Uruguay’s history is rather unique by South American standards in that it was a flash-point of competing Spanish and Portuguese colonial ambitions, and later of divergent visions of the structure of the independent countries. Like those of its neighbors, the Uruguayan lands were home to several indigenous cultures prior to the arrival of European conquerors. The most prominent among these were the Charrúa, who violently deflected the first Europeans to set foot in the region, a 1516 Spanish expedition under Juan de Solis. As a result of the Charrúa hostility, the Spanish resigned themselves temporarily to the southern shores of the Río de la Plata and began asserting influence over Uruguay’s fertile interior from their settlement at Buenos Aires. The Spanish hesitance to firmly colonize the territories the so-called Banda Oriental (the eastern bank of the River Plate, or modern Uruguay) prompted their imperial rivals, the Portuguese, to found Colônia do Sacramento, a fortified port just across the river from Buenos Aires, in 1680.

The Spanish were loathe to see the expansion of Portuguese territory up to the shores of the River Plate, which they considered a treasure-trove of riches waiting to be exploited. Thus, in 1724, Spain raided and overran a second Portuguese fort at the site of present-day Montevideo and founded a new colony there. The rivalry between Spain and Portugal over the Banda Oriental intensified in the mid-18th Century, as colonizers from both sides spread into the Uruguayan interior pursuing stellar cattle-raising lands and decimating the indigenous residents of the area in the process. With its superior natural harbor, Spanish Montevideo grew quickly and eclipsed Portuguese Colônia as a trade center. In 1776, Spain’s Uruguayan territories were incorporated into the Viceroyalty of the Rio de la Plata seated at Buenos Aires. A year later, Portugal and Spain's conflict in the Banda Oriental was ended by a truce that ceded Colônia to the Spanish and gradually led to the replacement of free-roaming, cattle-tending gauchos by estancieros (large ranchers) in the region's interior.

Meanwhile, the merchant class of Montevideo grew to resent the city’s trade subservience to Buenos Aires—perhaps an early indicator of the increasing dismay with the Spanish Crown itself. Faith in the Crown was further diminished in 1806 when Britain, at war with Spain over Atlantic trade routes, captured Montevideo en route to besieging Buenos Aires. The British were eventually routed by local resistance in Buenos Aires, and forced to retreat from their occupation of Montevideo in the process. Temporarily in charge of their own affairs, these local anti-British resistance leaders pushed through free trade initiatives while reaffirming their commitment to the Spanish Crown. When the new viceroy appointed by the Crown promptly repealed the locally-favored free trade policies, many of the leaders of the formerly anti-British resistance on both sides of the River Plate began planning for revolution against the viceroyalty and Spain. But while the proto-revolutionaries of Buenos Aires sought to unseat the viceroy and yet maintain the territorial entity of the Viceroyalty with its headquarters in their city, some members of the Montevideo avant-garde saw the crumbling of Spanish authority in the River Plate region as an opportunity to assert a measure of independence from not only the Crown, but from Buenos Aires, too. When the the Buenos Aires resistance declared a junta to lead the old viceroyal lands, Montevideo rejected the junta’s authority and formed its own interim government under Javier Elío, ostensibly still loyal to the Crown but free of interference from Buenos Aires.

This arrangement provided limited autonomy but was unsatisfactory to many of those who had fought for a freer political entity in the Banda Oriental. These forces gathered around Jose Artigas, who led a siege of Montevideo in 1811. Realizing his limitations, Elío requested Portuguese assistance in the struggle against Artigas. In a somewhat absurd turn, Elío’s move led to the Portuguese take-over of most of the Banda Oriental, including Montevideo, and Artigas’ army was forced to flee over the Río Paraná into modern-day Argentina.

Meanwhile, in Buenos Aires a similar set of competing currents—the Federalists, favoring a loose confederation of the provinces of the former Viceroyalty, and the Unitarists, advocating a strong central government based in Buenos Aires—were trading blows similar to those between Artigas and Elío in the Banda Oriental. Artigas envisioned a federalist solution to the break-up of the ex-Viceroyalty and attempted to win acceptance for the idea in Buenos Aires, but the city’s government had swung to the Unitarist side at the time and rejected Artigas’ proposals. This led Artigas to attack Montevideo again, where he confronted the Portuguese occupiers as well as Buenos Aires-leaning Unitarists. Artigas’ forces eventually won their struggle, setting up a federalist entity that incorporated much of the Banda Oriental as well as several modern-day provinces of Argentina. But in 1817, Portugal invaded and annexed Artigas’ proto-state and drove him into exile.

With Brasil’s independence from Portugal in 1822, its newly (re-)acquired subjects of the Banda Oriental revolted under the command of Juan Lavalleja and declared loyalty to the Buenos Aires-based United Provinces of the River Plate, essentially the Argentine proto-state with Uruguay included. By 1828, Britain had become fed up with the disruptions caused to its South American trade by the constant warring in the River Plate region, and intervened to settle the dispute over the Banda Oriental. Brasil and Argentina agreed to the creation of an independent buffer state between them, and the República Oriental de Uruguay was born (the new country’s name recalled its former name, the Banda Oriental, and also pointed out the special relation of Uruguay to its eastern neighbor, Argentina).

As an independent state, Uruguay continued to be plagued by the factionalist politics of the Federalist and Unitarist camps, as well as the interference of its two powerful neighbors, Argentina and Brasil. Civil war broke out in the 1830s and Argentina and Brasil both took sides in the conflict, which eventually drew Britain and France into a series of regional wars focused largely on the same old questions of factional discord in the region's politics. The wars ended in 1852 with Uruguay in a newfound position of treaty-ordained subservience to Brasil. Then, Uruguay willfully joined Brasil and Argentina in attacking Paraguay in a war that permanently damaged Paraguay’s development but did set up a regional balance between Argentina and Brasil that in turn allowed Uruguay to focus on its own development.

As in its colonial era, after independence Uruguay’s economy remained largely focused on agriculture and beef production. Some industrialization occurred in the late 19th Century, spurred in part by British commercial interest in Uruguay and also by a tremendous influx of European immigrants that continued into the 1930s. In the early 20th Century, under President José Batllé y Ordóñez, Uruguay modernized rapidly as the state took an active role in the management of the economy and the secularization of the social agenda. Batllé introduced a number of state welfare programs and social reforms including pensions, improved education, the 8-hour-workday, the legalization of divorce, and women's right to vote. His administration also helped to stamp out the factional cronyism of earlier politics. For some time in the first half of the 20th Century, Uruguay boasted a large middle class and a progressive social project, and the well-run country came to be known as the Switzerland of South America.

But the success of the Batllist reforms, many of which were sustained by his more conservative successors, was largely dependent on revenues from agricultural and beef exportation, and as the sector stagnated in the 1950s, Uruguay’s admirable welfare state buckled under the pressure of spikes in unemployment and inflation. Uruguayan society grew more polarized as increasingly authoritarian-right governments sought to deal with rising levels of student and labor militancy. From 1967 on, facing a left-wing insurgency by the Tupamaro guerrilla movement, the elected government ratcheted up military involvement in the policing of the state and banned some opposition parties. After defeating the Tupamaros, it was only a short time before the Uruguayan military seized full political power in 1973, asserting the need to secure the state against the atheist threat of Soviet contamination.

With covert U.S. support, Uruguay’s military dictatorship (1973-1985) coordinated activities with those of several other South American states (Argentina, Brasil, Bolivia, Chile, and Paraguay) under Operation Condor. The Uruguayan dictatorship detained some 60,000 civilians, and the country soon had the highest rate of political prisoners per capita in the world. Torture, disappearance, and extrajudicial executions were commonplace; some 10 percent of the population fled into exile. By borrowing heavily from collaborative banks and international financial institutions, the dictatorship intensified Uruguay’s economic downturn and helped bring about its own end. A gradual transition to civilian rule was precipitated by mass demonstrations that openly defied the military’s repression.

In 1985, Uruguay emerged from the dictatorship in serious trouble. A series of elected, civilian coalition governments has sought to deal with the economic and social devastation wrought by the military’s disastrous debt record, while attempts to punish some of the junta’s dirty war crimes have been hampered by amnesty laws implemented by the first post-dictatorship government. Joining forces with Argentina, Brasil, and Paraguay in the regional trade bloc Mercosur has been an overall boon to Uruguay, but has also intensified the country's vulnerability to the periodic crises of its bigger neighbors. Uruguay retains some semblance of its welfare state even today, though international lenders exert constant pressure on Uruguay to privatize industries and cut social spending.

The Monkey savored his brief visit to Uruguay and hopes to return soon. El Mono enjoys the difficult-to-describe ambience of the country, that certain tranquility or calmness it has in spite of its often violent history. Some observers say it feels slightly out of time, while others compare it to the former Eastern Bloc. The Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges put it well, calling Montevideo a “false door in time” and “the Buenos Aires we once had, that slipped away quietly over the years…” Commenting on the country's aura, celebrated Uruguayan author Eduardo Galeano wrote that "[the Uruguay] that is is in perpetual contradiction with the country it was." The Monkey encourages you to visit this quiet corner of South America and see for yourself.

Montevideo _ 2__3

Colonia del Sacramento_ 4__5

On a rainy day in Montevideo, the Monkey stares out at the confluence of the Río de la Plata and the Atlantic Ocean.

Ciudad Vieja, Montevideo

Puerta de Campo, Colonia del Sacramento

Palacio Salvo, Montevideo

Plaza de Toros, Real de San Carlos, Colonia del Sacramento

Don't miss Schlapp's shot from Uruguay, in the Schlepp Travel section!

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