The South American Republics Volume I Part 10

Considerations of international politics and English pressure compelled King John to withdraw his troops from Uruguay in the middle of the year 1812, and the Buenos Aires government immediately began to a.s.semble an army on the right bank of the Uruguay. Artigas was still encamped with his Uruguayan forces in the same neighbourhood, and although he held an Argentine commission he was virtually independent. The Argentine army, under the command of Jose Rondeau, who in colonial days had been captain of guerrillas alongside Artigas, advanced against Montevideo, and on the last day of 1812 won the b.l.o.o.d.y battle of Cerrito, in sight of the city, and shut the Spaniards up within its walls. Artigas followed and a.s.sisted in the siege, but he refused to unite his forces with those of Rondeau until his own claims should be recognised and his demands complied with. He a.s.sumed a dictators.h.i.+p and sent delegates to Buenos Aires to advocate the formation of a federal republic, of which Buenos Aires was to be simply one member. Buenos Aires refused to receive his delegates, and civil war broke out. Rondeau adhered to the Buenos Aires interest; and after a year of disputes, in the beginning of January, 1814, Artigas withdrew his own followers from Montevideo, leaving the partisans of Buenos Aires to continue the siege alone. In May the celebrated Irish admiral, William Brown, destroyed the Spanish fleet, which had hitherto dominated the Plate. Montevideo's communications with both land and sea were shut off, and the fortress shortly afterwards surrendered to General Carlos Alvear, the Argentine general who was then commanding the besieging forces.

Meanwhile, Artigas had retired to the west, and the gauchos, not only of western Uruguay, but also of Entre Rios, Corrientes, the Missions, and Santa Fe, rallied around his standard. Independent chiefs in these various provinces had been resisting the efforts of Buenos Aires to reduce them to obedience. Artigas was, in a way, recognised as their leader, but only as the greatest among equals. The conflict with the Buenos Aires party went on throughout the year 1814, and the federalists continually gained ground. In January, 1815, Fructuoso Rivera, one of the lieutenants of Artigas, defeated an Argentine force at the battle of Guayabos, and the Buenos Aires Junta was compelled to withdraw its troops from Montevideo.

This, however, did not amount to a separation of Uruguay from the Confederation. It only marked a triumph of the provinces in their efforts to prevent Buenos Aires from establis.h.i.+ng a centralised government. Artigas had his friends in Entre Rios, Corrientes, the Missions, and Santa Fe, and even as far as Cordoba; and Francia, dictator of Paraguay, was another of his allies in this struggle against Buenos Aires. However, he was nothing more than a military chief, without the capacity or even the desire of uniting these vast territories under a rational and stable government.

At the very height of his power he made the fatal mistake of embroiling himself with Brazil. In 1815 he invaded the territory of the Seven Missions, which the Rio Grandenses had conquered fourteen years before.

The Portuguese king retaliated by sending a well-equipped army of several thousand men, and in October, 1816, the forces of Artigas were overwhelmed and driven with great slaughter from the disputed territory.

Artigas made stupendous efforts to retrieve this loss, but the four thousand men which he a.s.sembled to resist the Portuguese army, which was now advancing upon Montevideo itself, were defeated and scattered in January, 1817. The Portuguese occupied Montevideo, and Artigas and his lieutenants, Rivera, Lavelleja, and Oribe, each of whom later became a great figure in the civil wars, retreated to the interior, where they maintained themselves for two years. After many defeats, Artigas himself lost the support of the chiefs of Entre Rios and Santa Fe. He was finally driven out of Uruguay and attempted to establish himself in the Argentine provinces, only to be completely overwhelmed by his rivals.

On the 23rd of September, 1820, he presented himself with forty men, all who remained faithful to him, at the Paraguayan town of Candelaria on the Parana, begging hospitality of Francia. Francia granted him asylum, and this indomitable guerrilla chief, who for twenty-five years had kept the soil of Uruguay and of the Argentine mesopotamia soaked in blood, spent the rest of his life peacefully cultivating his garden in the depths of the Paraguayan forests. He died in 1850 at the age of eighty-six years; six years later his remains were brought from Paraguay to Montevideo and interred in the national pantheon. On the sarcophagus are engraved these words: "Artigas, Founder of the Uruguayan Nation."

[Ill.u.s.tration: GENERAL DON JOSe GERVASIO ARTIGAS.

[From an old wood-cut.]]

Rivera was the last Uruguayan chief to lay down his arms before the Portuguese. When he surrendered, early in 1820, most of the other leaders had already given up and accepted service in the Portuguese army of occupation. In 1821, a Uruguayan Congress, selected for this purpose, declared the country incorporated with the Portuguese dominions under the name of the Cisplatine Province. For five years Montevideo and the country remained quiet under the Portuguese dominion, and Uruguay peacefully became a province of Brazil when that country declared her independence. The most celebrated chiefs of the civil war were officers in the Brazilian army, and few external signs of dissatisfaction were apparent. Underneath the surface, however, fermented a hatred of the foreign rule, and the proud Creoles only awaited an opportunity to revolt.

CHAPTER IV

INDEPENDENCE AND CIVIL WAR

In the beginning of 1825 a group of patriots met in Buenos Aires and planned an invasion of Uruguayan territory. Word was sent to different chiefs in the country districts, and on the night of the 19th of April thirty-three adventurers, with Lavalleja at their head, landed on the sh.o.r.e of the river in the extreme south-western corner of the country.

No sooner had they landed than the country rose; the troops sent from Montevideo to meet the band of revolutionists refused to fight, and, deserting the Brazilian banner, joined their compatriots. The revolutionists advanced east along the Negro and the Yi to Durazno, one hundred and thirty miles north of Montevideo, where they found Rivera, then general in the Brazilian service. He promptly deserted and was at once a.s.sociated with Lavalleja in the command.

Lavalleja advanced to the south, calling the population to arms, while the northern detachments rose in response to Rivera. Only fifteen days after the thirty-three had crossed the Uruguay, the flag of the revolution was floating over the Cerrito Hill in front of Montevideo, and Brazilian power was virtually confined to the walls of that city and Colonia. The military chiefs formally declared Uruguay separated from Brazil, and proclaimed its reincorporation with the Argentine. The number of Brazilians then in Uruguay was small, and infantry could not be expected to do much fighting on the plains against gaucho cavalry led by such experienced guerrilla fighters as Rivera and Lavalleja. A division of Rio Grandense cavalry, under their own chiefs, Bento Manoel and Bento Goncalvez, met the Uruguayans at Sarandi. The two armies used substantially the same methods, charging into each other, sword in hand and carbine at shoulder. The Brazilians were caught in a disadvantageous position and suffered a complete and b.l.o.o.d.y overthrow.

The result of this battle was to insure to the revolutionists the continuation of their complete dominance in the country. Their cavalry bands roamed at will up to the very walls of Montevideo. Buenos Aires received the news with extravagant demonstrations of joy, and formal notice was given to Brazil that Uruguay would henceforth be recognised as an integral part of the Argentine Confederation. The emperor promptly responded with a declaration of war. His fleet blockaded Buenos Aires, while he poured re-enforcements into Montevideo and sent an army to invade northern Uruguay. Argentine troops likewise swarmed across the Uruguay River into the country, and the Brazilians could make little progress. On sea they were not more successful, and by the beginning of 1826 Admiral Brown was blockading Colonia and menacing the communications of Montevideo.

In August, 1826, the famous Argentine general, Carlos Alvear, took command of the patriot forces. Jealousies and quarrels had meantime broken out between Lavalleja and Rivera. Alvear took the former's side and Rivera's partisans revolted. But the arrival of more re-enforcements for the Brazilians hushed up for the moment the intestine quarrels of the Spanish-Americans. Alvear determined to carry the war into Brazil, and early in January, 1827, succeeded in pa.s.sing between the northern and southern Brazilian armies, and penetrated across the frontier to the north-east. He had sacked Bage, the princ.i.p.al town of that region, before the Brazilian general, the Marquis of Barbacena, was able to concentrate his forces and start in pursuit. Alvear turned north toward the Missions, but he was in a hostile country where defeat meant total destruction. Though his army numbered eight thousand men he had cut himself off from his base, and an enemy in equal force was close at his heels. He resolved to turn and give battle, and on the 20th of February, 1827, his army met that of Barbacena in the decisive battle of Ituzaingo, which ended in the defeat of the Brazilians. Although Barbacena was able to withdraw his army without material loss, and Alvear retired at once to Uruguayan soil, the Brazilians were never afterwards able to undertake a vigorous offensive. The result of that battle insured that the north bank of the Plate should remain Spanish in blood, language, and government.

A few days before Ituzaingo, Admiral Brown had won the great naval fight of Juncal at the mouth of the river Uruguay, and thenceforth the Brazilian blockade of Buenos Aires was entirely ineffective. If it had not been for the civil disturbances in Argentina that paralysed the Buenos Aires government, the Brazilians might have been swept out of Montevideo at the point of the sword, and the Argentines might have undertaken the conquest of Rio Grande itself. Though considerable Argentine forces remained in Uruguay during 1827 and 1828, they put no vigour into their operations, and on their part the Brazilians were able to do little more than hold Montevideo. So hampered was Rivadavia, the president of Buenos Aires, by revolts, uprisings, and disorders throughout Argentina that he thought himself obliged to agree to abandon Uruguay. Public opinion in Argentina would not accept the treaty which he made; he was deposed, and a leader of the opposite party installed in power.

Rivera, operating on his own account, had undertaken a campaign against the western Rio Grande, but so bitter was factional feeling that his rival, Lavalleja, sent a force to pursue and fight him, while the new Buenos Aires government was induced to sign a treaty of peace largely because Rivera's success against the Brazilians might make him strong enough to be dangerous. Both Brazil and Argentina were tired of the tedious, expensive war, and both governments had preoccupations within their own territories. Through the intervention of the British Minister the terms were agreed upon. Brazil and Argentina both gave up their claims to Uruguay, the region was erected into an independent republic, and Brazil and Argentina pledged themselves to guarantee its independence during five years.

At that time Argentina was convulsed by the struggle between the federalists and the unitarians, and the Uruguayans were also divided into two camps--the followers of Lavalleja and those of Rivera. Neither in Argentina nor in Uruguay were these divisions parties in any proper sense of that term. They were military factions, whose ambitious leaders seem to have been always willing to sacrifice the interests of the country at large to secure a partisan advantage. The Argentine troops who returned home from the war against Brazil promptly plunged their country into the bloodiest civil war known in her history, and Uruguay did not delay in following the example.

The first chief magistrate of independent Uruguay was Jose Rondeau, an Uruguayan who had become one of the greatest Argentine generals.

However, Lavalleja and Rivera were the real factors in the situation, and Rondeau's efforts to conciliate both at the same time failed. The Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly, which soon met and framed a paper const.i.tution, was controlled by Lavalleja's partisans. Rondeau was deposed and Lavalleja a.s.sumed the reins of power. Rivera prepared to march on Montevideo and dispute the matter by arms, but the representatives of Argentina and Brazil intervened and a compromise was effected. Rivera got the best of the bargain, being given command of the army, and after the const.i.tution had been declared (July 18, 1830), he became, as a matter of course, the first president of Uruguay.

CHAPTER V

CIVIL WAR AND ARGENTINE INTERVENTION

Except for an expedition against the remnants of the once formidable Charrua Indians, the first two years of independence pa.s.sed in peace.

Since the expulsion of Artigas, the country had prospered and its population had risen nearly threefold within twenty-five years, in spite of the b.l.o.o.d.y fighting which occurred from 1811 to 1817 and from 1825 to 1828. The settlements had spread far back from the coast, and many of the princ.i.p.al interior towns date from this period.

In 1832 the civil wars began again. Lavalleja's partisans organised a conspiracy, and a certain Colonel Garzon took advantage of Rivera's absence from Montevideo to raise a mutiny in the garrison and to issue a p.r.o.nunciamento deposing the president. The latter soon recovered the city, and after two years of intermittent fighting the Lavalleja party was overthrown for the moment and Rivera finished his term in peace.

Manuel Oribe, a chief of the anti-Rivera faction, succeeded to the presidency by a compromise agreement, but the breach between the two factions had really grown wider and their mutual hatred became irrepressibly bitter. Oribe soon began to persecute his opponents.

Meanwhile, the five years had expired during which Uruguayan independence had been guaranteed by the treaty between Argentina and Brazil. Argentina was free to solicit the reincorporation of Uruguay into the Confederation. Rosas, the head of the federalist party, had made himself master of Buenos Aires, and his authority was recognised in most of the Argentine provinces, although the unitarians continued their ineffectual revolts. The new Uruguayan president sympathised with the federalists, while his rival, Rivera, could count on the unitarians. The plan of Rosas was to establish Oribe firmly in Uruguay and through his aid to incorporate that country with Argentina, while the unitarians were desperately anxious that Rivera should triumph, knowing that Montevideo would be a base for the organisation of their own forces for invasions of Buenos Aires and central Argentina.

Thenceforward for many years Uruguay's history is inexplicably entwined with the story of the struggle between the two great Argentine factions.

The little country became the storm-centre of South American politics and the chief battlefield of the contending forces. Now for the first time we encounter references to "blancos" and "colorados," which remain to this day the names of Uruguayan political parties. All the forces of the community lined up on either side and never have political parties fought more determinedly and relentlessly. The divisions between them entered into all social and business relations, and even friendly intercourse between the members of the two factions was almost impossible. Men have often been more blanco or colorado than Uruguayan.

The old conservative resident Spanish families were the basis of the blanco, or Oribe party, while the colorados, or partisans of Rivera, were the progressive faction. The latter attracted the Argentine refugees fleeing from the tyranny of Rosas, and could count upon the support of resident Europeans and upon the sympathy of foreign governments. Rosas in Argentina and the blancos in Uruguay represented the spirit of exclusivism and opposition to foreign influences.

After Oribe's accession to power Rivera hastened to raise a revolt in the western districts. He obtained help from the unitarians, and his invasion was accompanied by many Argentine generals who had distinguished themselves in the wars against Rosas. The Argentine dictator sent help to Oribe, but for two years the tide of battle set in favour of the colorados and unitarians. Rivera had obtained so decided an advantage by 1838 that Oribe abandoned Montevideo and embarked for Buenos Aires, followed by the chiefs of his party. The colorado chief, now in control of all Uruguay, celebrated a formal alliance with the province of Corrientes, then in revolt against Rosas, and war was declared against the latter. A large Argentine army, accompanied by many blancos, invaded Uruguay, but was decisively defeated at the battle of Cagancha, December 10, 1839.

The interval of unquestioned colorado supremacy which followed was one of the most flouris.h.i.+ng periods in the history of Uruguay. Large numbers of the intellectual elite of Buenos Aires swarmed across the river; Montevideo became the centre of arts and letters of Spanish America; the civil wars of the last few years had not been severe, and even during their continuance property had suffered little. Immigration from England, France, and Italy began on a large scale, and the population increased at the rate of four per cent. per annum. In the year 1840 nine hundred ocean-going s.h.i.+ps entered the port of Montevideo, more than three thousand houses were erected, and twenty-seven great meat-curing establishments were in active operation. However, Rosas and the blancos were only awaiting a good opportunity to attack.

In 1841 Oribe, in command of one of Rosas's armies, defeated the Argentine unitarians under General Lavalle, and marched into Entre Rios to suppress the insurrection in that province. In January, 1842, Rivera took an army of three thousand men to the rescue of his unitarian allies. He crossed the river Uruguay and united his forces to those of General Paz, but after a year's desperate fighting on Argentine soil he and the unitarian general were overthrown and their armies completely destroyed in the battle of Arroya Grande. The way was open to Montevideo; the colorados and Argentine exiles shut themselves up in that city, and the so-called nine-years' siege began. Rosas's power seemed overwhelming, and although Rivera and other colorado chiefs at the head of scattered bands managed to make some headway in the outlying departments, they were finally driven into Brazil, while the unhappy country was given up to pillage and slaughter. This _guerra grande_ was the bloodiest, longest, and most stubborn war ever fought on Uruguayan soil.

Montevideo seemed doomed to an early surrender when an opportune intervention by France and England upset the plans of Rosas. He had embroiled himself with the ministers of those powers by refusing to give satisfaction for certain alleged injuries to foreign merchants and naval officers, and the dispute became so acrimonious that the European powers finally resorted to the most drastic coercive measures. A French, and later a British, fleet blockaded Buenos Aires and drove Rosas's vessels from the Plate. Under these circ.u.mstances it was impossible for him to land re-enforcements on the Uruguayan sh.o.r.e. In 1845 the European navies forced a pa.s.sage at the head of the estuary into the Parana and Uruguay, destroying the batteries which Rosas had erected there and opening up those rivers to foreign navigation. Thereafter, troops could be sent from Argentina into Uruguay only by a long detour to the north.

In spite of this hampering of his military operations, and the injury which the blockade caused to the commerce of Buenos Aires, the Argentine dictator stubbornly refused to yield an inch to foreign pressure.

France and England were finally tired out; they raised the blockade; Rosas regained his control of the Plate and the early capture of Montevideo seemed certain. Just at this time, however, General Urquiza, governor of Entre Rios, and Rosas's best lieutenant and most successful general, broke with his chief. Entre Rios became a virtually independent state, and Rosas's efforts to reduce it were unavailing. Urquiza's defection again rendered it impossible properly to reinforce Oribe's army. The colorados of the interior plucked up courage and during four years no material progress was made on either side. A tedious and exhausting partisan warfare went on in the interior; guerrilla bands scoured the country in every direction; inhabitants of the same town were arrayed against each other, and surprises, treasons, and ma.s.sacres were almost daily occurrences. One of the most successful leaders on the colorado side was the famous Giuseppe Garibaldi. The future liberator of Italy had made his debut as a revolutionist in the insurrection which broke out in 1835 in the Brazilian province of Rio Grande. Later he crossed the Uruguayan border and fought against Rosas for several years.

Early in 1851 a grand combination to overthrow Rosas was made between Entre Rios, Corrientes, the unitarians, the colorados, and Brazil. The constant policy of the latter power had been to secure and maintain the independence of Uruguay, and she welcomed the opportunity to open up the Parana and Uruguay, on whose headwaters she had great territories, inaccessible except along those rivers. Urquiza naturally became the general-in-chief of the alliance. On the 18th of July he crossed the Uruguay, followed by a large army from his own provinces. A Brazilian army soon joined him and the colorados flocked to his standard. The Brazilian fleet came down the coast and controlled the estuary. An overwhelming force advanced on Montevideo and the blanco army found itself with a hostile city and fleet in front, a superior army behind, and deprived of the hope of receiving help from Buenos Aires. The officers hastened to make terms with Urquiza. Whole divisions deserted, and Oribe himself was obliged to surrender. Many of the soldiers who had been fighting in the blanco ranks joined Urquiza, and the latter, after a vain attempt to reconcile the Uruguayan factions among themselves, marched his army back through Uruguay and Entre Rios, crossed the Parana, and, descending to Buenos Aires, defeated Rosas in the great battle of Monte Caseros.

CHAPTER VI

COLORADOS AND BLANCOS

The overthrow of Rosas and Oribe marked the end of the effort to re-incorporate Uruguay with the Argentine Confederation. Uruguay was no longer in peril from foreign aggression, but she was far from being united. The blancos had apparently been completely crushed, but their wealth, prestige, and numbers still made them formidable. The seeds of division lay thickly in the soil of the national society and character, sure to spring up and bear many crops of wars and p.r.o.nunciamentos.

For the moment, however, the fierce Uruguayan partisans had had enough of fighting. The colorados were dominant and the blancos disorganised and discouraged. It seemed likely that Uruguay would enjoy a prolonged peace. The wars which lasted almost continuously from 1843 to 1851 had interrupted immigration from Europe; unitarians had, however, crossed in mult.i.tudes from Buenos Aires and many of their families remained after the proclamation of peace. To this day Montevideo is full of families descended from Buenos Aires refugees; the same names constantly recur on both banks of the Plate, and the social ties uniting the two cities are intimate. Uruguay's herds of cattle and sheep had suffered from the depredations of the armed marauding bands which had scoured the country districts for nine years, but man's cruel destructiveness could not injure the magnificent pasturage with which nature had endowed the nation, and animals quickly multiplied again by hundreds of thousands.

In 1860 the cattle in Uruguay numbered more than five millions, the sheep two millions, and the horses nearly one million. The population increased at the almost incredible ratio of nine per cent. per annum after the overthrow of Oribe in 1851 until civil war again broke out in 1863.

During these years colorado chiefs occupied the presidency, sometimes succeeding one another, sometimes by p.r.o.nunciamento, and sometimes by a form of election. General Venancio Flores, an able and ruthless officer, became the princ.i.p.al figure among the colorados. In 1853 he was a member of a triumvirate which forced the legal president to withdraw, and in 1854 he was himself raised to the presidency, only to be obliged to resign the following year. As is usual in South America, the dominant party split into factions, led by ambitious chiefs, and lost popularity.

The blancos, as soon as they got into power, obtained control of the senate, and their prestige and wealth soon balanced the military force of their opponents. In 1860 they finally prevailed, and their leader, Berro, became const.i.tutional president of the republic.

The colorados, however, did not propose to submit. Ma.s.sed upon the Argentine frontier, they held themselves ready to fall upon their successful opponents at the first opportunity. Flores had been exiled and joined the Argentine army, but in 1863 he obtained aid in Buenos Aires and disembarked upon the Uruguayan coast with a considerable force. His partisans rose and he obtained possession of a large portion of the country and set up a government of his own. For a year the contest went on with varying fortunes, and then this fight between blancos and colorados involved all the neighbouring nations and brought on the greatest war which has ever devastated South America and which resulted in the nearly complete destruction of the Paraguayan people.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE SOLIS THEATRE.]

The unitarians, then in power at Buenos Aires, naturally sympathised with the leader of their old colorado allies, and were inclined to aid Flores's attempt to regain control of Montevideo. Brazil favoured his pretensions even more actively. The Brazilians of Rio Grande owned most of the land and cattle just over the Uruguayan border, a third of all the rural properties in the republic being taxed to them, and complaints of extortion often came to the Rio government. The blanco president refused the satisfaction demanded, and Brazil determined to enforce the claims of her citizens. Flores was formally recognised as the legitimate ruler of the country, and a fleet and army were sent to his a.s.sistance.

Lopez, dictator of Paraguay, thought Brazil's intervention in Uruguay dangerous to the international equilibrium of South America. He protested, and when the Brazilian government persisted and sent its army over the border he began war. The Brazilians advanced to Montevideo and their fleet came down the coast. The city was blockaded by sea and besieged by land, while the main body of the allies advanced against the town of Paysandu on the Uruguay River, where the blancos had a.s.sembled in force. The place was taken by a.s.sault and given up to a horrible pillage, the recollection of which is still graven in the memory of Uruguayans. The blanco party never recovered from the slaughter. Those in Montevideo saved themselves by surrendering the town without resistance. Flores entered in triumph and the blanco leaders fled into exile.

Flores was under obligations to lead a division in the war against Paraguay, and he absented himself for that purpose for nearly two years, during which the country districts were somewhat disturbed. In 1867 he returned and restored order with a strong hand. This short lease of undisturbed power was employed in making many important improvements.