Federal League (1815–1820)
League of the Free Peoples Liga de los Pueblos Libres | |||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1815–1820 | |||||||||||||
Flag | |||||||||||||
Córdoba, Corrientes, Entre Ríos, Misiones and Santa Fe, plus the former Eastern Province (modern-day Uruguay) | |||||||||||||
Capital | Purificación (provisory), Montevideo | ||||||||||||
Common languages | Spanish | ||||||||||||
Government | Confederation | ||||||||||||
Leader | |||||||||||||
History | |||||||||||||
• Congreso de Oriente | 29 June 1815 | ||||||||||||
23 February 1820 | |||||||||||||
|
History of Uruguay |
---|
Uruguay portal |
The Federal League (
Inspired and led by José Gervasio Artigas, it proclaimed independence from the Spanish Crown in 1815 and sent provincial delegates to the Congress of Tucumán with instructions regarding the nonnegotiable objective of declaring full independence for the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata and establishing a confederation of provinces, all of them on equal footing and the government of each being directly accountable to its peoples by direct democratic means of government. The delegates from these provinces were rejected on formalities from the Congress that declared the independence of the United Provinces of South America on July 9, 1816.
The Federal League confronted the centralist governments, as well as the interests of the economic and cultural elite of Buenos Aires and Montevideo, in what later amounted to a
The league was dissolved after its constituent provinces rejoined the United Provinces, now under a federal provisional organisation, and after the
Although the country was intended to extend throughout modern-day Argentina, its leadership was based on Purificación and the Eastern Bank of the Uruguay River. Therefore, it is sometimes considered a predecessor state of modern Uruguay.
History
On May 13, 1810, the arrival of a
After the
José Gervasio Artigas
In 1810, Spain moved the headquarters for the Viceroyalty of the River Plate to Montevideo after the May Revolution forced them to abandon Buenos Aires. On February 15, 1811 José Gervasio Artigas left his home of Montevideo and moved to Buenos Aires to offer his military services. The people of
He soon turned against the government of the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata and in 1814 he organized the Unión de los Pueblos Libres (Union of the Free Peoples), of which he was declared Protector. In the following year, as a federalist, he liberated Montevideo from the centralizing control of the "Unitarians" from Buenos Aires, and in 1815 declared the Liga Federal. In this Congress Artigas ratified the use of the flag created by Manuel Belgrano (which would later become the flag of the Argentine Republic), but added a diagonal festoon in red, red being the sign of federalism in Argentina at that time.[1] Original member provinces were the present-day Argentinian provinces of:
- La Rioja)
- Corrientes
- Entre Ríos
- Misiones
- Eastern Province (Uruguay)
- Santa Fe.
Downfall
The constant growth of influence and prestige of the Federal League frightened
The Portuguese forces, led by
In 1820, governors
The Treaty of Pilar resulted unacceptable to Artigas so he ordered Ramírez and López to renounce it, but they disobeyed. Because of this, Artigas entered into conflict with his former ally Governor Francisco Ramírez, who defeated the remnants of Artigas' army. Artigas withdrew to Paraguay, where he settled as an exile until his death.[2] The Eastern Province was annexed by Portugal to its Brazilian dependences in 1821.
See also
References
- ^ Antonio Martins (2005-01-22). "Flag of the Federal League, a.k.a. Artiga's flag (Eastern Bank of La Plata: Uruguay and northeastern". pub. Retrieved 2008-04-08.
The red, blue and white colours were used by Artigas to establish a clear difference between the flag of the Eastern Province. These three colours evoke the colours of the French Tricolor of French Revolution days. At the beginning of the 19th century, red and blue were the colours you could find when looking for cloth for the soldiers' uniforms, in these Spanish colonies. Materials came in two shades of blue. One, the lightest, was celestial or "heavenly" blue and had been chosen by Belgrano for the flag of the May 1810 Revolution. Four or five years later, not wanting his colors to be similar or confused with those of the Buenos Aires government, against whose dominance he would be soon fighting, Artigas chose to design his flag and other provinces which were with him in opposing of Unitarian domination, in colours not existing in the Argentine flag. The shade of blue he adopted therefore was navy blue. Jorge Cajarville, 16 Jun 1999
- ^ Bonnie Hamre (2007). "José Gervasio Artigas". about.com. Archived from the original on 2011-09-27. Retrieved 2008-04-08.