THE DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS OF THE UNITED STATES AND CHILE 1810-1823 A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF ATLANTA UNIVERSITY IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS BY BUTLER ALFONSO JONES DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY ATLANTA, GEORGIA JUNE 1938 / ' ' I // / ii PREFACE The most casual study of the relations between the United States and the Latin American republics will indicate that the great republic in the north has made little effort to either understand the difficulties that have sorely tried her younger and less powerful neighbors or to study their racial characteristics and customs with the friendly appreciation necessary to good relations between states. Nor is it sufficient in a democracy where public opinion plays an important part in foreign affairs to confine know¬ ledge of foreign policies and peoples to the select few who make up the go¬ vernment. Such understanding should be widespread among the peoples them¬ selves, so that public opinion, based upon an intelligent comprehension of the facts, can aot as a lever towards more friendly cobperation, rather than as a spur to jealous and rival aspirations. To bring about this better re¬ lationship, v/hich can be accomplished only by a better mutual understanding, every avenue of approach should be utilized. It is the purpose of this paper to utilize one of the avenues of approach by presenting, in an objective man¬ ner, the story of the early relations of the United States with what, in some respects, is the most powerful of the Latin American nations and, in all respects, is the most stabilized of our South American neighbors. Chile was chosen as the subject of this thesis because it is the one country in South America where an attitude of preference for the United States has been most lasting among the people, because the course of its rise to power has most closely resembled that of the United States, because it has borne the brunt of some of the most insulting despatches ever sent out by the department of state, because, of all the nations of South America, it has the most justi¬ fiable cause of complaint against the United States and finally, because there is a dearth of written material on the subject. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I INTRODUCTION 1 II EARLY RELATIONS 1810-1814 13 III PRELIMINARIES OF RECOGNITION 30 IV RECOGNITION AND THE YEARS MEDIATELY THEREAFTER . 65 CONCLUSION 80 BIBLIOGRAPHY 83 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION The middle of the fifteenth century marlæd the end of an era in world history and the introduction of a new epoch which was destined to transplant European civilization to the uttermost parts of the earth* Por¬ tugal was fairly well united under her ambitious ruler, Prince Henry the Navigator; Spain was entering the last stage of her heroic struggle against Moorish domination; France under her absolutist kings was centralizing her political administration and law; England was in the throes of a severe dy¬ nastic struggle while Holland was still a part of the Austrian Netherlands. In 1453 the Ottoman Turks captured Constantinople; in 1485 Henry VII, the first of the Tudors, ascended the English throne* Three years later Bartho¬ lomew Diaz rounded the Cape of Good Hope, on the southern tip of Africa, and in 1492 the Spanish reconqulsta practically ended with the fall of Gra¬ nada* ^ A few months later three small ships set out to sea under the com¬ mand of an unknown Genoese sailor sailing westward under the flag of Cas¬ tille and seeking a new route to the Indies. With the launching of the three ships from Cadiz the commercial revolution may be said to have really begun. The decline of the Levantine trade transferred the money marts of the world from the Italien oity-states of the eastern Mediterranean to the "western periphery." Coincident with the progress of the commercial revolution was the growth of a new economio ^For a general study of the European background of American history see E. P. Cheney, European Background of American History 1300-1600 (London, New York, 1904). -1- -2 system — mercantilism. "Mercantilism," says Heoksher, "is primarily an agent of unificatian. Its adversary was the mediaeval combination of univer- salism and particularism, and its first object was to make the state purposes decisive in a uniform economic sphere and to males all economic activity sub¬ servient to considerations corresponding to the requirements of the state and H 1 to the state*s domain regarded as uniform in nature. Herein lies the basio assumption underlying the Spanish colonial system far down into the nineteenth oentury* It was to be the attempt to apply the principles of mercantilism to the Spanish colonies in America that was to account in a large measure for the epidemic of revolutions which convulsed them from 1810 on. It was also this new economic system that gave impetus to the growth of national states in 2 Europe. The two nations which soon took the lead in the age of exploration, disoovery and colonization were Spain and Portugal. Among the more important reasons for this were their geographical location and their earlier attainment of national unity. Most important of all probably was the fact that they had taken little part in the Levantine trade and consequently were desirous of increasing their national wealth by the acquisition of new and valuable terri¬ tories. Because of their priority of disoovery the sovereigns of these two nations laid claim to the whole of the newly discovered lands. In order to forestall possible conflict between his two most highly esteemed temporal sovereigns, Pope Alexander VI by the Bull of Demarcation (May 4, 1493) divided the Hew World between Spain and Portugal. The dividing boundary was to be a line running 100 leagues to the east and south of the Cape Verde and Azores ■hsii F. Hecksher, Mercantilism (London, 1935), I, 22. Ibid., I, 2 et seq. -3- islands. But this "line of demarcation" suited neither Spain nor Portugal and the two of them displaced it with the treaty of Tordesillas (June 7, 1494) which placed the dividing line at a point 370 leagues west of the AZOres, there¬ by giving Portugal her only colony on continental South America — Brazil. * Following closely in the wake of the Spanish discoverers were the Spanish colonizers sent out, in many instances, by private companies but in most instances by the Spanish monarchs. In line with the fundamental tenets of mercantilism, Spanish colonization was not to establish an overseas empire or a new Spain but to have available at the source of production an adequate 2 labor supply. But the colonizing efforts of the Spaniards, for whatever reason it might have been, did lead to the establishment of an overseas co¬ lonial empire which gave rise to problems of colonial administration. In the system which she developed to meet these problems Spain made use of her previous experience in governing foreign peoples and gave to the world a 3 colonial system that was unusually wise and efficient. The exploration and colonization of Chile was the backwash result of Pizarro’s conquest of Peru. The first expedition into Chile was led by Don Almagro who followed the old Inca route along the Andean range and pene¬ trated as far south as Copiapo. Almagro was followed by Pedro de Valdivia who laid the foundation for many of the Chilean cities —Saint Iago or San¬ tiago, Concepcion and Valdivia being among the more famous of them. ^ It was ^Van Der Linden, "Alexander VI and the Bulls of Demarcation", American Histori¬ cal Review, XXII (October, 1916), pp. 1-20. o A olose study of the principles of mercantilism and a comparison of those prin¬ ciples with the practices of the Spanish colonial system will, the -writer think bear Out this conclusion. ®Mary W. Williams, People and Politics of Latin America (Boston, 1930), p. 149. ^For these early explorations see particularly the biography by Gunninghame Graham, Pedro de Valdivia, Conqueror of Chile (New York, London, 1927). -4. during this period that a feature of Chilean life came to the fore which has since that time played an important part in the development of Chilean national life, namely, the fierce resistance to Spanish domination by the liberty lov¬ ing aborigines, the Arauoanian Indians. It was their resistance that kept Spanish colonizing efforts in Chile confined to the area north of the river Biobio from 1565 to 1810. In 1612 a Jesuit priest, Luis de Valdivia, entered into an agreement with the ^raucanians voider the terms of which Spanish mission¬ aries were allowed to christianize the Indians and the southern boundary of Spanish colonizing efforts was definitely fixed as the Biobio. This boundary remained the dividing line between the Araucanians and the white men until 1 long after the establishment of Chilean independence. O The Spanish Colonial System Spain’s political organigation of her colonies was at first divided into the two viceroyalties of Peru and Mexico. The viceroy was the official representative of the king in the colonies. As his title implies, he was at first an almost absolute ruler but as time went on his powers were gradually reduced. The viceroy was president of the audienoia, he maintained a sump¬ tuous court at the seat of his vioeroyalty, he was captain-general of his pro¬ vince and had the responsibility for the care and protection of the church and all the people voider him including the Indians. He was not allowed to aoquire property in the colonies during his administration nor hold any colonial of¬ fices except those which he held ex officio.