Letters from the Battlefields of Paraguay. Richard Francis Burton

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СКАЧАТЬ 595,823

       1855

       1,005,900

       431,835

       1856

       1,143,131

       . 631,234

       1857*

       1,700,722

       . 1,074,639

       1858

       1,205,819

       . 866,596

       1859t .

       2,199,678

       1,539,648

       1860

       . 1,693,904

       885,841

      10 years. Total $11 ,229,121

      ,379,107

      In 1861 the total revenue was estimated at 8 millions of francs, about 4j millions resulting from the profits on Yerba, and the residue from the sale of stamped paper, public lands, and other taxes.

      In 1862 the commerce of Paraguay was represented by exports $1,867,000, and imports $1,136,000.

       Others estimate the revenue of 1857 at $2,441,323.

      f It has even been asserted that in 1859 the export and import dues rose to 3,500,000 patacoons.

      INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. 23

      In 1863 by exports $1,700,000, and imports $1,148,000.

      Under the senior Lopez the country was well pierced with roads, despite the many difficulties of " Cienega and swamp. Of these one, twelve leagues in length and fifty feet broad, was run over Mount Caio, and a second over Mount Palmares, thirteen leagues long. A third, numbering six leagues, and thirty-six feet broad, traversed the Cora- guazu, whilst a cart-road was commenced from Villa Rica to the Parana River, about parallel with the mouth of the Curitiba or Iguazii^s influent. A single pair of rails with sidings was proposed to run from Asuncion to Villa Rica, a distance of 108 miles. This line began in 1858, and was wholly the work of the Paraguayan Government : it had reached Paraguari, only a distance of seventy-two kilometres, when the allies captured Asuncion. The chief engineer was Mr. Paddison, C.E., now in Chili : that gentleman, fortu- nately for himself, left Paraguay before the troubles began, and he was succeeded by Messrs. Valpy and Burrell, who did not.

      SECTION II.

      HISTORICAL SKETCH.

      The history of Paraguay — she never forgets that she is a province senior to her sister, the Argentine Confedera- tion — naturally divides itself into four distinct epochs, namely, the

      Age of Conquest (1528-1620); the Period of Colonial AND Jesuitic Rule (1620-1754) ; the Government of THE Viceroys (1754-1810); and the Era of Indepen- dence (1811).

      Discovered by Sebastian Cabot, who in 1530, after a navigation of three years, returned to Europe, Paraguay

      24 INTRODUCTORY ESSAY.

      was granted by the Spanish monarchs to ^'^ Adelantados^ or private adventurers,, men mostly of patrician blood, " as good gentlemen as the king, but not so rich/" This is the romantic period, the childhood of her annals, upon which the historian, like the autobiographer, loves to dwell : no new matter of any interest has, hoAvever, of late years, come to light. We still read, in all writers from Robertson to the latest pen, of the misfortunes that befel D. Pedro de Mendoza ; of the exploits of his lieutenant, D. Juan de Ayolas, who on August 15th, 1537, founded Asuncion; of the wars, virtues, and fate of Alvar Nunez (Cabeza de Vaca), against whom his contador, or second in command, the vio- lent and turbulent Felipe Caceres, rebelled ; of the conquest of D. Domingo Martinez de Irala, who settled the colony ; of the subjugation of the Guaranis by the Captain Francisco Ortiz de Vergara, for whom the audience of Lima substi- tuted D. Juan Ortiz de Zarate ; of the lieutenant-governor- ship of the double-dyed rebel Felipe Caceres, who had again revolted against Vergara, and who expiated his offences by imprisonment and deportation to Spain ; and lastly, of the chivalrous career of the valiant Biscayan, D. Juan de Garay, who after conquering and settling an extensive province perished miserably (1581) by the hands of the ignoble Minuano"^ savages. Thus by conquest and violence arose a state which was doomed to fall, in the fulness of time, bathed in its own blood.

      As early as 1555 Asuncion became the seat of the first diocess : its juniors were Tucuman, originally established at Santiago-dcl-Estero, and transported to Cordoba in 1700; Buenos Aires, founded in 1620; and lastly Salta, in 1735. From the beginning, as in the days of Dr. Francia and

       The word is generally written " Minuane," but I am assured by

      Mr. R. Huxham, of the Hio Grande do Sul, a competent judge, that Minuano is the correct form.

      INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. 25

      the two Lopez, the spiritual was made subordinate to the temporal power. Ferdinand the Catholic obtained from Pope Alexander VI. the right of levying chureh tithes, upon the express condition of Christianizing his own hemisphere. Shortly afterwards (1508) Julius II. made over to him the entire patronage of ecclesiastical interests. Such concessions created the Spanish kings heads of the South American Church, and proprietors of her property ; the Chief Pontiff confirmed all their appointments, and Papal Bulls had no power in their colonies unless sanctioned by the Consejo de Indias. The first oath of the Bishop elect was to recognise the spiritual superiority, and to swear that he would never oppose the prerogative [patronato real), of his sovereign. In other points the ecclesiastical hierarchy was placed on the same footing as in Spain : the prelates received a portion of the tithes, whilst the rest was devoted to propagandism, and to the building of churches.

      The government of the Adelantazgo of private adven- turers — the era of conquest and confusion — was succeeded by the norm of order, and by the despotism laical and clerical of the parent country. A royal decree in 1620 divided Paraguay into two governments, completely independent of each other. The first was Paraguay Proper : the other was the Rio de la Plata, which thus ob- tained her own capital, Buenos Aires, and the seat of her bishopric. To both colonies a king irresponsible by law gave laws and functionaries. Both Paraguay and the Argen- tine Provinces were governed for more than two centuries by the Vice-royalty of Peru, and the '^Audience of Charcas,^' whose only peer was then that of Nueva Espaiia.

      It was at this period that the Society of Jesus obtained permission to catechize the indolent, passive, receptive child-men called Guaranis. They were rather barbarians than savages like the nomads of the Pampas j they culti-

      26 INTRODUCTORY ESSAY.

      vated maize and sweet potato^ tobacco and cotton, and they had none of the headstrong independence that cha- racterizes the Gaucho or mixed breed. Philip III. having, by his decree of 1606, approved of the project to propagate the faith, allowed two Italians, Simoni Mazeta and Giuseppe Cataldino to set out (December 8, 1609) en route for the colony СКАЧАТЬ