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Free trade and independence: The Banda Oriental in the world-system, 1806-1830

Friedman, Jeanne Lynn, Ph.D.

The Ohio State University, 1993

Copyright ©1993 by Friedman, Jeanne Lynn. All rights reserved.

UMI 300 N. Zeeb Rd. Ann Arbor, MI 48106

FREE TRADE AND INDEPENDENCE:

THE BANDA ORIENTAL IN THE WORLD-SYSTEM, 1806-1830

DISSERTATION

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for

the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate

School of the Ohio State University

By

Jeanne Lynn Friedman, B.A., M.A.

*****

The Ohio State University

1993

Dissertation Committee: Approved by Prof, Kenneth Andrien

Prof. Donald Cooper

Prof. Mansel Blackford Department of History Copyright by Jeanne Lynn Friedman 1993 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Many people have helped me to complete this project.

The Tinker Foundation and the Ohio State University College of Humanities provided travel support. In South America, I benefitted at various stages of my research from the assis­ tance of the staff at: the Archivo General de la Nacion and

Biblioteca Nacional in Montevideo; the Archivo General de la

Nacion, Biblioteca Nacional, and Academia Nacional de la

Historia in Buenos Aires; and the Arquivo Nacional and

Biblioteca Nacional in Rio de Janeiro. Many of the fellow researchers I met along the way contributed helpful advice.

Special thanks go to Maria Angeles Condoleo, who ably as­ sisted me in data collection at the AGN in Buenos Aires.

The faculty, librarians, staff and students of the

Pontifical College Josephinum have provided support and encouragement during research and writing. The members of my dissertation committee made many beneficial suggestions as I revised chapters. Most of all, I want to thank my family and friends who have always believed in my success, especially my husband, Ron.

ii VITA

1962 ...... Born in Erie, PA

1983 ...... B.A., Spanish and Interna­ tional Studies, Gannon Uni­ versity, Erie, PA

1983-1984 ...... Spanish Linguist, Dept, of Defense

1986 ...... M.A., Economics, Ohio State University

1987 ...... Certificate of Specialist in Latin America Area Studies, Ohio State University

1990-present ...... Instructor in Latin American Studies, Pontifical College Josephinum, Columbus, OH

FIELD OF STUDY

Major Field: History

iii TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAGE

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...... ii

VITA ...... iii

LIST OF TABLES ...... vi

LIST OF FIGURES ...... ix

INTRODUCTION ...... 1

N o t e s ...... 7

CHAPTER

I. METHODOLOGY AND HISTORIOGRAPHY...... 9

Theory and Methodology ...... 9 Historiography ...... 24 N o t e s ...... 37

II. BECOMING PART OF THE WORLD-SYSTEM, 1680-1806 . . 43

The Background of Incorporation ...... 43 Trade and Incorporation ...... 50 The Impact of Reform ...... 61 N o t e s ...... 90

III. AUTONOMY UNDER SIEGE, 1806-1816 ...... 99

British Commercial Penetration, 1806-1809 . . 99 The End of Spanish Authority, 1810-1812 . . . 116 Autonomy in the Banda Oriental, 1813-1816 . .132 Order within Chaos ...... 149 N o t e s ...... 152

IV. BRAZILIAN OCCUPATION, 1817-1825 ...... 159

Establishing Control ...... 159 Stabilization and T r a d e ...... 171 State Finances ...... 182 Assessment of the Occupation ...... 209 N o t e s ...... 221

iv V. WAR AND INDEPENDENCE, 1825-1830 231

The Argentine-Brazilian War, 1825-1828 .... 231 The Independent Uruguayan Economy ...... 254 The Emerging Semi-Periphery ...... 265 N o t e s ...... 274

CONCLUSION: INDEPENDENCE AND THE WORLD-SYSTEM ...... 281

N o t e s ...... 292

APPENDIX ...... 295

BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 297

v LIST OF TABLES

TABLE PAGE

1. Frequency of Estancia Grants at Montevideo, 1733-1807 ...... 54

2. Cattle Hides Exported through Montevideo, 1780-1801 ...... 63

3. Average Bread Weights in Montevideo, 1800-1810 68

4. Defense Expenditures and Subsidies, Montevideo, 1790-1805 ...... 71

5. Selected Income and Expenditures, Treasury of Montevideo, 1806-1809 ...... 104

6. British Share of Montevideo Port Entries, 1805-1816 ...... 109

7. Shipping from Brazil to Montevideo, 1805-1816 113

8. Selected Customs and Treasury Data, Buenos Aires, 1810-1816 124

9. U.S. Share of Montevideo Port Entries, 1805-1816 ...... 127

10. Selected Income and Expenditures, Aduana of Montevideo, 1808-1814 ...... 128

11. Selected Income and Expenditures, Treasury of Montevideo, 1810-1813 ...... 130

12. Selected Income and Expenditures, Treasury of Montevideo, 1 8 1 5 ...... 144

13. Population Indicators, Department of Montevideo, 1810-1830 ...... 169

14. Cattle Hides Exported through Montevideo, 1817-1824 173

15. Average Bread Weights in Montevideo, 1817-1826 174

vi TABLE PAGE

16. Customs Tax Rates, 1 8 1 8 ...... 183

17. Selected Income and Expenditures, Aduana of Montevideo, 1817-1821 184

18. Selected Income and Expenditures, Treasury of Montevideo, 1817-1826 187-188

19. Selected Income and Expenditures, Aduana of Colonia del Sacramento, 1818-1824 ...... 1 9 0 ’

20. Selected Income and Expenditures, Aduana of Maldonado, 1825 ...... 194

21. Selected Customs and Treasury Data, Buenos Aires, 1817-1825 216

22. Value of British Trade with Spanish America, 1824 217

23. Value of Argentine Imports in 1825, By Origin 218

24. Selected Fiscal Data, Aduana and Treasury of Buenos Aires, 1825-1828 238

25. Customs Tax Rates, Buenos Aires, 1826 . . . . 240

26. Selected Income and Expenditures, Aduana of Maldonado, 1826 ...... 244

27. Selected Income and Expenditures, Treasury of the Provisional Government, 1825 and 1828 . . 246

28. Port Movements of Coastal Traffic, 1828-1833 256

29. Selected Income and Expenditures, Aduana of Montevideo, 1829-1832 259-260

30. Cattle Hides Exported through Montevideo, 1829-1840 ...... 261

31. Exports through Montevideo, Jan.-June, 1831 . 261

32. Imported Goods Ranked by Value, Jan.-June, 1831 ...... 263

33. International Trade at the Port of Montevideo, 1836 263

vii TABLE PAGE

34. Shares of Foreign Shipping Entering Buenos Aires, 1821-1830 267

35. Growth of Annual Average Exports from Buenos Aires ...... 268

36. Population Growth, 1799-1840 272

37. British Share of Uruguayan Exports, 1831 and 1836 ...... 294

38. Customs Tax Rates, Montevideo, 1829 ...... 295

viii LIST OF FIGURES

FIGURE PAGE

1. The Banda Oriental, 1800 ...... 2

2. The Rio de la Plata Region in the Eighteenth Century ...... 3

3. Plan of an Estancia in the Banda Oriental . . 56

4. Port Income at Montevideo, 1789-1809 ...... 69

5. Origin of Ships Entering Montevideo, 1805 . . 75

6. Schematic Representation of the Structure of the World-System, about 1800 ...... 88

7. Ships Entering Montevideo, 1805-1816 ...... 107

8. Land Tracts within the Banda Oriental Subject to Redistribution in 1 8 1 5 ...... 140

9. Ships Entering and Leaving Montevideo, 1817-1835 172

10. Origin of Ships Entering Montevideo, 1812-1824 179

11. Origin of Port Arrivals at Montevideo and Buenos Aires, 1822 ...... 181

12. Port Activity at Colonia and Montevideo, 1818-1823 191

13. British and North American Arrivals at Montevideo and Colonia, 1818-1823 192

14. Volume of Exports of Selected Cattle Products from Rio Grande, 1805-1819 212

15. Port Activity at Montevideo, 1805-1835 .... 257

ix INTRODUCTION

The Banda Oriental is the traditional name for the land mass on the eastern bank of the Rio de la Plata estuary, and the province established there as part of the Spanish Em­ pire. In 183 0, it became the independent nation of Uru­ guay.1 Geography is of primary importance in the history of the Banda Oriental, which physically dominated the mouth of the huge river system that empties into the Rio de la Plata.

The network formed by the Uruguay, Paraguay and Parana

Rivers and their tributaries is today South America's most important commercial artery, draining 1.2 million square miles (see Figures 1 and 2).2 In addition to its prime location, the Banda Oriental held some of the richest land in the region. One British official was quite impressed to find in the early nineteenth century that "the Banda Orien­ tal...has the best harbour in the Plate within its limit [at

Montevideo]; the soil is peculiarly fine, and the climate the best by much in these parts; it is well watered, and in parts well wooded."3 No mountains, swamps, or deserts divided the province, and every part was suitable for agri­ culture.4 Cattle flourished in this fertile territory. The herds were estimated as early as the mid-eighteenth century

1 2

/lAO/'jTEV'lDeD MAUX^A jADC

FIGURE 1

THE BANDA ORIENTAL, 1800 AS lWAj fcio de jaweiRo

\f R .io 6RAAU>e SAC PfC/20 SAWT/AGO ^wr^it>63 le M

I £^TR£ R.>o s 2_ SAaJTA F6 3 coR.risn'tC.S

FIGURE 2

THE RIO DE LA PLATA REGION IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY at a million head,5 but the potential capacity of the land was even greater. In 1832, Charles Darwin observed that

"the province of Banda Oriental, if well stocked, would support an astonishing number of animals."6

The cattle yielded hides which were in high demand in

Europe, especially in Great Britain, because of the impor­ tance of leather in an industrializing world. It had a wide variety of uses, in shoes, saddles, bookbinding, military equipment, carriage springs, sealing devices in steam en­ gines, and hoses for fire engines.7 Adam Smith referred to leather in 1776 as "a real necessary of life."8 Cattle hides were produced throughout Europe, but by the early nineteenth century, demand was so high that imports were essential.9 Per capita consumption of leather in Great

Britain doubled from 1815 to 1850,10 providing a strong stimulus to the cattle economy of the lands bordering the

Rio de la Plata.11 Other important trade commodities were jerked beef, sold for consumption by slaves, and grease and tallow.12 Through the production of cattle, the geography of the Banda Oriental put it at the center of an important international trade network.

Within the setting of these natural gifts, in the years from 1806 to 183 0, the Banda Oriental experienced frequent and rapid changes in its political fortunes. A British expeditionary force invaded the Rio de la Plata in 1806-

1807, colonial ties to Spain ruptured in 1808, and a period of direct confrontation between the Banda Oriental and neighboring Buenos Aires began in 1810. A short interlude of autonomy was attained in 1815, cut short by an invasion from Brazil in 1816. The Portuguese-Brazilian occupation led to a war between Buenos Aires and Brazil from 1825 to

1828, fought over control of the Banda Oriental. With the persistent intervention and mediation of Great Britain,

Uruguay became an independent state with its own constitu­ tion in 1830.

The main thesis of this dissertation is that Uruguay became independent from both Buenos Aires and Brazil because of its economic and strategic importance to world trade networks. Throughout the political upheavals of 1806 to

1830, economic activity in and around the Banda Oriental was the fundamental concern of regional and international con­ frontations. The series of conflicts centered on the prov­ ince was disruptive to the functioning of the regional economy, especially in its interaction with the outside world. This disruption led to British intervention, which helped the Banda Oriental attain national independence.

Because of their economic position, the orientales were able to use the international system of exchange as a lever for acquiring nationhood and greater relative autonomy than they had ever enjoyed before.

In the first chapter, I will present the theory, method and historiography behind my thesis. After these basics are established, the subsequent chapters integrate the theo­ retical framework with the data specific to the Banda Orien­ tal. Chapter II analyzes the economic and political struc­ tures created during the colonial period, which form the background to Uruguayan independence. Chapter III considers the context for the dissolution of Spanish colonial rule from 1806 to 1816. Chapter IV shows the impact of the Luso-

Brazilian occupation of the Banda Oriental on local and regional economic and political activity. Finally, Chapter

V evaluates the long-term implications of the independence of Uruguay for regional political economy. 7

NOTES

1. The full name of this nation today is the Republica Oriental del Uruguay, which may be translated as the Repub­ lic East of the Uruguay (River). Residents are still known by the name orientales (easterners).

2. Clifton B. Kroeber, The Growth of the Shipping Industry in the Rio de la Plata Region 1794-1860 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1957), 10.

3. John Lord Ponsonby, Buenos Aires, to George Can­ ning, London, October 20, 1826, F.O. 6/13, in C. K. Webster, Britain and the Independence of Latin America. 1812-1830: Select Documents from the Foreign Office Archives, vol. 1 (London: Oxford University Press, 1938), 159.

4. John Street, Artiqas and the Emancipation of Uru­ guay (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1959), 4. Uruguay today has 72,000 square miles, which is about 25% larger than England and Wales combined, but still the small­ est nation in Spanish South America. The Banda Oriental in 1806 was slightly larger than present-day Uruguay.

5. Ibid., 6; Dauril Alden, "The Undeclared War of 1773-1777: Climax of Luso-Spanish Platine Rivalry" Hispanic American Historical Review 41 (Feb. 1961): 56.

6. Journal entry for 22 November 1832, in Darwin, The Voyage of the Beagle (New York: Bantam, 1972), 127.

7. H . S. Ferns, Britain and Argentina in the Nine­ teenth Century (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960), 58-59; Jonathan C. Brown, A Socioeconomic History of Argentina 1776-1860 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 52- 53.

8. Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, ed. Edwin Canaan, with an intro­ duction by Max Lerner (New York: Modern Library, 1937), 825.

9. Jurgen Schneider, "Trade Relations between France and Latin America, 1810-1850" in America Latina en la epoca de Simon Bolivar: La formacion de las economias nacionales v los intereses economicos europeos 1800-1850. ed. Reinhard Liehr (Berlin: Colloquium Verlag, 1989), 431.

10. The leather-working industry was among the largest in both Great Britain and the U.S. in the early nineteenth century. For a description, see Brown, Socioeconomic Histo- 8 r v . 51-53.

11. For the purposes of this dissertation, the Rio de la Plata as a geographical expression will be used to refer to both the estuary, and the cattle-raising provinces bor­ dering it or slightly upriver from it: the Banda Oriental, Buenos Aires, Entre Rios and Santa Fe (see Figure 2).

12. Kroeber, Shipping Industry. 56. CHAPTER I

METHODOLOGY AMD HISTORIOGRAPHY

I. Theory and Methodology

The basic framework for this study is Immanuel Waller-

stein's world-system theory, which analyzes modern world

history by examining how the growth and development of

capitalism has influenced the interaction of people and nations. The theoretical aspects of this conceptualization of history have been discussed in many essays by Wallerstein and others, while the narrative explication of it appears in his Modern World-Svstem series.1 The daunting task con­

fronting historians who read Wallerstein is to construct a practical definition of the world-system and the world- economy. In his works, the world-system is above all a social system, a way of organizing the interaction of people spread throughout many political units.2 The world-economy provides the links which hold the world-system together, by bringing about the contact of disparate groups, regions and nations through exchange of commodities. The world-economy is thus a mechanism of social and political influence.

Wallerstein generally uses nation-states to help define his categories, although he contends that they are of infe-

9 rior importance, compared to the world-system. The partici­

pation of individual nations in the world-economy both

defines, and is defined by, the course of their particular

histories. Specifically, three levels of participation in

the world-economy are possible: core, semi-periphery, and

periphery. The first includes only the richest nations,

with the most diversified economies, highest levels of labor

skills and wages, and most advanced technology of produc­

tion. In contrast, the periphery is that part of the system

where specialization in basic commodities occurs, with the

most reliance upon coercive labor arrangements. The semi­

periphery has an intermediary status, functioning as a go-

between in the world-system.3 As the world-economy ex­

pands, semi-peripheral nations become aligned with a core

power and act as "economic transmission belts and political

agents" of that power. Wallerstein posits that states are

created by the world-economy and the laws of capitalism which govern it. Because capitalism is driven by the prin­

ciple of capital accumulation, the nation-state is conve­

nient as a tool for the "establishment of market con­

straints", the monopolies and quasi-monopolies which help to maximize profits.4 Historically, capital accumulation in

the core nations has been a process of "expropriation of

surplus of the whole world-economy."5

Within the core of the world-system, the "exceptional

situation of true hegemony" occasionally arises. Being hegemonic means having the most efficient productive, com­

mercial, and financial sectors, giving a nation absolute

economic dominance.6 But, because the capitalist world-

system induces competition, hegemony is always transitory, a

flash of glory. The core states always strive to outdo each

other. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, this

competitiveness was expressed in mercantilism, a form of

economic self-defense with the primary goal of attracting

and keeping wealth. By the early nineteenth century, Bri­

tain 1s drive toward hegemony led to the promotion of free

trade over monopolies and quasi-monopolies.7 For Waller­

stein, this reveals an unusually strong state.8

At the other end of the system, the areas which com­

prise the periphery are brought in through the expansion of

capitalism internationally. Incorporation into the world-

system occurs economically, rather than geographically.

Wallerstein cites areas such as Russia, the Middle East and

Asia, which were brought into the system gradually, although

contact between them and Western Europe had a long history.

Eventually, the core's voracious appetite for resources gradually reached out into previously casual trading part­ ners.9 The latters' internal economic institutions adjust­ ed to produce for and buy from the international market­ place. State structure is crucial in this process. An

incorporated area must have enough of a state to be able to

interact with others, but at the same time its freedom of movement is compromised by the concessions which follow the

economic and military pressures applied by core states.

Their inability to overcome the inherent disadvantages of

arriving late in the system leads new areas to peripherali-

zation.10 Thus the course of development of any part of

the world-system is "not accidental but, rather, within a

certain range of possible variation, structurally deter­

mined. "11

The organization of production within the world-system

is the primary function of the world-economy in Waller-

stein's model. Its network is a group of commodity chains,

which channel resources toward the core nations. These

chains are constructed in a way that maximizes capital

accumulation, which in turn is attained by maximizing prof­

it. The key, as Wallerstein points out, is to keep costs

low and revenues high. Costs remain low when some kind of

force or coercion is employed against the direct producers

of commodities, as in Wallerstein1s examples of forced

labor, wage labor and petty proprietorship. To achieve the

other component, high revenues, the prices of commodities

are raised through the creation of monopolies or quasi­

monopolies. Both of these tools of profit maximization are

enforced by state power.12 According to Wallerstein, the most powerful states are those which are organized in such a way as to enable those with capital to benefit from the 13 world-economy. That is, the state and socio-economic elites participate together in the growth of the world-system.13

The goal of Wallerstein1s historical investigation is not the presentation of new facts or evidence, but rather the detection and description of a long-term structure in world history. He perceives such a structure in the world- economy which supersedes any individual, nation or region:

"it is the world-economy which develops over time and not subunits within it."14 This world-economy is a capitalist structure, which means that the rules which govern its motion are the laws of capitalism.15 Therefore, to under­ stand the functioning of the structure, it is first neces­ sary to understand its rules of operation. One very useful guide to the principles of capitalism is Adam Smith's clas­ sic An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of

Nations.16 Not only is it a lucid statement of basic eco­ nomic concepts, but it is also an historical landmark as

"the summary of a new European consciousness."17 In his book, Smith emphasizes that the capital stock of a nation must increase in order for its residents to enjoy a rising standard of living, which is assumed to be good in and of itself. In order to do this, capital is best employed in procuring produce, manufacturing, transportation and distri­ bution. Smith's message is quite anti-mercantilist, as shown in his frequent repetition of the idea that national boundaries should not restrict the flow of capital into 14 productive enterprises. He views foreign trade as an impor­ tant means of disposing of surplus production, in order to keep capital profitably employed.18

In Smith's opinion, the colonies of the New World were valuable not for their gold and silver, which are not the true basis of national wealth, but for the new markets they opened up for surplus produce. Restrictions on colonial trade through monopolies, meant to attract and retain pre­ cious metals, instead create an inferior use for capital.

He cites the specific example of British trade with France versus the North American colonies— Britain would enrich itself by trading freely with France, and abandoning the monopoly on trade with the colonies, because of the great potential of the French market. In fact, a colonial monopo­ ly is harmful, because of the costs imposed; as Smith wrote, a country with colonial possessions only acquires "the expence of supporting in time of peace and defending in time of war the oppressive authority which it assumes over them."19 Interestingly, this parallels Wallerstein's con­ tention that a very large political unit, such as an empire, is a "primitive means of economic domination" because of the high costs of bureaucracy and defense.20 A nation intent on becoming a self-contained world-empire loses the poten­ tial gains derived from spending resources in the most effi­ cient manner possible, such as in new methods of production or the exchange of surplus. 15

Wallerstein's world-system theory (as any other) is clearer and more useful when critiques of it are taken into account. One example is Eric Wolf's rejection of the model because, in his words, it "collapse[s] the concept of the capitalist mode of production into the concept of the capi­ talist world market."21 Wolf relies upon a traditional

Marxian view in which modes of production are at the heart of economic relations. He defines a mode of production as

"a specific, historically occuring set of social relations through which labor is deployed."22 Capitalism, for Wolf, is the mode of production in which laborers are separated from control of their own labor and its fruits. Consequent­ ly, he argues that there was no capitalist world market until capital began to control labor directly, i.e.. until industrialization began in the "latter part of the eigh­ teenth century."23 But, as Smith indicated in The Wealth of Nations, the heart of capitalism is the exchange of surplus production, not the methods by which the surplus was produced. Wallerstein's model follows Smith in that it allows for a range of methods of production within capital­ ism, from slavery to yeomanry. Which mode of production one finds depends upon the location of a given area within the world-system— periphery, semi-periphery or core. However, they are all connected by the capitalist world-economy.

Capitalism is more accurately defined, therefore, as a mode of exchange which organizes methods of production within the world-system. This is possible because the system is not static, but changes over time. The peripheral areas were brought in gradually, and the pre-existing modes of ex­ change, described as tributary and kin-ordered by Wolf,24 were transformed by market pressures. Therefore, the mode of exchange— the capitalist world market— was the determin­ ing factor in creating the structure of the world-system.

Fernand Braudel's work supports the "mode of exchange" interpretation of capitalism. His version of the economic history of the modern world, as described in his Civiliza­ tion and Capitalism trilogy, is above all a search for large structures, the forces which have moved European civiliza­ tion through the modern era. Although he shares much of

Wallerstein1s terminology, Braudel's model is distinct in its consideration of economic structures. Braudel uses the term "structure" as a synonym for social organization, and applies it at many different levels.25 For Wallerstein, there is only one capitalist structure, the modern world- system. In contrast, Braudel separates the rise and expan­ sion of capitalism from that of the European-dominated world-economy of the fifteenth through eighteenth centuries.

He suggests that capitalism may have emerged as early as the thirteenth century, but is less concerned about fitting it precisely with other developments. He finds Wallerstein's work "a little too systematic."26 In Braudel's illuminat­ ing perspective, capitalism is a socio-economic structure, 17 shaping the long-term course of history. Therefore, it may be viewed at the mundane level of the diet of peasants or at the level of the world-economy, which is depicted by Braudel as a manifestation of the capitalist structure at the high­ est, supra-national level. He defines a world-economy quite broadly, as "an economically autonomous section of the plan­ et... a section to which its internal links and exchanges give a certain organic unity."27

The successful spread of capitalism, according to

Braudel, was based on its flexibility, which made it possi­ ble for capital to flow toward whichever sector yielded the highest profits. He finds that merchants and their activ­ ities were crucial in the expansion of capitalism interna­ tionally. Long-distance commerce required large invest­ ments, and the resulting concentration of resources made it

"an unrivalled machine for the rapid reproduction and in­ crease of capital."28 Thus, the activities of merchants in any given region are an important indicator of local partic­ ipation in international capitalism. Their dealings are the means by which commodity networks are set up and maintained, and the capitalist mode of exchange is extended.

Another stimulating perspective on the political econo­ my of capitalism is found in dependency theory, which is closely related to world-system theory. Both consider the structure of the world economy and its effect on interna­ tional economic relations and economic activity within nations, and both emphasize the inherent inequality of

capitalism. Both also use core and periphery as units of

analysis. World-system theorists acknowledge the important

influence of dependency theory on their perspective.29 Two

of the foremost dependistas. Fernando Henrique Cardoso and

Enzo Faletto, have defined a nation's economy as dependent

when the internal accumulation and expansion of capital is

determined by external economic relationships. In their

model, nations became dependent when capitalism expanded

outward from Europe in search of raw materials and markets.

Understanding dependence, then, requires understanding the

operation of capitalism on a world scale.30 In spite of

similarities between the two, world-system theory goes

further in its examination of this very point. A key dis­

tinction is that most dependency theorists focus on the

industrial capitalism of the nineteenth and twentieth centu­

ries, while Wallerstein examines capitalism in its genesis,

growth and development since the fifteenth century.31 A more crucial difference between the two theories is in the

unit of analysis, which for dependency theorists is the

internal social structure of a country, but for Wallerstein

is the network which connects many societies across national

boundaries. Thus, dependistas emphasize class conflict in

individual nations much more than Wallerstein does.32 It

is important to keep in mind that dependency theory is a generation older than world-system theory, and so has been 19

applied by many more people to many more historical situa­

tions. The result is that "the elaboration of the theory

has gone further than economics; it has created an entire

sociology and political theory of dependent development."33

This has lent a variety of shades of meaning to the term

"dependency" which "world-system" has yet to match.

Given the detailed analyses produced by dependency

theorists, it is not surprising that one of the most impor­

tant recurring criticisms of Wallerstein1s works on the

world-system is that he fails to show how it functions in

the periphery.34 For example, Eric Wolf has observed that

Wallerstein does not explicitly consider the reactions of

subjugated populations to European expansion, or their pre­

capitalist history.35 Likewise, Steve Stern has chosen the

examples of silver mines and sugar plantations to highlight

the shortcomings of Wallerstein's work, which Stern says

over-simplifies the complex systems of labor and production

in colonial Latin America.36 Over-simplification is a danger whenever a broad theoretical perspective is used.

One of the problems presented by overarching structural approaches to history, such as world-system theory, is understanding how the grand scheme works in particular cases. Wallerstein declares his interest to be the elucida­ tion of the historically unique capitalist world-system.37

Thus his books and essays focus mainly on the European core area where capitalism developed, so it is left to special­ ists in various subdivisions of history to evaluate his

theoretical framework as it applies to other examples.

Although Wallerstein considers the distinction between the

system and its components to be an artificial one,38 for

the history of the periphery, an analysis of the structure

of economic relationships in specific regions is required.

In this way, it will be possible to describe how develop­

ments in the larger world-system affected its various compo­

nents. Many of these sorts of specialized studies need to

be pursued before world-system theory can be evaluated for

its universal usefulness.

Applying some nuances to world-system theory using

ideas from other approaches can help close the gaps left by

Wallerstein's work, by providing a framework for the de­ tailed examination of individual historical cases. The theoretical considerations outlined above are an example of how this may be done. Writers such as Smith, Braudel, Wolf, and Cardoso and Faletto contribute a great deal of insight

into what capitalism is and how it has functioned in histo­ ry. They all help to highlight the importance of interna­ tional trade in the structure of the world-system. This in turn leads to the idea that information about trade over time can serve as a proxy variable for the structure and the relationships among various parts of it. Wallerstein has stated that theorists such as Smith and Marx have over­ emphasized the world market; for him, it is only one part of 21 the system.39 Nevertheless, he also defines the world- system as one in which "the basic linkage between the parts of the system is economic.1,40 Trade in the world market is the most visible part of interstate economic relationships, and for that reason data about trade is very useful as an analytical tool.

Using this synthetic method, the present study attempts to show that the history of the struggle for control of the

Banda Oriental presents an outstanding opportunity for analyzing the process of national independence in South

America from a world-system perspective. Based primarily on world-system theory, but also influenced by its predecessors and critics, a trade-centered approach can be used to reveal long-term forces which had begun to shape the Rio de la

Plata region long before independence, during Spanish colo­ nial rule, and would continue to do so long afterward. The analysis of the Banda Oriental's participation in interna­ tional commerce during the years from 1806 to 183 0 reveals the temporal evolution of one corner of the world-system.

Given Wallerstein's insistence that the system is an organic unit, this analysis should also reflect the development of the entire superstructure.

There are several ways in which the study of shipping and trade through Montevideo and other ports divulges the structure of the local economy and its position vis-a-vis the rest of the world. In the case of the Banda Oriental, international trade consisted of exports of cattle and horse

hides and other animal products, and imports of textiles,

other manufactures and some foodstuffs. At the most basic

physical level, measuring the number of ships entering and

leaving the port reveals increases and decreases in economic

activity. Port records yield information on the patterns of

trade in terms of origin, destination and nationality of

ships, and the goods carried. Once these basics are estab­

lished, the influence of the structure on the political

economy of the Banda Oriental can be seen in public finance,

through tax revenues; in government regulations regarding

trade and port management; in land tenure patterns and their

relationship to trade; and in the actions of merchants and

shippers handling trade goods. These details will show how

the world demand for cattle products connected the Banda

Oriental with other levels of the world-system, and how this

connection evolved over time.

The focus of research for this project is the Banda

Oriental. Therefore, the roles of Buenos Aires, Brazil and

Great Britain in Uruguayan independence will be considered

through an Uruguayan lens. The goal behind this decision is

to provide a view from the periphery of the forces and

interests acting upon it. For that reason, the primary materials used in this dissertation were gathered at the

Archivo General de la Nacion (AGN) in Montevideo and the

archive of the same name in Buenos Aires. In Montevideo, a 23

wide variety of sources sheds light on economic activity in

the late colonial and early national periods. These in­

clude: accounts of the provincial and national treasuries;

customs and shipping records from the port of Montevideo and

others; records of land grants made to individuals by munic­

ipal authorities; the papers of individual merchants and

landowners; and correspondence and decrees of colonial,

occupation and national governments, at both the municipal

and provincial levels. The national archive in Buenos Aires

is an important source for background information about the

period from 1776 to 1808, when Buenos Aires served as the

viceregal capital for the Rio de la Plata. For the period

after 1808, this collection also yields data about the

effect of the course of Uruguayan independence on the re­

gional economy. Of particular interest are fiscal, military

and administrative records from the war against Brazil, and

records of the activities of Uruguayan patriots in Buenos

Aires.

Several types of data reveal the functioning of the

economy of the Banda Oriental and the surrounding areas, and their ties to the rest of the world. For example, commer­ cial and customs data will be used to determine the course of economic activity in the Banda Oriental and the extent to which it was integrated into a world trade system. Records of land grants and the prices of basic commodities will help describe the structure of the local economy. The correspon­ 24

dence of official bodies and individuals divulges the social

and economic networks of landowners and merchants, and their

public activities. The economic rivalry between Montevideo

and Buenos Aires can be examined in trade data, commercial

accounts, and trade disputes. Treasury and customs accounts

can also serve as a means of tracking local economic condi­

tions. Furthermore, they provide some insight into the

differential experiences of Montevideo and Buenos Aires, and

their respective provinces, which affected their relative

status in the world-system.

II. Historiography

In addition to revealing new information about early nineteenth-century Uruguay, this dissertation creates a new category in the historiography of the countries bordering the Rio de la Plata by applying a world-system perspective to the period of national independence. The histories written about the end of Spanish and Portuguese rule and the beginnings of nationhood generally emphasize the political and military aspects of independence, and the great leaders of the era. There has been a lot of discussion of the motivations for independence and the types of political systems erected by the elite. These works fall into two broad categories: the traditional, which emphasize poli­ tics, battles, diplomacy and the elite; and social histo­ ries, focusing more on the activities of the common people 25

and the impact of events upon them. Neither type has used

extensively either world-system theory or any other kind of

structuralist interpretation of history. They have been

useful to the present study as a base of knowledge from

which to form a narrative of events, but relatively few have

assisted in the sculpting of a world-system interpretation

of national independence.

For the specialized topic of Uruguay, the general over­

views of Latin American independence give scant attention to

the Banda Oriental and even less to its economy, generally

regarding the province as a source of problems of pacifica­

tion and control.41 This same tendency can be seen in the

historiography of Brazil in the early nineteenth century.42

There is an extensive bibliography of studies focusing on

the independence era in the Rio de la Plata region, includ­

ing the Banda Oriental, but structural economic perspectives

are scarce.43 Instead, historians of the Rio de la Plata have used more traditional approaches. Perhaps most abun­ dant are biographies of key political and military figures.

For example, the story of oriental independence has most often been told with reference to the actions of Jose Arti- gas, Uruguay's most revered national leader.44 The last major work in English on Uruguayan independence was John

Street's biography, Artiaas and the Emancipation of Uru­ guay .45 Economic histories of the Rio de la Plata at indepen­ dence can be divided into structural and descriptive ap­ proaches. The present study is more akin to the structural works, which look for economic forces behind events, in economic systems and hierarchies. Though they are less analytical, the descriptive works uncover valuable data which tend to be ignored by politically-oriented historiog­ raphy, on topics such as the cattle-based economy of the Rio de la Plata, international economic relations, and the interaction of economy and politics in Argentina during the independence era.46 The details provided by the work of these economic historians can help flesh out a world-system approach to national independence. But like more general works, these specialized studies tend to marginalize the

Banda Oriental, turning their attention much more toward

Buenos Aires. To a certain extent, the field has been limited by the idea that the Banda Oriental was insignifi­ cant. For example, in a discussion of the colonial oriental economy, the prominent historian Tulio Halperin Donghi claims that Montevideo had no hinterland and therefore dismisses it as a minor port.47 The relative lack of works on the economic history of the Banda Oriental shows that this attitude has prevailed.

Some Uruguayan historians have produced an important exception to this trend, in a body of research on the agrar­ ian sector in the Banda Oriental during the independence wars. They focus especially on the years 1815 and 1816, when Artigas attempted land reform/8 The most notable work in this area has been done by the team of Lucia Sala de

Touron, Nelson de la Torre and Julio C. Rodriguez, including

La Revolucion Aararia Artiquista (1815-1816) / 9 In dis­ cussing the proposed reform, they present a great deal of information about land ownership in the Banda Oriental.

Using a Marxist perspective, their work is essentially about an attempt at socio-economic change that failed, but the focus is quite narrow.

The descriptive economic histories which are most valuable for this study overall are those which emphasize the economic continuities which spanned the independence era, pointing out patterns which began in the late colonial period. In the history of the Rio de la Plata, the years from 1776 to 1860 are often considered a thematic unit, a time of transition from the colonial system to full partici­ pation in the world economy.50 It is not surprising that many historians regard the late-colonial to early-indepen- dence years as a unit. According to Wallerstein1s periodi­ zation, these were years in which Britain was slowly consol­ idating its position and achieving hegemony,51 so all parts of the system should reflect the effects of that process.

For example, during this time Halperin Donghi sees a gradual dispersion of power as a result of the wars for indepen­ dence, and the emergence of a "new commercial order", one dominated by foreign trade and British merchants. Yet he

still considers the first half-century of independence to

have been essentially static because growth was limited.52

Another author who emphasizes the lack of dramatic economic

change in Latin America in the early years of independence

is D.C.M. Platt. Comparing the early decades of the nine­

teenth century with later ones, he finds none of the tremen­

dous inflow of foreign capital, the waves of immigrants or

the export of industrial raw materials which characterized

the years after 1870. He does admit that independence led

to "some redistribution of existing trade[,]...new habits of

consumption[, and]...a sudden inflow of foreign manufactured

goods."53 Looked at from a world-system viewpoint, both his and Halperin Donghi's data show signs of an ever-closer

connection to the international market.

There are two other descriptive economic histories which have been particularly helpful in forming a picture of the role of the Rio de la Plata in the world-system. In his study of the transitional period from 1776 to 1860, Jonathan

Brown uses staple theory, an approach which posits that extensive agricultural growth can be the basis for industri­ alization. Brown's book on the socioeconomic history of

Argentina emphasizes that the national economy grew as its commercial ties to world markets did. But he rejects the

idea that this led to dependency or imperialism before 1860.

Instead, he views trade as a stimulus to the connections between Buenos Aires and the interior of the nation.54

With a somewhat broader view, his data can be seen as show­

ing the development of a regional trade hierarchy which

reinforced the commodity networks of the world-system.

Clifton Kroeber also sees a great deal of economic continu­

ity in the late colonial to early national periods. His

study of the shipping industry shows that it expanded during

the time that the merchants of Buenos Aires were most influ­

ential, between the creation of the consulado in 1794 and

the beginning of dramatic technological change around 1860.

However, he challenges the declarations of authors such as

Platt that no economic growth occurred from 1810 to 1852 in

the Rio de la Plata, finding that steady increases in port

activity indicate otherwise. This growth cannot be compared

in magnitude to the experience after 1860, but it was there,

laying the groundwork for later expansion.55 These find­

ings are consistent with world-system theory, because the process of peripheralization described above was not begun and completed at the same time; as the structure of the world-economy changed, so did the relationships among its pa r t s .

Among the structuralists, the world-system approach has been applied to Latin American independence by only two authors. Wallerstein's third volume in the Modern World-

Svstem series includes a discussion of "settler decoloniza­ tion of the Americas", but it is disappointing. It lays out events clearly, but does not go much beyond summarizing

previous work. This opportunity to show how mercantilism

gave way to free trade in the nineteenth century is wasted,

because he never really approaches the question of how this

transition is part of the evolution of the world-system. He

simply recounts how various nations achieved their indepen­

dence, and his point that it was the culturally European

elite who managed to throw off the colonial yoke, rather

than Indians or enslaved Africans, while correct, is nothing

new.56

A much more interesting aspect of "settler decoloniza­

tion" is why the creole elites were motivated to separate

from their mother countries. After all, within the colonial

system they were the ones benefitting at the local level

from the production of cash crops. Furthermore, indepen­

dence just made it easier for the ex-colonial powers to

profit from their trade, as happened in the case of Great

Britain. Nicole Bousquet has used world-system theory to

address this very issue, finding that mercantile elites all

over Spanish America feared the closure of ports initiated

by the Junta of Sevilla in 1809. She observes a correlation between areas exporting goods that could do well in foreign markets (including the cattle products of the Rio de la

Plata) and areas quick to move toward separation from

Spain.57 The mercantile elites must have become convinced that a free-trading capitalist system would benefit them more, because they actively sought participation in it.

This point reveals the mentalite of independence in the Rio de la Plata. World capitalism changed from the sixteenth century to the nineteenth, especially in its psychology.

Nowhere is this clearer than in the fact that, by the nine­ teenth century, some colonial elites ran headlong from what they had once regarded as the protective embrace of their mother countries, into cold, competitive world markets.

Other structuralist approaches can also support a world-system interpretation of events, particularly in their discussion of patterns in economic relationships. George

Reid Andrews has written an article which finds the behavior of elites an important determining factor in the economic environment of independence. His description of their role in colonial society fits very well into a world-system analysis. The elites in the Spanish colonies were well- developed and locally powerful by 1750; so much so, in fact, that the Bourbon reformers sought to undermine them. As

Andrews states, "the Bourbons recognized a ruling class when they saw one, and if they were to be successful in their drive to centralize state authority, it was essential that this ruling class not be permitted to rule." The Latin

American colonial elites in the late eighteenth century faced a rising threat of mass rebellion and a rapidly-grow­ ing mixed race population which took advantage of new eco­ nomic opportunities created by the Bourbon reforms. The royal bureaucracy, the "traditional ally" of the creole

elites in controlling the masses, was an antagonist after

1750 because of its efforts to limit the political and

economic power of creoles. The result was a local elite

which felt squeezed from above and below. For a while,

their fear of rebellion was greater than their resentment of

Bourbon centralization, but Napoleon Bonaparte forced them

to act. Thus, the creole elite was finally able to restore

its social position with the drastic step of independence.

Even then, creoles in some areas, such as Buenos Aires, were

quicker to act than others. The fact that no social revolu­

tion coincided with independence helps to explain the

strengthening of Latin America's ties with the world capi­

talist economy after independence.58

Another structuralist history of Latin America's eco­

nomic relationship with the world is found in the literature

on informal empire. The concept of informal empire fits well within the world-systems framework, according to Wal­

lerstein. In his view, imperialism is a "constant of the

interstate system" inherent in the capitalist world-economy,

and in fact, colonialism and informal empire are "cyclical

alternatives.1,59 The work on informal empire is an in­

sightful description of Britain's economic behavior once it achieved hegemony in the nineteenth century. The seminal article on this topic was written by John Gallagher and

Ronald Robinson, who define informal empire as the British 33

strategy of expanding influence without "acquiring dominion

in the strict constitutional sense." They assert that

"refusals to annex are no proof of reluctance to control,"

and observe that the driving logic of the British economy in the nineteenth century was expansion, which was achieved with administrative control when necessary, and without it when possible. In fact, the preference against using mili­ tary force on the part of British policy makers demonstrates their rejection of old mercantilist ideas.60

Gallagher and Robinson also emphasize the close rela­ tionship between political and economic influence. They list the following as the crucial variables determining the type of political leverage used by Britain to achieve its economic ends:

the economic value of the territory, the strength of its political structure, the readiness of its rulers to collaborate with British commercial or strategic pur­ poses, the ability of the native society to undergo economic change without external control, the extent to which domestic and foreign political situations per­ mitted British intervention, and, finally, how far European rivals allowed British policy a free hand.61

Applying these criteria to the Rio de la Plata in the early nineteenth century, it is clear why the British were able to influence the outcome of the Argentine-Brazilian War without the direct use of force. As described in later chapters, the internal problems of Europe, the earlier incorporation of the Platine economy into world trade, and the prominence of the mercantile elite in the major ports of the region, all gave Britain ample means and opportunity for solidifying its hegemony over the international economy in South Ameri­ ca. Referring to British relations with the new republics of that continent, Gallagher and Robinson state that "it would be hard to imagine a more spectacular example of...the use of informal political supremacy in the interests of commercial enterprise.1,62 The idea of informal empire is thus an expression of the concepts Wallerstein and Smith emphasize— that international capitalism worked best without direct political controls.

A final useful structuralist method is the application of dependency theory to specific historical problems. Two of the foremost Uruguayan economic historians, Jose Pedro

Barran and Benjamin Nahum, take a dependency-theory approach to their nation's rural history. They find that Uruguay has grown or declined since 1700 according to the cycles of the world economy, and that a strong external orientation has helped maintain the power of the landed elites.63 Another historian who uses dependency theory is Peter Evans. His excellent study of "dependent development" in twentieth- century Brazil examines the way in which the world economy influences and directs capital accumulation within peripher­ al nations. In fact, Evans sees a parallel between his concept of dependent development and semi-peripheral status.

Semi-peripheral nations occupy an ambiguous position in the world, powerful compared to the peripheral areas which provide them with raw materials, but still dependent upon 35

the core nations for technology, markets and capital.64

Although he is examining the situation long past national

independence, Evans' work is an example of how an abstract

structural approach can be supported by economic details.

The multinational firms he analyzes in the twentieth century

may be considered a manifestation of the world commodity

networks which were much more atomized in the early nine­

teenth century.

All of the historiography discussed above lays a groundwork for the present study, by pointing out ways to

look at the economic structure which was part of the histor­

ical environment of the Banda Oriental. The main contribu­ tion of this dissertation is to apply world-system theory to national independence, using trade data as the basic indica­ tor of international economic interaction. This methodology and the information it brings to light extend the literature of Latin American history in a new direction. A fundamental historical question, which this study attempts to answer for the case of Uruguay, is how the building of national econo­ mies took place within the context of the breakdown and destruction of the Spanish Empire. Examining the structure of international trade in the Rio de la Plata and its impact on the Banda Oriental highlights the importance of the expanding world-economy to the transition from colony to independent nation. Considered within a theoretical frame­ work inspired mostly by the work of Wallerstein, the inter- est of outsiders in the course of Uruguayan national inde­ pendence may be seen as a consequence of the way the Banda

Oriental had become part of the capitalist world-system.

Thus the colonial background of incorporation and periphe- ralization of the area established important patterns, which then became even clearer after 1806. The next chapter examines how these patterns began to form. 37 NOTES

1. Immanuel Wallerstein, The Modern World-Svstem. Vol. 1: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World-Economv in the Sixteenth Century. Vol. 2: Mercantilism and the Consolidation of the European World-Economv. 1600- 1750. Vol. 3: The Second Era of Great Expansion of the Capitalist World-Economv. 1730-1840S (New York: Academic Press, 1974, 1980, 1989). Historical applications of his theory also appear in Review, a journal edited by Waller­ stein; volume 13, number 2 (Spring 1990) is particularly useful for theoretical considerations. See for example Walter Goldfrank, "Current Issues in World-Systems Theory": 251-254, Harriet Friedmann, "Rethinking Capitalism and Hierarchy": 255-264, and Immanuel Wallerstein, "World-Sys­ tems Analysis: The Second Phase": 287-293. For the origins and spinoffs of world-system theory, see Daniel Chirot and Thomas D. Hall, "World-System Theory" Annual Review of sociology 1982 8 (1982): 81-106.

2. Wallerstein, Modern World-Svstem. vol. 1, 15 and 347.

3. Immanuel Wallerstein, The Capitalist World-Economv: Essays (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 18.

4. Immanuel Wallerstein, The Politics of the World- Economv: the States, the Movements and the Civilizations: Essays (London: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 7, 29-30.

5. Wallerstein, Capitalist World-Economv. 18-19.

6. Wallerstein, Politics of the World-Economv. 5.

7. Fernand Braudel, Civilization and Capitalism. 15th- 18th Century. Vol. 3: The Perspective of the World, trans. Sidn Reynolds (New York: Harper & Row, 1984), 53.

8. Wallerstein, Politics of the World-Economv. 5.

9. Wallerstein, Modern World-Svstem. vol. 1, 302 and vol. 3, 129.

10. For an extended discussion of incorporation see ibid., vol. 3, 127-189.

11. Ibid., vol. 1, 162.

12. Wallerstein, Politics of the World-Economy. 3.

13. Wallerstein, Modern World-Svstem. vol. 1, 191. 38

14. Ibid., vol. 3, 33.

15. The idea of capitalism as a structure in history and the world-economy as its manifestation at the suprana­ tional level is also found in Braudel, Civilization and Capitalism, vol. 3, passim.

16. This suggestion was offered by Prof. William Childs in a seminar at Ohio State University, January 1989.

17. Max Lerner, introduction to Smith, The Wealth of Nations, viii.

18. Smith, Wealth of Nations. 321, 341-347, 353.

19. Ibid., 415-416, 424, 461-465, 592.

20. Wallerstein, Modern World-System. vol. 1, 15.

21. Eric Wolf, Europe and the People Without History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), 297-298.

22. Ibid., 75.

23. Ibid., 76-78, 296-298.

24. Ibid., 76-100.

25. See for example the discussion in Braudel, Civil­ ization and Capitalism, vol. 3, 45-57, 61-70.

26. Ibid., 57, 70.

27. Ibid., 22.

28. Ibid., vol. 2, 408.

29. See Christopher K. Chase-Dunn, "A World-System Perspective on Dependency and Development in Latin America11 Latin American Research Review 17 (1982): 166-171, and Terence K. Hopkins and Immanuel Wallerstein, "Patterns of Development of the Modern World-System: Research Proposal" Review 1 (Fall 1977): 113-119.

30. Fernando Henrique Cardoso and Enzo Faletto, Depen­ dency and Development in Latin America, trans. Marjory Mattingly Urquidi (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979), xx, xxiii, 17.

31. The dependency perspective has been extended into the colonial period in Latin America in Stanley J. Stein and Barbara H. Stein, The Colonial Heritage of Latin America: 39

Essays on Economic Dependence in Perspective (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970), and Eduardo Galeano, Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent, trans. Cedric Belfrage (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1973). A broad historical view of the roots of dependency also appears in the work of Andre Gunder Frank, such as World Accumulation. 1492-1789 (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1978).

32. Chase-Dunn, "A World-System Perspective”, 166-167.

33. Chirot and Hall, "World-System Theory", 91.

34. For the criticisms put forth by sociologists, see ibid., 97-103.

35. Wolf, Europe and the People Without History. 23.

36. Steve J. Stern, "Feudalism, Capitalism, and the World-System in the Perspective of Latin America and the Caribbean" American Historical Review 93 (Oct. 1988): 829- 872. Also see Wallerstein, "Comments on Stern's Critical Tests" and Stern, "Reply: Ever More Solitary" in the same journal, 873-897.

37. See Wallerstein, "Comments", 882.

38. Ibid., 881.

39. Ibid., 879.

40. Wallerstein. Modern World-Svstem, vol. 1. 15.

41. See for example Timothv E. Anna. Spain and the Loss of America (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1983), 140-144, 156-158; E. Bradford Burns, The Poverty of Progress: Latin America in the Nineteenth Century (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980); David Bushnell, "The Independence of Spanish South America", in Leslie Bethell, ed. The Independence of Latin America (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 93-155, passim; Bushnell and Neill Macaulay, The Emergence of Latin America in the Nineteenth Century (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 117-140; Richard Graham, Independence in Latin America (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1972), 74-75, 99; Tulio Halperin Donghi, The Aftermath of Revolution in Latin America, trans. Jose­ phine de Bunsen (New York: Harper & Row, 1973), 44-81; and John Lynch, The Spanish American Revolutions 1808-1826. 2d ed. (New York: Norton, 1986), 89-105. 40

42. A concise bibliographical essay of Brazil at the time of independence and during the early years of the Brazilian Empire appears in Leslie Bethell, ed., The Cam­ bridge History of Latin America, vol. 3: From Independence to c. 1870 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985). Some works representative of the tendency to downplay the Banda Oriental are the selections on Brazil in the Cambridge History; Emilia Viotti da Costa, The Brazilian Empire: Myths and Histories (Chicago: Dorsey, 1985); A.J.R. Russell-Wood, ed, From Colony to Nation: Essays on the Independence of Brazil (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1975) ; Manoel Oliveira Lima, Dorn Joao VI no Brazil 1808-1821 (Rio de Janeiro: Rod­ rigues, 1908) ; and Sergio Buarque de Holanda, Historia Geral da Civilizacao Brasileira. 3d ed., vol. 2, O Brasil Mondr- guico. part 1, O Processo de Emancipacao (Sao Paulo: Difusao Europeia do Livro, 1970).

43. For excellent surveys of the historiography, see John Lynch, The Spanish American Revolutions 1808-1826. 2d ed. (New York: Norton, 1986), 411-437 and the bibliographi­ cal essays found in Bethell, Cambridge History of Latin America, vol. 3, 841-859.

44. Some examples are Eduardo Acevedo Blanco, Alegato Historico, vol. 1: Jose Artigas. Jefe de los Orientales v de los Pueblos Libres. su obra civica (Montevideo: Barreiro y Ramos, 1933); Tulio Halperin Donghi, Politics. Economics and Society in Argentina in the Revolutionary Period, trans. Richard Southern (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), 269-307; Juan Antonio Rebella, Purificacion: Sede del Protectorado de "Los Pueblos Libres11 1815-1818 (Montevideo: Ministerio de Educacion y Cultura, 1981); and Street, Arti­ gas and the Emancipation of Uruguay. A major project of the Archivo General de la Nacion in Montevideo is the publica­ tion of documents related to Artigas1 life, filling twenty volumes so far: Archivo Artigas (Montevideo: Monteverde, 1950- ).

45. Street's book was published in 1959. A more recent example of the individual-centered approach, discuss­ ing another hero of independence, is Martha Edwards Correa, "The Rise of Fructuoso Rivera" (Ph.D. diss., University of New Mexico, 1983).

46. Some of the better works on these topics are: Samuel Amaral, "Rural Production and Labour in Late Colonial Buenos Aires" Journal of Latin American Studies 19 (1987) : 235-278; Brown, Socioeconomic History; Miron Burgin, The Economic Aspects of Argentine Federalism 1820-1852 (Cam­ bridge: Harvard University Press, 1946); Ferns, Britain and Argentina; Alan K. Manchester, British Preeminence in Bra­ 41

zil; Its Rise and Decline (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1933); Juan Carlos Garavaglia, "Economic Growth and Regional Differentiations: The River Plate Region at the End of the Eighteenth Century" Hispanic American Historical Review 65 (Feb. 1985): 51-89; Ricardo Salvatore and Jonathan C. Brown, "Trade and Proletarianization in the Late Colonial Banda Oriental: Evidence from the Estancia de las Vacas, 1791-1805" Hispanic American Historical Review 67 (August 1987): 431-459; Susan Migden Socolow, The Merchants of Buenos Aires 1778-1810: Family and Commerce (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978); and Thomas Whigham, The Politics of River Trade: Tradition and Development in the Upper Plata. 1780-1870 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1991). This is an indicative, not exhaustive, list.

47. Halperin-Donghi, Politics. Economy and Society. 25-27. He also makes disparaging remarks about the oriental leadership during the independence era. Ibid., 380-381.

48. See Chapter 3 for details. The economic histories include Jose Pedro Barren and Benjamin Nahum, Bases econo­ micas de la revolucion artiguista (Montevideo: Ediciones de la Banda Oriental, 1964) and Historia rural del Uruguay moderno. 7 vols. (Montevideo: n.p., 1967-1978), as well as Agustin Beraza, La economia en la Banda Oriental durante la revolucion (1811-1820). 2d ed. (Montevideo: Ediciones de la Banda Oriental, 1969). A socialist interpretation of inde­ pendence was put forth by Vivian Trias, whose writings are stimulating, but do not conform to scholarly conventions. See Obras de Vivian Trias, vol. 1: Los caudillos. las clases sociales v el imperio (Montevideo: Ediciones de la Banda Oriental, 1988).

49. Montevideo: Ediciones Pueblos Unidos, 1969. A later version of this work was published under the title Artigas y su revolucion agraria 1811-1820 (Mexico City: Siglo Veintiuno, 1978) .

50. This periodization frames the third volume of Bethell, ed., Cambridge History of Latin America. Other examples are Bushnell and Macaulay, Emergence of Latin America, 44-45; Whigham, Politics of River Trade: and the essays in Liehr, America Latina en la epoca de Simon Boli­ v a r .

51. Wallerstein, Modern World-Svstem. vol. 3, 55-126.

52. Halperin-Donghi, Aftermath of Revolution, viii, 43-81. 42

53. D. C. M. Platt, Latin America and British Trade 1806-1914 (London: Black, 1972), 3.

54. Brown, Socioeconomic History. 6, 19-20, 69-70.

55. Kroeber, Shipping Industry. 3-8.

56. Wallerstein, Modern World-Svstem. vol. 3, 191-256.

57. Nicole Bousquet, "The Decolonization of Spanish America in the Early Nineteenth Century: A World-Systems Approach" Review 11 (Fall 1988): 510-513.

58. George Reid Andrews, "Spanish American Indepen­ dence: A Structural Analysis" Latin American Perspectives 44 (Winter 1985): 111-129.

59. Hopkins and Wallerstein, "Patterns of Development of the Modern World-System", 121.

60. John Gallagher and Ronald Robinson, "The Imperial­ ism of Free Trade" Economic History Review 2d ser. 6 (1953) : 1-6 .

61. Ibid., 7.

62. Ibid., 8. Peter Winn also uses the theory of informal empire in an article which focuses mainly on the post-independence years. Winn, "British Informal Empire in Uruguay in the Nineteenth Century," Past and Present 73 (Nov. 1976): 100-126.

63. Barr&n and Nahum, "Uruguayan Rural History" His­ panic American Historical Review 64 (Nov. 1984): 655-658.

64. Peter Evans, Dependent Development: The Alliance of Multinational. State and Local Capital in Brazil (Prince­ ton: Princeton University Press, 1979), 32-34. CHAPTER II

BECOMING PART OF THE WORLD-SYSTEM, 1680-1806

I. The Background of Incorporation

The first step in applying the ideas of world-system

theory to events of the years from 1806 to 1830 is to ana­

lyze the colonial background to independence. During the

years before 1680, the Banda Oriental may be considered as

an external arena with respect to the world-system, that is,

it was not part of the capitalist worId-economy. Neverthe­

less, there were important developments in Europe and South

America during that time that eventually led to the Banda

Oriental becoming part of the world-system. In The Modern

World-Svstem. Wallerstein describes how the hierarchy of the

world-system emerged in the "long" sixteenth century from

1450 to 1650 as part of the genesis of capitalism. The

position occupied by each nation-state depended upon how

well it used capitalism to its own advantage. For example,

England was well on the way to becoming a core nation by

1650. Its advantages included a nation which was united and

enjoyed long stretches of internal peace; an active and relatively unfettered merchant class; and the willingness to

adapt itself to the world-economy by producing desired goods

(especially wheat and textiles), and trading them in many

43 different ports.1 The Netherlands also enjoyed a strong mercantile base, which reached its greatest relative power in the seventeenth century. Both the English and the Dutch benefitted from "a state tied to the fortunes of its mer­ chants."2 The growth of the capitalist world-system pro­ vided the most opportunities to those nations concentrating on profitable trade; in a sense, they were the ones who best learned the rules of capitalism.

Spain had the chance to be a core nation early on, acquiring wealth from its possession of the manufacturing centers of Europe (Flanders, southern Germany, northern

Italy) and the influx of silver from its New World colonies.

However, it slipped into the semi-periphery by 1650 because of a crucial mistake— the attempt to maintain an empire as a unit within the world-economy. Wallerstein views political empires as inimical to capitalism, because they protect privilege, create unwieldy and expensive bureaucracies, and stifle commercial change. In Spain's case, the crown was unable to break the power of the large landowners of Castile and the wool interests, who retained feudal-like control over agriculture. Even more important was the immense cost of almost constant warfare, waged to hold on to its far- flung empire as well as stop the spread of Protestantism.

The flow of bullion slipped through the kings' hands on the way to a succession of German, Dutch, and Italian bankers, who all took their turns in providing credit to support 45

Spanish armies. By the mid-seventeenth century, Spain lost

the capacity to produce for export high-value items such as

textiles, which was a characteristic of the core nations.

Instead, it came to supply wool and New World products to

them as part of the semi-periphery.3 Portugal shared the

impoverishment of riches experienced by Spain. As James

Lang explains,

expansion created new sources of wealth for the king and nobility to exploit. Because the king restricted participation in the trading system to himself and his favored nobles, expansion enriched the aristocratic leisure class, rather than creating a strong merchant class that would have recycled profits back into trade or created banks to provide capital.4

As a result, by 1600, Portugal was a second-rate power in

Europe.

Even with its economic weaknesses, Spain was a full participant in the capitalist world-economy. It filled a

semiperipheral role as the Spanish Empire gradually brought the New World into the European world-system by extending

its control over the Americas, thus acting as a transmitter of resources between the northern European core and the colonies. Wallerstein dates the incorporation of the Carib­ bean into the world-system in the sixteenth century, because of its provision of commodities to Europe through Spain.5

The Banda Oriental, lacking precious metals and large pools of native labor, was one of the areas which received scant attention until fairly late in the colonial era. However, territorial conflict over the Banda Oriental was a problem 46

which developed for centuries, as part of the dispute be­

tween Spain and Portugal over boundaries in the Rio de la

Plata.

In 1494, the Treaty of Tordesillas drew a line through

the western hemisphere which later suggested that most of

the yet-undiscovered continent of South America should have

belonged to Spain. But after the Portuguese discovered

Brazil in 1500, their settlements gradually crept southward

and westward, and the imaginary line was relegated to pre­

cisely that status. Spanish explorations in the Rio de la

Plata began in 1516, when Juan Diaz de Solis landed briefly

on the eastern shore. Sebastian Cabot also headed a Spanish

expedition in 1527, but brought little more than rumors of

wealth back to Europe. Pedro de Mendoza arrived in 1536,

seeking a fabled Indian empire and hoping to fend off Portu­

guese encroachments. He founded Buenos Aires, but it had to

be abandoned within a year, because without willing Indian

servants the settlers were unable to feed themselves. Para­

guay, with its Guarani, then became the focus of Spanish

colonizing efforts in the region. As mining activity grew

in the interior of the continent, it stimulated commerce and

motivated the Paraguayans to set up trade routes to the

Atlantic. In 1573, Juan de Garay began a southward trek

from Paraguay which culminated in the re-founding of Buenos

Aires in 1580, as the eighth Spanish settlement in the

region.6 Buenos Aires grew slowly during the next century, as did the wild cattle herds roaming the pampas. The town was so remote that not one overseas ship arrived from 1580 through 1585.7 The cattle were only exploited for limited local use in the early years; the first recorded export of cured beef was in 1603, when a small amount was sent to

Brazil.8 Of more commercial importance were eighty hides exported in 1609. Within a decade, Buenos Aires exported about four thousand hides per year, all to Brazil, but at no time in the seventeenth century did Buenos Aires export more than twenty thousand hides per year.9 According to a com­ plaint presented to the Cabildo (town council) of Buenos

Aires, this limited hide production was enough to divert all the salt entering the town, leaving none for the poor to consume.10 Even so, considering that each hide brought only eight to twelve reales in Buenos Aires, cattle were far from becoming an important economic sector.11 Instead, limited commerce with the interior of the continent was the main reason for the existence of Buenos Aires. Tucumdn was a much more important city in the 1580s and 1590s, trading locally-produced clothing and silver with Brazil and encour­ aging Portuguese commercial interest in the lands to the southwest of Rio de Janeiro.12 In 1599, the Audiencia of

Charcas complained that "'numerous Portuguese are penetrat­ ing the realms of Peru through Buenos Aires and establishing themselves in Tucuman and Potosi. 11,13 48

Between 1580 and 1640, when the Spanish and Portuguese

crowns were united, most of the trade through Buenos Aires

was handled by Portuguese merchants. At times, they com­

prised as much as one-third of the adult male population.

Buenos Aires was the last stop on a Portuguese trading

network which reached northward as far as Curagao.14 Por­

tuguese ships purposefully brought much more cargo than Bra­

zilian demand could absorb, with an eye on Platine and

Peruvian consumers.15 Residents of Buenos Aires at the

time jokingly referred to Rio de Janeiro as "Rio de Genero"

(river of merchandise).16 This arrangement began to fall

apart in the 1620s, however, when the Dutch raided the

Portuguese sugar plantations in northeastern Brazil. By

1640, the most lucrative business in Buenos Aires was sell­

ing mules to Upper Peru, and the Portuguese merchants lost

their former power.17

This did not mark the end of Portuguese interest in the

Rio de la Plata, however. By 1660, the Dutch were driven

out of Brazil and the Portuguese tried to re-establish their

lucrative trade network.18 In 1676, Pope Innocent XI cre­ ated the bishopric of Rio de Janeiro, in Romani Pontifici. and extended its jurisdiction to the shore of the Rio de la

Plata, thereby giving any Portuguese territorial claim in the Banda Oriental tacit recognition.19 In 1680, the first significant settlement in the Banda Oriental, the strategic town of Colonia del Sacramento, was founded by the Portu- guese, with several objectives: to attract silver from

Potosi through trade, to export cattle hides to Europe, to maintain access to the waterways leading to the interior of

Brazil, and to strike at the Spanish Jesuit missions along the Paranci. All of these motives worried the residents of

Buenos Aires, who responded by organizing an army and at­ tacking Colonia. The Portuguese were ousted, but after protestations to the Spanish were back by 1682. Colonia thrived, and was exporting four to five thousand cattle hides a year by 1700.20 Its contraband trade with the

Spanish colonies regularly employed more than thirty ships.21 The conduit through Colonia ensured that the

Portuguese fleet left Rio de Janeiro not only with Brazilian gold, but also with "the piasters of Buenos Aires and the hides of the southern Spanish colonies."22

This conflict continued in the eighteenth century.

Colonia was still vulnerable, and was captured twice by the

Spanish before 1713, when the Treaty of Utrecht determined that it remain a Portuguese possession. The Portuguese initiated a settlement at Montevideo in 1723-1724, but the

Spanish evicted them and established their own with a group of settlers from Buenos Aires in 1726. The town became crucial in maintaining a Spanish presence in the area. The site chosen was both strategic and optimal for trade, with its natural bay and location much superior to the port of

Buenos Aires. With Montevideo and Colonia as their respec- 50

tive strongholds, Spain and Portugal fought recurring bat­

tles over the Banda Oriental: in the 173 0s, Colonia was

captured by the Spanish and held for two years; in 1750, the

Treaty of Madrid gave the entire territory to Spain.23 By

the mid-eighteenth century, a formerly ignored part of the

Spanish Empire had become the subject of major European

disputes and treaties. The political and military aspects

of the situation were really a reflection of the economic

environment gradually developing in the Rio de la Plata, as

the capitalist world-economy acquired a firm grip on the

region.

II. Trade and Incorporation

It was during the years of intense Spanish-Portuguese

competition that the Banda Oriental became incorporated into the capitalist world-economy. Wallerstein explains:

Incorporation means fundamentally that at least some significant production processes in a given geographic location become integral to various of the commodity chains that constitute the ongoing divisioning of labor of the capitalist world-economy. And how will we know if a particular production process is "integral to" this divisioning of labor? A production process can only be considered to be thus integrated if its produc­ tion responds in some sense to the ever-changing "mar­ ket conditions" of this world-economy.24

The genesis of the ranching economy in the Rio de la Plata shows clearly both an integration into worldwide commodity chains and responsiveness to market conditions. The process of incorporation occurred gradually after 1680 until ties to 51

the world-economy became fully-established, by the late

eighteenth century.

Various important aspects of the regional economic

structure were established simultaneously during incorpora­

tion. First, direct trade contacts between the Banda Orien­

tal and the European economy began, grew and multiplied.

The earliest connections were made through the asiento. the

Spanish contract for the slave trade, which brought British

ships to the Rio de la Plata after 1715. Royal authorities

granted permission for hides and other local produce to be

sold for the slave ships' return voyages, as a way of saving

some silver. There were sales of 112,000 hides from the

Banda Oriental to English ships from 1718 to 1724.25 Along with legal trade, contraband flourished. In return for

European manufactures and liquors, locals would trade hides, grease and tallow, and when it was available, silver.26

Once trade contacts were established, business remained at a

low but steady level for several decades. In 1760, the

Cabildo of Montevideo reported the town could export consis­ tently 20,000 to 30,000 hides per year.27

Second, Spanish administrative control of the district was tightened gradually. Settlers from Buenos Aires founded

Montevideo in 1726 as the center of Spanish government in the province, and as a direct competitor with Colonia.

Later, in 1776, the Viceroyalty of the Rio de la Plata was created with the capital at Buenos Aires, giving the mer­ chants and bureaucrats of that city much more power. Span­

ish military presence in the area was expanded to prevent

Portuguese and British encroachment on the riverine artery

which led to the silver mines at Potosi. To further

strengthen colonial ties, both Buenos Aires and Montevideo

were authorized as ports for direct commerce with Spain.

Montevideo was granted its own aduana (customs office) in

1778, in recognition of its growing prominence as a port.28

The Rio de la Plata became the third most important destina­

tion of ships leaving Cadiz, and most of these ships called

at Montevideo. When ships from other ports, such as Barce­

lona and Mdlaga, are included, the impact of free trade on

the Rio de la Plata is even greater.29 Coinciding with

this growing activity in the Rio de la Plata was a signifi­

cant improvement in the charts of coastlines, channels and ports available to sailors. The Spanish navy was especially

interested in acquiring more control over shipping through the estuary, but there were benefits to merchants as well.30 Sailing time from one side of the Rio de la Plata to the other was one day or less, making for easy communica­ tions. Rio de Janeiro could be reached in about two weeks.31

A third development during incorporation was the regu­ larization of ownership of land and cattle. In Buenos

Aires, wild cattle roundups known as vacruerlas were the practice until about 1718, when ownership became the norm. Incorporation into the world-system brought with it a need

for formal landowning arrangements, as the Spanish began to

assert control over the land through the spread of estancias

(ranches) and towns.32 Cattle had been introduced to the

province about 1620, spreading from the Jesuit missions

upriver and from the herds around the Parana River delta.33

Latifundia. or large estates, were an economically logical

consequence of livestock raising, and the sociopolitical

environment of the Spanish Empire gave the land to a small elite.34 In the Banda Oriental, there was virtually free availability of tracts with wild cattle on them, but obtain­

ing title was difficult. The administrative process took place in Buenos Aires, was expensive, and required a lengthy stay. Consequently, those who were already rich, especially urban merchants, could best afford to secure the necessary documents. Many simply took possession after the first round of legal procedures, feeling that stating their inten­ tions was enough.35 Another way in which estancieros

(ranch owners) acquired land was through royal grants to favored subjects, such as those who conquered the local

Minuano Indians.36

The system of extensive land holdings in the hands of relatively few families was firmly established by 1770. One historian cites a first recorded land grant in 1719,37 but the records of the Montevideo municipal government begin in

1733. The period of most intensive land title registration 54 was in the 1760s, when dozens of ranches were set up in the area around the town (see Table 1). International politics made this decade the most opportune time to acquired land.

The Treaty of Madrid in 1750 had given Spain control of the territory under the principle of uti possidetis, which made settlement the basis of a claim to ownership. Under the circumstances, it was certainly wise to encourage individu­ als to take possession of land in the Banda Oriental, given

TABLE 1

FREQUENCY OF ESTANCIA GRANTS AT MONTEVIDEO, 1733-1807

Years______No. of Estancias Years______No. of Estancias

1733-1750 6 1766-1770 89

1751-1755 34 1771-1775 15

1756-1760 26 1776-1780 1

1761-1765 56 1781-1807 3 Sources: Archivo General de la Nacion (AGN)-Montevideo, Ex- Archivo General Administrative, libro 4, "Toma de razon de las concesiones hechas de tierras en esta ciudad de Montevi­ deo y su jurisdiccion para solares, chacras y estancias, anos 1733 a 1807" and libro 444, "Padron o razon de los suertes de estancias, chacras y solares concedidos por el Gobernador Don Agustin de la Rosa desde enero de 17 64 a 1770 a 1775".

the lingering Portuguese interest in Colonia del Sacramento.

With the abrogation of the treaty in 1759, Portugal did occupy the town again, but in 1762, Spain captured Colonia and held it thereafter.38 During these years, settlement spread toward the Rio Negro in the interior of the province 55 and up the Uruguay River, leading to the founding of Paysan- du in 1782 (see Figure l).39 Spain's greater military control of the area thus provided a more stable atmosphere for the ownership of land and the exploitation of cattle.

Most estancia (ranch) grants were between one-half league squared and 1.5 leagues squared, roughly equivalent to 1.7 to 15.2 square miles. The largest single estancia covered an area of seven leagues by ten leagues, about 473 square miles. In the 1760s, many grants were multiple, with parents obtaining three, five or even nine estancias at a time for their children. There were also individuals who extended their properties over the years by obtaining more estancias. The location of the grants was usually deter­ mined by streams, hills and neighbors, if any.40 Figure 3 shows the map of one ranch, drawn in 1839, with various landmarks noted. The grants were purposely made narrow and along streams, to provide as much access to water as possi­ ble.41 The operation of an estancia was relatively simple, with one manager and ten workers sufficient for the upkeep of ten thousand head of cattle. The size of the herd would increase by about 30% annually,42 with little care required other than a weekly roundup for branding.43 It made sense to work with large herds to reduce the overhead cost of producing a hide; estancieros received only six to nine reales per hide, according to size.44 ' c ^ y Za J?~ct^<’p^(Sr^e^T' Z£v Vf:

so*J b'OO / ~ ^ •& jj^ ^ u k

Source: AGN-Montevideo, Archivos Particulares, caja 323, carpeta 5.

FIGURE 3

PLAN OF AN ESTANCIA IN THE BANDA ORIENTAL In addition to individual and family ownership, the

government also owned some estancias. operated for the

purpose of generating revenues. These were held both as

royal properties and in the name of the Cabildo of Monte­

video. The official holdings were run in much the same

manner as those of the other large landowners, relying upon

a foreman called a capataz or mavordomo to oversee the gau-

chos (cowboys).45 Absentee landowners would issue detailed

instructions to the capataz about the management of the

property.46 The crown hoped that the granting of land

titles would reinforce the northern frontier of the prov­

ince, but the opposite resulted. The goal of the estan-

cieros was to exploit the cattle on their property, and so

the owners of large tracts typically did not develop their

holdings or settle on them. In fact, they often fought

against the founding of towns within their territories in

order to avoid yielding control to the governing institu­ tions that towns brought with them.47 This result was contrary to the wishes of the royal bureaucracy, but for the estancieros. government had secondary importance to the

specialization of the province in cattle production.

The gradual incorporation described above fits very well with the general requirements for becoming part of the world-system identified by Wallerstein. He depicts a pro­ cess within which: enterprise units get larger; production must be controllable; political institutions reinforce economic trends; and there is security and stability for the

conduct of commerce.48 The establishment of land ownership was the most central part of the incorporation of the Banda

Oriental, because it reflected a conscious desire to manage

resources. For Wallerstein, "one of the most basic phenome­ na of modern capitalism is the slow but steady growth of the

large estate, a process of increasing concentration.1,49

Once wealth begins to concentrate in capitalism, the struc­ ture of the world-system becomes visible, because the dis­ tribution of profits reveals the economic relationships at the heart of it all.

For both the Banda Oriental and Buenos Aires, it was international trade that stimulated the growth of the ranch­ ing economy. On neither side of the Rio de la Plata did organized cattle ranching develop until after the British began regular trade contact through the asiento. In other words, the capitalist mode of exchange determined the estan­ cia mode of production. The orientation toward the inter­ national market shows that the Banda Oriental was being incorporated into the periphery of the world-economy, ac­ cording to Wallerstein's definition. The province began to participate in world commodity chains through its production of cattle products, thus forming part of the "ongoing divi­ sioning of labor of the capitalist world-economy."50 This relationship remained in place through the independence era 59

and into the nineteenth century, and was the means by which

external markets drove the oriental economy.51

The steady growth and development of the oriental

economy was presided over by the landowning-mercantile

elite, which cemented a close relationship between port and

hinterland.52 The wealth of the largest estancieros was

transformed into power in Montevideo, where they generally

resided. The prominent family names included Garcia de

ZUniga, Rivera, Viana, Espinosa, Martinez de Haedo, Salva-

nach, Pereira, Dur&n and Albin. These families and others

were able to influence local policies through their active

participation as governors and members of the Cabildo.53

This gave them the authority to regulate the movement of

goods in and out of the city, set prices for food, grant

commercial licenses, grant title to estancias, and collect taxes.54 In addition, many of their merchant houses had

close ties to prominent firms in Buenos Aires.55 Their power as a group was based on an economic prominence which

extended from the cattle herds on their lands through every aspect of Montevidean commerce. This arrangement was not unlike the European "society within society" discussed by

Braudel, in which merchants created their own social hierar­ chy, with basic producers on the bottom, regional traders in the middle, and international merchants and financiers on the top.56 Participation in international capitalism cre­ ated the basic structure of oriental society, which in turn 60

determined the patterns of interaction between that society

and the rest of the world. In the Banda Oriental, cattle

and trade were at the center of everything.

For the European colonizers, the Banda Oriental had

both economic and strategic significance. The Spanish

authorities were especially worried about contraband trade

through Colonia. In spite of a great deal of fighting by

Spanish troops to protect their territory, it was impossible to stem the flow of contraband goods. In 1752, merchants at

Lima complained that the volume of illegal trade through

Colonia seemed to double from one day to the next, and that some of them had witnessed covert shipments passing between

Montevideo and Colonia, under cover of darkness. They were clearly worried about losing their monopoly trading privi­ leges. In 1762, during a brief naval occupation of Colonia, the Spanish intercepted twenty-seven ships "filled to the top with British goods." A shipwreck near Maldonado in 1728 was found to contain a hold full of stones for ballast, but the crew had in its possession 75,000 pesos.57 The Bourbon kings of Spain recognized that something had to be done with their sieve of an Empire, especially in its southern reach­ es. The most intense period of reform in the Rio de la

Plata began in 1776, with a focus on gaining more control over trade through the region.58 The consequence was an even closer relationship between the Banda Oriental and the capitalist world-system. 61

III. The Impact of Reform

The centerpiece of reform in South America was the

creation in 1776 of the Viceroyalty of the Rio de la Plata,

which included all of the Spanish possessions east of the

Andes and south of Peru (see Figure 1). Protecting the new

viceregal capital at Buenos Aires was imperative, and in May

1777, a Spanish force of over six thousand troops invaded

and eliminated the threat of Colonia once and for all. The

Treaty of San Ildefonso officially ratified the conquest

five months later.59 The greater military presence and stricter enforcement of colonial regulations diminished contraband activity in the area, and the channelling of sil­ ver from Potosi through Buenos Aires gave the Spanish mer­ chants of the city much more economic power.60 This power was expanded in 1778, when the crown extended its experiment with "free and protected trade" from the Caribbean to Peru,

Chile and the Rio de la Plata. Both Buenos Aires and Monte­ video were authorized as ports for direct commerce with

Spain, and were no longer legally dependent on Lima as a source of European goods. The Bourbon kings of Spain tried various methods of inducing colonial merchants to stay with­ in legal channels. Lower taxes on trade was one such incen­ tive offered. For example, the new law of free trade de­ clared Spanish textiles, metal utensils and foodstuffs free of port taxes for ten years. Many of the local products passing through Buenos Aires, such as tallow and salted meat, also gained exemptions.61 The tax system was simpli­

fied by the elimination of several old duties, and the tax

rates for the almoiarifazao (import/export tax) on Spanish

goods as well as the alcabala (sales tax) were reduced from

6% to 3%.62 The benefits were not felt in the Rio de la

Plata until warfare between Spain and Britain ceased in

1781, but in that year merchants began to sell off their excess supplies of goods. One fleet departed in March with

409,823 hides on twenty-four ships. After the initial

frenzy, the port of Buenos Aires settled down to about sixty ships per year in the 1790s.63

As trade activity in the region grew in the 1780s and

1790s, an intense competition arose between Montevideo and

Buenos Aires. Geographically, both were well-placed to act as major ports in the region, but the contest between the

Portuguese and the Spanish over the east bank made Buenos

Aires more secure. The Cabildo of Buenos Aires had long had bureaucratic supremacy over the Banda Oriental. One of its main activities with respect to the province in the early eighteenth century was to issue licenses for vaauerlas. The consequence of this practice, according to one historian,

"was that the Banda Oriental came to be regarded as a sort of large ranch leased to Buenos Aires."64 When cattle began to be exploited more systematically in the eighteenth century, the value of the province to Buenos Aires rose dra­ matically. Montevideo shipped more than half of the hides 63

exported from the Rio de la Plata in the 1780s.65 Between

1773 and 1784, 1.5 million hides passed through Montevideo,

about three-quarters from estancias and one-quarter from

wild cattle in the Missions territory.66 As shown in Table

2, the level of annual hide exports reached a peak in the

early 1790s, averaging about 270,000 per year, or twice the

rate of the 1770s. After 1795, the disruptions to trade

caused by European wars "brought recurrent commercial de­

pression" to the Rio de la Plata ports,67 and hide exports

often fell drastically. Especially damaging to trade were

the Spanish wars with the British in 1796-1802 and 1804-

18 08.68

TABLE 2

CATTLE HIDES EXPORTED THROUGH MONTEVIDEO, 1780-1801

Year______Number______

1780 47,719 1790 336,443 1791 226,090 1793 242,897 1795 275,243 1797 89,871 1798 118,019 1800 254,148 180 1______73 .792 Sources: Horacio Arredondo (hijo), "Los 'Apuntes estadlsti- cos1 del Dr. Andres Lamas" Revista del Instituto Historico v Geoqrdfico del Uruguay 6 (1928): 98.

The first meat-salting plants, called saladeros. ap­ peared on the eastern side of the river, producing salted meat destined for slaves in Cuba and Brazil, and for the 64

Spanish Imperial Army and Navy.69 The first investor and

entrepreneur was Francisco Medina, who founded his saladero

in 1787.70 In the 1790s, many more appeared, established

by estancieros who practiced an effective monopoly on trade

through their ownership of saladeros and their commercial

connections.71 The saladeros were located near the coast

at Montevideo, Espinillo, Soriano, Maldonado and Colonia,

and their product was shipped through both Montevideo and

Buenos Aires.72 Although they did process the meat pro­

duced on estancias, saladeros should not be thought of as

industrial establishments. Two kinds of processed meat were

made, simple salted meat and charaue. also known as cecina

or tasaio in Spanish, and in English as jerky. An Argentine

historian of saladeros has described the simplicity of their

operations:

The work of preparing salted meat consisted, fundamen­ tally, in submerging it, divided into chunks, in vats of brine, where it remained for at least a month. After that time the meat was kept in barrels with alternate layers of brine....Jerky was made in the fol­ lowing manner: cut up into thin, wide pieces, the meat was deposited on hides and covered with a light layer of salt. This was repeated, putting new pieces of meat with layers of salt on top of each other, forming a pile. After several hours, having lost some of their liquid, the pieces of meat were hung in the sun for several days, with the precaution of bringing them in at night. Later they were stacked in piles again, pressed with some heavy object, until the fats were released and covered the fibers of the meat. Finally, the pieces were exposed once again to air and sun.73

These products never became important foods in Europe, but were considered appropriate for slaves. The export of cured 65

meat to Cuba began in 1785, and helped stimulate more inten­

sive use of cattle.74

By 1794, Montevideo and Buenos Aires were capable of

filling annually 389 ships of the 250-to-300 ton size with

meat, tallow, bristles and horns. From 1792 to 1796, ex­

ports of salted meat and jerky from both ports averaged 4.1

million pounds per year, with about 96% going to Cuba. In

1804, the total reached over seven million pounds. Most of

this meat went through the port of Montevideo, because

cattle prices were lower in the Banda Oriental. The ranch­

ing lands near Buenos Aires had suffered drought, excessive

cattle slaughter, Indian raids, and attacks on calves by wild dogs, making both estancias and saladeros more expen­

sive to maintain than those across the Rio de la Plata.75

In 1801, a Spanish official named Felix de Azara trav­ elled throughout the viceroyalty, observing the local econo­ my, and in his writings emphasized the great potential of the cattle-products business. He estimated that each ranch produced 476 pesos per employee annually for the local economy, thus supporting a much larger population than the single capataz and ten workers needed for its upkeep. He attributed this to the great natural fecundity of the Rio de la Plata, where an estancia with ten thousand head of cattle could expect to produce three thousand more annually. Azara reported that there were already more than one thousand men working in thirty saladeros. He predicted that with careful 66 management of herds, the Rio de la Plata could provide dried

and salted meat for "every navy in the world", as well as

for the "Blacks and poor people of Havana and other places";

in his opinion, this could be worth more than all the mines

of the Americas.76 Azara clearly understood the capitalist principle that productive investment is worth more in the

long run than precious metals.

Another lucrative activity in Montevideo was the

slave trade, granted exclusively to that port in 1791 for the entire viceroyalty. In 1795, the viceroyalty gained permission to trade with Brazil, and the viceroy determined that this commerce should be directed through Montevideo.

The Portuguese traded slaves, sugar, coffee and cotton for cattle products. The merchants of Buenos Aires protested that this situation would drain the viceroyalty of silver money and make contraband easier, but to no avail.77 In addition to its role in regional trade, Montevideo stimulat­ ed the economic growth of its suburban area by providing a market for basic foodstuffs such as wheat.78 The bustling commerce of Montevideo helped it grow from a town of 1,700 in 1757 to a city of 14,000 in 1805, about one-third the size of the viceregal capital.79 The expanding cattle products trade also led to the first settlement efforts between the Yi and Negro Rivers in the central Banda Orien­ tal, in 1804.80 As Montevideo grew, so did the practice of systematic

record-keeping. We can follow the basic economic trends

affecting Montevideo through indicators such as wheat and

bread prices, movement of ships, aduana income, and govern­ ment expenditures. Municipal records of the prices of foods

sold in public markets show a fluctuating local economy.

The price of wheat changed from season to season and from year to year, indicating the vagaries of local and interna­ tional supplies. Because bread was a major component of the common diet, the weight of bread sold publicly may be used as a rough indicator of changes in the cost of living for urban workers.81 As shown in Table 3, one real bought greatly varying amounts of bread during the first decade of the nineteenth century. Although the weight of white bread ranged from forty-six ounces to twelve ounces, rarely did it fall below twenty ounces. The decennial trend was steady, and the average from 1800 to 1810 was 28.6 ounces per re­ al.82 The low in 1804-1805 corresponds to a famine caused by a regional drought.83 Overall, the bread data do not suggest any significant inflation over the decade, only variations in prices from year to year.84

The growth of trade through Montevideo can be seen in the revenues of the city's aduana. Figure 4 shows the changes in aduana income from 1789 to 1809. Most of aduana income came from relatively few taxes, including: the alcabala on hides and other local products (3%), the almo- 68

TABLE 3

AVERAGE BREAD WEIGHTS IN MONTEVIDEO, 1800-1810

Year______Weight (o z .)

1800 38 1801 29 1802 34 1803 30 1804 16 1805 13 1806 21 1807 23 1808 45 1809 34 1810 26 Source: AGN-Montevideo, Ex-Archivo General Administrative, libros 15, 15A and 16, "Actas del Cabildo de Montevideo", 1800-1813.

iarifazgo on Spanish and foreign goods (3% and 7%, respec­ tively) , the almoiarifazao on goods traded for slaves (6%), the alcabala of first sale of imported goods (3%), the alcabala on land sales (3%), and the municipal tax on hides

(4 reales per hide). A steady trend in revenues from 1789 to 1800 became rapid growth after 1801, when permission to trade with neutral nations was granted. The best years were

1802 and 1804, when trade was relatively unhindered by the

European warfare that caused the lowest levels of revenues in 1797, 1798 and 1801. In 1806 and 1807, the British invasion of the Rio de la Plata prevented tax collections by

Spanish officials, and consequently, official aduana reve­ nues dropped. Soon after the British left, the French invasion of Spain and Portugal disrupted trade once again, 69

Thousands of Pesos

250

200

150

100

1789 1794 1799 1804 1809

• Yearly Income -+- 3RSSH

Source: AGN-Buenos Aires, Sala XIII, 15-10-5, 16-1-5, 16-3- 4, 16-2-3, 16-3-6, 16-4-3, 16-4-5, 16-4-7, 16-5-2, 16-6-5, 16-7-4, 16-8-3, 16-8-6, 16-10-2, "Libro Mayor de Aduana", Montevideo, 1789, 1792, 1794, 1797, 1798, 1800-1807, 1809; and AGN-Montevideo, Catalogo Ex-Archivo y Museo Historico, caja 208, carpeta 3, "Importacion maritima y productos de las diversas rentas recaudadas— Aduana de Montevideo", 1790, 1791, 1793, 1795.

Notes: Data for 1796, 1799 and 1808 are unavailable. Port income was calculated as the total of almoiarifazqos. alca- balas on imports and exports, the tax on hides, and port usage fees collected in each year. The data was smoothed using the EDA technique of 3RSSH, described in Paul F. Velleman and David C. Hoaglin, Applications. Basics and Computing of Exploratory Data Analysis (Boston: Duxbury Press, 1981), 159-178.

FIGURE 4

PORT INCOME AT MONTEVIDEO, 1789-1809 70

and so tax collections in 1809 were reduced to half the

amounts taken in only a few years earlier. Within this

atmosphere of extreme variability, average customs receipts

during the entire period were slightly less than 125,000

pesos per year.85

Protecting trade in the region was of primary impor­

tance to the viceregal government. In the period from 1790

through 1805 the treasury of Buenos Aires subsidized about

89% of the expenditures for troops, horses, fortifications,

cannons and maintenance of the marina in Montevideo and

Maldonado. As shown in Table 4, the total cost of defense

in the Banda Oriental during those years was about 5.2 million pesos, averaging about 326,000 pesos per year.

Average defense spending was far more than the average aduana revenues at Montevideo during those years, but if the

Banda Oriental were lost, Buenos Aires and its ties to the silver mines of Potosi also would have been threatened.

Since 1777, Buenos Aires had been the sole port handling both shipments of Spanish mercury to the mines of Upper Peru and their export of minted coins.86 Merchandise trade was also important for Buenos Aires, yielding net customs reve­ nues averaging 365,000 pesos per year in the early 1790s, and reaching 832,000 pesos in 1802.87 Part of this commer­ cial expansion included the growing importance of Buenos

Aires as an intermediary for the interior. The sales tax 71

revenues on goods from those provinces entering the port

city jumped from 2,266 pesos in 1776 to 46,390 in 1800.88

TABLE 4

DEFENSE EXPENDITURES AND SUBSIDIES, MONTEVIDEO, 1790-1805 (PESOS)

Defense Subsidy from Subsidy Share of ______Expenditure______Vicerovaltv______Expenditure_____ 1790 120,055 82,031 68%

1791 97,008 54,011 56

1792 84,822 70,439 83

1793 113,239 46,201 41

1794 220,060 164,504 75

1795 305,363 409,457 134

1796 278,766 323,804 116

1797 455,827 387,977 85

1798 113,997 130,000 114

1799 299,101 241,928 81

1800 413,990 421,557 102

1801 680,407 1,165,595 171

1802 554,784 541,114 98

1803 291,002 10,000 3

1804 560,029 266,200 48

1805 636,221 339,900 53

Total 5.224.671 4.654.718 89 Source: AGN-Buenos Aires, Sala XIII, legajos 16-1-2, 16-1-4, 16-1-6, 16-2-2, 16-2-4, 16-3-1, 16-3-5, 16-3-6, 16-4-2, 16- 4-4, 16-4-6, 16-5-1, 16-5-6, and 16-7-1, "Libro Mayor de Caja, Montevideo," 1790-1805. As Buenos Aires grew in its position as viceregal

capital, the strategic significance of the Banda Oriental

also increased. In spite of the great efforts of the gov­

ernment to control trade and preserve tax revenue, contra­

band export of silver and hides in exchange for manufactures

from Britain and sugar and tobacco from Brazil flour­

ished.89 The leaky Brazilian border constantly irritated

Spanish officials.90 Merchants in the hide trade were more

likely than others to engage in contraband, because the

taxes imposed by law were especially burdensome for a low unit value, high bulk item. Their main motivation seems to have been preserving high profit margins; the system of re­ stricted trading privileges led them to expect markups as high as 70%. In the days of long ocean voyages and long­ term credit, a high profit margin was necessary to stay in business.91

The records of one Montevidean merchant offer a glimpse at the commercial operations of the port during these years of expansion. A document found in the Uruguayan national archives ennumerates the costs involved in shipping 827 cattle hides from Montevideo to Barcelona in 1805. The final sales price of the hides was 20,106 pesos, while the shipping costs totalled 9,864 pesos, leaving a margin of

10,242 pesos, or 51%. The largest cost was transportation,

6,735 pesos, and the next largest was royal taxes, 724 pesos. The remainder consisted of commission, loading and unloading, port fees and storage.92 The cost of the hides

in Montevideo was not listed, but if we assume that hides

sold there at the same price as in Buenos Aires, eleven

reales, then the merchant's profit would be reduced to 9,105

pesos, or 45%. It is interesting to note that transporting

the hides cost eight times more than the merchandise itself,

and that the demand in Europe for leather was great enough

to absorb the cost.

On the import side, there was also a high demand for

foreign goods in the Rio de la Plata. Consumers' desires were often unfilled, even under the system of free trade within the Empire. The result was contraband, which led to tax evasion and periodic flooding of the market. One Monte­ video merchant complained in 1802 that so many ships had arrived from Hamburg that no one would touch dry goods at any price.93 In 1805, Montevideo managed to absorb an un­ expected cargo from the Phillipines worth 1.5 million pe­ sos.94 The problem of contraband had been noted previously by royal officials, who tried various policies to lessen it.

In 1797, trade with neutral countries and in neutral ships was permitted because of the war between Spain and Britain, which cut off supplies from Europe. There was a large increase in imports, and the net result was the diversion of money to foreigners. Once this was perceived by the Spanish authorities, they declared an end to neutral trade in

1799.95 Spain was already mired in difficulties, however, 74

and with a new war against Britain in 1801 came a revocation

of the edict prohibiting neutral trade.96 Within four

years, Montevideo was once again an integral part of the

European trading orbit, and both legal and contraband com­ merce prospered.

Beginning in 1801, Spanish control of commerce within the Empire was undermined by a legal loophole, which allowed the ships of neutral nations to trade with the colonies.

This meant that illegal British goods could be brought in by

North Americans, and in fact, some British merchants simply ignored the war and sent goods directly to Buenos Aires.

The records of official port entries at Montevideo indicate that by the first years of the nineteenth century, an exclu­ sive colonial trade relationship between Spain and the Rio de la Plata ports was a myth. Figure 5 shows that a variety of foreign vessels sailed into Montevideo Bay in 1805, the last year of Spanish control of the Rio de la Plata ports.

Most overseas ships entering Montevideo were frigates, brigantines or barks, in the 200-to-400 ton range.97 Of the 113 total arrivals, those from Buenos Aires and other parts of the Spanish Empire accounted for only 38 of the entering ships. Twenty-six came directly from Europe or the

U.S. The largest share belonged to the Brazil trade, which brought thirty-nine ships. Of these, only fifteen were registered as Spanish ships, while twenty-two were Portu­ guese and two North American. Source: AGN-Montevideo, Ex-Archivo General Administrative, libro 95, "Capitania del Puerto, Libro Maestro de Entradas".

FIGURE 5

ORIGIN OF SHIPS ENTERING MONTEVIDEO, 1805 The combination of the trade with Brazil legalized in the 1790s and the provision for commerce with neutral na­ tions of 1801 severely undermined the hierarchy imposed by

Spain in the Viceroyalty of the Rio de la Plata. Not only did most of Montevideo's trade take place with foreigners, but Buenos Aires had relatively little economic power to back up its administrative superiority over the Banda Orien­ tal. As its commerce expanded, Montevideo drew business away from Buenos Aires, both in overseas trade and in traf­ fic with the interior of the viceroyalty. Montevideo had local trading connections throughout the Banda Oriental and up the Uruguay River which aroused jealousy in Buenos Ai­ res.98 The presence of foreign vessels in Montevideo thus indicated its growing role as a commercial center, and therefore challenge to the supremacy of Buenos Aires. It also indicated the Banda Oriental's on-going peripherali- zation, as its involvement in the commodity chains of the capitalist world-economy grew and deepened.

In the last years of colonial rule, trade in the Rio de la Plata was wide open. When the British began their block­ ade in 1806, the port of Montevideo held a variety of for­ eign ships— sixteen North American, eleven Portuguese, two

Danish and a Prussian, all supplying goods Spain could not or would not provide in sufficient quantities.99 The trade monopoly that was such an integral part of Spanish imperial policy was destroyed by Spain's failure to industrialize, which prevented it from competing with Britain in production

and exports.100 Ironically, long-term economic growth in

the Rio de la Plata had been started by Spanish reforms, but

these same reforms also allowed the British to get a firm

grip on the region. As a core power in the world-system,

Great Britain had an efficient productive capacity and

commercial system.101 The economic power of the Spanish

state withered in the face of this competition, and regional politics from 1806 on revolved around who would control

foreign trade. In its strategic position, the Banda Orien­ tal became the center of a drama involving Britain, Spain and Portugal, and Buenos Aires and Brazil.

III. The Role of Brazil

Most of the manufactured items consumed in the Rio de la Plata came into the region from Europe or North America, either directly or through Brazil. Even staple goods and minimally processed items were imported, including wheat, flour, candles and salt.102 The important trade in British manufactures by way of Brazil indicates that colony's role in the world-system, as both a supplier of raw materials and a commercial conduit to the Spanish colonies. British trade with Brazil began as early as the 1650s, and got steadily stronger over time as the special Portuguese relationship with Britain was cultivated.103 Spanish America was always an important extension of this route. In the single year of 78

1735, thirty ships full of Brazilian re-exports reached the

shores of the Rio de la Plata.104 In 1749, the cargo of

the fleet from Rio de Janeiro back to Portugal included

46,000 hides.105

Trade was carried out by the Portuguese with British

goods brought through Lisbon and Rio de Janeiro, where

British merchants had extensive trading privileges and good markets for their Yorkshire cloth.106 It was in this way

that the trading links of the Banda Oriental to the world-

economy intensified. By the 1760s, policy makers in Britain were becoming aware of the value of their access to the Rio de la Plata. A diplomatic report of 1766 stated that this trade brought "large sums of silver" to England, and de­ clared that a long war with Spain would provide the opportu­ nity to supply "with English goods the greater part of the

Spanish settlements in America."107 According to Braudel, this transfer of precious metals is an important indicator of the relationship between two economic units,108 in this case the Spanish Empire and Britain. In the era of mercan­ tilism, the drain of silver reserves from Spanish America reveals an economic structure being built, with Britain at the core and the New World becoming the periphery.

The British viewed contraband as a supplement to their legal commerce through Cadiz, which faced many more restric­ tions and delays. Goods would often be sent out from Brit­ ain without specific orders as to which channel to use, Lisbon or Cddiz. An intelligence network in Lisbon conveyed

the latest news, "enabling merchants to switch cargoes to

the most profitable market of the moment."109 By the mid­

eighteenth century, British merchants and their goods en­

joyed a high reputation in the region, which foreshadowed

the later political influence of their source. Rio was

especially convenient as an entrepot for trade with Buenos

Aires and Montevideo, which took any surplus of imported

goods.110 The Spanish ports had a well-established trading

pattern with the Brazilian capital, which ironically

strengthened as a way of avoiding the British in the 1790s.

When Spain was at war with England, the Spanish authorized

the "Portuguesation" of trans-Atlantic commerce with their

colonies, allowing ships to stop first at Rio de Janeiro to

join a Portuguese convoy for safe passage.111

Brazil's transition to a semi-peripheral position began

in the 1790s, when Portugal's economic power began to erode.

The mother country added almost nothing to the trade in raw materials from Brazil and manufactured goods from Britain which passed through Lisbon.112 As Lang describes, "Brazil was a colony of Portugal, but Portugal was itself a colony of foreign merchants who set up their firms in Lisbon."113

Portugal ran a trade deficit with its colonies in the first decade of the nineteenth century, and most important of all was Brazil, which had enjoyed a large surplus in trading with its mother country since 1796. Portugal's entire trade 80 position depended upon Brazil.114 The flight of the Portu­ guese royal family to Brazil in 1808, to be discussed in

Chapter 3, helped Portugal bow out gracefully. The economic transfer already had taken place, as colonizer had become dependent upon colony for revenues.

Luso-Brazilian interest in the Banda Oriental was augmented by the growth of southern Brazil, which began in the mid-eighteenth century. The gold of Minas Gerais stimu­ lated demand for horses and mules, leading to renewed inter­ est in the plains of the south. Settlers founded the towns of Rio Grande de Sao Pedro in 1737 and Santa Catarina in

1738, and both became sub-captaincies of Rio de Janeiro. By the mid-l750s, thousands of immigrants had moved into the frontier region.115 The population of Rio Grande alone grew to 17,923 in 1780, 36,721 in 1803 and 106,192 in 1822.

They also prospered, attaining by 1800 the highest level of per capita exports in Brazil. Rio Grande was an integral part of the trading network extending into the Banda Orien­ tal. In fact, "by 1800, the combined trading area of Rio

Grande do Sul and [the Rio de] La Plata had replaced Minas

Gerais as the major South American market for Rio de Janei­ ro."116 In 1808, 150 ships departed Rio Grande de Sao

Pedro, most in the 100-to-200 ton range.117

Fiscally, Rio Grande do Sul was a dependency of Rio de

Janeiro. In the decade from 1768 to 1778, Rio Grande yield­ ed about thirteen thousand milreis per year in tax revenues, but required 85,400 milreis in expenditures, mainly for the military.118 With its more powerful merchants and access to finance, Rio de Janeiro dominated Rio Grande do Sul economically.119 The colonial government in Rio de Janeiro protected the province not for its tax yield, but for its commercial potential, in a relationship analogous to that of

Buenos Aires and Montevideo. Rio Grande do Sul was also an important base for exploiting the resources of the Banda

Oriental. In 1801, Felix de Azara observed that Portuguese subjects often raided Spanish territory for hides and tal­ low. They practiced vaauerias on the wild cattle to the north of the Rio Negro, which were too far from the sala­ deros of Montevideo to be profitable to the Spanish. Azara longed to see settlements throughout the Banda Oriental, which could manage the cattle herds and eliminate the Portu­ guese.120 He was in favor of trade with Brazil, however.

In 1805, he wrote that although the Portugese illegally introduced tobacco and textiles into the countryside near

Montevideo and the Guarani missions, "it is equally certain that we introduce in the same way almost double the value in ponchos, coarse cloth, horses and cattle."121

Within Brazil, the merchants of Rio de Janeiro bought dried meat and hides, tallow and flour from Rio Grande do

Sul for consumption in the capital, while wheat from the south was re-exported to Europe. Some wheat also found its way to Colonia and Montevideo by way of Rio. The trade in cattle products was so important to the capital that in

1803, 134 of 218 ships (61%) entering the port of Rio de

Janeiro came from Rio Grande. In the period from 1796 through 1811, dried hides accounted for 16.9% of exports from Rio de Janeiro, by value.122 The major customers for

Brazilian exports were Hamburg, Great Britain, Italy and

France. Sugar was their main interest, but all bought hides as well.123

Through international trade ties, cattle products became an important business to the merchants of Rio de

Janeiro, and stimulated their interest in the southern part of Brazil. Combined with the British pursuit of commercial penetration in South America, they formed an important segment of world trade networks. By 1808, Rio de Janeiro was "the most important port in the southern hemi­ sphere,"124 not simply because of the Portuguese royal family's residence there, but because of enduring British interest in expanding markets for their goods. Brazil thus formed an important link between the economic concerns of the core and those of the periphery in the Rio de la Plata.

In the years after 1806, domination of Montevideo became as important to Rio de Janeiro as it was to Buenos Aires.

Trade was the primary motivator for both.

V. The World-System in the Rio de la Plata Looking at the years from 1680 through the early nine­ teenth century, two main features stand out about the incor­ poration of the Rio de la Plata into the periphery of the world-system. The first was the Spanish colonial reform in the late eighteenth century, which sought to strengthen the region's political and economic ties to Spain. The most important measures, setting up a viceregal bureaucracy with its capital at Buenos Aires (1776) and the opening of direct trade with Spain (1778), also increased the relative impor­ tance of the area within the empire. The second main aspect of incorporation was the slow but steady growth of the cattle-product trade, which benefitted from such innovations as the introduction of saladeros. As peripheralization occurred, therefore, two contrary tendencies arose: the growth of trading opportunities and the increasing desire of the Spanish imperial system to enforce its trade monopoly.

In the Rio de la Plata as elsewhere in the empire, local economic interests chafed against restrictions on trade, hoping to increase profits by eliminating intermedi­ aries.125 The consulado of Buenos Aires expressed this desire in its calls for reform in the 1790s.126 To commer­ cial interests in Montevideo, Buenos Aires was the source of the most odious restrictions, including the lack of an autonomous local consulado and the lack of local control over tax revenues. These and other tensions led to what

Uruguayan historians call the "lucha de puertos" (struggle 84 between ports),127 which became a key factor in the inde­ pendence of the Banda Oriental.

The roots of the economic contest grew during the viceregal period, when orientales could often disregard the far-away king and his ministers, but Buenos Aires was a constant irritation. While under the control of the capi­ tal, the residents of Montevideo and the countryside experi­ enced what they considered to be injustice from Buenos

Aires. A consulado (merchants' guild) was established at the larger city in 1794, and jealously guarded its powers over Montevidean commerce.128 Merchants in Montevideo com­ plained loudly when the viceroy imposed a 1/2% import/export tax in that year on both them and their porteno counter­ parts, apparently offended by the fact that they were con­ sidered as merely an extension of the larger city in the regulation. The merchants of Buenos Aires used their polit­ ical power to limit Montevideo as much as possible. In

1800, they tried to impose additional taxes on their compet­ itor of 4% for overseas imports, 2% for re-exports, and four reales per ton for every overseas ship found in the port.

This was an overt attempt to attract foreign trade to Buenos

Aires, and was protested so strongly that it never took effect.129 Even before independence, Buenos Aires was try­ ing to monopolize the role of economic intermediation which the ports performed. Similarly, the cabildo of Montevideo was long frus­ trated in its attempts to extend its jurisdiction to the whole of the Banda Oriental, which had been maintained in three separate districts since 1726, with two parts under the control of Buenos Aires. It was only the military threat from the Portuguese that finally brought about the unification of the province with Montevideo as the seat of government in 1797, in response to a petition directly to the king.130 Throughout the eighteenth century, orientales were forced to appeal to a larger power, Spain, as they sought protection from the "sectional interests of the immediate metropolis across the river."131

As the Spanish Empire waned in the Rio de la Plata, the

British began to take on the arbitrator role. To them, the

Rio de la Plata was only one corner of a world-system over which they were gaining hegemony, but they had lain the groundwork for real power there over decades, and they did not ignore the continuing opportunities to build upon it.

The new relationship between Britain and South America was enhanced by the intraperipheral conflict in the Rio de la

Plata. After 1806, the continuing desire of merchants and politicians in Buenos Aires to restrict Montevideo's freedom of activity can be viewed as part of the former viceregal capital's continuing attempts to establish its supremacy around the surrounding provinces. It is important to keep in mind that the viceroyalty had only been formed in 1776, and barely had time to set up firm internal relationships before the independence movement began. To the extent that the cabildo and consulado of Buenos Aires could control and channel the trade of the Rio de la Plata basin, they could boost their city's position within the periphery and thereby

increase its own degrees of political and economic freedom.

As Wallerstein points out, the world-system is always in flux, with the position of any one actor in the hierarchy likely to move over time.132 In the early nineteenth cen­ tury, numerous opportunities to do so arose.

The structure of the world-system which the orientales encountered is more complex than the basic three-tier model depicted by Wallerstein. In his work, the world-system is composed of a core, semi-periphery and periphery, which in early-nineteenth century Latin America meant Great Britain,

Spain and the Spanish colonies, respectively.133 It is clear that the Rio de la Plata basin was part of the periph­ ery of the world-system by 1806. Some of the signs of peripheralization identified by Wallerstein are: an empha­ sis on production of primary products, a weak state relative to the core,134 and a growing divergence between smaller towns and larger ones, with the latter benefitting from increased trade and the presence of foreign merchants.135

Fernand Braudel agrees that the dominance of foreign mer­ chants is a characteristic of the periphery, which thereby loses control over some of its own resources. He adds the 87

idea of stratification within the world-system according to relative prices, which are cheapest in the periphery.136

This is an alternative way of pointing out that the core produces high value added manufactured goods, while the periphery produces low value added primary products.

Regardless of the choice of terms, the Rio de la Plata was in the periphery in the early nineteenth century, based on its reliance upon trade in agricultural goods, its weak state, the primacy of the port of Buenos Aires, and the prevalence of foreign merchants, especially the British.137

In world-system terms, the competition for control of eco­ nomic resources in the Banda Oriental was not strictly one between the periphery and either the semi-periphery or the core. As Braudel points out, Latin America was a periphery, but far from a uniform one.138 Both Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro sought to increase their regional power, and the

Banda Oriental was often caught in-between. Figure 6 de­ picts the structure of the world-system in the Rio de la

Plata which made the Banda Oriental the center of intense competition.

The competitive environment in the Rio de la Plata presented a challenge to the British, who were beginning by

1800 to set up their informal empire, an intense economic penetration without the establishment of direct governing institutions.139 According to Wallerstein, the hegemonic core power achieves such a high level of productive effi- 88

Core

Great Britain

Semi-peripherv

Spain Portugal U.S.

Periphery

Brazil Buenos Aires

Montevideo

Note: Solid lines represent major trading relationships.

FIGURE 6

SCHEMATIC REPRESENTATION OF THE STRUCTURE OF THE WORLD-SYSTEM, ABOUT 1800

ciency that its products are competitive everywhere. As a result, the hegemonic power "will be the primary beneficiary of a maximally free world market."140 That is precisely what Britain's policies emphasized. Wallerstein has de­ scribed British actions during this time in terms of taking advantage of decolonization,141 in order to create a free world market where there was none before. Latin America was part of a worldwide strategy which would lead Britain to hegemony within the core of the world-system. The key to this achievement was trade, and Britain left its chief competitor, France, lagging far behind. One particularly significant statistic is that in 1780, England and France each accounted for 12% of world trade, but by 1820, Eng­ land's share was three times that of France.142 As a pe­ ripheral area, the Rio de la Plata could not influence the course of European competition, but it did feel the effects of it. 90

MOTES

I. Wallerstein, Modern World-Svstem. vol. 1, 225-297.

2 . James Lang, Portuguese Brazil: The Kina's Plantation (New York: Academic Press, 1979), 32.

3. See Wallerstein, Modern World-Svstem. vol. 1, 165- 221.

4. Lang, Portuguese Brazil. 31.

5. Wallerstein, Modern World-Svstem. vol. 1, 301-302.

6. Frederic Mauro, "Political and economic structures of empire, 1580-1750" in Leslie Bethell, ed., Colonial Brazil (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 65; David Rock, Argentina 1516-1987: From Spanish Colonization to Alfonsin (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), 8-14; Kroeber, Shipping Industry. 16-17.

7. Emanuel Soares da Veiga Garcia, "A Proposito de uma Tentativa de Relagoes Comercidis entre o Prata e o Brasil por Ocasiao do Seculo XVI" in Portos. Rotas e Comercio. Anais do V Simposio Nacional dos Professores de Histdria. vol. 1 (Sao Paulo: Universidade de Sao Paulo, 1971), 201.

8. Alfredo J. Montoya, Historia de los saladeros argentinos (Buenos Aires: Coloquio, 1970), 12.

9. Emilio A. Coni, Las vaauerias de Rio de la Plata. 2d Argentine ed. (Buenos Aires: Platero, 1979), 12.

10. Montoya, Saladeros. 13.

II. Coni, Vaauerias. 41-42, 47.

12. Garcia, "Relag5es Comercidis entre o Prata e o Brasil", 201-204.

13. Audiencia de Charcas to King, 15 March 1599, quoted in Harry E. Cross, "Commerce and Orthodoxy: A Spanish Response to Portuguese Commercial Penetration in the Viceroyalty of Peru, 1580-1640" The Americas 35 (Oct. 1978): 154.

14. Rock, Argentina. 24.

15. Lang, Portuguese Brazil. 91.

16. Coni, Vaauerias. 39. 91

17. Rock, Argentina. 31.

18. Ibid., 40.

19. Miguel Angel Scenna, Arqentina-Brasil: Cuatro siglos de rivalidad (Buenos Aires: Ediciones la Bastilla, 1975), 46.

20. Rock, Argentina, 40-41. The Portuguese name was Colonia do Sacramento. For further discussion of Colonia and its significance, see Mario Rodriguez, "The Genesis of Economic Attitudes in the Rio de la Plata" Hispanic American Historical Review 36 (May 1956): 171-189, and "Dorn Pedro of Braganza and Colonia do Sacramento, 1680-1705" Hispanic American Historical Review 38 (May 1958): 179-208.

21. Manuel de Oliveira Lima, Dorn Joao VI no Brasil 1808- 1821. vol. 1 (Rio de Janeiro: Rodrigues, 1908), 112.

22. V.M. Godinho, "Portugal, as Frotas do Agucar e as Frotas do Ouro (1670-1770)" Revista de Historia 4 (1953): 82- 83, quoted in Jose Jobson de A. Arruda, 0 Brasil no Comercio Colonial (Sao Paulo: Atica, 1980), 121.

23. Mauro, "Political and economic structures", 62-65. For a detailed discussion of the military aspects of the border dispute, see Dauril Alden, Roval Government in Colonial Brazil (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968), 96- 275.

24. Wallerstein, Modern World-Svstem. vol. 3, 130.

25. Coni, Vaauerias. 48-49.

26. Sergio Villalobos R., Comercio v contrabando en el Rio de la Plata v Chile. 4th ed. (Buenos Aires: Editorial Universitaria, 1986) , 19-21.

27. Barran and Nahum, Bases economicas. 49.

28. Ibid.

29. Mexico and Peru were first and second, respectively. John Fisher, "Imperial 'Free Trade1 and the Hispanic Economy, 1778-1796" Journal of Latin American Studies 13 (May 1981): 44, 47.

30. Kroeber, Shipping Industry. 26-28.

31. Mauro, "Political and economic structures", 62.

32. Coni, Vaauerias. 38. 92

33. Ibid., 17. Also see Magnus Morner, Actividades politicas v economicas de los Jesuitas en el Rio de la Plata: La era de los Habsburgos (Buenos Aires: Paidos, 1968) .

34. Carlos Machado, Historia de los Orientales. Tomo I . 4th ed. (Montevideo: Ediciones de la Banda Oriental, 1984), 17; Barrdn and Nahum, "Uruguayan Rural History", 659.

35. Felix de Azara, "Memoria sobre el estado rural del Rio de la Plata", 9 May 1801, in Memoria sobre el estado rural del Rio de la Plata v otros informes (Buenos Aires: Bajel, 1943), 13-15.

36. Anibal Barrios Pintos, De las vaauerias al alambra- do: contribucion a la historia rural uruauava (Montevideo: Ediciones del Nuevo Mundo, 1967), 20.

37. Ibid., 20.

38. Mauro, "Political and economic structures", 65; Andree Mansuy-Diniz Silva, "Imperial re-organization, 1750- 1808" in Bethell, ed., Colonial Brazil. 247, 259.

39. Luis Cincinato Bollo, Atlas qeoardfico v descripcion qeogrdfica v estadlstica de la RepQblica Oriental del Uruguay (Montevideo: Barreiro y Ramos, 1896), 72; Azara, Memoria. 15.

40. For sources, see Table 1.

41. Barren and Nahum, Bases economicas. 80.

42. Azara, Memoria. 8.

43. Thomas Whigham, "Cattle Raising in the Argentine Northeast: Corrientes, c. 1750-1870" Journal of Latin American Studies 20 (Nov. 1988): 315-316. For discussion of a specific estancia and its operation, see Salvatore and Brown, "Trade and Proletarianization" and Brown, Socioeconomic History. 41- 46.

44. Barrios Pintos, De las vaauerias al alambrado. 79. For further information about the operation of an estancia. see Samuel Amaral, "Rural Production and Labour in Late Colonial Buenos Aires" Journal of Latin American Studies 19 (Nov. 1987): 235-278.

45. Beraza, Economia. 9. For the operation of one estancia and the preparation of hides for export, see Brown, Socioeconomic History. 38-46. 93

46. For the text of one set of instructions, issued by Francisco de Alz&ybar, see Barrios Pintos, De las vaauerias al alambrado. 80-82.

47. Machado, Historia. 16.

48. Wallerstein, Modern World-Svstem. vol. 3, 130-131.

49. Ibid., vol. 2, 85.

50. Ibid., vol. 3, 130.

51. Barren and Nahum, "Uruguayan Rural History," 656- 657.

52. Lynch, Spanish-American Revolutions. 90.

53. Machado, Historia. 16.

54. The various activities of the Cabildo of Montevideo are recorded in the books of "Actas del Cabildo de Montevi­ deo", which for 1800 onward are in AGN-Montevideo, Ex-Archivo General Administrative.

55. Socolow, Merchants of Buenos Aires. 154-155.

56. Braudel, Civilization and Capitalism, vol. 2, 378. For a list of hide merchants in the Viceroyalty of the Rio de la Plata and their European partners, see Juan Carlos Garavag- lia, Economia. sociedad v regiones (Buenos Aires: Ediciones de la Flor, 1987), 103-107.

57. Villalobos R., Comercio v contrabando. 20, 21, 34.

58. For a discussion of the Bourbon reforms in the Spanish Empire, see D.A. Brading, "Bourbon Spain and its American empire," in Leslie Bethell, ed., Colonial Spanish America (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 112- 162.

59. Alden, "Undeclared War", 72-73.

60. Villalobos R., Comercio v contrabando. 51-55.

61. Ibid., 54-55.

62. Rock, Argentina. 62.

63. Villalobos R., Comercio v contrabando. 56.

64. Street, Artigas, 7. 94

65. Garavaglia, "Economic Growth and Regional Differ­ entiations" , 53.

66. Barrios Pintos, De las vaauerias al alambrado. 113.

67. Rock, Argentina. 68.

68. Jacques Barbier, "Peninsular Finance and Colonial Trade: the Dilemma of Charles IV*s Spain" Journal of Latin American Studies 12 (May 1980): 21-37.

69. Brown, Socioeconomic History. 39.

70. Montoya, Saladeros. 21.

71. Beraza, Economia. 11.

72. Montoya, Saladeros. 31.

73. Ibid., 25-26.

74. Ibid., 29.

75. Ibid., 29-32. For more information about individu­ als involved in the development of saladeros. see Montoya, Como evoluciono la qanaderia en la eooca del virreinato (Buenos Aires: Plus Ultra, 1984).

76. Azara, Memoria, 7-9, 22. One of the galleons carrying the wealth of the Viceroyalty of the Rio de la Plata back to Spain sank near Montevideo in June 1792. Salvage teams have recently recovered nearly $1 million worth of gold, exclusive of numismatic value, and expect to find much more. Nathaniel C. Nash, "A Galleon's Gold Sets Uruguay to Dream­ ing," New York Times. 7 June 1992, A13.

77. Barren and Nahum, Bases Economicas. 50-51.

78. Garavaglia, "Economic Growth and Regional Differen­ tiations", 71.

79. Barrios Pintos, De las vaauerias al alambrado. 85; Rock, Argentina. 64-65. Like Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro also had about 40,000 people in 1808. Jurgen Schneider, "Sinopsis sobre el comercio exterior en Latinoamerica 1810- 1850" in Liehr, .ed., America Latina en la epoca de Simon Bolivar. 490.

80. Barrios Pintos, De las vaauerias al alambrado. 159. 95

81. In a study of prices in Buenos Aires, Lyman Johnson has found that about 40% of an urban worker's income was spent on bread, and 60% on all types of food. Lyman L. Johnson, "The Price History of Buenos Aires During the Viceregal Period", in Johnson and Enrique Tandeter, eds., Essays on the Price History of Eiahteenth-Centurv Latin America (Albuquer­ que: University of New Mexico Press, 1990), 137-171.

82. The weight per real of whole wheat bread, the food of the poor, was always twice that of white bread. See sources for Table 3.

83. Johnson, "Price History", 143.

84. There may have been substantial inflation before 1800. One document indicates that in 1788, the weight of white bread was sixty-four ounces per real. Cabildo of Montevideo, 19 November 1824, in AGN-Montevideo, Ex-Archivo General Administrative, libro 18, "Actas del Cabildo de Montevideo", 1823-1829.

85. See sources for Figure 4.

86. Rock, Argentina. 62-64.

87. Ignacio Ndnez, An Account. Historical. Political and Statistical of the United Provinces of Rio de la Plata: with an Appendix concerning the usurpation of Montevideo by the Portuguese and Brazilian governments (London: Ackermann, 1825), 148.

88. Ricardo Levene, Investigaciones acerca de la Historica Economica del Virreinato del Plata, vol. 2, 2d ed. (Buenos Aires: El Ateneo, 1952), 53-54.

89. Rock, Argentina. 67.

90. The documents from one legal case are published in Flavio A. Garcia, La Banda Oriental en 1803: Exhumacion de un Exnediente Incoado por el Gremio de Hacendados (Montevideo: Estado Mayor General del Ejercito, 1956).

91. Socolow, Merchants of Buenos Aires. 59-60.

92. "Cuenta de recibo, venta y gastos de 827 cueros al pelo," calculated 9 April 1805, copied 20 October 1808, AGN- Montevideo, Archivos Particulares, caja 2, carpeta 5.

93. Villalobos R., Comercio v contrabando. 83.

94. The ship had been destined for Spain, but was prevented by warfare from reaching it. Ibid., 64. 96 in o

• Barren and Nahum. Bases Economicas. 51-52.

96. Villalobos R.. Comercio v contrabando. 83-84.

97. For a discussion of the ships involved in Rio de la trade, see Kroeber. Shipping Industry. 43-48 and 130.

98. Ibid., 36, 57, 87.

99. Villalobos R.. Comercio v contrabando. 85-88.

100. Wallerstein. Modern World-Svstem. vol. 3. 239.

101. Wallerstein. Politics of the World-Economv. 5.

102 . Kroeber. Shipping Industry, 54-55.

103. Lang. Portuguese Brazil. 104-105.

104. Ibid., 121.

105. C.R. Boxer, The Golden Age of Brazil 1695-•1750: Growing Pains of a Colonial Society (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1964), 351.

106. Villalobos R., Comercio v contrabando. 19-20; Allan Christelow, "Great Britain and the Trades from Cadiz and Lisbon to Spanish America and Brazil, 1759-1783" Hispanic American Historical Review 27 (1947): 4; Herbert Heaton, "A Merchant Adventurer in Brazil 1808-1818" Journal of Economic History 6 (May 1946): 3.

107. Memorials of the British Consul and Factories at Lisbon to His Majesty's Ambassador at That Court and to His Secretaries of State of This Kingdom (London, 1766), 89-90, quoted in Christelow, "Great Britain and the Trades", 5.

108. Braudel, Civilization and Capitalism, vol. 2, 205.

109. Christelow, "Great Britain and the Trades", 4-5.

110. Ibid., 10.

111. Schneider, "Trade Relations Between France and Latin America, 1810-1850" in Liehr, ed., America Latina en la epoca de Simon Bolivar. 423.

112. Leslie Bethell, "The Independence of Brazil" in Brazil: Empire and Republic. 1822-1930 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 7.

113. Lang, Portuguese Brazil. 114. 97

114. Fernando A. Novais, Portugal e Brasil na Crise do Antiao Sistema Colonial (1777-18081 (Sao Paulo: Hucitec, 1979), 338, 340, 390-391.

115. Stuart B. Schwartz, "Plantations and peripheries, c. 1580-c. 1750" in Bethell, Colonial Brazil. 117-118.

116. Rudolph William Bauss, "Rio de Janeiro: The Rise of Late Colonial Brazil's Dominant Emporium, 1777-1808" (Ph.D. diss., Tulane University, 1977), 180-185.

117. Oliveira Lima, Dorn Joao VI no Brasil, vol. 1, 113.

118. Alden, Roval Government in Colonial Brazil. 318- 321.

119. Bauss, "Rio de Janeiro", 195.

120. Azara, Memoria, 13, 17-20.

121. Azara, "Memoria sobre el tratado de limites de la America Meridional celebrado entre Espana y Portugal en el ano de 1777 y sobre las disputas que han ocurrido en su ejecu- cion", 14 May 1805, in Memoria. 30.

122. Sugar ranked first, at 46.7%, and gold ranked second, at 31.3%. Arruda, O Brasil no Comercio Colonial. 159, 181.

123. Ibid., 307-310.

124. Bauss, "Rio de Janeiro", 6.

125. Cardoso and Faletto, Dependency and Development. 31.

126. Lynch, Spanish-American Revolutions. 16.

127. Sala de Touron, et al. . Artiqas v su revolucion agraria. 21. Victor Hugo once commented, "Quand Montevideo engraisse, Buenos-Ayres maigrit." Les travaileurs de la mer. part 1, book 5, chap. 1, quoted in Oscar Abadie-Aicardi, "La politica de transito y la rivalidad comercial entre Montevideo y Buenos Aires (1829)" (Buenos Aires: Academia Nacional de la Historia, 1982) , 399n.

128. Street, Artigas. 35-41.

129. Barran and Nahum, Bases Economicas. 53-57.

130. Street, Artigas, 41-43. 98

131. Lvnch, Spanish-American Revolutions. 91.

132. Wallerstein. Modern World-Svstem. vol. 2. 179.

133. Ibid., vol. 3, 212-227.

134. Ibid., vol. 1, 301-302, 355.

135. Ibid., vol. 2, 22, 22n.

136. Braudel. Civilization and Capitalism. vol . 3, 40.

137. Wolf. Europe and the People Without Historv. 278.

138. Braudel. Civilization and Capitalism, vol. 3, 426.

139. Winn, "British Informal Empire", 100-101.

140. Wallerstein. Modern World-Svstem. vol. 2. 38.

141. Ibid., vol. 3, 84-86.

142. Jurgen Schneider, "Sinopsis sobre el

AUTONOMY UNDER SIEGE, 1806-1816

I. British Commercial Penetration, 1806-1809

In 1806, the long struggle for control of the Banda

Oriental entered a new phase, one of direct challenge and eventual collapse of Spanish authority. It began with the

British invasion of the Rio de la Plata in 1806-1807, but that was only the first shock to the tranquility of the inhabitants. For ten years, the province endured turmoil arising from a succession of disruptive events: the inva­ sion of Spain by the French; the declaration of independence in Buenos Aires; the occupation of Montevideo by forces from

Brazil and Buenos Aires; the first taste of autonomy, and then its destruction. These events brought war, siege, and human suffering, as well as frequent changes in the govern­ ment apparatus in Montevideo. Through it all, there was a strong thread of continuity— the economic relationships established during the incorporation of the Banda Oriental into the world-system. Even in the midst of the fighting, cattle hides were produced, ships entered the ports, and merchants made deals. Underneath apparent chaos, at the center of everything was trade, and the question of who

99 100 would control it. Once Spanish authority began to wane in

1806, the scramble for power and resources began.

Except during their brief occupation of Buenos Aires and Montevideo in 1806-1807, the British were not involved

in the military aspects of the struggles in the Rio de la

Plata. The historians of informal empire, Gallagher and

Robinson, point out that "the main work of imperialism in the...expansionist era was in the more intensive development of areas already linked with the world economy."1 This was precisely what happened in South America after 1806. The inability of the Spanish to act to save their Platine colo­ nies from invasion effectively cut the bonds of their au­ thority. This was the best possible outcome for the Brit­ ish, because the system of monopoly privileges created by the Spanish colonial administration had held back the colo­ nies from full participation in international exchange. For

Uruguay, the process of national independence both began and ended with British actions. In 1806, their invasion was the death knell of Spanish authority and the restrictions it imposed. Even without a continuing military presence,

British influence in the region grew over time, and helped to bring about the independence of Uruguay in 1830.

The process began with the invasion of the Rio de la

Plata in June 1806. Sir Home Popham arrived suddenly and captured Buenos Aires with a force of 1,600 men, forcing the

Spanish viceroy to flee to Cordoba. Brigadier General William Carr Beresford commanded a land force which occupied the city, but within two months the citizens rose up and

captured him and his men. Meanwhile, viewing these unex­ pected events as a commercial opportunity, the British pre­ pared a second expedition under the command of Lieutenant

General John Whitelocke, who brought along seventy merchant

ships.2 After the capture of Buenos Aires, the loyal Span­

ish merchants of Montevideo had quickly offered 150,000 pesos to the governor to help defend their city from the

British.3 Nevertheless, Whitelocke landed at Montevideo

in February 1807, and one contemporary observer reported as many as six thousand British subjects flooding into the city, including four thousand soldiers and two thousand

"merchants, traders, [and] adventurers.1,4

Whitelocke was unable to retake Buenos Aires, and his forces were ejected from Montevideo by local defense efforts after a seven-month occupation. In spite of this, the epi­ sode was a commercial success. As one historian has noted, the military invasion was really nothing more than a "corol­ lary of the anxious mercantile domination."5 Montevideo soon gained a reputation in Britain as a place where vast sums of money could be made.6 In a period of only three months, British goods worth £756,000 entered Montevideo, and were sold there for £1.25 million. The general in charge of the British forces there, Sir Samuel Auchmuty, encouraged trade as much as possible, allowing merchants to enter 102 freely and reducing average import duties from 50% to 12.5%.

The British also promoted trade by founding the first news­ paper in Montevideo, La Estrella del Sur. published in

Spanish and English, which provided commercial information to merchants.7

The effect of the occupation on the regional economy was profound. Most important was the flood of British textiles which entered the market, in quantities previously unavailable, after the capture of Buenos Aires in 1806.

Their low prices completely undercut locally-made items; a yard of domestic cotton cloth cost between 2 and 2.75 reales, but a yard of British cloth only 1.25 reales. Like­ wise, a domestic poncho cost seven pesos, but an imported one only three pesos. Within a short time, gauchos on ranches typically owned British clothing and utensils, and their horses wore British tack.8 This trade was perceived as a grave threat by the Consulado of Buenos Aires, which was dominated by peninsular Spanish merchants and their agents. After all, it bypassed their firms entirely. They were so anxious about the entry of British goods into the viceroyalty that they requested the death penalty for any

Spanish merchants who traded with the British in occupied

Montevideo.9 The fact that the locals had to defend them­ selves against foreign invasion proved how ineffectual the

Spanish colonial regime had become.10 It also disrupted the administrative control of Buenos Aires over the Banda 103

Oriental. Cut off from the capital by the occupation,

Montevideans experienced for a short time the greater polit­

ical and economic freedom they had been seeking. This served to heighten the commercial competition between Monte­ video and Buenos Aires, and became the basis for their political separation.

The orientales began to resist porteno authority soon after the British left. One of the first contentious issues was taxation. After the withdrawal of the occupation, the viceregal government responded as the Spanish colonial bureaucracy often did during periods of crisis— it attempted to raise import and export taxes to pay for defense spend­ ing.11 The new viceroy, Santiago Liniers, was a hero who had helped repel the British invasion, but he was not above claiming for the Buenos Aires treasury the tax revenues gained from the sale of British goods through Montevideo.12

The accounts of the royal treasury in Buenos Aires show that the need for cash was urgent, with military expenditures almost doubling to one million pesos in 1807.13 In Montevi­ deo, merchants resented higher import and export taxes and considered them harmful to trade.14

While Buenos Aires attempted to siphon off tax collec­ tions, the Banda Oriental faced its own high military expen­ ditures from 1806 to 1809. As shown in Table 5, they aver­ aged over 500,000 pesos annually. Concurrently, the custom­ ary defense subsidy, which the viceregal government allocat- 104 ed from Buenos Aires and other treasuries for Montevideo, fell from over 600,000 pesos in 1806 to nothing in 1809.

The importance of the Montevideo aduana rose, as the income from trade taxes suddenly became a significant part of provincial defense expenditures. Trade became not only the source of individual profits, but the lifeline of the gov­ ernment .

TABLE 5

SELECTED INCOME AND EXPENDITURES, TREASURY OF MONTEVIDEO, 1806-1809 (PESOS)

1806 1807 1808 1809 Income from:

Montevideo Aduana 94,373 2,839 95,787 590,250

Buenos Aires Treasury 150,000 139,613 54,227 0

Other Treasuries 464,253 12,372 9,910 257

Total of above 708,896 154,824 159,924 590,507

Expenditure for:

Defense 882,529 79,288 317,320 829,879

Aduana income Defense soendincr 11% 3.6% 30% 71% Source: AGN-Buenos Aires, sala XIII, legajos 16-8-4, 16-8-6, 16-9-4 and 16-10-2 , "Libro Mayor de la Real Caja de Montevi- deo", 1806-1809.

Note: Figures for 1807 cover the periods 1 Jan.-2 Feb. and 3 Nov.-31 Dec. only. "Other Treasuries" are Cordoba for 1806, Blandengues (border patrol) for 1807, and the tax on tobacco imports for 1808 and 1809. As a backdrop to the tensions within the viceroyalty, the French invasion of Spain in 1808 provided Montevideo the opportunity for a complete break from Buenos Aires. The

"ultra-royalist governor" Francisco Javier de Elio viewed with suspicion the French background of Liniers and his popularity among the creoles of Buenos Aires. Acting to protect the authority of the king, Elio charged Liniers with treason in September 1808, and refused to submit to his com­ mand. The Cabildo of Montevideo was dominated at the time by loyalists, and supported this action. It also declared its own junta, separate from the viceregal capital, and filled it with peninsular Spaniards.15 Political divi­ sions within the Banda Oriental emerged immediately, as many of the large estancieros sided with Buenos Aires. The inhabitants of the countryside in general favored indepen­ dence from Spain, hoping for economic liberalization. The creoles in Montevideo were put in a difficult position, be­ cause if they favored separatism, their rival Buenos Aires might be able to re-assume the regional leadership position it lost in the British invasions. In 1808, they determined that escape from the power of the portenos was only possible by remaining loyal to Spain.

One of the first acts of the Junta of Montevideo was to open the port to British trade. This indicates that the division in the viceroyalty occurred over autonomy, not ideology, because Buenos Aires was also interested in freer 106

trade.16 The actions of leaders in both ports reflected

the dominant ideology of the capitalist world-system, which

created an international arena governed by "trade-centered

development" ideas. According to William Glade, the ideas

of Adam Smith and others about how trade led to wealth were

familiar to the Latin American elite, and influenced their policies, as did their own experience with trade liberaliza­

tion during the last years of colonial rule.17

Considering the dramatic increase in activity at the port of Montevideo— from about fifty ships entering and

leaving in 1808 to more than two hundred in 1810— the Junta had an accurate perception of the commercial potential of breaking with Buenos Aires.18 Figure 7 depicts port activ­

ity at Montevideo from 1805 to 1816. The occupation year of

1807 shows the lowest level, but should be considered an understatement of reality, because the official records do not indicate how many ships entered while the British held the port. The years 1810 and 1811 show the highest levels of the entire decade, reflecting both a lull in the fighting and Montevideo's status as the only major port in the Rio de la Plata still loyal to Spain. The ups and downs in Figure

7 trace the experiences of Montevideo in war, but also show that even during hostilities, trade was carried on through the port.

In spite of Spanish regulations to the contrary, Brit­ ish ships continued to trade in the Rio de la Plata in 1808 107

250

200

150

100

1805 1808 1807 1808 1809 1810 1811 1812 1813 1814 1815 1818

Source: AGN-Montevideo, Ex-Archivo General Administrative, libro 95, "Capitania del Puerto, Libro Maestro de Entradas", 1805-1818.

FIGURE 7

SHIPS ENTERING MONTEVIDEO, 1805-1816

and 1809. Between November 1808 and November 1809, thirty- two of them arrived at Buenos Aires, bringing £1,133,000 worth of merchandise, while ten ships at Montevideo intro­ duced goods valued at £1,153,000.19 Princess Carlota, sister of Ferdinand VII and resident in Rio de Janeiro with her husband Joao VI, received a secret report in March 1809 which described cargo arriving in Montevideo at all hours of the day and night, sold in numerous clandestine business deals, carried out on a cash-only basis.20 In May 1809, a local observer protested to Madrid that Montevideo was 108 becoming a foreign colony, having more foreigners in resi­ dence than Spaniards.21 One merchant of Gualeguay, in

Entre Rios, complained that so much contraband had been arriving from Montevideo that one found little shops out in the middle of the countryside. Another merchant, from Santa

F6, wrote that "it seems that all of England has come to this city."22 British merchants virtually tripped over each other in their haste to get to South America. No wonder, when the cloth mills of Yorkshire were desperate for markets to compensate for the lack of European and North

American customers, blocked by warfare.23

Table 6 shows the British share of port arrivals at

Montevideo between 1805 and 1816. The median for the period after 1808 was twenty-two British ships per year, although a high of forty-six occurred in 1810. The British generally stayed away when fighting was going on, but returned again when circumstances allowed. Their share was moderate, but significant, because it shows that important connections had been made during the British occupation of 1807. According to German Tjarks and Alicia Vidaurreta de Tjarks, many of the most prominent merchant families in Montevideo were transformed into partners of British firms, taking regular consignments of their goods for the upriver coastal trade.

On June 4, 1809, the saint's day of George III was celebrat­ ed in grand style in Montevideo.24 Even after the British merchants began to take over trade, Buenos Aires still hoped 109

TABLE 6

BRITISH SHARE OF MONTEVIDEO PORT ENTRIES, 1805-1816

Year Share No. of Shins Year Share No. OJ

1805 5% 5 1811 12% 23 1806 0 0 1812 9 10 1807 0 0 1813 1 1 1808 16 10 1814 13 5 1809 18 22 1815 39 27 1810 21 46 1816 33 27 Source: AGN-Montevideo, Ex-Archivo General Administrativo, libro 95, "Capitania del Puerto, Libro Maestro de Entradas", 1805-1818.

to regain control of the viceroyalty. In November 1809, desperate for tax revenue, the viceroy in Buenos Aires agreed to legalize trade with allies and neutrals in the

Spanish struggle against France.25 But this was not enough to attract trade away from Montevideo. Merchants there en­ joyed such a cordial relationship with British traders that they considered using British ships to send tax revenues back to Spain, with the goal of "impeding their arrival in

[Buenos Aires] and later retention by the viceroy."26

While the Spanish Empire was mired in its own problems, the British pursued a decidedly pro-business diplomacy in

South America. Their minister in South America was the 6th

Viscount Strangford, Percy Clinton Sydney Smythe, who headed a diplomatic post from 1808 to 1815 in Brazil, the only such

British mission in Latin America. He had a great deal of persuasive power over Joao VI, having been "instrumental in getting the court to leave Lisbon for Rio de Janeiro in 110

1807." When he first arrived in South America, Strangford's main diplomatic goal was to prevent the Rio de la Plata from falling into French hands, even if that meant supporting

Portuguese designs on the Banda Oriental, which were other­ wise considered a destabilizing factor. In fact, the French had made overtures to the creoles of Buenos Aires, promising help with independence if they renounced trade with the

British. However, when it became clear that the French had little chance of capturing the Spanish Empire, Strangford's primary goal became keeping the Rio de la Plata open for

British trade, and he used his personal and diplomatic influence to keep Joao Vi's armies out of the Banda Oriental for as long as he was in Rio.27 The British also used their naval station at Rio to enforce their policy goals:

The commanders of His Majesty's ships at Rio de Janeiro [and] in the Rio de la Plata...acted as unofficial consuls and diplomats, protected British trade, safe­ guarded the rights of British merchants, and, inciden­ tally, transported on their behalf immense quantities of specie to England.28

The residence of the Portuguese court in Rio de Janeiro indirectly supported British economic power in the Rio de la

Plata, and brought to Brazil a heightened British presence in everyday life. Sergio Buarque de Holanda describes the first half of the nineteenth century as a British era in

Brazil.29 Nowhere was this more true than in commerce. In

1808, Joao VI declared open trade with all nations for

Brazil, which gave the British an unrestricted market there, and also lowered import taxes from 48% to 24%. Two years later, they were lowered again, from 24% to 15% for British goods, with refunds for re-exports. Portuguese goods actu­ ally paid a higher tax rate, 16%, until 1818. "Rio de

Janeiro naturally became...the great Brazilian entrepot. A variety of merchandise flowed in for local consumption,

[and] distribution along the coast, above all between Bahia and Montevideo...."30 When troubles erupted in the Rio de la Plata, Rio de Janeiro absorbed the trade which had been directed to Buenos Aires and Montevideo.31 The result of these circumstances was that port activity multiplied four­ fold at Rio de Janeiro, dozens of foreign merchant houses were established, and customs revenues increased by 20% at all Brazilian ports.32 The residence of the royal court in

Rio enhanced the centralization of the colony, administra­ tively and commercially.33 There were genuine benefits to the British, who amplified their favored status in South

America. For example, Brazil supplied over 20% of the total cotton used by Britain in the decade between 1801 and 1810, and this proportion rose to 30% in the following decade.34

It was a good market as well, buying a wide range of prod­ ucts:

cotton and hats from Manchester, woolens, pipes, and snuff from Leeds, glass, earthenware, thread and cotton dresses from Glasgow, linen from Ireland, shawls and sword blades from...Norwich, miscellaneous hardware from Birmingham, stockings from Nottingham, and even butter and cheese from Cork.35

By 1808, the route from Rio de Janeiro to the Rio de la

Plata was easily exploited by the British, who faced no real 112

competitors from Europe.36 The continent was blockaded

from 1806 to 1814, and France until 1815, giving Britain

unchallenged dominance in trade to Latin America.37 The trade route via Rio de Janeiro supplied British goods to

Montevideo indirectly, supplementing the few arrivals direct

from the United Kingdom. This is a key indicator of the

semi-peripheral role Brazil was taking on with respect to the Banda Oriental.

As shown in Table 7, Brazil was the most important source of overseas shipping for Montevideo in the period from 1805 to 1816, with a median of forty ships per year.

While the number of ships declined during periods of local and European warfare, the share coming from Brazil increased during those years (1806-1808, 1812-1814). There are two possible explanations for this phenomenon. The first is that in spite of the fighting, the trade routes between

Brazilian ports and Montevideo were able to remain open.

This is likely because the Brazilian coast was not involved in either the Napoleonic Wars or the conflict within the

Viceroyalty of the Rio de la Plata. A second possibility is that overseas traders waited in Brazil for news of condi­ tions in the Rio de la Plata before deciding to venture on a voyage there. This is suggested by the fact that ships arriving from Brazil reported not only Portuguese, but also

TABLE 7 113

SHIPPING FROM BRAZIL TO MONTEVIDEO, 1805-1816

Year Share No. of Shins Year Share No. oi

1805 39% 41 1811 38% 70 1806 45 29 1812 60 64 1807 44 8 1813 58 45 1808 66 40 1814 58 22 1809 39 46 1815 57 40 1810 27 57 1816 46 38 Source: AGN-Montevideo, Ex-Archivo General Administrativo, libro 95, "Capitania del Puerto, Libro Maestro de Entradas", 1805-1818.

Spanish, English and North American nationalities. A combi­ nation of these two factors probably determined the growing

Brazilian share during bad times.

Intra-European and intra-viceregal conflicts led to rapid political change in the Rio de la Plata, but the structure of the world-economy established during colonial times remained in place. Trade patterns shifted very little in the decade after the British invasions, which had made freer trade inevitable by revealing the weaknesses of Span­ ish rule. After 1806, trade with the British became an important factor in the economy of the region. This ex­ change helped determine the relative power of the actors in the struggle for independence, because it was the most profitable business available, and money was needed to fight wars. It was a consistent characteristic of British policy to promote free and competitive trade in their dealings with the former Spanish and Portuguese colonies.38 No matter that Spain had been a bitter enemy and Portugal a close and 114

reliable friend; free trade accompanied the demise of both

as colonial powers.

Britain was driven by its own internal economic changes

to pursue free trade, in a gradual process which began as

early as the 1760s. According to Allan Christelow, even a

decade or more before the publication of The Wealth of

Nations. British policy makers began to realize that trade

monopolies and exclusive contracts were "already moribund."

Merchants complained about having to tie up their capital in

long-term trading contracts and began to make more use of

spot sales and short-term credit to achieve quicker returns.

They also began to understand that monopolies did not bring

the highest profits, but rather, their "competitive advan­

tages of superior skills, resources, and practices" did.

These advantages included high quality standards for their

textiles, superior credit resources, an effective navy, and merchants who paid careful attention to marketing. They had

special arrangements for their trade with Spanish America, packing goods in small bales which would fit a mule and which could survive rough handling, and producing standard­

ized and brand-identified items while still providing some variety of style. Other European goods simply could not compete, and by the end of the eighteenth century, the

British dominated the market. Their efficiencies could only find an outlet in larger markets and more rapid capital 115 turnover, which is exactly what they pursued in South Ameri­

ca, especially after 1806.39

It is important to point out that this process of

solidifying Britain's position was not foisted on the region

involuntarily. Montevidean merchants showed by their ac­ tions in 1806 and after that they were anxious to increase business through their port. The estancieros who produced the exports wanted to continue the process of liberalization begun by the Bourbons, and their federalism vis-a-vis Buenos

Aires reflected their interest in unrestricted trade.40 In turn, Buenos Aires was pushed by its "desire to monopolize the economic gains of the Revolution."41 Without a firm hold on the rest of the viceroyalty, free trade was neces­ sary for the continued prosperity of Buenos Aires. As colonial rule was in its final years, those with the most economic and political power in Buenos Aires, the merchants, had been both the principal monopolists and the principal contrabandists. When the liberal sectors of society fought for free trade in 1809, they were seeking to eliminate both the royal monopoly and the contraband that was its counter­ part.42 Free trade could help concentrate commerce in

Buenos Aires, and in the merchants' hands, by eliminating the necessity of stopping illicitly at various estancias along the rivers, which had often been the practice during colonial rule.43 The merchant houses originally sustained by the colonial monopoly seem to have been willing to give 116 that up to be able to deal in cheaper and higher-quality

British goods, without the risks and costs of contraband.

Events would soon prove that the pressures for economic liberalization were too strong for Spain's tenuous authority to resist.

II. The End of Spanish Authority, 1810-1812

The dissenters in Montevideo achieved a complete break with the viceregal capital by remaining loyal to Spain when the Junta of Buenos Aires proclaimed its separation from the

Spanish government on May 25, 1810. But while Spain was occupied by the French, the question of who had authority over the Banda Oriental had no definite answer. Princess

Carlota offered her political and financial support to the

Cabildo of Montevideo, corresponding with it for several months after Buenos Aires began its path toward indepen­ dence. While the Cabildo was not averse to affirming its loyalty to the Bourbons, it was concerned that the generous support of Princess Carlota would lead to a Portuguese invasion of the Banda Oriental. In spite of the hardship of defending its position alone, the council respectfully declined the chest of jewels sent by the Princess to help with expenses.44 The Council of Regency in Cadiz encour­ aged the orientales to keep resisting any encroachment, no matter how "pure” the sentiments of Carlota.45 Matters were beyond the control of the Cabildo, however. The U.S. 117

minister to the Portuguese court in Brazil, Thomas Sumter,

reported in July 1810 that the "pretensions in favor of

the...Princess of Brazil [have] been laid aside for want of

encouragement from the British [government]."46 Lord

Strangford was still actively trying to preserve the peace

in the Rio de la Plata.

In early 1811, Elio, the former governor of Montevideo, was elevated to the office of viceroy, in an attempt to make

Montevideo the bulwark of Spanish rule in the Rio de la

Plata. In spite of the fact that Spanish troops were needed to keep order in the Banda Oriental, Elio soon declared war against rebellious Buenos Aires. This only served to hasten the loss of Spanish control over what little they had left, by inviting the revolutionaries to attack their defensive reserve.47 Elio's actions complicated affairs for the

British as well. As the viceroyalty of the Rio de la Plata fell apart in 1810-1811, the British goal of secure trade throughout the region became much more difficult to achieve.

One of Lord Strangford's most pressing problems was how to deter Portuguese military action by reducing tensions be­ tween Buenos Aires and Montevideo. He even offered British mediation as a way of ending the armed conflict which had broken out between the two in 1810, and his efforts were rewarded with an armistice in October 1811.48 The recon­ ciliation was only temporary, however, largely because of the growing separatist movement in the Banda Oriental. Beginning in 1808, there had been an important faction of the oriental elite in favor of total independence from

Spain, initially led by a rich estanciero. Joaquin Su&rez.

The sentiment had spread to the countryside, and became a rural movement led by a charismatic qaucho populist, Jose

Artigas. The final event which helped coalesce rural inter­ ests into a unified group in favor of independence was a decree of the Spanish governor in 1810, which stated that all landowners must prove title, or be prepared either to purchase their lands from the government or to forfeit them.

This was an attempt to raise revenues, but instead the governor alienated even the largest commercial concerns.

The majority of estancieros held their land informally; in one region surveyed, only nine landowners out of ninety-two had official titles.49 The feeling that the Spanish monop­ oly system had to end was unanimous among the estancieros. and as one historian put it, "they offered themselves and their belongings" to Artigas.50 In 1811, caught in the middle of a war between Spanish authority and porteno revo­ lution, the Banda Oriental began its own course of indepen­ dence with Artigas at the head of a qaucho army. His forces included the sons of even the most prominent colonial fami­ lies. Viceroy Elio was so desperate to retain authority that he violated the rule established by the Council of

Regency during the crisis of 1808, and asked the Portuguese 119

for help in defeating Artigas and the other revolutionar­

ies.51

The long-standing interest of the Portuguese in the Rio

de la Plata had never faded. When the court moved to Rio de

Janeiro from Lisbon in 1808, the desire for expansion into

the Banda Oriental intensified. The Portuguese government

justified its interest by declaring the Rio de la Plata to

be a natural boundary, and asserting that the Banda Oriental

belonged with Rio Grande do Sul because of a shared geogra­

phy and climate. National security against a potential

revolution was the most compelling motivation, however. The

eastern bank of the Rio de la Plata was seen by policy makers as a more defensible border. Portuguese fears were

fueled both by the actions of the French under Napoleon and

the reaction to them by Buenos Aires. The declaration of

independence by the portenos in 1810 was perceived as being dangerously close. The possibility that Napoleon might attempt a conquest in South America was another concern.52

As early as July 1810, the Portuguese government had from

8,000 to 10,000 troops waiting near the southern frontier of

Brazil.53 They were only too happy to fulfill Elio's re­ quest for help, and the Portuguese army swiftly dominated most of the Banda Oriental by October 1811.54

Artigas and his followers were at a distinct disad­ vantage. They wanted independence, but not as subordinates of Buenos Aires. The Cabildo of Montevideo, still clinging 120 to Spain, mistrusted the qaucho army. The artiquistas had no choice but to wait out events, so four thousand troops and an equal number of civilians withdrew with their leader into the neighboring province of Entre Rios. Artigas proud­ ly wrote to the Junta of Paraguay that his adherents were

"resolved to lay down their precious lives before they will survive to feel the shame and ignominy to which they were destined." They felt particularly betrayed by Buenos Aires, which proclaimed revolutionary sentiments in May 1810 and offered help to those seeking freedom in the other provinc­ es, but later was clearly unwilling to help the orientales establish an autonomous government. In fact, the Junta of

Buenos Aires decided to negotiate with the Portuguese invad­ ers and the Spanish in Montevideo, without even consulting

Artigas, their supposed ally in the cause of liberty.55

The actions of Buenos Aires in response to the Portu­ guese invasion seem more consistent when their economic interests are considered. The portenos were willing to fight to preserve their own privileges in the Banda Orien­ tal, which meant resisting the Spanish and Portuguese, but not supporting Artigas' aspirations. One oriental recalled later that the leaders in Buenos Aires wanted to prevent

"that a territory like Montevideo [sic] should be torn from the new association— a territory where, besides its local importance, almost every branch of wealth belonged to capi­ talists in Buenos Ayres [sic]."56 Although he was a re- 121 vered leader of his people, Artigas was rather naive in believing that the "capitalists" of Buenos Aires, who had

long sought economic dominance of his province, would re­ spond to his ideas about liberty and self-determination. He had spent his career fighting smuggling and cattle-rustling, protecting property, not managing it. He was from the wealthy landowning and mercantile class,57 but not of it, as their eventual betrayal of him would prove.

All of these problems correspond to a decline in port activity— the number of ships entering Montevideo was re­ duced from 215 in 1810 to 106 in 1812.58 This was not only a problem for the orientales; it disrupted an entire chain of relationships in the region. British policy makers were constantly concerned about the effects on trade of political problems, and responded accordingly. The force which final­ ly pushed the Portuguese out of the Banda Oriental in 1812 was neither Artigas' aauchos nor the determined "capital­ ists" of Buenos Aires, but rather the British, through their ever-watchful agent at Rio de Janeiro, Lord Strangford. He had tried to prevent the invasion through his influence with

Joao VI, and failing in that, had warned Buenos Aires that the Portuguese might try to stay. Although Strangford's professed goal was "peace and protection of Spain's inter­ ests", there was more behind his diplomacy. He was always careful to balance the claims of both the Portuguese and the portenos. in an attempt to keep Montevideo neutral.59 122

Above all, he wanted to maintain the privileged position

Great Britain enjoyed in Brazil, which by 1812 imported one- quarter "more English merchandise than did all of Asia, half as much as...the United States or the British West Indies, and more than four-fifths of the total sent to South Ameri­ ca . »60

Napoleon had made Spain and Britain allies, but the main preoccupation of the British was preventing French encroachment on their dominant trading position in South

America, not preserving colonies for Spain. Rear Admiral

Sir William Sidney Smith had expressed this idea directly to the Admiralty in 1808, when he proposed to lead an expedi­ tion to help the Portuguese seize as much of the Rio de la

Plata as possible. At the time, even Strangford had agreed, and "asked Smith to make sure that Britain got either Monte­ video or Buenos Aires as a foothold on the Southern part of the continent if the expedition were a success."61 In world-system terminology, British policy-makers acted to protect their status within the core, at the center of world commodity networks. There was no reason for them to try to stop Spain's slide into the semi-periphery, where its fail­ ure to industrialize and compete placed it. In fact, as noted in Chapter 2, the British had been steadily increasing their trading presence in the Rio de la Plata for decades, in total disregard of the Spanish colonial monopoly. The invasion in 1806-1807 was a direct challenge to that system. 123

Given their long-term interest, British merchants and trad­ ers must have been as relieved as anyone when a treaty was signed in May 1812, specifying the withdrawal of all troops from the Banda Oriental, and tempering at least for a few years the clash of interests between Buenos Aires and Rio de

Janeiro.62

British influence was determined by the fact that trade was the only serious source of income for the state, as shown in Table 8. In the period from 1810 through 1816, net aduana income at Buenos Aires totalled 8.6 million pesos, of which 5.0 million were remitted to the central treasury, while the remaining 3.6 million went to military spending through the aduana. A total of 7.3 million pesos, or 85% of net aduana income, derived from taxes on seaborne imports.

During those same years, basic government expenditures on salaries, defense and administration amounted to nearly 10.5 million pesos. In other words, import taxes provided 70% of the funds for these expenditures. Once the Viceroyalty of the Rio de la Plata was free from Spain, the movement toward free trade was reinforced by the fact that the new govern­ ments were dependent upon customs revenues, and these in turn were sustained by British trade as early as 1810.

British imports were the only ones able to reach the Rio de la Plata on a steady basis, protected by a detachment of the

British naval squadron stationed at Rio de Janeiro.63 124

TABLE 8

SELECTED CUSTOMS AND TREASURY DATA, BUENOS AIRES, 1810-1816 (PESOS)

Gov't. Import Taxes/ Year Aduana Yield Import Taxes Expend. Gov't. Expend.

1810 904,233 841,129 889,715 .95

1811 1,016,573 938,925 1,018,001 .92

1812 675,783 987,376 1,310,561 .75

1813 885,461 778,838 1,381,133 .56

1814 351,363 1,771,867 2,665,974 . 66

1815 564,696 964,340 1,797,768 .54

1816 603,726 1,022,455 1,394,225 .73

Total 5.001.835 7.304.930 10.457.377 .70 Sources: AGN-Buenos Aires, Sala III, legajos 38-2-1, 38-2-8, 38-2-11, 38-3-3, 38-3-9, and 38-3-13, "Libro Mayor de la Aduana de Buenos Ayres", 1810-1816; legajos 39-3-33, 39-3-7, 39-3-11, 39-3-15, 39-3-19, 39-4-3, and 39-4-7, "Libro Mayor de la Caja de Buenos Ayres", 1810-1816.

Notes: Aduana yield is the remittance sent to the central treasury. Basic government expenditures are the sum of civil and military salaries and expenses, including military spending by aduana officials.

As Rodolfo Puiggros has pointed out, the revenues from trade with the British "made possible not only the finance of the new government, but also the maintenance of the forces mobilized to extend the revolution to the interi­ or."64 Buenos Aires had to participate in free trade with the British in order to attain political and economic domi­ nance over local commodity chains, the flow of cattle prod­ ucts outward and manufactured goods inward. To the extent that Buenos Aires could become essential to this exchange by acting as an intermediary, it could become part of the semi­ periphery of the world-system. The Portuguese government in

Brazil faced a parallel situation. The merchants at Rio de

Janeiro were just as anxious as those in Buenos Aires to capture the trade in British goods, and were very concerned that independence from Spain would bring lower tariffs in the Rio de la Plata.65 But while the South Americans strug­ gled with each other, the British were gaining power and influence in the region through their persistent pursuit of commercial relationships. As merchants and estancieros grew more dependent on overseas trade, the British acquired the leverage that would eventually enable them to keep the Banda

Oriental away from the direct control of both Brazil and

Buenos Aires.

The peripheral role of the Banda Oriental in the world- system was reinforced by other nations interested in the markets of the Rio de la Plata, especially the United

States. As soon as Buenos Aires moved toward independence in 1810, the U.S. sent an envoy to promote a commercial relationship and "to inquire into the...pecuniary resources of the country."66 The North Americans sought to trade their own goods as well as European ones,67 and in fact pro-moted freer trade with France in order to establish themselves as a conduit. Secretary of State Robert Smith wrote that 126

nothing could be more effectual than the opening of all the channels of a free commercial communication between the United States and France and her allies. By such freedom...France and the Nations connected with her would, thro1 the medium of American enterprize [sic] and navigation, obtain a vent for a large portion of their produce and manufactures which in no other way can find a market in the ports of Spanish and Portu­ guese America.68

Implicit in these comments is the idea that Britain ought not be allowed to monopolize trade in the region. That had been a concern of the French since 1763, when "the outcome of the Seven Years' War was that Great Britain had effec­ tively ousted France from the Western Hemisphere."69 Dip­ lomatic strategies notwithstanding, the United States was more than just an agent of France in South America. North

American merchants were also involved in trading other

European goods and their own manufactured products. In

1812, it was reported that recent U.S. ships' cargoes con­ sisted of 3/5 German goods and 2/5 "native articles".70

Over time, the good trade relations begun in 1810 helped the

U.S. "carve itself out a role as lieutenant and, therefore, potential and eventual rival to Britain."71

Table 9 indicates the fluctuations in the U.S. share of

Montevideo port entries from 1805 to 1816, during the years of continual fighting in the Banda Oriental. The median was

8.5 ships per year. North American trade varied greatly, from no entries to almost half of the ships calling at

Montevideo. These variations seem to have arisen from events in the U.S., not in the Rio de la Plata. For exam- 127 pie, trade was most depressed when the U.S. and Britain were at war with each other, from 1812 to 1814, and when the U.S. voluntarily restricted its own trade with the Embargo Act, from 1807 to 1809. Even with oscillations, the North Ameri­ cans were significant trading partners for merchants in

Montevideo. The dramatic changes from year to year indicate the complexity of the interrelationships affecting the in­ ternational trading network, and thus influencing port acti­ vity at Montevideo.

TABLE 9

U.S. SHARE OF MONTEVIDEO PORT ENTRIES, 1805-1816

Year Share No. of Ships Year Share No. of Ships

1805 20% 21 1811 27% 50 1806 48 31 1812 9 10 1807 23 4 1813 0 0 1808 11 7 1814 0 0 1809 3 4 1815 10 7 1810_____ 11______23______1816____ 28______23 Source: AGN-Montevideo, Ex-Archivo General Administrativo, libro 95, "Capitania del Puerto, Libro Maestro de Entradas", 1805-1818.

Overall, the economy of the Banda Oriental was in a perpetual state of crisis during the early years of the independence period. The succession of wars caused the frequent abandonment of the great cattle estates by owners and managers, and also the destruction of property, espe­ cially animals. As early as 1811, travelers described the countryside as deserted. The hitherto flourishing saladeros 128

TABLE 10

SELECTED INCOME AND EXPENDITURE, ADUANA OF MONTEVIDEO, 1808-1814 (PESOS)

1808 1809 1810 1814 Income from:

Maritime 106,306 685,138 608,197 73,435 Imports (77%) (81%) (75%) (58%)

Maritime 1,886 27,061 58,383 29,676 Exports (1%) (3%) (7%) (23%)

Overland 10,012 17,032 16,507 4,016 Imports (7%) (2%) (2%) (3%)

Overland 4,285 8,627 4,373 18,077 Exports (3%) (1%) (.5%) (14%)

Other 15,023 104,664 120,956 2,165 (11%) (12%) (15%) (2%)

Total 137,513 842,521 808,416 127,369 (100%) (100%) (100%) (100%)

Expenditure for :

Remittances --- 606,781 --- 93,381 to Treasury (96%) (74%)

Salaries and --- 21,993 --- 8, 013 Expenses (3%) (6%)

Other --- 1,749 --- 25,598 (.3%) (20%)

Total 630,523 126,992 ______rioo%)______noo%i Sources: AGN-Montevideo, Archivos Particulares, caja 15, carpeta 7, "Demostracion del total ingreso..." (1808-1810); AGN-Buenos Aires, sala XIII, legajo 16-10-2, libro 2, "Copia del Libro Mayor de la Real Aduana de Montevideo" (1809), and legajo 17-1-1, libro 2, "Libro Mayor de la Aduana de Monte­ video" (1814) .

Notes: Amounts for 1814 are estimates based on semi-annual figures. Sums of percentages may not reach 100% due to rounding. "Other" sources of income include warehousing, transshipment and deposits. "Other" expenditures include refunds and minor transfers to other accounts. shut down and exports through Montevideo declined dramati­ cally. The lucrative slave traffic was paralyzed as well.72 Figure 7 depicts the sudden decline of port acti­ vity at Montevideo after 1810, from more than two hundred arrivals to fewer than fifty. Table 10 shows the corre­ sponding rise and fall of aduana revenues. They increased by more than 600% from 1808 to 1809, reaching new heights after Montevideo separated from Buenos Aires, but dropped again after 1810. In 1814, aduana revenues did not even reach the level of 1808, a consequence of the destructive siege imposed by Buenos Aires. Maritime imports remained a crucial source of funds throughout the period; port offi­ cials must have awaited the arrival of overseas ships with a great deal of anxiety. One activity which thrived on uncer­ tainty, and missing from official figures, was contraband.

The records of the aduana for 1814 have a notation that overland imports were severely undertaxed, thanks to contra­ band in the countryside with the Portuguese.73 Ironically, even many of the large landowners, who also owned saladeros and pulperias (dry goods shops), acted as buyers of hides for export and indirectly depleted their own herds by carry­ ing on transactions with contrabandists.74

Table 11 shows the impact of these problems on the treasury of Montevideo during the last years of Spanish rule. The remittances from other treasuries, mainly aduana funds, had dropped off precipitously by 1813, to only 23% of 130

the 1810 total. Likewise, the income from pulperias fell by

more than 50%. Loans and donations from the citizens of

Montevideo, however, increased by 63%, draining away capital

from their economic activity. The money was desperately

needed, as military expenditures reached a high of almost

one million pesos in 1811, and consistently consumed most of

TABLE 11

SELECTED INCOME AND EXPENDITURE, TREASURY OF MONTEVIDEO, 1810-1813 (PESOS)

1810 1811 1812 1813 Income from:

Pulperias 13,156 9,123 11,267 5,749 (2%) (1%) (2%) (1%)

Remittances from 491,759 632,235 299,889 112,902 Other Treasuries (68%) (58%) (55%) (17%)

Patriotic Loans 108,125 100,102 133,402 175,802 and Donations (15%) (9%) (25%) (26%)

Other 112,457 342,239 95,150 375,668 (15%) (32%) (18%) (56%)

Total 725,497 1,083,699 539,708 670,121

Expenditures for:

Remittances to 18,350 98,197 13,749 17,904 Other Treasuries (3%) (9%) (3%) (3%)

Military Salaries 597,043 946,786 490,799 365,614 and Expenses (89%) (88%) (95%) (54%)

Other 55,532 34,533 12,728 286,569 (8%) (3%) . (2%) (43%)

Total 670.924 1.079.516 517.726 670.087 Sources: AGN-Montevideo, Ex-Archivo General Administrativo, libros 162, 304, 225 and 319, "Libro Mayor de la Real Caja de Montevideo", 1810-1813. 131 the treasury1s funds. Other sources of income included taxes on the sale of offices, rents on land, interest on deposits, and minor contributions to general revenues, while other expenditures include government salaries and expenses, refunds, and transfers of funds not accounted for elsewhere.

In 1813, both "other” entries are unusually large, probably reflecting a chaotic financial situation during the seige of

Montevideo.

With the breakdown of Spanish authority, cattle raids from Brazil became a constant problem. There were frequent complaints that herds from estancias in the Banda Oriental ended up in the slaughterhouses and saladeros of Rio Grande do Sul. The unprotected border also permitted increased im­ ports of previously restricted goods from Brazil, including tobacco, yerba mate (dried leaves used for tea), liquor and manufactured goods, diverting trade away from Montevideo.

After the Portuguese invasion in 1811, the destruction caused by warfare added to the problem, and the countryside became so deserted that there was no one even to plant wheat.75 The result was a dramatic decrease in the weight of bread available at the standard price of one real, to only nine ounces in 1813, a drop of 65% from 1810, and certain to cause hardship. Once the seige of Montevideo ended, the amount of bread per real rose again to twenty-six ounces.76 The suffering of the orientales under terrible 132 conditions has been described by various authors.77 But another consequence was the disruption of trade through

Montevideo, and it was their tie to the world-economy through the ports that brought the distress of the orien- tales to the attention of the British. After Strangford was recalled in 1815, however, there was no direct way for the

British to act to relieve the orientales1 difficulties.

Artigas was their only champion.

III. Autonomy in the Banda Oriental, 1813-1816

During the years after 1810, a serious split was devel­ oping within the forces fighting for independence from

Spain. The centralists, those who favored a single, strong government uniting the Rio de la Plata basin, were pitted against the federalists, who believed a loose confederation of autonomous provinces was ideal. The city and province of

Buenos Aires were identified with centralism, while the provinces of Cordoba, Santa Fe, Corrientes, Entre Rios and the Banda Oriental were all strongly federalist.78 Artigas and the orientales were in the best position to resist

Buenos Aires because of the well-developed trade connections through Montevideo.79 With more economic independence,

Artigas could set an example for the other provinces in acting on anti-centralist principles. He thus grew into a role as a regional leader. His ideas appealed to those interested in autonomy, which included many estancieros as 133

well as the gauchos who worked for them. The ranchers

expressed more interest in political aspects of indepen­

dence, but for the rural labor force, federalism also meant

an opposition to the privileges of the landowning and mer­

cantile elite. Yet in spite of some fundamental differenc­

es, both landowners and laborers saw Artigas as someone who

could lead resistance to Buenos Aires. For a time, this

common goal helped to unite them under his leadership.

Inspired by federalist sentiments, Artigas and his

compatriots began to take on the portenos directly after the withdrawal of the Portuguese forces in 1812. Both sides

sought to rid Montevideo of the Spanish, because control of the city was the key to the Banda Oriental. By late in 1812

it was clear that a confrontation was brewing between Arti­ gas and the commander of the porteno forces. Manuel de

Sarratea, the general from Buenos Aires, lured away some of

Artigas' regiments, while he in turn refused to act jointly with Sarratea in the siege of Montevideo. On December 25,

Artigas declared a split within the military command struc­ ture, having realized at last the actual motives of Buenos

Aires. As the siege carried on into 1813, he began planning for the future. The common people still adhered to his leadership, and he decided to try to put some of his ideals into practice. In March, a Congress of Deputies was assem­ bled to begin the process of forming new political institu­ tions.80 By April 1813, Artigas and his prominent followers were

ready to make a statement. They issued a lengthy document

known as the "Instrucciones", which put forth their princi­

ples of federalism, calling for as loose an association as

possible between Buenos Aires and the surrounding areas.

For a short time in 1813, it seemed Artigas would lead all

the interior provinces against the old viceregal capital.81

During the power struggles of the independence era, the

Banda Oriental was not the only part of the former vice­ royalty which resisted the lead of Buenos Aires. Paraguay,

Upper Perti (Bolivia) , and the littoral provinces of Santa

Fe, Corrientes and Entre Rios shared with the Banda Oriental the conviction that the interests of the port of Buenos

Aires had clashed with their own in the past. The orien­ tales and other peoples sought their own direct access to trade, and political separation was an important first step.82 Even without Artigas, the leadership of the Banda

Oriental among the federalist provinces was natural; it was the only one with a direct outlet to the sea.83

The "Instrucciones" expressed a preoccupation with free trade, demanding that Maldonado and Colonia become open ports and inviting the British Navy "to protect any British ships which might take advantage of the new freedom.1,84

Artigas must have perceived that what Britain wanted most out of his homeland was a combination of markets and raw materials. He offered these in return for protection from 135 the military might of Buenos Aires and Brazil. This strate­ gy was clearly the best available to him, and would be echoed by his successors twelve years later. It is also

interesting to note how such a small part of the periphery could claim the attention of the world hegemonic power. It suggests that while Britain was the strongest nation in the world-system, it was also the most dependent upon the order­

ly conduct of business to maintain its position.

The federalists' promotion of free trade was meant as a blow against the desires of Buenos Aires for commercial domination. This competition within the viceroyalty as it broke up was part of a process of differentiation within the periphery of the world-system. In its attempt to be a regional market center, Buenos Aires was moving itself toward the kind of intermediary function which marks semi­ peripheral status. Of all the territory of the old viceroy­ alty, the Banda Oriental most threatened that possibility: first, because of its ability to participate independently in overseas trade; second, because it could detach Buenos

Aires' ranching hinterland under the political leadership of

Artigas; and third, because of the covetous gaze cast on the

Banda Oriental by every Portuguese ruler.

In spite of his lofty "Instrucciones", Artigas was far from powerful enough to ignore or directly challenge Buenos

Aires. The siege of Montevideo which began in 1812 contin­ ued through 1813 and into 1814, with the Argentine forces 136 under Jose Rondeau and the orientales under Artigas fighting with little or no coordination.85 Finally, the government

of Buenos Aires was able to place a "respectable squadron in the river",86 and the Spanish troops and the inhabitants of

Montevideo were driven by deprivation to sue for peace. But

it was only with Buenos Aires they negotiated. The portenos made sure that Artigas was not included when the city sur­ rendered, and it was an Argentine general, Carlos de Alvear, who received possession of Montevideo in June 1814.87

There were several important consequences of the fall of Montevideo in 1814 to the forces of Buenos Aires. It was crucial for the portenos to have renewed control over the

Banda Oriental, and raised their hopes for a swift defeat of the royalist forces in Peru after the Spanish had clearly lost the Rio de la Plata. The Spanish did refocus their attention elsewhere, especially the Caribbean. In hind­ sight, it was the last possible Spanish base for a royal ex­ pedition to retake the South American colonies. Locally, the victory gave to Alvear all the military supplies stock­ piled in Montevideo, including 8,000 rifles and 335 guns, and released men and resources which Jose de San Martin put to use in the liberation of Chile.88 In addition, Artigas and his followers were harassed economically by Buenos

Aires; the centralists confiscated land and houses in Buenos

Aires belonging to patriotic orientales. subjected occupied

Montevideo to heavy taxation, and seized ships and cargo.89 137

A less tangible, but still significant, consequence was that

the balance of power in the Rio de la Plata shifted toward

Buenos Aires. This set the stage for some sort of initia­

tive from the Portuguese government, which had been nurtur­

ing its ambitions, waiting for an opportune moment. After

Strangford was recalled to London in April 1815, "leaving

the Portuguese court free from English domination for the

next six years,"90 that moment would arrive.

Throughout 1814 there was a struggle for control of

Montevideo between Alvear, the Argentine general, and Arti- gas. Buenos Aires hoped to re-establish its political and economic primacy in the Rio de la Plata, but gradually the hold of the old capital on the Banda Oriental loosened, while Artigas1 grew stronger. Montevideans were weary of war, siege and extortionist taxes from Buenos Aires. Their desperate condition is indicated by the fact that from March through June 1814, the Brotherhood of Charity distributed an average of 3600 rations of food per day to the poor of Mon­ tevideo.91 By early 1815, desertions of Argentine troops became a serious problem, and on February 25, "the Buenos

Aires army sailed from Montevideo, taking with it every moveable gun and piece of warlike stores, and throwing into the sea what could not be taken." In March, a new Cabildo of Montevideo began to govern, and what Uruguayans call the patria vieja, a truly independent state, was born. It was to survive only a brief time, but became important symboli- 138

cally as a representation of what the Provincia Oriental

could be— a unified and independent country.92

The significance of Artigas1 regional goals in 1815 and

1816 is revealed in the fact that his government was run

from the eastern shore of the Uruguay River, at Purifica-

cion. There he was better located to aid the upriver feder­

alist provinces of Santa Fe, Corrientes and Entre Rios in

achieving greater autonomy from Buenos Aires. He was known by the title "Citizen Jose Artigas, Chief of the Orientales. and Advocate of the Free Peoples". His Federal League reached its peak in April 1815, when Cordoba joined the other federalist provinces who shared a mutual distrust of centralist Buenos Aires, and together they planned their common defense. Artigas1 economic policies for the League were similar to those of the Provincia Oriental, with ports open to foreign trade.93 Once again, participation in trade was the defining issue of regional politics.

From Purificacion in 1815, Artigas initiated a program of revolutionary change. The distribution of land was to become the cornerstone of his economic ideas, which were truly innovative. He wanted to change economic institu­ tions, rather than simply impose himself at the top of existing ones. He planned to establish free trade without monopoly restrictions, to reconstruct the war-torn oriental economy, and to make the province financially indepen­ dent.94 His more immediate goals were: to rid the coun- 139 tryside of vagrants, bandits and the rapacious military forces of Buenos Aires and Portugal; to make government finances more rational; and to redistribute land.95 Arti­ gas1 agrarian reform policy was summarized in a document he issued in September 1815, known as the "Reglamento".96 It can be regarded as a compromise, incorporating the desires of both the more powerful landowners and the more radical of

Artigas1 followers. The largest estancieros were not di­ rectly threatened, but there was some emphasis on giving lands to the socially disadvantaged, such as poor creoles, people of mixed race, and free blacks. These groups consti­ tuted the rural labor force, with the first two predomi­ nant .97

The lands which were subject to redistribution included those previously owned by royalist or pro-Buenos Aires individuals, those acguired "from foreign governments" in the period between 1810 and 1815, and unclaimed territory.

About one-half of the provincial territory was potentially affected, as shown in Figure 8. Recipients of land were ex­ pected to reside on the premises with their families, and to cultivate crops as well as to engage in ranching. Those who did not comply would forfeit their grants.98 In addition to giving land to families, the revolutionary government of

Artigas also administered some of the northern estates, formerly belonging to enemies and emigrants, for its own purposes. They served as a source of income for defense 140

Rfo PE LA PLATA

Small- and medium-sized ranches belonging to those loyal to Artigas, and nonarable and public lands.

Abandoned lands and those belonging to "enemies of the revolution.11 Also, those sold or granted by "enemy governments," 1810-1815.

Lands redistributed by Artigas in his role as a border patrol officer between 1801 and 1809.

Public and uncultivated lands available to be re­ distributed.

Source: de la Torre, et al . . La revolucion aararia articruis- ta, 270

FIGURE 8

LAND TRACTS WITHIN THE BANDA ORIENTAL SUBJECT TO REDISTRIBUTION IN 1815 141

expenditures, a supply of food for soldiers, a way to pro­

vide workers with regular employment and inculcate them with

desired values, and an experiment in improving the quality

of ranch stock." The fact that many of the "Reglamento"

lands were abandoned enabled resettlements to begin immedi­

ately.

On the surface, Artigas' ideas about land reform seem to be a challenge to the economic structure created by the

incorporation of the Banda Oriental into the world-system.

He wanted to change the basis of landownership, and it had been during the peripheralization process that large ranches were placed in the hands of relatively few families. Yet peripheralization also brought close ties between the Banda

Oriental and the world-economy, as hides and other cattle products became important commodities within it. Artigas did not challenge this aspect of the oriental economy. Even his ideas about federation among the cattle provinces can be interpreted as an attempt to replace Buenos Aires with

Montevideo as the primary port of the Rio de la Plata. His promotion of trade, especially with the British, makes it impossible to classify Artigas1 movement as one against the structure of the world-system; instead, it was an effort to reallocate the local distribution of the gains from trade.

Artigas1 policies were applied in an economic environ­ ment of continued disarray. In the countryside, fear and speculation were rampant. A traveler in the Banda Oriental 142

in 1815 reported having met an English merchant who tried to

convince everyone that the Spanish were about to invade,

hoping that they would sell their goods to him at panic

prices.100 The Cabildo of Montevideo called upon estancie-

ros to re-populate their ranches and establish order,101

but even landowners took advantage of the chaos by moving in

on abandoned or unprotected lands. They even went so far as

to eject some tenants. There were also persistent problems

with foremen; one man hired to administer a large estate in

January 1815 was personally involved in selling the ranch's

hides to an English smuggler.102 Although he wanted to get

government finances in order, Artigas was especially loathe

to impose higher taxes on the Provincia Oriental after the war and ruin caused by Buenos Aires. Instead, he created a

self-sustaining army, which was put to work on ranches pro­ ducing hides, tallow, horsehair and horns, cutting timber and making beds, wheel spokes and axles. This was after all the usual work of his gauchps. These products were shipped downriver to Montevideo, where the Cabildo was under orders to sell them on the open market at the best prices possible, then buy arms and supplies to be sent in return to

Purificacion. Artigas himself reportedly kept a close watch over all transactions to prevent corruption.103 Perhaps he wanted to prove to a skeptical elite that his men were wor­ thy of the land he sought to give them. Regardless of his 143

motivations, his army sharply contrasted with others who

pillaged their way through the Banda Oriental.

Like every other leader during the independence era,

Artigas relied upon trade taxes to provide revenue for his

political goals. The sparse information available about the

finances of his government indicates that ports were the

most important source of funds. Given the ongoing warfare

he faced, it is not surprising that military expenditures

absorbed a large chunk of revenues, as demonstrated in Table

12. In spite of his willingness to pursue free trade, con­

traband was as much a problem as ever during Artigas' rule.

Merchants and ship captains took advantage of the uncertain­

ty caused by the frequent changes in government that had

occurred. When news of excessive contraband at Maldonado reached one of Artigas' generals, he issued a stern warning to the political committee of the town, demanding that smuggling be stopped and that the proper duties be collect­ ed.104 The scant public treasury information available

indicates much lower levels of revenues in 1815 than during the last years of colonial rule.105 Without adequate funds, Artigas had no chance of defending his province against its neighbors or anyone else who might choose to attack.

Artigas permitted free trade with foreign merchants from the beginning of his rule in 1815, assigning Montevi­ deo, Maldonado and Colonia as legal ports.106 In his re- 144

TABLE 12

SELECTED INCOME AND EXPENDITURES, TREASURY OF MONTEVIDEO, 1815 (PESOS)

M a r .-Oct. 1815 Income from:

Other Treasuries 84,405 (85%)

General Revenue 13,270 Collection (13%)

Other 1,758 (2%)

Total 99,433 (100%) Expenditure for:

Remittances to 34,159 Other Treasuries (35%)

General Revenue 750 Collection (1%)

Military Salaries 63,022 and Expenses (64%)

Total 97,931 (100%1 Source: AGN-Montevideo, Ex-Archivo General Administrative, libro 210, "Libro Mayor de Caja", 1815.

Note: Amounts are for March-October only. sistance to Buenos Aires, Artigas welcomed the interest of the British as much as possible, but a formal treaty of free trade with Britain was not signed until after Artigas had lost control of Montevideo, in 1817. Even then, the pro­ ducts of the ranches he controlled through his League were the ones the British sought. The fact that they would negotiate with a leader whose position was tenuous at best 145

shows how important it was to the British to maintain asmuch

commercial access as possible in the Rio de la Plata. The

treaty also stands as a strong expression of the desires of

Artigas and his followers to take advantage of commercial

opportunities, and to thwart the military designs of Buenos

Aires and Brazil. The British government never officially

approved the agreement, because as time went on his power waned, and also because of the de facto recognition it would have imparted to the government of Artigas, which was a sensitive topic in Europe diplomatically.107

Unencumbered by diplomatic details, British merchants were persistent in taking advantage of available opportuni­ ties during Artigas1 rule. For example, two brothers from

Scotland, James Parish Robertson and William Parish Robert­ son, obtained lucrative trading privileges from Artigas, who wanted to deny the river trade to porteno merchants as much as possible. The Robertsons stayed in Corrientes for a year, regularizing commerce there, but also driving out local competition. Their wagon trains from the interior received federal protection, and Artigas' Irish lieutenant,

Pedro Campbell, helped them by "accompanying timid estanci- eros from the town to their deserted estancias, putting these into order again, and helping to get the hides ready for shipment." With this assistance, the Robertsons were able to export more than 50,000 hides in one year.108

Their profit margins were large; they reported that a dried 146

hide selling for one and a half pence per pound in Corrien-

tes sold for five and a half pence in Argentina, and for

nine or ten in Liverpool. A horse which cost three pence

yielded a hide worth three shillings in Buenos Aires and

seven or eight in Britain. This prosperity led to bigger

and better things, and eventually they settled in Buenos

Aires and Liverpool and became "correspondents of the Bar­

ings, the Gladstones, and the Parishes, importing German

linens from Hamburg, shipping Spanish dollars for Bombay and

Calcutta, freighting jerked beef for Havana."109 The Rob­

ertsons thus benefitted personally from Artigas' willingness

to remain involved with the capitalist world-economy.

Gradually, support for Artigas among the large estan-

cieros eroded when they realized that he intended to carry through with his land reform program. This occurred in spite of the fact that his ideas stopped short of threaten­

ing to disrupt their participation in international ex­ change. Even as members of his government, they did their best to block the complete realization of his goals. A full break occurred in August 1815, when a junta of fourteen landowners, including Tomas Garcia de Zdniga, Juan Jos&

Durdn, Fructuoso Rivera and Gregorio Espinosa, met in Monte­ video to form a unified group against Artigas. All of them had been pro-revolution at one time, but as a group pro­ claimed that they did not intend to comply with the land distribution program, claiming it was not conducive to peace 147

and order in the countryside. The lands of these men were

not generally subject to expropriation, but they seem to

have been influenced by urban concerns.110

The Cabildo of Montevideo included rich estancieros and

many military leaders who viewed the rural areas as a police

problem, something to be pacified. It is not surprising

that those with political and social prominence in Montevi­

deo would mistrust Artigas, for before his occupation of the

city, it had been first staunchly royalist and then dominat­

ed by porteiios.111 The ranchers with commercial interests

in Montevideo considered their connections to Buenos Aires to be of primary importance, and perhaps their international ones as well. Artigas1 ideas did not include withdrawing from regional and world trade, but they did imply a less important role for Buenos Aires, which set him on a colli­ sion course with the mercantile elite.

Artigas was full of good intentions, but his goals were elusive. Had he had more resources to work with, and more support among the Montevideo elite, he might have been able to establish the long-lasting prosperity that he sought for the orientales and their neighbors. John Street has pointed out that Artigas was beset by the problems of defending his home province and the Federal League against aggressors, while facing a dwindling tax base because of constant tur­ moil.112 There was never any question of challenging the

Banda Oriental's role in the world-economy, but differences of opinion about how the income from trade should be dis­

tributed split Artigas1 followers and weakened the authority

of his government. In the long run, what the orientales

needed for prosperity was peace. It is one of the basic

rules of capitalism that wealth can only be created through productive investment. Artigas' dilemma was the same as that faced by Buenos Aires and Brazil in their struggle over his home province; the potential wealth represented by the estancias could only be released through investment, first

in defense and then in infrastructure, to keep the ranches tied to world trade. Artigas never had the opportunity to follow this course of action.

Outsiders carefully watched Artigas' power base erode.

Given the traditional conflict over control of the Banda

Oriental, another invasion was very likely, and indeed happened. The Portuguese recognized the opportunity afford­ ed them by the internal preoccupations of Buenos Aires, and regarding the Banda Oriental, the "prevalence of what the

Rio government called revolutionary excesses aroused an uneasy feeling in the autocratic Portuguese court and lent an aroma of righteousness to its dreams of territorial expansion." In June 1816, they began to pursue once again their goal of extending the borders of Brazil.113 149

IV. Order within Chaos

In the period from 1806 to 1816, the drastic distur­

bances to the oriental economy, the growing regional commit­

ment to free trade, and the heightened interest of foreign­

ers in the Rio de la Plata all indicate the intensity with

which capitalism acted as a force influencing events. In

only a few years, the prosperous status quo of the viceregal

period was swept away and a new hierarchy of power began to

establish itself. Yet while events of the time may seem

chaotic, it is possible to perceive an underlying structure

in relationships within the region. By 1816, it was clear

that Britain was in a position of uncontested economic

dominance, not only in the world-system as a whole, but in

the Rio de la Plata as well. The threat of French competi­

tion had been eliminated by that country's return to an

"anachronistic-restrictive colonial system" after the fall

of Napoleon, which placed a high tariff on many South Ameri­

can exports to protect the products of its remaining colon­

ies.114

Within the periphery, Buenos Aires and Brazil inherited the old colonial struggle, becoming the two main contenders

in the fight over the Banda Oriental. By the early nine­ teenth century, the merchants of Buenos Aires and Rio de

Janeiro viewed the Banda Oriental as a prize which would extend their regional trade bases. The years after 1806 were a period of intense competition between Buenos Aires 150

and Brazil. At stake was control of land, cattle, transpor­

tation arteries, and import and export markets of the Rio de

la Plata. During this time, they were beginning to behave

like semi-peripheral areas, in their attempts to place them­

selves as intermediaries in trade between the provinces

bordering the Rio de la Plata and the European markets for

their cattle products. The Banda Oriental got caught in the

middle of this contest, mainly because of its geography, but

also because of the strong and enduring sentiment held by many orientales about autonomy, which led to direct con­

frontation with Buenos Aires. In the events from 1806 to

1816, a process of differentiation began within the periph­

ery, leading Buenos Aires and Brazil to roles closer to the

semi-periphery, while the Banda Oriental fell relatively

further behind them in terms of economic and political power. By the time of the Luso-Brazilian invasion of 1816,

it seemed that the chances of autonomous action on the part of the orientales had all but disappeared.

The independence of the Banda Oriental thus became an aspect of rivalry within the periphery, as it evolved over time. Between 1806 and 1830, both the United Provinces and

Brazil attempted to bring the Banda Oriental into central­ ized political and economic systems which required a subor­ dination of provincial interests. Their actions and poli­ cies reveal that they were assuming the eighteenth-century roles of Spain and Portugal, who had begun the fight over 151

the Banda Oriental. Economically, the foremost goal of

oriental landowners and merchants was to continue partici­

pating in international trade. There was a lack of unifor­

mity, however, regarding how this should be achieved.

Internal fighting over this issue gave the Banda Oriental a

weak and fractured government. The province continued to be

tossed about, unable to thrive quietly with its cattle. It would take another twelve years, but with the help of the

British, the vulnerable geographical position of the prov­

ince would be transformed from a liability into an asset in the struggle for independence. 152

NOTES

1. Gallagher and Robinson, "Imperialism of Free Trade", 15.

2. Rock, Argentina. 71-72.

3. "Oficio del Cabildo al Sor. Governador", 4 July 1806, AGN-Montevideo, Ex-Archivo General Administrative, libro 165, "Expediente de los servicios y meritos contraidos por el vecindario de Montevideo en la Reconquista de Buenos Ayres."

4. J.P. Robertson, quoted in Platt, Latin America and British Trade. 27.

5. Enrique Ruiz-Guinazu, Lord Strangford v la Revolucion de Mavo (Buenos Aires: Bernabe, 1937), 98.

6. R. A. Humphreys, British Merchants and South American Independence. Proceedings of the British Academy, vol. 51 (London: Oxford University Press, 1965), 157.

7. Villalobos R., Comercio v contrabando. 123; Street, Artigas. 93; Juan Carlos Gomez Haedo, Relaciones de Inglaterra con los paises del Plata: su influencia en el Uruguay (Monte­ video: Biblioteca Americana, 1939), 8.

8. Rodolfo Puiggros, Historia economica del Rio de la Plata. 4th ed. (Buenos Aires: A. Pena Lillo, 1973) , 76; Platt, Latin America and British Trade. 13.

9. Street, Artigas, 96.

10. Rock, Argentina. 72-73.

11. Ibid., 98.

12. Rock, Argentina. 73.

13. John J. TePaske and Herbert S. Klein, The Roval Treasuries of the Spanish Empire in America, vol. 3, Chile and the Rio de la Plata (Durham: Duke University Press, 1982), 207.

14. Street, Artigas. 98.

15. Lynch, Spanish-American Revolutions. 44.

16. de la Torre, et al. . Revolucion agraria. 49; Machado, Historia. 42; Lynch, Spanish-American Revolutions. 153

93; Street, Artigas, 98; Barren and Nahum, Bases Economicas. 61.

17. William P. Glade, "Commercial Policy in Early Republican Latin America: A Reassessment from the Standpoint of Global Perspective" in Liehr, ed., America Latina en la epoca de Simon Bolivar. 379-381. Also see discussion of Adam Smith's ideas in Chapter 1.

18. AGN-Montevideo, Ex-Archivo General Administrative, libro 95, "Capitania del Puerto, Libro Maestro de Entradas", 1805-1818.

19. Ernesto J. Fitte, El precio de la libertad: la presion brit^nica en el uroceso emancipador (Buenos Aires: Emece, 1965), 62.

20. Archivo Imperial de Petropolis. vol. 13, 138; quoted in Germdn O. E. Tjarks and Alicia Vidaurreta de Tjarks, El comercio ingles v el contrabando: nuevos aspectos en el estudio de la politica economica en el Rio de la Plata (1807- 1810) (Buenos Aires: J. Hector Matera, 1962), 17-18.

21. Archivo General de las Indias, Seville, legajo Buenos Aires, no. 150, quoted in ibid., 18.

22. Villalobos R., Comercio v contrabando. 125-126.

23. Heaton, "Merchant Adventurer", 5.

24. Tjarks and Vidaurreta, Comercio Ingles. 18, 20.

25. Humphreys, British Merchants. 155.

26. Tjarks and Vidaurreta, Comercio Ingles. 19.

27. Street, "Lord Strangford and Rio de la Plata, 1808- 1815" Hispanic American Historical Review 33 (Nov. 1953) : 477- 485.

28. Humphreys, British Merchants. 158.

29. Holanda, Historia Geral. 64-65.

30. Oliveira Lima, Pom Joao VI no Brasil. 365.

31. Ibid., 366.

32. Villalobos R., Comercio v contrabando. 132; Manches­ ter, British Preeminence. 76.

33. Lang, Portuguese Brazil. 196-197. 154

34. Platt, Latin America and British Trade. 36.

35. Heaton, "Merchant Adventurer", 12.

36. Manchester, British Preeminence. 71-72.

37. Jurgen Schneider, "Trade Relations Between France and Latin America, 1810-1850" in Liehr, ed., America Latina en la epoca de Simon Bolivar. 423. For more on British commerce in Brazil after 1808, see Holanda, Historia Geral. 72-92.

38. Lynch, Spanish-American Revolutions. 343-344.

39. Christelow, "Great Britain and the Trades from Cadiz and Lisbon", 16-21, 28; Manchester, British Preeminence. 98.

40. Beraza, Economia. 85.

41. Miron Burgin, The Economic Aspects of Argentine Federalism 1820-1852 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1946), 13.

42. Puiggros, Historia Economica. 72n.

43. Socolow, Merchants of Buenos Aires. 59.

44. Cabildo of Montevideo, Montevideo, to Council of Regency, Cadiz, 21 September 1810, in Francisco Bauza, Historia de la dominacion esoanola en el Uruguay. Tomo III v documentos de prueba 3d ed. (Montevideo: El Democrata, 1929), 409-410.

45. Eusebio de Bardaxi y Azara, Council of Regency, Isla de Leon, to Cabildo of Montevideo, 16 January 1811, in ibid., 410-411.

46. Thomas Sumter, Jr., Rio de Janeiro, to Robert Smith, Secretary of State, 23 July 1810, in William R. Manning, ed., Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States Concerning the Independence of the Latin American Nations, vol. 2 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1925), 669.

47. Lynch, Spanish-American Revolutions. 93-94.

48. Street, "Strangford", 498; Manchester, British Preeminence. 131.

49. Street, Artigas, 125; Lynch, Spanish-American Revolutions. 93.

50. Machado, Historia. 43. 155

51. Ibid., 44; Street, Artigas, 129; Lynch, Spanish- American Revolutions. 95.

52. Ruiz-Guinazti, Lord Stranaford. 205; John Henry Hann, "Brazil and the Rio de la Plata, 1808-1828" (Ph.D. diss., University of Texas, 1967), 51-53.

53. Thomas Sumter, Jr., United States Minister to the Portuguese Court in Brazil, Rio de Janeiro, to Robert Smith, Secretary of State, 23 July 1810, in Manning, Diplomatic Correspondence. vol. 2, 669.

54. Street, Artigas, 142-145.

55. Ibid., 148, 156.

56. Nunez, An Account. 307.

57. Street, Artigas, 44-49, 118.

58. AGN-Montevideo, Ex-Archivo General Administrativo, libro 95, "Capitania del Puerto, Libro Maestro de Entradas", 1805-1818.

59. Ibid., 142, 159.

60. Manchester, British Preeminence. 97.

61. Street, "Strangford", 480.

62. Street, Artigas. 160.

63. Puiggros, Historia Economica. 75; Street, "Strang­ ford", 489.

64. Puiggros, Historia Economica. 78.

65. Thomas Sumter, Jr., United States Minister to the Portuguese Court in Brazil, Rio de Janeiro, to Robert Smith, Secretary of State, 23 July 1810, in Manning, Diplomatic Correspondence. vol. 2, 670.

66. Robert Smith, Secretary of State, Washington, to Joel Robert Poinsett, Special Agent of the United States to South America, 28 June 1810, in Manning, Diplomatic Correspon­ dence . vol. 1, 7.

67. One ship left Boston for Montevideo 5 Aug. 1811 with a cargo of ale, bacon, cordage, corks, cages, canary seed, duck, fish, glassware, lumber, pitch, rice, salt, spars, tar and wine; this was clearly a mixture of North American and 156

Mediterranean goods. AGN-Montevideo, Cat&logo Ex-Archivo y Museo Historico, caja 9.

68. Robert Smith, Secretary of State, Washington, to General John Armstrong, United States Minister to France, 1 November 1810, in Manning, Diplomatic Correspondence, vol. 1, 8 .

69. Wallerstein, Modern World-Svstem. vol. 3, 193.

70. W. G. Miller, United States Consul at Buenos Aires, to James Monroe, Secretary of State, 16 July 1812, in Manning, Diplomatic Correspondence. vol. 1, 329.

71. Wallerstein, Modern World-Svstem. vol. 3, 255.

72. Beraza, Economia. 16-19.

73. AGN-Buenos Aires, Sala XIII, legajo 17-1-1, "Libro Mayor de la Aduana de Montevideo, 1814".

74. de la Torre, et al.. Revolucion aararia. 55.

75. Beraza, Economia. 21-25.

76. AGN-Montevideo, Cat&logo Ex-Archivo y Museo Histo­ rico, libros 15, 15A, 16, 17, 17A and 18, "Actas del Cabildo de Montevideo", 1800-1816.

77. Beraza, Economia. 20-31; Street, Artigas. 151, 214; Lynch, Spanish-American Revolutions. 98.

78. Mario Falcao Espalter, Formacion historica del Uruguay (Madrid: Espasa Calpe, 1929), 24-25.

79. Barran and Nahum, Bases economicas. 64.

80. Street, Artigas. 169-176.

81. Ibid., 178-183.

82. Lynch, Spanish-American Revolutions. 58; Kroeber, Shipping Industry. 89; Whigham, Politics of River Trade. 20- 30.

83. Bar rein and Nahum, Bases economicas. 64.

84. Street, Artigas. 181.

85. A series of agreements between Rondeau and Artigas were signed on April 19, 1813, but they were short-lived. See documents published in Juan E. Pivel Devoto and Rodolfo 157

Fonseca Munoz, eds., Archivo historico diplomdtico del Uru­ guay. vol. 3, La diplomacia de la patria vieia (1811-1820) (Montevideo: El Siglo, 1943), 102-105.

86. Joel Robert Poinsett, United States Consul General at Buenos Aires, to James Monroe, Secretary of State, 14 June 1814, in Manning, Diplomatic Correspondence. vol. 1, 335.

87. Street, Artigas. 198-200.

88. V. Mario Quartaruolo, "Consecuencias de la caida de Montevideo en 1814," separate publication of the Revista de la Universidad de Moron (Moron, Argentina: n.p., 1981), 114-163; Anna, Spain and the Loss of America. 142; Street, Artigas, 2 0 2 .

89. Street, Artigas. 203.

90. Manchester, British Preeminence. 135.

91. AGN-Montevideo, Catalogo Ex-Archivo y Museo Histo­ rico, caja 9.

92. Street, Artigas, 202-213.

93. Ibid., 214, 218, 254, 262, 274. De la Torre, et al.. Revolucion agraria. 23.

94. Beraza, Economia. 32.

95. Juan Antonio Rebella, Purificacion: sede del protectorado de "Los pueblos libres" 1815-1818 (Montevideo: Ministerio de Educacion y Cultura, 1981), 114-115.

96. A shortened title for "Reglamento Provisorio de la Provincia Oriental para el Fomento de su Campana, y Seguridad de sus Hacendados". Street, Artigas, 227.

97. Ibid.; Machado, Historia. 69.

98. Ibid., 72.

99. de la Torre, et a l . . Revolucion agraria. 103.

100. Rebella, Purificacion. 18.

101. Proclamation of Cabildo of Montevideo, 7 Sept. 1815, in AGN-Buenos Aires, Sala X, legajo 1-6-2.

102. de la Torre, et al.. Revolucion agraria. 53, 63.

103. Street, Artigas. 233-234. 158

104. Fernando Otorgues, General Quarters at Miguelete, to Paulino Nunez, Maldonado, 12 March 1815, in AGN-Montevideo, Ex-Archivo General Administrative, libro 289, "1815". This letter was published by Gustavo Gallinal in Revista del Instituto Historico v Geogr&fico del Uruguay 2 (1921): 253- 255.

105. Compare Table 5 above.

106. Proclamation of the Cabildo of Montevideo, 7 Sept. 1815, AGN-Buenos Aires, Sala X, legajo 1-6-2.

107. Glade, "Commercial Policy", 385; Street, Artigas. 278; Rosa Alonso Eloy, et al.. La oligarauia oriental en la Cisplatina (Montevideo: Ediciones Pueblos Unidos, 1970), 50; "Articles of a Convention concluded between...Jose Artigas, and the Commissioner deputed by the Commander of the Forces of his Britannic Majesty in these Americas...", 2 Aug. 1817, F.O. 63/204, in C. K. Webster, ed., Britain and the Independence of Latin America, vol. 1, 187-188; Barren and Nahum, Bases Econdmicas. 71.

108. Street, Artigas. 274-276.

109. Humphreys, British Merchants. 160-161.

110. Machado, Historia. 44; de la Torre, et a l . . Revolucion agraria. 72-78; Barren and Nahum, Bases economicas. 69.

111. Ibid.

112. Street, Artigas. 225.

113. Manchester, British Preeminence. 138-139.

114. Jurgen Schneider, "Trade Relations Between France and Latin America, 1810-1850", in Liehr, ed., America Latina en la epoca de Simon Bolivar. 424. CHAPTER IV

BRAZILIAN OCCUPATION/ 1817-1825

I. Establishing Control

The instability in the Banda Oriental from 1806 to 1816 heightened the competition between Buenos Aires and Rio de

Janeiro for commercial dominance of the province. Leaders in both places viewed internal divisions among artiauistas as an opportunity for advancing their own positions. The

Buenos Aires government was unable to act decisively because of its own internal political problems, which gave the

Portuguese in Brazil an advantage. They seized the moment and the Banda Oriental, and put in place a neocolonial regime which sought to bring the province under the control of a centralized political and economic system. The Portu­ guese had coveted the Banda Oriental for decades, and the end of Spanish rule in 1814 and the recall of Lord Strang- ford in 1815 finally removed military and diplomatic obsta­ cles to their ambitions. In addition, Brazil rose to co­ kingdom status within the Portuguese empire in 1815, in recognition of the significance of the residence of the royal court in Rio de Janeiro, which above all had brought a commercial opening.1 In a sense, Brazil and Portugal were

159 160 also made co-imperialists, and the Brazilian elite adopted the long-term attitudes of Portugal toward the Banda Orien­ tal. The process of occupation demonstrates this clearly, especially with regard to economic policies. Portugal had

struggled with Spain to determine who would channel the province's resources back to Europe, and after 1816, this

conflict became an Argentine-Brazilian one.

According to the Portuguese government, the timing of their invasion was tied to fears that the federalist move­ ment in the Rio de la Plata would spread and disrupt Brazil.

In 1816, Joao Vi's forces entered the province, cutting short the aspirations of Artigas and the orientales for autonomy. This invasion of the Banda Oriental differed from previous ones carried out by the British, Portuguese and portenos. both in its completeness and in its duration. In

1815, the Portuguese government in Brazil began to plan the

invasion, arranging for the transfer of troops from Iberia who had gained experience in the war against Napoleon. Five thousand men went to Brazil, comprising a division with six squadrons of cavalry, four battalions of light infantry and two parks of artillery. Dorn Joao personally reviewed them in Rio with great fanfare before they proceeded southward.

In addition, soldiers arrived from other Brazilian provinces to add to the forces massing in Rio Grande do Sul. All together, there were ten thousand Brazilian troops in the southernmost province before the European reinforcements 161

began to arrive, in November 1815. They were all in place

by the end of March 1816.2 In June, the Portuguese fleet which had been preparing in Rio de Janeiro began its voyage

southward, and took part in a coordinated attack from land

and sea.3 Five areas were targeted: the Misiones prov­

ince, the north-central hills of the Banda Oriental, the

district of Salto and Purificacion, the southern course of the Uruguay River, and the cities on the southern coast (see

Figure 2) /

Before the invasion began it was hardly a secret. The

official correspondence of the British charge d'affaires at

Rio, Henry Chamberlain, was full of warnings that war was

imminent. Without full ministerial status, however, there was little he could do to stop it. He also reported that the government of Buenos Aires had been involved for some time in negotiations with the Portuguese. Fearing the loss of the entire United Provinces, portenos were willing to

forfeit the Provincia Oriental for a while. Artigas re­ ceived little aid and a lot of false reassurances from

Buenos Aires.5 One of the Robertson brothers observed that after the invasion began, "the remonstrances of the Buenos

Ayres [sic] Government were so very polite, that, according to general opinion, [Supreme Director Juan Martin de] Puey- rredon looked on the Brazilians as more legitimate occupants of the Banda Oriental than was his hated enemy, the Protec­ tor Artigas."6 Spanish policy-makers panicked when they learned of the

invasion. They had pushed back the Portuguese many times

before, but were now powerless in the Rio de la Plata. They

seem to have finally realized this fact, and were infuriated

with the Portuguese for taking advantage of it. According

to Timothy Anna, although Montevideo had been a "small and

relatively unimportant" part of the empire, its capture had

"a disproportionate effect" on Spanish diplomacy. There was

a whirl of discussions about what was to be done, and final­

ly, Spain asked Britain for help in restoring their colonial

possession.7 It was too little, too late. The only strong

support they received for the idea of European action

against the Portuguese came from the Russians, who wanted to

undermine British power in the New World.8

The Cabildo of Montevideo announced the impending

invasion to the citizenry on 22 June 1816, calling for a patriotic response.9 For his part, Artigas prepared to

defend his cherished freedoms, mustering an army of eight

thousand men. He and his followers failed to understand the depth of hatred for federalism in Buenos Aires, and hoped help would be forthcoming. In mid-August, Artigas finally realized that the attacks by Buenos Aires on his League and the Portuguese invasion were two parts of the same strategy, to eliminate him. In December 1816, Pueyrredon conferred with two agents from Montevideo seeking support, and agreed to give it, under the condition that the Provincia Oriental 163 would become completely subordinate to Buenos Aires. They

naturally refused, and a later bribe of guns, munitions and

supplies which Pueyrredon sent directly to Artigas was also

rebuffed. The oriental leader still believed what he had written a few months earlier: "Wanting to be free, the multiplicity of enemies will only serve to redouble our glo­ ry. »10

The head of the Portuguese operation, Lieutenant Gener­ al Carlos Frederico Lecor, appreciated the psychological elements of the invasion, and tried to undermine loyalty to

Artigas. In October 1816, Lecor issued a declaration en­ couraging oriental soldiers to give up the fight, with substantial rewards. Officers were entitled to maintain their military careers with preservation of rank, salary, and any properties owned. Those officers who brought armed units with them could receive a monetary reward from Dom

Joao. Even common soldiers, including slaves, were offered the monetary value of their arms, four months' salary, and safe passage to their homes.11 Lecor even tried to negoti­ ate with Artigas and incorporate him into the new provincial government, without success.12 This honey-coated approach to the conquered province would become a key characteristic of Lecor's military and political policies during the occu­ pation.

The Portuguese rule over the Banda Oriental began in

January 1817, when Lecor entered Montevideo.13 He proudly 164

announced that his goal was to remove "the germ of disorder"

in "a country abandoned to a state of anarchy."14 Portu­

guese control over the province was far from complete, how­

ever, especially outside the larger towns.15 Artigas con­

tinued to strike at the Portuguese as best he could. He

hired foreign privateers (mainly North Americans from Balti­

more) to harass Portuguese ships in the South Atlantic,16

and fought on horseback from across the Uruguay River until

1820, when he entered Paraguay for refuge. Under the isola­ tionist regime of Jose Gaspar Rodriguez de Francia, it be­

came a lifelong exile.17

John Street wrote an apt epitaph for Artigas— "[he] had been crushed between the two great forces grinding together on the Banda Oriental: Spain and Portugal, later the United

Provinces and Portugal in America."18 There was even some consultation between the grindstones. For example, Lecor

informed Pueyrredon in December 1817 that he planned to blockade the Uruguayan coast, from Colonia westward, in order to prevent supplies from reaching Artigas. Later, in

1819, Supreme Director Jose Rondeau asked the Portuguese to tighten their blockade further, apparently to help him control the upriver provinces who shared Artigas' federalist ideals. Both men agreed to close their ports to any craft known to have traded along the Uruguay River. Lecor reject­ ed the direct cooperation of armies from Brazil and Buenos

Aires, but there was informal aid along the Uruguay River 165 border, such as temporary asylum and emergency medical care, for soldiers from both sides.19

The British were not willing to save Artigas, but they were displeased with the occupation of the Banda Oriental.

They had misjudged Dorn Joao, assuming that he would return to Lisbon, where their appointed minister plenipotentiary,

George Canning, could have applied pressure to stop the invasion. The foreign minister, Viscount Robert Stewart

Castlereagh, threatened in 1817 to recall all English offi­ cers serving in the Portuguese army if troops were not withdrawn from the Banda Oriental. This was meant to alarm

Dorn Joao, whose homeland was being protected by Marshal

William Carr Beresford in his absence. Yet, the king re­ mained firm and simply offered to send an explanation later.

In the end, Castlereagh decided to back down and preserve

Britain's special relationship with Portugal, opting not to stir up complications in European politics.20

In Brazil, Dom Joao's expansionist policies received a mixed response. Despite the glorious send-off given the troops, there was a significant faction opposed to the war because of the funds it absorbed. New taxes made both merchants and sugar planters in Pernambuco resentful. For army units stationed in that province, living conditions deteriorated while resources were diverted to the south.

Early in 1817, discontented junior officers joined a repub­ lican movement and participated in a revolt against the 166 royal government. It was rapidly suppressed, but showed the potential danger for Brazil in pursuing the Banda Oriental

in a single-minded fashion.21

One of the first matters attracting Portuguese atten­ tion in the occupied territory was establishing regular trading relationships. Generally, the old Spanish regula­ tions governing the ports prevailed, with the significant difference that ships of all nations were admitted "without exception or preference."22 The Portuguese promoted Monte­ video as a transit and re-export point for upriver trade.23

Several other ports received official designation for for­ eign trade, including Maldonado, Colonia, and Mercedes.

From 1818 on, the coasts of the Banda Oriental were well-pa­ trolled by Portuguese ships. In conjunction with the open­ ing of trade, many European merchants set up shop in Monte­ video, including several Britons, some Frenchmen and at least one German, from Hamburg. Local merchants experienced greater competition than ever before from the new foreign establishments, which had powerful connections in Buenos

Aires and Brazil. The Montevidean creoles had to associate themselves with Brazilian firms in order to retain any of their former commercial status. In fact, Brazil very quick­ ly took on a role as a commercial intermediary. Acceptance of this new arrangement was made easier by the fact that

Montevideo was cut off from its upriver ranching hinterland 167

by the ongoing struggle between the Portuguese forces and

supporters of Artigas.24

The elite generally welcomed Portuguese rule because

Artigas1 program of land reform had threatened their socio­

economic position. Many would have lost some land, but more

importantly, land reform implied a re-organization of soci­

ety, which would have weakened their control over the eco­

nomic links of the province to the outside world.25 The

approval of the estancieros was critical for the success of

Brazil's new political and economic relationship with the

Banda Oriental, because the disposition of property was

ultimately in their hands. In 1816-1817, the invaders

gained an important advantage, when many landowners decided

to support the new government. They were seeking stability,

prosperity, and continued power. The new Cabildo installed

by Lecor sent a letter to Joao VI, declaring that they had

"the desire to be inscribed forever on the map of the Lusi-

tanian Empire."26 A public sign of their acquiescence was

their willingness to participate in a congress set up in

1817 to declare the incorporation of the Banda Oriental into

Brazil as the Estado Cisplatino. The proclamation of the

congress bears the signatures of many of the most prominent

landowners, including some who had formerly been staunch

supporters of Artigas.27 The estancieros1 reward was an

exemption from the tithe tax on agricultural production, which was later extended for seven years.28 The years from 1816 to 1820 represent the low point in the effort for Uruguayan independence, both psychologically and physically. The most formidable challenger to Portu­ guese rule was Fructuoso Rivera, a close associate of Arti­ gas, but he finally gave up in March 1820. Rivera then became a regimental colonel in Lecor's army. At the same time, another important artiquista. Juan Antonio Lavalleja, became a lieutenant colonel. Other veteran followers of

Artigas capitulated as well.29 The Baron of Laguna proudly wrote to Joao VI that he had obtained Rivera's surrender, and thereby fulfilled completely his king's intended poli­ cy.30 Also in 1820, with his supporters deserting him,

Artigas sought refuge in Paraguay, where he remained in involuntary exile for the next twenty years. He was never to return to his native province.31

Materially, conditions in the Banda Oriental were very bad. One traveler noted in 1820 that the population of

Montevideo had been reduced from 14,000 to 5,000 within the city walls, and from 6,000 to 0 in the suburbs, where "many elegant villas belonging to the Spanish merchants of the city" stood empty.32 The effects of social disruption and a deterioration in sanitation and health can be seen in the data in Table 13, which indicate more deaths and fewer births in 1820 than 1810 or 1830, although marriages contin­ ued steadily. The excess of births over deaths fell from

514 in 1810 to 210 in 1820, mainly because of a large in- 169

crease in deaths. The death rate in 1820 was 111.8 per

thousand, marking a population in distress. There was no

warfare near Montevideo by 1820, indicating some natural

cause of death, such as disease or malnutrition.

TABLE 13

POPULATION INDICATORS, DEPARTMENT OF MONTEVIDEO, 1810-1830

Total Marriaaes Total Births Total Deaths

1810 153 840 326

1820 152 769 559

1830 155 885 374 Source: Horacio Arredondo (hijo), "Los 'Apuntes Historicos’ del Dr. Andres Lamas" Revista del Instituto Historico v Geoardfico del Uruguay 6 (1928): 50-53.

The invasion had brought with it great destruction.

Some property owners petitioned the Portuguese government

for restitution, and their claims hint at the ferocity of

the fighting in 1816 and 1817. Lamenting his losses, one member of a prominent family reported that Portuguese troops

destroyed the saladero which was worth thousands of pesos. They cut down the trees that the insurgents had left, more than 200 orange trees, 250 walnut trees, 100 olive trees, more than 400 pear trees and many apple trees, and more than 2000 peach trees; [totalling] just in that establishment from eight to ten thousand pesos. They removed the roof and burned the wood of the slave house, property of the Phillipines Company, which was worth many thousands.

The report goes on to state the claims of another fourteen properties near Montevideo, and seven in the countryside, 170

listing trees, buildings and personal belongings.33 The

bovine population of the province suffered as well. The

Portuguese authorities found it necessary to prohibit the

slaughter of cattle and the export of hides and salted meat

in 1820, with stiff penalties imposed. Unbranded hides put

on the market faced high taxes, to discourage contraband.

The size of the cattle herds was also affected by a three-

year drought which coincided with the early years of the

occupation.34

Across the river in Buenos Aires, the invasion and

establishment of Portuguese rule on the eastern bank was

alarming to many. Some portefios were astonished that the

British did nothing to prevent the attack. There were advantages to Buenos Aires from the occupation, however.

First, it made far less likely the recapture of Montevideo by Spanish forces. Second, it divided Artigas1 energies in the years from 1816 to 1820, between trying to liberate his homeland and assisting the provinces of his Federal League

in their resistance to the centralists in Buenos Aires.35

Miguel Angel Scenna has observed that in addition, letting

Brazil take over the Banda Oriental for a short time was a good economic strategy on the part of Buenos Aires. In his view, the old viceregal capital needed a period of peace to strengthen its hold over its pampas hinterland and adapt to the new markets created by free trade. The territory under porteno control was "reduced, but better dominated." After 171

all, geography prevented Buenos Aires from ever "strangling"

the Banda Oriental as it did the interior.36

Miron Burgin suggests a similar idea in his consider­

ation of the federalist-centralist struggle in the United

Provinces. In the years after 1820, the economic policies

of the government in Buenos Aires concentrated national

income in the port and surrounding areas at the expense of

the interior. The centralists nationalized customs revenues

and prohibited the provinces from taxing goods indirectly,

thereby denying them the funds necessary to create domestic

industries which might compete with imports. At the same

time, capital from Buenos Aires and abroad financed the

channeling of their natural resources into world trade.37

The federalists fought when they could against these trends,

causing political instability in Buenos Aires, but also

diverting its attention and giving the Luso-Brazilian gov­

ernment some freedom of action in the Banda Oriental. The

contest between the two competitors was delayed, which ultimately raised the stakes. Brazil was free to pursue a policy of building as many links as possible with the Banda

Oriental, and when the challenge finally arrived, there was that much more to lose in giving up the province.

II. Stabilization and Trade

The terrible physical conditions endured by the orien- tales from 1816 to 1820 were gradually relieved, mainly 172

because the countryside enjoyed peace for the first time in

a decade under the new government. Brazilian occupation

also brought with it new levels of activity at the port of

Montevideo. As shown in Figure 9, Lecor's rule brought many

more ships from overseas, hitting a peak in 1820 that was

not reached again until the 1830s, after independence. As

500

400

300

200

100

0 1017 1010 1019 1020 1021 1022 1023 1024 1029 1030 1031 1032 1033 1034

—— ARRIVALS —r - DEPARTURES

Source: AGN-Montevideo, Ex-Archivo General Administrativo, libros 95 and 99, "Capitania del Puerto, Libro Maestro de Entradas", 1805-1818 and 1818-1824; libro 546, "Entrada y Salida de buques de Ultramar", 1829-1835.

FIGURE 9

SHIPS ENTERING AND LEAVING MONTEVIDEO, 1817-1835 foreigners began to intensify their commerce with the Banda

Oriental in 1820, the Portuguese policy of open trade helped

Montevideo and the surrounding countryside recover. The

port was busy all year round, with the most arrivals and

departures in December through February, the southern sum­ mer. Corresponding to the increase in shipping, the number

of hides exported through Montevideo was already rising in

1820, after a low point in 1817, as shown in Table 14.

TABLE 14

CATTLE HIDES EXPORTED THROUGH MONTEVIDEO, 1817-1824

Year______Number______

1817 71,430 1818 113,835 1820 226,571 ______1824______250.000______Sources: Horacio Arredondo (hijo), "Los 'Apuntes estadisti- cos1 del Dr. Andres Lamas" Revista del Instituto Historico v Geoardfico del Uruguay 6 (1928): 99; AGN-Montevideo, Ex- Archivo General Administrative, libros 112 and 116, "Real Aduana de Montevideo, Libro Auxiliar" (1817, 1818); Faraone, Historia economica. 10.

The weight of a loaf of bread in Montevideo stabilized in the 1820s, as indicated in Table 15, averaging about twenty-five ounces per real, only slightly less than the pre-independence weight. This was very important to the population of Montevideo; for example, in 1824 they consumed daily thirty thousand ounces of white bread and twice as much wheat bread.38 Keeping bread weights stable was one 174 way for Lecor to engender a sense of well-being under Portu­

guese occupation. A member of the elite who did not appre­

ciate Lecor's tactics complained that

it is very sad that every citizen, upon finding himself called to occupy a seat on the Cabildo, believes him­ self obliged by law and conscience to arrange that the poor have bread and meat with the same abundance that the Hidalgo of La Mancha saw at the weddings of Ca­ macho .39

The same individual likely would have disapproved of the

free primary school established by the Cabildo as well.40

In addition, those generous citizens distributed 137 jobs to various people while under Brazilian occupation.41 Lecor almost certainly directed the Cabildo to help him pacify the populace with such benefits.

TABLE 15

AVERAGE BREAD WEIGHTS IN MONTEVIDEO, 1817-1826 (OZ.)

Year______Avq. Weight

1817 28 1819 22 1820 24 1821 36 1822 19 1823 20 1824 27 1825 30 1826 24 Source: AGN-Montevideo, Ex-Archivo General Administrative, libro 19, "Libro de Actas Capitulares", 1816-1819, and libros 20 and 21, "Actas del Cabildo de Montevideo", 1819- 1829. 175

Montevideo also benefitted from greater access to the resources of the interior after 1820, because of the break­ down in Artigas' Federal League. A greater share in the upriver shipping traffic was captured gradually by Monte- videan merchants and their Brazilian partners.42 By en­ couraging trade and commerce, Lecor thus tried to ensure the

loyalty of at least part of the subjugated population, those who enjoyed economic benefits. The U.S. agent at Buenos

Aires astutely observed that

the people of Monte Video [sic] enjoy great commercial protection from their present Masters and perhaps may apprehend some change in that respect, should they come under the Government or influence of this Province, which would naturally promote, in preference, the trade and prosperity of this City.43

Effectively, their resentments about Buenos Aires and their mistrust of Artigas had driven the oriental elite into

Lecor's arms.

Lecor displayed a great deal of ambition for the eco­ nomic development of his conquest. Elevated to the title

Baron of Laguna, he was the supreme authority in the Banda

Oriental, and issued many decrees and regulations affecting commerce during the course of the occupation. In a letter to the Cabildo of Montevideo in 1818, he assured the members that he was "desirous of... the enhancement of the Prov­ ince." To that end, he asked for detailed statistics about landholding, horses, cattle, sheep and population.44 One group which benefitted from the Baron's aspirations was the

Consulado of Montevideo. A project which especially inter­ ested the merchants of the city was a lighthouse on the Isla

de Flores, to assist safe passage into Montevideo harbor.

The Consulado was so excited about the project that in

January 1819, it issued a pamphlet acclaiming "the strong

and generous hand" of Lecor, which "opened the arks of the

government" to provide for it.45 Construction began in

March 1819, and the lighthouse was inaugurated in January

1828. Another important improvement was a new wooden dock

at the port, given official approval by Lecor in November

1820, and finished in 1821. It became the main loading platform for the next twenty years. Prior to this innova­

tion, large ocean-going vessels had to unload to smaller boats, which relayed the goods to land.46 A third project

of the Consulado was a Mercantile School, organized during the Brazilian occupation but founded afterward, in 1829.47

Port taxes were used to pay for all of these improve­ ments.48

The Baron attempted to regularize landholding in a decree of November 1821, in which he offered for sale public

lands and lands without legitimate titles. The Portuguese only recognized titles acquired during Spanish rule, thereby nullifying Artigas' land reform. This measure helped solid­

ify a new landowning class, which included Brazilians who had seized land during the invasion. Creoles who had been closely connected to Artigas were generally excluded. In addition to ensuring a loyal estanciero class, the govern­ ment also received revenues from the land sales, helping to

fund the occupation.49 Furthermore, Lecor was surely aware

that a stable rural sector could only help trade.

Many Brazilians acquired land in the northern districts of

the Banda Oriental, creating the problem of a frontier

crossed by cattle trails, which was to plague Uruguay

throughout the nineteenth century. Lecor encouraged the

resettlement of abandoned ranches in 1822, in a plan for

army officers to acquire the best land in the province, with

the added benefits of tax exemptions and assistance with

seeds, animals and hardware. In addition to grabbing rural

property, the Brazilians were also accused of seizing busi­

nesses in Montevideo belonging to investors from Buenos

Aires.50

The port of Montevideo was busy under Luso-Brazilian

rule, as shown in Figure 9, with an average of 299 ships per year entering from 1817 to 1824. Trade during the Luso-

Brazilian occupation was as European-centered as before. A

U.S. agent claimed that the English could navigate the Rio de la Plata better than the locals could.51 British ships dominated the trans-Atlantic Brazil trade, while the Portu­ guese share fell to only 30% by 182l.52 There were sixty

British merchant houses at Rio de Janeiro in 1820, and ten at Montevideo.53 Clearly, the latter was economically subordinate to Rio, and the Brazilians had no intention of altering Montevideo's peripheral place in the world-system; 178

it was not developed into a major regional port. Still, business was brisk enough to warrant extending the British mail packet to Montevideo, by way of Rio, in 1824.54 Trade with the French was also officially encouraged, as disclosed

in an 1827 memo informing merchants of the opportunities for trade in Havre de Grace.55 Reflecting Rio's ambitions for commercial dominance, Montevideo hoped to serve with Europe­ an imports a market bigger than the Cisplatina itself. One sign of this is the fact that Lecor's government made it easy for ships to deposit their goods in Montevidean ware­ houses, for later re-export.56

Port arrivals are divided by origin in Figure 10. In the years from 1819 to 1824, ships originating in European ports accounted for about 20% of all arrivals at Montevideo.

In the last years of Spanish control, the European share had usually been between 30% and 50%, depending on the restric­ tions of warfare, but most of that was directly from Spain.

In comparison, Brazilian ports accounted for 30% to 40% of entries from 1819 until 1823, when their portion dropped because of disturbances related to Brazilian independence from Portugal. But even a 40% share represented a decline from the 60% level between 1812 and 1815. As the Brazilian and European shares levelled off, the proportion of ships coming from the U.S. rose steadily, from about 5% in 1819 to almost 20% in 1824. Another increase occurred in ships from 179

Buenos Aires, which was the origin for 20% from 1819 until

1823, when Brazil's troubles boosted the share to 40%.

80.0%

60.0%

40.0%

20.0%

0.0% 1812 1813 1814 1815 1816 1817 1818 1819 1820 1821 1822 1823 1824

Buenos AireB I Brazil. * E urope D U.S.

Source: AGN, Montevideo, Ex-Archivo General Administrativo, libros 95 and 99, "Capitania del Puerto, Libro Maestro de Entradas", 1805-1818 and 1818-1824.

FIGURE 10

ORIGINS OF SHIPS ENTERING MONTEVIDEO, 1812-1824

Although the relative shares changed with military and political circumstances, a pattern consistent through time was that a majority of the ships entering Montevideo came by way of intermediaries, not directly from core nations. It was simply not worth it for Britain or France to concentrate

their trade flows on Montevideo when Buenos Aires and Rio de

Janeiro were much more efficient channelers of resources.

Figure 11 compares the origins of arrivals at Montevideo and

Buenos Aires in 1822. Direct arrivals from Europe accounted

for more than two-fifths of entries at Buenos Aires, but

only one-fifth of those at Montevideo. Instead, European products arrived at Montevideo from Brazil, Buenos Aires or the United States, which together accounted for two-thirds of ships entering the port. The ships arriving from other

American ports typically brought tropical products like cacao and sugar, and represented an intra-periphery trade of

limited importance. Clearly, Buenos Aires had much more direct trading access to the core nations than Montevideo did. Europe and the U.S. together were the origin of 60.9% of arrivals at Buenos Aires, indicating strong ties to the economic network of the North Atlantic.

The different roles played by Montevideo and Buenos

Aires are also evident in their participation in the upriver coastal traffic. The shipment of dried beef, tallow and salted hides to the main ports by river, rather than over­ land, reduced transportation costs and enabled goods to be brought from further distances.57 From January 1824 to

December 1826, Montevideo received 299 ships specializing in that commerce. In a similar period from May 1823 to April 181

Amer. 11.0% Braz. 31.7%

Bs.As. 16.0% Braz. Amer. S.Q% 36.0% Afr./Asia 1.0% 3 Afr./Asia 1.9% U.S. 13.0% Eur. 43.77 U.S. 17.2%

Eur. 21.0% M o n te v id e o Buenos Aires

Sources: AGN-Montevideo, Ex-Archivo General Administrative, libro 99, "Capitania del Puerto, Libro Maestro de Entradas", 1818-1824; Kroeber, Shipping Industry. 128.

FIGURE 11

ORIGIN OF PORT ARRIVALS AT MONTEVIDEO AND BUENOS AIRES, 1822

1826, Buenos Aires received 2,776 of them, indicating a substantially greater role as a regional clearinghouse for agropastoral products.58 Both overseas and regional ship­ ping movements thus show that the differentiation of roles begun in colonial times intensified in the era of indepen­ dence, with Buenos Aires continuing to acquire much more economic power, and thus a better chance of breaking into the semi-periphery than the Banda Oriental. III. State Finances

Thanks to expanding trade, the condition of public

finances in the Banda Oriental was generally good during the

occupation. Lecor had some problems with corruption in the

counting house at first, but quickly investigated and elimi­

nated the wrongdoers.59 The key to government revenues was

the aduana yield, which grew steadily until the Argentine-

Brazilian War disrupted trade. The most important taxes

collected by the aduana were imposed on imports and exports.

The single most lucrative was importacion maritima. a cate­

gory which included a variety of taxes on seaborne imports,

and contributed more than 60% of aduana income at Montevi­

deo. Table 16 lists the customs schedule in effect during

the occupation. Maritime imports were highly taxed relative

to other trade goods, but the rates remained the same for

several years, so any growth in income is attributable to

increased volume of legal trade. Table 17 shows the growth

in aduana income from 1817 to 1821, the only years of occu­ pation for which specific data.are available. During that time, revenues jumped almost fivefold, from 141,000 pesos to

664,000 pesos annually. All sources of revenue grew togeth­

er, as the proportions of various income and expenditure categories remained steady. Maritime imports were the main

source of revenue, and the main expenditure was remittances to the central treasury, where the government could put the 183

port income to use. The aduana was simply a funnel, with

very few direct expenses of its own.

TABLE 16

CUSTOMS TAX RATES, 1818

Tax Category______Item Taxed______Tax Rate

Maritime manufactures 25% Imports clothing 40% oil 30% linens 50% crystal 15% yerba/tobacco 25% all (transfer & Consulado) 5%

Overland all goods except hides 4% Imports

Contracts city real estate 2%

Maritime local produce, except hides 6% Exports luxury foods, wine 3.5% scrap gold, silver work 12% scrap silver 8% stamped silver 6% stamped gold 2% all (Consulado) 1% hides, per unit 4 reales

Overland all, acc. to destination: Exports Buenos Aires 4% Banda Oriental 4% Santa Fe 8% Corrientes 10% Paracruav 19% Source: "Libro Mayor...de Aduana de la Colonia del Sacramen­ to...", 1818, AGN-Montevideo, Ex-Archivo General Administra­ tive, libro 108.

Note: Taxes collected under the category of "Consulado" were earmarked to support the quasi-governmental merchants' council. 184

TABLE 17

SELECTED INCOME AND EXPENDITURE, ADUANA OF MONTEVIDEO, 1817-1821 (PESOS)

1817 1818 1819 1820 1821

Income from:

Maritime 98,475 134,702 ------404,013 Imports (70%) (68%) (61%)

Overland 5,203 16,017 ------21,268 Imports (4%) (8%) (3%)

Maritime 23,804 29,122 ------105,874 Exports (17%) (15%) (16%)

Overland 8,003 10,982 ------32,040 Exports (6%) (6%) (5%)

General 5,610 6,482 ------101,115 Income (4%) (3%) (15%)

Total 141,095 197,305 340,372 432,121 (100%) (100%) (100%) (100%) (100%)

Expenditure for:

Salaries 17,400 17,371 ------31,451 & Expenses (12%) (9%) (4%)

Remittances ------577,248 to Treasury (88%)

General 116,337 179,934 ------Expenses (82%) (91%)

Other 7,357 ------51,043 (5%) (8%)

Total 141,094 197,305 ------659,742 (100%) (100%) (100%) Sources: AGN-Montevideo, Ex-Archivo General Administrative, libros 218 and 115, "Libro Mayor de Real Aduana de Montevi­ deo", 1817 and 1818; Catalogo Ex-Archivo y Museo Historico, caja 14, "Estado general de valores producidos...", 1819- 1821.

Note: General expenses in 1817 and 1818 likely include remittances, which were not listed separately. The aduana records also reveal Montevideo's local

trading network. For example, in 1817, under the category

of overland exports, there were 1,357 departures from the

port city. Of these, 473 (35%) went to Maldonado, while

another 254 (19%) went to Buenos Aires. Other common desti­

nations were Canelones, Isla Gorriti near Maldonado, Santa

Fe and Santa Lucia. About 9% of departures simply stated

the nearby countryside as their destination.60 One would

expect that with ample access to rivers in the western part

of the province, only the central and eastern portions would

make extensive use of overland trade. More interesting to

consider are the departures for Buenos Aires, a port with

the same products available as in Montevideo. One possible

explanation is that some individuals made a business out of

selling goods at estancias and towns along the coast, then

re-loading at Buenos Aires for a similar return journey.

The provincial treasury depended heavily on the aduana

as a source of funds, as shown in Table 18. In most years, the aduana accounted for 88% to 92% of total treasury reve­ nues. The rest consisted of other taxes collected in the

Provincia Cisplatina, including the diezmo (tithe), a 10% tax on grain; a tax on pulperias (general stores) of thirty pesos annually; and composicion de tierras (land settle­ ments) , a tax on sales and legal settlements of public land.

These were not an important source of revenue for the state, yielding only 45,139 pesos in the three-year period from 1821 to 1824.61 "Remittances" came from the aduana. and

went out to sub-treasuries, including Maldonado, Colonia and

separate military acounts. Aduana income dropped dramati­

cally in 1823 and 1826, both years of warfare, while remit­

tances out to the sub-treasuries were limited by lack of

funds in those years. As for the rest of the accounts,

"general revenues" included minor taxes and fees, while

"general expenses" covered salaries and administration.

"Other" revenues and expenses consisted of small items not

covered by the main categories, carryovers, refunds and

funds held temporarily. As might be expected, the biggest

expenditure throughout Luso-Brazilian rule was for defense.

When both Montevideo and the sub-treasuries are counted, the military soaked up from 60% to 97% of total spending.

As supplements to the aduanas in Montevideo, Maldonado

and Colonia, five tax collection offices were set up: at

Viboras, Santo Domingo Soriano and Paysandti, all along the

Uruguay River; at Cerro Largo in the northern part of the province; and at Santa Teresa, on the Atlantic near the

Brazilian border. All had jurisdiction over estancias and ports. These subordinate offices were only permitted to admit for trade those imported goods which had already passed through one of the aduanas. or local products, which were exempt from taxes when sold within the province. They were given precise instructions regarding accounting methods and the hierarchy of government decision-making.62 The 187 purpose of these new offices was to stem contraband, which was one of the most consistent aspects of the oriental eco­ nomy. In spite of that perennial problem, however, govern­ ment revenues did increase, as decribed above.

TABLE 18

SELECTED INCOME AND EXPENDITURE, TREASURY OF MONTEVIDEO, 1817-1826 (PESOS)

1817 1818 1819 1820 1821

Income from:

Remittances 107,729 187,999 287,609 374,742 563,844 (81%) (89%) (87%) (93%) (88%)

Puloerias 2,273 2,303 2,210 --- 7,265 (2%) d% ) (.6%) (1%)

General 3,655 4,353 28,644 12,604 55,496 Revenues (3%) (2%) (9%) (3%) (9%)

Other 19,994 17,687 14,003 17,257 16,104 (14%) (8%) (4%) (4%) (2%)

Total 133,651 212,342 332,466 404,603 642,709 (100%) (100%) (100%) (100%) (100%)

Expenditure for:'

Military 78,731 105,523 80,493 151,663 120,580 (59%) (55%) (28%) (40%) (19%)

Remittances 20,760 43,195 202,355 181,192 466,749 (15%) (23%) (69%) (48%) (73%)

General 14,225 4,727 2,954 8,269 36,905 Expenses (11%) (2%) (1%) (2%) (6%)

Other 19,935 38,212 5,840 37,546 16,164 (15%) (20%) (2%) (10%) (2%)

Total 133,651 191,657 291,642 378,670 640,398 (100%) (100%) (100%) (100%) (100%) 188

Table 18 (continued)

1823 1824 1825 1826

Income from:

Remittances 252,392 476,583 417,395 271,193 (87%) (95%) (93%) (98%)

PulDerias 2,384 3,559 3,160 739 (1%) (.7%) (1%) (1%)

General 13,522 13,821 17,690 3,420 Revenues (4%) (3%) (4%) (1%)

Other 22,708 8,888 9,208 _ —_ (8%) (2%) (2%)

Total 291,006 502,851 447,453 275,351 (100%) (100%) (100%) (100%)

Expenditure for:

Military 42,004 92,156 393,399 206,774 (15%) (20%) (85%) (77%)

Remittances 230,686 309,498 11,799 14,924 (82%) (67%) (3%) (5%)

General 7,459 9,948 20,522 45,521 Expenses (3%) (3%) (4%) (17%)

Other ------47,266 39,210 2,121 (10%) (8%) (1%)

Total 280,813 458,868 464,930 269,339 rioo%) (100%) (100%) (100%) Sources: AGN-Montevideo, Ex-Archivo General Administrativo, libro 214, "Copia de Libro Mayor de la Real Caja", 1817; libros 521, 527, and 500, "Indice del Libro Mayor", 1818- 1820; libro 501, "Libro Mayor", 1821, libro 502, "Indice del Libro Mayor", 1823 and libro 506, "Libro Mayor", 1824; Catalogo Ex-Archivo y Museo Historico, caja 18, "Tesoreria Principal", 1825, and "Balance de Receta y Despeza", 1826.

Notes: Amounts for 1823 are for the period Jan.-Nov., and for 1826 are for Jan.-6 Aug. only. "Other" sources of income for 1823 include loans. The aduana accounts for Colonia del Sacramento during the years of Brazilian rule are summarized in Table 19. As

in Montevideo, there was a steady increase in aduana income

throughout the period. Tax rates were the same as Monte­ video, but revenues and expenditures at Colonia were much

smaller (compare Table 16). This was probably the result of both the primacy of Montevideo and greater opportunities for

contraband trade near Colonia. There is also quite a dif­

ference between the two aduanas in the main sources of

funds; Colonia received a greater share from maritime ex­ ports than Montevideo did, and a lesser share from maritime

imports. The warehousing of goods for re-export was concen­ trated at Montevideo, which indicates that ocean-going vessels unloaded most of their merchandise at Montevideo, loaded some local products there, then went on to Colonia to complete their cargoes of hides and other cattle products.

Colonia did receive numerous overseas ships, as shown in Figure 12. The pattern is only slightly different from that of Montevideo from 1818 through 1820, then in 1821 and

1822, the latter experienced a large increase in port arriv­ als. This reflects the pacification of the province and

Montevideo's improved access to estancia products, and probably also some Brazilian efforts to improve the situa­ tion at Montevideo. In 1823, when Montevideo was embroiled in troubles, Colonia overtook the provincial capital, becom­ ing a more accessible port of call for loading on hides. 190

TABLE 19

SELECTED INCOME AND EXPENDITURE, ADUANA OF COLONIA DEL SACRAMENTO, 1818-1824 (PESOS)

______1818______1819______1820______1824

Income from:

Maritime Imports 2,408 3,189 --- (13%) (13%)

Overland Imports 439 1,051 --- and Contracts (2%) (4%)

Maritime Exports 8,418 8,071 --- (46%) (34%)

Overland Exports 1,782 1,575 --- (10%) (7%)

General Revenues 4,443 1,260 --- (24%) (5%)

Remittance from 6,591 --- Montevideo (28%)

Other 776 1,990 --- (4%) (8%)

Total 18,267 25,645 23,725 37,864

Expenditure for:

Civil Salaries 2,840 2,911 and Expenses (15%) (13%)

Military Salaries 16,587 20,022 and Expenses (85%) (87%)

Other 40 127

Total______19.467 24 .831 23.059 37.817 Source: "Libro Mayor del Real Ministerio de Aduana de Colo­ nia del Sacramento", 1818-1820, AGN-Montevideo, Ex-Archivo General Administrative, libros 108-110; "Libro Manual", Aduana of Colonia, 1824, Catdlogo Ex-Archivo y Museo Histo- rico, libro 88. 191

The secondary status of Colonia in those years is also evi­

dent in the origins of the ships calling there. As shown in

Figure 13, ships coming direct from Britain and North Ameri­

ca sailed into Montevideo in much greater numbers than at

Colonia. This underscores the conclusion already derived from the aduana figures— Colonia was a port at which ships generally stopped to finish filling their holds.

500

400

300

200

100

1819 18201818 1821 1822 1823

Montevideo I Colonia

Sources: AGN-Montevideo, Ex-Archivo General Administrativo, libros 95 and 99, "Captania del Puerto, Libro Maestro de Entradas", 1805-1818 and 1818-1824; libro 463A, "Colonia, Buques entradas desde 1818 hasta 1823".

Note: Arrivals for Colonia for 1818 and 1823 are estimates based on incomplete yearly figures.

FIGURE 12

PORT ACTIVITY AT COLONIA AND MONTEVIDEO, 1818-1823 192

30

1019 1021 10221020 1023

— Mont.— B H — Mont.— N Colonia— B D Colonia— N

Sources: AGN-Montev.ideo, Ex-Archivo General Administrativo, libros 95 and 99, "Captania del Puerto, Libro Maestro de Entradas", 1805-1818 and 1818-1824; libro 463A, "Colonia, Buques entradas desde 1818 hasta 1823".

Note: Arrivals for Colonia for 1818 and 1823 are estimates based on incomplete yearly figures.

FIGURE 13

BRITISH AND NORTH AMERICAN ARRIVALS AT MONTEVIDEO AND COLONIA, 1818-1823

The aduana of Maldonado was the smallest of the three

major ports of the Cisplatina. As shown in Table 20, the

customs accounts for 1825 indicate that local pulperias (dry

goods stores) provided the largest share of tax collections,

18%. Lecor had granted a reduction in the pulperia tax in

Maldonado in 1821, from thirty pesos annually to six pe­ sos.63 The fact that pulperlas were still the most impor­

tant tax source, together with maritime import and export

revenues of only 948 pesos, suggests that Maldonado was far-

removed from the overseas trading network. As described

above, Maldonado was an important overland destination for goods from Montevideo. Even if there was extensive contra­ band in the eastern part of the province, trading activity was much slower there. Located nearer the main rivers,

Colonia and Montevideo were much better positioned to par­ ticipate in trade with the continental interior. On the expenditure side, most of the aduana funds went to military spending. A simple comparison of the figures shows that

Maldonado must have been receiving a considerable subsidy from Montevideo, which is the most likely explanation for the unspecified income of almost five thousand pesos.

Strategically, Maldonado was important to the occupation government because it was both the first defensive position for naval forces entering the Rio de la Plata and a key point on the overland route from Montevideo to southern

Brazil (see Figure 2). This alone warranted a British naval presence there from 1807 to 1822, when there were usually at least one warship either in the port or nearby.64

The accounts of the treasury and sub-treasuries reveal the fiscal situation faced by Lecor during the occupation.

As would be expected in a province organized around trade, years of warfare were less prosperous than years of peace. 194

TABLE 20

SELECTED INCOME AND EXPENDITURE, ADUANA OF MALDONADO, 1825 (PESOS)

______Amount Share of Total Income from:

Maritime Imports 110 1% Maritime Exports 838 10% Overland Imports 288 3% Overland Exports 712 8% Pulperias 1,548 18% Remittances 33 0 4% Unspecified Sources 4,897 56%

Total 8,723

Expenditure for:

Military Salaries 5,981 69% and Expenses

Other 2,742 31%

Total______8.723______Source: "Libro Mayor del Ministerio de Maldonado", 1825, AGN-Montevideo, Ex-Archivo General Administrativo, libro 598.

The accounts also show how much Montevideo dominated the province economically through its disproportionate share of

international commerce. The Cisplatina thus reflected the center-periphery organization of the world-economy within

itself, with a clear internal hierarchy. This arises from the fact that the world-system as a whole, as well as all the parts of it, are governed by the same rules of capital­ ism. Capital accumulation takes place unevenly, with a corresponding concentration of commerce, profit, and wealth.

During Lecor's rule, the government of the province focused 195 on Montevideo, obtained most of its income from trade, and spent a large share on defense, a pattern which was familiar to the orientales from Spanish colonial rule. With many of the old commercial practices retained during Brazilian occu­ pation, they must have felt that almost nothing had changed.

Apparently, this is exactly what some of the provincial elites wanted, and explains their support for Lecor.

III. From Cooperation to Resistance

While his encouragement of trade was well-received, the

Baron of Laguna's efforts at merging the Portuguese and oriental elites brought only limited success. His economic policies eliminated active resistance to the invasion, but actual integration was more difficult. The U.S. consul at

Montevideo noted in 1821 that a grand ball given by Portu­ guese merchants, with more than five hundred guests, includ­ ed only ten creoles, and they were only from families close­ ly connected to the government. These individuals are easily identified because their names appeared constantly in official documents. The consul referred to some in a later dispatch: he called Juan Jose Duran "a decided partizan

[sic] of the Portuguese", while Father D&maso Antonio Larra- naga was "addicted to the Portuguese", and Jeronimo Pio

Bianqui was "a determined friend" of them. Tomas Garcia de

Zuniga straddled the fence: "He has maintained his influ­ ence since the revolution with whatever party reigned."65 196

These and other collaborators were known as the "Baron's

Club" to contemporaries.66 Several of them received titles

of nobility and a considerable income as a reward for join­

ing. For example, Tomds Garcia de Zuniga was made Marques de Campo Verde, with ten million reis income, Nicolds Her­ rera was made Conde del Rosario, with three million reis,

Juan Jose Dur&n was Conde del CordobSs, Francisco Juanico was Vizconde del Miguelete, and Fructuoso Rivera was Baron de Tacuarembo.67 Garcia de Zflniga later received a gold cross from Lecor, in honor of his service to the nation from

1819 to 1822 as an official in the occupation government.68

Given the political shifts the oriental elite had undergone since 1806, supporting Lecor must have been judged by some to be the best way to pursue their own interests. As later events would show, it was a shaky foundation on which to build a permanent relationship.

In the first few years of his rule, things went smooth­ ly, and Lecor set up a comfortable arrangement for himself as the head of elite society in Montevideo. In 1820, the

U.S. diplomat John Murray Forbes was pleasantly surprised by the luxurious reception he received. The Portuguese general was respected even by his foes— Pueyrredon fled to Lecor's protection in Montevideo when driven from power in Buenos

Aires in 182l.69 In September of that year, the U.S. con­ sul at Montevideo described Lecor's achievements:

The Portuguese to all intents and purposes are the actual and real sovereigns of the country. Their troops 197

occupy every military point: their coin, gold, silver and copper, until their arrival unknown, circulates and is current in every place. The King's portrait re­ ceives every mark of obeisance whether in the theatre or the Cabildo and the cries of "Long live the King of Portugal and now Cisplatina" alone resounds. The General doubtless casts a longing eye to something like recognition of the legitimacy of the intrusion of the Portuguese into this territory.70

While the Baron was wooing the elite, the countryside

remained quietly faithful to the ideals of Artigas. Portu­

guese policy was not directed toward winning their hearts

and minds; only the mercantile elite mattered. The British charge d'affaires Chamberlain noted in 1816 that "the hatred the lower classes of Spanish Americans bear the Brazilians

is exceedingly great."71 Nevertheless, in 1821, Lecor called together hand-picked representatives from the popula­ tion centers of the province and they obediently voted for

incorporation into the Portuguese royal possessions. Most of the delegates were important landowners, and part of their stated reasons for requesting incorporation was the desire for order and secure commerce: "in this way, the province liberates itself from the most baneful of all slaveries, that of anarchy."72 In other words, they were willing to live under domination to preserve their own social and economic positions. According to a South Ameri­ can diplomat in London, for the majority of orientales. the annexation was bitterly involuntary, and "in all probability they would as soon have consented to become Moors.1,73 198

One part of the Banda Oriental apparently happy about

incorporation into the Portuguese empire in 1821 was the

town of Colonia del Sacramento, where a great deal of royal­

ist sentiment could be found, especially among the older

residents. Colonia was the first part of the Cisplatina to

ratify the Brazilian constitution of 1824; in fact, even

before it was finished, they declared their allegiance to

its anticipated completion. But the people of Colonia were

an exception, because of their historical ties to Brazil.74

Lecor engineered the vote for incorporation in an

attempt to prevent the Portuguese Cortes from trading his hard-won conquest for a small Iberian town held by Spain.

The Cortes disapproved and renounced the move.75 In 1822, the conflict between Lecor and the Cortes escalated, but the general was well-positioned for a fight. The U.S. consul in

Brazil reported that Lecor had a Montevidean agent in Rio de

Janeiro, Lucas Obes, sent to help build political support for the Baron in the capital in anticipation of crucial events. The consul noted that Lecor "is said to be a man of talents and deep ambition, particularly noted for prudence and foresight." When Pedro declared his intention to remain in Brazil, the Baron and his 2500 troops supported the prince,76 thereby demonstrating his foresight, and the

Cortes responded by trying to force him out of office. The

Portuguese faction in the Banda Oriental, led by Alvaro da

Costa, took control of Montevideo, while Lecor fled to Canelones. In 1823, fighting erupted between the two.77

The orientales had to take sides also, and the majority of the elite— bureaucrats, officers, estancieros and wealthy merchants— threw their lot in with Lecor. On the other hand, there were those who resented his policies, such as smaller merchants who were not part of the new Brazilian network, and some landowners who clung to Artigas' ideals.

They had never given up their preference for political autonomy and wider socio-economic opportunities. Many bet on the possibility that Brazilian independence was a chance for rejoining the United Provinces under some sort of feder­ alist arrangement.78 For example, Lavalleja revolted in

1823, and was forced to flee to Buenos Aires by his old comrade Rivera.79

Lecor was determined to hang on and asked the Bank of

Buenos Aires, then owned by British investors, to give him a line of credit for fighting da Costa. A short while later, a Brazilian fleet under the command of Admiral Thomas Coch­ rane arrived and began to blockade Montevideo. Thanks to the invisible hand of the British, and the efforts of his oriental supporters, Lecor had complete control again by mid-November.80 Troops from the army and navy of the new

Empire made their official entries into Montevideo in March

1824.81 For the Brazilians, the affair amounted to nothing more than "a sideshow in [their] war for independence,"82 but for the Banda Oriental, it was yet another disruption of 200

normal life, fought over issues imposed upon them by their

larger neighbors. It was also a re-affirmation of the

hierarchy of power within the world-system. Britain had

intervened once again to protect the commerce of the Rio de

la Plata from disturbance.

Lecor's problems had their roots in his neocolonial

approach to the Cisplatina. During his rule as governor,

Lecor issued many regulations and decrees affecting com­

merce. They had two purposes, to encourage trade and to

benefit Brazilian merchants. Gradually, even those orien­

tales who had welcomed the Brazilian occupation began to

perceive that they were meant to be absolute subordinates.

In 1819 and 1820, the first few regulations were favorable to local interests. Lecor reduced the fees for ships des­ tined for other ports which stopped in Montevideo first, and gave permission to build a new dock. He allowed for the

free establishment of saladeros. To protect the cattle

stock, he declared illegal the slaughter of cows, the use of cattle-hide boots, and the overland export of cattle from the province. Lecor also prohibited itinerant peddling, probably to discourage the sale of contraband goods.83

In 1821, the pace quickened and frequent economic decrees issued from the occupation government. Several dealt with the problem of reduction of the cattle herds, in various ways, by: prohibiting trade in cow hides; charging an extra tax on unbranded hides; requiring proof of legal 201 acquisition for buyers of cattle hides; outlawing the

slaughter of cattle found on public lands; prohibiting

overland transport of cattle, hides, tallow or meat; and exhorting estancieros to increase their herds. All of these measures could be viewed as supportive of the ranchers.

Lecor also demonstrated his largesse to the common people, by decreeing that canoes and small boats carrying firewood and charcoal could navigate freely, and by declaring that those who rented municipal lands were excused from rent payments while their land was occupied by his troops.84

Other regulations of 1821 demonstrated clearly that

Brazilians meant to profit from the occupation, by strictly controlling commerce and securing preferential treatment.

Overland imports and exports of Brazilian and local products were prohibited, but maritime cargoes of mare's grease, salted meat and jerky were free of all export taxes. This made them cheaper for Brazilian merchants, who sold pre­ served beef to slaveowners. On the import side, Portuguese and Brazilian goods received preference by paying lower warehouse and re-export taxes than foreign goods. Portu­ guese wines, liquors and brandy carried in Brazilian ships paid 33% less in import taxes than the same products brought in foreign ships. To underscore Montevideo's role as a subsidiary in Brazilian trade, imports of manufactured dry goods, wine and liquor were granted a fifteen-day grace period before transit and re-export taxes would be imposed. 202

Foods and building materials, likely intended for local use, were specifically excluded from the grace period.85

Soon creoles began to complain that commerce had been

stimulated only to be injured by discriminatory regulations.

Estancieros particularly resented prohibitions against

slaughtering cattle, which effectively limited the main

source of income from their estates. One landowner com­ plained that "our saladeros and our men have emigrated" northward, and that Rio Grande do Sul had become a "substi­ tute" for Montevideo in foreign commerce. Lecor attempted to diffuse their resentments by relaxing some restrictions, such as allowing the slaughter of cows, just in time for his

Congreso Cisplatino in June 1821.86 Yet another blow to

local commerce came in March 1822, when a new regulation al­ lowed imported hides to be introduced indiscriminately, without paying extra taxes. Montevideans felt that this was another policy meant to give preference to Brazilian prod­ ucts in regional trade.87 Of course it was; Brazil intend­ ed to rule over the Cisplatina as a colonial power, to the economic benefit of the rulers, not the subjects.

Taken together, the regulations concerning trade and production issued by Lecor reveal his desire to stimulate cattle production in the Cisplatina, as well as incorporate it fully into the Brazilian trading system with Rio de

Janeiro at the hub. He wanted to stimulate the province's wealth, but restrict its autonomous development, as had the 203

Spanish Bourbon reformers. They had supported the growth of a mercantile elite in the Rio de la Plata while legally re­ stricting its access to trade goods. In 1810, the portenos demonstrated that their first loyalty was to free trade by declaring independence. In the Banda Oriental of the 1820s, preserving Brazilian commercial domination also had high costs. Not only did Lecor's government have to spend a great deal of money on defense, but the political tensions created by the foreign control of the province undermined his success.

Brazil did appropriate some economic benefits from its occupation of the Cisplatina, by establishing itself in the semi-peripheral role of an intermediary. The scores of ships entering Montevideo attest to the fact that Lecor achieved his goal of stimulating trade. In spite of growth overall, after several years of occupation the members of the Consulado of Montevideo became concerned that even though trade was growing, their relative share was shrink­ ing. They complained that Buenos Aires was attracting trade away from their port. In August 1824, the merchants issued a report to the Baron of Laguna detailing the reasons why this was so. They identified five advantages of Buenos

Aires that they perceived as crucial: lower taxes; a less burdensome collection system; a more favorable method of calculating taxes; a better warehouse system; and the monop­ oly of one port for the entire province of Buenos Aires.88 204

The more important factor, though perhaps the Consulado had

been too co-opted by Lecor to mention it, was the secondary

status of Montevideo within the Brazilian Empire. While

Brazilian merchants directed oriental trade, Buenos Aires

was developing its ties with interior provinces. As noted

previously, this was an important benefit to the portenos

from the occupation of the Banda Oriental.

Other aspects of fiscal policy also irritated the

subjugated orientales. For example, in 1821, taxes on

foreign liquor, wine and brandy were raised in order to pay

for quartering Brazilian troops in the Cisplatina, a measure guaranteed to cause displeasure in an occupied province.

Another problem was that throughout the occupation, Brazil­

ian ships dominated trade through Montevideo, virtually eliminating local shipping companies. One serious conse­ quence was the displacement of the trade in dried meat with

Cuba, where shipments from Buenos Aires and Brazil replaced oriental cargoes. Artisans also felt victimized because of the influx of British and North American manufactures. The old resentments about discriminatory trade policy re- emerged, and deepened from 1822 onward.89

Members of the privileged class slowly began to resist the Luso-Brazilian occupation. As early as 1819, a secret society called the Caballeros Orientales was formed in

Montevideo, including both orientales and portenos who opposed Lecor and his policies. The group re-emerged in 205

1822, with the stated goal of reuniting with the United

Provinces. While many of the adherents had been followers

of Artigas, the resistance to Lecor was not an artiauista

phenomenon. They preserved his ideal of self-determination,

but the social changes he had proposed were not at all a

part of this new independence movement. The Caballeros

Orientales began to spread their message publicly in Decem­

ber 1822, through two newspapers and a number of leaflets

distributed in Montevideo.90 One member of Lecor's govern­

ment wrote to other towns, warning them of "anarchists" who

were trying to destabilize the province. He also tried to

spread distrust of the opposition by claiming they took

secret orders from Buenos Aires.91 Another official as­

serted that it was better to live in slavery under Brazil,

"if it is slavery to breathe tranquilly under a representa­

tive, liberal, fair and just government, which guarantees

the rights of man."92 Their propaganda efforts suggest an

enduring grass-roots opposition to the occupation.

When the conflict between Lecor and da Costa broke out, the opposition group took advantage of the loosening of

Brazil's grip. After Lecor was ejected from Montevideo, they pushed for a popularly-elected Cabildo, which took office in January 1823. It was composed mainly of creole merchants, members of the Caballeros Orientales, who wanted to keep Lecor out of the capital.93 Their ties to Buenos

Aires were revealed in their actions. In October 1823, they 206 proclaimed the Act of Incorporation of 1821 to be "null, arbitrary and criminal," and also declared that

this Provincia Oriental del Uruguay does not belong, nor ought to nor wants to belong, to any power, state or nation other than one that is composed of the prov­ inces of the old union of the Rio de la Plata.94

The reaction of Lecor to the rebellion was a strike at

Montevideo's jugular— he imposed a blockade of the port, and reinforced it by lowering export taxes by 50% at Maldonado and Colonia, which were still under Brazilian control.95

He also exhorted estancieros to move their herds out of the

Cabildo's reach, into territory held by Brazilian troops.96

Once again Montevideo's ties to its hinterland broke down.

The effectiveness of the blockade lowered customs receipts drastically, as demonstrated in the treasury accounts for

1823 (see Table 18). In order to raise funds to resist

Lecor, the Cabildo had to go begging door-to-door for loans from the citizenry.97 In spite of their distress, some members of the creole elite became even more firmly en­ trenched in their anti-Brazilian stance. They placed their hopes on Buenos Aires, where there was some interest in liberating the Banda Oriental. However, there was also an important group of merchants, landowners and financiers who had ties with Lecor's government and the co-opted oriental elite. The Caballeros Orientales still did not have the backing they needed to achieve independence from Brazil, either in Buenos Aires or in their own province. Their interlude ended in November 1823, when da Costa signed a 207 treaty with Lecor, enabling the latter to retake Montevi­ deo .98

After regaining control, Lecor required all public employees and citizens of Montevideo to sign an oath of fidelity to the Brazilian constitution and Emperor. Pages of signatures attest to his tight grip over Montevidean society.99 He also noted in public records the names of the "enemies of the cause of Brazil".100 He did make a conciliatory gesture to deserters, extending an imperial pardon and encouraging them to rejoin the Brazilian army,101 but this was probably necessary to maintain the occupation force. In 1824, Lecor also continued to try to make Brazilian rule permanent through political concessions.

Several meetings took place to elect representatives from the Cisplatina to the Brazilian Legislative Assembly, with delegates from Montevideo as well as other districts of the province. The top vote-getters were Lucas Jose Obes, Nico- lds Herrera and Father Damaso Antonio Larranaga,102 all members of the "Baron's Club". Ultimately, these measures were all political maneuvers which failed to protect the occupation from the problem of serious opposition growing within the elite.

After Brazilian independence from Portugal, the Banda

Oriental was still regarded and treated as a colony, but this eventually backfired on the Brazilians. The cost of maintaining an extensive bureaucracy and an occupying army 208

was high; the national government in Rio de Janeiro had to

provide a subsidy to the province of thirty thousand dollars

in 1824, and fell into the risky circumstance of owing four years' pay to soldiers stationed in the Cisplatina. These

shaky finances led to more resentments among the creole merchants, who were forced from time to time to loan money to Lecor's government. In return, they were assured the

loans would be paid off after all other obligations,103 which made them nothing more than arbitrary supplementary taxes and therefore odious.

Opposition to the Brazilian occupation had been kept alive in Buenos Aires by oriental emigres, who published two anti-Brazil newspapers, La Aurora and El Piloto. It was among the portenos that patriots planned the eventual liber­ ation of their home province.104 The government of Buenos

Aires made threatening pronouncements against Lecor and his government from time to time, but for several years it was just rhetoric. An effort by some orientales to obtain the support in 1823 of Bernardino Rivadavia, the foreign minis­ ter of Buenos Aires, failed miserably. The government protested a lack of funds, refusing to act in spite of predictions that the Brazilians would soon fortify the province and make it a greater problem than ever.105

Government intransigence notwithstanding, many patriots who had opposed Lecor in 1823 continued to work for indepen­ dence in 1824 and 1825, in Buenos Aires and the other litto­ 209

ral provinces. They were inspired by the defeat of the

Spanish forces at the Battle of Ayacucho, which ended colo­ nial rule in all of Spanish South America except the Banda

Oriental.106 Public opinion in Buenos Aires was also lean­

ing in favor of war with Brazil to liberate the province.

As the crowd in Buenos Aires celebrated the victory at

Ayacucho, they shattered the windows of the Brazilian Mini­ ster's residence.107 To the people, Brazil had become the main enemy of liberty. To their leaders, Brazil stood in the way of nation-building and was an obstacle to Buenos

Aires extending its economic network. As the opposition coalesced in Buenos Aires, a common enemy united the porte­ nos and the orientales for the first time since the British invasions of 1806-1807, and laid the groundwork for an

Argentine-Brazilian war.

IV. Assessment of the Occupation

The primary change brought to the Banda Oriental by the

Luso-Brazilian occupation was a political one. Power was ultimately in the hands of Joao VI and Pedro I, and by extension, the Baron of Laguna and his armies. But economi­ cally, nothing fundamental changed, and in fact the occupa­ tion helped deepen the province's ties to the world-economy, in the continuation of a process begun decades earlier. The interlude of autonomy had been so brief that in ten years the Banda Oriental essentially passed from Spanish imperial 210 rule to a Luso-Brazilian analogue. It was not the world- system itself, buth rather the roles of some actors in South

America which were changing. A new colonialism emerged, in which "Brazil transformed itself into an intermediary place for foreign goods" with respect to the Banda Oriental.108

This colonialism came to be as resented as Spanish rule had been, and some local landowners and merchants, who had for­ merly enjoyed privileges granted by the crown, considered it a greater exploitation.109

There were some direct economic benefits to Brazil from the occupation. Ranchers in the southernmost part of the country profited not only from trade in hides and tallow, but by supplying horses and cattle to the army. The great­ est prize was cattle, which invaders rounded up and drove over the border. Accusers claimed four million head were expropriated. Even if this figure is an exaggeration, a sudden influx of cattle can be deduced from the growth of the saladero industry in Rio Grande do Sul, which had only thirteen meat-salting establishments before 1817, but over

12 0 in 1825.110 One estanciero lamented that

one has seen nothing in the country but Portuguese rounding up enormous herds of cattle in a systematic, continuous, orderly operation which drains away the herds, enriching the ranches in Rio Grande; only a few hidden wild cows are saved in the hills. To facilitate the operation, fires are lit in the hills and the grasslands. One sees fires everywhere which last for days, fields burning, clouds of smoke, ashes.111

The U.S. consul at Buenos Aires likewise reported that Lecor was stealing the cattle of the Banda Oriental.112 A sudden 211

increase in dried meat exports from Rio Grande to Cuba and

the U.S. in 1818 supports such claims.113 The loss of

cattle may have been one reason why Montevideo actually

imported dried and salted meat from Rio Grande do Sul in

1817 and 1818, probably to feed the Brazilian troops.114

Overall, however, the invasion was not a bonanza for

Rio Grande do Sul. The total value of exports from the

province grew from 1,212.6 contos in 1816 to 1,324.6 in 1817

to 1,405.6 in 1818, but then fell to 1,186.6 contos in

1819.115 Figure 14 shows the changes in volume of exports

for the five most important cattle products. The last year before occupation of the Banda Oriental, 1816, is used as a base for comparison. The indices for exports of dried meat, bull hides, horns and tallow from Rio Grande actually de­ clined after the invasion. There was a sudden increase in salted meat exports in 1817, but it did not even match the

levels attained in 1808, 1810, 1814 and 1815. By 1818, exports of salted meat had fallen back to one of the lowest levels in a decade. Rio Grande clearly had the capacity to export much more, but did not.

The French naturalist Auguste de Saint-Hilaire, who travelled through southern Brazil in 1820, suggested one possible explanation. He found that although the occupation of the Banda Oriental demonstrated the regional power of 500

400

300

200

100 -a

1805 1806 1807 1808 1810 1811 1812 1813 1814 1815 1818 1817 1818 1819

— Dried Meat ~ + ~ Salt Meat Bull Hides - S “ Horns Tallow

Source: Saint-Hilaire, Viagem, 70-72.

FIGURE 14

VOLUME OF EXPORTS OF SELECTED CATTLE PRODUCTS FROM RIO GRANDE, 1805-1819 (1816=100)

Brazil, it was of questionable value to the Empire. He de­ scribed resentment among many officials in Rio Grande do Sul about the expense of the invasion and occupation. For example, he reported that the passage of Lecor's division through the province had cost the governor 5,600 contos.

Healso observed that even if the Portuguese could retain the territory, the cost of acquiring it was high, not only because of the direct expenses, but because it diverted some commerce and population away from Sao Paulo, Rio Grande do

Sul and Santa Catarina. In his view, these provinces had profited from the insurrections in the Spanish colonies. He noticed that most of the best houses in Rio Grande de Sao 213

Pedro were built in the years before the Brazilian con­

quest.116

Saint-Hilaire's conclusions fit well with the export pattern shown in Figure 14. It indicates that the highest

levels of exports for most cattle products were in the years

from 1811 to 1816, precisely when the Banda Oriental was embroiled in warfare, and before the invasion. In other words, there had been greater economic opportunity for southern Brazil without political domination. Rio Grande do

Sul was a competitor of the Cisplatina, importing and ex­ porting the same goods, but without the easy access to the waterways of the interior that the more southerly province had. In their haste to enlarge their Empire, the rulers of

Brazil undermined Rio Grande do Sul, part of their prior possessions. Conquest was very costly; that lesson had been learned by the British and was being applied in the forma­ tion of their own informal empire.

One reason Buenos Aires had been willing to yield to the Brazilian occupation of the Banda Oriental was the fear that its own dominion over interior provinces was in jeopar­ dy. In fact, Brazilian protectionism helped Buenos Aires gain a stronger hold over the river and overland trades because it weakened the links between Montevideo and the provinces of the defunct Federal League. In 1822, Buenos

Aires was able to form a customs union with Corrientes,

Entre Rios and Santa F6, helping to attract some foreign 214 trade away from Montevideo.117 The port of Buenos Aires received 395 ocean-going vessels in 1822, and this figure

jumped to 490 in 1823.118 Imports from overseas reached a value of 11.2 million pesos in 1822, of which 2.6 million pesos worth, or 23%, were re-embarked goods.119 The sala- dero industry grew as the capital's regional dominance did, with twenty new factories established between 1822 and

1825.120 In that year, the saladeros of the city processed about 70,000 cattle.121

Within this scenario of expansion, the finances of the government of Buenos Aires were rickety. In spite of some gains, the port city was far from achieving its goal of regional unification, and under a great deal of pressure to increase public revenues because of the terrible condition of state finances. In 1821, the government had to resort to the old Spanish technique of a forced loan from mer­ chants.122 One of the main problems was the carryover on the books of defunct accounts, mainly relics from the colo­ nial accounting system, and essentially uncollectable. The porteno leadership began to pay serious attention to finan­ cial reform in 1821.123 In 1822, a new general tariff schedule appeared, with hopes of providing steady income to the state without damaging trade. With some modifications, it remained in effect for the rest of the decade.124 It did not meet all their financial needs, however, and Buenos

Aires had to obtain a loan for £1 million in 1824. The 215

government wanted the money so badly that it even agreed to

pay a 15% commission.125

The Brazilian occupation of the Banda Oriental gave the

government of Buenos Aires a relatively peaceful interlude

within which to settle their financial problems. The mili­

tary spending listed in Table 21 fell in 1819 and 1820 to

the lowest levels of the entire period from 1810 to 1828.

The increased spending which began in 1821 and continued to

1825 was partly attributable to maintaining internal con­

trol, but also to the efforts of Buenos Aires to drive back

the Indians to the south, and thereby extend ranching terri­

tory.126 This kind of military spending had some produc­

tive result, and indicates not simply survival, but expan­

sion.

Table 21 also shows that government tax revenues from

trade fluctuated considerably from year to year. The yield

of the aduana. the sum of direct cash transfers to the treasury and payments made for obligations of the govern­ ment, stayed in a range between 1.5 and two million pesos until 1825. Import taxes were the most important category, usually collecting well over one million pesos, except in

1820, when the federalist-centralist struggle destroyed the government. It was restored again in September 1820 under

Martin Rodriguez, who managed to assert the control of

Buenos Aires over the provinces.127 The figure for 1825 216

TABLE 21

SELECTED CUSTOMS AND TREASURY DATA, BUENOS AIRES, 1817-1825 (PESOS)

Year Imoort Taxes Aduana Yield Militarv Snendincr

1817 1,421,200 2,059,057 453,050

1818 1,370,216 1,961,416 628,791

1819 1,120,193 1,642,063 363,462

1820 755,851 1,557,032 375,860

1821 1,379,001 2,162,348 641,912

1822 1,645,815 1,965,066 916,550

1823 1,571,342 1,877,898 780,184

1824 ------1,188,747

1825 2.091.144 2.450.500 947.968 Sources: AGN-Buenos Aires, Sala III, legajos 38-3-17, 38-4- 2, 6, 9, 12 and 15, 38-5-2 and 9, "Libro Mayor de la Aduana de Buenos Ayres", 1817-1823 and 1825; legajos 39-4-11, 15 and 19, 39-5-4, 9, 11, 17 and 20, 40-1-1 and 5, "Libro Mayor de la Caja de Buenos Aires", 1817-1825.

Notes: Aduana yield is the remittance sent to the central treasury and payments made for obligations of the govern­ ment. Import taxes includes overseas imports only. Mili­ tary spending is the sum of salaries and expenses.

also breaks away from the trend for the decade, perhaps because of the "Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Naviga­ tion" between the United Provinces and Great Britain, signed in February 1825, which granted reciprocal most favored nation status, reciprocal freedom of religion for citizens living abroad, and the agreement by Buenos Aires to give up the slave trade.128 This gave official approval to the 217 commercial relationship British merchants had been building for decades. Another likely source of trade growth was the expansionary credit policy of 1824 and 1825.129

As shown in Table 22, by 1824, Buenos Aires occupied first place in British trade with the former Spanish colo­ nies, buying and selling much more than any other, and making Buenos Aires second only to Brazil in economic impor­ tance to Britain within Latin America. This prominence in trade again demonstrates that Buenos Aires had a chance at

TABLE 22

VALUE OF BRITISH TRADE WITH SPANISH AMERICA, 1824 (POUNDS STERLING)

British Imports______Exports to Britain

Mexico 369,776 221,825

Colombia 305,621 45,275

Peru 408,872 15,316

Chile 489,601 9,719

United 803,237 388,338 Provinces Source: Nunez, An Account. 172n.

joining the semi-periphery, by virtue of its access to markets. On the other side of the relationship, Table 23 lists the value of imports into Buenos Aires in 1825 by origin, and the dominance of Britain is obvious, with four million pesos worth of imports. Brazil is second, with 218

950,000 pesos worth, and the U.S. is third, with 900,000 pesos worth.

TABLE 23

VALUE OF ARGENTINE IMPORTS IN 1825, BY ORIGIN (PESOS)

Value of Imports_____ Share of Total

Britain 4,000,000 51% Brazil 950,000 12 U.S. 900,000 11 Mediterranean 575,000 7 France 550,000 7 N. Europe 425,000 5 Cuba & other 425,000 5

Total 7,825,000 (£1,500.000) Source: John Lynch, "Foreign Trade and Economic Interests in Argentina, 1810-1850" in Liehr, ed. America Latina en la 6ooca de Simon Bolivar. 144-145.

Note: Percentages do not add to 100% because of rounding.

It is possible to estimate the fiscal importance of each of Buenos Aires' trading partners by combining Tables

21 and 23, which show that 7.8 million pesos worth of mari­ time imports generated about 2.1 million pesos in taxes.

This is an average tax rate of 26.7%, but in general higher rates were charged on comestibles than manufactured goods.

The basic ad valorem rate was 15%, and applied to woolen and cotton cloth, which comprised the bulk of imports from

Britain. Therefore, we can estimate that 600,000 pesos, or

28.6%, of import revenues derived from British imports.

Brazil exported such products as sugar, tobacco, yerba and 219 liquor to its neighbors, and these were taxed at rates from

20% to 30%. Taking 20% as a minimum, Brazilian imports contributed at least 190,000, or 9% of revenues. U.S. ships usually brought a mix of foodstuffs and manufactured goods to the Rio de la Plata. Using the basic 15% rate, imports from the U.S. contributed an estimated 135,000 pesos, or

6.4%, of revenues.130 These figures are only very rough ap­ proximations, but they are indicative of the singular impor­ tance of Britain to the government finances of Buenos Aires.

As the events of the Argentine-Brazilian War would demon­ strate, if Britain were to lose Buenos Aires as a trading partner, it would hurt, but if Buenos Aires lost Britain, the United Provinces might not hold together. This unequal relationship derived from, and helped maintain, the relative position of the two within the world-system.

Parallelling the dominance Buenos Aires asserted over the interior, the British influence in Buenos Aires grew stronger every year. Canning was ready to begin full diplo­ matic relations with Buenos Aires in 1825, but delayed accepting the porteno envoy, Bernardino Rivadavia, because he had planned to be accredited to the British and French courts simultaneously. The Foreign Office was aghast at the suggestion, and persuaded the Buenos Aires government to act quickly to correct its mistake.131 The portenos wanted and needed to maintain a good relationship with the most power­ ful nation in the world. They turned to Britain for com­ 220

merce, loans and diplomatic recognition. The U.S. charge

d'affaires at Buenos Aires, John Murray Forbes, reported in

1824 that he could not find "any gentleman of any rank or

influence, who is not directly subservient to British influ­

ence." Regarding Britain as the chief competitor of the

U.S., Forbes was also discouraged by the fact that "England

derives from this country... all the advantages of colonial

dependence, without the responsibility or expense of civil

or military administration."132 It was clear to contempo­ raries that the British were not trying to take over the

former Spanish possessions in old colonial style, but in­

stead were working for economic domination combined with

indirect political influence— the informal empire. 221

NOTES

1. Emilia Viotti da Costa, "The Political Emancipation of Brazil," in A.J.R. Russell-Wood, ed., From Colony to Nation; Essavs on the Independence of Brazil (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975), 51-54.

2. Neill Macaulay, Dorn Pedro: The Struggle for Liberty in Brazil and Portugal. 1798-1834 (Durham: Duke University Press, 1986), 56; Street, Artiaas. 285.

3. Ibid., 286.

4. David Carneiro, Historia da Guerra Cisplatina (Brasilia: Editora Universidade de Brasilia, 1983), 19. At least one "old contrabandist" helped lead the Portuguese overland forces. Auguste de Saint-Hilaire, Viaaem ao Rio Grande do Sul. 1820-1821. trans. Leonam de Azeredo Penna (Belo Horizonte: Itatiaia, 1974), 86.

5. Macaulay, Dorn Pedro. 55; Street, Artiqas, 286-288; Henry Chamberlain, Rio de Janeiro, to Viscount Castlereagh, 20 July 1816, F.O. 63/194, in Webster, Britain and the Indepen­ dence of Latin America, vol. 1, 177.

6. Quoted in Street, Artiqas. 289.

7. Anna, Spain and the Loss of America. 158.

8. For a full discussion of the diplomatic machinations, see Russell H. Bartley, Imperial Russia and the Struggle for Latin American Independence. 1808-1828 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1978), 106-130.

9. Proclamation of the Cabildo of Montevideo, 22 June 1816, AGN-Montevideo, Archivos Particulares, caja 328, carpeta 1, folio 19.

10. Street, Artiqas. 291-301.

11. AGN-Montevideo, Catcilogo Ex-Archivo y Museo Histo- rico, caja 12.

12. Holanda, Historia Geral. 319.

13. Street, Artiqas. 304.

14. Letter published in the Gazette of Buenos Aires. 1 December 1817, quoted in C. A. Rodney and John Graham, The Reports on the Present State of the United Provinces of South America, reprint ed. (New York: Praeger, 1969), 305. 222

15. Nina L. Kay Shuttleworth, A Life of Sir Woodbine Parish (London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1910), 247.

16. The citizens of Baltimore showed their support for Artigas by wearing badges in their hats, and were happy to engage in privateering against the Portuguese, who had given aid to the British in the War of 1812. Phil Brian Johnson and Robert Kim Stevens, "Impossible Job, Impossible Man! Thomas Sumter, Jr., and Diplomatic Relations between the United States and the Portuguese Court in Brazil, 1809-1821" in T. Ray Shurbutt, ed., United States-Latin American Relations. 1800-1850: The Formative Generations (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1991), 92-95.

17. Street, Artiqas. 309, 370.

18. Ibid., 328.

19. Hann, "Brazil and the Rio de la Plata", 323-326, 3 33; Jose Rondeau, Buenos Aires, to Baron of Laguna, Montevi­ deo, 27 January 1819, and Baron of Laguna, Montevideo, to Jose Rondeau, Buenos Aires, 8 February 1819, AGN-Buenos Aires, Sala X, legajos 1-6-3 and 1-6-11, respectively.

20. Manchester, British Preeminence. 143-144; Macaulay, Dorn Pedro. 55-56.

21. Ibid., 60-61.

22. "Libro para la toma de razon de los despachos...", entry for 4 Feb. 1817, and Article 3 of the "Reglamento provi­ sor io, que debe observarse en la Secretaria de la Capitania General de Montevideo", issued by Lecor, 2 January 1818, AGN- Montevideo, Ex-Archivo General Administrative, libro 64.

23. Decree of the Baron of Laguna, 12 July 1819, AGN- Montevideo, Archivos Particulares, caja 335, carpeta 1, folio 58.

24. Alonso Eloy, et al. . La oliqarauia oriental. 50-52.

25. Sala de Touron, et al. . Artiqas v su revolucion agraria, 156.

26. Cabildo of Montevideo to Joao VI, 31 January 1817, in AGN-Montevideo, Catdlogo Ex-Archivo y Museo Historico, caja 12, "1816-1819".

27. Alfredo Castellanos, La Cisplatina. la indeoenden- cia. v la republica caudillesca 1820-1838. Historia Uruquava. vol. 3. (Montevideo: Ediciones de la Banda Oriental, 1974), 2 0 . 223

28. Baron of Laguna to President of the Junta of Tithes, 27 March 1822, in AGN-Montevideo, Archivos Particulares, caja 332, carpeta 7, folio 55; Juan Jos6 Durdn, Montevideo, to Cabildo of Guadalupe, 18 October 1824, in AGN-Buenos Aires, Sala X, legajo 1-6-3, "Banda Oriental".

29. Street, Artiqas. 333.

30. Baron of Laguna, Montevideo, to King Joao VI, Rio de Janeiro, 30 March 1820, AGN-Montevideo, Archivos Particulares, caja 319, folio 1.

31. After the death of the isolationist Paraguayan dictator Jose Gaspar de Francia in 1840, Artigas was given permission to leave the country. By then, he was seventy-six years old, impoverished and ill, and chose to remain in Paraguay until his death in 1850. Street, Artiqas. 370-371.

32. E. E. Vidal, Picturesque Illustrations of Buenos Avres and Montevideo. Consisting of Twenty-Four Views (London: Ackermann, 1820; reprint, Buenos Aires: Mitchell's, 1944), 3.

33. AGN-Montevideo, Catalogo Ex-Archivo y Museo Histo- rico, caja 12.

34. Alonso Eloy, et al. . La oliqarquia oriental. 84; Kroeber, Shipping Industry. 67.

35. Nunez, An Account. 313; Kay Shuttleworth, Sir Woodbine Parish. 248.

36. Scenna, Arqentina-Brasil. 77-78.

37. Burgin, Economic Aspects. 81-82.

38. Reported 19 November 1824 in AGN-Montevideo, Ex- Archivo General Administrative, libro 18, "Actas del Cabildo de Montevideo", 1823-1829.

39. Emphasis in the original letter of Lucas Jose Obes, 16 October 1824, in "Apuntes de las vistas fiscales del senor Oidor Dr. Don Lucas Jose Obes, 1824-1825", AGN-Montevideo, Catcilogo Ex-Archivo y Museo Historico, caja 2 08, carpeta 11.

40. Decree of the Cabildo of Montevideo, 22 September 1825, in AGN-Montevideo, Ex-Archivo General Administrative, libro 65, "Cabildo Dominacion Brasilera".

41. "Toma de razon de los empleos concedidos, 1817-1828" in AGN-Montevideo, Ex-Archivo General Administrativo, libro 64, "Cabildo Dominacion Lusitana." 224

42. Alonso Eloy, et al. . La oligarguia oriental. 64, 111.

43. John Murray Forbes, Buenos Aires, to John Quincy Adams, 21 August 1822, in Manning, Diplomatic Correspondence, vol. 1, 610.

44. Carlos Frederico Lecor to Cabildo of Montevideo, 27 February 1818, in AGN-Montevideo, Archivos Particulares, caja 336, carpeta 3, folio 79.

45. AGN-Montevideo, Cat&logo Ex-Archivo y Museo Histo- rico, caja 12.

46. Baron of Laguna to Consulado of Montevideo, 10 November 1820, AGN-Montevideo, Archivos Particulares, caja 335, carpeta 2, folio 45; Kroeber, Shipping Industry. 34.

47. Jorge M. Soler Vilardebo, Don Miguel A. Vilardebo v su epoca (1773-18441 (Montevideo: Rosgal, 1936), 55.

48. "Libro para la toma de razon de los despachos...", entry for 8 November 1817, AGN-Montevideo, Ex-Archivo General Administrativo, libro 64.

49. Alonso Eloy, et al.. La Oligarguia. 93-98.

50. Macaulay, Pom Pedro. 90; Alonso Eloy, et al. . La Oligarguia Oriental. 66, 81-82; Nunez, An Account. 320.

51. John Murray Forbes, Rio de Janeiro, to [John Quincy Adams], 30 September 1820, in Espil, Once A n o s . 54.

52. Lang, Portuguese Brazil. 199.

53. Platt, Latin America and British Trade. 42.

54. Brown, Socioeconomic History. 77.

55. Memo issued by Tomds Garcia de Zdniga, AGN-Montevi­ deo, Archivos Particulares, caja 319, carpeta 3.

56. Communique of Baron of Laguna, 27 January 1821, AGN- Montevideo, Archivos Particulares, caja 25, carpeta 3, folio 18.

57. Burgin, Economic Aspects. 118.

58. "Entrada de buques al Puerto de Montevideo...de los Rios", AGN-Montevideo, Ex-Archivo General Administrativo, libro 101; Kroeber, Growth of Shipping. 125. 225

59. Lecor, Montevideo, to Juan Jose Durdn, 11 July 1817, Dur&n to Lecor, 22 August 1817, Jos£ Marla Roo to Lecor, 22 August 1817, AGN-Montevideo, Archivos Particulares, caja 24, carpeta 2, ff. 26-28.

60. "Real aduana de Montevideo, Libro Auxiliar" (1817). AGN-Montevideo, Ex-Archivo General Administrativo, libro 112.

61. "Razon de los Impuestos y rentas actuales de la Provincia Cisplatina...", 19 August 1825, AGN-Montevideo, Catdlogo Ex-Archivo y Museo Historico, caja 17.

62. Decree of the Baron of Laguna, Montevideo, 20 February 1821, AGN-Montevideo, Archivos Particulares, caja 25, carpeta 3, folio 36.

63. AGN-Montevideo, Archivos Particulares, caja 25, carpeta 4.

64. Lloyd Hirst, Britons at Maldonado (Montevideo: Ediciones Geminis, 1975), 113-119.

65. W.G. Miller, United States Consul at Montevideo, to John Quincy Adams, Secretary of State, 17 April 1821, and 13 July 1821 in Manning, Diplomatic Correspondence. vol. 3, 2176, 2180-2181.

66. The club also included Nicolds Herrera, Lucas J. Obes, Francisco Llambi, Francisco J. Munoz and Jose Raimundo Guerra. Juan E. Pivel Devoto, "El Congreso Cisplatino (1821)" Revista del Instituto Historico v Geoardfico del Uruguay 12 (1936): 125-126.

67. Alonso Eloy, et al.. La oligarguia oriental. 164- 165.

68. Decree dated 20 July 1825, in AGN-Montevideo, Catalogo Ex-Archivo y Museo Historico, caja 17, "1825-1826".

69. John Murray Forbes, Buenos Aires, to John Quincy Adams, 4 December 1820 and 17 April 1821, in Felipe A. Espil, ed., Once anos en Buenos Aires 1820-1831: Las cronicas dip- lomdticas de John Murray Forbes (Buenos Aires: Emece, 1956), 55, 107.

70. Orthography modernized by the author. W.G. Miller, Montevideo, to John Quincy Adams, 14 September 1821, in Manning, Diplomatic Correspondence, vol. 3, 2185.

71. Henry Chamberlain, Rio de Janeiro, to Viscount Castlereagh, 20 July 1816, F.O. 63/194, in Webster, Britain and the Independence of Latin America, vol. 1, 177. 226

72. The following signed the document: Juan Jose DurSn, Dcimaso Antonio Larranaga, Tom&s Garcia de Zuniga, Fructuoso Rivera, Loreto de Gomensoro, Jose Vicente Gallegos, Manuel Lago, Luis Perez, Mateo Vissillac, Jose de Alagon, Geronimo Pio Bianqui, Romualdo Ximeno, Alejandro Chucarro, Manuel Antonio Silva, Salvador Garcia and Francisco Llambi. Act of Incorporation of the Estado Cisplatino, 18 July 1821, AGN- Montevideo, Ex-Archivo General Administrativo, libro 482.

73. Ndnez, An Account. 320.

74. Luis Enrique Azarola Gil, La epopeva de Manuel Lobo: contribucion a la historia de Colonia del Sacramento (Madrid: Ibero-Americana, 1931), 151-153.

75. Macaulay, Dorn Pedro. 102, 135.

76. P. Sartoris, Rio de Janeiro, to John Quincy Adams, 5 May 1822, in Manning, Diplomatic Correspondence, vol. 1, 734.

77. Adolfo Saldias, Historia de la confederacion arqentina. vol. 1 (Buenos Aires: n.p., 1881; reprint, Buenos Aires: Editorial Universitaria, 1968), 109-110; Macaulay, Dorn Pe d r o . 135.

78. Alonso Eloy, et al.. La Oligarguia. 138.

79. Street, Artiqas. 338.

80. Scenna, Arqentina-Brasil. 88.

81. El Publicista Mercantil de Montevideo. 2 and 3 March, 1824, Biblioteca Nacional, Seccion Hemeroteca, caja 1, rollo 11.

82. Macaulay, Dorn Pedro. 135.

83. AGN-Montevideo, Ex-Archivo General Administrativo, libro 38, "Cabildo. Copiador de Oficios Recibidos, 1819- 1829", ff. 20, 25.

84. Decrees of the Baron of Laguna, 27 January, 8, 17, 19, 20 and 22 February 1821, AGN-Montevideo, Archivos Particu­ lares, caja 25, carpeta 3, ff. 18-38; also, decrees of 20 November 1821, AGN-Montevideo, Cat&logo Ex-Archivo y Museo Historico, caja 14, "1821-1824".

85. Decrees of the Baron of Laguna, 29 March, 27 July and 20 November 1821, AGN-Montevideo, Catalogo Ex-Archivo y Museo Historico, caja 14. 227

86. Alonso Eloy, et al.. La oligarguia oriental. 66-70.

87. Ibid., 71; Decree of the Baron of Laguna, 28 March 1822, AGN-Montevideo, Archivos Particulares, caja 26, carpeta 2, folio 12.

88. Report of the Consulado, 23 August 1824, AGN- Montevideo, Archivos Particulares, caja 335, carpeta 4, ff. 9- 15.

89. Alonso Eloy, et al. . La oligarguia oriental. 66-73.

90. Ibid., 131.

91. Tomcis Garcia de Zuniga, San Jose, to Cabildo of Soriano, 25 and 28 November 1822, in AGN-Montevideo, Ex- Archivo General Administrativo, libro 232, "Dominacion Brasilera, Soriano".

92. Juan Jose Dur&n, to Cabildo of Soriano, 7 January 1823, in ibid.

93. Alonso Eloy, et al.. La oligarguia oriental. 142- 144.

94. Signed by Manuel Perez, Pedro Francisco de Berro, Pedro Vidal, Francisco de las Carreras, Silvestre Blanco, Jose Maria Platero, Ramon Castriz and Juan Francisco Giro. Cabildo of Montevideo, 29 October 1823, in AGN-Montevideo, Ex-Archivo General Administrativo, libro 20, "Actas del Cabildo", 1819- 1823.

95. Decree of Baron of Laguna, 20 January 1823, AGN- Montevideo, Archivos Particulares, caja 26, carpeta 3, folio 14.

96. Baron of Laguna to Juan Jose Dur&n, 25 April 1823, AGN-Montevideo, Archivos Particulares, caja 26, carpeta 4, folio 5.

97. "Relacion de los propietarios pertenecientes al tercer Cuartel de la Ciudad, que adeudan el todo o parte de la cuota que les cupo en el emprestito de 50 mil pesos pedidos por la superioridad y repartido sobre el comercio y propieta­ rios", 13 October 1823, AGN-Montevideo, Archivos Particulares, caja 332, carpeta 7, folio 65.

98. Alonso Eloy, et al. . La oligarguia oriental. 144- 146, 159-161. 228

99. "Acta General", April-May 1824, AGN-Montevideo, Ex- Archivo General Administrativo, libro 65, "Cabildo, Dominacion Brasilera", 1824.

100. Oficio of the Cabildo of Montevideo, 20 September 1824, AGN-Montevideo, Ex-Archivo General Administrativo, libro 66, "Libro que se destino a la toma de razon de los Electores del Distrito de Montevideo", 1824.

101. Decree of 15 June 1824, in AGN-Montevideo, Ex- Archivo General Administrativo, libro 232, "Dominacion Brasilera, Soriano".

102. "Libro que se destina a la toma de razon de los electores del distrito de Montevideo", 1824, AGN-Montevideo, Ex-Archivo General Administrativo, libro 66.

103. Alonso Eloy, et al.. La oligarguia oriental. 172- 173.

104. Antonio Diaz, Galeria contempordnea de hombres celebres de las repflblicas del Plata, vol. 13, Historia de las repfiblicas del Plata (Montevideo: El Siglo, 1879), 77-78.

105. John Murray Forbes, Buenos Aires, to John Quincy Adams, 16 January 1821, 22 February 1823 and 10 November 1823, in Espil, Once aflos. 77, 222, 266.

106. Alonso Eloy, et al.. La oligarguia oriental. 189- 191.

107. John Murray Forbes, Buenos Aires, to John Quincy Adams, 22 June 1823, in Espil, Once anos. 250; Kay Shuttle- worth, Sir Woodbine Parish. 295.

108. Alonso Eloy, et al. . La oligarguia oriental. 73-75.

109. Ibid.

110. Nunez, An Account. 338. Auguste de Saint-Hilaire reported in 1820 that in only one parish of Rio Grande de Sao Pedro, called Sao Francisco de Paula, there were eighteen charaueadas (meat-salting plants) which processed twenty thousand animals per year. Saint-Hilaire, Viaaem. 74.

111. Quoted in Machado, Historia. 17.

112. John Murray Forbes, Buenos Aires, to John Quincy Adams, 1 and 7 April 1821, in Espil, Once a n o s . 103, 106.

113. Reported by Saint-Hilaire, 11 August 1820, in Viaaem. 54. 229

114. Ibid., 70-71.

115. Ibid. I have corrected the total for 1819. According to his own breakdown, the total value of exports reported by Saint-Hilaire is overstated. The error arises in exports of horsehair, the value of which was calculated for 157,551 arrobas (5,041,632 pounds), even though his figures show only 8,799.5 arrobas (281,584 pounds).

116. Saint-Hilaire, Viaaem. 39, 62-63.

117. Alonso Eloy, et al. . La oligarguia oriental. 75-76.

118. "Informe de la comision britdnica sobre el comercio en el Rio de la Plata", 1824, in Academia Nacional de la Historia, Informes sobre el comercio exterior de Buenos Aires durante el gobierno de Martin Rodriguez (Buenos Aires: Aca­ demia Nacional de la Historia, 1978), 39.

119. Ibid., 26.

120. Montoya, Saladeros. 68.

121. Brown, Socioeconomic History. 109-110.

122. John Murray Forbes, Buenos Aires, to John Quincy Adams, 1 April 1821, in Espil, Once anos. 104.

123. Samuel Amaral, "El descubrimiento de la financiac- ion inflacionaria: Buenos Aires, 1790-1830" (Buenos Aires: Academia Nacional de la Historia, 1988), 404-405.

124. Burgin, Economic Aspects. 70-75.

125. J. Fred Rippy, British Investments in Latin America. 1822-1949 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1959), 20-22.

126. See sources for Table 21.

127. Rock, Argentina. 93-97.

128. "Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation", AGN-Buenos Aires, sala X, legajo 1-1-8, "Gran Bretana y Francia. 1824-1827."

129. Amaral, "Financiacion inflacionaria", 381.

13 0. Customs rates are listed in Burgin, Economic Aspects, 70. 230

131. George Canning to Woodbine Parish, Buenos Aires, 24 May 1825, copy in AGN-Montevideo, Cat&logo Ex-Archivo y Museo Historico, caja 17, "1825-1826".

132. Extract from Forbes' correspondence to John Quincy Adams, quoted in Paul B. Goodwin, Jr., "Initiating United States Relations with Argentina", in Shurbutt, ed., United States-Latin American Relations. 105. CHAPTER V

WAR AND INDEPENDENCE, 1825-1830

I. The Argentine-Brazilian War, 1825-1828

There were two contradictory forces at work in the

Banda Oriental by 1825: the strengthening of the province's ties to the world-economy through expanded commerce and trade; and deepening resentments about Brazilian domination, which brought with it administrative restrictions on the oriental economy, as evidenced in Lecor's decrees. Just as in the final years of Spanish rule, the local elite felt themselves denied a complete realization of their commercial potential. In this regard, their interests coincided with those of the British merchants who were constantly seeking more outlets for their goods. The result was that during the Argentine-Brazilian war, the official agents of the

British government acted more directly to influence the region than they had since 1815, and helped bring about the national independence of Uruguay. This was achieved without direct military intervention, reflecting Britain's hegemonic position worldwide and in South America. The British assis­ tance to the orientales thus reinforced, rather than sub­ verted, the regional economic structure put in place over decades.

231 232

Many orientales never fully acquiesced to Brazilian

domination, and retained their desire for independence.

Artigas* torch was picked up again by Juan Antonio Lava-

lleja, a former officer in his army, who led an invasion by

thirty-three patriots into the southwestern Banda Oriental

near Colonia in April 1825. The choice of location was

strategic for two reasons: it was the heart of the river

trade network, and close to Buenos Aires. Lavalleja and his

group had good connections among the wealthy families of

Buenos Aires, and within a few months received over sixteen

thousand pesos in private donations for the cause of libera­

tion. The U.S. consul at Rio de Janeiro reported that he

had heard that the people of Buenos Aires sent arms, men and

money across the river every night to help the orientales.

The porteno government realized that it was in their inter­

est to try to "regain...the Banda Oriental as a 'beautiful

estancia1 for the province of Buenos Aires," and quickly

provided 176,000 pesos in military aid.1 The small band of

rebels became a serious challenge to the occupation when

Lavalleja succeeded in persuading his old comrade in arms,

Fructuoso Rivera, to rejoin the fight for autonomy. Rivera had been one of Lecor1s top officials, and so commanded a

considerable body of troops.2

The Brazilian government responded to the uprising by

suspending constitutional guarantees in the province and

sending more troops to Lecor. The rebels quickly gained control over most of the countryside, while the Brazilians

held on to Montevideo and other towns.3 According to ru­

mor, Lecor was so anxious that he confined himself to his

house in Montevideo.4 In a letter to a Brazilian official

in May 1825, he indicated that he was short of supplies and

worried about the possibility of losing the Banda Orien­

tal.5 One of Lecor's strongest supporters, Tomcis Garcia de

Ztiniga, warned Pedro I that the uprising against his rule

could spread into the heart of Brazil and endanger the Em­

pire.6 Yet the Brazilian government seemed uncertain about

the significance of the rebellion. In Buenos Aires, the

Brazilian consul waited for months for information, in spite

of repeated requests about the intentions of the porteno

government. Finally, the people themselves informed him in

October 1825. Late one night someone pounded on the door of the consul's house and shouted: "Death to the Portuguese!

Death to the Emperor of Brazil! Death to all the friends of that tyrant! And death to the Consul!" Three days later, he asked for his passport in order to leave.7

The rebels established their own provisional government

in June 1825,® and in October 1825, the Banda Oriental was formally re-incorporated into the United Provinces, with

Lavalleja appointed as governor. Reinforcements were sent from other Argentine provinces to help fight the Brazilian

"imperialists." On 10 December, Brazil responded by declar­ ing war on Buenos Aires.9 Overall, the pace of the war was 234

slow. The six thousand men under Lavalleja's command man­

aged to reduce Brazilian strongholds by early 1826 to only

the ports of Colonia, Maldonado and Montevideo. For the

rest of that year, the conflict was mainly a naval war, with

blockade as the primary strategic goal. Brazil was able to

control the Rio de la Plata until February 1827, when the

Admiral of the Buenos Aires fleet, an Irishman named William

Brown, ended the Brazilian blockade and began offensive

action.10

For the most part, the Brazilian land forces suffered

from "poor leadership, inadequate supplies, corruption,

disease, low morale and a high desertion rate."11 The army

was divided by the fact that many officers were Portuguese, while the conscripted soldiers were Brazilians. There were

also units of foreign mercenaries, who received better

treatment. Dorn Pedro faced the challenge of unifying the

country behind the war effort, and made a special trip to

Bahia to rally important planters behind the cause. By mid-

1826, members of the Chamber of Deputies were complaining openly about the terrible conditions endured by the 26,000 recruits. One deputy claimed that a thousand had died even before they arrived at the war zone.12

Lecor faced a difficult situation in the Cisplatina as well. His victory in 1816-1817 had depended on the well- trained Portuguese troops who had gone home after Brazilian

independence. He was left with conscripts, "hungry, shoe­ 235 less, cotton-clad Pernambucans and Bahians [who] shivered in weather so cold that, to their amazement and despair, water turned solid."13 To make matters worse, the troops already stationed in the Cisplatina became ill in August 1825, and three or four died each day.14 Lecor received little help from the navy, which could not even enforce its blockade of

Buenos Aires against the bold merchant ships of the United

States and European nations. The government of Buenos Aires responded to the attack on its trade in kind, by hiring for­ eign privateers to strike at Brazilian shipping along the entire South American coast.15 Lecor was in a vulnerable position, and resorted to printing his own scrip in mid-

1826.16

Pedro I reacted to the assault on Brazilian commerce by planning a decisive offensive for 1827. He travelled to Rio

Grande do Sul to prepare and revitalize the troops, which were soon faced with a major challenge. A damaging naval strike by Admiral Brown on 10 February was followed by the only major land battle of the war, on 20 February at Itu- zaingo, where Brazil endured defeat. In spite of its victo­ ry, Buenos Aires lost almost as many men as the Brazilians.

Afterward, the war intensified, and both sides experienced painful losses. Lecor, who had been raised to the title

Viscount of Laguna, took control of the Brazilian forces again after the defeat at Ituzaingo.17 His methods for dealing with patriotic orientales were the same as they had 236

always been, and a British diplomat in Rio de Janeiro re­

ported that "the common opinion here [is] that General Lecor

will be able to bribe General Lavalleja and his army into

submission. "18

The war was a tremendous struggle for Buenos Aires. In

spite of their victories in battle, the portenos bore exten­

sive damage economically, through the disruption of

trade.19 Buenos Aires suffered a blockade by the Brazilian

navy from December 1825 to September 1828. It was irregu­

larly imposed, and by no means completely successful. In

May 1826, a U.S. diplomat reported that the Plata estuary had been free of Brazilian ships for more than a week,

allowing several foreign ships to get through. The Brazil­

ian effort was also weakened by clandestine trade across the water at night, and North American merchants who felt justi­

fied in running the blockade.20 The U.S. maintained the position that it was not legally bound to recognize a block­ ade that could not be actually enforced, and resented Bra­

zilian protests to the contrary.21 Of course, the more

North Americans applied this loophole, the bigger it got.

Great Britain and France also protested the blockade through diplomatic channels.22

In spite of these deficiencies, the blockade did seri­ ously restrict British trade to Buenos Aires. In 1827, thirty-five ships flying the U.S. flag reached Buenos Aires, while only one made it from Britain.23 This was a drastic 237

reduction for the British, who docked 128 ships in 1821,24

ninety-five in 1825, and only seven in 1826. Nevertheless,

British merchants in Buenos Aires had plenty of capital in

reserve, which enabled them to remit 587,874 dollars to

London in 1827, at a time when the United Provinces were

struggling to pay for the war. Besides the decline in

traffic caused by hostilities, there was another reason

British merchants were anxious to see an end to the con­

flict. As Ernesto Fitte describes:

The blockade operated like the most efficient protec­ tionist system that could have been applied for [the purpose of] invigorating the decadent national indus­ try, and in three months the consul [Woodbine] Parish could observe a clear recuperation of native manufac­ turing in the provinces, which had managed to obtain important orders in the capital at high prices, which according to an informant...made the war popular in those districts, because of the natural elimination of British competitors.25

Of course, this threatened the commercial position of Buenos

Aires as well. In April 1826 the British consul, Woodbine

Parish, wrote to Foreign Secretary George Canning that

President Rivadavia was very concerned about the war de­

stroying the port city's relationship with the interior.26

Table 24 shows data on aduana revenues and military

spending in Buenos Aires during the conflict. The category

of aduana yield includes remittances to the central trea­

sury, direct payments on behalf of the central government, and debt created for the national bank and public credit office. In 1827, the creation of debt inflated the yield of the aduana, which based on tax collections alone would be 238

TABLE 24

SELECTED FISCAL DATA, ADUANA AND TREASURY OF BUENOS AIRES, 1825-1828 (PESOS)

1825______1826______1827______1828

Aduana Yield 2,450,500 1,327,201 5,257,640 4,075,111

Military Salaries 947,968 5,069,696 5,368,986 5,209,156 and Expenses

Total Payments 2,872,863 7,963,407 9,125,994 9,307,357

Aduana Yield -s- Total Payments 85% 17% 23% 43%

Military Spending Total Pavments 33% 64% 59% 56% Source: AGN-Buenos Aires, sala III, legajos 38-5-9, 14, 17, and 20, "Libro Mayor de la Aduana de Buenos Aires", 1825- 1828, and legajos 40-1-5, 7, 9, and 11, "Libro Mayor de la Caja de Buenos Aires", 1825-1828.

only 2.1 million pesos. The aduana helped create over three million pesos in debt that year, by using its taxing power to back the issue of notes. Similarly, the figure for 1828 includes 1.5 million pesos of National Bank debt. With its main sourceof income faltering, the central treasury could only borrow and inflate its way through the war, a habit which it maintained for the following sixty years. This was part of the "discovery" of inflationary financing described by Samuel Amaral. The geo-political goals of Buenos Aires required constant funding for defense, and by restricting trade, open war made the need doubly urgent. Thus the conflict with Brazil was funded by debt and inflation.27

Loans from London disappeared with the financial crash of 239

1825, so the National Bank of Buenos Aires, inaugurated in

February 1826, issued paper money without backing to support

government expenditure.28

Overall, the figures in Table 24 show that war disrupt­

ed trade and tax collections most severely in 1826, when the

aduana was able to provide only 17% of the income needed by

the treasury. Row 4 of the table indicates that this was a

drastic reduction from the 85% level of 1825. The third row

shows the tremendous expansion of the budget required by the

war under total payments, which include military and civil

salaries and expenses, as well as debt service. Military

expenditures leaped to more than half the national budget

(row 5), but remained steady for the duration of the war.

Comparing the first two rows, it is clear that the aduana

revenues could not even keep up with military spending, let

alone the government budget in its entirety. The result was

the issue of paper notes to meet expenses, and a total

government debt that grew to 14.6 million pesos by the

beginning of 1828.29

The impact of restricted imports on Buenos Aires can

also be examined through the customs tax schedule in Table

25. The tax rates for imports varied from 6% to 38%, de­ pending on the type of goods and whether they were stored

for re-embarkation. In contrast, exports of local goods were lightly taxed, with none paying more than 4% ad valo­ rem. This reveals the extent to which British manufacturers 240

TABLE 25

CUSTOMS TAX RATES, BUENOS AIRES, 1826

Tax Category______Item Taxed______Tax Rate

Maritime Imports small luxury items 5% weapons, tar, rice 10% sugar, beverages, foods 20% liquors, large luxury items 30% wheat, salt, hats variable other goods 15%

all goods, premium on taxes already paid, according to above schedule 20% reembarkation of stored goods 2%

Maritime Exports gold and silver 1% hides (ea.) cattle, horse, mule 1/2 real other 1 real other goods 4%

Overland Imports yerba 10% other goods: FREE salted meat, grain, dried vegetables, biscuits, flours, wool, sheepskin, tanned skins, local crafts and manufactures Source: Almanaaue Politico v de Comercio de la Ciudad de Buenos Avres para el ano de 1826 (Buenos Aires: Imprenta del Estado, 1826; reprint ed., Buenos Aires: Ediciones de la Flor, 1968), 23-26.

were supporting the Buenos Aires government. Because of the

fiscal importance of the category of maritime imports, their

goods paid the taxes that supported the state. Furthermore,

any amount of the tax burden not passed on to consumers was

a direct subsidy provided by British mercantile houses.

When imports fell because of the blockade, both the govern­ ment and the consumers suffered. For Brazil, the war was 241

also financially disastrous. The Brazilian naval strategy required that sixty warships be funded in addition to the

costly land forces. The treasury quickly spent a foreign

loan of £3.6 million obtained in 1824, and began to practice

inflationary financing by issuing copper coins and bank notes to pay government expenses.30 A member of the Cham­ ber of Deputies complained that

We have had the war on our hands since 1825, and this is already the third session since then, and the war continues....The committee has proposed that the War Minister be invited to explain to us the mysteries of the war which are as incomprehensible as religious mysteries....The war question is absorbing two-thirds of our money....If it were not for the war, the reve­ nues would suffice and even more than suffice.31

The Emperor's policy was very much like that practiced by the Spanish kings in defense of their empire, and shows that

Brazil was behaving like a semi-peripheral nation, spending money it did not have, to try to bring the trade of the Rio de la Plata under direct control. The method of military financing adopted by Buenos Aires and Brazil had been long used by Spain, and had helped put the latter into a "con- veyor-belt position" in the world-economy. Spain had access to the resources demanded by the core, but did not have the capital to invest in manufacturing, because the money avail­ able to the state was inordinately spent on warfare.32 The semi-periphery did the "dirty work" for the core nations; first Spain, and then Buenos Aires and Brazil, spent a lot of money to maintain control over the Banda Oriental, as 242

part of an economic structure which benefitted the core,

especially Britain, the most.

The war accentuated problems already troubling Buenos

Aires and Brazil. Pedro I was losing control over his Em­

pire, and in Buenos Aires, the government of Manuel Dorrego was in a crisis that would soon lead to the rise of the

notorious dictator Juan Manuel de Rosas. Both sides in the

conflict were susceptible to British direction of the peace process.33 More than any other aspect, the economic cost

of the war was unbearable to the two new nations. The war

cost Brazil not only 8,000 men,34 but also 300 contos per month to maintain the blockade of Buenos Aires, and for the

land forces, another 150 contos monthly above what Rio

Grande do Sul and Montevideo could provide.35 Buenos Aires spent fifteen million pesos on the war, as shown in Table

24. Lost trade between the two must also be considered a cost; in 1822, Brazil had supplied 12.6% of imports at

Buenos Aires.36 Blockades had done unestimable damage to the commerce of both, and their currencies suffered accord­ ingly. The price of Buenos Aires bonds on the London Stock

Exchange fell from 93 7/8 in January 1825 to 20 in October

1829. Another sign of currency depreciation was the rise in price of an ounce of gold, from 30 pesos in 1826 to fifty in

1828, and to 117 3/4 pesos in 18 3 0 . 37 Brazil also experi­ enced a declining exchange rate, because of its "excessive issue of paper and copper" to pay for the war. One conto 243

exchanged for £213 in 1825, but only £95.8, or 45% of its

former level, in 183 0.38

There are scant data available on the economic activity

of the Banda Oriental during the war years, but as the main

battleground, the province must have experienced much the

same destruction and deprivation as it had in wars past.

There are two pieces of evidence indicating a considerable

decline in trade. The first is that the remittance from the

aduana of Montevideo to the central treasury fell from

417,000 pesos in 1825 to 217,000 pesos in 1826.39 The

second is that at the port of Colonia, only thirty-five

ships arrived in 1826, a severe reduction from previous years, when more than two hundred entered annually.40

Domestic conditions also worsened. In Montevideo, the weight of white bread fell from thirty ounces per real in

June 1825 to twenty-four ounces in August 1826, a decrease of 20%. According to Cabildo records, the government strug­ gled with the bakers in 1826 to keep them from reducing the size of loaves even further. Trying to keep bread a reason­ able weight is a typical example of Lecor's attempts to win support from the local population through economic favors.

The availability of food must have varied a great deal, however, because in May 1826, wheat reached the price of fifty-eight pesos per fanega (about 3.9 bushels), six times higher than the typical price earlier in the 1820s.41 At least in the short run, the difficulties of Montevideo and 244

Colonia were Maldonado's gain. The records of the aduana of

Maldonado for 1826, displayed in Table 26, show a dramatic rise in tax collections compared to 1825 (see Table 20).

The 2600% increase in revenues from maritime imports sug­ gests that Maldonado became an important alternate port for the Brazilians during the war, when trade through Colonia and Montevideo was disrupted.

TABLE 26

SELECTED INCOME AND EXPENDITURE, ADUANA OF MALDONADO, 1826 (PESOS)

Amount Share of Total Income from:

Maritime Imports 2,857 27% Maritime Exports 65 — Overland Imports 625 6% Overland Exports 1,054 10% Pulperias 2,160 20% Unspecified 3,926 37%

Total 10,687

Expenditure for:

Military Salaries 27 — and Expenses

Unspecified 10,660 99%

Total 10.687 Source: "Libro Mayor de la Aduana de Maldonado ", 1826, AGN- Montevideo, Ex-Archivo General Administrative, libro 614.

Note: Unspecified amounts probably involved remittances to and from the central aduana and treasury in Montevideo. 245

As for the rebels, Lavalleja's provisional government

controlled most of the province by mid-1826, and was able to

collect about 81,000 pesos in taxes for the year.42 As

depicted in Table 27, this was an increase from the second

half of 1825, when the provisional government took in only

49.000 pesos, and by 1828, the yearly total had reached

309.000 pesos. In each year, the remittances from customs

offices set up along the Uruguay River and near Montevideo

were important sources of funds. By 1828, these provided

228.000 pesos to the patriots' effort. This shows that

there must have been some productive activity taking place

in the Banda Oriental, in spite of the blockades and war­

fare.

Given the disruptions caused by the war, it is not

surprising that time and again, the British diplomatic

correspondence of the period emphasized the importance of

settling the status of the Banda Oriental in order to permit

the freest possible trade.43 During the years of open

conflict between Buenos Aires and Brazil, the balance that

the British had carefully maintained threatened to come

apart completely. As H. S. Ferns points out, "[a]n absurd

situation was developing [in 1825], in which the Brazilian

Navy, manned largely by British subjects, would be fighting

an Argentine Navy manned largely by British subjects in the process of which a commerce conducted largely by British

subjects would be destroyed.1,44 Almost as soon as the war 246

TABLE 27

SELECTED INCOME AND EXPENDITURES, TREASURY OF THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT, 1825 AND 1828 (PESOS)

1825______1828 Income from:

Puloerias 2,490 —_ (5%)

Remittances 22,101 228,284 (45%) (74%)

Sales Taxes 1,350 ------(3%)

General Revenues 23,506 73,482 (47%) (24%)

Other ------7,760 (2%)

Total 49,447 309,526

Expenditures for:

General Expenses 26,439 24,087 (49%) (7%)

Military Salaries 22,644 220,212 and Expenses (43%) (66%)

Civil Salaries 954 70,919 and Expenses (2%) (21%)

Other 3,087 20,449 (6%) (6%)

Total 53 .124 335.666 Sources: AGN-Montevideo, Ex-Archivo General Administrativo, libros 911 and 535, "Libro Mayor de la Tesoreria General", 1825 and 1828, and libro 627, "Contavilidad, Indice", 1828.

Notes: Figures for 1825 are for July-Dee. only. started, the British government began discussing ideas for a

permanent solution. Sir Charles Stuart, envoy to Brazil in

1825, had previously suggested an independent Banda Orien­

tal, but this idea had few adherents outside the province

itself at the time. Foreign Secretary Canning was reluctant

to make so bold a move as setting up a buffer state in the

Banda Oriental, fearing that it might be interpreted in

Europe as a colonizing effort.45 John Murray Forbes, the

U.S. charge d'affaires at Buenos Aires, reflected this fear,

accusing Britain in one of his dispatches of trying to set

up a "colony in disguise".46 Another important consider­

ation was whether Brazil would become alienated from the

British., and thereby driven into the arms of the French.47

But in the long run, the overriding concern became the

status of British trade, and in fact, an independent Banda

Oriental had been perceived as beneficial as early as

1818.48

There were many attempts at conciliation during the

course of the war. Until the very end, the Brazilians were adamant that the Cisplatina remain theirs. But in June

1826, as a concession, they offered to make Montevideo a port open to ships of all nations and free of port taxes for ships from Buenos Aires. Such a proposal was an expression of self-interest, however, because a free port on the east bank of the Rio de la Plata would only undermine Buenos

Aires' regional economic position, to Brazil's benefit. One 248

Brazilian official got to the heart of the matter when he accused Buenos Aires of trying to "submit [the orientalesl once again to the system of exploitation which the old metropolis constantly exercised in that unfortunate prov­

ince."49 Of course, he failed to mention that the Brazil­

ians themselves had essentially done the same.

Gradually, Canning came to understand during the war that "the value of Monte Video [sic] to each party consists

less perhaps in the positive benefit which they may expect to derive from it themselves, than in the detriment which they apprehend from its being in the possession of the opposite party."50 This strategic consideration was one which authorities in Buenos Aires and Brazil had inherited from the Spanish and Portuguese crowns. The war between

Brazil and the United Provinces was not limited to a contest between them for regional power, however. While that was the main motivation for the two belligerents, the war took place when it did because the orientales had decided to throw off the Brazilian occupation. The popular resentment of Brazilian rule in both Montevideo and the countryside was duly noted in British diplomatic reports. Chamberlain related in 1826 that a General Miller had visited the area, and "assures me that he never saw so general and so deter­ mined a spirit amongst South Americans, upon any subject, as that which now exists to compel Brazil to give up the Banda

Oriental."51 Such sentiments presented Canning with fur­ 249

ther evidence that independence was the right course to

follow. Yet it was a delicate process, because Britain

desired a patron-client relationship with Brazil, like it

had with Portugal, and too much pressure could jeopardize

such an arrangement.52

The British minister in Buenos Aires, John Lord Ponson-

by, was eager to end the war. He complained in October 1826

that the conflict had "destroyed" the forty British merchant

houses in business in Buenos Aires, and claimed that more

than half of the value of their capital had been lost.53

From his vantage point, Ponsonby also became convinced that

independence was the solution desired by the orientales. By

1827, he was in contact with Lavalleja about the possibility of independence.54 In spite of their willingness to talk to everyone, however, the British never intended to leave the security and commerce of the Rio de la Plata in the hands of locals. Ponsonby expressed to the Foreign Secre­ tary his belief that it would be necessary for the British to continue guaranteeing free passage in the area. Besides the more evident benefits of a strong presence he cited: access to the commodities found upriver at Salta; a competi­ tive advantage in the Brazilian market, where the cost of transport from the interior added 25% to prices; the possi­ bility of opening trade with Paraguay; and in general, good business opportunities for Englishmen.55 Ponsonby also worried that if Brazil kept the Banda Oriental, France would 250

have the chance to gain a strategic advantage in South

America.56 His concern was not about freedom or even ide­

ology, it was simply maintaining Britain's privileged posi­

tion in South America, part of its overall hegemony of the

world-system. Ponsonby wrote to Canning that

every advantage existing now, or to be hoped for in the future, depends upon the security of the freedom of the navigation of the Plate; for everything here depends on commerce, and the interruption of it produces (as present facts too surely prove) a rapid decay, and seems to menace even the political institutions of the State and its laws and integrity.57

The orientales welcomed British assistance. Fearing

for their autonomy, they hoped for protection from the

ambitions of Buenos Aires,58 in much the same way they had

looked to Spain for protection during the viceregal period.

Lavalleja's agent in Buenos Aires throughout the war was

Pedro Trapani, who worked to finance the patriot army, and also met with various officials to try to influence the

outcome of the war. Trapani was the one who convinced

Lavalleja and others that independence was really possi­ ble.59 Lavalleja could not have chosen a better agent.

Trapani was a man of important commercial and political connections in Buenos Aires, not only with portenos. but with the British as well. His connections were established in 1811, when Tr&pani became a partner of British investors

Robert Staples and Juan MacNeile, acquiring one-third inter­ est in a saladero. Staples had previously founded the first saladero in Argentina, in 1810. He was also the British 251

Consul there from 1812 to 1818, and his nephew was none

other than Lord Ponsonby. When Trdpani became the official

representative of the Provincia Oriental in 1826, he was well-placed to capture Ponsonby's ear; one Argentine histo­ rian has described Trapani's influence on events as "impon­ derable. "60

Apparently the government of Buenos Aires was wary of his methods. In February 1828, Manuel Dorrego wrote to

Lavalleja, asking who had given Tr&pani the authority to meet with Lord Ponsonby. The following month Dorrego wrote again, requesting that Lavalleja rein in Tr&pani and prevent him from taking part in official negotiations. For his part, Tr&pani was encouraged by the interest the British expressed in the Banda Oriental. He wrote to Lavalleja that

Ponsonby had spoken in favor of their cause to the Foreign

Secretary, and that he was "almost certain" that their goal would be achieved, thanks to their consistent political stance. He seemed rather proud of having influenced Ponson- by's opinion of the situation, and assured Lavalleja that he had "orientalized" him.61 Tr&pani was also confident that in spite of the death in 1827 of Canning, whom he called

"the best friend of the orientales." British foreign policy would not vary.62 As his final achievement, after the war ended Trapani was the one who convinced the other patriots to accept the British-imposed peace.63 Treaty negotiations finally began in earnest after

Fructuoso Rivera fought his way up the Uruguay River into the Brazilian Missions territory in February 1828, which shocked the government in Rio de Janeiro into realizing how much was potentially at stake in the war.64 By then the

Emperor was also facing a challenge from slaveholding inter­ ests in northeastern Brazil, who resented an expensive war for territory unsuited to either coffee or sugar. Other problems piled up in rapid succession. First, there was a bloody mutiny of Irish mercenaries, who rebelled in June

1828, dominating the city of Rio de Janeiro for two days until British and French naval units restored order. In the process, Pedro's best fighting units fell apart. This was followed by French demands for compensation for damages en­ dured in the blockade of Buenos Aires. The Aurora flumi- nense newspaper constantly criticized the war for "devouring the wealth of the citizens" and incited hatred against the

Irish mercenaries. It was all too much for Pedro's poor leadership ability, and the Emperor welcomed assistance from the British, who had been trying to solve the problem of the

Banda Oriental for years.65 Lord Ponsonby traveled from

Buenos Aires to Rio de Janeiro for the treaty convention, which began 11 August 1828, and by 27 August, achieved an end to hostilities.66 It is significant that only one ob­ server attended the negotiations from the contested prov- 253

ince;67 those who had endured the most for their indepen­

dence only enjoyed it at the convenience of other powers.

Although the Convention of Rio ended the Argentine-

Brazilian War in August 1828, it was not a formal treaty

between the nations. It included two provisions which

clearly indicated that although Uruguay was to be indepen­

dent, it could remain so only by the grace of its neighbors.

In Article 7, Argentina and Brazil were given the right to

inspect the Uruguayan Constitution to ensure that it did not

threaten their status in any way. A more stabilizing fea­

ture was the statement in Article 9 that "there will be

perpetual and absolute disregard of any and all political

acts and opinions of the inhabitants of the Province of

Montevideo."68 This provided universal amnesty to those

whose loyalties had changed with the political winds. It

was also for the good of the larger countries, who had

feared chaos on their borders since the heyday of Artigas.

Administratively, the period from 1828 through 1830 was

transitional, because a proviso in the Convention stated

that Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro had to formally approve

the Constitution. This delayed the implementation of an

independent government. The orientales finished drafting

their Constitution in September 1829, but could not execute

it until July 1830.69 After a generation of struggle,

Uruguay's neighbors finally allowed the new nation to be born. 254

II. The Independent Uruguayan Economy

In spite of lingering political uncertainty, the eco­

nomic outlook for Uruguay soon brightened. One positive

indicator was population growth. A nineteenth-century

Uruguayan historian, Dr. Andres Lamas, estimated the popula­

tion of the country at 74,000 in June 1829. He calculated

fourteen thousand people in the department of Montevideo,

eleven thousand each in Maldonado and Canelones, seven thousand each in San Jose, Colonia, Soriano and Paysandu, and five thousand each in Durazno and Cerro Largo. His figures show that the rate of natural increase was high with

885 births and 374 deaths in Montevideo in 1830. Assuming similar totals for 1829, for a population of about fourteen thousand, this means sixty-three births per thousand, twen­ ty-seven deaths per thousand, and a very high rate of natu­ ral increase of thirty-six per thousand, or 3.6%.70 In addition, most of the earlier population loss must have been temporary migration, because Lamas reported that a census conducted in 1835 counted 128,371 people in Uruguay. If the

1829 estimate is accurate, this indicates an average popula­ tion growth rate between 7% and 12% annually in the first few years of independence.71 In a country with ample land, this would have provided a substantial economic stimulus.

In 1835, the largest city in Uruguay was Paysandti, with

27,900 people, while Montevideo had 23,404 and Maldonado

21,296.72 This is an indication of the importance of up­ river commerce, which connected with the overseas trade through Montevideo and Buenos Aires. The British consul

Woodbine Parish described Uruguay in the 1830s as an entre­ pot supplying goods to upriver provinces of Argentina and the southernmost part of Brazil.73 Typical upstream cargo included foodstuffs, wine, liquor, cigars, yerba mate, clothing, shoes, paper, furniture and salt. Going down­ stream, the cargo included such goods as firewood, charcoal, horns, hides, tongues, tallow, salted meat and yerba mate.74 Peace provided opportunities for Uruguayan mer­ chants to branch out and expand the participation of their nation in the world economy. For example, one prominent merchant from Montevideo opened a new saladero at Paysandu in 183 0, producing beef jerky which was shipped to Rio de

Janeiro, Bahia and Pernambuco, where his relatives and associates acted as agents. Up to six hundred bulls per shift were killed at his establishment. The by-products of meat, such as hides and horns, were shipped to Montevideo,

Buenos Aires, and directly to European ports.75

The structure of the regional network appears in the figures for port movements. Montevideo's role in the coast­ al traffic, found in Table 28, grew in the early years of independence, but it was still not as important a port as

Colonia for upriver commerce. During the Brazilian occupa­ tion, Colonia had been relatively specialized in exports of local products, while Montevideo had emphasized overseas 256

TABLE 28

PORT MOVEMENTS OF COASTAL TRAFFIC, 1828-1833

Arrivals______Departures

Montevideo

1828 83 107 1829 123 138 1830 193 192 1831 222 230 1832 215 225 1833 287

Colonia

1830 484 1831 440

Buenos Aires

1830 1.426 2.114 Sources: AGN-Montevideo, Ex-Archivo General Administrativo, libro 100, "Entradas y Salidas de buques de los Rios", libro 101, "Entrada de buques al Puerto de Montevideo...de los Rios", libro 412, "Receptoria de la Colonia Registro de buques..." (1829-1831); Brown, Socioeconomic History. 99.

Note: The following are estimates based upon incomplete annual figures: Montevideo arrivals for 1832 and departures for 1833; Colonia departures for 1831.

imports, and shipping patterns after independence show that this tendency continued. Likewise, the much larger role of

Buenos Aires in regional commerce persisted. In 183 0, threetimes as many ships destined for the river trade left from Buenos Aires as from Montevideo and Colonia combined.

On the other hand, Figure 15 indicates that overseas arriv­ als and departures for Montevideo in the early years of national independence reached a higher level of activity 257

than ever before. In fact, throughout the political vaga­

ries endured by the Banda Oriental, the tendency of trade

was always to grow, with the exception of the Artigas years.

600

500

400

300

200

100

1005 1810 1815 1820 1824 1830 1835

DEPARTURES ARRIVALS

Sources: AGN-Montevideo, Ex-Archivo General Administrativo, libros 95, 99 and 103, "Capitania del Puerto, Libro Maestro de Entradas", 1805-1818, 1818-1824 and 1835-1838; libro 96, "Libro Maestro de Salidas", 1805-1821, and libro 546, "En- trada y salida de buques de Ultramar", 1829-1835.

FIGURE 15

PORT ACTIVITY AT MONTEVIDEO, 1805-1835 258

Just as in the late colonial period, during occupation and warfare, Uruguay deepened its ties to the world-economy.

The new government immediately took steps to encourage overseas trade to rebound and surpass its former levels.

Naturally, imports were the only tax base available to the

Uruguayan government after years of war and destruction in the countryside. Thanks to the connections made under

Brazilian rule, foreign interest in the port of Montevideo had continued to grow, even during the war. Between 1824 and 1828, the city received a consul from both Britain and the U.S., and vice-consuls from France, Prussia, and the Low

Countries.76 The orientales were thus well-positioned to resume international trade, and took advantage of it. In

1829, the Uruguayan government reformed its port tax struc­ ture, reducing many taxes. As shown in Table 38 in the

Appendix, the customs schedule encouraged transshipment, storage and reembarkation of goods. Warehousing and reex­ port fees were nominal, and much lower than the ad valorem rates imposed on articles entering the country. This would invite ships to do at least some business in Uruguay, even if they could not complete their trading there.

Whether these measures actually stimulated trade or not, they certainly did not discourage it. The accounts of the aduana of Montevideo appear in Table 29, which shows that from 1829 to 1832, customs income rose substantially above the previous peak of 1821 (see Table 16), averaging 259

about 775,000 pesos per year. As before, maritime imports

provided the more than half of aduana income at Montevideo.

On an income basis, Paysandu and the port of Soriano further

downriver were the two largest aduanas outside of Montevi­ deo. Yet their combined revenue in 1829, 22,400 pesos,77 was still paltry compared to the capital's aduana income, demonstrating the primacy of that port.

TABLE 29

SELECTED INCOME AND EXPENDITURES, ADUANA OF MONTEVIDEO, 1829-1832 (PESOS)

______1829______1830______1831______1832

Income from:

Maritime 440,597 461,336 392,302 437,725 Imports (58%) (60%) (52%) (54%)

Maritime 61,056 32,891 83,483 95,432 Exports (8%) (4%) (11%) (12%)

Overland 1,288 ------Imports

Overland 21,159 5,286 3,528 2,650 Exports (3%) storage, 38,997 46,023 28,488 23,225 Transit, (5%) (6%) (4%) (3%) Reexport

Sales Tax 12,987 21,103 17,176 16,268 (2%) (3%) (2%) (2%)

Remittances 21,945 13,684 5,974 5,422 from other (3%) (2%) Treasuries other 164,840 188,559 221,490 234,013 (21%) (25%) (29%) (29%) 260

Table 29 (continued)

Total 762,869 768,882 752,441 814,735 (100%) (100%) (100%) (100%)

Expenditure for:

Remittances 697,613 768,882 752,441 814,735 to Treasury (92%) (100%) (100%) (100%)

Salaries and 39,983 Expenses (5%)

General 25,273 Expenses (3%)

Total 762,869 768,882 752,441 814,735 IiooiL (100%) (100%) (100%) Source: AGN-Montevideo, Ex-Archivo General Administrativo, libro 622, "Libro Mayor de la Aduana Nacional del Estado de Montevideo" (1829), and libros 624, 126, and 628 "Libro Mayor de la Colecturia General de Montevideo" (1830-1832).

Notes: Percentages may not add to 100% due to rounding. "Other" sources of income include rentals, licenses for warehouses and retail shops, mail and passport fees, and taxes on bread, meat, and stamped paper. Maritime imports for 1831 and 1832 include an extra tax imposed for the purpose of taking copper coins out of circulation.

Another indicator of the expansion of the Uruguayan economy after 1828 was the growing export of cattle hides.

As shown in Table 30, the sale of hides reached an average of about 292,000 per year immediately after independence, and achieved a year-to-year consistency not seen since the

1790s (compare Table 2). By the end of a decade of indepen­ dence, Montevideo would surpass one million hides per year in exports. This growth carried the nation's export perfor­ mance along with it, because as demonstrated in Table 31, cattle hides provided 62% of Montevideo's exports by value. 261

TABLE 30

CATTLE HIDES EXPORTED THROUGH MONTEVIDEO, 1829-1840

Year______Number

1829 312,613 1830 292,325 1831 233,684 1832 328,928 1840 1.258.345 Sources: Arredondo, "'Apuntes estadisticos'", 105; AGN- Montevideo, Ex-Archivo General Administrativo, libros 624, 126 and 628, "Libro Mayor de la Colecturia General de Monte­ video" (1830-1832).

Note: Totals for 1830-1832 are estimates obtained by divid­ ing the total revenues from hide exports by the amount of the tax, two reales per hide.

TABLE 31

EXPORTS THROUGH MONTEVIDEO, JAN.-JUNE, 1831

Item Ouantitv Value

Cattle hides 127,178 391,317 Horse hides 104,462 103,548 Salted meat 229.3 tons 83,919 Horns 299,633 18,277 Horsehair 64.7 tons 9,465 Tallow 98.6 tons 7,218 Sea lion skins 2,763 6,498 Wool 15.5tons 1,131 Horses 100 1,037 Tongues 18,864 959 Leather pieces 22.4 tons 820 Mules 31 321 Nutria skins 560 85 Sheepskins 700 53 Ostrich feathers 73 pounds 38 Tiger skins 13 24 Calf hides 180 20 ______Total 627.792 pesos_____ Source: Otro Periodico. no. 2, 4 October 1831, AGN-Montevi­ deo, Archivos Particulares, caja 328, carpeta 7, folio 2. 262

All livestock products together comprised 98% of the total

value, displaying a remarkably high degree of economic

specialization that had been developing ever since the area

was incorporated into the world-system in the eighteenth

century. Of the three most valuable exports, 86% of cattle

hides and 97% of horse hides were bought by Europe, which

needed leather for industrial uses, while all the salted

meat produced was sent to the slaves of Brazil and Cuba.78

Thus, economic growth reinforced the structure of trade and

fit with Uruguay's role in the world-system; Wallerstein

identifies monoculture as one of the essential character­

istics of the periphery.79

Imports into Uruguay were dominated by textiles and

basic foodstuffs, again showing a great deal of historical

continuity. Great Britain was the most important customer

and supplier overall in both 1831 and 1836, as shown in

Tables 33 and 37. The total value of all types of cloth is

85,493 pesos, a close second in rank to red wine. All foods and beverages together total 207,149 pesos. The ranking of

imports exhibits a tendency to import the basic necessities of daily life, food and clothing, and reliance upon only a few sources for most of that. This does not imply low- quality or low-priced goods, however; in fact, the opposite must have been true for long distance trade in items like hats to be profitable. Once again, a reliance on a few outside sources for most of the goods of daily life is a 263

TABLE 32

IMPORTED GOODS RANKED BY VALUE, JAN.-JUNE, 1831 (PESOS)

Item______Value

1 . Red wine 86,756 2. Cloth (Brit, and N. Amer.) 85,493 3. Yerba mate 42,790 4. Sugar 28,707 5.Flour 27,196 6 . Sugarcane brandy 21,700 7.Hats 20,875 8.Wood 20.577 Source: Otro Periodico. nos. 4 and 6, 6 and 8 October 1831, AGN-Montevideo, Archivos Particulares, caja 328, carpeta 7, ff. 5 and 9.

Note: The values have been converted to silver pesos.

TABLE 33

INTERNATIONAL TRADE AT THE PORT OF MONTEVIDEO, 1836

Ships Entered Ships Departed Country______No. Value of Cargo______No. Value of Cargo (pesos) (pesos)

G. Britain 58 1,172,658 (33%) 57 951,423 (27%)

Brazil 62 713,793 (20%) 62 825,440 (24%)

France 40 578,178 (16%) 40 464,430 (13%)

Spain 15 311,285 (8%) 15 236,672 (7%)

U.S. 50 217,402 (6%) 48 295,829 (8%)

Sardinia 57 102,039 (3%) 41 30,252 (1%)

Portugal 13 15,200 — 13 62,700 (2%)

Others — 502,082 (14%) — 639,909 (18%)

Total 3.597.437 3 .443.957 Source: Woodbine Parish, Buenos Avres. and the Provinces of the Rio de la Plata: Their Present State. Trade and Debt (London: John Murray, 1838), 414. 264

basic aspect of peripheralization, indicating a lack of

internal diversification in the oriental economy.80

According to Table 33, in 1836 the core nations of

Britain and France provided 49% of imports by value to

Montevideo. Brazil provided 20%, maintaining its histori­

cally privileged position in Uruguayan trade. Semi-periph­

eral parts of Europe (Spain, Sardinia and Portugal) and the

U.S. brought another 18%. British dominance over imports is clear, and is probably even greater when goods transported through Brazil are taken into account. In considering

Uruguay's status in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries,

Barren and Nahum have pointed out that although the nation was economically dependent on the industrial countries, it enjoyed a relative autonomy. The British bought Uruguay's livestock products, but rarely invested in land and infra­ structure. This was left to national capital, which worked to supply for foreign markets.81 The only other core na­ tion listed is France, which also bought basic cattle prod­ ucts, in a steady but smaller trade. By value, France was

Uruguay's third most important trading partner, but only did about half as much business as Britain. South America was really a British domain. All of Latin America accounted for only 8.88% of French exports and 5.9% of French imports in

1827.82

Tulio Halperin Donghi has noted that Britain never had to force the nations of the Rio de la Plata to accept the 265

international division of labor inherent in the capitalist world-system, because it offered such overwhelming advantag­ es to the local elites. Participating in a British-led trade network was a quick and easy way for them to make money and stay in power.83 What landowners and merchants

in Uruguay most feared was a return to the "anarchism" of

Artigas and his followers, which had challenged their domi­ nance of local society.84 Apparently, a high degree of dependence on Britain was an acceptable price for them to pay in order to maintain their status within Uruguay. There were mutual benefits to core and periphery from their asso­ ciation, because as Wallerstein wrote, the capitalist world- system needs not simply order, but a "favorable order" to sustain its hold over a nation.85 The British reward for guaranteeing independence was a primary position in Uruguay­ an trade, as shown in Table 39 in the Appendix. Although their share declined somewhat from 1831 to 1836, it was still important, especially in the main livestock products, hides, horsehair, grease, horns and bones.

III. The Emerging Semi-Periphery

Neither Buenos Aires nor Brazil gave up the desire to control Uruguay, even after its complete independence in

1830. This is not surprising, because the compromise of

Uruguayan independence was imposed by Britain, and did not automatically resolve local conflicts. Ron Seckinger de- 266 scribes Brazilian foreign policy at the time as an attempt to construct a balance of power with its neighbors, and the

Banda Oriental was a crucial part of that. He aptly charac­ terizes Uruguay as "the cockpit of Brazilian and Argentine rivalries in the Plata" throughout the nineteenth centu­ ry.86 Neill Macaulay has commented that

the independent republic of Uruguay would be not a buffer state, but a vortex that would draw Brazil into two wars that would consume six times as many Brazilian lives as had been lost in the 1825-28 conflict. Bra­ zilians of the next generation would regard Uruguay as their California. But Brazil's destiny was not mani­ fest: the earlier failure of national will had forever removed the prize from the empire's grasp.87

But it was not removed from national memory; generations later Brazilians still joked about being "owed" the Banda

Oriental by Argentina.88

In the opinion of Miguel Angel Scenna, an Argentine historian, the resolution of the Argentine-Brazilian War was the completion of a magnum opus for the British. By achiev­ ing Uruguayan independence, they gave themselves the "key" to the Rio de la Plata. After 1830, they were able to enjoy unrestricted access to Brazil, which had four times the value of Buenos Aires in terms of markets for British manu­ factures. The result was that Brazil became "a kind of

British submetropolis which served as a base of operations for the penetration of the Rio de la Plata."89 Here we have the essential definition of a semi-periphery nation, a conveyor of goods between the periphery and the core. This status had been conferred upon Brazil by Portugal, in a remarkably direct way. As Alan Manchester describes, "the commercial relations of England and Portugal from 1808 to

1821 constituted the intermediate step in the transfer of

England's century-old preeminence in Portuguese economic

life to the independent state of Brazil."90

British merchants also became the most important ones at Buenos Aires. As shown in Table 34, Britain and its

"lieutenant" the United States overshadowed all others in

foreign shipping into Buenos Aires. According to Alfredo

TABLE 34

SHARES OF FOREIGN SHIPPING ENTERING BUENOS AIRES, 1821-1830

Britain 38.8% U.S. 34.9 France 8.9 Sardinia 4.7 Other 12.6 Source: Brown, Socioeconomic History. 76.

Montoya, beginning in 1822, creole merchants yielded trade to foreigners, investing their capital instead in ranching and saladeros.91 The government of Buenos Aires encouraged this, first through the application of the principle ofemphyteusis, which made public lands available for private ownership, and then through the frontier expansion policies of Juan Manuel de Rosas (1829-1852). Rosas' restrictive trade policies, though ostensibly anti-foreign, were also pro-porteno. reinforcing Buenos Aires' regional commercial 268

dominance.92 This is not surprising, given his personal

involvement in the saladero industry.93 By the 1830s, as

John Lynch states, "Buenos Aires lived by foreign trade, and

its expanding estancias depended on foreign markets."94

Saladeros grew dramatically; the export of salted meat in­

creased over 650% from the 1820s to the 1830s, as shown in

Table 35. Other big increases occurred in the export of

nutria skins, raw wool, and tallow and grease. While salted

meat was generally intended for slaves, the others were

inputs for industrial economies. The successful British

foreign policy of the 1820s, which emphasized stability for

the sake of commerce, helped create a favorable economic

climate in the 1830s. For example, the pacification of

South America allowed freight rates from England to drop by

43% from 1824 to 1833.95 There was a clear pattern in

trade with Britain— cattle products for textiles. About 85%

of British imports into Buenos Aires were cotton and woolen

textiles, a proportion that remained steady for decades.96

TABLE 35

GROWTH OF AVERAGE ANNUAL EXPORTS FROM BUENOS AIRES (1810s=100)

______1810s______1820s______1830s Cattle hides 100 109 139 Horsehides 100 205 22 Salted meat 100 152 1002 Tallow, grease 100 29 161 Raw wool 100 168 1404 Nutria skins 100 163 1179 Horsehair______100______396______752 Source: Brown, Socioeconomic History. 80. 269

The war with Brazil had been highly significant for the city and province of Buenos Aires economically. The direct costs were enormous, leaving a bankrupt treasury with a bad

credit history. Because of its inability to decisively defeat Brazil, Buenos Aires had also lost the Banda Orien­ tal. The economic competition between Buenos Aires and

Montevideo continued as strong as ever after 1830. A con­ temporary observed that when the former raised duties on foreign trade, the latter lowered them, and thereby captured a large part of regional commerce.97 Instead of giving up its aspirations for regional domination, however, Buenos

Aires continued to pursue them by extending its control to new territories in the south. With more land, Buenos Aires hoped to expand the estancia industry, increase government revenues and further develop its commercial network. The rapidity with which Buenos Aires began its movement south­ ward in 1828 was indicative of the broad-based support for the policy. Miron Burgin has noted that "in few other instances was the [Argentine] government supported so unani­ mously by all classes of the population, and particularly by the cattle breeders and meat producers."98

Ranching became the primary business on the new lands of the pampas. because farming would have required an infra­ structure of roads, cheap transportation and commercial connections in Buenos Aires to compete with imported food­ stuffs.99 Monoculture on the pampas was reinforced by the 270

free trade system, and in turn reinforced it through contin­ ual demand for imports of food and manufactures. The re­ sult, according to Burgin, was that

a large part of the Republic came under the commer­ cial hegemony of the country's largest port, and the city's interests, in turn, tended to transcend the comparatively narrow limits of the province of which it was the capital. Merchants, financiers, and all those whose welfare was more or less closely linked with commerce very soon learned to think in terms of [a] national economy.100

Even Cordoba, which had managed to retain some textile industry amidst the Bourbon reforms, found itself producing more and more hides and wool after 183 0, as its textile markets disappeared in the face of foreign competition.101

The leaders of Buenos Aires achieved this result by pursuing national integration, which was a way of reinforcing the port's role as commercial intermediary. The growth of this function appears in the increases in river traffic at Buenos

Aires, which rose from 664 arrivals annually in 1810 to about 925 in the mid-1820s, to 1,426 arrivals in 1830.102

Though it was not his intention, Burgin clearly de­ scribes the semi-peripheral role of Buenos Aires, which "had nothing to offer except the services of the middleman....The economic future of Buenos Aires depended then upon strength­ ening its commercial relations with Europe rather than upon the expansion of the provinces in the Interior."103 The regional dominance which Buenos Aires was struggling to maintain affected other provinces besides the Banda Orien­ tal. In his recent book, Thomas Whigham attributes the 271

isolation of Paraguay in the nineteenth century to lower

Platine politics, more than any other cause. "Buenos Aires

consistently tried to play a hegemonic role in the Litoral.

The provinces responded by treating the Argentine nation as

little more than a superstructure created by the Portenos in order to maintain their economic privileges....Buenos Aires continued to control the customs house and to exploit its comparative advantage in the world market."104 The primary beneficiary of Buenos Aires' efforts was Great Britain, which incurred none of the expenses but reaped the profits of trade.

Another way to see the regional differentiation in economic roles is through population figures. Cities are the focal points of capitalism, and generally speaking, the larger the city, the greater its economic power.105 Table

36 contains population estimates for Buenos Aires, Rio de

Janeiro and Montevideo in the period of transition to na­ tional independence. Montevideo had dramatic ups and downs, associated with warfare, but after 1828 did manage some growth. Buenos Aires grew steadily, and interestingly, maintained the same proportion with Montevideo as in the late colonial years, about 2.8 to one. In contrast, Rio de

Janeiro went from three times Montevideo's size to five times. This hierarchy of population indicates the cities' relative positions in the world-economy, in terms of the network of resources they controlled. As a monarchy, Brazil 272

escaped some of the political disruptions which affected

Argentina, and therefore Rio was able to expand faster than

Buenos Aires.

TABLE 36

POPULATION GROWTH, 1799-1840

Montevideo Buenos Aires Rio de Janeiro

1799 43,376 1801 40,000 1803 46,944 1805 14,000 1807 50,000 1810 44,800 1813 13,931 1815 100,000 1820 5,000 1821 112,695 1822 55,416 1825 10,000 1829 14,000 1835 23,404 1836 64,126 1838 137.078 Sources: E. Bradford Burns, The Poverty of Progress: Latin America in the Nineteenth Century (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), 170-172, Dauril Alden, "Late colo­ nial Brazil, 1750-1808", in Bethell, Colonial Brazil. 288; Arredondo, "'Apuntes estadisticos'", 44-45; Rock, Argentina, 65; Vidal, Picturesque Illustrations. 3; Bollo, Atlas qeo- ardfico. 63; Roque Faraone, Introduccion a la historia eco­ nomica del Uruguay (1825-1973) (Montevideo: Area, 1974), 9.

This regional economic differentiation was part of the potential emergence of new semi-peripheral zones in South

America, at Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro. This process can be measured against the criteria provided by Hopkins and

Wallerstein for distinguishing semi-peripheral states:

1) a mix of productive methods, including the "end- 273

points of some commodity chains and beginning points of others"; 2) a middle status between the core and periphery; 3) some specialized function in the world-economy; 4) some form of political, military and economic dominance in a region of the world; and 5) the location of commodity chains within national frontiers.106

Of the two, Brazil had the more plausible claim to semi­ periphery status. The transfer of the Portuguese monarchy to the Brazilian Empire lent a strength to the political

system which enabled military and economic goals to be pursued more directly. Buenos Aires was unable to prevent the invasion of the Banda Oriental, and unable to win its war against Brazil, lacking the access to resources that Rio de Janeiro had. Once Uruguay became independent, Argentina could not control the entire cattle-products trade. But the relative power of Brazil and Argentina was not fixed for all time in 1828. The two countries continued their battle for regional dominance well into the nineteenth century. 274

NOTES

1. Street, Artiqas. 341-342; Condy Raguet, Rio de Janeiro, to Henry Clay, 1 June 1825, in Manning, Diplomatic Correspondence. vol. 1, 819.

2. Contribuicoes para a Historia da Guerra entre o Brasil e Buenos Aires (uma testemunha ocular). trans. L. Brockmann (Belo Horizonte, Brazil: Editora Itatiaia, 1975), 147; John Murray Forbes, Buenos Aires, to Henry Clay, 3 May 1825, in Espil, Once anos. 359.

3. Macaulay, Pom Pedro. 186-187.

4. John Murray Forbes, Buenos Aires, to Henry Clay, 11 May 1825, in Espil, Once anos. 360.

5. Baron of Laguna, Montevideo, to Joao Vieira de Car­ valho, Rio de Janeiro, 8 May 1825, Arquivo Nacional, Rio de Janeiro, Colegao Cisplatina, tomo V, in Instituto Historico y Geogr&fico del Uruguay, Documentos para servir al estudio de la independencia nacional. 1825 (Montevideo: El Siglo, 1937), 41-42.

6. Tom&s Garcia de Zdniga, Montevideo, to Emperor Pedro I, Rio de Janeiro, October 1825, Arquivo Nacional, Rio de Janeiro, Colegao Cisplatina, tomo IX, in Documentos. 238-239.

7. Symfonio Maria Pereira Sodre, Buenos Aires, to Manuel Jose Garcia, 1 and 29 June 1825; Antonio Jose Falcao da Frota, Buenos Aires, to Manuel Jose Garcia, 9 September, 21 and 24 October 1825, AGN-Buenos Aires, sala X, legajo 1-7-2.

8. Untitled document attesting to the installation of the provisional government, 14 June 1825, in AGN-Montevideo, Ex-Archivo General Administrativo, libro 480.

9. Macaulay, Pom Pedro. 188; Falcao Espalter, Formacion historica. 113.

10. Street, Artiqas. 346-349; John Murray Forbes, Buenos Aires, to Henry Clay, 7 December 1825, in Espil, Once anos. 400.

11. Ron L. Seckinger, The Brazilian Monarchy and the South American Republics 1822-1831: Diplomacy and State Building (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1984), 73.

12. Macaulay, Pom Pedro. 188-194. 275

13. Ibid., 200.

14. According to a personal letter by Luis Larrobla, 1 September 1825, in Institute Historico y Geogrdfico del Uruguay, Edicion documental conmemorativa (Montevideo: El Siglo, 1937), 205-206.

15. Macaulay, Dorn Pedro. 200.

16. Oficio of the government of the United Provinces directed to the Provisional Government of the Provincia Oriental, 20 July 1826, in AGN-Montevideo, Ex-Archivo General Administrative, libro 56, "Gobierno Provisorio".

17. Macaulay, Pom Pedro. 202-204.

18. Robert Gordon, Rio de Janeiro, to the Earl of Dudley, 17 January 1828, F.O. 13/47 in Webster, Britain and the Independence of Latin America, vol. 1, 324.

19. Burgin, Economic Aspects. 23.

20. John Murray Forbes, Buenos Aires, to Henry Clay, 2 May 1826, in Espil, Once anos. 422; Lynch, "Foreign Trade and Economic Interests", 149.

21. John Murray Forbes, Montevideo, to Henry Clay, 27 December 1827, in Espil, Once anos. 484-485.

22. Abadie-Aicardi, "Politica de transito", 388.

23. Fitte, Precio de la libertad. 385.

24. This total included thirty-three from Liverpool and ten from London. The British Packet and Argentine News (Buenos Aires) , 7 January 1832, in Graciela Lapido and Beatriz Spota de Lapieza Elli, comps., The British Packet: De Rivadavia a Rosas. Vol. I: 1826-1832 (Buenos Aires: Solar, 1976), 377.

25. Fitte, Precio de la libertad. 385-386.

26. Parish, Buenos Aires, to Canning, 21 April 1826, in Webster, Britain and the Independence of Latin America. 145.

27. Amaral, "Financion inflacionaria", 381-382.

28. Ibid., 413-414, 416.

29. "Libro Mayor de la Caja de Buenos Aires", 1825-1828, AGN-Buenos Aires, legajos 40-1-5, 7, 9 and 11. 276

30. Macaulay, Pom Pedro. 188-194.

31. Francisco de Paulo e Souza, quoted in Hann, "Brazil and the Rio de la Plata", 421-422.

32. Wallerstein, Modern World-Svstem. vol. 2, 185-188. For a complete discussion of Spanish imperial finances, see Earl J. Hamilton, War and Prices in Spain. 1651-1800 (Cam­ bridge: Harvard University Press, 1947).

33. Abadie-Aicardi, "La politica de trdnsito", 400-401.

34. Macaulay, Dorn Pedro. 211.

35. Rev. R. Walsh, Notices of Brazil in 1828 and 1829. vol. 2 (London: Westley and Davis, 1830), 536.

36. Seckinger, Brazilian Monarchy. 98.

37. Burgin, Economic Aspects. 55, 69.

38. John Armitage, The History of Brazil, vol. 2 (London: Smith, Elder, 1836), 146-147.

39. See Table 18 for more details.

40. "Cuaderno de Anclaje", 1826, AGN-Montevideo, Ex- Archivo General Administrativo, libro 1352. Compare Figure 1 1 .

41. AGN-Montevideo, Ex-Archivo General Administrativo, libro 18, "Actas del Cabildo de Montevideo", 1823-1829. For a table of conversions of weights and measures, see Brown, Socioeconomic History. 235.

42. "Calculo aproximado de la entrada en la Caja", 4 August 1826, in AGN-Buenos Aires, sala X, legajo 7-10-4.

43. See correspondence between Foreign Secretaries Castlereagh and Canning and their various agents in South America, 1814-1827, documents 10, 13, 34, 37, 39, 41, 45, 50, 51, 70a, 72, 108 and 143 in Webster, Britain and the Indepen­ dence of Latin America, vol. 1, 94-316 passim.

44. Ferns, Britain and Argentina. 158.

45. William W. Kaufmann, British Policy and the Indepen­ dence of Latin America. 1804-1828 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1951), 195.

46. John Murray Forbes, Buenos Aires, to Henry Clay, 21 June 1826, in Manning, Diplomatic Correspondence, vol. 1, 654. 277

47. Pablo Blanco Acevedo, La mediacion de Inglaterra en la convencion de paz de 1828 (Montevideo: Ayala, 1928), 21.

48. Henry Chamberlain, Rio de Janeiro, to Viscount Castlereagh, 22 August 1818, in Webster, Britain and the Independence of Latin America, vol.l, 193.

49. Blanco Acevedo, La mediacion de Inalaterra. 11-13.

50. George Canning to John Lord Ponsonby, March 18, 1826, F.O. 6/12, in Webster, Britain and the Independence of Latin America, vol. 1, 142.

51. Henry Chamberlain, Rio de Janeiro, to George Canning, April 22, 1826, F.O. 13/22, ibid., 309.

52. Seckinger, Brazilian Monarchy. 145.

53. John Lord Ponsonby, Buenos Aires, to George Canning, 2 October 1826, F.O. 6/13, Webster, Britain and the Indepen­ dence of Latin America, vol. 1, 155. The British community in Buenos Aires between 1825 and 1831 included 466 merchants, clerks and traders, 667 laborers, 595 women and 827 children. Platt, Latin America and British Trade. 42.

54. Kaufmann, British Policy. 196-198.

55. Lord Ponsonby to George Canning, October 20, 1826, F.O. 6/13, in Webster, Britain and the Independence of Latin America, vol.l, 156-159.

56. Abadie-Aicardi, "Politica de transito", 389.

57. Ponsonby, Buenos Aires, to Canning, 20 October 1826, F.O. 6/13, in Webster, Britain and the Independence of Latin America, vol. 1, 158.

58. Street, Artiqas. 345.

59. Carneiro, Historia da Guerra. 186. Some receipts for supplies purchased for the rebel army by Trapani in Buenos Aires are collected in AGN-Buenos Aires, sala X, legajo 44- 3-6.

60. Vicente Osvaldo Cutolo, Nuevo diccionario biogrdfico arqentino (1750-1930). Tomo septimo: SC-Z (Buenos Aires: Editorial Elche, 1985), 387-389; Montoya, Saladeros. 37-40.

61. Manuel Dorrego, Buenos Aires, to Juan Antonio Lava- lleja, 14 February 1828 and 17 March 1828, and Pedro Trdpani, Barracas, to Juan Antonio Lavalleja, 10 and 13 December 1827, in Saldias, Historia. 368-369, 378-379, 380-384. 278

62. Quoted in Pablo Blanco Acevedo, Mediacion. 19.

63. Carneiro, Historia da Guerra Cisplatina. 186.

64. Lynch, Spanish American Revolutions. 103.

65. Macaulay, Pom Pedro. 205, 210, 219; Hann, "Brazil and the Rio de la Plata", 454; Leslie Bethell and Jose Murilo de Carvalho, "1822-1850", in Brazil. Empire and Republic: 1822-1930. ed. Bethell (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 54.

66. Pablo Blanco Acevedo, Mediacion. 39; Lynch, Spanish American Revolutions. 105.

67. Seckinger, Brazilian Monarchy. 96n.

68. Abadie-Aicardi, "Politica de Trdnsito", 391.

69. Joshua Bond, Montevideo, to Martin Van Buren, 20 November 1830, in Manning, Diplomatic Correspondence, vol. 3, 2188.

70. These are much higher figures than those of twenti­ eth-century Uruguay. See Thomas W. Merrick, "Population Pressures in Latin America" Population Bulletin 41 (July 1986): 3-16.

71. These figures are estimates obtained by dividing the total population growth by six to determine the average increase each year (9,061.83), then calculating intermediate totals (83,061.83 for 1831, etc.), then dividing each interme­ diate total by the increase to get a range of growth rates.

72. Arredondo, "'Apuntes estadisticos1", 45.

73. Parish, Buenos Avres. and the Provinces. 351.

74. Cargo listings found in "Registro de buques que entran y salen del Uruguay", 1831. AGN-Montevideo, Ex-Archivo General Administrativo, libro 415.

75. Soler Vilardebo, Don Miguel A. Vilardebo. 101.

76. The British consul arrived in 1824, the French vice- consul in 1825, the U.S. consul in 1826, the Low Countries vice-consul in 1827 and the Prussian vice-consul in 1828. AGN-Montevideo, Archivos Particulares, caja 27, carpeta 1, folio 12 and caja 335, carpeta 4, folio 31; Ex-Archivo General Administrativo, libro 38, ff. 82, 114, 155. 279

77. This total is for the year through 31 October only. In the same period, income from Colonia was 2,408 pesos. AGN- Montevideo, CatSlogo Ex-Archivo y Museo Historico, caja 22, "Estado de los ingresos y gastos de las Receptorias subalter- nas". For all of 1829, the customs office at Maldonado took in 7,075 pesos. AGN-Montevideo, Ex-Archivo General Adminis­ trativo, libro 104, "Maldonado, Libros Manual y Mayor" (1829).

78. Otro Periodico. no. 2, 4 October 1831, in AGN- Montevideo, Archivos Particulares, caja 328, carpeta 7, folio 2 .

79. Wallerstein, Modern World-Svstem. vol. 1, 102.

80. Ibid.

81. Barren and Nahum, "Uruguayan Rural History", 663.

82. Le Havre was the most important French port for the Rio de la Plata. Schneider, "Trade Relations between France and Latin America", in Liehr, ed., America Latina en la epoca de Simon Bolivar. 427-432.

83. Tulio Halperin Donghi, "La apertura mercantil en el Rio de la Plata: Impacto global y desigualdades regionales, 1800-1850" in ibid., 136-137.

84. Alonso Eloy, et_al., La oliqarcmla oriental. 212- 213,

85. Wallerstein, Modern World-Svstem. vol. 3, 188.

86. Seckinger, Brazilian Monarchy. 151.

87. Macaulay, Dorn Pedro. 219.

88. Overheard by the author in Asuncion, Paraguay, February 1991.

89. Scenna, Araentina-Brasil. 106-107.

90. Manchester, British Preeminence. 108.

91. Alfredo J. Montoya, La cranaderla v la industria de salazon de carnes en el perlodo 1810-1862 (Buenos Aires: Coloquio, 1971), 9-11.

92. Brown, Socioeconomic History. 74.

93. Ibid., 110. 280

94. John Lynch, "Foreign Trade and Economic Interests in Argentina, 1810-1850" in Liehr, ed., America Latina en la epoca de Simon Bolivar. 140-144.

95. Platt, Latin America and British Trade. 15.

96. Brown, Socioeconomic History. 78.

97. Parish, Buenos Avres. 351.

98. Burgin, Economic Aspects. 23-24.

99. Ibid., 31-33.

100. Ibid., 35.

101. Garavaglia, "Economic Growth and Regional Differ­ entiations", 88-89.

102. Brown, Socioeconomic History. 99; Kroeber, Shipping Industry. 125.

103. Burgin, Economic Aspects. 121.

104. Whigham, Politics of River Trade. 199-200.

105. For a discussion of the role of cities in the capitalist world-economy, see Braudel, Civilization and Capitalism, vol. 3, 27-35.

106. Hopkins and Wallerstein, "Capitalism and the Incorporation of New Zones into the World-Economy" Review 10 (Summer/Fall 1987): 774. CONCLUSION:

INDEPENDENCE AND THE WORLD-SYSTEM

Wallerstein has evaluated the process of national independence in Latin America as "the cumulation of succes­ sive evaluations of costs and benefits (on all sides) in the context of the newly emerging British world order." The underlying logic of the situation was determined by the goal of the world-system, the "worldwide accumulation of capi­ tal."1 This same principle guided the course of Uruguayan independence. Bringing peace to the Rio de la Plata was an obvious way to assure uninterrupted exchange of trade goods, but it took almost twenty-five years for all the parties involved to work out the solution to their problem of fre­ quent turmoil. The influence of the British on the outcome of the Argentine-Brazilian War cannot be over-emphasized.

The Rio Convention which ended it was "an exact reflection of British aspirations" for trade in the Rio de la Plata.2

For example, article 15 required the end of fighting on sea and land, in that order, and prohibited its resumption within five years; after that time, any new hostilities would have required advance notice to each other and Brit­ ain, six months in advance. In a separate article, Argenti­ na and Brazil agreed to protect freedom of navigation in the

281 282

Rio de la Plata for the subjects of foreign nations, as stipulated in the Convention, for a period of fifteen years.3 The insertion of these provisions into the peace settlement made it sound like Britain won the war, although it had not been a belligerent.

Ironically, the single most important actor in bringing about a coincidence of desires between the British and the orientales was Napoleon Bonaparte, who closed Europe to the

British just as the Spanish colonies were seeking indepen­ dence. The British Secretary of State for War, Viscount

Castlereagh, based his foreign policy recommendations on the goal of either re-establishing free interaction with conti­ nental Europe or finding other "channels of commerce."4

Referring to Latin America as a "compensatory market",

Nicole Bousquet has found a distinct inverse relationship between the value of British exports to Europe and the value of those traded with Latin America during the period from

1792 to 1822 .5 Within Spanish America, the United Provinces had the most prominent position in British trade, as shown in Table 24.

Clearly, Ponsonby viewed the Banda Oriental as the crux of not only a local, but a continental foreign policy with trade and commerce as its primary concern. In their article on informal empire, Gallagher and Robinson observe that

British policy attempted to guarantee not only free access to key ports, but the conversion of hinterlands "into com- 283 plementary satellite economies, which would provide raw materials and food for Great Britain, and also provide widening markets for its manufactures.1,6 Peter Winn, anoth­ er historian of informal empire, has commented that "the establishment of the new republic [of Uruguay] represented both the triumph and the quintessence of British informal empire.1,7

British policy in the Rio de la Plata was consistent­ ly focused on preserving trade privileges. This was not only because of the value of their trade there, but because of their worldwide position as hegemonic power, which both ensured and required that they dominate trading networks.

Patrick O'Brien has challenged the idea that the periphery was at all important to the development of the core. By calculating and comparing the value of British trade with various parts of the world, he finds the contribution of commerce with the periphery to be minimal with regard to long-term growth.8 Wallerstein has replied that any part of total growth is significant, because it does after all represent an increase.9 But it is inappropriate to raise any question about importance within a world-system frame­ work, because the system is defined as only including areas which have a significant economic relationship.

In the early 1800s, policy makers were well-aware that the issues of independence were crucial to the continued growth of the world-economy. Canning himself recognized 284 that "in the present state of the world, of the [Iberian] peninsula, of the country[,] the American questions are out of all proportion more important than the European, and if we do not seize and turn them to our advantage in time we shall rue the loss of an opportunity never never to be re­ covered."10 Establishing a firm grip on South American markets was more than just an exercise in vanity and greed.

As early as 1816, Canning was anxious about the British domestic economy, which suffered dislocations at the end of the Napoleonic Wars, when aggregate demand dropped precipi­ tously. Industrial and agricultural unemployment had added to political discontents and led to outbreaks of mob vio­ lence. 11

In the 1820s, Canning's main fear was that these prob­ lems would recur, should France insinuate itself into an influential position in the new republics. He demanded of the French a disclaimer of any intent to establish a new colonial relationship, and strongly opposed any plan divid­ ing the new world between France and England. Canning even turned down "the bribe of Montevideo offered by Spain" in

1823 as an incentive to help the Spanish regain their colo­ nies.12 He was willing, however, to enlist the aid of the

United States as "a new diplomatic weapon for the contain­ ment of the French", in spite of the British commercial rivalry with North Americans.13 France was always the com­ petitor the British strove to overcome. In 1823, Canning 285 wrote to the Duke of Wellington: "I confess I long to tell

[the French Foreign Minister Comte Joseph de] Villele...that we will trade with the late Spanish American Colonies, whe­ ther France likes it or not."14 Villele himself knew he was losing the struggle, commenting that "Spain is a dead body to which we are attached."15 The achievement of indepen­ dence in Latin America was one part of the intra-core compe­ tition taking place in the world-system.

By November 1825, Canning was confident enough to write to Lord Granville: "And so behold! the New World estab­ lished, and, if we do not throw it away, ours!"16 Only days later, he proclaimed the heart of the matter in a speech in the House of Commons: "I called the New World into exis­ tence to redress the balance of the Old!"17 He had respond­ ed to the French invasion of Spain by setting up new politi­ cal and economic relationships in the Spanish colonies, in order to prevent France from capturing their markets.

According to the perceptions of the U.S. charge d'affaires at Rio, the French did eventually realize what was at stake:

"I have...grounds for believing that the French Government is becoming every day more and more disposed, to regard the

South American question, rather as a commercial than as a political one."18 But by 1826, when this realization oc­ curred, it was too late for the French to compete directly with the groundwork British merchants had lain for over a 286 century. By that time, Britain had already attained hegemo­ ny.19

The trade treaties signed by Britain and the United

Provinces in 1825, and Britain and Brazil in 1827,20 were formal manifestations of de facto British dominance in South

America.21 The benefits to Great Britain were substantial; its exports to Argentina in the early 1820s averaged between

£700,000 and £800,000 annually, and accounted for 50.6% of imports at the port of Buenos Aires. Half of the exports were cotton goods, with woolens, linens, silks, ironware, cutlery, hardware, earthenware, glass and coal comprising the rest.22 Exports to all of South America in 1823 were worth £5,600,000, more than the U.S. trade in that year, and the eighty British commercial houses scattered around the continent handled one-eighth of total British exports.23 By

1828, Brazil alone was "the third largest foreign market for

British produce and manufactures... and sixth in the list of... suppliers.1124 Its importance was derived from its willingness to buy large quantities of British manufactured goods, because expansion of markets was the key to British industrial growth.25

These long-term patterns reflect the relative position of the various nations in the world-system. Britain's destiny was to mill cottons, and Argentina's and Brazil's to buy them, and sell them to others in turn. At each link in the chain, according to Wallerstein, the distribution of 287 surplus value determines unequal economic relationships.26

Collecting a large share of the gains from trade had enabled

Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro to set up unequal relation­ ships with the Banda Oriental and other provinces, and helped propel them toward semi-periphery status. The fact that the Argentines and Brazilians were unable to subjugate the Banda Oriental was the accomplishment of the hegemonic power of the day, Great Britain, which was instrumental in the establishment of Uruguay as an independent nation.

In the late eighteenth century, Great Britain was making a bid for hegemonic status in the world-system. Ac­ cording to Wallerstein, this led to support within Britain for decolonization of the Spanish Empire, as well as its own in North America.27 The eventual success of the British is attributed by Wallerstein to their decision to pursue a liberal state, which tended to be non-interventionist in economic affairs. At a time when world trade was expanding greatly, this enabled them to profit from it without taking on a costly imperial system.28 Once a commercial system was established, it only became stronger. Trade with the Rio de la Plata had become so regular by 1838 that one Briton boasted that "it [is] evident how mainly Great Britain contributes to all the essential wants, as well as domestic comforts, of the people of that part of the world."29 The informal empire was firmly grounded, and it was achieved without direct coercion, but rather through the careful 288 construction of a framework for interstate relations.

Economic influence began long before independence, and afterward, British commercial dominance was underscored by trade treaties. Most of all, the Rio Convention of 1828 and the creation of Uruguay confirmed it.

The events surrounding Uruguay show how capitalism, which is a set of rules governing the behavior of individu­ als, groups and nations, works constantly on the structure of the world-system. Within a maelstrom of changing poli­ tics, the impetus for capital accumulation through freer trade aligned the economic relationships in the Rio de la

Plata and set post-independence patterns for Uruguay and other nations. The period from 1806 to 1830 was a foundation for events of the later nineteenth century, when the system grew and developed much more through export booms. It was also a time when the configuration of the world-system created in the late eighteenth century reinforced itself through stronger connections.

The economic developments within the world-system had important cultural parallels, which heavily influenced the formation of new political systems. As E. Bradford Burns has observed, throughout the nineteenth century, "part of the elites and most of the middle class desired to reshape

Latin America in the image of Northern Europe." Burns sees the main theme of the century as "the eventual triumph of

Europeanization."30 The system which Wallerstein describes is all-embracing, and so historians ought to find economics, politics and culture moving together along the same path.

Two other historians of the nineteenth century, David Bushn- ell and Neill Macaulay, find a great deal of socio-economic continuity through the independence era, and consider this a legacy of Latin America's colonial past, with its rigid, unequal social structure. They assert that the lack of economic development in the nineteenth century was the result of the colonial experience, not some form of depen­ dency imposed by British or other core capitalists.31

Through world-system lenses, it seems that they are simply not defining the colonial regime broadly enough, because as part of the capitalist world-economy, Spain was the trans­ mitter of dependence on Britain and other core countries.

In the opinion of Tulio Halperin-Donghi, the wars for independence brought about a dispersion of power, weakening the control of the old elites. At the same time, a "new commercial order" developed, one dominated by British mer­ chants and marked by increased imports of consumer goods, as well as a rapid depletion of the capital stock.32 Yet, he still views the first fifty years of independence as essen­ tially static,33 missing the connection that these commer­ cial changes meant a deepening of contact with the world economy and even closer ties to its ups and downs. The independence era was an opportune time for the Argentines and Brazilians, just as the orientales. to try to change 290 their relative position in the world-system. The larger countries had not become full members of the semi-periphery in 183 0,34 but they were trying to be. Uruguayans managed to link their interests to Great Britain and its emerging informal empire, and thereby gained national independence.

For them, informal empire was an improvement over the old formal one. Braudel stated it well: "the chief privilege of capitalism, today as in the past, remains the ability to choose. ...1135 In the context of the Rio de la Plata, some choice of with whom, when, where and what to trade was available even to peripheral nations after they fully em­ braced the capitalist world-system.

The preceding chapters have discussed how the world demand for hides connected the Banda Oriental with the core of the world-system. Because of the immense importance of the trade in hides, it provided the stimulus for Uruguayan independence from Spain as well as the two much closer powers fighting for control of the province. International trade ties gave political benefits to the oriental elite, the merchants and ranchers, who produced and traded what the system demanded. In the course of events from 1806 to 1830, the orientales were able to use the world trade system as a lever for achieving their independence. Hides were ex­ changed not only for manufactured goods, but for political autonomy as well. Structuralist interpretations of history have not been favored in recent historiography.36 Social historians will protest that world-system theory ignores the majority, including aauchos. townspeople, soldiers, women and slaves.

As important as these groups are to historians' overall understanding of events, they simply were not the ones determining the way in which their country became indepen­ dent. As Fernand Braudel wrote, "the vital decisions in history were not taken in the past, any more than they are today, according to the reasonable rules of universal suf­ frage. [T]he minority had a greater influence over the course of history than the majority."37 292

NOTES

1. Wallerstein, Modern World-Svstem. vol. 3, 226.

2. Abadie-Aicardi, "Politica de transito", 391.

3. Ibid.

4. Ferns, Britain and Argentina. 47.

5. Bousquet, "Decolonization of Spanish America", 507.

6. Gallagher and Robinson, "Imperialism of Free Trade", 9.

7. Winn, "British Informal Empire", 103.

8. Patrick O'Brien, "European Economic Development: The Contribution of the Periphery" Economic History Review 2d ser. 35 (Feb. 1982): 1-18.

9. Wallerstein, "European Economic Development: A Comment on O'Brien" Economic History Review 2d ser. 36 (Nov. 1983): 580-583.

10. George Canning to Duke of Wellington, 8 November 1822, quoted in H.W.V. Temperley, Life of Canning (London: Finch, 1905), 177.

11. Wendy Hinde, George Canning (London: Collins, 1973), 279.

12. Temperley, Life of Canning. 176-177.

13. Hinde, George Canning. 348-349.

14. Quoted in Kay Shuttleworth, Sir Woodbine Parish. 258.

15. Quoted in Hinde, George Canning. 356.

16. Ibid., 264.

17. Speech delivered December 8, 1825, ibid., 265.

18. Condy Raguet, Rio de Janeiro, to Henry Clay, 23 September 1826, in Manning, Diplomatic Correspondence, vol. 1, 861. 293

19. Wallerstein dates the period of British hegemony from 1815 to 1873. Terence Hopkins, Immanuel Wallerstein, et al., World-Svstems Analysis: Theory and Methodology (Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1982), 62-63.

20. Argentine "Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation", AGN-Buenos Aires, sala X, legajo 1-1-8, "Gran Bretana y Francia. 1824-1827"; a copy of the Brazilian treaty is in AGN-Montevideo, Archivos Particulares, caja 337, carpeta 4.

21. Abadie-Aicardi, "Politica de transito", 392.

22. Lynch, "Foreign Trade and Economic Interests", 146; Seckinger, Brazilian Monarchy. 98.

23. Platt, Latin America and British Trade. 289; Hinde, George Canning. 345.

24. D.C.M. Platt, "The Imperialism of Free Trade: Some Reservations" Economic History Review 2d ser. 21 (1968): 298.

25. Manchester, British Preeminence. 98.

26. Wallerstein, "World-System Analysis: Theoretical and Interpretive Issues" in Barbara Hockey Kaplan, ed. , Social Change in the Capitalist World-Economv (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1977), 221.

27. Hopkins, Wallerstein, et al., World-Svstems Analy­ sis. 62-63.

28. Wallerstein, Modern World-Svstem. vol. 3, 55-126.

29. Parish, Buenos Avres and the Provinces. 341.

30. Burns, Poverty of Progress. 13-16.

31. David Bushnell and Neill Macaulay, The Emergence of Latin America in the Nineteenth Century (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 44-45.

32. Halperin-Donghi, Aftermath of Revolution. 43-81.

33. Ibid., v i i i .

34. Wallerstein dates Brazil's entry into the semi­ periphery in the 1930s. Capitalist World-Economv. 77.

35. Braudel, Civilization and Capitalism, vol. 3, 622. 294

36. See Chapter 1. For a discussion of historiographi­ cal trends of the 1960s, which still tend to prevail, see William Paul McGreevey, "Recent Research on the Economic History of Latin America" Latin American Research Review 3 (Spring 1968): 89-117.

37. Braudel, Civilization and Capitalism, vol. 2, 404. APPENDIX

TABLE 37

BRITISH SHARE OF URUGUAYAN EXPORTS, 1831 AND 1836

Product______1831______1836

Hides 46% Hides, dry 17% Hides, salt 88% Horns 71% 56% Horsehair 83% 51% Leather pieces 65% 57% Horse Hides 94% 42% Grease 63% Wool 44% Sheep Skins 20% Tallow 14% Nutria Skins 99% 61% Mares' Grease 98% Seal Skins 19% Bones 79% Source: Otro Periodico. no. 2, 4 October 1831, AGN-Montevi- deo, Archivos Particulares, caja 328, carpeta 7, folio 2; Parish, Buenos Avres, 414.

295 296

TABLE 38

CUSTOMS TAX RATES, MONTEVIDEO, 1829

Tax Category______Item Taxed______Tax Rate

Maritime Imports unspecified products 24% sugar, yerba, cacao 20% misc. European goods 25% military supplies 10% salt fper fanecia?} 5 1/4 pesos English, French, Portuguese & Brazilian goods 15% all (Consulado) 1%

Maritime Exports cattle hides (through 6/12) 1 peso cattle hides (after 6/12) 1/4 peso horse hides (through 6/12) 22% horse hides (after 6/12) 1 real tallow, wool, skins, powder horns (through 6/12) 7.5% tallow, etc. (after 6/12) 4% unidentified goods 30.5%

Overland Imports all (except hides) 4% hides (each) 2 reales

Overland Exports all (per permit) 1/2 peso bullocks (each) 1 peso

Reexports all, acc. to destination: abroad 2% domestic or river traffic 1% all (ferrying, transshipment) 2%

Other all sales 4% ouloerias Coer shoo} 6 pesos naturalized ships 6% ships (port fee) 1 peso warehouse & storage: small bundles 1/2 real weighed articles 1/2 real 30 days or less 1 real more than 30 davs 1/4 oeso Source: AGN-Montevideo, Ex-Archivo General Administrative, libro 622, "Libro Mayor de la Aduana Nacional" (1829) . BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Archivo General de la Nacion, Buenos Aires

Sala III: Division Nacional, Contaduria Sala IX: Division Colonia, Seccion Gobierno Sala X: Division Nacional, Seccion Gobierno Sala XIII: Division Colonia, Contaduria

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