CHAPTER VI
COLORADOS AND BLANCOS
The overthrow of Rosas and Oribe marked the end of the effort to re-incorporate Uruguay with the Argentine Confederation. Uruguay was no longer in peril from foreign aggression, but she was far from being united. The blancos had apparently been completely crushed, but their wealth, prestige, and numbers still made them formidable. The seeds of division lay thickly in the soil of the national society and character, sure to spring up and bear many crops of wars and pronunciamentos.
For the moment, however, the fierce Uruguayan partisans had had enough of fighting. The colorados were dominant and the blancos disorganised and discouraged. It seemed likely that Uruguay would enjoy a prolonged peace. The wars which lasted almost continuously from 1843 to 1851 had interrupted immigration from Europe; unitarians had, however, crossed in multitudes from Buenos Aires and many of their families remained after the proclamation of peace. To this day Montevideo is full of families descended from Buenos Aires refugees; the same names constantly recur on both banks of the Plate, and the social ties uniting the two cities are intimate. Uruguay's herds of cattle and sheep had suffered from the depredations of the armed marauding bands which had scoured the country districts for nine years, but man's cruel destructiveness could not injure the magnificent pasturage with which nature had endowed the nation, and animals quickly multiplied again by hundreds of thousands. In 1860 the cattle in Uruguay numbered more than five millions, the sheep two millions, and the horses nearly one million. The population increased at the almost incredible ratio of nine per cent. per annum after the overthrow of Oribe in 1851 until civil war again broke out in 1863.
During these years colorado chiefs occupied the presidency, sometimes succeeding one another, sometimes by pronunciamento, and sometimes by a form of election. General Venancio Flores, an able and ruthless officer, became the principal figure among the colorados. In 1853 he was a member of a triumvirate which forced the legal president to withdraw, and in 1854 he was himself raised to the presidency, only to be obliged to resign the following year. As is usual in South America, the dominant party split into factions, led by ambitious chiefs, and lost popularity. The blancos, as soon as they got into power, obtained control of the senate, and their prestige and wealth soon balanced the military force of their opponents. In 1860 they finally prevailed, and their leader, Berro, became constitutional president of the republic.
The colorados, however, did not propose to submit. Massed upon the Argentine frontier, they held themselves ready to fall upon their successful opponents at the first opportunity. Flores had been exiled and joined the Argentine army, but in 1863 he obtained aid in Buenos Aires and disembarked upon the Uruguayan coast with a considerable force. His partisans rose and he obtained possession of a large portion of the country and set up a government of his own. For a year the contest went on with varying fortunes, and then this fight between blancos and colorados involved all the neighbouring nations and brought on the greatest war which has ever devastated South America and which resulted in the nearly complete destruction of the Paraguayan people.