Notes on the History of
Argentine Independence

NOTES ON THE HISTORY
OF
ARGENTINE INDEPENDENCE.

A Paper read Before the American Club
of Buenos Aires
by Mr. C. W. WHITTEMORE.

In a former paper read before this Club, effort was made to show how settlements in the Argentine came east and south from Perú, step by step, until Buenos Aires was eventually founded by Juan de Garay in 1580. In Argentine history this is known as the "Refoundation" of the city, a sentimental fiction of obscure origin for there was no connection between the permanent work of Garay and the ephemeral passing of Pedro de Mendoza forty-four years previously. In the present paper, we will trace the history of Argentine Independence as it extended west and north, step by step, reversing the march of early settlement, until the final battles were fought and won in Perú, the stronghold of Spanish power in South America.

The Fathers of Argentine Independence took it for granted that the new nation would embrace all the territory included in the Viceroyship of the River Plate, which was created in 1776 (note the year:) as an afterthought of the Spanish Government and intended to quiet the discontent of the Argentine people over trade restrictions and to provide a bulwark against Portuguese aggressions, at that time a serious menace. It included the present Republics of Argentine, Uruguay, Paraguay and Bolivia, then called Upper Perú, this last having a considerable frontage on the Pacific Ocean. The population in 1776, including slaves and tame Indians, was probably less than five hundred thousand people, of which fully one-half lived in Upper Perú.

A noteworthy feature, the only one in all Spanish America, of the primary Argentine colonization was that it absorbed the Indian population. In Perú as in Mexico and elsewhere, the conquerors implanted a feudalism which had as its principal basis the distribution of the natives as laborers among the mine and ranch owners. The Indian races crossed with the Spaniards but were not assimilated. In the Argentine, on the contrary, the Indians were assimilated, there was a minimum of oppression, a limitation to human exploitation, a rudimentary recognition of equality, with the result that at an early day the native sons were the backbone of the settlements, assumed positions of authority, led exploring expeditions and founded other colonies. Seeds of eventual freedom were planted from the very beginning.

Spain settled America for the benefit of Spain, the welfare of the colonies was never considered, and one of the fundamental manifestations of this erroneous policy was the creation of arbitrary trade routes in opposition to natural laws. Buenos Aires was located at the junction of a system of rivers and was readily accessible from Transatlantic ports, yet all legitimate commerce had to come via Panamá and Perú, pay heavy sea and land freight charges, multiplied internal customs dues and much unnecessary handling, to the extent that by the time merchandise reached Buenos Aires, its cost had been increased 500 to 600 percent. Contraband flourished, ably and actively assisted by the British and Portuguese from the headquarters at Colonia, just across the river. The trade-route policy of Spain provoked in the Argentine a spirit of steadily growing hostility which smouldered for many years before the outbreak came.

As an item of passing interest, Buenos Aires because of geographical position became a port of relative importance in spite of the restrictions. During the five years from 1748 to 1753, some 150,000 native hides, and gold, silver, copper, tin, cacoa, vicuña wool and quinine from Perú and Chile to the value of 6,000,000 "pesos fuertes" were exported, while in the following ten years from 1754 to 1763 these same countries sent out through Buenos Aires 36,000,000 "pesos" worth of gold and silver.

The establishment of the Viceroyship in 1776 and the consequent formation in Buenos Aires of a locally semi-autonomous Government, facilitated and stimulated commercial activity. Wine came from Mendoza, rum and dried fruits from San Juan, textiles and laces from Tucumán and Salta where the Inca arts and industries persisted and flourished, hides and skins from the plains, "yerba", tobacco and fine woods from Paraguay. This internal commerce varied in value from 10,000,000 to 20,000,000 "pesos" annually. Paraguay sold 60,000 mules to Perú every year, and sent 2000 tons of "yerba" to Chile. Argentine exportation to Spain included crude and tanned bull and horse-hides; sheep-wool, jerked beef, wax, feathers and skins. Freedom of trade with Africa was obtained and other fields of activity were developed. Mexico and Lima were Colonial Courts, but Buenos Aires had become a market-place.

A Spanish traveller who visited Buenos Aires during the Viceroyship said:—"The Argentine creoles have a great idea of their equality with the Europeans"; adding, "There exists a sort of aversion of the creoles or sons of Spaniards born in America, towards the Europeans and especially toward the Spanish Government". Incoherent and crude though they were, handicapped by ignorance and superstition, especially in the rural regions, democratic tendencies accompanied the Argentine as it emerged from its two hundred years of isolation and prepared it for its mission of self-emancipation and for the salvation of South American independence.

Mitre, the most careful of Argentine historians, says:—"The embryonic body-politic with its democratic instincts contained, however, all the vices inherent to and proceeding from its Colonial origin and environment. The deserts, the solitude, the sloth, the sparse population, the lack of moral cohesion, the corrupt customs among the general mass, the absence of ideals, and above all, the profound ignorance of the people were causes and effects, which producing a semi-barbarity alongside of a weak and sickly civilization, concurred at an early age to viciate the organism". He goes on to say:—"The Colony and the Spanish Crown were not homogeneous. Thus during the long and ruinous wars waged by Spain in the XVII and XVIII centuries, Spanish America was neutral or indifferent, and was not moved by sentiments of patriotism, as happened among the British Colonies where the Mother-country was concerned". He further says:—"Unity of religious belief was the only factor which gave certain cohesion; but the clergy in the River Plate, with rare exceptions, was below the general average, without hierarchy, prestige, power or influence. Because of this, the Argentine clergy was revolutionary