The Memory of Fire Trilogy: Genesis, Faces and Masks, and Century of the Wind

by Eduardo Galeano

  Juana rides in the mountains in front of her men. Her sky-blue shawl flutters in the wind. One fist clutches the reins; the other severs necks with a sword.

  Everything she eats is turned into bravery. The Indians do not call her Juana. They call her Pachamama; they call her Mother Earth.

  (126)

  1816: Port-au-Prince

  Pétion

  Haiti lies in ruins, blockaded by the French and isolated by everyone else. No country has recognized the independence of the slaves who defeated Napoleon.

  The island is divided in two.

  In the north, Henri Christophe has proclaimed himself emperor. In the castle of Sans-Souci, the new black nobility dance the minuet—the Duke of Marmalade, the Count of Lemonade—while black lackeys in snowy wigs bow and scrape, and black hussars parade their plumed bonnets through gardens copied from Versailles.

  To the south, Alexandre Pétion presides over the republic. Distributing lands among the former slaves, Pétion aims to create a nation of peasants, very poor but free and armed, on the ashes of plantations destroyed by the war.

  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)

  1816: Mexico City

  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)

  1817: Santiago de Chile

  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)

  1817: Santiago de Chile

  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)

  1817: Montevideo

  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)

  1817: Quito

  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)

  1818: Colonia Camp

  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)

  1818: Corrientes

  Andresito

  “Their righ
ts 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.

  The Indians had not eaten for some time, but they took nothing and asked for nothing. As soon as they arrived they put on a theater show in homage to the principal families. Huge wings of silver paper spread on cane frames turned the Indians into guardian angels. For no one, because no one came, they staged “The Temptation of Saint Ignatius,” an old pantomime of the Jesuit period.

  “So they don’t want to come to Indian parties?” Andresito lit a big cigar, smoke emerging from his ears and eyes.

  At dawn, drums beat to arms. At spear point Corrientes’s most respectable gentlemen are forced to cut the grass on the plaza and to sweep the streets till they are transparent. All day long the gentlemen are kept at this noble task and that night, in the theater, they deafen the Indians with applause.

  Andresito governs Corrientes until Artigas sends for him.

  The Indians are moving off down the road. They wear those enormous silver wings. Toward the horizon ride the angels. The sun makes them shine and gives them the shadows of eagles in flight.

  (283)

  1818: Para ná River

  The Patriot Pirates

  Andresito’s forces move down to Santa Fe, skirting the river. On the Parana a flotilla of patriot pirates accompanies the Indians.

  Canoes, launches, and a few well-armed brigantines make life impossible for the merchant ships of Brazil. Artigas’s tricolor sails on the rivers and the sea, everywhere, fighting. The pirates strip enemy ships in sudden boardings and take the fruits of their raids to the far Antilles.

  Pedro Campbell is the admiral of this squadron of ships and small boats. He arrived here with the English invaders years ago, deserted, and took to galloping over the prairies. The Irish gaucho with hooped earrings and a fierce expression peering from beneath a mop of red hair soon becomes famous. When Artigas makes him chief of the pirates Campbell has already been slashed in Creole duels and credited with deaths but no treachery. Everyone knows that his silver knife is a snake that never bites in the back.

  (277 and 283)

  1818: San Fernando de Apure

  War to the Death

  At the head of an army pulverized by defeats rides Bolívar. A pilgrim’s hood shades his face; in the shadow, gleam eyes that devour as they look, and a melancholy smile.

  Bolívar rides the horse of the late Rafael López. The saddle bears the silver initials of the dead man, a Spanish officer who took a shot at Bolívar while the patriot chief slept in a hammock.

  The northern offensive has failed.

  In San Fernando de Apure Bolívar reviews what remains of his forces.

  “He’s crazy,” think or murmur his barefoot, exhausted, injured soldiers as he announces that they will soon carry this sacred war, war to the death, into Colombia and Peru and to the peak of Potosí.

  (53 and 116)

  1829: Angostura

  Abecedarium: The Constituent Assembly

  Beneath the awning, on a ship sailing the Orinoco, Bolívar dictates to his secretaries his projected Constitution. He listens, corrects, and dictates it again in camp, while smoke from the fire defends him against mosquitos. Other ships bring deputies from Caracas, Barcelona, Cumaná, Barinas, Guyana, and Margarita Island. Suddenly, the winds of war have changed, perhaps in homage to Bolívar’s obstinacy, and in a flash half of Venezuela has fallen into the patriots’ hands.

  The delegates to the congress disembark at the port of Angostura, town of little houses drawn by a child. On a toy press is printed here, week after week, El Correo del Orinoco. From the jungle this organ of republican thought spreads the articles of Creole doctors and announcements of the arrival of beer, penknives, harnesses, and volunteer soldiers from London.

  Three salvos salute Bolívar and his general staff. The birds take off, but a macaw swaggers indifferently with tough-guy strides.

  The deputies mount the stone stairway.

  Francisco Antonio Zea, major of Angostura, opens the session. His speech compares this patriot township with Memphis, Thebes, Alexandria, and Rome. The congress confirms Bolívar as head of the army and president with full powers. The cabinet is named.

  Afterwards Bolívar takes the rostrum. Ignorant people, he warns, confuse reality with imagination and justice with vengeance … He expounds his ideas on the need to create Grand Colombia and lays the foundation of his projected Constitution, drawn up on the basis of the Englishmen’s Magna Carta.

  (202)

  1820: Boquerón Pass

  Finale

  The three great southern ports, Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, and Montevideo, could not prevail against the rural hosts of José Artigas, chief of the interior. But death has had better luck and taken most of his people. In the bellies of birds of prey lie half the men of the eastern campaign. Andresito lies dying in jail. Lavalleja and Campbell and others are prisoners; and a few have succumbed to treachery. Fructuoso Rivera calls Artigas a criminal and accuses him of having put property at the mercy of despotism and anarchy. Francisco Ramirez of Entre Ríos proclaims that Artigas is the cause and origin of all the evils of South America, and Estanislao López in Santa Fe does a somersault as well.

  Landowner chiefs make common cause with port merchants, as the leader of the revolution goes from disaster to disaster. The last of his Indians and blacks still follow him, as do a handful of ragged gauchos under the command of Andrés Latorre, last of his officers.

  On the banks of the Paraná, Artigas chooses the best horseman. He gives him four thousand silver coins, all that remain, to take to the prisoners in Brazil.

  Then he sticks his spear in the bank and crosses the river. Ruefully he marches off to Paraguay, into exile, this man who didn’t want America’s independence to be a trap for her poorest children.

  (277)

  You

  Without turning your head, you bury yourself in exile. I see you, I am watching you: the Paraná slips by with the sluggishness of a lizard, and over there your flaming torn poncho fades into the distance at a horse’s trot and is lost in the foliage.

  You don’t say goodbye to your land. She would not believe you. Or perhaps you still don’t know that you’re leaving for good.

  The countryside turns gray. You are going, defeated, and your land is left breathless. The children to be born of her, the lovers who come to her, will they give her back her breath? Those who emerge from that land, those who enter it, will they prove themselves worthy of such deep sadness?

  Your land. Our land of the south. You will be very necessary to her, Don Jose. Every time the greedy hurt her and humiliate her, every time that fools believe her dumb or sterile, she will miss you. Because you, Don José Artigas, general of plain folk, are the best word she has spoken.

  1821: Camp Laurelty

  Saint Balthazar, Black King, Greatest Sage

  From nearby towns and distant regions, Paraguayans flock to see these strange beings with skin like night.

  Blacks are not known in Paraguay. The slaves Artigas has freed, who have followed his tracks into exile, make a town in Laurelty.

  With them is Balthazar, the black king chosen to welcome God on earth. Invoking Saint Balthazar, they work the gardens, and for him resound drums and war chants brought from Africa to the River Plata plains. Artigas’s companions, the “Artigas-cué,” put on red silk capes and crowns of flowers when January Sixth comes around; and, dancing, they ask the sage-king that slavery
may never return, and that he give them protection against bad spirits who soften heads, and hens that crow like cocks.

  (66)

  1821: Carabobo

  Páez

  At fifteen he was born killing. He killed to defend himself; had to flee to the mountains, and became a nomad horseman on the immense prairies of Venezuela. Horseman leader of horsemen: José Antonio Páez, Páez of the plains, flies at the head of the cowpoke artists of spear and lasso, who ride bareback and charge like an avalanche. He rides a white horse, because white horses ride better. When he is not on a campaign, he learns to read and to play the cello.

  The half-naked plainsmen, who in the times of Boves had served Spain, defeat Spain at the battle of Carabobo. With machetes they fight their way through the impossible brushland of the west, its marshes and thickets, take the enemy by surprise, chew him up.

  Bolívar names Páez commander in chief of the Venezuelan armed forces. The plainsman enters Caracas by his side wearing, like him, a garland of flowers.

  In Venezuela, the die is cast.

  (202)

  1822: Guayaquil

  San Martín

  Appointment in Guayaquil. Between the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean, an avenue of triumphal arches. General Bolívar appears from the north. From the south comes José de San Martín, the general who crossed the Andes cordillera in search of freedom for Chile and Peru.

  Bolívar talks and talks, offers and offers.

  San Martin laconically cuts him short. “I am weary.” Bolívar does not believe him; or perhaps is mistrustful because he still does not know that glory also tires one out.