Juan Manuel de Rosas

Juan Manuel de Rosas ( Buenos Aires , March 30 , 1793 – Southampton , March 14 , 1877 ). Argentine soldier and politician, who between 1829 and 1853 was the main leader of the so-called Argentine Confederation (current Argentine Republic).

Summary

[ disguise ]

• 1 Biographical summary
  • 1 Marriage
• 2 Policy
  • 1 Governor of Buenos Aires
  • 2 Death
• 3 Sources

Biographical summary

Son of León Ortiz de Rozas and Agustina López de Osornio ; He attended his first studies at the private school run by Francisco Javier Argerich . But his vocation was not for literature but for rural tasks.

During the English invasions (1806 and 1807) he actively participated in the defense of Buenos Aires in the Migueletes de Caballería regiment. After the reconquest he returned to the field. He remained completely aloof from the events of the May Revolution , against the Kingdom of Spain.

Marriage

In March 1813 he married Encarnación Ezcurra, who would be his partner in life and politics. After his marriage, Rosas returns the fields that he managed to his parents to his parents and decides to form his own company.

By November 1815 he partnered with Juan Nepomuceno Terrero and Luis Dorrego in a company dedicated to livestock exploitation, fish salting and export of various products in the Los Cerrillos ranch.

Policy

After the fall of the Directory, in 1820 Rosas began to actively participate in Buenos Aires politics. He supported and imposed the candidacy of Martín Rodríguez for the governorship of Buenos Aires. He actively participated in the Benegas Pact between Santa Fe and Buenos Aires and was responsible for delivering 30,000 head of cattle to the Santa Fe leader, Estanislao López.

When Dorrego was overthrown and subsequently executed by Lavalle, he once again placed Rosas at the forefront of politics. After shooting Dorrego, Lavalle marched towards Santa Fe to meet Paz, but was defeated at Puente de Márquez. by the allied forces of López and Juan Manuel de Rosas. Lavalle signed with Rosas the Cañuelas pact that appointed Viamonte as interim governor of Buenos Aires and called a meeting of the Buenos Aires chamber of representatives to elect the definitive ruler.

Governor of Buenos Aires

On December 8, 1829 , the Chamber of Representatives proclaimed Juan Manuel de Rosas governor of Buenos Aires, granting him extraordinary powers and the title of Restorer of the Laws.

Rosas carried out an orderly provincial administration. He cut spending and raised taxes, slowly overcoming the inherited fiscal deficit. He resumed relations with the Holy See , suspended since 1810 .

It was the landowner sector that supported the rosista leadership. The social structure during the rosista period was based on land. The large ranch was what conferred status and power. Rosas was accompanied in power by the dominant Buenos Aires groups that were not willing to share the customs revenues with the rest of the provinces. The restaurateur guaranteed them the necessary order and social discipline. to develop their economic activities.

In August 1830, several inland provinces formed the Unitary League under the leadership of General Paz. In January 1831 , Buenos Aires, Santa Fe and Entre Ríos signed the Federal Pact, a political-military alliance to put an end to the Unitarians of Paz. Finally Paz will be defeated and captured by López. Rosas, López and Quiroga dominated the confederation. But the restaurateur proved to be the most powerful and continued to isolate Buenos Aires from the other provinces.

In 1832 Rosas was reelected as governor of Buenos Aires. He demanded that his extraordinary powers be renewed. The chamber of representatives opposed and Rosas resigned. Rosas combined conciliation with repression during the campaign. He made an agreement with the Pampas and confronted the Ranqueles and the Confederation led by Juan Manuel Calfucurá. According to a report that Rosas presented to the government of Buenos Aires shortly after the campaign began, the balance was 3,200 dead Indians, 1,200 prisoners, and 1,000 white captives were rescued .

The success obtained by the restaurateur in the campaign further increased his political prestige among the Buenos Aires owners, who increased their assets by incorporating new lands and felt safer with the indigenous threat under control. Rosas distanced himself from the province but not from political management. His wife, Encarnación Ezcurra, was his faithful representative and with the support of the cob, she conspired against the governments of Balcarce, Viamonte and Maza that succeeded one another during the restaurateur’s absence.

The political agitation led by Encarnación contributed decisively to creating a climate of great instability favorable to the interests of Rosas. A fact will further aggravate the situation. The Rioja leader Juan Facundo Quiroga, lived at that time in Buenos Aires under the protection of Juan Manuel de Rosas.

Quiroga had expressed to the Restorer his concerns about the need to convene a congress and constitutionally organize the country. Rosas opposed it, arguing that the minimum conditions were not met to take such a step and considered that it was essential that each province organize itself beforehand.

It did not escape Rosas that the national organization would imply the loss for Buenos Aires of the exclusive enjoyment of customs revenues, among other privileges. Faced with a conflict that broke out between the provinces of Salta and Tucumán, the governor of Buenos Aires, Manuel Vicente Maza (who responded politically to Rosas), entrusted Quiroga with mediation.

After partial success, Quiroga began his return and was assassinated on February 16, 1835 in Barranca Yaco, province of Córdoba. Quiroga’s death determined Maza’s resignation and caused the idea of ​​the need for a strong, heavy-handed government to prevail among Buenos Aires legislators.

By a large majority of votes, expressed in the legislature and through a plebiscite that gave a result of 9,713 votes in favor and 7 against, Juan Manuel de Rosas was elected again, in March 1835 , this time with the sum of power public.

Juan Manuel de Rosas.

All Argentine products destined abroad had to pay their tribute to Buenos Aires and all foreign products destined for any part of the country must also pay taxes to Buenos Aires. Through this procedure, Buenos Aires can stimulate certain economic activity in the interior and boycott others, determining what foreign merchandise and from which countries of origin the interior can consume.

In this second governorship, Rosas favored the sale or granting of public lands that passed into the hands of large ranchers. He granted the option to purchase land to the tenants of emphyteusis contracts, thus facilitating access to private property both north and south of the Salado River.

Rosas maintained excellent relations with British merchants and his government throughout much of his mandate. France had not obtained from Rosas a commercial treaty like the one that England had obtained from Rivadavia. French citizens were not exempt from military service like the British. Rosas had also imprisoned several Frenchmen accused of espionage.

A diplomatic conflict occurred and the French ships that were stationed in the Río de la Plata blocked the port of Buenos Aires at the end of March 1838 .

The blockade was maintained for two years, generating a forced protectionist policy, beyond the Customs Law and producing certain cracks in the power bloc. The ranchers in the south of the province of Buenos Aires rebelled against Rosas due to the fall in meat prices and the difficulties caused by the French siege of the port.

During the blockade the civil war resumed. Lavalle, with French support, invaded Entre Ríos and Santa Fe but failed in his attempt to take Buenos Aires due to lacking the necessary support and had to march north.

In October 1840, finally by the Mackau-Arana treaty, France ended the blockade. The government of Buenos Aires undertook to compensate French citizens, granted them the same rights as English citizens and decreed an amnesty.

Once the conflict with France was over, Rosas limited the navigation of the Paraná and Uruguay rivers . He blockaded the port of Montevideo and helped Oribe invade Uruguay and besiege the capital in 1843. These attitudes of Rosas affected the interests of foreign merchants and financiers, benefiting the locals.

In 1845, the port of Buenos Aires was blockaded again, this time by a fleet from the United Kingdom and France. Despite the heroic resistance of General Lucio N. Mansilla and his forces, at the Vuelta de Obligado (near the city of Baradero ), the foreign fleet broke the chains placed from coast to coast and entered the Paraná River. The blockade Not only did it affect the interests of foreigners, it also harmed the Litoral ranchers who could not freely navigate the Paraná River and had to trade their products through the port of Buenos Aires. Among those affected was Justo José de Urquiza, who governed the province. from Entre Ríos since 1841

On the other hand, during this period the slaughter of animals is restricted so that when the blockades end, the ranches find their livestock multiplied and ready to be exported.

Year after year, citing health reasons, Rosas presented his resignation from leading the confederation’s foreign relations, certain that it would not be accepted.

In 1851 the governor of Entre Ríos issued a decree, known as the Urquiza pronouncement, in which he accepted the resignation of Rosas and resumed the conduct of foreign relations for Entre Ríos.

The conflict was essentially economic: Entre Ríos had been demanding free navigation of the rivers by ships of any flag – a benefit that did not exist in any country in the world – which would allow the exchange of its production abroad without the need to pay any tax. .

Urquiza decided to confront the Argentine government through alliances with foreign armies. The Emperor of Brazil , Pedro II, provided him with infantry, cavalry, artillery and everything necessary, including the squad.

In the Argentine provinces, Urquiza’s attitude aroused various reactions. Córdoba declared that it was an “infamous betrayal of the country” and said that “Urquiza had prostituted herself to serve as an advance guard for the Brazilian Government.” Others spoke out in a similar sense and tried to form a military coalition to defend Rosas, but it was too late.

In 1850, Urquiza, governor of Entre Ríos, rebelled with the support of the Unitarians and the Governments of Brazil and Montevideo , invaded Santa Fe, marched on Buenos Aires and defeated Rosas’ troops in the Battle of Caseros (1852 ).

Urquiza advanced on Buenos Aires with the Brazilian army, defeating Rosas in the Battle of Caseros, on February 3 , 1852 . The pro-British Buenos Aires government, installed on September 11 , 1852 , confiscated all of Rosas’s assets. Defeated, the governor of Buenos Aires embarked on the warship Conflict towards England. There he settled on the Burguess farm, near the port of Southampton , accompanied by English laborers and servants (although he never learned a word of the English language). To live he depended on the money that his friends sent him from Buenos Aires. In 1857 he was tried and sentenced to death “in absentia” by the Senate and House of Representatives, dominated by the pro-British oligarchy.

Death

Rosas returned to dedicate himself to rural tasks, in Southampton ( United Kingdom ), until his death on March 14 , 1877 , at the age of eighty-four.