South American Independence 239
Independence is only a chapter, and perhaps the most bril-
liant one, in the heroic history of the Iberian race.
It was Bello, the famous humanist and poet, who first
called attention to this point of view. These are his words :
“Never would a debased people have been able to achieve
the great deeds that illustrated the campaigns of the pa-
triots. He who observes with philosophical eye our strug-
gle with the mother country will recognize without difficulty
that what made us prevail in this struggle was really the
Iberian element. The captains and the old legions of the
transatlantic Iberia were conquered by the improvised
leaders and armies of the Young Iberia, which, renouncing
her name, kept the indomitable spirit of the Old. Spanish
constancy shattered itself against its own invincibility.”
Miguel Antonio Caro called attention to the entirely Span-
ish origin and Spanish education of the principal heroes.
In recent times the celebrated thinker, Miguel Unamuno,
did not hesitate to compare Bolivar with Don Quixote, the
representative type of Spanish chivalry and heroism. But
it is not necessary to go so far to find a real parallel.
For us, the movement for independence has a great
similarity with the conquest, and both have the same
explanation from the decisive point of view of human
energy.
Studying the conquest, we may note three features in this
marvellous achievement: individualism, mystic faith, and
heroic will. Everybody knows that the conquest was due
chiefly to individual initiative and to individual efforts more
than to organized plans or work of the state. We know
also to-day that the conquest of America was not inspired
only by the quest of precious metals, and that beneath this
selfish purpose, the conquerors had a mystical faith in the
providential rôle of gaining for the Catholic religion a new