Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
content of the federalist program. From 1813 to 1818, the popular fol-
lowers of Artigas were very stout, indeed. Warfare had removed nearly
all authority in the countryside. The gauchos who had been itinerant
laborers during the late 18th century now inherited the land on which
they had once worked. Small bands of men and women traveled in the
backlands and helped themselves to cattle and horses. They dried a
few hides to trade for tobacco,
yerbamate,
and
aguardiente,
the sugar
brandy consumed by the popular classes of the region.
Artigas's control over these popular forces depended on his faithful-
ness to their agenda, and thus he enunciated a radical social program
that included redistribution of the land. He proposed to take land from
Spaniards and those Creoles who sided with Spaniards and redistribute
it among “
pardos
[mulattoes],
zambos
[Afro-mestizos], and Indians.”
The banners of federalism also fluttered over the mounted gangs of
montoneros
from other provinces. All the federalist bands, to a certain
extent, lived off pillage and their leaders adopted political programs of
regional autonomy.
The federalism of the revolutionary period contained its own contra-
dictions of colonial origin. In all cases, the leaders were Creoles whose
class and perspective were not the same as those of the followers. While
the caudillo on the rise reflected the popular agenda, the caudillo who
consolidated political power certainly returned to the colonial legacy
of disciplining the popular classes and governing by autocratic rather
than democratic means. These popular leaders ultimately brought a
semblance of order out of the chaos of the revolutionary period by
returning to these legacies of social control; however, José Gervasio
Artigas was not to be one of them. He lost the political struggle before
he was able to consolidate sufficient power.
The challenge of the
artiguistas
to Buenos Aires hegemony rose sig-
nificantly when they liberated Montevideo from the Spaniards in 1815,
ostensibly gaining political autonomy for the
orientales.
It was not to
last. The Portuguese from Brazil returned in 1816, drove Artigas back
across the Uruguay River, and blockaded Buenos Aires.
Other popular caudillos, in the meantime, were operating in the inte-
rior provinces of Argentina. Francisco Ramírez became the strongman
of Córdoba; Facundo Quiroga operated in La Rioja; Martín Güemes
protected the autonomy of Salta; and eventually Ramírez supplanted
Artigas in Entre Ríos. Because some of his erstwhile federalist allies had
turned against him, notably Ramírez, the defeated Artigas requested
sanctuary in Paraguay. Caudillo José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia,
who had successfully consolidated power in Paraguay in 1813, wanted
