Argentina History Part 11

In the capital the election of the constituent assembly had finally taken place, which met for the first time on the evening of January 30, 1813: extremists appeared there Monteagudo and Pedro José Agrelo stood out there; the young Alvear, destined for a great future, Vicente López, singer of the revolution, the other poet Cayetano Rodríguez; of the precursors, Vieytes and Sarratea. The first resolutions were a clear break with the Spanish crown: in fact, the name of Ferdinand was suppressed in the formula of the oath, and a decree of 7 February meant the dismissal of all non-naturalized foreign (therefore Spanish) public employees. Moreno’s widow’s pension was increased; a new coin was minted, replacing the profile of the sovereign with the symbol of the assembly (still preserved today): two hands clasping under the Phrygian cap; the judicial procedure was reformed and the appeal to the metropolis was suppressed. That more? In churches, instead of for royal majesty, they prayed for “the sovereign assembly of the united provinces”; and the patriotic hymn in its most glowing verse said:

Se levanta a la faz de la tierra

a nueva y gloriosa nación,

coronada su sien de laureles

ya sus plantas rendido a león.

According to harvardshoes.com, in January ’14 the constituent, convened by its president Alvear, who had taken great influence on the minds, reformed the statute, and instead of the triumvirate it deposited the executive power in the hands of a single director, who was Gervasio Antonio Posadas, an honest notary : his ministers, Nicolás de Herrera to the interiors, Francisco Xavier de Viana to the war and navy, Larrea to the finances. In June of that year Alvear took possession of Montevideo, taking 7,000 prisoners there and capturing immense war material, and San Martín began his splendid military career on another chessboard. But the conquest of Montevideo was not stable, at the expense of the irreducible Artigas, and the eastern capital had to be evacuated on February 25, 1815. Nor were things better in the north, where the uprising of the Juiuy army. In these situations, the peaceful Posadas was not well in his place, so that, following his resignation, on 9 January 1915 General Alvear was elected as Supreme Director, shortly after being succeeded by Rondeau, who had Álvarez Thomas as alternate. The restoration of Ferdinand VII did not fail to produce its effects on Spanish America; and, if the dreaded expedition of 15,000 men, which departed from Cadiz under Morillo’s command, straightened its bow towards Venezuela, rather than the Rio della Plata as it had previously been established, nevertheless the Chilean revolution was tamed at Rancagua, and the royalists triumphed again in Quito and Lima. But San Martín, tenaciously, prepared the men and material of his famous army of the Andes.

In the triumph of the Holy Alliance, which in this way had repercussions in South America, only the Rio della Plata preserved the freedoms it had conquered; but at what price! Rondeau shamefully let himself be beaten in Sipe-Sipe (November 28, 1815). Anarchy manifested itself in Córdoba and Santa Fe, and the nefarious Artigas intervened, who had awarded himself the grandiloquent title of “leader of the Orientals and protector of free peoples”, and with whom he was forced to bargain. Pezuela, head of the Spanish forces, was absolute master of the situation and threatened closely. Belgrano, having returned from Europe, was again placed at the head of the army; but his lieutenant Díaz Vélez came to terms with the Santafesini, signing the San Tomé convention, which aroused enormous indignation in Buenos Aires and resulted in the resignation of Álvarez, who was succeeded by General Balcarce, who was in turn exonerated for giving way to an internal junta composed of Francisco Antonio Escalada and Miguel de Irigoyen. Finally, the schism between the provinces and Buenos Aires manifested itself. Fortunately, however, at the beginning of 1816 the Congress of Deputies elected by the provinces opened in Tucumán: Buenos Aires was represented there with 7 delegates; Córdoba with 5; Chuquisaca with 4; Tucumán with 3; Catamarca, Santiago del Estero, Mendoza and Salta with 2; La Rioja, San Luis, San Juan, Mizque, Cochabamba and Jujuy with one each. The representatives of the Banda Orientale, of Entre Ríos, Corrientes and Santa Fe were missing. In Salta the elections were held with the cry: Corrientes and Santa Fe. In Salta the elections were held with the cry: Corrientes and Santa Fe. In Salta the elections were held with the cry: Mueran los porteños! Nonetheless, a citizen of Buenos Aires, Juan Martin Pueyrredón, was entrusted with executive power. Congress discussed the form of government at length, and there was no lack of partisans of the monarchy, including Belgrano, who even sponsored a resurrection of the kingdom of the Inca. But nothing was concluded in this sense and the only historic act of that assembly was the declaration of the independence of the Rio della Plata (July 9, 1816). Congress also took steps to tackle the anarchy that was brewing in the army, replacing generals Belgrano and Cruz for the inept Rondeau. The supreme director Pueyrredón in his government, which lasted until 1819, showed great patriotism, prudence and shrewdness. San Martín, his favorite, was able to make the legendary crossing of the Andes with 3100 men (January 1817), win the battle of Chacabuco (February 12), enter Santiago in triumph. So the following year (TheFebruary 1818) O ‘Higgins can proclaim the independence of Chile; and it is also San Martín who on April 5, 1818 beats the Spanish corps of Osorio in Maipú, which had come to the rescue from Peru. Also under the government of Pueyrredon the anarchist movements in the provinces were tamed: on 21 August 1816 the sedition of Córdoba, which ended with the complete defeat of the so-called montoneros, on 27 December of the same year, the uprising of Santiago del Estero, caused by the commander Borges. Only on the coast was the seditious spirit still alive, and in Buenos Aires itself there was an attempt, the “conspiracy of the French”, which ended with the shooting of officers Robert and Lagresse (April 1819). In 1817 the Congress had moved from Tucumán to Buenos Aires and was drawing up that “provisional regulation”, which will be the basis of the 1853 constitution, reformed in ’62. The regulation was transformed into the constitution sanctioned and promulgated on 11 May 1819, of moderately liberal spirits, modeled on English examples.

Argentina History 11