W. H. Koebel

Founding of the city of Montevideo—Its first inhabitants—Inducement offered to colonists—The early days of the town—Successful rising of the Indians in the neighbourhood—Victory of the natives—Montevideo saved by Jesuit intervention—The Portuguese invade the northern provinces—The first Governor of Montevideo—Treaties and territorial cessions—Dissatisfaction of Jesuit Indians—Their defeat by combined Spanish and Portuguese forces—Vicissitudes of Colonia—The danger of hostile residents—A concentration camp of the old days—Expulsion of the Jesuits—Some incidents of the wars with the Portuguese—The foundation of urban centres—The English occupy themselves with the whaling industry on the coast—Discouragement of the enterprise by the King of Spain—A corps of Blandengues is created—The British invasion—Political effects of the occupation—The war of independence—Montevideo as the seat of the Spanish viceroyalty—Commencement of the agitation for freedom in Uruguay.

On the 24th of December, 1726, was founded the city proper of Montevideo. Its inception was sufficiently modest. Indeed, the spot commenced its urban existence on a human diet of seven families translated from Buenos Aires for the purpose. A little later twenty families were brought from the Canary Islands to add to the humble population. It is not a little curious to read how, even in those early days, the spirit of colonial enterprise was already manifest in the way that is now considered most up-to-date. Intending immigrants to Montevideo were each offered free transport from Buenos Aires, plots in the city and holdings in the Campo, two hundred head of cattle, one hundred sheep, and free cartage of building material. They were offered, beyond, tools, agricultural implements, and a remission of taxes for a certain period. The whole savours strongly of a modern immigration department. In any case, the inducements offered were considerable.

Two years after its foundation Montevideo received an important reinforcement of citizens, when thirty families from the Canary Islands and from Galicia were introduced into the place. Thus the small town was already beginning to make its mark upon the surrounding country, and at the end of 1728 it could count over two hundred inhabitants, four hundred troops, and a thousand Indians employed principally in the works of fortification. A couple of years later it was deemed worthy of a corporation.

Nevertheless, in this very year the growing settlement all but came to a bloody and untimely end. A rising of the CharrÚa Indians in the immediate neighbourhood of Montevideo resisted all the efforts made to subdue it. Over one hundred Spaniards were slain and the royal forces put to rout. The natives, drunk with success, were on the eve of entering Montevideo and of slaughtering the inhabitants, when a Jesuit missionary, Padre HerÁn, intervened, and prevailed on the Indians to desist from their purpose.

Scarcely had this danger passed when another, and remoter, came into being to take its place. The restless Portuguese having given peace to the Banda Oriental for ten years, doubtless considered the period unduly prolonged, and thus invaded the Rio Grande on the northern frontier. Lavala's successor, Don Miguel de Salcedo, a ruler as impotent as the first had been strong, contented himself with besieging Colonia as a counter-stroke, while the Portuguese forces were left free to complete the conquest of Rio Grande. This they continued to hold, despite the terms of an armistice arranged in 1737 between Spain and Portugal.

For ten years after this no historical event of importance occurred to disturb the progress of Uruguay. In 1747 a rising of the Indians was utterly crushed at Queguay, and two years later Montevideo, now acknowledged as a town of importance, was accorded a Governor of its own. Don JosÉ Joaquin de Viana was the first appointed to the post. His opinion of its urgency is evident from the fact that he only took office in 1751.

By the treaty of 1750 King Ferdinand VI. of Spain ceded to Portugal the northern stretches comprising the Jesuit Missions of Uruguay and the present province of Rio Grande in exchange for Colonia. As a stroke of commercial diplomacy the bargain was undoubtedly a failure, since by its means Spain not only lost for ever two flourishing provinces, but, in addition, the Jesuits and their Indians were obliged to forsake the field of their labours, and to migrate in search of fresh country.

This, however, was not the case with all alike. A large number of the Indians, deeply attached to the neighbourhoods wherein lay their homes, refused to follow the missionaries, and in the end resisted the unwelcome decree. Pitted against the combined forces of Buenos Aires, Uruguay, and Brazil, their cause had not a momentary chance of success. After suffering various defeats, they were finally routed and almost exterminated at Caaibate in 1756, when the native loss amounted to 154 prisoners and 1,200 dead, at the very moderate Spanish cost of 4 dead and 41 wounded. The character of the action is sufficiently evident from the butcher's bill. A certain number of the surviving Indians were taken to Maldonado, and, settling there, formed the nucleus of the present town.

In the meanwhile Colonia, whose inhabitants by this time must have been rendered giddy by the continuous substitution of bunting, had again passed into the possession of the Portuguese. The recurrence of war between these and the Spaniards gave Pedro de Ceballos, an able and energetic Governor of Buenos Aires, an opportunity to act. In 1762 he surprised Colonia, captured it, and was in the act of invading the ceded territory of Rio Grande when the Treaty of Paris came inopportunely into being to stay him in his path of conquest, and to give back Colonia, that bone of contention, to the Portuguese once more.

This occurred in 1763, and Ceballos was powerless to struggle further against a fate that caused victory to be followed by the loss of provinces. Nevertheless, he took various measures towards the preservation of the remaining territory. One of the most important of these was concerned with the numerous Portuguese families that were settled along the eastern frontier of the country. Having reason to believe that these were hatching further warlike schemes in conjunction with the authorities across the border, Ceballos caused them to be taken south, and to be collected together in a small settlement in the neighbourhood of Maldonado, where they could remain under the watchful eye of the Uruguayan officials.

In 1767 the expulsion of the Jesuits from South America by King Carlos III. of Spain proved of no little moment to the Banda Oriental, since many of the Indians, wandering shepherdless and at a loss, came southwards, and became part and parcel of Uruguay. It was by means of twelve of these Indian families that the city of PaysandÚ, amongst several others, was founded, while the fields of Montevideo and Maldonado derived many new cultivators from this source.

It was but a very few years later that the trouble with the Portuguese broke out once again. Indeed, it would seem that indulgence in border feud had now become an ineradicable habit on the part of both sides. By the year 1774 the inhabitants of Brazil had once again passed over the north-western frontier, and had spread themselves over the country in such numbers as to render their presence a menace to Uruguay. In order to remedy the situation, Vertiz, the Governor of Buenos Aires, crossed from Buenos Aires to Montevideo, from which city he sallied out northwards with an army of four thousand men. Meeting with the Portuguese forces in the neighbourhood of the Santa Tecla range, he routed them and pursued them as far as the River Yacuy, depriving them of the lands they had usurped.

On the return of Vertiz to Buenos Aires, Portuguese aggression burst forth once again. Advancing from the east this time, they were repulsed in an attack on the town of San Pedro; but in 1776, returning with an army of two thousand men, they captured the place and possessed themselves of the district. The inevitable counter-stroke on the part of the Spaniards was to follow. Indeed, the scale of the struggle waxed steadily with the growth of the respective countries. Brazil was already the seat of a viceroyalty, and immediately after this last invasion the provinces of the River Plate were raised to the same status. Ceballos, then on a visit to Spain, was created first Viceroy, and was dispatched from Cadiz with a powerful fleet and with over nine thousand troops to avenge the incursion.

With such forces as these at his disposal the task of Ceballos was an easy one. The Island of Santa Catalina was captured without a blow, and that bone of contention, Colonia, surrendered perforce after a few days of siege. Above its walls for the fifth time the flag of Spain was hoisted afresh. On this occasion the ill-omened place was destined to pay for the memories of the past, and its walls suffered in place of the garrison. In order to remove temptation from the minds of the northern enemy, Ceballos razed the elaborate fortifications to the ground and destroyed the more pretentious houses, amongst these being some of the best architectural specimens of the River Plate.

Having effected this, Ceballos was passing northwards with the intention of bringing back the Rio Grande Province once more within the fold of Buenos Aires, when his march was stopped by the news of another of those treaties between the mother-countries that seemed to materialise with unfailing regularity at moments so ill-timed for the interests of the Spanish colonies. By the terms of this Spain was left with the mines of Colonia, while the Island of Santa Catalina and the greater part of Rio Grande were ceded definitely to Portugal.

After this ensued an exceptionally lengthy era of peace, which was marked by the immigration of many families from Galicia and from the Canary Islands, and by the foundation of numerous towns, amongst these latter Canelones, Piedras, Rosario, Mercedes, Pando, Santa Lucia, San JosÉ, and Minas. As to the capital itself, by the year 1788 Montevideo had become a fairly important place, and could count a population of 6,695 Spaniards, 1,386 negro slaves, 562 liberated negroes, and 715 half-castes and Indians. A few years later the population was much augmented by the introduction of important numbers of negro slaves, a traffic that continued intermittently until 1825, when its continuance was prohibited by law.

At the end of the century an industry was initiated that might have led to important commercial results but for the action of the Spanish home authorities. The waters off the coast of Maldonado had long been famed as a whaling-ground, and at this period permission was given to the Englishmen engaged in the traffic to found establishments both at this place and at Punta de la Ballena. The result was a rapid but fleeting prosperity at both these points, since after a while the attitude of the Court of Spain changed. Fearful of the influence of the English upon the Uruguayans, the authorities offered to the new colonists the option of becoming Roman Catholics and of swearing allegiance to the King of Spain, or of abandoning the settlement. The latter alternative was chosen by the whalers, and Maldonado and Punta de la Ballena, in consequence, sank back into the lethargy of industrial torpor. The instance is only one of the many in which the mother-country satisfied its conscience at the expense of its colony.

A corps of Blandengues, or Lancers, was formed in 1797, whose duties, beyond their military performances, were varied to a degree. Thus, in addition to the occasional brushes with the Indians that fell to their lot, they were employed as excise officials against the smugglers, as escorts of high officials, as ordinary police, and as official messengers. The corps was composed of picked men, and in its ranks served JosÉ Gervasio Artigas and JosÉ Rondeau, both bearers of names that were destined to become famous in Uruguayan history.

This body of cavalry was destined to be employed on active service very soon after its formation. In 1801 the Portuguese became active once more, and the first year of the new century was marked by their occupation of land in the north-west of the Banda Oriental. After various actions, Rondeau, with a force of Blandengues and dragoons, defeated the invaders and won back the greater part of the lost territory.

In 1806 occurred the first of the British invasions which, although materially fruitless in the end so far as our own country was concerned, were destined to influence the minds of the colonials and the future of the River Plate Provinces to a greater extent than is generally realised. The circumstances of the invasion that won to the British Crown for a very short while not only Montevideo, Maldonado, Colonia, and numerous lesser Uruguayan towns, but Buenos Aires in addition, afford bitter reading. Thanks to the colossal incapacity—to give his conduct no harder name—of the British Commander-in-Chief, General Whitlocke, the last troops of the British army of occupation had sailed away northwards from Montevideo by the beginning of September, 1807.

Although the matter ended for the British with the departure of the troops from the River Plate, the aftermath of the event took very definite shape in the Spanish colonies themselves. Not only had the inhabitants of the provinces learned their own power, but—more especially in the case of Montevideo—the seeds of commercial liberty had been sown amongst the local merchants and traders by the English men of business who had descended upon the place beneath the protection of the army. That the final leave-taking between the English and the Uruguayans should have been accompanied by actual cordiality and regrets is surely an astonishing circumstance that affords great credit to both sides. There can be no doubt, however, that this mutual esteem was in the first place fostered by an appreciation on the part of the residents of British laws and methods of trading.

Whether the germs thus left behind would have fructified so rapidly but for the chaotic condition of the mother-country is doubtful. As it was, scarcely had the smoke of these actions cleared away when it became necessary for the patriots of the River Plate Province to look once again to their primings in view of still more vital occurrences.

I do not propose to tell here the full story of the rebellion of the River Plate Provinces and of the revolution that ended in the complete overthrow of Spanish power in South America, since I have already roughly sketched these events elsewhere. So far as the main events are concerned, the transition from the colonial stage to the condition of independence was slower in the Banda Oriental than was the process upon the eastern bank of the great river. In Julio of 1810, when the Junta of Buenos Aires had already established itself to cast off the yoke of Spain, Montevideo still remained faithful to the mother-country, and rejected the advances of the Argentines.

Thus at the beginning of 1811 Montevideo found itself, if only for a short while, the seat of the viceroyalty of the La Plata Provinces, and from that point of vantage Elio, the Viceroy, declared war upon Buenos Aires. Almost immediately, however, the spirit of independence became manifest in Uruguay itself, and it is at this juncture that occurs the name that has perhaps stamped itself most deeply of all upon the history of the Banda Oriental.