Ponce de Leon: The Rise of the Argentine Republic

by William Pilling

The necessities of Government had compelled them to many extreme and arbitrary measures for the replenishing of the exhausted treasury. Of these measures the Spanish residents of Buenos Aires were the especial victims. Early in the year 1812 the capital was almost drained of troops by the large reinforcements despatched to the army in the Banda Oriental, and the Spanish residents, headed by Don Martin Alzaga, entered into a conspiracy together, their object being to seize the city, put to death all the principal Argentine leaders, and to set up a new government in connection with the Spanish Cortes then assembled at Cadiz. To further their scheme they entered into a correspondence with the Princess Carlota of Brazil, and the Portuguese army, which had received orders to retire from the Banda Oriental, delayed its retreat in pursuance of secret instructions, and was held in readiness to support the conspirators if they should succeed in gaining possession of the capital.

Until the eve of the outbreak, the Government was in complete ignorance of the danger, but immediately on the discovery of the conspiracy adopted the most vigorous measures of suppression. Thirty of the principal conspirators, including Don Martin Alzaga, were shot, and their bodies hung upon gibbets, seventy-eight of less note were condemned to minor punishments, and the danger was thus averted.

The authors of the revolution of the 25th May, 1810, had sought to establish a new government upon the democratic basis of the sovereignty of the people. Many of them were men of great intellectual attainments, but they had adopted the ideas of the revolutionary leaders of France, in the full persuasion that that form of government, which is in theory the best, must necessarily be the best in practice. The failure of democracy in France had not opened their eyes to the fact that a government, to be securely based upon the will of the people, must be constructed in conformity with the traditions, circumstances, and instincts of the people.

The first five years of revolutionary government were thus a series of political experiments, a series of abortive attempts to govern a number of distinct provinces by schemes of administration, which might have been fully adequate for the government of the small republics of ancient Greece, or of the Italian cities of the middle ages, when each city was a separate state, but were totally inadequate for the government of an immense territory, peopled chiefly by herdsmen and shepherds. They totally failed to give the people any adequate means of expressing their will, and the result was that during these years the people, who had responded eagerly to the cry of liberty, interpreted in their own way the theory of popular sovereignty.

The nature of the country and the traditions and instincts of the people all inclined them to an aristocratic form of government; the attempt to form an administration on a democratic basis was consequently a complete failure.

The mass of the Argentine people were herdsmen and shepherds, who lived scattered over immense plains, who were yet in a state of semi-barbarism; the theory of the sovereignty of the people was interpreted to mean that each man had a right to choose his own ruler. The qualities which they could most fully appreciate were dauntless courage, a strong seat on horseback, and a ruthless will. Men possessed of such qualifications were those to whom they would naturally look as their leaders, and to whom they were ready to yield the most unquestioning obedience; but men like these were not the men to work cordially with the authors of the revolution in the regeneration of their country. Thus the leading Democrats, almost ignoring the existence of the mass of the people, except when they looked to them for aid against the Spaniards, sought only the co-operation of the towns and cities in their attempts to form a national government.

The revolution of the 25th May, 1810, was exclusively the work of the citizens of Buenos Aires. The nucleus of all the armies which fought in the subsequent campaigns was formed of the militia of Buenos Aires; the Patricios, and other regiments levied in Buenos Aires, bore the brunt in every conflict. It was the militia of Buenos Aires who marched with Belgrano through the dense woods and endless swamps of Paraguay, and held their own against the overwhelming odds of fourteen to one. It was the militia of Buenos Aires who kept the Portuguese armies in check in the Banda Oriental, laid siege to Monte Video, where the garrison outnumbered them three to one, gained the victory of the Cerrito, and eventually compelled the surrender of the city. It was the militia of Buenos Aires who penetrated with Balcarce, Diaz Velez, Puyrredon, and Belgrano to the confines of Upper Peru. It was the militia of Buenos Aires who decided with their bayonets the fields of Suipacha, Tucuman, and Salta; they stood round Belgrano and the blue-and-white standard among the rocks on that dismal night which followed the rout of Vilcapugio; they retreated with him from the still more disastrous field of Ayouma. Argentines from other provinces, Paz, Arenales, Martin Güemes, and many others, vied with their comrades from Buenos Aires in gallantry and endurance on many a hard-fought field; on two occasions Belgrano saved the remnant of his army solely through the devoted bravery of his "gaucho" allies of the interior, but in every conflict the brunt fell upon the infantry of Buenos Aires.

Buenos Aires not only furnished the nucleus to every army, but her citizens impoverished themselves to provide by voluntary contributions for the support and equipment of these armies, while her trade was harassed, and at times destroyed, by the hostility of the Spanish cruisers. Of all the cities of the interior, Tucuman alone displayed equal patriotism, equal zeal for the cause of all.

But Buenos Aires in return for the great sacrifices she made, claimed for herself the chief place in the direction of affairs. The Cabildo of Buenos Aires took upon itself on more than one occasion the right of nominating the Government which ruled in the name of the Argentine people. The "Constituent Assembly" of the year 1813 was the first legislative body which in any degree represented the united provinces. This assembly soon fell under the influence of the secret society, then known as "Los Caballeros Racionales," and later on as "La Sociedad de Lautaro."