timothy e. anna - the peruvian declaration of independence: freedom by coercion

]. Lat. Amer. Stud. 7, 2, 221-248 Printed in Great Britain

The Peruvian Declaration of Independence: Freedom by Coercion *

by TIMOTHY E. ANNA

Peru launched its history as an independent state with one of the world's briefest and most direct Declarations of Independence. In Lima, on 15 July 1821, an open town council meeting (cabildo abierto) called especially to consider the question, declared: 'All the gentlemen present, for themselves and satisfied of the opinion of the inhabitants of the capital, said: That the general will is decided in favor of the Independence of Peru from Spanish domination, and that of whatever other foreign power . .' 1 People actually present in the chambers of the city council, in the corridors outside, and in the street below signed the Act there and then. Recognizing its importance as a watershed in their city's history, the cabildo then agreed to display the bound book of Acts containing the Declaration in the office of the cabildo secretary so that the public at large could further ratify it. The time for the collection of signatures was even extended, and in the end a total of 3,504 people signed.2

* The author gratefully acknowledges the research support of the Canada Council, and the helpful suggestions and corrections of his colleague, Professor Douglas N. Sprague.

1Biblioteca Municipal de Lima (hereafter cited as BML), Actas de Cabildo, Libro 45, 15 July I82I. I was privileged, on the occasion of the Fiestas Patrias in 1972, to be given per- mission to use the original Libro 45 of the Acts, because I needed to read the entire volume. I believe I was the first foreigner allowed to use the book containing this national treasure, which is usually kept on display in a glass case. The cabildo meetings immediately leading up to and following the Declaration, however, have been printed, in edited form, in Fernando Gamio Palacio, La municipalidad de Lima y la emancipacion de i82i (Lima, 197I). This in turn is a re-edition and amplification of the same author's publication under a very similar title, La municipalidad de Lima y la emancipacion (Lima, 1944). All cita- tions here are from the 297I book. A very usable facsimile of the Declaration and the signatures, complete with transcriptions of the names and an alphabetic list, was published under the title Acta de la Declaracion de la Independencia Nacional in I97I by the Concejo Pro- vincial de Lima. It is the copy used here. The Biblioteca Municipal of Lima is not a major archive, rather it is the working-library for the Concejo Provincial. It does, however, possess all of the extant Libros de Actas.

2 I used the facsimile of the Declaration to count this number. I have deducted one name, that of Manuel Muelle, the cabildo secretary, who signed twice. Even so, the total of 3,504 may not be perfectly correct because some names are illegible or obscured as a result of smeared ink, bad handwriting, ink transference through the pages, and several rips on

221

222 Timothy E. Anna

Few documents in any nation's history appear to be the product of greater consensus than this one. With the exception of the many citizens who had

already fled from Lima, almost every literate male signed. The suggestion inherent in the Declaration is 'that Lima's elite was almost unanimous in

support of independence. They declared that it was positively 'the general will' of Lima, and of its inhabitants, and of the gentlemen who spoke for them. Therein lies the problem.

Unanimity is problematic because, in addition to being suspect on the

grounds of logic, it is dubious on the basis of subsequent events. Lima did not

distinguish itself in support of independence in the months and years ahead. Quite the contrary, the republic founded by General Jose de San Martin, based

chiefly on Lima, collapsed in six months as a result of Peruvian indifference and refusal to sacrifice in its defense.3 The hypothesis of unanimity in support of independence is, therefore, not plausible. Yet, subsequent generations of historians have never explained all those signatures or what they might mean.

The issue represented by the 3,504 signatures is the problem of motive. The usual approach is simply to assume they represented the actual wish of Lima, and then to explain the subsequent failure of the movement under San Martin

by other factors. But once a historian has decided to treat the Declaration as evidence of the popularity of independence, observe the tortured logic that

inevitably follows. If Lima clamoured for independence unanimously, then San Martin, the man whose armies made the Declaration possible, was more than a conqueror or a Liberator, he was no less than a Messiah. His failure at Lima must, therefore, be the result of the inhabitants' ungratefulness or of his own stupidity in failing to sustain the mandate. Neither explanation is satis-

factory. San Martin was not stupid, nor is it logical that Lima should have

rejected so quickly a political status it unanimously accepted. There must be an alternative explanation that will account for the contra-

diction between Lima's words and its actions. As a matter of fact, there is, though it is understandably difficult to accept at first glance. Could the

pp. I-4. The greatest problem in identifying signers, however, is that many of them used short versions of their names. Consequently, I cannot identify, much less check for possible duplication, names such as Jose Garcia (there are 4), Jose Gutierrez (3), Jose Moreno (3), Jose Rodriguez (3), or Jose Sanchez (4). One would assume that no one but Muelle signed twice, but it is impossible to be sure. I have ventured a positive identification only when the name is clearly distinguishable from others like it by some recognized criterion such as use of a maternal surname or variations in spelling. The Gaceta del Gobierno Indepen- diente de Lima published a special edition on Io Aug. I82I, containing a list of the signatures. It was apparently incomplete. At any rate, the list published as an appendix to the facsimile of the Gaceta (La Plata, 1950) is incomplete, as its editors point out. It showed 3,I36 signatures.

3 See Timothy E. Anna, 'Economic Causes of San Martin's Failure at Lima ', Hispanic American Historical Reviewt, LIv, No. 4, (Nov. I974), 657-68i.

The Peruvian Declaration of Independence: Freedom by Coercion 223

Declaration be a mere sham, a rigged referendum? That is how Pedro Angel de Tado described it in a remarkable letter he wrote to a former Lima oidor

after independence. A dedicated royalist priest who lived thirty-two years in

Peru, he is an extremely biased eye-witness. He asserted that independence resulted in 1821 because a group of ambitious and bitter petty lawyers, priests and professionals forced it upon a desperate and starving capital whose citizens were intimidated by armed force, threatened by imminent social chaos, and coerced by violence and fear.4 It may be that historians have long felt such an

explanation made sense intuitively; a careful testing of Tado's allegations will

permit us to substantiate or reject it once and for all.

Starting with the Indians, whom he knew best after twenty-two years in various curacies in the Sierra, Tado cogently and coherently argued that

independence was not the will of Peru. He said the Indians and mestizos were the king's most loyal vassals, the rebel periodicals simply lied when they claimed to have their support.' If the [Indian] pueblos near Lima maintained themselves on the side of the insurrection it was only because they feared the armed Negroes of San Martin who robbed their houses and granaries'. The mestizos thought the same because in the mountains they lived as indigenas. The slaves, who were concentrated on the coast of Peru, had originally joined the rebels, but soon became disaffected when submitted to discipline, and preferred to support a government they knew to one they did not know. Tado said he knew of some liberal hacendados who originally supported independence too, but upon discovering that aiding the rebels meant giving up their slaves to conscription, they also became disaffected.

Then there were the whites - both Europeans and those simply described

4 Pedro Angel de Tado to Marques de Castell-Bravo de Rivero, Madrid, 14 Nov. I823, Archivo General de Indias (hereafter cited as AGI), Lima 1024. A word is in order concerning why this startling document, to my knowledge, has not previously been studied. It is a very long letter written on a single sheet of paper in a nearly microscopic script, and folded several times. With no identifying marks to attract the investigator's eye, it literally disappears in its legajo. Its importance was recognized, however, when first received, for Castell-Bravo, an emigrant Lima oidor, turned it over to the Fiscal of the Council of the Indies, who suggested it be published as propaganda. The Council read the letter in a session on 17 Jan. 1826, but there is no indication it was ever published. Two other documents substantiate Tado's existence and the details of his career. One (AGI, Lima I563) is an expediente concerning his request in i826 for the crown to grant him a benefice in some church in Spain. It contains his printed Relacion de Meritos (in which his surname is spelled ' Jado'), and personal references from the Archbishop and Castell-Bravo. The second (AGI, Lima 604) is the decision of the Cdmara de Indias of 27 Feb. i826, to find him a

position. Throughout both expedientes, Tado is treated as a competent witness with a long experience in Peru. When dispensing benefices the Council was very critical of applicants, and its failure to notice anything amiss in Tado's qualifications or career suggests, quite frankly, that everything was in order. I have chosen to use ' Tado ' as his surname because in his own handwriting it seems to be a T.

224 Timothy E. Anna

as Espanoles. Tado asserted that before the landing of San Martin's Liberating Army at Pisco in September I820, few of them favored independence. As the

expeditionary force spread its control from Pisco, they fled from it. This occurred first among the landowners of Chincha, Pisco and Yca, then when the rebel army moved north, among those of Chancay and Huaura. The rebels offered appointments and salaries to proprietors and militiamen, but could attract only limited support, and even then only among the youngest of militia or regular 'troops such as the Numancia regiment whose officers, Tado

said, were too young to resist being suborned. In short, rural Peru unanimously rejected independence. It was only when

the rebels directed their subversion at the rich and decadent capital city that their fortunes improved. As they neared Lima they began to attract the

support of a wave of creditless petty lawyers (abogadillos), clerics without

appointments, friars with no sense, and civil servants (empleaditos) 'who

judged themselves aggrieved in not having the highest offices in Peru'. His

contempt for these early supporters of independence needs no clarification: 'If some persons declared themselves partisans [of the rebels], they were

demonstrably those who had just received from the Spanish Government distinctions they never merited'. Independence was based on 'the mob of

petty lawyers who wanted magistracies, the civil servants who wanted big bonuses, and clerics who aspired to benefices'. The lawyers especially 'did more than bayonets' to achieve that end. Tado's version, then, is that

independence was the result of the desire for reward and appointment among this segment of the population, unrepresentative of Peru as a whole or of Lima in particular.

This was the alignment of forces when Viceroy Jose de la Serna abandoned Lima on 6 July I82I, having decided the capital could no longer provide a base for the royal resistance. He appointed the Marques de Montemira, a

universally-respected creole field marshal, as interim civil and military gover- nor. With the rebel army encamped outside town, he publicly appealed to San Martin not to take reprisals and urged Montemira not to resist. To

guarantee the city would not fight, ihe left only 200 rifles at its disposal.5 According to Basil Hall, an impartial eye-witness,6 Lima's inhabitants were

5 La Serna announced the evacuation on 4 July and 8 July, 182I, AGI, Indiferente I571 and 313 respectively.

6 Hall is to be preferred over all other witnesses, both foreign and Peruvian, because of his skill as an observer. He was the captain of a British royal navy ship. H.M.S. Conway, cruising the Pacific. Consequently, he was present at the meetings and discussions of both royalists and rebels. He knew both San Martin and La Serna, and judged them fairly. Though he leaned towards the idea of independence on intellectual grounds, he was not anti-Spanish, and scrupulously observed the principles of neutrality. Hence, he is to be preferred even over other foreign observers such as John Miller. His book, Extracts from a


paralyzed by indecision and uncertainty. He went to a meeting the Marques de Montemira called among 'the principal inhabitants as had not fled to Callao'. The meeting was characterized by the same paralysis of purpose. There were some rebel sympathizers, of course, and they exulted. There were also many royalists, and they expressed great alarm. But a significant number of the remaining participants, said Hall, 'bustled about amongst the crowd,

merely to say how very much they were in doubt what ought to be done'.' This description hardly fits a city of avid rebel partisans. At any rate, there were no alternatives, and the meeting decided to send a letter inviting San Martin to enter and occupy the city.

The next day the same notables met with Montemira to receive San Martin's reply. The rebel leader asked them to declare whether it was the

general will of the people that he should enter. They replied in the affirmative, and on 12 July he did. Two affirmations not being sufficient for the man who had promised 'not to advance a step beyond the gradual march of public opinion ', on 14 July he asked the city council to invite the notables to discuss the future status of Peru, and they called the cabildo abierto for the next day. Gamio Palacio says the city council actually sent invitations to participants whose names were drawn from a list of persons paying a royal war tax, and that admission to the meeting was by invitation only.8 I have found no

supporting evidence for that assertion. Tado said no control was placed over the membership of the cabildo abierto,

and that it was composed of only a few principal persons, while the remainder of the several hundred people who joined the meeting or who signed the Declaration on that first day were the petty lawyers, clerics and aspirants to

governmental appointment he spoke of. His description of these events differs so dramatically from any other that it is worth citing at length:

Everything there was unorganized shouting, and from the balconies of the Casa del Ayuntamiento where this meeting took place they shouted to the plaza below 'Viva la independencia! ' and it was brutally repeated by the scum of the people who had gathered there to await the results. In less than an hour the junta was over, and it signed the act that declared that Peru wanted to be independent. Anyone who wanted to do so signed it, and those who did not want to also, for many persons were forced to submit to it, it being communicated to them that if they did not do so they would have San Martin to fear ... And who would not sign it under those circumstances? Everyone ran to put his name on that celebrated book because they feared, if not death, at least exile and confiscation of their goods.

Journal Written on the Coasts of Chili, Peru, and Mexico in the years 1820, 1821 and 1822

(2 vols., 3rd ed., Edinburgh, I824), is marred chiefly by the fact that his official duties sometimes drew him away from the center of action. Thus, while he watched San Martin set up the republic, he was not in Lima during the next few months to witness its collapse.

7 Hall, Extracts, I, 219-232. 8 Gamio Palacio, La municipalidad, p. 39.

L.A.S.-3

226 Timothy E. Anna

Many people signed in their own name and in the names of whatever friends they had too, and I know that there are signatures of persons who either were not then in Lima or who could not or would not sign it. Thus they gathered up the number of signatures in favor of independence that the Lima periodicals have praised to the skies.

And is ithis the vote of the People? Is this the way to know public opinion? With the city dominated by enemy troops, with every man concerned for the loss of his

employment, of his goods, and even of his life, was it not prudent to free himself with a forced signature from such dangers? Because of this all the peninsular Spaniards and the most royalist Americans signed. Later events have shown the value of their signatures. All the Europeans have belied [their signatures] by their actions, and the Limenios who had everything to lose cry they could not have done it ... Who would dare complain? No one! They all lament their misfortune; but it is not permitted to them to say it aloud.

Fifty loafers paid for the purpose proclaimed independence. Fifty, no more!

This is a serious indictment. It casts doubt on the validilty of the signatures and seriously undermines the assertion that the Declaration represents the ' general will'. Part of the accusation cannot be tested. We cannot establish, for example, who was inside the city ion that day or if some people signed for their friends (though ten persons did sign on behalf of illiterates). Tado's

assertion of force, however, is central and can be either verified or rejected. He expanded his allegation of force to include the general problems of an

occupied city faced with starvation. Was free expression of public opinion conceivable under those circumstances? Did any Europeans or creoles later

repudiate their signatures? The final allegation of bribery cannot be tested,

though Tado may mean some people were' paid ' by promise of governmental appointments, which is a different question. By implication, he means to say that fifty partisans stampeded the rest of the signatures.

Before his letter dissolved into a diatribe against the ungratefulness of the crown in failing to reward the heroes of the struggle in America and its fool- hardiness in appointing officeholders of unproven loyalties who later turned out to be rebels, such as the Intendant of Trujillo, the Marques de Torre

Tagle, whom he loathed, Tado made two final points: But even if the population of Lima did declare [independencel in good faith, what does their vote count to call it the vote of Peru, as it is so-called in the public papers of Lima? Lima has a population of 70,000 souls, and it is not too much to say that if you subtract the European Spaniards, the slaves, and those who could not vote in the matter you are not left with 4,000 persons capable of expressing an opinion. Of these, I assure you that not sixty concurred in the Act; but even if they all concurred, what is their opinion worth against the two million inhabitants who were on that same day under the protection of royal arms? ... Could you call this the opinion of Peru? 9

9 Tado to Castell-Bravo, AGI, Lima 1024.


Although his population figures are not completely accurate, and although there is no reason to subtract all the Europeans, since some of them did sign, Tado's point that the Declaration was the work only of Lima and not of Peru is incontestable. Nonetheless, the four chief elements of his interpretation that must be investigated are: (i) that the cabildo abierto was a scene of confusion in which there occurred no serious discussion of options available; (2) that

people signed out of fear of reprisals from San Martin, or that death, exile and confiscation faced laggards; (3) that not enough of the 'persons capable of

expressing an opinion', to use his term, signed the Declaration - in other

words, that the signers were the wrong people, the non-elite, or some non-

representative faction of the population; and, (4) that many signers later lamented their signature but were restrained by fear from openly repudiating it. The testing of Tado's interpretation will provide a useful exercise in dealing with a highly partisan historical witness.

As to the first allegation, even the most uncritical historians, such as Gamio Palacio, cannot deny that the cabildo abierto made its momentous decision in

unseemly haste. After all, there was no other decision it could make. Gamio Palacio says that the first and only major speech of the meeting was rendered

by Dr. Jose de Arriz, a professor of law and a founder of the Mercurio Peruano, who was appointed shortly thereafter to the High Court of Justice that superseded the audiencia. Perfectly befitting Tado's version of the pro- ceedings, Arriz urged the gentlemen present not even to consider the question of independence on its merits, so convinced was he that it was right. ' We should not now occupy ourselves', he insisted, 'in the justice, necessity, con- venience or legitimacy of this resolution . . . What the moment requires is to determine and to decide courageously '.0 Unrestrained applause followed, and that was that! No one protested that if this were not the time to consider the matter on its merits there could never be another. Arriz and Manuel Perez de Tudela, both noted supporters of independence, were invited to write the

Declaration, which they did with enthusiasm. Meanwhile, according to Gamio Palacio, someone threw printed cards to the crowd outside, saying 'The vote of an American is for the independence and liberty of Peru, and he who does not want to follow this, sign your infamous name and go out in

pursuit of the tyrants'." This was surely as much a threat to royalist sympathizers - who were nonetheless urged to sign the Declaration first and then flee the city - as it was a sign of enthusiasm.

The traumatic state of the city, the absence of any attempt even to substantiate the Declaration with a reasoned argument in its support, and the distribu- tion of printed threats all suggest that this was a meeting arranged for the sole

10 Gamio Palacio, La municipalidad, p. 42. 11 Ibid., p. 45-

228 Timothy E. Anna

purpose of orchestrating a stampede by obviating all alternatives to outright independence. Reasonable men whose minds were not yet made up did not have time for reflection. Their choices were either to sign or to flee. It would have constituted the ultimate in self-sacrifice to refuse the pressure of the moment. This limitation in options would obviously work most directly on the men actually present at the cabildo abierto.

As confirmation of Tado's second point, there is substantial evidence of

outright coercion. In letter after letter, royalist exiles fleeing Lima, usually by sea via Rio de Janeiro, wrote of the reign of terror imposed against them, and all before the well-known persecution of Spanish nationals launched in the next month by San Martin's minister, Bernado Monteagudo. Manuel Pardo, former regent of Cuzco, related that some Europeans and creoles who refused to swear to independence went into hiding to protect themselves from the furor of the mob. 'In this critical situation the existence of every European, of their families and of their goods, was dependent upon the caprice of the populace, and on the ferocious despotism of a sanguinary chief who recognized no other limits to the use of his authority but those that he himself prescribed '.2 Pedro Gutierrez Cos, bishop of Guamanga, fled to Lima from his diocese as ithe rebels landed at Pisco, and after independence was declared at Lima he testified that San Martin tried to force him to give his oath of support and to send a pastoral letter to his diocese urging his people to do the same. Upon refusal, he was forcefully expelled from Peru."3 Manuel Mendez, a priest, fled to Spain and reported that the persecution of the Spaniards was meant simply to force them to swear their oath to independence.14 Nicolas Tadeo G6mez, sacristan mayor of the Lima cathedral, reported that he was confined at Chancay and had his goods confiscated for refusing independence.l5 These are not simply examples of royalist refugees, for there were many more of those; rather, these are examples of loyalists who specifically mentioned in their correspondence that direct pressure was applied against them to sign the Declaration.

The case of Jose Antonio Prada, however, is the most revealing. A wealthy hacendado who, although creole, refused to sign the Declaration, Prada had his hacienda, which he later valued at 700,000 pesos, confiscated by the patriot government. Many other royalists suffered confiscation too, as is well known. Prada's case, however, is different, because after he fled to Spain he initiated a 12 Manuel Pardo to Minister of Grace and Justice, Rio de Janeiro, I2 Feb. I822, AGI, Lima

I6I9. 13 Pedro, Bishop of Guamanga, to Minister of Grace and Justice, Mexico City, 8 March I822,

AGI, Indiferente I57I. '4 Manuel Mendez to King, Madrid, I6 Sept. I823, AGI, Lima 0I24. 15 Consulta, Council of Indies, Madrid, 26 Jan. I824, AGI, Lima 604.


request for the crown to support two of his daughters. The investigation undertaken by the Council of the Indies as a result called upon several of the most prominent royalist exiles to answer the question whether it was true that Prada had refused to sign the Declaration 'in spite of the very great penalties that the revolutionaries imposed, and with imminent danger to his life'. Those replying included former Viceroy Joaquin de la Pezuela (who remained in Lima until after independence), the former contador mayor, several former oidores, and others. The Conde de Montemar (who signed the Declaration and then fled) testified that Prada had refused to sign 'in spite of the danger of being sacrificed'. Manuel Pardo testified that he knew 'the dangers that creole men of honor who thought like Prada' ran, for 'D. Jose and a very few others of his class [,that is, creoles] were the object of the persecution of the caudillo [San Martin] '. Former oidor Manuel Genaro Villota testified that Prada had gone into hiding in the house of his brother-in-law and ran a

great risk. Manuel de Arredondo, former regent, agreed with that, and added that Prada 'was one of the few and first Americans ... to expose himself to the persecutions of that government '.1

The terror, then, was directed not only against peninsulars but also against Americans, even some who signed the Declaration. Nor was it aimed only at men. There were substantiated stories of prominent ladies being affronted by rebel officers quartered in their houses, of General Ramirez's wife being insulted at a ball by a patriot officer,17 and of other intimidations directed against the close-knit elite. Every member of the elite faced a painfully difficult decision, the consequences of which none of them relished. Hall neatly summarized it:

The Spaniards, who formed the wealthy class, were sadly perplexed: if they declined entering into San Martin's views, their property and their persons were liable to confiscation; if they acceded to his terms, they became committed to their own government, which, it was possible, might return to visit them with equal vengeance. The natives, on the other hand, . . . were even more alarmed at the consequence of their present acts. Many doubted San Martin's sincerity; many his, power to fulfil his engagements.18

The only escape was flight. In the days just before and just after the Declaration of Independence, many peninsulars and loyal creoles fled from Lima, abandoning their wives and families, homes and businesses. In March 1822, the government ordered all the city's escribanos to submit a list of all their transactions since July 1821, that involved peninsulars, in an attempt to trace the property dispositions of this class. Every escribano reported many 16 Expediente concerning Jose Antonio Prada, Madrid, 1824, AGI, Lima 1024. 17 Unsigned Diario, Rio de Janeiro, 26 Dec. I821, AGI, Lima 1023. 18 Hall, Extracts, I, 254-255.

230 Timothy E. Anna

documents he had drawn up for peninsulars - bills of sale, transfers of property, powers of attorney and delegations of powers to wives. The escribanos were ordered to tell, if they knew, what had become of their customers, and

nearly every one had fled to Europe (usually they could even name the ship he had taken).19 Two weeks after the Declaration of Independence, the Consulado reported that forty-three of it sixty-four members had fled.20 This is confirmed by the fact that only seventeen members of the Consulado signed the Declaration, while forty-two definitely did not, and five names are not clear enough to establish with certainty.2" So many merchants, in fact, closed, that San Martin ordered all business establishments owned by Spaniards to

reopen or face confiscation.22 The number of emigrants in the very first month

(before Monteagudo's forced expulsions began) is crucial to the argument presented here, but no true estimate of it can be attempted. Still, it must have been substantial, for we know, to cite a few examples, that half the nobles fled, two-thirds of the Consulado members, one-fifth of the ecclesiastical cabildo, and half the audiencia. Nor were these invariably peninsulars; some were creoles. If so many of the elite were willing to give up everything they owned, leave their families, and risk death, surely countless men of less dedication to the royal cause simply gave in and signed.

Subtle pressure, however, was soon replaced by outright persecution against anyone who did not hasten to indicate his enthusiasm for independence. As

early as August, the rebel government launched its program of persecution, which the priest Mendez claimed was designed to force acceptance of

independence. Spaniards were submitted to a six o'clock curfew, forced to make large punitive contributions to the government 24 harassed by a public campaign of vilification in which San Martin himself participated, exiled in

large numbers, and finally destroyed. In early 1822, all unmarried Spaniards who had not specifically acquired letters of Peruvian citizenship were ordered to leave the country, giving up half their goods to the state.25 The best known

single act of intimidation was the confinement of 2,000 Spanish civilians in the Merced Convent in September 1821, when the royalist forces under General Jose Canterac drew up outside Lima. 19' Relaci6n elevada al Sr Presidente del Departamento por los escribafios de Lima, infor-

mando de las escrituras extendidas en sus regisrros por los espafioles residentes en esta juris- dicci6n', Archivo Nacional del Peru (hereafter cited as ANP), Superior Govierno, Leg. 38, C. 1365.

20 Conde de Villar de Fuente to San Martin, Lima, 2 Aug. 182I, ANP, Archivo Historico de Hacienda, PL I-Io.

21 The names of Consulado members are taken from a letter of the Consulado to Pezuela, Lima, 27 July I8i8, AGI, Lima I55.

22 Decree of San Martin, Quartel General de la Legua, 19 July 1821, AGI, Lima 800. 24 Suplemento a la Gaceta del Gobierno, Lima, No. 41, 22 May i822. 25 Gaceta del Gobierno, 2 Jan., 26 Jan. I822.

The Peruvian Declaration of Independence: Freedom by Coercion 23I

Within a year of independence, as Hall attests, the Spaniards had

disappeared.26 Paz Soldan says that when the rebels landed at Pisco there were over Io,ooo Spaniards in Lima, but that in July 1822, no more than 600 remained.27 Gaspar Rico, a prominent publicist with La Serna's army in the Andes, estimated in 1824 that a total of 12,000 Spaniards had been killed or

expatriated in Peru in the last three years.28 Paz Soldan positively exulted in these tales of persecution. In fact, it constitutes one of the most terrible

tragedies of the Wars of Independence, for in addition to casting the authority of the Declaration into disrepute, the destruction of the best-educated and most politicized portion of the population dealt a crippling blow to the young republic. It suggests, at any rate, a greater degree of polarization and

antagonism in the Peruvian conflict than is usually emphasized in the

historiography. Such a decimation of the old elite was more the exception than the rule in the Spanish American Wars of Independence. It also indicates a

degree of immoderation in San Martin's public actions which directly contra- dicts the assumption that he had unanimous support.

What is surprising, therefore, is not that so many people signed the Declaration, but that anyone at all was able to escape doing so. Those who did not sign were only those who were willing to flee or whose extraordinary visibility was such that the rebels preferred their silence even to their signature. Out of all the audiencia ministers, for example, only one, the peninsular Manuel Maria del Valle, signed the Declaration. But six others - the creoles Jose Santiago Aldunate, Jose de Irigoyen and Francisco Moreno, and the

peninsulars Tomas Ignacio Palomeque, Gaspar Osma, and Jose de la Iglesia - asked San Martin to permit them to remain in Lima after independence, but did not sign the Declaration.29 That ithey chose to remain is owing not to any positive acceptance of the republic on their part, but to the fact that their incomes and properties were in Peru.30 That ithey were not forced to sign is 26 Hall, Extracts, In, 87. 27 Mariano Felipe Paz Soldan, Historia del Perut Independiente (2 Parts, Lima, I868-I874), I:

I, 3I4. 28 Figure reported in letter of La Serna to Minister of Hacienda, Cuzco, 2 April I824, AGI,

Lima 762. 29 Expediente concerning Francisco Tomas Anzotegui, Regent of Lima, I821, AGI, Lima 795. 30 It was technically against the law, of course, for an oidor to own property outright or to

establish roots in the region to which he was posted, but in Lima they broke the law con- sistently. A series of scandals in the years I8o8-i5 brought this to light. In I812, after an extensive investigation, six ministers were warned to mend their ways or face the formation of a public causa against them. The viceroy, however, was authorized to take no action if he felt the rebellion posed too great a threat to public safety, and in I8I3 he suspended further action on those grounds. The Council of the Indies responded by suspending four ministers and ordering all of them to divest themselves of any direct ownership of land and only to administer properties belonging to their wives or children. Manuel del Valle, for example, owned three haciendas at that time. In I8I5 the king tried to rectify these

232 Timothy E. Anna

because their silent acquiescence was enough; it protected them, while a less visible citizen had no such protection. The remaining audiencia members fled 'the country. Of the heads of departments and directors of branches of the royal bureaucracy, only a handful signed. The highest ranking were Pedro

Trujillo, a director of the royal monopolies, who kept that same position under the republic, and Antonio Chac6n, Contador mayor of the Tribunal de Cuentas.

The climate of fear was real, widespread, and of long duration. It was an

atmosphere totally inimical to spontaneous opinion-formation. By not

emphasizing this fact we have ignored a major reason for the failure of San Martin's movement to liberate Peru. Although it is impossible ,to know how

many people supported independence willingly and 'how many unwillingly, the subsequent failure of the movement should at least suggest that the

majority supported it half-heartedly. This point, to which we shall return later with more substantive evidence, also suggests that we have not properly assessed San Martin nthe politician and mover of even'ts. He was not passively waiting around for Peru to awaken to the justice of his cause; he was manu-

facturing the public lopinion upon which he had promised to base his movement.

Nowhere is San Martin's plotting so clear as in the formal ceremonies he

organized to proclaim independence 'on 28 July. Amid great pomp, the Pro- tector declared 'From this moment Peru is free and independent, by the general wish of the people'."3 What did he hope to accomplish by this

pageant? Hall, who stood near 'him that day, provides an answer: 'It was a business of show and effect, and quite repugnant to his taste. I sometimes

thought there might be detected in his face a momentary expression of

impatience or contempt of himself for engaging in such mummery .. .' As

Hall recognized, the publication of the names of persons who swore this oath to independence 'deeply committed many men who would have been well

pleased to have concealed their acquiescence in the matter .32 That, of course, was also the object of the collection of 3,504 signatures on the Declaration of

Independence. And the key word is still ' acquiescence ', not support. Tado's third proposition - that the signatures did not reflect the true Lima

elite, but rather, ambitious and powerh4ungry letrados - calls for scutiny of a

sample of signers by occupation. The significance of the variable of occupation

illegalities by ordering the retirement of the Regent, the suspension of three ministers, the transfer of one other, the retirement of another, and a warning for another. Withal, most of the censured or displaced ministers stayed exactly where they were until 1821. Consulta, Council of the Indies (in sesion pleno), Madrid, 28 June 1815, AGI, Lima 602.

31 Gamio Palacio, La municipalidad, pp. 68-77. 32 Hall, Extracts, i, 260-I.


is indicated by the remarkable census conducted in I790 and published by the liberal Sociedad Academica de Amantes del Pais. This survey (Table I) consisted not only of the gross outlines of Lima's population, but included a list of inhabitants by destino y categoria. This is invaluable, as occupation tells as much about a person's social position and perceptions as any other criterion. At the same time it suggests his class. That the I790 census is applicable to the Lima of 1821 is shown by comparing it to the census taken in 1813 and still in use in I82I (Table 2). The latter survey shows only slight changes in the structure and profile of Lima's population in the intervening years.33

The 1790 census permits us to identify the policy-making male elite simply by eliminating the inhabitants whose occupation would have defined them, in terms of the 1813 categories, as 'citizens without exercise' or lower in status (Table 3). By this means we eliminate all slaves, all servants whether white or castas, all minors, all females, and all men whose occupations were non-elite.34 These are the people who would not ordinarily have been expected to have a voice in public affairs.

Having so cleared the obstructions, we can tell who constituted the policy- 33 We cannot, however, use the I813 census to provide a true picture of Lima society because

it was drawn up in order to apportion representation in the Constitutional Cortes (which governed the empire in 1812-14 and 1821-3). By artificially dividing the population into constitutional categories it seriously distorted class divisions. ' Citizens with exercise ' (with the vote) were white adult male heads of households who were probably literate or semi- literate, while 'citizens without exercise' were peninsular military personnel stationed in Lima, minors, and whites who clearly fell far short of citizenship (as for example by occupation, income, or illiteracy). Ciudadanas, confusingly, were the wives and daughters of both these categories. Every viceroyalty defined citizenship on its own because it was left vague in the Constitution. The greatest distortion, however, is that the category 'Spaniards' no longer meant white, as it would have previously. The Cortes had specifically decreed that Indians and mestizos were to be called ' Spaniards ', so that category included everybody else who was not a professed regular or secular religious, a slave, or a non-national - in other words, Indians, mestizos and castas. Even so, in none of the other provinces of Peru was an Indigena listed as a ' Spaniard ', direct indication of the fact that in Lima the few Indians who lived there were no longer considered Indigenas.

34 For example, we have eliminated cirujanos but not mGdicos, because of the much lower status of cirzujanos. Even after the foundation of the College of Medicine of San Fernando this remained the case, since the college did not receive its formal cedula of approval to train students until I815, making it probable that most cirujanos practising in 1821 were still of the old self-taught variety. We have eliminated pulperos but retained abastecedores, because pulperos were corner grocers and retailers while abastecedores were wholesale provisioners, major businessmen. Artisans, workers, and jornaleros are easily eliminated, but jabricantes we retain among the elite as they would be owners of 'manufacturing ' con- cerns. Students and religious novices would be minors, or they would at least be viewed as men not yet mature enough to have entered their profession. Demandantes (' plaintiffs ') are probably those members of the elite whose occupation was not clear at the time of the census because they were in the process of applying for royal appointment, were suing for inheritances, or were awaiting action on an application for some proprietary office.

234 Timothy E. Anna

makers of Lima. An astounding fact immediately emerges: 4I17 per cent of them were regular or secular religious, a fact which must surely give fresh

meaning to the old cliche of the 'priest-ridden' colonial society. Some of these clergy, of course, performed truly essential social services as parish priests, teachers, preachers, and administrators of church funds and properties. Nonetheless, an astounding 28.6 per cent, the largest single group within the male elite, were members of regular orders, many of whom lived out their lives in supposedly cloistered seclusion. Surely this constituted a considerable drain on the resources both of Lima and of its leading families whose sons made up this group. In this society in which education and training were

acquired by so few, over one-quarter of the literate male elite did not, to put it

bluntly, use their skills and talents to contribute directly to the commonweal. We have joined together another group of persons involved in business, com- merce and agriculture, and it totals 26-3 per cent. These men provided the vast

majority of revenues for the state and of goods and services for society. If they shouldered most of the burdens of the secular world (joined by the titled

nobles), they also reaped its greatest benefits. A third group, with I8-2 per cent of the total elite, were government employees and permanent residents who

TABLE I

1790 Census of Lima * Grand Totals

Men Women Total Secular 23,182 +- 24,614 = 47,796 Religious 9ii + 656 = 1,567 Living in Communities I,564 + 1,620 3,i84 Totals 25,657 + 26,890 52,547

Total Secular Population by ' Quality'

Spaniards 17,215 Indians 3,912 Mestizos 4,631 Negroes 8,960 Mulattoes 5,972 Quarteroons 2,383 Quinteroons 219 Zambos 3,384 Chinos I,120

Total Secular Population by Civil Status

Single 29,933 Married I3,703 Widowed 4,I49


Males by Occupation and Category

Occupation Professed Members of Regular Orders

Religious Novices Curates Assistant Curates Secular Clerics Minor Ordination Sacristans

Dependents of Inquisition Dependents of Cruzada Hacendados Merchants Fabricantes (Manufacturers) Abastecedores (Wholesale Provisioners) Employees of Private Offices Titled Nobles

Royal Employees Fuero Militar Medicos (Doctors) Cirujanos (Surgeons) Students Demandantes (' Plaintiffs ') Pulperos (Retailers, grocers) Lawyers Escribanos Notaries Cofradia Employees Sindicos de Religion Artisans Laborers Jornaleros White Servants Servants from Free Castes Slaves

Number of Cases

71I 438t

I0

i9 229

I6

34 15 6

90 393 60

48 64 49

426 27 2I

56 366

52 287

9I 58 I3 47 I0

1,027 308 363 474

2,903 9,229-

Source: 'Plan demostrativo de la poblacion comprehendida en el recinto Lima ', Lima, 5 Dec. 1790, AGI, Indiferente 1527.

* This census is only for the city and cercado (which by 1790 simply meant ' environs '), not for the province or Intendancy of Lima.

t This is the only figure not directly taken from the census. The census shows a total of 1,312 inhabitants of male religious houses - including 7II professed members, 149 slaves and 94 servants. I conclude the remaining 438 inhabitants of such houses were novices or youths in various stages of a potential or actual novitiate.

t There were only 8,960 Negroes (male and female), but 9,229 male slaves and an ungiven number of female slaves. Slavery, therefore, was not restricted to Negroes. The 1813 census shows 12,263 male and female slaves.

de la Ciudad de

236 Timothy E. Anna

TABLE 2

Population of Lima by Constitutional Category, I813, Still in Use for i82I *

Category Total Ciudadanos con ejercicio 5,243 Ciudadanos sin ejercicio 6,670 Ciudadanas 11,460 Espaioles 7,871 Espafiolas 11,239 Religiosos 959 Religiosas 473 Esclavos 6,400 Esclavas 5,863 Extrangeros 1o6

Total 56,284 Source: ' Censo general de la poblacion de Lima hecho a fines del afio de I8I2 ' AGI, Lima

747. * This census is only for the six parishes that made up the city, not for the Partido del Cer-

cado (one of the eight Constitutional districts represented in the Diputacion Provincial and which together made up the Province of Lima).

held the fuero militar (royal army personnel from the peninsula were not counted, since they were not vecinos). The remaining occupations defy grouping and can stand on their own. The most socially distinguished group, but not necessarily the most powerful or the richest, were the holders of

Spanish noble titles. Before proceeding further, one important characteristic of this elite should

be emphasized. One would quite naturally be tempted to presume that they, like their peers in the contemporary world of North America or Great Britain, were property-owners, that, indeed, the ownership of property was a major prerequisite for inclusion in the politically-vocal elite. In Lima, however, this was not the case. A list of real estate owners of 1820 (drafted in order to apply a special war tax), shows that only 814 individual males owned real estate. The

remaining proprietors were 571 women, and 45 institutions such as colleges, monasteries, hermandades, parishes, cofradias, oratorios, hospitals and

governmental agencies.35 Yet the total male elite by occupation was over three times as large. Real estate was, therefore, not a prerequisite for membership in the elite. Nearly all clergy, royal officials, and private employees lived in accommodation provided for them or rented. For most Limenos, 'property' meant cash, furnishings, inventory or investments. The only portion of the

population to whom real estate and status were synonomous were mayorazgos.

35 List of real estate owners, Lima, ANP, Superior Govierno, L. 37; C. 1335.


TABLE 3

The Lima Male Elite by Occupation, Based on the 1790 Census

Total Percentage of Occupation Professed Members of Regular

Orders Curates Assistant Curates Secular Clerics Minor Ordination Sacristans Dependents of Inquisition or

Cases Total Elite

7II 28.6% 10 40/0 ~Io '4% 19 .7%

229 9.2% I6 .6% 34 I'4%

Cruzada 2I .8%

Hacendados 90 3.6% Merchants 393 I5.8% Fabricantes (Manufacturers) 60 2.4% Abastecedores (Wholesale Provisioners) 48 I.9% Employees of Private Offices 64 2.6%

Royal Employees 426 I7.I% Fuero militar 27 I.I%

Titled Nlnh1es Ano .n ?/

Lawyers Demandantes (' Plaintiffs ') Escribanos Doctors Sindicos de Religion Cofradia employees Notaries

Total Male Elite

-r7

9I 52 58 21

IO

47 I3

2,489

- /0

2-7%

2-0%

2'4% .8% .4%

I.9% .5%

I00-00

Religion 41-7%

Business 26-3%

Royal Service I8.2%

Occupation was thus the chief determinant of status. We can use it with assurance.

The occupational elite totalled 2,489 persons. These men, and only these, constituted the true elite. Only they would have been called upon in ordinary circumstances to sign an important public document such as the Declaration of Independence. As a matter of detail, in most instances the 7Ir professed members of regular orders (less any prelates) would have been excepted, making the total policy-making elite even smaller, merely 1,778 men. The census of I813, however, shows Lima to have had 5,243 voting citizens, twice as many as the occupational elite. The only way to explain this is to remember that the Constitution left the question of suffrage so vague that in Lima it must (have been made broad enough to include many non-elite whites. To this

238 Timothy E. Anna

extent, the Constitution and Cortes caused an impressive liberalization in the social classification of the day, which we know appeared dangerous indeed to absolutists like Viceroy Abascal. It was necessary though, because now, by an

extraordinary quirk of the lawmakers' fancy, whites were about to lose their social distinction from Indians and mestizos. Be that as it may, the most

significant fact to emerge is that almost exactly half of the voting citizens of

1813 and 1821 were non-elite (while over 80 per cent of them were not real estate owners).

If these figures are then compared against the total of signatures on the Declaration of Independence, it can be seen that the total of signatures is I,o15 more than the total of the male elite as determined by occupation. Further- more, if we recall that the Declaration was signed only after the flight from Lima of a large portion of the true elite - it is not inconceivable that they might have numbered several hundreds - it becomes clear that Tado's

allegation that the wrong people signed has considerable substance. Even if all

2,489 of the true elite signed (and they demonstrably did not), more than I,ooo others also did so whose opinion ordinarily did not count. The signers were not the 'scum' of the city by any means,36 but they were chiefly non-elite whites ' on the make ' in the context of the society of their day.

There is much more to Tado's point than simply that the non-elite signed. He also said a significant number did so involuntarily. The mere fact that the movement for independence subsequently failed does not prove this (though it certainly suggests it). Nor even does the well-known fact that many leading citizens at first supported independence but later turned to loyalism, because

they might simply be selective examples. What we must be able to do is

actually to impugn the assumption that signers of the Declaration were

supporters of independence. If that can be done, Tado's thesis is credible. If Tado is correct, only the earliest signers were the most active proponents

of independence. The later a person signed, the more reluctant he was in the cause. This interpretation ought to be easy to verify. We take the first 500 signers and examine their subsequent behaviour for positive indications of

standing fast in support of independence. We take the last 500 signers and check among them for positive indications of incipient royalism. If we find these tendencies, that is, if signing early means ardent rebellion and signing late means signatures recruited under duress and not indicative of the signer's true political preference, then Tado's interpretation is established. The Declaration of Independence is simply an enumeration of inhabitants, not a

spontaneous demonstration of political opinion. T,he problem with this tech-

36 Comparison of the signers with lists of criminals shows that none signed. Similarly, I can find no examples of a student or a foreigner signing. This last is worth noting, especially since San Martin's expeditionary force was composed largely of non-Peruvians.


nique is that in order to provide some standard of control we have restricted ourselves throughout this study to persons we can identify by occupation before the Declaration. Tiherefore, it will not be possible to identify all i,ooo people so stipulated. Indeed, of all the signers, I have only been able to identify

TABLE 4

Signers Positively Identified by Occupation, A Sample to Indicate Position of Signature on Declaration,

and Correlation of Position to Political Persuasion

Occupation Professed Members of Regular

Orders Curates Assistant Curates

Religious Secular Clerics Sacristans Minor Ordination Dependents of Inquisition or Cruzada

Number Number in First in Last

500 500

12 51

3 -

I5 3 I

Hacendados 2 I Merchants I2 4 Fabricantes (Manufacturers) 2 A bastecedores 2

Employees of Private Offices-

Royal employees 6 6 Fuero Militar 8 2

Titled Nobles I2 2

Lawyers 21 2 Demandantes (' Plaintiffs ') Escribanos 3 Doctors 6 3 Sindicos de Religion- Cofradia employees- Notaries-

Special Elected officials Categories Illiterate

Totals

Political Persuasion in the Next 3 Years. Remained Rebel Converted to Royalist

Remained Rebel Converted to Royalist

21

2

127

2

4 81 Total = 208

40

4 7 4

Business

Royal Service

Others

240 Timothy E. Anna

just under 500 by occupation. Of these, 127 signed early, and 8i late. Very little can be said about the political tendencies of these 208 persons because restrict-

ing ourselves only to positive acts that indicate political persuasion limits us even further, but from the fragmentary information available, the early signers converted to the royalist side far more rarely than did the late signers (See Table 4). Hence, the late signers may be characterized as being considerably less than enthusiastic about independence, strongly suggesting they were signing out of a sense of duty or because someone required them to. They were also less politically active in the republic.

The correlation between location of signature and true political preference proves that we cannot assume a person supported independence simply because he signed. The rebels, in their attempt to acquire a propaganda device they could use to stampede other parts of Peru and a weapon to hold over the heads of the signers, fell into the commonest trap of those who fabricate a referendum. There are too many signatures for the size of the politically vocal elite that Lima could have possessed at that moment; and too many signers gave no proof of support for independence but, quite the contrary, were royalists all along. On this point, Tado stands the test of scrutiny.

What, then, were the motives of the signers, no matter what their true

feelings about independence? The standard historiography emphasizes only those signers of great wealth, social position, or prestige. Since we are more concerned with the majority of the signers than the selected non-representative few, let us first dispose of that handful of our occupational identifications who were truly leaders of society. Outside of coercion, which we know to have been employed against some persons, what chief motives might have led them to sign? For the really prominent signers the motive turns out to be a perfectly obvious one - the extent to which they identified themselves and their interests with Peru. It is not a question of where they were born, but of where their families and incomes were. A less positive way to say this might be that it was a question of which options were available to them. It is this which

separates them from persons of the same status who refused to sign. The census of I790, for example, showed forty-nine titulos de Castilla living

in or 'belonging' to Lima, and in I82I there were still the same number.37

Eight of the titles were possessed in I821 by women, who could not sign the Declaration. But forty-one were possessed by males (most of whom were

definitely in Lima at the time), and of that number, only nineteen signed (See Table 5). It appears on close inspection that most of those nineteen were either

very young men who had only recently inherited their titles, such as Vega del

37 This figure is drawn from the list of real estate owners in 1820, ANP, Superior Govierno, L. 37, C. I335. Titled nobles, unlike other members of the elite, would have to own real estate, as it was an absolute prerequisite for continued possession of a title.

The Peruvian Declaration of Independence: Freedom by Coercion 24I

Ren, Vistaflorida (the heir of the great Baquijano), San Juan de Lurigancho, or San Juan Nepomuceno, or holders of very 'new' titles granted since the

beginning of the century, such as Casa Boza, Casa Saavedra, Casa Davila and Torre Antigua del Orue. These men were usually born and raised in Lima, and possessed titles that were granted specifically to reward creole families. Their identification was with Peru; they would have been strangers in the

very Castile from which their titles came. Besides, as Hall remarked, referring to nobles like Torre Tagle, independence offered 'to persons so situated a

great increase of fortune and consequence .38 When older nobles, holders of older titles, or men who had a source of income or a family in Europe signed, as the Conde de Montemar, they tended to flee the country shortly thereafter because they possessed the option of flight.

Another truly elite group were the handful of great merchants and pluto- crats such as the millionaires Jose Arizmendi and Pedro Abadia, or Manuel

TABLE 5

Lima Titulos de Castilla in I82I

Signers of the Declaration Title

Marques de Casa Boza Marques de Casa Davila Marques de Casa Mufioz Conde de Casa Saavedra Marques de Corpa Conde de Lagunas Marques de Montealegre Conde de Montemar y de

Monteblanco Conde de San Carlos Conde de San Isidro Conde de San Juan de Lurigancho Marques de San Juan Nepomuceno

Conde de Torre Antigua de Orue Conde de Torreblanca Marques de Torrehermosa Conde de la Vega del Ren Marques de Villafuerte Conde de Villar de Fuente Conde de Vistaflorida Total = 9

Comment Inherited title i820-2I

Title created 1817 Title created 1820

Fled later

Inherited title after I812, died in Callao Inherited title I8I7, died in Callao Inherited title 182I, fled and properties

confiscated Title created in I8ios

Inherited title I820-2I Inherited title early i8oos as a youth Inherited title in i8ios Later turned royalist Inherited title I8I8

38 Hall, Extracts, I, 114.

L.A.S.-4

242 Timothy E. Anna

Non-Signers Titles held by Men

Conde de Cartago Marques de Casa Calder6n Conde de Castanieda

Marques de Castel bravo del Rivero

Marques de Castell6n

Marques de Feria

Marques de Fuentehermosa

Marques de Lara

Marques de Montemira

Marques de Monterrico Conde de Montesclaros Conde de Polentinos

Marques de la Real Confianza Conde de San Xavier

Marques de Salinas Conde de Sierrabella

Marques de Tabaloso

Marques de Torre Tagle

Conde de Torre Velarde Conde de los Torres

Marques de Villablanca Conde de Vallehumbroso Total = 22

Titles held by Women

Marquesa de Casa Concha

Marquesa de Negreyros Condesa de Pozos dulces Condesa de Premio Real

Marquesa de Rocafuerte

Marquesa de San Felipe Marquesa de Santa Maria

Marquesa de San Miguel Total = 8

Comment

Oidor, Fled

Neapolitan title, inherited after I807 Stayed in Lima

Perhaps the premier noble family (Man- rique de Lara), related to Montemira, Montemar, Feria and San Carlos

Interim Governor of Lima

Not living in Lima in I82I, Intendant of Trujillo

Stayed in Lima

Royalist commander

Comment

Mother of Intendant of Arequipa, Juan Bautista Lavalle

Source: ' Lista de los individuos que poseen fincas en esta ciudad', 17 May I820, ANP, Superior Govierno, L. 37, C. 1335.

Note: I have not listed the Baron de Nordenflicht as a Lima title, though in 1820 he still owned property there.


and Fernando Exhelme, or the Conde de San Isidro and the Conde de Villar de Fuente. Their motives are not difficult to uncover either, for they were Lima's leading independent entrepreneurs. They had long been active in

foreign trade and were, in fact, under popular suspicion because of it. They sought the end of Spain's inefficient commercial monopoly as their reward from independence. In this they contrasted with the majority of Consulado members. All were disappointed, for the disruption of ,trade and the incessant demands for money from the government bankrupted nearly all of them.

Many of them turned royalist or went into exile. This included Arizmendi, Lima's richest merchant, whose company earned I20 million reales a year and whose property was valued even after he fled Peru at 2,172,000 pesos.39 The vacuum left by their destruction was instantly filled by English merchants who flocked into Peru in 1821 under the protection of the Royal Navy.

Yet a third notable group of signers invariably emphasized by historians were the high-ranking churchmen. Archbishop Bartolome de las Heras, Dean Francisco Javier de Echagiie (who administered the Archdiocese for many years after Las Heras's exile), and most of the cathedral chapter, signed. The

explanation, again, is the extent of their identification with Peru and their desire to remain living there. The Archbishop, as is well known, took his

position as head of the Peruvian church with utter seriousness. He had lived most of his life in the New World, he was over eighty years of age, he loved Lima, and Lima so loved him that in the last decade before independence the

city council and two viceroys proposed his appointment as a cardinal.40 Where else was he to go? San Martin's government, however, responded differently. Since he was the fulcrum of its anti-Spanish campaign, it expelled him. The rest of the cathedral chapter had even more intimate identification with America, for twenty of the twenty-six members, from Echagiie on down, were Americans. Sixteen of them, indeed, were Peruvians, and ten of those, Limefios.41 This fact should dispel any temptation to jump to the conclusion that Americans in Peru were systematically excluded from the highest ecclesiastical positions. On 'the contrary, in the last twenty years of the colonial era they were running the church, and naturally chose to continue doing so. Fifteen years earlier there had still been twenty Americans and three Euro-

39 Expediente concerning Jose Arizmendi, Madrid, I825, AGI, Lima 604. 40 Consulta, Council of Indies, Madrid, I6 June I817, AGI, Lima ioI8-B. The king agreed

to send a formal request to the Pope through his ambassador to the Holy See, but clearly recognized that the honor was in the asking.

41 There was only one European, four whose birthplace was nor given, and one appointee who had not yet arrived, ' Estado de la Iglesia metropolitana de Lima ', I820, AGI, Lima 1566. In two other Peruvian dioceses the cathedrals in I820 were apportioned as follows: Trujillo had a Spanish bishop and a chapter of four creoles and three Europeans; Arequipa had a creole bishop and a chapter of four creoles and three Europeans.

244 Timothy E. Anna

peans in the chapter.42 The famous criticism of Riva Agiiero in his' 28 Causes' that creoles were denied the best positions in the hierarchy was simply not true. The support for independence among the Lima curates is equally the

product of their local identification. A fourth frequently-cited group who signed were the medical doctors.

Again, they were exclusively Peruvians, usually trained in Lima as well. One, the famous Manuel Valdes, was actually a mestizo whose grant of limpieza de

sangre under the viceregal system is often cited as proof that some non-whites could advance high up in professional life. This extraordinary generation of scientists and philosophers were the founders or first graduates of the College of Medicine of San Fernando in Lima. Their foremost representative, and the undisputed philosopher-statesman of Peruvian emancipation, was Hip6lito Unanue, already a famous scholar, writer and physician before independence; afterward he variously held three separate ministries, was president of Con-

gress and president of the Council of Government. Others of this group were Jose Pezet, Filix Devoti, Jose Vergara, Jose Maria Falc6n, Miguel Tafur, Laureano de Lara, and Pedro de Echevarria.43 We cannot deny them their

glory, but in the name of reality they must not be romanticized. In all, this

group consisted of only about ten men, who because of their breadth of interests and achievements were unrepresentative of the elite. Though several of them entered Congress, only Unanue played an important role in the

republic, for there was little room for philosophers in the era of the caudillos. To return, then, from the unrepresentative olympian heights of Lima

society as personified by a Las Heras, Unainue, or Arizmendi, the fact remains that the vast majority of identified signers were men who had not yet reached the peak of their professions, or who felt their advancement was blocked by real or imagined impediments, or quite simply, who never aspired to reach the top. Some were like the future president, Jose de la Riva Agiiero, whose whole life had been an anguished struggle to get' what was coming to him '.44

42 ' Lima, Estado de su Iglesia ', undated but about 1807 (after Las Heras's appointment), AGI, Lima I566. One member's birthplace was not given.

43 Jorge Arias-Schreiber Pezet, Los medicos en la independencia del Peru (Lima, 1971), p. o18. 44 The personal and financial setbacks Riva Agiiero suffered during the I8Ios were very

serious, especially for a man with his pretensions. In I8ii, for example, he complained to the crown of the disproportion of offices granted ro peninsulars in the same letter in which he requested appointment as either Director of the Tobacco Monopoly or Contador mayor of Peru (two of the viceroyalty's highest offices) - an absurdly pretentious request for a young man of 27 who had served only one year as a full-rime royal employee: Lima, 23 July I8I1, AGI, Lima 772. The most serious trauma was his resignation in I8I4 as Conta- dor ordinador of the Tribunal de Cuentas, which he claimed was the result of a conspiracy of Viceroy Abascal and Contador mayor Antonio Chac6n to free the position for Chacon's son-in-law. In a statement entitled Exclamacion, dictated to a secretary in the full-heat of embarrassment and anger (as he himself admitted) he set forth many of the basic creole


Others were like the priest and professor, Francisco Javier Luna Pizarro, who later became Archbishop and who in 1821 was already a beloved teacher and thinker. Of the two, however, the type of Riva Agiiero vastly predominated among the other signers, just as Tado said it did. They were petty lawyers, minor bureaucrats, small businessmen, unimaginative clerics, aspirants to

higher social and economic positions, rather than freedom-fighters or defen- ders of the oppressed. They ascribed their failure of advancement to the

inflexibility of Spain's imperial institutions rather than to their own failings, and each one kept a wary eye out for the main chance.

This does not mean they should not have been a firm enough rock upon which to build independence, but it helps explain, in fact, why they turned out not to be! Hall noted that the citizens of Lima in July 1821 were characterized by ' an engrossing selfishness '. He explained: ' The Limenians, long pampered by luxury and security, and now for the first time fairly awakened to the real miseries and dangers of life, could not all at once acquire the faculty of balancing motives '.4 This was the fundamental weakness of San Martin's fledgling republic. Independence based entirely on self-interest would have to satisfy these aspirations.

San Martin, the politician not the Messiah, would have been remiss indeed not to have used this selfishness to the advantage of his cause. As his expeditionary army advanced toward Lima, he issued various proclamations addressed to the nobility, to creole soldiers, to Spanish soldiers, to peninsulars, to the population in general, and even 'to the weaker sex', assuring each

group that their privileges would be protected and extended under his regime, and holding out tempting promises of reward. He told the nobility, for

example, that the viceregal system had kept them 'an inert class without function' in the midst of a society of soldiers and slaves, and promised that under him they would be in command.46 Private letters were dispatched to

grievances which historians sometimes uncritically accept as actual fact: Letter to Directors of Hacienda Publica, Lima, 26 April 1814, AGI, Lima IOI9. Yet a further blow came in 1817 when he was ordered to repay the crown 4,90I pesos he had collected in salary from his sinecure as Guarda vista of the Lima mint during the years I805 to I809 when he was actually living in Europe: Royal order, Madrid, 27 May I817, AGI, Lima I467. How many of us could repay nearly five years of salary in a lump sum? On the other hand, how many of us would think it our due to continue collecting the salary while not performing our duties? Finally, Riva Agiiero's mother was denied the full widow's pension of her second husband (his father) on the absurd technicality that the royal cedula permitting them to marry had been lost at sea. She had to settle for collecting the much smaller pension of her first husband: Consulta, Council of Indies, Madrid, 2I April I818, AGI, Lima IOI9. As

genuine grievances against 'Spanish tyranny' these do not hold much water, but they were perhaps sufficient blows to his ego to trigger his rejection of the royal regime. How

many other creole cries of tyranny sprang from the same sort of motives? 45 Hall, Extracts, I, 282-3. 46 San Martin to Peruvian nobility, I820, AGI, Indiferente 313.

246 Timothy E. Anna

selected opinion-makers such as the city councillors, the Archbishop, or the

publicist Gaspar Rico.47 To each sector of the population, from the highest to the lowest, San Martin promised something.

The army was a particular focus of such propaganda, and most of the royal officers who went over to the patriots did so on the promise of advancement. The Numancia regiment, whose treason was a serious blow to the royal power, was tempted to join the rebels not only by the offer of rank, but also of money and even women. Paz Soldan went to considerable lengths to substantiate this

charge, which Tado also made. One well-known royal officer was suborned

by the patriot promise to guarantee his gambling debts.48

Still, empleomania, the desire for government employment, was the chief motive of the multitude of bureaucrats and lawyers who signed the Declara- tion. That this was a driving force can be seen in various tell-tale events. For

example, a group of royal civil servants, in the days when the Declaration was

open for signatures, wrote to the city council to ask if they should present themselves as a group to sign, wearing their official uniforms.49 Obviously they perceived a direct connection between their signatures and their jobs. All office holders had to accept independence, and Spanish nationals who did so were promised equal treatment with Americans in job preferment.50

The problem in this complex maze of fears, pressures and promises was

simply that there were not enough jobs to go around, for they had to be distri- buted not only among incumbents, but also among those Peruvians who provided notable service to independence, and those foreigners who accompanied San Martin's expedition from Chile. A paralyzed Peru could not support the cost.51 The best positions and the most desirable confiscated properties went first to Chileans, Argentines, even Englishmen, before Peruvians. Well over half the administrative machinery of the young republic, even including the first Congress, was staffed by non-Peruvians.

Independence failed to satisfy because it could not create or pay for enough positions to meet the insatiable appetites of the Lima pretendientes. In only one month after the Declaration, the San Martin government was already adrift in a sea of ambition and hypocrisy. In only six months it disintegrated. This follows logically and confirms Tado's fourth point - that many signers, Spanish or creole, later regretted their decision. Ram6n del Valle reported that the nobility and middle class by the end of 1821 were already completely 47 San Martin to Las Heras, Huaura, 20 Dec. I820; and to Rico, 2I Dec. I820, AGI, Lima

800. 48 Paz Soldan, I: I, IOI-IO. 49 Cabildo to San Martin, 19 July I821, ANP, Archivo Historico de Hacienda, OL. 7-2. 50 Gaceta del Gobierno, Lima, x1 Aug. I821. 51 The government quickly went bankrupt. See Anna, 'Economic Causes of San Martin's

Failure in Lima ', loc. cit., pp. 657-81.


disillusioned by their failure to obtain positions: 'And I do not believe those two classes are very attached to the government'. 5 Yet the armed power of the patriots at first stilled outright opposition, for as Antonio Vacaro, a royal naval officer, reported: 'In the capital, despite the fact that there are many people of all classes ... who seem addicted to the king, no one fails to manifest in his public conduct his adhesion to the instrusive government'. Confirming Tado's allegation that no one could speak his disillusion, Vacaro said, ' it is not possible to expect them to help the true cause [the royal cause] directly or

indirectly '.53

Everyone agreed that if the royalist army could reoccupy Lima the populace would quickly go over to it. Consular reports from Rio de Janeiro assured Madrid that ' all the Lima nobility . . . aspire to nothing else but to see the

Spanish flag wave, in order to... incite rebellion against the celebrated Liberator whom they hate in the extreme'; while Crist6val Domingo, a

royalist refugee, assured the Consul-General in Rio that as early as September 1821 San Martin had lost most of his public support.54 Jose Maria Ruybal, another refugee, reported that 'the most informed Peruvians, who had adhered to San Martin, disillusioned by his conduct and convinced that he is not a new Washington, . . . generally abhor him '.55

Though outright conspiracy against the government was limited, the

royalists' repeated warnings that San Martin had lost his support were not mere wishful thinking, for w,here open opposition was impossible, inactivity took its place. By doing nothing to help rescue the rebel government, the inhabitants gave the surest sign of 'their lack of enthusiasm for it. Indeed, on no less than three occasions during the next three years - in September I82I, in June 1823, and in March 1824 - the royalist armies drew near Lima or

actually occupied it or Callao, and each time many of Lima's leading citizens threw themselves upon the protection of the crown and openly rejected independence. The ultimate occurred in March I824, when the President of the Republic, the Vice-President and the President of Congress all joined the

royalists. The fact that Tado's hypothesis can be substantiated in all its points solves

the problem of the dichotomy between what Lima's inhabitants said and what

they did. The Declaration of Independence was merely a forced enumeration of the elite and aspirants to the elite. Many persons signed involuntarily under

52 Report of Ramon del Valle, Rio de Janeiro, 5 March 1822, AGI, Indiferente 3I3. 53 Jacinto de Romarate to Secretary of Ultramar, enclosing Vacaro's report, Aranjuez, 20

March 1822, AGI, Indiferente I57I. 54 Crisr6val Domingo to Juez de Arribadas, Cadiz, I9 March 1822, AGI, Lima I619; Unsigned

report from Rio de Janeiro, I0 Jan. 1822, AGI, Indiferente I570. 55 Jose Maria Ruybal to Antonio Luis Pereyra, Rio de Janeiro, 27 July I822, AGI, Lima 798.

248 Timothy E. Anna

constraint of direct or indirect force. Many other signers genuinely favored

independence, but they did so for reasons of the shallowest self-interest. Those who expected reward were instantly disappointed and forgot the enthusiasm of July; the others kept their silence, withdrawing into the protective shelter of

politival inactivity. The Declaration of Independence, therefore, cannot be used as historical

proof of support for independence. Like the Gaceta published by the San

Martin government, or the countless oaths of allegiance offered by every corporation and group in the city, it constitutes planted evidence, placed in the records by partisans of the side that happened to control the city and, therefore, its printing presses. It is a propaganda tour de force.

Lima adopted independence in July 182I, because it was the only alternative to the vacuum left by the viceroy's evacuation. San Martin never had a man-

date, and his attempt to gain the support of undecided elements by coercion was only temporarily successful. The inhabitants had not chosen independence and would not fight for it, and surely he knew it. His entire Peruvian enter-

prise was based on that gamble, and as he sailed to meet Bolivar at Guayaquil he could not possibly have been unaware of its failure. Of course, these events

seriously weakened Lima's attachment to the Spanish crown as well, but for several years it remained strong enough to keep Peru's future undecided. Mere

repetition of the refrain 'Independence is the general will of the people'! did not make it true!

timothy e. anna - the peruvian declaration of independence: freedom by coercion

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