Part 9

Those vast regions which occupy the central part of South America, stretching from Guinea to the foot of the Andes, overspread with gigantic and primeval forests, and watered by mighty rivers--those solitary wilds where man appears unessential in the scale of creation, and the traces of his power are few and far between--have lately occupied much of the attention of Europeans; partly from the extraordinary events and unexpected revolutions; which have convulsed the nations round them; and partly from the researches of enterprising travellers who have penetrated into their remotest districts. But till within the last twenty years these wild regions have been unknown, except through the means of the Spanish and Portuguese priests, settled as missionaries along the banks of the Orinoco and the Paraguay. The men thus devoted to utter banishment from all intercourse with civilized life, are generally Franciscan or Capuchin friars, born in the Spanish colonies. Their pious duties are sometimes voluntary, and sometimes imposed by the superiors of their order; in either case their destiny appears at first view deplorable, and their self-sacrifice sublime; yet, when we recollect that these poor monks generally exchanged the monotonous solitude of the cloister for the magnificent loneliness of the boundless woods and far-spreading savannahs, the sacrifice appears less terrible; even where accompanied by suffering, privation, and occasionally by danger. When these men combine with their religious zeal some degree of understanding and enlightened benevolence, they have been enabled to enlarge the sphere of knowledge and civilization, by exploring the productions and geography of these unknown regions; and by collecting into villages and humanizing the manners of the native tribes, who seem strangely to unite the fiercest and most abhorred traits of savage life, with some of the gentlest instincts of our common nature. But when it has happened that these priests have been men of narrow minds and tyrannical tempers, they have on some occasions fearfully abused the authority entrusted to them; and being removed many thousand miles from the European settlements and the restraint of the laws, the power they have exercised has been as far beyond control as the calamities they have caused have been beyond all remedy and all relief.

Unfortunately for those who were trusted to his charge, Father Gomez was a missionary of this character. He was a Franciscan friar of the order of Observance, and he dwelt in the village of San Fernando, near the source of the Orinoco, whence his authority extended as president over several missions in the neighborhood of which San Fernando was the capital. The temper of this man was naturally cruel and despotic; he was wholly uneducated, and had no idea, no feeling, of the true spirit of christian benevolence: in this respect, the savages whom he had been sent to instruct and civilize were in reality less savage and less ignorant than himself.

Among the passions and vices which Father Gomez had brought from his cell in the convent of Angostara, to spread contamination and oppression through his new domain, were pride and avarice; and both were interested in increasing the number of his converts or rather of his slaves. In spite of the wise and humane law of Charles the Third, prohibiting the conversion of the Indian natives by force, Gomez, like others of his brethren in the more distant missions, often accomplished his purpose by direct violence. He was accustomed to go, with a party of his people, and lie in wait near the hordes of unreclaimed Indians: when the men were absent he would forcibly seize on the women and children, bind them, and bring them off in triumph to his village. There, being baptized and taught to make the sign of the cross, they were _called_ Christians, but in reality were slaves. In general, the women thus detained pined away and died; but the children became accustomed to their new mode of life, forgot their woods, and paid to their Christian master a willing and blind obedience; thus in time they became the oppressors of their own people.

Father Gomez called these incursions, _la conquista espiritual_--the conquest of souls.

One day he set off on an expedition of this nature, attended by twelve armed Indians; and after rowing some leagues up the river Guaviare, which flows into the Orinoco, they perceived through an opening in the trees, and at a little distance from the shore, an Indian hut. It is the custom of these people to live isolated in families; and so strong is their passion for solitude, that when collected into villages they frequently build themselves a little cabin at a distance from their usual residence, and retire to it, at certain seasons, for days together. The cabin of which I speak was one of these solitary _villas_--if I may so apply the word. It was constructed with peculiar neatness, thatched with palm leaves, and over-shadowed with cocoa trees and laurels; it stood alone in the wilderness, embowered with luxuriant vegetation, and looked like the chosen abode of simple and quiet happiness. Within this hut a young Indian woman (whom I shall call Guahiba, from the name of her tribe) was busied in making cakes of the cassava root, and preparing the family meal, against the return of her husband, who was fishing at some distance up the river; her eldest child, about five or six years old, assisted her; and from time to time, while thus employed, the mother turned her eyes, beaming with fond affection, upon the playful gambols of two little infants, who, being just able to crawl alone, were rolling together on the ground, laughing and crowing with all their might.

Their food being nearly prepared, the Indian woman looked towards the river, impatient for the return of her husband. But her bright dark eyes, swimming with eagerness and affectionate solicitude, became fixed and glazed with terror when, instead of him she so fondly expected, she beheld the attendants of Father Gomez, creeping stealthily along the side of the thicket towards her cabin. Instantly aware of her danger (for the nature and object of these incursions were the dread of all the country round) she uttered a piercing shriek, snatched up her infants in her arms, and, calling on the other to follow, rushed from the hut towards the forest. As she had considerably the start of her pursuers, she would probably have escaped, and have hidden herself effectually in its tangled depths, if her precious burthen had not impeded her flight; but thus encumbered she was easily overtaken. Her eldest child, fleet of foot and wily as the young jaguar, escaped to carry to the wretched father the news of his bereavement, and neither father nor child were ever more beheld in their former haunts.

Meantime, the Indians seized upon Guahiba--bound her, tied her two children together, and dragged her down to the river, where Father Gomez was sitting in his canoe, waiting the issue of the expedition. At the sight of the captives his eye sparkled with a cruel triumph; he thanked his patron saint that three more souls were added to his community; and then, heedless of the tears of the mother, and the cries of her children, he commanded his followers to row back with all speed to San Fernando.

There Guahiba and her infants were placed in a hut under the guard of two Indians; some food was given to her, which she at first refused, but afterward, as if on reflection, accepted. A young Indian girl was then sent to her--a captive convert of her own tribe, who had not yet quite forgotten her native language. She tried to make Guahiba comprehend that in this village she and her children must remain during the rest of their lives, in order that they might go to heaven after they were dead. Guahiba listened, but understood nothing of what was addressed to her; nor could she be made to conceive for what purpose she was torn from her husband and her home, nor why she was to dwell for the remainder of her life among a strange people, and against her will. During that night she remained tranquil, watching over her infants as they slumbered by her side; but the moment the dawn appeared, she took them in her arms and ran off to the woods. She was immediately brought back; but no sooner were the eyes of her keepers turned from her than she snatched up her children, and again fled;--again--and again! At every new attempt she was punished with more and more severity; she was kept from food, and at length repeatedly and cruelty beaten. In vain!--apparently she did not even understand why she was thus treated; and one instinctive idea alone, the desire of escape, seemed to possess her mind and govern all her movements. If her oppressors only turned from her, or looked another way, for an instant, she invariably caught up her children and ran off towards the forest. Father Gomez was at length wearied by what he termed her "blind obstinacy;" and, as the only means of securing all three, he took measures to separate the mother from her children, and resolved to convey Guahiba to a distant mission, whence she should never find her way back either to them or to her home.

In pursuance of this plan, poor Guahiba, with her hands tied behind her, was placed in the bow of a canoe. Father Gomez seated himself at the helm, and they rowed away.

The few travellers who have visited these regions agree in describing a phenomenon, the cause of which is still a mystery to geologists, and which imparts to the lonely depths of these unappropriated and unviolated shades an effect intensely and indescribably mournful. The granite rocks which border the river, and extend far into the contiguous woods, assume strange, fantastic shapes; and are covered with a black incrustation, or deposit, which contrasted with the snow-white foam of the waves breaking on them below, and the pale lichens which spring from their crevices and creep along their surface above, give these shores an aspect perfectly funereal. Between these melancholy rocks--so high and so steep that a landing place seldom occurred for leagues together--the canoe of Father Gomez slowly glided, though urged against the stream by eight robust Indians.

The unhappy Guahiba sat at first perfectly unmoved, and apparently amazed and stunned by her situation; she did not comprehend what they were going to do with her; but after a while she looked up towards the sun, then down upon the stream; and perceiving, by the direction of the one and the course of the other, that every stroke of the oar carried her farther and farther from her beloved and helpless children, her husband, and her native home, her countenance was seen to change and assume a fearful expression. As the possibility of escape, in her present situation, had never once occurred to her captors, she had been very slightly and carelessly bound. She watched her opportunity, burst the withes on her arms, with a sudden effort flung herself overboard, and dived under the waves; but in another moment she rose again at a considerable distance, and swam to the shore. The current, being rapid and strong, carried her down to the base of a dark granite rock which projected into the stream; she climbed it with fearless agility, stood for an instant on its summit, looking down upon her tyrants, then plunged into the forest, and was lost to sight.

Father Gomez, beholding his victim thus unexpectedly escape him, sat mute and thunderstruck for some moments, unable to give utterance to the extremity of his rage and astonishment. When, at length, he found voice, he commanded his Indians to pull with all their might to the shore; then to pursue the poor fugitive, and bring her back to him, dead or alive.

Guahiba, meantime, while strength remained to break her way through the tangled wilderness, continued her flight; but soon exhausted and breathless, with the violence of her exertions, she was obliged to relax in her efforts, and at length sunk down at the foot of a huge laurel tree, where she concealed herself, as well as she might, among the long, interwoven grass. There, crouching and trembling in her lair, she heard the voices of her persecutors hallooing to each other through the thicket. She would probably have escaped but for a large mastiff which the Indians had with them, and which scented her out in her hiding place. The moment she heard the dreaded animal snuffing in the air, and tearing his way through the grass, she knew she was lost. The Indians came up. She attempted no vain resistance; but, with a sullen passiveness, suffered herself to be seized and dragged to the shore.

When the merciless priest beheld her, he determined to inflict on her such discipline as he thought would banish her children from her memory, and cure her forever of her passion for escaping. He ordered her to be stretched upon that granite rock where she had landed from the canoe, on the summit of which she had stood, as if exulting in her flight,--THE ROCK OF THE MOTHER, as it has ever since been denominated--and there flogged till she could scarcely move or speak. She was then bound more securely, placed in the canoe, and carried to Javita, the seat of a mission far up the river.

It was near sunset when they arrived at this village, and the inhabitants were preparing to go to rest. Guahiba was deposited for the night in a large barn-like building, which served as a place of worship, a public magazine, and, occasionally, as a barrack. Father Gomez ordered two or three Indians of Javita to keep guard over her alternately, relieving each other through the night; and then went to repose himself after the fatigues of his voyage. As the wretched captive neither resisted nor complained, Father Gomez flattered himself that she was now reduced to submission. Little could he fathom the bosom of this fond mother! He mistook for stupor, or resignation, the calmness of a fixed resolve. In absence, in bonds, and in torture, her heart throbbed with but one feeling; one thought alone possessed her whole soul:--her children--her children--and still her children!

Among the Indians appointed to watch her was a youth about eighteen or nineteen years of age, who, perceiving that her arms were miserably bruised by the stripes she had received, and that she suffered the most acute agony from the savage tightness with which the cords were drawn, let fall an exclamation of pity in the language of her tribe. Quick she seized the moment of feeling, and addressed him as one of her people.

"Guahibo," she said, in a whispered tone, "thou speakest my language, and doubtless thou art my brother! Wilt thou see me perish without pity, O son of my people? Ah, cut these bonds which enter into my flesh! I faint with pain! I die!"

The young man heard, and, as if terrified, removed a few paces from her and kept silence. Afterward, when his companions were out of sight, and he was left alone to watch, he approached, and said, "Guahiba!--our fathers were the same, and I may not see thee die; but if I cut these bonds, white man will flog me:--wilt thou be content if I loosen them, and give thee ease?" And as he spoke, he stooped and loosened the thongs on her wrists and arms; she smiled upon him languidly, and appeared satisfied.

Night was now coming on. Guahiba dropped her head on her bosom, and closed her eyes, as if exhausted by weariness. The young Indian believing that she slept, after some hesitation laid himself down on his mat. His companions were already slumbering in the porch of the building, and all was still.

Then Guahiba raised her head. It was night--dark night--without moon or star. There was no sound, except the breathing of the sleepers around her, and the humming of the moschetos. She listened for some time with her whole soul; but all was silence. She then gnawed the loosened thongs asunder with her teeth. Her hands once free, she released her feet: and when the morning came she had disappeared. Search was made for her in every direction, but in vain; and Father Gomez, baffled and wrathful, returned to his village.

The distance between Javita and San Fernando, where Guahiba had left her infants, is twenty-five leagues in a straight line. A fearful wilderness of gigantic forest trees, and intermingling underwood, separated these two missions;--a savage and awful solitude, which, probably, since the beginning of the world, had never been trodden by human foot. All communication was carried on by the river; and there lived not a man, whether Indian or European, bold enough to have attempted the route along the shore. It was the commencement of the rainy season. The sky, obscured by clouds, seldom revealed the sun by day; and neither moon nor gleam of twinkling star by night. The rivers had overflowed, and the lowlands were inundated. There was no visible object to direct the traveller; no shelter, no defence, no aid, no guide. Was it Providence--was it the strong instinct of maternal love, which led this courageous woman through the depths of the pathless woods--where rivulets, swollen to torrents by the rains, intercepted her at every step; where the thorny lianas, twining from tree to tree, opposed an almost impenetrable barrier; where the moschetos hung in clouds upon her path; where the jaguar and the alligator lurked to devour her; where the rattle-snake and the water-serpent lay coiled up in the damp grass, ready to spring at her; where she had no food to support her exhausted frame, but a few berries, and the large black ants which build their nests on the trees? How directed--how sustained--cannot be told: the poor woman herself could not tell. All that can be known with any certainty is, that the fourth rising sun beheld her at San Fernando; a wild, and wasted, and fearful object; her feet swelled and bleeding--her hands torn--her body covered with wounds, and emaciated with famine and fatigue;--but once more near her children!

For several hours she hovered round the hut in which she had left them, gazing on it from a distance with longing eyes and a sick heart, without daring to advance: at length she perceived that all the inhabitants had quitted their cottages to attend vespers; then she stole from the thicket, and approached, with faint and timid steps, the spot which contained her heart's treasures. She entered, and found her infants left alone, and playing together on a mat: they screamed at her appearance, so changed was she by suffering; but when she called them by name, they knew her tender voice, and stretched out their little arms towards her. In that moment the mother forgot all she had endured--all her anguish, all her fears, every thing on earth but the objects which blessed her eyes. She sat down between her children--she took them on her knees--she clasped them in an agony of fondness to her bosom--she covered them with kisses--she shed torrents of tears on their little heads, as she hugged them to her. Suddenly she remembered where she was, and why she was there: new terrors seized her; she rose up hastily, and, with her babies in her arms, she staggered out of the cabin--fainting, stumbling, and almost blind with loss of blood and inanition. She tried to reach the woods, but too feeble to sustain her burthen, which yet she would not relinquish, her limbs trembled, and sank beneath her. At this moment an Indian, who was watching the public oven, perceived her. He gave the alarm by ringing a bell, and the people rushed forth, gathering round Guahiba with fright and astonishment. They gazed upon her as if upon an apparition, till her sobs, and imploring looks, and trembling and wounded limbs, convinced them that she yet lived, though apparently nigh to death. They looked upon her in silence, and then at each other; their savage bosoms were touched with commiseration for her sad plight, and with admiration, and even awe, at this unexampled heroism of maternal love.

While they hesitated, and none seemed willing to seize her, or to take her children from her, Father Gomez, who had just landed on his return from Javita, approached in haste, and commanded them to be separated. Guahiba clasped her children closer to her breast, and the Indians shrunk back.

"What!" thundered the monk: "will ye suffer the woman to steal two precious souls from heaven? two members from our community? See ye not, that while she is suffered to approach them, there is no salvation for either mother or children? part them, and instantly!"

The Indians, accustomed to his ascendancy, and terrified at his voice, tore the children of Guahiba once more from her feeble arms: she uttered nor word nor cry, but sunk in a swoon upon the earth.

While in this state, Father Gomez, with a cruel mercy, ordered her wounds to be carefully dressed: her arms and legs were swathed with cotton bandages; she was then placed in a canoe, and conveyed to a mission, far, far off, on the river Esmeralda, beyond the Upper Orinoco. She continued in a state of exhaustion and torpor during the voyage; but after being taken out of the boat and carried inland, restoratives brought her back to life, and to a sense of her situation. When she perceived, as reason and consciousness returned, that she was in a strange place, unknowing how she was brought there--among a tribe who spoke a language different from any she had ever heard before, and from whom, therefore, according to Indian prejudices, she could hope nor aid nor pity;--when she recollected that she was far from her beloved children;--when she saw no means of discovering the bearing or the distance of their abode--no clue to guide her back to it:--_then_, and only then, did the mother's heart yield to utter despair; and thence forward refusing to speak or to move, and obstinately rejecting all nourishment, thus she died.

The boatman, on the river Atabapo, suspends his oar with a sigh as he passes the ROCK OF THE MOTHER. He points it out to the traveller, and weeps as he relates the tale of her sufferings and her fate. Ages hence, when these solitary regions have become the seats of civilization, of power, and intelligence; when the pathless wilds which poor Guahiba traversed in her anguish, are replaced by populous cities, and smiling gardens, and pastures, and waving harvests,--still that dark rock shall stand, frowning o'er the stream; tradition and history shall preserve its name and fame; and when even the pyramids, those vast, vain monuments to human pride, have passed away, it shall endure, to carry down to the end of the world the memory of the Indian Mother.

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

NOTE TO BLACKSTONE'S COMMENTARIES,

VOL. I. PAGE 423.

_Being the Substance of Remarks on the Subject of Domestic Slavery, delivered to the Law Class of William and Mary College, December 2d, 1834_.

This subject is too interesting to be passed in silence. The time too is rife with proofs, that unless we mean tamely to surrender a most important interest, we must hold ourselves always on the alert to defend it with tongue and pen.

The short and compendious argument of the commentator, and his confident and peremptory judgment, seem to place us in the condition of convicted delinquents, and hardly to leave us the poor privilege of saying one word why sentence should not be passed upon us. And yet I hope to show, that this argument, so specious, is not less superficial, and that the conclusion, so promptly reached, has been attained by overlooking the most important considerations involved in the subject.