A few years before the bicentennial of the May Revolution of 1810. Our own Uuruguay should feel like then?

A few years before the bicentennial of the Revolution

The country was born on May 25?

On May 25 marked the 197 th anniversary of the establishment of the First Government, called "De Mayo?, An event that would begin the road to the Declaration of Independence in 1816.

Along with the division of the Viceroyalty of Peru, an act which gives life to the Viceroyalty of the Rio de la Plata in 1776, proceeded to the creation of the Naval Post Montevideo.

Their mission was to protect the river and protect the Falkland Islands of British desires.

Four of the largest ships that made up the great expedition of General Pedro de Cevallos destined to conquer and to dislodge the Portuguese from the Colonia del Sacramento, consolidating the Hispanic presence in the Banda Oriental as well as new diplomatic attempts to prevent the much-disputed derecuperar Lusitanian citadel were affected in the service of the body which, in its early days, he developed an intense activity and acquired a relevant role that entire period.

Successive base naval commanders and officers were "notorious Hijosdalgo?, Graduated from Midshipmen companies Cadiz, Cartagena, El Ferrol, which as such had been among the privileges and obligations, be custodians of real people Navy ships and occupy a place of honor alongside the Walloon Guards in landforms. Therefore did not accept anyone put an interdict or endangered in the divine right of king over his subjects in the peninsula or east side of the ocean.

His performance during the English invasions of 1806 and 1807 and tested it to about way.

Adopt the same attitude and comfortable after the abdication of King Ferdinand VII prison, facing the Board in May that rejected the Central Board or Council of Regency, custodians of the sovereignty of the monarch unable to exercise it. However, with the caution characteristic of his military status, betrayed in his communications to his superiors, some disapproval by the disinterest and ignorance Hispanics demonstrating that both bodies with respect to the possessions of America.

Opposition to political or economic changes, and the horror at the crime of wanting independence, would be demonstrated through the actions and claims of the commander of the Naval Station, Captain Jose Maria de Salazar, who had no doubts about "the infamous plans of the Board of the Capital, even if they wanted to disguise his voice with the hypocritical mask of our August sovereign Fernando VII?.

Faced with the absurdity of a revolution, which seemed frankly separatist sailors acted as he sent the ordinances of the Navy, their training and their status as loyal supporters of the monarchy.

Santiago de Liniers, blamed by the Spanish, Napoleonic pro charged by the governor of Montevideo, Francisco Javier Elio, despite its close ties with some of the Creole leadership, no doubt, true to his general condition of the Navy, to lead Córdoba's counter to oust the board and return to the Regency the Rio de la Plata.

He was accompanied by another officer usually filled with merits and services, Brigadier Juan Gutierrez de la Concha.

Santiago de Liniers, about to be shot in Tigre head with this and other companions in misfortune, the urge that no vocal protest against the First National Government Juan José Castelli, who had come to hasten the execution, "saying that were happy because all died with the satisfaction of being loyal to the king and the nation and its honor unscathed down to the pit?.

At that time, Captain Salazar from Montevideo insisted that "the party of independence is great?, Which also did other contemporaries in the royalist side, which refutes, at least partially, the idea that everything was caused by reduced counsels and the decision of an elite. In the same way, does not mean that there are several small groups of interests, which lead you to believe in a lot of supporters.

The officer felt an inescapable duty to preserve the provinces of La Plata to the monarchy and for Spain.

To that end had the instrument of the Naval Station Naval Montevideo, despite the precarious means that afflicted him. Exceptions such as Pascual Ruiz Huidobro Brigadier and Creole Matías de Irigoyen, Martin Thompson and Jose Matias Zapiola, sailors formed a solid block to prevent the spread of revolutionary ideas that could endanger the continuity of Spanish rule the comfort of their families.

However, against the war that did not hesitate to risk everything for the sake of his oath of allegiance to the monarch. And indeed, while some, such as those cited Liniers and Gutierrez de la Concha, died in the attempt, most had to return to the metropolis in 1814, after the capitulation of Montevideo, temporarily abandoning their wives, children and property.

It should be noted that since the days of the site in the eastern city, was an understood value, which is then endorsed by most historians that the Spanish naval power was a determining factor for the conservation of the square, so that he thought the error of the Board to allow the return of the sailors who were in Buenos Aires, then you do not agree to subordinate the new government took from this the possibility of having an irresistible force, while allowing the authorities to the eastern city absolute control of the inland rivers.

But it was not, as the ships were in a state so dire that their operations become very difficult. No one better than the very members of the Naval Station knew the weakness of its forces and rejection caused among the few veteran troops and militias of land, also in the neighborhood, by the aloofness and haughty who held as a point of honor, but that conflicted with the practices of companies small and simple as those of the provinces of La Plata.

Hence, when the Board had sufficient naval forces, relatively well equipped, featuring seasoned foreign crews in the fight at sea and galvanized by the energy and tactical capability of William Brown, was able to complete the action of effective land besiegers and put end to the resistance of Montevideo and thus to the Spanish presence in La Plata.

It is worth remembering that before the eighteenth-century Bourbon reforms, the Spanish Empire into the area of ​​the Rio de la Plata and peripherally in their vital interests, linked to the extraction of gold and silver to fund the frequent wars in which the Empire was involved in the XV and XVI.

The River Plate region had been the last to be incorporated into the Spanish colonial rule.

It was a region rich in mineral resources such as Mexico and Peru and also given its geographical position, represented more of a permanent threat to the integrity of the Spanish colonial policy, as the River Plate region was the area's favorite smuggling route British Colony Sacramento in complicity with Portugal as well as piracy and slave trade from Africa by the French, British and Dutch.

As a result of the above factors, the Spanish government found it necessary to sacrifice the economic interests of the Rio de la Plata in favor of the priority regions of the River Plate as the cases of Peru, Upper Peru and Mexico.

Infrequently the Spanish authorities sent the funds needed to maintain this region. Moreover, Buenos Aires had to endure the negative effects of the law of 1561 prohibiting the overseas trade of Buenos Aires. The system consists of fleets and galleons of the Spanish Empire to prop up the commercial monopoly clearly demonstrated that the Crown privileged to ports like Portobelo, Panama and El Callao de Lima, who were the products distributed to the rest of the Spanish territory in America, detriment of Buenos Aires, who could not deal with the mother directly.

After a long journey in wagons, these products came to the Rio de la Plata notoriously expensive and often quite irregular one, since the heavy Spanish galleons were to reach and / or from ports in Spanish America authorized above were often victims of the incursions of the lighter ships led by British and Dutch pirates and privateers. It was clear that this system monopoly by the Spanish Crown orchestrated with the complicity of Lima merchants, as was stated, was not intended to encourage consumers or traders or locals.

Consequently, Buenos Aires, delayed by the Crown was forced to buy from overseas rather than through the official system of fleets and galleons but through smuggling. The Spanish authorities were very receptive to the interests of the Peruvian merchants, who called the closure of the port of Buenos Aires.

In reply to this covenant between authorities of the metropolis and Peruvian merchants, traders turned their backs porteños system monopoly to trade with British and Portuguese allies illegally.

In 1620 the Customs Seca was established in Cordoba to stop through levies on goods in transit smuggling of goods and money between Buenos Aires and the interior provinces. For its part, the towns of the Rio de la Plata Coastal subregion, as Corrientes, Assumption Goya and even remained as mere markers of Spanish authority, abandoned in the middle of a vast jungle.

It was almost nonexistent outside support for the defense of the region, in Paraguay, the militia must supply themselves with their horses and weapons. The boats that crossed the region were forced to sell in small convoys as the only protection against attacks by the Indian canoes.

These examples provide compelling evidence of the lack of interest in the metropolis to the River Plate region.

While a few isolated measures were adopted to allow trade in Buenos Aires Brazil (flour, meat and tallow in exchange for clothes, shoes, hardware and other items) (eg, in the years 1602-1608, and 1614-1619) , they were not a sufficient palliative to the interests of traders and consumers River Plate. In addition, the Peruvian traders lobby thwarted an attempt by Don Manuel Frias, Attorney General of the provinces of the Plata, the Spanish Crown to obtain a license to trade with Buenos Aires Brazil and Spain.

For the reasons previously mentioned, the action taken by Cevallos in September 1777 broke the efforts of the Peruvian traders to strangle the commercial life of the port of Buenos Aires, who was born and raised from the smuggling and the link with Britain.

The classical historians point out that the fall of the Junta of Seville in the hands of Napoleon was the trigger that took Mariano Moreno and Cornelio Saavedra to drive the movement of May. From 14 to 25 this month, in 1810, there were a series of events that ended with the appointment of government without the viceroy: the First Meeting.

River Plate historians could never settle the debate about what were the ideas and motivations that inspired "the remarkable? Buenos Aires to express the cry patriotic revolutionary in that day May 25, 1810.

Among tales of professional, military, Masons, smugglers, recently expelled Jesuits, the Argentines were forming a romantic idea of ​​what happened at the Open Meeting (which was not so democratic, oligarchic rather was), because only were summoned to the assembly those who owned property, while the people waited outside the square.

Most agree that the trigger was no more revolutionary than the fall of Spain to Napoleon Bonaparte and downplays other possible influences did play prominent roles in the struggles against the Spanish royal troops and the national organization.

Officially defined the week of May 14 began with the arrival at the port of Buenos Aires misletoe ship of the English flag, which brought fresh news from Europe.

The newspapers of the time, wrote that the Junta of Seville, the Spanish government last body fell into the hands of Bonaparte, who came to govern much of the Iberian territory.

As would happen today with a story referring to a political scandal, the population was stirred and began patriotic movements could not be placated easily because the soldiers were mutinous.

The Viceroy Baltasar Hidalgo de Cisneros, who shortly before (July 15, 1809 in Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay today) had replaced Santiago de Liniers, refused to be of French origin and allied to the Napoleonic possible, try to stem the tide with a quick reflex.

Cisneros gave the 18 a side where the people demanded calm and loyalty to the Spanish crown in order to storm events do not occur in the Rio de la Plata.

At that time the viceroyalty was divided into eight municipalities: La Paz, Cochabamba, Charcas, Potosi, Paraguay, Salta, Cordoba and Buenos Aires, and four subordinate governments the direct authority of the viceroy: Montevideo, Misiones Chiquitos and Moxos.

The reading of the royal edict mobilized the natives, who had examined particularly the information coming from Europe, calling on the authorities to enable them to conduct an open meeting to discuss the situation.

This popular mobilization is where it starts and develops political and military move would end forming the first Board in May as the provisional government to assume the new authorities in the Iberian Peninsula.

Notables such as Brigadier Cornelio Saavedra, born in what is now Bolivia and Buenos Aires Mariano Moreno were responsible for the air abruptly to mature freedom.

Both were traders, with the difference that Saavedra entered the military during the resistance boxes and subsequent recapture of Buenos Aires to the British invasion in late 1806, when he was appointed commander of the corps of volunteers who formed the Patricios Regiment, being all born in America.

Saavedra was a very important role during the years after the invasion, during the week of May and early years of the emancipation of the mother country.

In early 1809 a group of merchants and militia led by? Lzaga tried removing Santiago de Liniers unsuccessful in this attempt.

Saavedra and his soldiers gave strong backing to the viceroy that survived.

But not much time for the government to dismiss resolved Seville naming as new manager of the Rio de la Plata to Baltasar de Cisneros.

Moreno, also a merchant and a strong liberal ideology, began his political career a few years earlier when he had among other things, strongly develop economic initiatives implemented in 1777 by the then newly appointed first Viceroy of Río de la Plata, Pedro Antonio de Cevallos to open trade in the southern colonies to the metropolis by removing the absurd and damaging commercial monopoly.

The pressure of the young Creole and despair of Viceroy Cisneros to get new goods that no longer came from Spain, which was in French hands, forced to declare the practice of free entry of goods.

This decree was a great touch with the factories of some municipalities and other cities during the monopoly stage of they could compete, even against smuggling, imports or exports of Buenos Aires, who handled the port and customs.

Among the areas that are economically lost Corrientes and Misiones who were affected by the large opening of the port of Buenos Aires.

Some years later, these provinces were relegated Argentine general development.

Various historical sources claim that the major loss of industrial power correntinas many families did not support the movement of Saavedra and Moreno and supported each other years later, Jose Gervasio Artigas, the Uruguayan leader.

After the decree of trade and economic freedom, Moreno was so well positioned within the oligarchy of Buenos Aires, which became the soul of the revolution of May, but it was the visible head.

Followed patriotic week 20 with a meeting where Cisneros and covenant as leaders was to develop open forums required by citizens.

On May 22 the assembly defines that the Viceroy should be deposed.

This is where a major happening curiosities, May 23, Cisneros does look like the head of the Board to handle the reins of power in the new homeland.

The 24 significant mobilization outraged popular drink around the appointment of the Cabildo and requires definitions revean taken a day earlier.

The historic May 25, coined the phrase "the people want to know what it is? and a few hours after a new board headed by Saavedra and composed of Mariano Moreno, Juan José Paso, Manuel Belgrano, Juan José Castelli, Juan Larrea, Manuel Alberti, Domingo Matheu and Miguel de Azcuénaga is in charge of the destiny of the provinces of Rio de la Plata.

The background was in the provinces

The provinces of Río de la Plata, 1810, raised long before the independence of the colonies inspired the idea of ​​political maturity. All movements were crushed.

One of the main currents of independence came from the hand of the Jesuits who had installed the government in the areas of Paraguay, Misiones, Corrientes reaching even to the shores of Cologne at the ranch of Las Vacas, then the Orphan Calera.

The end of the stream ended with the expulsion of the religious order in Spain and America in 1767.

Also the northern, more precisely in Jujuy, landlords raised the need to stop taxing taxes to the Crown.

The landowners were accused of treason and their property invaded by the royal troops massacred that even slaves who had nothing to do with the actions of employers.

Those who formed the Board

The composition of the Board did not represent all walks of Buenos Aires.

They were mostly traders, giving him the character of liberal revolution. Except two, others were born in the Spanish colonies.

Brigadier Cornelio Saavedra, was born in the countryside near Potosi, as a child came to Buenos Aires to study at the Colegio de San Carlos. In 1799 he was elected alderman of the City Council and during the Reconquista, in late 1806, he was appointed chief of the Patricios Regiment, composed of Americans.

Mariano Moreno was born in 1778 in Buenos Aires. He studied law at the University of Chuquisaca.

In 1809 the landowners and peasants, he was appointed attorney for a presentation of the rationale for free trade. For many it was the soul of the revolution.

He founded the first newspaper homeland.

Juan José Paso was born in Buenos Aires in 1757. He studied at the University of Córdoba, earning a doctorate in 1779.

He was secretary of the Governing Board, its activity desmereció by Mariano Moreno, Office Manager of Finance.

Manuel Belgrano was born in Buenos Aires on June 3, 1770, was educated in Spain, and in 1794 returned to his law degree and secretary of the Royal Consulate of Commerce, established in the administration of Viceroy Arredondo.

In Proceedings of the Proceedings Corporation and presented annually can appreciate their efforts to serve the ideas of free trade.

Juan Jose Castelli was a founder and apostle of emancipation in Argentina.

Born in Buenos Aires on July 19, 1764. Friendship with Belgrano, influencing this proposed it in 1796, to perform the substitution of the secretariat of the consulate.

Attending a forensic study, which was the most renowned for his scholarship and integrity, when in partnership with Belgrano, Rodríguez Peña and Vieytes secretly began organizing the work of independence.

Juan Larrea born in the city of Mataro (Catalonia) on June 24, 1782. He settled in Buenos Aires in the early nineteenth century, it became a comfortable position as a merchant, by his intelligence and correction.

Manuel Alberti was born in Buenos Aires on May 28, 1763. He completed his studies until graduating advantageously doctorate in theology at the University of San Carlos de Cordoba in 1783, and receive sacred ordination.

Sunday Matheu was born on August 4, 1766 in the city of Mataro, eleven leagues distant from that of Barcelona. He received the diploma pilot Tues In 1793, having liquidated the name he had with his brother, decided to establish a merchant in Buenos Aires. He managed to carve out a good fortune. He was also a lieutenant in the 1st Company of Miñones, and attended the Brook fighting and Miserere, during the British invasion. He took part in the work that resulted in the revolution by attending the Open Meeting of May 22, 1810, to give his vote for the cessation of the command of Viceroy Cisneros.

Azcuénaga Miguel was born in Buenos Aires on June 4, 1754. He studied in Spain, and in 1773 began providing services in the lining of the viceroyalty. Regidor of the Cabildo, real lieutenant and later mayor of a second vote. He served as general procurator for several years. In 1796 he assumed command of the militia. Also part of the defense in 1807 against the English invasion.

The role of the Masonic lodges

The secrecy of the Masonic lodges prevented for a long time to find a document that links directly with patriotic airs, 1810, but its members were directly the forerunners of the great homeland Jose San Martin and Simon Bolivar.

It is almost impossible to date the presence of the Lautaro Lodge before 1812, which would have begun to run the organization that took part many of the illustrious Argentines.

Even some members of the First Board at least they are suspected of having been initiated into the organization after the revolution. This data set provided a cloak of suspicion about how genuine were those patriotic airs.

But the absence of official documents proving the connections drawn by the researchers will be very difficult to take the mantle and expose the Masonic influence in Argentina in May.

One of the tracks who managed to gather was that Francisco de Miranda, a Venezuelan American founder of the Lodge, which operated in London, Europe was able to recruit in San Martin and Alvear.

There they formed in the republican ideas with other great Latin and Bolivar, O'Higgins and Carrera, Chile; Montufar and Rocafuerte, Ecuador, Valle, Guatemala, Nariño, Colombia.

Returning to America after 1810, the Argentines are able to assemble his own lodge, which entered into the circles of power even to run the country from underground.

One of the most important revelations of Joseph Matthias Zapiola (usually native) was the golden rule of the lodge: the "brothers? elected to a military function, administrative or government should seek advice before appointing military commanders, governors, diplomats and judges.

If it is clear that to delay independence decreed that Argentina was due to the influence and internal to the Masons had to determine who was in power.

Also consecrated as historical truth that the course charted to expel the Spanish from the continent was secretly agreed between the Latino fraternities supported by the English.

But the role they played in the events and the Open Meeting can not be found unless the turns of history allow.

The story was not (not written)

Within the range of unofficial history contains the story of an English flag ship smuggler who was arrested in the port of Buenos Aires with valuable merchandise aimed at families with much influence in the Rio de la Plata.

These families could not persuade the Viceroy to release the goods seized and blew a big fight that was taken by the rest of the citizens as the first air of freedom.

A similar story explained that the smugglers tired of paying a bribe to the customs resolved but significant dissolution called for the creation of a National Government.

Meanwhile, on the books that a group of patriots went to the port the same May 25 and was stationed dock where the ship that brought the bad news from Europe swore allegiance to the Argentine authorities.

The captain of the ship acted as clerk certifying that the provinces of Rio de la Plata is finally emancipated from the Spanish colony and from that time England could trade freely with the southern New World.