Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
slavery in Buenos Aires, the
porteño
invaders had no second thoughts
about decreeing the end to the Indian labor drafts, the termination
of Indian tribute, and equality between Indians and whites. Bolivian
elites were not unhappy to see loyalist forces from Lima drive out each
one of the military expeditions sent by Buenos Aires in 1811, 1813,
and 1815.
Paraguay also resisted the political leadership of Buenos Aires. In
1811, the native-born gentry backed the Spanish intendant in defeat-
ing an expedition from the port. Afterward, however, the same Creole
landowners overthrew the Spaniards. The Paraguayans were the first to
actually gain independence from Spain in 1811 while simultaneously
gaining autonomy from Buenos Aires.
The People's Revolution
An additional factor prevented the
porteños
from establishing the politi-
cal leadership of Buenos Aires over the entire former viceroyalty: the
popular revolution. Given the ruinous bickering among the Creole
leaders, the popular classes took matters into their own hands. These
popular rebellions, occurring simultaneously in many regions, radically
decentralized political leadership and led to a brief but intense period
of direct seizure and redistribution of property. The landholding and
merchant classes viewed these last two actions as robbery and pillage,
but the rebels simply considered them redistribution of what others had
made from the labor of the nonwhites during the colonial period.
We should not assume that these exercises of direct sovereignty of
the mounted soldiers, the
montoneros,
amounted to popular democracy
and socialization. Among these groups, power flowed from the tip of
the lance, and small landowners and their families suffered from the
rebels' depredations in greater measure than the elite. After all, the
colonial order had not prepared persons of the popular classes for
democracy and human rights. But in the process of the revolution,
these popular rebellions advanced the political cause of federalism and
pushed a social agenda that the Creole leadership otherwise would not
have shared.
The
artiguista
movement of Uruguay and the riverine provinces of
Argentina is a perfect example of the popular rebellions at work. The
artiguistas
were followers of José Gervasio Artigas, a revolutionary cau-
dillo (irregular military leader) from the Banda Oriental. In the colonial
days, on this rough and tumble frontier between Spanish and Portuguese
territories, Artigas worked alternately as a cattle rustler, a landowner and
