Darwin records that he and the well-wishers of Argentina were looking with satisfaction and hope at the vigorous measures and rapid advances of this remarkable man, and he also adds in a note written years afterwards that these hopes had been miserably disappointed. Rosas was a rich man, and from his earliest days had been engaged in cattle-raising on the southern Pampas. In this hardy open-air life he had greatly distinguished himself by his boldness and skill in riding, and was the idol of hundreds of half-savage Gauchos. He was not endowed with signal abilities, but he was a hard, practical man, full of audacity and little troubled by scruples. He was now the chief of the Federalists, but at first there seemed little prospect that he would be able to make head against Lavalle. The latter led an army to attack his enemies in Santa Fé, while General Paz marched upon Cordoba, and at the same time they sent some veteran troops to operate against Rosas in the south. But these were overthrown by the hardy horsemen of Rosas, and he came to the rescue of the Federalists. General Paz had captured Cordoba, and defeated Quiroga with heavy slaughter, but Rosas' weight turned the scale. He marched to Buenos Aires, and in June, 1829, Lavalle, who had become involved in a dispute with the French Minister, was glad to resign and leave the country. His successor, Viamont, was a puppet of Rosas.
On December 8, 1829, Rosas was elected Captain-General in the interests of the Federalists, but he had no intention of allowing Federalist principles to stand in the way of his supreme rule. Lopez was despatched against Paz, who had the misfortune to be accidentally taken prisoner. Showing unusual magnanimity, Lopez spared his life. The troops of the Unitarians never recovered from the loss of their brave leader, and being attacked by the ferocious Quiroga and driven to Tucuman, they were in a hopeless position. Quiroga butchered five hundred prisoners in cold blood, and few of the remnants of Paz's army escaped to Bolivia.
Rosas then employed himself in consolidating his power at Buenos Aires, and with this object he repealed several of the Liberal laws of Rivadavia. In this task he was assisted by a clever and crafty man named Anchorena, with whose collaboration he passed a rigorous law of "suspects" directed against the Unitarians. Severe as he was against that party, and detested as he was by the late holders of office in the capital, who resented the dominion of a rustic, he was really, by his masterful measures, advancing the principle against which he posed as the nominal antagonist.[50] At the end of 1832 his term of office came to an end, and he was re-elected. But as his extraordinary powers were not renewed he haughtily refused office, and left Buenos Aires to reduce the Indians of the Pampa, who had taken advantage of the civil discords of Argentina. Again a man of straw was put at the helm. His name was Balcarce.
In the Indian war Rosas was successful, penetrating as far as the Rio Negro and destroying, according to his own computation, twenty thousand of the enemy. It is not necessary to describe the manœuvres and hesitations which preceded his return to nominal as well as real power. In 1835 he accepted the title of Governor and Captain-General, and henceforth ruled as a military Dictator. Never was there a more ruthless tyrant. The two most prominent soldiers and possible rivals left in Buenos Aires were Quiroga and Lopez. Quiroga had seen the elevation of Rosas with ill-concealed disgust, and the new Dictator resolved to make away with him. Rosas, therefore, commissioned him to go to pacify Salta and Tucuman, and on his way thither caused him and his suite to be assassinated. Shortly afterwards Lopez died, and it is only necessary to say that his physician was handsomely rewarded by Rosas. He established a reign of terror, and formed a club of ruffians called the Massorca, whose business it was to murder his enemies. One Maza attempted a Parliamentary resistance to him, and the crafty Dictator, after the plan had failed, first lulled him into security by vague promises of safety and then sent four men to stab him to death. His death was followed by an extensive proscription; in fact, the history at this period is distinctly Tacitean.
The power of Rosas was the greater because he had the help of a skilful general named Urquiza, against whom none of the Dictator's many enemies could make head. For a long time his power was unassailable, for the poignards of the Massorca were ready to repress any opposition, and even the Church was powerless against him. He expelled the Jesuits, paying a tribute at the same time to "their Christian and moral virtues," but declaring that they were opposed to the principles of government. Undoubtedly they were to the principles of his Government.
One of the main features of his policy was jealousy of foreign influence. He decided that all children born in Argentina were ipso facto citizens and liable to military service, and this decision remains in force at the present day. It led, however, to endless trouble with France. It is probable that if he had been able Rosas would have closed the country to all foreign nations, as his brother-tyrant, Francia, did in Paraguay.
But the old Greek saying that the worst disease of tyranny is the impossibility of reposing trust in its friends was to be justified, and Urquiza, his right-hand man, who had crushed the invaders from Uruguay at the battle of India Muerta and who had overawed all opposition, was at last to prove faithless. He had long been established as Governor of Entre Rios, where he had acted with remorseless cruelty in stamping out disaffection. His first attempts to subvert the authority of Rosas were unsuccessful, but in 1851 he made an alliance with Brazil and one of the Uruguayan factions, and in the December of that year he assembled a force of twenty-four thousand men, crossed the Parana, and marched into Santa Fé. On February 3, 1852, Rosas was overwhelmed at the battle of Casseros near the capital and he fled to Europe. Twenty-five years later he died in Hampshire.
Rosas disappeared unregretted. Although it is possible that at the time he came to the front a military dictatorship was the only possible form of government, yet he was one of the worst of the long list of South American tyrants, and it is probably impossible to find any redeeming feature about him except the fact that he encouraged agriculture—a service which was largely neutralised by his hatred of foreigners and foreign commerce. Undoubtedly he stopped the progress of a promising country, not only for the twenty years of his remorseless tyranny but for the long years which were required to recover from the effects of his sanguinary and soulless domination.[51]
Anxious as all were for peace and constitutional government, there was some civil warfare and much dissension before the position of Urquiza could be secured. Finally, on May 1, 1853, the Constituent Congress drew up a Federal constitution, and this is practically still in force.[52] Hardly less important was the treaty of the 10th of July following, made with England, France, and the United States, which declared that the Parana and other rivers should be for ever open to navigation.
Urquiza was elected the first President under the new constitution for a period of six years, and the country began to recuperate. The port of Rosario sprang into being, and the other river cities rapidly doubled in population. But towards the end of Urquiza's term civil troubles were renewed. The Province of Buenos Aires had been left outside the Confederation and was in a position of antagonism to the other Provinces. The party of the capital was called the Porteños—the men of the Port—and they took the place of the old Unitarian party. In 1859 Buenos Aires actually declared war upon the Federal Government, but Urquiza defeated its forces. Before a settlement could be made his term of office expired and he was succeeded by Dr. Durqui. Fortunately, the Governor of Buenos Aires, Bartolemo Mitre, was a true patriot, and though he was obliged to make war upon the President his efforts were directed to settling the Federal question, and they were, for the time, successful. Urquiza evacuated the capital and retired southwards. Mitre followed him with a large army, and in October, 1861, defeated him at Pavon and himself became President.