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                            SOUTH AMERICA.


         “Fall’n nations gaze on Spain; if freed, she frees
          More than her fell Pizarros once enchain’d;
          Strange retribution! now Columbia’s ease
          Repairs the wrongs that Quito’s sons sustain’d.”

                                   _Childe Harold._




                        SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE

                             SOUTH AMERICA

                                DURING

                         THE COLONIAL PERIOD.

                                  BY

                         ROBERT GRANT WATSON,

    EDITOR OF “MURRAY’S HANDBOOK OF GREECE,” FOURTH EDITION, 1872.

                           _IN TWO VOLUMES._

                                VOL. I.

                                LONDON:
                     TRÜBNER & CO., LUDGATE HILL.
                                 1884.
                       [_All rights reserved._]


                           Ballantyne Press
                      BALLANTYNE, HANSON AND CO.
                         EDINBURGH AND LONDON


                                  TO

                      _SIR JAMES HUDSON, G.C.B.,
                            ETC. ETC. ETC._

        THE MOST DISTINGUISHED BRITISH DIPLOMATIST OF THE REIGN
                          OF QUEEN VICTORIA,

             AS HAVING BEEN THE MEANS OF PUTTING AN END TO
                     THE SLAVE TRADE WITH BRAZIL;

                             AND LIKEWISE

      AS HAVING CONTRIBUTED IN A MARKED DEGREE TO THE UNIFICATION
                         AND FREEDOM OF ITALY,

                             These Volumes

               ARE, WITH THE HIGHEST RESPECT, INSCRIBED.




PREFACE.


The following account of the Colonies from which sprang the States of
South America owes its origin to the want of such a work felt by myself
some years ago. In 1866 I received the appointment of second Secretary
to Her Majesty’s Legation in the _Argentine Republic_ and _Paraguay_. My
previous experience having been in quite another part of the world, I
had all to learn respecting the regions which I was about to visit. The
only book which had been recommended to me was Sir Woodbine Parish’s
work on _Buenos Ayres_. On reaching my destination, however, I found
that this work was already out of date; I also found that there was a
considerable amount of literature respecting South America. But this
literature being partly in English, French, German, Dutch, Latin, or
Italian, and partly in Spanish or Portuguese, was only accessible to
persons possessing a reading knowledge of the above-named languages.

Of two years in South America I passed one as Secretary at _Buenos
Ayres_, and the other in a similar capacity at _Rio de Janeiro_. During
the first year I was sent up the _Uruguay_ and to the Province of _Santa
Fè_; then to the Welsh colony on the _Chupat_ river in _Patagonia_; and,
lastly, to the then seat of war in _Paraguay_: in the second year I
went on a mission to the Province of _Minas Geraes_ in _Brazil_. I had
thus opportunities of seeing different parts of the continent, and of
becoming more impressed with the want of a work giving anything like a
complete account of them.

On my return to Europe I was employed in several countries for a number
of years in succession, and have only recently found the necessary
leisure to compose a work of the kind mentioned. The materials at my
disposal are voluminous; but my effort has been to make this Review as
concise as is consistent with clearness. In offering it to the Public I
by no means desire it to take the place of the more elaborate and
original works referred to in it, but rather to serve as an Index to the
contents of these various works.

The History of South America may contain much of general interest; it
possesses, moreover, a special interest for merchants, settlers,
sailors, and travellers, who may have passed, or may be likely to pass,
a portion of their lives on the continent in question; nor should some
knowledge of an important portion of the globe be excluded from the
sphere of inquiry of any educated person.

That the merest elementary acquaintance with South American geography
and politics may be conspicuously absent even in educated English
circles, may be gathered from the following circumstances within my own
experience:--On my return to England in 1868, I happened to be present
on the annual speech-day at Harrow. At luncheon there I sat next to a
gentleman whose remarks on the unusual heat of the weather led to his
learning that I had recently come from _Rio de Janeiro_. His interest
being excited, he asked me to tell him, one by one, the several stages
by which one arrived there from England, viz.--Southampton, Lisbon, _St.
Vincent_, _Pernambuco_, _Bahia_, and _Rio_. When I had named the last
point he repeated the inquiry, “and then?” to which I replied that
_then_ one was at one’s destination.--“But,” he asked, “I thought _Rio_
was up a river?” I suggested that he was perhaps misled by the name
“_Rio de Janeiro_,” the River of January, but said that the town was
situated on an arm of the sea, which the first European explorers had
mistaken for a stream, naming it after the month of the year on which it
was discovered. But this explanation did not satisfy him. He was
thinking of some other river: would I name one or two? I suggested “_The
Amazons_,” which he said was the stream he meant, until I informed him
that it lay about two thousand miles to the _north_ of _Rio de Janeiro_!
On this he remarked that there was surely another great stream in that
quarter, and that he must have mistaken the name. I suggested the river
_Plate_, to which he answered “Yes, yes, of course;” but his
speculations collapsed when I informed him that the river _Plate_ was
about a thousand and fifty miles to the _south_ of the Brazilian
capital.

About the same time I met at a dinner-party a well-known Member of
Parliament, who, on learning the quarter of the world from which I had
recently arrived, professed himself as being most anxious to hear
something about the _Paraguayan_ War, then much talked of, and the
progress of which he said he had followed with close attention. I began
with a statement of the contending parties--namely, _Paraguay_ on the
one hand, and _Brazil_, the _Argentine Republic_, and the Republic of
_Uruguay_ on the other. “But stop,” he said “You have omitted to
mention _Corrientes_.” I answered that to quote _Corrientes_ as being
one of the parties to the war would be the same as to mention Yorkshire
as having been one of the principals of the Crimean War--since
_Corrientes_ was merely a province of the _Argentine Republic_. This was
a new light to him; the name had so taken hold of his memory that he was
at first inclined to argue with me as to the correctness of my
statement.

Lest this gentleman should appear exceptionally uninformed, I may
mention that, as I had subsequent opportunities of ascertaining, even
some men holding high office in the Royal Geographical Society--who were
familiar with the latest discoveries near the North Pole and in the
interior of Africa, with Central Asia, and with Australia--had somehow
in their range of study overlooked South America.

In writing history, one man necessarily builds upon another man’s
foundation. It was my first intention to compose a wholly original work,
comprising the history of the several states of South America from the
discovery of that Continent to the present day; but reflection convinced
me that the execution of such a plan would require the labour of many
years, even were all circumstances favourable. Various writers have
formed schemes, the labour entailed by