Uruguayan independence fighter: Who is Jose Artigas?

(1764-1850) He struggled to establish an independent and federal state in the Rio de la Plata region.

Jose Gervasio Artigas was born on June 19, 1764 in Montevideo. He died in Ibiray, Paraguay, on September 23, 1850. In his youth, he was a cattle herder in the Banda Oriental region of present-day Uruguay. He joined the Spanish army in 1797 and took part in capturing the bandit gangs in the region.

In 1810, he participated in the independence struggle against the Spaniards in the Rio de la Plata region. He led the independence forces in the Banda Oriental region between 1810 and 1811 and collaborated with the independence junta established in Buenos Aires at the time. By the end of 1811, he had taken control of the entire Río de la Plata region except for Montevideo. After defeating Spanish forces at Las Piedras, he besieged Montevideo; However, when the Portuguese army came to the aid of the Spaniards via Brazil, he withdrew to Argentina with 16,000 people.

After this date, Artigas started an opposition movement defending federalism against the centralism of the Buenos Aires administration. Civil war broke out when delegates to Artigas' federalist views were not admitted to the constituent assembly in Buenos Aires in 1813. Artigas opposed the division of Latin American peoples, who did not differ greatly in language and ethnicity, into centralized national states, and advocated regional autonomy. Against this view, the administration in Buenos Aires favored the establishment of a strong and centralized European-style national state. Artigas was supported by the people of the region known today as Uruguay and four local governments called the "Federal League". The support of the Buenos Aires administration came mostly from the city and region of Buenos Aires, which was an important center.

After fighting for a while with the forces of the Buenos Aires administration, Artigas again besieged and captured Montevideo in 1815. In the same year, he entered Buenos Aires. In 1816, the Portuguese entered Uruguay, planning to annex the Rio de la Plata region to Brazilian territory. The people of Buenos Aires did not participate in the defense of Artigas. After resisting the superior Portuguese forces for four years, Artigas was defeated in 1820 and took refuge in Paraguay.

Artigas did not join the Uruguayan independence movement after this date and consciously stayed away from this movement. When Uruguay gained its independence in 1828, although his supporters invited him to the country, he did not comply with this call. He spent the rest of his life in exile in Paraguay.