Page:Narrative of an Official Visit to Guatemala.djvu/369

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CH. XXIV.]
TO GUATEMALA.
349

TABLE OF THE CONQUEST AND LIBERTY OF AMERICA.

Names of the States. Years of Conquest. Days of declaring Liberty. Duration of Slavery
Venezuela 1526 19 April, 1810 283
Buenos Ayres 1516 25 May — 293
Santa Fe 1538 20 July — 271
Cartagena 1520 18 August — 189
Chile 1535 18 Sept. — 274
Peru 1531 15 July, 1821 289
Mexico 1520 24 August — 300
Guatemala 1524 15 Sept. — 297
Panama 1518 28 Nov. — 302

Two things appear remarkable in this statement; one that so many of these countries should have renounced their allegiance to Spain in two different periods as it were by a simultaneous movement, and the other is the tone of feeling the document itself expresses and is so calculated to inculcate, ascribing to the period of the Spanish dominion the opprobrious term of the "Duration of Slavery." A document of this sort exhibited in the eating-room of the haciendas of any country in South America is sufficient of itself to revolutionize any given portion of it: it cannot, of