Mirrors (43 page)

At the age of nineteen, Pedro was married to Leopoldina, the archduchess of Austria. He paid her no heed. Like many other tourists to come, he spent his time chasing dark-skinned lovelies in Rio’s blazing night.

At the age of twenty-four, he proclaimed Brazil independent and became Emperor Pedro I. Without pause, he then signed the first loan agreements with British banks. The new nation and the foreign debt were born as twins. They remain inseparable.

At the age of thirty-three, he got the crazy notion to abolish slavery. He dipped his quill in the inkpot but did not manage to sign the decree. A coup d’état left him throneless, sitting on air.

At the age of thirty-four, he returned to Lisbon and became King Pedro IV of Portugal.

At the age of thirty-six, this king of two thrones died in Lisbon and was buried there, in the land that had been his mother and his enemy.

FREEDOM BETRAYS

The official history of Brazil continues to call the first uprisings for national independence
inconfidencias
, acts of disloyalty.

Long before the Portuguese prince declared himself emperor of Brazil, there were several failed attempts. The most notable were the
Inconfidencia mineira
in Ouro Preto in 1789, which died stillborn, and the
Inconfidencia bahiana
, which broke out in 1794 in Salvador da Bahia and lasted four years.

The only leader of the former to be hanged and quartered was a low-ranking officer, Tiradentes, the tooth puller. The other conspirators, mining barons fed up with paying colonial taxes, were pardoned.

The Bahian rebellion lasted longer and went farther. It sought not only an independent republic but also equality of rights for all, no matter the color of your skin.

After much blood was spilled and the rebellion put down, colonial authorities pardoned all but four of the leaders. Hanged and quartered were Manoel Lira, João do Nascimento, Luis Gonzaga, and Lucas Dantas. These four were black, the sons or grandsons of slaves.

And there are those who believe justice is blind.

RESURRECTION OF TÚPAC AMARU

Túpac Amaru, the last king of the Incas, fought the Spaniards for forty years in the mountains of Peru. In 1572, when the executioner’s ax severed his neck, Indian prophets announced that one day the head would rejoin the body.

And it did. Two centuries later, José Gabriel Condorcanqui claimed the name waiting for him. Transformed into Túpac Amaru, he led the largest and longest indigenous rebellion in the entire history of the Americas.

The Andes were on fire. From the summits to the sea, up rose the victims of forced labor in the mines, plantations, and workshops. The rebels threatened the colonial dinner plate with victory after victory as they advanced at an unstoppable pace, fording rivers, climbing mountains, crossing valleys, taking town after town. They were on the verge of conquering Cuzco.

The sacred city, the heart of power, lay before them: from the heights they could see it, they could taste it.

Eighteen centuries had passed since Spartacus had Rome within his grasp, and history repeated itself. Túpac Amaru decided not to attack. Indian troops, led by a chief who had sold out, defended the besieged city, and Túpac did not kill Indians. Not that, never. He knew it was necessary, there was no other way, but . . .

While he vacillated from yes to no to who knows, days and nights passed and Spanish soldiers, lots of them and well armed, were making their way from Lima.

In vain his wife, Micaela Bastidas, who commanded the rearguard, sent him messages:

“You have to bring these sorrows to an end . . . ”

“I have not the patience to put up with all this . . . ”

“Many times I have told you not to waste time in those towns . . . ”

“I have sent you plenty of warnings . . . ”

“If it is our ruin you want, just lie down and go to sleep.”

In 1781, the rebel leader entered Cuzco. He entered in chains, under a hail of stones and insults.

RAIN

In the torture chamber, the king’s envoy interrogated him.

“Who are your accomplices?” he asked.

And Túpac Amaru answered:

“Here there are no accomplices but you and I. You the oppressor and I the liberator, we both deserve death.”

He was sentenced to die by being quartered. They tied him to four horses, his arms and legs forming a cross, and his body did not break. Spurs dug into the bellies of the horses, which lurched in vain, and his body did not break.

They turned to the executioner’s ax.

It was a time of long drought in the Valley of Cuzco and the noon was ferociously bright, but the sky suddenly grew black and cracked and unleashed one of those downpours that drown the world.

The other rebel leaders, male and female, Micaela Bastidas, Túpac Catari, Bartolina Sisa, Gregoria Apaza . . . were quartered. And through the towns that had rebelled, their remains were paraded, then burned, and the ashes thrown to the wind, “so that no memory of them shall remain.”

HAVES AND HAVE-NOTS

In 1776, the independence of the United States foreshadowed what would occur later on from Mexico south.

To remove any doubts about the place of the Indians in the new nation, George Washington proposed “the total destruction and devastation of their settlements.” Thomas Jefferson voiced the opinion that “this unfortunate race has justified its extermination.” And Benjamin Franklin suggested that rum could be the “appointed means” to get rid of the savages.

To remove any doubts about the place of women, the Constitution of the State of New York added the adjective “masculine” to the right to vote.

To remove any doubts about the place of poor whites, the signatories to the Declaration of Independence were all rich whites.

And to remove any doubts about the place of blacks in the newborn nation, six hundred and fifty thousand slaves remained enslaved. Black hands built the White House.

MISSING FATHER

The Declaration of Independence affirmed that all men are created equal.

Shortly thereafter, the Constitution of the United States clarified the concept: it established that each slave was worth three-fifths of a person.

One drafter of the Constitution, Gouverneur Morris, opposed this provision, but in vain. Not long before he had tried, also in vain, to get the State of New York to abolish slavery, and managed to extract a constitutional promise that in the future “every being who breathes the air of this State shall enjoy the privileges of a freeman.”

Morris, a central figure at the moment the United States acquired a face and a soul, was a founding father that history forgot.

In the year 2006, Spanish journalist Vicente Romero looked for his grave. He found it behind a church in the South Bronx. The gravestone, erased by rain and sun, provided a platform for two large garbage cans.

ANOTHER MISSING FATHER

Robert Carter was buried in the garden.

In his will he asked “to be laid under a shady tree, where he might be undisturbed, and sleep in peace and obscurity. No stone, nor inscription.”

This Virginia patrician was one of the richest, if not the richest, of all the prosperous landowners who broke ties with England.

Although several other founding fathers looked askance at slavery, none of them freed their slaves. Carter was the only one to unchain the four hundred and fifty blacks he owned “to allow them to live and work according to their own will and pleasure.” He freed them seventy years before Abraham Lincoln abolished slavery, and he did so gradually, taking care that none was simply turned out and deserted.

Such folly condemned him to solitude and oblivion.

He was cut off by his friends, his neighbors, and his family, all of whom were convinced that free blacks were a threat to personal and national security.

Later on, his acts were rewarded with collective amnesia.

SALLY