Readers should welcome this little book back into print. It is far from being a full biography of Mariano Moreno and is not even a systematic analysis of his political thinking. Instead it is a brother’s lament and a piece of propaganda. Manuel Moreno served as secretary to Mariano Moreno on his voyage from Buenos Aires to London, where he was to represent the Junta Gobernativa of Buenos Aires to the English government. This book was written shortly after Mariano’s death at sea and published in London during 1812 to justify the revolution against Spain and Mariano Moreno’s part in that revolution. The apologia is of interest to us primarily because it reveals the tension between the uncovered “face” of revolution for independence and the “mask” of loyalty to Ferdinand VII. Throughout the book the author attempts to explain away and justify the revolution by means of the “mask,” the rhetoric of devotion to Spain. He condemns the tyranny of Spain and the unfair disposition of power in the colonies that makes Buenos Aires dependent upon the altiplano of Peru. He criticizes the Church and the monopolistic control over the trade of the Americas. And yet he protests that the actions of the junta in Buenos Aires, including the famous cabildo abierto of May 25, 1810, were taken out of loyalty to Spain and to Ferdinand and were necessary and legitimate. He denies that the junta of Seville speaks for the colonies and says that if any split were to occur, it would be the fault of the home government. One can observe the same tension when he discusses the role of Mariano Moreno in the revolution, for he insists that Mariano stimulated patriotism, but never tried to promote rebellion. At another point he maintains that Mariano was no Jacobin, but merely did what the circumstances required.
The peculiar perspective of a partisan produces some interesting insights, such as Manuel’s comment that Baltasar Hidalgo de Cisneros arrived in July 1809 and behaved like the general of a hostile invading army instead of the representative of the metropolitan government sent to restore order in a loyal colony. What comes through to the reader is a strong sense of what we must call nationalism, for the desire of the people in America to go it on their own is clear. Manuel states this idea explicitly in his conclusions, and it is a leit motif in the writings of Mariano Moreno, which are quoted at length. This is a very modern concept of nationalism, including what Latin Americans today would call indigenismo and the urge to act independently of any dominant foreign power.
This memoir is weakest where it should be strongest—on the personal life of its hero. There are some tidbits on Mariano Moreno’s early life, but virtually nothing on the political in-fighting that drove him from Buenos Aires. Useful supplements on these subjects are: Enrique Williams Alzaga, Dos revoluciones: 1° de enero, 1809-25 de mayo, 1810 (Buenos Aires, 1963); Cartas que nunca llegaron (Buenos Aires, 1967); and Ricardo Levene, Ensayo histórico sobre la revolución de mayo y Mariano Moreno (4th edition, 3 vols., Buenos Aires, 1960). The book under review contains only the faintest hint of the talent and energy that prompted a Spanish statesman of the last century to call Mariano “the most able of all the revolutionaries, the true leader of the Revolution.”
