AMERICA CHILE lan DIVISION VI The first European to land in Chile was the Portuguese discoverer Magellan, after his famous voyage through the strait which now bears his name. He landed at Chile in 1520. After the Landing conquest of Peru by Pizarro, an expedition was made to Chile from that country overland under the leadership of Diego de Almagro in 1535. The expedition penetrated as far as the Rio Clano, but returned unsuccessful. Another was sent under command of Pedro Valdivia in 1540, which succeeded in annexing the territory as far as the river Maipu. Santiago, the capital, was founded by Valdivia in 1542. During the colonial period the governors of Chile were appointed by the viceroys of Peru. In 1810 a revolt against the Spanish power broke out, in which Don Bernardo Inde- O'Higgins, son of one of the last viceroys of Peru, but a native of pendence Chile, played a conspicuous part, and finally became the first dictator of the new republic. The conflict between the Spanish troops and the republican army continued until 1826, when peace was definitely settled, and Chile left to govern itself. Gained War with Peru The first constitutional president was General Blanco Encalada. The government was unsettled until 1847. A revolution broke out in 1851, but since then there has been but one attempt to overturn the government, in 1891. In 1864 Chile gave Peru very valuable support in her war with Spain. Valparaiso was bombarded by the Spaniards in 1866. In 1879 Chile declared war against Bolivia, and immediately thereafter against Peru, with which Bolivia was allied. For a time the Peruvian fleet kept the Chileans in check, but in August, 1879, the Peruvian ironclad Huascar, was captured by the Chilean men-of-war, Cochrane and Blanco Escalada, both armor-plated. of the Chileans was uninterrupted. After this event the success barded, and their other war-ships captured. of Finance, the Interior, Foreign Affairs, War, Commerce and Public Works, and of Justice, Public Worship, and Instruction. The Council of State consists of five members nominated by the president, and six appointed by congress. The legislature is composed of two chambers; viz., the Deputies, about 100 in number, being in proportion of one to 20,000 inhabitants; and the Senate, numbering one to every five deputies. Deputies must have an income of at least $500, and senators of $2,000. The elections are conducted with considerable fairness, but as a majority of the representatives chosen have come from the ranks of a few leading families, Chile has been well described as "an aristocratic republic." This state of affairs, however, has brought excellent results, as the Chilean government has long had a deservedly high reputation for ability and integrity. AMERICA taken by storm, June 21, 1881. The Chileans occupied Lima and DIVISION VI Callao until October 30, 1883, when a treaty of peace was signed. By this a portion of Peruvian territory was ceded to Chile. During the year 1891 a very bloody civil war was waged between the congress of that republic and President José Manuel Balmaceda, a dictator whose arbitrary and despotic rule had at last caused his people to revolt. The Chilean congress, and the people were trying to displace the one-man form of government and reassert popular rights in its place. Nearly four fifths of the total people were on the side of the congress, while a large portion of the army supported the president. The navy was from the first in the hands of the revolutionists. At the beginning of the war, the cities of Santiago and Valparaiso, the capital and chief port of the republic, were held by Balmaceda while the congressional forces controlled the country both to the north and the south. In this stretch of country lay the rich nitrate deposits, and the revolters used the cash derived from the sale of the nitrate in the purchase of arms and ammunition. Balmaceda seized the silver in the national treasury at Santiago, and was thus enabled to pay the European contractors who had furnished him with supplies. CHILE Civil War Massacre of Women and From the 5th of January, when the congress issued its proclamation against the president, until the fall of Santiago on August 30th, there was a series of battles the major part of which were won by the insurgents. Among the more important of these conflicts were the capture by the congressional fleet of Iquique, February 6, 1891, in which more than two hundred women and children were killed and the business part of the city burned, the recapture of Pisagua by the Balmacedist troops later in the month, Children a meeting which caused the death of one hundred congressional soldiers of which number eighteen officers were shot in cold blood. April 18, 1891, was the date of a decisive naval engagement off Valparaiso during which an armed tug belonging to the Balmacedist party was blown up, and her crew drowned. The Itata, a congressional transport which had been seized at San Diego, California, on the charge of violating the neutrality laws which the United Incident States had laid down early in the year, escaped the diligence of the officials at that port and put to sea May, 1891. She was pursued by the United States cruiser Charleston and finally surrendered to the United States consul at Iquique, June, 1891. The "Itata" DIVISION VI From the 20th to the 28th of August there was a week of fierce fighting in the neighborhood of Valparaiso. The congressional force of eight thousand men under the veteran General Canto was armed with modern rifles, and so were enabled to hold their own against the army of the president, whose troops outnumbered the besiegers two to one, but were not supplied with as new and effective means of fighting. The losses on both sides were heavy, but the rebels were victorious in the end, and on the 28th of August entered the city. This proved the fall of the dictator's power, his army was disorganized, his ablest generals killed, and his capital city in the hands of the enemy. The Balmacedist refugees found safety on the German and American war-ships which were lying in the harbor while Balmaceda himself attempted to cross the Andes President into the Argentine Republic, but was prevented from so doing, and Suicides in despair committed suicide in Santiago, September 20, 1891. A The American Sailors great deal of hostility was shown at about this time to the representatives of the United States by the victorious party. The common belief and report was that the Americans in Chile had secretly given aid to the Balmacedists, and this belief was strengthened by the American minister's action in making the American legation in Santiago a place of safety for the refugees of the defeated party. On October 16, 1891, the trouble culminated in a riot at Valparaiso in which two of a party of American sailors were killed. After several months negotiations, during which at one time the Chileans assumed a very warlike aspect, the dispute was settled and Chile paid an indemnity to the families of the victims of the mob. The aggressive attitude which Chile has taken toward her neighbors has been the cause of much trouble in the South American republics. Her seizure of the southern provinces of Bolivia and Peru made both of those countries bitter enemies. Several attempts at arbitration have failed through Chile's refusal to deal fairly. In fact, it was rumored in 1900 that Chile had approached four other South American republics on the proposition to divide the territory of Bolivia. The most serious quarrel is with Bolivia, as the Bolivian provinces which Chile now holds, were the only ones through which Bolivia had an outlet to the sea. Chile has offered the use of the port, also to build a railroad from the port to the Bolivian frontier, but Bolivia holds that these concessions are not at all commensurate with her loss of the provinces. THE HISTORY OF ARGENTINE REPUBLIC [Authorities: See Mulhall, Handbook of the River La Plata (1884); M. F. Paz Soldan, Geografia Argentina (1885); Lady F. Dixie, Across Patagonia (1880); G. Bove, Patagonia Terra del Fuoco (1893); and the recent British and American Consular Reports, some of which are full of important and interesting information, also the Statesman's Year-Book (1901)]. RGENTINE REPUBLIC occupies the southern taper of South America except the small Chilean half of Terra del Fuego. Explorers Cannibals The first Europeans who visited the River La Plata were a party of Spanish explorers in search of a southwest passage to the East Indies. Their leader, Juan de Solis, landed, in 1516, with a few at- Killed by tendants, on the north coast between Maldonado and Monte Video, where, according to Southey, they were treacherously killed, and then cooked and eaten by the Charrua Indians in sight of their companions on board the vessels. The survivors at once abandoned the country and returned to Spain, reporting the discovery of a fresh-water sea. In 1519 Magellan, in the service of the king of Portugal, entered this fresh-water sea, or Mar Dulco, as it was then called, but finding no passage to the west, he left it without landing, and then achieved his famous voyage to the East Indies, passing through the strait which bears his name in 1520. After this, Sebastian Cabot, already a renowned navigator, who, in the service of Henry VII of England, had attempted to find a northwest passage to the East Indies, entered the service of Charles I of Spain, and sailed in command of an expedition fitted out for REPUBLIC Established DIVISION VI the purpose of colonizing the discoveries of Magellan in the East AMERICA Indies. He, however, entered the River La Plata in 1527, and ARGENTINE anchored off the present site of the City of Buenos Ayres. He then ascended the Paraná, and established a settlement, named A Colony San Espirito, among the Timbu Indians in Santa Fé; and he succeeded in bringing that tribe of Indians to friendly terms with the colony. He continued the ascent of the Paraná as far as the cataracts in Missiones, and afterward explored the Paraguay, from which he entered the Vermejo, where his party suffered severely in a savage fight with the Agaces, or Paragua Indians. Of this tribe a subdued remnant now lives on the delta of the Pilcomayo, opposite Asuncion, amalgamating neither with the Spaniards nor with the wild Guaycurus of the surrounding parts of the Chaco. The profusion of silver ornaments worn by these Indians, as well as by the Timbos and Guaranis, led him to give the name of Rio de la Plata, or Silver River, to the splendid stream which he had thus far explored. This name is now applied only to the estuary below the junction of the Paraná and Uruguay. One of Cabot's lieutenants, detached on a separate exploring expedition up the Uruguay, was killed, together with a great part of his crew, by the Charrua Indians. And subsequently at San Espiritu, an attempt of the chief of the Timbus to obtain possession of one of the Spanish ladies in the settlement led to a treacherous massacre of the garrison. Before this latter occurrence, Diego Garcia arrived in the river with an expedition fitted out in Spain, for the purpose of continuing the explorations commenced by De Solis; and Cabot returned to Spain, where he applied to Charles I for the means of opening communication with Peru by way of the Vermejo. But the resources of the king were absorbed in his struggle as emperor (under the name of Charles V) with Francis I of France, so that he was obliged to leave the enterprise of South American discoveries to his wealthy nobles. Cabot's Explora tions In August, 1534, Mendoza left Cabot for the River La Plata at the head of the largest and wealthiest expedition that had ever left Europe for the New World. In January, 1535, he entered the River La Plata, where he followed the northern shore to San Gabriel, and then crossing the river, he landed on the Pampas. The name of Buenos Ayres was given the country by Del Campo, who first stepped ashore where the city of that name now stands, |