
 libraries packed with books for young people, no low 
 tables covered with children's magazines. There was 
 almost nothing for them to read, and Thomson often 
 wished that he had a large publishing house as a part 
 of his school system. 
 
 In 1822, the year when San Martin was living 
 quietly in Lima, Thomson left his schools in Chile in 
 good running order, and went to Peru to begin his 
 work there. With a letter of introduction he called 
 on the great general, "Next day, as I was sitting in 
 my room," he says, "a. carriage stopped at the door
 
 88 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 and my little boy came running in, crying, *San 
 Martin ! San Martin !' In a moment he entered the 
 room accompanied by one of his ministers. I would 
 have had him step into another apartment of the house 
 more suited to his reception; but he said the room 
 answered very well and sat down on the first chair he 
 reached." Then they talked over the subject of 
 schools. San Martin could hardly do enough to help. 
 A convent was given Thomson for his headquarters. 
 On the Saturday after his arrival the friars who lived 
 in it were ordered to move to another house ; by Tues- 
 day they had gone and the keys were in his possession. 
 The huge dining-room was promptly remodeled to 
 serve as a schoolroom with places for three hundred 
 children, and in a few days the school was well under 
 way. 
 
 The Patriotic Society in Lima cooperated with 
 Thomson in establishing the schools, and all expenses, 
 including his salary, were met by the government. 
 Every one treated him so cordially and expressed such 
 interest in his work that he predicted a glorious future 
 for South America. He believed that in another 
 decade or two her republics would outstrip many Euro- 
 pean nations. 'T do think," he wrote, "that never 
 since the world began was there so fine a field for the 
 exercise of benevolence in all its parts." 
 
 Then came a turning point in the history of Peru. 
 The first Congress met to draw up an outline of the 
 new constitution. The whole city buzzed with specula- 
 tion about the clauses which might or might not be
 
 JAMES THOMSON 89 
 
 inserted, and groups of gesticulating people stood on 
 the street corners, till it looked like an election day 
 in New York. The clause of state religion was the 
 chief bone of contention, and Thomson was always 
 on the spot when it was debated in Congress. One 
 man proposed that the clause read : "The exclusive 
 religion of the state is the Catholic Apostolic Church 
 of Rome." Since all South Americans were then 
 Roman Catholics anyway, the only Protestants were 
 foreigners like Thomson. The whole question then 
 was whether foreigners should be allowed to worship 
 as they pleased. 
 
 "But," said one member of Congress, "why such 
 ado about toleration? Who is asking for it? Or 
 who stands in need of it? We ourselves do not need 
 any such thing, and foreigners who are here seem 
 very little concerned about the subject. It was not 
 religion that brought them to this country, but com- 
 merce. Give them money, therefore, in exchange for 
 their goods, and they will seek nothing else." 
 
 A white-haired old gentleman on the committee 
 rose and said : "Gentlemen, this is the first time I have 
 risen to speak in this house, and it is not my intention 
 to detain you long. I understand that the grand and 
 principal features of our religion are these two : to 
 love the Lord with all our heart and strength and to 
 love our neighbor as ourself. . . . Now I ask whether 
 foreigners residing amongst us are to be considered 
 our neighbors or not. If they are, then we ought to 
 love them. Gentlemen, I have nothing further to add."
 
 90 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 One fierce old senator demanded again and again 
 that Roman Catholicism be the only religion tolerated 
 in the country. The majority agreed with him. The 
 clause for toleration was voted down. In those few 
 dramatic moments Peru bound herself for almost half 
 a century to the policy which has kept her lagging 
 behind other nations, even other South American re- 
 publics, and has retarded her intellectual, spiritual, and 
 commercial development. The article finally inserted 
 in the constitution was this : "The Roman Catholic 
 Apostolic religion is the religion of the state, and the 
 exercise of every other is excluded." 
 
 Among Thomson's best friends and helpers were the 
 priests. Protestantism was then such a minute influ- 
 ence in the land that the church had hardly begun to 
 fear its power. One bishop who had voted against 
 the proposed toleration clause afterward learned to 
 know Thomson well, and told him that he had always 
 supposed Protestants to be unfriendly to any kind 
 of religion, and that the article finally adopted was 
 only a safeguard against scoffers, such as the men 
 who had written books on atheism printed in England 
 and France and sold in South America. Thomson 
 pointed out to him just how Congress had cut off its 
 own nose by inserting the clause : "Your law prohibit- 
 ing the public religious exercises of those who differ 
 from the Catholic Church does not hinder atheists 
 from settling in this country, as these have no form 
 of religion they wish to practise. It serves only to 
 prevent the coming of those men who are sincerely
 
 JAMES THOMSON 91 
 
 religious and moral, and who would be of great use 
 to the country by bringing into it many branches of 
 the arts as well as manufactures." 
 
 In 1823 war broke out again, and the Spanish army, 
 7,000 strong, crossed the Andes and descended upon 
 Lima. The administration "judged it most suitable to 
 remove from the scene of military operations," and the 
 patriot army retreated to Callao. With an old friend, 
 a priest of the cathedral of Lima, Thomson escaped 
 to an English vessel lying in Callao harbor, and after 
 waiting several days for a possible opportunity to 
 return to his school, he sailed for Truxillo in northern 
 Peru where thousands of patriots from Lima had 
 already gone. "I supplied myself with some dollars 
 from a friend," he said afterward, "as I had left Lima 
 without money and with scarcely any clothes other 
 than those I had on." 
 
 As long as he had to be away from his schools 
 Thomson planned to make good use of his time by 
 traveling along the banks of the Amazon to visit the 
 Indian tribes living there. Just as he had bought a 
 complete stock of glittering brass buttons, needles, 
 scissors, knives, ribbons, and fish-hooks with which to 
 win the good opinion of these natives, word came that 
 the Spaniards had evacuated Lima. Thomson acted 
 decisively, took the first boat back, and reopened his 
 school. 
 
 The longer the war continued the poorer the people 
 grew. "This war rivets the attention of all, and de- 
 vours all the resources," Thomson wrote in a letter.
 
 92 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 During the month when they held Lima the Spaniards 
 had destroyed or confiscated property worth $2,000,- 
 000, and business everywhere was sadly crippled. The 
 city which had once been the richest in the world was 
 now the poorest. The work of the schools was ham- 
 pered. Some of the older boys dropped out because 
 their parents feared they might be seized on the way 
 to school by recruiting parties and forced into the 
 army. Some of the children had to stay at home be- 
 cause they had no shoes to wear. The government 
 which had pledged Thomson's support became too 
 poor to pay his salary. With prices higher than they 
 had ever been he found himself utterly destitute and 
 hurriedly prepared to leave Lima. Just as he had 
 finished his packing he received a message from the 
 parents of his pupils urging him to stay. They pooled 
 all the money they could spare to pay his salary, and 
 promised to support the school until the government 
 was able to do it. 
 
 Thomson had a great vision and a great hope for 
 South America. His chief regret was that, because 
 of the unsettled state of the country, it was impossible 
 to open a girls' school, though a large hall had been 
 selected for it and now stood empty. "The education 
 of women," he declared, "is the thing most wanted 
 in every country; and when it is properly attended to 
 the renovation of the world will go on rapidly." He 
 gave much of his time to translating. For the use 
 of a class of twenty-three men who were studying 
 English he prepared a Spanish-English grammar and
 
 JAMES THOMSON 93 
 
 a volume of extracts from great authors. He heard 
 the story of the Incas and saw the ruins of their em- 
 pire. Two thirds of the people in Peru were their 
 descendants and spoke their language, Quichua. With 
 the help of an officer of the Indian regiment Thomson 
 translated the Bible for them. For five years he 
 hunted in vain for a man able to translate the Bible 
 into Aymara, another native language spoken in Peru. 
 Then one day after he had returned to London, he 
 met a stranger in a Paddington coach. The two 
 chatted a bit together, and Thomson, seeing that the 
 man was a foreigner, asked him where his home was. 
 He proved to be a native of the very district in Peru 
 where Aymara was spoken, and he knew the language 
 perfectly. Eventually he was appointed to translate 
 the Bible for his countrymen. 
 
 Meanwhile Thomson was selling so many Bibles 
 that he wrote home: "If I had ten times as many I 
 am persuaded I could have sold them all." He used 
 to see shopkeepers seated in front of their little estab- 
 lishments, spending leisure moments in reading their 
 Testaments. The priests encouraged it. One showed 
 his interest by offering to correct the proof-sheets of 
 the Quichua translation. 
 
 Thomson was a great admirer of Bolivar, who, like 
 the other great men of the day, supported every move- 
 ment for the betterment of the people. "Bolivar's 
 weatherbeaten face tells you that he has not been idle," 
 Thomson said of him. "No man, I believe, has borne 
 so much of the burden, or has toiled so hard in the
 
 94 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 heat of the day, in the cause of South American inde- 
 pendence as Bohvar." 
 
 For another year Thomson remained in Lima and 
 then the Spaniards again took possession of the city 
 and he declared he felt as if he had been "transported 
 to Spain." The schools were allowed to go on as 
 usual, but the printing of translations had to be post- 
 poned because the printing presses were shut up for 
 safe keeping in Callao castle. Until the government 
 should be restored to order no improvements could be 
 made in the schools, and Thomson decided it was the 
 most favorable time to visit other cities. 
 
 His supply of Bibles had been exhausted, and no 
 more had come to him from England, so he started 
 off on his trip with eight hundred New Testaments and 
 one sample copy of the Bible. On the way to Guaya- 
 quil his ship called at a small port. *T went ashore to 
 see the place," he said, "and took three Testaments 
 with me. I went into a store near the landing place 
 and being invited took a seat upon a bale of cotton. 
 After some general conversation I opened my trea- 
 sures, and offered the New Testaments for sale at 
 one dollar each. In a few minutes they were bought. 
 Some little time afterward I was asked if I had any 
 more. I replied that I had but that they were on the 
 ship. I immediately went on board and just as we 
 had got the anchor up a boat came alongside in which 
 I recognized the person who had asked me for more 
 Testaments. He came on board and bought two dozen 
 for which he paid me eighteen dollars."
 
 JAMES THOMSON 95 
 
 At another port Thomson went ashore with three 
 Testaments, and was invited to exhibit them in a pri- 
 vate house. 
 
 "Here," said a neighbor who had come in and was 
 looking at the sample Bible, "here is a book that will 
 tell you all about the beginning of the world and a 
 great many other things." 
 
 "I'm not interested in the beginning. I want to 
 know something about the end of it," said another 
 man. 
 
 "Then that book in your hands is the very book 
 that will suit you," replied Thomson, pointing to a 
 New Testament. "It will tell you a great deal about 
 the end of the world." 
 
 Thomson was a fine salesman, and knew how to 
 advertise his wares. As soon as he reached Guayaquil 
 he had handbills printed which read : 
 
 "To be sold at Blank's Store, the New Testament 
 of our Lord Jesus Christ, in one volume, well printed 
 and neatly bound, at the low price of eight rials. This 
 sale will continue for three days only, and it is ex- 
 pected that those who wish to procure for themselves 
 this sacred code of our holy religion will improve the 
 occasion now offered them." 
 
 At noon these bills were posted. By one o'clock 
 fifteen books had been sold; by the end of the after- 
 noon one hundred and twenty-two had gone. One of 
 the three days of the sale proved to be a holiday, and 
 all stores were closed, but during a few minutes before 
 breakfast when the store had to be opened for some
 
 96 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 trifle, eleven people came in to buy Testaments, At 
 the end of the third day the receipts amounted to five 
 hundred and forty-two dollars. While Thomson was 
 waiting at the little river wharf for the boat which 
 was to take him on to the next town, he sold over one 
 hundred more Testaments to people who had missed 
 the sale. Then he climbed into one of the passenger 
 canoes which plied along the river and his boxes were 
 loaded in after him. The canoe was the same shape 
 as the usual Indian canoe, but so large that it could 
 hold perhaps twenty passengers. "The South 
 American rivers abound in alligators," he reported. 
 "Great numbers of them lie basking on the banks 
 with their horrible mouths wide open, and when the 
 boat approaches them, they plunge into the river and 
 swim around like so many logs floating about you. 
 At one time I counted alligators, in a very short dis- 
 tance, all at one view and on one side of the river, 
 to the number of forty." 
 
 After his river trip the rest of the journey had to 
 be made on muleback. The officials of the towns along 
 the road to Quito treated him with great cordiality. 
 Once when he had taken refuge from a sudden storm 
 in a dreary hut among the mountains, a courier ar- 
 rived, sent by the governor of the town he had just 
 left, bringing a large hamper of luncheon. The best 
 part of it, Thomson said, was a batch of home-made 
 drop-cakes. He was often entertained at the home 
 of the governor of the town where he happened to 
 halt for the night, and more than once he held his
 
 JAMES THOMSON 97 
 
 sale in the governor's own house, where it had all the 
 festivity of a grand social event. 
 
 While riding along an unfrequented road one day 
 he fell in with a talkative friar and the two ambled 
 along together. The friar was bound for a Dominican 
 convent in the next town, and he liked his new ac- 
 quaintance so much that he invited him to spend the 
 night at this convent and next day hold his sale there 
 instead of at a store. Thomson accepted the invitation, 
 and as soon as the sun rose next morning he posted 
 his handbills and waited for customers. 
 
 "The advertisements were scarcely up," he wrote, 
 "when one and another and another came tripping in 
 to purchase a New Testament. In a little the buyers 
 thickened, whilst the friars stood around enjoying the 
 sight, and warmly recommending the books to all who 
 came, and assisted me in the sale when occasion re- 
 quired." In two hours and a half one hundred and 
 four had been sold. People constantly offered large 
 sums for the sample Bible. He told them all it was 
 not for sale, but he sometimes lent it, and he took hun- 
 dreds of orders to be filled as soon as the publishers 
 in England could send over a supply. When the 
 priests in the convent found they could not buy the 
 Bible they immediately sat down to read it aloud, and 
 before he left they had promised him to hold a sale 
 themselves. "We were all pleased with each other," 
 said Thomson. 
 
 From Quito to Bogota the trail was especially rough 
 and dangerous. Bandits galloped about over the
 
 98 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 countryside and not long before had robbed and mur- 
 dered some merchants who had been well protected 
 with arms and guides. Of the mountain traveling 
 Thomson said : "You may be said to be riding upstairs 
 and downstairs in these places," Part of the trip was 
 made in a balsa, a kind of craft consisting of long poles 
 or trunks of trees laid close to each other, with more 
 poles laid over them crosswise. With its bamboo floor 
 and thatched roof it looked like a little floating house. 
 
 Thomson's chief desire in going to Bogota was to 
 found a Bible Society. Three hundred of the most 
 prominent citizens of the city attended the first meet- 
 ing. The question to be voted upon read : "Is it 
 compatible with our laws and customs, as Colombians 
 and as members of the Roman Catholic Church, to 
 establish a Colombian Bible Society in this capital, as 
 a national organization, whose only object is to print 
 and circulate the Holy Scriptures in approved ver- 
 sions of our native tongue?" The motion was carried 
 almost unanimously. It was decided to hold the meet- 
 ings in a Dominican convent, and a priest was elected 
 secretary. Catholic and Protestant were working to- 
 gether in harmony to introduce the Bible. 
 
 In 1826 Thomson returned to England to make a 
 report of his eight years in South America. "I have 
 no hesitation in saying that the public voice is decid- 
 edly in favor of universal education." The elective 
 franchise in Peru had been opened to all men who 
 could read and write. But because the Spaniards had 
 kept the Creoles in ignorance so long. Congress per-
 
 JAMES THOMSON 99 
 
 mitted them a little leeway, and the rule was not to be 
 put in force until 1840. Thomson, encouraged by his 
 experiences in Peru, prophesied that by then every 
 one would be qualified to vote ! 
 
 To-day 75 per cent of the population of South 
 America are illiterate. When the wars for independ- 
 ence were over, the people fell back into their old 
 apathy, the schools declined, the church forbade the 
 use of the Bible. In a few years the results of Thom- 
 son's labors had almost disappeared. In Chile the 
 man who had been appointed to superintend the 
 schools returned to England for his health ; there was 
 no firm hand to manage the system and it was finally 
 abandoned altogether. After Thomson had left Peru, 
 Bolivar decreed that a central school be opened in the 
 capital city of each province of the state, and a number 
 of young men were sent at th*e expense of the govern- 
 ment to receive the best possible education in England 
 to fit them as teachers. But Bolivar's influence was 
 waning and there is no record that anything came 
 of his plan. The Lancasterian system reached a prema- 
 ture end of usefulness and disappeared with nothing 
 to take its place. The church, the mightiest power in 
 the state, reached out to crush the initiative of the 
 people, and the priests followed the Spaniards as 
 tyrants in the land. They no longer bought Bibles. 
 They burned them in the public squares. 
 
 Thomson's eight years made a slight oasis in the 
 barren history of Spanish-American absolutism. It 
 was the time when Protestantism, and the Bible, and
 
 loo MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 religious liberty might have been put there to stay. 
 They were years of wonderful opportunity. The 
 doors were opened a wide crack to let the light shine 
 in and then slammed shut. Progressive forces ever 
 since have been trying to pry them open again. Single- 
 handed, James Thomson labored in the one golden 
 decade of the Continent of Lost Opportunity.
 
 ALLEX GARDINER
 
 ALLEX F. GARDINER
 
 ALLEN GARDINER 
 
 When the Inca chieftains of Peru fought their way 
 southward among rebel Indian tribes, they found Hv- 
 ing in lower Chile a race of men who refused to be 
 conquered. A little later the Spanish invaders made 
 the same discovery. Here were a stubborn, indepen- 
 dent people who loved their liberty and meant to keep 
 it. They proved to be as vigorous warriors as the 
 Spaniards themselves, and quick to imitate their 
 weapons and methods of warfare. So great an honor 
 did these Indians consider death in battle that their 
 chiefs had to hold them back rather than urge them 
 forward. One of their generals, when dying, ordered 
 that his body be burned, so that he might rise to the 
 clouds and there keep on fighting with the souls of dead 
 Spaniards. These Indians, "with bodies of iron and 
 souls of tigers," are the Araucanians, the only natives 
 of the Western Hemisphere who were able to resist 
 European invaders. They have always regarded out- 
 siders as beings inferior to themselves, and this racial 
 pride has made them slow to accept modern ideas. 
 "The most furious and valiant people in America," 
 they have been called, and to this day they have kept a 
 large part of their independence. 
 
 At the tip end of South America among the islands 
 of Tierra del Fuego, in Patagonia, live some wander- 
 
 103
 
 104 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 ing tribes of grotesque, savage, unkempt natives who 
 are considered about the most degraded and repulsive 
 specimens of the human race. Instead of an articulate 
 language they speak in hoarse, jerky, unintelligible 
 grunts. No vestige of religious belief has been found 
 among them. There is no word, no grunt, in their 
 language to express deity. When Darwin visited this 
 region he declared that these hopeless creatures were 
 lower than many animals and incapable of being civil- 
 ized. 
 
 These two races more than any others roused the 
 interest and sympathy of Captain Allen Gardiner, an 
 English naval officer, as he traveled in different parts 
 of the world; and among them he tried, but failed, to 
 establish missionary settlements. To a man who has 
 sailed all over the globe, big distances grow trivial, 
 and the races of men seem like members of one large 
 family. Captain Gardiner was never a minister or 
 an appointed missionary. When he started out he 
 had no connection with any mission board; he was 
 simply a Christian layman, anxious to hold out a help- 
 ing hand to the people in the human family who needed 
 it most. 
 
 The superficiality of all religious life in the cities 
 on the west coast of South America which he visited 
 while cruising in H. M. S. Dauntless, had particularly 
 stirred him to indignation: the harshness and intoler- 
 ance of the priests; the contrast between the spectac- 
 ular ceremonies in elaborate cathedrals and the poverty 
 and ignorance of the masses of people. If this was the
 
 ALLEN GARDINER 105 
 
 best specimen of Christianity that the most civilized 
 centers could produce, there would seem to be little 
 hope for the Indians. He appreciated the splendid 
 possibilities of the Araucanians, the fine material 
 going to waste; while for the poor Fuegians, utterly 
 neglected and hopeless, he felt the greatest compassion ; 
 he knew in his heart that they were worth saving 
 though it might take a hundred centuries. Some one 
 must plunge in and make a beginning. His plan of 
 procedure was to enter these inaccessible regions, live 
 among the natives, learn their customs and language 
 and win their confidence, and when the way was clear 
 bring in missionaries to found a permanent settlement. 
 He worked on the principle that: "We can never do 
 wrong in casting the gospel net on any side or in any 
 place." 
 
 At that time he had no success in rousing a similar 
 enthusiasm for South American Indians among the 
 members of the London Missionary Society. With 
 his own income and the moral support of the Society 
 he went first to South Africa and initiated the Zulu 
 mission. "Poor Captain Gardiner! We shall never 
 see him again," said those people who always look 
 with suspicion upon anything new and novel. With 
 "his clothes, his saddle, a spoon, and a New Testa- 
 ment," he settled down among the natives. "We do 
 not wish to learn it," they told him ominously when 
 he produced his Testament, "but if you will show us 
 how to use the nice musket you may stay." The pres- 
 ent of a red cloak put the chief into a most friendly
 
 io6 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 frame of mind, and for three years the mission pros- 
 pered until a war between the Zulus and the Boers 
 drove all white people from the district. 
 
 Then with his wife and two children Captain Gard- 
 iner went to South America, eager to begin on his own 
 responsibility a tour of investigation among the 
 Indians. Traveling was no hardship for him. He was 
 a born wanderer and explorer. He loved roughing it 
 in the open: sleeping under the stars, galloping over 
 the plains to visit some rascally Indian chief, crawling 
 through mountain passes on muleback, fording treach- 
 erous rivers. He was a superb horseman and swimmer. 
 One time on coming to a river too high to be forded, 
 he says, "I engaged an Indian to swim across with me, 
 and away we went, leaning together on a bundle of 
 reeds. The current was fully four and one half or five 
 knots, but we gained the opposite side in good style, the 
 Indians all aghast to see that a white man could swim 
 as well as themselves." 
 
 At Buenos Aires the Gardiners packed themselves 
 and their baggage into a galera, or omnibus, drawn by 
 five mounted horses, which was to carry them over the 
 Argentine pampas to Mendoza. The family slept and 
 did most of its housekeeping inside the galera or by 
 the side of the road, because the post-houses along the 
 way, usually miserable hovels with mud floors, were 
 quite uninhabitable. The main discomforts were the 
 ragged roads on which the clumsy wagon was "not 
 merely rocked, but agitated to excess" ; and the rain 
 leaked in upon the family apartment so freely that
 
 ALLEN GARDINER 107 
 
 Captain Gardiner had to drill holes in the floor to 
 drain it off. One large river had to be forded, and 
 the entire contents of the galera were transferred to a 
 raft floated on casks, while the horses, with the peons 
 on their backs, half swam, half scrambled across with 
 the wagon bumping along behind. There was always 
 danger from wandering Indians who sometimes came 
 galloping down upon travelers, whirling their metal- 
 tipped lassos, and with this possibility to spur them on, 
 the party reached Mendoza in fourteen days, record 
 time. 
 
 The next stage of the journey was crossing the 
 Andes on mule-back. The procession which ambled 
 forth from the town began with a piebald mare on a 
 leading string with a jangling bell around her neck. 
 The mules liked the sound of this bell and it kept them 
 from stopping to browse. After the seven baggage 
 mules came the children in panniers, one on each side 
 of a mule, led by a mounted peon. Captain and Mrs. 
 Gardiner in the rear kept a watchful eye on the whole 
 party. "While ascending the winding pathway which 
 leads to the 'Bad Pass,' " writes Gardiner, "one of 
 the mules had, unperceived by me, been stopped by the 
 arriero to have his pack adjusted. Just as we had 
 reached a point where it was impossible for two 
 animals to pass abreast without one of them being 
 hurled down the precipice into the river below, I per- 
 ceived this liberated mule hastening towards us with 
 apparent determination to pass. So imminent was the 
 danger that the poles were within three or four feet of
 
 io8 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 Mrs. Gardiner's head, who was riding immediately 
 behind me; in another second a mere twist of the 
 animal's body might have proved fatal. Sliding off my 
 horse, I providentially was enabled as promptly to 
 unseat her as I had done myself ; we then crept into a 
 hollow formed by an overhanging rock, and with the 
 children waited in safety until the whole cavalcade had 
 passed by." 
 
 The River Biobio bordered the territory belonging 
 to the Araucanians. The commandant of this frontier 
 v^arned Captain Gardiner that his plan to enter was 
 unsafe, but helped him in every way he could. With 
 a servant and a government interpreter, Gardiner rode 
 to the nearest Indian district, and the first person he 
 met happened to be the chief himself, Corbalan. "He 
 received me with much hospitality," Gardiner wrote 
 in his journal, "and before even a hint was given of 
 any intended present, a sheep was ordered to be dressed 
 and killed for our supper. Before we retired, for 
 which purpose Corbalan ordered a smooth bullock's 
 hide to be spread for us on the floor, much conversa- 
 tion took place around the fire, for besides his two 
 wives and other members of his family, some men 
 from the neighborhood had joined the party. Cor- 
 balan was informed of my desire to acquire his lan- 
 guage, in order that I might impart to his people the 
 knowledge of the true God, as also of my wish to 
 obtain his consent to bring my family and reside in 
 his immediate neighborhood. Such a purpose seemed 
 altogether strange to his ears; still he made no objec-
 
 ALLEN GARDINER 109 
 
 tion, and after some further explanation, he seemed 
 to enter cordially into it." 
 
 The next morning neighboring chiefs arrived by 
 invitation to welcome the newcomer. Two of them 
 presented him with boiled fowls. "Where to bestow 
 this unexpected token of friendship in my case was 
 rather puzzling; the interpreter, however, at once 
 relieved me of my dilemma by depositing them in his 
 saddle-bag." Then Captain Gardiner produced some 
 colored handkerchiefs and brass buttons and returned 
 the compliment. A few days later he selected a site for 
 his mission-house. "But," he says, "I had no sooner 
 pointed it out to Corbalan than it became evident that 
 his mind on this point had undergone considerable 
 change, . . . He plainly acknowledged that, not- 
 withstanding what he had said before, he must with- 
 draw his consent. His neighbors, a large and warlike 
 tribe, would be offended; they would not permit a 
 foreigner to live so near them, for as soon as they 
 heard it they would attack him, and he should not be 
 able to resist them." 
 
 In four other districts and the island of Chiloe 
 Captain Gardiner made every effort to get permission 
 to settle. The chiefs were friendly, but either preju- 
 diced against him by the Catholic friars, or fearing 
 that he had some ulterior motive in coming among 
 them, they refused everywhere to let him stay. In one 
 place the chief told him that he had never allowed a 
 stranger to live among his people, but in this case he 
 would make an exception on condition that he be pre-
 
 no MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 sented with a bar of salt and a pound of indigo. 
 Afterward when Captain Gardiner had rented a httle 
 cottage in the village, moved all his furniture into it, 
 set up the bedsteads and prepared everything for his 
 family, the old chief abruptly informed him that in 
 one moon's time he would have to go. This meant 
 repacking all his possessions and carting them back 
 to the frontier, for it was not worth while moving his 
 family for one month's stay. Another chief "quite 
 laughed at my design of passing forwards to visit some 
 other chiefs beyond. No Spaniards, he said, were liv- 
 ing in these parts ; they were not permitted to remain." 
 
 He wrote to a friend: "Having at last abandoned 
 all hope of reaching the Indian inhabitants where they 
 are most civilized and least migratory, my thoughts 
 are necessarily turned towards the south. . . . Hap- 
 pily for us the Falkland Islands are now under the 
 British Flag. Making this our place of residence, I 
 intend to cross over in a sealer, and spend the summer 
 among the Patagonians." Patagonia was a land of 
 which a Spanish captain in the i8th century reported 
 that "he had surveyed all . . . without finding one 
 place fit for forming a settlement upon, on account of 
 the barrenness of the soil." 
 
 The government station on the Falkland Islands 
 was small and dreary, but the people welcomed the 
 Gardiners and helped them build a little wooden house 
 on the barren, treeless shore. The weeks went by and 
 no regular sailing vessel came which could take the 
 Captain over to Tierra del Fuego, Finally the master
 
 ALLEN GARDINER in 
 
 of a rickety old schooner agreed to make the trip for 
 £ioo. 
 
 The first encounter with the natives was discourag- 
 ing. Two of them appeared on the beach to meet their 
 callers. "Each had a bow and quiver of arrows. They 
 spoke loudly and made very plain signs for their vis- 
 itors to go away. . . . They received the presents 
 which were offered them, such as brass buttons, a clasp 
 knife, and a worsted comforter, and condescended to 
 sit down with what seemed a kind of sullen resolution 
 not to relax their features or utter another word." 
 On making a second landing the party found a more 
 responsive tribe. As soon as they had pitched their 
 tent, the natives with grim curiosity, moved their own 
 tents, seventeen of them, with all their belongings, 
 into a row behind Captain Gardiner's where they could 
 watch proceedings, and in two or three hours had 
 transferred their whole village. Gardiner met here 
 a friendly chief named Wissale and a woolly-haired 
 North American Negro, Isaac, who could speak Eng- 
 lish. He explained his errand, how he wished to live 
 with them in order to teach them good things out of 
 the Book which he had brought. Wissale was agree- 
 ably impressed with this program, enjoyed the refresh- 
 ments served him, and replied : "It is well. We shall 
 be brothers." 
 
 So peaceable were the natives and so friendly was 
 the cheerful old chief that Gardiner joyfully began 
 to plan for a mission-station. With his family he 
 returned to England to collect funds, but he met with
 
 112 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 little response. The missionary organizations were 
 not prosperous enough to undertake the business, and 
 the popular feeling about South America seemed to 
 be: *Tt is the natural inheritance of pope and pagan; 
 let it alone." It was not till three years later that he 
 could at last carry out his plan. A new organization 
 named the Patagonian Missionary Society, now known 
 as the South American Missionary Society, was formed 
 for the purpose by Gardiner, with the help of men who 
 had caught the contagious spirit of his enthusiasm. But 
 by that time it was too late; the golden opportunity 
 had passed. When Gardiner reached the Strait of 
 Magellan once more, bringing a missionary with him, 
 he found that Wissale had lost his wealth and prestige, 
 an unfriendly chief was in power, and the padre in a 
 new settlement not far away had begun to teach the 
 Patagonians to become "Catolicos," Against this com- 
 bined hostility of natives and white men no Protestant 
 mission could have made headway. 
 
 When the two missionaries who had set out with 
 such high hopes returned home again to report com- 
 plete failure the members of the Society were naturally 
 discouraged. Not so Captain Gardiner. He was a 
 quick, impatient man, so intensely active that when the 
 way seemed closed in one direction he would hurry 
 off on some other enterprise without delay, that he 
 might not waste time where so much had to be done. 
 "Whatever course you may determine upon," he said, 
 "I have made up my own mind to go back again to 
 South America, and leave no stone unturned, no effort
 
 ALLEN GARDINER 113 
 
 untried to establish a Protestant mission among the 
 aboriginal tribes. They have a right to be instructed 
 in the gospel of Christ." Paying his own expenses and 
 those of a young assistant, he sailed back to America, 
 and there selected another desolate, neglected territory 
 for his investigations, the interior of Bolivia. "There 
 is not a single mission in the Chaco, and the whole 
 country is before us," he wrote home. 
 
 One after another he visited eleven Indian villages. 
 Each chief received him cordially, and to each he made 
 his request to be permitted to live among them. Pie 
 explained that he was no Spaniard, but belonged to 
 a friendly nation; he promised never to take their land, 
 but to support himself, pay for everything he wanted 
 and bring presents for the chiefs. Eleven times he 
 was refused on one pretext or another. By the time 
 the two travelers reached the frontier again, they were 
 too ill with fever to explore any further. "We have 
 traveled 1,061 miles," wrote Gardiner, "on the worst 
 roads perhaps in the world. We cannot fly about here 
 as in Chile." After repeated efforts, permission was 
 secured from the government to establish a mission on 
 condition that no proselytizing be done and that the 
 work be carried on among Indians only. With the 
 way thus opened Gardiner went to England to urge 
 that a missionary be sent at once. Just at the time, 
 however, when two Spanish Protestants were about to 
 open the Mission under the auspices of the Society, 
 revolution broke out in Bolivia and with a change in 
 government the attempt had to be abandoned.
 
 114 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 It had been a long, disheartening series of failures 
 for Gardiner, but with tireless energy he went ahead 
 with new plans. The cautious committee of the Pata- 
 gonian Missionary Society failed to dampen his enthu- 
 siasm, and he toured through England and Scotland 
 lecturing on the need of a mission among the 
 Fuegians. Often it was difficult to collect an audience. 
 The aborigines of South America were too re- 
 mote to arouse popular sympathy. On one occa- 
 sion when a lecture had been widely advertised, 
 Gardiner arrived at the hall, hung up his maps, and 
 waited. Not a soul appeared. On the street, as 
 he walked away afterward with the maps under his 
 arm, he met a friend who inquired if it had been a 
 good meeting. 
 
 "Not very good, but better than sometimes." 
 
 "How many were there?" 
 
 "Not one," said Gardiner, "but no meeting is better 
 than a bad one." 
 
 Though his personal magnetism won him many 
 warm friends on this trip, the funds contributed were 
 not sufficient to provide for the expedition he had 
 planned. He proposed, however, to use the money as 
 far as it would go. With four sailors, one ship's 
 carpenter, one decked boat, a dingey, a whaleboat, two 
 wigwam huts, and supplies for six months, he sailed, 
 in 1848, for the Strait of Magellan on board the 
 Clymene bound for Valparaiso. The little outfit 
 proved pitifully inadequate; the boat should have been 
 twice as substantial to withstand the squalls of that
 
 ALLEN GARDINER 115 
 
 region, and on the first exploring trip was almost 
 swamped. 
 
 Gardiner erected his huts on Picton Island. Imme- 
 diately the Fuegians gathered to watch this remarkable 
 performance, and play mischievous pranks on the white 
 men. One seized a large inkstand and with malicious 
 glee poured its contents over the memorandum Cap- 
 tain Gardiner was writing. They showed alarming 
 partiality for anything they could carry away with 
 them, even the ship's biscuits which had been hidden 
 in a kettle, and articles disappeared so rapidly and 
 mysteriously that the exploring party had to return to 
 the boat to save their property. "A mission vessel 
 moored in the stream must be substituted for a mis- 
 sion house erected on the shore," decided Gardiner 
 after this experience. It meant returning to England, 
 raising more money, and trying to convince the Society 
 that more thorough equipment was essential. 
 
 The committee appointed to consider his proposi- 
 tion decided that they could give him nothing but 
 their permission to go ahead, providing he could find 
 the money. An interested woman gave him £700; he 
 himself added £300. With his nautical experience he 
 realized all too well that the little party which finally 
 sailed for Tierra del Fuego a second time was poorly 
 prepared and he warned his companions of all the 
 dangers they must expect. The alternative was 
 abandoning the expedition indefinitely. In 1850, a 
 steamer bound for San Francisco gave them passage: 
 Richard Williams, surgeon; John Maidement, a cate-
 
 ii6 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 chist ; Joseph Erwin, the ship's carpenter ; three Cornish 
 fishermen, and Captain Gardiner. SuppHes for six 
 months were provided, arrangements completed for 
 the delivery of more provisions later, and the two 
 launches. Pioneer and Speedwell, built for use among 
 the islands, "were the admiration of all nautical men 
 who saw them." They were, however, better suited 
 for use on the Thames River than on the tempestuous 
 Strait of Magellan. 
 
 By the end of one month the Pioneer was wrecked. 
 The hostility and thievishness of the natives wherever 
 the party landed drove them to take refuge in a retired 
 bay, called Spaniard Harbor, while they waited for 
 the relief party. Their launch seemed like a toy on 
 a big ocean, and Dr. Williams, in his journal, wrote 
 emphatically: "We are all agreed that nothing short 
 of a vessel, a brigantine, or a schooner of 80 or 100 
 tons burden can answer our ends, and to procure this 
 ultimately the captain has fully determined to use 
 every effort. Our jJan of action now is to rough all 
 the circumstances which it may please God to permit 
 to happen to us, until the arrival of a vessel; to take 
 with us some Fuegians, and go to the Falkland Islands, 
 there learn the language, having acquired it, and got 
 the necessary vessel, to come out again and go amongst 
 them." 
 
 At Picton Island where they had arranged for the 
 relief ship to land, they buried bottles containing direc- 
 tions : "We are gone to Spaniard Harbor, which is on 
 the main island. We have sickness on board; our
 
 ALLEN GARDINER 117 
 
 supplies are nearly out and if not soon relieved we 
 shall be starved." White stakes with black crosses 
 showed where the bottles were buried, and on the rocks 
 Captain Gardiner painted "Gone to Spaniard Har- 
 bor." 
 
 But the weeks passed by and no vessel came. It was 
 difficult to catch fish, the supply of powder gave out, 
 and on a steady diet of pork and biscuit, most of the 
 men became seriously ill. "All hands are now sadly 
 affected," wrote Dr. Williams in June. "Captain 
 Gardiner, a miracle of constitutional vigor, has suf- 
 fered the least, and if I listened to his own words he is 
 still none the worse but his countenance bespeaks the 
 contrary." For days they lived on a fox which "had 
 frequently paid them visits during the night . . . 
 making free with whatever came to hand, pieces of 
 pork, shoes, and even books. To the great mortifica- 
 tion of jMr. Maidement his Bible was amongst the 
 latter which being very handsomely bound in mor- 
 roco was doubtless a booty to the hungry animal !" 
 In July Gardiner wrote : "A\'e have now remaining 
 half a duck, about one pound of salt pork, the same 
 quantity of damaged tea. a pint of rice, two cakes of 
 chocolate, four pints of peas, to which I may add six 
 mice, the latter are very tender and taste like rabbit." 
 Even seeds were made into broth, and rockweed boiled 
 down into jelly. 
 
 Gardiner, Maidement and one of the fishermen 
 lived in the wrecked Pioneer, drawn up on the beach 
 and covered with a tent, while the other men remained
 
 ii8 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 in the Speedwell, anchored at the mouth of a little 
 river a mile and a half distant, out of the reach of 
 storms. As they grew weaker it became difficult to 
 make the trip back and forth between the boats. 
 Toward the end of August Gardiner wrote : "One and 
 another of our little missionary band is gathered by 
 the Good Shepherd to a better inheritance, and to a 
 higher and more glorious appointment. Our lives are 
 in his hands, and he can raise up others, far better 
 qualified than we are, to enter into our labors." Not 
 a word of complaint, alarm or impatience appears in 
 the journal which Gardiner kept almost to the last 
 hour. 
 
 On August 30, the entry is : "Wishing to spare Mr. 
 Maidement the trouble of attending upon me. . . . 
 I purposed to go to the river, and take up my quarters 
 in the boat. Feeling that without crutches I could not 
 possibly effect it, Mr. Maidement most kindly cut me 
 a pair (two forked sticks) but it was no slight exer- 
 tion in his weak state. We set out together, but I 
 soon found that I had not strength to proceed, so I 
 was obliged to return." Alone in his boat dormitory 
 Gardiner wrote farewell letters to his family. To his 
 wife he said: "If I have a wish for the good of my 
 fellowmen, it is that the Tierra del Fuego mission may 
 be carried on with vigor." During those last few 
 days he worked feverishly on the "Outline of a plan 
 for conducting the future operations of the mission," 
 and an "Appeal to British Christians in behalf of 
 South America," anxious lest he might grow too weak
 
 ALLEN GARDINER 119 
 
 to finish them. One day in the early part of September 
 Maidement retired to a cavern which had been used 
 for sleeping quarters when the tide was not too high. 
 He never returned, Gardiner, the last survivor of the 
 seven, still kept his journal, "He left a little pepper- 
 mint water which he had mixed, and it has been a 
 great comfort to me," reads the entry, "for there was 
 no other to drink. Fearing that I might suffer from 
 thirst, I prayed that the Lord would strengthen me to 
 procure some water. He graciously answered my peti- 
 tion, and yesterday I was enabled to get out, and scoop 
 up a sufficient supply from some that trickled down at 
 the stern of the boat by means of one of my india 
 rubber overshoes," The next day the journal ended. 
 Afterward on the shore was found a penciled note, 
 torn and discolored and partly illegible : 
 
 Yet a little while, and though ... the Almighty to sing the 
 praises . . . throne. I neither hunger nor thirst, though five days 
 without food . , . Maidement's kindness to me . . . heaven. 
 September 6, 1851. 
 
 Twenty days later the relief ship arrived. Three 
 others were then on the way, sent by anxious friends. 
 The captain wrote in his report: "Captain Gardiner's 
 body was lying beside the boat, which apparently he 
 had left, and being too weak to climb into it again had 
 died by the side of it." After reading the journal, he 
 added: "As a brother officer, I beg to record my 
 admiration of his conduct in the moment of peril and 
 danger; and his energy and resources entitle him to 
 high professional credit. At one time I find him sur-
 
 I20 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 rounded by hostile natives, and dreading an attack, 
 yet forbearing to fire, and the savages awed and sub- 
 dued by the solemnity of his party kneeling down in 
 prayer. At another, having failed to heave off his 
 boat when on the rocks, he digs a channel under her, 
 and diverts a freshwater stream into it ; and I find him 
 making an anchor by filling an old bread cask with 
 stones, heading it up, and securing wooden crosses 
 over the heads with chains." 
 
 To the secretary of the Mission Society in London, 
 Captain Moreshead wrote a sympathetic letter, valu- 
 able because it gave the opinion of a hardheaded, prac- 
 tical man : "I trust neither yourself nor the Society will 
 be discouraged from following up to the utmost the 
 cause in which you have embarked; and ultimate suc- 
 cess is as certain as the present degraded state of the 
 natives is evident. Their state is a perfect disgrace 
 to the age we live in, within a few hundred miles of 
 an English colony." 
 
 Far from discouraging further missionary activities, 
 the story of Allen Gardiner, published far and wide, 
 and discussed all over England, gave great impetus to 
 a lagging cause. "They buried themselves on the 
 desert shore," it was said in a current magazine article, 
 "but all the people of England attend their funeral." 
 Those who had been faintly interested began to do 
 something; those who had been utterly indifferent 
 began to think. The public conscience felt an unac- 
 customed prick. The Society which Gardiner had 
 founded, now on a sound and permanent basis, and
 
 ALLEN GARDINER 121 
 
 profiting by his experiences, energetically arranged to 
 establish a mission on the Falkland Islands. It was 
 resolved "from thence to hold a cautious intercourse 
 with the Fuegians by means of a schooner named the 
 Allen Gar diner. " The plans were submitted to experts 
 who recommended that "the vessel be well armed, of 
 from 100 to 150 tons, rigged American fashion fore- 
 and-aft sails, no square ones." Such was the ship 
 launched in 1854, and one of the first volunteers to 
 join the mission party was Gardiner's only son, Allen. 
 On Starvation Beach, Spaniard Harbor, is a tablet 
 bearing seven names. The inscription reads in part: 
 
 "THIS TABLET WAS ERECTED BY THE 
 CAPTAIN AND CREW OF A VESSEL BUILT 
 ACCORDING TO THE WISHES OF THE ABOVE- 
 MENTIONED CAPTAIN GARDINER, AND 
 NAMED AFTER HIM . . . THE WHOLE UNDER 
 THE DIRECTION OF THE PATAGONIAN OR 
 SOUTH AMERICAN MISSIONARY SOCIETY, TO 
 WHOM THE VESSEL BELONGS, AND OF 
 WHICH SOCIETY CAPTAIN GARDINER WAS 
 THE FOUNDER." 
 
 The names of Allen Gardiner, his son and his grand- 
 son have all been closely associated with Araucania. 
 At the time of the Society's jubilee in 1894, a special 
 fund for increasing the work among these Indians 
 was raised, and a new and larger mission established 
 in memory of Captain Gardiner. The superintendent 
 of the mission wrote : "Wonderful is the thought that 
 our brave founder tried so hard and failed to gain 
 a footing in this country about fifty years ago, whilst
 
 122 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 to-day it is our happy privilege to preach the gospel 
 of peace and good-will towards men in camp, village 
 and town throughout the length and breadth of Arau- 
 cania." 
 
 In one of the finest of the histories of the Argentine 
 Republic there is this little paragraph : "The South 
 American Society has done noble work in supplying 
 buildings and chaplains, and the courage and enter- 
 prise of the hardy colonists is a striking episode in 
 the history of colonization." Through those who came 
 after him Allen Gardiner finds his place in the history 
 of the continent.
 
 JUAN MANUEL ROSAS
 
 JUAX MANUEL ROSAS
 
 JUAN MANUEL ROSAS 
 
 While the South American RepubHcs were still in 
 the making, about one hundred years ago, Juan Manuel 
 Rosas, not yet eighteen years old, managed his father's 
 great stock farm on the southern plains of Argentina. 
 He was a handsome young giant, of an unusual Creole 
 type, fair enough to look like an Englishman, and so 
 strong, daring and reckless that he became the popular 
 idol of the whole countryside. 
 
 The people among whom Rosas lived, whose in- 
 terests he made his own, belonged to one of the most 
 romantic races in the world, the half-savage Gauchos 
 or herdsmen of the Argentine pampas, descendants 
 of European colonists and native Indians. The 
 homes of the Gauchos were the backs of their own 
 cow-ponies, they galloped over the country as they 
 pleased, and clung as fiercely to personal liberty as to 
 life itself. Once a week they rounded up their herds 
 just to keep track of them. The rest of the time 
 they spent in catching wild cattle, and breaking in 
 horses. Like the llaneros of Venezuela, who refused 
 to fight in places where they could not ride and 
 deserted if their horses were killed, the Gauchos did 
 everything on horseback — fishing, hunting, carrying 
 water, even attending mass. 
 
 Viscount James Bryce says of the Gaucho : "He could 
 
 125
 
 126 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 live on next to nothing and knew no fatigue. Round 
 him dings all the romance of the pampas, for he was 
 taken as the embodiment of the primitive virtues of 
 daring, endurance, and loyalty. Now he, too, is gone, 
 as North American frontiersmen like Daniel Boone 
 went eighty or ninety years ago, and as the cowboy 
 of Texas and Wyoming is now fast going," 
 
 Rosas had been born in the city of Buenos Aires, 
 but he loved and belonged to the rough, wild, free 
 life of the pampas and there he grew up. Everything 
 the Gauchos did, he could do a little better; even his 
 feats on horseback were more spectacular than 
 theirs. He would mount a horse which had never 
 before been ridden, and with a gold-piece placed under 
 each knee, let the enraged pony buck under him until 
 it was worn out, without displacing the coins. A 
 favorite performance was suspending himself by his 
 hands from the cross bar of a corral filled with wild 
 stallions; at the moment that the fiercest of these 
 dashed by beneath him, he would drop down on its 
 back and without saddle or bridle ride off over the 
 plains till the horse was tamed. Sometimes he would 
 "dare" a Gaucho to lasso the hind legs of his horse 
 as he rode at full gallop, and as the horse was thrown 
 forward, Rosas, ^pitched over its head, would land 
 gracefully on his feet. 
 
 Few ever lived who could control a band of Gauchos. 
 Rosas managed them as easily as he did an unbroken 
 colt. He was the dominant figure of the region where 
 he lived. To him, the young master of great estates.
 
 JUAN MANUEL ROSAS 127 
 
 the Gauchos flocked hoping for employment, and so 
 many came that to keep them all busy Rosas had 
 enormous corn and wheat fields planted. His was 
 the first large agricultural enterprise in South America, 
 and the cultivation of crops as an Argentine industry 
 began from that date. 
 
 Those were merry and exciting days for Rosas 
 and his Gauchos. "Every festive occasion, every 
 return of the young patron from a visit to town," so 
 the gossip ran, "was celebrated by fiestas and dances 
 lasting two or three days, when a dozen or twenty 
 oxen were roasted in their hides, and Rosas, of course, 
 always won the palm in the dance and in improvisa- 
 tions on the guitar." But there was plenty of hard 
 work and hard riding done on the estate. Rosas 
 demanded absolute obedience from his laborers, and 
 every rule he laid down for them he was scrupulous in 
 keeping himself. So perfectly disciplined were they 
 that they constituted a small, invincible army, ready 
 to repel all attacks from the dreaded Indian tribes 
 who roamed over the pampas seeking plunder. 
 
 Even the Indians themselves fell under the spell 
 of the young leader. One famous chief gave him 
 the title Cacique Blanco, or White Chief, because he 
 had so many followers. Years later when Rosas was 
 governor of Buenos Aires, a large party of his old 
 Indian friends came up to the city to pay him a visit. 
 Some of them caught smallpox while they were there, 
 a disease much dreaded by the Indians, for whole 
 tribes had practically been wiped out by epidemics.
 
 128 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 Rosas called on an old chief who had it. Then he 
 showed the little mark on his arm to the other Indians, 
 who had deserted their sick friends, and told them how 
 it had enabled him to visit the chief without danger. 
 With the greatest delight and anticipation 150 Indian 
 men and women begged to be vaccinated, proudly re- 
 garding the mysterious little pricks as an infallible 
 charm against the evil demon who brought them the 
 disease. 
 
 At the age of eighteen, because his parents criti- 
 cized his management of the estate, Rosas resigned 
 the position, refused to be dependent on them any 
 longer for money or assistance, and started off to 
 make his own way in the world. For a time he worked 
 in Buenos Aires as a cattle dealer, collecting the cattle 
 from various farms and driving them to the city to 
 sell. Then, with a partner who supplied the capital 
 while he contributed brains and experience, he began 
 the business of salting meat for exportation to Brazil 
 and Cuba. This industry up to that time had been 
 unknown. To-day it is an important feature of 
 Argentine trade. By order of the government, which 
 feared a depletion of stock, Rosas was soon obliged 
 to give up his enterprise. But he had now made 
 enough money to buy land of his own, and he became 
 a cattle- farmer down on the Indian frontier, 150 miles 
 south of Buenos Aires. 
 
 Here he formed another army of devoted Gauchos 
 and peasants for protection against the Indians. His 
 own peons, called Colorados or the Reds, from the
 
 JUAN MANUEL ROSAS 129 
 
 color of their picturesque uniforms, served as a 
 mounted guard, and a band of friendly Indians were 
 the vanguard. No one else could have controlled, 
 much less formed into an efficient military machine, 
 these wild, undisciplined elements of the plains, yet 
 without them Rosas might never have become the 
 great military leader of the Republic. When a bitter 
 political war broke out in Buenos Aires, he rushed 
 into the fray at the head of his Gaucho army and 
 took the city by storm. The administration called him 
 the "Liberator of the Capital," and he became the 
 acknowledged commander-in-chief of all the fighting 
 men of southern Buenos Aires. On returning to his 
 farm he added to his popularity among the country 
 people by starting a subscription of cattle to make 
 good the losses incurred during the outbreak. 
 
 Then for several years Rosas remained quietly in 
 his own district, organizing his independent army 
 which the loyal Gauchos joined in preference to the 
 government troops. One of his men who had been 
 arrested for murder gave as his excuse : "He spoke 
 disrespectfully of General Rosas, and I killed him." 
 So successful was Rosas in all dealings with the Indians 
 that the government commissioned him to fix a new 
 southern boundary line between Argentina and the 
 Indian territories. Under his influence many wander- 
 ing tribes which had been a menace to life and prop- 
 erty were induced to settle peaceably on farms. 
 
 In 1829 another conspiracy threatened the capital. 
 General Lavelle of the Argentine army, returning from
 
 I30 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 a successful campaign against Uruguay, proposed 
 to make himself governor of the province. Rosas 
 with his country militia completely spoiled the gen- 
 eral's plans and forced him to come to terms. There 
 was now no further question of Rosas' growing in- 
 fluence. He had become a power to be reckoned with 
 in the affairs of the Republic. 
 
 Rosas and General Lavelle were always deadly 
 political enemies, but it is reported that one night the 
 general rode out all alone to the enemy's camp to talk 
 things over. Rosas was not there, so he sat down to 
 wait. "He was tired after his long midnight ride; for 
 many nights, too, he had slept on the ground, and the 
 sight of a comfortable bed was an irresistible tempta- 
 tion; when Rosas returned to his quarters he found 
 his own bed occupied by the commander of the hostile 
 army fast asleep. Lavelle on awakening accepted his 
 enemy's courteous invitation to remain tucked up be- 
 tween the blankets, and in that comfortable attitude 
 he arranged terms of peace with Rosas." 
 
 It took the South American Republics a long time 
 to learn how to govern themselves. The policy of 
 Spain to exclude Creoles from sharing in the business 
 of government had left them unprepared. The rising 
 generation hardly knew what it meant not to live in 
 the midst of revolutions. There had been the great 
 war with Spain; wars between the republics; wars 
 between the provinces within a republic ; wars between 
 political parties; and wars between ambitious leaders 
 of the same party who tried to oust each other. In
 
 JUAN MANUEL ROSAS 131 
 
 Argentina there had been thirty-six changes of gov- 
 ernment between 1810, the date of her Declaration of 
 Independence, and 1835, when Rosas became dictator. 
 The strongest and most cruel tyrant kept in power 
 longest. Lawlessness, bloodshed, and murder were 
 commonplaces. It was considered an extraordinary 
 piece of mercy when on one occasion a victorious 
 general ordered only one out of every five of his 
 prisoners to be shot, 
 
 Rosas grew up in the midst of revolutions and when 
 he came into power he used the only weapons then in 
 vogue: force, cruelty, contempt of human life. By 
 trampling ruthlessly on every opposing element, he 
 controlled the high-spirited, rebellious republic for 
 seventeen years, and from a half dozen quarreling 
 provinces he whipped it into a solid nation at a time 
 when union of any kind had seemed an impossible 
 dream. 
 
 As a reward for his services in defending the capital 
 against Lavelle, Rosas was elected governor of the 
 province for a three-year term. He put an end to 
 civil war by ordering all who rebelled against his ad- 
 ministration to be shot without trial. Thus he organ- 
 ized the first substantial government the Argentine Re- 
 public had ever known. The legislature loaded him 
 with honors and gave him the title of ''Restorer of 
 the Laws." When his term of office expired he 
 declined reelection, because the legislature refused to 
 give him all the power he wanted. 
 
 The next year Rosas headed a great expedition
 
 132 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 against the wild Indians of the southern pampas who 
 had become so bold and outrageous in their attacks on 
 the country people that no one felt safe over night. 
 They were completely subdued. Twenty thousand are 
 said to have been destroyed, and seventeen hundred 
 captive white women and children liberated. Rosas 
 became more popular than ever — "Hero of the Desert" 
 he was called. 
 
 Meanwhile the people of Buenos Aires had been 
 finding out to their sorrow that no one but Rosas 
 could cope with the political situation. Five times 
 they urged him to accept the presidency of the Re- 
 public under a national constitution. Before doing so 
 Rosas wisely demanded for himself what other dicta- 
 tors had usurped — an absolute authority, which he 
 urged as necessary for the safety of the State. Into 
 his hands the people of this so-called Republic put 
 "the sum of the public power," and having done so 
 immediately began to hate him and plot against him, 
 as seems to have been the custom in those days. His 
 word was law. If he wanted a man murdered his 
 orders made the murder a legal act. 
 
 He used his vast powers to put the various depart- 
 ments of state on a sound basis, and to get rid of 
 all his enemies or rivals. He organized a police and 
 spy system which ferreted out crimes and plots in the 
 remotest corners. No criminal could escape. He put 
 an end to the mishandling of public funds by requiring 
 every official to give an accurate account of all sums 
 received or paid out. During his presidency not one
 
 JUAN MANUEL ROSAS 133- 
 
 cent was embezzled or lost from the treasury; the 
 employees of the government were paid like clock- 
 work; foreign debts were reduced by a fixed amount 
 each year; and the taxes were lighter than ever before. 
 He encouraged the immigration of peasants who were 
 used to tilling the soil, as an example to his own people, 
 and agriculture prospered so that the country was 
 able to supply its own grain. The cattle industry 
 flourished, for the herds were protected from cattle 
 thieves and Indians, and each owner's brand respected 
 as never before. 
 
 Rosas worked as hard as any of his officials to put 
 the public affairs in good order. He personally super- 
 intended every department of the administration, 
 working day and night without fixed hours for sleep. 
 He seldom appeared in public, and gave interviews 
 while he walked in his garden. His daughter, 
 Manuelita, was the only person in whom he ever 
 confided. She is said to have been a second edition 
 of her father. He had brought her up like a boy, 
 and she knew so much about national affairs that he 
 often asked her advice on important matters. With 
 her beauty and assumed naivete, she made an excellent 
 spy on occasion, leading on her poor admirers to reveal 
 political secrets which it would help her father to 
 know. 
 
 There had gradually emerged from the tangled 
 Argentine politics two distinct parties, the Unitarians 
 and the Federalists. The province of Buenos Aires had 
 always aspired to being a powerful central government,
 
 134 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 as Paris in the French Republic, controUing the other 
 provinces. The outlying provinces on the other hand 
 were jealous of her power and wanted a union of 
 states all having equal liberty and privileges, like the 
 United States. Rosas and the Gauchos naturally be- 
 longed to the latter party, the Federalists. But during 
 his dictatorship, party lines became decidedly vague, 
 for he at once began to group under the head of 
 Unitarios all who opposed him, no matter what 
 their party preferences. Federalists came to mean 
 Rosas' friends. Unitarians his enemies. 
 
 As the Rosista reign of terror began it became an 
 act of treason for man or woman to appear in public 
 without a rosette of scarlet, the Federalist color. Even 
 horses and carriages, houses and shops flew the red 
 flag and bore mottoes with Rosas' slogan : "Long live 
 the Federals ! Death to the savage Unitarians !" To 
 be seen on the street without some such mark of loyalty 
 meant suspicion, and suspicion usually meant sudden 
 and violent death. When two harmless ships arrived 
 in port one day from Portland, Maine, loaded with 
 brooms, buckets, and washtubs, the Americans found 
 that their wares could not be sold at any price because 
 they were painted green or blue, the Unitarian colors ! 
 A yacht on one of these ships, ordered by Commander 
 Brown of the Argentine navy, could not be received 
 because green and white were its colors. The shrewd 
 Yankee sailors, glad to be obliging, sandpapered off 
 the green paint and laid on two coats of bright Ver- 
 million. On the stern, in neat gold letters, they painted
 
 JUAN MANUEL ROSAS 135 
 
 the Rosista motto, and then a crew wearing scarlet 
 and white costumes delivered the boat. The next day 
 the rigging of the American ships displayed long red 
 lines of freshly painted brooms and buckets hung up 
 to dry. They were afterward sold at very fancy 
 prices. 
 
 In the first part of his "reign" Rosas' position was 
 often desperate. He was fiercely jealous of foreign 
 interference and his high-handed measures led him 
 into trouble with both France and England. For two 
 years the French navy blockaded Buenos Aires, but 
 no nation on earth was big enough to tell Rosas what 
 he ought to do. When the French admiral threatened 
 to bombard Buenos Aires, Rosas replied: "For every 
 ball that falls in the town, I will hang a French resi- 
 dent." His stubborn insistence on Argentine rights 
 >von great praise from San Martin and it was to Rosas 
 that he willed his sword. 
 
 It is said that the Dictator loved to torment and 
 flout foreign naval officers and ambassadors. Some- 
 times he would keep them waiting months before re- 
 ceiving them at all. One day when two dignified 
 Spanish officers paid him an official visit in the cus- 
 tomary full-dress uniform he greeted them in his shirt 
 sleeves. Another time he boasted that he intended to 
 have the maize for his breakfast porridge pounded by 
 the English ambassador. When the minister was seen 
 approaching the palace Rosas sent his daughter to 
 stand in the entrance-hall and pound the maize in a 
 mortar. The visitor politely took the pestle to help
 
 136 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 her. Rosas and his retinue then appeared upon the 
 scene. Once when he was requested to reply to an 
 ultimatum in forty-eight hours, he waited twenty-five 
 days before condescending to notice it at all. 
 
 Montevideo in Uruguay, on the opposite shores of 
 the Plata River, was the refuge for anti-Rosistas, 
 and from there they stirred up trouble. One of them 
 published an article called : "It is a Meritorious Action 
 to Kill Rosas." Another sent a parcel containing a 
 bomb to the Dictator, purporting to be a valuable 
 collection of historic medals. It lay in his library for 
 two days till Manuelita and one of her girl friends 
 happened to open it. The machinery was imperfect 
 and it never exploded. 
 
 Opposition to Rosas was in the air, and it culminated 
 in a huge conspiracy. Some of the plotters were 
 among the most prominent citizens of Buenos Aires. 
 But no one could catch Rosas unawares. He was 
 more than a match for the Unitarians who had kept 
 the country humming with civil war for years. By 
 hospitality and friendliness he liked to lead his'cnemies 
 on to thinking they had pulled the wool over his eyes. 
 Through his spies he would keep watch of all their 
 little tricks and then turn the tables on them just in 
 time to save himself. On the evening before he knew 
 the outbreak would occur, he invited his friends and 
 his enemies to a wonderful fete in the palace gardens. 
 Among the guests were all those in the conspiracy to 
 execute Rosas next day and confiscate his estates. 
 Within two hours after the last guest had departed
 
 JUAN MANUEL ROSAS 137 
 
 that night every one of the conspirators was quietly- 
 arrested, brought back to the palace grounds and shot. 
 People heard the steady firing of the guns, but sup- 
 posed it to be "a parting salute" from Rosas to his 
 guests of the evening — and so it was. 
 
 The next morning the citizens were invited to hear 
 a public address by the Dictator. At nine o'clock he 
 appeared on a little balcony of the palace, attended 
 only by Manuelita, who carried a red banner bearing 
 the Federalist motto. Then he told the crowds below 
 him what he had done to rid the country of its greatest 
 enemies, the "savage Unitarios." 
 
 At about this time a terrible secret society called 
 the Mazorca Club was formed and there were no 
 more revolutions. Like the Klu Klux Klan it did its 
 deadly work in the middle of the night and few on 
 its black list ever escaped. Men merely suspected of 
 being Unitarians or friends of Unitarians were 
 stabbed in their beds. Tiny red flags, stamped with 
 the signet of the club, which could not be duplicated 
 by non-members, were attached to the victims. People 
 hardly dared whisper to each other the news that 
 "Last night ten throats were cut 1" Even women and 
 children were murdered, and no man dared hide when 
 the Mazorqueros called at midnight, for it might mean 
 death to his family instead. Patrols guarded the coast 
 all night to prevent the escape of suspects. One man 
 managed to get away by embarking openly at noon. 
 Another hid in a cellar for twelve years, living on 
 food which his wife smuggled in to him. On the day
 
 138 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 of Rosas' downfall a pale, white-bearded figure crept 
 up out of the cellar into the sunlight like a ghost. 
 
 There were only two men in Argentina powerful 
 enough to be possible rivals of the Dictator. One of 
 these, Quiroga, a far worse tyrant than Rosas, showed 
 signs of having designs of his own. Rosas despatched 
 him to a distant province on an errand. On the way 
 Quiroga and his attendants, even the horses drawing 
 the carriage and a dog inside of it, were set upon and 
 killed by unknown rufifians. The other rival, Vincente 
 Lopez, died shortly afterwards, and it was reported 
 that his physician received a handsome reward from 
 the private purse of the president. 
 
 By 1842 Rosas, with the help of his favorite general, 
 Urquiza, had either murdered his enemies, driven them 
 to Montevideo, or frightened them into helplessness. 
 The power of the "savage Unitarios" was broken; 
 people were in a state of sullen acquiescence. He had 
 forced internal peace upon the country. Thomas 
 Dawson says of Rosas during those dreadful days in 
 Buenos Aires: "For political reasons he did not hesi- 
 tate to kill, and to kill cruelly, but he did not kill for 
 the mere sake of killing." ^ 
 
 The first man who dared, without having his throat 
 cut, to defy the Dictator was Urquiza himself, once 
 his friend and staunch ally. Urquiza had been ap- 
 pointed governor of Entre Rios, the most independent 
 of all the provinces; he was a loyal Federalist and 
 
 ^South American Republics.
 
 JUAN MANUEL ROSAS 139 
 
 anxious that his province should receive fair play. 
 The break between the two men occurred because 
 Rosas, though professing to be a Federalist, lived and 
 ruled like a Unitarian. All the power of the Republic 
 was concentrated in Buenos Aires. From there 
 Rosas dictated laws which gave that city special privi- 
 leges. He even forbade other cities to engage directly 
 in commerce with outside nations; everything had to 
 be sent to Buenos Aires first and shipped from there 
 subject to duty. 
 
 In 1 85 1 Urquiza issued a public decree which de- 
 clared Rosas to be "a despot who has trodden under 
 his feet the brow of a youthful Republic." With the 
 anti-Rosistas who had fled to Uruguay and some of 
 Rosas' troops who had been besieging Montevideo and 
 deserted, besides his own followers, he crossed the 
 Parana River, which separates Entre Rios from the 
 rest of Argentina. His army of 24,000 men was the 
 largest that had ever been assembled for a South 
 American battle, and their thousands of horses swim- 
 ming across the river presented an extraordinary 
 spectacle. On February 3, 1852, Rosas was defeated. 
 With his daughter he fled to the British Consulate, 
 and thence they boarded ship for England. It was 
 reported that they escaped to the ship disguised as 
 sailors. 
 
 Rosas once said to his grandson long afterward : 
 "I want you to remember what I am going to say. 
 Whenever anything was done over there in my name, 
 but which was not directly attributable to me, I always
 
 I40 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 got the blame for it; anything good and right my 
 enemies always put to the credit of my ministers." 
 Rosas has been called the most bitterly hated man in 
 Argentine history. Even to this day they celebrate 
 the date on which he was finally driven from the 
 country. Monuments have never been erected in his 
 memory, nor public squares named after him. But 
 his hands first shaped the constitution of the Argen- 
 tine nation, and his cruelty and tyranny brought about 
 a reaction in favor of Republicanism. No one ever 
 wanted another Dictator. 
 
 Urquiza, who became the next president, finished 
 the work of consolidation; a Federal Constitution, out- 
 lined years before by Rosas, was adopted and is in 
 effect to-day. The Republic began to learn her first 
 lessons in self-government, and the stage was clear 
 for the prosperity and industrial development of 
 modern Argentina. 
 
 At the age of fifty-six Rosas, in England, again 
 took up the old life he loved so much, the raising of 
 cattle and breeding of horses. For twenty-five years 
 he lived as a peaceful country gentleman, popular with 
 his neighbors and with his workmen. "No one would 
 have thought," someone used to say, "that the singu- 
 larly handsome old gentleman who lived quietly and 
 unobtrusively on a little farm near Southampton was 
 the once famous despot of Argentina/'
 
 DOMINGO F. SARMIENTO
 
 DOMIXGO F. SARMIENTO
 
 DOMINGO F. SARMIENTO 
 
 In the town of San Juan, near the foot of the Andes 
 in eastern Argentina, lived a fine old family named 
 Sarmiento which could trace its ancestry back in a 
 straight line to the early colonists. On the mother's 
 side, generation after generation had produced men 
 of remarkable intellectual ability — writers, teachers, 
 historians, bishops. The youngest of the family, 
 Domingo, born in 1811, had all the brilliant talents 
 which seemed to be the inevitable heritage of these 
 people. His relatives were "personages," but they 
 were very companionable ones even for a small boy, 
 and there was never a dull moment in the Sarmiento 
 household. With his uncle, a clergyman who had 
 once been chaplain in San Martin's army, he would 
 spend hours talking on history, politics, and good 
 government, and learning a variety of fascinating 
 things about the world. 
 
 "I never knew how to spin a top, to bat a ball, to 
 fly a kite, or had any inclination for such boyish 
 sports," Domingo confessed many years later. "At 
 school I learned how to copy the knaves from cards, 
 later I made a copy of San Martin on horseback from 
 the paper lantern of a grocer, and I succeeded, after 
 
 143
 
 144 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 ten years of perseverance, in divining all the secrets 
 of caricatures." He especially loved to mold saints 
 and soldiers out of mud and play with them. For the 
 saints he invented elaborate ceremonies of worship; 
 the soldiers he and his young neighbors arranged in 
 two armies, and fierce battles were carried on with 
 wax balls, seeing who could knock down the most 
 figures with the fewest shots. 
 
 The family was desperately poor. Domingo's 
 mother — one of those great mothers of great men — ■ 
 had married a man who had no money and never quite 
 succeeded in making any. He worked on a farm driv- 
 ing mules, and did various odd jobs for a living, always 
 dreaming of wonderful projects which never amounted 
 to anything. It was the plucky young mother who 
 built their little home. Before her marriage, although 
 it was an unheard-of thing for a woman of good 
 family to work for wages, she had earned a little 
 money by weaving. With this she hired two peons to 
 build a two-room house on a bit of land, "thirty yards 
 by forty," which she had inherited. She put up her 
 loom under a fig-tree on the grass, and while she wove 
 directed the workmen, sometimes even stopping to 
 help them. Each Saturday she sold the cloth she 
 made during the week and from the proceeds paid the 
 men their wages. 
 
 "The sunburned bricks and mud walls of that little 
 house might be computed in yards of linen," Domingo 
 once said. "My mother wove twelve yards per week, 
 which was the pattern for the dress of a friar, and
 
 DOMINGO F. SARMIENTO 145 
 
 received $6 on Saturday, not without trespassing on 
 the night" — quaintly elaborate Spanish phrase! — "to 
 fill the quills with thread for the work of the follow- 
 ing day." 
 
 With the picture of his mother always before him 
 Sarmiento had the deepest respect for honest work, 
 whether it was done with the hands or with the mind. 
 He kept as a precious treasure the shuttle, two hundred 
 years old, which his mother, grandmother, and great- 
 grandmother had used. No one appreciated better 
 than he the dignity of manual labor, and that in a day 
 when Creole gentlemen scorned to lift a finger in any 
 kind of industrial work. By her own efforts his mother 
 supported the little family, and though sometimes she 
 hardly knew where the next day's meals were coming 
 from, she never told of her poverty. Her wealthy 
 relatives and her brothers, the parish curates, never 
 dreamed how hard the struggle was. 
 
 Each morning at sunrise the noise of the whirring 
 loom would wake the family, a signal that it was 
 time to be up. "Other industrial resources had their 
 place on the narrow territory of twenty yards not 
 occupied by the family mansion," Sarmiento wrote. 
 "Three orange trees shed their fruit in autumn, their 
 shade always. Under a corpulent peach tree was a 
 little pool of water for the solace of three or four 
 geese, which, multiplying, gave their contribution to 
 the complicated and limited system of revenue on 
 which reposed the existence of the family; and since 
 these means were insufficient, there was a garden
 
 146 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 which produced such vegetables as enter into South 
 American cookery, the whole sparkling and illumi- 
 nated by groups of common flowers, a mulberry- 
 colored rose-bush and various other flowering shrubs. 
 . . . Yet in that Noah's ark there was some little 
 corner where were steeped and prepared the colors 
 with which she dyed her webs, and a vat of bran, 
 from whence issued every week a fair proportion of 
 exquisitely white starch." Candle-making, baking, 
 and a "thousand rural operations" went on in the busy 
 little household. 
 
 "Such was the domestic hearth near which I grew, 
 and it is impossible that there should not be left on a 
 loyal nature indelible impressions of morality, of in- 
 dustry, and of virtue." 
 
 Domingo's father was determined that the boy and 
 his two sisters should have opportunities which he 
 himself had missed, and he constantly encouraged 
 them to read and study. "He had an unconquerable 
 hatred for manual labor, unintellectually and rudely 
 as he had been brought up. I once heard him say, 
 speaking of me, *0h, no! my son shall never take a 
 spade in his hand !' " He used to borrow learned 
 works — the Critical History of Spain, in four volumes, 
 was one of these — and insist that his son read them 
 every word. Long before school-days Domingo had 
 learned to read. His uncle afterward told him that 
 at the age of four he "had the reputation of being a 
 most troublesome and vociferous reader." The first 
 book he ever owned was a Roman Guide Book which
 
 DOMINGO F. SARMIENTO 147 
 
 he used to pore over by the hour. Sarmiento always 
 said that he was indebted to his father for his love 
 of reading. 
 
 When he was five years old he went to school. 
 Argentina's declaration of independence had given her 
 colonists a new pride in themselves, an impetus to edu- 
 cate their children who were going to be free citizens 
 of a free country, and the provincial government had 
 opened a primary school, the first of its kind in San 
 Juan. Before that even the children of wealthy 
 parents received almost no education except what they 
 could pick up at home. 
 
 "In this school," Sarmiento says, "I remained nine 
 years without having missed a single day under any 
 pretext, for my mother was there to see that I should 
 fulfil my duty of punctuality under the penalty of her 
 indescribable severity. From a child I believed in my 
 talents as a rich man does in his money or a soldier 
 in his warlike deeds. Every one said so, and after 
 nine years of school life, there were not a dozen out 
 of two thousand children who were before me in their 
 capacity to learn, notwithstanding that toward the end 
 I hated the school, especially grammar, algebra, and 
 arithmetic." 
 
 After he had gone as far as he could in the elemen- 
 tary school he studied Latin with his uncle, and mathe- 
 matics and surveying with an engineer. At fifteen 
 he was teaching a class of eight pupils twenty years 
 old who had never learned to read. A year later he 
 became an apprentice in a merchant's shop, spending
 
 148 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 all the money he could spare for books and all his 
 leisure in reading them. 
 
 "I studied the history of Greece till I knew it by 
 heart, and then that of Rome, feeling myself to be 
 successively Leonidas, Brutus, Aristides. . . , 
 During this time I was selling herbs and sugar, and 
 making grimaces at those who came to draw me from 
 my newly-discovered world where I wished to live." 
 
 He read every book he could lay his hands on. 
 Among them were the Bible, a Life of Cicero, and 
 two formidable treatises entitled: Natural Theology 
 and Evidences of Christianity, and The True Idea of 
 the Holy See. He liked them all, and in his imagina- 
 tion lived over and over again the lives of the char- 
 acters he read about. He loved best the Life of Ben- 
 jamin Franklin. "No book," he said, "has ever done 
 me more good. ... I felt myself to be Frank- 
 lin — why not? I was very poor like him; I studied, 
 as he did, to be a doctor ad honorem! and to make 
 myself a place in letters and American politics." 
 
 Then one day his career as shopkeeper came to a 
 sudden end. "I was told for the third time," he wrote, 
 "to close my shop and mount guard in the character 
 of ensign of militia to which rank I had of late been 
 promoted. I was very much opposed to that guard, 
 and over my own signature I complained of the ser- 
 vice, and used the expression, 'with which we are op- 
 pressed' !" For this offense Sarmiento was speedily 
 summoned to the presence of the governor. As the 
 boy approached, the governor neither rose in greeting
 
 DOMINGO F. SARMIENTO 149 
 
 nor lifted his hat. "It was the first time I had pre- 
 sented myself before one in authority. I was young, 
 ignorant of life, haughty by education and perhaps 
 by my daily contact with Caesar, Cicero, and other 
 favorite personages, and, as the governor did not re- 
 spond to my respectful salute, before answering his 
 question, 'Is this your signature, sir?' I hurriedly 
 lifted my hat, intentionally put it on again, and an- 
 swered resolutely, 'Yes, sir.' . . . " 
 
 After this bit of pantomime the two eyed each other 
 suspiciously, the governor trying "to make me cast 
 down my eyes by the flashes of anger that gleamed 
 from his own, and I with mine fixed unwinkingly to 
 make him understand that his rage was aimed at a soul 
 fortified against all intimidation ! I conquered, and in 
 a transport of anger he called an aide-de-camp and 
 sent me to prison." 
 
 "You have done a foolish thing, but it is done ; now 
 bear the consequences," his father told him. 
 
 Various officials tried to force him to tell the names 
 of people he had heard complain of the government, 
 but he said to them: "Those who spoke in my 
 presence did not authorize me to communicate their 
 opinions to the authorities." 
 
 Not long after his release, as the governor was rid- 
 ing through the streets with a train of fifty horsemen, 
 young Sarmiento on a sudden impulse fired a sky- 
 rocket at the hoofs of some of the horses. "We had 
 a wordy dispute," he says, "he on horseback, I on 
 foot. He had a train of fifty horsemen, and I fixed
 
 150 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 my eyes upon him and his spirited horse to avoid be- 
 ing trampled upon, when I felt something touch me 
 behind in a disagreeable and significant manner. I 
 put my hand behind me and touched — the barrel of a 
 pistol, which was left in my hand. I was at that 
 instant the head of a phalanx which had gathered in 
 my defense. The Federal party was on the point of a 
 hand-to-hand encounter with the Unitario party, 
 whom I served unconsciously at that moment." The 
 governor rode on, worsted for the second time by a 
 mere boy. His spirited rebellion against the tyranny 
 of the government in those dreadful days of revolution 
 and civil war was the cause of these two incidents, and 
 he never hesitated to attack the evils which roused his 
 indignation. 
 
 He definitely allied himself with the anti-administra- 
 tion party, the Unitarios, and for the next month 
 gave all his time to studying the political principles 
 of the two great parties of the republic. *T was 
 initiated thus by the authorities themselves into the 
 party questions of the city, and it was not in Rome or 
 in Greece but in San Juan that I was to seek national 
 liberty." 
 
 At eighteen he left his shop and joined some troops 
 that were preparing to march against the tyrant 
 Quiroga. He barely escaped being taken prisoner, and 
 finally landed in Mendoza with his father, who fol- 
 lowed him everywhere "like a tutelar angel," possibly 
 to restrain his son's hotheadedness. At Mendoza he 
 was appointed a director of the military academy be^
 
 DOMINGO F. SARMIENTO 151 
 
 cause of his knowledge of cavalry maneuvers and 
 tactics, most of which he had picked up in the course 
 of his reading. Here he discovered one day a French 
 library which inspired him with a great desire to 
 learn French. He found a soldier from France who 
 agreed to give him lessons. By the end of six weeks 
 he had translated twelve volumes. He kept his books 
 piled on the dining-room table except at meal-times, 
 and it was usually two o'clock in the morning before 
 he closed his dictionary and blew out his candle. 
 
 No Unitario's life was safe at this time, and the 
 Sarmiento family with many prominent citizens of the 
 province of San Juan were obliged to seek safety in 
 Chile. In Los Andes on the Chilean side of the moun- 
 tains Sarmiento taught for a time in a municipal 
 school, the first and only one in the town. Then he 
 walked all the way to the coast to accept the position 
 of a merchant's clerk in Valparaiso at a wage of about 
 sixteen dollars a month. More than half of this he 
 invested in learning English, part going to his pro- 
 fessor, and ten cents a week to the watchman on the 
 block for waking him at two in the morning for study. 
 He never worked on Sunday, but he made up for this 
 by sitting up all Saturday night with his books and 
 Spanish-English dictionary. After six weeks of les- 
 sons his teacher told him that all he needed further 
 was the pronunciation. Not until he visited France 
 and England years later did he have a chance to learn 
 to pronounce correctly the languages he had acquired 
 in six weeks.
 
 152 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 Intensely alert for every opportunity of advance- 
 ment, Sarmlento shortly became foreman in a great 
 mining plant. With all the rest of his duties he man- 
 aged to read in English one volume a day of all the 
 works of Sir Walter Scott. The Argentine workers 
 in the mine, most of them exiles like himself, used to 
 meet in a big kitchen after the day's work was over to 
 discuss politics. Sarmiento was always on hand in his 
 miner's costume of "doublet and hose," with a red 
 cap and a sash to which was attached his purse, "cap- 
 able of holding twenty-five pounds of sugar." 
 Whether it had any money in it, as is the habit of 
 purses, no one knows. In these discussions Sarmiento 
 was the court of last resort. The men asked him 
 questions, and strangers who sometimes dropped in to 
 listen were often surprised at the remarkable attain- 
 ments of this young man who looked in his rough 
 clothes like the humblest peon. He used to draw 
 birds and animals and make caricatures to amuse the 
 miners, and he even gave them French lessons. He 
 had a passion for telling others everything he knew 
 himself, and a marvelous gift for making those he 
 taught eager to learn. 
 
 But as time went on he longed to recross the moun- 
 tain pass which lay between himself and home. Ill 
 and almost penniless he arrived in San Juan to find 
 few of his old friends left there. It happened that 
 the government officials needed an expert to solve a 
 complicated mathematical problem. Sarmiento was 
 able to help them, and gained considerable prestige for
 
 DOMINGO F. SARMIENTO 153 
 
 his cleverness. He made new friends among the 
 brightest of the young Liberals, and together they be- 
 gan to wake up the sleepy, apathetic, intellectually 
 barren little city with a great variety of activities, in 
 which Sarmiento was always the leading spirit. 
 
 Under his direction a college for young ladies was 
 founded. Nothing had ever been done before In the 
 province for the education of women, and Sarmiento 
 wrote a vigorous article; setting forth the need of such 
 a school as he proposed. For two years it was his 
 pet enterprise and through it he exerted a very real 
 influence on the community. The energetic little group 
 also started a dramatic society, the first in the coun- 
 try, and invented many public amusements which 
 raised the general tone of society life. 
 
 With the help of three of his friends Sarmiento 
 published a periodical named La Zonda, which treated 
 of public education, farming, and other topics about 
 which he thought people ought to know. The first 
 two numbers contained nothing to which the govern- 
 ment could reasonably object, but it feared what he 
 might say next. The governor on some flimsy pretext 
 fined him twenty-six dollars. When Sarmiento would 
 not submit to such oppressive methods he was marched 
 off to prison. On the advice of his friends he yielded 
 the point for the sake of his school and the affair 
 blew over. But he was wholly unsubdued. 
 
 "My situation in San Juan became more and more 
 thorny every day," he says, "as the political situation 
 became more and more charged with threatening
 
 154 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 clouds. ... I spoke my convictions with all the 
 sincerity of my nature, and the suspicions of the 
 government closed around me on every side like a 
 cloud of flies buzzing about my ears." It was not 
 long before his fearless articles led to his rearrest, 
 and he was imprisoned in a dungeon designed for the 
 worst political offenders. For months his life was a 
 series of narrow escapes. At one time a howling mob 
 of Federalists in the streets demanded his death, and 
 the governor would have ordered his assassination had 
 he dared. 
 
 Sarmiento left the prison to go into exile once 
 more in Chile. "On ne tue pas les idees" "Ideas have 
 no country," he said, and went right on contributing 
 articles to the press. For a time he edited a political 
 journal, then gave it up to found a magazine of his 
 own, the Nacional. His vigorous writings on all 
 kinds of subjects thoroughly aroused public opinion 
 and started violent controversies which made men 
 think. There was no greater evil in South America 
 than the indifference of the mass of the people to all 
 questions of public welfare and prosperity. Sarmiento 
 proved a tonic for mental laziness. 
 
 When he heard one day that a bitter enemy of 
 Rosas, Colonel Madrid, was in Mendoza preparing to 
 defy the government, Sarmiento turned his back on 
 his editorial desk and determined to return to his own 
 country, and help to fight against the president. Just 
 as they had reached the summit on their way across 
 the Andes, Sarmiento and his companions spied in
 
 DOMINGO F. SARMIENTO 155 
 
 the distance hundreds of black, hurrying specks com- 
 ing toward them. Madrid and his men in retreat 
 were taking refuge in the mountains. Their position, 
 without food, shelter, or medicine, was desperate. 
 Sarmiento fairly ran down the mountain side to Los 
 Andes, hired a secretary, invited himself into a friend's 
 house, and for twelve hours worked to save the lives 
 of those Argentine troops. Before the day was over 
 he had sent twelve mountaineers to help the fugitives, 
 bought and despatched six loads of food and bedding, 
 written to the Argentine minister in Chile for govern- 
 ment aid, started appeals for charity, arranged an 
 entertainment for the benefit of the soldiers, and writ- 
 ten one of his stirring articles to rouse public sym- 
 pathy. People responded instantly and in three days 
 sufficient food and medicine for a thousand men had 
 started over the Andes. 
 
 "My mother brought me up," Sarmiento wrote, 
 "with the persuasion that I should be a clergyman and 
 the curate of San Juan, in imitation of my uncle; 
 and my father had visions for me of military jackets, 
 gold lace, sabers, and other accouterments to match." 
 But from the time when he was a small boy in the 
 government school Sarmiento had known what he 
 wanted to do more than anything else in the world 
 with his life. Many years later, on the occasion of 
 laying the corner-stone of the Sarmiento School in 
 San Juan, he said in the course of his address : "The 
 inspiration to consecrate myself to the education of the 
 people came to me here in my youth."
 
 156 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 The idea of educating the common people in schools 
 supported by popular taxes had never occurred to the 
 people of Chile. In Santiago, now that his project 
 of fighting for Argentina had come to an end, he 
 organized primary schools for the poor, and founded 
 the Monitor for Schools, a journal for teachers, in 
 which he discussed educational problems. Perhaps 
 nothing he did was more important than raising the 
 profession of teacher to a higher plane. At that time 
 teaching was considered to be not only a humble but 
 an unworthy occupation. A story is told of a rob- 
 ber who had stolen the silver candelabra from a church 
 altar. As punishment he was condemned, not to the 
 penitentiary, but "to serve as a schoolmaster in 
 Copiapo for the term of three years." To this de- 
 spised profession Sarmiento gave new dignity and im- 
 portance. He founded the first normal school in either 
 North or South America for the training of men who 
 should make the profession of teaching an honorable 
 one. 
 
 One of his students during those years writes of 
 him : "Sarmiento always treated us as friends, in- 
 spiring us with that respectful confidence which makes 
 a superior so dear. He was always ready to favor us 
 and help us in our misfortunes; he often despoiled 
 himself of his own garments to give them to his 
 pupils, the greater part of whom were poor. Jle often 
 invited us to accompany him in his afternoon walks, in 
 order to give us more importance in the eyes of others 
 and to comfort our hearts by encouragement. . . ,
 
 DOMINGO F. SARMIENTO 157 
 
 He treated his pupils thus, not because we were in- 
 dividually worthy of the honor, but to give importance 
 to our profession, then humiliated, calumniated, de- 
 spised. He himself, in spite of his learning and his 
 influential relatives, was called by the disdainful 
 epithets of clerk and schoolmaster, and was insulted 
 every day by the supercilious Chileans !" 
 
 After Sarmiento had directed the normal school for 
 three years, all the time continuing his writing, edit- 
 ing, and newspaper work, he was commissioned by 
 the Chilean government to visit Europe and the 
 United States to study school systems. During his 
 travels he met distinguished men in all the large coun- 
 tries of the world, and received honors wherever he 
 went. One interesting result of his trip was a con- 
 versation he had with San Martin, in which he learned 
 why the great general had ended his career so 
 abruptly. He was the first one admitted to the secret, 
 and it was through him that the Argentines discovered 
 the truth about their greatest patriot.^ In the United 
 States he became a friend of Horace Mann, who had 
 first introduced the common school system of educa- 
 tion. As soon as Sarmiento reached Chile again, -he 
 established this system there. 
 
 While he was in exile, he did a large part of the 
 writing which has distinguished him not only as educa- 
 tor and statesman but as a man of letters. Aside from 
 the numerous periodicals he founded from time to 
 
 'See page 57-
 
 158 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 time, he published many books, some of them poHtical 
 treatises, some of them travels, and one, Recollections 
 of a Province, largely autobiographical. Perhaps his 
 best-known work is a history of Argentina in the days 
 of the tyrants, called Civilisation and Barbarism, in 
 which he poured out all the bitter rebellion in his 
 heart against the policy of the government. 
 
 While Sarmiento was giving so lavishly of his 
 genius to his adopted country, he stood ready at a 
 moment's notice to respond to his own country's need 
 for help. Rosas had decreed a ban of perpetual 
 banishment upon him, but when Sarmiento heard in 
 1 85 1 that General Urquiza was preparing to march 
 against Rosas, he left Chile at once to offer his ser- 
 vices. As a colonel he fought in the famous battle 
 which drove Rosas from the country. Then, seated 
 at the tyrant's own desk, and using his pen, he wrote 
 a vivid description of the battle. Six days later he 
 left the army because he realized that Urquiza had 
 every intention of making himself another such dic- 
 tator as Rosas. The minute he decided on this he 
 wrote a note to the general in which he told him with 
 his usual uncompromising bluntness that he had chosen 
 a thorny path which could lead only to disaster. 
 
 He began now to take a still deeper interest in 
 politics, but refused to accept office because he could 
 not approve of the policy of the government of Buenos 
 Aires which had refused to join a Confederation of 
 Argentine Provinces. But he did accept the director- 
 ship of the department of schools of the municipality
 
 DOMINGO F. SARMIENTO 159 
 
 of Buenos Aires. When he began this difficult, uphill 
 work, a resolution was passed appropriating $600 for 
 all the schools in the city! After a year he was 
 granted $127,000 for his department, and with it a 
 splendid Model School was erected. When soon after- 
 ward he was elected state senator from Buenos Aires, 
 he immediately proposed that extensive public lands 
 recently held by Rosas should become school property 
 and that school-buildings should be built through all 
 the provinces. 
 
 He used his great influence to bring about the final 
 union of Buenos Aires with the Argentine Con- 
 federacy, and he made a brilliant address before a 
 convention of provincial delegates, opposing a bill to 
 establish a state religion. It was largely through his 
 influence that absolute religious toleration and liberty 
 of speech were declared legal. 
 
 The interests of the people were his first concern 
 in public life. He obtained permission to divide a 
 large tract of land near the capital into small farms, 
 and these he sold cheaply to prospective farmers. In 
 the center of this land he built a "Chicago of the 
 desert," as he called it. Squares and streets were 
 laid out, a church, a schoolhouse, a bank, and a rail- 
 road station were built, the whole settlement spring- 
 ing up as quickly as a Western mining town in the 
 United States. Thousands of people went on excur- 
 sions out to the desert to see the marvelous spectacle. 
 At that time thirty-nine farmers held the land. Ten 
 years later 20,000 people lived in the district, and a
 
 i6o MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 railroad was built giving it connection with Buenos 
 Aires. 
 
 Soon after this he returned to his own province as 
 governor. He founded a university; high schools for 
 boys and girls; and primary schools in every section 
 of the province. After the bad governors who had 
 held sway, the people could hardly believe their good 
 fortune! He left this office after a short term to go 
 to the United States as ambassador from the Argen- 
 tine Republic. While he was there he determined that 
 his country should have the benefit of every progres- 
 sive idea that the United States could suggest, and 
 through his books and reports describing American 
 education, industries, and institutions, he kept the rul- 
 ing minds of Argentina in close touch with these ideas. 
 The Argentines were devoted admirers of Abraham 
 Lincoln, and Sarmiento wrote a life of Lincoln which 
 he printed at his own expense and sent to South 
 America for general distribution. He started an im- 
 portant review called Ambas Americas — "The Two 
 Americas" — which he hoped would bring the two coun- 
 tries into closer sympathy and understanding — a pre- 
 cursor of the work that is being done to-day to pro- 
 mote the mutual friendship and helpfulness of the 
 continents. 
 
 After seven years of absence from home he heard 
 from his friends that he was a candidate for the presi- 
 dency of Argentina, and they urged him to return at 
 once to conduct his political campaign. This he re- 
 fused to do. He announced no party platform, gave
 
 DOMINGO F. SARMIENTO i6i 
 
 no pledges, took none of the customary measures to 
 influence the voters in his favor, but remained in 
 Washington quietly attending to his business as usual. 
 In 1868 he was elected almost unanimously. "His 
 election," says one writer, "is said to have been the 
 freest and most peaceful ever held in the republic and 
 to have represented as nearly as any the will of the 
 electors." With his administration the old revolu- 
 tionary days of the republic vanished into the past, 
 and the period of modern Argentina began in peace 
 and prosperity. Even his opponents admitted that 
 the great Schoolmaster President's administration pro- 
 moted only the best interests of all the people, their 
 education, their resources, and harmony between prov- 
 inces which had once fought in bitter rivalry. 
 
 After his six-year term was over he served in Con- 
 gress and shared in every intellectual and moral move- 
 ment, giving all his best powers, up to the time of 
 his death at the age of seventy-seven, that the people 
 of his country might have a little of all they missed 
 in opportunity and happiness during the terrible years 
 of revolution and bloodshed. 
 
 In the midst of all the honors which the grateful 
 Argentines heaped upon their noblest statesman, and 
 the incessant demands of public life upon his time 
 and energy, Sarmiento never ceased to work for what, 
 as a boy in school, he had conceived to be the founda- 
 tion of national life. "Give me the department of 
 schools," he once wrote to a friend. "This is all the 
 future of the Republic."
 
 DOM PEDRO II
 
 DOM PEDRO II
 
 DOM PEDRO II 
 
 It was a strange prank that history played upon 
 the people of South America about a century ago. 
 Just when the Spanish-owned colonies were on the 
 brink of the revolution which made them independent 
 republics, the Portuguese territory of Brazil welcomed 
 to her port of Rio de Janeiro the royal family of 
 Portugal, driven into temporary exile by Napoleon 
 and the armies of France. A royal charter graciously 
 declared Brazil a kingdom, and the king on his recall 
 to Lisbon left his son, Pedro I, as regent. The other 
 colonies fought for fifteen years to become republics; 
 Brazil became a monarchy as a matter of course and 
 a few years later, in 1822, won her independence with 
 hardly a struggle. 
 
 Then, instead of running true to form, the monarchy 
 came much nearer being a real republic than its neigh- 
 bors which, though called republics, were usually 
 under the thumb of military dictators during that 
 chaotic first half century of their independence. 
 Brazil had a constitution, a Congress or General 
 Assembly, a legislature elected by the people ; but better 
 than all this, Brazil had for fifty years an emperor 
 who respected the wishes of his people, whose ideals 
 of government were genuinely democratic, Dom Pedro 
 II. General Rosas, president and dictator of the 
 
 165
 
 i66 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 Argentine Republic, came from the common people 
 and ruled like a king; His Majesty Dom Pedro, with 
 the blood of the Bourbons, the Hapsburgs, and the 
 Braganzas in his veins, administered the affairs of the 
 nation like a president. He was probably the most 
 democratic monarch who ever lived. An American 
 who knew him said: "He was far more democratic, 
 not only in manner but in feeling, than many a self- 
 made millionaire who fought his way from the gutter 
 among the democracy of our own United States." 
 
 When he was five years old the first responsibilities 
 of an emperor fell on his shoulders, for old Pedro I, 
 at odds with his ministers, abdicated the throne and 
 left the country. An enthusiastic populace, hailing 
 young Pedro H. with loud "Vivas!" and elaborate 
 ceremonies, installed him emperor. A court-day was 
 appointed in his honor. The excited people unhar- 
 nessed the horses from the imperial carriage and drew 
 it themselves through the city streets. Then from his 
 little chair in a window of the palace Pedro reviewed 
 the troops of the empire and afterwards received the 
 greetings of his officers in uniform, and of diplomats 
 from all over the world. Next day he went back to 
 his schoolroom, and for ten years a troublesome 
 Regency managed the affairs of Brazil for him. 
 
 At last a large political party in the capital grew 
 tired of installing regents and electing new ministers, 
 and insistently demanded that the emperor himself 
 begin to reign, although legally he was still too young. 
 According to the constitution an emperor reached his
 
 DOM PEDRO II 167 
 
 majority at the age of eighteen, and Dom Pedro was 
 only fifteen. In a speech before the legislature the 
 leader of the party dramatically broke off in the midst 
 of a violent attack against the Regency and cried: 
 "Viva a maioridade de sua Majestade Imperial!" The 
 galleries rang with such applause that the speech was 
 never finished. By ten o'clock on the morning of 
 July 23, 1840, ten thousand citizens had surrounded 
 the palace of the Senate, while within, the president of 
 the General Assembly made an announcement which 
 set the whole city wild with joy : "I, as the organ of 
 the Representatives of this nation in General Assembly 
 convened, declare that His Majesty Dom Pedro II. 
 is from this moment in his majority, and in the full 
 exercise of his constitutional prerogatives. Viva Dom 
 Pedro II., constitutional Emperor and perpetual de- 
 fender of Brazil! Viva Dom Pedro II.!" 
 
 So mature was the young emperor in mind and 
 appearance that he was well fitted to play the part of 
 an eighteen-year-old. His tutors were the best that 
 could be found in Europe or South America, and he 
 was a brilliant student. He had a trick of relighting 
 his lamp at night and studying for a while after every- 
 one had gone to bed. Natural history, mathematics 
 and astronomy were his favorite subjects at that time. 
 But in the course of his life he studied almost every- 
 thing under the sun, and he could talk fluently on any 
 subject in English, German, French, Italian or Span- 
 ish; he read Latin, Greek and Hebrew. When he 
 was sixty he learned Sanskrit. His library was packed
 
 i68 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMKRICA 
 
 with histories, biographies, encyclopedias and law- 
 books and he knew so much of what they contained 
 that "a stranger," it was said, "can scarcely start a 
 subject in regard to his own country that would be 
 foreign to Doni I^edro." Besides his library the em- 
 peror loved peace, happiness and prosperity ; these were 
 his gifts to Brazil during his long reign, while sur- 
 rounding nations strupgle<l with anarchy and civil war. 
 
 lie fore Dom Pedro was eighteen he signed a con- 
 tract of marriage with a princess whom he had never 
 seen, Theresa Christina Maria, sister of the King of 
 the two Sicilies. A Brazilian squadron conducted her 
 to Rio, and the city received her with splendid cere- 
 monies. The people were always glad of an excuse 
 for a display of royal pageantry and enjoyed it a great 
 deal better than their unpretentious cmiwror did. 
 
 Dom IVdro kept no court — the formalities would 
 have been irksome — and it is said that he "would gobble 
 through his state dinners in a hurry to get back to his 
 books." An American tells how he met the emperor 
 one day in Pctropolis, the summer capital, standing on 
 the street corner by the railroad station with a single 
 attendant, apparently out for a stroll, and stopping 
 when the train came in to sec the new arrivals. In Rio 
 he usually drove al)out in the afternoon bareheaded in a 
 rickety old barouche drawn by four nuiles, with a 
 book on his lap, reading busily whenever he was not 
 bowing right and left to his friends. When he visited 
 New York he arrived at his hotel carrying a satchel 
 and wearing a linen duster. Always on his foreign
 
 DOM PEDRO II 169 
 
 tours he dropped his title and traveled as inconspicu- 
 ously as possible, signing his name simply as D. Pedro 
 d' Alcantara. 
 
 An American traveler in Brazil tells of visiting the 
 emperor at the beautiful palace of San Cristoval out 
 in the country five miles from Rio : "His Majesty met 
 me upon an inner corridor of the palace, attended by 
 a single aide-de-camp, who however immediately dis- 
 appeared. The chamberlain mentioned my name and 
 nationality. His Majesty advancing shook hands cor- 
 dially, and asked me in well-accented English when 
 I had left New York. The chamberlain with a nod 
 left me alone with the emperor, Dom Pedro II. is 
 a very striking figure, tall, broad-shouldered, erect, 
 with a large, intellectual head. . . . He was simply 
 clad in a black broadcloth 'dress-suit,' and wore on 
 his breast the beautiful star of the Imperial Order of 
 the Southern Cross, and in a button-hole the diamond 
 and gold badge of that grand old historic order, the 
 Golden Fleece of Austria and Spain. His Majesty 
 always wears these decorations, rarely any others, nor 
 is he often seen in uniform or gala dress of any 
 kind. . . . He gives no balls or dinners, and is always 
 accessible to the public once a week, generally on 
 Saturday evenings. He is especially noted for his 
 tact, energy and humanity. He is, therefore, very 
 popular, and much loved by all his subjects." 
 
 Once, while touring through the interior of the 
 country, "seeing Brazil first," he was entertained for 
 several days by the leading resident of a certain town.
 
 i;o MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 During the visit he learned fnmi a confidential source 
 that his hust was unable to meet a large debt which 
 was soon due. When Dom Pedro was alxjut to say 
 good-by, he remarked casually: "You have forgotten 
 to put away an important paper I have seen in the 
 drawer of the bureau of the room I occupied." It was 
 the receipted bill for the entire debt. 
 
 Under Dom Pedro's guiding influence Brazil gained 
 steadily in power, importance and reputation. Home 
 industries and foreign commerce doubled. Telegraphic 
 communications were established with the United 
 States and Europe. Good steamship lines, both coast- 
 wise and oceanic, made Hrazil accessible to all the 
 world. Public j)roperty was opened to settlement, and 
 the government Ijecame as hospitable to all foreign 
 enterprise as it had lx.'fore this been exclusive. The 
 Brazilians, little interested as a rule in commerce, 
 banking, railroading, engineering, needed the stimula- 
 tion and example of outside influence. 
 
 Above all things Dom Pedro wanted to stimulate 
 the love of knowledge among his people, to give the 
 boys and girls of every class an equal chance. Free 
 public schools were established all over the empire. 
 At his request Professor Agassiz, then traveling in 
 Brazil, gave a popular course of lectures in Rio on 
 scientific subjects which the public were invited to 
 attend. Free lectures had never been dreamed of 
 before in Brazil. A raised platform was built in the 
 hall for the use of the emperor, but it stood empty 
 during the series. Dom Pedro preferred to sit among
 
 DOM PEDRO II 171 
 
 the audience. One time the emperor learned that 
 3,000,000 francs had been pledged by citizens for a 
 fine bronze statue of himself to be given the place of 
 honor in a city square. Dom Pedro, expressing his 
 deep gratitude, said that it would please him far more 
 if the money could be used for public schools instead. 
 The grade and high school buildings of Rio have al- 
 ways been noted for their beauty, size and equipment. 
 
 While so many of the South American states were 
 lagging far behind the times, Brazil, under Dom Pedro, 
 caught up with other progressive nations of the world. 
 Liberty of speech and religious tolerance were not 
 even questioned, but taken for granted. Indeed if a 
 man on the streets of Brazil wanted to speak his mind 
 about any grievance he was quite apt to begin right 
 on the spot while the crowd gathered to hear him — 
 the equivalent of a "mass protest meeting" in Madison 
 Square, New York. A noted Protestant clergyman, a 
 friend of many Brazilians and of the emperor himself, 
 wrote: "It is my firm conviction that there is not a 
 Roman Catholic country on the globe where there 
 prevails a greater degree of toleration or a greater 
 liberality of feeling towards Protestants." One of the 
 most notorious court cases during Pedro's reign was 
 the prosecution of two Roman Catholic bishops who 
 tried to put ecclesiastical decrees above civil law. They 
 were condemned to prison and hard labor. 
 
 The largest part of the emperor's day was devoted 
 to keeping in close touch with the life and activities of 
 his people, and visiting public institutions. He arose
 
 172 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 promptly at six o'clock, read quantities of newspapers 
 so that he knew what was happening all over the 
 world ; attended to business matters until half -past nine, 
 his breakfast hour; then met those who had appoint- 
 ments with him; later he inspected the National 
 Library, the Military Academy, the government ma- 
 chine shops, or hospitals and public schools. After 
 dinner he would work in his library or laboratory, at- 
 tend the theater, of which he was very fond, or some 
 state function. When, in 1850, a terrible epidemic of 
 cholera broke out, attacking an average of two hun- 
 dred people a day, Dom Pedro constantly visited the 
 hospitals, sat by patients, gave lavishly of his help 
 and encouragement, and even acted as nurse on many 
 occasions. 
 
 The emperor always said that one of the most 
 delightful days he ever spent was on the American 
 merchant-steamer City of Pittsburg, which had an- 
 chored in the harbor of Rio to take on coal. The 
 captain had planned an all-day "picnic" and excursion 
 down the coast for Dom Pedro, his family, Cabinet, 
 and important officials. The party, all in full court 
 dress except the emperor and empress, arrived in 
 state barges. United States and Brazilian flags waved 
 from every mast of the ship and a full orchestra 
 played the national anthems of the two countries. As 
 she steamed out through the harbor, Brazilian men- 
 of-war saluted with cannon, and the Imperial navy 
 down to the last sailor shouted vivas. Dom Pedro 
 meanwhile lost no time about investigating the inner
 
 DOM PEDRO II 173 
 
 workings of the steamer, which for those days was 
 a magnificent specimen of naval architecture. He 
 clambered down narrow, oily ladders, and squeezed 
 through minute passageways in the midst of the ma- 
 chinery to the very hottest and lowest corners of the 
 ship, inspecting everything from the engine to the 
 coal-bunkers. 
 
 An enterprising American who arranged an ex- 
 hibit of United States industries, held in the national 
 museum of Rio, tells how he conducted the Emperor 
 about the hall as his particular guest of honor, "His 
 Majesty commenced at one end, and with great earnest- 
 ness and interest examined everything in detail. He 
 made many inquiries, and manifested a most intimate 
 knowledge of the progress of our country." At 
 the table displaying beautiful bound books sent by 
 New York publishers, the emperor "opened the Homes 
 of the American Authors, and surprised me by his 
 knowledge of our literature. He made remarks on 
 Irving, Cooper, and Prescott, showing an intimate 
 acquaintance with each. His eye falling on the name of 
 Longfellow, he asked me, with great haste and eager- 
 ness, 'Avc£;-z'ous les poemes de Monsieur Longfellow?' 
 It was the first time that I ever saw Dom Pedro II. 
 manifest an enthusiasm which in its earnestness and 
 simplicity resembled the warmth of childhood when 
 about to possess itself of some long cherished object." 
 As the two men parted, Dom Pedro said : "When you 
 return to your country, have the kindness to say to 
 Mr. Longfellow how much pleasure he has given me."
 
 174 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 In 1863 several Brazilian vessels v^ere captured by 
 the English, diplomatic relations between the empire 
 and Great Britain v^ere broken off, and the people 
 became dangerously excited. For all his quiet tastes 
 there was an iron streak in Dom Pedro which com- 
 manded and held the confidence of his subjects in time 
 of emergency. At this crisis he quieted them with the 
 simple dignity of his words : "I am above all a Brazilian 
 and as such more than any one interested in main- 
 taining intact the dignity and honor of the nation. 
 As I confide in my people, the people should confide 
 in me and my government which will proceed as cir- 
 cumstances shall demand, in such a manner that the 
 title 'Brazilians' of which we are proud will suffer 
 no outrage. Where the honor and sovereignty of the 
 nation fall, there will I fall with it." War was averted, 
 but the episode woke the nation to a realizing sense 
 of its maritime weakness. By a large; donation from 
 his own salary Dom Pedro gave impetus to a nation- 
 wide preparedness campaign and funds were speedily 
 raised for the purchase of ironclads and ammunition. 
 
 Two years later fifty-seven battalions of volunteers 
 responded to the emperor's call to arms. Paraguay 
 and her tyrant dictator had declared war, and Brazil, 
 in the midst of her years of peace and prosperity, 
 was called upon to show her military prowess. It 
 was the only long and costly war of Pedro's reign, 
 and by it Brazil won her right to free navigation on 
 the Paraguay River. The Brazilians to-day are proud 
 of the records made then by their soldiers and sailors.
 
 DOM PEDRO II 175 
 
 "The history of no other war," it has been said, "con- 
 tains more examples of heroic and hopeless charges, 
 or stories of more desperate hand-to-hand fighting." 
 When the war was over Dom Pedro made a voluntary 
 pledge to protect for ten years the independence of the 
 little country he had just defeated, until it could recover 
 its strength and look out for itself. It meant "Hands 
 off" for all the other Republics. 
 
 Every time he left his country to travel abroad 
 Dom Pedro added great prestige to Brazil, and when 
 he came home he brought with him all the progressive 
 ideas of other lands. In Europe he visited schools, 
 museums, charitable institutions, industrial plants, and 
 observatories, as energetically as the casual tourist 
 visits ancient ruins. Many honors were given him by 
 historical and scientific societies. The gayest city in 
 the world made a social lion of this staid scholar and 
 bookworm. "The man really in fashion in the 
 metropolis of the French Republic," says one writer, 
 "was the emperor. He lived in the Grand Hotel, 
 admitted visitors, and talked to all intelligently and 
 modestly. In general he reserved to himself the right 
 to ask questions. He attended balls, frequented 
 scientific institutions, and lost no opportunity of gain- 
 ing knowledge. He saw all the notable pictures, he 
 went to the conservatory, the race-course, the exchange, 
 and the opera." Every phase of life interested him. 
 
 All official honors, hospitality and court functions 
 planned for him simply because he was an emperor, 
 Dom Pedro politely declined. The first experience
 
 176 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 he had on his trip to Europe proved the sincerity of 
 his desire to lay aside royal prerogatives while he took 
 his holiday. When his steamer reached Lisbon all 
 the passengers had to be quarantined. "The king of 
 Portugal, a nephew of the emperor, wished to make 
 an exception of Dom Pedro," so the story is told, "and 
 sent a special steamer fitted up in royal style com- 
 manded by officers of the navy to convey His Royal 
 Majesty to the shore where his royal nephew and a 
 palace awaited him and his empress. The emperor 
 asked if his fellow passengers were also to be ex- 
 empted from quarantine. Receiving a negative reply 
 he immediately said: 'Thank His Majesty Dom Luis, 
 and say to him, that I am traveling incognito ; hence I 
 am subject to the same laws as these gentlemen who 
 came with me on the Douro and I will serve out the 
 quarantine with them.' " The emperor remained with 
 the rest in the uncomfortable quarantine building. 
 
 Dom Pedro was the first monarch who ever visited 
 the United States. On the occasion of the great Cen- 
 tennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876 he saw a 
 wonderful opportunity for his country, and he decided 
 to go, as a plain citizen of Brazil, "to be present 
 at the celebration of the close of a century of freedom 
 in a great constitutional country, and to aid in repre- 
 senting the products and industries of the second 
 nation on the American continent." At the grand 
 opening of the Exposition, President Grant and His 
 Majesty Dom Pedro went together on a trip of in- 
 spection through the vast buildings and both touched
 
 DOM PEDRO II 177 
 
 the little lever that started the motive pov^er for all 
 the machines on exhibition. The BraziUan depart- 
 ment was a great success, winning three and one half 
 times as many premiums as any other South American 
 country. The emperor and the exhibits combined 
 opened the eyes of thousands of American business 
 men to the tremendous natural resources and indus- 
 trial possibilities of the empire. 
 
 For three months Dom Pedro traveled through the 
 United States, devoting an average of sixteen hours 
 a day to sightseeing and investigation. When he had 
 finished he pronounced Boston his favorite city. He 
 particularly enjoyed visiting Lowell, Longfellow and 
 Whittier, whose works he knew almost by heart. Some 
 of them he had translated into Portuguese. Long- 
 fellow once said that his "Story of King Robert of 
 Sicily" had been translated into Portuguese by three 
 poets, but that by the emperor was the best of all. 
 Many prominent Americans entertained Dom Pedro 
 in their homes, and scientific, historical and geograph- 
 ical societies held special meetings in his honor. The 
 New York Historical Society elected him an honorary 
 member and the highest tributes were paid him. "Dom 
 Pedro II," said a speaker of the evening, "by his 
 character, his taste, his application and acquisitions 
 in literature and science ascends from the mere for- 
 tuitous position as emperor and takes his place in the 
 world as a man." 
 
 In New York, Dom Pedro often arose at six o'clock 
 while his staff was still sleeping, and did some sight-
 
 178 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 seeing before breakfast. On his very first day in the 
 city, a Sunday, instead of resting after his 5,000- 
 mile journey from Rio, he began at once on his pro- 
 gram of "going everywhere, observing everything and 
 questioning everybody." He went first to early mass 
 at the Cathedral. Then he spent an hour at one of the 
 famous services which Dwight L. Moody and Ira D. 
 Sankey were; holding in the old Hippodrome. During 
 the rest of the day he visited a newsboys' home, the 
 headquarters of the city fire department, and several 
 police stations. There was very little of New York 
 that he had not investigated before he left. "Well," 
 said some one afterwards, "he certainly would have 
 made a first-class reporter if he hadn't been a king." 
 
 The greatest national event during Dom Pedro's 
 reign was the abolition of slavery, and no one worked 
 harder to bring it to pass than the emperor himself. 
 The African slave-trade had been abolished in 1850 
 and from that time on public opinion grew more and 
 more in favor of emancipation, in spite of the strong 
 opposition of planters and wealthy slave owners. 
 Following Dom Pedro's example many high-minded 
 citizens freed their own slaves. The slave was enabled 
 to free himself in many ways, such as raising his own 
 purchase money. The incentive to do this was great, 
 for an ambitious slave had plenty of chance to rise 
 in the world. "Some of the most intelligent men I 
 met with in Brazil," says one writer, "were of African 
 descent. If a man has freedom, money and merit, no 
 matter how black his skin may be, no place in society
 
 DOM PEDRO II 179 
 
 is refused him. In the colleges, the medical, law and 
 theological schools, there is no distinction of color." 
 Plots of ground were frequently given to the freedmen 
 for cultivation, and the government encouraged them 
 to become independent planters. 
 
 After many hot debates the General Assembly 
 passed a law in 1871 declaring free from that date all 
 children of slave mothers, and all the government 
 slaves. In the next fifteen years the number of slaves 
 decreased by one half. Dom Pedro's dearest wish was 
 that he might live to see every slave in the country a 
 free man, and this wish came true in the last year of 
 his reign. He had gone abroad in poor health, leaving 
 his daughter Isabel as regent. When Congress met, 
 the Princess railroaded the abolition law through both 
 Houses in eight days and signed the bill which put the 
 law into immediate force. It was the last act of the 
 royal dynasty of Brazil. 
 
 In 1889 a Republican revolt took the whole empire 
 by surprise. It had long been brewing beneath the 
 surface, but so great was the emperor's popularity that 
 Republicans had tactitly agreed to postpone the new 
 government until his death. A rumor that Dom Pedro 
 might abdicate in favor of Princess Isabel and thus 
 initiate another generation of monarchy precipitated 
 the revolution. The Republican leagues, with the back- 
 ing of the army and navy, refused to wait any longer. 
 Dom Pedro, summoned from Petropolis by telegram, 
 found a provisional government already organized 
 when he reached the capital. In the Imperial Palace
 
 i8o MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 at Rio, surrounded by insurgents, the old emperor 
 was told briefly that his long reign was over. 
 
 "We are forced to notify you," said the ultimatum, 
 "that the provisional government expects from your 
 patriotism the sacrifice of leaving Brazilian territory 
 with your family in the shortest possible time," 
 
 Dom Pedro II. replied simply: "I resolve to submit 
 to the command of circumstances and will depart with 
 my family for Europe to-morrow, leaving this beloved 
 country to which I have tried to give firm testimony 
 of my love and my dedication during nearly half a 
 century as chief of the State, I shall always have 
 kind remembrances of Brazil and hopes for its pros- 
 perity." The next day the imperial family sailed for 
 Lisbon. 
 
 The Imperial coat of arms and flag were ordered 
 to be torn down from all buildings; streets called 
 after the royal family were renamed; the Dom Pedro 
 Railway became the Central Railway of Brazil; and 
 Pedro II. College was changed to National Institution 
 of Instruction. In three days' time a monarchy had 
 been overthrown without bloodshed or opposition. The 
 emperor, who had sometimes been called the best Re- 
 publican in Brazil, was replaced by a military dictator, 
 and from that time to this the nation has known her 
 share of civil war. 
 
 The homesick emperor, living in European hotels 
 or rented villas, till the time of his death in 1891, 
 "always remained as one on the point of departure, 
 as if he ever expected to be recalled by his former
 
 DOM PEDRO II i8i 
 
 subjects, a hope which till the last moment would not 
 die out of his heart." To the "last American monarch" 
 an American pays this tribute in the dedication of his 
 book on South America •} 
 
 TO 
 
 H. M. DOM PEDRO II. 
 
 EMPEROR OF BRAZIL 
 
 SCHOLAR AND SCIENTIST, PATRON OF 
 
 ARTS AND LETTERS, 
 
 STERLING STATESMAN AND MODEL MONARCH, 
 
 WHOSE REIGN OF HALF A CENTURY HAS BEEN 
 
 ZEALOUSLY AND SUCCESSFULLY DEVOTED TO 
 
 PUBLIC INSTRUCTION, INDUSTRIAL 
 
 ENTERPRISE, AND THE ABOLITION 
 
 OF SLAVERY 
 
 THROUGHOUT THE VAST AND OPULENT 
 
 "EMPIRE OF THE SOUTHERN CROSS" 
 
 ^Vincent, Around and About South America.
 
 DAVID TRUMBULL
 
 DAVID TRUAIBULL
 
 DAVID TRUMBULL 
 
 A long, narrow strip of crowded, bustling wharves 
 and business streets, a steep rise of two hundred feet 
 to quiet green hills topped with gay gardens and 
 pretty villas washed in white or blue, snow-crowned 
 Mount Aconcagua in the background, and down in 
 front the blue bay full of ships from all over the world 
 — this is the Valparaiso of to-day, chief port on the 
 western coast of South America. But when David 
 Trumbull, from New England, stood at the railing of 
 the Mississippi as she sailed into the harbor on Christ- 
 mas day in 1845, "there was not a tree in sight save 
 a cactus on a hilltop. The houses were so scattered 
 as to make little impression, and one would say, 
 'Where is the city?' " 
 
 On every side were sailing vessels. All the ships from 
 New England and the eastern coast of the Americas 
 on their long journey around Cape Horn up to the 
 northwest coast after whales and seals, or to California 
 a few years later when gold was discovered, put in at 
 Valparaiso for supplies and repairs. The old town 
 was a port of call for all merchant and fishing vessels 
 plying along the coast. In the course of one year 
 1,500 of them anchored in the bay, representing nearly 
 thirty different nations, and 15,000 sailors ran wild in 
 
 185
 
 i86 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 town. To reach this rough, ever-changing population, 
 much of it British and American, David Trumbull had 
 volunteered to go to Valparaiso. His was the first 
 sailor mission in South America. 
 
 Trumbull belonged to a fine old New England 
 family, staunch Congregationalists, descendants of 
 John Alden and "the Puritan maiden, Priscilla," and 
 later of old Jonathan Trumbull, governor of Con- 
 necticut when Washington was president of the 
 United States. One of this famous family, Henry 
 Clay Trumbull, once said : "The question is, not 
 whether you are proud of your grandfather, but 
 whether your grandfather would be proud of you. It 
 is a good thing to be in a family line which had a 
 fine start long ago, and has been and still is improving 
 generation by generation. It is a sad thing to be in 
 a family line where the best men and women were 
 in former generations." David was always proud of 
 his ancestors. He once "danced like a schoolboy" 
 when he found proof that the only one ever charged 
 with illiteracy had written his own will. His ancestors 
 would have been equally proud of him, for his is one 
 of the greatest names in the Trumbull family. 
 
 After his school days were over, he had a taste 
 of business life in New York — his only "commercial 
 experience," he called it. But it was the wrong trail 
 for David and he quickly changed his mind. He pre- 
 pared for Yale, and entered in the fall of 1838, just 
 before his nineteenth birthday, bent on being a minis- 
 ter. In the intimacy of school and university life men
 
 DAVID TRUMBULL 187 
 
 are quick to discover the caliber of their companions. 
 Trumbull passed muster with high honors, and his 
 status in the college community was an enviable one. 
 "In all that he said or did," said a Yale friend, "there 
 was displayed a certain nobility of character which 
 was the more attractive as it seemed so natural to 
 him. He had a rich vein of humor ; and we will add — 
 as it seems to have been a characteristic that was often 
 made a subject of remark during all his life — his face 
 wore a peculiarly joyous expression, which was quite 
 remarkable, and gave an additional charm to the genial 
 smile with which he always greeted those to whom 
 he spoke." 
 
 The very year that he graduated from Princeton 
 Theological Seminary, he heard that the Foreign Evan- 
 gelical Society wanted a young minister to go to Chile. 
 It was a splendid opening for a man of big mentality 
 equal to grappling with difficult situations. There 
 were no Protestant missions, no Protestant churches 
 on the whole west coast. Pioneer work was what 
 Trumbull wanted. It would be like owning his own 
 business — he could build it up just as he pleased. Out 
 of nothing at all he could create something of great 
 and lasting value. Before he left the family home 
 at Colchester, Connecticut, for Chile, he took his pen 
 and wrote down definitely, so that "he might be able 
 to keep it more in mind," what he considered to be 
 the agreement with God which he had made. In it 
 he said among other things : "My God, I will begin 
 a ne^y life. . . .- I will aim to please thee every day
 
 i88 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 forward. ... In my public life as a minister, I will 
 study thy word, and all truth where it can be found, 
 in candor, with prayer; and will apply myself to find 
 out suitable languages, figures and thoughts, that 
 others may be taught by my efforts. . . . Accept me 
 then with all my powers, not as a gift, but as a favor 
 to myself. Fit me to serve thee, and then make use 
 of me. Do just thy pleasure." Then he signed his 
 name to the prayer as to a contract. 
 
 Trumbull preached his first sermon to the sailors 
 on board the Mississippi, anchored in Valparaiso 
 Bay, a few days after his arrival; his first sermon on 
 shore at a little printing shop, with a "printer's horse" 
 for a pulpit and rolls of paper for pews. His first 
 friend in the strange, ugly little city was the chaplain 
 of a small Episcopalian congregation which met in a 
 private room for services on Sunday. 
 
 Public worship was forbidden. A Protestant in 
 South America was as much lost as a man without a 
 country. He had no church, no social position, no 
 legal rights. Civil marriage was not allowed, and 
 it was almost impossible for him to find a way to be 
 married, except on board an English or American 
 ship outside the three-mile area of sea over which a 
 country has control. All the cemeteries were owned 
 by the Catholic Church, and the only burial place for 
 a Protestant in Valparaiso was the dumping ground 
 outside the city. Many well-to-do residents, English, 
 Scotch, American or German business men, once 
 Protestant, had drifted into the Roman Church,
 
 DAVID TRUMBULL 189 
 
 simply because there had been nothing else to do, or 
 because their friends or the Chilean women they mar- 
 ried were Catholics. "Some of the most potential 
 Roman Catholics here today," Trumbull wrote home, 
 "are of British origin; their parents or grandparents, 
 having had no public worship to attract them, have at- 
 tended none, and their wives, worthy and good Cath- 
 olics, have carried their children into that connection, 
 unless they have gone into free thinking." 
 
 To conserve this drifting population he organized 
 a Union Church in 1847, with fifteen charter members. 
 All those who had no church of their own he welcomed 
 into his. At first a warehouse was rented for the 
 services, but It was small and so dark that whale-oil 
 lamps had to be lighted even in broad daylight. For 
 seven years the church had no home of its own. Then 
 enough money was saved to buy a plot of land and 
 put up a little building — the first Protestant church in 
 South America. It was hard work even to finish 
 making it. City officials ordered Trumbull to give 
 up his absurd plans, and threatened to call out the 
 police. A Protestant church would be an outrage to 
 the community, and a service held publicly would be 
 breaking the law. Good Catholics were horrified and 
 the priests prepared for battle. 
 
 But Trumbull was a capable fighter himself, and 
 he had substantial backing in a. number of English and 
 Scotch merchants, influential residents, who belonged 
 to his church. For six months matters were at a stand- 
 still. Then the government compromised. Services
 
 190 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 might be held on these conditions: that the building 
 be entirely surrounded by a high wooden fence with 
 one small, inconspicuous gate, shutting off any view 
 from the street ; and that hymns and anthems be sung 
 so softly that passersby could never hear them and be 
 tempted to step in to listen. Now at last the Protestant 
 had his niche in the community, and David Trumbull's 
 great ambition was to widen it until Protestant and 
 Catholic should have equal rights and one church no 
 longer control the affairs of state. The vision of the 
 young minister who had come to preach to the sailors 
 of one port had widened until it took in a whole coun- 
 try, a changed constitution, the overthrow of century- 
 old tradition. "The symbols of religion remain," he 
 wrote of Latin America, "but religion itself has gone. 
 The shadow remains, but the substance has fled." And 
 so, sailors, foreign residents, Chilean people — Trum- 
 bull set himself to reach them all, to give them a bit of 
 the genuine spirit of Christ which is the foundation 
 for thought and conduct among all the great nations 
 of earth. 
 
 His work among the seamen was the entering 
 wedge. On the ships, in the city hospital where there 
 were always sick sailors, in the jails where other un- 
 happy specimens spent most of their time ashore, 
 Trumbull searched them out, and not a sailor but felt 
 that he had at least one friend in the city. Officials 
 who at first had wanted nothing better than to find 
 fault with him, began to appreciate the neighborliness 
 and good will of the young minister, and gave him
 
 DAVID TRUMBULL 191 
 
 permission to go ahead and do anything he hked so 
 long as he worked only among the crews of vessels 
 anchored in the harbor, and among non-Spanish- 
 speaking people. So down on the waterfront he 
 opened a Bethel, headquarters for his mission, with 
 flag flying over it so that no sailor could miss seeing it 
 when he passed by. 
 
 In 1850 he married a girl from his own New Eng- 
 land State, and with her help started a school for girls, 
 "for the education of those who were to be the mothers 
 of the next generation of Chileans." All schools were 
 Catholic then, and the authorities looked with suspicion 
 upon this upstart school in their midst. They hastened 
 to send an examining committee to pick flaws in it, but 
 the committee found nothing it could honestly con- 
 demn and came away with high recommendation for 
 the whole enterprise. 
 
 Editing newspapers and publishing pamphlets were 
 two of Trumbull's favorite diversions. He wanted to 
 discuss the big questions of the day before the widest 
 possible audience, and, like Sarmiento, hammer daily 
 on the public conscience until ideas of progress and 
 reform were firmly lodged in people's minds. He 
 published and edited the first Protestant paper in 
 Spanish, calling it La Picdra, which means "The 
 Rock." On the title page were those words of Christ 
 to Peter: "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will 
 build my church." It came out as often as he could 
 gather enough funds to print it. He also published 
 The Record in English, El Heraldo, a Santiago news-
 
 192 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 paper, and wrote sermons and editorials for a number 
 of Spanish dailies. One time a letter came to him 
 from a society of workingmen, which he sent home 
 to show his friends because it pleased him so much : 
 
 "We make it our duty to give you our best thanks 
 in the name of the society. Our statutes do not allow 
 the discussion of religion or politics while in session, 
 but afterwards, adjourning, your periodical is read 
 and each offers his remarks upon it. . . . Progress 
 and knowledge are advancing rapidly and are waking 
 up minds that have been asleep. Sons of the common 
 people, we from our youth have been educated in the 
 practises of Romanism, and they who know the truth 
 pure and spotless are very few; hence it is necessary 
 that those apostles who try to make it known should 
 be unfaltering in the use of the press in bringing out 
 their publications." 
 
 Whenever Trumbull found something he wanted the 
 people to read he had it translated and printed first, 
 and collected the money to pay for it second. He was 
 so often in process of securing funds for one and an- 
 other good cause, and so successful in doing it, that he 
 said his epitaph ought to be : "Here lies a good beggar." 
 
 He began a campaign for circulating Bibles, which, 
 since the days of James Thomson, had gradually dis- 
 appeared from the land under ban of the church. The 
 archbishop published a letter declaring the Bible to be 
 fraudulent and heretical, and forbidding its use. 
 Trumbull then rode into the lists armed to the teeth 
 with repartee. He answered the letter and kept on
 
 DAVID TRUMBULL 193 
 
 answering letters till his opponent "withdrew in con- 
 fusion," He liked a chance for a good newspaper 
 skirmish, because of the wide publicity it always gave 
 to his ideas, but "he was always the gentleman and 
 always the friend, and his polemics were full, not of 
 hard hitting only, but also of his genial kindness and 
 irresistible love." This was the secret of his success. 
 He knew how to get along with people. 
 
 The most celebrated skirmish of those years was a 
 series of public debates between Trumbull and a fiery 
 Catholic named Mariano Casanova. Dr. Robert E. 
 Speer tells the story : "In Chile there is a Saint of 
 Agriculture who guards the fortune of farmers, giving 
 them rich harvests and sending rain at the appointed 
 times. Since the seasons are fairly regular the good 
 offices of San Isidro are seldom required. Occasion- 
 ally, however, the rains are delayed, much to the loss 
 of the sower and the distress of the eater. At such 
 times mild measures are used to begin with, and the 
 saint is reminded of his duty by processions and pray- 
 ers and placated by offerings. If he still refuses to 
 listen, his statue is banished from the church, even 
 manacled and beaten through the streets. In 1863 
 San Isidro answered the prayers of his devotees with 
 commendable promptitude. Eighteen hours after sup- 
 plications had been made at his altar rain fell in copi- 
 ous showers. In view of this signal blessing the arch- 
 bishop called upon the faithful for contributions to 
 repair San Isidro's shabby church. It was at this junc- 
 ture that Dr. Trumbull entered the lists, and in an arti-
 
 194 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 cle entitled "Who Gives the Rain?" he attacked the 
 practise of saint worship. Casanova repHed and the 
 battle was on. Charge and countercharge followed in 
 rapid succession. The affair got into the provincial 
 papers and was discussed all over the country. San 
 Isidro and rain became the question of the day; and 
 at last Casanova withdrew from the field, routed foot 
 and horse." 
 
 In all enterprises which were for the public welfare 
 Dr. Trumbull cooperated heartily with the Roman 
 Catholics, adapting himself just so far as he could to 
 the life of the community. Once when a bishop 
 wanted to publish an inexpensive edition of a Catholic 
 New Testament, Dr. Trumbull helped him collect 
 funds, some of which came from members of Union 
 Church. One year a terrible cholera plague raged 
 in the city. Dr. Trumbull was appointed a member of 
 the relief committee and joined forces with the Cath- 
 olics in relieving the distress of the poor and providing 
 extra hospital space. Again he set to work to collect 
 money, sending a substantial sum to the cure of San 
 Felipe, who afterward wrote him : "That God, who 
 has promised to reward the cup of cold water given in 
 his name, may crown you with all good, is my desire." 
 
 In all communities there are men who have a hand 
 in every good work, whose names appear on commit- 
 tees and governing boards, whose influence is felt in 
 matters of state, of commerce, of education. Trum- 
 bull was such a man, a leader of national reform, the 
 friend and adviser of the Liberal party. He had once
 
 DAVID TRUMBULL 195 
 
 been looked upon with suspicion and hatred. As the 
 years passed by he gained such recognition and respect 
 in Valparaiso and other parts of Chile that "a prestige 
 began to surround him." His dream of reaching the 
 Chilean people as well as the foreign population began 
 to come true. With the backing of the Liberal party 
 he made the first feeble little step toward religious 
 liberty by pushing a bill through Congress which per- 
 mitted "dissenters" to worship in private, and to estab- 
 lish private schools for their children. But they were 
 not allowed to build any church which looked like a 
 church. It must be elaborately disguised. There must 
 be no telltale bell or steeple to distinguish it from any 
 private house or hall. Before this the services in 
 Union Church had been allowed as a favor to influ- 
 ential British merchants. Now they became strictly 
 legal. Ten years later he could write : "The elections 
 for Congress and president are approaching; in the 
 platforms of the parties it is encouraging to notice that 
 religious freedom occupies a prominent place." 
 
 The cemetery bill and the civil marriage act were 
 the two reforms upon which Dr. Trumbull had set 
 his heart, not only for the sake of foreigners but for 
 the great masses of Chileans who were too poor to 
 pay the exorbitant fees demanded by the priests for 
 burial and marriage rites. The marriage ceremony 
 had become such a luxury that a great percentage of 
 the people decided they could get along very well with- 
 out it, and the moral fiber of the state grew steadily 
 weaker. After eight years of fighting, the cemetery
 
 196 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 bill, allowing free burial, was passed by Congress in 
 1883, and four months later Dr. Trumbull reported: 
 "Our Congress has just passed a civil marriage bill 
 which deprives the Roman Catholic Church of all 
 superiority over other denominations and must reduce 
 its emoluments immensely." 
 
 Meanwhile Union Church grew influential and 
 wealthy enough to support its own ministry, so that 
 when the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions took 
 charge of the mission work in Chile, it found an inde- 
 pendent congregation, which, far from needing help, 
 stood ready to give both money and cooperation to the 
 Presbyterian mission. Dr. Trumbull longed to have the 
 Board extend its mission work to other cities. "As 
 yet this whole line of coast seems to be left out of 
 everybody's calculations," he wrote. "Its inhabitants 
 would be better off if they lived in Asia. Is America 
 so poor a name to divine by? . . . Why are these less 
 important to care for than people in the center of 
 Africa, so that when Stanley tells of them half a dozen 
 missionary societies rush to occupy the ground, and 
 here not a single one?" Another letter says: "The 
 manager of the steamship company told me only yes- 
 terday that they have five hundred men, English, in 
 Callao, but that there is no service. I know from a 
 number of these men that they desire to have worship ; 
 their decided preference is Presbyterian, and you are 
 the people that ought to give it to them. If you will 
 provide it, you will win credit and you will have 
 assistance. Only do not wait for anybody to ask it.
 
 DAVID TRUMBULL 197 
 
 nor for anybody to promise anything. Just sail in like 
 Farragut into Mobile Bay; consider yourself that 
 gallant and daring admiral up in the maintop of the 
 Richmond, tied by your waist so as not to fall, and 
 capture the forts of Callao harbor." 
 
 The Trumbull home in Valparaiso, built high on 
 the cliffs overlooking the city, was a delightful place 
 to visit. Dr. John Trumbull, one of the sons, says : 
 "With all that my father did, he ever found time to 
 be with and help his children. After my father mar- 
 ried Jane Wales Fitch, they came out to Chile on an 
 independent basis, supporting themselves by conduct- 
 ing a young ladies' school for eight or ten years ; then, 
 at the request of Union Church, he consented to give 
 it up and devote himself entirely to pastoral and church 
 work, though they were only able to offer as a salary 
 half of what he was then making. At that time I can 
 remember that we had to give up horseback riding — • 
 for my brother David and I had been in the habit of 
 riding out to Fisherman's Bay every morning with 
 father for a dip and a swim — in fact, I was but five 
 when he taught us to swim and even to jump off of 
 the spring-board into deep water — and take to footing 
 it. He believed in all manly sports, which, according 
 to him, included everything but shooting, of which he 
 never approved; and he taught or encouraged us to 
 walk, run, play cricket, ride, climb, swim, dive, row, 
 fish, cook, and so forth. On holidays we often went 
 off as a family on picnics to the country, or up the 
 hills and ravines back of Valparaiso, and were taught,
 
 198 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 like the Boy Scouts of the present day, to be self- 
 rehant and ready for any and every emergency. 
 
 "Winter evenings he was in the habit of reading 
 aloud to us Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield, Bun- 
 yan's Pilgrim's Progress, Dickens' Nicholas Nickleby, 
 Scott's Old Mortality, and Irving's Knickerbocker 
 Stories and Life of Washington. 
 
 "People might wonder how he found time for all 
 he did. The secret of it was that he was ever an early 
 riser. By five we were off on our rides or walks, and 
 before that he had often got in an hour's work; and 
 during his later years he had by eight o'clock already 
 done a good day's work, 
 
 "As to his children, it was often said the Trumbull 
 children never had any bringing up — that, like Topsy, 
 they simply 'growed.' Certainly I can remember but 
 two trouncings — one for playing with matches at bon- 
 fires on the shingle roof of our house, which, as fire- 
 men, we had to extinguish ; and again for playing with 
 my brother at William Tell, using a potato which we 
 alternately balanced on our heads, and an old-fashioned 
 musket on which we used up half a box of caps. 
 
 "To show that my father's discipline was guided by 
 a tactful wisdom it might be worth while to record 
 that when, as a boy just fifteen years of age, I was 
 sent off alone to the United States, the only sermon 
 which I got was the following: 'John, my boy, there 
 is only one fear that I have in your going from home ; 
 and that is, that, since you are so good-natured and 
 ready to please, you may not have the manliness to
 
 DAVID TRUMBULL 199 
 
 say no.* That remark drove home, as you can well 
 understand, for once a boy reaHzes the cowardice of 
 yielding to temptation, the battle against it is more 
 than half won, and I am free to acknowledge that that 
 did more to stiffen my moral backbone than any other 
 spoken word I ever heard. 
 
 "We were a large family — four boys and three girls 
 who lived to grow up. All of the boys were sent to 
 Yale and studied professions, while the girls went 
 either to Wellesley or Smith, and were sent, too, by 
 a pastor who had no private means. Good business 
 instincts he had, and that helped; but what really 
 enabled him to give his children an education was 
 that he and my mother were willing to take in young 
 Englishmen as boarders, giving them a home and at 
 the same time receiving payment, so as to let their 
 children have an education. On that he laid great 
 stress, saying that all his desire was to give us an 
 education and let us 'shift without a penny.' " 
 
 While Dr. Trumbull was working so hard for the 
 people of Chile, three of his big, merry family died 
 within a short time of each other and just at the age 
 when they were beginning to be of greatest use in the 
 world. The oldest son, David, a student in Yale 
 School of Theology, dived from a yacht off the coast 
 of New London, in an effort to save a boy's life. 
 There was no tender or small boat with the yacht, and 
 by the time his friends were able to tack and reach 
 him he sank. The boy, whom he held up with his 
 last ounce of strength, was saved. Mary Trumbull
 
 200 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 died a few months after graduating from Wellesley, 
 and Stephen, a physician, died of yellow fever at sea, 
 on the way to Valparaiso. 
 
 As Dr. Trumbull grew old among the people he 
 had learned to think of almost as his own countrymen, 
 he decided to adopt the country where he had lived 
 and worked for forty years. One day he appeared 
 before the proper authorities and asked for the privi- 
 lege of taking out naturalization papers. The usual 
 legal proceedings were waived in his case and the 
 president and all his Chilean friends rejoiced in this 
 proof of his love for Chile. There was no doubt of 
 his welcome. One friend said : "Valparaiso has before 
 felt honored in claiming him as the most worthy and 
 best known of her foreign residents. Now we regard 
 him as a fellow countryman and a true brother." 
 When some of his American friends wrote how sur- 
 prised and disturbed they were that he had renounced 
 his American citizenship he confessed his reason for 
 doing it. There had been times, during the long years 
 when he was fighting for reforms, that everything 
 seemed utterly hopeless. Then he had made another 
 vow to God. If ever his wishes were realized and the 
 reforms became law, he would express his gratitude 
 by becoming a citizen of Chile. He had kept his vow. 
 
 But a descendant of the Aldens must always have 
 loved America best. One of Dr. Trumbull's friends 
 says: "Surrounded by foreigners, he defended his 
 country as bravely as his Continental ancestors did 
 before him. No Britisher, even in friendly jest, could
 
 DAVID TRUMBULL 201 
 
 speak slightingly of the States and escape unwounded. 
 Once an Englishman at his table remarked, 'I never 
 could understand, Doctor, how you keep that picture 
 on your wall, and in such a conspicuous place, too.' 
 The picture represented the Essex in Valparaiso Bay, 
 striking her colors to two English men-of-war. With 
 a smile, and in his dulcet voice, the host replied: T 
 wouldn't take anything for that picture. It's the great- 
 est curiosity in the house ; for it is the only instance in 
 history where an American vessel ever hauled down 
 her flag to an enemy. Can you duplicate that in Eng- 
 lish history?' " 
 
 On a great stone in the cemetery of Valparaiso is 
 one of countless tributes from his best friends, the peo- 
 ple of Chile: 
 
 MEMORIAE SACRUM 
 
 The Reverend 
 
 David Trumbull, D.D. 
 
 Founder and Minister of the Union Church, Valparaiso 
 
 Born in Elizabeth, N. J., ist of Nov., 1819 
 
 Died in Valparaiso, 1st of Feb., 1889 
 
 For forty-three years he gave himself to unwearied and 
 
 successful effort 
 
 In the cause of evangelical truth and religious liberty in 
 
 this country. 
 
 As a gifted and faithful minister, and as a friend he 
 
 was honored and 
 
 Loved by foreign residents on this coast. In his public 
 
 life he was the 
 
 Counselor of statesmen, the supporter of every good 
 
 enterprise, the 
 
 Helper of the poor, and the consoler of the afflicted. 
 
 In memory of 
 His eminent services, fidelity, charity and sympathy 
 
 this monument 
 
 Has been raised by his friends in this community 
 
 And by citizens of his adopted country.
 
 202 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 One of Dr. Trumbull's Yale friends, writing an 
 "In Memoriam," says: "Perhaps never among any 
 Spanish-speaking people, in either hemisphere, has an 
 Anglo-Saxon, or a Protestant, received such a testi- 
 monial of the popular respect. . . . What Livingstone 
 did for Africa was done for South America by David 
 Trumbull."
 
 FRANCISCO PENZOTTI
 
 FRANCISCO PENZOTTI 
 (Imprisoned in Callao, Peru)
 
 FRANCISCO PENZOTTI 
 
 "Never in my life have I fought so much with 
 priests and friars as in these last months . . . there 
 hardly passes a night when I do not dream of being 
 in combat with them." These, his own words, tell a 
 common experience of Sefior Francisco Penzotti's life 
 in South America as distributing agent of the American 
 Bible Society. The business of such an agent is to 
 sell Bibles to all who will buy them, and like all evan- 
 gelical work it has been carried on in the face of the 
 most desperate opposition on the part of the Roman 
 Catholic clergy, who control the religious life of the 
 State. One of the beliefs of the Roman Church is 
 that the Bible, as we know it, should not be placed in 
 the hands of the ignorant because they will misinter- 
 pret its teachings. The only version allowed for com- 
 mon use is the result of careful pruning and editing 
 by the papal hierarchy, believed to be the only infallible 
 authority. 
 
 And so, when the agents for the Bible Society 
 opened Bible shops, and canvassed city and town from 
 door to door, peddling the best book in the world, not 
 in English — that would not have bothered the priests — 
 but in Spanish, the people's own language, the alarmed 
 bishops rose up in their pulpits and urged that all unite 
 in their efforts to crush "these monsters of heresy." 
 
 205
 
 2o6 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 Ignorant, fanatical, warped in spirit and morals, the 
 majority of clergy in South America have done little 
 credit to their Church, and it is with this powerful 
 priest ring, never truly representative of the Catholic 
 faith at its best, that progressive elements have con- 
 tinually been at war. The dramatic experiences of 
 Sefior Penzotti first held up for ridicule before the 
 eyes of the whole world the absurd spectacle of four- 
 teenth century bigotry lingering on at the end of the 
 nineteenth. 
 
 Penzotti was born in Italy in 1851, of staunch 
 Roman Catholic parents. When thirteen years old he 
 was invited by relatives to go with them to South 
 America. It seemed to his boyish imagination like 
 a fairyland of promise, and he set off with the same 
 high hopes that bring the ambitious immigrant to 
 New York. For many years he lived in Montevideo, 
 capital of Uruguay, passively accepting the only 
 religious faith he knew anything about. Then one 
 night — he was now twenty-five years old — a friend 
 proposed in an idle moment that, just for the novelty 
 of it, they drop in at a theater where a preaching 
 service was to be held. 
 
 "I went with him more from curiosity than 
 interest," Penzotti said afterward. "We entered what 
 had been a theater, and what was then the only place 
 of preaching the gospel in the city. Later the house 
 became known as the Thirty-third Street Temple of 
 the Methodist Episcopal Church. ... I went out 
 from there that night profoundly impressed." No
 
 FRANCISCO PENZOTTI 207 
 
 Protestant in the city was half so energetic during the 
 next few weeks in attending services as Penzotti. His 
 enthusiasm and his talents attracted attention and he 
 was appointed an evangelist of the little embryo church 
 which was struggling so hard to make a place for itself 
 in the community. "Naturally I did not have the expe- 
 rience at that time which I now possess," he says, "but 
 instead I should like to possess to-day the zeal and 
 energy of those times." 
 
 Arrangements to launch the work of Bible dis- 
 tribution in the northern republics, particularly 
 Bolivia, had just been completed. Penzotti was chosen 
 to accompany Mr. Andrew Milne, the agent, on a pre- 
 liminary trip through these new and difficult regions. 
 The last man who had dared to sell Bibles in Bolivia 
 had been murdered and thrown into the river, and the 
 exploring party received due warning of what they 
 might expect: "Huge mountains bar the way to the 
 circulation of God's word there; mountains of preju- 
 dice and obstacles, that are only equaled by the 
 immense Andes themselves for altitude and difficulty, 
 have to be scaled and overcome." They met with 
 unexpected success, however. The civil authorities 
 helped them; the people, when not too much afraid 
 of the priests, were eager to hear the preaching and 
 read the Book; and in a few months over 5,000 Bibles 
 were sold. 
 
 The next year Penzotti was put in charge of the 
 campaign. Traveling in Bolivia in those days meant 
 riding on mule-back over abominable roads or no roads
 
 2o8 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 at all. There were no inns; no hospitable friends 
 waiting to welcome him; often nothing but the bare 
 ground to sleep on after a hard day; and no extra 
 money for comforts of any kind. But there were no 
 monotonous moments in that adventurous trip of 
 Penzotti's. The unexpected always lay in wait around 
 the next corner. In one of his audiences he was sur- 
 prised to see a number of priests who listened with 
 courteous attention to all he had to say. After the 
 service they hastened forward to shake hands and con- 
 gratulate him on his eloquence. They had come to 
 propose that he return to the Catholic fold, and as a 
 special inducement they promised that he should be 
 an ordained priest in a year's time. In the next city 
 he was given the municipal hall for his meetings and 
 people crowded to hear him. When the priest heard 
 of this he sent all the boys he could muster, armed with 
 rockets and tin horns, to interrupt the meeting, and for 
 a few minutes it was a hand-to-hand fight until the 
 rowdies were driven away. 
 
 The worst hornet's nest of all was the city of Cocha- 
 bamba. At first Penzotti made good sales, but as 
 soon as the priests discovered what was going on, 
 trouble began. The bishop, whose slightest word car- 
 ried great weight, circulated a warning among the 
 people against this "mutilated, adulterated and false" 
 Bible. Penzotti managed such situations with a high 
 hand. He took his Bible and a copy of the warning 
 and proceeded to the bishop's house. He always hked 
 to have it out face to face with the priests. "As he
 
 FRANCISCO PENZOTTI 209 
 
 did not know me, he gave me an entrance into his 
 study," Penzotti tells the story. "Once there I told 
 him that I was the one who had introduced the Bible 
 which he was calling false. I put one of my Bibles 
 in his hand and said to him : 'Be so kind as to prove 
 what you have said, since, if you do not, I have the 
 right to accuse you of libel before competent author- 
 ities.' It seemed to me that he was more frightened 
 than I should have been able to be. If he had been 
 another kind of man he would have had the people 
 after me, and there would not have remained any more 
 than my ashes !" But the bishop carelessly flipped over 
 the pages and remarked profoundly that these might 
 be the very best of books, yet since they were not 
 approved by the Church he had a papal order not to 
 admit them. 
 
 By this time the harm was done and the whole city 
 grew threatening. Five hundred women belonging 
 to a sacred order hurried from house to house to 
 warn families not to buy Bibles under pain of excom- 
 munication. Priests trailed Penzotti wherever he 
 went, crying: "Here comes the heretic! Beware!" 
 A bonfire in a public square meant that his wares 
 were being disposed of in the priests' own favorite 
 fashion. "I went on with my work as before," he 
 writes, "going from door to door, but in vain; there 
 was not a living soul that did not know, and the sale 
 stopped entirely. Indeed I had much to do to resist 
 the return of the books already sold, and had it not 
 been for the protection of the authorities I don't
 
 2IO MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 know how it might have fared with me. Several 
 warned me that I ought to withdraw, as my Hfe was 
 in danger." 
 
 Penzotti always has a ready answer for priestly 
 sallies. Once when he caught a priest in the act of 
 twisting the meaning of a Bible verse, he publicly 
 exposed the fraud. "Let me tell you that though you 
 have the best of me this time," said the priest furiously, 
 "this same Book says that the gates of hell shall not 
 prevail." 
 
 "Much less the gates of the Vatican," returned Pen- 
 zotti. 
 
 During his travels Penzotti found that the terrible 
 poverty of the people was often a hindrance to the 
 sales. Sometimes a fifty-cent Bible would be paid for 
 in several installments. He frequently distributed 
 books on approval. One old lady who had the rare 
 opportunity of comparing her Romish Bible with the 
 priest's own Bible, was greatly astonished to find the 
 latter just like the Bible the dreadful stranger had 
 left at her door. When she came upon the second 
 commandment, she exclaimed : "To think that this 
 should be here and the padre not teach it to us ! He 
 must be deceiving us in other things, too ; I shall learn 
 for myself." She kept her new Bible. 
 
 "After I left Cochabamba," Penzotti reported, "sev- 
 eral persons rushed into print, each one giving my 
 ears a pull, but withal I have no doubt it will in the 
 end contribute to the furtherance of the work." It 
 did. As often happens, opposition makes fine adver-
 
 FRANCISCO PENZOTTI 211 
 
 tising, and the fame of Penzotti and his book spread 
 far and wide. 
 
 From Bolivia he crossed over into Chile, a difficult 
 journey over the mountains. "You have to cross at a 
 height of 18,000 feet," he wrote, "where there are no 
 living beings nor vegetation of any kind. The only 
 indication of the way is the line of white dry bones 
 of beasts of burden and travelers killed in snow 
 storms." In the Chilean towns he was well received 
 and preached to large audiences who usually gathered 
 in the town hall or a theater. From one town he 
 reported : "Mr. Milne was here last year and sold so 
 many Bibles that most people have them. As a result, 
 there is a greater demand now for other instructive 
 books of which we have only a limited supply." At 
 the end of thirteen months of constant preaching, can- 
 vassing and traveling Penzotti returned to Montevideo. 
 In all this time not a line from his family or friends 
 had reached him because, as he said, "in the places 
 where I visited and was persecuted, one of the forms 
 which the persecution took was the capturing of my 
 correspondence." 
 
 Penzotti tells the story of a little colony of enthusi- 
 astic Protestants which sprang up all by itself in one 
 Chilean town : "A little more than a half century ago 
 this place was destroyed by a tidal wave. When the 
 waters retired the people went to remove the ruins in 
 search of what they could find. One man found, below 
 a strata of sand and mud, a book. For curiosity's sake 
 he carried it to his house, where he cleaned it and put
 
 212 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 it out to dry. It happened to be a New Testament. It 
 was a book unknown to him, so he read it to see what 
 it was all about. Various neighbors gathered to listen 
 to the reading of the marvelous book, and when I 
 visited this place I found the man at the head of an 
 interesting group of people, all converted by that book 
 dug out from the mud." 
 
 Because of his rare gifts as a Bible salesman, Pen- 
 zotti was appointed agent for the Pacific coast by the 
 American Bible Society in 1887, the year after his 
 trip through the north. "He is one to go forward 
 where others turn back," it was said of him, "and he 
 not only understands his work but loves it." So they 
 gave him the most important and difficult field of all, 
 Peru. With his family he went to Callao to live 
 and there in the heart of the enemies' country he 
 tackled the problem of religious freedom single-handed. 
 
 "Very little had been done with the Bible," he says, 
 "and the gospel had never been preached in the lan- 
 guage of the country. My first care was hunting a 
 place where I could preach to the people. Then I 
 went from door to door with the Bible, reading to the 
 people, explaining it to them, and inviting them to 
 attend the meetings. 
 
 "My first audience consisted of two people besides 
 ourselves. The following Sunday four people came; 
 the next ten; then we went up to twenty; after that, 
 to forty, fifty, sixty, eighty, until the hall could hold 
 no more, and the problem of hunting a larger place 
 presented itself. It was with difficulty that we were
 
 FRANCISCO PENZOTTI 213 
 
 able to find anything, and then what we found was 
 in such poor condition that with our own hands we 
 had to fix the ceiling, floor, Hghts, and make benches 
 and other necessary furniture. Many of those who 
 were interested came every night to get it ready. At 
 the same time I had to raise funds for the rent and to 
 buy materials." 
 
 From pulpit and press attacks came thick and fast, 
 and the civil authorities, wishing to keep their popu- 
 larity with the ruling class, did little to stop outbreaks 
 of violence in the streets. One city official at least was 
 not afraid to express his opinion. The clergy brought 
 him a petition demanding the banishment of Sefior 
 Penzotti. He told them he would attend a meeting 
 and see for himself what terrible harm there was in 
 it. He liked it. When the priests called next day he 
 said to them : "What do you wish to do to the gentle- 
 man anyway? He preaches the truth and that is pre- 
 cisely the thing we need." 
 
 Among other little tricks, the ingenious priests sold 
 thin paper images of the Virgin for which they claimed 
 miraculous powers. Whenever a foreigner carrying 
 a valise came into sight, this figure must be rolled into 
 a pill and swallowed as a means of protection against 
 the impending evil ! Processions formed and marched 
 past Penzotti's house shouting: "Long live the Apos- 
 tolic Roman Catholic religion!" and "Death to Pen- 
 zotti! Down with the Protestants!" Showers of 
 stones and mud were thrown at the house and insult- 
 ing epithets were chalked on its walls. Crowds of
 
 214 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 men, and even women, would gather in front of the 
 old warehouse used for the services, and lie in wait 
 to molest any one who went in or out. The keyhole 
 was so often stopped up with pebbles that a padlock 
 finally had to be put on the inside of the door. One 
 night a priest fastened on a padlock of his own and 
 locked in the whole audience. Then he crossed to the 
 sidewalk opposite to watch what happened. 
 
 "There was no other way of getting out than by 
 that door," says Penzotti. "There were a number of 
 windows but they were very high and had gratings. 
 One of the brothers did not come to the meeting that 
 night. About nine o'clock he felt a desire to come, 
 but said to himself: *It is very late; the meeting will 
 be over now.' Yet it seemed that something told him 
 to go to the hall; and so he just put on his hat and 
 came. On reaching the door he heard us singing a 
 hymn. He wanted to come in but the door was locked 
 with a padlock on the outside. He could not imagine 
 what had happened, and then the thought came : 'Some 
 enemy has done this!' Feeling around in his pocket 
 he discovered a key that unlocked the padlock. He 
 opened the door. The priest who was observing on 
 the opposite sidewalk, lifted his hands to his head 
 exclaiming: 'These heretics have the devil's own pro- 
 tection!' " 
 
 Penzotti had been particularly warned to keep away 
 from Arequipa, the most Catholic city in the whole 
 country. Sure enough, he had been there only a few 
 hours when his arrest was ordered by an influential
 
 FRANCISCO PENZOTTI 215 
 
 bishop, he was clapped into jail on the charge of selling 
 corrupt literature, and his boxes of books confiscated. 
 During nineteen days of imprisonment Penzotti made 
 friends among the other prisoners and held services 
 for them. They seemed to like what they heard, espe- 
 cially the inspector who had arrested him at the 
 mayor's command. When the order for his release 
 came from the president at Lima, Penzotti found the 
 beaming inspector waiting at the prison door to con- 
 gratulate him and invite him home to breakfast. 
 
 A few months later, in July, 1890, Penzotti was 
 arrested and imprisoned in Callao without bail. The 
 article of the Peruvian constitution which he was 
 accused before the court of crimes of violating was 
 this : "The State professes and protects the Apos- 
 tolic Roman Catholic religion, excluding all other 
 public worship." As a matter of fact Penzotti had 
 taken great pains beforehand to understand this law 
 and act within his rights; for he had been told by the 
 Peruvian minister of justice, through the United 
 States legation : "You can do whatever the constitu- 
 tion allows and nothing that it forbids." A service of 
 worship, to be considered "private," had to be held in 
 an orderly manner, with closed doors, and no one 
 admitted except by tickets obtained in advance. These 
 requirements had been scrupulously met. For seventy 
 years the Church of England in Peru had held services 
 in English and met with no opposition; while on the 
 same block with Penzotti's warehouse, the Chinese 
 population peacefully worshiped in their joss house.
 
 2i6 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 The whole situation was just this : the Roman Church 
 would not tolerate Protestant preaching in the Spanish 
 language. 
 
 "The plan of my enemies in placing me in an 
 unbearable cell," said Penzotti, "was that I might die 
 in it, or solicit liberty on condition that I leave the 
 country. When I had been in prison forty days my 
 wife went to Lima to talk things over with a represen- 
 tative of a foreign government to see if he could do 
 anything. He replied : T believe I could do something 
 at once to secure his liberty on condition that he goes 
 directly on board ship and leaves the country.' My 
 wife said to him : *Mr. Consul, we have come to remain 
 in Peru, and it has not entered our minds to leave it.' " 
 
 In his broken English Penzotti wrote to the Bible 
 Society in New York : "To-day is sixteen days I am 
 shut in the prison with the criminal people. The Cath- 
 olic people are doing very much to make our work 
 stop, but for all that I can see, they are lighting more 
 the fire and doing the work good. 
 
 "In Peru the people are thinking of asking the gov- 
 ernment to grant them liberty of worship and the presi- 
 dent is going to do all he can for it. Many distin- 
 guished people from the capital come to see me in my 
 prison and want me to explain the Bible, and have 
 much love for our work. The alcalde told me I am 
 gaining more in these days of prison than in ten years 
 of work. I am doing what I can with the prisoners. 
 They have made a petition for me to preach to them 
 Sundays."
 
 FRANCISCO PENZOTTI 217 
 
 It was in a dark, damp, underground dungeon that 
 the priests had landed their quarry while they tried to 
 prove that holding religious services for a handful of 
 Protestants in a private room was illegal. This dun- 
 geon was an arched place built into the side of a hill, 
 and had been used in the days of the Spaniards for a 
 gun-powder vault. Now that it was occupied by 
 human beings the people called it Casas Mafas, or 
 "The House that Kills." Penzotti found written on 
 the wall of his cell a little Spanish verse. In English 
 it is this : 
 
 "Cell of my sorrows, 
 
 Grave of living men; 
 
 More terrible than death, 
 
 Severer far than fetters." 
 
 The worst criminals in the State were kept here, any 
 one of whom "would willingly have stuck a knife into 
 him for $5 and a promise of freedom." Meals con- 
 sisted entirely of raw peas and parboiled rice. The 
 governor of the prison liked Penzotti and allowed him 
 to receive visitors who often brought him food. 
 Through them he continued to direct his work. 
 
 "My family and my congregation were also perse- 
 cuted," he wrote. "Plowever, they were not annihil- 
 ated, but went on with the work without missing a 
 single service during those months that I remained in 
 prison." 
 
 The lawsuit dragged along as slowly as the priests 
 could make it. Three times Penzotti was acquitted, 
 and the case taken to a higher court. On the obsolete
 
 2i8 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 principle that a man is guilty until he can prove his 
 innocence he was paying the penalty for what he had 
 not done. Excitement over the case spread through 
 the whole country. In Lima 2,000 people, among 
 them the leading citizens of the city, held a mass meet- 
 ing to agitate the question of religious liberty. The 
 press and all liberal elements were roused in his favor, 
 and when even political pressure had failed to free 
 him, loud were the demands for a change in the consti- 
 tution. So great was the popular interest in Penzotti's 
 predicament that merchants referred to it in their 
 business advertisements : 
 
 THE PENZOTTI QUESTION 
 
 Rice and Cocoa at Reasonable Prices. 
 For Sale at Blank's 
 
 On walls and sidewalks enthusiastic citizens ex- 
 pressed their sentiments in chalk. Some of these signs 
 read : "Death to Penzotti ! Down with all Protes- 
 tants!" Others said: "Hurrah for Penzotti! Down 
 with the priests!" Whenever the Penzotti children 
 left the house they were followed by jeering mobs, and 
 it became necessary to send the two oldest daughters 
 to Santiago to school, so great was the danger and 
 humiliation of their position in Callao. 
 
 Then help came from an unexpected quarter. A 
 prominent New York mining engineer, Mr. E. E. 
 Olcott, had been making a tour of the desolate min-
 
 FRANCISCO PENZOTTI 219 
 
 ing regions of Peru. One Sunday morning just after 
 he had returned to Lima from the wilderness, he saw a 
 cHpping from a New York paper saying that a Protes- 
 tant missionary was confined in a Callao jail. He gave 
 the item little thought, believing it to be merely news- 
 paper talk. But after attending service at the little 
 Episcopal church, he dropped in at the English Club 
 to make inquiries from his acquaintances there. 
 
 "Any truth in that statement? Well, I should say 
 so !" he was told. "You're a nice Christian to be going 
 to church this morning ! You ought to be doing some- 
 thing to get this man out of jail. Come down on the 
 one o'clock train to Callao with me, and you'll have a 
 chance to see for yourself." 
 
 That afternoon Mr. Olcott found Senor Penzotti 
 out in the courtyard of the prison, surrounded by 
 friends from his congregation. One woman who was 
 there said to Mr. Olcott: "Oh, we must get him out 
 from here. He is the first one who ever told me I 
 could go directly to my Savior and talk things over. 
 I always thought I had to go to the padre." 
 
 "Show me where you sleep," Mr. Olcott asked him. 
 "They say that it's pretty hard." It was one large 
 room, unlighted and unaired. At night the 165 
 prisoners, men and women, some of them murderers, 
 were all huddled in there together to sleep as best they 
 could on the damp floor. 
 
 "I'm going to send my photographer down here to- 
 morrow," said Mr. Olcott when he was leaving. This 
 was before the day of the kodak and snapshot.
 
 220 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 "You can't get a picture without permission, and 
 they will never give you permission," Penzotti told 
 him. 
 
 It was two days before Mr. Olcott had to sail for 
 New York. He went back to Lima and said to his 
 young assistant : "I want you to go over to Callao to- 
 morrow and take photographs of the cathedral and 
 the post-office and the custom-house and the city hall. 
 Then go down to the jail and find a prisoner there with 
 a long, bushy black beard, named Penzotti. Get him 
 to show you where he sleeps. When he goes inside, 
 you stay outside and push the door shut. He'll look 
 out of the window to see what's become of you. Then 
 take a picture of him looking through the bars." 
 
 The next night the boy returned pale and trembling 
 and so excited he could hardly tell what had happened. 
 "They almost kept me in the jail too," he said. "I'd 
 just taken the picture when a guard rushed down and 
 wanted to know what I was doing. I told him I'd only 
 just arrived, and I got away with the plates, but the 
 police are after me!" 
 
 They set to work at once to develop the pictures. 
 The plates were put to dry in an air bath and a little 
 later Mr. Olcott came in with a lighted candle to see 
 if they were behaving properly. A loud explosion fol- 
 lowed. With his hair and eyebrows badly singed Mr. 
 Olcott hastened to examine the oven, expecting to find 
 his plates destroyed. But the explosion, it proved, had 
 been in the lower part, and there on the top shelf sat 
 the plates uninjured. The next day they were smug-
 
 FRANCISCO PENZOTTI 221 
 
 gled on board the steamer and hidden under the pillow 
 in Mr, Olcott's stateroom. 
 
 The picture of Penzotti gazing from the prison win- 
 dow was published in the Nciv York Herald with an 
 article which caused extensive comment. Other influ- 
 ential people became interested, and diplomatic pres- 
 sure was brought to bear. On the same day cable- 
 grams from the Court of St. James and Washington 
 reached Lima. "A taste of feudalism like this," said 
 an editorial in the Herald, "gives us a new and strange 
 sensation. When the Pope declares himself in favor 
 of religious liberty it seems odd for one of the South 
 American States, and that a Republic, to hang back. 
 But we haven't any doubt that Peru will pull herself 
 together and see that the stigma of imprisonment for 
 religion's sake is wiped out." 
 
 "It is no longer Penzotti, a prisoner before the whole 
 world," people said, "it is Peru which is a prisoner in 
 the hands of the clergy." 
 
 Just three weeks after Mr. Olcott reached New York 
 Penzotti was released from "The House that Kills." 
 Years after the two men met in Panama when Pen- 
 zotti embraced Mr. Olcott in true South American 
 fashion and greeted him as "Mi Salvador." 
 
 "I left the prison at five o'clock in the afternoon, 
 accompanied by a great number of people who sur- 
 rounded and congratulated me. On the following 
 Sunday the church was packed with people until there 
 wasn't even room for a pin. From that time the work 
 continued to grow without many persecutions or diffi-
 
 222 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 culties." The record of Bibles sold in Peru showed 
 one result of the impetus which publicity gave the 
 work: in 1892, 18,000 more were sold than in 1891. 
 
 After his acquittal Senor Penzotti called at the 
 headquarters of the foreign legations in Lima. In a 
 newspaper next day, one of the officials said this of 
 him : "We were able to appreciate for ourselves the 
 magnanimity which characterizes him. Not a single 
 word of reproach fell from his lips, nor a single com- 
 plaint against his persecutors." 
 
 He started at once on a trip down the coast to 
 superintend the work of the Bible Society. That was 
 Penzotti's way of taking a much-needed vacation. 
 
 The next year he was appointed agent for Central 
 America and the Isthmus of Panama, and since 1908 
 he has superintended the work of the River Plate 
 republics. His successor in Peru, Dr. Thomas B. 
 Wood, wrote: "The work that Penzotti has accom- 
 plished in Peru as a founder and pioneer is a success 
 that not many can gainsay. The way seems open to 
 go up and possess the whole land." In November, 
 191 5, the Roman Catholic clause of the constitution 
 was struck out, and to-day any form of worship is 
 legal. 
 
 "Now, on going to Peru," says Penzotti, "all doors 
 are open to me except the prison doors, thanks to God."
 
 W. BARBROOKE GRUBB
 
 W. BARBROOKE GRUBB
 
 W. BARBROOKE GRUBB 
 
 The little Republic of Paraguay is cut in two by 
 the River Paraguay. Along the eastern bank are 
 rows of towns twinkling with electric lights at night 
 time; across the river dark forests loom against the 
 sky, and a lonely Indian camp-fire shines through the 
 trees. On one side, the river steamers dock at busy 
 wharves; on the other, gourds are rattling, and In- 
 dians chant weird songs. The civilized and the primi- 
 tive are there side by side, with only the river between 
 them. 
 
 The western section of Paraguay is a rank wilder- 
 ness of swamps, thickets, and big trees, one of the 
 most grewsome places in the world to travel about in. 
 It is a part of El Gran Chaco, a desolate country of 
 200,000 square miles which extends down into northern 
 Argentina. Horror and mystery still cling to the name 
 Chaco — a name to conjure evil spirits with, the Para- 
 guayans think. When expeditions used to appear 
 there, bent on capturing slaves or subduing wild 
 tribes, the natives would scurry out of the way like 
 frightened animals; then slyly emerge from their 
 hiding-places and murder their pursuers. Even the 
 Jesuits, with their genius for putting a civilized finish 
 on savages, never made any headway with the Chaco 
 
 225
 
 226 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 Indians. A trip into their territory was once an ad- 
 venture that few men Hvcd to repeat, even though 
 their errand was nothing more objectionable than sur- 
 veying the land or collecting flower specimens. 
 
 The government once cared nothing for its Indian 
 residents, and they had no share in the fortunes of the 
 country. When Paraguay went to war they enjoyed 
 it mightily. Said one old chief: "We heard firing and 
 knew war was going on. We could not understand 
 Christians killing each other — we only kill enemies; 
 we never fight with members of our own tribe. We 
 crossed over in our canoes at night to see what was 
 the matter. We entered a house — no one there. We 
 saw some cattle — no one in charge. We took all we 
 could carry. The cattle we could not get to cross the 
 river, so we killed all we could and took the meat. We 
 continued to do this night after night. By day we 
 feasted, by night we robbed. What a fine time we 
 had! We wish the Christians would fight again." 
 
 In 1890 the South American Missionary Society — 
 Allen Gardiner's Society — sent W. Barbrooke Grubb, 
 then twenty-three years old, to explore and open up 
 the country of the Lengua-Mascoy Indians, one of 
 the two largest tribes living in the Paraguayan Chaco. 
 The easiest thing for Grubb to do was to settle down 
 near the river and civilization, and by making friends 
 of the coast Indians gradually learn the customs and 
 language of the tribe. Instead of this he decided to 
 burn all his bridges behind him and strike right into 
 the heart of the Chaco, where he could live among the
 
 W. BARBROOKE GRUBB 227 
 
 people in their own wild, native haunts. No half-way 
 measures appealed to Grubb. First he set out in a 
 steam launch to see if the interior could be reached by- 
 water. He found that every stream was blocked by 
 masses of reeds and rushes, and it was impossible for 
 the little boat to nose her way through the tangle. 
 Canoeing was particularly dangerous. For instance, 
 "when attempting to land on a bank where an old 
 alligator was sitting, it ran at the canoe open-mouthed, 
 and our missionary planted his paddle in its mouth. 
 This it crunched up like matchwood. He then gave 
 it a piece of hard iron to chew, upon which it could 
 make but little impression. While it firmly held the 
 bar of iron in its mouth, Grubb jumped ashore and 
 dispatched it with an ax." 
 
 So it was on foot and on horseback that Grubb 
 pushed into the interior over the same wild trails 
 where many a large party, heavily armed, had been 
 assassinated by the Indians. People were horrified to 
 learn that he had gone without guards or weapons, 
 and with only a few unreliable river Indians for 
 guides. "He hasn't a chance in a thousand," they 
 said, and three times during his first expedition his 
 death was reported. Once he had to paddle all night 
 to reach a point where he could send word to the au- 
 thorities that he was very much alive and not anxious 
 to have an announcement of his murder sent home to 
 his friends. He had already worked for four years 
 among the savages of Tierra del Fuego, and the ex- 
 perience had taught him much. It was his policy to
 
 228 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 travel unprotected to show his friendhncss and to 
 prove that he had no fear; and lie never admitted 
 weakness hy asking help from any chief, or by l)ril)ing 
 the Indians with presents. To assume at all times 
 and under all circumstances a dignified authority — 
 that was Grubb's working plan. 
 
 On his first long trip he took five very reluctant 
 Indian guides. Just as he arrived at an isolated vil- 
 lage named Kilmesakthlapomap, "the place of burnt 
 pigs," they refused to go on, fearful lest they be killed 
 along with the foreigner. This left him stranded in 
 a strange place, but instead of bargaining with them 
 to stay he dismissed them curtly, and prepared to camp 
 for the night. With a few words and many gestures 
 he ordered one of the village Indians to water his 
 horse, another to fill his kettle. "Beckoning to a 
 woman," he says, *T pointed to a shady tree near by, 
 and, sitting down upon the ground, gave her to under- 
 stand that I would camp untler that tree, and pointing 
 to a fire I told her to take it and place it there for my 
 convenience. I then walked around the village, beat- 
 ing off the dogs with my whip, and selected a piece 
 of pumpkin here and a few potatoes there. These I 
 gave to a man, and signed to him to put them under 
 the tree where I intended to camp. By this time my 
 horse had been brought back, so I unsaddled it, and 
 then gave the lad instructions as well as I could to 
 let it loose and to look after it." Finally he made up 
 a bed on top of his baggage and went to sleep. 
 
 The Indians were so astonished at the fearlessness
 
 W. BARBROOKE GRUBB 229 
 
 of their visitor that they forgot to be suspicious. This 
 must be a great white chief who knew perhaps even 
 more wonderful things than their own wizards and 
 witch-doctors. They decided to find out how easy it 
 would be to take advantage of him. In the middle of 
 the night two of them stole toward his camp, and 
 began to extract bits of his property from the pile on 
 which he was sleeping. All was breathlessly still. 
 Then right in their ears sounded the biggest war- 
 whoop Grubb knew how to make, and utterly terrified, 
 they vanished in the darkness. The rest of the night 
 he spent in peace. 
 
 Next morning Grubb sent for the chief of the village 
 and told him he wanted guides, the salary to be a pair 
 of cotton trousers for each man. The only Indian to 
 volunteer was a witch-doctor who could not resist the 
 temptation of owning a pair of white trousers with 
 a British lion and "30 yds. Manchester" stamped in 
 blue ink on one leg. 
 
 On returning to Villa Concepcion, his base of sup- 
 plies, Grubb heard that the station of an English land 
 company had been looted by a party of Indians. Peo- 
 ple laughed at him when he said he was going into the 
 wilderness to catch the thieves and make them pay for 
 all they had taken. He rode eighteen miles on the 
 same horse with an old Indian who promised to show 
 him the way. The culprits agreed to pay back in skins 
 and feathers what they had stolen, on condition that 
 he settle down and live with them. The presence of 
 such a curiosity, they thought, would give them greater
 
 230 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 prestige among other clans. Griibb cheerfully agreed 
 to the proposal, and set about establishing his first 
 settlement in the Chaco. 
 
 He directed his new friends to build him a hut of 
 palm-logs and sticks, with grass thatching, and to put 
 a bush in the doorway to keep out prowling dogs — a 
 necessary precaution, for it was considered bad luck 
 to kill a dog and each family owned at least three. 
 Provisions of sun-dried meat were hung from the 
 rafters, a tempting display to the Indian eye. One 
 night when he was snoozing on his sheepskin spread 
 out on the floor, Grubb heard some one stealthily tear- 
 ing a hole in the grass wall of his hut. From it 
 emerged a shaggy black head which he immediately 
 seized by the back hair. "I inquired who my visitor 
 was," he says, "and from muffled sounds I discovered 
 it was Alligator Stomach." This was a cook whose 
 chief failing was a fondness for sampling the soup 
 and meat, before he served it, until there was very 
 little left for any one else. "By way of explaining he 
 coolly told me that he had heard dogs near my hut, and 
 fearing for the safety of the meat he had simply come 
 to drive them out. Still retaining my hold of him, I 
 asked why he had gone to the trouble of breaking 
 through my wall instead of coming through the door- 
 way, and told him that in my opinion he was the dog ; 
 then, pushing his head roughly through the hole, I 
 bade him be gone." 
 
 Grubb had great sympathy with the native customs 
 of the Indians, and he wished to preserve all those not
 
 W. BARBROOKE GRUBB 231 
 
 directly harmful. The object of a missionary, as he 
 puts it, "is to win men for Christ, and not to make 
 them Englishmen." One foreign importation he re- 
 fused to tolerate was the cheap whisky which coast 
 Indians sometimes brought into the interior to sell. 
 One day he was drinking a bitter dose of quinin mix- 
 ture when an Indian came into his hut and caught 
 sight of the medicine. 
 
 "Aha!" said the Indian, sniffing, "this smells like 
 foreign liquor." And his expression seemed to add : 
 "This stuff is bad for us, but I see you can drink it." 
 
 "If you will promise to say nothing about it, I will 
 give you some of this," Grubb said to him. 
 
 His eyes gleaming with anticipation, the Indian 
 gulped down a good dose; his face screwed up into 
 lines of horror and surprise, and sputtering violently 
 he vanished into the woods. 
 
 While on a hunting trip with the Indians, Grubb 
 found a possible site for a mission station in a region 
 called Thlagnasinkinmith, or "the place of many wood- 
 ticks," and at once he began the process of moving. 
 So far all provisions had been fetched from the river 
 by Indian carriers, a laborious business not often to 
 the taste of those selected to go. 
 
 One man, for instance, threatened to make serious 
 trouble. It was too far and there would be too much 
 to carry back, he said. 
 
 "Oh! What a mistake I have made!" exclaimed 
 Grubb. "I thought I was speaking to one of the men, 
 but I see it was one of the girls. Go away and weave
 
 232 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 blankets, my girl. Of course no one could expect you 
 to go all the way to the river and carry heavy burdens." 
 
 All day long the Indian sulked. Then, armed and 
 all ready to pick a quarrel, he came to Grubb and asked 
 defiantly : 
 
 "Are you angry?" 
 
 "I am very angry!" said Grubb crisply and turned 
 his back. 
 
 "I am just going to follow the men you have sent to 
 the river, and help bring out your things," came a 
 meek little voice behind him. There was no trifling 
 with the great white chief! 
 
 Grubb determined to try the experiment of trans- 
 porting supplies from the river to the new station by 
 a cart and bullocks, and with the help of a few re- 
 luctant Indians, he cut the first track into the interior. 
 The witch-doctors, who hated him because he laughed 
 at their tricks, plotted to kill him by magic if he dared 
 open up their wilderness to foreigners. But their 
 threats added zest to the game. The trail was rough 
 and in the rainy season almost impassable, but it has 
 made history in the Chaco, for over it came the white 
 men and civilization. 
 
 Two more missionaries were sent from England, 
 and sixty miles further inland Grubb established a 
 central station. When he came back to Thlagnasin- 
 kinmith to move his property, he had to reprove the 
 Indians for some fault, and as usual they took offense 
 and deserted him. 
 
 For ten days he lived alone in his log hut. "The
 
 W. BARBROOKE GRUBB 233 
 
 wild scene around me," he wrote, "and the strange 
 stillness so peculiar to the tropics, broken only by the 
 weird sounds of insect and animal life, so worked upon 
 my nerves that I imagined all the beasts of the forest 
 were congregating nightly around my hut. The 
 nearest human being, as far as I knew, was quite 
 thirty miles off, and I had not even a dog as a com- 
 panion." When a party of Indians finally appeared 
 the only ones who would help with his bullock cart 
 were two sulky old men and one boy. For seven long 
 days, Grubb fought his way through marshes and 
 forests and across rivers, almost single-handed, for 
 one of the men was ill with fever, and the others 
 usually stood by and watched when any hard work 
 was to be done. 
 
 For five years Grubb lived the life of the Indians, 
 roaming from village to village, first with one clan, 
 then with another, learning their language and win- 
 ning their confidence. He went hunting and camping 
 with them, and when the day's game was unusually 
 plentiful, he joined in their feasts and celebrations. 
 "I used to enter heartily into these festivities, dancing 
 and singing with them night after night, my face and 
 arms painted red with uriica dye, my head adorned 
 with feathers, and my body ornamented as far as 
 possible in true Indian style." Like the rest he ate 
 only once a day, and dipped his share of the repulsive 
 food out of the greasy clay pot used in common by the 
 whole company. The best water supply was found in 
 the caraguata plant which holds about a pint in the
 
 234 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 hollow formed by its spiked leaves and tlujrns. This 
 liquid the Indians would strain through the crown of a 
 hat or a piece of old blanket to catch the water spiders 
 and dead leaves. Often thirst drove them all to drink 
 mud puddles or green, slimy water which even the 
 animals refused to touch. One custom, whenever In- 
 dians met each other or sat around the camp-fire to- 
 gether, was to pass a common pipe from mouth to 
 mouth. It was their way of being sociable, and it 
 would have been a deadly insult to refuse the pipe or 
 to wipe it off before smoking. Cirul)l)'s turn might 
 come after an Indian who had been dining on a 
 savoury rattlesnake, but he never flinched. He took 
 part in wrestling matches and water sports, romped 
 with the children, and chatted gayly with the women, 
 whose favor was worth winning, for they held an im- 
 portant position in the community life. The men were 
 all used to long marches from one hunting ground to 
 another, and their powers of endurance, trained by 
 years of continual wandering over the country, were 
 tremendous. Grubb never allowed himself to betray 
 his weariness. What they did, he did. 
 
 The deadly fear of evil spirits and the souls of de- 
 parted friends prowling in the night casts a black 
 shadow over the lives of the Chaco Indians until they 
 have been taught to know better. No people in the 
 world have a greater horror of ghosts, and nothing 
 can make them venture away from their cluster of 
 camps after the sun sets. After a death the burial 
 rites are always performed before dark, and some-
 
 W. BARBROOKE GRUBB 235 
 
 times in such a hurry that a victim unfortunate enough 
 not to die earHer in the day is buried alive. Then, in 
 terror of the wandering spirit of the dead, the Indians 
 abandon and destroy the village where they have been 
 living and hurry on to build their wretched little 
 shelters somewhere else. 
 
 Grubb's influence became so great that, after much 
 reasoning with one clan on the occasion of an old 
 man's death, he made them promise not to destroy 
 their village as usual. But to be on the safe side they 
 pulled down all their huts and built more in a position 
 where they would be protected, by Grubb's own hut, 
 from the grave and the approaching ghost. Just a 
 few days before this the village witch-doctor had been 
 persuaded to build himself a real little cabin of which 
 he was very proud. This he could not bear to pull 
 down, so he blocked up the doorway and cut an open- 
 ing on the opposite side — a device intended to baffle 
 the puzzled ghost, should he try to enter. The night 
 following the burial was a hideous one for all con- 
 cerned. 
 
 "I was awakened by a terrible hubbub among the 
 people," says Grubb. "The few guns they had were 
 being fired ofif, arrows were whizzing through the air, 
 women were shrieking and beating on the ground with 
 sticks, children crying, dogs barking, and goats and 
 sheep running hither and thither." Some one had 
 dreamed that the ghost had entered Grubb's hut for a 
 little chat, and dreams were always believed. Any 
 communication with a departed spirit was considered
 
 236 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 an unpardonable sin, and the angry people came to 
 kill him. He offered to disprove their theory by walk- 
 ing over the grave; then, since that failed to satisfy 
 them, he lay down on the floor again, drew the mos- 
 quito netting into place with a bored air, and appar- 
 ently went to sleep. Perhaps the Indians were not 
 anxious to have a second spirit ambling about the 
 village, for they never carried out their threat. It was 
 another mile-stone in the progress of Grubb's Chaco 
 Mission. For the first time in their history, the 
 Lengua-Mascoy Indians had remained in a village 
 where death had occurred. 
 
 The witch-doctors were the greatest hindrance to 
 establishing mission stations and their influence was 
 always an evil one. Grubb never lost a chance to dis- 
 credit them in the eyes of the people. Once a heavy 
 rain did extensive damage to the village, and the 
 wizard, supposed to have the power of raising storms 
 whenever he liked, was the center of admiration. It so 
 happened that his own garden was ruined by the rain. 
 "Now," said Grubb to the crowd of Indians, "when he 
 engineered that storm, why did he not arrange that 
 it should not damage his own property?" 
 
 An hysterical old woman was supposed to be 
 possessed of an evil spirit. While four men were 
 holding her down and a wizard was trying to drive out 
 the demon, Grubb strolled up with a bottle of strong 
 liquid ammonia, and held it under the patient's nose. 
 Her cure was instantaneous and complete. To find 
 out how they managed their tricks, Grubb feigned a
 
 W. BARBROOKE GRUBB 237 
 
 pain in his arm and sent for old Redhead, the witch- 
 doctor. After sucking the painful spot, Redhead pro- 
 duced three fish-bones and announced that they had 
 been wished upon him by some unfriendly wizard who 
 lived in the western Chaco. "They are not nice people 
 in the West," he said. "Quite different from us who 
 love you and are your friends." Old Redhead's love 
 was not apparent, however, when Grubb, taking him 
 unawares, pried his mouth open and pulled out his 
 whole secret store of fish-bones. 
 
 "We have to be very careful indeed," says Grubb 
 of the Indians, "when appealing to their religious feel- 
 ings, to avoid sensationalism, for they are easily 
 worked upon, and the result would be a superficial 
 rather than a permanent gain." In the whole Chaco 
 Mission there is not a particle of the mysticism and 
 glitter, none of the elaborate religious ceremonies 
 which used to throw the Guarani Indians of the old 
 Jesuit towns into emotional spasms which passed for 
 religion. Simple exercises are sometimes held to 
 honor men or women who have been plucky enough to 
 lay aside a pet tradition. Four women, who had 
 helped in the fight against infanticide by sparing the 
 lives of four children each, were publicly praised, pre- 
 sented with printed certificates and crowned with 
 flower wreaths, all on a raised platform where they 
 could be shining examples of courage for the rest of 
 the Indians. 
 
 Because the conversion of the Lengua-Mascoys is 
 genuine and lasting when it does occur, the process
 
 238 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 has been a long one. It was seven years before the 
 first church was built. In 1898 the first two converts 
 joined it — Philip and James they were called, because 
 their real names were too long to pronounce. In the 
 days of the Jesuits the priests commanded ; the people 
 obeyed, and never learned how to depend on them- 
 selves. Grubb's policy is to guide his Indians till they 
 can direct their own lives along new lines, managing 
 their church, directing their schools and industries, 
 civilizing their own people. "I am perfectly sure of 
 one thing," says Mr. Grubb, "and that is, that until 
 the Indians themselves become the evangelists of their 
 own people we shall never succeed in building up a 
 powerful church." The very first convert was per- 
 suaded to give a little talk before his clan about the 
 things he had learned. 
 
 "These people," he said, pointing to Mr. Grubb and 
 the other missionaries of the station, "have told us that 
 a long time ago the Son of God came from above in 
 the form of a man, and lived in a country not very far 
 from their own. He preached his good news to the 
 people of that country, and they in turn told it to 
 others. This Son of God explains to us many things 
 we do not know, and shows us that our traditions are 
 wrong. We have known these people for some years, 
 and we have always found them truthful and friendly 
 to us. We are sure, therefore, that they are not de- 
 ceiving us." 
 
 Repeatedly in the history of races primitive peoples 
 have gradually dwindled and disappeared after com-
 
 W. BARBROOKE GRUBB 239 
 
 ing in contact with civilization, which has far too often 
 meant customs, clothing, and manners most appro- 
 priate for white men but ridiculously unsuitable for 
 savages. Mr. Grubb's is the magnificent creed of 
 modern missions : "To arrest the decline and decay of 
 the race; to bind the various tribes together; to give 
 them a system of government; to raise them to the 
 level of property-holders; to induce them to adopt an 
 industrious, settled, and regular life; to instil into 
 them a higher moral sense; to awaken a desire for 
 culture and progress; to fit them to receive the offer 
 of the Paraguayan government of citizenship in that 
 Republic; to make them useful members of society, a 
 people who could bear their part in the development 
 of their own land, and take their due place as a unit 
 in the growing population of a great continent. The 
 only way we could succeed in doing this was by im- 
 planting in them a pure, living form of Christianity, 
 which would become the basis of their political, social, 
 and moral constitution." 
 
 To-day in the heart of the Chaco there is a village 
 called the Garden Colony of Enmakthlawaia where 
 each Indian owns his own house, garden, and cattle, 
 earns his living by a good trade, has money put away 
 in the Indian bank, knows how to read and write, and 
 sends his children to school. The men of this village 
 make their own laws and see that they are enforced. 
 When they decree that no witch-craft can be practised 
 within the village boundaries, and along comes a party 
 of outsiders to indulge in wizards' tricks, native police-
 
 240 MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 men sally forth and use their "biUies" to good ad- 
 vantage. 
 
 The day is passed when tourists dare not enter the 
 Chaco. "Before I arrived in South America," says 
 one EngHshman who visited the Garden Colony in 
 idle curiosity, "I knew no one connected with the mis- 
 sion, and, having nothing to do with missionary work, 
 my criticism is absolutely that of an outsider. They 
 really do seem to be building up and educating the 
 Indian on such excellent lines that I firmly believe it 
 will prove of a permanent character, and eventually 
 become a self-governing body. When one thinks that 
 but ten years ago it was dangerous to one's life to 
 venture into the Chaco, while now there are numerous 
 cstancias on the border, and one can now go for a 
 hundred and more miles into the interior with com- 
 parative safety, it shows that the missionaries have 
 got the 'thin edge of the wedge' well thrust in. 
 
 "These men and women are making savages into 
 reasonable, peace-abiding people, and — what touches 
 the commercial world more — they are making what 
 was once considered a piece of waste land, the size of 
 England and Scotland, of real commercial value. 
 Landowners in the Paraguayan Chaco owe all this to 
 the English Mission, and especially to Mr. W. B. 
 Grubb, the pioneer and backbone of the whole under- 
 taking." 
 
 The story of the Chaco Mission, like that of all 
 great achievements, leaves untold half the adventures 
 and dangers and difficulties that are calmly accepted
 
 W. BARBROOKE GRUBB 241 
 
 as all a part of the day's program. They are the 
 privilege of explorers, scientists, sea-captains, bridge- 
 builders, missionaries — all the men who lead the way 
 for others to follow. A tourist in Paraguay said of 
 the Chaco missionaries : "Like the plucky young fel- 
 lows they are, they seem to have concealed the real 
 hardships they endure." 
 
 But Mr. Grubb, when he looks backward, will tell 
 you that those early years, exploring the wilderness 
 and living as the Indians lived, were the happiest in 
 his whole life.
 
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 BIBLIOGRAPHY 247 
 
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