Eduardo Galeano - The Memory of Fire Trilogy - Genesis, Faces and Masks, and Century of the Wind

On Haiti’s southern coast Simón Bolívar lands, in search of refuge and aid. He comes from Jamaica, where he has sold everything down to his watch. No one believes in his cause. His brilliant military campaigns have been no more than a mirage. Francisco Miranda is dying in chains in the Cadiz arsenal, and the Spaniards have reconquered Venezuela and Colombia, which prefer the past or still do not believe in the future promised by the patriots.

Pétion receives Bolívar as soon as he arrives, on New Year’s Day. He gives him seven ships, two hundred and fifty men, muskets, powder, provisions, and money. He makes only one condition. Pétion, born a slave, son of a black woman and a Frenchman, demands of Bolívar the freedom of slaves in the lands he is going to liberate.

Bolívar shakes his hand. The war will change its course. Perhaps America will too.

(115, 116, and 202)

El Periquillo Samiento

The first Latin American novel is born in a printery on Zuleta Street. In three volumes, José Joaquín Fernandez de Lizardi relates the misfortunes of El Periquillo Samiento; readers devour and celebrate it. The viceroy bans the fourth volume when it is about to appear, but there is no way to jail the character.

El Periquillo, that American offspring of the Spanish picaresque, has won the streets of Mexico. He goes everywhere, stripping customs naked. He jumps from the cardsharp’s table to the notary’s office, and from the barber’s chair to the prison floor. Many do not enjoy his adventures. The priest drowns him in edifying sermons. Lizardi, enlightened moralist, turns every game into a moral.

(9, 111, and 303)

The Devil at Work

Elegant youths smoke cigarettes in gold holders so as not to stain their fingers, but Santiago de Chile is bounded on all four sides by garbage. To the north, the houses look out on the Mapocho River garbage dump. To the south, trash piles up in the ravine. The sun rises on mountains of rubbish on Santa Lucía hill and its last rays light up the dumps in the San Miguel and San Pablo suburbs.

From one of these dumps sprouted the visitor who crossed the city last night, a sulphurous salvo that made the little tallow candles quiver in the street lamps, and that curiously or threateningly nosed around the Compañia temple until the night watchman’s voice intoned eleven o’clock:

“Hail Mary full of gra-a-ace!”

The Devil fled hell for leather.

The shoe he lost is touring Santiago, house to house. A monk carries it, covered by a napkin, on a silver tray. Pious ladies cross themselves.

(256)

Manuel Rodríguez

Whoever talks of American emancipation signs his own death warrant. Whoever gets a letter from Mendoza marches to the gallows or the firing squad. The Vigilance Tribunal gives free rein to informers in Santiago de Chile.

Between Mendoza and Santiago, patriots are reorganizing the army ground to pieces by the Spaniards. Winds of resistance come and go, crossing the splendor of the Cordillera’s snow, without leaving a trace.

The messenger passes an order at the cockfights in Santiago, and another at a smart soiree, and at the same time picks up a report between two horseraces in the suburbs. The messenger announces himself at a big house — three taps of the doorknocker — and at the same time emerges in the mountains on the back of a mule, and gallops over prairies on horseback. The guerrilla makes an assault on Melipilla, but he is also crossing the town of San Fernando. Striking in Rancagua, the guerrilla dismounts in Pomaire and drinks a glass of wine.

The Spanish governor has put a price on the head of Manuel Rodríguez, the messenger, the guerrilla. But his head travels hidden beneath the monk’s hood, the muleteer’s sombrero, the street peddler’s basket, or the fine gentleman’s plush topper. No one can catch him because he flies without moving and goes out inward and comes in outward.

(106)

Images for an Epic

An enormous army comes from Rio de Janeiro, by land and sea, with the mission of wiping out José Artigas, of obliterating even the shadow of a memory of his contagious example. With fire and sword, the Brazilians invade, announcing that they will clear the bandits off these plains. General Lecor promises to restore the damaged rights of property and heredity.

Lecor enters Montevideo beneath a canopy. Father Larrañaga and Francisco Javier de Viana offer the keys of the city to the redeemers of the great estates. Ladies throw flowers and little blue bows in the path of this phenomenal parade of braid, decorations, and plumes. Bored tolling for funerals, the cathedral bells ring out. Censers swing to and fro, and so do businessmen; their bowings and scrapings never end.

(195, 278, and 335)

Mánuela Sáenz

Quito was born between volcanoes, high, far from the sea; and between the cathedral and the palace, in the central plaza, was born Manuela. She arrived in Quito on a satin bed, on sheets from Brussels, daughter of a secret love affair of Don Simón Sáenz, killer of the Creoles who rose in rebellion here.

At fifteen, Manuela wore men’s clothes, smoked, and broke in horses. She did not ride side-saddle like the ladies, but with open legs, and scorning harness. Her best friend was her black slave Jonatás, who meowed like a cat, sang like a bird, and when she walked undulated like a snake. Manuela was sixteen when they shut her up in one of this prayerful and sinful city’s many convents, where monks help old nuns to die a good death and young ones to live a good life. In the Santa Catalina convent Manuela learned to embroider, to play the clavichord, to feign virtue, and to faint, rolling back her eyes. At seventeen, crazy about uniforms, she eloped with Fausto D’Elhuyar, an officer of the king.

At twenty, she sparkles. All the men want to be the oyster of this pearl. They marry her to James Thome, a respectable English doctor. The party lasts a whole week.

(295)

The War of the Underdogs

By now, Artigas’s army is nothing but naked people. Those who own no more property than a horse, as well as the blacks and the Indians, know that in this war everyone’s destiny is at stake. From fields and rivers groups of mounted rebels attack the well-armed Brazilians with spear and knife; and like birds they vanish in a flash.

While bugles call out slaughter in this invaded land, the Buenos Aires government spreads propaganda directed toward those who have goods to lose. A leaflet signed by “The Friend of Order” calls Artigas a malevolent genie, apostle of the lie, ravenous wolf, scourge of his country, new Attila, disgrace of the century and affront to the human race.

Someone brings the leaflets to the camp. Artigas does not take his eyes off the fire: “My people don’t know how to read,” he says.

(277)

Andresito

“Their rights come first,” Artigas has said of the Indians; and they have suffered much death for being loyal to him.

Andrés Guacurarí, Andresito, Guaraní Indian, adopted son of Artigas, is the chief. He invaded Corrientes, a flood of men, a couple of months ago, arrows against rifles, and pulverized the allies of Buenos Aires.

Naked save for mud from the march and a rag or two, Andresito’s Indians entered the city. They brought along a few Indian children whom the Corrientes people had held as slaves. They met with silence and closed shutters. The commander of the garrison buried his fortune in his garden and the notary died of fright.