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

The Guaranís declined to get out. Change their pasturelands, like a flock of sheep, because the man said so? The Jesuits had taught them to make clocks, plows, bells, clarinets, and books printed in their Guaraní language; but they had also taught them to make guns to defend themselves against the slave hunters.

Portuguese and Spanish soldiers chase the Indians off and the Indians slip back by night. Again they are chased off and again they return, but this time transformed into thunderous winds, a storm of lightning that sets fortresses afire.

Everyone knows the monks are on their side. The will of the king is the will of God, say the superiors of the Order of Loyola, an impenetrable will that puts us to the test: When Abraham obeyed the divine voice, and raised the sword against the neck of his own son Isaac, God sent an angel to stay the blow at the critical moment. But the Jesuit priests refuse to immolate the Indians. To no avail the archbishop of Buenos Aires threatens to excommunicate both Indians and priests. In vain the Church hierarchy orders the burning of the gunpowder and destruction of the guns and lances with which the missions have a thousand times stopped Portuguese attacks against the Spanish frontier.

Long is the war of the seven villages against the two crowns. In the battle of Caybaté hill, fifteen hundred Indians fall. The seven missions are razed, but the king of Portugal cannot enjoy the king of Spain’s gift.

The kings never forgive the offense. Three years after the battle of Caybaté, the king of Portugal expels the Jesuits from all his dominions. And now the king of Spain follows suit.

(76 and 189)

The Expulsion of the Jesuits

The instructions arrive from Madrid in envelopes sealed with wax. Viceroys and governors execute them immediately throughout America. They seize the Jesuit fathers at night by surprise and immediately ship them to far-off Italy. More than two thousand priests go into exile.

The king of Spain punishes the sons of Loyola, who have become such sons of America, for repeated disobedience and the suspected planning of an independent Indian kingdom.

No one weeps for them as do the Guaranís. The Jesuits’ many missions in the Guaraní region announced the promised land without evil and without death; and the Indians called the priests karaí, a name reserved for their prophets. From the wreckage of the San Luis Gonzaga mission, the Indians send a letter to the governor of Buenos Aires. We are not slaves, they say. We don’t like your custom of every man for himself instead of helping one another.

Soon all is broken up. Common property and the communal system of production and life disappear. The best missionary estancias are sold to the highest bidder. Churches, factories, schools fall apart. Undergrowth invades pastures and wheat fields. Pages are torn from books to make cartridges for gunpowder. The Indians flee into the forest or stay to become vagabonds, whores, and drunks. To be born Indian is once again an insult or a crime.

(189)

They Won’t Let Their Tongues Be Torn Out

In the print shops of the Paraguay missions some of the best books of colonial America have been published, religious books in the Guaraní language, with typefaces and engravings carved in wood by Indians.

Guaraní was the spoken and written language of the missions. After the expulsion of the Jesuits, Castilian is imposed as the obligatory and only language.

No one resigns himself to becoming dumb and without memory. No one pays any attention.

(117)

The First Novel Written in America

Ten years ago the bells of London wore themselves out celebrating the victories of the British Empire. The city of Quebec had fallen after intense bombardment, and France had lost her dominions in Canada. The young general James Wolfe, who commanded the English army, had announced that he would crush the Canadian plague, but died before seeing it happen. According to the gossip, Wolfe would measure himself when he awoke and find himself a bit taller each day, until a bullet interrupted his growth.

Now Frances Brooke publishes a novel in London, The History of Emily Montague, which depicts Wolfe’s officers conquering hearts in the land conquered by their guns. The author, a plump and pleasant Englishwoman, lives and writes in Canada. In the form of two hundred and twenty-eight letters, she relates her impressions and experiences in the new British colony and weaves in some romances between uniformed English gallants and the breathless young ladies of Quebec high society. Their well-educated passions lead to matrimony, via the fashion house, the ballroom, and picnics on the islands. The magnificent waterfalls and noble lakes provide a fitting backdrop.

(50, 52, and 176)

Indians and Dreams in the Novel of Frances Brooke

The Indians retain most of their ancient superstitions. I should particularize their belief in dreams, of which folly even repeated disappointments cannot cure them … As I happened to smile at the recital a savage was making of a prophetic dream, from which he assured us of the death of an English officer whom I knew to be alive, “You Europeans,” said he, “are the most unreasonable people in the world; you laugh at our belief in dreams, and yet expect us to believe things a thousand times more incredible.”

(50)

Viceroy Amat

At the hour when families kneel to say the rosary, the holy, holy, holy, the novena, and prayers for the dead, the trot of the viceroy’s carriage heading for the theater is heard. A murmur of scandal echoes through half-open Venetian blinds. Prayers stop short. Gossip breaks forth. The brusque viceroy of Lima, a rascal, rogue, and knave, has lost his head to a small-time comedienne.

Night after night, Don Manuel de Amat y Junyent attends any zarzuela, farce, mystery or comedy in which Micaela Villegas waggles her hips and stomps her heels on the stage. He doesn’t care about the plot. When Micaela, that exquisite pure cinnamon, that cinnamon in flower starts singing her cajoleries, the old viceroy’s wig flies off. He applauds madly and punches holes in the floor with his cane. She answers him rolling her eyes, smiling beneath the indispensable beauty spot, and offering her breasts in sequined curtsies.

The viceroy has been a man of the barracks, not of parties and balls. A scowling bachelor with five big scars won in the North African wars, he came to Lima to clean horse- and cattle-thieves off the roads and throw out idlers and loafers. Under this leaden sky, more roof than sky, he wanted to kill himself, but conquered the temptation by hanging people.

Eight years after his arrival the viceroy has learned to steal, to eat rocote chilis and spicy guinea pig, and to study décolletages with an opera glass. The ship that brought him from Valparaíso had a naked woman as figurehead on its prow.

(26 and 245)

La Perricholi

Like all women of Lima, Micaela Villegas displays her bosom but hides her feet, protects them with tiny shoes of white satin. Like the others, she enjoys wearing rubies and sapphires even on her belly, be they only paste, as hers were.

Daughter of a poor provincial mestizo, Micaela made the rounds of this city’s shops for the pure pleasure of seeing or feeling Lyons silks and Flanders woollens, and bit her lips when she discovered a gold and diamond necklace around the neck of a highborn lady’s kitten.

Micaela got into the theater and was transformed into queen, nymph, fashion plate, or goddess as long as the performance lasted. Now she is First Courtesan all day and all night, too. A cloud of black slaves surrounds her, her jewelry is above suspicion and counts kiss her hand.