Chapter V (2)

Meanwhile, in Corrientes, Cardenas schemed night and day to return to Paraguay. In his own city of La Plata naturally he had some friends, and these did all they could to get him reinstated. In spite of all their efforts, an order came from Charcas for him to leave the city under pain of banishment.[136] Anyone but Cardenas would have been disconcerted; he, though, pretended, as in the order he was still styled Bishop of Paraguay, that before leaving for Charcas, to present himself before the court, he had to go to Asuncion to name a Vicar-General, and towards the end of 1646 he embarked upon the river for Paraguay.

The Governor was on the alert, and sent a vessel with orders to turn him back, which order was carried out in spite of his remonstrances, and he returned to Corrientes in a miserable state.

Then came another citation to appear at Charcas, and an intimation that he was appointed Bishop of Popayán. As Popayán (in New Granada) was at least three thousand miles from Asuncion, his joy at the appointment must have been extreme.

His fortunes now seemed desperate; as he said himself in a letter to the King, ‘at an advanced age he could not undertake so great a journey’; and on every side his enemies seemed to have got the upper hand.

In 1648 a change came over everything. Don Gregorio Hinestrosa was removed from Paraguay, and a new Governor, Don Diego Escobar de Osorio, appointed in his place. Immediately the news reached Cardenas he set out for Paraguay. Arriving at Asuncion, his friends all met him and took him in procession to the Cathedral. His first thought was to renew his persecution of the Jesuits. Most unfortunately for them, Don Juan de Palafox, Bishop of Puebla de los Angeles in Mexico, who had himself in Mexico had many quarrels with the Jesuits, wrote begging Cardenas and all the Bishops of South America to join against them.

This Palafox was afterwards beatified, and even in his lifetime enjoyed the reputation of a saint, so that his letter greatly strengthened Cardenas. Notwithstanding this, Palafox in subsequent works of his during the time that he was Bishop of Osma (in Spain) said many things in praise of the work done by the Jesuits in Paraguay.

The new Governor, himself a member of the Supreme Court of Charcas, had never been before in Paraguay, and therefore resolved to treat the Bishop (as Don Gregorio had done) with every respect due to his station. The Bishop wanted nothing better, and saw at once he had another fool to deal with. Therefore he made no secret of his intention of not complying with the citation of the court at Charcas, and set himself at once to preach against the Jesuits, and stir up popular resentment against them. Unluckily, proof was wanting of the crimes he alleged they had committed, so he resorted to the device of getting a petition signed by all and sundry, asking for the expulsion of the Order from Paraguay. Like all petitions, it was largely signed by women and by children and by those who had never thought before about the matter, but liked the opportunity to write their names after the names of others, as sheep go through a gap or members give their votes (out of mere sympathy) in the high court of Parliament.

This device having taken too much time, blank documents were passed about for all to write upon whatever they imagined to the disadvantage of the Jesuits. By an untoward chance, a bundle of these, sent to the agent of the Bishop in Spain, was taken on the voyage by an English corsair. The worthy pirate (no doubt a Protestant) was, if we can believe the Jesuits, extremely scandalized at the bad faith of those who used such means of wreaking their malevolence.

So all seemed once again to smile upon Don Bernardino, who no doubt resumed his flagellations, his midnight services, and his saying of two Masses, and once again became the idol of the people of Asuncion.

But in the north, in the wild district of Caaguayu, hard by the mountains of Mbaracayá, close to the great _yerbales_,[137] the Jesuits had formed two towns amongst the Indians. These two towns were destined to be the outposts of the country against the incursions of the wild Indians from the Chaco.

The Bishop prevailed upon the Governor to let him turn out the Jesuits and replace them by priests of another Order. This being done, the Indians all deserted, leaving the district quite uninhabited.

The court at Charcas, hearing of this folly, sent an order to the Governor to send the Jesuits back. A year was passed in ceaseless searching of the woods and deserts for the Indians, but only half of the population could ever be persuaded to return, and Father Mansilla, the ex-missionary, died of the hardships that he underwent.

From that date down to the time of Dr. Francia (_circa_ 1812-35), the district remained a desert. Francia used it as a penal settlement, and to-day, save for a few wild, wandering Indians, known as Caaguas, and a sparse population of _yerba_-gatherers, it still remains almost unpopulated.

Meanwhile, the general indignation against the Jesuits seemed to infect all classes of the population. Certainly, the citizens of Asuncion had good and sufficient causes of complaint against the Jesuits. On several occasions the efforts of the Jesuits and their Indians alone had saved the capital from the wild Indians, and benefits are hard to bear, if only from their rarity.

Popular hatred, to the full as idiotic as is popular applause, fell chiefly upon Father Diaz Taño—he who had saved ten thousand Indians for the King of Spain in his celebrated retreat before the Mamelucos down the Paraná—and he was frequently insulted in the streets. Father Antonio Manquiano, a quiet and learned man, was almost murdered in open day by a furious fanatic, who fell upon him with the openly expressed intent ‘to eat his heart’.

This was the moment Cardenas pitched on to declare the entire Order of the Jesuits excommunicated. As he had been a year away from the scene of his former exploits, people were not so used to excommunications, and therefore took them seriously.

At this eventful juncture the Governor, Don Diego, died so suddenly that suspicions of his having been poisoned were aroused. Scarce was he dead than all the population assembled at the palace to elect an interim successor. This was a most important thing, as to communicate with Spain took, at the very shortest time, about eight months. By acclamation the choice fell on the Bishop, who thus found himself head of the spiritual and the temporal power at once.

The election was absolutely illegal, as the Spanish law provided that, if a Governor of Paraguay should chance to die, the nomination of an interim successor should rest first with the Viceroy of Peru, and failing him with the High Court of Charcas.

Cardenas based his election on the pretended edict of the Emperor Charles V., but, if he had a copy of the edict, never produced it. As usual, ‘good men daring not, and wise men caring not’, but only fools and schemers taking part in the election, no serious opposition to his usurpation was encountered.

Cardenas never doubted for a moment that the function of a Governor was to govern, and he began at once to do so with a will.

Xarque, a Spanish writer, gives the following curious description of how he set about to get the people on his side to expel the Jesuits:[138]

Preaching one day in the Cathedral, after the consecration he turned towards the people, and, showing the holy wafer, said, ‘Do you believe, my brethren, that Jesus Christ is here?’ All, being true believers, answered as one man that such was their belief. In the same way as at a scientific lecture, when the lecturer holds up some substance, and says, ‘You all know well that calcium tungstate or barium hydrocyanide has this or the other property,’ the hearers nod assent like sheep, being afraid to contradict so glib a statement from so eminent a man.

Then said Cardenas, ‘Believe as firmly that I have an order from the King to expel the Jesuits.’ The people all believed, and Cardenas forgot to tell them that by the expulsion of the Jesuits twenty thousand Indians would pass into his power, whom he could then distribute amongst his friends as slaves, as he proposed to divide the Indians of the missions amongst the Paraguayan notables to win them to his side.

Being at the head of everything in Asuncion, Cardenas no longer hesitated, but ordered an officer, Don Juan de Vallejo Villasanti, with a troop of soldiers to march to the college of the Jesuits. This he did, and finding the gates all barred, he burst them open, and, entering the college, signified to the rector an order from the Governor (duly countersigned by the Bishop) to leave the city with all his priests, and to evacuate all the missions on the Paraná. The rector answered that the Jesuits had a permission from Philip II., renewed by his successors, to found a college, and Father Taño exhibited the documents. Villasanti, who had but little love for documents, snatched the parchments from his hand, and the soldiers forced the Jesuits in a body to the port like sheep. There they were tied and thrown into canoes almost without provisions, and sent off down the river to Corrientes, the certain haven of the party in Paraguay which has got the worst of an election or a revolution, and wishes to gain time.

Arrived in Corrientes, Don Manuel Cabral, a pious officer, received them in his house, and, curiously enough, the population welcomed the Jesuits with enthusiasm, and pressed them earnestly to build a college in the town.

Their college at Asuncion was treated like a town taken by storm: pulpit and font, confessionals and doors, all were torn down and burnt, and, with a view of justifying what was done, the Bishop’s partisans spread a report that, as the Jesuits were heretics, their temple was unclean.

The population, more artistic in its instincts than the Bishop, refused to allow the altar, which had been brought from Spain, to be destroyed. Besides the altar, there were also statues of San Ignacio and San Francisco Xavier. These the Bishop wished to turn into St. Peter and St. Paul. With this design he gave them to an Indian carpenter to work upon. The poor man did his best, but only managed to turn out two monstrous blocks, which looked like nothing human.

A statue of the Blessed Virgin which had the eyes turned up to heaven the Bishop wished to alter, and replace the head by another with the eyes turned down to earth, as being more befitting to the statue’s sex. The people, less mad or superstitious than the Bishop, refused to allow it, and the image, too, was placed in the Cathedral.

In 1649 the expulsion of an Order so powerful as were the Jesuits caused some commotion through the world at large. Miracles happened opportunely to strengthen waning faith. A fire placed round their church, though it destroyed, refused to blacken; and ropes fixed to the tower of the church, although attached to windlasses, refused to pull it down, so that the tower and church, though gutted, still remained almost intact, and, on the Jesuits’ return, were easily repaired, and served as a monument of victory.

Uneasy lies the head that wears a mitre, as poor Cardenas found out. His popularity suffered some decrease by the lack of treasure found in the Jesuits’ college, for he had always dangled millions in prospective before the people’s eyes to engage them on his side, and, most unluckily, he had no millions to bestow. So, to make all things right, he sent Fray Diego Villalon[139] to Madrid to represent his interests.

The Jesuits upon their side were not inactive. By virtue of a brief of Gregory XIII. they had the privilege of appointing an official called a judge conservator in cases where their honour or their possessions were attacked. Therefore Father Alfonso de Ojeda was sent to Charcas to arrange about the case. At Charcas they found that Cardenas had been before them, and had instituted proceedings against their Order in the High Court. Father Pedro Nolasco, Superior of the Order of Mercy, was appointed judge conservator. He at once summoned the Bishop to appear before him, and arranged to try the case and hear the evidence.

Cardenas having refused to appear, sentence went by default against him. The High Court, being convinced that the pretended edict of the Emperor Charles V. did not exist, appointed Don Andres Garabito de Leon to be interim Captain-General of Paraguay, and gave him power, if necessary, to restore order by force of arms. The court then issued a decree summoning Cardenas to appear at once at Charcas and give his reasons why he had had himself made Governor and had expulsed the Jesuits from Paraguay. It then communicated with the Marquis of Mancera, Viceroy of Peru, who quite concurred in its decision as to Cardenas.

Apparently upon the principle which prevails amongst Mohammedans of always appointing, first an officer, and then a caliph to that officer to do the work, the High Court of Charcas also appointed a commander to proceed to Paraguay, pending the time that Don Andres should feel inclined to start himself. As the caliph’s name was Sebastian de Leon, it is not improbable that he was a relation of the first-appointed man.

Don Sebastian de Leon seems to have been in Paraguay already, for both Charlevoix and Xarque agree that he and his brothers, after the expulsion of the Jesuits by Cardenas, had retired to an estate some distance from Asuncion. At the estate the news of his appointment reached him, and must have placed him in a most difficult position as to what to do.

On several occasions in the various rebellions which occurred in South America during the Spanish rule, men were appointed to quell rebellions, pacify countries, and restore order, and all without an army or any forces being placed at their command. This was the case with the celebrated La Gasca, who was sent from Spain to put down the rebellion of Gonzalo Pizarro, and succeeded in so doing, though he left Spain without a single soldier in his train. In this connection it is to be remembered that none of the rebellions in Spanish America from the days of Charles I. (_i.e._, the Emperor Charles V.) to those of Charles III. were for the object of separation from the metropolis, but merely risings against Governors sent out from Spain. It seems that both in Peru and Paraguay the very name of the imperial power was able to draw hundreds of men to the standard of whatever officer held a commission from Madrid, such as that held by Garabito de Leon or by La Gasca on the Paraná.

At first Don Sebastian did not show himself in Asuncion, but sent out messengers on every side to summon soldiers, requisition horses, and collect provisions. He also sent to Corrientes to tell the Jesuits he was ready to reinstate them in their possessions.

Don Bernardino meanwhile was preparing for the great adventure of his life. He seems to have believed most firmly that no power on earth had any right to remove him from the governorship of Paraguay. In a letter which he addressed to Don Juan Romero de la Cruz[140] he says he is on the point of distinguishing himself by heroic exploits and great victories; that he had on his side justice and force (a most uncommon combination); that the entire capital was favourable to him; and that he was resolved neither to readmit the Jesuits nor to recognise Don Sebastian de Leon as Governor.

Asuncion was once again convulsed, and all was preparation for the holy war. The Bishop had given out that angels were to help him, and this so reassured his soldiers that they provided themselves with cords to bind the Indians in the army of Don Sebastian Leon, thinking they would fall an easy prey to them. This matter of the cords explains, perhaps, why the population of Asuncion was almost unanimous in favour of the Bishop.

In the army of Don Sebastian, as well as the militia of the province, marched three thousand Indians from the Jesuit reductions on the Paraná. The Spaniards of the capital were all determined not to kill any of them, but keep them alive for slaves, and hence the cords with which they armed themselves.

The sacred generalissimo led out his army from Asuncion in person, celebrating Mass himself, and then heading his troops like many another Spanish ecclesiastic has done before and after him, and continued doing even to the latest Carlist war.

The armies met not far from Luqué, in a little plain known as the Campo Grande. An open plain with sandy soil, which gave the horses a good footing, with several little stagnant pools in the centre where the wounded men could drink and wash their wounds, with a most convenient forest on all sides for the deserters and the cowards to hide in, made a good battlefield. The village of Luqué, grouped round its church, and with a little plaza in the middle in which sat Paraguayan women selling mandioca, chipa,[141] and rapadura,[142] with sacks of maize and of mani,[143] stood on the summit of a little hill. Upon the plain the earth is red, and looks as if a battle had been fought upon it and much blood spilt. In all directions run little paths, worn deep by the feet of mules and horses, and in which the rider has to lift his feet as if he were going through a stream. To Asuncion there leads one of the deep-sunk roads planted with orange and paraiso[144] trees, constructed thus (as Barco de la Centenera tells us in his ‘Argentina’) so as to be defensible against the Indians after the country was first conquered by the Spaniards.

On the Bishop’s side hardly a soldier but thought himself an emissary of God, or doubted of the victory for a moment in his heart. Angels themselves had promised victory to their leader, who, to make all things safe, had issued a proclamation punishing surrender with the pain of death; so they stood quietly in array of battle waiting to be attacked.

Upon his side, Don Sebastian Leon, seeing the attitude of the enemy, immediately ordered an advance, and charged himself, with all his cavalry, upon the Bishop’s men. They, with the firmness that fanatics so often show, stood firmly in their ranks, thinking themselves invulnerable. Their valour proved but momentary, for at the second charge they broke their ranks and fled. Flight turned to rout, and Don Sebastian having commanded that they should not be pursued, they still fled on, no man pursuing them.

The Governor then entered the capital without resistance. On the plaza he stopped, and having gathered up the wounded without respect of party, he sent them to the hospital. Then, having seen to the safety of the town, he rode to the Cathedral to give thanks to God for having preserved him from the dangers of the fight. Dressed in his robes and seated on his throne was Cardenas. Don Sebastian entered the church, dismounted, and kissed his hand respectfully, like a true Spaniard, and asked him ceremoniously to deign to give him the baton of the civil power. Cardenas answered not a word, but handed him the baton, and then retired, accompanied by all his priests.

The victory did not terminate the work of Don Sebastian. After a reasonable interval, and before witnesses, he cited the Bishop to appear before the court of Charcas. The Bishop promised to obey, thinking he had another Don Gregorio Hinostrosa to deal with, but quite determined never to comply, acting according to the custom of Governors in South America, who, when an order reached them from Madrid, either absurd or quite impossible to execute, solemnly answered, ‘I obey, but I do not comply,’[145] saving by the phrase the honour of their sovereigns and themselves. Upon their side the Jesuits pressed the judge conservator, Father Nolasco, to issue his sentence, and free them from the charges under which they lay. This he did, and gave as his opinion they were quite innocent of all that Cardenas had laid to their account.

As in a palace,[146] things go slow in Spain, and it was not till 1654 that a royal decision confirmed the judgment of Nolasco, and freed the Jesuits from all the charges raised against them.

Order restored, Cardenas deprived of his usurped authority, and the Jesuits reinstated, the temporary commission of Sebastian Leon was at an end. Therefore he retired again to plant his mandioca under his own guayaba-tree. Yet feeling ran so high that he was hardly safe from the vengeance of the partisans of Cardenas, so that he found himself once more obliged to summon the militia of the province, and lead them to a perfunctory campaign against the Payaguás. These Indians the earlier historians of the conquest, Barco de la Centenera and Rui Diaz de Guzman, describe as river-pirates, almost living in canoes, and dashing out on any passing Spanish vessel that they thought weak enough. The Jesuits Montoya and Dobrizhoffer tell us that they went naked, painted in many colours, with a hawk’s or parrot’s wing passed through the cartilage of their left ear, and that they were, of all the Indians of Paraguay, the most indomitable. A few, when I knew Paraguay some twenty years ago, hung round Asuncion, squalid and miserable, passing their time in fishing in canoes, and as attached to their own mode of life as when the first discoverers called them ‘sweet-water pirates’ and the ‘most pestilent of all the Indians on the river Paraguay.’ The Payaguás chastised, Don Sebastian, upon one pretext or another, did not disband his troops, keeping them always by him, and thus making the position of the Bishop quite untenable, till by degrees his followers fell away and left him almost deserted and his party all dissolved. Seeing the game was up, the Bishop, after having named one Don Adrian Cornejo as his suffragan, took his departure (1650) for Charcas to appear before the court. For eight tumultuous years he had kept his bishopric in a perpetual turmoil, having been the evil genius of the land.

What sort of man he really was is hard to-day to judge, for Xarque, Villalon, Charlevoix, and Dean Funes,[147] who chronicle his doings, were all, on one side or the other, partisans. The Jesuits condemn him as a spoliator, the Franciscans hold him up as one who fought throughout his life for the honour of the founder of their rule. Tracts, books, and pamphlets for and against him have been written in numbers, and in the history of the times in Paraguay his name bulks large. One thing is certain—that the Indians loved and revered him, and followed him up to the end. Even in Charcas, where he lived for years upon a pension of two thousand crowns allowed him by the King whilst his case dragged its weary course to Rome, Madrid, back to Peru, and then to Rome again, the Indians, when he appeared in public, greeted him with flowers. He may have been a saint: so many men are saints, and the world knows them not. He may have been a schemer; but he made nothing by his schemes except the barren honour of his consecration to the see of Paraguay. A preacher certainly he was, able and willing to draw crowds, after the fashion of all those who have the gift of words.

Headstrong and obstinate, through a long life he hated vigorously, thinking all those who differed from him were accursed of God. A strenuous member of the Church militant on earth, he was at least a personality, and those who read the history of his time must reckon with, and take sides for or against, him after the fashion of the men with whom he passed his life, who to a man revered him as a saint, or looked upon him as a devil sent to plague mankind.

Arrived in Charcas, he soon fell on evil times, although at first he made some partisans. Still looking back to Paraguay, he passed his time in drawing out petitions to the King; then, one by one, all his friends fell from him, except some faithful Indians, who considered him a saint. His dreams of saintship were not fulfilled, for his name never figured in the calendar. Years did not tame nor yet did hope ever completely leave him; for in old books I find him always protesting, ever complaining, and still striving, till, in 1665, Philip IV. in pity made him Bishop of Santa Cruz. A sentence from the registers of the Consistory at Rome informs us that, as Bishop of La Paz, in his own province of the Charcas, he left off troubling, and rested from his agitated life.