League of the Free Peoples Liga de los Pueblos Libres | |||||||||||||
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1815–1820 | |||||||||||||
Flag | |||||||||||||
Capital | Purificación (provisory), Montevideo | ||||||||||||
Common languages | Spanish | ||||||||||||
Government | Confederal revolutionary provisional government | ||||||||||||
Leader | |||||||||||||
History | |||||||||||||
• Congreso de Oriente | 29 June 1815 | ||||||||||||
23 February 1820 | |||||||||||||
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History of Uruguay |
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Uruguayportal |
The Federal League (Spanish : Liga Federal), also known as the League of the Free Peoples (Liga de los Pueblos Libres), was an alliance of provinces in what is now Uruguay, Argentina and Brazil that aimed to establish a confederal organization for the state that was emerging from the May Revolution in the war of independence against the Spanish Empire.
Inspired and led by José Gervasio Artigas, it proclaimed independence from the Spanish Crown in 1815 and sent provincial delegates to the Congress of Tucumán with instructions regarding the nonnegotiable objective of declaring full independence for the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata and establishing a confederation of provinces, all of them on equal footing and the government of each being directly accountable to its peoples by direct democratic means of government. The delegates from these provinces were rejected on formalities from the Congress that declared the independence of the United Provinces of South America on July 9, 1816.
The Federal League confronted the centralist governments, as well as the interests of the economic and cultural elite of Buenos Aires and Montevideo, in what later amounted to a civil war. In 1820, the federalist governors of Santa Fe and Entre Ríos provinces, Estanislao López and Francisco Ramírez, defeated a diminished Directorial army, ending the centralized government of the United Provinces and establishing a federal agreement with Buenos Aires Province.
The league was dissolved after its constituent provinces rejoined the United Provinces, now under a federal provisional organisation, and after the invasion of the Banda Oriental by the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves and the defeat of Artigas. At its largest extent, the League extended over the territories of present-day Uruguay, the southern Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul and the Argentine provinces of Entre Ríos, Santa Fe, Corrientes, Misiones and Córdoba. It was instrumental in the Guaraní participation in the revolutionary cause.
Although the country was intended to extend throughout modern-day Argentina, its leadership was based on Purificación and the Eastern Bank of the Uruguay River. Therefore, it is sometimes considered a predecessor state of modern Uruguay.
On May 13, 1810, the arrival of a British frigate in Montevideo confirmed the rumors circulating in Buenos Aires: France, led by Emperor Napoleon, had invaded Spain, capturing and overthrowing Ferdinand VII Bourbon, the Spanish King. The situation was clear: with the authority of the vice-regency gone, there was a power vacuum. Leading figures in Buenos Aires quickly arranged a meeting and after much discussion it was decided to replace the Spanish rule with a local Junta.
After the May Revolution, most of the provinces of the former Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata joined to form the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata, also known as United Provinces of South America in 1810. The four provinces of Upper Peru (current-day Bolivia) were occupied by Spanish Royalist forces and the other ten provinces were under pressure from Royalist forces.
In 1810, Spain moved the headquarters for the Viceroyalty of the River Plate to Montevideo after the May Revolution forced them to abandon Buenos Aires. On February 15, 1811 José Gervasio Artigas left his home of Montevideo and moved to Buenos Aires to offer his military services. The people of Spanish America were fighting for their freedom and Artigas wished to defend these ideals in the Eastern Bank. At the beginning of April he returned to his country with approximately 180 men provided by the Government of Buenos Aires; on April 11, he issued the Mercedes Proclamation, assumed control of the revolution and on May 18 defeated the Spanish in the Battle of Las Piedras. He then began the siege of Montevideo and was acclaimed as The First Chief of the "Orientals" (the first names of current Uruguay being Banda Oriental (Eastern Bank) and later Provincia Oriental (Eastern Province), Uruguayans thus refer to themselves as 'Orientales').
He soon turned against the government of the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata and in 1814 he organized the Unión de los Pueblos Libres (Union of the Free Peoples), of which he was declared Protector. In the following year, as a federalist, he liberated Montevideo from the centralizing control of the "Unitarians" from Buenos Aires, and in 1815 declared the Liga Federal. In this Congress Artigas ratified the use of the flag created by Manuel Belgrano (which would later become the flag of the Argentine Republic), but added a diagonal festoon in red, red being the sign of federalism in Argentina at that time. [1] Original member provinces were the present-day Argentinian provinces of:
The constant growth of influence and prestige of the Federal League frightened Buenos Aires (due to its federalism) and Portugal (because of its republicanism), and in August, 1816 the latter invaded the Eastern Province with the intention of destroying the protector Artigas and his revolution.
The Portuguese forces, led by Carlos Frederico Lecor, thanks to his numerical and material superiority, conquered the Eastern Province and took Montevideo on January 20, 1817, but the struggle continued for three long years in the countryside. Infuriated by Buenos Aires's passivity, Artigas declared war on the Supreme Directorship at the same time that he faced the Portuguese with armies that were being decimated by successive defeats. Without resources and without suitable men for the struggle, Artigas finally retreated to Entre Ríos Province, across the Uruguay River.
In 1820, governors Francisco Ramírez and Estanislao López, of Entre Ríos and Santa Fe provinces respectively, both members of the Federal League, managed to end victorious the struggle against the centralism of Buenos Aires, defeating a diminished Supreme Directorship army at the Battle of Cepeda and signing a federal agreement with Buenos Aires Province. As these Provinces, and Corrientes Province, rejoined the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata, the Federal League effectively came to an end as a separate political entity.
The Treaty of Pilar resulted unacceptable to Artigas so he ordered Ramírez and López to renounce it, but they disobeyed. Because of this, Artigas entered into conflict with his former ally Governor Francisco Ramírez, who defeated the remnants of Artigas' army. Artigas withdrew to Paraguay, where he settled as an exile until his death. [2] The Eastern Province was annexed by Portugal to its Brazilian dependences in 1821.
José Gervasio Artigas Arnal was a soldier and statesman who is regarded as a national hero in Uruguay and the father of Uruguayan nationhood.
The Argentine War of Independence was a secessionist civil war fought from 1810 to 1818 by Argentine patriotic forces under Manuel Belgrano, Juan José Castelli, Martin Miguel de Guemes and José de San Martín against royalist forces loyal to the Spanish crown. On July 9, 1816, an assembly met in San Miguel de Tucumán, declaring independence with provisions for a national constitution.
Banda Oriental, or more fully Banda Oriental del Río Uruguay, was the name of the South American territories east of the Uruguay River and north of Río de la Plata that comprise the modern nation of Uruguay, the modern state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, and part of the modern state of Santa Catarina, Brazil. It was the easternmost territory of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata.
Concepción del Uruguay is a city in Argentina.
Estanislao López was a caudillo and governor of the province of Santa Fe, Argentina, between 1818 and 1838, one of the foremost proponents of provincial federalism, and an associate of Juan Manuel de Rosas during the Argentine Civil War. He is considered an iconic figure in Santa Fe and one of the most influential political actors in the Argentine conflicts of the 1820s and 1830s.
The United Provinces of the Río de la Plata, earlier known as the United Provinces of South America, was a name adopted in 1816 by the Congress of Tucumán for the region of South America that declared independence in 1816, with the Sovereign Congress taking place in 1813, during the Argentine War of Independence (1810–1818) that began with the May Revolution in 1810. It originally comprised rebellious territories of the former Spanish Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata dependencies and had Buenos Aires as its capital.
Brigadier General José María Paz y Haedo was an Argentine military figure, notable in the Argentine War of Independence and the Argentine Civil Wars.
The Battle of Cepeda of 1820 took place on February 1 in Cañada de Cepeda, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina. The conflict was the first major battle that saw Unitarians and Federals as two constituted sides. It ended with the defeat of the national government.
The Treaty of Pilar was a pact signed among the rulers of the Argentine provinces of Santa Fe, Entre Ríos and Buenos Aires, which is recognized as the foundation of the federal organization of the country. It was signed in the city of Pilar, Buenos Aires on 23 February 1820 by governor Estanislao López for Santa Fe, caudillo Francisco Ramírez for Entre Ríos, and provisional governor Manuel de Sarratea for Buenos Aires, after the dissolution of the national government caused by the Battle of Cepeda. A reference to it was included in the Preamble of the Argentine Constitution of 1853 as one of the "pre-existing pacts" fulfilled by it.
Mariano Vera was a caudillo and governor of the Santa Fe Province, United Provinces of the Rio de la Plata, between 12 April 1816 and 23 July 1818, all during a period of change driven by revolution and civil war in this portion of South America.
Cisplatina was a Brazilian province in existence from 1821 to 1828 created by the Luso-Brazilian invasion of the Banda Oriental. From 1815 until 1822 Brazil was a constituent kingdom of the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves. After the independence of Brazil and the formation of the Empire of Brazil the Cisplatina province remained part of it. In 1828, following the Preliminary Peace Convention, the Cisplatina province became independent as Uruguay.
The Portuguese conquest of the Banda Oriental was the armed-conflict that took place between 1816 and 1820 in the Banda Oriental, for control of what today comprises the whole of the Republic of Uruguay, the northern part of the Argentine Mesopotamia and southern Brazil. The four-year armed-conflict resulted in the annexation of the Banda Oriental into the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves as the Brazilian province of Cisplatina.
Manuel de Sarratea,, was an Argentine diplomat, politician and soldier. He was the son of Martín de Sarratea (1743–1813), of the richest merchant of Buenos-Aires and Tomasa Josefa de Altolaguirre. His sister Martina de Sarrateas (1772–1805) married Santiago de Liniers, vice-roy del Rio de la Plata.
The Argentine Civil Wars were a series of civil conflicts of varying intensity that took place through the territories of Argentina from 1814 to 1853. Beginning concurrently with the Argentine War of Independence (1810–1818), the conflict prevented the formation of a stable governing body until the signing of the Argentine Constitution of 1853, followed by low-frequency skirmishes that ended with the Federalization of Buenos Aires. The period saw heavy intervention from the Brazilian Empire that fought against state and provinces in multiple wars. Breakaway nations, former territories of the viceroyalty, such as the Banda Oriental, Paraguay and the Upper Peru were involved to varying degrees. Foreign powers such as the British and French empires put heavy pressure on the fledgling nations at times of international war.
Francisco Ramírez, also known as "Pancho" Ramírez as well as "El Supremo Entrerriano" (1786–1821), was an Argentine governor of Entre Ríos during the Argentine War of Independence.
The rise of the Argentine Republic was a process that took place in the first half of the 19th century in Argentina. The Republic has its origins on the territory of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata, a colony of the Spanish Empire. The King of Spain appointed a viceroy to oversee the governance of the colony. The 1810 May Revolution staged a coup d'état and deposed the viceroy and, along with the Argentine war of independence, started a process of rupture with the Spanish monarchy with the creation of an independent republican state. All proposals to organize a local monarchy failed, and no local monarch was ever crowned.
Lucio Norberto Mansilla was an Argentine soldier and politician. He was the first governor of the Entre Ríos Province and fought in the battle of Vuelta de Obligado.
The Argentine War of Independence was fought from 1810 to 1818 by Argentine patriotic forces under Manuel Belgrano, Juan José Castelli and José de San Martín against royalist forces loyal to the Spanish crown. On July 9, 1816, an assembly met in San Miguel de Tucumán, declared full independence with provisions for a national constitution.
The dissolution of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata meant the breakup of the Spanish colony in South America and the creation of new independent countries. Most of the territory of the Spanish viceroyalty is now part of Argentina, and other regions belong to Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay.
The First Siege of Montevideo took place between May and October 1811, when the troops of the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata unsuccessfully besieged the city of Montevideo, still held by Spanish loyalists.
The red, blue and white colours were used by Artigas to establish a clear difference between the flag of the Eastern Province. These three colours evoke the colours of the French Tricolor of French Revolution days. At the beginning of the 19th century, red and blue were the colours you could find when looking for cloth for the soldiers' uniforms, in these Spanish colonies. Materials came in two shades of blue. One, the lightest, was celestial or "heavenly" blue and had been chosen by Belgrano for the flag of the May 1810 Revolution. Four or five years later, not wanting his colors to be similar or confused with those of the Buenos Aires government, against whose dominance he would be soon fighting, Artigas chose to design his flag and other provinces which were with him in opposing of Unitarian domination, in colours not existing in the Argentine flag. The shade of blue he adopted therefore was navy blue. Jorge Cajarville, 16 Jun 1999