Bolivia— A Country Without a Debt 



575 



ceeded, according to tradition, Manco 

 Capac, his wife and sister, Mama Ocllo, 

 founders of the Inca Empire. They 

 claimed to be direct descendants of the 

 Sim and came to the world to civilize it 

 and to establish the reign of peace and 

 good will. Manco Capac taught the 

 men to cultivate the soil, while his wife 

 instructed the women in the art of spin- 

 ning and weaving. And thus, under a 

 theocratic and paternal government was 

 developed a vast empire — the grandest 

 experiment of an organized communism 

 recorded by history. 



Gareilazo de la Vega, in a work enti- 

 tled "Royal Commentaries," has left us 

 an attractive and simple picture of this 

 admirable social organization, in which 

 the individual disappears in order to be- 

 come a mere factor in the general well- 

 being. Property in land did not exist; 

 the fields were allotted periodically and 

 the harvests were divided into three 

 parts, destined to the Inca, to the main- 

 tenance of worship, and to the public in 

 general. The paternalism of the Incas 

 went as far as to exercise a permanent 

 vigilance over the private life, as their 

 subjects were not permitted to have their 

 doors closed ; so that all their acts might 

 be subject to inspection by the author- 

 ities. 



The Inca Empire, during the five cen- 

 turies of its existence, extended in the 

 north to the present confines of the Re- 

 public of Colombia, and south as far as 

 Chile and the northern part of Argen- 

 tina, embracing a great portion of the 

 Pacific coast, and all of the territory of 

 the present republics of Ecuador, Peru, 

 Bolivia, and northern Chile. Attesting 

 the advanced degree of its civilization 

 are the monuments remaining on the 

 Island of the Sun and those of Cozco, as 

 well as the ruins of the magnificent sys- 

 tem of roads throughout the Inca's do- 

 minion. 



However, in spite of the ten or twenty 

 millions of inhabitants, it fell as a statue 

 of clay before a few score of adventurous 

 Spaniards, who in a few years made- 

 themselves masters of the countrv and 



submitted the inhabitants to servitude, 

 almost without resistance. Educated in 

 the religious respect of the sacred power 

 of the descendants of the Sun, they had 

 lost the strength and manhood of nations 

 invigorated by individual freedom. 



The power under whose shadow they 

 had lived being broken and destroyed 

 and being suddenly left to themselves, 

 the subjects of the Incas fell easily under 

 the dominion of the conquerors, whose 

 arrival confirmed the popular tradition 

 that some day men with beards would 

 come from over the seas and take their 

 homes. 



CITIES OF GOLD AND SILVER 



Once possessed of the country, the 

 Spanish extended rapidly their search for 

 gold and silver throughout the territory. 

 In 1548 Alonzo de Mendoza founded La 

 Paz, today one of the principal cities of 

 Bolivia, attracted thither by the rich gold 

 ore of the rivers of that section. In fact, 

 the mines of Chiquiaguillo, just outside 

 the city, have produced great quantities of 

 gold and nuggets of considerable value. 

 In 1 718 the Marquis de Castel Fuerte sent 

 to Madrid a nugget weighing 760 ounces 

 of gold, and recently the German com- 

 pany that works these mines sold, among 

 other nuggets, one encrusted in quartz 

 weighing 52^ ounces, of which 47 

 ounces were gold. It may be affirmed 

 that all of the rivers in the vicinity of 

 La Paz flowing from the Cordilleras 

 carry gold. 



The city of Potosi was founded in 

 1545, and fifty years later it had reached 

 a population of 160,000 because of the 

 enormous richness of the mountain at 

 whose foothills stand the city. The 

 quantity of silver produced by the mines 

 of Potosi for more than three cen- 

 turies is fabulous and has made its name 

 a synonym of wealth. The city became 

 a goal for all classes of adventurers, 

 bankrupt Spanish nobles, merchants anx- 

 ious to make fortunes, and all kinds of 

 men contributed to make Potosi a center 

 of prodigality, of romantic adventure 

 and disorder. 



