Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Rosas was also responsible for developing state terrorism in Argentina.
Not only did he take advantage of political unrest to secure dictato-
rial powers, but he also organized a secret police force known as the
Mazorca. Opponents called it the “más horca,” a play on words that
translates to “more hanging.” Rosas kept the Mazorca, a group of politi-
cal thugs of working-class origin, to intimidate opponents and to pun-
ish those who might challenge his rule.
The terror did bring about political security for the young nation
for the first time since the outbreak of the War of Independence, but it
also resulted in the exile of some of Argentina's brightest statesmen and
literary figures. While in exile, future president Domingo F. Sarmiento
traveled in Chile and the United States. The jurist and economist Juan
Bautista Alberdi came to know Montevideo, Santiago, and Paris before
he returned from exile to write a new constitution for Argentina. The
exiled writer Esteban Echeverría likened the state terror under Rosas
to the dregs of society having come to power: “[T]he butchers of the
slaughterhouse were the apostles who propagated the
rosista
federation
at the point of a dagger. . . . [T]hey labeled as [an opponent] anyone
who was not a decapitator, a butcher, a savage, or a thief; anyone who
was a decent man, with his heart in the right place, any enlightened
patriot who promoted knowledge and freedom; and . . . it can be clearly
seen that the source of the federation could be found in the slaughter-
house itself” (Ross and McGann 1982, 57).
Although Rosas was not above exploiting race and class antago-
nisms, he did not set about reforming the social order. Never did he
suggest the redistribution of land, as did the federalist José Gervasio
Artigas; nor did Rosas renounce the need to discipline the popular
classes that supported him. He favored the ranching interests of the
emerging elite of
estancieros,
to which he belonged. Rosas permitted
trade with all countries wishing to purchase Argentine ranch products
and upheld the private property rights of the well-to-do. The governor
gave his staunchest friends lucrative government contracts to supply
the troops and to provide horses and cattle to his Indian allies beyond
the frontier. Above all, Governor Rosas wished to reestablish order, rule
as a dictator, and intimidate political opponents from his own class. But
he could not rule a nation with these policies.
The Interior Fights Back
The other provinces, as well as the republics of Uruguay and Paraguay,
did not approve of what appeared to them to be Rosas's selfish, pro-
