“MONSTROUS AND ILLEGAL PROCEEDINGS”: LAW ...

The Revolutionary Apogee
While the loss of the Bolivian highlands severed Buenos Aires’ vital trading
connections to the silver mines at Potosí, it was the conflicts in the Río de la Plata’s eastern
borderlands that swept away the vestiges of the old colonial institutions. Throughout almost
the entire colonial era, the Río de la Plata borderlands had been characterized by conflicts.
The commercial revolution in the late 18 th century based on the export of jerked beef and
hides had exacerbated social tensions between the small landholding population and large
absentee landowners based almost exclusively in the coastal capitals of Montevideo and
Buenos Aires. The power vacuum created by disintegration of imperial authority caused
these tensions to explode throughout the revolutionary decade. Under the leadership of José
Artigas, the political upheavals throughout the old viceroyalty produced a social revolution
aimed directly at ending the dominance of coastal elites over the interior. The borderlands
became not just a battleground between rival sovereigns, but also a breeding ground for a
revolutionary state system that rejected them both.
The initial fissures occurred between elites in Buenos Aires and Montevideo. The
two ports had long been political and economic rivals. 18 Now, the revolutions on both sides
of the Atlantic further exposed the gaps between them. Merchants in Montevideo
particularly saw an opportunity in the imperial upheavals to end their traditional
subordination to the viceregal capital across the estuary. As Creoles consolidated their grip
on Buenos Aires, Montevideo emerged as a royalist redoubt. Immediately following news of
the May revolution, authorities in Montevideo ordered Buenos Aires blockaded. Tensions
escalated when Governor Elío, who had traveled to Spain prior to the uprising, convinced
officials in Cádiz to name him the Río de la Plata’s new viceroy. When he returned to
18 Street, Artigas and the Emancipation of Uruguay, 34-43, 93-106.
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