Page 65 - Across the Andes: Chile’s Atacama Desert & Argentina’s Northwest

Soon after achieving independence, political scene in Uruguay became split between two
parties, both led by the former Thirty-Three, the conservative Blancos (“Whites”) and the
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and represented the business interests of Montevideo; the Blancos were headed by the second
President Manuel Oribe, who looked after the agricultural interests of the countryside and
promoted protectionism.

Parties became associated with warring political factions in neighboring Argentina. The
Colorados favored the exiled Argentinian liberal Unitarios, many of whom had taken refuge
in Montevideo, while the Blanco president Manuel Oribe was a close friend of the Argentine
strongman Juan Manuel de Rosas.

Oribe took Rosas’s side when the French navy blockaded Buenos Aires in 1838. This led the
Colorados and the exiled Unitarios to seek French backing against Oribe and on June 15,
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Argentinian Unitarios then formed a government-in-exile in Montevideo and, with secret
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years and become known as the Guerra Grande (the Great War).

In 1840, an army of exiled Unitarios attempted to invade northern Argentina from Uruguay but
had little success. In 1842 Argentinian army overran Uruguay on Oribe’s behalf. They seized
most of the country but failed to take the capital. The Great Siege of Montevideo, which began
in February 1843, lasted nine years. The besieged Uruguayans called on resident foreigners
for help and a French and an Italian legions were formed. The latter was led by the exiled
Giuseppe Garibaldi, who was working as a mathematics teacher in Montevideo when the war
broke out. Garibaldi was also made head of the Uruguayan navy.

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interfere with international shipping on the River Plate, but in 1845, when access to Paraguay
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Buenos Aires, while Brazil joined in war against Argentina. Rosas reached peace deals with
Great Britain and France in 1849 and 1850 respectively. The French agreed to withdraw their
legion if Rosas evacuated Argentinian troops from Uruguay. Oribe still maintained a loose
siege of the capital. In 1851, the Argentinian provincial strongman Justo José de Urquiza turned
against Rosas and signed a pact with the exiled Unitarios, the Uruguayan Colorados and Brazil
against him. Urquiza crossed into Uruguay, defeated Oribe and lifted the siege of Montevideo.
He then overthrew Rosas at the Battle of Caseros on February 3, 1852. With Rosas’s defeat and
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A ruling triumvirate consisting of Rivera, Lavalleja and Venancio Flores was established, but
Lavalleja died in 1853, Rivera in 1854 and Flores was overthrown in 1855.

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