l
jealousy--patrias bobas, or "foolish fatherlands," as one of their own
writers has termed them.

Now that the bond of unity once supplied by Spain had been broken, the
entire region which had been its continental domain in America dissolved
awhile into its elements. The Spanish language, the traditions and
customs of the dominant class, and a "republican" form of government,
were practically the sole ties which remained. Laws, to be sure, had
been enacted, providing for the immediate or gradual abolition of
negro slavery and for an improvement in the status of the Indian and
half-caste; but the bulk of the inhabitants, as in colonial times,
remained outside of the body politic and social. Though the so-called
"constitutions" might confer upon the colored inhabitants all the
privileges and immunities of citizens if they could read and write,
and even a chance to hold office if they could show possession of a
sufficient income or of a professional title of some sort, their usual
inability to do either made their privileges illusory. Their only share
in public concerns lay in performing military service at the behest of
their superiors. Even where the language of the constitutions did
not exclude the colored inhabitants directly or indirectly, practical
authority was exercised by dictators who played the autocrat, or by
"liberators" who aimed at the enjoyment of that function themselves.

Not all the dictators, however, were selfish tyrants, nor all the
liberators mere pretenders. Disturbed conditions bred by twenty years
of warfare, antique methods of industry, a backward commerce, inadequate
means of communication, and a population ignorant, superstitious, and
scant, made a strong ruler more or less indispensable. Whatever his
official designation, the dictator was the logical successor of
the Spanish viceroy or captain general, but without the sense of
responsibility or the legal restraint of either. These circumstances
account for that curious political phase in the development of the
Spanish American nations--the presidential despotism.

On the other hand, the men who denounced oppression, unscrupulousness,
and venality, and who in rhetorical pronunciamentos urged the
"people" to overthrow the dictators, were often actuated by motives of
patriotism, even though they based their declarations on assumptions
and assertions, rather than on principles and facts. Not infrequently a
liberator of this sort became "provis