Sociedad Popular Restauradora

Last updated

The Sociedad Popular Restauradora (Spanish : Popular Restorer Society) was an Argentine security agency that worked for Juan Manuel de Rosas in the mid-nineteenth century. It is usually equated to the organization called the "Mazorca", which was actually the security and military force working for it.

Contents

It was created by Encarnación Ezcurra, Rosas' wife, during the Revolution of the Restorers, and disbanded by Rosas in 1846. It was focused in locating people (mostly Unitarians, but also opposing Federals) involved in conspiracies against Rosas. Modern historical investigations that set apart the executions performed by the Mazorca and executions carried out by other forces loyal to Rosas number those deaths at nearly 20 in 1840 and 20 more in 1842. [1]

Although some thought that the word Mazorca derived from "más horca" (more gallows), the more sinister (and orthographically plausible) belief was that the mazorca (Spanish for "corncob") referred to their chosen instrument of rectal torture. [2] As explained by General J.T. O'Brien (the Uruguayan Agent in England) for the benefit of the British Foreign Secretary Lord Aberdeen: [3]

The Masorcas [sic], or secret affiliation, in support of Rosas's government, derives its name from the inward stalk of the maize, when deprived of its grain, and has been used by members of the clubs as an instrument of torture, of which your Lordship may form some idea when calling to mind the agonizing death of Edward II. [4]

O'Brien, who claimed to have known Rosas for 25 years, added:

My Lord, I know of these tortures being inflicted. At the time that Oribe invaded the Banda Oriental, with the army and the Masorca [sic] commissioners of Rosas, I was residing on my estate in the country. I was aware of wretches being staked into the ground forty-eight hours before their heads were sawed, not cut, off; – of the lasso being flung over persons' necks, and then drawn by horse at full speed until life became extinct; – of spikes being driven into the mouths of human beings, and they, whilst living, thus nailed to trees.

See also

The Slaughter Yard

Footnotes

  1. Di Meglio, Gabriel (2007). Mueran los salvajes unitarios. La Mazorca y la política en tiempos de Rosas (in Spanish). Buenos Aires: ed. Sudamericana.
  2. Lynch 2001, p. 100.
  3. Hadfield 1854, p. 291.
  4. According to some historical accounts Edward II was murdered by the insertion of a red-hot poker in his anus.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Argentine Confederation</span> 1831–1861 republic in South America

The Argentine Confederation was the last predecessor state of modern Argentina; its name is still one of the official names of the country according to the Argentine Constitution, Article 35. It was the name of the country from 1831 to 1852, when the provinces were organized as a confederation without a head of state. The governor of Buenos Aires Province managed foreign relations during this time. Under his rule, the Argentine Confederation resisted attacks by Brazil, Bolivia, Uruguay, France and the United Kingdom, as well as other Argentine factions during the Argentine Civil Wars.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Juan Manuel de Rosas</span> Argentine politician and general

Juan Manuel José Domingo Ortiz de Rosas, nicknamed "Restorer of the Laws", was an Argentine politician and army officer who ruled Buenos Aires Province and briefly the Argentine Confederation. Although born into a wealthy family, Rosas independently amassed a personal fortune, acquiring large tracts of land in the process. Rosas enlisted his workers in a private militia, as was common for rural proprietors, and took part in the disputes that led to numerous civil wars in his country. Victorious in warfare, personally influential, and with vast landholdings and a loyal private army, Rosas became a caudillo, as provincial warlords in the region were known. He eventually reached the rank of brigadier general, the highest in the Argentine Army, and became the undisputed leader of the Federalist Party.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Juan Bautista Alberdi</span> Argentine political theorist and diplomat (1810–1884)

Juan Bautista Alberdi was an Argentine political theorist and diplomat. Although he lived most of his life in exile in Montevideo, Uruguay and in Chile, he influenced the content of the Constitution of Argentina of 1853.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rómulo Gallegos Prize</span> Award

The Rómulo Gallegos International Novel Prize was created on 6 August 1964 by a presidential decree enacted by Venezuelan president Raúl Leoni, in honor of the Venezuelan politician and President Rómulo Gallegos, the author of Doña Bárbara.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Battle of Caseros</span> Armed conflict in the 19th-century history of Argentina

The Battle of Caseros was a military engagement fought near the town of El Palomar, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina, on 3 February 1852, between the Army of Buenos Aires commanded by Juan Manuel de Rosas and the Grand Army led by Justo José de Urquiza. The forces of Urquiza, caudillo and governor of Entre Ríos, defeated Rosas, who fled to the United Kingdom. This defeat marked a sharp division in the history of Argentina. As provisional Director of the Argentine Confederation, Urquiza sponsored the creation of the Constitution in 1853, and became the first constitutional President of Argentina in 1854.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Manuel Vicente Maza</span>

Manuel Vicente Maza was an Argentine lawyer and federal politician. He was governor of Buenos Aires, and was killed after the discovery of a failed plot to kill Juan Manuel de Rosas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Unitarian Party</span> Former political party in Argentina

Unitarianists or Unitarians were the proponents of the concept of a unitary state in Buenos Aires during the civil wars that shortly followed the Declaration of Independence of Argentina in 1816. They were opposed to the Argentine Federalists, who wanted a federation of independent provinces. Argentine unitarianism was an ideologic grouping, not a religious one. As such, it is unrelated to religious Unitarianism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Federalist Party (Argentina)</span> Former political party in Argentina

The Federalist Party was the nineteenth century Argentine political party that supported federalism. It opposed the Unitarian Party that claimed a centralised government of Buenos Aires Province, with no participation of the other provinces of the custom taxes benefits of the Buenos Aires port. The federales supported the autonomy of the provincial governments and the distribution of external commerce taxes among the provinces.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Camila O'Gorman</span> Argentine socialite executed over a scandalous relationship with a priest in 1848

Maria Camila O'Gorman Ximénez was a 19th-century Argentine socialite executed over a scandal involving her relationship with a Roman Catholic priest. She was 23 years old and allegedly eight months pregnant when she and Father Ladislao Gutiérrez faced a firing squad.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Barranca Yaco</span>

Barranca de Yaco or Barranca Yaco is a geographical feature along the ancient camino real of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata, located between Villa Tulumba and Sinsacate, in the province of Córdoba, Argentina.

The Historiography of Argentina is composed of the works of the authors that have written about the History of Argentina. The first historiographical works are usually considered to be those by Bartolomé Mitre and other authors from the middle 19th century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">José Rivera Indarte</span> Argentine poet and journalist

José Rivera Indarte was an Argentine poet and journalist. He was at times both a supporter and critic of Juan Manuel de Rosas, writing first the "Anthem of the restorers" and later the "Blood tables".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">French blockade of the Río de la Plata</span> 1838-40 naval blockade of the Argentine Confederation by France

The French blockade of the Río de la Plata was a two-year-long naval blockade imposed by France on the Argentine Confederation ruled by Juan Manuel de Rosas. It closed Buenos Aires to naval commerce. It was imposed in 1838 to support the Peru–Bolivian Confederation in the War of the Confederation, but continued after the end of the war. France did not land ground forces, but instead took advantage of the Uruguayan Civil War and the Argentine Civil Wars, supporting Fructuoso Rivera and Juan Antonio Lavalleja against Manuel Oribe and Rosas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marcos Sastre</span> Argentine writer (1808–1887)

Marcos Sastre was an Argentine writer, born in neighboring Uruguay. He founded, along with Juan B. Alberdi, Juan María Gutiérrez and Esteban Echeverría, the Salón Literario, the beginning of the Generation of '37.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Timeline of the Argentine Civil Wars</span>

The Argentine Civil Wars were a series of internecine wars that took place in Argentina from 1814 to 1876. These conflicts were separate from the Argentine War of Independence, though they first arose during this period.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">José María Bustillo (Argentina)</span>

José María Bustillo was an Argentine general and a politician.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Historiography of Juan Manuel de Rosas</span>

The historiography of Juan Manuel de Rosas is highly controversial. Most Argentine historians take an approach either for or against him, a dispute that has influenced much of the entire historiography of Argentina.

Juan José Canaveris (1780–1837) was an Argentine jurist and politician, who served as military man, lawyer, notary, prosecutor and accountant of Buenos Aires. In 1809 he was honored by the Junta Suprema de Sevilla, for his heroic participation in the defense of Buenos Aires, during the English invasions in the Río de la Plata.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Slaughter Yard</span> Short story by Esteban Echeverría

The Slaughter Yard, is a short story by the Argentine poet and essayist Esteban Echeverría (1805–1851). It was the first Argentine work of prose fiction. It is one of the most studied texts in Latin American literature. Written in exile and published posthumously in 1871, it is an attack on the brutality of the Federalist regime of Juan Manuel de Rosas and his parapolice thugs, the Mazorca.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Batallón de Voluntarios Rebajados de Buenos Aires</span> Military unit

Batallón de Voluntarios Rebajados de Buenos Aires was a 19th-century Argentine military unit formed mainly with veterans of the Brazilian War and the expeditionaries to the Desert of 1833 and 1834. It was a special unit of the Federal Party of active participation during the civil war between federales and unitarios.

References