Divide and Rule
"What do you think?"
"I have no face to show."
The Spanish ambassador to Paris, Count Fernán Núñez, gazed at the drug addicts locked in their cages like animals. They sat slumped inside, staring blankly. Just blankly. Their expressions held no joy, no sorrow, not even apathy—like a hearth without logs, kindling, ash, or soot, utterly pristine as they stared at nothing, neither the air nor the walls.
"Do they look normal to you?"
"I shall request a firm response from the homeland."
They were six confirmed opium addicts sentenced to death, and two coca addicts. "Sentencing all drug addicts to death seems too cruel. For those with potential for rehabilitation, we've opted for therapeutic confinement. Of course, those six opium addicts get the death penalty as promised. They're not truly alive anymore. The devil has already claimed them. Even after choosing opium nine times, they should at least hesitate at the final chance, weigh it carefully—but no, they chose it again the very next day without a second thought."
The six opium addicts had no choice but execution. It was part of the deal, but more importantly, an example had to be made.
"So, what awaits those under therapeutic confinement?"
"Saltwater."
Unlike the others, the two coca addicts under therapeutic confinement were made to drink ten liters of saltwater daily under the guise of treatment.
"Holy water?"
"Does it seem unscientific?"
"No, sire."
Given that France's official term for drugs was devil's poison plant, such a misunderstanding was understandable.
"It's just called holy water to make it easy for the people to grasp."
Well, that was the intention, after all. Nothing enforces compliance like religious justification. A touch of pre-modernity was fine; in this era, it was the best option available. Even modern elderly care zones used this time-honored folk remedy—it had to have some effect. When was it? I distinctly remembered grandmothers force-feeding saltwater to people hooked on poppy tincture to cure them. Back then, I didn't know what "hooked" meant, but looking back, it must've been addiction. Water always knows the answer.
"It may seem barbaric, but it's a prescription arrived at after deliberation with scholars. The intent is to induce vomiting to expel residual toxins and dilute the poisons already in their systems for excretion. Whether it truly works remains to be seen, but it's better than doing nothing."
They might suffer dehydration, asphyxiation, or other issues I couldn't foresee, but action was better than inaction. It lent an Enlightenment rationale of treating disease. Modern medicine's core is "do no harm," but 18th-century medicine is "do something." Better to try folk remedies than nothing. There are no real drug treatments even today. If it fails... well, regrets.
* January 1788. Spain issued a decree similar to France's: eradication of drugs, licensing for cultivation, and a ban on use. All coca plantations in the Andes Mountains—which had tarnished the royal dignity—were declared illegal.
"The free mulatto merchants were the ones selling it!"
The white plantation owners in the Andes tried shoving the blame onto free black citizens to evade responsibility.
"Is that so? Did you really sell it?"
"We sold it, sure, but we had no choice with you white gentlemen ordering us to. Our main crop is grain anyway."
"Good. Let's do better from now on."
But Spain proper had no intention of leniency. King Carlos III saw this as a chance to make an example of the criollos—whites born in the colonies.
"This edict removes the poisonous plants to prevent moral decay among the people and physical death from toxins. Any opposition will be deemed manufacturing and distribution of deadly poison, punishable by summary execution."
The white coca plantation owners in the Andes bristled at the homeland's ruling and took a hard line. "If you threaten our livelihoods, we won't stand idle."
But the justification lay with the peninsula. "Poison manufacturing...? It's pagan black magic! Men who handle coca are devil worshippers, women witches!"
Where France suppressed drugs with science and rationalism, Spain did so with traditional values and Catholicism.
"Father, this is our property. It's just a luxury good like tobacco or sugar."
The criollo coca farmers protested it as property rights, but the colonial priests wouldn't hear it.
"What pleasure is there in pagan sorcery? Sugar? It's sweet. Tobacco? It calms you. But those are fleeting pleasures. Fail to moderate, and there's another chance; succeed, and your virtue shines brighter. Coca, that filthy whisper of Satan, imprints the moment on the body. It's the devil's brand! Those addicted seek only coca and opium, puppets of the demon. Their souls are already devoured. No more temptation. Repent with your own hands. Shatter that hellgate you call property!"
Coca had originally been a ritual item in indigenous colonial religions, so it never sat well with Catholic priests. With France's scientific analysis as pretext and approval from the homeland, they hesitated no longer.
"You're no different. Black, mixed, white—sin sends you to hell, repentance to heaven. This is Satan's lure, pagan sorcery. Repent! Wash your rotten souls and repent now! Plow under those wicked fields with your tools and burn them from the earth. It's your last chance to atone for unwitting sins. Don't blind yourselves with greed and become Satan's minions—repent and return to God!"
The priest went further, preaching to the slaves and laborers on the coca farms. The devout (or forcibly devout) Catholic slaves and mixed-race workers surrendered meekly to the sermon.
"What are you doing? You'll all starve!"
"Master, even if I starve, I go to heaven."
In truth, religion wasn't the only reason they turned to the priests.
"Father, we'll inform."
"Ahem, not inform—confess."
"We'll confess. Truth is, we knew something was off with these coca leaves. Mitayos—mine workers—worked fine chewing them, but collapsed without. We moved normally picking leaves, but trembled when idle. Definitely something wrong."
They had empirically sensed coca's malice.
"Thank you for your courage. Confess fully and repent to the end."
With moral justification fully tilting toward the Church, the coca plantation owners lost their basis for resistance.
"Costs for dismantling refining and cultivation facilities will be tallied and billed later. No complaints."
The Spanish army seized the moment, raiding the Andes. They looted valuables from the farms and torched everything.
"Property rights! This is our property! Antonio of the cacao farms! Close your eyes now, and you're next! They'll seize you too under 'worldly corruption'! Unite with us and show those peninsulares what for!"
The white coca owners reached out to other legal plantation owners for alliance—but
"Poison crops, though."
The colonial white middle class and above had already heard of France's "modern" experiments emphasizing reason.
"If it's like this, we'll have to resort to the ultimate solution."
As the tide turned against them, the coca owners rallied their slaves and laborers for an uprising under the banner of property infringement. But it was futile.
A new department shall be established to oversee drug enforcement. One council member from the Cabildo city council shall be appointed. Colonials know colonial crimes best.
Carlos III had yielded the top colonial drug post to a criollo. It contradicted his centralization policy, but divide and rule looked too perfect.
"Looks like they're finally changing. Yeah, let's trust and wait."
Carlos III's wedge drove immediate results. It split drug farms from legal ones as intended, while fracturing criollo unity against peninsular elites.
"One seat isn't enough! Give us all!"
He'd doubly divided colonial white society.
"All of them? Isn't that a bit shameless? Even peninsulares are seasoned bureaucrats with homeland experience."
The drug enforcement role, though under the viceroy, shattered criollos' rallying cry of "birth-based exclusion from top posts."
"Just one new department? A powerless seat that only petitions the viceroy with underlings' opinions for troops and probes? It's a leash. We must manage our colony ourselves!"
Radicals felt humiliated, demanding all top posts for colonials.
"Enough. It'll change gradually. Can't deport those already here, so generational turnover works."
Moderates, satisfied with an opened path to promotion, distanced from radicals.
"We must push while our momentum holds! Press now, and we can snag archbishop or viceroy seats too!"
Radicals felt betrayed by moderates' complacency but could do little. Radicals were low clerks; moderates held posts just below the top.
"Freeloading causes bellyaches. Build tenure and skill for high office. Even without peninsulares, you'd be mere aides."
And as always, the person right above slits the one below best.