The insurrection of May 25, 1810, against the Spanish viceroy in Buenos Aires apparently began as a mere municipal uprising and had no immediate connection with the rest of the continent. But sooner than anyone expected, its repercussions were felt all over the vast expanse of the three-century-old empire. Furthermore, the Buenos Aires movement was the first to be successful from the very beginning. During the same year other similar attempts were made elsewhere, but they led to protracted struggles ending more than a decade later. In Buenos Aires the triumph of the patriot cause was never very seriously challenged after the downfall of the last viceroy. Why was this so? The best explanation seems to be that the Spanish roots in that region were much weaker than in the other viceroyalties. The people of the Platine basin depended very little on Spanish power to protect their general interests. A few years before they had repelled single-handed two mighty British invasions while the Spanish viceroy miserably deserted them. In other words, they had nothing to lose and much to gain by breaking their ties with the mother country.
One of the most outstanding champions of the Buenos Aires rebellion in 1810 was Manuel Belgrano. He had studied law in Spain (although he never became a practicing lawyer), and when he returned to Buenos Aires in the 1790s he brought along the new economic, political, and social ideas of the time. In the light of these ideas he realized that the backwardness of his native land demanded radical remedies which the obsolete Spanish system could not apply.
By preaching the new tenets he stirred up public opinion and accelerated the ferment that finally ended with the overthrow of the old regime. But curiously enough, shortly after the establishment of the patriot junta created to replace the viceregal government, he was assigned to military duties that kept him away from administrative and political cares—his real vocation—almost to the end of his life. He had no military training, but as an improvised general he displayed unusual skill.
The book under review follows Belgrano’s campaigns against the Spaniards through his unpublished correspondence with a rich and loyal friend who accompanied him in his ventures, Tomás Manuel de Anchorena. The Anehorena family was (and still is) one of the richest in the Río de la Plata region, closely related to the redoubtable dictator Juan Manuel de Rosas, who was, in fact, the administrator of its large estancias. Tomás Manuel Anchorena never countenanced the brutal policy implanted by Rosas.
Estrada’s book reprints eleven letters from Belgrano to Anchorena and two replies by Anchorena, along with a comprehensive biography of each of the two personages and extensive notes concerning persons and places mentioned in the letters. The novelty of this publication is the fact that it reveals for the first time the deep and cordial intimacy between Belgrano and Anchorena. In some instances the latter assisted his friend’s campaigns with substantial financial contributions from his own pocket, thus showing the profound interest of the well-to-do in freedom from the Spanish yoke. Quite different was the attitude of the native ruling classes in Mexico or Peru, for example, who thrived under the safeguard of the Spanish crown. Indeed, many prominent intellectuals of these countries, like Lucas Alamán in Mexico, never entirely resigned themselves to the removal of Peninsular power from their country.
Nevertheless, Belgrano shared with some of his Spanish American contemporaries a common error: that monarchy was the best government for the new nations. And he went ever further than others, for when Argentine independence was declared at Tucumán, he proposed that his country should be ruled by an Inca king!
We should conclude by saying that Estrada’s book is a valuable contribution to the history of Argentina’s insurrection against the Bourbon dynasty.
