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.