 15 A famous story of American history is that which tells of the massacre of the French settlers in Florida by the Spaniards of St. Augustine, and of the signal revenge taken on the murderers by the French chevalier Dominique de Gaughe. There is a parallel tale to tell about Brazil, not so full of the element of romance, yet for all that an interesting story and well worth the telling. The great Portuguese colony of Brazil, like many of the Spanish colonies, was open to the attacks of buccaneers and of freelancers of the sea bearing the flags of various countries of Europe. There was not an important port of the country except its capital, Rio de Janeiro, that escaped attack by hostile fleets eager for spoil during the seventeenth century, and early in the eighteenth, Rio itself was made the victim of assault. A city of over twelve thousand people and the gateway to a rich gold mining country in the rear, its wealth invited a visit from the prize-seekers, though the strength of its population and garrison long kept these away. Its turn for assault came in seventeen ten. In that year, a squadron appeared in the waters outside the harbor on which the people looked with doubt. It flew the French flag and that standard had not been a welcome visitor in the past. In fact, it was commanded by a daring Frenchman named Ducleque, who was on the seas for spoil. But a look at the strong defences of the harbor entrance and some exchange of shots warned him of the perils that would attend an attempt to pass them by force, and he sailed on to a point some forty miles down the coast, where he landed a party of a thousand marines. His design to attack the city with this small party seemed folly. The governor, Francisco de Castro, had a force of eight thousand Portuguese troops besides five thousand armed Negroes and several hundred Indian bowmen. But he lacked the heart of a soldier, and Ducleque's marines marched like so many buccaneers through the forest for seven days without meeting a foeman. Even when near the city, the only enemies in sight were a handful of men led by a friar, who attacked them boldly in defense of his church. After capturing this, the daring French charged into the city in the face of the fire from the forts on the surrounding hills, to which the governor's troops had been withdrawn. The very boldness of the assault and the failure of the governor to guard the streets with troops nearly led to success. Little resistance was made by the few soldiers in the city, and the French traversed the narrow streets until the central square was reached. Here they met their first check from a party of fifty students, who had entered the palace of the governor and fired upon them from the windows. The first French assailants who forced their way in were taken prisoners and tied to the furniture. In the custom house adjoining was the magazine. Here as the storekeeper was hastily giving out ammunition a fellow with a lighted match approached and carelessly set fire to the powder. In a moment the building was blown into the air, and the palace, which the French were still assailing, was set on fire. The people were now rising, and the several detachments into which the attacking force had divided found themselves fiercely assailed. Duclair at the head of the main body after losing heavily barricaded himself in a stone warehouse on the quay, round which his foes gathered thickly. While there the bells of the city rang out merrily, a sound which he fancied to be made by his own men, who he thought were thus celebrating their victory. In reality it signified the victory of the Portuguese, who had fallen upon, defeated and slaughtered one of his detachments. A second detachment which had entered and begun to plunder the magazine was set upon by the rabble and completely butchered. Duclair's defense soon grew hopeless and he was forced to surrender at discretion. The Portuguese sullied their victory by acts of cruel reprisal, many of the prisoners in their hands being murdered. In all, nearly seven hundred of the French were killed and wounded. Six hundred, including the wounded, were taken prisoners, and of these many died through bad treatment in the prisons. Duclair was murdered some months after being taken. Soon after the fight the squadron appeared off the port where its officers, learning of the loss of the assailants, squared their yards and sailed away for France. Thus ended the first act in our tragedy of plunder. The second act was one of revenge. In France was found a second Dominique de Gaughe, to call to a harsh account the murderers of his countrymen. France indeed was in a fury throughout when the news came of the inhuman slaughter of its citizens. The man who played the part of de Gaughe was a distinguished and able naval officer named Monsieur de Guitron. He was moved by a double motive. While hot for revenge the hope for plunder was an equally inspiring force, and the fame that might come to him with victory added still another motive. The path was made easy for him, for the government gave its approval to his enterprise, and certain wealthy citizens of Saint Malo, eager for gain, volunteered the money to fit out the expedition. It was important to keep the affair a secret, and the vessels were fitted out at different ports to avoid suspicion. Yet the rumour that an unusual number of war vessels were being got ready was soon afloat and reached Portugal, where its purpose was suspected, and a fleet of merchant and war vessels was hurried to sea with supplies and reinforcements for Rio. The suspicion reached England also, and that country, then on the side of Portugal, sent out a fleet to blockade Breast, where the vessels of the expedition then lay, and prevented sailing. But Admiral Truin was not the man to be caught in a trap, and he hurried his ships out of port before they were quite ready, leaving the British and empty harbour to seal up. The work of preparation was finished at Rochelle, whence the fleet sailed in June 1711. It consisted of seven line of battleships, their number of guns varying from seventy-four to fifty-six, six frigates and four smaller vessels, and had on board five thousand picked men, a formidable force to send against a colonial city. The powerful fleet made its way safely over the sea and reached the vicinity of the northern Brazilian port of Bahia on August 27th. Truin had some thought of beginning his work here, but his water supply was getting low and he felt obliged to hasten on. On the eleventh of September he found himself off the bay of Rio de Janeiro, with the city and its enviring hills in full view. The Portuguese had got ahead of him, the fleet from Lisbon having arrived, giving warning of the danger and reinforcing the garrison. Three-fourths and eleven batteries defended the narrow-mouthed harbour, within which lay four ships of the line and as many frigates. Had all this force been directed by a man of ability, the French might have found entrance to the bay impossible. But Francisco de Castro, the hopeless governor of the year before, was still at the head of affairs, and no man could have played more thoroughly into the hands of the French. As it chanced, fortune favoured the assailants, a heavy fog descended under cover of which the fleet ran with little damage past the forts and entered the harbour. When the fog rose, the Portuguese were dismayed to see their foes inside. Aspar de Costa, the admiral of their fleet, was known as an able commander, but he was old and infeable health, and such a panic now assailed him that he ran his ships in haste ashore and set fire to them, leaving to his foes the undisputed command of the harbour. Admiral Truin had won the first move in the game. Governor de Castro proved to be as completely demoralised as Admiral de Costa. He had twice as many troops as the French, but not half the courage and ability of his adversary. Part Véligagnon, one of the chief defences, was blown up by the mismanagement of its garrison, and during the state of panic of the Portuguese, Truin landed about four thousand men, erecting a battery on an island with an easy cannon-shot of the city, and occupying a range of hills to the left which gave him command of that section of the place. The governor with his troops looked on from a distance while the French pillaged the adjoining suburb, destitute of tactics that anyone could discover unless he proposed to let the French enter the streets and then attack them from the houses. It was in this way they had been defeated the year before, but Truin was too old a soldier to be caught in such a trap. He erected batteries on the surrounding hill slopes till the town was commanded on three sides, while the governor kept the bulk of his forces at a distance, waiting for no one knew what. Truin had been permitted with scarcely a blow in defense to make himself master of the situation, and he needed only to get his guns in place to be able to batter the town to the dust. He now sent a demand to the governor to surrender, saying that he had been sent by the King of France to take revenge for the murder of Duclairec and the inhuman slaughter of his men. Ducastro answered that his duty to his king would not permit him to surrender, and sought to show that the French had been honorably killed in battle, and Duclairec murdered by an assassin beyond his control. A poor affair of a governor Ducastro proved, and the French were permitted to go on with their works almost unmolested. The Portuguese occupying hill forts, the fire from which did little harm to the enemy. Truin had already begun the bombardment of the city, and on receiving the governor's answer he kept his guns at work all night. At the same time there raged a tropical storm of great violence accompanied by thunders that drowned the roar of the guns, the frightful combination throwing the people into such a state that they all fled in blind terror, the troops in the town with them. In the morning when Truin was ready to launch his storming parties, word was brought him that the city was deserted and lay at his mercy. Some of the richest magazines had been set on fire by the governor's orders, but otherwise the rich city was abandoned with all its wealth to the French. Of the relics of Duclairec's force about five hundred remained alive in the city. These do not seem to have been then imprisoned but living at large, and they were already abroad and plunderingly abandoned city when the French forces entered. They had met good treatment as well as bad. Some of the people had been kind and hospitable to them, and in the sack of the city that ensued the houses of these charitable citizens were marked and left untouched. Otherwise the sack was general, houses and warehouses being broken open, and quantities of valuable goods which could not be taken off being thrown into the mud of the streets. Now was the opportunity for the Portuguese to attack. Truin was aware of the danger but was unable to control his men, and a sudden assault by the garrison might have proved disastrous to the French. But the opportunity was allowed to pass, the governor in fact surrendering all his forts and marching his troops a league from the city, where he lay awaiting reinforcements from the interior while the French plundered at their leisure. Truin was wise enough to know that his position was perilous. He might be overwhelmed by numbers, and it was important to finish his work and get away with little delay. But the plunder of the city was not sufficient for his purpose, and he sent word to the governor that he must ransom it or it would be burned. To make his word good he began by setting fire to the environs. De Castro, eager to get rid of his foes at any price, offered six hundred thousand cruzados. This was refused by Truin, and to stir up the governor to a better offer the admiral took his messenger through the city and showed him that he was spoiling everything that fire would not burn. Learning, however, that the expected reinforcements might soon arrive, anxiety induced him to march his men to the front of the Portuguese camp, where he began to negotiate for better terms. The only addition De Castro would agree to was to promise the French a supply of cattle for food, fifteen days being allowed to collect the ransom. Truin, knowing well that he had no time to waste, accepted the terms, and none too soon, for shortly afterwards a strong body of reinforcements led by an able general entered the Portuguese camp. They came too late, the treaty had been made, and the new general felt bound in honour to make it good. So the ransom was paid, and on the fourth of November the triumphant French set sail, their ships deep laden with the rich plunder of the Brazilian capital and the gold of the governor's ransom. The return home was not attended with the success of the earlier part of the expedition. Truin had left Bahia to be visited and plundered on his return, but when he came near it the weather was so stormy that he was obliged to abandon this part of his plan. The storms followed the fleet on its way across the seas, and rose to such a height that two of his ships went to the bottom, carrying down twelve hundred men. One of these was the finest ship of the fleet, and in consequence had been laden with the most valuable booty. Of gold and silver alone it took down with it a weight valued at six hundred thousand livres. A third vessel went ashore and was wrecked at Cayenne. Yet with all these losses so much wealth was brought home that the speculators in spoil made a profit of ninety-two percent on their investment. The French had won in large measure revenge and plunder, while Truin had gained his meat of fame. It was now Portugal's time for vengeance, and it was visited principally on the worthless governor to whose cowardice the disaster was due. He had been praised and rewarded for the victory over Duclair's expedition, praise and reward which he certainly did not deserve. For very similar conduct he was now deposed and sentenced to degradation and perpetual imprisonment on the charge of cowardice and lack of judgment. His nephew was banished for life for bad conduct, and a captain who had given up his fort and fled was hung in effigy. There were no others to punish, and Portugal was obliged to hold its hand, France being a foe beyond its reach. Rio had met with a terrible misfortune from which it took many years to recover, and rarely have the sanguinary deeds of a murderous rabble led to so severe a retribution. CHAPTER XVI THE WONDERFUL MARCH OF THE FREEBOOTERS THE MARCH OF THE TEN THOUSAND FROM BABALON TO THE BLACK SEA IS ONE OF THE FAMOUS EVENTS OF HISTORY. The march of the 300 from the Pacific to the Atlantic, which we have here to tell, is scarcely known to history at all, yet it was marked by a courage and command of resources as great as those of the ancient Greeks. We think our readers will agree with us when they read this story, taken from the records of the free-booters on the Spanish main. After ravaging the settlements of Spain on the Atlantic coasts, various fleets of these piratical adventurers sought the Pacific waters in 1685, and there for several years made life scarce worth living to the inhabitants of the Spanish coast cities. Time and again these were plundered of their wealth, numbers of their ships were taken, and a veritable rain of terror prevailed. As time went on, however, most of these free-booters withdrew, satisfied with their abundant gains, so that by the end of 1687 only a few of them remained and these were eager to return with their ill-gotten wealth to their native land. This remnant of the piratical fraternity, less than three hundred in number, had their headquarters on an island in the Bay of Mapala on the Central American coast. What vessels they had left were in a wretched condition, utterly unfit to attempt the vast sea voyage by way of the Straits of Magellan, and nothing seemed to remain for them but an attempt to cross the continent by way of Nicaragua and Honduras, fighting their way through a multitude of enemies. To the pen of Ravineau de Lucan, one of the adventurers we are indebted for the narrative of the singular and interesting adventure which follows. The daring band of French and English free-booters were very ill provided for the dangerous enterprise they had in view. They proposed to cross an unknown country without guides and with a meager supply of provisions, fighting as they went and conveying their sick and wounded as best they could. They had also a number of prisoners whom they felt it necessary to take with them, since to set them free would be to divulge their weakness to their enemies. Nature and circumstance seemed to combine against them, yet if they ever wished to see their native lands again they must face every danger, trusting that some of them at least might escape to enjoy their spoils. After questioning their prisoners they decided to take a route by way of the city of Nusagovia, which lies north of the lake of Nicaragua, about 120 miles from the Pacific, and 75 miles from the waters of a river that flows after a long course into the Atlantic, opposite Cape Gracia Sadios. In order to gain further information about the route, sixty men were sent to explore the neighboring country. These advanced till they were nearer the small city of Chiloteca. Here, worn out by their journey and learning that they were in a thickly settled country, most of the pioneers decided to return. But eighteen of the bolder spirits had the audacity to advance on Chiloteca, a place of perhaps a thousand inhabitants. Into it they rushed with such ferocious yells and so terrific a fuselage of shouts that the frightened inhabitants, taken utterly by surprise, fled in mortal terror, leaving the place to its captors. These quickly seized a number of horses and made haste to retreat on their backs, hotly pursued by the Spaniards who soon discovered to what a handful of men they had surrendered their city. When receiving the report of their scouts, the free-booters determined on the desperate venture. They had little to convey except their spoil, which, the result of numerous raids, was valued at about one million dollars. It chiefly consisted of gold and jewels, all heavier valuables, even silver being left in great part behind as too heavy to carry. The spoil was very unequally owned since the gambling which had gone on actively among them had greatly varied the distribution of their wealth. To overcome the anger and jealousy which this created among the poorer, those with much to carry shared their portions among their companions with the understanding that if they reached the Antilles in safety half of it should be returned. As for the prisoners it was decided to take them along and make use of them for carrying the utensils, provisions, and sick. On the first of January, 1688, these free-booters, two hundred and eighty-five in number, with sixty-eight horses, crossed in boats from their island refuge to the mainland and began their march. Their ships had been first destroyed, their cannon cast into the sea, and their bulkier effects burned. Divided into four companies with forty men in front as an advance guard, they moved forward into a land of adventure and peril. It was soon found that the people expected and had prepared for their coming. Trees had been felled across the roads and efforts made to obstruct all the footpaths. Spaniards had been carried away and the dry urbage of the fields was set on fire as they advanced, almost suffocating them with the heat and smoke. This was done to hinder their march until the Spaniards had completed a strong entrenchment which was being built at a suitable place on the route. Ambioscares were also laid for them. On the eighth day of their march they fell into one of these at Tussignala, where three hundred Spaniards lay concealed on the ground and fired into their ranks. Though these were dispersed by a fierce charge, they followed the Freebooters closely, annoying them from the shelter of woods and thickets. The next day a still larger ambioscade was laid, which fortunately for the Freebooters was discovered and dispersed in time, the fleeing Spaniards leaving their horses behind. Two days later New Segovia was reached. Here the buccaneers expected a severe engagement and hoped to gain a supply of provisions. In both they were mistaken. The inhabitants had decamped, carrying all food with them. Their prisoners who had served them as guides to this point knew nothing of the country beyond, but they succeeded in taking a new prisoner who was familiar with the further route. The country they were passing through was mountainous and very difficult. Steep aclivities had constantly to be climbed, narrow paths on the borders of deep chasms to be traversed, and rapid slopes to be descended. The nights were bitterly cold, the mornings were darkened by thick fogs, and their whole route was attended with danger, discomfort, and fatigue. New Segovia lay in a valley surrounded on all sides by mountains, one of which had to be ascended immediately on leaving the town. The next days dawn found them on its summit, and with a valley far below them, in which to their joy they beheld a large number of animals which they took to be oxen. Their joy was dissipated, however, when the scouts they sent out came back with the information that these were animals were horses, saddled and bridled, and that a series of formidable entrenchments had been built in the valley, rising like terraces one above another, and carried to the mountains on each side so as completely to close the route. There seemed no way to avoid these defenses. On one side of the mountain flowed a river. A small eminence surrounded by breast-works commanded the only passage which the free-booters could follow. The whole country round was thick forest, through whose rock guarded demences not the slightest indication of a path could be seen. Yet to attack those works in front promised quick and utter defeat, and if they wished to avoid destruction they must find some way to outwit their foes. It was decided that the forest presented less dangers and difficulties than the fortified road, and that the only hope of safety lay in a flank movement which would lead them to the rear of the enemy. During that day active preparations were made for the proposed movements. The three hundred Spaniards who had ambushed them some days before still hung upon their rear. Their horses, sick, and prisoners were therefore left in an enclosed camp, barricaded by their baggage vehicles and guarded by eighty of their number. As a means of impressing the enemy with their numbers and alertness they kept up campfires all night, repeated at intervals the rolls upon the drum, relieved the sentinels with a great noise and varied these signs of activity with cries and occasional discharges of musketry. Meanwhile, as soon as the shades of evening descended the remainder of the free-booters, some two hundred in number, began their march following the route indicated by a scout they had sent to examine the forest. The difficulties of that night journeyed through the dense wood proved very great. There being numerous steep rocks to climb and descend, and this needed to be done with as little noise as possible. Daybreak found the adventurers on a mountain elevation from which they could see the Spanish entrenchments below them on the left. The greatest of their impediments had been surmounted, but there were difficulties still to be overcome. Fortunately for them a thick mist rose with the morning light, which, while it rendered their downward passage critical, served to conceal them from the enemy below. As they came near the works the heavy tread of a patrols guided them in their course, and the morning prayers of the Spaniards were of still more advantage in indicating their distance and position. The free-booting band had reached the rear of the hostile army, composed of five hundred men, who were so taken by surprise on seeing their ferocious enemy rushing upon them with shouts and volleys from this unlooked-for quarter that they fled without an attempt at defense. The other Spaniards behaved more courageously, but the appearance of the Buccaneers within the works they had so toilsomely prepared robbed them of spirit, and after an hour's fight they too broke and fled. The trees they had felled to obstruct the road now contributed to their utter defeat, and they were cut down in multitudes with scarce and attemptate resistance. We can scarcely credit the testimony of the free-booters, however, that their sole losses were one killed and two wounded. The success of the advance party was equaled by that of the guard of armed men left in camp, who, after some negotiations with the troop of Spaniards in their rear, made a sudden charge upon them and dispersed all who were not cut down. That the free-booters were as much surprised as gratified by the signal success of the stratagem needs scarcely be said. One of the panics which are apt to follow a surprise in war had saved them from threatened annihilation. They learned, however, the disquieting fact that six miles farther on was another strong entrenchment which could not be avoided, the country permitting no choice of roads. In their situation there was nothing to do but to advance and dare the worst, and fortunately for them their remarkable success spread such terror before it that when they appeared before these new works the Spaniards made no attack but remained quietly behind their breastworks while their dreaded foes marched past. The seventeenth day of their march carried them to the banks of the river toward which their route had been laid. This was the Magdalena, a stream which rises in the mountains near Nusagovia and flows through a difficult rock channel with numerous cascades, three of them amounting to cataracts, finally reaching the Caribbean Sea after a course of several hundred miles. How they were to descend this mountain torrent was the question which now offered itself to them. It presented a more attractive route of travel than the one so far pursued over the mountains, but was marked by difficulties of a formidable character. These were overcome by the freebooters in an extraordinary manner, one almost or quite without peril in the annals of travel. The expedient they adopted was certainly of curious interest. Before them was a large and rapid river, its current impeded by a multitude of rocks and broken by rapids and cascades. They were destitute of ropes or tools suitable for boat-building, and any ordinary kind of boats would have been of no use to them in such a stream. It occurred to them that what they needed to navigate a river of this character was something of the nature of large baskets or tons in which they might float in close to their wastes while keeping themselves from contact with the rocks by the aid of poles. They had no models for such floating contrivances and were obliged to invent them. Near the river was an extensive forest, and this supplied them abundantly with young trees of light wood. These they cut down, stripped off their bark, collected them by fives, and lacking ropes, fastened them together with lianas and a tenacious kind of gum which the forest provided. A large number of small, frail, basket-like contrivances were thus made, each large enough to carry two men, with whom they would sink in the water as deep as the waste. Piperies Lucin called them, but his description does not make it clear just what they were like. While thus engaged the free-booters killed part of their horses and salted their flesh for food, all the work being done with the energy and activity necessary in their critical situation. During it they were not molested by the Spaniards, but no one could tell how soon they might be. When all was ready they restored their prisoners to the liberty of which they had long been deprived, and entered upon one of the most perilous examples of navigation that can well be imagined. Launched in their piperies, the free-booters found themselves tossed about by the impetuous current and speedily covered with spray. The lightness of their floating baskets kept them from sinking, but the energetic efforts they were obliged to make to keep from being thrown out or dashed on the rocks soon exhausted them. A short experience taught them the necessity of fastening themselves in the piperies, so that their hands might be free to keep them from being hurled on the rocks. Occasionally their frail crafts were overturned or buried under the waves in the swift rapids, and the inmates were either drowned or escaped by abandoning the treasures which weighed them down. Whatever else may be said of this method of navigation it proved a rapid one. The frail barks being hurried on at an impetuous speed. Each of the cataracts was preceded by a basin of still water, and here it became necessary to swim to the shore and to send the rocks to the bottom of the fall. Some who remained behind threw the piperies into the stream to be carried over the liquid precipice, and recovered by swimming out to meet them, or replaced by new ones when lost. After three days of this singular navigation it was decided, in view of the fact that the piperies were often dashed together to their mutual injury, to separate and keep at a distance from each other, those who went first marking out by small flags where it was necessary to land. During their progress the question of food again became prominent, the salted horse-meat they had brought with them being spoiled by its frequent wedding. Game was plentiful but their powder was all spoiled, and the only food to be found was the fruit of the banana tree which grew abundantly on the banks. The cupidity of the free-booters was not abated by the danger of their situation. They made the most earnest endeavours to preserve their spoil, and some of the poorer ones even resorted to murder to gain the wealth of their richer comrades. The dispersion of the flotilla favoured this, and six conspiring Frenchmen hid behind the rocks and attacked and killed five Englishmen who were known to possess much treasure. Robbing the bodies they took to the stream again leaving the bloody corpses on the bank. Those who saw them had no time to think of avenging them. Suddenly the river grew wider and deeper and its course less impetuous. The cascades were all passed but the stream was obstructed by floating or anchored tree trunks by which many of the piperies were overturned and their occupants drowned. To avoid this danger the piperies were now abandoned and the free-booters divided themselves into detachments and began to build large canoes from the forest trees. Four of these carrying 130 men were soon ready and their builders again took to the stream. Of the fate of the others who remained behind no further account is given by the historian of this adventure. On the 9th of March, sixty days after their departure from the Pacific, the adventurers reached the river's mouth, having completed their remarkable feat of crossing the continent in the face of the most threatening perils from man and nature. But fortune only partly favoured them, for many had lost all the wealth which they had gathered in their career of piracy, their very clothes hanging in rags about their limbs. Some, indeed, had been more fortunate or more adroit in their singular navigation, but as a whole they were a woe-begon and miserable party when a few days afterwards they reached the isle of Perlus. Here were some friendly vessels on which they embarked, and near the end of April they reached the West Indies, with the little that remained of their plunder. Such was the end of this remarkable achievement, one which for boldness, intrepidity, and skill and expedience has few to rival it in the annals of history, and which, if performed by men of note, instead of by an obscure band of robbers, would have won for them a high mead of fame. CHAPTER XVII The cruelty of the Spaniards to the Indians. Never were a people more terribly treated than the natives of America under the Spanish adventurers. The often told story that the Indians of Hispaniola were in annihilated in one generation after the settlement of that island is sufficient evidence of the frightfully inhuman treatment to which they were subjected. The laws of Spain provided for justice and humanity in the dealings with the Indians, but the settlers thousands of miles away paid no attention to these laws, and the red men were almost everywhere reduced to slavery, or were free and given political rights were looked upon as far inferior to the whites. In every district Spain placed an official called the Protector of the Indians, but it does not appear that they were much the better off for their protectors. It is our purpose here to say something about the cruel treatment of the natives in South America. The Spanish settlers had three terms which applied to their dealings with the Indians, the encomiendo, the mitad, and the repartimiento, each indicating a form of injustice. The conquerors divided the country between them, and the encomiendos were rights granted them to hold the Indians for a number of years as workers in their fields or their mines. Under these grants the natives were converted into beasts of burden and forced to do the hardest work without the least compensation. They were obliged to labor all day long under the burning tropical sun, to dive into the sea in search of pearls for their masters, or to toil buried from the light of day in the depths of the mines. It is not surprising that these miserable slaves accustomed to a life of indolence and ease perished as if exposed to a killing plague. The mitad was a law informed for their protection, but it soon became one of the worst of the abuses. Under it every man from the age of 18 to 50 was required to render bodily service, the natives of each mining colony of South America being divided into seven sections, each of which had to work six months in the mine. Every mine owner could demand the number of Indians he needed. In Peru alone 1,400 mines were worked, and labor of this kind was in constant demand. As to the kind of labor they had to do, we need only say that when any man was called upon to work in the mines, he looked upon it as a sentence of death. Before going he gave all his possessions to his relatives, and they went through the funeral service as if he were already dead. They well knew the usual end of labor in the mines. A mass was said for him at the church, and he had to take an oath of fidelity to the king. Then he was sprinkled with holy water and sent away to his deadly service. Deadly we may call it, for it is said that scarcely a fifth part of these miners lived through their term of labor. Lowered from the light of the sun into the deep underground shafts and galleries, and passing from the pure air of heaven to a pestilential atmosphere, excessive labor and bad food soon robbed them of strength and often of life. If they survived this, a species of asthma usually carried them off during the year. We may judge of the results from the calculation that the Mithad in Peru alone had eight million victims. The law limited the Mithad to those living within thirty miles of a mine, but laborers were often brought by force from hundreds of miles away. As for the small wages paid them, the masters took part of it from them in payment for their food, and usually got the remainder by giving credit for clothes or liquor or in other ways. In fact, if by good fortune the Indian had not lost his life at the end of his term of service he might be brought into debt which he could not pay, and thus held a slave for life. The Repartimiento was another protective law which also became a means of oppression. Under it the district officials were required to supply all things needed by the Indians, their being, when the law was passed, no peddlers or travelling dealers. This privilege was quickly and shamelessly abused, the natives being sold poor clothing, spoiled grain, sour wine, and other inferior supplies, often at three or four times their value went of good quality. They were even made to buy things at high prices which were of no possible use to them, such as silk stockings for men who went barefoot, and razors for those who had scarcely any beard to shave. One Corregidor bought a box of spectacles from a trader and made the natives buy these at his own price to wear when they went to mass, without regard to the fact that they were utterly useless to them. The oppression of the natives was not confined to the laity but the clergy were often as unjust. They forced them to pay not only the tides, but extravagant prices for every church service, forty reales being charged for a baptism, twenty for a marriage certificate, thirty-two for a burial, etc. Such sums as these which fairly beggared the poor Indians enabled the clergy to build costly churches and mission houses and to keep up abundant revenues. These general statements very faintly picture the actual state to which the Indians were reduced. This may be better shown by some instances of their sufferings. The Timibos Indians, for example, of the province of Velez-Nur-Grenada, were reduced to such extreme misery by the embezzlement of the funds that whole families flung themselves from the top of a rock twelve hundred feet high into the river below. One night, in order to escape from the cruelty of the colonists, the whole tribe of the Agatoas and Cocomes killed themselves, preferring death to the horrors of Spanish rule. Many Indians strangled themselves when in peril of being enslaved by the Spaniards, feeling that a quick death was better than a slow one under the torture of incessant toil. In one instance when a party of hopeless natives had come together with the intention of killing themselves, an intendant came to them with a rope in his hand and told them that if they did not give up their purpose he would hang himself with them. This threat filled them with such horror as the prospect of meeting a Spaniard in the spirit world that they fled from the spot, preferring life with all its terrors to such a companion. As may well be imagined, the natives did not all yield resistlessly to their tyrants. Thus, in exasperation at the quantity of gold dust which they were forced to pay as tribute, the people of Aconcalm, in the province of Canas, seized the brutal Spanish collector one day and gave him melted gold to drink to satisfy in this way, his insatiable thirst for gold. In December 1767 the descendants of the two tribes which had owned the mining valley of Caravalla descended on the white inhabitants in revenge for a usurpation of their lands, which had taken place more than two centuries before. They settled the question of ownership by burning the city and killing all the inhabitants with arrows and clubs. In news of this was received by the viceroy, Don Antonio Amat, he swore on a piece of the true cross to kill all the savages in Peru. He was prevented from carrying out this threat only by the prayers of the actress Mariquita Gallegas, whom he loved, and who convinced him that it was his duty as a Christian to convert them to the religion of Christ rather than to massacre them. In 1780 there began a memorable insurrection of the persecuted natives. It was especially notable, as being led by a direct descendant of the Inca Tupac Amaru, who had been beheaded by the Spaniards in 1562. This noble Indian, the last of the Incas, had been well educated by the Jesuits in Cusco, and became the Cacique of Tungasac. His virtues were such as to gain him the respect and esteem of all the Peruvian Indians, who venerated him also as the lineal descendant of their ancient emperors. One day this Cacique, exasperated by the rapacity of the Corregidor of Tuita, who had laid three repartiamentos on the Indians in a single year, seized the tyrannical wretch and strangled him with his own hands. Then, taking the name of his ancestor Tupac Amaru, he proclaimed himself the chief of all those who were in rebellion against the Spaniards. His error seems to have been in not fraternizing with the Creoles or white natives of the country, who hated the Spaniards as bitterly as the Indians themselves. On the contrary, he treated these as enemies also and thus greatly augmented the number of his foes. The Indians, their memories of their ancient freedom aroused by his call, joined his ranks in enthusiastic numbers and won several victories over the whites, the whole of Upper Peru breaking out in insurrection. Lacking firearms as they did, they kept up the struggle for a year, the outbreak being brought to an end at last by treachery instead of arms. Betrayed by a casique to whom the Spaniards promised a Colonel's commission, a promise they did not keep, the Inca was taken prisoner by his enemies and conducted to Cusco, the ancient capital of his ancestors. Here he was tried and condemned to death, and executed with a frightful excess of cruelty that filled with horror all the civilized world when the terrible tale became known. Conducted to the place of execution, his wife and children and his brother-in-law Bastidas were brought before him, their tongues cut out, and then put to death by the Spanish method of strangling before his eyes. His little son was left alive to witness his death. This was one in which the most brutal tortures of medieval time seemed revived. His tongue being torn out, his limbs were tied to four horses which were driven in different directions with the purpose of tearing him limb from limb. The horses proved unable to do this and he remained suspended in agony until one of the more merciful of the Spaniards ended his torture by cutting off his head. During this revolting scene the little son of the victim gave vent to a terrible scream of agony, the memory of which haunted many of the executioners to their death. The legs and arms of the victim were sent to the rebellious towns, his body was burned to ashes, his house was raised, his property confiscated, and his family declared infamous forever. One of his brothers was sent to Spain and condemned to the galleys in which he remained for thirty years. Such were the means taken by the Spaniards to overcome the love of liberty in the natives of Peru. As for the natives themselves, what few privileges they had retained were taken from them, their meetings and festivals were forbidden, and for anyone to assume the name of Inca was declared criminal. These severe measures were thought sufficient to intimidate the Indians, but they only exasperated them, and they took a terrible revenge. Andres, a cousin of Amaru, who had escaped capture, and another chief named Katari, led them in a campaign of revenge in which they fought with the fury of despair. The lives of five hundred Spaniards, it is said, paid the penalty for each of the victims of that dread execution in Cusco. Andres besieged the city of Sorata, in which all the white families of the vicinity had taken refuge with their treasures. The artillery of the fortifications seemed an invulnerable defense against the poorly armed procedures, but Andres succeeded in making a breach by turning the mountain streams against the walls. Once within the exasperated Indians took a terrible revenge, a single priest being, as we are told, the sole survivor of twenty thousand inhabitants. In the end the Spaniards put down the insurrection by treachery and cunning, seized the chiefs, and sent Andres to Ceuta in Spain, where he remained in prison until 1820. We shall only say, in addition, that the Portuguese of Brazil treated the natives of that land with a cruelty little less than that shown by the Spaniards, sending out hunting expeditions to bring in Indians to serve as slaves. Those who opposed them were shot down without mercy, and it is said that at the beginning of the nineteenth century, peasants infected with the virus of smallpox were sent to the Botocudos as a convenient means of getting rid of that hostile tribe. As a result of all this, the greater part of the tribes of Brazil completely disappeared. The natives of South America obtained justice and honorable treatment only after the people of that country had won their liberty. End of Chapter 17 Chapter 18 of Historical Tales, Volume 3, Spanish American Historical Tales, Volume 3, Spanish American, by Charles Morris Chapter 18 Cujo and the Maroons of Jamaica When the English conquered the island of Jamaica and drove the Spaniards out of it, they failed to conquer its sable inhabitants, Negroes who had been slaves to the Spaniards, but who now fought for and maintained their freedom. Such were the Maroons, or mountain-dwelling fugitives of Jamaica, whose story is well worth telling. First, we must say something about the history of this island and how it came into English hands. It was long held by the Spaniards, being discovered by Columbus in his second voyage in 1494. In his last voyage he had a dismal experience there. With his vessels battered and ready to sink, after running through a severe windstorm, he put into the harbor of Porto Bueno in northern Jamaica. He afterwards left this for a small bay still known after him as Don Christopher's Cove, and here, attacked by the warlike natives and unable to put to sea, he was kept captive in his shattered hulks for a whole year. The Indians refused him food and the tradition goes that he got this at length by a skillful artifice. Knowing that a total eclipse of the moon would soon take place, he sent word to the dusky chief that the lights in the sky were under his control and if they did not give him supplies he would put out the light of the moon and never let it shine again on their island. The Indians laughed with scorn at this threat, but when they saw the moon gradually losing its light and fading into darkness they fell into a panic and begged him to let it shine again, promising to bring him all the food he wanted. At this the Admiral feigned to relent, and after retiring for a time to his cabin came forth and told them that he would consent to bring back the lost moonlight. After that the Indians saw that the crew had abundance of food. The Admiral and his crew were finally rescued by an expedition sent from Hispaniola. Jamaica, like Cuba and Haiti, has the honour of keeping its old Indian name, signifying a land of springs or of woods and waters. It is a land of mountains also. If it had not been we would have had no story to tell, for these mountains were the haunts and the strongholds of the maroons. The island was not settled till 1523, twenty years after the detention of Columbus on its shores. Many years after that we find its Spanish settlers oppressing all the English that fell into their hands. This was the case in fact all throughout the West Indies, English seamen being put into the stocks, sent to the galleys, or murdered outright. It took the sturdy directness of Oliver Cromwell to put an end to these outrages. He sent word to the Spanish minister that there must be a stop put to the practices of the Inquisition and to the restriction of free navigation in the West Indies. The minister replied that to ask for these two things was to ask for his master's two eyes and that no such thing could be allowed. Cromwell's reply was to the point. I know of no title that the Spaniards had but by force, which by the same title may be repelled, and as to the first discovery to me it seems as little reason that the sailing of a Spanish ship upon the coast of India should entitle the King of Spain to that country as the sailing of an Indian or English ship upon the coast of Spain should entitle either the Indians or the English to be the Dominion thereof. The Spaniards have contravented the Treaty of 1630. War must needs be justifiable when peace is not allowable. This reply was certainly one marked by sound logic and good sense. It was the rule of force, not of right, that lay behind all claims to Dominion in America, and this rule could be set aside by superior force. So Cromwell sent out a great fleet under command of Admiral Penn, father of William Penn, the settler of Pennsylvania, with a land force commanded by General Venables. The first attempt was made upon his Banyola. Failing here, the fleet sailed to Jamaica where the Spaniards surrendered on the 11th of May 1655. They tried to take it back again shortly before Cromwell's death, but did not succeed, and Jamaica has remained an English island from that day to this. This is about all we need say by way of preface, except to remark that many settlers were sent to Jamaica, and the island soon became well-peopled and prosperous, Port Royal, its principal harbor, coming to be the liveliest city in the West Indies. It was known as the wickedest city as well as the richest, and when an earthquake came in 1692, and Port Royal, with the sandy slope on which it was built, slipped into the sea with all its dwellings, warehouses and wealth, and numbers of its people, the disaster was looked upon by many as a judgment from heaven. There is one thing more worth mentioning, which is that Morgan, the buccaneer, whose deeds of shameful cruelty at Panama we have described, became afterwards Deputy Governor of Jamaica, as Sir Henry Morgan, which title was given him by King Charles II. It is not easy to know why this was done, unless it be true, as was then said, that Charles shared in the spoils of his bloody deeds of piracy. However that be, Morgan, as Governor, turned hotly upon his former associates, and hunted down the buccaneers without mercy, hanging and shooting all he could lay hands on, until he fairly put an end to the trade which had made him rich. Let us come now to the story of the Maroons, that nest of fugitives who made things hot enough for the English in Jamaica for many years. When Cromwell soldiers took possession of Jamaica, few or none of those warlike Indians who had given Columbus so much trouble were left. In their place were about two thousand Negro slaves, and these fled to the mountains, as the Indians had done before them. There they remained in freedom, though the English did their best to coax them to come down and enjoy the blessings of slavery again, and though they tried their utmost to drive them down from the cliffs by means of soldiers and guns. In spite of all the whites could do, the Negroes, Maroons as they were called, long preserved their liberty. In 1663 the British, finding that they could not master the warlike fugitives by force, offered them a full pardon, with liberty and twenty acres of land apiece if they would yield. But the Negroes, who were masters of the whole mountainous interior, where thousands could live in plenty, chose to stay where they were and not to trust to the slippery faith of the white man. And so it went on until after 1730, when the depredations of the Negroes upon the settlements became so annoying, that two regiments of British regulars, and all the militia of the island, were sent into the mountains to put them down. As it proved, the Negroes still held their own, not one of them being taken prisoner and very few of them killed. They were decidedly masters of the situation. At this time the chief of the Maroons, Kudjo by name, was a dusky dwarf, sable, ugly and uncouth, but shrewd and wary, and fully capable of discounting all the wiles of his enemies. No Christian he but a full pagan, worshipping with his followers the African gods of Obea, or the deities of the wizards and sorcerers. His lurking place, in the defiles of the John Crow mountains, was named Nanny Town after his wife. Here two mountain streams plunged over a rock nine hundred feet high into a romantic gorge where their waters met in a seething cauldron called Nanny's Pot. Into this, as the Negroes believed, the black witch Nanny could by her sorcery cast the white soldiers who pursued them. As for old Kudjo himself, the English declared that he must be in league with the devil, whom he resembled closely enough to be his brother. And they were not without warrant for this belief, for he held his own against them for nine long years, at the end of which the Maroons were more numerous than at the beginning, since those who were killed were more than made up by fresh accessions of runaway slaves. It is certain that the British soldiers were no match for Kudjo the Dwarf. Retreating wearily before them he drew them into many an ambush in the wild defiles of the mountain, where they were cut down like sheep, the waters of the pot being often reddened with their blood. From many of the expeditions sent against him only a few weary and wounded survivors returned, and it became difficult to induce the soldiers to venture into that den of death. At length a British officer succeeded in dragging two mountain howitzers up the cliffs to a position from which Nanny town, the inaccessible Maroon stronghold, could be shelled. When the shells hurled from the distant cannon began to burst among them the Maroons were at first so filled with terror that some of them threw themselves over the cliffs, but the bulk of them merely scattered and let the howitzers do their work among empty walls. Kudjo was astonished at the bursting shells, but he was too old a bird to be frightened. "'This is a new way the buckram men got to fight,' he said. "'He fired big ball atcha. And then the big ball fired little ones atcha. It's bare a cannon, but old Kudjo knows something better than that.' Leading his men through the woods with the stealthy tread and noiseless skill of the American Indians, the dwarf and his Maroons suddenly burst upon the unwary soldiers from the rear while they were busy about their guns, delivering a telling volley and then rushing upon them with blade and axe. Few of the whites escaped this ferocious onset, and the shell-delivering howitzers remained in Kudjo's hands. During the conquering of the forest-born Maroons by the arts of civilized warfare, the British were driven to try a new method. In 1737 they brought from the Mosquito Coast a number of Indians who were fully the equal of the Negroes in bush-fighting. These were launched upon the track of the Maroons and soon ran them down in their mountain fastnesses. From Nannytown the seat of war shifted to another quarter of the island, but at length the Maroons, finding their new foes fully their match in their own methods, consented to sign a treaty of peace with the whites, though only on the terms that they should retain their full freedom. The treaty was made in 1738 at Trelawney Town, the Maroons being represented by Captains Kudjo, Akampong, Johnny, Cuffee, and Kwako, and a number of their followers who had been in a state of war and hostility for several years past against our sovereign Lord the King and the inhabitants of this island. By the terms of the treaty the Maroons were to retain their liberty forever, to be granted a large tract of land in the mountains, and to enjoy full freedom of trade with the whites. On their part they agreed to keep peace with the whites, to return all runaway slaves who should come among them, and to aid the whites in putting down the rebellion and in fighting any foreign invader. In 1760 their promise to aid the whites against local outbreaks was put to the test when the fierce Coromantin Negroes broke out in rebellion and committed fearful atrocities. A party of Maroons joined the whites and seemed very zealous in their cause, ranging the woods and bringing in a large number of ears, which they said they had cut from the heads of rebels killed by them. It afterwards was found that the ears had been obtained from the Negroes who had been slain by the troops and left where they fell. The Maroons remained unmolested until 1795, not without outbreaks on their part and depredations on the settlements. In the year named, two of them were caught stealing pigs and were sent to the workhouse and given thirty-nine lashes on the bareback. When set free they went home in a fury and told a pitiful tale of the disgrace they had suffered, being whipped by the black driver of the workhouse in the presence of felon slaves. The story roused the blood of all their fellows, who felt that they had been outraged by this insult to two of their kindred, and a revolt broke out that spread rapidly throughout the mountains. The whites were in a quandary. To attempt to put down the rebels by force of arms, white lead to the sanguinary results of sixty years before. But it was remembered that in the former war the use of dogs had proved very advantageous, so agents were now sent to Cuba to purchase a pack of bloodhounds. Thus the methods employed by the Spaniards against the Indians two centuries before were once more brought into use. One hundred hounds were bought and with them came forty Cuban huntsmen, mostly mulattos. As it proved the very news of the coming of the hounds had the desired effect, the maroons being apparently much more afraid of these ferocious dogs than of trained soldiers. At any rate they immediately sued for peace, and as an old historian tells us it is pleasing to observe that not a drop of blood was spilt after the dogs arrived in the island. Peace was made within a week, and in the next year the chief offenders were sent to Halifax, Nova Scotia and put at work on the fortifications. They were afterwards sent to Liberia. From that time forward there was no trouble with their maroons. Their descendants still dwell in the island as a separate people. In 1865 there was an outbreak among the free blacks, slavery having been abolished thirty years before. The maroons were called upon to help the troops put down this revolt. They responded cheerfully and rendered useful aid in the brief conflict. When it was over the black warriors were invited to Kingston, the capital, where the whites of that city had their first sight of the redoubtable maroons. Black and brawny they had the dignified carriage of men who had always been free and independent, while some of them wore with pride silver medals which their ancestors had been given for former aid to the whites. Once a terror to Jamaica the maroons are now among its most trusty inhabitants. CHAPTER XIX TUSSIN, LIVERTURE, AND THE REVOLUTION IN HADY The people of Europe have not stood alone in settling and ruling America, for the blacks of Africa brought to the new world as slaves have made themselves masters of one of the largest and most fertile islands of the West Indies, that attractive gem of the tropics which under the name of Hispaniola was the pioneer among Spanish dominions on American soil. Hispaniola has had a strange and cruel history. The Spaniards enslaved its original inhabitants and treated them so ruthlessly that they were soon annihilated. Then the island was filled with negro slaves. About sixteen-thirty the buccaneers or hunters of wild bulls made it their haunt, and as these were mostly French the western part of the island was ceded to France in sixteen ninety-seven. During the century that followed Africans were brought over in multitudes, until there were nearly half a million blacks in Haiti, the Indian name of the island. While there were less than forty thousand whites and thirty thousand mulattoes, the latter being neither citizens nor slaves. These facts are given as a necessary introduction to the story we are about to tell. It was the white revolution in France that brought about the black revolution in Haiti. In seventeen eighty-nine the state's general met in France and overturned the ancient system of oppression in that land. Liberty for all was the toxin of its members, and it was proclaimed that not only the whites of France and her colonies, but the blacks also were entitled to freedom and a voice in the government. The news of this decree created a ferment of passion in Haiti. The white planters of the island who had long controlled everything burst into fury, foreswore all allegiance to France, and trampled the national flag underfoot in their rage. But they had others than the French assembly to deal with. The mulattoes, or free people of color, rose in arms for the rights of which they had been deprived. They were soon put down, but in the following year, seventeen ninety-one, a much more terrible outbreak took place, that of the slaves. There followed a reign of terror as sanguinary in type as that of France. The revolt began on the night of August twenty-first, on the plantation of Noé, near Cape-Aitien. The long oppressed and savage blacks mercilessly killed all the whites who fell into their hands. Down from the mountains they poured on every side, their roots marked by blood and devastation. Hills and plains were swept with fire and sword. These of the most horrible kinds were committed, and nearly all the residents on the plantations, more than two thousand in number, were brutally slaughtered, while a thousand sugar and coffee estates were swept by fire. In the first revolution the mulattoes aided the whites of the cities to repel the blacks, but later, believing themselves betrayed by the whites, they joined the blacks, and the revolt became a war of extermination. It did not end until the negroes became masters of all the country districts, and gained control of the mountainous interior of the island, which, except for a brief interval, may have ever since retained. This success was in great part due to the famous leader of the blacks, the renowned Toussaint Nouveauture, a man who proved himself one of the greatest and noblest of his race. Born in Haiti of negro parents, he was descended from an African prince, and slave, though he was in condition, had himself the soul of a prince. He taught himself to read and write, and also something of mathematics and of Latin, and was taken from the fields to become coachmen for the overseer of the estate of his master, the Count de Breda. When the negro revolt began, and the furious blacks were seeking victims on all sides, Toussaint concealed the overseer and his family in the forest, took them food at the risk of his own life, and finally led them to the coast where they took ship for the United States. While he was thus engaged, the negroes, led by a gigantic black named Bukman, and subsequently by three others, were continuing their course of butchery and devastation. Toussaint joined them after the escape of the overseer, and quickly gained an influence over them, largely from his knowledge of medicinal plants and a degree of skill in surgery. This influence enabled him to put himself at their head, and to mitigate the ferocity of their actions. His ascendancy was due not only to his knowledge, but also to his valor, and from his courage in opening a breach in the ranks of the enemy, he became known as Louverture, or the opener. Under their new leader the revolted slaves held their own against their enemies, declaring in favour of the king Louis the 16th and against the revolutionists. On the other hand, the English came to the aid of the whites, and the island was thrown into a state of horrible confusion, increased by the interference of the Spaniards who held the eastern section of the island. In 1794, after the convention in Paris had issued a decree demanding the liberation of the slaves, Toussaint and his followers joined the revolutionary cause, and aided the French General Lavaux to expel the British and Spanish invaders. In this campaign he won a number of victories, and showed such military skill and ability as to prove him a leader of the highest qualities. Beard says of him, his energy and his prowess made him the idol of his troops. In his deeds and war-like achievements he equalled the great captains of ancient and modern times. One example of the risks which he ran in battle occurred in his efforts to put down an insurrection of the mulattoes. In this contest he fell into an ambush in the mountains near Port de Paix, a shower of bullets sweeping his ranks. His private physician fell dead by his side, and a plume of feathers in his hat was shot away, but he remained unharmed. The same was the case soon after, when in a narrow pass his coachman was shot down. The Negro leader seemed, like Napoleon, to bear a charmed life. Declaring himself Lieutenant General of the Colony he wrote to the Directory in Paris, guaranteeing to be responsible for the orderly behaviour of the blacks and their goodwill to France. He sent at the same time his two elder sons to Paris to be educated, making them practically hostages for his honour and good faith. In 1798 the war, which had lasted for years, came to an end, the British being expelled from the island and the rebellious mulattoes put down. Peace prevailed and the Negro conqueror now devoted himself to the complete pacification of the people. Agriculture was encouraged, the churches were reopened, schools were established, and law and justice were made equal for all. At the same time the army was kept in excellent training and a rigid discipline exacted. As is usual in such cases there were abundant applications among the Negroes for official positions, and Toussaint was sorely put to it to dispose of these ignorant aspirers after high places without giving offence. He seems, however, to have been well versed in political management, and is said to have disposed of one unlearned applicant for a judicial position with the words, Ah yes, you would make an excellent magistrate, of course you understand Latin. No? That is very unfortunate, for you know that Latin is absolutely necessary. There is another evidence of his wisdom in dealing with his people that is worth repeating. As has been said, when the revolution began, Haiti had about a half a million of blacks to seventy thousand whites and mulattoes. Toussaint adopted an original method of making the force of this fact evident to his followers. He would fill a glass with black grains of corn and throw upon them a few grains of white. You are the black grains, he would say. Your enemies are the white. Then he would shake the glass. Where are the white grains now? You see, they have disappeared. The authorities in France could not but recognize the ability and the moderation of the black leader, and in 1796 he was appointed commander-in-chief in the island, a commission which was confirmed by Bonaparte about December 1799. All classes and colors regarded him as a general benefactor and a wise and judicious ruler. Leader and prosperity were restored, and his government was conducted with moderation and humanity. It looked as though peace and goodwill might continue in Haiti as long as this able governor lived, but unluckily he had to deal with a man in whom ambition and pride of place overruled all conceptions of justice. This was Napoleon Bonaparte, who had now risen to the Supreme Power in France. Bonaparte seems to have been angered by two letters which Toussaint sent to him. After having completely pacified the island, these were addressed, the first of the blacks to the first of the whites. The assumed equality seems to have touched the pride of the conqueror, for he disdained to answer the letters of the Haitian ruler. Early in 1800 a republican constitution was drafted under the auspices of Toussaint, which made Haiti virtually independent, though under the guardianship of France. An election was held, and the liberator chosen president for life. When the news of this action reached France in July 1800, Napoleon was furious. He had just been made First Consul and would brook no equal. He is a revolted slave whom we must punish, he exclaimed, the honor of Francis outraged. Resolved to reduce the Negroes again to slavery, he sent to Haiti a fleet of sixty ships and an army of about thirty-five thousand men under General Leclerc, the husband of Pauline Bonaparte. Pauline accompanied him, and also several officers who had been a former opponent of Toussaint. Meanwhile, the Haitian president had not been idle. Having subdued the French portion of the island, he led his army into the Spanish portion, which was also reduced, San Domingo, its capital, being taken on January 2, 1801. When the keys of this city were handed to him by its governor, the Negro conquerors said solemnly, I accept them in the name of the French Republic. Yet his conquests in the name of France did not soften the heart of the First Consul, who was bent on treating him as a daring rebel. The peace of Amiens left the hands of Napoleon, free in Europe, and the expedition under Leclerc reached the island about the end of 1801. To oppose the strong army of Napoleon's veterans, men who had been trained to victory under his own eye, Toussaint had a force of blacks little more than half as strong. As he looked at the soldiers disembarking from the ships in the Bay of Samana, he exclaimed in dismay, we are lost, all France is coming to invade our poor island. The French made landings at several of the ports of Haiti, driving back their defenders. The city of San Domingo, held by Toussaint's brother Paul, was taken. Christophe, a daring Negro who was to figure high in the subsequent history of the island, commanded at Cape Eitien, and when Leclerc summoned him to surrender, replied, Go tell your general that the French shall march here only over ashes, and that the ground shall burn beneath their feet. This was not bombast, for when he found further defense impossible, he set fire to the city, and retreated to the mountains, taking with him two thousand white prisoners. Grief and despair filled the soul of Toussaint. When marching to the relief of Christophe, he saw the roads filled with fugitives and the city in ashes. But though the French became masters of the ports, the army of the blacks maintained itself in the mountain fastnesses, in which Toussaint defied all the efforts of his foes. After Leclerc had lost heavily, and began to despair of subduing his able opponent by force of arms, he had recourse to strategy. He had brought with him Toussaint's two sons. Napoleon had interviewed these boys before their departure from France, saying to them, Your father is a great man, and has rendered good service to France. Tell him I say so, and bid him not to believe I have any hostile intention against the island. The troops I send are not designed to fight the natives but to increase their strength, and the man I have appointed to command is my own brother-in-law. Leclerc sent these boys to Toussaint, with the demand that he should submit or send his children back as hostages. An affecting interview took place between the boys and their father, and when they repeated to him Napoleon's words, he was at first inclined to yield, but fuller consideration induced him to refuse. I cannot accept your terms, he said. The first consul offers me peace, but his general no sooner arrives than he begins a fierce war. No, my country demands my first consideration. Take back my sons. In the continuation of the war, a French force of twenty thousand men under Rochambeau marched against Toussaint, who was strongly entrenched at Crète à Pierrot. In the contest that followed Toussaint at first out-generaled Rochambeau and defeated him with severe loss. But the assistance he looked for from his subordinates failed to reach him, and at length he was forced to retreat. The French, however, despite their superior numbers and the military experience of their leaders, found that they had no mean antagonist in the Negro general, and Leclerc again resorted to negotiation, offering the blacks their freedom if they would submit. Toussaint, seeing that he was unable to hold his own against his powerful foe, and convinced that the terms offered would be advantageous to his country, now decided to accept them, saying, I accept everything which is favourable for the people and for the army. As for myself, I wish to live in retirement. The Negro liberator trusted his enemies too much. The pride of Napoleon had not yet digested the affront of Toussaint's message from the first of the blacks to the first of the whites, and he sent orders to Leclerc to arrest and send him to France. In June 1802 a force was sent secretly at night to Toussaint's home, where he was dwelling in peace and quiet. The house was surrounded, two blacks that sought to defend him were killed on the spot, and he was dragged from his bed and taken to the coast. Here he was placed on board a man of war, which at once set sail for France. Napoleon's treatment of Toussaint was one of the dark deeds in his career. Reaching France the captive was separated from his wife and children, and confined in the dungeon of a dreary frontier castle. Here one morning in April 1803 Toussaint Louverture, the Negro liberator, was found dead. He had been starved to death if we may accept the belief of some authors. The Haitian patriot died in poverty though he might easily have accumulated vast wealth. In his official position he had maintained a degree of magnificence, and Napoleon believed that he had concealed great riches somewhere in the island. He sent spies to question him, but Toussaint's only reply was, No, the treasures you seek are not those I have lost. The lost ones were his wife, his children, and his liberty. History is often an error, and Napoleon was soon to find that he had made a fatal mistake in his treatment of the leader of the blacks. Alarmed at his seizure and having no one to control them, the Negroes flew to arms, and soon the revolt spread over the whole island. Yellow fever came to the aid of the blacks, raging in Leclerc's army until thousands of soldiers and fifteen hundred officers found graves in the land they had invaded. In the end Leclerc himself died, and Pauline was taken back to France. When Napoleon heard the story of the fate of his expedition he exclaimed in dismay, Here, then, is all that remains of my fine army, the body of a brother-in-law, of a general, my right arm, a handful of dust. All has perished, all will perish. Fatal conquest, cursed land, perfidious colonists, a wretched slave in revolt, these are the causes of so many evils. He might more truly have said, My own perfidy is the cause of all those evils. A few words must conclude this tale. General Rochambeau was sent large reinforcements, and with an army of twenty thousand men attempted the reconquest of the island. After a campaign of ferocity on both sides he found himself blockaded at Cape Aitien, and was saved from surrender to the revengeful blacks, only by the British, to whom he yielded the eight thousand men he had left. As he sailed from the island he saw the mountaintops blazing with the beacon fires of joy kindled by the blacks. From that day to this, the island of Haiti has remained in the hands of the Negro race. CHAPTER 20 Bollivar the Liberator and the Conquest of New Grenada. One dark night in the year 1813 a Negro murderer crept stealthily into a house in Jamaica, where slept a man in a swinging hammock. Stealing silently to the side of the sleeper, the assassin plunged his knife into his breasts, then turned and fled. Fortunately for American independence he had slain the wrong man. The one whom he had been hired to kill was Simon Bollivar, the great leader of the Patriots of Spanish America. But on that night Bollivar's secretary occupied his hammock, and the liberator escaped. Bollivar was then a refugee in the English island, after the failure of his early attempt to win freedom for his native land of Venezuela. He was soon back there again, however, with recruited forces, and for years afterwards the war went on with variations of failure and success. The Spanish general Murillo, treating the people who fell into his hands with revolting cruelty. It was not until 1819 that Bollivar perceived the true road to success. This was by leaving Venezuela, from which he had sought in vain to dislodge the Spaniards, and carrying the war into the more promising field of Nugrenada. So confident of victory did he feel in this new plan that he issued the following proclamation to the people of Nugrenada. 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, alters to liberty will arise throughout your land. Bollivar had recently been strengthened by a British legion, recruited in London among the disbanded soldiers of the Napoleonic wars. He had also sent General Santander to the frontier of Nugrenada, and General Barrero, the Spanish general, had been driven back. Encouraged by this success he joined Santander at the foot of the Andes in June 1819, bringing with him a force of twenty-five hundred men, including his British auxiliaries. Bollivar in this expedition had as bitter a foe to conquer in nature as in the human enemy. In order to join Santander he was obliged to cross an enormous plain which at that season of the year was covered with water, and to swim some deep rivers, his war materials needing to be transported over these streams. But this was child's play compared with what lay before him. To reach his goal the Andes had to be crossed at some of their most forbidding points, a region over which it seemed next to impossible for men to go, even without military supplies. When the invading army left the plains for the mountains the soldiers quickly found themselves amid discouraging scenes. In the distance rose the snowy peaks of the eastern range of the Cordiera, and the waters of the plain through which they had waited were here replaced by the rapids and cataracts of mountain streams. The roads in many places followed the edge of steep precipices and were bordered by gigantic trees, while the clouds above them poor down incessant rains. Four days of this march used up most of the horses which were foundered by the difficulties of the way. As a consequence an entire squadron of Vianeros, men who lived in the saddle, and were at home only on the plain, deserted on finding themselves on foot. To cross the frequent torrents there were only narrow, trembling bridges formed of tree trunks, or the aerial taravitas. These consisted of stout ropes made by twisting several thongs of well-greased hides. The ropes were tied to trees on the two banks of the ravine, while from them was suspended a cradle or hammock of capacity for two persons, which was drawn backward and forward by long lines. Horses and mules were similarly drawn across, suspended by long girths across their bodies. Where the streams were affordable the current was usually so strong that the infantry had to pass two by two with their arms thrown round each other's shoulders. To lose their footing was to lose their lives. Bolivar frequently passed these torrents back and forward on horseback, carrying the sick and weakly or the women who accompanied the expedition. In the lower levels the climate was moist and warm, only a little firewood being needed for their nightly bivouacs. But as they ascended they reached localities where an ice-cold wind blew through the stoutest clothing, while immense heaps of rocks and hills of snow bounded the view on every side, and clouds veiled the depths of the abysses. The only sounds to be heard were those of the roaring torrents they had passed and the scream of the condor as it circled the snowy peaks above. Here, all vegetation disappeared except the clinging lichens and a tall plant which bore plumes instead of leaves and mist covered with yellow flowers resembling a funeral torch. To add to the terrors of the journey the path was marked by crosses erected in memory of travellers who had perished by the way. In this glacial region the provisions brought with them gave out, the cattle on which they had depended as their chief resource could go no farther. Thus dragging on through perils and privation at length they reached the summit of the Paya Pass, a natural stronghold where a battalion would have been able to hold a regiment in check. An outpost of three hundred men occupied it, but these were easily dispersed by Santander, who led the van. At this point the men, worn out by the difficulties of the way, began to murmur. Bolivar called a council of war and told its members that there were great difficulties still to surmount. He asked if they would keep on or if they preferred to return. They all voted in favour of going onward, and the knowledge of their decision inspired the weary troops with new spirit. Before the terrible passage was completed one hundred men had died of cold, fifty of them being Englishmen. Not a horse was left, and it was necessary to abandon the spare arms and even some of those worn by the soldiers. It was little more than the skeleton of an army that at length reached the beautiful valley of Sagamoso in the heart of the province of Tuña on the 6th of July, 1819. Starting at this point, Bolivar sent assistants back to the stragglers who still lingered on the road and dispatched parties to collect horses and communicate with the few guerrillas who roamed about that region. Barriero, the Spanish commander, held the Tuña province with two thousand infantry and four hundred horse. There was also a reserve of one thousand troops at Bogota, the capital, and detachments elsewhere, while there was another royalist army at Quito. Bolivar trusted to surprise and to the support of the people to overcome these odds, and he succeeded in the first, for Barriero was ignorant of his arrival and supposed the passage of the Cordillera impossible at that season of the year. He was soon aware, however, that the Patriots had achieved this impossible thing and were in his close vicinity, and with all haste collected his forces and took possession of the heights above the plain of Vargas. By this movement he interposed between the Patriots and the town of Tuña, which, as attached to the cause of liberty, Bolivar was anxious to occupy. It was not long, therefore, before the opposing armies met, and a battle took place that lasted five hours. The Patriots won, chiefly by the aid of the English infantry, led by Colonel James Rook, who had the misfortune to lose an arm in the engagement. The victory was by no means a decisive one, and the road to Tuña remained in the hands of the royalists. Instead of again attacking his entrenched foe, Bolivar now employed strategy, retreating during the day then making a rapid counter-march at night, thus passing Barriero's forces in the dark over by-roads. On the 5th of August, Tuña fell into his hands. He found there an abundance of warm material, and by holding it he cut off Barriero's communication with Bogotá. The strength of Bolivar's generalship lay in rapid and unexpected movements like this. The Spanish leaders, bound in the shackles of military routine, were astonished and dismayed by the forced marches of their enemies over roads that seemed unfit for the passage of an army. While they were maneuvering, calculating, hesitating, guarding the customary avenues of approach, Bolivar would surprise them by concentrating a superior force upon a point which they imagined safe from attack, and by throwing them into confusion would cut up their forces in detail. As a result, the actions of the Patriot commander in the field seemed less impressive than those of less notable generals, but the sum of effects was far superior. Bolivar's occupation of Tuña took the Spaniards by surprise. Barriero, finding himself unexpectedly cut off from his center of supplies, fell back upon Yentecamada, where he was soon followed by his foe, anxious to deal a decisive blow before the royal forces could concentrate. Boyaca, the site now occupied by the hostile armies, was a wooded and mountainous country, and one well-suited to Bolivar's characteristic tactics. Placing a large part of his troops in ambush, and maneuvering so as to get his cavalry in the enemy's rear, he advanced to the attack with a narrow front. On this, Barriero made a furious assault, forcing his opponents to recoil, but this retreat was only a stratagem, for as they fell back, the Spaniards found themselves suddenly attacked in the flank by the ambushed troops, while the cavalry rode furiously upon their rear. In a few minutes they were surrounded, and the fierce attack threw them into utter confusion, in which the Patriot army cut them down almost without resistance. General Barriero was taken prisoner on the field of battle, throwing away his sword when he saw that escape was impossible, to save himself the mortification of surrendering it to General Bolivar. Colonel Jiménez, his second-in-command, was also taken, together with most of the officers and more than sixteen hundred men. While their artillery, ammunition, horses, etc., were captured, and a very small portion of the army escaped. Some of these fled before the battle was decided, but many of them were taken by the peasantry of the surrounding country and brought in as prisoners. The loss of the Patriots was incredibly small, only thirteen killed and fifty-three wounded. Boyaca, after Maipo, by which Chile gained its freedom, was the great battle of South America. It gave the Patriots supremacy in the North, as Maipo had done in the South. New Granada was free from the Spaniards, and on August 9, two days after the battle, the Viceroy Samana, hastily evacuated Bogota, fleeing in such precipitated haste that in thirty hours he reached Honda, usually a journey of three days. On the twelfth, Bolivar triumphantly marched into the capital and found in its coffers silver coin to the value of half a million dollars, which the Viceroy had left behind in his haste. It must be said further that the English Auxiliaries aided greatly in the results of these battles, their conduct giving Bolivar such gratification that he made them all members of the Order of the Liberator. It is not our purpose to tell the whole story of this implacable war, but simply to relate the dramatic invasion and conquest of New Granada. It must suffice, then, to state that the war dragged on for two years longer, ending finally in 1821 with the victory of Carabobo, in which the Spaniards were totally defeated and lost more than six thousand men. After that they withdrew and a republic was organized with Bolivar for its president. Two years later he aided the Peruvians in gaining their independence and was declared their liberator and made supreme dictator of the country. After ruling there absolutely for two years he resigned and gave the country a republican constitution. The Congress of Lima elected him president for life and a new common wealth was organized in the northern section of Peru to which the people gave the name of Bolivia in honor of the winning of their liberties. CHAPTER XXI The people were rising against the tyranny of the kings. First in this struggle for liberty came the English colonies in America, then the people of France sprang to arms and overthrew the moss-grown tyranny of feudal times. The armies of Napoleon spread the demand for freedom through Europe. In Spain the people began to fight for their freedom and soon the thirst for liberty crossed the ocean to America, where the people of the Spanish colonies had long been oppressed by the tyranny of their rulers. The citizens of Mexico had been deeply infected by the example of the great free republic of the north, and the seed of liberty grew for years in their minds. Chief among its advocates was a farmer's son named Miguel Hidalgo, a true scion of the people, and an ardent lover of liberty, who for years longed to make his native Mexico independent of the afeat royalty of Spain. He did not conceal his views on this subject, though his deeper projects were confided only to a few trusty friends. Chief among whom was Ignacio Allende, a man of wealth and of noble Spanish descent, and a captain of dragoons in the army. These men, with a few intimates, consulted often and matured their plans, confident that the desire for liberty was strong in the country and that the patriot people needed only a leader to break out into insurrection. Hidalgo's eager desire for liberty, long smoldering, burst into flame in 1810, when the Spanish authorities attempted to arrest in Queretaro some revolutionists who had talked too freely. And of their danger these men fled or concealed themselves. News of this came quickly to Hidalgo and taught him that with his reputation there was what one of two things to do, he must flee or strike. He decided to strike, and in this he was supported by Allende, whose liberty was also in danger. The decisive step was taken on the 15th of September, 1810. That night Hidalgo was roused from slumber by one of his liberty-loving friends and told that the hour had come. Taking his brother to his aid and summoning a few of those in the secret, he led the small party of revolutionists to the prison, broke it open, and set free certain men who had been seized for their liberal ideas. This took place in the early hours of a Sunday. When day broke and the countrymen of the neighboring parish came to early mass, the news of the night's events spread among them rapidly and caused great excitement. To a man they took the side of Hidalgo and before the day grew old, he found himself at the head of a small band of ardent revolutionists. They had once set out for San Miguel de Grande, the nearest town, into which marched before nightfall of the day a little party of eighty men, the nucleus of the Mexican revolution. For standard they bore a picture of the Holy Virgin of Guadalupe, taken from a village church. New adherents came to their ranks till they were three-hundred strong. Such was the movement known in Mexico as the Grito de Dolores, their war cry, the Grito being, up with true religion and down with false government. Never before had an insurrection among the submissive common people been known in Mexico. When news of it came to the authorities they were stupefied with amazement. That peasants and townspeople, the plain workers of the land, should have opinions of their own about government and the rights of man was to them a thing too monstrous to be endured, but for the time being they were so dumbfounded as to be incapable of taking any vigorous action. While the authorities digested the amazing news of the outbreak, the movement grew with surprising rapidity. Hidalgo's little band was joined by the regiment of his comrade Allende, and a crowd of field laborers armed with slings, sticks and spades, hastened in to swell their ranks. So popular did the movement prove that in a brief period the band of eighty men had grown to a great host, fifty thousand or more in numbers. Poorly armed and undisciplined as they were, their numbers gave them strength. Hidalgo put himself at their head as commander in chief with Allende as his second command, and active exertions were made to organize an army out of this undigested material. The next thing we perceive in this promising movement for liberty is the spectacle of Hidalgo and his host of enthusiastic followers marching on the rich and flourishing city of Guanajuato, capital of a mining state, the second largest in Mexico. This city occupies a deep but narrow ravine, its houses crowded on the steep slopes, up which the streets climb like stairways. The people of the city were terrified when they saw this great body of people marching upon them with some of the organization of a regular army, though most of them bore only the arms of a mob. The authorities who were advised of their approach showed some energy. Resolving not to surrender and making hasty preparations for defense, they entrenched themselves in a strongly built grain warehouse with the governor at their head. Much better armed than the mass of their assailants and backed up by strong stone walls, the authorities defended themselves vigorously and for a time the affair looked anything but promising for Hidalgo's improvised army. Success came at last through the courage of a little boy called Pipita, who, using as a shield a flat tile torn from the pavement and holding a blazing torch in his hand, crept through a shower of bullets up to the gate of the stronghold and set fire to it. As the flames spread forward the insurgents broke in upon the frightened defenders, killing some and making prisoners of the others. The common people of the city in sympathy with the revolutionists and inspired with the mob spirit of pillage now rushed in disorder through the streets, breaking into and robbing shops and houses until checked in their career of plunder by Hidalgo, who restored order by threatening punishment to any plunderers. He proceeded to make the city a stronghold and center for the collection of arms and money, his forces being increased by the defection from the Spaniards of three squadrons of regular troops, while the whole province declared for the cause of the revolution. While this was going on the governing powers in Mexico had recovered from their stupefaction and began to take active measures to suppress the dangerous movement. Shortly before a new Viceroy had arrived in Mexico, Don Francisco Venegas, a Spanish general who had distinguished himself in the war with Napoleon. Fancying that he had a peaceful life before him in America, he began his work of government by calling a council of prominent persons and asking them to help him raise money from the loyal people for the support of their brethren in Spain who were fighting against Napoleon. Three days later, the Grito de Dolores broke out, and he saw that his dream of peace was at an end, and that he would need all the funds he could raise to suppress revolution in his new government. The Viceroy, an experienced soldier, at once ordered the troops in garrison at Mexico to Querétaro, strengthening them by rural detachments and summoning garrisons from the north, west, and east. He issued at the same time a decree under which all Indians were released from taxation and promised pardon to all rebels who should at once lay down their arms. A reward of ten thousand dollars being offered for the capture or death of the three chief insurgents, Hidalgo, Allende, and Aldama. The civil authorities were vigorously supported by the clergy in this action against the revolution. Hidalgo and his chief comrades were excommunicated by the bishops and the local clergy denounced them bitterly from their pulpits. The inquisition, which had taken action against Hidalgo in 1800 for his dangerous opinions, now cited him to appear before its tribunal and answered these charges. But bishops and inquisitors alike wasted their breath on the valiant insurgents who maintained that it was not religion but tyranny that they were banded against. The revolutionists took possession of Valladolid on the 17th of October without resistance, the bishop and authorities fleeing at their approach. As the bishop himself was gone, Hidalgo forced the cannons he had left behind to remove the sentence of excommunication. The town was made a second stronghold of the revolution and a centre for new recruiting, the army increasing so rapidly that in ten days' time its leader took the bold step of advancing upon Mexico, the capital city. The approach of the insurgents who had now grown greatly numbers filled the people of the capital with terror. They remembered the sack of Guanajuato and hastened to conceal their valuables while many of them fled for safety. As the insurgents drew near they were met by the army of the viceroy and a fierce battle took place upon all elevation called the Montede de Cruces outside the city. A hot fire of artillery swept the ranks of the insurgents, but filled with enthusiasm and greatly outnumbering the royal troops they swept resistlessly on bearing down all before them and sweeping the viceroy's soldiers from the field with heavy loss. Only his good horse saved Trujillo, the commanding general from death or capture and bore him in safety to the city. Mexico, filled with panic and confusion at the news of the disastrous defeat of its defenders, could perhaps have been easily taken and its capture might possibly have closed the struggle in favour of liberty. It certainly was a moment for that boldness on which success so often depends, but Hidalgo at this critical stage took counsel from prudence instead of daring and fearing the arrival of reinforcements to the beaten army, withdrew his forces towards Querétaro, a weak and fatal retrograde movement as it proved. The viceroy had another army advancing from the north under the command of Callea, a skillful general. Meeting Hidalgo at Aculco on his march toward Querétaro, he attacked him with such vigor that after hot combat the insurgents were utterly worsted losing all their artillery and many men. In fact, the whole loose joined army fell to pieces at this severe repulse and Hidalgo was followed to Vaya Dolid with an insignificant remnant of his mighty host. Calleja followed up his victory with a pursuit of Allende and a fierce attack on him at Guanajuato, forcing him to abandon the city and retreat to Zacatecas, which had proclaimed independence. Calleja, who had much of the traditional Spanish cruelty now celled his triumph by a barbarous retaliation upon the people of the city he had taken, who were most savagely punished for their recent plundering outbreak. The remainder of this story of revolution is a brief and unfortunate one. Hidalgo gathered another army and led them to Guadalajara, where he organized a government appointed ministers and styled himself generalisimo. He dispatched a commissioner to the United States, but this person had soon found himself a prisoner. Arms were collected and the army organized as rapidly as possible, but his forces were still in the raft when disregarding the advice of Allende and others he resolved to attack Calleja. He advanced on the 16th of January to the Puente de Cazarón, where he found himself in face of a well equipped and disciplined army of ten thousand men, superior in everything but numbers to his undisciplined levies. They fought bravely enough in the battle of the next day, but they were no match for their opponents, and the contest ended in a complete rout, the insurgents scattering in all directions. Hidalgo hastened towards Zacatecas, meeting on his way Allende, Jiménez, and other leaders who had escaped from the fatal field of Calderón. The cause of liberty seemed at an end. Calleja was vigorously putting down the revolution on all sides. As a last hope the chiefs hastened toward the United States' borders, with such men and money as they had left, proposing there to recruit and discipline another army. But before reaching the frontier they were overtaken by their pursuers, being captured in a desert region near the Rio Grande. The captives were now taken under a strong escort to Chihuahua, where they were tried and condemned to death. Allende, Aldama, and Jiménez were shot on the 26th of June, and Hidalgo paid the penalty of his life on the 27th of June, 1811. Thus, in the death of its chiefs, ended the first struggle for independence in Mexico. The heads of the four chiefs were taken to Guanajuato and nailed to the four corners of the stronghold which they had taken by storm in that city. There they remained till the freedom of Mexico was won, when they were given a solemn burial beneath the altar of the sovereigns in the Cathedral of Mexico. The Alhondiga de Granaditas, the building to which their heads were attached, is now used as a prison. But its walls still bear the spike which for ten years held Hidalgo's head. Before it there stands a bronze statue of this earliest of the Mexican patriot leaders. Shall we add a few words descriptive of the later course of the struggle for independence? The death of Hidalgo left many patriots still alive, and one of these, Moreles the Militia, kept up the war with varying fortunes until 1815 when he too was taken and shot. The man to whom Moreles owes his downfall was Augustin de Iturbide, a royalist leader who pursued the insurgents with relentless energy. Yet it was to this man that Mexico in the end owed its independence. After the death of Moreles, a chief named Guerrero kept up the war for liberty and against him Iturbide was sent in 1820. As it proved the royalist had changed his views and after some fighting with Guerrero he joined hands with him and came out openly as a patriot leader. He had under him a well-disciplined army and advanced from success to success till the final viceroy found himself forced to acknowledge the independence of Mexico. The events that followed, how Mexico was organized into an empire with Iturbide as emperor under the title of August in the first, and how a new revolution made it a republic and Iturbide was shot as a traitor, belonged to that later history of the Spanish-American republics in which revolution and counter revolution continued almost annual events. This slipperbox recording is in the public domain. Charles Morris On the 3rd of June, 1819, General Morillo, the commander of the Spanish forces in Venezuela, found himself threatened in his camp by a party of 150 daring horsemen who had swum the Orinoco and galloped like centaurs upon his line. Eight hundred of the Spanish cavalry with two small field pieces sallied out to meet their assailants, who slowly retired before their superior numbers. In this way, the royalists were drawn on to a place called Las Queceros del Medio, where a battalion of infantry had been placed in ambush near the river. Here, suddenly ceasing their retreat and dividing up into groups of twenty, the patriot horsemen turned on the Spaniards and assailed them on all sides, driving them back under the fire of the infantry by whom they were fearfully cut down. Then they recross the river with two killed and a few wounded, while the plane was strewn with the bodies of their foes. This anecdote may serve to introduce to our readers Joseph Antonio Páez, the leader of the band of patriot horsemen, and one of the most daring and striking figures among the liberators of South America. Born of Indian parents of low extraction and quite illiterate, Páez proved himself so daring as a soldier that he became in time general in chief of the armies of Venezuela and the neighboring republics, and was Bolivar's most trusted lieutenant during the war for independence. Brought up amid the herds of half-wild cattle belonging to his father, who was a landholder in the Venezuelan plains, he became thoroughly skilled in the care of cattle and horses, and in adept at curing their disorders. He was accustomed to mount and subdue the wildest horses, and was noted for strength and agility, and for power of enduring fatigue. A Iannero, or native of the elevated plains of Venezuela, he rose naturally to great influence among his fellow herdsmen, and when the revolution began in 1810 and he declared in favour of the cause of freedom, his reputation for courage was so great that they were very ready to enlist under him. He chose front among them one hundred and fifty picked horsemen, and this band, under the title of the Guides of the Apore, soon made itself the terror of the Spaniards. The following story well shows his intrepid character. After the death of his mother, young Páez inherited her property in Barinas, and divided it with his sisters who were living in that town. The Spanish forces which had been driven out of it occupied it again in 1811, and proclaimed a general amnesty for the inhabitants, inviting all property holders to return and promising to reinstate them in their fortunes. Páez, hearing of this, rode boldly into Barinas and presented himself before the Spanish commandant, saying that he had come to avail himself of the amnesty and take possession of his property. He was soon recognized by the inhabitants who gathered in hundreds to welcome and shake hands with him, and the news quickly spread among the Spanish soldiers that this was the famous Captain Páez who had done them so much mischief. Seizing their arms they called loudly on their commander to arrest and shoot the insolent newcomer as a rebel and a traitor. But this officer who was well aware of the valor of Páez and perceived his great influence over the people of Barinas, deemed it very imprudent to take a step that might lead to a general outbreak, and concluded to let his perilous visitor alone. He therefore appeased his soldiers, and Páez was left unmolested in the house of his sisters. The governor, however, only bided his time. Spies were set to watch the daring Yanero, and after some days they informed their leaders that Páez had gone out unarmed, and that there was a good opportunity to seize his weapons as a preliminary to his arrest. When Páez returned home after his outing, he was told that armed men had visited the house and taken away his sword and pistols. Incensed by this act of ill faith he boldly sought the governor's house and angrily charged him with breaking his word. He had come to Barinas, he said, trusting in the offer of amnesty, and vigorously demanded that his arms should be restored, not for use against the Spaniards but for his personal security. His tone was so firm and indignant and his request so reasonable under the circumstances that the governor repented of his questionable act and gave orders that the arms should be returned. On hearing this the whole garrison of Barinas assailed the governor with reproaches, impetuously demanding that the guerrilla chief should be arrested and confined in irons. The versatile governor again gave way, and that night the Páez mansion was entered and he taken from his bed, put in irons and locked up in prison. It was no more than he might have expected if he had known as much of the Spanish character then as he was afterwards to learn. But Páez was not an easy captive to hold. In the prison he found about one hundred and fifty of his fellow rebels, among them his friend García, an officer noted for strength and courage. On García complaining to him of the weight of his irons and the miserable condition of the prisoners, Páez accused him of cowardice and offered to exchange fetters with him. To keep his word he broke his own chains by main strength and handed them to his astonished friend. Páez now spoke to the other prisoners and won their consent to a concerted break for liberty. Freed from his own fetters he was able to give efficient service to the others, and before morning nearly the whole of them were free. When the jailer opened the door in the morning he was promptly knocked down by Páez and threatened with instant death if he made a sound. Breaking into the guard room they seized the arms of the guard, set free those whose irons were not yet broken, and marched from the prison with Páez at their head, upon the Spanish garrison, two hundred in number. Many of these were killed and the rest put to route, and Barínas was once more in patriot hands. The Sanicot will serve to show, better than pages of description, the kind of man that Páez was. When the act became known to the Yeneros they proclaimed Páez their general and were ready to follow him to the death. These cowboys of the Orinoco, if we may give them this title, were like their leader, of Indian blood. Neither they nor their general knew anything about military art and felt lost when taken from their native plains, a fact which was shown when they were called upon to follow Bolivar in his mountain expedition against Nugrenada. Neither persuasion nor force could induce them to leave the plains for the mountains. Bolivar and Páez entreated them in vain, and they declared that rather than go to the hill country they would desert and return to their native plains, where alone they were willing to fight. This was their only act of insubordination under their favorite leader, who usually had complete control over them. He made himself one with his men, would divide his last scent with them, and was called by them Uncle and Father. His staff officers were all Yeneros, and formed his regular society, they being alike destitute of education and ignorant of tactics, but bold and dashing and ready to follow their leader to the cannon's mouth. The British legion, about six hundred strong, was in the last year of the war attached to the Yeneros corps, its members being highly esteemed by Páez who called them My Friends the English. The soldiers of the legion, however, were bitterly opposed to their commander, Colonel Basué, whom they held responsible for the miserable state of their rations and clothes and their want of pay. At the end of one day, which was so scorchingly hot that the soldiers were excused from their usual five o'clock parade, the legion rushed from their quarters at this hour and placed themselves in order of battle, crying that they would rather have a creole to lead them than their Colonel. Their officers attempted to pacify them, but in vain, and the lieutenant Colonel, against whom they had taken offense, was attacked and mortally wounded with bayonet thrusts. When Colonel Basué had appeared and sought to speak to them, they rushed upon him with their bayonets, and it needed the active efforts of the other officers to save him from their revengeful hands. Tidings of the mutiny were brought to General Páez in his quarters and threw him into a paroxysm of rage. Seizing his sword he rushed upon the mutineers, killed three of them instantly, and would have continued this bloody work but that his sword broke on the body of a fourth. Flinging down the useless weapon he seized some of the most rebellious, dragged them from the ranks by main strength and ordered them to be taken to prison. The others, dismayed by his spirited conduct, hastily dispersed and sought their quarters. The next day three of the most seditious of the soldiers and a young lieutenant who was accused of aiding in the mutiny, though probably innocent of it, were arrested and shot without trial. Paroxysms of fury were not uncommon with Páez. After the Battle of Ortiz, in which his daring charges alone saved the infantry from destruction, he was seized with a fit and lay on the ground foaming at the mouth. Colonel English went to his aid, but his men warned him to let their general alone, saying, He is soft and so, and will soon be all right. None of us dare touch him when he is in one of those spells. But Colonel English persisted, sprinkling his face with water and forcing some down his throat. The general soon recovered and thanked him for his aid, saying that he was a little overcome with fatigue, as he had killed thirty-nine of the enemy with his own hand. As he was running the fortieth through the body he felt his illness coming on. By way of reward he presented Colonel English with the lance which had done this bloody work, and gave him three fine horses from his own stud. These anecdotes of the dashing leader of the Uneros, who, like all Indians, viewed the Spaniards with an abiding hatred, are likely to be of more interest than the details of his services in the years of campaigning. In the field it may be said he was an invaluable aid to General Bolivar. In the campaigns against Murillo, the Spanish commander-in-chief, his daring activity and success were striking, and to him was largely due the winning of the last great battle of the war, that of Carabobo. In this battle, fought on the 26th of June, 1821, Bolivar had about sixteen hundred infantry, a thousand or more of them being British, and three thousand of Yanero cavalry under payes. The Spaniards under La Torre had fewer men, but occupied a very strong defensive position. This was a plane interspersed with rocky and wooded hills and giving abundant space for military movements, while, if driven back, they could retire to one strong point after another, holding the enemy at disadvantage throughout. In front there was only one defile, and their wings were well protected, the left resting upon a deep morass. A squadron of cavalry protected their right wing, and on a hill opposite the defile, through which ran the road to Valencia, was posted a small battery. This position seemed to give the royalists a decisive superiority over their patriot antagonists, and for twenty days they waited an attack, in full confidence of success. Bolivar hesitated to risk an attack, fearing that the destiny of his country might rest upon the result. He proposed an armistice, but this was unanimously rejected by his council of war. Then it was suggested to seek to turn the position of the enemy, but this was also rejected, and it was finally decided to take every risk and assail the enemy in his stronghold, trusting to courage and the fortune of war for success. While the subject was being discussed by Bolivar and his staff, one of the guides of the army, who was thoroughly familiar with the country they occupied, stood near and overheard the conversation. At its end he drew near Bolivar, and in a whisper told him that he knew a difficult footpath by which the right wing of the Spaniards might be turned. This news was highly welcome, and after a consultation with his informant, Bolivar secretly detached three battalions of his best troops, including the British Legion, and a strong column of cavalry under General Payas, directing them to follow the guide and preserve as much silence and secrecy as possible. The path proved to be narrow and very difficult. They were obliged to traverse it in single file, and it was paved with sharp stones that cut their shoes to pieces and deeply wounded their feet. Many of them tore their shirts and made bandages for their feet to enable them to go on. Fortunately for the success of the movement, it was masked by the forest, and the expedition was able to concentrate in a position on the flank of the enemy without discovery. When at length the Spaniards found this unwelcome force on their flank, they hastily dispatched against it the Royal Battalion of Bengos, driving back the nearest troops and unmasking the British Legion. This they fired upon and then charged with the bayonet. The British returned the fire and charged in their turn, and with such dash and vigor that the Spaniards soon gave way. In their retreat Páez marched upon them with a squadron called the Sacred Legion, and few of them got back to their ranks. In return a squadron of the Spaniards charged the British but with less success, being dispersed by a hot musketry fire. While the Spanish right wing was being thus dealt with, a fierce attack had been made upon the front. The unexpected flank and rear attack was so disconcerting that La Torre lost all presence of mind, and on every side his men were driven back and thrown into confusion. In front and on flank they were hotly pressed. The opportunity of retreating to the succession of defensive points in the rear was quite lost sight of in the panic that invaded their ranks, and soon they were in precipitate retreat, their cavalry dispersed without making a charge, their infantry in the utmost disorder, their cannon and baggage trains deserted and left to the enemy. In this state of affairs Páez showed his customary dash and activity. He pursued the Spaniards at the head of the cavalry, cutting them down vigorously, and few of them would have escaped, but for the fatigued and weak condition of his horses which rendered them unable to break the files of the Spanish infantry. In one of their unsuccessful charges, General Sedeno, Colonel Plaza, and a black man called for his courage El Primero, the first, finding that they could not break the infantry lines, rushed madly into the midst of the bayonets and were killed. The news of this defeat spread consternation among the Spaniards. Thousands of the royalists in the cities hastened to leave the country, fearing the vengeance of the Patriots. The Spanish commanders lost all spirit, and three months later the strong fortress of Cartagena surrendered to the Columbians. Maracaíbo was held till 1823 when it surrendered, and in July 1824 Porto Cabello capitulated and the long contest was at an end. The final surrender was doing great measure to General Páez, who thus sustained his military service to the end. Though not gaining the renown of Bolivar and doubtless incapable of heading an army and conducting a campaign, as a cavalry leader he was indispensable, and to him and his gallant llaneros was largely due the winning of the liberty.