Uruguay
by W. H. Koebel · English · Gutenberg #42452 · 627,062 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Uruguay
Author: W. H. Koebel
Release date: April 1, 2013 [eBook #42452]
Most recently updated: October 23, 2024
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK URUGUAY ***
THE SOUTH AMERICAN SERIES
URUGUAY
_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_
ARGENTINA, PAST AND PRESENT.
PORTUGAL: ITS LAND AND PEOPLE.
MADEIRA OLD AND NEW.
MODERN ARGENTINA.
ETC., ETC.
[Illustration: CATHEDRAL: MONTEVIDEO.
Frontispiece.]
URUGUAY
BY
W. H. KOEBEL
AUTHOR OF
"ARGENTINA, PAST AND PRESENT," "PORTUGAL: ITS LAND AND PEOPLE,"
ETC.
WITH A MAP AND 55 ILLUSTRATIONS
T. FISHER UNWIN
LONDON LEIPSIC
ADELPHI TERRACE INSELSTRASSE 20
MCMXI
(_All rights reserved._)
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
The author has to tender his cordial thanks for the extreme courtesy
and for the invaluable assistance rendered during his stay in the
country by the Uruguayan officials, and by the British Minister
Plenipotentiary, Mr. J. R. Kennedy.
He is desirous of expressing the obligations under which he has been
placed by Mr. C. E. R. Rowland, British Consul at Montevideo, for
general assistance and information on the seal fisheries; Señor José
H. Figueira, for the description of the aboriginal tribes; Señor Ramos
Montero, for the commercial technicalities of the pastoral industry;
and Mr. V. Hinde, for the paper on the British railways in Uruguay.
Thanks are due to a number of British residents, both in Montevideo
and the Campo, greater than it is possible to enumerate individually.
The author would more especially acknowledge the courtesy of Messrs.
Stapledon, W. J. Maclean, H. Hall-Hall, C. W. Baine, Temple, R. Booth,
Piria, Adams, R. B. Harwar, L. L. Mercer, Warren, and J. Storm.
Mr. R. A. Bennett, who accompanied the author for the purpose of
photography, displayed an unremitting zeal that must be gratefully
recognised. He is responsible for much of the information on Mercedes,
the Swiss colony, and the frontier town of Rivera.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
PAGE
SURVEY 27
Geographical situation of the Republic--Boundaries and
area--Uruguay as an historical, commercial, and
financial centre--The respective positions of Uruguay
and Paraguay--Disadvantages of a buffer State--A land
of sunshine and shadow--The history of Uruguay--The
blending of industry and warfare--Vitality of the
nation--Instances of self-sacrifice--A South American
Switzerland--A freedom-loving folk--Deeds of arms and
the undercurrents of commerce--Montevideo in the eyes of
the casual traveller--Factors that make for the progress
of the Banda Oriental--Influence of railway--Coming
cessation of the North American beef shipments--
Temperament of the Uruguayan--Distinction between
Argentine and Uruguayan politics--The clans of the
Banda Oriental--The birthright of party convictions--
Education in Uruguay--National points of honour--Liberty
accorded the foreigner--The courtesy of officials--An
incident at the customs-house--Popularity of the
English--A gratifying situation--Satisfactory international
relations--The work of Mr. R. J. Kennedy, the British
Minister Plenipotentiary--Uruguay's pacific foreign
policy--Careful finance--Army and navy--General
progress of the nation.
CHAPTER II
HISTORY 37
The discovery of Uruguay--Reception by the Indians--Juan
de Solis and his fate--Navigation of the River Plate--
Serrano and Magellanes--Rivalry between Spaniards and
Portuguese--The first settlement in the Banda Oriental--
Aggressive tactics of the Indians--Forts destroyed by
them--Colonisation under difficulties--The introduction
of cattle--A prophetic move--Intervention of the
missionaries--Jesuit settlements established--Uruguay's
isolation comes to an end--Influence of the livestock--
Cattle-raiders--The first Portuguese invasion--Victory
of the Spaniards, assisted by native auxiliaries--Treaties
and their attendant troubles--The indecision of old
Spain--Partial extermination of the Indians--The town
of Colonia as a bone of contention--Introduction of the
first negro slaves into the provinces of the River
Plate--Unrest on the Spanish Main--Moreau, the buccaneer--
The fate of his expedition--Portuguese invaders expelled
by the Spaniards--A fort is constructed on the present
site of Montevideo.
CHAPTER III
HISTORY (_continued_) 48
Founding of the city of Montevideo--Its first
inhabitants--Inducement offered to colonists--The early
days of the town--Successful rising of the Indians in
the neighbourhood--Victory of the natives--Montevideo
saved by Jesuit intervention--The Portuguese invade the
northern provinces--The first Governor of Montevideo--
Treaties and territorial cessions--Dissatisfaction of
Jesuit Indians--Their defeat by combined Spanish and
Portuguese forces--Vicissitudes of Colonia--The danger of
hostile residents--A concentration camp of the old
days--Expulsion of the Jesuits--Some incidents of the
wars with the Portuguese--The foundation of urban
centres--The English occupy themselves with the whaling
industry on the coast--Discouragement of the enterprise
by the King of Spain--A corps of "Blandengues" is
created--The British invasion--Political effects of
the occupation--The War of Independence--Montevideo
as the seat of the Spanish viceroyalty--Commencement
of the agitation for freedom in Uruguay.
CHAPTER IV
HISTORY (_continued_) 57
The advent of Artigas--First revolutionary movements in
Uruguay--The appointment of leaders--First successes of
the Uruguayans--The germs of future jealousies--Montevideo
besieged by the patriot forces--An incident of the
investment--Spain appeals to Portugal for assistance--
nvasion of Uruguay by the latter--The Buenos Aires
Government concludes a treaty with the Spanish Viceroy--
Raising of the siege of Montevideo--Position of Uruguay--
Discontent of the Orientales--The exodus of the nation--
Incidents of emigration to the Argentine shore--Montevideo
in Spanish hands--The country overrun by Portuguese--Buenos
Aires effects a treaty with the latter--Resumption of the
campaign against the Spaniards--Dispute between the
Argentine and Uruguayan leaders--Montevideo again besieged--
Some battle incidents--Artigas reappears on the scene--
Drastic measures towards an ally--A national Congress
convened--Oriental deputies rebuffed by Buenos Aires--
Artigas withdraws from the siege of Montevideo--Price set
upon his head--War declared between Uruguay and Buenos
Aires--The Argentine littoral provinces adhere to Artigas--
Fall of Montevideo.
CHAPTER V
HISTORY (_continued_) 69
Conclusion of Spanish rule--Situation of the victors--
Rival claims--Alvear defeats a Uruguayan force--
Montevideo remains in possession of Buenos Aires--Rural
Uruguay supports Artigas--Alliance of the Argentine
littoral provinces with the Orientales--Some intrigues
and battles--Success of the Uruguayans--Departure from
Montevideo of the Buenos Aires garrison--The Uruguayans
enter into possession of their capital--Some crude methods
of government--Trials of the inhabitants--Growth of
Artigas's power--The Buenos Aires directors undertake
a propitiatory measure--A grim human offering--Attitude
of the Uruguayan Protector--Negotiations and their
failure--The civil progress of Uruguay--Formation of
departments--The Portuguese invade the country once
again--Condition of the inhabitants--Fierce resistance
to the invaders--A campaign against heavy odds--The
Portuguese army enters Montevideo--War continued by the
provinces--Invasion of Brazil by the Oriental forces--
Crushing defeats suffered by the army of invasion--Final
struggles--The flight of Artigas--Uruguay passes under
Portuguese rule.
CHAPTER VI
ARTIGAS 78
The human product of a turbulent era--Historical verdicts
disagree--Opinions of Uruguayan and foreign historians--
High-flown tribute--The cleansing of Artigas's fame--
Prejudices of some local accounts--Uruguay at the time
of Artigas's birth--Surroundings of his youth--Smuggling
as a profession--Growth of his influence--His name becomes
a household word--Artigas enters the Spanish service--The
corps of Blandengues--Efficiency and promotion--Quarrel
with the Spanish General--Artigas throws in his lot with
the patriot forces--His success as a leader of men--Rank
accorded him--Jealousy between Artigas and the Buenos
Aires generals--Conflicting ambitions--The Portuguese
invasion--Artigas leads the Oriental nation to the
Argentine shore--The encampment at Ayui--Scarcity of
arms and provisions--Battles with the Portuguese--The
subalterns of Artigas--Otorgues and Andresito--Crude
governmental procedure--Arbitrary decrees--The sentiments
of Artigas--His love of honesty--Progress of the war--
Complications of the campaign--Artigas as Protector--The
encampment of Hervidero--Revolting tales--The exaggeration
of history--Artigas refuses honours--His proclamation--
Simple life of the Commander--Some contemporary
accounts--The national treasury--Final desperate
struggles against the Portuguese--Rebellion of Ramirez--
Fierce battles--Extraordinary recuperative power of the
Protector--Final defeat of Artigas--Flight to Paraguay--
The Protector in retirement.
CHAPTER VII
HISTORY (_continued_) 97
The Spanish colonies as nations--The first-fruits of
freedom--Uruguay beneath the heel of Portugal--The
advent of a second liberator--Juan Antonio Lavalleja--
The forming of the league of the "thirty-three"--Opening
of the campaign--The patriot force--Rank and its
distribution--The crossing of the River Plate--Commencement
of operations in Uruguay--A first success--Spread of the
movement--Rivera embraces the patriot cause--The march upon
Montevideo--A daring siege--How the army of occupation was
deceived--Timely reinforcements--Lavalleja establishes an
independent Government--Incident at the opening of the
Senate--Argentina comes to the assistance of Uruguay--
Beginning of the rivalry between Rivera and Lavalleja--
Dissension in the Uruguayan army--Temporary disgrace of
Rivera--His acquittal--Lavalleja declares himself
dictator--Uruguay's independence acknowledged by Argentina
and Brazil--The national authorities enter Montevideo.
CHAPTER VIII
HISTORY (_continued_) 107
Foreign war succeeded by internal chaos--Warriors
as statesmen--The dictatorship of Lavalleja--His
methods--The first open breach between Lavalleja and
Rivera--A temporary reconciliation--Establishment of
the Constitution of Uruguay--Lavalleja and Rivera
candidates for the president's chair--Differences
in the temperament of the two--Rivera is elected
first President of Uruguay--Jealousies and intrigues--
Attack upon Rivera--Narrow escape of the President--
Lavalleja's party temporarily occupy Montevideo--Defeat
of the insurgent general--His flight into Brazil--
Intervention of the Argentine dictator Rosas--His
support of Lavalleja--Combined forces beaten by
Rivera--Lavalleja's second attempt proves unsuccessful--
General Oribe succeeds Rivera as President--Lavalleja's
party again in the ascendant--Rivera heads a revolution--
Civil war--Intervention of France--Resignation of Oribe--
Rivera elected President--His alliance with the French
and Corrientinos--Declaration of war against Rosas--Defeat
of the latter--On the withdrawal of the French Rosas
resumes the aggressive--Severe defeat of Rivera and his
allies of the littoral provinces--Oribe besieges
Montevideo--The services of Garibaldi--The Uruguayan
forces decimated--Further incidents of the war--The power
of Rosas broken by Brazil, Uruguay, and Entre Rios.
CHAPTER IX
HISTORY (_continued_) 118
Condition of Uruguay at the conclusion of the war
against Rosas--Measures for the relief of poverty--
Juan Francisco Giro elected President--The arising of
antagonistic elements--Giro resigns in favour of
Bernardo Berro--A revolution ends in the formation
of a triumvirate--On the death of Lavalleja and Rivera,
Flores becomes Dictator--Rebellion against his rule--
Brazil sends an army to the assistance of General
Flores--Further revolutionary movements--Manuel Basilio
Bustamente succeeds Flores--The policy of General
César Diaz--His exile and return at the head of an
army--Defeat and death of Diaz--Two interim Presidents--
Continuous civil war--General Flores enters the
Republic in command of a strong force and is declared
Dictator--The Paraguayan war--Causes of its outbreak--The
policy and military strength of Paraguay--Strategic
errors--Uruguay's share in the campaign--Flores returns
to Montevideo from the seat of war--His assassination--
General Lorenzo Batlle elected President--The continuance
of political unrest--Various presidents and dictators--
The Government of the present day--Don José Batlle y
Ordoñez--Doctor Claudio Williman--The Uruguayan
battlefields in tabular form--Progress of the land.
CHAPTER X
URUGUAYAN MANNERS AND CUSTOMS 128
The temperament of the Oriental--Some merits of the
race--The Spanish Main as treated in fiction--
Distinctions between the villains in print and in
actual life--Civility as a national trait--Courtesy of
officials--The Uruguayan as a sturdy democrat--A
land of equality--Some local mannerisms--Banquets
and general hospitality--Some practical methods of
enjoying life--Simplicity _versus_ ostentation--Some
consequences of prosperity--The cost of living--
Questions of ways and means--European education and
its results--Some evidences of national pride--The
physique of the Oriental--Sports and games--Football--
The science of bull-fighting--Eloquence and the
oratorical art--Uruguayan ladies--Local charm of
the sex--South American institutions--Methods by which
they have been improved--The advantages of experiments--
The Uruguayan army and navy--Some characteristics of the
police--Honesty of the nation--Politics and temperament.
CHAPTER XI
ABORIGINAL TRIBES 138
The population of Uruguay prior to the Spanish
conquest--Principal tribes--Paucity of information
concerning the early aboriginal life--The Charrúas--
Warlike characteristics of the race--Territory of the
tribe--Stature and physique--Features--The occupations
of war and hunting--Temperament and mannerisms--A
people on the nethermost rung of the social ladder--
Absence of laws and penalties--Medicine-men--A crude
remedy--The simplicity of the marriage ceremony--Morality
at a low ebb--The prevalence of social equality--Method
of settling private disputes--The Charrúas as warriors--
Tactics employed in warfare--Some grim signals of
victory--Treatment of the prisoners of war--Absence of
a settled plan of campaign--Arms of the Charrúas--Primitive
Indian weapons--Household implements--Burial rites--The
mutilation of the living out of respect for the dead--Some
savage ceremonies--Absence of religion--A lowly existence--
Desolate dwellings--Change of customs effected by the
introduction of horses--Indian appreciation of cattle--
Improvement in the weapons of the tribe--Formidable
cavalry--The end of the Charrúas--Other Uruguayan
tribes--The Yaros--Bohanes--Chanas--Guenoas--Minuanes--
Arachanes.
CHAPTER XII
MONTEVIDEO 151
Population--Attributes of the city--Situation of the
Uruguayan capital--The Cerro--A comparison between the
capitals of Argentina and Uruguay--The atmosphere of
Montevideo--A city of restful activity--Comparatively
recent foundation--Its origin an afterthought--Montevideo
in 1727--Homely erections--Progress of the town--Advance
effected within the last thirty years--The Uruguayan
capital at the beginning of the nineteenth century--Some
chronicles of the period--The ubiquity of meat--Dogs
and their food--Some curious accounts of the prevalence
of rats--The streets of old Montevideo--Their perils
and humours--A comparison between the butchers' bills
of the past and of the present--Some unusual uses for
sheep--Methods in which the skulls and horns of cattle
were employed--Modern Montevideo--The National Museum--An
admirable institution--Theatres--Critical Montevidean
audiences--Afternoon tea establishments--The Club
Uruguay--The English Club--British community in the
capital--Its enterprise and philanthropy--The _Montevideo
Times_--A feat in editorship--Hotels--Cabs and public
vehicles--The cost of driving.
CHAPTER XIII
MONTEVIDEO 161
The surroundings of the capital--Pleasant resorts--The
Prado--A well-endowed park--Colón--Aspects of the
suburbs--Some charming _quintas_--A wealth of flowers
and vegetation--European and tropical blossoms side by
side--Orchards and their fruits--The cottages of the
peasants--An itinerant merchant--School-children--Methods
of education in Uruguay--The choice of a career--
Equestrian pupils--The tramway route--Aspects of the
village of Colón--Imposing eucalyptus avenues--A country
of blue-gum--Some characteristics of the place--Flowers
and trees--Country houses--The Tea Garden Restaurant--
Meals amidst pleasant surroundings--An enterprising
establishment--Lunch and its reward--Poçitos and Ramirez--
Bathing places of the Atlantic--Blue waters compared with
yellow--Sand and rock--Villa del Cerro--The steam ferry
across the bay--A town of mixed buildings--Dwelling-places
and their materials--The ubiquitous football--Aspects of
the Cerro--Turf and rock--A picturesque fort--Panorama
from the summit of the hill--The guardian of the river
mouth--The last and the first of the mountains.
CHAPTER XIV
FROM MONTEVIDEO TO THE NORTHERN FRONTIER 172
Leaving Montevideo--General aspects of the Campo--The
Rio Negro as a line of demarcation--Growing exuberance
of the scenery--Flor Morala--Blue lupin--Camp flowers--A
sparsely populated countryside--Absence of homesteads--A
soft landscape--Humble ranchos--Cattle and horses--Iguanas
and ostriches--Deer--Cardoso--Influence of climate and
marriage upon the colonists--A cheese-making centre--A
country of table-lands--A Campo road--Some
characteristics of the way--A group of riders--Some
contrasts--A country of rocks--Stone walls--Crude
homesteads--Kerosene tins as building material--Camp
stations--The carpets of blossom--Piedra Sola--Tambores--
Landscape and nomenclature--Increase in the height of the
table-lands--Scenes at a country station--Aspects of the
inhabitants--Some matters of complexion--The train and
its transformation--Influence of the country upon the
carriages--Northern passengers--Metropolitan and local
costume--Some questions of clothes and figure--Relations
between mistresses and maids--Democratic households--A
patriarchal atmosphere--Things as they seem, and as they
are--Conversation no guide to profession.
CHAPTER XV
FROM MONTEVIDEO TO THE NORTHERN FRONTIER (_continued_) 183
A remarkable transformation in nature--The Valley of
Eden--The gateway of the garden--An abrupt descent--From
bare plain to sub-tropical forest--Picturesque scenery--
Eden station--Some curiosities of nomenclature--Beggary
as a profession--The charity of the Latin lands--The
cliffs of the valley--Varied aspects of the vegetation--
The everlasting sweet-pea--Some characteristics of the
mountains--A land of tobacco--Negro cultivators--Appearance
and dwellings of the coloured population--Some ethics of
climate and costume--Tacuarembo--A centre of importance--A
picturesque town--Scenes at the station--Some specimens of
local humanity--A dandy of the Campo--The northern
landscape--The African population--Nature and the hut--The
tunnel of Bañada de Rocha--Paso del Cerro--On the Brazilian
border--Rivera--A frontier town--Santa Ana--The Brazilian
sister-township--A comparison between the two--View from
a neighbouring hill--The rival claims to beauty of the
Uruguayan and Brazilian towns.
CHAPTER XVI
HERE AND THERE IN URUGUAY 195
Uruguayan roads--A comparison with those of Argentina--
The benefits of stone--Some fine metalled highways--The
road to San José--On the way to Pando--The journey as
effected by motor-car--A smiling landscape--Distant
sand-dunes--A spotless range--The mountains of Minas--
The town of Pando--A typical minor urban centre--The
ending of the macadamised road--The track beyond--An
abrupt change in the order of going--The bumps of the
Campo--Piriapolis--A budding pleasure resort--Completeness
of the enterprise--Eucalyptus forests--A vehicular wreck
by the way--Unsuccessful Samaritans--The work of Señor
Piria--The Castillo--An imposing home--View from the
spot--The Pan de Azucar--A landscape of mountain, valley,
forest, and sea--Architecture of the Castillo--Piriapolis
Bay--A centre of future bathing--Preparations already
effected--The hotel and casino--A wonderful feat of
private enterprise--Afforestation--Encouragement of the
industry by the Uruguayan Government--The work of Mr.
Henry Burnett--The transformation of arid soil into
fertile land--Commercial success of the venture--The
Maldonodo sand-dunes--Fulgurites--A curiosity of the
sands--Discoveries by Mr. C. E. R. Rowland.
CHAPTER XVII
MERCEDES AND THE SWISS COLONY 205
The journey to Mercedes--The outskirts of Montevideo--
Santa Lucia--A pleasant town--Native quince and gorse--
San José--The terminus of a great highway--Some feats
of engineering--The urban importance of San José--A
modern flour-mill--Mal Abrigo--Character of the soil--A
country of boulders--Some animals of the Sierra de Mal
Abrigo--The surroundings of Mercedes--A charmingly
situated town--The terminus of the line--Some
characteristics of Mercedes--Urban dwellings--The
delights of the _patio_--The disadvantages of economy in
space--Streets and plazas--The hospital--A well-equipped
institution--View from the building--An island in the Rio
Negro--The Port of Mercedes--River craft--Some local
scenes--An equine passenger--Formidable gutters--The
industries of the town--The Hôtel Comercial--Colonia
Suiza--Situation of the Swiss Colony--Uruguayan Campo
dwellings--Method of construction--Simplicity of
household removals--Aspect of deserted huts--The houses
of the Swiss Colony--Habits in general of South American
colonists--The range of nationalities--Liberty accorded--
Population of the Colonia Suiza--Its industries--A dairy
farming community--An important butter factory--An
instance of a rapid rise from poverty to riches.
CHAPTER XVIII
COLONIA 215
An historical town--Rarity of mines in the River Plate
countries--Specimens at Colonia--Situation of the town--
Past antagonism between the capitals of Argentina and
Uruguay--Present aspect of Colonia compared with the
former--A sleepy hollow--Periodical awakenings of the
place--Impressions of the old town--Its colouring and
compactness--Fortifications of the city of discord--A
warlike history--Nations that have warred together at
the spot--The reddest corner in a bloodstained land--
Surroundings of the town--Crumbling masonry--A medley of
old and new--A Colonia street--Old-times scenes of peace
and war--Some pictures of the past--Cannon as road
posts--The Plaza--An episode in the wars with Portugal--
The eternity of romance--Real de San Carlo--A modern
watering-place--Its buildings--The bullring--A gigantic
pelota court--Popularity of the spot--A miniature
tramway--Attractions of Real de San Carlo--Vegetation
on the sands--A curious colour scheme--Pleasant
lanes--Buenos Aires as a supplier of tourists.
CHAPTER XIX
THE URUGUAY RIVER 225
A great waterway--The river compared with the Paraná--
Some questions of navigation--The lower stretch of the
Uruguay--The stream from Montevideo upwards--
Montevideo--The docks--An imposing array of Mihanovich
craft--Breadth of the river--Aspects of the banks--Various
types of vessels--The materials of their cargoes--The
meeting of sister steamers--The etiquette of salutations--
Fray Bentos--The Lemco factory and port--A notable spot--
The Paradise of the eater--The islands of the Uruguay--
Method of their birth and growth--The responsibility of
leaves and branches--Uncertainty of island life--The
effects of flood and current--Sub-tropical bergs--The
vehicles of wild creatures--A jaguar visitation in
Montevideo--Narrowing of the stream--Paysandú--The
home of ox-tongues--The second commercial town of the
Republic--Some features of the place--Variety of the
landscape--The _Mesa de Artigas_--An historical table-land--
A monument to the national hero--Salto--A striking town--
Pleasant landscape--The Salto falls--The ending of the
lower Uruguay--A rocky bed--Some minerals of Salto--
Alteration in the colour of the water--The beauty of the
upper Uruguay.
CHAPTER XX
THE URUGUAYAN CAMPO 237
Formation of the land--A survey of the country--Features
of the soil--Types of wild flowers--A land of hill,
valley, and stream--The glamour of the distance--"The
purple land"--Breezes of the Campo--An exhilarating
country--The dearth of homesteads--The Uruguayan Gaucho--
His physique--The product of the blowy uplands--Matters
of temperament--His comparative joviality--The Gaucho as
worker, player, and fighter--The manipulation of feuds--
A comparison between Argentina and Uruguay--Warrior
ancestors of the Gaucho--His sense of dignity and honour--
Conservative habits and customs--Costume and horse gear--
Strenuous _bailes_--Some homeric feats of dancing--
Stirring revelry--The Uruguayan landowner--Foreign
elements in the land--Negro inhabitants of the Banda
Oriental--The numerical status of the Africans in the
north and in the south--Absence of a racial question--The
slavery of former days--The employment of black troops in
war--Lenient treatment of negro slaves--Harsh measures
applied to aboriginal Indians--A lesson in human economy--
Testimony of a contemporary writer--Immigrant colonies.
CHAPTER XXI
ESTANCIA LIFE 246
Similarities between the farming routine of Uruguay
and of Argentina--The Banda Oriental a pastoral rather
than an agricultural land--Viticulture an asset in
Estancia affairs--Wheat, maize, and linseed--Scarcity
of alfalfa--Excellence of the natural pastures--The
possibilities of private agricultural colonisation--
Favourable outlook for grazing countries in general--
Lemco estancias--The estancia San Juan--A comprehensive
enterprise--Cattle, cereals, and viticulture--Stone
quarries--A Campo stretch--The cutting out of a
bullock--A Gaucho meal.
CHAPTER XXII
URUGUAY AS A PASTORAL COUNTRY 254
Origin of the live stock of the country--Influence
of the climate and pastures upon the first animals
introduced--Live stock census of 1909--Importance
of the breeding industry--Various ramifications--
Principal items of home consumption--Articles of
export--Quality of the first herds introduced--Type
of original sheep and horses--Goats and pigs--The
introduction of a superior class of animals--The
_criollos_ and the _mestizos_--Breeds imported--Durham,
Hereford, Polled Angus, and Devon cattle--Dutch,
Norman, Flemish, and Swiss cattle--Growth of the
dairy industry--Popular breeds of sheep and horses
and pigs--Principal countries from which the animals
are derived--Growing value of the local-bred live
stock--The manipulation of an _estancia_--Well-found
estates--Uruguayan agricultural societies--Work
effected by these--Government support--The Rural
Association of Uruguay--Financial results of
agricultural shows--Side products--Tallow--Hams--
Tanning--"La Carolina"--A great dairy farm--The
factory of Breuss and Frey--The _saladeros_, or
meat-curing establishments--Number of animals
slaughtered--Method by which the meat is cured--
_Tasajo_--Countries to which it is exported--The
frozen-meat trade--"La Frigorifica Uruguaya"--
Important growth of the new industry--Shipments
of frozen meat.
CHAPTER XXIII
DEPARTMENTS, CLIMATE, AND NATURAL HISTORY 265
The nineteen divisions of Uruguay--Their populations,
areas, towns, and industries--Canelones--Florida--San
José--Durazno--Flores--Colonia--Soriano--Rio Negro--
Paysandú--Salto--Artigas--Tacuarembó--Rivera--Cerro
Largo--Treinta y Tres--Rocha--Maldonado--Montevideo--
Climate--Favourable conditions throughout the
Republic--The Atlantic coast line--The summer season--
Pleasantly tempered heat--A land of cool breezes--Its
attractions as a pleasure resort--Climates of the
interior and of the north--Drought--Locusts--Comparative
immunity of a pastoral country--Uruguayan fauna--Some
common creatures of the Campo--Bird life--The ostrich--Its
value as a commercial asset--The trade in ostrich
feathers--Measures for the protection of the birds.
CHAPTER XXIV
INDUSTRIES AND NATURAL WEALTH 276
England's financial stake in Uruguay--British capital
invested in the Republic--Its monetary importance
compared with that of other South American nations--
General commercial development of the country--A
satisfactory outlook--Progress of grazing and
agriculture--Marked increase in commerce--Uruguay's
exports--Cured meat and frozen carcasses--Diminution
of the former trade, increase of the latter--Reasons
for the transformation of industry--An outcome of
Brazilian protection--The breeding of fine cattle for
the European markets--Present situation of the world's
meat market--The British Isles as importers of meat--The
position in the United States--A change from the rôle of
exporter to that of importer--The increase in River Plate
shipments--Closeness of touch between South American and
English markets--Probable admission of foreign meat into
European countries--Intervention of the United States
Beef Trust--Purchase of _Frigorificos_--Possible effects
of a monopoly upon the producers--South American views
on the subject--Favourable general position of the River
Plate--The balance of power in beef--Extract of meat--
The Lemco and Oxo Company--Ramifications of the
enterprise--The town of Fray Bentos--Agriculture--
Wheat--Maize--Barley.
CHAPTER XXV
INDUSTRIES AND NATURAL WEALTH (_continued_) 286
Minerals--Past obstacles to the proper working of
mines--Gold--Auriferous prospects--Situation of the
goldfields of Uruguay--Past and present workings of
the mines--Influence of politics on labour--The
Corrales mine--Manganese--Districts in which iron ore
is met with--Mineral centres--Minas--Maldonado--Silver--
Copper--Marble--Gypsum--Slate--Sulphur--Asbestos--Precious
stones--Diamonds and rubies--Jasper--Agate--The amethyst
and topaz--The water-stone--A peculiarity of Uruguay--
Viticulture--Date of the introduction of the vine--
Vicissitudes at the start--Consequent rapid progress--
Vineyard area of the present day--The introduction of
suitable plants--Countries of origin--Production of
grapes and wine--Departments most suitable to the
industry--The seal-fisheries--Originally carried
on by the Indians--Habits of the seals--Development
of the industry--Government grants--Conditions and
concessions--Number of skins obtained since 1873--
Islands inhabited by the seals--Method of killing
and curing--Waste of seal life--Suggestions for the
improvement of the industry--Scientific measures
necessary--A diplomatic incident in connection with
the seal-fisheries.
CHAPTER XXVI
COMMUNICATIONS AND COMMERCE 296
British enterprise in South America--The various
industries controlled--The railways of the southern
continent--A remarkable record--The opening up of
new lands--Some possibilities of the future--Sound
basis on which the extension of the lines is founded--
Products and transport facilities--Probable influence
of communications--Uruguayan railways--A high standard
of enterprise--Comfortable travelling--Some comparisons
between Uruguay and Argentina as railway countries--
Level country _versus_ hills--Stone _versus_ alluvial
soil--Question of ballast--Importance of the new
ramifications--Railway construction in Uruguay--History
of the lines--Government obligations--Mileage and
capital of the companies--Interest paid on capital--
Various railway systems--Areas served--The Central
Company--Sketch of lines and extensions--Important
developments--The communication with Brazil--Financial
position of the Company--Midland Uruguay Railway--
Development and extension of the line--Receipts and
expenses--The North Western of Uruguay and Uruguay
Northern Railway--Montevidean tramways--Local, British,
and German enterprise--Steamer service of the River
Plate--The Mihanovich line--Ocean passenger traffic--
Montevideo the sole port of call--The Royal Mail Steam
Packet Company--The Pacific Line--The Nelson Line--Other
British companies--Position of British exports--Sound
consular advice.
CHAPTER XXVII
POLITICS AND REVOLUTIONS 311
The Constitution of Uruguay--Government of the
Republic--Deputies and senators--Their duties--The
civil code--Marriage--Rights of foreigners--Law--The
Commission of Charity and Public Welfare--Hospitals--
Orphan asylums--Infirmaries--The charity hospital
lottery--The distribution of political parties--The
_Colorados_ and the _Blancos_--Policy of either--Feud
between the parties--Old-standing strife--Explanation
of the nomenclature--Origin of the feud--Rivera and Oribe--
Inherited views--Attitude of the foreigners--Revolutions--
Manner of the outbreak--Government precautions--The need
of finance and arms--Some rebellious devices--Rifles as
Manchester goods--The importance of horses--Difficulties
that attend a revolutionary movement--The sweeping up of
horses--Equine concentration camps--A powerful weapon
in the hands of the authorities--First signs of an
outbreak--Sylvan rendezvous--The question of
reinforcements--Some desperate ventures--Their
accustomed end--Chieftains of the north--Effect of
a revolution upon local industries--Needs of the
army--Estancia hands as troopers--Hasty equipment--
Manner in which actual hostilities are conducted--"The
Purple Land that England lost"--The spirit of Modernism
and the internal struggle--Tendency to localise the
fields of strife--Power of the _Colorado_ party--Whence
the restrictive partisans are drawn--Distinguishing
Insignia--Some necessary precautions on the part of
the foreigner--Adventures derived from colour in
clothes--Some ludicrous episodes--The expense of
revolution.
INDEX 343
ILLUSTRATIONS
CATHEDRAL: MONTEVIDEO _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
A RURAL INN 28
COUNTRY COACH AT LA SIERRA STATION 28
INDIAN MACE HEADS 38
INDIAN STONE AXE 38
A GAUCHO RACE: THE START 44
A GAUCHO RACE: THE FINISH 44
RUINED COLONIA 52
ARTIGAS' MONUMENT 52
MONTEVIDEO AND THE CERRO HILL 88
"AFTER CATTLE" 88
LAGO DEL PRADO: MONTEVIDEO 124
THE PRADO: MONTEVIDEO 124
THE PRINCIPAL PLAZA: MONTEVIDEO 130
THE HARBOUR: MONTEVIDEO 130
ANCIENT STONES EMPLOYED FOR NUT-CRUSHING 140
NATIVE "BOLEADORAS" 148
SOLIS THEATRE AND NATIONAL MUSEUM 156
THE CERRO FORT 156
THE BEACH AT PARQUE URBANO 162
THE SAN JOSÉ ROAD BRIDGE 162
EUCALYPTUS AVENUE: COLON 166
OXEN DRAWING RAILWAY COACH 186
BEFORE THE FAIR: TACUAREMBÓ 186
FRONTIER STONE AT RIVERA 192
TUNNEL AT BAÑADA DE ROCHA 192
EUCALYPTUS FOREST: PIRIAPOLIS 198
THE CASTILLO: PIRIAPOLIS 198
THE PAN DE AZUCAR MOUNTAIN 202
THE NEW HOTEL: PIRIAPOLIS 202
MERCEDES: FROM ACROSS THE RIO NEGRO 208
RIO NEGRO BRIDGE 212
ON THE RIO NEGRO 212
COLONIA: RUINED FORTRESS WALL 218
A CAMPO GRAVEYARD 218
THE BULL RING 222
ON THE URUGUAY RIVER 230
A URUGUAYAN STREAM 230
CATTLE ON THE ROAD 234
A CORNER OF THE FRAY BENTOS FACTORY 234
A PASTORAL SCENE 238
THE BICHADERO ESTANCIA 246
HEREFORD CATTLE ON THE BICHADERO ESTANCIA 246
ESTANCIA HOUSE: SAN JUAN 250
CHÂLET AT COLONIA SUIZA 258
THE VINTAGE: ESTANCIA SAN JUAN 258
STREAM ON THE SAN JUAN ESTANCIA 272
THE CATTLE DIP 280
DRYING JERKED MEAT 280
A SEAL ROOKERY 292
BASKING SEALS 292
OX WAGON ON THE CAMPO 316
CROSS-COUNTRY TRAVELLING 316
PEDIGREE CATTLE 320
OVEN BIRD'S NEST 320
URUGUAY
CHAPTER I
SURVEY
Geographical situation of the Republic--Boundaries and
area--Uruguay as an historical, commercial, and financial
centre--The respective positions of Uruguay and
Paraguay--Disadvantages of a buffer State--A land of sunshine and
shadow--The history of Uruguay--The blending of industry and
warfare--Vitality of the nation--Instances of self-sacrifice--A
South American Switzerland--A freedom-loving folk--Deeds of arms
and the undercurrents of commerce--Montevideo in the eyes of the
casual traveller--Factors that make for the progress of the Banda
Oriental--Influence of railway--Coming cessation of the North
American beef shipments--Temperament of the
Uruguayan--Distinction between Argentine and Uruguayan
politics--The clans of the Banda Oriental--The birthright of
party convictions--Education in Uruguay--National points of
honour--Liberty accorded the foreigner--The courtesy of
officials--An incident at the customs-house--Popularity of the
English--A gratifying situation--Satisfactory international
relations--The work of Mr. R. J. Kennedy, the British Minister
Plenipotentiary--Uruguay's pacific foreign policy--Careful
finance--Army and navy--General progress of the nation.
Uruguay may be described as a republic of comparatively small
dimensions sandwiched in between the great territories of Argentina
and Brazil, and bounded on the south by the Southern Atlantic Ocean
and the estuary of the River Plate. Its actual area, 72,100 square
miles, is less than that of the British Isles, and thus the Banda
Oriental, to use the name by which the State is locally known, enjoys
the distinction of being the smallest of the South American republics.
But, although this distinction applies to actual area, it serves for
remarkably little else in the country. Indeed, an astonishing amount
is packed within the frontiers of Uruguay. In the first place it is a
land where much history has been made. Secondly, to turn to its
industrial assets--although I do not intend to deal with the
commercial side of the Republic more fully than can be helped--it is a
country where many cattle are bred. Lastly, it is a place in which no
less than fifty million pounds sterling of English money are invested.
Thus the small Republic, as an investment field, ranks third in
importance amongst all the States of South America, a fact that is
realised by remarkably few outside its own boundaries.
Uruguay and Paraguay are frequently confused by those quite unfamiliar
with South American affairs, owing to the similarity of the
nomenclature. In actual fact the two countries have very little in
common, save in their political situation. Both separated themselves
from the River Plate Provinces in the course of the War of
Independence, since which time both have served as buffer States
between Argentina and Brazil. The position of such is seldom enviable
at the best of times. Upon Uruguay it has worked with an especial
degree of hardship, since even before the days of her independence it
was upon her suffering soil that the too frequent differences between
Spaniard and Portuguese were fought out.
[Illustration: A RURAL INN.]
[Illustration: COUNTRY COACH AT LA SIERRA STATION.
To face p. 28.]
As to the international jealousies of a later era, they have not been
without their influence upon the domestic affairs of the central
State. Thus on not a few occasions the result of foreign diplomacy has
been civil war within the boundaries of Uruguay, with consequences
that were necessarily disastrous to the nation. The Banda Oriental is
a land of sunshine, it is true, but one of shadow too, which is
logical enough, since without the former the latter cannot obtain. Its
metaphorical sunshine is represented by the undoubted merits of its
inhabitants, its temporary shadows by the circumstances in which they
have found themselves placed.
He would be no real friend of Uruguay who strove to show that the
march of the country has not been rudely arrested on innumerable
occasions. Indeed, were it not for the conditions that have prevailed
for centuries, the actual forward steps that the Republic has effected
would be far less remarkable than is in reality the case. The history
of Uruguay reveals a continuous medley of peace and war. Its swords
have been beaten into ploughshares and welded back again into lethal
weapons ere the metal had cooled from the force of the former
operation.
Each series of such transformations, moreover, has occurred at
intervals sufficiently short to destroy utterly the hopes and
prosperity of an ordinary people. Over and over again the Uruguayans
have strewn the battlefields with their dead; yet during each interval
they have continued to plant the soil with its proper and more
profitable seed. An extraordinary vitality on the part of the people
joined to the natural wealth of the land have been the factors by
means of which the small Republic has brushed away the results of its
wars as lightly as though such convulsions were summer showers.
The history of Uruguay reveals an admirable amount of pure heroism.
Apart from the fighting merits that are inborn and natural to the
race, the most unsympathetic reader of its past pages cannot deny to
it the innumerable instances of self-sacrifice that were the fruit of
loftier ideals. Of the many vivid battle scenes that were painted in
too deadly an earnest against their neighbours and even amongst
themselves, there are few that are not relieved by some illuminating
act of heroism, for all the utter ferocity and courage by which these
conflicts were wont to be marked. Uruguay, in fact, was something of a
South American Switzerland; but a Switzerland bereft of the lofty
peaks and mountain tops that assisted the men of the Cantons against
the Austrians, endowed, moreover, with a more restless and
undisciplined folk of its own. Yet in many respects the resemblance
holds good, and for one reason most of all. The Orientales rested not
until they had won their freedom. Not once but several times they were
forced to wrest it from the stranger ere it finally became secure.
At later periods, too, it is not to be denied that the greater bulk of
the neighbouring nations has stood out remorselessly between Uruguay
and the sunlight. There have been times when the small Republic has
been ground between the great mills of Argentina and Brazil. Thus her
progress--steady and all but continuous in spite of the civil wars and
revolutions that have torn her--has been achieved all but unnoticed
and entirely unapplauded. Europeans, and many South Americans too,
read of the Uruguayan battlefields and deeds of arms, yet they learn
nothing of the undercurrent of industry that has flowed onwards all
the while beneath the turbulence of the wild warrings. Nevertheless,
this progress has been very real, and that it must become apparent to
the world before long is certain. Even to the present day Uruguay
amongst nations has remained "a violet by a mossy stone, half hidden
from the eye." To the ordinary person who passes between Europe and
South America, Montevideo represents little beyond a whistling station
between the two important halts at Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro.
In justice to the Banda Oriental's neighbour be it said that this
ignorance does not apply to the actual resident in Argentina, and
least of all to the dwellers in Buenos Aires. To them the commercial
importance and general attractions of Uruguay and its capital are well
enough known. This interest, however, is merely local, and fails to
extend beyond the familiar radius of the pleasant little Republic's
influence.
Commercially speaking, it is difficult to understand how the factors
that have now arisen to drag the Banda Oriental from its undeserved
oblivion can well fail in their task. The linking of the country by
railway with Brazil, the influence that the imminent cessation of the
North American beef exportation is bound to exert upon a
stock-breeding country, to say nothing of the internal progress
already referred to, must undoubtedly result sooner or later in
bringing the gallant little nation into the light of publicity.
A fusion of warring parties, an end of civil strife, and a strict
attention to the less risky and more profitable business of the day
should follow in the natural sequence of events. Very hale, hearty,
and jovial though he is, it must be admitted that the Oriental is in
deadly earnest when engaged in civil battle--as is the case with all
who pursue a hobby to the detriment of a more lucrative occupation.
Yet the substitution of gunshots for the suffrage is not only
expensive, but, from the polling point of view, unpleasantly devoid of
finality.
The distinctions between the political arrangements of Uruguay and
Argentina are curiously marked. For generations the latter country has
been governed by a succession of groups that have respectively formed
and dissolved without leaving any marked cleavage in the society of
the nation. Strictly speaking, Argentina possesses neither faction
spirit nor party. Uruguay, on the other hand, is concerned first and
foremost with these very matters of party.
The history of the Colorados and the Blancos--the reds and
whites--would in itself suffice to fill a volume. Probably in no other
part of the world have the pure considerations of clan triumphed to
such an extent over the general political situation. Until the present
day the line between the rival camps has been as absolute as that
between life and death. The position of either is immutable. Neither
argument, mode of government, nor the vicissitudes of state are among
the considerations by which they are affected. A man is born one of
two things--a Blanco or a Colorado. This birthright, moreover, is to
be exchanged for no mere mess of pottage; it is valued above the price
of life itself. Such, at all events, has been the creed of the past,
and to a large extent it still holds good, although the stress of
modern influence is just beginning to leave its mark upon the
cast-iron prejudices that are the relicts of another age.
At the same time, it must not be inferred from this that the Uruguayan
is ignorant or small-minded. Far from it. Education enjoys an
exceptionally high standard throughout the country, and a most liberal
breadth of view is typical of the nation. This is readily admitted,
and even insisted upon, by foreigners whose dealings with the
native-born dwellers in the Republic have placed them in a position to
render an accurate judgment. In internal politics, however, there are
prejudices, considerations of clan, and points of honour that are not
to be gauged from a purely commercial standpoint.
The foreigner in Uruguay is accorded a most complete liberty, and
there are few of these who have resided for any length of time within
its frontiers who have not become very truly attached to the land and
its people.
It has frequently been my lot to pass over from Argentina to Uruguay,
arriving at one of the minor ports that dot the middle reaches of the
great river. But it so happened that I had never landed, bag and
baggage, at the capital until the time came for a regular and
organised spying out of the land. An incident at the start lent a very
pleasing aspect to the visit. The customs-house officer, in whose
hands lay the fate of the interior of my baggage, gazed from where it
lay piled upon the official trestle in the direction of its owner.
"Inglez?" he demanded in the curt tone of one in authority. When I had
signified assent he smiled cordially, sketched with rapid fingers the
magic chalk marks upon the impedimenta, and then motioned me to pass
through the portals with all the honours of customs, locks unviolated,
and straps in repose.
I have not introduced this incident from any personal motives. It
merely affords an instance of a very genuine courtesy rendered to the
nation through the medium of one of its most humble units. Yet it is
from such attentions to a stranger that the trend of the general
attitude may be gleaned. The English are not a little addicted to a
frank confession of their unpopularity amongst the South Americans in
general. The attitude may be the result of a certain pose, since they
claim full credit for the respect that is undoubtedly theirs by right.
Nevertheless, whether imagined or real, the idea obtains.
In Uruguay at the present moment the Englishman is so obviously _not_
unpopular that it is gratifying to be able to proclaim the fact.
Whatever the fates may have in store the existing understanding
between the Uruguayans and the British is very cordial and complete.
In words as well as in deeds it is perhaps advisable to let well
alone. Yet it is satisfactory to reflect that innumerable practical
proofs show that this mutual esteem which has existed for centuries
has never been more firmly grafted than at the present day. There can
be no doubt, moreover, that the present satisfactory phase is very
largely due to the efforts of Mr. R. J. Kennedy, the British Minister
Plenipotentiary and Envoy Extraordinary, whose tact and conscientious
ability have won for him respect and popularity on the part of
Uruguayans and resident British alike--a consummation to which it is
the lot of sufficiently few ministers to attain.
Although internal disturbances may continue to arise from time to
time, the position of Uruguay is now undoubtedly consolidated to a far
greater extent than has ever been the case in former years. The nation
that sprang into being at the commencement of the nineteenth century
had to contend with indefinite frontiers at the best of times, and
with the frequent waves of turbulence that swept inwards over the land
from the greater centres of disturbance without its borders. Now for
many decades an undisturbed peace has characterised the foreign
affairs of the nation, and such differences as have occurred from time
to time with the neighbouring republics have been settled in an
essentially pacific and reasonable spirit.
A striking instance of this has occurred quite recently in the case of
the vexed question concerning the delimitation of neutral waters in
the River Plate. The rights affecting a great inland and international
highway are naturally most delicate and difficult to adjust, as the
past history of the entire river system here has proved on numerous
occasions. In this particular instance had either Uruguay or Argentina
shown any other but a fair and conciliatory spirit, the consequences
cannot fail to have been serious in the extreme. As it was, the
dispute was brought to a satisfactory and amicable conclusion, much to
the credit of the respective diplomatists concerned.
For many years now the policy of the Banda Oriental Government has
been practical and deliberate. In matters of finance extreme caution
has been exercised, and economy in expenditure has been rigid. The
result is now evident in the very favourable financial position of the
Republic, since it is now endowed with more solid monetary sinews than
has ever been the case before. The nation, moreover, is free from any
excessive expenditure on its army and navy. Both branches of the
service are on a small scale, and in this moderation Uruguay is
undoubtedly wise; since, although the race possesses its fighting
instincts to the full, the population and resources of the Republic
would not allow it to compete either in numbers, guns, or ships with
the armies of the neighbouring countries, or with the great naval
armaments that are being brought together.
In the past there is no doubt that matters in Uruguay have been
regarded with a certain amount of pessimism--a gloomy view for which
the alleged instability of the Government was chiefly responsible.
Were all that has been said on this head strictly accurate, there is
no doubt that the condition of the country would be parlous indeed. On
numberless occasions, however, the reports that have prevailed have
been remarkable merely for their exaggeration. Frequently, moreover,
such highly coloured--or rather darkened--pictures have been depicted
to serve interests in Europe rather than in Uruguay. Commercially
speaking, it is surely a matter for congratulation that even such a
disturbing element as civil strife should have left the financial
solidity of the Republic unimpaired.
This point of view, however, is merely the financial one--important
enough in its place, but not sufficiently overwhelming to eliminate
all the other interests at stake. The spirit of progress has been
abroad, not only in the ethics of the pastures, banks, and business
houses, but in the more subtle fields of science, literature, and art
as well. This, however, is not the place in which to introduce details
or statistics concerning the improvements in the various ramifications
of the nation's existence. For the present let the statement suffice
that in no direction has a retrograde movement been perceptible: on
the contrary, a continuous progress has been evident in almost every
matter from the curing of beef to the making of scholars--two products
that are equally essential to the welfare of the land.
CHAPTER II
HISTORY
The discovery of Uruguay--Reception by the Indians--Juan de Solis
and his fate--Navigation of the River Plate--Serrano and
Magellanes--Rivalry between Spaniards and Portuguese--The first
settlement in the Banda Oriental--Aggressive tactics of the
Indians--Forts destroyed by them--Colonisation under
difficulties--The introduction of cattle--A prophetic
move--Intervention of the missionaries--Jesuit settlements
established--Uruguay's isolation comes to an end--Influence of
the livestock--Cattle-raiders--The first Portuguese
invasion--Victory of the Spaniards, assisted by native
auxiliaries--Treaties and their attendant troubles--The
indecision of Old Spain--Partial extermination of the
Indians--The town of Colonia as a bone of
contention--Introduction of the first negro slaves into the
provinces of the River Plate--Unrest on the Spanish main--Moreau,
the buccaneer--The fate of his expedition--Portuguese invaders
expelled by the Spaniards--A fort is constructed on the present
site of Montevideo.
The early history of Uruguay needs but cursory recapitulation, since
its episodes form part and parcel of the general discovery of the
River Plate. Juan Diaz de Solis, the famous explorer of the great
river, was the first leader in the Spanish service to set foot on
Uruguayan soil. The precise point of his disembarkation is unknown,
but it is certain enough that the spot lay somewhere just to the north
of the island of Martin Garcia. His reception at the hands of the
hostile Charrúa Indians, who at the time inhabited the district, was
fatally inhospitable. Solis and many more of the landing party of
fifty who accompanied him were slain by these natives almost as soon
as they had landed, and the disheartened expedition returned to Spain.
It is supposed that Rodriguez Serrano was the first to sail the waters
of the Uruguay River proper. In 1520, when anchored in the mouth of
the River Plate on his way to the South, Magellane is supposed to have
sent this subordinate of his some distance up the Uruguay. There is
much, however, that is vague in the history of these particular
waterways at this time. A certain material reason obtained for the
mystery. The rivalry between the Spaniards and Portuguese tended
towards a concealment on the part of each of discoveries that affected
comparatively unknown and debatable areas. Thus there is no doubt that
various Portuguese expeditions sailed the Uruguay River at this
period; but the details of these are uncertain.
In 1527 Spain, fearing the possibilities of Portuguese influence,
turned her attention once more to the great river system of the South.
It was in that year that Cabot founded the fort of San Sebastian on
the Uruguayan coast. This, at the confluence of the San Salvador River
with the Uruguay, was the first Spanish settlement in the country. Its
existence was short-lived. Attacked by the Charrúa Indians in 1529,
the fort was destroyed and many of its garrison slain.
After this little was heard of the Uruguayan coast until, in 1552,
Irala, the famous Governor of the River Plate, ordered Captain Juan
Romero to found a settlement on that shore. Juan Romero set out with
an expedition of 120 men, and founded the settlement of San Juan at
the mouth of the river of the same name. This attempt was likewise
unsuccessful. The Charrúas had to be reckoned with, and two years
later the place was abandoned on account of their incessant attacks.
[Illustration: INDIAN MACE HEADS.]
[Illustration: INDIAN STONE AXE.
To face p. 38.]
In 1573 another noted _conquistador_, Zarate, on the completion of his
voyage from Europe, arrived at the island of San Gabriel. He founded a
settlement on the neighbouring Uruguayan mainland, and the Charrúas
for once received him with comparative hospitality. Nevertheless it
was not long ere hostilities broke out, by reason of the Spaniard's
own arrogance, it is said. In the end the Europeans were completely
defeated by the famous chief Zapicán, losing over one hundred soldiers
and various officers. The Spaniards then retired to the island of San
Gabriel, leaving the aboriginal tribe in possession of the new
township, which they immediately destroyed.
A short while after this Juan de Garay, afterwards famed as the
founder of the modern Buenos Aires, arrived near the scene of the
disaster. With a diminutive force (it is said by some that his
expedition comprised no more than twelve cavalry and twenty-two
infantry) he attacked Zapicán's army of a thousand men. The result was
the rout of the Indians, in the course of which Zapicán and many other
leading caciques perished. This action was fought in the neighbourhood
of ruined San Salvador, and Zarate founded a new settlement on the
ruins of the old. Triumph, however, was short-lived, for the Indians
remained as fiercely persevering as ever, and three years later their
aggressive tactics caused the establishment to be abandoned once
again.
In 1603 it is said that Hernando Arias de Saavedra, the first
colonial-born Governor of the River Plate, led an expedition of five
hundred men against the Charrúas. Hernandarias, by which name the
Governor was popularly known, was a famous warrior of whose prowess
and feats of arms much is told. For all that, according to report, the
defeat of the Spanish force was so complete that only Hernandarias,
thanks to his tremendous personal strength, escaped from the field
alive. It is probable, however, that this version of the fight is, to
say the least of it, exaggerated.
The next move of Hernandarias in the direction of the Banda Oriental
was of a more pacific nature. With a rare touch of wisdom and
foresight he shipped from Buenos Aires to Colonia across the river one
hundred head of cattle, and a like number of horses and mares. These,
sent adrift to roam at their own sweet will in the new country,
multiplied at least as fast as had been anticipated. The animals in
question undoubtedly stand as the nucleus of the pastoral riches of
to-day. Thus Hernandarias sent out wealth to the land that was closed
to his men in order that it should seed and multiply until the time
came for the European to take it over with the country itself.
In this earlier era of River Plate history the march of civilisation
had been arrested at the first step in Uruguay on each occasion on
which it had been undertaken. It was not until the beginning of the
seventeenth century that success attended the endeavours of the
Spaniards. In 1618 the first missionaries entered Uruguay. The
Franciscan fathers Bernardo de Guzman, Villavicencio, and Aldao landed
in that year at the mouth of the Rio, and converted to Christianity
many members of the more peaceably disposed tribes. In 1624 Bernardo
de Guzman founded the first Uruguayan Jesuit settlement, Santo Domingo
de Soriano, and a little later the missions of Espinillo, Viboras, and
Aldao were established in the present provinces of Soriano and
Colonia. Larger and more important missions were shortly afterwards
founded in the north, and formed a more or less integral portion of
the great Jesuit field in Paraguay. At one time there were no less
than thirty-seven of these stations existing within the frontiers of
the old Banda Oriental as they were then defined. In consequence of
the later Brazilian encroachments, however, the sites of only seven of
these--San Francisco de Borga, San Nicolas, San Juan Bautista, San
Luis Gonzaga, San Miguel, San Lorenzo, and Santa Angel--lie within the
boundaries of the present Republic.
While in the north of Uruguay the Indians, taught by the missionaries,
were now beginning to occupy themselves with agriculture and grazing,
in the south the herds introduced by Hernandarias were multiplying
amazingly. These were responsible for the visits of many who came over
from Argentina to slay the cattle and to collect their hides. They
were licensed by the Cabildo of Buenos Aires, who received a third of
the profits. In order to facilitate this traffic in hides, these
_Faeneros_, as they were termed, gradually established themselves upon
the banks of the Uruguay and its tributaries, and upon the ocean
coast. Thus the names of Cufré, Pavón, Toledo, Pando, Solis,
Maldonado, and many others have been bequeathed to the soil by the
merchant adventurers who trafficked in those spots, since each named
his settlement after himself.
No little competition was afforded these Faeneros by the
_Changadores_, adventurers of a more reckless order who made their
incursions into the country without licence and against the law.
Corresponding precisely to the buccaneers of the farther north, they
slew where opportunity offered, taking refuge in Brazil when pursued,
until their growing numbers enabled them from time to time to offer
armed resistance to the officers of the Crown sent to chastise them.
Attracted by this commerce, pirates, whether of Portuguese or other
nationality, would occasionally make descents, and would raid and
harry the cattle in their turn. The Indians, for their part, were not
slow in availing themselves of this new and convenient source of
livelihood, and, according to a Uruguayan writer became "carnivorous
from necessity and equestrian from force of imitation." In 1680 a more
serious danger threatened the Banda Oriental. At the beginning of that
year a Portuguese fleet came to anchor off the island of San Gabriel.
Eight hundred soldiers and a number of colonist families were
disembarked at Colonia del Sacramento on the mainland, where they
founded a township. On learning of this invasion the Governor of
Buenos Aires, José de Garro, immediately demanded the evacuation of
the place. As a reply to this request, Lobo, the Portuguese commander,
triumphantly produced a map on which Colonia was represented as in
Brazilian territory. A strenuous geographical discussion ensued, at
the conclusion of which Garro, having failed to convince the intruders
of the inaccuracy of the chart by more subtle arguments, resolved to
expel the enemy by force.
With this end in view he obtained the loan of three thousand Indians
from the Jesuits, who were by this time becoming accustomed to the
lending of men and arms for such patriotic purposes. With this force,
stiffened by the presence of three hundred Spaniards, he captured the
hostile settlement, taking prisoners the Portuguese Governor and
garrison.
It is related that the Spanish general had prepared a striking _ruse
de guerre_ that was to serve in this assault. Four thousand loose
horses were to be driven to the front of the charging forces, and upon
these animals the first devastation of the artillery fire of the
defenders was to expend itself. The Indians, however, whose destined
place was in the vanguard, raised some powerful objections to this
scheme of attack. Considering with reason that a backward rush of the
wounded and terrified beasts--like that of the elephants of a previous
age--would promise greater disaster to themselves than to the enemy,
they protested against the living bulwark with its many possibilities.
Thus the town was captured without the aid of the horses, and the
first of the many combats that reddened the shore of Colonia ended in
favour of Spain.
This triumph was short-lived. In 1681 Carlos II. of Spain in a weak
moment signed a treaty by which Colonia was given back to Portugal, to
be held by her until a definite decision could be arrived at
concerning the vexed question of ownership. In the meanwhile it was
arranged that the geographical arguments should be settled by the
pontifical authorities, whose expert knowledge upon the point was
doubtful. The Portuguese, moreover, in order to obtain an added salve
to their dignity, stipulated that Garro should be deprived of his
post. This was complied with; but the result did not in the least
coincide with the Portuguese expectations. Garro himself must have
smiled broadly when he learned that he was deprived of his command at
Buenos Aires in order to take over the superior governorship of Chile!
In 1702 a campaign was waged against the Indians. The tactics of the
majority of the tribes had remained consistently aggressive, and their
predatory interest in the commerce of hides and dried meat had
developed to a pitch inconvenient to the settlers. The war, although
its scope did not include the entire aboriginal population, was one of
extermination so far as it went, and at its conclusion the sections of
the Charrúas, Bohanes, and Yaros in the neighbourhood of the River Yi
had practically ceased to exist.
In the meanwhile Colonia, in the hands of the Portuguese, had become
the centre of contraband operations by means of which merchandise was
smuggled into the sternly closed port of Buenos Aires. As a point of
vantage it served so admirably for this purpose, and so greatly to the
profit of both the Portuguese and of the more unscrupulous residents
of Buenos Aires, that in 1705 Philip V. of Spain ordered its recapture
in earnest.
For this purpose two thousand Spaniards and four thousand Jesuit
Indians assembled. After a six months' strenuous siege of the place
the Portuguese garrison fled in a fleet that had been sent to their
rescue, and Colonia passed back into the hands of the Spaniards. But
the vicissitudes of the spot were not yet at an end. Oblivious of the
past, Philip V. by the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 ceded the town to the
Portuguese. Garcia Ros, the Governor of Buenos Aires, was of sterner
mould. Taking advantage of a loosely worded clause in the treaty, he
limited the Portuguese ownership of the soil to the radius of a
cannon-shot from the plaza of the town. By this means the
inconvenience of the occupation was to a certain extent neutralised.
[Illustration: A GAUCHO RACE: THE START.]
[Illustration: A GAUCHO RACE: THE FINISH.
To face p. 44.]
About this time negro slaves were first introduced from Africa into
the provinces of the River Plate. This measure had been originally
urged by the famous Father Bartolomé de las Casas with a view of
augmenting the local force of labour, and thus of alleviating the
condition of the aboriginal races that in many parts were becoming
exterminated on account of the excess of toil imposed upon them. This
state of affairs, as a matter of fact, did not obtain in the Banda
Oriental, where Indian and Spaniard stood entirely apart. Nevertheless
an influx of negroes occurred in the province, and--though nothing can
be said in favour of the morality of the proceeding--there is no
doubt that, once arrived, their presence tended to benefit the
industries of the land.
The period now was one of considerable unrest throughout the Spanish
main. For some while the adventurers of other nations, seeking a share
in the great riches of the South American provinces, had been knocking
loudly at the gates that remained closely barred to them. Privateering
and raids upon the coast had become more and more frequent, while the
Spanish galleons, in continuous dread of attack, only put to sea for
the purpose of long voyages in imposing numbers and beneath weighty
escort. The River Plate, owing to the practical absence of the mineral
traffic from its frontier, suffered far fewer depredations than fell
to the lot of the gold and silver bearing countries to the north.
Yet the homelier riches of the pastoral districts were becoming known
and appreciated to a certain extent. In consequence of this the waters
of the River Plate from time to time had many unwelcome visitors.
Privateers of all nationalities, although their enforced ignorance of
the navigation forbade them to penetrate for any distance up the
waters of the great streams themselves in the face of local
opposition, harassed the coast-line, and occasionally landed in more
or less formidable parties. One of the most notable of these was a
French adventurer of the name of Moreau, whose buccaneering ideas were
considerably in advance of those of the majority who were wont to
harry these particular districts. Moreau's plan of campaign, in fact,
savoured rather of regular warfare than of the more usual methods of
the rapid raidings and retreats. Thus in 1720 he disembarked with a
body of men and four cannon at Maldonado, where he fortified himself,
and began to amass a great store of hides. Surprised by the Spaniards,
he was forced to take to his ships in haste, with the loss of his
guns and of his stock-in-trade. A few months later the Frenchman
returned, accompanied this time by a force of over a hundred
well-armed men, and prepared to settle himself for an extended stay in
the country. Curiously enough, it appears to have been the unfortunate
Moreau's fate to reverse the fighting rôles of the buccaneer and local
resident, since, instead of surprising others, it was he who was
caught unawares on either occasion. The termination of his second
visit was more fatal than that of his first. Attacked when in an
unprepared condition by the Spaniards, the defeat of the buccaneer
force was complete. Moreau himself was slain, together with the
greater part of his company, while the remainder were taken prisoners.
Freed from this source of danger, the inhabitants of the Banda
Oriental were not long left without anxiety on another head. The
Portuguese had never ceased to covet the rich land that might be made
to serve as such a valuable and temperate pendant to their torrid
northern areas. The River Plate stood to them in the light of a Rhine,
and at the end of 1723 they awoke once more into aggressive activity.
An expedition then left Rio de Janeiro consisting of four ships with
three hundred soldiers. The force sailed to the point where the town
of Montevideo now stands, at that time a lonely spot whose commercial
and strategic importance was then for the first time discovered. Here
the expedition landed, and in a short while its leaders had negotiated
with the natives whom they found in the district, had supplied them
with arms, and had founded a settlement. On learning of this
aggression the Buenos Aires authorities determined to resist the
attempt in earnest. Gavala, the Spanish Governor, collected a powerful
fleet, and sailed in haste to the spot. The Portuguese, ascertaining
the strength of the attacking force, abandoned their new settlement,
and made off to the north without awaiting its arrival. Gavala then
took possession of Montevideo in turn, and took measures in order to
prevent a repetition of the incident. To this end he constructed a
powerful battery on the spot, and supplied the fort with a garrison of
a hundred Spanish troops, and with a thousand native auxiliaries.
CHAPTER III
HISTORY--_continued_
Founding of the city of Montevideo--Its first
inhabitants--Inducement offered to colonists--The early days of
the town--Successful rising of the Indians in the
neighbourhood--Victory of the natives--Montevideo saved by Jesuit
intervention--The Portuguese invade the northern provinces--The
first Governor of Montevideo--Treaties and territorial
cessions--Dissatisfaction of Jesuit Indians--Their defeat by
combined Spanish and Portuguese forces--Vicissitudes of
Colonia--The danger of hostile residents--A concentration camp of
the old days--Expulsion of the Jesuits--Some incidents of the
wars with the Portuguese--The foundation of urban centres--The
English occupy themselves with the whaling industry on the
coast--Discouragement of the enterprise by the King of Spain--A
corps of Blandengues is created--The British invasion--Political
effects of the occupation--The war of independence--Montevideo as
the seat of the Spanish viceroyalty--Commencement of the
agitation for freedom in Uruguay.
On the 24th of December, 1726, was founded the city proper of
Montevideo. Its inception was sufficiently modest. Indeed, the spot
commenced its urban existence on a human diet of seven families
translated from Buenos Aires for the purpose. A little later twenty
families were brought from the Canary Islands to add to the humble
population. It is not a little curious to read how, even in those
early days, the spirit of colonial enterprise was already manifest in
the way that is now considered most up-to-date. Intending immigrants
to Montevideo were each offered free transport from Buenos Aires,
plots in the city and holdings in the Campo, two hundred head of
cattle, one hundred sheep, and free cartage of building material. They
were offered, beyond, tools, agricultural implements, and a remission
of taxes for a certain period. The whole savours strongly of a modern
immigration department. In any case, the inducements offered were
considerable.
Two years after its foundation Montevideo received an important
reinforcement of citizens, when thirty families from the Canary
Islands and from Galicia were introduced into the place. Thus the
small town was already beginning to make its mark upon the surrounding
country, and at the end of 1728 it could count over two hundred
inhabitants, four hundred troops, and a thousand Indians employed
principally in the works of fortification. A couple of years later it
was deemed worthy of a corporation.
Nevertheless, in this very year the growing settlement all but came to
a bloody and untimely end. A rising of the Charrúa Indians in the
immediate neighbourhood of Montevideo resisted all the efforts made to
subdue it. Over one hundred Spaniards were slain and the royal forces
put to rout. The natives, drunk with success, were on the eve of
entering Montevideo and of slaughtering the inhabitants, when a Jesuit
missionary, Padre Herán, intervened, and prevailed on the Indians to
desist from their purpose.
Scarcely had this danger passed when another, and remoter, came into
being to take its place. The restless Portuguese having given peace to
the Banda Oriental for ten years, doubtless considered the period
unduly prolonged, and thus invaded the Rio Grande on the northern
frontier. Lavala's successor, Don Miguel de Salcedo, a ruler as
impotent as the first had been strong, contented himself with
besieging Colonia as a counter-stroke, while the Portuguese forces
were left free to complete the conquest of Rio Grande. This they
continued to hold, despite the terms of an armistice arranged in 1737
between Spain and Portugal.
For ten years after this no historical event of importance occurred to
disturb the progress of Uruguay. In 1747 a rising of the Indians was
utterly crushed at Queguay, and two years later Montevideo, now
acknowledged as a town of importance, was accorded a Governor of its
own. Don José Joaquin de Viana was the first appointed to the post.
His opinion of its urgency is evident from the fact that he only took
office in 1751.
By the treaty of 1750 King Ferdinand VI. of Spain ceded to Portugal
the northern stretches comprising the Jesuit Missions of Uruguay and
the present province of Rio Grande in exchange for Colonia. As a
stroke of commercial diplomacy the bargain was undoubtedly a failure,
since by its means Spain not only lost for ever two flourishing
provinces, but, in addition, the Jesuits and their Indians were
obliged to forsake the field of their labours, and to migrate in
search of fresh country.
This, however, was not the case with all alike. A large number of the
Indians, deeply attached to the neighbourhoods wherein lay their
homes, refused to follow the missionaries, and in the end resisted the
unwelcome decree. Pitted against the combined forces of Buenos Aires,
Uruguay, and Brazil, their cause had not a momentary chance of
success. After suffering various defeats, they were finally routed and
almost exterminated at Caaibate in 1756, when the native loss amounted
to 154 prisoners and 1,200 dead, at the very moderate Spanish cost of
4 dead and 41 wounded. The character of the action is sufficiently
evident from the butcher's bill. A certain number of the surviving
Indians were taken to Maldonado, and, settling there, formed the
nucleus of the present town.
In the meanwhile Colonia, whose inhabitants by this time must have
been rendered giddy by the continuous substitution of bunting, had
again passed into the possession of the Portuguese. The recurrence of
war between these and the Spaniards gave Pedro de Ceballos, an able
and energetic Governor of Buenos Aires, an opportunity to act. In 1762
he surprised Colonia, captured it, and was in the act of invading the
ceded territory of Rio Grande when the Treaty of Paris came
inopportunely into being to stay him in his path of conquest, and to
give back Colonia, that bone of contention, to the Portuguese once
more.
This occurred in 1763, and Ceballos was powerless to struggle further
against a fate that caused victory to be followed by the loss of
provinces. Nevertheless, he took various measures towards the
preservation of the remaining territory. One of the most important of
these was concerned with the numerous Portuguese families that were
settled along the eastern frontier of the country. Having reason to
believe that these were hatching further warlike schemes in
conjunction with the authorities across the border, Ceballos caused
them to be taken south, and to be collected together in a small
settlement in the neighbourhood of Maldonado, where they could remain
under the watchful eye of the Uruguayan officials.
In 1767 the expulsion of the Jesuits from South America by King Carlos
III. of Spain proved of no little moment to the Banda Oriental, since
many of the Indians, wandering shepherdless and at a loss, came
southwards, and became part and parcel of Uruguay. It was by means of
twelve of these Indian families that the city of Paysandú, amongst
several others, was founded, while the fields of Montevideo and
Maldonado derived many new cultivators from this source.
It was but a very few years later that the trouble with the Portuguese
broke out once again. Indeed, it would seem that indulgence in border
feud had now become an ineradicable habit on the part of both sides.
By the year 1774 the inhabitants of Brazil had once again passed over
the north-western frontier, and had spread themselves over the country
in such numbers as to render their presence a menace to Uruguay. In
order to remedy the situation, Vertiz, the Governor of Buenos Aires,
crossed from Buenos Aires to Montevideo, from which city he sallied
out northwards with an army of four thousand men. Meeting with the
Portuguese forces in the neighbourhood of the Santa Tecla range, he
routed them and pursued them as far as the River Yacuy, depriving them
of the lands they had usurped.
On the return of Vertiz to Buenos Aires, Portuguese aggression burst
forth once again. Advancing from the east this time, they were
repulsed in an attack on the town of San Pedro; but in 1776, returning
with an army of two thousand men, they captured the place and
possessed themselves of the district. The inevitable counter-stroke on
the part of the Spaniards was to follow. Indeed, the scale of the
struggle waxed steadily with the growth of the respective countries.
Brazil was already the seat of a viceroyalty, and immediately after
this last invasion the provinces of the River Plate were raised to the
same status. Ceballos, then on a visit to Spain, was created first
Viceroy, and was dispatched from Cadiz with a powerful fleet and with
over nine thousand troops to avenge the incursion.
[Illustration: RUINED COLONIA.]
[Illustration: ARTIGAS' MONUMENT.
To face p. 52.]
With such forces as these at his disposal the task of Ceballos was
an easy one. The Island of Santa Catalina was captured without a blow,
and that bone of contention, Colonia, surrendered perforce after a few
days of siege. Above its walls for the fifth time the flag of Spain
was hoisted afresh. On this occasion the ill-omened place was destined
to pay for the memories of the past, and its walls suffered in place
of the garrison. In order to remove temptation from the minds of the
northern enemy, Ceballos razed the elaborate fortifications to the
ground and destroyed the more pretentious houses, amongst these being
some of the best architectural specimens of the River Plate.
Having effected this, Ceballos was passing northwards with the
intention of bringing back the Rio Grande Province once more within
the fold of Buenos Aires, when his march was stopped by the news of
another of those treaties between the mother-countries that seemed to
materialise with unfailing regularity at moments so ill-timed for the
interests of the Spanish colonies. By the terms of this Spain was left
with the mines of Colonia, while the Island of Santa Catalina and the
greater part of Rio Grande were ceded definitely to Portugal.
After this ensued an exceptionally lengthy era of peace, which was
marked by the immigration of many families from Galicia and from the
Canary Islands, and by the foundation of numerous towns, amongst these
latter Canelones, Piedras, Rosario, Mercedes, Pando, Santa Lucia, San
José, and Minas. As to the capital itself, by the year 1788 Montevideo
had become a fairly important place, and could count a population of
6,695 Spaniards, 1,386 negro slaves, 562 liberated negroes, and 715
half-castes and Indians. A few years later the population was much
augmented by the introduction of important numbers of negro slaves, a
traffic that continued intermittently until 1825, when its
continuance was prohibited by law.
At the end of the century an industry was initiated that might have
led to important commercial results but for the action of the Spanish
home authorities. The waters off the coast of Maldonado had long been
famed as a whaling-ground, and at this period permission was given to
the Englishmen engaged in the traffic to found establishments both at
this place and at Punta de la Ballena. The result was a rapid but
fleeting prosperity at both these points, since after a while the
attitude of the Court of Spain changed. Fearful of the influence of
the English upon the Uruguayans, the authorities offered to the new
colonists the option of becoming Roman Catholics and of swearing
allegiance to the King of Spain, or of abandoning the settlement. The
latter alternative was chosen by the whalers, and Maldonado and Punta
de la Ballena, in consequence, sank back into the lethargy of
industrial torpor. The instance is only one of the many in which the
mother-country satisfied its conscience at the expense of its colony.
* * * * *
A corps of _Blandengues_, or Lancers, was formed in 1797, whose
duties, beyond their military performances, were varied to a degree.
Thus, in addition to the occasional brushes with the Indians that fell
to their lot, they were employed as excise officials against the
smugglers, as escorts of high officials, as ordinary police, and as
official messengers. The corps was composed of picked men, and in its
ranks served José Gervasio Artigas and José Rondeau, both bearers of
names that were destined to become famous in Uruguayan history.
This body of cavalry was destined to be employed on active service
very soon after its formation. In 1801 the Portuguese became active
once more, and the first year of the new century was marked by their
occupation of land in the north-west of the Banda Oriental. After
various actions, Rondeau, with a force of Blandengues and dragoons,
defeated the invaders and won back the greater part of the lost
territory.
In 1806 occurred the first of the British invasions which, although
materially fruitless in the end so far as our own country was
concerned, were destined to influence the minds of the colonials and
the future of the River Plate Provinces to a greater extent than is
generally realised. The circumstances of the invasion that won to the
British Crown for a very short while not only Montevideo, Maldonado,
Colonia, and numerous lesser Uruguayan towns, but Buenos Aires in
addition, afford bitter reading. Thanks to the colossal incapacity--to
give his conduct no harder name--of the British Commander-in-Chief,
General Whitlocke, the last troops of the British army of occupation
had sailed away northwards from Montevideo by the beginning of
September, 1807.
Although the matter ended for the British with the departure of the
troops from the River Plate, the aftermath of the event took very
definite shape in the Spanish colonies themselves. Not only had the
inhabitants of the provinces learned their own power, but--more
especially in the case of Montevideo--the seeds of commercial liberty
had been sown amongst the local merchants and traders by the English
men of business who had descended upon the place beneath the
protection of the army. That the final leave-taking between the
English and the Uruguayans should have been accompanied by actual
cordiality and regrets is surely an astonishing circumstance that
affords great credit to both sides. There can be no doubt, however,
that this mutual esteem was in the first place fostered by an
appreciation on the part of the residents of British laws and methods
of trading.
Whether the germs thus left behind would have fructified so rapidly
but for the chaotic condition of the mother-country is doubtful. As it
was, scarcely had the smoke of these actions cleared away when it
became necessary for the patriots of the River Plate Province to look
once again to their primings in view of still more vital occurrences.
* * * * *
I do not propose to tell here the full story of the rebellion of the
River Plate Provinces and of the revolution that ended in the complete
overthrow of Spanish power in South America, since I have already
roughly sketched these events elsewhere. So far as the main events are
concerned, the transition from the colonial stage to the condition of
independence was slower in the Banda Oriental than was the process
upon the eastern bank of the great river. In Julio of 1810, when the
Junta of Buenos Aires had already established itself to cast off the
yoke of Spain, Montevideo still remained faithful to the
mother-country, and rejected the advances of the Argentines.
Thus at the beginning of 1811 Montevideo found itself, if only for a
short while, the seat of the viceroyalty of the La Plata Provinces,
and from that point of vantage Elio, the Viceroy, declared war upon
Buenos Aires. Almost immediately, however, the spirit of independence
became manifest in Uruguay itself, and it is at this juncture that
occurs the name that has perhaps stamped itself most deeply of all
upon the history of the Banda Oriental.
CHAPTER IV
HISTORY--_continued_
The advent of Artigas--First revolutionary movements in
Uruguay--The appointment of leaders--First successes of the
Uruguayans--The germs of future jealousies--Montevideo besieged
by the patriot forces--An incident of the investment--Spain
appeals to Portugal for assistance--Invasion of Uruguay by the
latter--The Buenos Aires Government concludes a treaty with the
Spanish Viceroy--Raising of the siege of Montevideo--Position of
Uruguay--Discontent of the Orientales--The exodus of the
nation--Incidents of emigration to the Argentine
shore--Montevideo in Spanish hands--The country overrun by
Portuguese--Buenos Aires effects a treaty with the
latter--Resumption of the campaign against the
Spaniards--Disputes between the Argentine and Uruguayan
leaders--Montevideo again besieged--Some battle
incidents--Artigas reappears on the scene--Drastic measures
towards an ally--A national Congress convened--Oriental deputies
rebuffed by Buenos Aires--Artigas withdraws from the siege of
Montevideo--Price set upon his head--War declared between Uruguay
and Buenos Aires--The Argentine littoral provinces adhere to
Artigas--Fall of Montevideo.
The personality of Artigas, the central figure of the Uruguayan
revolutionary era, is fully described in a later chapter. It is
necessary here, therefore, merely to give the record of historical
occurrences, without laying stress on the individuality of the
Oriental leader, a matter that is not easy of accomplishment, since
the figure of Artigas seems to have dominated the field of action in
whatever direction it lay.
Shortly after the outbreak of the revolution Artigas, who at the time
was in the Spanish service, joined the patriot ranks after a violent
quarrel with his brigadier. The Oriental fled across the river to
Buenos Aires. Here he received a warm welcome, and was supplied with
armed men and financial aid in order to foment the movement in his
native country. Beyond this he received the official rank of
lieutenant-colonel in the Army of Independence.
In the meanwhile the first stirrings of the war that was to come had
already shaken Uruguay. With its capital, Montevideo, now the seat of
the viceroyalty, the small province had remained more or less
quiescent, lying, as it were, directly beneath the eye of Imperial
Spain itself. But the awakening, when it occurred, was followed by a
strenuous outbreak of activity. The first important rising took place
at Paysandú, on the banks of the Uruguay River. This was crushed by
the aid of the Spanish war vessels that lay in the stream. But the
inhabitants, not in the least discouraged by this first check, rose
again in greater numbers than before. A body of one hundred gauchos,
ill-armed as it was, captured the town of Mercedes, and then, with
augmented forces, marched on Soriano, which surrendered to them.
This success was the signal for a general rising throughout the
country. At the beginning of 1811 the Spanish garrison found
themselves in the midst of a definitely hostile population. From one
frontier to another bodies of men were gathering together, forging
weapons from agricultural tools, and arming themselves as best they
could in order that they might take their share in the struggle for
liberation that was already in active being. In March the towns of
Maldonado, San Carlos, and Minas rose, and the country just to the
east of Montevideo itself threw off the Spanish authority and came
into possession of the insurrectionist companies.
On the 11th of April, 1811, Artigas returned to Uruguay in command of
150 men of the regiment of Patricios, and disembarked in the
neighbourhood of that hub of all strife, Colonia. Here he was welcomed
by a great number of armed countryfolk, who acclaimed him as chief of
the Orientales. The movement now fairly under way, he established his
headquarters at Mercedes. In the meanwhile the germ of future
combinations had already been created by the appointment on the part
of the Buenos Aires patriots of Rondeau as commander of the
Uruguayans. Belgrano, first named for the post, had, disgraced, been
deprived of it since his defeat by the Paraguayans.
Artigas's first collision with the royal forces occurred at Paso del
Rey, the Spanish army being completely defeated. Reinforced by a
second victorious column, under Benavidez, the Uruguayans followed up
the retreating regulars, and forced them to surrender.
Artigas, the _Jefe de los Orientales_, had now at his disposal a force
of over a thousand men. Meeting at Las Piedras with a royalist army of
1,230 men, the valour of the new levies was soon put to the test.
Although the Spaniards possessed the advantage of artillery, they were
in the end, after a desperate and prolonged fight that endured for
half a dozen hours, defeated and forced to surrender.
The doings of the patriotic force came as a blow to the Spanish
authorities at Montevideo. Urged by the first tremblings of the
viceregal throne beneath him, Elio cast about him for an inducement to
turn Artigas from his victorious course. To this end he sent
messengers offering the chieftain a heavy monetary bribe to desert the
patriot cause, and to take service again in the royalist cause.
Whether any offering of any kind would have tempted Artigas is
doubtful. But in any case the tender was eloquent of Elio's want of
acquaintance with the Gaucho temperament, to which the possession of
mere cash constitutes a matter of utter indifference. As it was,
Artigas treated the offer with angry contempt.
The hour of the patriot leader's triumph was not without its sting.
The battle of Las Piedras had won him the rank of colonel in the
revolutionary forces, it is true; but Belgrano, after Suipacha, had
risen to that of a general. And, although both the Buenos Aires
Government and the official _Gazette_, using the soft soap of courtesy
titles, referred continuously to Artigas by the honorary term of
"General," the bitterness remained to give rise to future strife.
Three days after his victory Artigas marched to Montevideo, and laid
siege to the headquarters itself of the Spanish régime. As a
preliminary to the operation an exchange of prisoners, wounded and
whole, was effected. Artigas then formally demanded the surrender of
the garrison; Elio responded by various sorties, all of which were
repulsed. The beginning of the siege was marked by a dramatic episode.
Suspecting the revolutionary sympathies of some Franciscan monks
domiciled in Montevideo, Elio decided to expel these from the city.
The Franciscans were led through the streets with the utmost silence
at the dead of night. Arrived at the gates, the officer in charge of
the escort pointed with his sword at some sparks of light that
twinkled faintly in the distance. "Go you with the butchers!" he
commanded, and the priests passed out silently into the darkness to
join the forces of Artigas. Their influence was doubtless exhilarating
to the patriot cause, but there is no evidence to show that it was
employed in the cause of mercy. A few days later forty Uruguayan
families suffered a similar fate.
In the meanwhile Benavidez had laid siege to Colonia, the garrison of
which, after a month's resistance, escaped by river to Montevideo. It
was upon this latter place that the fortune of the Spanish dominion
now hung. The scale of warfare was increasing in proportion to the
importance of the issue. Shortly after the arrival of the
reinforcements supplied by the Royalist fugitives from Colonia,
Rondeau, in command of the Argentine troops, arrived to take charge of
the attacking force, that now amounted to four thousand men. Artigas,
now one amongst many, dropped in rank from commander to leader of
horse.
Rondeau had contrived to drag two heavy guns to the spot, and with
these he opened fire upon Montevideo. Galled by a continuous
bombardment, Elio took a more desperate step than was justified even
by his situation. Carlota, the Queen of Portugal and the sister of
Ferdinand VII. of Spain, had been established in Rio de Janeiro since
the invasion of the peninsula by the Napoleonic armies. To her the
Viceroy, seeing the last foothold of power slipping from beneath him,
sent an urgent message for assistance.
Ere the response to this appeal became evident the condition of the
beleagured town had changed. Discouraged by the serious defeat at
Huaqui of the army of Peru, the revolutionary leaders of Buenos Aires
were already contemplating a retirement from before Montevideo, when
the blow engineered by Elio took effect. A swarm of Portuguese, under
command of General Diego de Souza, entered the Banda Oriental from the
north with the purpose of overrunning the country. The Buenos Aires
Government, appalled by the new turn that affairs had taken, made the
utmost haste to conclude an armistice with Elio. By the terms of the
treaty the patriot forces were to retire from Montevideo, and Spanish
authority was to be recognised throughout Uruguay in exchange for the
return of Souza's forces to Brazil. Thus Elio's unscrupulous move had
succeeded for the time being, and the first siege of Montevideo came
to an end. A month after its conclusion Elio retired to Spain. The
command he had left was now no longer worthy of the highest rank, and
the departed Viceroy was succeeded by Vigodet in the minor capacity of
Captain-General.
Artigas had from the first bitterly opposed this treaty, by the terms
of which the Orientales were to be left at the mercy of the Royalists.
That he had right upon his side from his own point of view is
undeniable, although it is difficult to see by what other means the
Buenos Aires Government, caught between the Spaniards and the
Brazilians, could have extricated themselves from their dilemma. The
treaty once concluded, however, Artigas initiated a move that in
itself proved the greatness of the man.
A general assembly of the patriotic Oriental families was sounded.
Obedient to the call, they mustered in numbers that amounted to over
thirteen thousand men, women, and children. Then followed the exodus,
ordained by the stress of events, of which Artigas was the human
instrument. Escorted by three thousand soldiers, the march of the
families began. Carts filled with women and children, herds of cattle,
troops of horses, companies of pack-mules, to say nothing of the
riders themselves--the tragic procession toiled its long length
northwards through the summer dust clouds struck up by the hoofs and
feet from the crude earth roads. Mingled with the slowly advancing
ranks, and lending still greater variety to the whole, went four
hundred faithful Charrúa Indians, armed with bolas and spears.
Over the rolling hills of Uruguay struggled the human thread of
emigrants. Death waited on the column in the shape of heat and
hardship. But, though many children and many aged folk fell by the
way, the great majority won through in safety to Salto, on the banks
of the Uruguay; crossed the great river in boats, and took up their
abode on the Argentine shore, awaiting with anxiety the hour that
might permit their return to their native land.
In the meantime matters were passing from bad to worse in Uruguay.
Once within its frontiers, the temptations of the promised land
overcame any scruple on the part of the Portuguese concerning a too
rigid adherence to the terms of the treaty. Under the convenient
pretext of pacifying an already deserted country, Souza's army overran
the smiling Campo, capturing towns and plundering where they might.
The Spanish royalists, for their part, remained passive, and the sole
opposition with which the Portuguese armies had to count was that
rendered by the forces of Artigas, sent by him across the river. But,
although they won a victory or two, the slender patriot bands were
unable to stem the tide of invasion to any appreciable degree.
It is a little curious to remark what an endless wealth of
complications appear to have attended every political move at this
period. In this particular instance the introduction of a new element
was productive of unexpected results. Thus, when the Buenos Aires
Government, realising the gravity of the situation, proposed to send
reinforcements to the assistance of Artigas, the move was checked by
Elio, the Spanish commander, who, forgetful of the ties of blood,
threatened to join cause with the Portuguese in the event of any such
intervention. As an appropriate climax to the chaotic situation, the
Buenos Aires powers turned to Paraguay for assistance. The latter,
inclined to assent, began negotiation with Artigas direct, and, since
the Argentine Government resented this slight upon its authority, and
the negotiations themselves failed to fructify, the only outcome of
importance was an increase in the mutual jealousies that already
existed between Artigas and the Argentines.
Shortly after this, however, the tables were turned upon the
Spaniards. An able stroke of diplomacy on the part of the famous
Argentine, Belgrano, supported by British influence, resulted in a
treaty with the Portuguese. Thus the Royalists, hoist by a second
edition of their own petard, lay without allies at the mercy of the
patriot forces.
Preparations for a fresh siege of Montevideo were at once begun. Don
Manuel Sarratea, appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Argentine Army,
marched to the Entre Rios shore to join his columns with those of
Artigas. The inevitable jealousies between the Argentine and Oriental
leaders came to a head almost immediately. Apart from a deep personal
antagonism that separated the pair, a yet more potent reason made the
rupture inevitable. Sarratea, representing the triumvirate of Buenos
Aires, was determined to deal with Uruguay as a province of the new
Republic of Argentina. Artigas, on the other hand, although willing to
acknowledge the authority at Buenos Aires from a federal point of
view, insisted upon the independence of the State.
It was in these circumstances that Sarratea descended upon Artigas's
mixed camp of soldiers and Uruguayan emigrant families upon the banks
of the Uruguay. The results of the meeting were soon evident. Artigas,
complaining bitterly that Sarratea had seduced from his allegiance
not only his troops but the civilian elements of the settlement,
resigned his colonelcy, and separated his division from the Argentine
forces. The troops now remaining to him numbered rather less than a
thousand men, under the command of Otorgués, Rivera, and Manuel
Artigas.
In the meanwhile Sarratea, anxious that the credit for the capture of
Montevideo should fall to his lot, had dispatched a force under
Rondeau to lay siege once again to the town of contention that
represented the headquarters of the Royalists. Arriving at the spot,
he found that his task had already been forestalled to a certain
extent by an independent Oriental, José Eugenio Culta. The latter
_caudillo_, spurred onwards by the numerous examples of reckless
initiative offered by the period, had collected a band of three
hundred Gauchos. With these kindred spirits he was busily occupied in
harassing the garrison to no little purpose.
With the arrival of Rondeau, in October of 1812, the siege of the
devoted city began on an imposing scale, the army employed for the
purpose soon amounting to two thousand men. Destined to drag out its
length for almost two years, the first few months of the siege were
marked by two events of importance. Vigodet, having received
reinforcements from Spain, made a vigorous sally on the last day of
the year. At early dawn sixteen hundred men burst out from the gates
of the city, surprising and routing the besieging forces as they went,
until they won the summit of the Cerrito hill itself, the headquarters
of the American forces. With the yellow and red of Spain flaunting
from this the Royalists forgot all but their success, and expended
their energies in a jubilation that cost them dear. For Rondeau,
gathering together his fugitive troops with an amazing rapidity, fell
like a thunderbolt upon the cheering crowd, whose joyful clamour
turned to groans and death gasps as the stricken mass went reeling
back into the city.
An event of still greater importance occurred during the first month
of the following year. Sarratea himself then journeyed to the camp
before Montevideo. But he had company behind that he could not have
failed to regard with considerable unease. Notwithstanding his late
check, Artigas still remained a power to be reckoned with. Indeed, his
vitality had risen to the occasion; he had flung out his summons far
and wide, and his power was now infinitely greater than before. Thus,
when Sarratea set out for Montevideo, Artigas followed grimly in his
wake, having now no mean instrument by means of which to assert his
rights--an army of five thousand men.
Arriving on the heels of his enemy at the point of hostilities,
Artigas was not slow to act. Taking full measure of his advantage, he
sent peremptorily to Rondeau, demanding the immediate dismissal of
Sarratea from his office of Commander-in-Chief. The order thus given
to a subordinate to deal with his superior was quite in accordance
with the spirit of the times.
As Rondeau, however, did not immediately comply, Artigas took a very
simple measure by which to prove that he did not intend to ask in
vain. His Gauchos dashed full gallop into Sarratea's camp, and drove
off with them all the horses that they found within the establishment.
Seeing that a Gaucho army, unhorsed, is as a collection of fish on dry
land, the matter was definitely settled by the act. Sarratea retired
with the best grace he could muster to Buenos Aires, Rondeau remained
in command, and the Oriental and Argentine leaders sat down to
continue the investment of Montevideo, one jealous eye of each upon
his fellow-chief, the other fixed more casually upon the beleaguered
town.
During the comparative lull in active hostilities that followed
Artigas busied himself in the affairs of the State that he was
determined to see fully created. To this end he convened a national
Congress of Uruguayans, of which he was, as a matter of course,
elected President, in addition to being created Military Governor of
the country. One of the first acts of the new Congress was to
advertise its existence by the mission of deputies to the Junta at
Buenos Aires. But, the Junta refusing to recognise either an
independent Uruguay or its agents, the deputies returned home to
spread the tale of the rebuff, and to increase the bitterness that
already lay so deep between the Buenos Aires authorities and Artigas.
In January, 1814, the long series of incessant disputes was brought
abruptly to a head by Artigas. In the dead of night he struck his hide
tents, mounted his men, and his entire force rode away over the hills,
leaving Rondeau and his army to continue the siege of Montevideo as
best they might. The Buenos Aires authorities, furious at the
defection, placed a price upon Artigas's head; and the Gaucho leader,
equally incensed at this personal ultimatum, retaliated by declaring
open war upon the Junta. Storming against the Buenos Airens, this born
leader of men took his body--valued by his enemies at six thousand
pesos, alive or dead--along the coast of the great river. So
successful were his denunciations and the missions of his ambassadors
that not only the littoral provinces of Entre Rios, Corrientes, and
Santa Fé came spontaneously to his standard, but the comparatively
remote province of Córdoba, following the example of the rest,
proffered its allegiance.
It was not long ere the news of the rupture reached the ears of
Vigodet in Montevideo. Thinking to derive profit from the occasion, he
made a final appeal to throw in his lot with the royal forces. The
Gaucho leader in his refusal is stated to have said that "with the
Porteños [Buenos Airens] there was always time for reconciliation;
with the Spaniards, never!" That the time for the former consummation
was not yet ripe was evidenced by the almost immediate outbreak of
active hostilities between the rival South American parties.
In the meanwhile Montevideo was giving out the last gasp of its
imperial existence. The Spanish fleet that had assisted in its defence
had been destroyed by Admiral Brown, the famous Irishman in Argentine
service. Hunger and the lack of general necessaries both of livelihood
and of war completed the work of arms. On the 20th June, 1814,
Montevideo, after suffering intense privations, capitulated, and with
its fall passed for ever the last vestige of Spanish power from the
provinces of the River Plate.
CHAPTER V
HISTORY--_continued_
Conclusion of Spanish rule--Situation of the victors--Rival
claims--Alvear defeats a Uruguayan force--Montevideo remains in
possession of Buenos Aires--Rural Uruguay supports
Artigas--Alliance of the Argentine littoral provinces with the
Orientales--Some intrigues and battles--Success of the
Uruguayans--Departure from Montevideo of the Buenos Aires
garrison--The Uruguayans enter into possession of their
capital--Some crude methods of government--Trials of the
inhabitants--Growth of Artigas's power--The Buenos Aires
directors undertake a propitiatory measure--A grim human
offering--Attitude of the Uruguayan Protector--Negotiations and
their failure--The civil progress of Uruguay--Formation of
departments--The Portuguese invade the country once
again--Condition of the inhabitants--Fierce resistance to the
invaders--A campaign against heavy odds--The Portuguese army
enters Montevideo--War continued by the provinces--Invasion of
Brazil by the Oriental forces--Crushing defeats suffered by the
army of invasion--Final struggles--The flight of Artigas--Uruguay
passes under Portuguese rule.
The defeated eagle was fluttering slowly homeward with broken wing.
But its departure did not leave the battlefield empty. It was the turn
now of the victorious hawks to rend each other. Alvear had arrived
from Buenos Aires, and was now in charge of the newly won city.
Scarcely had he begun his work of organisation, however, when
Otorgues, Artigas's chief lieutenant, appeared at Las Piedras in the
neighbourhood of the capital, and in the name of his leader demanded
that the place should be handed over to the Uruguayans. Alvear's
answer was unexpected and to the point. Marching his army through the
darkness, he fell upon Otorgues's forces in the middle of the night,
shattering them completely.
Thus the Buenos Aires authorities remained for the time being masters
of the city. As for their sway, the Montevideans broke out into bitter
complaints that the Spanish dominion had been liberal and lenient by
comparison. However this may have been, it is certain that those
families noted for their allegiance to Artigas were subjected to
severe penalties and restrictions.
Nevertheless the situation of the advocates of centralisation had now
become critical. By a curious irony of fate the position of the Junta
was exactly identical with that formerly held by the Spaniards.
Montevideo lay in its power; but the remainder of the Banda Oriental
as well as the Argentine provinces of Entre Rios, Correntes, and Santa
Fé were completely subject to Artigas. Alive to the growing power of
the Protector, the Buenos Aires Government opened negotiations for a
treaty, flinging out in the first place an olive-branch in the shape
of a degree not only relieving the head of the Gaucho leader of the
dollars set upon it, but in addition proclaiming him to the world as
_buen servidor de la patria_--"a worthy servant of the country." A
meeting at Montevideo resulted in the evacuation of Montevideo on the
part of nearly the entire Buenos Aires garrison. These departed by
river; but, instead of returning to Buenos Aires, the troops landed at
Colonia, marched inland to Minas, fell upon Otorgues, whose camp lay
in that district, and completely routed the force of the unsuspecting
lieutenant.
This achieved, the victorious army set out in search of Rivera,
another of Artigas's commanders, who had recently surprised and
destroyed a Buenos Aires column. In this latter leader, however,
Dorrego, the Junta general, met with more than his match, and,
suffering many casualties, was forced to retire to Colonia. Sallying
out from here with reinforcements a little later, he was utterly
defeated, and fled in haste to Corrientes, accompanied by some score
of men who formed the sole remnant of his entire army.
Just as the fall of Montevideo crowned the doom of the Spanish power,
so this final disaster marked the end of the occupation of the town by
the Buenos Aires Government. A little more than a month after the
event the troops of the garrison sailed across to Buenos Aires. The
following day Fernando Otorgues entered the place at the head of his
troops. The advent of the new Military Governor was hailed with
enthusiasm by the inhabitants. The unfurling of Artigas's blue and
white standard with its red bar was answered by illuminations and
fireworks by the citizens.
For the first time in its history the capital of Uruguay lay beneath
the command of a Uruguayan. By one of the first acts of the new régime
a national coat of arms was instituted, and a flaming proclamation
promised nothing short of the millennium. All this would have been
very well had it not been necessary for this new benignity to be put
immediately to the test. It then became evident to the depressed
Montevideans that with each change of rulers their load of evils had
increased. With his talents essentially confined to the field of
battle, there was probably no man in Uruguay who possessed less of the
lamb in his disposition than Otorgues. The temperaments of his
subordinates, reckless at the best of times, had been further excited
by merciless warfare. Thus the inhabitants, at the mercy of the
utterly licentious Gaucho soldiers, continued to groan for relief in
vain.
Artigas himself had not approached the city. From points of vantage
along the great river system he had ceaselessly harassed the forces of
the Junta, until Alvear, its director, goaded to exasperation,
collected into an army every soldier that he could spare, and,
determined to put all to the hazard, sent the imposing expedition
against the Gaucho leader. The adventure involved complete disaster to
the director. Ere it had passed the frontiers of Buenos Aires
Province, the army, encouraged by Artigas, revolted, and its chief,
Colonel Alvarez Thomas, returned to Buenos Aires to depose Alvear,
with whose office he invested himself.
The power of the famous Oriental chief had now reached its zenith. The
new director, Alvarez Thomas, acutely conscious of the Protector's
power, thought of nothing beyond conciliation. Among the measures
employed was one that redounded very little to his credit. Not
satisfied with the public burning of the various proclamations hostile
to the _Caudillo_, he bethought himself of a stake that should win for
ever the regard of Artigas. To this end he arrested the seven chief
friends of Alvear, and sent them as a combined sacrifice and
peace-offering to Artigas's encampment. As a specimen of grim and
sycophantic courtesy the callousness of the offering of seven bodies
can scarcely have been exceeded in the world's history. But Artigas,
contrary to the Director's expectation, failed to make the intended
use of the gifts. Indeed, he treated them with no little
consideration, and sent them back whence they came, bidding them tell
Thomas that the General Artigas was no executioner.
The next move was of the legitimately political order. The voluntary
acknowledgment of the independence of Uruguay was offered in exchange
for the abandonment of the protectorate over the provinces of Entre
Rios, Santa Fé, Córdoba, and Corrientes. This was also refused by
Artigas, who maintained that the provinces of the River Plate should,
though self-governing, be indissolubly linked.
During all this time Artigas remained at his encampment at Hervidero
on the banks of the Uruguay River. From thence by a system of
organisation that, though crude, was marvellously effective, he
manipulated the affairs of the extensive region under his command,
jealously watching the moves of doubtful friends and open enemies, and
keeping his armed bands of remorseless Gauchos ceaselessly on the
alert.
This continual state of minor warfare, however, did not altogether
exclude the attention to civil matters. In addition to some tentative
measures of administration in Córdoba and the Argentine littoral
provinces, Uruguay was partitioned off into six departments, to each
of which was allotted its Cabildo and general mechanism of government.
These attempts naturally represented nothing more than a drop of
progress in the ocean of chaos; but there is no reason to doubt that
Artigas undertook the new and peaceable campaign with no little
measure of whole-heartedness. In any case the new era proved as
fleeting as any of its predecessors. It was the turn of the Portuguese
once again to set in motion the wheel of fate upon which the destinies
of Uruguay were revolving with such giddy rapidity.
It was in 1816 that the Portuguese invaded Uruguay for the second time
since the natives of the land had started on their campaign of
self-government. Their armies marched south from Brazil with the
ostensible object of putting an end to the anarchy that they alleged
was rampant under the rule of Artigas. The condition of the country
was undoubtedly lamentable. Harassed by hordes of marauding soldiery
or acknowledged bandits, the safety of lives and homes without the
more immediate range of Artigas's influence was even more precarious
than had been the case during the recent period of wild turmoil.
It is true that in the districts bordering on the headquarters of the
Gaucho chief at Hervidero matters were very different. Indeed, so
severe was the discipline imposed by the Caudillo, and so terrible the
penalties following on theft, that it is said that beneath his iron
rule a purse of gold might have been left on the public highway with
as little chance of its removal as though it lay within the vaults of
a bank.
But notwithstanding the disorder that prevailed in so many quarters,
the disinterestedness of the motives that caused the Portuguese
intervention need not be taken too seriously. There can be no doubt
that the real object of the invasion was territorial possession rather
than the amelioration of a state of turbulence that concerned Brazil
to a very minor degree. To this end an imposing army of twelve
thousand men marched southwards, striking Uruguay at the central point
of its northern frontier.
Artigas braced himself for a desperate struggle, the final result of
which could scarcely be doubtful. In order to distract the attention
of the advancing army he became in turn the invader, and sent a force
northwards to invade the Misiones territory that, lost to the Banda
Oriental, now formed part of Brazil. The manoeuvre, though adroit, was
rendered futile by the preponderance of the foreign troops. In a short
while the scene of the conflict was transferred to the home country.
Here the entire collection of Artigas's mixed forces made a stand. Men
of pure Spanish descent, Gauchos, Indians, negroes, and a sprinkling
of emigrant foreigners beyond--all these fought with a desperation
that was in the first place rewarded by several victories. No human
effort, however, could stave off the final result. Andresito, a famous
Indian leader, Rivera, Latorre, and Artigas himself were in turn
defeated, and in February of 1817 Lecor, at the head of the Portuguese
army, entered Montevideo in triumph.
The fall of the capital did not end the war. Throughout the provinces
the resistance continued unabated. On the water, too, the Uruguayans
asserted themselves with no little success, and it is amazing to read
that one or two of their privateers with the utmost hardihood sailed
across the ocean to the coasts of Portugal itself, making several
captures within sight of the Iberian cliffs. Indeed, that the
authority of Artigas was still recognised to a certain degree is
proved by a treaty between his Government and Great Britain that was
concluded several months after the loss of Montevideo.
It was not long, however, ere the inevitable complications arose to
render the situation yet more hopeless. The perennial disputes with
Buenos Aires became embittered to such a degree that Artigas, in
sublime disregard of the Portuguese forces already in the country,
declared war against the Directorate. The primary outcome of this was
the defection of several of his leaders, who, as a matter of fact,
foreseeing the reckless declaration, had espoused the Buenos Aires
cause just previous to its publication.
The sole hope of Artigas now lay in the provinces of Entre Rios and
Corrientes. Even here had occurred a wavering that had necessitated a
crushing by force ere a return to allegiance had been brought about.
With these and the remaining Oriental forces he continued the
struggle. But the tide of his fortune had turned. The beginning of the
year 1818 witnessed the capture of two of his foremost lieutenants,
Otorgues and Lavalleja, who were sent by the Portuguese to an island
in the Bay of Rio de Janeiro. As a last effort, Artigas, daring the
aggressive even at this stage, hurled his intrepid Gauchos and
Misiones Indians once more over the frontier into Brazilian territory
itself. A brilliant victory was followed by the inevitable retreat in
the face of immensely superior forces. At Tacuarembo, in the north of
the Banda Oriental, fell the blow that virtually ended the campaign.
Here Artigas's army, under the command of Latorre, was surprised and
completely routed with a loss that left the force non-existent for
practical purposes. Shortly after this Rivera surrendered to the
Portuguese, and with his submission went the last hope of success.
Artigas crossed the River Uruguay, and took up a position in Entre
Rios. The hour of his doom had struck; but even then, with his forces
shattered and crushed, he refused to bow to the inevitable. With
extraordinary doggedness he scoured Entre Rios, Corrientes, and
Misiones in an endeavour to sweep up the remaining few that the
battles had spared, and yet once again to lead them against the
Portuguese. But on this occasion there was no response. Sullen and
despairing, the majority of the remnant turned from him, and in the
end his officer Ramirez, Governor of Entre Rios, threw off his
allegiance, and came with an expedition to expel him from the country.
Devoting themselves to this narrowed campaign, the two Gaucho leaders
assailed each other with fury. Victory in the first instance lay with
Artigas, despite his diminished following. Ramirez, however, received
reinforcements from the Buenos Aires authorities, who had thrown the
weight of their influence against their old enemy. It was against the
allied forces that Artigas fought his last battle. When it was evident
even to his indomitable spirit that all hope was at an end he marched
northwards with a couple of hundred troops who remained faithful in
the hour of adversity to the once all-powerful Protector.
At Candelaria he crossed the Paraná, and sought the hospitality of
Gaspar Rodriguez Francia, the dreaded Dictator of Paraguay. The latter
first of all imprisoned the fugitive--probably more from force of
habit than from any other reason, since Francia was accustomed to fill
his dungeons as lightly as a fishwife her basket with herrings.
After a very short period of incarceration, however, the autocrat came
to a definite determination regarding his attitude towards the
fugitive who had sought his protection. Releasing him, he treated him
with a certain degree of liberality as well as with respect. Artigas
was allotted a humble dwelling in the township of Curuguaty, far to
the north of Asuncion, and in addition he was granted a moderate
pension upon which to live. Here the old warrior, enjoying the deep
regard of his neighbours, ended his days in peace, while the tortured
Uruguay was incorporated with Brazil and passed under Portuguese
rule.
CHAPTER VI
ARTIGAS
The human product of a turbulent era--Historical verdicts
disagree--Opinions of Uruguayan and foreign
historians--High-flown tribute--The cleansing of Artigas's
fame--Prejudices of some local accounts--Uruguay at the time of
Artigas's birth--Surroundings of his youth--Smuggling as a
profession--Growth of his influence--His name becomes a household
word--Artigas enters the Spanish service--The corps of
Blandengues--Efficiency and promotion--Quarrel with the Spanish
General--Artigas throws in his lot with the patriot forces--His
success as a leader of men--Rank accorded him--Jealousy between
Artigas and the Buenos Aires generals--Conflicting ambitions--The
Portuguese invasion--Artigas leads the Oriental nation to the
Argentine shore--The encampment at Ayui--Scarcity of arms and
provisions--Battles with the Portuguese--The subalterns of
Artigas--Otorgues and Andresito--Crude governmental
procedure--Arbitrary decrees--The sentiments of Artigas--His love
of honesty--Progress of the war--Complications of the
campaign--Artigas as Protector--The encampment of
Hervidero--Revolting tales--The exaggeration of history--Artigas
refuses honour--His proclamations--Simple life of the
commander--Some contemporary accounts--The national
treasury--Final desperate struggles against the
Portuguese--Rebellion of Ramirez--Fierce battles--Extraordinary
recuperative power of the Protector--Final defeat of
Artigas--Flight to Paraguay--The Protector in retirement.
The name of Artigas stands for that of the national hero of Uruguay.
Within the frontiers of the River Plate countries and of Southern
Brazil no such introduction would be necessary, since in those places
have raged controversies as fierce as any of the battles in which the
old warrior took part. To the average English reader, however, his
name is necessarily unfamiliar, although it crops up now and again in
the records of travellers who visited South America during the first
quarter of the eighteenth century.
Artigas was essentially the product of a turbulent era. Born in 1764,
he had remained comparatively obscure until forty-six years later,
when the outbreak of the South American War of Independence sent him
aloft with dramatic rapidity to a pinnacle of prominence from which he
ruled nations and armies--with a result that is yet the subject of
considerable dispute.
Perhaps never did the memory of a man meet with more honour in his own
country, and with less favour without it. Argentine historians and
European travellers of all nationalities have included him within the
dark fold of the world's great criminals. From the mill of their
analysis Artigas emerges as a bandit, murderer, traitor, a criminal
who seized with audacity each of his thousand opportunities to outrage
the laws of morality and decency. Apart from the testimony of the
noted historians, two Swiss naturalists, Rengger and Longchamps, who
penetrated to his country and whose report should be unbiassed, speak
of him as one "whose life has been only a tissue of horrors, the great
instrument of all the calamities which for ten years fell on the
provinces of the confederation of Rio de la Plata." These convictions
are echoed by a score of other authorities.
For the other side of the picture it is necessary to turn to the
Uruguayan writers. Their views are at least as definite and unanimous
as the others. According to one, Eduardo Muñoz Ximinez, "the austerity
of Cato, the purity of Aristides, the temperament of the Gracchi, the
nobility of Camillus, the generosity of Fabricius--these virtues,
allied to heroism and determination, have been found united within
the breast of none but Artigas." This represents but a solitary note,
typical of the great chorus of praise that goes up from Uruguay.
Artigas, living, had little concern with compromise; dead, his spirit
seems to have infected his historians with the same dislike of
half-measures. In other respects this particular strand of history is
as flexible as all the rest. For generations the feathers of Artigas's
fame remained of undisputed black; now the active protests of the
Uruguayans have initiated a cleansing process that promises to change
the plumes to too blinding a white. Such impartial judgment as is
possible induces the persuasion that the Argentine and foreign
chroniclers, though writing in all good faith, have erred a little in
relying too much upon the testimony of men who bore bitter personal
enmity towards the Uruguayan leader. Artigas, in fact, reveals himself
from out of the cloud of conflicting authorities as an essentially
human being, swayed by the passions of the age and knowing many of its
faults, wild as the age itself, but less sordid and more picturesque,
and the author of some deeds, moreover, that, worked in the light of a
more central and populous field, might well have sent his name to
posterity with more assured honour.
Artigas was born at a time that, by courtesy, was termed one of peace.
A treaty of the previous year had for a short while changed the open
warfare between the Spaniards and Portuguese into an unofficial series
of aggressions and frontier skirmishes. Scarcely, however, had the
future Protector of Uruguay attained to his twelfth year when the war
broke out again, thus adding fresh fuel to the ceaseless minor hatreds
and private feuds. Brought up, as one of his own apologists admits, in
an atmosphere of rapine, revenge, and violence, the early
surroundings of Artigas were sufficient to prepare him for the grim
part he was destined to play. He could, moreover, lay claim to an
especial sentimental stake in the country, since forty years before
the date of his birth his grandfather had formed one of the heads of
seven families who were sent from Buenos Aires in order to found the
town of Montevideo.
Artigas, attained to manhood, became noted for physical prowess. As
was inevitable in such a land, his unequalled tricks of horsemanship
and feats of strength soon gave him an ascendency over the companions
of his own age. Since Artigas himself vouchsafed little information on
the subject, the details of this early career are at best vague. His
enemies assert that he turned brigand, and captained a band of
desperadoes. It is now practically certain that this was not the case,
but that he devoted himself to smuggling there is no doubt. It must be
remembered that in those days contraband was not necessarily a
commerce of reproach. Although its active agents were essentially of a
reckless type, there were others of considerable standing who were
more or less directly interested in a traffic that they held a
legitimate and profitable protest against the repressive fiscal
measures of Spain.
It was in the sparsely populated hill country of the north that
Artigas first learned to control men and to command expeditions. Once
fairly settled to the work, unusually numerous convoys of laden horses
and mules passed stealthily southwards from Brazil through the
valleys, forests, and streams of the frontier districts, for the
daring ventures of the Uruguayan leader met with phenomenal success.
As a result his influence steadily increased among both the men of his
own race and the semi-civilised Indians of the neighbourhood. The
personality of the man with the hawk nose, blue eyes, and fair skin
possessed the rare faculty of inspiring his followers with personal
affection as well as with admiration. As the years went on his name
began to ring in every mud cabin and reed hut, and the numbers of his
adherents attained to formidable proportions.
In the meanwhile the general disorder of the country had increased to
a pitch that demanded active measures for its repression. In 1797 the
Spanish authorities raised a special corps of Blandengues, whose
duties were fairly comprehensive. Picked men, they served as cavalry,
police, as guards against Indian raids, and as a force to repress the
smugglers. Imbued with a wholesome respect for his power, the
Montevidean Government approached Artigas by way of the line of least
resistance. The Uruguayan accepted an invitation to join the corps,
and soon proved himself its most capable and efficient officer.
Thus we see Artigas in the blue-and-red uniform of the Blandengues,
armed with a lance that sported a steel crescent below its point,
chasing smugglers instead of being chased, arresting criminals,
fighting with intruding Brazilians, and slaying rebellious Indians
with the precautionary enthusiasm of the period. His vindication of
justice was now as thorough as had formerly been his evasion of the
fiscal laws. In 1802 a rapid series of promotion created him _Guarda
General de la Campaña_, or guardian officer general of the rural
districts. We next hear of him as taking part with his regiment
against the British invaders of the country in 1807. Then, in 1810,
began the South American War of Independence, and with its outbreak
dawned the true career of the Uruguayan popular hero.
It was not, however, until nine months or so after the commencement of
the campaign that Artigas threw in his lot with the patriot forces.
The immediate cause was a quarrel with his superior officer, the
Spanish General Muesa. Artigas, whose spirit was not tempered to
verbal chastisement, gave back word for word, until the incensed
general threatened to send him in chains to the neighbouring island of
San Gabriel. That night the offended officer of Blandengues crossed
the broad River Plate in a small boat, was received with acclamation
by the Argentine leaders, and with their aid prepared an expedition
that should free his country from the Spaniard. The motives that
brought about this sudden adherence to the party of independence have
been much in dispute. Hostile critics assert that the change of front
was merely vindictive, and that it was the revengeful fruit of wounded
pride that sent him to the patriot ranks. His supporters declare
positively that the dispute was of importance only in so far as it
gave him reason for the long desired severance of the link that bound
him to the Spanish service.
Be this how it may, the figure of Artigas now looms with vastly
increased bulk from the field of River Plate history. He is in command
of armies now--which is the lot of many--winning battles with them,
moreover, which is the luck of few. His official rank is that of
Colonel, but the title of General is accorded him by all alike,
whether his superiors or inferiors in grade. As for his own folk of
Uruguay, they have grown to regard him as a being of almost superhuman
power, and follow him with a devoted affection that speaks well for
the temperament of the leader.
Indeed, it was at this period that the famous Uruguayan was first
enabled to show his true mettle. His armies knew little of the pomp of
war. The ragged companies looked up to a chief whose garb was little
more warlike and pretentious than their own. The goodwill, however,
that prevailed in the midst of the Uruguayan armies was not shared by
the leaders of the united forces. Jealousy between Artigas and the
Buenos Aires generals had already caused a breach that political
dissensions rapidly widened. Nations were in the making, and the
process was attended by an almost inevitable bitterness. Buenos Aires
urged a united republic, with its own town as the centre of
government. Artigas strongly opposed this plan, proposing in its place
a bond of self-governing provinces. Recriminations and threats were
bandied to and fro between the rival patriots while the Spaniards,
though closely besieged, yet retained Montevideo, and even while the
Portuguese were moving from Brazil to the assistance of the
monarchists.
At length the Portuguese peril loomed sufficiently large to outweigh
every other consideration. With a view to stemming the foreign tide of
invasion, the Buenos Airens patched up a treaty with the Spanish
troops in Montevideo. The despairing measure was doubtless one of
necessity, but it aroused deep passion in the mind of the Uruguayan
leader, who protested that his country was forsaken, and given over
once again to the mercies of the Spaniards. Collecting every available
man, woman, and child, he led them to the north-west, and passed the
great exodus over the River Uruguay to a haven of safety at Ayui, upon
the Entre Rios shore. Meanwhile, Uruguay was overrun by the invading
Portuguese and by the released Spaniards, who eddied out in all
directions from Montevideo.
Artigas was now encamped for the first time with a translated nation
and an independent army of his own. The condition of both was grimly
tragic, pathetically humorous. For fourteen months almost the only
shelter, that served for all alike, was afforded by the branches of
the trees and the boards of the carts that had brought them. As for
the army, it was composed of strangely heterogeneous elements. Honest
countryfolk rubbed shoulders with professional criminals and
cut-throats; Indians from the destroyed Jesuit missions went side by
side with fierce-faced Gauchos; while townsmen, negroes, and a few
adventurous foreigners made up the mixed gathering.
The men were in deadly earnest, since the example of Artigas seems to
have inspired even the most depraved with a spark from his own fire.
Had it been otherwise they would undoubtedly have succumbed to the
disadvantages with which they had to contend. Arms were scarce. A
certain favoured few were possessed of muskets and swords; but the
weapon in chief use was the lance, the national arm of River Plate
folk, the point of which, here at Ayui, was usually fashioned from the
blade of shears or a knife, or from the iron of some other
agricultural instrument. Many, however, had perforce to be content
with a long knife, with the lasso and the sling--the _boleadores_--as
subsidiary weapons. Yet even these proved by no means despicable in
the hands of the men whose sole garment was the ragged remnant of a
poncho tied about the waist, and who exercised with poles in
preparation for the time when a musket should be in their hands.
It was with the aid of an army such as this that Artigas would cross
the river to make his incursions among the hills of his native
country, and would engage Portuguese and Spaniards alike in battles
from which the desperate and motley companies of men would frequently
emerge victorious. Artigas was now assisted by numerous minor chiefs,
many of whom were of a character quite unfitted to stand the light of
day. Otorques and Andresito were the most noted of these. The methods
of the former were utterly brutal. Although the fact is contradicted,
he is credited by many with the order to a subaltern officer to "cut
the throats of two Spaniards a week in order to preserve the morale.
Failing Spaniards, take two Buenos Airens for the purpose"!
Andresito was an Indian from the deserted Jesuit missions who
commanded a considerable force of his own race. He appears to have
interspersed his dark deeds with some evidence of better qualities and
even of a grim humour. A coarse instance of this latter is supplied
when he entered the town of Corrientes in the heyday of Artigas's
power. On this occasion the Indian troops behaved with no little
restraint towards the terrified inhabitants, and contented themselves
with levying contributions towards the clothing of the almost naked
army. This accomplished, Andresito determined to exhibit the social
side of his temperament. He organised several religious dramas, and
followed these by a ball in honour of the principal residents of the
town. These, however, failed to attend, their reluctance to dancing
with Indians overcoming their prudence. On learning the reason from
some crassly honest person, the enraged Andresito caused these too
particular folk to be mustered in the main plaza of the town. There he
obliged the men to scour the roadway, while the ladies were made to
dance with the Indian troops.
Although no merit or subtlety can be claimed for such methods,
they at all events stand apart from the rest in their lack of
bloodthirstiness. Compared with the sentiments revealed in a
proclamation of Otorgues in taking possession of Montevideo, the
procedure at Corrientes seems innocuous and tame. One of the clauses
of this document decrees the execution within two hours of any
citizen who should speak or write in favour of any other government,
while the same fate was promised to one "who should directly or
indirectly attack the liberty of the Province"! The humour in the
employment of the word "liberty" is, of course, totally unconscious.
Such proclamations, naturally, served purely and simply as a licence
for convenient murder. Employing lieutenants of the kind, it is
little wonder that much of the guilt of their accumulated deeds
should be undeservedly heaped upon Artigas's head. Not that the
Commander-in-Chief himself was inclined to put a sentimental value
upon human life; indeed, a delicacy on this point would be impossible
in one who had passed through the scenes of his particular calling. In
any case his hatred of robbery was deep-rooted and sincere. After the
execution of three criminals of this type, he proclaims to his people
at Ayui: "My natural aversion to all crime, especially to the horrible
one of robbery, and my desire that the army should be composed of
honourable citizens ... has moved me to satisfy justice by means of a
punishment as sad as it is effectual." A little later he makes a
similar appeal, adding, "if there be remaining amongst you one who
does not harbour sentiments of honour, patriotism, and humanity, let
him flee far from the army he dishonours"! Here we get the flowers of
the south, earnestly thrown, but alighting in too earthy a bed! The
poor army, with its impoverished, ragged loin-cloths, and with its
lassos and slings, undoubtedly valued the occasional luxury of a full
stomach at least as highly as the abstract virtues. Yet they probably
heard the words with sincere admiration, feeling an added pride in
their beloved leader who could employ such phrases. In any
case--whether as a result of punishments or proclamations--the crime
of robbery soon became rare almost to extinction within the sphere of
Artigas's influence.
The war itself was each month growing more savage in character. Such
virtues as the Uruguayan army possessed were recognised least of all
by the Spaniards. Elio, the Viceroy, had erected a special gallows in
Montevideo for the benefit of any prisoners that might be captured,
while Vigodet, his successor, endeavoured to strike terror by measures
of pure barbarity. By his order a body of cavalry scoured the
countryside, slaying all those suspected of Artiguenian leanings, and
exposing the quartered portions of their bodies at prominent places by
the roadside. Each patriot, moreover, carried a price upon his head.
It is not to be wondered at that the Uruguayan forces made reprisals,
and that corpses replaced prisoners of war.
A renewed campaign waged by the Buenos Aires forces against the
Spaniards was the signal for the abandonment of the settlement at
Ayui. Once again the Royalists were shut up within the walls of
Montevideo, and at the beginning of 1813 Artigas, with his men,
marched down from the north to take part in the siege. The Uruguayan
came now as an assured ruler of his own people; the Buenos Aires
commanders regarded him as a unit in a greater system. The result was
the inevitable quarrel, and a year from the inception of the
operations Artigas took the most decisive step in his career. He gave
no warning of his move. The evening before had witnessed his
particular portion of the field covered with horses and men. The next
morning saw the ground bare and deserted: Artigas and his army were
already many leagues away.
[Illustration: MONTEVIDEO AND THE CERRO HILL.]
[Illustration: "AFTER CATTLE."
To face p. 88.]
From that moment Artigas became virtual king of a torn and struggling
realm. The Buenos Aires authorities, incensed at his defection, placed
a price of six thousand dollars on his head, continuing meanwhile
the siege of Montevideo. Artigas retaliated by a formal declaration of
war upon the central Government. The hostile ramifications were now
sufficiently involved to satisfy the most warlike spirit. Artigas was
fighting the Buenos Airens and Portuguese, and was only prevented from
coming to close grips with the Spaniards by the fact that the
intervening Buenos Aires armies had already taken that task upon
themselves. As it was, the influence of the national hero spread out
to the west with an amazing rapidity, passing beyond the Uruguay
River, and holding good upon the remote side of the great Paraná
stream itself. In a very short while his dominions in Argentine
territory assumed an extent four times greater than that of his native
country. The provinces of Entre Rios, Corrientes, Santa Fé, and
Córdoba welcomed his new tricolour standard with enthusiasm.
Thus Artigas was now ruler of 350,000 square miles, with the exception
of the various odd points of vantage held by the remaining three
contending powers.
The fall of Montevideo and the final ejection of the Spaniards from
the soil was followed by the retirement of the Buenos Aires armies to
their own country. Thus to Artigas's realm was added the necessary
complement of a capital and some seagoing ships that served as the
nucleus of a national navy. The ex-smuggler was now at the zenith of
his power. It is at this point that he affords by far the most
interesting picture, since the amazing medley of sentiments for which
his character was responsible were now given full play. Caring nothing
for pomp and ceremony, he sent Otorgues to rule Montevideo, while his
other chiefs assumed control of the various districts throughout the
provinces. He himself, true to his Gaucho upbringing, avoided all
towns, and finally settled himself in the north-west of Uruguay. On a
tableland by the banks of the great river, some score of miles to the
south of Salto, he established a camp from which he directed the
policy of the five provinces that owned to his rule.
In the neighbourhood of this encampment of Hervidero was another, in
which were confined those prisoners whose offences were not considered
worthy of immediate death. Serving as it did to cleanse doubtful minds
of rebellion, it was christened by the euphuistic name of
Purificacion. There is no doubt that the methods employed for this
exalted purpose often ended fatally for the unfortunates experimented
upon. The popular tales of the deeds done at both encampments are
extraordinarily revolting. Two phrases of jocular slang then much in
use throw a lurid light upon the callousness of the period. "To play
the violin" referred to the cutting of a human throat; "to play the
viola" signified the severance of a live man's body--both gruesomely
accurate similes. Men are said to have been flung wholesale into the
river, attached to stones, and a peculiarly agonising form of death
was engineered in the sewing up of a living victim in the hide of a
freshly killed bullock, which was then exposed to the sun. The result
was shrinkage, and suffocation for the miserable wretch within the
reeking covering, an ending that was dubbed "the waistcoat" by a touch
of similar humour. Numerous evidences of individuality, moreover, were
evident in the various forms of punishment. Thus a certain Colonel
Perugorria, who lay under a charge of treason, was, until his
execution, chained to a post, as though he were a dog, by means of an
iron collar round his neck, to which the steel links were attached.
Many of Artigas's supporters roundly deny the perpetration of these
horrors; yet there is little doubt that many such acts were committed
throughout the various provinces. To what extent they received the
sanction of Artigas is far more uncertain. The probability is that he
strongly discouraged wanton torture, although it lay beyond even such
powers as his to hold back the Gaucho passions when they were fiercest
and to prevent the merciless acts of revenge. Many eye-witnesses have
related that he exhibited emotion and pity at the sight of a humanely
conducted execution.
Indeed, there is no reason to suppose that Artigas, for all his errors
and limitations, was not a true believer in the very lofty sentiments
he used to express. One of the many examples of these is to be met
with in his letter to the local authorities of Montevideo, when in
1815 they endowed him with the title of Captain-General, with the
addition of that of "Protector and Patron of the Liberty of the
Nation." Artigas, refusing the honour, which, nevertheless, remained
attached to him, says: "Titles are the phantoms of States, and the
glory of upholding liberty suffices for your illustrious corporation.
Let us teach our countrymen to be virtuous. For this reason I have
retained until now the rank of a simple citizen ... the day will come
when men will act from a sense of duty, and when they will devote
their best interests to the honour of their fellow-men."
The simplicity of Artigas was innate and genuine. One of his own
nationality, on a visit to Hervidera, describes the costume of the
dreaded leader. On that occasion Artigas was content with the plain
costume of a countryman--plain blue jacket and pantaloons, white
stockings, and a skin cloak, all rather shabby. The paraphernalia of a
meal was of similar quality, and in addition lamentably scanty.
Broth, a stew of meat, and roast beef were served on a couple of
pewter dishes with broken edges; a single cup took the place of
non-existent wine-glasses; no more than three earthenware plates could
be mustered, and, since the seating accommodation was restricted to
three chairs and a hide box, the majority of the guests had perforce
to stand. Such were the clothes and household goods of the lord of
five provinces, whose armies were battling with Portuguese Peninsular
War veterans and with Argentine battalions, whose vessels had borne
his flag to Europe to harass hostile vessels off the coasts of
Portugal itself, who made treaties with England and other powers, and
whose name was all but worshipped by a hundred thousand people!
J. P. Robertson, an English chronicler of the period, gives an
interesting account of a meeting with Artigas. Assaulted and robbed by
a band of the noted chief's adherents, he boldly set out for
Purificacion to claim redress. His words deserve quotation at some
length. "I came to the Protector's headquarters," he says, "of the
so-called town of Purificacion. And there (I pray you do not turn
sceptic on my hands) what do you think I saw? Why, the most excellent
Protector of half the New World, seated on a bullock's skull, at a
fire kindled on the mud floor of his hut, eating beef off a spit, and
drinking gin out of a cow horn! He was surrounded by a dozen officers
in weather beaten attire, in similar positions, and similarly occupied
with their chief. All were smoking, all gabbling. The Protector was
dictating to two secretaries, who occupied, at one deal table, the
only two dilapidated rush bottom chairs in the hovel. To complete the
singular incongruity of the scene, the floor of the one apartment of
the mud hut (to be sure it was a pretty large one) in which the
general, his staff, and secretaries, were assembled, was strewn with
pompous envelopes from all the Provinces (some of them distant some
1,500 miles from that centre of operations) addressed to 'His
Excellency the Protector.' At the door stood the reeking horses of
couriers arriving every half hour, and the fresh ones of those
departing as often.... His Excellency the Protector, seated on his
bullock's skull, smoking, eating, drinking, dictating, talking,
dispatched in succession the various matters brought under his notice
with that calm, or deliberate, but uninterrupted nonchalance, which
brought most practically home to me the truth of the axiom, 'Stop a
little that we may get on the faster.'... He received me, not only
with cordiality, but with what surprised me more, comparatively
gentlemanlike manners, and really good breeding.... The Protector's
business was prolonged from morning till evening, and so were his
meals; for, as one courier arrived another was dispatched, and as one
officer rose up from the fire at which the meat was spitted another
took his place."
The General politely took his visitor the round of his hide huts and
mud hovels, where the horses stood saddled and bridled day and night,
and where the tattered soldiery waited in readiness for the
emergencies that arose so frequently. When Robertson submitted his
financial claim, Artigas remained as amiable as before. "'You see,'
said the General with great candour and nonchalance, 'how we live
here; and it is as much as we can do, in these hard times, to compass
beef, aguardiente, and cigars. To pay you 6,000 dollars just now is as
much beyond my power, as it would be to pay you 60,000 or 600,000.
Look here,' said he, and so saying, he lifted up the lid of an old
military chest, and pointed to a canvas bag at the bottom of it.
'There,' he continued, 'is my whole stock of cash; it amounts to 300
dollars; and where the next supply is to come from I am as little
aware as you are.'" Notwithstanding this, Robertson then and there
obtained some trading concessions that, he says, repaid him the amount
of his claim many times over.
Surely this picture reveals Artigas more truly than all the
long-winded polemics that have raged about the famous Uruguayan. It is
given by one whose sympathies were against the aims of the Gaucho
chief, and who has proved himself no lenient critic. Yet the
description fits no mere cut-throat and plunderer. On the contrary, it
reveals a virile personality, a thinker and worker of a disposition
that goes far to explain the adoration accorded him by his troops.
Artigas, at the hands of the visitor who had sufficient cause for his
ridicule, comes to light as a _man_--contemptuous of poverty, misery,
and sordid surroundings so long as his goal remained as clear and
distinct as it ever was to his sight.
The picture is not without its pathetic side. It shows Artigas in the
heyday of his power, yet even then hard put to it to supply his men
with clothes and the common necessities of life. Imagine the calm
force and philosophy of a being capable of governing more than a third
of a million square miles of territory with the assistance of a
treasury of three hundred dollars! Nevertheless, these _opéra bouffe_
conditions represented the highest point of material prosperity to
which Artigas ever attained. For five years he ruled thus, grappling
desperately with the invading Brazilian armies, and resisting the
efforts of the Buenos Aires forces to regain control of the four
Argentine provinces that had espoused his cause.
With a prosperity thus frugally marked, it is easy to conceive the
circumstances of the adversity that was to come. To their credit be
it said that the Uruguayans faltered not in the least in the face of
the ultimate doom that must have appeared inevitable. As their ranks
became steadily thinned, the invading hordes of Portuguese soldiers
swelled in numbers, while the Buenos Aires attacks on the river
provinces became yet more determined. Yet, wanting in everything, its
more capable and intelligent officers prisoners of war, the Uruguayans
fought on to the very end--gaunt, haggard men who gave back blow for
blow, though their courage was often sustained by no other means than
the chewing of strips of hide. One of the officers of a regiment of
lancers, once the pride of the army, describes the condition of the
men in the last days of the struggle. At reveille, on a chilly
winter's morning, each trooper would supplement the loin-cloth that
alone remained to him by a whole cowhide. Thus when their backs were
turned as they retired to their quarters, the number of men could only
be judged by the quantity of moving cowhides!
Even then the final hour might have been indefinitely postponed but
for the revolt of Ramirez, one of Artigas's own chieftains. After a
homeric struggle, Ramirez obtained the victory over his old leader,
and pursued him relentlessly through the provinces of Corrientes and
Misiones. It was by this incessant chase alone that the victor
retained his superiority. For such was the popularity of Artigas that
a few days' halt sufficed for a number of fresh Gauchos and Indians to
join him. When he had escaped from his penultimate defeat, accompanied
by only twelve men, his pursuer lost touch with him for a week. At the
end of that time the veteran had collected over nine hundred men, and
was besieging Cambay, one of Ramirez's strongholds. A division was
sent off post-haste to the spot, and it was here that the old warrior
fought his last fight. Artigas, leaving most of his men dead upon the
field, fled northwards and passed into Paraguay.
The later years of Artigas present the strangest contrast to his early
life. Received and sheltered after some hesitation by Francia, the
dreaded tyrant of Paraguay, he was first allotted a dwelling in the
north of the country, and was afterwards permitted to dwell in the
neighbourhood of Asuncion, the capital. Here he lived in complete
retirement and peace until his death occurred, at the advanced age of
eighty-three. Both his time and the small pension allowed him by the
Paraguayan Government were spent in relieving the wants of his
neighbours, by whom he was regarded with affection and veneration. The
keynote to the true Artigas undoubtedly lies in these last years, when
in humble tranquillity he had leisure at length to practise the
benevolence and charity that he had so often preached from a
corpse-surrounded pulpit. Difficult as it is to withdraw the
personality of Artigas from the sea of blood that flooded his age, he
was surely a product of an anarchical period rather than of anarchy
itself.
CHAPTER VII
HISTORY
The Spanish colonies as nations--The first-fruits of
freedom--Uruguay beneath the heel of Portugal--The advent of a
second liberator--Juan Antonio Lavalleja--The forming of the
league of the "thirty-three"--Opening of the campaign--The
patriot force--Rank and its distribution--The crossing of the
River Plate--Commencement of operations in Uruguay--A first
success--Spread of the movement--Rivera embraces the patriot
cause--The march upon Montevideo--A daring siege--How the army of
occupation was deceived--Timely reinforcements--Lavalleja
establishes an independent government--Incident at the opening of
the Senate--Argentina comes to the assistance of
Uruguay--Beginning of the rivalry between Rivera and
Lavalleja--Dissension in the Uruguayan army--Temporary disgrace
of Rivera--His acquittal--Lavalleja declares himself
dictator--Uruguay's independence acknowledged by Argentina and
Brazil--The national authorities enter Montevideo.
The end of the year 1824 witnessed the extinction of the last vestige
of the power of Spain in South America. With one solitary exception,
each former Spanish colony had now raised itself to the status of a
nation. It is true that in the majority of cases the inhabitants of
these countries suffered not only the wildest of anarchy, but in
addition a degree of despotism that had been unknown during the
Spanish régime, for all the selfishness of the Peninsula Government.
Yet since the flock of tyrants that rose up, each like a grim phoenix,
from the ashes of the Spanish Dominion were conceived of the tortured
countries themselves, the South Americans took such small comfort as
they might from a dim reflection that in their own hands lay the
possibility of the improvement in the rulers born from their own bone.
Of these States thus freed from any other despotism but of their own
making Uruguay formed the sole exception. For years she had remained
beneath the heel of Portugal, writhing uneasily, but unable to remove
the weight of the foreign occupation. When the time came for the full
independence of the rest, however, Uruguay's longing to acquire their
State was no longer to be repressed, even at the cost of the expulsion
of the second European power that had fixed upon the land.
The man whose name stands out as the liberator of Uruguay for the
second time is Juan Antonio Lavalleja. Ceding place only to Artigas as
a national hero, Lavalleja had fought in many actions against the
Spaniards, and had distinguished himself not a little in the original
revolutionary wars. Alternate military and civil occupations have
nearly always fallen to the lot of South American public men, and
Lavalleja formed no exception to the rule. At the time when the
victory of Ayacucho in Peru crowned the entire campaign against the
Spaniards he held the comparatively humble and prosaic post of manager
of a meat-curing factory in the neighbourhood of Buenos Aires.
The rejoicings that the victory of Ayacucho aroused in the capital of
Argentina stirred to the depth both Lavalleja and a company of
fellow-exiles from the Banda Oriental. A meeting of these patriots was
held on the spot, the result of which was an enthusiastic
determination to place their own country upon the same footing as the
rest. Doubtless many hundreds of similar gatherings had already been
effected--and concluded by vapourings of thin air. But the spirit of
these men who had thus come together was of another kind. Having sworn
solemnly to free their country, action followed hotfoot on the heels
of words. A couple of their number were sent at once to Uruguay to
prepare the minds of a trusted few, while the rest made preparations
for the expedition that was to follow.
The mission of the two deputies proved successful. They returned to
Buenos Aires, the bearers of many promises of support and
co-operation. Nothing now remained but to take the first irrevocable
step in the campaign that was to bloom out from this very humble seed.
"Treinta y Tres" has now developed into a proper name in the Banda
Oriental; for the number of men who started out from Buenos Aires for
the sake of Uruguay was thirty-three. The name has now been locally
immortalised. Among the infinite variety of objects that it endows may
be counted a province, a town, innumerable plazas and streets, and a
brand of cigarettes.
There is certainly nothing that is intrinsically humorous in the
adventures of these noble men who set out for their patriotic purpose
in the face of such terrible risks. Yet as a specimen of the
constitution of the armies of the South American factions at this
period a survey of the grades held by the small gathering is
illuminating. In the first place the diminutive expedition had for its
Commander-in-Chief Colonel Juan Antonio Lavalleja, who had beneath him
three majors and four captains. These in turn were supported by three
lieutenants, an ensign, a sergeant, a corporal, and a guide. The
remaining eighteen constituted the rank and file of the force--in
fact, the Army proper.
The little expedition so overwhelmingly officered set out from Buenos
Aires, proceeding northward along the Argentine shore. Reaching a
point where the river had become comparatively narrow, they embarked
in small boats, and launched out on the Uruguay at dead of night. A
gale obliged them to seek refuge on a friendly island, and caused a
day's delay. But the next evening they embarked once more, and reached
in safety the beach of La Agraciada on their native shore. There they
unfurled their chosen tricoloured banner, and swore once again to
attain liberty or death.
The expedition was now actually on the scene of its mission, and
shortly after daybreak it began its march to the north. During the
course of a few hours they collected _en route_ reinforcements of
forty able-bodied and armed Orientales.
Proceeding steadily onwards, the gallant little army, officers and
all, found itself in the neighbourhood of the small town of Dolores,
better known formerly as San Salvador. This was held by a garrison of
eighty men in the service of Brazil. Determined to inflict a first
decisive blow, Lavalleja led his men onwards to the attack. The moment
chanced to be especially propitious, since the officers and principal
men in the town had attended a dance on the previous night. So great
had been the delights of the _baile_ that the principal men had found
it necessary to continue their repose long into the morning--a
circumstance that is not unknown even to this day.
Had it not been for an error on the part of the patriot guide the town
would undoubtedly have been captured by surprise and taken almost
without a blow. As it was, the official chanced to mistake the
situation of a ford in an intervening small river. This necessitated a
lengthy march along the banks ere a place suitable for the passage was
found, and the presence of the small company with the tricoloured
flag was discovered with amazement by the inhabitants.
Thus ere Lavalleja's expedition had succeeded in crossing the stream
there had been moments of wild bustle in Dolores. Officers sprang out
of bed to gird on their swords in haste; soldiers ran to assemble with
uniforms even more than usually awry, while the municipal officers
doubtless ran to and fro in aimless confusion. Nevertheless by the
time that the turmoil was at an end the garrison had had an
opportunity to muster, and to sally out against the advancing band
that had not yet gained the town.
Since the Portuguese forces were under the command of an Oriental,
Colonel Julián Laguna, a parley took place ere the two forces met. In
the end, Laguna deciding to remain staunch to the foreign cause, the
thirty-three and their allies charged, routing the enemy completely.
Thus in the course of their first victory they won not only the town
of Dolores itself, but a number of Uruguayan volunteers who joined
them from out of the beaten force.
The thirty-three with their companions, delaying a very short while in
the captured town, continued their march. A more pressing danger now
menaced them. General Rivera, the Oriental who, having so
distinguished himself in the former wars against the Portuguese, had
entered the latter service when the Uruguayan cause became lost, was
sent out with a force of seventy men to annihilate the daring
aggressors. Here, again, when numbers and rank are compared, it will
be seen that the regular forces of the country were more or less on a
par with the thirty-three in their generosity in the matter of titles.
Nevertheless, however it was commanded, the thirty-three were destined
to gain yet further support from the force detached against them. On
his near approach to the devoted band, Rivera's patriotic instincts
overcame all other considerations. At a meeting contrived between him
and Lavalleja the pair embraced, and Rivera forsook the Brazilian
service on the spot to join the cause of his country. The addition to
their ranks of the famous fighter and his men was naturally greeted
with enthusiasm by the patriots, who advanced filled with renewed
confidence. On the other hand, the news of the defection created no
little consternation among the Brazilians, who set a price upon the
heads of both Rivera and Lavalleja, valuing the former at five hundred
dollars more than the fifteen hundred offered for Lavalleja, although
the latter remained the actual commander of the expedition.
The thirty-three had now abandoned their cautious north-west fringing
of the coast. With their numbers increasing as they went, they struck
for the south-east, making boldly for Montevideo itself, and defeating
the various Portuguese forces that strove to oppose them.
Arrived at length at San José, some three score miles distant from
Montevideo, Lavalleja determined on an especially daring move that
proved his appreciation of the value of prestige. From there he sent
all his prisoners with a strong guard under Rivera to Durazno, and at
Canelones, farther on, he detached another party to obtain recruits
from the neighbourhood of Maldonado. He himself, accompanied now by no
more than a hundred men, continued in supreme unconcern his march to
Montevideo. Arriving upon the outskirts of the spot, he encamped on
the Cerrito de la Victoria, whence, employing a colossal piece of
bluff, he set himself to besiege the city.
It is surely not often that a hundred men have sat down to invest a
fortified town garrisoned by nearly two thousand soldiers. Yet it was
in the amazing effrontery of the proceeding that success lay. On the
very next day a strong force of the enemy, numbering over fifteen
hundred men with four guns, sallied out from Montevideo. The hundred
besiegers must doubtless have thought that all was lost; but,
continuing the grim farce to the end, they opened fire to the best of
their ability upon the advancing columns. The result more than
fulfilled their most sanguine expectations. Convinced that the furious
fusillade emanated from a powerful army, the Portuguese columns
retired into the town, while the hundred men sat down again to
continue the siege of Montevideo.
But their number did not now long remain at this ridiculously
inadequate total. By twos and tens and even by hundreds the Orientales
escaped from the city, flocking to the tricolour banner until the
patriot army had swollen to a degree that rendered it formidable in
fact as well as in fancy. So successful, moreover, had proved Rivera's
mission in the Campo that in a few days almost the whole of Uruguay
was in arms against the enemy's forces in its midst.
The work of the thirty-three had been extraordinarily rapid. So
successful, indeed, had been the campaign that, in the place of
disputing against another's authority, the moment had arrived for
setting up their own, against which it should be treason to contend.
In order to effect this Lavalleja withdrew personally from the siege
of Montevideo, and established an independent government at the town
of Florida to the north of the capital. Moved by a truly lofty sense
of patriotism, he handed over his leadership to the new authorities,
who responded by creating him General-in-Chief of the Army of
Liberation, and by endowing Rivera with the rank of Inspector-General.
On this occasion the titles conveyed some material significance,
since the Uruguayan Army now amounted to two thousand five hundred men.
The opening of this new Senate was attended by a dramatic incident. In
order to be present at the assembly it was necessary for Lavalleja to
leave the front of hostilities and to ride through rain and mud to
Florida.
Ere entering the Hall of Assembly he was met by several ladies,
amongst whom was the wife of Rivera, who begged him to change his
dripping costume before he proceeded with the official business.
"Thank you, señoras," replied Lavalleja, "I will attend to that as
soon as our country has its government." Within a few minutes the
consummation had been achieved, and Lavalleja was in dry clothes. The
story affords only one more instance of the numerous inevitable
satellites that attend the passage of a notable name through the ages;
but here the ingenuous simplicity of the tale is almost sufficient in
itself to vouch for its truth. At this point, properly speaking, ends
the story of the thirty-three. Beneath the national edifice that they
had built up the minor members of the devoted band had already become
lost to view. The control of affairs was now vested in a Senate and
Corporations, and Argentina, hastening to recognise the existence of
the independent Government, sent her armies to its assistance,
stipulating that in exchange for the alliance Uruguay should become
one of the provinces of the River Plate.
With the survival of the first perils, moreover, the cohesion of the
leaders of the famous thirty-three passed away. During the course of
the final battles against the Portuguese a rivalry sprang into
existence between Lavalleja and Rivera that gradually deepened into a
jealous antagonism that has left its mark of bitterness upon the
country to this day.
With the growing certainty of the success of the cause, and,
consequently, of the honours and power in store for the chosen few
among the patriot ranks dissension and suspicion became rampant. One
of the more immediate outcomes of this regrettable state was the
falling under suspicion of Rivera. Accused of opening up negotiations
with the Portuguese, he was sent to Buenos Aires for trial. Acquitted
by President Rivadavia of traitorous intent, he was, nevertheless,
held in prison owing to his outspoken federal views, which were in
direct opposition to the unitarian doctrines of Argentina. After a
while, however, he escaped from captivity, and, collecting an army,
completely re-established his reputation by invading and conquering
the Misiones districts that were then in the power of the Portuguese.
Although the territory was in the end ceded back again, the invasion
was of material effect in concluding the war.
When, moreover, after the rout of the Portuguese fleet by the
Argentine Admiral Brown, and the series of victories that culminated
in the battle of Ituzaingo, it became evident that the expulsion of
the Portuguese from Uruguayan soil was now inevitable within a very
short time, Lavalleja did not wait for any definite conclusion of
peace. In October of 1827, when, as a matter of fact, the terms of an
armistice were still in dispute, he deposed the national Junta, and
without further ado declared himself Dictator of his country. This
office he held until July of the following year, when he voluntarily
resigned from the post.
August witnessed a formal acknowledgment of the independence of
Uruguay by both Argentina and Brazil, and in November a provisional
Government was established. On May 1, 1829, the national authorities,
amidst no little pomp and ceremony, made a formal entry into
Montevideo, and Uruguay was at last definitely left to the care of its
own rulers.
CHAPTER VIII
HISTORY--_continued_
Foreign war succeeded by internal chaos--Warriors as
statesmen--The dictatorship of Lavalleja--His methods--The first
open breach between Lavalleja and Rivera--A temporary
reconciliation--Establishment of the Constitution of
Uruguay--Lavalleja and Rivera candidates for the President's
chair--Differences in the temperaments of the two--Rivera is
elected first President of Uruguay--Jealousies and
intrigue--Attack upon Rivera--Narrow escape of the
President--Lavalleja's party temporarily occupy
Montevideo--Defeat of the insurgent general--His flight into
Brazil--Intervention of the Argentine Dictator Rosas--His support
of Lavalleja--Combined forces beaten by Rivera--Lavalleja's
second attempt proves unsuccessful--General Oribe succeeds Rivera
as President--Lavalleja's party again in the ascendant--Rivera
heads a revolution--Civil war--Intervention of
France--Resignation of Oribe--Rivera elected President--His
alliance with the French and Corrientines--Declaration of war
against Rosas--Defeat of the latter--On the withdrawal of the
French Rosas resumes the aggressive--Severe defeat of Rivera and
his allies of the littoral provinces--Oribe besieges
Montevideo--The services of Garibaldi--The Uruguayan forces
decimated--Further incidents of the war--The power of Rosas
broken by Brazil, Uruguay, and Entre-Rios.
For the purpose of a self-contained romance with a popular ending, the
adventures of the leaders of the thirty-three should end at the moment
when the liberation of the Banda Oriental became a dawning certainty,
but history has an unfortunate knack of continuing where fiction
ceases. The fiercest enemy of a hero is longevity.
In this case the phase is especially lamentable, since although daring
deeds of arms persisted, the feats were wrought, not in a joint cause
against a common enemy, but amidst a turbulent confusion of sudden
alliances and yet more rapid breaches between friends and neighbours
that rendered impossible speculation whence the tide of battle would
flow next.
The three names that stood out from the very midst of the chaos of
events were those of Lavalleja, Rivera, and Oribe. Since the three had
fought shoulder to shoulder for their country's redemption this
prominence was only fitting and just. Yet the rôle of each of the
three differed widely now from his previous methods. Cohesion had
departed with the enemy's forces: not so the tale of the battlefields,
that multiplied until they stained the soil of the country a deeper
red than ever before.
The first few months of complete independence gave no inkling of what
was to come. After one or two politicians had held interim offices,
General Rondeau, who had rendered great services to Uruguay, was made
Governor. A disagreement, however, arose between him and the
constitutional assembly. As a result he resigned his post, and
departed to Buenos Aires, shaking the dust of the Banda Oriental from
his feet.
Lavalleja was now invested with the chief office of the land. Alas for
the difference between the striver after liberty and the sitter in the
goddess's chair! Viewed from the lofty pedestal, freedom became
distant far below and lost to sight. In short, Lavalleja became a
dictator of the most arbitrary type from the very beginning of his
authority. He muzzled the Press, such as it was, disbanded various
battalions suspected of loyalty to his private interests, and then
turned upon Rivera, his old comrade-in-arms. Not satisfied with
depriving the latter of his office of Commandant-General, Lavalleja
raised an army, and, intent upon destruction, marched against the man
whom he feared as his most dangerous rival.
The despotic Governor was not mistaken in his estimate of Rivera's
power. Indeed, the result of a battle would have been extremely
doubtful, had the two forces come into conflict. But the strenuous
efforts of several peaceful commissions ended in a reconciliation
between the leaders--a mere loose patching up of differences, it is
true, but one that served for the time being. In the meanwhile the
Constitution of independent Uruguay was established and sworn to, the
event being greeted by the populace with wild enthusiasm.
The new State was, of course, endowed with a President, whose chair
remained to be occupied. As was inevitable, the two candidates for the
high post were Generals Lavalleja and Rivera. Both were, perhaps,
almost equally secure in the admiration of the nation. Nevertheless,
the distinctions between the temperaments of the two were marked.
Rivera was a democrat, a friend of the populace, whom he captivated by
his intimacy and easy manner. Lavalleja's tendencies were, by
comparison, aristocratic; yet it is doubtful whether he lost much in
influence from his loftier pose.
The first legislative act of the National Assembly came as a bitter
blow to Lavalleja. In October of 1830 that body elected as President
General Rivera. As a nation Uruguay had now blossomed out into a
full-blown Constitution. But the youthful constitutional flower was
destined to suffer an almost continuous winter of frosts. It was
beyond the limits of Lavalleja's forbearance to sit quietly by and to
see his rival comfortably installed in the coveted chair of state. It
was not long ere the machinery of plots was set in motion. The first
attempt proved all but successful. Rivera, accompanied only by a few
men, chanced to be in the small town of Durazno, suspecting nothing,
when a force of five hundred of his enemies descended suddenly upon
the place. Their object was the capture of the President, who only
escaped by leaping through a window and by swimming across the River
Yi. A rising of the Charrúa Indians was the next material fruit of the
campaign of intrigue; but the rebellion served no other end than the
practical extirpation of the remnant of the aboriginal race that had
survived until then.
Very shortly after this a revolutionary movement was instigated in
Montevideo itself. Headed by Colonel Garzon, who held in his pocket a
commander-in-chief's commission from Lavalleja, the rising was
temporarily successful. The National Assembly, intimidated, had
already confirmed the appointment of Lavalleja as President, when
Perez, the Vice-President, resisted, and the rest, encouraged by his
example, made a firm stand. As a result, Lavalleja himself made his
appearance in Montevideo, and, with his followers, occupied the
municipal buildings. After an exchange of shots, however, he and his
band were forced to retire.
During the course of these events Rivera had been absent from the
town. On receiving the news he hastened back from the country, and,
placing himself at the head of an army, set out in strenuous pursuit
of Lavalleja. The latter was overtaken at Tupambay. A battle ended in
the shattering of his company, and, closely pursued by the President,
Lavalleja fled across the northern border and sought shelter in
Brazil.
In the meanwhile the famous Rosas had come to power in Argentina, and
the policy of this dictator was destined to awaken very material
echoes in Uruguay. Lending support to Lavalleja, he sent a force of
three hundred men across the river. In order to create a diversion,
these captured the town of Melo from the Government party. Their
triumph was fleeting. Beaten shortly afterwards by Rivera in person,
the invading force fled to Brazil.
But the end of the tide of invasion had not yet come. At the beginning
of 1834 Lavalleja, aided by further contingents furnished by Rosas,
descended once more from the north into his native country. On this
occasion the events of his former attempt were repeated with equally
disastrous results to himself. Beaten once again, he sought Brazil,
the sheltering spot of all the atoms of Uruguayan turbulence.
A little after this the four years of Rivera's term of office expired.
It was now the turn of another of the thirty-three, General Manuel
Oribe, to enter the arena. Oribe was a warrior as well seasoned as the
others. He had fought strenuously under Artigas's standard; but at the
coming of the crisis, declaring that he could no longer serve under
such a tyrant, he joined the Buenos Aires cause. Later, he had formed
one of the most prominent members of the thirty-three. Becoming
embroiled in the disputes of the period, he had found himself in
opposition to Rivera, although he had to thank the President for
promotion in rank.
In March of 1835 General Manuel Oribe was created the second
constitutional President of the Republic. One of his first cares was
to undermine the weighty influence of Rivera, in whose power he saw a
menace to his own office. The new President began the campaign by
summoning back to their country all those _Lavallejistas_ who had been
living in forced exile in Brazil and Argentina. Then, in order to
deliver a death-blow to a rival's prestige, he deprived the late
President of his rank of commandant-general.
Exasperated beyond endurance at this latter move, Rivera immediately
made his appeal to the only authority that was understood at the
period--that of arms. The insurrection attained almost immediately to
formidable proportions. Indeed, there is no doubt that the malcontent
cause would have been successful almost immediately had not Rosas
intervened. As it was, the Dictator sent over from Argentina to the
assistance of the Government five hundred troops, under the command of
Lavalleja, who had thrown in his lot with Oribe against his
arch-rival.
As a preliminary to the actual hostilities Oribe sent forth a
thunderous proclamation, in which Rivera was branded as a traitor to
his country. The first battle ended in favour of the Government, the
forces of the rebellion leaving over two hundred dead upon the field.
The chief historical importance of the contest, however, lies in the
fact that on this occasion were used for the first time the red and
the white colours that distinguished the respective forces of Rivera
and Oribe and that have ever since remained the emblems of bitter
strife.
The fortune of war varied for a while. After numerous indecisive
skirmishes, Rivera won an action at Yucutuja, while a month later
Oribe was successful in a battle on the banks of the River Yi. Then
followed the decisive battle of Palmar, from which the Government
forces emerged no longer as an army, but merely as a scattering of
fugitive stragglers.
In the meanwhile foreign influence, in addition to the lot of war, had
veered in favour of the revolution. The arbitrary methods of Rosas,
extended to foreigners resident within the land, had caused him to
become embroiled with France. Thus the northern power, in addition to
the institution of a blockade of Buenos Aires port, was only too glad
of the opportunity of frustrating the plans of the Argentine despot in
Uruguay. Allying their forces with those of the revolutionists, they
captured the island of Martin Garcia from the Government troops, and
were preparing further active measures of aggression when Oribe
realised the hopelessness of his plight. Adopting the sole course that
was left him, he resigned his office of President, and sailed for
Buenos Aires, accompanied by his late ministers, and a considerable
following of private friends.
Rivera's road to the return of power was now clear. In November of
1838 he made a triumphal entry into Montevideo, and in due course the
National Assembly elected him President for the second time. One of
the first acts of the new chief of the State was the avenging of
Rosas' late interference in favour of his rival. Allying himself with
the French Government and the Province of Corrientes, he declared
war--not against the worthy Argentine nation, as was carefully
explained in the proclamation, but against the "tyrant of the immortal
people of South America."
Rosas was never slow in responding to a challenge of the kind.
Scarcely had the declaration of hostilities been made when he sent an
army of six thousand men to invade Uruguay. Rivera, his forces
strengthened by a thousand French volunteers, marched to meet the
enemy, and at Cagancha he obtained a signal victory, the Argentine
troops being defeated with heavy loss, and thus forced to abandon
their campaign in Uruguay.
It seemed as though the event had put the seal upon Uruguay's success.
But the fortunes of the period were as erratic as the period was
turbulent. Very shortly after the Battle of Cagancha the differences
between Rosas and the French were settled, with the result that an
armistice was effected. With the raising of the blockade of Buenos
Aires and the departure of the French troops from the country, it was
the turn of Rosas to laugh, for his enemy now stood before him
single-handed.
On this occasion the first aggressive steps were taken by the naval
forces. In 1841 the Argentine fleet, under Admiral Brown, made a
practical end to Uruguayan sea power. Some minor vessels that were
subsequently collected were given in charge of the Italian Garibaldi,
and the famous guerilla leader carried on with them a war of
privateering, without, however, meeting with any material success.
In a desperate attempt to stem the formidable tide of Rosas's power,
the three provinces of Corrientes, Entre Rios, and Santa Fé allied
themselves with Uruguay. From the joint States Rivera raised an army
of seven thousand men. But even this heroic effort did not suffice.
Boldly marching through Entre Rios towards Buenos Aires, Rivera found
himself brought to an abrupt halt by the unexpected appearance before
him of his old enemy, Oribe, at the head of an imposing army of
fourteen thousand men. The ensuing battle, fiercely fought, ended in
an overwhelming victory for the superior forces, nearly a thousand of
Rivera's men being massacred in cold blood on the conclusion of the
fight.
The beaten President retired from Entre Rios with the remnants of his
army, while Oribe likewise crossed the Uruguay River, and marched
leisurely southwards from Salto towards Montevideo. In due time his
armies arrived before the capital, which they forthwith proceeded to
invest, thus commencing the great siege of the place that endured for
nine years.
The circumstances of the beleaguering are too numerous and complicated
to bear recapitulation here. One of the most notable features of the
earlier days was a proclamation issued by Oribe to the effect that he
would spare no foreigners whose sympathies lay with the "rebels," as
he termed the Government of Rivera--or rather of Joaquín Suárez, who
had taken the defeated President's post in Montevideo. The result of
the proclamation was exactly the reverse of that anticipated by Oribe,
since the foreigners responded by raising legions of their own and by
flocking to the active defence of the town. The capital, however, was
closely invested by sea as well as by land, Garibaldi's flotilla
finding itself unable to make any headway against Admiral Brown's
blockading fleet.
In the meanwhile Rivera had not been idle. With the amazing
recuperative power that was characteristic of so many of the noted
leaders of the period he had scraped together from the countryside a
force of nearly four thousand men. With these he harassed the rear of
the besieging force to such effect that the Buenos Aires Government,
in order to leave the blockade undisturbed, raised a fresh army, and
sent it, under the command of General Urquiza, to cope with the
unexpected source of danger.
Urquiza came up with Rivera at India Muerta, and the result was fatal
to the Uruguayan force. The end of a desperate conflict saw nearly a
thousand of Rivera's men lying dead upon the Campo. In accordance with
the drastically conclusive methods of the age, the number of prisoners
was small by comparison. As to the surviving remnant, it was scattered
to the four winds on the face of the downlands.
The terrible defeat of India Muerta deprived Rivera of his military
prestige and Uruguay of her last hope of aggressive warfare. Cooped up
in Montevideo, the Government appealed in despair for foreign
intervention. England and France, viewing the policy of Rosas with
dislike, complied with the request. But in the end their interference
proved futile, although the combined European forces went the length
of blockading the Argentine ports, and of defeating Rosas's troops on
the banks of the Paraná.
Rivera in the meanwhile had fallen upon evil days. His last defeat had
involved him in straits that went beyond even the loss of men and
power. The fatal day won for him, unjustly enough as it proved, the
active suspicion of his own people. Doubtful of his loyalty, the
Montevideo Government applied to Brazil for his banishment to Rio de
Janeiro. The petition was acceded to; but the Uruguayan leader seemed
a veritable human phoenix in his ability to spring undismayed from the
ashes of each successive disaster. With the ultimate object of taking
an active part once again in his country's defence, he succeeded in
getting himself appointed by Montevideo as Minister Plenipotentiary to
Paraguay.
Rivera, however, had no intention of proceeding to take up his office.
Once free of Brazil, he sailed boldly down the river to Montevideo,
and raised the popular opinion of the capital so much in his favour
that, after a short period of disturbance in the beleaguered city, he
was once again endowed with trust and command. He took himself
forthwith to the Campo, where he resumed his warlike operations with
varied success.
Nevertheless, it was many years ere this particular period of
Uruguay's strenuous vicissitudes came to an end. The year 1851 marked
one of the numerous dawns in the fortunes of the land. Then an
alliance was concluded between Uruguay and Brazil, while the famous
General Urquiza, revolting against the Buenos Aires tyrant, brought
the forces of Entre Rios to join the league that was now formed
against Rosas. The result was the Battle of Monte Caseros, in which
the combined forces made an end to the dictator's power, and caused
him to flee to Europe.
The soil of Uruguay was once again free from hostile troops. During
the fleeting period of peace that followed, it is necessary to take
leave of two of the three Orientales who had ridden to such purpose on
the breath of the whirlwind. A little more than two years after the
Battle of Monte Caseras, Lavalleja died at Montevideo. In harness to
the end, the liberator of his country ended his career just as he had
once again been elected to take a share in its government. Three short
months later Rivera followed his old comrade and enemy to the land
where the cavalry lance is unknown and where no gunshot crashes echo.
CHAPTER IX
HISTORY--_continued_
Condition of Uruguay at the conclusion of the war against
Rosas--Measures for the relief of poverty--Juan Francesco Giro
elected President--The arising of antagonistic elements--Giro
resigns in favour of Bernardo Berro--A revolution ends in the
formation of a triumvirate--On the death of Lavalleja and Rivera,
Flores becomes Dictator--Rebellion against his rule--Brazil sends
an army to the assistance of General Flores--Further
revolutionary movements--Manuel Basilio Bustamente succeeds
Flores--The policy of General César Diaz--His exile and return at
the head of an army--Defeat and death of Diaz--Two interim
Presidents--Continuous civil war--General Flores enters the
Republic in command of a strong force and is declared
Dictator--The Paraguayan war--Causes of its outbreak--The policy
and military strength of Paraguay--Strategic errors--Uruguay's
share in the campaign--Flores returns to Montevideo from the seat
of war--His assassination--General Lorenzo Batlle elected
President--The continuance of political unrest--Various
presidents and dictators--The Government of the present day--Don
José Batlle y Ordoñez--Doctor Claudio Williman--The Uruguayan
battle-fields in tabular form--Progress of the land.
With the Battle of Monte Caseros and the fall of Rosas the range of
episode enters comparatively modern times. Although the war had ended
successfully for the Uruguayan cause, its conclusion left the country
in an utterly impoverished and desolate condition. Through the
terrible stress of events in a land of such infinite natural resources
the population was roofless, and in many districts actually at the
point of starvation--an unheard of situation for such a country. As
for the treasury, it was virtually empty, and the harassed Government
found itself under the necessity of seeking for loans from without
its frontiers on any terms that it could obtain.
On the 1st of March, 1852, Don Juan Francisco Giro was elected as the
fourth constitutional President of Uruguay. The newly elected chief of
the State made desperate efforts towards ameliorating the financial
condition of the country, but political complications were destined to
work against success from the very start. A fortnight after he had
assumed power the Uruguayan army that had borne a brilliant share in
the victory of Monte Caseros returned home from Buenos Aires. Its
commander, General César Diaz, was acclaimed as a popular hero, and
was promptly created Minister for War and Marine, although his
sympathies were directly opposed to the Government.
It was not long ere the antagonistic elements that now surrounded him
led to the resignation of Giro, who in October delegated his authority
to Don Bernardo Berro. The latter, however, was able no more than his
predecessor to restrain the tide of partizanship, and in July of 1853
an open revolution broke ou
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