Buenos Ayres and the Provinces of the Rio de La Plata / Their Present State, Trade, and Debt

LIST OF MAPS AND PLATES.

BUENOS AYRES
AND THE
PROVINCES OF LA PLATA.

CHAPTER I.
DIVISIONS AND PRESENT STATE OF THE REPUBLIC.

The United Provinces of La Plata, or, as they are sometimes called, the Argentine Republic, comprise, (with the exception of Paraguay and the Banda Oriental, which have become separate and independent states) the whole of that vast space lying between Brazil and the Cordillera of Chile and Peru, and extending from the 22nd to the 41st degree of south latitude.

The most southern settlement of the Buenos Ayreans as yet is the little town of Del Carmen, upon the river Negro.

The native Indians are in undisturbed possession of all beyond, as far as Cape Horn.

Generally speaking, the Republic may be said to be bounded on the north by Bolivia; on the west by Chile; on the east by Paraguay, the Banda Oriental, and the Atlantic Ocean; and on the south by the Indians of Patagonia. Altogether, it contains about 726,000 square miles English, with a population of from 600,000 to 700,000 inhabitants.

This vast territory is now subdivided into thirteen Provinces, assuming to govern themselves, to a certain degree, independently of each other; though, for all general and national purposes, confederated by conventional agreements.

For want of a more defined National Executive, the Provincial Government of Buenos Ayres is temporarily charged with carrying on the business of the Union with foreign Powers, and with the management of all matters appertaining to the Republic in common. The Executive Power of that Government, as constituted in 1821, is vested in the Governor, or Captain General[6], as he is styled, aided by a Council of ministers appointed by himself—responsible to the junta or legislative Assembly of the Province by whom he is elected. The junta itself consists of forty-four deputies, one-half of whom are annually renewed by popular election.

Geographically, these Provinces may be divided into three principal sections:—1st, the Littorine, or eastern; 2nd, the Central, or northern; 3rd, those to the west of Buenos Ayres, commonly called the provinces of Cuyo.

The Littorine Provinces are, Buenos Ayres, and Santa Fé, to the west, and Entre Rios and Corrientes to the east of the River Paranã. Those in the Central section, on the high road to Peru, are Cordova, Santiago del Estero, Tucuman, and Salta; to which may be added, Catamarca, and La Rioja. Those lying west of Buenos Ayres, and which formerly constituted the Intendency of Cuyo, are San Luis, Mendoza, and San Juan.

All these together now form the confederation of the United Provinces of La Plata.

Under the Spanish rule, the Viceroyalty of Buenos Ayres comprehended further, the provinces of Upper Peru, now called Bolivia; as well as Paraguay, and the Banda Oriental: and immense as this jurisdiction appears for one government, it was but a portion separated from that of the old viceroys of Peru, whose nominal authority at one time extended from Guayaquil to Cape Horn, over 55 degrees of latitude, comprising almost every habitable climate under the sun; innumerable nations, speaking various languages, and every production which can minister to the wants of man.

To Spain, it was a convenience and saving of expense to divide her American possessions into as few governments as possible; and under her colonial system, without a hope of improving their social condition, their native industry discouraged, and the very fruits of the soil forbidden them, in order to ensure a sale for those of the mother country, it was of little consequence to the generality of the people by what viceroy they were ruled, or at what distance from them he resided.

It became, however, a very different matter when that colonial system was overthrown, and succeeded by native governments of their own election. Then, all the many and various distinctions of climate, of language, of habits, and productions, burst into notice; and as they separately put forward their claims to consideration, the difficulty, if not impossibility, became manifest, of adequately providing for them by the newly-constituted authorities, which, although succeeding to all the jurisdiction of the viceroys, repudiated in limine the principles of the system under which such discordant interests had hitherto been controlled and held together.

The consequence has been, that most of the new states in their very infancy have been subjected to the embarrassing necessity of re-casting their governments, and dividing and subdividing their extensive territories, as the varying and distinct interests of their several component parts have shown to be requisite for their due protection and development. Nothing has tended more to retard the organization and improvement of their political institutions than this necessity; and nowhere has it been more strikingly exemplified than in the widely-spread provinces of La Plata. In the first years of the struggle with the mother country, one common object, paramount to all other considerations, the complete establishment of their political independence, bound them together—perhaps I should more correctly say, prevented their separation;—but the very circumstances of that struggle, and the vicissitudes of the war, which often for long periods together cut off their communications with the capital, and with each other; obliging them to provide separately for their own temporary government and security, gave rise in many of them, especially those at a distance, to habits of more or less independence, which, as they imperceptibly acquired strength, produced in some, as in Paraguay and Upper Peru, an entire separation from Buenos Ayres; and in others such an assumption of the management of their own provincial affairs, as ere long reduced the metropolitan government to a nullity.

It is true that, up to 1820, the semblance of a Central Government was maintained at Buenos Ayres, but in that year the unpopularity of the measures of the Directory and of the National Congress led to its final dissolution, under circumstances which precluded all hope of its re-establishment, and terminated in the system of federalism, which has ever since de facto subsisted.

Experience has taught Buenos Ayres the inefficacy of forcible measures to bring back the provinces under her more immediate control; and though congresses have been more than once convoked for the purpose of establishing something more definite as to the form, at least, of their national government, whether central or federal, individual and local interests have always prevailed in thwarting such an arrangement; and the probability now is, that for a long time to come the national organization of this State will be limited to the slender bonds of voluntary confederation, which at present constitute the soi-disant union of the provinces, not only with each other, but with their old metropolis, Buenos Ayres.

It is not my purpose here to enter into the history of the domestic troubles and civil dissensions which brought about this state of things in the new republic: it is an unsatisfactory, and to most of my readers would be a very unintelligible, narrative. Suffice it to say, that whilst the political importance of Buenos Ayres has been apparently not a little diminished; on the other hand, it may be questioned if the provinces have reaped any substantial advantage by shaking off their immediate dependence upon the metropolis. Most of them have suffered all the calamitous consequences of party struggles for power, and have fallen under the arbitrary rule of the military chiefs, who, in turn, have either by fair means or foul obtained the ascendency; and if in some of them the semblance of a representative junta has been set up in imitation of that of Buenos Ayres, it will be found, I believe, that such assemblies have, in most instances, proved little more than an occasional convocation of the partisans of the governor for the time being, much more likely to confirm than to control his despotic sway.

The present political state of the provinces of La Plata is certainly very different from what was expected by the generality of those who originally took an interest in the fate of these new countries. It is, however, a state of things not confined to this republic; we shall find, more or less, the same scenes; the same violent party struggles, the same continual changes of government; the same apparent incapacity for arriving at anything like a settled political organization in almost every one of the several independent states into which the old possessions of Spain on the New Continent have resolved themselves; and this under circumstances, to all appearance, the most dissimilar with regard to the locality, climate, soil, language, wants, and physical condition of the inhabitants; with no one common element, in fact, in their composition, save their having all been brought up in, and habituated to, the same colonial system of the mother country. What, then, is the conclusion we must draw from this fact? Is it not evident that it was that colonial system which, wherever applied, unfitted the people for a state of independence, and left them worse than helpless when thrown upon their own resources?

Well might Spain urge upon other nations, as an argument against the recognition of those countries, that the South Americans were unfit for a state of independence. She knew the full extent of moral degradation to which her own policy had reduced them; but it was futile to allege it, when it had become manifest to all the world that her own power to reduce them again to subjection was gone for ever, and that the people of South America had not only achieved their complete independence, but were resolved and fully able to maintain it. The notoriety of those facts left no alternative to foreign governments whose subjects had any real interest in the question, whatever might be the speculative opinions of some parties as to the eventual prospects of the New States.

In this country our ignorance of the real condition of the people of South America naturally led us to look back to what had taken place in our own North American colonies, and with but little discrimination perhaps, to anticipate the same results, whereas nothing in reality could be more dissimilar than the circumstances of the colonial subjects of Great Britain and Spain when their political emancipation took place.

In the British colonies all the foundations of good government were already laid: the principles of civil administration were perfectly understood, and the transition was almost imperceptible.

On the other hand, in the Spanish colonies the whole policy, as well as the power of the mother country, seems to have been based on perpetuating the servile state and ignorance of the natives: branded as an inferior race, they were systematically excluded from all share in the government, from commerce, and every other pursuit which might tend to the development of native talent or industry. The very history of their own unfortunate country was forbidden them, no doubt lest it should open their eyes to the reality of their own debased condition.

When the struggle came, the question of their independence was soon settled irrevocably; but as to the elements for the construction at once of anything like a good government of their own, they certainly did not exist.

Under these circumstances, what was perfectly natural took place. In the absence of any other real power, that of military command, which had grown out of the war, obtained an ascendency, the influence of which in all the New States became soon apparent. They fell, in fact, all of them more or less under military despotism. The people dazzled with the victories and martial achievements of their leaders, imperceptibly passed from one yoke to another.

It is true that national Congresses and legislative Assemblies were everywhere convoked; but, generally aiming at more than was practicable or compatible with their circumstances, they in most instances failed, and by their failure rather confirmed the absolute power of the military chiefs. They, however, abolished the slave-trade, put an end to the forced service of the mita, so grievous to the Indians, and nominally sanctioned more or less the liberty of the press,—measures which gained them popularity and support amongst men of liberal principles in Europe, who fancied they saw in them expressions of public opinion, and evidences of a fitness amongst the people at large for free institutions; but this was an error.

The people of South America, with the Laws of the Indies still hanging about their necks, shouted indeed with their leaders, "Independence and Liberty," and gallantly fought for and established the first; but as to liberty, in our sense of the word at least, they knew very little about it:—how could they?

They have yet practically to learn that true liberty in a civilized state of society can only really exist where the powers of the ruling authorities are duly defined and balanced; and where the laws—not the colonial laws of Old Spain—are so administered as to ensure to every citizen a prompt redress for wrongs, entire personal security, and the right of freely expressing his political opinions. The working of such laws makes men habitually free and fit for the enjoyment of free institutions. But such a state of things is not brought about in a day or in a generation, nor can it be produced by any parchment constitution, however perfect in theory. The experiment has been tried of late years in some of the oldest states of Europe, and has invariably failed. Is it then reasonable that we should expect it to be more successful in such infant states as these new republics? Time—and we, of all people in the world, ought best to know how long a time—is requisite to bring such good fruit to maturity.

Education, the press, a daily intercourse with the rest of the world, and experience not the less valuable because dearly bought, are all tending gradually to enlighten the inhabitants of these new countries, and to prepare them for their future destinies. And, although from a variety of causes, their advancement may appear slow, and their present state fall far short of what has been expected of them, the truth is, they have made immense progress, compared with their old condition under the colonial yoke of Spain;—and especially, I will say so, of Buenos Ayres.

CHAPTER II.
RIVER PLATE.

The river Plate, or La Plata, was originally named after De Solis, who first entered it in 1515. Some years afterwards, Sebastian Cabot, ascending it above its junction with the Paranã, found silver ornaments amongst the natives; and thence believing, or desiring to induce others to believe, that that precious metal abounded on its shores, he gave it the false appellation by which it has ever since been known.

It is a singular coincidence, that thus the two mightiest rivers of the South American continent, indeed two of the most remarkable rivers of the world, the Plata, and the Amazons, should derive their names from fictions, rather than from those brave adventurers who first made them known, and to whom the honour was the more justly due; as both of them, Orellana, as well as De Solis, lost their lives in the prosecution of those particular discoveries.

But one feeling takes possession of the stranger on his arrival off this wonderful river—that of amazement at the immensity of its extent; a hundred miles before he enters it, he may have seen its turbid current, and had to struggle with its influence in the ocean itself[7]. At its mouth, from Cape St. Mary's to Cape St. Antonio, its width is 170 miles. Farther up, between Santa Lucia, near Monte Video, and the point of Las Piedras on its southern bank, within which its waters are generally fresh, it is double[8] the distance across from Dover to Calais.

But for that positive freshness, the stranger can hardly credit that he is not still at sea. He has yet to sail up it nearly two hundred miles ere he reaches the anchorage off Buenos Ayres, and then, at the end of his voyage, if the ship be large[9], he will probably find it difficult to make out the land.

It is only from the pozos, or inner roads, that the city becomes visible in its full extent, ranging along a slightly elevated ridge, which bounds the river. The towers of the churches, and here and there a solitary Umbú tree, alone break an outline almost as level as the horizon of the river itself. There is no back-ground to the picture, no mountains, no trees; one vast continuous plain beyond extends for nearly 1000 miles unbroken to the Cordillera of Chile.

Unless the weather be perfectly settled, of which the barometer is the best index, the landing is not unattended with danger. I have known many a boat lost in crossing the bar or bank which lies between the outer and inner roads[10]. Nor is the bank the only danger: thick fogs at times come on, suddenly enveloping land and water in total darkness without the slightest previous indication; in such a dilemma, if a boat be caught without the means of anchoring, the chances are that she may be carried down the river by the currents, and the people half-starved before they are picked up or can find the land again.

But supposing these dangers passed, nothing can be more inconvenient or strikingly characteristic of the country than the actual landing. A ship's boat has seldom water enough to run fairly on shore, and, or arriving within forty or fifty yards of it, is beset by carts, always on the watch for passengers, the whole turn-out of which I defy any other people in the world to produce anything at all approaching.

On the broad flat axle of a gigantic pair of wheels, seven or eight feet high, a sort of platform is fixed of half a dozen boards, two or three inches apart, letting in the wet at every splash of the water beneath; the ends are open—a rude hurdle forms the side, and a short strong pole from the axle completes the vehicle; to this unwieldy machine the horse is simply attached by a ring at the end of the pole, fastened to the girth or surcingle, round which his rider has the power of turning him as on a pivot, and of either drawing or pushing the machine along like a wheelbarrow, as may be momentarily most convenient:—in this manner, for the first time in my life, I saw the cart fairly before the horse:—in Europe we laugh at the idea; in South America nothing is more common than the reality.

The wild and savage appearance of the tawny drivers of these carts, half naked, shouting and screaming and jostling one another, and flogging their miserable jaded beasts through the water, as if to show the little value attached to the brute creation in these countries, is enough to startle a stranger on his first arrival, and induce him for a moment to doubt whether he be really landing in a Christian country. It is a new and a strange specimen of human kind, little calculated to create a favourable first impression.

In old times there was a sort of mole, such as it was, which ran some way into the river, and obviated a part, at least, of these inconveniences, but it was either washed or blown down some years ago, and the people have been too indolent, or too busy ever since to set about replacing it; not, however, for want of plans for its reconstruction, amongst which one for a chain-pier, some years ago submitted to the government, appeared particularly suited to the locality; why it was not adopted, I never heard, but it is no credit to the natives that something of the sort has not long since been built. Nothing is more wanted, or more deserving the primary attention of the authorities, whilst I believe no work they could undertake would more certainly repay its expenses, for the convenience to passengers is a small consideration compared with the value which any commodious landing-place for merchandise at Buenos Ayres would be of to the trade. The loss and damage yearly sustained by the present mode of carrying goods on shore, in the rude carts I have described, is incalculable, and highly detrimental to the port in a commercial point of view.

With respect to the passage up the river, though somewhat intricate, it is by no means so perilous as it was long believed to be, probably because the commercial shipping from Spain rarely ascended higher than Monte Video, to which Port the country produce from Buenos Ayres and the interior provinces was for the most part sent down in small craft for shipment to Europe.

In 1789 Malaspina commenced the elaborate survey of the river, afterwards completed by Oyarvide, and still further corrected by the observations of Captains Beaufort and Heywood, of the British navy, the latter of whom, also, published particulars directions for the navigation of the several channels between the banks. With his chart and sailing[11] directions, and due attention to the soundings and currents, there is now little risk; and that little would be still farther diminished by the establishment, long projected, of a floating light off the tail of the Ortiz bank, and of two or three leading landmarks opposite to the Chico channel.

The most dangerous parts of the river are buoyed, and licensed pilots ply off its mouth to take vessels either into the harbour of Monte Video, or up to Buenos Ayres.

Ships drawing fifteen or sixteen feet water may ran freely up to the anchorage of that city. Foreign vessels do not go higher, Buenos Ayres being at present the only port of entry; indeed, were it otherwise, and the navigation of the upper parts of the river thrown open, and declared free, as some of the provinces have at times wished, it is not likely that European shipping would ever avail themselves of it, seeing that the passage up from Buenos Ayres to Corrientes, besides the additional risk, would at least occupy as much time as the whole voyage out from France or England.

CHAPTER III.
CITY OF BUENOS AYRES.

If my first feelings on being carted ashore at Buenos Ayres in the uncouth manner I have described, were none of the most agreeable, they soon passed off, and gave way to different impressions. As I walked up to the lodgings which had been prepared for me, I was struck with the regularity of the streets and buildings, the appearance of the churches, the general cheerfulness of the white-stuccoed houses, and especially with the independent contented air of the people—- a striking contrast to the wretched beggary and slave population, of which I had lately seen so much at Rio de Janeiro.

The date of the foundation of this city is comparatively recent, and long subsequent to the arrival of the first discoverers of the country, to whom neither the aspect of the Pampas, nor the warlike disposition of the Querandis, the then inhabitants, appear to have offered any attractions. Their search was for the land of gold and silver, which was evidently not this: in quest of those precious metals they ascended the river, and for the most part settled in the more inviting regions of Paraguay; hoping from thence to open an easy communication with the rich countries of Peru.

In 1535 the Adelantado, Don Pedro de Mendoza, on his way to Paraguay with one of the most brilliant expeditions ever equipped in Spain for South America, landed to recruit his people near the spot where Buenos Ayres now stands, and caused a fort to be built there for the first time, in which he left what he supposed a sufficient garrison for its defence; but he was mistaken—the warlike natives as soon as he was gone drove out the Spanish soldiers, and remained for nearly another half-century in undisturbed possession of all that part of the country.[12]

It was not till the year 1580 that the famous Don Juan de Garay, then in Paraguay, determined once more to endeavour to form a permanent settlement in the same neighbourhood. In this attempt the Spaniards as before met with a most obstinate resistance on the part of the natives, who attacked them armed with their formidable slings (the bolas now used by the gauchos) and with bows and arrows, to which they tied burning matches, which set fire not only to their tents but to their shipping. De Garay's little band, which only consisted of sixty men-at-arms, was at first well nigh overwhelmed by the number of the savages who poured down upon them bravely fighting for their lands. On both sides prodigies of individual valour are related. The death, however, of the Cacique, who commanded in chief, seems to have decided the battle; the Indians, seeing him fall, fled, followed by the victors till they were weary of killing them: and such was the slaughter that to this day the scene of the engagement is called La Matanza, or "the Killing Ground."

After this victory De Garay took formal possession of the country in the King of Spain's name, and founded the present city of Buenos Ayres—A.D. 1580.

For two centuries the settlement thus planted languished in insignificance, abandoned to its own resources, and the mother country, to all appearance, fearing rather than desiring its aggrandizement: nor was this without cause;—Spain, in fact, lost so immensely by the contraband trade carried on from Peru, through the river Plate, that she became accustomed to regard with something more than indifference a possession which in consequence of her own prohibitory and restrictive system, was totally unproductive to her, whilst the facilities it offered for illicit trading made it a fruitful source of grievance and of disputes with other nations.

The extent, however, of these evils in the course of time produced their own remedy. The King of Spain at last discovered that a Viceroy at Lima could not put down the smugglers in the river Plate, or prevent the continual territorial encroachments of the Portuguese in the same quarter.

The necessity had long been evident of establishing a separate and independent authority on the spot where its vigilance was in daily request, and in 1776 Buenos Ayres was made the seat of a new Viceroyalty, and separated from the government of Peru.

It was about that time, also, that Spain made most important changes in her colonial system. The exclusive and pernicious monopoly of the whole trade of South America, till then possessed by the merchants of Seville and Cadiz, was put an end to, and a comparatively free intercourse was, for the first time, permitted with many ports in the new world, with which till then it was death to communicate. Buenos Ayres reaped a large share of the advantages of this alteration in the commercial views and policy of the mother country; and from a nest of smugglers became one of the first trading cities in Spanish America. The rapid increase of her population, under these new circumstances, is worth notice.

CHAPTER IV.
POPULATION OF BUENOS AYRES.

In the year 1767, when M. de Bougainville visited Buenos Ayres, he tells us that the number of the inhabitants did not exceed 20,000.

In 1778, the year in which the port was partially thrown open under the free-trade regulations of Spain, as they were called, a census was taken, by which it appears that the inhabitants of the city and of its campaña, or country jurisdiction, amounted to 37,679 souls, of which 24,205 belonged to the city, 12,925 to the country, and 549 were members of religious communities; divided as follows, viz.:—

To these numbers, however, some, and not an inconsiderable, addition should be made for short returns, particularly from the country districts; for, let it be borne in mind, in examining all such official estimates of the population of the Spanish colonies, that, as any attempt on the part of the authorities to take a census was sure to be regarded as the forerunner of some new exaction for the service of the mother country, so it was as certain to be evaded, especially by the lower orders of the people, and, in proportion, to fall short of the reality. In this census it does not appear that the military were included, but in that year, or the preceding one, no less than 10,000 men were sent out from Spain under the command of the Viceroy Cevallos, in addition to the ordinary forces, to carry on the war with the Portuguese: a great part of them it may be assumed never returned, and should therefore be added to the numbers of the colonists. Making, then, a fair allowance for these deficiencies in the census for 1778, the population at that time probably did not fall short of 50,000 souls; and this calculation may be rather under than over the truth.

In 1789, ten years afterwards, Helms, the German traveller, on his way to Peru, was told by the Viceroy at Buenos Ayres that the city contained between 24,000 and 30,000 inhabitants, a calculation probably founded on the census of 1778, with his own vague notion of the probable increase upon it in the interim. No mention is made by him of the population of the country.

In 1795 the Viceroy Aredondo, on delivering up the government to his successor, took occasion to allude to the great increase which had taken place in the population since the opening of the trade, and spoke of it as then amounting altogether to nearly 60,000 souls.

In 1800 Azara calculated it to be 71,668, estimating 40,000 for the city, and 31,668 for the country-towns and villages within its jurisdiction—a great increase since 1778, compared with the past, which can only be ascribed to the more liberal policy adopted by Spain, and to the extraordinary impulse thereby given to the colony. This, however, was but an indication of the further results to be anticipated from the removal of those remaining restrictions which still grievously hampered the energies of the community, and retarded the development of the capabilities of a country formed by nature to be a great commercial emporium. The British invasions in 1806 and 1807 awakened the Buenos Ayreans to a sense of their own political importance, and the subsequent struggle with the mother country for their independence opened their ports to all the world; and in nothing are the consequences more strikingly exemplified than in the extraordinary increase which since that epoch has taken place in the population, notwithstanding all the waste of war in all its forms, foreign and civil, by land and by sea.

The following Tables of the Marriages, Births, and Deaths in the city and country districts of the province for 1822, 1823, 1824, and 1825, are taken from data published under the authority of the Government; and the calculations founded upon them give the most correct idea to be procured of the extent of the population up to the close of 1825.