The Shining Sea (20 page)

Regrettably, Spain's dependencies had no tradition of self-government. For centuries all Spanish colonies were ruled directly from Madrid. The king appointed a cadre of officials, both secular and ecclesiastical, who ran each colony in minute detail. Every major decision and most minor ones were made in Spain. Without experience in republican government, creoles found working together exceptionally difficult.

Furthermore, neither monarchists nor republicans spoke for the bulk of the population. Spanish America was deeply divided along racial, ethnic, and class lines. No group spoke for the large Indian populations, or for the mestizos (those of mixed Spanish and other racial categories, Indian and/or African), for African slaves, or for other powerless elements in society. The fight over what, if any, regime would replace the Bourbons was strictly among elites.

Chile's struggling republicans were given heart on May 25, 1810. On that day, nationalists deposed the head of the Viceroyalty of the Rio de la Plata in Buenos Aires, the largest Spanish colony in South America, and declared independence. Unrest in Chile grew so strong that General Francisco Carrasco was forced to resign in favor of the equally incompetent eighty-five-year-old General Mateo del Zambrano. It wasn't long before his regime failed as well, and in September 1810, Chilean republicans finally formed a national government of their own. The creoles who orchestrated this change had high hopes for creating a republic similar to the one in the United States. In March 1811 they convened a national congress, but on September 4, 1811, a military junta led by twenty-six-year-old José Miguel Carrera seized power. Proud, impatient, and ambitious, Carrera was from one of the wealthiest and most powerful creole families, but until then, a political unknown. He had fought in Spain against the French and had been imbued with republican ideals, which he sought to install in Chile. But he was in a hurry, and would not wait for his dreams to be realized in a more democratic fashion.

When David Porter steered the
Essex
into Valparaiso Harbor on March 15, 1813, José Miguel Carrera was still in power in the Chilean capital of Santiago, but he was not in full control of the country. Other republican families continued to contest his leadership, and the monarchists, who had a powerful ally in Peru, were still strong. They received encouragement
from the Spanish viceroy in Lima, José Fernando de Abascal, a fierce advocate of continued Spanish rule in all of South America. His hand was strengthened by support from Great Britain—Spain's staunch ally.

While these events were transpiring in Chile, the Peninsular War in Spain continued into its fifth bloody year. The Spanish and Portuguese resistance against Bonaparte had naturally looked to Britain for aid, and London had been happy to provide it. In August 1808, the Peninsular War had begun when General Sir Arthur Wellesley (who would become in 1814 the first Duke of Wellington) landed nine thousand men at Mondego Bay, north of Lisbon. The talented Wellesley led the British forces most of the time against a French army that eventually numbered over two hundred and fifty thousand. In spite of this massive force Napoleon's army could not prevail. The Spanish guerrilla resistance, working with the British expeditionary force, continued to frustrate them, and the war dragged on into 1813.

It was not clear what government would eventually come to power in Madrid, if and when Napoleon's army was defeated. But many hoped it would be a constitutional monarchy along British lines, only more democratic. At the beginning of the resistance in 1808, Spanish rebels had formed various regional councils or juntas to provide local leadership. These juntas in turn met in a national council in Seville, which, because of the fighting, moved in January 1810 to the port of Cádiz—a place where British naval power could be used for protection. This national junta, known as the regency council, convened a national congress, or Cortes, in September 1810, and invited representatives of the American colonies to attend. By 1812—with the Peninsula War still raging—the Cortes agreed on a new constitution, which offered partial representation to the Latin American colonies and envisaged a grand empire under a constitutional monarch. The suffrage, theoretically, was broader than anything in Britain, or even in America.

Monarchists in South America wanted no part of this liberal regime, of course. Their power was concentrated in Peru, where the aging Spanish Viceroy Abascal had maintained absolutist control throughout the Peninsular War. Imbued with an uncompromising loyalty to the Bourbons and to Ferdinand VII, Abascal was determined to prevent Spain's South American colonies from becoming independent. He rejected out of hand the reforms of the liberal Spanish resistance in Cádiz.

The monarchists' cause strengthened as Napoleon's power diminished in 1813. The colossal blunder of invading Russia in June 1812 and the stunning defeat of his armies had undermined his capacity. And as his power declined, the prospect of Britain and her reactionary allies putting Ferdinand VII on the Spanish throne markedly increased. By March 1813, when Porter sailed into Valparaiso, the major European powers were mobilizing to prevent Bonaparte from reestablishing his power over Europe, while in Chile, José Miguel Carrera continued to be locked in a struggle against the strengthening monarchists and his republican rivals, among whom was Bernardo O'Higgins.

The immediate threat to Carrera's dictatorship came from Peru and Abascal, who felt a deep obligation to prevent Chile from becoming either independent or liberal. For all of its history Chile had been something of a Peruvian satellite, but, at the same time, Chileans had always maintained a separate identity, and now there was a growing nationalism that made the country's elites think of themselves as ruling an independent nation, distinct from their powerful neighbor and her Spanish master.

When Porter arrived on the scene, things were becoming even more complicated. Abascal was conducting a surprise amphibious invasion of Chile, which, because of the country's primitive communications, the junta in Santiago was completely unaware of. General Antonio Pareja had landed a tiny detachment of royalist troops on the island of Chiloe south of Concepción, planning to move onto the mainland and capture Concepción before attacking Santiago. As Pareja expected, the royalists in the provinces of Chiloé and Valdivia went over to him, swelling his ranks, and Concepción itself soon followed, as did the city of Chillán. By the end of March 1813, Pareja had a force of over five thousand royalists threatening to reestablish Spanish authority over all of Chile north of the Bío Bío River.

Porter had no way of knowing that the Chilean political situation was so fluid, that a clash was about to take place between the Carreras (supported now by their former enemy Bernardo O'Higgins) and Pareja. But even if he had, he had no desire to get mixed up in a complicated colonial war. He simply wanted to replenish the
Essex
, give his men time ashore, and move on.

CHAPTER

10

A P
ACKED
W
EEK AT
V
ALPARAISO

P
ORTER SET HIS HOOK IN
V
ALPARAISO, ON
M
ARCH
15. B
Y
prearrangement, the
Essex
saluted the town with twenty-one guns, and the town responded in kind. Porter then landed and met American deputy vice-consul Blanco, who rushed news of the
Essex
's unforeseen arrival to his superior, Joel Poinsett, the consul general in Santiago—seventy-four difficult miles inland. Afterward, Porter made an official call on the governor of Valparaiso, don Francisco Lastra, who gave him a warm reception.

Lastra made a good first impression on Porter. But later, after the American became better acquainted with Chilean politics, he judged Lastra to be an opportunist who supported the Carrera government but would change his allegiance in an instant if it were overthrown. Other government officials Porter met were honest republicans and patriots, he thought, but not Lastra. Neither Lastra nor Porter knew that Peruvian General Pareja had already landed south of Concepción, beginning a counterrevolution that stood a very good chance of restoring monarchist rule to Chile.

Although Porter had arranged with Lastra to resupply the
Essex
, a customs officer made it impossible to actually embark the goods. When word came from Santiago that Porter was to be given everything he wanted, the official, who Porter assumed was a monarchist, backed off. Governor Lastra brought the news to Porter personally, and provisioning went forward expeditiously. The food was exceptionally good and abundant. Apples, pears, peaches, nectarines, melons, onions, potatoes, and vegetables of every description were available. And the prices were much cheaper than at home. Soon, repairs were moving along just as fast. It looked as if the
Essex
would be ready for sea in six days. That would allow Porter to leave—no matter how tempted to stay—in one week. But what a week it was. He packed more into it than any other in his life.

The influential consul general in Santiago, Joel Poinsett, was a big help in making sure that Porter received what he wanted. Poinsett was the senior American official in the southern region of South America. When he received news that an American frigate had arrived in Valparaiso, he was ecstatic. He had heard nothing from his government since the War of 1812 began; in fact, he had heard nothing from Washington for two years. During that time he had reported faithfully to the secretary of state on events and personalities in his area, but had received no dispatches in return.

Occupied with the war against Britain, Washington paid scant attention to South America. President Madison was far more interested in East and West Florida, and to a lesser extent Cuba, Hispaniola, and Texas (all Spanish territory). The president was worried that the British might seize Florida and use it as a base to attack Louisiana and the southeastern part of the United States. To prevent this, and to carry out a long-standing goal of the South, he occupied a portion of West Florida in 1810, and in 1813 he absorbed the rest of the territory, moving troops up to the Perdido River, a narrow, dark stream—almost a creek—fifteen miles west of Pensacola. The Perdido formed the boundary between East and West Florida. Madison did not advance into sparsely populated East Florida, but there was no doubt that his ultimate goal was to annex all of Florida.

The unexpected appearance of the
Essex
raised Poinsett's hopes that Washington was finally looking beyond Florida to his distant part of the world. Madison, of course, had not sent the
Essex
, and his interest in the
southern part of South America in 1813 was minimal. That had not always been the case. When he first appointed Poinsett in August of 1810 the president had great sympathy for the South American revolutionaries fighting for their freedom against a reactionary Spanish autocracy. When a revolutionary junta, inspired by America's revolutionary ideas, had been established in Buenos Aires and had taken control of the huge Spanish colony of the Rio de la Plata in May 1810, Madison looked on with satisfaction. He searched for ways to aid all the independence movements in Latin America and dramatically expand American trade in the region.

In 1810, Madison sent Poinsett, for whom he had a high regard, to explore ways to further American interests. Poinsett was a rich, well-educated, gentleman of liberal opinion from Charleston, South Carolina. He had spent years in Europe educating himself, traveling, among other places, to Russia, where he became a favorite of Tsar Alexander, who hoped that Madison would make him the new American ambassador in St. Petersburg. That post went to John Quincy Adams, however. Madison was rewarding him for his vote (as a senator from Massachusetts) in favor of Jefferson's embargo.

Instead of ambassador to Russia, Poinsett was appointed Agent for Seamen and Commerce to the port of Buenos Aires, and also Agent for the Province of Peru and the Province of Chili, positions that did not require Senate approval. Secretary of State Robert Smith emphasized to Poinsett that his primary mission was to promote commercial relations. Knowing that the British were hard at work obtaining privileged trading positions in Portuguese Brazil and everywhere else in Latin America, Madison wanted to compete with them.
“With respect to Spanish America generally,” he wrote to the American ambassador in London, William Pinkney, “you will find that Great Britain is engaged in the most eager . . . grasp of political influence and commercial [gain, extorting] a preference in trade over all other nations . . . from the temporary fears and the necessities of the Revolutionary Spaniards.”

Britain had been trying to increase her influence and trade in Latin America for centuries. The weakness of Portugal and Spain after the Napoleonic invasion offered her the best chance she had ever had. So, in spite of being tied down in Europe fighting France, she stubbornly pursued her old objectives.