# Civilization and Barbarism/Chapter 6

CHAPTER VI.
LA RIOJA.
"The sides of the mountain enlarge and assume an aspect at once more grand and more barren. By little and little, the scanty vegetation languishes and dies; and mosses disappear, and a red burning hue succeeds."—Roussée's Palestine.
THE COUNTRY COMMANDANT.
In a document dating as far back as 1560, I have seen recorded the name of Mendoza of the valley of La Rioja. But La Rioja proper is an Argentine province lying north of San Juan, from which it is separated by several strips of desert, although these are broken by some inhabited valleys. Its western portion is intersected in parallel lines by spurs branching off from the Andes and including in their valleys los Pueblos and Little Chili, as it was called by the Chilian miners, who frequented the rich and renowned mines of Famatina.
Further to the east stretches a sandy, barren, and sun-scorched plain, at the northern extremity of which, and near a mountain covered to its summit with rank and lofty vegetation, lies the skeleton of La Rioja, a lonely city with no suburbs, and withered away, as it were, like Jerusalem at the foot of the Mount of Olives. This sandy plain is bounded, far towards the south, by the Colorados, mountains of hardened clay, whose regular outlines take the most picturesque and fantastic forms; ​sometimes resembling a smooth wall with projecting bastions; sometimes suggesting to the eye massive towers and the battlements of ruined castles. Lastly, in the southeast and surrounded by extensive wastes, lie the Llanos, a broken and hilly region, in spite of its name, forming an oasis of pasturage which formerly maintained thousands of flocks.
The general aspect of the country is desolate, its climate torrid, its soil parched and destitute of running streams. Reservoirs called represas are constructed by the peasantry to collect rain-water for the supply of their animals. I have always been disposed to think that the general aspect of Palestine resembles that of La Rioja, in the reddish or ochreous tints of the soil, the dryness of some regions and their cisterns; also the orange-trees, vines, and fig-trees bearing exquisite and enormous fruits, which are raised along the course of some turbid and confined Jordan. There is a strange combination of mountain and plain, fruitfulness and aridity, parched and bristling heights, and hills covered with dark green forests as lofty as the cedars of Lebanon.
What chiefly brings these reminiscences of the East before my imagination is the truly patriarchal appearance of the country people of La Rioja. Thanks to caprices of fashion, there is now nothing unusual in seeing men with full beards, according to the immemorial practice of Eastern nations; but yet this fact would not wholly prevent the surprise naturally occasioned by the sight of a Spanish-speaking population among whom full beards, frequently descending to the chest, are, and always have been worn; a population of ​melancholy, silent, sedate, and crafty demeanor; of Arabic appearance, riding upon asses, and sometimes clothed in goat-skins, like the hermit of En-gedi. There are places where the people live exclusively on wild honey and the fruit of the carob-tree, as St. John did on locusts in the desert. The Llanista himself is alone unconscious of being the most unfortunate, wretched, and barbarous of mortals, and thanks to this ignorance, he lives contentedly and happily when hunger does not trouble him.
I have already said that there are in Rioja some reddish mountains which bear at a distance a resemblance to towers and feudal castles in ruins; and still other medieval characteristics are mingled with the Oriental resemblances above referred to, for in Rioja there has been a contest of a century between two hostile families, whose enmity, rank, and celebrity find an accurate parallel among the Ursini, Colonnas, and Medici of Italian feuds. The whole history of the civilized inhabitants of La Rioja is that of the contentions of the Ocampos and Davilas. These families, alike ancient, rich, and noble, long strove with each other for supremacy, and, even long before the Revolution of Independence, had divided the population into parties like those of the Guelphs and Ghibellines. A great number of the members of these two families have distinguished themselves in arms, at the bar, and in industrial pursuits; for the Davilas and the Ocampos were ever attempting to surpass each other by every method of acquiring power recognized by civilization. The extinction of this hereditary animosity was often an object of the policy of the patriots of Buenos Ayres. ​The two families were induced by the logic of Lautaro to unite an Ocampo with a lady of the Dávila family in order to promote a reconciliation. All know that such was the Italian practice; but on this occasion the Romeo and Juliet were more fortunate. Towards 1817 the government of Buenos Ayres, also with the view of ending the hostility of these families, sent the province a governor from without, Barnachea by name, who fell were long under the influence of the Ddvila party, dependent upon the support of Don Prudencio Quiroga, a man much beloved by the inhabitants of the Llanos where he lived; he had been summoned to the city and appointed Treasurer and Alcalde. The rural districts were just beginning, although in a legitimate and noble manner, in Don Prudencio Quiroga, Facundo's father, to come into play as a political element among the civil parties. The Llanos I have stated, consist of a hilly oasis of pasture land in the midst of an extensive desert (travesia); their inhabitants, exclusively shepherds, lead that patriarchal and primitive life which its isolation preserves in all its purity and hostility to the cities. Hospitality is in that region a duty of general obligation. The laborer defends his master from all kinds of danger, even at the risk of his own life. These customs will of themselves furnish a partial explanation of the phenomena we are to witness.
After the event that occurred in his favor at San Luis, Facundo made his appearance on the Llanos invested with the prestige of his recent exploit, and fortified with a recommendation from the government. The parties dividing La Rioja were not slow to solicit the adhesion of a man regarded by all with the respect ​and dread always felt for deeds of unusual daring. The Ocampos, who came into power in 1820, gave him the title of Sergeant Major of the Militia of the Llanos, with the influence and authority of Commandant.
The beginning of his public career starts from this moment. The pastoral and barbaric element of La Rioja, the same with that third force which appears with Artigas at the siege of Montevideo, is now to present itself at La Rioja with Quiroga, upon whom one of the parties of the city had called for support. The moment of such an action is a solemn and critical one in the history of all the pastoral states of the Argentine Republic; in each there comes a day when a man of audacity is made country commandant either because he is already dreaded, or because foreign aid is needed. Such a man is a Grecian horse like that which the Trojans made haste to bring into the city.
At this time occurred at San Juan the unfortunate insurrection of the first regiment of the Andes, which had returned from Chili for reorganization. Francisco Aldao and Corro, foiled in the objects of the rebellion, undertook a calamitous retreat towards the north to join Güemes, a partisan chieftain of Salta. General Ocampo, Governor of La Rioja, took measures to bar their passage, and for that purpose called out all the forces of the province and made ready for a battle. Facundo was at hand with his Llanistas [men of the plains]. The action began, and a few minutes were enough to show that the First Regiment had, by rebellion, lost none of their ancient lustre on fields of battle. Corro and Aldao moved upon the city, and their scattered antagonists betook themselves for reorganization ​to the Llanos, where they could await the arrival of the troops from San Juan and Mendoza who were in pursuit of the fugitives. Facundo meanwhile, abandoning the point of reunion, fell upon the rear-guard of the victors, skirmishing with and harassing them, and killing or capturing their stragglers. Facundo was the only man endowed with a life of his own, waiting for no orders, wholly influenced by the motive power within himself. He had felt himself called to action, and waited for no impulse from without. Yet more; he spoke scornfully of the government and of the General, and declared his intention of overthrowing it and acting henceforward as his judgment might dictate. It is said that a council of the chief officers of the army urged upon General Ocampo his arrest, trial, and execution; but the General declined, perhaps less from moderation than from a feeling that Quiroga was now less a subordinate officer than a formidable ally.
A definite agreement between Aldao and the government decided that the former should return to San Luis, it not being his wish to follow Corro, and the government engaging to provide means for his passage through its territory by a route across the Llanos. Facundo was charged with the performance of this part of the stipulation, and returned with Aldao to the Llanos. Quiroga by this time was conscious of his power; and when he turned his back on La Rioja, he might have taken leave of it with the saying, "Woe to thee, O city! Verily I say unto thee that yet a little while, and there shall not be left of thee one stone upon another."
Aldao, upon his arrival at the Llanos, offered ​Quiroga, with whose discontent he had become acquainted, a hundred drilled soldiers, to enable him to make himself master of La Rioja, in exchange for his aid in future enterprises. Quiroga eagerly assented, set out for the city, took it, captured the officers of the government, sent them confessors, and orders to prepare themselves for death. What object had he in this revolution? None. Feeling himself powerful and stretching out his arms, he overthrew the city. Is it his fault?
Old Chilian patriots doubtless still remember the prowess of Sergeant Araya of the Mounted Grenadiers; for among those veterans the halo of glory frequently rested upon the common soldier. The priest Menéses has informed me that, after the rout of Cancha Rayada, Sergeant Araya and seven grenadiers went to Mendoza. It was heart-breaking to the patriots to see the bravest soldiers of their army passing and repassing the Andes while Las Heras still had forces at his command to face the Spaniards. The detention of Sergeant Araya was projected; but a difficulty presented itself. Who was to approach him? A detachment of seventy militia-men was at hand; but all the soldiers knew that the fugitive was Sergeant Araya, and they would have been a thousand times more ready to attack the Spaniards than this lion of the grenadiers. Upon this, Don José Maria Menéses, alone and unarmed, followed and overtook Araya, and, intercepting him on his way, reminded him of his past glories and of the disgrace of an objectless flight. Araya was not deaf to this appeal, and yielded unresistingly to the entreaties and commands of the good neighbor. He then became enthusiastic, hastened to stop other ​squads of grenadiers who had preceded him in flight, and his diligence and reputation enabled him to join the army again with seventy comrades in arms, who cleared their laurels at Maipú of the momentary stain which had rested on them.
This Sergeant Araya and a man named Lorca, also known in Chili by his bravery, commanded the force placed by Aldao under Facundo's orders. The prisoners at La Rioja who were under sentence of death, among them Dr. Don Gabriel Ocampo, a former minister of government, entreated Lorca to protect them by his intercession. Facundo, feeling yet insecure in his momentary elevation, consented to grant their lives; but this limit set to his power made him aware that he must have full control of this veteran force, in order to avoid future opposition.
Returning to the Llanos, he came to an understanding with Araya, and in pursuance of their agreement, they fell upon the rest of Aldao's force by surprise, and Facundo then found himself at the head of four hundred regulars, from whose ranks were afterwards drawn the officers of his first armies.
​Dávila undertook the government under Facundo, and for the time all occasion for trouble seemed over. The possessions and estates of the Dávilas were situated near Chilecito, and there, consequently, in the kinsmen and friends of the family, was concentrated the physical and moral force likely to sustain the new governor. As the population of Chilecito increased with the profitable working of the mines, and as large fortunes had been amassed there, the government established a provincial bank in this small town, to which it transferred its residence, either to carry out the undertaking or to withdraw itself from the Llanos and the disagreeable subjection in which Quiroga was disposed to keep that region. Before long, Dávila proceeded from these purely defensive measures to more decided action. Availing himself of Facundo's temporary absence at San Juan, he laid plans with Captain Araya to have him arrested on his return. Facundo learned what awaited him, and, secretly entering the Llanos, had Araya assassinated. The government whose authority had been thus contemptuously defied, summoned him to answer to the charge of assassination. Ridiculous parody! But there was no other means of appealing to arms and of kindling civil war between the government and Qiiiroga, between the city and the Llanos. Facundo, in his turn, sent commissioners to the Representative Assembly, to request the deposition of Dávila. The Assembly had urgently called upon the governor to invade the Llanos and with the support of all the citizens, to disarm Quiroga. The members had a local interest in the matter, which was the transfer of the bank to the city of La Rioja; but as Dávila ​persisted in residing at Chilecito, the Assembly yielded to Facundo's solicitations and declared Dávila deposed.
Governor Dávila had assembled many of Aldao's soldiers under the command of Don Miguel Dávila. He had a good supply of military equipments, many adherents desirous of preserving the province from the rule of the chieftain who was strengthening himself in the Llanos, and also several regular officers to lead his troops. Preparations for war were begun, then, with equal zeal, in Chilecito and in the Llanos. Rumors of these unhappy events reached San Juan and Mendoza, the government of which sent a commission to attempt to make an arrangement between the belligerents, who, by that time, were on the point of actual conflict. Corbalan, the same now serving in Rosas' ordnance corps, visited Quiroga's camp to attempt the mediation for which he had been sent, and which the chieftain accepted; he next went to the opposing camp, where he met the same cordial reception; and finally returned to the camp of Quiroga to arrange the exact terms of agreement, but Quiroga, leaving him there, marched hastily against his enemy, whose forces he easily routed and dispersed, owing to the negligence into which the deluded envoy's assurances had caused them to fall. Don Miguel Dávila, collecting some of his men, resolutely attacked Quiroga, and succeeded in wounding him in one thigh before being himself disabled by a shot in the wrist; he was afterwards surrounded and killed by Quiroga's soldiers. A fact very characteristic of the gaucho spirit is connected with this incident. A soldier takes pleasure in showing his wounds; the gaucho hides such as he has ​received in close combat, and avoids having their existence known, because they attest a want of skill on his part. Facundo, faithful to these notions of honor, never mentioned the wound which Dávila had given him.
Here ends the history of the Ocampos and Dávilas, and with it that of La Rioja. What follows is the history of Quiroga.
That day of evil omen corresponds to April of 1835 in the history of Buenos Ayres—when its country commandant, its desert hero, made himself master of the city. I ought not to omit, since it is to Quiroga's honor, a curious fact which (1823) occurred at this time. The feeblest gleam of light is not to be disregarded in the blackness of that night.
Facundo, upon his triumphant entry into La Rioja, stopped the ringing of the bells, and after sending a message of condolence to the widow of the slain General, directed his ashes to be honored with a stately funeral. He appointed for governor one Blanco, a Spaniard of low rank, and with him began the new order of affairs which was to realize the best ideal of government, as conceived by Facundo Quiroga; for, in his long career among the various cities which he conquered, he never took upon himself the charge of organizing goyernments; he always left that task to others.
​It is otherwise when the prevailing force is one foreign to civilization,—when an Attila obtains possession of Rome, or a Tamerlane traverses the plains of Asia; old forms remain, but the hand of philosophy would afterwards vainly remove them with the view of finding beneath them plants which had gained vigor from the human blood given them for nourishment. Facundo, a man imbued with the genius of barbarism, gets control of his country; the traditions of government disappear, established forms deteriorate, the law is a plaything in vile hands; and nothing is maintained, nothing established, amid the destruction thus accomplished by the trampling feet of horses. Freedom from restraint, occupation, and care, is the supreme good of the gaucho. If La Rioja had contained statues, as it contained doctors, they would have had horses tied to them, but they would have served no other purpose.
"Facundo Quiroga."
The third year the ceremony of adjudication was omitted, and in 1831, Quiroga again sent to La Rioja the sum of two thousand dollars, his estimate for the tithes.
But to make his tithes bring in a hundred for one, another step was required, and, after the second year, Facundo refused to receive the tribute of animals otherwise than by giving his mark among the proprietors, so that they might brand with it the animals set apart for the tithe and keep them on the place until he called for them. The creatures multiplied, their number was constantly augmented by new tithes, and, after ten years, it might be reckoned that half the stock of a whole pastoral province belonged to the commanding general of the forces, and bore his mark.
It was the immemorial custom in La Rioja that the estrays, or the animals that were not marked at a certain age, should become the lawful property of the treasury, which sent its agents to collect these gleanings, and derived no contemptible revenue from them, but the annoyance to the proprietors was intolerable. Facundo demanded the adjudication to himself of these animals, to meet the expenses he had incurred for the invasion of the city; expenses which were reducible to the summons of irregular forces, who assembled, mounted on horses of their own, and lived constantly on what came in their way. Already the proprietor of herds which brought him six thousand bullocks a year, he sent his agents to supply the city markets, and woe to any competitor who should appear! This ​business of supplying meat for the markets was one which he carried on wherever he ruled, in San Juan, Mendoza, or Tucuman; and he was always careful to secure the monopoly of it by proclamation or simple notification. It is with shame and disgust that I mention these disgraceful transactions, but the truth must be told.
The general's first order, after a bloody battle which had laid a city open to him, was that no one should supply the markets with meat! In Tucuman he learned that a resident of the place was killing cattle in his house, in spite of this order. The general of the army of the Andes, the conqueror of the Citadel, thought the investigation of so dreadful a crime should be entrusted only to himself. He went in person, and knocked lustily at the door of the house, which refused to yield, and which the inmates, taken by surprise, did not open. A kick from the illustrious general broke it in, and exposed to his view a dead ox, whose hide was in process of removal by the master of the house, who also fell dead in his turn at the terrible sight of the offended general! ​I do not intentionally dwell upon these things. How many I omit! How many misdeeds I pass over in silence which are fully proved and known to all! But I am writing the history of government by barbarians, and I am forced to state its methods.
​His hostility to the respectable classes and to the refinement of the cities was every day more perceptible, and the governor of La Rioja, whom he had himself appointed, finally was forced, by daily annoyances, to resign his place. One day, Quiroga, feeling inclined to pleasantry, was amusing himself with a young man as a cat sports with a frightened mouse; he liked to play at killing; the terror of the victim was so ludicrous, that the executioner was highly diverted, and laughed immoderately, contrary to his habit. He must have sympathy in his mirth, and he at once ordered the general to be beat throughout the city of Rioja, which called out the citizens under arms. Facundo, who had given the summons for diversion's sake, drew up the inhabitants in the principal square at eleven o'clock, at night, dismissed the populace and retained only the well-to-do householders and the young men who still had some appearance of culture. All night he kept them marching and countermarching, halting, forming line, marching by front or by flank. It was like a drill-sergeant teaching recruits, and the sergeant's stick travelled over the heads of the stupid, and the chests of those who were out of line; "What would you have? this is the way to teach!" Morning came, and the pallor, weariness, and exhaustion of the recruits showed what a night they had passed. Their instructor finally sent them to rest, and extended his generosity to the purchase and distribution of pastry, each recipient made in haste to eat his share, for that was part of the sport.
Lessons of such a kind are not lost upon cities, and ​the skillful politician who has raised similar proceedings to a system in Buenos Ayres, has refined upon them and made them wonderfully effective. For example: during the periods between 1835 and 1840 almost the whole population of Buenos Ayres has passed through the prisons. Sometimes a hundred and fifty citizens would be imprisoned for two or three months, to be then replaced by two hundred who would be kept, perhaps half the year. Wherefore? What had they done? What had they said? Idiots! Do you not see that this is good discipline for the city? Do you not remember the saying of Rosas to Quiroga, that no republic could be established because the people were not prepared for it! This is his way of teaching the city how to obey; he will finish his work, and in 1844, he will be able to show the world a people with but one thought, one opinion, one voice, and that a boundless enthusiasm for the person and will of Rosas! Then, indeed, they will be ready for a republic!
But we will return to La Rioja. A feverish excitement on the subject of investments in the mines of the new States of Spanish America had arisen in England; powerful companies were proposing to draw profit from those of Mexico and Peru; and Rivadavia, who was then residing in London, urged speculators to invest their capital in the Argentine Republic. The mines of Famatina offered an opening for a great enterprise. At the same time, speculators from Buenos Ayres obtained the exclusive right to work these mines, meaning to sell it for an enormous sum to the English companies. These two speculations, one started in England and the other in Buenos Ayres, conflicted ​with each other, and were irreconcilable. Finally, a bargain was made with another English house, which was to supply funds, and in fact, sent out English superintendents and miners. Later, a speculation was got up to establish a bank at La Rioja, which was to be sold at a high price to the national government when it should be organized. On being solicited, Facundo took a large number of shares, making payment with tile Jesuits' College, which had been assigned to him, on his demand, in payment of his salary as general. A party of Buenos Ayres stockholders came to La Rioja to carry out the project, and soon asked to be presented to Quiroga, whose name had begun to exercise everywhere a mysterious and terrific power. Facundo received them in his lodgings, in very fine silk stockings, ill-made pantaloons, and a common linen poncho.
The grotesque appearance of this figure was not provocative of any smiles from the elegant citizens of Buenos Ayres. They were too sagacious not to read the riddle. The man before them meant to humiliate his polished guests, and show them what account he made of their European dresses.
The administrative system established in his province was finally completed by exorbitant duties on the exportation of cattle which did not belong to him. But in addition to these direct methods of acquiring wealth, he had one which embraced his whole public career, gambling! He had a rage for play as some men have for strong drink, and others for tobacco. His mind, though a powerful one, had not the capacity of embracing a large sphere of ideas, and stood in need of this factitious occupation, in which a passion of the soul is ​in constant exercise, as it is crossed, appeased, provoked, excited, and kept upon the rack. I have always thought that the passion for gambling was some useful faculty that organized society has perverted or left in inaction. The will, self-control, and steadfastness which it requires, are the same which advance the fortunes of the enterprising merchant, the banker, and the conqueror who plays for empires with battles. Facundo had habitually gambled since his childhood; play had been the only pleasure, the only relaxation of his life. But what an agreeable partner he must be who controls the terrors and the lives of the whole party! No one can conceive such a state of things without having had it before his eyes for twenty years. Facundo played unfairly, say his enemies. I do not believe the charge, for cheating at play was unnecessary in his case, and he had been known to pursue to the death, others who were guilty of it. But he played with unlimited means; he never let any one carry from the table the money he used for stakes; the game could not be stopped till he chose; he would play forty hours or more at a time; he feared no one, and if his fellow gamblers annoyed him, he could have them whipped or shot at pleasure. This was the secret of his good luck. Few men ever won much money from him, although, at some periods of the game, heaps of coin lost by him lay upon the table; the game would go on, for the winner did not dare to rise, and in the end he would have nothing but the glory of reckoning that his winnings, afterwards lost, had once been so large.
Gambling, then, was to Quiroga a system of plunder as well as a favorite amusement. No one in La Rioja ​received money from him, no one possessed any, without being at once invited to a game, or, in other words, to leave his funds in the chieftain's hands. Most of the tradesmen of La Rioja failed and vanished, their money having taken up its quarters in the general's purse; and it was not for want of lessons in prudence from him. A young man had won four thousand dollars from Facundo, and Facundo declined to play longer. His opponent thought that a snare was in readiness for him, and that his life was in danger. Facundo repeated that he had finished playing; the stupid fellow insisted on another game, and Facundo, complying with the demand, won the four thousand dollars from the other, who then received two hundred lashes for his uncivil pertinacity.
I am weary of reading the accounts of infamous acts in which all the manuscripts I am consulting agree. I suppress them out of respect to my vanity as an author, and to the literary pretensions of my work. By saying more I should make my pictures appear too highly colored, coarse, and repulsive.
This terminates one period of the life of the country commandant after he had abolished and suppressed the city. Hitherto Facundo was what Rosas was in his own domain, although not so far degraded before reaching power, either by gambling or by the brutal gratification of various passions. But he is to enter upon a new sphere, and we are soon to follow him over the whole Republic and seek him on battle fields. What consequences to La Rioja were occasioned by the destruction of all civil order? Reasonings and discussions are here out of place. A visit to the scene ​of these occurrences will be sufficient to answer the query. The Llanos of La Rioja are now deserted; their population has emigrated to San Juan; the cisterns are dry which once gave drink to thousands of flocks. Those Llanos which fed those flocks twenty years ago, are now the home of the tiger who has reconquered his former empire, and of a few families of beggars who live upon the fruit of the carob-tree. This is the retribution the Llanos have suffered for the evils which they let loose upon the Republic. "Woe to ye, Bethsaida and Chorazin! Verily I say unto you, that the lot of Sodom and Gomorrah was more tolerable than that which was reserved for you!"
* ↑ In consequence of the present law, the government of the province has obtained the assent of His Excellency General Don Juan Facundo Quiroga, to the following stipulations, agreeably to his note of September 14, 1833. 1. That he will make good to the Most Excellent Government of Buenos Ayres the sum invested by it in the said property. 2. That he will supply the province without incumbrance to the revenue, with five thousand pesos, to meet the difficulty of filling its contingent; three thousand pesos in cash and the remainder in the produce of live stock: for the payment of which only the members of the trade of butchering shall be responsible. 3. That he is to have the exclusive right of supplying the markets, selling to the public at the rate of five reals the arroba of meat, which now costs six, and is of bad quality; and to the state at three reals without raising the current price of the article. 4. That his cattle are to be slaughtered gratis, from the 18th of the present month to the 10th of January inclusive, and to have pasture at the public expense for two reals a month for every head he shall provide from the 1st of October next. Ruiz.—Vicento Atienzo. Official Register of the Province, of San Juan. San Juan, September 13, 1833.
* ↑ A certain call to arms.