Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
network within the hinterland of South America. Military uprisings
interrupted trade through the interior to Potosí, and Spaniards fled
from Córdoba and Mendoza and later from Santiago, Lima, Potosí, and
ultimately Montevideo. Commenting on the social chaos that resulted
from the political breakdown, one British resident contrasted the
once-prosperous
estancias
of the Banda Oriental to a revolutionary-era
economy, “so depopulated and desolated, so immersed in misery and
discontent” (Szuchman and Brown 1994, 85).
VENTURA MIGUEL MARCÓ DEL
PONT LOSES HIS MONEY TO
THE REVOLUTION, 1810
T
The political struggle that followed the victory over the British
invaders separated the Spanish-born and the native-born whites.
Perhaps Ventura Miguel Marcó del Pont, a Spanish-born merchant,
had brought on his own trouble, in a way, by requesting that Viceroy
Santiago Liniers return the 70,300-peso “loan” that Marcó earlier had
made to the interim governor. Viceroy Liniers instead demanded a
strict accounting of all the merchant's wealth. Marcó complied, admit-
ting that he still had 31,000 pesos in cash, whereupon Liniers cited the
“great emergencies of the time” in ordering that Marcó deliver the
remaining money to the treasury. Within two months, Marcó received
an order authorized by the Council of Castile (Consejo de Castilla) for
the immediate remission to Spain of all funds belonging to Real Caja de
Consolidación. But the
porteño
government already had spent the funds,
as its outlays to Creole-led militias were increasing steadily.
Following the
cabildo abierto
on May 10,1810, Marcó fled Buenos
Aires, abandoning his Creole family. Marcó's wife had been born in
Buenos Aires, as had his children. A son, Agustín, followed a
porteño
army into Alto Perú and eventually settled down in Salta as a patriot
military officer, not as a merchant. As a Creole, Agustín, did not inherit
the international social contacts of his father.
In an irony of empire, the Spanish side of the family was still to play
a role in American affairs. Ferdinand VII appointed Marcó del Pont's
younger brother, General Francisco Casimiro Marcó del Pont, as captain
general of Chile. The younger Marcó faced the revolutionary Argentine
general José de San Martín on the battlefield in 1817.
