This volume relates the story of liberty and progress in Latin America. It is also an introduction to a study of the Andean republics and those on the Spanish Main.
The struggle for liberty in Cuba but follows the events of the Latin republics of the Andes, and throws a new light on those heroic endeavors.
South America is one of the lands of the future. The immigration to that country is now rivaling that to North America, and to the over-crowded populations of Europe the south temperate zone is the waiting world.
An English poet of prophetic gifts is recorded as saying that in the progressive development of America, South America, or the table-land of the Andes, was not unlikely to become the theater of great achievements, an opinion also shared by the author of Social Evolution. It is objected to this that much of South America is tropical, and that the lands of the Sun are unfavorable to the development of the virtues and arts of peace. But out of nearly such conditions of mingled temperate and tropical climates came the poems of Job and Homer, the arts of Egypt, and the sacred literature whose principles govern the conscience of the world. Sarmiento, the educational President and prophet of Argentina, once said that Buenos Ayres would become the greatest city of the three Americas. This may be too large a vision. But whatever may be the future of South America, her growth is such as to make her recent history a very interesting study to the popular mind.
To write an adequate history of South America and Central America would require a lifelong preparation of study and travel, and more than ordinary ability, insight and vision, to which gifts the present writer can make no claim. He has wished to interest others in the story of liberty in these lands, to picture Bolivar's march to the south and San Martin's to the north, the meeting of these heroes, the central campaign in the Peruvian highlands, and the progress of the new republics after the Congress of Panama. If such be but history in outline and picture, it is a story most pleasing to write, and, we may hope, not uninteresting to read.
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