Remarkable Argentina - The Wise World Traveler: Becoming a Part of All that You Meet - page 333

came ashore to found Buenos Aires. It was a splendid site, a harbor on the shores of a huge
estuary, the Rio de la Plata, so named because legend has it that silver here was thick on
the ground ( plata , Spanish for silver; argentum , Latin for silver). No such mineral wealth
has ever been found, but the fine harbor and its reassuring winds signaled the name, Santa
Maria de los Buenos Aires, Our Sainted Lady of Good Air.
The nation that would become Argentina stirred to life in 1806 when a British fleet
attacked Buenos Aires and occupied the city. An aroused citizenry drove them out, but in
1807 the British returned, and local resistance and patriotism increased. In 1808 Napoleon
invaded Spain and put his brother on its throne. A citizen militia of Buenos Aires declared
independence, while the great landlords of the La Plata hinterland and the rich merchants of
the city raised royalist banners. Fifteen years of civil war followed (1810-1824): soldiers,
colonials, and churchmen loyal to Spain versus soldiers and colonials fighting for inde-
pendence. In 1814 the wars for independence found their great leader, Jose de San Martin
(liberator of Argentina, Chile, and Peru), but just as the war was grinding to its close, Ar-
gentina was caught up in a wider war with Brazil (1825-27) over the Rio de la Plata territ-
ory that is now Uruguay.
From that war, a ruthless general pushed to power, Juan Manuel de la Rosa (he con-
trolled Argentina from 1829-1852). General de la Rosa crushed Buenos Aires's drive for
autonomy, and more important for the future of Argentina, he waged war on the Indians of
Patagonia. In today's terms, it was a war of ethnic extermination. Another general seized
power in 1852, and now the pattern of Argentine politics was set. In times of political un-
rest, economic breakdown, and when the civilian government seems to have lost its way,
generals and the army take power. This is the pattern shared by all the countries of South
America. It is the pattern of the caudillo : the military leader who leads a revolution, who
saves his country from chaos, and when the revolution is won and peace and order return,
the caudillo clings to power, proclaiming himself and his army essential to the well-being
of the nation.
HOW DID JUAN PERON RISE TO POWER?
Juan Peron was only one in a long line of Argentina's military rulers. But his rule was ex-
ceptional. It fused military force with passionate popular support. He dominated Argentine
politics for almost a quarter of a century, and even today, Peronistas are a pivot (some say
the pivot) of Argentine politics. One of the oldest puzzles of history is expressed in an op-
posing pair of questions: Do the times make the man? Or does the man make the times?
This is the great-man theory of history (“The history of the world is but the biography of
great men,” said Thomas Carlyle [288] ) versus the play of time and circumstance (“events
call forth the man”). Juan Peron and his wife, Eva, were loved by the masses, but their rise