Chapter IV,

Uruguay: Lavalleja—rivera—the New Caudillos

The factions: Reds and Whites—The leaders: Artigas, Lavalleja, Rivera—The modern period.

A small southern republic, situated between an Imperialist state, Brazil, and a nation ambitious of hegemony, the Argentine, Uruguay, "the Eastern Province" (Banda Oriental) has struggled for its liberty since the commencement of the nineteenth century. Artigas represented the principle of nationality in the long wars against Buenos-Ayres and the Spanish armies: he was the first caudillo, the forerunner of the Independence. Rivera and Lavalleja inherited his unconquerable patriotism, and proclaimed the independence of their country. In 1822, without the constant aid of armies of liberation, such as those of San Martin and Bolivar, but by the heroic efforts of its own soldiers, the ancient province of the vice-kingdom of La Plata constituted itself a new State, governed by a Unitarian constitution.

Artigas had fought for the liberty of the province of Uruguay, for its freedom from all tutelage. Rivera and Lavalleja were willing to compromise at the commencement of the new campaign of liberation. A Congress held at Montevideo proclaimed the incorporation of the Eastern Province with Portugal. The two caudillos desired the union of Uruguay with Brazil. Another leader, Manuel Oribe, was anxious for the protection of the legions of the Argentine to conquer the independence of his country. An ambassador from Buenos-Ayres, Don Valentin Gomez, proposed to Brazil in 1825 that the rebellious Uruguay should once more become a province of the Argentine, but the Empire refused to consent. Lavalleja, who had sought for Brazilian protection, changed his mind; he sought for Argentine assistance, whether that of the capital or that of the federal leaders, while Rivera remained faithful to his original programme of union with Southern Brazil. A piece of heroism worthy of the Spanish conquistadors set a term to this indecision. Lavalleja, at the head of the "Thirty-Three," a little band of heroes comparable to the legendary companions of Pizarro and Cortes, landed on the Uruguayan coast on the 19th of April, 1825. "Liberty or death" was their watchword. Rivera joined them, and the struggle for the independence of the eastern province at once gained an intenser significance. At Florida a provisional government was installed, which decreed separation from Brazil and Portugal, proclaimed the sovereignty of the nation, and decided upon union, under a federal organisation, with the Argentine provinces. "Eastern Argentines," Lavalleja called his compatriots. The rulers of the Argentine did not decide upon supporting the liberators of Uruguay. With Brazil hostile, and abandoned by Buenos-Ayres, the indomitable "Orientals" commenced a bitter warfare which ended in their winning their independence. Rivera defeated the Brazilian general Abreu at Rincon-de-Haeda, then at Sarandu, a decisive battle which Zorrilla de San Martin compares to Chacabuco. The Argentines maintained their neutrality, but the Congress of 1825, obedient to the suggestions of Rivadavia, declared to Brazil that it recognised the incorporation of the Eastern Province "which has by its own efforts restored the liberty of its territory." War broke out against Brazil; Buenos-Ayres and Rio de Janeiro both aspired to rule in Montevideo. The conflict lasted from 1826 to 1828; Argentines and Uruguayans took part in it, fighting side by side. The campaign was directed by Lavalleja and General Alvear, who in Buenos-Ayres had been a fashionable dictator. Rivera withdrew from the army. Brazil suffered a defeat at Itazango, where 3,000 "Orientals" and 4,000 Argentines fought against 9,000 Brazilian soldiers. All things pointed to the fact that Uruguay would soon be an independent nation. The "Orientals" no longer admitted the hegemony of Brazil, nor the tutelage of Argentina; they decided to pursue the struggle without the help of Buenos-Ayres. The war would be longer, but even more certain in its results. Lavalleja replaced Alvear in the government. Rivera, who had landed at Soriano, fought and won at Misiones (1828), and continued unaided the campaign against Artigas. He distrusted Buenos-Ayres and even Lavalleja himself, and, thanks to his continued efforts, peace with Brazil was finally signed on the 27th of August, 1838. The Empire recognised the independence of the "Province of Montevideo" and the constitution of a "sovereign State," a necessary factor in the political equilibrium of La Plata.

JUAN ANTONIO LAVALLEJA.
Caudillo of Uruguay in the struggle for independence.

Seven years later, under the tyranny of Rosas, Uruguay saw her autonomy menaced. The Argentine dictator aspired to conquer the little republic and to rule as the Spanish viceroys had ruled in all the provinces of La Plata, from Tarija to Montevideo. The "Oriental" President Oribe, elected in 1825, was the ally of Rosas against the Argentine refugees in Montevideo, who were supported by Rivera. Uruguayans and Argentines were confounded in the two parties, but Rivera represented a new source of conflict, as in his quarrels with Lavalleja, the unconquerable spirit of nationality. Defeated in 1837, he continued, upon Brazilian territory, an obstinate warfare against Oribe. He defeated him, and was proclaimed President of Uruguay. Oribe then figured in the Argentine army, as a general of Rosas.

At this stage the conflict between Unitarians and federals around Montevideo acquired a transcendental significance. Brazil intervened once more in the affairs of La Plata. Impregnable as Paraguay under Lopez, the Eastern Province continued the war against Oribe, its ex-president, and against the legions of the Argentine tyrant. A noble crusader in the cause of liberty, Garibaldi, at the head of the Uruguayan squadron which defended Montevideo, gave the struggle a romantic character. Oribe, a genius of destruction, ravaged the country, and besieged Montevideo by land in 1843. Foreigners: French, Italians, Turks, and natives, defended the threatened city. England, France, and Brazil at first offered their mediation, which was refused by Oribe; they then sent squadrons to defend the autonomy of Uruguay and to insure the free navigation of the River Parana in the interests of European commerce. After a long war of heroic conflicts Urquiza, the leader of the armies in alliance against the autocracy of Rosas, put Oribe to flight (1861) and saved Montevideo from the Argentine peril.

Lavalleja and Rivera, the great caudillos in the struggle for liberty, were rival claimants for power and moral influence. Rivera, like Artigas, represented an aggressive patriotism, hostile to all outside influence; his ideal was national integrity. Generous, anarchical, of the native type, he was more liberal and more of a democrat than Lavalleja; he defended all liberties—liberty of conscience, of industry, of the press. A nomadic gaucho, he organised and led guerilla forces through a campaign of incessant skirmishes. Lavalleja, imperfectly educated, rude, authoritative, half a Spaniard in his pride and his colonial methods, was the leader of the aristocratic and cultivated classes. More conservative and more politic than Rivera, he opposed the rural democracy, and desired an orderly independence, a disciplined liberty; in government he was a tyrant. He alienated the supporters of Rivera, dissolved the Chamber of Representatives, reformed the administration of justice, and estranged the authorities of the departments. Rivera, President from 1830 to 1834 and from 1838 to 1843, was—like the majority of the American caudillos—a zealous protector of commerce and industry. The national revenues mounted by 27 per cent.; imports and exports increased; the population was doubled, and schools and libraries were founded. Rivera exterminated the Charrua Indians, who pillaged in town and country, fostered the stock-raising industry, and, in his democratic enthusiasm, prohibited the slave trade in 1839 and freed the slaves in 1842.

In the rivalry of these leaders we may already perceive the elements of future civil struggles. Two political parties, the Whites and the Reds, struggled for power, as in other American republics; their disputes, which were long and violent, revealed an antagonism more profound than any simple conflict of political opinions. Uruguay, like Venezuela and Peru, is a country of caudillos, but all her leaders, from Rivera to Battle Ordonez, have effected not merely works of material progress, but also religious and moral reforms, which explains the violent mutual hatred of the Reds and Whites. In matters of local import, or of national convictions and traditions, there is a clash of formidable instincts, and the political problem becomes simplified. Two great groups, one conservative and the other liberal, both represented by tenacious leaders, disputed the supreme power in the government and in parliament. The Whites were partisans of absolutism, nationalists and catholics, and intolerant towards foreign cults; and the old Spanish aristocracy, the clergy, the "doctors"—all those, in short, who would constitute an intellectual oligarchy—sympathised with this authoritative and traditionalist party. The Reds called their adversaries cut-throats (for in the name of reasons of State and of order they had no respect for human life), reproached them with opposing due liberties (they did condemn what they considered excessive liberties) and were liberals and enemies of the Church. The country districts and the cabins supported them; they were the popular party. The Whites called them "the Savages." Although very old families figured in both clans, the new social classes, the mestizos and children of foreigners inclined rather to the Reds, while the Whites included the proprietors of the latifundia.

Lavalleja died in 1853, Rivera in 1854. After the death of the two leaders a barbarous warfare continued between the two parties, which represented tradition and democracy. In vain did certain of the Presidents—Garro, Flores, and Berro—attempt to realise the unity of Uruguay and to form a national party. The conflict still continued, for the groups were swayed by an inevitable antagonism: the conservative oligarchy and the half-breed democracy are opposed in Uruguay as in Mexico and Venezuela. The old families, beati possidentes, defended "la grande proprieté" against the foreigners and mestizos.

With the triumph of Flores (1865) the Whites lost their political supremacy, and the liberal party regained its old position. Flores protected commerce, rebuilt the cities destroyed by so many wars, and built railways; his dictatorship terminated in 1868. The leader of the Reds returned to the Presidency from 1875 to 1876, and his party established itself more firmly. Despite fresh revolutions, it did not yield up the government, and effected great social reforms. Another caudillo, the present President, Don José Battle y Ordoñez, is, by virtue of his liberal creed, his influence, and the daring of his political programme, an eminent personage amidst the sordid quarrels which divide the populations of America; he has inherited the authority of Rivera, Flores, and Lorenzo Battle.

The modern Uruguay is born of the struggle between the two traditional parties: a small nation with an intense commercial vitality, like Belgium and Switzerland. A harmonious republic, it has not overlooked, in its material conquests, the suggestion of Ariel. An admirable master, José Enrique Rodo, has established a chair of idealism at Montevideo. Immigration, a surplus[1] in the budgets, a strict service of the internal debt, an increasing population—in short, all the aspects of economic progress—go hand in hand with the spread of education, the abundance of schools, the importance of journalism, and the moral vigour of a younger generation, which is ambitious for its country, and anxious that Uruguay shall play a noble part upon the American stage. The most advanced laws—divorce, suppression of the death penalty, a code protecting workers, separation of Church and State—give the development of Uruguayan civilisation a markedly liberal aspect. Miscegenation decreased after the destruction of the Charruas, and the race is more homogeneous and keenly patriotic. The enthusiasm of the Uruguayans has baptized Montevideo in the name of New Troy, for the possession of this impregnable city was, in the Iliad of America, the ambition of every conqueror: it was the refuge of the pilgrims of liberty, of ambitious foreigners, of Argentine Unitarians, and of a romantic soldier, Garibaldi. When the peoples of America, weary of civil discord, wish to unify their laws and glorify the heroism of their past conflicts, they proceed to Montevideo, as to The Hague or Washington, in periodical Peace Congresses. In a continent divided by fatal ambitions, the capital of Uruguay preserves the tradition of Americanism.

[1] This surplus amounted to eight millions of piastres between 1906 and 1910.