The Southern Liberation Movement

REVOLUTIONS IN LATIN AMERICA HIST 1301 | History The Southern Liberation Movement Similar to the northern port town of Caracas, the southern port of Buenos Aires profited greatly from the reforms implemented in the eighteenth century to expand the periphery of the Spanish Empire. Buenos Aires became the capital of the newly established Viceroyalty of Río de la Plata (present-day Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay, and Uruguay) in 1776, after it had previously been under the control of the Spanish Viceroyalty of Peru. The port served as the main route for the export of silver from Bolivia as well as tallow and animal hides from the wide plains of Uruguay and Argentina to markets outside. The people who lived in the town, called Porteños, also had lots of chances to trade illegal goods with the Portuguese and British. In the latter part of the eighteenth century, Buenos Aires' population doubled, reaching almost forty thousand by 1800, a fact that merchants and municipal authorities took great delight in. Thus, improving fortunes in Río de la Plata brought forth a new climate that favoured disruption over reform. Sugar, hides, cocoa, tobacco, silver, and other South American goods had a thriving international market, and the elite of the creole people were keen to welcome British, Dutch, and French traders into their ports. The Buenos Aires elites of Argentina also stood to benefit a great deal from more autonomy because of their convenient access to international traders across the Atlantic. The creole militia officers in Argentina established a new ruling junta that declared support for Fernando VII after Napoleon's invasion of Spain in 1808. But on May 25, 1810, after almost two years, dramatic shifts within the junta's patriotic majority forced them to reject Spanish rule, quell local opposition, and declare Argentina's revolutionary patriot movement. However, not every area in the Río de la Plata acknowledged the power of the junta, which had its headquarters in Buenos Aires. The junta quickly established authority over the central region of Argentina thanks to successful military operations, but its forces were unable to seize Paraguay and Uruguay, which had refused to submit to Buenos Aires' rule. The conservative local authorities of Tucumán, Argentina, called a congress in March 1816. On July 9, 1816 (Independence Day in Argentina), the assembly formally proclaimed the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata independent, acknowledging their political circumstances more so than demonstrating revolutionary zeal. When Argentina tried to expand its power there once more, resistance came not from far-off Spain but from the nearby royalist provinces of Uruguay and Paraguay. In 1811, Paraguayans formally proclaimed their independence from both the Spanish and Argentinean governments. Under the leadership of José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia, a lawyer who had briefly taught theology at a Paraguayan seminary, the new nation swiftly descended into a dictatorship. On October 1, 1813, the Congress of Paraguay selected him as one of the country's consuls in office. (Paraguay had two consuls, or top executives, who each oversaw half of the nation's army, in emulation of the Roman Republic.) A rule mandating racial mixing was issued in March 1814 by Francia, a champion of the common man; White Europeans were only permitted to marry individuals of African, Indigenous, or mestizo descent. A few months later, Francia was appointed as the sole consul of Paraguay by the congress, which also granted him full authority for a three-year term. Congress appointed him dictator of Paraguay for life in 1816. With the goal of achieving the objectives of the French Revolution and being impacted by the theories of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Francia worked to better the lot of the impoverished by doing away with tithes and transferring to the Paraguayan government authority over organisations previously managed by the Catholic Church, such as hospitals and orphanages, all the while continuing to build new churches and finance religious celebrations. Along with establishing national enterprises, he implemented modernization initiatives for agriculture. Francia, whose only goal was to transform society and make Paraguay self-sufficient, stopped trading with other countries, blocked river navigation between Argentina and Paraguay, and took a neutral stance on international affairs. Thus, Paraguay found itself cut off from the revolutionary unrest engulfing the rest of South America. The people of the eastern province of Montevideo (modern-day Uruguay) withstood threats from La Plata and Brazil and created their own movement, led by José Gervasio Artigas, in the same way as the people of Paraguay carved out their own route to independence. Spanish rule over Montevideo lasted until 1814, when the Argentines took control of it despite Artigas's calls for independence. Over all of Spanish South America, the Creole patriots had the upper hand. The Viceroyalty of Peru, the most resilient bastion of Spanish authority in South America, was the lone exception; there, royalist soldiers were positioned and the majority of Creoles remained staunchly royalist. Liberating Peru was essential because it posed a continual danger to patriots. After fighting Napoleon in Spain in 1812, the Argentine commander José Francisco de San Martín y Matorras devised a strategy in 1817 to assault and isolate royalists in Peru, the Spanish bastion. He set up an army camp at the foot of the Andes, and the Argentine soldiers achieved significant victories while he was in charge. Following meticulous planning, he led his 5,000 men across six separate routes into Chile in January 1817, traversing the Andes mountains, which reached elevations of almost 10 thousand feet above sea level. When creole Spanish Americans in that country founded their own junta in 1810, Chile had already seceded from the Viceroyalty of Peru; nonetheless, the area had been beset by civil wars between royalists and pro-independence groups that favoured varying degrees of autonomy. Bernardo O'Higgins, the head of one of the groups, was banished to Argentina after royalists got the upper hand. He contacted San Martín there, and the two of them plotted an attack on Chilean soldiers loyal to Spain. With the aid of San Martín, a resounding victory was achieved, and in 1818 O'Higgins proclaimed Chile's independence.