Background
José Gervasio Artigas was born on 19 June, 1764 in Montevideo, Uruguay. He was bom into a landowning family and was given the education appropriate to his status.
José Gervasio Artigas was born on 19 June, 1764 in Montevideo, Uruguay. He was bom into a landowning family and was given the education appropriate to his status.
Thereafter, he spent much time on the family estates and acquired the skills typical of the cattlemen, the gauchos. He was an officer in the militia and participated in the Spaniards’ successful resistance to the British attempt in 1806-1807 to seize Montevideo.
Within a few months of the beginning of the revolution against Spain in Buenos Aires in 1810, Artigas joined the movement. Although he particpated in a force sent by the Buenos Aires authorities to take Montevideo, he soon became the major leader of a faction in the “Banda Oriental” (the future Uruguay). The group sought autonomy for the region, against both Argentine and Portuguese efforts to extend control over it.
Artigas joined with the federalist forces that were opposed to a centralized regime under Buenos Aires control. However, the Argentine National Assembly which met in Buenos Aires in 1813 refused to seat a delegation that Artigas sent there. A year later, the regime in Buenos Aires outlawed Artigas, but since Artigas controlled most of the Banda Oriental, the Argentines withdrew in 1815.
Artigas established himself as Protector of the Banda Oriental, but he continued to seek autonomy, not the independence, of Uruguay within the Argentine Confederation. In pursuance of this objective, he established a Federal League, which at one point controlled not only the Banda Oriental, but also several Argentine provinces, extending as far as Córdoba.
In 1816 the Portuguese invaded the Banda Oriental once again and took Montevideo in January 1817. Artigas continued the struggle but by 1820 had been totally defeated; he fled to Paraguay, where he spent the rest of his life. He was not present in his native country in 1828, when it was finally established as an independent buffer state between Argentina and Brazil.