Thirty-Three Orientals

Last updated

Oath of the Thirty-Three Orientals, by Juan Manuel Blanes (Juan Manuel Blanes Museum) Juan Manuel Blanes - El Juramento de los Treinta y Tres Orientales.jpg
Oath of the Thirty-Three Orientals, by Juan Manuel Blanes (Juan Manuel Blanes Museum)

The Treinta y Tres Orientales (English: Thirty-Three Orientals or Thirty-Three Easterners) was a revolutionary group led by Juan Antonio Lavalleja and Manuel Oribe against the Empire of Brazil. Their actions culminated in the foundation of modern Uruguay. They became famous by the name of the Treinta y Tres Orientales when, in 1825, they began an insurrection for the independence of Oriental Province, a historical territory encompassing modern Uruguay and part of modern Brazilian Rio Grande do Sul State, from Brazilian control.

Contents

The group was also known as the Thirty Three Immortals. [1]

Background

Between 1816 and 1820, the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves invaded and occupied the post-Spanish Provincia Oriental . These Luso-Brazilian forces easily defeated the resistance of the forces of José Gervasio Artigas who, when routed, had to abandon the province in 1820, and went into self-exile in Paraguay.

In February 1824 Oriental Province was annexed under the name Cisplatina Province by newly independent Brazil. It had held the same name under the former Portuguese colonial administration. Previously, a separatist movement (1822–1823) directed by various partisans of the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata (present day Argentina) had been subdued by the Brazilians. The goal of the doomed movement had been the unification of Cisplatina with the United Provinces.

Organization

One of the military leaders of the partisans, Lavalleja, who had fought together with Artigas against the Portuguese and Brazilians, organized a new military expedition, from Buenos Aires Province to Cisplatina Province. The goal was again to expel the Brazilians and unite Cisplatina Province with the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata.

The expedition relied on the help of some ranchers and beef-curers from Buenos Aires Province who saw the Brazilian occupation of Cisplatina Province as a danger to their interests. The beef-curers had seen their regional markets impaired through competition with their neighbors at Rio Grande do Sul, who were supplied with cattle from Cisplatina. Juan Manuel de Rosas, a characteristic member of this group, became an important financier of the anti-Brazilian movement.

Landing

On April 1, 1825, an advance party led by Manuel Oribe set sail from the port of San Isidro and landed at the Brazo Largo island on the Paraná river. The bulk of the men left soon afterwards, but due to bad weather could only join them on April 15.

After nightfall, on April 18, Lavalleja and his men advanced carefully among the isles of the Paraná Delta, evading the vigil of the Brazilian flotilla. They crossed the Río Uruguay in two boats and disembarked at Agraciada Beach, also known as "Arenal Grande", at dawn on April 19. There they planted what would become known as the Bandera de los Treinta y Tres Orientales (Flag of the Thirty-Three Easterners), a flag of blue, white, and red horizontal bars. These colors had been traditional since the times of Artigas, not only in Oriental Province but also in others of the Río de la Plata region.

Long afterwards, in 1877, the event would be portrayed by the painter Juan Manuel Blanes, in El Juramento de los Treinta y Tres Orientales (Oath of the Thirty-Three Orientlas), one of the images most deeply inscribed in the historical memory of Uruguayans. Blanes often addressed historical themes in his works, and in this case achieved detailed renderings of the protagonists' faces, interviewing some survivors and taking extensive notes.

Campaign

Flag of the Treinta y Tres Flag of the Treinta y Tres.svg
Flag of the Treinta y Tres

The military expedition of the Treinta y Tres proceeded to attract countryside inhabitants to the cause of freedom from the Brazilians, and made its way to Montevideo, where it arrived on May 20, 1825. On June 14, in the town of La Florida it installed a provisional government which in turn held an election of representatives. This was known as Representatives' Hall, or more commonly as the Florida Assembly. The goal of the assembly was to rewrite the laws of Oriental Province.

On August 25 the assembly declared the independence of Oriental Province from Brazil, and its allegiance to the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata. The United Provinces recognized the incorporation of Oriental Province on October 24, 1825. This instigated a declaration of war by the Empire of Brazil in December of the same year. The Cisplatine War had begun.

This conflict lasted until August 1828. After mediation by Viscount Ponsonby, a British diplomat, Oriental Province was established as a state independent of both the United Provinces and the Brazilian Empire. This accord was the foundation of modern Uruguay. Known as the Preliminary Peace Convention, it was affirmed on August 27, 1828.

Number and identities of the Treinta y Tres Orientales

The true number of the group has been the object of controversy, based on the existence of various lists of members, published between 1825 and 1832. While thirty-three is the officially accepted number, the names differ from list to list; it is unclear whether these differing names may be nicknames of the true members. According to Jacinto Carranza, who compared extant lists for his 1946 book ¿Cuántos eran los Treinta y Tres? (How Many Were the Thirty-Three?), Santiago Gadea is a name appearing in every list.

Although called Orientales, not everyone was from Oriental Province. Among them were various Argentines from the isles of Paraná, as well as Paraguayans and one person born in Mozambique. [2]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Flag of Uruguay</span> National flag

The national flag of Uruguay is one of the three official flags of Uruguay along with the flag of Artigas and the flag of the Treinta y Tres. It has a field of nine equal horizontal stripes alternating white and blue. The canton is white, charged with the Sun of May, from which 16 rays extend, alternating between triangular and wavy. The flag was first adopted by law on 18 December 1828, and had 19 alternating stripes of white and blue until 11 July 1830, when a new law reduced the number of alternating stripes to nine. The flag was designed by Joaquín Suárez.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Manuel Oribe</span> 2nd President of Uruguay (1835-38)

Manuel Ceferino Oribe y Viana was the 2nd Constitutional president of Uruguay and founder of Uruguay's National Party, the oldest Uruguayan political party and considered one of the two Uruguayan "traditional" parties, along with the Colorado Party, which was, until the 20th century, its only political adversary.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Coat of arms of Uruguay</span> Coat of arms of Uruguay

The coat of arms of Uruguay or Uruguayan shield was first adopted by law on March 19, 1829, and later on had some minor modification in 1906 and 1908. It was supposedly designed by Juan Manuel Besnes Irigoyen (1788–1865), based on the coat of arms of Argentina.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fructuoso Rivera</span> 1st President of Uruguay (1830-34)

José Fructuoso Rivera y Toscana was an Uruguayan general and patriot who fought for the liberation of Banda Oriental from Brazilian rule, thrice served as President of Uruguay and was one of the instigators of the long Uruguayan Civil War. He is also considered to be the founder of the Colorado Party, which ruled Uruguay without interruption from 1865 until 1958. He made a controversial decision to almost completely eliminate the native Charrúa during the 1831 Massacre of Salsipuedes.

Banda Oriental, or more fully Banda Oriental del 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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cisplatine War</span> 1825–1828 war between Brazil and the United Provinces of the River Plate

The Cisplatine War was an armed conflict fought in the 1820s between the Empire of Brazil and the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata over control of Brazil's Cisplatina province. It was fought in the aftermath of the United Provinces' and Brazil's independence from Spain and Portugal, respectively, and resulted in the independence of Cisplatina as the Oriental Republic of Uruguay.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Flag of the Treinta y Tres</span> Official flag of Uruguay

The Flag of the Treinta y Tres is one of the three official flags of Uruguay, along with the National Flag of Uruguay and the Flag of Artigas. Inspired on the flag of the Oriental Province with an added motto it was first used in 1825 in the military expedition of the Treinta y Tres Orientales meant to free the country from Brazilian occupation. In 1952 it was officialized as a national symbol of Uruguay.

19 April is the anniversary of the Landing of the 33 Patriots in Uruguay, also known as the Thirty-Three Orientals, called 'Orientals' because Uruguay was known as the Banda Oriental, or the "Eastern Bank" of the Río de la Plata, the western shore being Argentina.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Uruguayan Civil War</span> 1839–51 armed conflict in Uruguay between the Colorado and Blanco factions

The Uruguayan Civil War, also known in Spanish as the Guerra Grande, was a series of armed conflicts between the leaders of Uruguayan independence. While officially the war lasted from 1839 until 1851, it was a part of armed conflicts that started in 1832 and continued until the final military defeat of the Blancos faction in 1904.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Federal League (1815–1820)</span> Alliance of South American provinces in support of a confederal Argentine state (1815-20)

The Federal League, also known as the League of the Free Peoples, 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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cisplatina</span> Former Brazilian province; present day Uruguay

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brazil–Uruguay relations</span> Bilateral relations

Brazil–Uruguay relations encompass many complex relations over the span of three centuries, beginning in 1680 with the establishment of the Colónia do Sacramento, to the present day, between the Federative Republic of Brazil and the Oriental Republic of Uruguay. Brazil and Uruguay are neighbouring countries in South America, and share close political, economic and cultural ties. The singularity of the bilateral relationship between the two countries originates from a strong historical connection, as both countries having been territories of the Portuguese Empire and sharing the same language – marked by important events, such as the establishment of the Colónia do Sacramento in 1680, the invasion of the Banda Oriental by Brazil in 1815 and the subsequent creation of the Província Cisplatina, and Uruguay's independence from Brazil in 1828. The bilateral relationship was further defined by the Uruguayan Civil War (1839–1851) and the Paraguayan War (1864–1870).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Portuguese conquest of the Banda Oriental</span>

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.

The Preliminary Peace Convention was a bilateral treaty signed on 27 August 1828 between the Empire of Brazil and the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata, after British mediation, that put an end to the Cisplatine War and recognized the independence of Uruguay.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Platine War</span> 1851–1852 war between Argentina and Brazil

The Platine War was fought between the Argentine Confederation and an alliance consisting of the Empire of Brazil, Uruguay, and the Argentine provinces of Entre Ríos and Corrientes, with the participation of the Republic of Paraguay as Brazil's co-belligerent and ally. The war was part of a decades-long dispute between Argentina and Brazil for influence over Uruguay and Paraguay, and hegemony over the Platine region. The conflict took place in Uruguay and northeastern Argentina, and on the Río de la Plata. Uruguay's internal troubles, including the longrunning Uruguayan Civil War, were heavily influential factors leading to the Platine War.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Argentine Civil Wars</span> Conflicts within Argentina from 1814 to 1880

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.

Agraciada Beach is a historic beach area in Uruguay.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dissolution of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata</span>

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Battle of Sarandí</span> 1825 battle in Uruguay

The Battle of Sarandí was fought on 12 October 1825, in the vicinity of the Arroyo Sarandí in Uruguay, between troops of the Banda Oriental and the Empire of Brazil. It resulted in a decisive victory for the Orientals.

Claudia Josefa Palacios González (?–1881) was an Uruguayan painter and miniaturist of the nineteenth century. She is best known for creating the first visual representation of Uruguayan independence episode known as Desembarco de los Treinta y Tres Orientales.

References

  1. Studies, American University (Washington, D. C. ) Foreign Area; Army, United States Department of the (1986). Argentina, a Country Study. The Studies.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  2. Trujillo, Valentín (April 19, 2015). "Thirty-three things you didn't know about the Thirty-Three" (in Spanish). El Observador. Archived from the original on April 22, 2015. Retrieved April 19, 2015.