Excerpt from South America on the Eve of Emancipation: The Southern Spanish Colonies in the Last Half-Century of Their Dependence In a book called The Establishment of Spanish Rule in America, published in 1898, the present writer gave some account of the origin and earlier history of the institutions framed for the government of Spanish America. This volume aims to present some phases of colonial history and social organization in the last part of the eightteenth century, particularly as they appear in the southern half of South America) The annals of the colonies furnish interesting episodes, but not material for a sustained dramatic narrative. There are periods in the history of some of the colonies, during which one observes few social changes. Men live as their fathers lived and die as their fathers died; and the history of their communities for generations may be told in a few sentences. In attempting to make a connected story of the events of these periods, a writer runs the risk of producing merely a chronicle, or of doing violence to the perspective of time. The task here undertaken is to present certain conspicuous events, institutions, and phases of life, that may illustrate the state of the southern Spanish colonies on the eve of the revolution which gave them independence. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.