From the moment that this became clear the passive submission to the local royal garrisons and to the powers of Spain set above them began to give way to active protests.  In ordinary circumstances these would probably have continued for some while, and efforts would have been made to avoid the actual resort to arms.  So fiercely, however, were the first claims to their rights on the parts of the colonists resented and opposed by the Spanish officials that the South Americans, disgusted and embittered, threw caution to the wind, drew the sword in turn, and met force by force, while the flare of battle burst out from the north to the south of the great Continent.

[Illustration:  PEASANTS OF ST. MICHAEL PROCEEDING TO DEL GADO.]

CHAPTER XVI

THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE—­I

The analogy between the first invasions of South America by the conquistadores and the campaign of liberation undertaken by the South Americans of a later age is curious to remark.  The conquistadores undertook three separate invasions:  the first in the north; the second in Peru, and subsequently Chile; the third in the Provinces of the River Plate.  In the struggle of the South Americans against the Spanish forces, the field of war was divided into precisely the same categories.

Bolivar, Sucre, Miranda, and their colleagues blew up the flames of strife and kept them alive in the north; Belgrano, San Martin, Guemes, and their comrades maintained the fight in the River Plate Provinces; while the Chilean O’Higgins and his companions accompanied the great San Martin in his march from Argentina westwards over the Andes to Chile.  From there, having freed the province, the liberating army turned northwards into Peru, eventually to fuse with the stream of patriot forces which was flowing down from the north with the same purpose in view.

Since both Miranda and Bolivar had played such important parts before the outbreak of the revolution, it will be well to deal first of all with the progress of the wars in the north.  It was in Caracas that the plans and projects of independence were matured.  When the outbreak in the south took place, Caracas girded up its loins for war, and Bolivar and Miranda took the field beneath the banner of independence.  In no place were the fortunes of war more varied than in the north, and the campaign was destined to last fourteen years before the Spanish power in the old kingdom of New Granada was finally broken.

It is impossible here to go into the full details of the campaigns.  In the first place, the patriots, although they fought desperately, ill-armed and undisciplined as they were, suffered numerous reverses from the Spanish veterans who garrisoned the northern districts.  More than once the flames of revolution seemed to all practical purposes extinguished, and Bolivar and his lieutenants, fugitives from the field of strife, were obliged to continue their plans in other lands, among these places of refuge being some of the British West Indian Islands.