Corrientes

“ The soil about Corrientes is sandy: trees thrive, but there is more brushwood than timber. The inhabitants, having hitherto had but little intercourse with the rest of the world, are naturally ignorant respecting Europe and its usages. Many of them know but little Spanish, using the Indian dialect, the ‘Guarani,’ which prevails more or less throughout all this part of the interior of South America, including Paraguay, Bolivia, and Brazil. ”

“ The climate on the higher plains is sub-tropical, but in the northern swamps it is essentially tropical. Corrientes is the hottest province of Argentina, notwithstanding its large area of water and forest. The exports include cattle and horses, jerked beef, hides, timber and firewood, cereals and fruit. The principal towns are Corrientes, the capital; Goya, a flourishing agricultural town (1906 estimate, 7000) on a side channel of the Paraná, 150 m. S. of Corrientes, the seat of a modern normal school and the market-town of a prosperous district ”

“ The appearance of Corrientes is not equal to its commercial and political importance, the buildings both public and private being generally poor and antiquated. There are four churches, the more conspicuous of which are the Matriz and San Francisco. The government house, originally a Jesuit college, is an antiquated structure surrounding an open court (patio) . There is a national college. The commercial importance of Corrientes results from its unusually favourable situation near the confluence of the Upper Paraná and Paraguay, and a short distance below the mouth of the Bermejo. ”

“ Here again agricultural colonization has created a relatively dense nucleus of population, capable of great increase. Although the administrative divisions do not exactly correspond with the natural divisions, the unequal distribution of the population in Corrientes is made plain by the figures given in the census of 1895. The density rises in the agricultural areas to eight inhabitants per square kilometre, in the department of Bellavista ”

“ Las Corrientes, near the confluence of the Parana and Paraguay, on the east bank of the La Plata, 100 leagues north of Santa Fé and 250 of Buenos Ayres, is a small town well situated for the trade between Paraguay, Peru and Buenos Ayres. It contains a church, three convents, and a small population, who are formed into a militia, to defend the place against the Indians. This city is in 27° 32' south latitude, and 57° 50' west longitude. The trade carried on from this place with the capital is by means of the river, in fine tobacco, sugar, yellow wax, Paraguay tea, cotton, cloth and thread. ”

“ We therefore go well in, fronting the Custom House and arsenal, the Colegio, or Government House, the tall towered Cabildo, and other big buildings that emerge from a mass of vile huts parted by foul streets, and nestling under glorious trees, palms and oranges. The general appearance is more like a Hindu town, say Calicut, than a Christian city.
On my return I spent a week with a couple of ac- quaintances at Corrientes, and perhaps you will like to hear something of life in a country capital of an Argentine Province. ”

“ Corrientes, Argentina. 38S. 57W. Three days' naval fight between Garibaldi, on behalf of the Montevideans, and Admiral Brown, commander of Rosas' fleet, 1846.
Costa Rica, Republic of, Cent. A. 10N. 84W. East coast discovered by Columbus, 1502; west coast reached by Espinoza about 1514; early Spanish colonies, and final conquest of country by Coronado, 1561-5; Indians rise along the Atlantic coast and win their independence, 1709; independent state since 1821 ”

“ The county was my own native county—upon which, in its southern section, more than upon any equal area known to man past or present, had descended the original curse of labour in its heaviest form, not mastering the bodies only of men, as of slaves, or criminals in mines, but working through the fiery will. Upon no equal space of earth was, or ever had been, the same energy of human power put forth daily. ”

“ The colonial city, with its picturesque fort looking out over the sea, its pretty little plazas planted with trees, its winding old-fashioned streets and big dark churches, stands within the Canal Zone, but is administered by its own government, being the capital of this smallest of all the South American republics. The poorer classes occupy themselves with fishing and sitting in the shade, the upper classes with politics. ”

“ Whole provinces were thus formed and grouped, and the vaguer sentiments of a larger unity expressed themselves by the choice of some one family, one of the most powerful in every county, who would be the overlord of all the other lords, great and small. ”

“ Congress are to determine the limits of Colonies.
G. Hopkins. A momentous question ; many difficulties on each side ; four larger, five lesser, four stand indifferent. Virginia, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Maryland, make more than half the people. Connecticut, New York, two Carolinas, not concerned at all. The disinterested coolness of these Colonies ought to determine. I can easily feel the reasoning of the larger Colonies ; pleasing theories always gave way to the prejudices, passions, and interests of mankind. The Germanic Confederation. The King of Prussia has an equal vote. ”

“ It is that this fine county, for which nature has done all that she can do, soil, climate, sea-ports, people; everything that can be done, and an internal government, civil and ecclesiastical, the most complete in the world, wanting nothing but to be let alone, to make every soul in it as happy as people can be upon earth; the peace provided for by the county rates; property protected by the law of the land; the poor provided for by the poor-rates; religion provided for by the tithes and the church-rates ”

“ The inhabitants of these provinces, each community within its own borders, went on, from year to year, in their various pursuits of peaceful industry, governed mainly, in their relations to each other, by the natural sense of justice instinctive in man, and by those thousand local institutions and usages which are always springing up in all human communities under the influence of this principle. There were governors stationed over these provinces, whose main duty it was to collect and remit to the king the tribute which the province was required to furnish him. ”

“ Cattle raising is its chief industry. The California town may have been directly named for the city of Córdova in Mexico.
Corona (crown) .
Coronado Beach, see page 29.
Corral (yard, enclosed piece of ground) . See pages 157 and 339.
Los Corralitos (the little yards) .
Corral de Piedra (yard enclosed by a stone fence) . See page 158.
Corral de Tierra (earth corral) . See page 158.
Cortina, a town in Colusa County. Cortina, the Spanish word for “curtain,” is a corruption of Kotina, the name of the chief of a former village near the east bank of Cortina Creek. ”

“ It is a great Satisfaction to us, that so many of the respectable Towns in the province, and we may add Gentlemen of figure in other Colonies, have expressd, & continue to express themselves much pleasd with the Measure; and we encourage ourselves from the MANIFEST DISCOVERY of an Union of Sentiments in this province, which has been one happy fruit of the Measure, there will be the united Efforts of THE WHOLE in all constitutional & proper Methods to prevent the entire ruin of our Liberties. ”

“ At last, the sailors pointed out to me a nautilus, with all sail set, skimming along the water which they asserted, was a Portuguese ship of the line.
Colonia has about 800 inhabitants. There are very few good houses: the greater part may be called huts, and are occupied by a mixture of South Americans, old Spaniards, Portuguese, and some half-dozen of Englishmen married to South-American ladies.
The governor’s house is a very ordinary building. The streets are irregular; and the town altogether presents a most miserable appearance. ”

“ I shall now undertake to show, that the United Provinces of the Rio de la Plata possess such a government. Its limits, extending from the south Atlantic ocean to the Pacific, embrace a territory equal to that of the United States, certainly equal to it exclusive of Louisiana. Its population is about three millions, more than equal to ours at the commencement of our revolution. That population is a hardy, enterprising, and gallant population. ”

“ Whether he belongs in Buenos Ayres, Santa Fé, Cordova, or the Llanos, all his aspirations are confined to his own province; and he is an enemy or a stranger to all the others. These provinces are like different tribes ready to make war upon one another. ”

“ So little attention has been hitherto paid to American affairs, that I generally find the vast territories now distributed amongst the New States, classed as provinces, or counties, belonging to one kingdom, and not as empires occupying half a world. ”

“ The present fate of Colonia is much akin to that of many of those spots that serve as the decayed shells of old-time battles and terrific alarums. In short, it is a sleepy hollow. There are certainly times when a large river steamer comes to rest for a while against its wooden jetty, and disgorges a crowd of tourists who wander aimlessly about the quaint streets. ”

“ Major Sullivan observed that a little Colony had its all at stake as well as a great one. . . .
Mr. Henry. Government is dissolved. Fleets and armies and the present state of things show that government is dissolved. Where are your landmarks, your boundaries of Colonies? We are in a state of nature, sir. I did propose that a scale should be laid down ; that part of North America which was once Massachusetts Bay, and that part which was once Virginia, ought to be considered as having a weight. Will not people complain? Ten thousand Virginians have not outweighed one thousand others. ”

“ To gain some idea of its character, we should have to imagine each of the counties of one of our American States to be an independent nation, with its separate government, finances, and history, its treaties of peace and declarations of war, and its frequent fierce conflicts with some neighboring county. ”

“ In 1825 the town contained 6000 inhabitants, and the province 30,000; yet, few as the inhabitants are, no province has suffered more from bloody and desperate revolutions. They boast here of representatives, ministers, a standing army, and governors: so it is no wonder that they have their revolutions. At some future day this must be one of the richest countries of La Plata. ”

“ It must yield a sensible satisfaction to the good people of this province, whom you represent, to find, that although it be among the youngest of our American settlements, its reputation has risen high among the sister colonies, and has extended even to the remotest part of Europe, on account of our many public-spirited institutions, and our rapid improvements in all useful arts. ”

“ The territory offers a perfectly-preserved specimen of the Roman colonia. The peasant farmers of Our Lady are in easy circumstances and seem happy; the peasant-women, handsome and gay, wear a flower in their hair. The Prelate Governor gave us his hospitality. From the top of the steeple and the summit of some of the eminences of the city one enjoys smiling vistas over the plains, Ancona and the sea. ”

“ Property in the People and their Representatives ; the Government in the Crown; as is Massachusetts-Bay. 5. Property and Government in the Governor and Company, called the Freemen of the Colony, such are Connecticut and Rhode-Island.
This last seems to be the most effectual Method of the first settling and peopling of a Colony ; Mankind are naturally desirous of Parity and Leveling, without any fixed Superiority, but when a Society is come to Maturity, a more distinct fixed Subordination is found to be requisite. ”

“ The prospect of the middling people of the Province, the pamphlet continues, was no better, if they turned their eyes to those great and rich men, merchants and others, who were ever railing at the Quakers, but took no one step themselves for the public safety. With their wealth and influence, they might easily promote military ardor and discipline in the Province and effect everything under God for its protection. ”

“ The county of Cornwall is still wealthy; but our wealth lies in flocks and herds, and land. One measure that will aid us will be, the people exercising confidence in each other, and giving time for re-action. ”

“ That during their connexion with Great Britain, they had been accustomed to have all their concerns transacted within a narrow circle, their colonial district; they had been accustomed to have their seats of government near them, to which they might have access, without much inconvenience, when their business should require it—That, at this time, we find, if a county is rather large, the people complain of the inconvenience, and clamor for a division of their county, or for a removal of the place where their courts are held, so as to render it more central and convenient. ”

“ RESOLVED, That geographically and naturally we are bound to the South, and to her we look for protection; and as the Southern States have formed a Confederacy, it is our earnest desire to be attached to that Confederacy as a Territory. ”

“ Whatever may be the frame of government, it should be built upon the most finished improvements of others. Whether the settlers are to be considered children of mature age, made free, and setting up for themselves, constituting in some degree, an independent Province, the friend and ally of the mother country; sharing in her generous and maternal solicitude; or whether they are to be a Colony, planted, cherished, and protected by her, depends entirely on Congress. ”