Part 18

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 tuns, in which they might float enclosed to their waists, 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 waist. Piperies, Lussan called them, but his description does not make it clear just what they were like.

While thus engaged, the freebooters 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 freebooters 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 descend 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 horsemeat they had brought with them being spoiled by its frequent wetting. 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 freebooters was not abated by the danger of their situation. They made the most earnest endeavors 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 favored 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.

Gradually 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 freebooters divided themselves into detachments and began to build large canoes from the forest trees. Four of these, carrying one hundred and thirty 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 favored 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-begone and miserable party when, a few days afterwards, they reached the isle of Perlas. 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 in expedients 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 meed of fame.

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 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 where 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.

INDIANS OF THE PLATEAU.

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 formed for their protection, but it soon became one of the worst of the abuses. Under it every man from the age of eighteen to fifty 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 mines. Every mine-owner could demand the number of Indians he needed. In Peru alone fourteen hundred 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 well 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 mitad in Peru alone had eight million victims.

The law limited the mitad 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, there 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 when 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 tithes, but extravagant prices for every church service, forty reals 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 Timebos Indians, for example, of the province of Velez, New 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 tribes 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 at 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 Caravaya 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. When 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 Cuzco, 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 repartimientos 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 fire-arms 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 cacique 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 Cuzco, 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 mediæval times 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.