About three o’clock of a dark morning, whose deep gloom shrouded alike the shores and waters of Cuba’s tropic isle, a large craft left the side of the “New York,” the flag-ship of Admiral Sampson’s fleet off Santiago, and glided towards the throat of the narrow channel leading to its land-locked harbor. This mysterious craft […]

On the 24th of February, 1895, the people of Havana, the capital of Cuba, were startled by a report that rebels were in the field, a band of twenty-four having appeared in arms at Ybarra, in the province of Matanzas. Other small bands were soon heard of elsewhere in the island. A trifle this seemed, […]

It is interesting, in view of the total conquest and submission of the Indians in Mexico, that the final blow for freedom in that country should have been made by an Indian of pure native blood. His name was Benito Juarez, and his struggle for liberty was against the French invaders and Maximilian, the puppet […]

On the 15th of October, 1853, a small and daring band of reckless adventurers sailed from San Francisco, on an enterprise seemingly madder and wilder than that which Cortez had undertaken more than three centuries before. The purpose of this handful of men–filibusters they were called, as lawless in their way as the buccaneers of […]

The ancient city of Mexico, the capital of the Aztecs and their Spanish successors, has been the scene of two great military events, its siege and capture by Cortez the conqueror in 1521, and its capture by the American army under General Scott in 1847, three and a quarter centuries later. Of the remarkable career […]

We have told the story of the remarkable expedition of Vasquez de Coronado from Mexico northward to the prairies of Kansas. We have now to tell the story of an expedition which took place three centuries later from this prairie land to the once famous region of the “Seven Cities of Cibola.” In 1542, when […]

In 1834 Don Miguel Tacon, one of the most vigorous and tyrannical of the governor-generals of Cuba, took control of the island, which he ruled with a stern will and an iron hand. One of the purposes in which he was most earnest was that of suppressing the active smuggling on the coast, all the […]

Among the varied countries of South America the little republic of Paraguay, clipped closely in between Bolivia, Argentina, and Brazil, presents the most singular history, this being due to the remarkable career of the dictator Francia, who ruled over it for a quarter of a century, and to the warlike energy of his successor Lopez. […]

While the Spanish colonies of South America were battling for their liberties, the great Portuguese colony of Brazil was going through a very different experience. Bolivar and his compatriots were seeking to drive Spain out of America. On the contrary, we have the curious spectacle of Brazil swallowing Portugal, or at least its king and […]

At the end of 1816 the cause of liberty in Chili was at its lowest ebb. After four years of struggle the patriots had met with a crushing defeat in 1814, and had been scattered to the four winds. Since then the viceroy of Spain had ruled the land with an iron hand, many of […]

On the 3d of June, 1819, General Morillo, the commander of the Spanish forces in Venezuela, found himself threatened in his camp by a party of one hundred and fifty daring horsemen, who had swum the Orinoco and galloped like centaurs upon his line. Eight hundred of the Spanish cavalry, with two small field-pieces, sallied […]

In the last quarter of the eighteenth century ideas of revolution were widely in the air. The people were rising against the tyranny of the kings. First in this struggle for liberty came the English colonies in America. Then the people of France sprang to arms and overthrew the moss-grown tyranny of feudal times. The […]

One dark night in the year 1813 a negro murderer crept stealthily into a house in Jamaica, where slept a man in a swinging hammock. Stealing silently to the side of the sleeper, the assassin plunged his knife into his breast, then turned and fled. Fortunately for American independence he had slain the wrong man. […]

When the English conquered the island of Jamaica and drove the Spaniards out of it, they failed to conquer its sable inhabitants, negroes who had been slaves to the Spaniards, but who now fought for and maintained their freedom. Such were the Maroons, or mountain-dwelling fugitives of Jamaica, whose story is well worth telling. First […]

The people of Europe have not stood alone in settling and ruling America, for the blacks of Africa, brought to the New World as slaves, have made themselves masters of one of the largest and most fertile islands of the West Indies, that attractive gem of the tropics which, under the name of Hispaniola, was […]

Never were a people more terribly treated than the natives of America under the Spanish adventurers. The often told story that the Indians of Hispaniola were annihilated in one generation after the settlement of that island is sufficient evidence of the frightfully inhuman treatment to which they were subjected. The laws of Spain provided for […]

The March of the Ten Thousand, from Babylon to the Black Sea, is one of the famous events of history. The march of the three hundred, from the Pacific to the Atlantic, which we have here to tell, is scarcely known to history at all, yet it was marked by a courage and command of […]

A famous story of American history is that which tells of the massacre of the French settlers in Florida by the Spaniards of St. Augustine, and of the signal revenge taken on the murderers by the French chevalier Dominique de Gourgues. There is a parallel tale to tell about Brazil, not so full of the […]

During the seventeenth century the Spanish Main was beset with a horde of freebooters or buccaneers, as they called themselves, to whose fierce attacks the treasure-ships bound for Spain were constantly exposed, and who did not hesitate to assail the strongholds of the Spaniards in quest of plunder. They differed from pirates only in the […]

Gold was the beacon that lured the Spaniards to America, and dazzling stories were told by them of the riches of the countries they explored, stories illustrated by the marvellous wealth of Peru. It was well known that Cortez had not obtained all the treasures of Montezuma, or Pizarro all those of Atahualpa, and many […]