CHAPTER V.THE AGE OF THE DICTATORS.
Independence without liberty and statehood without respect for law are phrases which sum up the situation in Spanish America after the failure of Bolivar's "great design." The outcome was a collection of crude republics, racked by internal dissension and torn by mutual jealousy--patrias bobas, or "foolish fatherlands," as one of their own writers has termed them.
Now that the bond of unity once supplied by Spain had been broken, the entire region which had been its continental domain in America dissolved awhile into its elements.

The Spanish language, the traditions and customs of the dominant class, and a "republican" form of government, were practically the sole ties which remained.

Laws, to be sure, had been enacted, providing for the immediate or gradual abolition of negro slavery and for an improvement in the status of the Indian and half-caste; but the bulk of the inhabitants, as in colonial times, remained outside of the body politic and social.

Though the so-called "constitutions" might confer upon the colored inhabitants all the privileges and immunities of citizens if they could read and write, and even a chance to hold office if they could show possession of a sufficient income or of a professional title of some sort, their usual inability to do either made their privileges illusory.

Their only share in public concerns lay in performing military service at the behest of their superiors.