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The Dictatorship of Rosas, 1829-52

Juan Manuel de Rosas was born in Buenos Aires Province to a wealthy criollo family. At the age of 13 he participated in the reconquest of the city of Buenos Aires as part of the troops under the command of Santiago Liniers, a Frenchman by birth but a loyal servant of Spain. In 1807 Rosas took over the management of his parents' estates in the countryside but soon went into business and formed a company to exploit agricultural ventures.

Rosas and his business partner established one of the first saladeros in Buenos Aires Province in 1815, but shortages of meat in the urban markets prompted the closing of all meat-salting enterprises. The expansion of the estancia economy after 1815 provoked clashes between the white settlers and the Indians of the pampas, and at about that time Rosas invested in landed properties around the area of the Rio Salado.

During the 1820s Rosas put together a well-mounted cavalry militia of his own gauchos — the Colorados del Monte — dressed in red, who joined the troops of the city of Buenos Aires to form the Fifth Militia Regiment. His gaucho power base intimidated the urban Buenos Aires upper class, which considered it symbolic of the victory of "barbarism" over "civilization".

Military success generated political gains, and in 1829 Rosas was elected governor of the province of Buenos Aires. Together with neighboring caudillo governors, Rosas' ascension symbolized the victory of the caudillos and of the Federalist cause throughout the Rio de la Plata basin. On December 8, 1829, Rosas was inaugurated as governor of Buenos Aires with extraordinary powers and much political support from the conservative landed, mercantile, and religious elites, whose goals were peace and stability, law and order.

These powerful interest groups wanted to restore the country to its old ways and opposed the instability that had marked the Unitarian administration of Rivadavia. Rosas inherited a province recently ravaged by war and plagued by factionalism at a time when production and exports were declining and the treasury was depleted in a situation aggravated by a severe three-year drought. Despite the odds, Rosas was able to forge a compromise, recognizing provincial autonomy and, in 1831, establishing a basis for national unity through the Federal Pact concluded between the provinces of Buenos Aires, Entre Rios, Santa Fe, and Corrientes.

Rosas' first term was a period of restoration. He strengthened the army, protected the church, established government financial credit, protected agrarian interests, and promoted pastoral industry — all at the expense of education and freedom of expression. As part of the landowning class, he fully understood its needs for more land and greater security. Pressure for new grazing areas pushed ranchers into Indian territory, and government action was necessary to occupy and protect the new settlements.

Military action was postponed until 1833, when Rosas personally led the troops against the Indians in the Desert Campaign. (The pampas were widely known as the desert at that time.) Rosas' victorious campaign led to his being awarded the title of "Conqueror of the Desert," giving him an even broader power base among ranchers, the military, and the pacified Indians, upon whom he would later draw political support for a return to power.

At the end of his term in December 1832, Rosas relinquished his extraordinary powers and was succeeded by Juan Ramón Balcarce. Less than a year later, Balcarce was forced out of office following a rosista (follower of Rosas) rebellion led by the Popular Restoration Society and its paramilitary squad, the Mazorca, which had been organized about the time Rosas left the government. To succeed Balcarce, Congress appointed Juan José Viamonte provisional governor, a post he held until June 1834. Rosas' departure had left a power vacuum that was manipulated by the rosistas to bring the caudillo back to power on the record of his first administration. During Rosas' absence, the concepts of territorial expansion and national unity suffered a severe blow beyond the continental boundaries of the Rio de la Plata basin.

Historical disputes remained unresolved in the Falkiand/Malvinas Islands, and the situation worsened when Captain J.J. Onslow of H.M.S. Clio occupied and reasserted British sovereignty over the islands in late 1832 and early 1833. Despite protests from the government in Buenos Aires, the British continued to occupy the islands with only a small settlement and naval detachment. At the onset of his second administration, Rosas echoed the protests against a violation of national territorial integrity. Although he considered the British occupation to be of minor importance, he recognized the potential of using it in bargaining with the British on more important matters.

On March 7, 1835, Congress appointed Rosas once again to the governorship of Buenos Aires with unlimited powers to defend the Federalist cause and with a mandate to remain in office for as long as he considered necessary. Rosas conditioned his acceptance on his receipt of popular confirmation. A plebiscite was held in the city of Buenos Aires in March, and the results fully vested the caudillo with dictatorial powers. On April 13, 1835, in a climate of adulation and submission to the new ruler, Rosas took the oath of office and pledged to bring punishment and death to the enemies of the regime. Buenos Aires was decked in the red of the Federalist militia, and portraits of Rosas were paraded through the streets.

The formal preparation of every demonstration of support was an early indication of Rosas' style of government. Support for his policies was not enough; he sought public and absolute backing from all citizens and institutions throughout the country, including the elites, the military, the church, the bureaucracy, the courts, and Congress. Opposition to his regime was not tolerated, and a climate of terror and suspicion permeated the country.

Rosas' rule was blended with mock constitutionalism, legitimized by a puppet Congress that voted him back into office at the end of every "presidential term". A spoils system was instituted to provide rewards for Rosas' followers; his opposition, which often sought refuge in nearby Chile and the Banda Oriental, was systematically punished. Relations with the provinces were kept informal. Although there was no written constitution, the provinces were subjected to policies that reflected the interests of Buenos Aires.

Rosas' personal dictatorship was conducted from his residence, the Palace of Palermo, and from Santos Lugares del MorOn, the military headquarters of his regime. Propaganda was the most important ingredient of rosismo (Rosas' tenets of rule) and provided the slogans that effectively terrorized the population. The use of rosista slogans was considered a sign of loyalty to the regime, as was the public display of a red badge on the left side of the chest bearing the motto "Federation or Death." Uniformity in dress, appearance (men had to wear mustaches and sideburns), and public displays of loyalty were all part of the state-sponsored program of coercion and terrorism. Political propaganda was disseminated by the rosista press of Buenos Aires.

A Catholic by tradition, Rosas protected the institution of the church and ended the liberalism and anticlericalism of the Rivadavia era. In 1836, almost 70 years after their expulsion, the Jesuits were allowed to recover their Argentine churches and schools, but after 1840 they joined the opposition. In 1843 they were again expelled from Buenos Aires, and by 1852 there was not a single Jesuit left in the country. The Jesuit opposition to Rosas was not shared by the regular church hierarchy: the pulpit was used for dictatorial propaganda, and Rosas' portrait was displayed as an icon at church services with full approval by the Catholic hierarchy. As part of his mass support, the lower clergy of uneducated, untrained, and undisciplined criollos preached loyalty and obedience to Rosas as the restorer of the law.

Rosas' military power base was built during his years as commander of the Colorados del Monte. He earned a reputation and the praise of rural militiamen during the Desert Campaign, and he remained faithful to his estanciero background and its traditional patron-client relationships. He advocated the army's use of guerrilla warfare, which, because of its characteristic elements of surprise attacks, disbanding, and regrouping of forces, was most effective in the countryside. Rosas' army was composed largely of regular, noncommissioned officers and conscripts, whereas the higher-ranking officers were veterans of the wars of independence. It was not a popular army because military service was perceived as a form of imprisonment for the reluctant conscripts led by professional soldiers. Rosas' absolute powers rested heavily on his use of the military and the bureaucracy as agents of coercion and terror.

However fragmented and lacking in coordination, opposition to Rosas' regime was widespread after 1829. Montevideo became a haven for political exiles, who organized the opposition within Argentina through a few representative nuclei, such as the Association of the Young Argentine Generation, headed by Esteban Echeverria, Juan Maria Gutiérrez, Juan Bautista Alberdi, Vicente Fidel Lopez, Miguel Cane, and Marcos Sastre.

It began as a literary society but branched out to become a political group, called the May Association, committed to the organization of society and the creation of a free government according to the ideals of the May Revolution of 1810. The young intellectuals found their inspiration in French political thought of the time. Most of them worked in exile in Santiago or Montevideo, and only two of these outstanding young men, Bartolomé Mitre and Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, were to become soldiers. Both would be instrumental in the overthrow of Rosas and the process of national consolidation that followed the end of the dictatorship.

A series of challenges to the regime began in 1838. French economic interests in the Rio de la Plata basin had been curtailed by Rosas' hegemonic pretensions in the area. A French naval blockade of Buenos Aires in March 1838, however, was followed by an alliance between France and Uruguay against Rosas. The blockade was damaging to the economy, and it destabilized the regime and prompted even more autocratic rule, which Rosas blamed on the French. Between 1845 and 1847, Britain joined France to blockade again Buenos Aires harbor.

The opposition gained momentum after the governors of Corrientes, BerOn de Astrada, issued a manifesto in February 1839 asking the other provincial governors to deprive Rosas of the power to negotiate with foreign nations. Uruguayan president Fructuoso Rivera and the Unitarian exiles in Montevideo offered their support to Astrada. Rosas' forces under Pascual Echague, governor of Entre Rios, and Justo José de Urquiza invaded Corrientes and destroyed the opposition in March 1839.

At about the same time, Carlos O'Gorman, an army lieutenant, organized a dissident movement in the south, and a conspiracy led by RamOn Maza and the May Association was discovered in Buenos Aires. The conspiracy's leaders were executed, but opposition forces gathered in Montevideo under Juan Lavalle, who attempted an invasion of Buenos Aires in 1840. Despite the invasion's failure, it encouraged other movements in the interior and the creation in Tucumán of the "Coalition of the North" — composed of the provincial governments of Tucumán, Salta, La Rioja, Catamarca, and Jujuy — led by Marco de Avellaneda.

These attempts to overthrow Rosas reflected the ideals of independence that had remained unfulfilled after 1810, and they provoked Rosas to intensify the reign of terror in the country. Its end in 1842 did not completely halt the arbitrary and repressive tendencies of the regime, but the Mazorca was disbanded in 1846, and the number of executions dropped significantly toward the end of the dictatorship.

During the second half of Rosas' rule, a new potential leader surfaced. Urquiza was the best local military leader, a seasoned politician, and a wealthy estanciero-saladerista from Entre Rios. Urquiza's opportunity came in 1851 when, after the end of the period of foreign interventions by Britain and France, he was able to secure the support of a coalition of provincial governments.

To support the Uruguayan bid for independence, Brazil broke off relations with Rosas in 1850 and established alliances with Paraguay and the provinces of Entre Rios and Corrientes. Brazil believed that to maintain peace and trade in the area it was necessary to protect the independence of Uruguay and Paraguay, which were threatened by Rosas, and for this purpose it joined Urquiza's forces when he declared himself against Rosas in May 1851. Rosas' interference in the affairs of his neighbors coalesced the forces that ended his nearly 20 years of conservative rule.

In July 1850 Urquiza crossed into Uruguay and in 1851 ended the siege of Montevideo by an ally of Rosas that had begun in 1843. An army was gathered in Entre Rios with troops from Brazil and Uruguay and émigrés from Buenos Aires and the provinces, which then advanced to Santa Fe. On February 3, 1852, Rosas was defeated at the Battle of Caseros, and a week later he left Buenos Aires for exile in Britain, where he died in 1877.