Religiosity across the River Plate religious parties and lay

brotherhoods in Colonia do Sacramento in the 18th Century

Starvation did not even forgive the dirtiest animal. Rats were a precious meal for

the spoiled ones. The value of a cat was a half pesos, a quarter of a dog was quoted in 80

reis1. In 1736, this was the situation in Colonia under the Great Siege (1735-37). For

two years Spanish troops had seized Sacramento, and the outcome of the conflict was the

maintenance of town under Portuguese rule, but with the loss of Colonias agrarian

suburbs. In addition to starvation the military, warfare and illness were responsible for

several casualties among the Luso-Brazilian population. Spanish siege was implacable.

Although this hostile attitude towards Sacramentos inhabitants, if one looked

back four years in the past, one would had found many Spanish-Americans in the town.

However, in 1731, many important merchants and authorities from Buenos Aires went to

Colonia to participate occupying honor positions in the celebratory feasts for a Royal

Marriage2. How was possible such a diverse attitudes towards Sacramentos inhabitants?

Such kinds of episodes were more or less common throughout Sacramentos history. But,

how was possible such ambivalent attitudes happened? If the warfare was expected

because of the political and territorial disputes between the two Iberian Crowns, the

friendly social relationship must be closely analyzed.

This paper is an initial study about the role of the religious activities in

Sacramento and its connections with Buenos Aires religious life. I suggest that Religious

1
SA, 1993 [1748], p 105.
2
VASCONCELLOS, [1732] Rellao que d um tronco das Festas. Biblioteca Rio-Grandense. In the
Regional Archive of Colonia there is another copie of the same occasional poem. This occasional poem
was a description of the festivities, including a precise narrative of the order of the religious parades.
Festivals and the Lay Brotherhoods established a formal and acceptable link to connect

both societies.

Sacramento and its idiosyncrasies

The foundation of the Colonia do Sacramento (1680), in the Rio de la Platas

northern bank, across from Buenos Aires, represented the commercial and territorial southern

most expansion of the Portuguese in the Americas. Sacramento was a commercial effort to

reestablish profitable commercial routes between the River Plate and the Luso-America that

flourished during the Iberian Union (1580-1640). Sacramento meant the formal disregard of

the territorial and diplomatic aspects of the Tordesillas Treaty (1494). Although the Catholic

Church had given legal support to the Portuguese claim over the region, Sacramento, during

its almost one hundred years of existence, was object of dispute between the two Iberian

Empires3.

The historical literature on Sacramento has emphasized the military and diplomatic

aspects, and this historiography was strongly shaped by nationalism. The foundation of

Sacramento meant the rupture of the Tordesillas Treaty (1494), which led to diplomatic

disputes between the two Iberian Empires. During the eighteenth century, the town had

became part of at least five European diplomatic treaties Utrecht (1715), Paris (1737),

Madri (1750), El Pardo (1762) and Santo Ildefonso (1777). Thus, questions related to its

existence as a Portuguese possession were the primary focus of historians. Moreover, because

Sacramento was founded by the Portuguese, but currently is in Uruguayan territory, neither

3
The Catholic Church created in the XVIIth century mentioned the northern bank of River Plate as the
southern limit of the Rio de Janeiro bishopric.
Brazilian nationalistic historians nor Uruguayans had paid much attention to Sacramentos

history beyond its diplomatic and political aspects4.

Nevertheless, Sacramento, especially in the eighteenth, century developed as an

important population, agrarian production and urban structure5. During this period, the

population of Sacramento varied significantly because of warfare; therefore, due to this

political instability, Sacramento experienced intermittent population growth. During periods

of peace in the first and in the second half of the eighteenth century the population was

between 2.500 and 3.000 inhabitants. In the second half of the 18th century, the town

presented characteristics of a mature colonial town, having a large Creole population,

significant presence of slaves and constantly attracting immigrants. Sacramentos constant

demographic growth was primarily connected with the intense commercial activity in the

region, thus implying a constant economic and social interaction between Portuguese-

American and Spanish-American population.

Although the direct trade between Sacramento and Buenos Aires was forbidden

by Spanish laws, stable commercial and social networks linked both sides of the River

Plate. Zacarias Moutoukias has emphasized for the significance of the commercial

networks between Buenos Aires and Sacramento showing that both towns rather than

competing presented complimentary roles in the regional market6. Furthermore, Fernando

Jumar considered both towns as parts of the Rio de la Plata port complex, which reached

4
The authors working within the luso-brazilian frame: MONTEIRO, 1937; VELLINHO, 1975; ABREU,
1996 [1906]. For the Uruguayan and Argentine perspective see: BAUZA s/d; BLANCO AZEVEDO, 1944;
and TORRES REVELLO s/d. An exception is TULA,1951 and GIL, 1931. Fernando JUMAR, 2000
represents a new trend within the Rio de la Plata historiography.
5
For the urban, agrarian and commercial evolution of Sacramento in the first half of the XVIIIth century
see Prado 2002; and Jumar, 2000.
6
MOUTOUKIAS, 1989. Especially the Conclusion.
its maximum activities during the 18th century7. During the first half of the 1700s, stable

commercial networks liked Sacramentos commercial community and the Buenos Airess

one counting on the support of authorities in both sides of the river. Such networks

allowed the existence of informal stable networks of credit between the two ports8. In

addition to the commercial networks, by 1760, roughly 10% of the free population

married population of Sacramento was formed by couples that in which the women were

from Buenos Aires9.

These networks did not impede that Buenos Aires inhabitants considered the

Luso-Brazilian of Colonia as the other, or even the enemy. Porteo troops attacked

Sacramento in 1680, 1705, 1735-37, 1762 and 1777. Moreover, there was a permanent

garrison under Buenos Aires rule in the Banda Oriental to impede the Luso-Brazilians of

exploiting the countryside. The Luso-Brazilians were considered invaders in the region.

Even after the conquest of Sacramento by Spanish troops in 1777, the Portuguese were

victims of prejudice by Buenos Aires inhabitants. In the late Colonial period, Portuguese

were related to Judaism, thieves and con actors10.

Therefore, the relation between Sacramentos and Buenos Aires community was

dual. On the one hand, commercial and social networks developed stable links between

both sides of the river. On the other hand, periodically, the Luso-Brazilian town was

attacked by the Portenho troops, thus they were regarded as the other.

7
JUMAR, 2000. Chapter IV.
8
PRADO, 2002. passim.
9
Arquivo Historico da Catedral do Rio de Janeiro (hereafter AHCRJ), Sacramentos 3rd and 5th Books of
Baptism.
10
REITANO, 2004. p. 110.
 The present work examines the ways in which Portuguese and Spanish subjects

could formally interact in the region. Religious feasts and activities were moments that

fostered the integration of Portuguese and Spaniards in the Rio de la Plata. During the

feasts, important characters and authorities of the porteo society went to Colonia and

occupied privileged positions in the festivities. I suggest that the religious activities in

Sacramento had played an important role of allowing the integration between the subjects

of both Iberian Crowns based on a common Christian identity. Religion constituted a

formal bridge between both societies.

Lay Brotherhoods and Festivals in the Southern Borderlands

The analysis of Sacramentos urban life is especially fruitful. Because of the

official territorial limit of a tiro de canho, formal property titles in the rural area were

unavailable. As a result, the traditional association of landownership and status found for

Rio de Janeiro or Bahia was not present in the region11. Therefore, the city life

concentrated the most important and prestigious activities, and the urban environment

became the primary scenario to externalize social status. In other words, the absence of

formal titles of landownership granted more importance to the spatial representation of

power through buildings, religious parties, military office holding, and to the

participation in religious fraternities, Third Orders and brotherhoods. Such a

characteristic was reinforced after 1737, with the loss of the agricultural suburbs.

In the second half of the 18th century, there were at least two petitions to Lisbon to

formalize an altar and a chapel by Brotherhoods. By 1760, the Irmandade das Almas

11
FRAGOSO; GOUVEIA; BICALHO. 2000.
petitioned for an altar in the Matriz Church, and the Third Order do Carmo asked to

reform a chapel for the use of the brotherhood12. Therefore, although the loss of the

agrarian suburbs, the religious expression kept growing in Sacramentos urban life.

According to Caio Boschi, belonging to a lay brotherhood were one of the most

important ways of displaying social status. Thus, because of living in a reduced space,

the religious activity was an important for of showing the social hierarchy13.

Another important issue that must be taken into consideration is the juridical and

administrative status of Sacramento. Colonia do Sacramento has never been a city or

even a vila during the Portuguese period, because a camara (town council) was never

installed there. In Spite of the matter had been discussed during the 1720s, the creation

of Sacramentos camara never succeed. According to Fernando Jumar, in the early

1730s the Overseas Council approved such a creation and sent a judge to proceed.

However, the assigned judge has died in on his way to Sacramento. Thereafter, the

camara issue has never been discussed again. Jumar argues that such an outcome was

derived of the Metropolitan policy of refrain the autonomy of local powers in America.

The absence of a town council in Colonia do Sacramento had directly affected

two main issues: the distribution of power in the city and the importance of the religious

bortherhoods. First, the nonexistence of a Camara implied that the Governor was

responsible for the political, military and juridical control and administration of

Sacramento. Thus, the power structure of the Portuguese colony was centralized by the

Governor, without alternative channels of political representation. Second, as the

participation in the town council was an important way of displaying power and prestige

12
AHCRJ Serie A.R. Not. 417. 1760.
13
BOSCHI, 1986. p 162-3.
in colonial Latin America, the non-existence of a camara in Sacramento reinforced the

importance of the other forms of displaying power and prestige such as the participation

in religious brotherhoods.

Moreover, religious brotherhoods were vehicles for expressing local interests and

for reproducing the social order. They were also responsible for the sense of belonging to

a group, especially because the brotherhood rules were determined by the Superior of the

Franciscans in Rome14. During the Colonial period these institutions were in charge of

charity, aid to the poor, taking care of the ills and burying the dead. In addition, the

member of lay brotherhoods counted on mutual aid, and these institutions were many

times credit suppliers at the local level15.

The lay brotherhoods also played and important role during the public feasts in

Sacramento. There are two occasional poems that describe festivals held in Sacramento

streets celebrating Royal Marriage (1732) and the ascension to power of Don Jospeh

(1753). Both poems are accounts of the festivities and have precise description of the

participation of the brotherhoods in parades and Te Deum.

During the celebration of the Marriage of the the Don Joseph and the infanta

Maria Anna, in the early 1730s, plays, and parades took the streets of Sacramento for a

whole week. In these ceremonies social status and hierarchy was rigidly reproduced, and

each person, authority and corporation had their specific role and place to stay16. During

14
BOSCHI, 1986. p 8, and 31. In this work Ill consider religious brotherhoods as synonyms for Ordens
Terceiras, Confrarias and Irmandades. Although there were some juridical differences between the three
conepts, they had played similar role in the colonial society. The religious orders were not under the
jurisdiction of the secular clergy. The secular clergy was under the jurisdiction of the State, borh in Spain
and in Portugal. p. 117.
15
RUSSEL-WOOD, 1968. p. 346-7.
16
Archivo Regional de Colonia.VASCONCELLOS. 1732. There is also a copy in the Bibliotheca Rio-
Grandense, Rio Grande, Brazil. This piece is a literary description of the parties celebrated in Sacramento.
these special occasions, authorities and merchants from Buenos Ayres participated in

Sacramento occupying honor positions17.

During the festivities, the Brotherhood of the Santissimo was the one responsible

for the important Te Deum laudamus that was held as the Matriz Church. This special

ceremony counted on the performance of religious musicians from Buenos Aires. The

participation of the Jesuits was also emphasized in the course of the action, highlighting

the honors and distinctions that they enjoyed.

The religious festivals show the interaction of Spaniards and Portuguese in the

region, although the intermittent conflicts between both communities. The festivals

allowed the elite of both cities to strength their relationship displaying a common

understanding of social hierarchy.

However, a close analysis of Sacramentos inhabitants religious practices must

be done.

Chapels and Brotherhoods connections and similarities

In 1722, just five years after the re-foundation of Sacramento by the Portuguese,

there were seven religious brotherhoods existing in the town18. The brotherhoods were:

Santssimo Sacramento, Nossa Sra. Do Pilar, Nossa Sra. SantAnna, Nossa Sra. do

Rosrio, Santo Antnio e Irmandade das Almas. Moreover, the main authorities and

merchants of Sacramento were patrons of the churches and chapels19.

Despite it was printed in Portugal, the piece is written in Spanish. The language choice reveals the audience
of Sacramentos poetic Governor.
17
Archivo Regional Colonia. BIVAR, Luis Garcia. Relao das Festas. 1753.
18
AHU-ACL-CU-012 Colnia do Sacramento Doc. 86; and AHU-ACL-CU-RJ doc 04081. 1722.
19
GIL. 1931. p 224. For instance: Governor Vasconcellos was the protector of the Chapel of So Pedro
de Alcntara, the Chapel of Santa Rita was protected by the Mestre-de-Campo Manoel Botelho de
Lacerda.
 In the same year, Manoel Botelho de Lacerda, one of the most prominent

authorities and merchants of Sacramento, had built a chapel dedicated to Santa Rita. The

chapel was in the same style that the chapel exiting in Rio de Janeiro, and was blessed by

a Visitador in the following year of 172320. However, during the following decades,

Botelho de Lacerda bought several religious images and artifacts from Buenos Aires to

display at his chapel. Those images were blessed by the bishop of Buenos Aires, and

were bought from the Franciscans and from the Religiosos do Carmo in the same town.

Such an issue would never became an issue, if in 1748, the Bishop of Rio de

Janeiro would menaced with excommunication the Catholics who went to masses

celebrated in the Chapel. The reason for such an extreme measure was that the religious

images and apparatus were blessed by religious men from another bishopric, outside the

jurisdiction of the bishopric of Rio. This episode shows that religious connections

between both societies were effective and went beyond the official church policy.

Moreover, it is interesting to ask, why the religious images were bought from the

Franciscans and Carmos religious? Were there any specific reasons?

In the second half of the 18th century, the Brotherhoods of So Francisco and

Carmos were the two most important ones in Colonia. Moreover, these two

Brotherhoods were the only that have their own chapel. And it is noteworthy that the

Carmos chapel was the same Santa Ritas chapel, reformed after the brotherhood had

bought it from Botelho de Lacerdas heirs.

20
AHCRJ Serie A.R. Not. 335. 1773.
 Between 1760 and 1777, there were a total of ten religious brotherhoods in

Colonia. Three third orders and seven fraternities21. The three third orders were So

Francisco, Nossa Senhora do Carmo, and Nossa Senhora da Boa Morte. Out of 100 death

records examined, 24 people were buried in the Franciscan habito, 15 were buried in the

Carmos habito and only one person in the Boa Mortes habito22.

Besides the possibility of belonging and being buried in a third order habito, other

brotherhoods also used to escort the dead in procession23. Out of 100 records, only 34

people were not escorted with a brotherhoods procession in their funeral. Most of them

were babies (25 parvulos), three poor seamen that did not reside in town, two Indians

borne in Spanish America and one person that was poor. These numbers give us a sense

about the strong religious participation of Sacramentos inhabitants.

It is noteworthy that in 1760 the total formal population of Colonia was around

2.800 people. However, the actual number of residents in the town was more around

2.000, because of the large flow of slaves being commercialized in Sacramento. The

slaves constituted a variable population24.

In Colonia, the brotherhoods of So Francisco and Carmos have an important

participation in the religious life. At least, the most well off people of Sacramento

belonged to one of these third orders. The comparison between the data from 1760 and
21
AHCRJ Death Records Third Book Colonia do Sacramento. This book contains only records of free
people.
22
The sample that I am using includes 47 record from 1776, 1 record from 1777 and 53 records from 1760.
The dates were defined randomly, and tried to capture two different moments in the second half of the
eighteenth century. This is a temporary sample, this database still a work in progress.
23
The seven brotherhoods were: Santa Anna, Espirito Santo, Almas, Santissimo Sacramento, N. Sra. Pilar,
N. Sra. Rosario and Santo Antonio. I did not made an estimation of the participation of people in the
Brotherhoods because of the lacking of slaves data, that would undercount the participation of Rosarios
Bortherhood in the religious life of the town.
24
This estimation is based on the demographic data of immigration and the birth records of Colonia. These
conclusions are also a work in progress being discussed in another Seminar Paper.
1776 shows that during the period, the Carmos brotherhood once counting with it own

chapel (the former Santa Rita) increased its participation in burying the dead. By the late

period, besides the Matriz Church, most of the burials were in the Carmos chapel25.

But were these brotherhoods also important in other regions of Portuguese

America? In comparing to the data from Minas Gerais during the eighteenth century, the

So Francisco and Carmo were ranked in 6th and 13th positions respectively26. The top

three brotherhoods in the Minas Gerais region were Rosarios, Santissimo Sacramento

and Almas. Although we dont have enough information about the Rosarios blacks

brotherhood participation in Sacramento, they did not count with a specific chapel as the

Franciscans and Carmos did.

In Buenos Aires, the brotherhood of So Francisco was the most most prevalent

regarding the merchants participation. Socolow found that 42% of the citys merchants

belonged to the So Francisco brotherhood in the late 18th century27. Among the

Portuguese population living in Buenos Aires in the same period, 47% had chosen to be

buried in the So Franciscos habit.

It is important to emphasize that these brotherhoods, although organized at local

level, shared the devotion for the same saint and were subjected to the same rules, which

emanate direct from Rome. In Sacramento, there are records of people who belonged to

one of third orders and used to live in Rio de Janeiro, but passed away in Colonia. They

were buried in the same fashion that the local brothers were.

25
Many Franciscans brothers were buried in the Matriz Church. In spite of the Carmos brothers petition to
build the chapel was from 1773, it was common that formal licenses were issued many years later. Because
of the autonomy of the local groups in creating and managing the lay brotherhoods, the Mesa de
Consciencia e Ordens was only supposed to formalize the routine.
26
BOSCHI, 1986. p. 187. Rank according number of oragos
27
SOCOLOW, 1991. p. 216.
 Therefore, Sacramentos religious life shared some common characteristics with

Buenos Aires, especially if we highlight the mercantile community. Once again, it is

noteworthy to emphasize the commercial character of Sacramentos elite.

Conclusions

Traditionally, the historiography on Sacramento emphasizes diplomatic conflict

and warfare. Although such aspects are important, the stable informal commercial

networks were fundamental for the regions economy end society. During the almost one

hundred years of Sacramentos existence under Portuguese rule, contacts and interactions

summed up many more time than conflict and warfare. What I suggest is that such

informal commercial networks were also supported or in some degree reinforced through

religious participation and identity. These links were the formal excuse for parts of both

communities to interact.

The religious festival were moments in which important merchants and authorities

of Buenos Aires could went to Colonia and socialize with their business partners or

relatives. Religious activities allowed the transit of churchmen between both sides of the

River Plate. Furthermore, significant parts of the merchants groups of both cities

participated in the same brotherhood in their respective town. Not only they shared the

same devotion, but even sacred images and church apparatus were acquired in Buenos

Aires, even if it was against the Church rules.

Nevertheless, this was not a homogeneous process; it was restricted to elite

groups, especially parts of the merchant community. For the broad society in Buenos
Aires, the Portuguese were the other, the enemy. However, these other were also

Christians.

Many historical works consider that Sacramento experienced a decline in its trade

activities and social life during the second half of the eighteenth century28; however, the

present data seems to contradict such a viewpoint. Considering the religious activities in

town, Sacramento in the second half of the 18th century counted with more lay

brotherhoods than in 1722. Moreover, these brotherhoods were extremely active in town,

building new altars and chapels between 1760 and 1777.

The present study is just a first approach to the subject. A more detailed analysis

of the death records could illuminate more about the social aspects of life in the southern

borderlands.

Epilogue

In July 3rd, 1777, the first Vice-Roy of the Rio de la Plata definitely conquered

Sacramento in the 18th century. The population was evacuated and brought to Buenos

Aires, the city walls were exploded and the houses destroyed. Doors, windows, tiles,

furniture, all were took by the Spaniard and brought to Buenos Aires. Not even the

elderly and ills were allowed to stay in Sacramento. During the evacuation process, the

Spanish troops had stolen a large quantity of goods from the Portuguese.

This account was written in 1778, by the priest Pedro Pereira Fernandes de

Mesquita who was living in a kind of exile in Buenos Aires. Although one can not take

his description as non biased, he presents interesting thoughts about how he and the other

Portuguese were surprised with what happened.

28
Here I include my own previous work on Sacramento as part of this historiographical trend. JUMAR,
2000. PRADO, 2002. MONTEIRO, 1937. Among others.
 It is almost unbelievable that such things were done by a Catholic nation, which

does not resemble as barbarians, but I suggest two main causes, one general and the other

specific. The first one is that around here, all Castilians think that Portuguese are specie

(non-human), and the second reason is that the Kings lieutenant thought in doing that he

could made a more profitable deal29

For the first time, not even the civil population of Colonia was spared. In the

previous invasions of Colonia and during the invasion of Rio Grande de So Pedro,

Portuguese clergy were allowed to keep in charge of the chapels and churches. However,

the things had changed, the new Vice Roy had imposed a different rule, which the

Portuguese priest could only describe as barbarian, non Christian.

References

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S, Simo Pereira de. Histria Topogrfica e Blica da Nova Colnia do Sacramento do Rio da Prata,
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Alegre: Arcano 17, 1993.
MESQUITA, Pedro Pereira. Relacin de la Conquista de la Colonia por Don Pedro de Cevallos. Buenos
Aires: Municipalidade de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires. 1980.

Articles, Books and Unpublished Dissertations

ABREU, Capistrano Capitulos de Historia Colonial. Braslia:FNC/MinC. 1996 [1906]
BAUZ, Francisco. A Independncia Nacional. IN: DEVOTO, Pivel. A questo da Independncia Nacional,
Montevideo: Col. Classicos Uruguaios
BOSCHI, Caio Cesar. Os Leigos e o Poder (Irmandades leigas e Poltica em Minas Gerais. So Paulo:
Atica. 1986.
CANABRAVA, Alice P. O Comrcio Portugus no Rio da Prata (1580-1640). So Paulo: USP, 1984
[1942].
FRAGOSO, Joo. A nobreza da Repblica: notas sobre a formao da primeira elite senhorial do Rio de
Janeiro (sculos XVI e XVII). In: TOPI, Revista de Histria do Programa de Ps-graduao em
Histria Social da UFRJ no. 1, 2000.
FRAGOSO, Joo. GOUVEA, Maria de Ftima e BICALHO, Maria Fernanda (organizadores). O Antigo
Regime nos TrpicosRio de Janeiro: Civilizao Brasileira. 2001.

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MESQUITA, 1980. p 30.
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Publicaciones. 1931.
JUMAR, Fernando. Le commerce Atlanqique Au Rio de la Plata. Paris: cole des Hautes tudes en
Science Sociales. 2000. Tese de Doutoramento
MONTEIRO, Jnathas da Costa Rego. A Colnia do Sacramento 1680-1777. Porto Alegre: Globo, 1937.
[obra em 2 volumes].
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de Amrica Latina. 1988.
MOUTOUKIAS, Zacarias. Redes Personales y Autoridad Colonial. 1992. Annales. Histoire, Sciences
Sociales Paris, mai-juin. 1992. (Traduzido com finalidades didticas por Maria Zapiola. Universidade
de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Filosofia y Letras.1998.
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Rio Grande. Niteri: XXI Simpsio Nacional de Histria ANPUH. 2001
NEUMANN, Eduardo. "Mientras volaban correos por los pueblos: auto-governo e prticas letradas nas
misses Guarani- Sculo XVIII", Horizontes Antropolgicos, Porto Alegre, ano 10,n 22, p.93-119,
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PRADO, Fabrcio Pereira. A Colnia do Sacramento o extremo sul da Amrica Portuguesa. Porto Alegre,
F.P. Prado. 2002.
REITANO, Emir. Los Portugueses del Buenos Aires Tardo Colonial. Doctoral Thesis. La Plata:
Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educacion. 2004.
RODRIGUEZ, Mario. Don Pedro de Braganza and Colnia do Sacramento, 1680-1705. Hispanic
American Historical Review. Vil. 8, N. 2 (May, 1958). 179-208.
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Brasileira de Histria. v. 18 no 36. So Paulo, 1988. Publicada na Internet no site www.scielo.br. [site
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Economico. V. 20. N. 19. 1980.
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TORRES REVELLO, Jos. Historia de la Academia. V. 3
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The Southern Most Brazil the Representation of Colnia do
Sacramento in the Southern Cones National Histories

Today, Id like to analyze how the boundaries of the Nation can be created from

outside the national territory, defining the other and the national and incorporating in the

narrative the discourse of territorial loss. Moreover, I will argue that the emphasis on the

state as the narratives center can lead the historian of peripheral areas and borderland to

skip many important social and economic processes that developed beyond imperial and

national borders.

The present paper will analyze the case of Colonia do Sacramento, a Portuguese

town located across from Buenos Aires, which is in Uruguayan territory today. First I

will analyze how Sacramento was represented in the national historiographies of the

regions, specifically the Brazilian and Uruguayan. Secondly, I will suggest that new

approaches to Sacramentos history based on networks analysis reveals a radically

different representation of the region, in which the interaction between the subjects goes

beyond Imperial boundaries and warfare.

In the process of building the history of the national imagined communities

many aspects of historical process (e.g. ethnicities, social interactions) are erased from

the narratives. The intrinsic need by national historians of making the history of the

Nation fit within its national boundaries, and the need of make this representation fit the

ethnic mythic origin of the nation exclude parts of historical processes and cultures.

National histories tend to homogenize the social groups present in the country into one

national character, and create a single coherent national narrative projecting the nation
back to an immemorial time.1 This representation legitimizes the territorial limits of

today, the official ethnical origin and implies a future in common to this mythical

imagined community. National historiographies predate the nation and reproduce past

political and cultural boundaries and identities, while in the process defining otherness.

In Brazil, the two regional others that the history of the country is compared to are

Argentina and to a smaller degree Uruguay.

1
Benedict Anderson. Comunidade imaginadas Mxico: Fondo de Cultura Econmica. 1997. Eric
Hobsbawn, Naes e Nacionalismo desde 1780. So Paulo: Paz e Terra. 1991. Ernest Gellner. Naes e
Nacionalismo.Lisboa: Gradiva. 1993. Anthony Smith . La Identidad Nacional. Buenos Aires: Rama. 1991.
 Sacramento and Rio de La Plata Chronology
1494 Tordesillas Treaty
1500 - Cabral in Brazil
1534 First Failed Attempt of Colonization in Buenos Aires
1580 Iberian Union - Re-foundation of Buenos Aires
1640 End of the Iberian Union
1680 Foundation of Sacramento (6 months later they were attacked by Spanish-Guarani Troops)
1681 Second Foundation of Sacramento
1705 Portuguese are ex pelled from Sacramento as Result of the Spniahs War of Succession
1715 Second Utrecht Treaty Sacramento for Portuguese and British Asiento
1735-37 Sacramento under Spanish siege
1737 Foundation of Jesus Maria Jose Fort (Later Rio Grande)
1750 Madri Treaty (Exchange of Sacramento for the Siete Pueblos)
1754-57 Guaranitic War
1762-63 Badajos Traty nullifies the Madrid Traty - Spanish Invasion and Occupation of
Sacramento
1764-76 Spanish Invasion and Occupation of Rio Grande
1776 Creation of the Vice-Royalty of Rio de la Plata
1777 Stanto Ildefonso Treaty Sacramento under Spanish Rule
1778 Montevideo and Buenos Aires - Free Trade with Spain
1795 Legal Trade Between Montevideo and the Portuguese Territories
1808 Napoleon in Spain

Building National Histories from Outside the Nation

Colonia do Sacramento is the only Portuguese Colony in the Americas that today

does not belong to Brazil. By emphasizing conflict and warfare, the national Brazilian

history represents Colonia as a burden that Portugal sustained for almost 100 years. The

lost of the territory is justified since the town was not profitable. On the other side of the

border, however, Uruguayan historians portrayed Colonia as a nestle of barbarian

gauchos, invaders of the territory and enemies of the primitive Uruguayans the

Charrua Indians.

Sacramento shows a case that illustrates how the boundaries of the Nation could

be created outside of the nation geographically and ethnically.

National historiographies from the region had privileged studies about the military

aspects of Sacramentos history, which emphasized conflicts between the Spaniards and

Portuguese. Brazilian historians of the first half of the twentieth century emphasized the

high costs of Sacramentos maintenance and dismissed the commercial and demographic

aspects of the town2. According to Capistrano de Abreu, Sacramento never was more

than a Portuguese enclave in Rio de la Plata, a nestle of contrabandists.3 Montero used

Sacramento as part of the explanation for the incorporation of Rio Grande do Sul into the

Luso-Brazilian Empire, emptying Rio de la Platas Portuguese town of meaning in itself.

Those authors main intention was to justify the contemporary limits of the Brazilian state.

The emphasis on the military conflicts, the pejorative representation of commerce as

contraband and the lack of interest in the demographic aspects of Sacramento by

nationalist authors intended to justify Sacramentos lost. It is noteworthy that Sacramento

constituted the only Portuguese colony that did not belong to Brazil. Moreover, the

2
Capistrano de Abreu. Captulos de Histria Colonial: 1500-1800 & Os caminhos antigos e o povoamento
do Brasil.Braslia: Ed. Universidade de Braslia, 1982. Jonathas da Costa Rego Monteiro. A Colnia do
Sacramento 1680-1777. Porto Alegre: Livrarias do Globo. 1937. II Tomos; e A Restaurao do Rio
Grande. IN: Anais do Simpsio Comemorativo do Bicentenrio da Restaurao do Rio Grande . Rio de
Janeiro: Instituto Histrico Geogrfico Brasileiro. 1979. Monteiro presents a rich description and analysis
of Sacramento political and military life supported with abundant documental sources. However, the author
shared the theoretical frame of his generation and, as a consequence, he neglects the demographic and
commercial aspects of the town, . Moyss Vellinho. Fronteiras. Porto Alegre: Editora Globo. 1973. p 25,
128.
3
Capistrano de Abreu. Captulos de Histria Colonial: 1500-1800 & Os caminhos antigos e o povoamento
do Brasil.Braslia: Ed. Universidade de Braslia, 1982. p. 173.
nationalist authors were explicitly committed with building a national history which fit

within Brazilian limits4.

The approach that justifies the territorial loss is necessarily a natural one.

Territorial losses could also be used as claims for territorial expansion (e.g: Falklands

Islands for Argentina). However, the complex geopolitical balance of the region and the

spread of ideas centered on the Nation State and on citizenship in the 20th century

determined the justification approach. The re-conquest of Uruguay was not a viable

option for the Brazilian state.

The emphasis on contraband and military conflicts can be noticed among

Argentinean and Uruguayan nationalist historians writing about Sacramento. This tropes

are emphasized because they represent the weakness and the resistances to the nation

state.

Nevertheless, the Portuguese presence in the Rio de la Plata appears in few works,

and the author who had dispensed more attention to the subject among Argentineans was

Torres Revello5. For the Argentinean nationalists, Sacramento represented the Luso-

Brazilian expansionism. Moreover, it was from Sacramento that Artigas started the

movement against Buenos Aires during the Revolutionary years. Thus, Sacramento role

in the historical narrative was dismissed, or disregarded.

An analogous situation can be found among the Uruguayan nationalist

historiography from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Francisco Bauz and Pablo

Blanco Acevedo regarded Sacramento as the manifestation of foreign interests in the

4
VELLYNHO. The sense of nationality is present throughout my whole work. Apud Ieda Gutfreind. A
Historiografia rio-grandense. Porto Alegre: Editora da Universidade/UFRGS. 1998. p 43.
5
Jos Torres Revello. Historia de la Academia. V. 3, pg 378 ss
region. According to them, Sacramento was the foreign menace over the Uruguayan

territory during colonial times. Such an approach shows that both authors interpreted the

past through the lens of nationalism, producing a biased analysis and incurring in

historical anachronism6.

Nonetheless, among Uruguayan historians from the first half of the twentieth

century, there were important exceptions. Luis Enrique de Azarola Gil and Anibal

Riveros Tula produced an extended bibliography on Sacramento. They emphasized the

significance of the Portuguese Town in the formation of Montevideo and in shaping the

colonization of Banda Oriental. Moreover, both authors published important documental

references and sources regarding the Portuguese town7. However, their works were never

incorporated in major national historical narratives, since most of Uruguayan history texts

do not dispense attention to the colonial period.

In both cases, the colonial past is incorporated to justify and legitimate the

national present. The lenses of the state and the emphasis on the political aspects of

economy and society miss certain aspects of the historical process.

If there was only war, conflict and crime, why did the Portuguese stayed there for

almost a hundred years? How did they manage contraband if they had always been

enemies with the Spaniards? What was the day to day life like in the region?

Most importantly, is the state and the political narrative the best methodology to

access the history of peripheral areas, especially borderlands?

6
Francisco Bauz, A Independncia Nacional. IN: Pivel Devoto, A questo da Independncia Nacional,
Montevideo: Col. Classicos Uruguaios.
7
Luis Enrique Azarola Gil La Epopeya de Manuel Lobo. Montevideo. 1931. Anibal Riveros Tula.
Montevideo:EBO. 1959.
 Through the examination of social and trade networks, a radically different

narrative can be created for the region. Enemies become cousins, contrabandists show up

as brothers in law, caudillos become allies. That suggests that the interaction between the

subjects of the distinct Empires (the Portuguese, the Spanish and the British) was much

more significant in shaping the historical processes in the region.

Conclusion

Although there is a plethora of attention dispensed by political and diplomatic

historians to the history of the Southern Cone on the Rio de la Plata region, the

nationalistic viewpoint of those analyses primarily emphasized the conflictive and

problematic interaction between the Iberian subjects. By downplaying, dismissing or

disregarding completely Sacramentos enterprise, nationalistic narratives characterize the

main approaches to the Portuguese towns experience. These narratives reveal how the

national historiography dealt with the question of the other, and how the history of the

nation was also built from outside the nation.

Trans-Imperial social networks
Recent studies already show the significance of the trade-partnerships between
merchants of Colonia, Buenos Aires and Montevideo.8 However, the analysis of the
baptismal records reveals the significance of the social networks established trough
marriage.
From 1760 to 1769, there were 385 baptisms in Colonia, among the cases from which

I could retrieve information, 50.4% were females and 49.6% were males9. Moreover, 69.8%

of the children born in Colonia were legitimate children, 14.7% were natural children, 1.8%

were expostos, and only 0.8 percent were non-reported/illegitimate chilfren. For 13.1% of the

newborns, the data was partially or totally damaged and I could not retrieve this information.

Fathers

Regarding the parents who were living in Sacramento, 27% of the fathers were from

Sacramento, 58.4% were from Portugal or the Portuguese Atlantic Islands, 6% were from

different regions of Brazil, 5.8% from Spain and Spanish America and 1% from Africa.

Among the settlers from Portugal, 16% of them were from the Braga bishopric (the region of

Tras-os-Montes and Algarve), 14.2% were from the Atlantic Islands, and the remaining 29%

were from Lisbon, Coimbra, Porto and other regions from mainland Portugal. Regarding the

Luso-Brazilian population, Recife was the origin of most of them, followed by Rio de

Janeiro. Among the Spaniards living in Sacramento, Buenos Aires was the main origin,

followed by Paraguay and many diverse regions of Spain, from Extremadura to Galiza. It is

noteworthy that the Spanish population regarding men in Colonia is overrepresented because

the 1763 data, when many Spanish officials were living in the town due to Spanish

8
Fernando Jumar. Le commerce Atlanqique Au Rio de la Plata. 2000. Fabricio Prado. A Colonia do
sacramento, o extremo sul da America Portuguesa. Porto Alegre: Fumproarte, 2002. Zacarias Moutoukias
Contrabando y Control Colonial Buenos Aires: Ed. Sud-Americana 1989.
9
Arquivo da Catedral do Rio de Janeiro (AHCRJ) Colnia do Sacramento. Livros 3 e 5 Batismos.
occupation. Although this overrepresentation, this feature must be understood as part of the

Sacramentos demographic evolution as a borderland town.

Mothers

Considering Sacramentos mothers profile for the whole decade, 70.4% were natives

from Sacramento, 12% were from Spanish dominions in the Americas 9.1 % were born in

Africa, 4.6% were from other parts of Portuguese America, and 4% were from Portugal and

the Atlantic Islands. Among the Spanish-American mothers in Sacramento, 83.3% originated

from Buenos Aires. Among the African mothers, 56% were from West-Central Africa and

37% from West Africa. The low participation of women born in Portugal and the total

absence of Spanish born women indicates that on the one hand there was a fast process of

Creolization developing at that time. On the other hand, the data shows that most of the

women crossing the Atlantic by the second half of the 18th century were coerced migrants

rather than free migrants.

 Scramentos Mother Origin

Cumulative
Frequency Percent Valid Percent Percent
Valid Sacramento 205 52.6 70.4 70.4
Rio de Janeiro 8 2.1 2.7 73.2
Buenos Ayres 29 7.4 10.0 83.2
Bahia 3 .8 1.0 84.2
Corrientes 1 .3 .3 84.5
Guine 1 .3 .3 84.9
Ponte de Lima,
1 .3 .3 85.2
Braga
Lisboa 2 .5 .7 85.9
Arcebispado de
1 .3 .3 86.3
Angra
Missoes 1 .3 .3 86.6
Ilha do Fayal 1 .3 .3 86.9
Minas Gerais 1 .3 .3 87.3
Costa da Mina 8 2.1 2.7 90.0
Ilha de Sao
1 .3 .3 90.4
Jorge
Ilha do Pico 1 .3 .3 90.7
Recife 1 .3 .3 91.1
Campo dos
1 .3 .3 91.4
Goitacazes
Ilha Terceira 2 .5 .7 92.1
Benguela 6 1.5 2.1 94.2
Viboras -
Bispado Buenos 2 .5 .7 94.8
Aires
Angola 8 2.1 2.7 97.6
Montevideo 2 .5 .7 98.3
Cabo Verde 1 .3 .3 98.6
Congo 3 .8 1.0 99.7
Libolo 1 .3 .3 100.0
Total 291 74.6 100.0
Missing System 99 25.4
Total 390 100.0

In other words, among the women bearing children in Sacramento, roughly 10%
were from Buenos Aires and married with local men. Most of them were part of the
towns elite. The prevalence of poteo women among the non native born in Sacramento
suggests a deeper interaction between both societies. The demographic data implies that
there were significant forms of social interaction between subjects from both crowns;
thus, creation of family and social networks went beyond the political limits of the
empires.
In the mid-18th century, the flow of authorities and ships between Buenos Aires
and Sacramento was extremely high. The personal secretaries of both governors could
cross the river to participate in important religious and official festivals. Moreover, feasts,
and social gatherings were a part of the day by day activities of the Rio de la Plata port
complex.
Therefore, beyond military conflict, there were stable social networks that

operated in a Trans-Imperial dimension. These connection must be taken in consideration

when analyzing the formation of collective identities in the region and in examining the

process of state formation.

APPENDIX

Table 1 - Sacramento annual growth rate based on all

information available so far
AHU-Colonia do Sacramento Docs.:86, 513. AHU- Rio de Janeiro Doc. 7286,
MONTEIRO, 1937; SILVA, 1993; TULA 1931
Years Population Annual Growth Rate (%)
1722 1388
1732 3000 8.00
1735 2600 -4.66
1742 1956 -4.19
1760 2712 0.23
1783 290 -9.26
 Table 2 - Sacramento Annual Growth Rate Based
Only on Official Reports
AHU-Colonia do Sacramento Docs.:86, 513. MONTEIRO,
1937; TULA 1931.
Annual Growth
Year Population Rate (%)
1722 1388
1742 1956 1.73
1760 2712 1.83
1783 290 -9.26

Table 3 - Sacramento's Population by 1760

AHU Colonia do Sacramento Doc. 513
Male Female Total
Married 130 160 290
Solteiros 492 197 689
Pardos Forros 25 26 51
Negros Forros 20 88 108
Escravos 941 634 1575
Total 1607 1105 2712
From Spanish to Orientals: Representations of Collective Identity in the Rio de la
Platas Interaction Zone (c.1730 c.1830)

The Rio de la Plata was the first region to become independent from the Spanish

Empire in the early 19th century. During the process, the Vice Royalty of Rio de la Plata

fragmented into four different nation-states; Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Bolivia.

In this article, I will analyze how Uruguay transitioned from a colony to a nation and

became recognized as a sovereign country in the trans-imperial and trans-national arenas

of the 19th century. To do so I will examine how the region that eventually became

Uruguay is named in written accounts and descriptions that circulated in the trans-

Atlantic world. The change in the words used by the authors to describe the space reflects

how the social groups present in the region were perceived and represented in a broader

political and social context.

During the century between the foundation of Montevideo (1726) and the

countrys formal independence as an autonomous state (1830), the ways in which

observers named the region and its inhabitants changed substantially. The designations1

present in the written accounts evolved from Rio de la Plata to North Bank of Rio de

la Plata, to Montevideos Province, to Banda Oriental, to Uruguay.

Simultaneously, words used to describe the inhabitants of the region varied from

Spaniards, to inhabitants of Montevideos countryside, to inhabitants of the Eastern

Bank, to gauchos, to Orientals. This process in which observers renamed the region

and its people was intimately tied to the colonial reforms that aimed to increase

1
I am using the word designation to refer that the representations produced by the authors were chosen
according to their cultural background, interests and interaction in the region. Thus, the observers identity
or space designations were not necessarily shared by the described social groups. The term space is used
as referring to the region as a social production and a historical construct, while location refers more
specifically of the geographical characteristics of the terrain. Raymond Craib. Cartographic Mexico: a
History of State Fixations and Fugitive Landscapes Durham: Duke University Press. 2004. p 5.

1
metropolitan control in the area. However, the evolution of the regions designations

suggests that the advance of the colonial structure empowered local groups, fostering the

creation of a collective identity attached to territory. This process implies that at the end

of the colonial period there were collective regional identities that were not homogeneous

or national, rather social groups present in the region articulated claim of sovereignty and

self-determination over the territory in order to be recognized as a legitimate state.

Written accounts were one of the most important kind of representations produced

about distant regions and colonies for the European empires to integrate and administer

their colonial and peripheral regions. These narratives circulated in small but powerful

and influential elite circles, in a trans-Atlantic space. On the one hand, these narratives

informed important segments of the reading public, partially shaping the public opinion

in this trans-Imperial scenario. On the other had, these accounts informed policy making

and business.

The multiple representations created and recreated by the authors in these reports

and accounts are not the most reliable source of information for the historical processes

of a region, because of their intrinsic bias. Nevertheless, they were produced as

instrumental knowledge and intelligence by historical agents that were involved and

committed with specific agendas in the region. Therefore, written pieces circulating in the

trans-Imperial networks informed the social agents in decision making and in their

attempts to manipulate and control ongoing processes according to their own designs. 2

These representations created by outsiders or insiders turned out to inform social agents

strategy in interacting in this trans-Imperial scenario.

2
Elizabeth Elbourne. Indigenous Peoples and Imperial Networks in the Early Nineteenth Centuy: the
Politics of Knowledge In: Buckner & Francis (ed.) Rediscovering the British World. Calgary: University
of Calgary Press. 2003.

2
 The informants perspective always shaped these representations; thus they were

not totally accurate or unbiased information. In the contexts of colonial contacts between

Europeans and other societies, these accounts were produced in what Mary Louise Pratt

described as contact zones.3 Contact zones were the space where two different cultures

encountered each other and the social agents redefined themselves in relation to each

other. However, in the New World colonial settings, these written accounts represented

what would be better defined as an interaction zone.

The concept of the interaction zones encompasses regions that were already

colonized by Europeans. Unlike Pratts contact zones, which focuses on Northwestern

European encounters in Asia and Africa in the 18th and 19th century, the colonial regions

in the Americas were shaped trying to reproduce European style. In the Southern Cone,

the small demographic weight of indigenous population and the high number of European

immigrants contributed in shaping a colonial setting that resembled to the Old World

scenarios. Thus, observers in 18th and 19th century Rio de la Plata were viewing colonial

societies in many aspects similar Europe. Moreover, in the interaction zones, the

observers were not passive; they had specific projects that they wanted to implement in

the region. These projects shaped their accounts. Thus, an interaction zone is not only a

cultural and geographical region where the social agents redefined themselves in relation

to each other, but also includes social, political an economical interactions only possible

with a shared cultural background, such as religion, institutions and social practices. The

accounts produced in the interaction zones informed policy making, investments and how

the native groups made alliances with other native groups and Europeans within a

broader Trans-Atlantic context.

3
Mary Louise Pratt. Imperial Eyes: travel writing and transculturation. New York: Routledge. 1992.

3
 I will analyze the changes in the way observers perceived and described the social

groups present in a broad range of descriptive accounts and reports about the Rio de la

Plata. I am interested in examining the evolution of the designation of the region that

become the country of Uruguay today; and how its inhabitants were represented by the

authors in the written narratives as social groups during a hundred-five year span,

between the foundation of Montevideo as a colonial city(1726), and the final Uruguayan

Independence (1830).

These representations of collective identities and space designations were not

necessarily connected with the existing social ties and networks in the described society.

Nevertheless, through the representations of the distinct social groups the observers made

sense of how to interact in the region, as well as to suggest to the broader trans-Atlantic

scene the possible social groups to interact. In this process, although the observers were

not necessarily accurate in describing the contemporary collective identities, they used

the contemporary concepts of distinction to represent the diverse groups. Thus, the

writers represented the social groups using racial, ethnic, religious, state loyalty,

community, and natural endowments as markers of collective distinction.4 I will use the

4
Social groups construct collective identities are based on one or more characteristics that could be either
exclusive or inclusive, or both at the same time. These characteristics could be based on ethnic, racial,
linguistic, political, or shared experiences linked to a territory geographical or legally defined. For a
broader discussion on the use of identity and its plural meanings see: Anthony Cohen Culture as Identity:
an Anthropologists view New Literary History 24:1Winter 1993, for national identity see: Anderson,
Imagined communities New York: Routledge. 1982. For political and economical aspects of group
identification see Canny and Pagden, Colonial identity in the Atlantic world, 1500-1800. Princeton, N.J. :
Princeton University Press, c1987. For racial and ethnic identity: Carla Grinberg Os Judeus no Brasil. Rio
de Janeiro: Civilizaco Brasileira. 2005. Regarding the role of the communication networks: Francois
Xavier-Guerra. Forms of Communication, Political Spaces and Cultural Identities in the Creation of
Spanish American Nations In: Casteen and Castro-Klaren. Beyond Imagined Communities. Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins University Press. 2003. Paz, Elbourne. For the role of the religious identity and it
connections with the early modern Iberian states see Bartolome Clavero, Antidora : antropologa catlica
de la economa moderna. Madrid. 1992. The role of the encounter of different cultures in defining self
see: Said, Orientalism New York: Pantheon Books. 1978; Stuart Schwartz (ed.), Implicit Understandings:
observing, reporting, and reflecting on the Encounters between Europeans and other peoples in the early

4
term collective identity to refer to the representations of authors perceptions about the

distinct social groups existing in the region. These collective identity descriptions, are

derived from how the observers understood and used these distinctive variables

simultaneously to differentiate social groups. The writers experiences and interactions in

the region determined the emphasis on racial, religious, ethnic, environmental, political

loyalty or economic interest and solidarity, in the narratives. The observers cultural

background, the purpose of their narratives, their personal insertion in the region, their

ties with local and distant political entities and commercial partners all these elements

shaped each writer distinctive emphasis in how they described and made sense of the

diverse social groups described. These representations,5 although not necessarily

connected to broader grassroots social networks, carried significant political weight, since

it was based on these representations that policy making and public opinion in a broader

context made sense of the unfolding processes. I will refer to collective identity and space

designation considering such concepts as the representations created by the writers to

describe the social groups present in the region.

The analysis of the evolution of collective designations of the inhabitants of the

region roughly correspondent to the Uruguayan territory today reveal two different

processes. First, this evolution shows the increasing complexity of the colonial society

and the multiplicity of interests and networks as the Imperial structures and interaction

developed. Second, the changes in the emphasis of the identity designations markers

modern era. Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press. 1994. For a critique of the loose
definition of identity as an analytical concept see: Cooper et Beyond Identity.
5
I am using the concept of representations as discursive and symbolic constructions that had embedded
power relations and ethical and political values. The competing representations reflected power struggles
between diverse social groups. See Carlo Ginzburg Wooden Eyes: nine reflections on distance. New York:
Columbia University Press. 2001. Especifically the chapter Representation: the word, the thing, the idea.

5
illuminate the transition between notions of collective identity within Imperial legal

frames to collective groups capable of claiming and being recognized with rights of

sovereignty and self determination.6 Therefore, the changes in description and meaning

of collective identities reflected the changing concepts of collective identities in a trans-

Imperial space. Because the observers were from diverse geographical and ethnic origins,

and they had distinctive interests and projects for the regions future, they spoke to

diverse audiences. These representations their productions, circulation and reception

informed the decision making of the contemporary historical agents on both sides of the

Atlantic on the eve of the first wave of decolonization.

During the period, the representations of collective identities present in the

accounts become more complex and subtle. The original category of Spanish became

subdivided between the inhabitants from the Banda Oriental versus the inhabitants from

Buenos Aires. Simultaneously, the Portuguese were redefined and identified with the

Brazilian territory, rather than with Colonia do Sacramento. These representations in the

end reflected the conflictive interests at steak during the end of the colonial period and

the independence process, and how these multiple interactions fostered the formation of

distinct groups in these border regions.

6
The process of independence or decolonization of Latin America took place in a period where European
Empires controlled colonial regions outside of the New World. The nation-state was not the standard form
of political organization. Therefore, it is not possible to consider an international scenario without
incurring in anachronism. Because of that, I chose to refer to the broad political context as a trans-imperial
scenario.

6
 New Worlds Colonialism through Written Accounts from Contact Zones

to Interaction Zones

In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the production of written accounts and

reports about non-European regions increased substantially. This was the result of change

in the European Empires, with the crisis of old regime and mercantilist practices in the

face of the rise of liberalism and a capital oriented rationale. Scholars have argued that

written accounts and reports about the colonies speak more about the process of Northern

European identity creation and re-creation in relationship to the process of describing the

other and creating the boundaries of the self, than about the observed region. 7 This

scholarship was based on written accounts of contacts between Northern Europeans and

different societies in regions where there were no previous stable European colonies

Africa and Asia. These viewpoints often created a representation of non-European-like

colonial regions, making them easier to be appropriated by an European audience. The

encounters and contacts described in the accounts that supported such a theoretical

framework were between Europeans and the so called people without history.8

However, in the Americas, specifically in the Rio de la Plata region, the accounts and

reports produced in the 18th and 19th centuries were not that representative of what Mary

Louise Pratt called a contact zone. Because the region was not the locus where the

observers experienced encounter and appropriation of regions and ecosystems which

were not dominated by Europeans,9 these accounts were produced in an interaction

7
Said, Orientalism New York: Pantheon Books. 1978; Mary Louise Pratt. Imperial Eyes: travel writing
and transculturation. New York: Routledge. 1992. p 6 & 7.
8
Here, I am adopting Eric Wolfs metaphor to describe non-European and non-Europeanized traditional
societies from Asia, Africa, Oceania and the Americas excluding the colonial nuclei. Eric Wolf, Europe
and the People without History. Berkeley: University of California Press. 1982.
9
Mary Louise Pratt. Imperial Eyes: travel writing and transculturation. New York: Routledge. 1992. p 38.

7
zone. These written descriptions and narratives represented the increasing Imperial

interaction in a changing mature colonial region on the eve of Independence.

Scholarship on narratives and travelers accounts emphasized the encounter

between distinct cultures and the transcultural implications of such interactions. During

the expansion of European colonialism, written accounts and picturesque representations

were the main tools for publicizing information to a European (and Europeanized)

audience. The observers that narrated the events that developed in the observed region

were constantly mediating the reality with their morals and values shaped by their

original society. This difference of perceptions led to cultural gaps in relations, due

mainly to the multiple interpretations of signs and values. 10 Thus, the reporters

perceptions revealed more about their own identity, their value judgments and their

possible interests in the region within an Imperial Atlantic context than about the region

itself. The geographical and cultural space in which such encounters and narratives were

produced constituted what Mary L. Pratt calls contact zones.11

Based on the analysis of Northwestern European travelers, primarily naturalists,

Pratt argues that such a literature represented a spatial and temporal intersection between

the Imperial observer and societies located in colonial frontiers. 12 The accounts produced

a contact zone in which the travelers represented themselves with certain innocence.

They lacked of an active domination role, while natives produced accounts that engaged

in the colonizers own terms. This process integrated diverse regions in the European

10
For the contact with the other and the cultural gap in the process of cultural interaction during the
European Expansion see Tzvetan Todorov. The Conquest of America: the Question of the Other. New
York: Harper and Row. 1984. Stuart Schwartz (ed.), Implicit Understandings: observing, reporting, and
reflecting on the Encounters between Europeans and other peoples in the early modern era.
Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press. 1994. Especailly the Introduction. P. 3-4.
11
Mary Louise Pratt. Imperial Eyes: travel writing and transculturation. New York: Routledge. 1992. pp
6-9
12
Mary Louise Pratt. Imperial Eyes: travel writing and transculturation. New York: Routledge. 1992. p 6

8
cosmology and hierarchy, especially after the mid-18th century with the emergence of the

natural history as a structure of knowledge. 13 This corpus of writings allowed

Europeans to reaffirm their cultural centrality while including the rest of the world

passively into their rational categories. Finally, this process was directly connected with

the ideological support of the expansion of Northwestern colonialism and expansion of

capitalism, in a moment of the opening of Asia, Africa and Latin America for foreign

travelers. Scientific and commercial writing went hand to hand during the period and

become a product of public interest.

The accounts produced in the 18th and early 19th century Rio de la Plata cannot be

analyzed with the same conceptual tools as proposed to examine societies in other stages

of colonization. The moment of the encounter in the Americas occurred in many regions

during the 16th and 17th centuries. It was followed by the implementation of colonization

projects that in many aspects reproduced or introduced European ideals. Although the act

of writing always reveals and redefines the observers identity and consciousness in

relationship to the observed society to a certain degree, in the 18th and 19th century, in Rio

de la Plata the observers faced a Europeanized society. Moreover, by the late 18th century

and early 19th, indigenous populations were relatively small, or already integrated to the

colonial society to a certain degree (especially in the areas close to the estuary). The

regions environment was already adapted to European fauna and flora, and the urban

centers were built by European settlers within European standards. Thus, the region and

its ecosystems were largely already dominated by Europeans. Travelers were able to

identify and make direct comparisons with Europe - in their own terms -buildings,

clothing, customs and many aspects of the daily life. The observers also interacted
13
Mary Louise Pratt. Imperial Eyes: travel writing and transculturation. New York: Routledge. 1992. p 9

9
primarily with Europeans or people of European descent and, although reproducing social

hierarchy and prejudice, they considered the local elites as interlocutors, friends and even

possible marriage partners.14

Another specificity of the River Plate in the late 18th century and early 19th was

that the towns and its hinterlands could be hardly described as the non-European colonial

frontiers as Pratt uses to define contact zones. The frontier where there were still

contacts with Indigenous groups in the Rio de la Plata region were in the interior of

current day Argentina, and in a smaller degree in the interior Banda Oriental. The frontier

regions were far in the countryside, and a large portion of the Banda Oriental was a

borderland region contested between Spain and Portugal.15 Most of the accounts

represented a territory where the dominant characters were people of European descent,

with European like towns.

In these written descriptions the comparisons are made principally with Europe.

The observers always described the religious activities and architecture, clothing, cultural

habits, market places and fauna and flora always in relation to Europe. The differences

were not in the essence of the described realities, rather in degree. Church buildings could

be often less wealthier than the Europeans, but some religious parades could display more

ornaments and people ware wealthier clothing.16 Wheat was used in Europe and in the

14
J. A. B. Beaumot Viajes por Buenos Aires, Entre Rios y la Banda Oriental 1826-1827 Buenos Aires:
Hachette. 1957. In this book the author established relationship with the Creole elite, who were friends with
his family, and visited his parents in London. Beaumont also insists that the porteas have been be
excellent wives according to European standards.
15
For more information on the contested nature of the social formation of the region see: Helen Osorio.
Estancieiros, Lavradores e Comerciantes na Constituio da Estremadura Portuguesa na Amrica. Rio
Grande de So Pedro, 1737-1822. Doctoral Dissertation. Niteri: - PPGHIS/UFF, 1999. Fabricio Prado. A
Colonia do Sacramento: o Extremo Sul d America Portuguesa Porto Alegre: Fumproarte. 2002; Tiago Gil,
Infieis Transgressores. Master Thesis. Rio de Janeiro: UFRJ. 2002.
16
Simo Pereira de S. Histria Topogrfica e Blica da Nova Colnia do Sacramento do Rio da Prata,
Escrita por Ordem do Governador e Capito Geral do Rio de Janeiro em 1737 e 1777. Porto Alegre:

10
New World, but in the latter it was more abundant and with a slightly different color.17

The women dressed similarly the one in Europe, but with specific fashion and

accessories.18 Although there were many differences, especially regarding the presence of

indigenous groups often integrated in these colonial societies, the observers understood

the observed reality in close relation and in a comparative fashion to Europe.

The urban based local elites, as well, took most of their cultural and political ideas

from Europe which allows them to interact in their own and in European terms. In Rio de

la Plata, urban native elites occupied a prominent social role in spreading order and

rationality from an ordered and lettered city to its hinterland.19 The colonial elites

discursive and political rhetoric was engaged with their European counterparts although

their political and daily life practices were distinct. Nevertheless, elites, through the

written word and the organized space, legitimatized and reified power relations. The

Latin American elites, by the 18th century used European derived ideals, information, and

symbols that were dynamically circulating in the Atlantic, to exert control over space and

population. Through these processes these groups created certain degree of cultural

cohesion and articulated their shared experiences using the European derived symbolic

system.

These elites of European descent were not only aware of the discursive and

symbolic tools that they used; they understood the plural meaning that language and

Arcano 17. 1993. Emeric Essex Vidal Picturesque Illustrations of Buenos Ayres and Montevideo consisting
of 24 views accompanied with description of the scenery.London: Ackerman. 1820; J. A. B. Beaumot
Viajes por Buenos Aires, Entre Rios y la Banda Oriental 1826-1827 Buenos Aires: Hachette. 1957.
17
J. A. B. Beaumot Viajes por Buenos Aires, Entre Rios y la Banda Oriental 1826-1827 Buenos Aires:
Hachette. 1957.
18
J. A. B. Beaumot Viajes por Buenos Aires, Entre Rios y la Banda Oriental 1826-1827 Buenos Aires:
Hachette. 1957; Auguste Saint-Hilaire. Viagem ao Rio Grande do Sul; John Luccok. Notes on Rio de
Janeiro and the Southern parts of Brazil: taken during a residence of ten years in that country from 1808 to
1818. London: Samuel Leigh. 1820.
19
Angel Rama, La Ciudad Letrada Hanover, N.H., U.S.A.: Ediciones del Norte. 1984.

11
symbols could have in the local society. This allowed some elite groups to articulate

regional and long-distances networks re-arranging alliances and strategies considering

such differences and using them in their own benefit. 20 Thus, these discourses could have

multiple meanings depending on their audience, such an ambiguity was understood and

consciously used by the local elites.

The observers in the Rio de la Plata had economic, political and social interests

and projects in the region, they shared European cultural codes and rationale that enable

observers and observed to engage in multiple relationships. Rather than being only

seeing persons dealing with radically different cultural systems that tried to keep a safe

distance from the observed people, the authors actively interacted with local social

groups.21 Merchants, investors, and military, among others, saw the region as an

extension of the European scenario, a land of opportunities, many times, in their own

terms.

Given these factors; the Rio de la Plata estuary was not exactly a contact zone

in Pratts terms. Rather, it was an interaction zone. An interaction zone was a mature

colonial region in which the elites were European or of European descent and agents

from different geographical origins interacted. In the interaction zone the subjects faced

the differences of the other, although simultaneously they shared most of the values,

cultural and political ideals with the described societies. Unlike in Pratts contact zones,

20
Hommi Bhabha Of Mimicry and Man: the Ambivalence of Colonia Discourse In: Cooper & Stoler,
Colonialism in Question. Berkeley: University of California Press. 1997.
21 Tiago Luis Gil shows the high frequency of marriages and partnerships between the accounts writers

and local elites. Tiago Gil Sobre o comrcio ilcito: a viso dos demarcadores de limites sobre o
contrabando terrestre na fronteira entre os domnios lusos e espanhis no Rio da Prata (1774-1801)
Article presented at the II Jornadas de Historia Regional Comparada Porto Alegre, October 12-15 2005.
Unpublished Article. The establishment of local roots by bureaucrats in different levels is analyzed in
Susan Socolow. Amor al Real Servicio. Durham: Duke University Press. 1993.

12
the writers were integrated and in constant interaction with the societies that they were

describing. Thus, their description was mediated primarily by the authors interactions

with the regional social groups, as well as by their interaction in the broader Imperial

scenario. Finally, the accounts produced in interaction zones reflected the tension

between the writers cultural backgrounds and their perceptions of the regions that were

shaped by their personal projects, their relative position in the Imperial networks, and by

their interaction with the people in the region. In many ways these written accounts

informed Imperial and individual policy and behavior in and towards the region.

Circulation of Information in Trans-Imperial Networks

The diverse accounts produced on the River Plate region by travelers, bureaucrats,

entrepreneurs, diplomats and naturalists circulated in a trans-imperial arena of

information where many networks intersected. 22 In the eighteenth century the British

consolidated their presence in the South Atlantic with the Portuguese expansion toward

the South. The stable Portuguese presence in the north bank of the River Plate, ensured

that British had also easy access to the region mostly controlled by Spain. Thus, the River

Plate becomes scenario of the interaction of, at least, three different European Empires.

These written representations represented the ideological and political changes of the

period, as well as they evince the changing role of the region in the broader context of the

Atlantic.

22
Because in the late 18th and early 19th century there were no modern Nations yet, in the sense that
Benedict Anderson, Imagined communities New York: Routledge. 1982 Eric Hobsbawn Naes e
Nacionalismo desde 1780. So Paulo: Paz e Terra. 1991; Ernest Gellner. Naes e Nacionalismo.Lisboa:
Gradiva. 1993; and Anthony Smith La Identidad Nacional. Buenos Aires: Rama. 1991, define. I chose the
concept of trans-Imperial since that was the political frame of power architecture of states in the period.
The multiple networks of information that I am referring to are: bureaucratic, commercial, religious,
personal or newspaper. These networks were not exclusive from each other.

13
 The existence of narratives and descriptions produced by diverse observers from

different origins also made a significant difference in understanding the process of

recreating the region through representations to Europeans and Europeanized

populations. Because the River Plate was a contested region between the Spanish and the

Portuguese Empires, as well as an area where the British had many interests, the

production of written accounts were prolific as the needing for knowledge by the

Imperial agents. These accounts were instrumental and constituted the available data that

informed and directed both Imperial policies towards the region. Diverse travelers,

tradesmen, military, bureaucrats and members of native elites were producing written

pieces and their descriptions adopted shared categories and language that reveal not only

a common European (and Europeanized) audience, but also reveal the significance of the

circulation of information.

The narratives could be descriptions, accounts, geographic measurements, prices

report, journals and other similar representations of the region. The printed ones

circulated in a broad trans-imperial audience and transited from Madrid, to London, to

Montevideo to Lisbon. Although diverse writers produced different narratives, these

written accounts reveal the existence of common topics, which suggests not only a shared

European perspective and willingness to make the observed reality tangible, but also

shows that some of the narratives informed the production of the subsequent ones, even

though the writers belonged to rival empires.

Trans-Imperial information networks surpassed the limits of the political entities

and were dynamically fed by many diverse small networks. These smaller networks were

based on trade, family, religion, state alliances and newspaper circulation. Some of the

14
narratives were descriptions of war, with clear intention of exalting the authorities and

others interested in obtain merces.23 Some were letters exchanged in private or

bureaucratic level sometimes classified.24 Most were societal descriptions influenced by

18th century science and trade ideologies, or strictly bureaucratic administrative reports

shaped by enlightened ideals.25 The written pieces were multiple, not necessarily

connected, but through their circulation they created a trans-Atlantic flow of information

that was unequivocally tied to Imperial dynamics and needs. As well as, they were used

to represent native interests and how native groups wanted to be perceived and integrated

within this trans-Imperial scenario. 26

The large number of printed narratives, from different Imperial perspectives,

indicates the existence of an interested audience in the events unfolding in the Rio de la

Plata (table 1). The diverse origin and motives for writing ensured diverse perspectives

represented in the narratives. Nevertheless, certain topics were recurrent. Topics more or

23
Simo Pereira de S. Histria Topogrfica e Blica da Nova Colnia do Sacramento do Rio da Prata,
Escrita por Ordem do Governador e Capito Geral do Rio de Janeiro em 1737 e 1777. Porto Alegre:
Arcano 17. 1993; Silvestre Ferreira da SILVA,. Relao do Stio da nova Colnia do Sacramento. So Paulo.
1977. [1748]
24
Journal of a Scotch Sailor. Hispanic Society f America New York HC 363-1299. 1726-1728. The parts
referred here are mainly from 1727-1728. I thank to Prof. David Eltis for this material. Francisco Millau,
Parish, Hood.
25
Anonimo. Noticias sobre el Rio de la Plata. Madrid: Historia 16. 1988; Bartolome Cosme Bueno. El
Aragones Cosme Buenos y la Descripcion Geografica del Rio de la Plata 1768-1776. Huesca: Instituto de
Estudios Altoaragoneses. 1996; Felix de Azara Memoria sobre el estado rural del Rio de la Plata. Buenos
Aires: Editorial Bajel, 1943; Damasio Larranaga Diario del Viaje de Montevideo a Paysandu Montevideo:
Instituto Nacional del Libro. 1994; John Luccok Notes on Rio de Janeiro and the Southern parts of Brazil:
taken during a residence of ten years in that country from 1808 to 1818 London: Samuel Leigh. 1820; J. A.
B. Beaumot Viajes por Buenos Aires, Entre Rios y la Banda Oriental 1826-1827 Buenos Aires: Hachette.
1957; Emeric Essex Vidal Picturesque Illustrations of Buenos Ayres and Montevideo consisting of 24
views accompanied with description of the scenery.London: Ackerman. 1820; Saint-Hilaire.
26
Here I am appropriating Andersons concept of imagined communities suggesting that the 18th century
Atlantic World also connected people with imaginary ties around the European colonial system. However, I
am not implying the existence of Modern nation-states or national identities in Latin America for the period
in question; rather I am arguing the existence of a Trans-Imperial community conscious of themselves in a
imagined level. For more thoughts on the Atlantic audience and information networks see also Paz,
Gustavo Reporting Atlantic News, Presented at Emory University, Janurary 6th 2006.; Elbourne,
Elizabeth The sin of the Settler Journal of Colonialims and Colonial History 4:3. 2003. pp 2-3.

15
less familiar to Europeans were emphasized as a matter of comparison with the Old

World. Clearly, the description of religious buildings and festivities, clothing and women

behavior, or description of market places were frequent in almost all accounts of the

period.27

Observer Year Format In Service of Empire

Unknown Scotch 1727 Journal/Manuscript British
Seaman
Sylvestre Ferreira da 1748 Printed Narrative Portuguese
Silva
Simao Pereira de Sa 1750 Printed Narrative Portuguese
Francisco Millau 1772 Printed Description Spanish
Cosme Bueno 1772 Printed Description Spanish
Xavier de Vianna 1792 Printed Traveler Book Spanish (Montevideo)
Anonymous Circ. 1780 Administrative Account (Spanish)
Felix de Azara 1801 Administrative-Printed Spanish
Damasio Larraaga 1813 Printed Description -
Emeric Essex Vidal 1816-1820 Printed Description British
Saint Hilaire 1818-1820 Printed Description French/Portuguese
John Luccok 1820 Printed Description British
Beaumont 1824-1826 Printed Description British
Woodbine Parish 1824-1826 Consular Reports Brtish
Samuel Hood 1824-1826 Consular Reports British

These accounts constituted a broad corpus of information that circulated outside

of the region and crossed imperial boundaries. These written materials varied in their

format and content, from administrative reports, to military descriptions of warfare, to

27
Church descriptions present in all narratives, with the exceptions of Hood and Parish. Women clothing
and behavior present in the descriptions of Journal of a Scotch Sailor. Hispanic Society f America New
York HC 363-1299. 1726-1728. The parts referred here are mainly from 1727-1728. I thank to Prof. David
Eltis for this material; Anonimo. Noticias sobre el Rio de la Plata. Madrid: Historia 16. 1988; Emeric
Essex Vidal Picturesque Illustrations of Buenos Ayres and Montevideo consisting of 24 views
accompanied with description of the scenery.London: Ackerman. 1820; Saint Hilaire, John Luccok Notes
on Rio de Janeiro and the Southern parts of Brazil: taken during a residence of ten years in that country
from 1808 to 1818. London: Samuel Leigh. 1820. and J. A. B. Beaumot Viajes por Buenos Aires, Entre
Rios y la Banda Oriental 1826-1827 Buenos Aires: Hachette. 1957.

16
journals of seamen, to tradesmen and entrepreneurs reports, and to accounts on natural

history. Because of the printed nature this material, and due to the political and trade

partnerships between subjects and governments of distinct Imperial powers, there were

trans-Imperial networks in which this written pieces circulated. The accounts with

information from prices, to geography, and history were cited and there was repetition of

certain patterns. For instance, in the Rio de la Plata, the Spanish bureaucrat Felix de

Azaras account was cited by British travelers (e.g. Beaumont, E.E. Vidal. )28 Azara starts

his description of the countryside of the Banda Oriental claiming that he had seen maps

and read all the printed and manuscript histories of Rio de la Plata to present reliable

information.29

Information was a valuable commodity for Europeans empires. The importance

of information was not restricted only to printed narratives and descriptions, rather it was

present in the Empires routines e.g. in naval confrontations between rival Empires. A

standard procedure carried by the Spaniard crews was to throw in the ocean secret and

private documents with important information.30 This practice suggests that not only

printed documents or officially produced and shared information flowed beyond the

Empires. Thus, although in competition for information, the data produced about the

colonies were shared by the competing powers, which implied also in a shared territorial

re-appropriation represented by others Empires observers.

Therefore, the analysis of the representations of collective identities in the

accounts referring to the Rio de la Plata can tell us about the changing notions of

28
Emeric Essex Vidal Picturesque Illustrations of Buenos Ayres and Montevideo consisting of 24 views
accompanied with description of the scenery. London: Ackerman. 1820;
29
Felix de Azara Memoria sobre el estado rural del Rio de la Plata. Buenos Aires: Editorial Bajel. 1943. p
3.
30
The LONDON TIMES, Aug 04, 1800. Issue 4865; Col B.

17
identities happening within this trans-Imperial arena. It is important to consider that such

collective identities designations were often attributed by outsiders, although the native

elites also produced their own versions, representing their self-defined identity and

selectively adopting ongoing representations. Thus, although the collective identities

designation might not reflect other forms of alliances and self identification based in

other forms of networks e.g. family, religion, ethnicity - their active representation

reflected how natives wanted to be perceived and how the observers conceived collective

groups. Considering that such representations were generated out from the interactions of

the subjects, these group designations were defined by the diverse plausible/competing

political and social projects for the region.

The analysis of the changes in the representations of collective identity and space

designations in the Rio de la Plata accounts can reveal the changing notions concerning

the formation, the recognition and the rights related to social groups in the trans-Imperial

community. Moreover, the designation of collective identities can reveal the bases for the

creation of alliances between distinct social groups in the regional and broader trans-

imperial space. These factors suggest that the increasing colonial control and a more

structured colonial apparatus empowered local groups and fostered the formation of

collective identities, community ties and the identification of social groups with a defined

territory. Thus, during the late colonial period, there were the formation of collective

identities that were not national, but it shaped the process of transitioning from colony to

nation.

18
 Table 2 - Evolution of the Designation of the Banda Oriental and its Inhabitants

Observer Year Designations

British Seaman 1727 Spanish/Portuguese from Colonia
Sylvestre Ferreira da Silva 1748 Spanish/Portuguese from Colonia
Simao Pereira de Sa 1750 Spanish/Portuguese from Colonia
Francisco Millau 1772 Spanish From Montevideo and Buenos
Aires/Portuguese from Colonia
Cosme Bueno 1772 Bishopric of Buenos Aires Other Bank
(Otra Banda)
Perez Castellanos 1777-1808 Vecinos Rio de la Plata Vecinos de
Motevideo/Portuguese from Rio Grande
Xavier de Vianna 1792 Country of Montevideo
Anonimo Circ. 1780 Vecinos Rio de la Plata Vecinos de
Motevideo/Portuguese from Rio Grande
Felix de Azara 1801 Inhabitants of the Campaa
Damasio Larraaga 1813 Montevideo Jurisdiction/Patria/Portuguese
from Rio Grande
Emeric Essex Vidal 1816-1820 Inhabitants of the East Bank Herdsmen
Saint Hilarie 1818-1820 Spanish/Portuguese - Capitancy of
Montevideo
John Luccok 1820 Inhabitants of the Province of Uruguay
Beuamont 1824-1826 Inhabitants of Banda Oriental
Woodbine Parish 1824-1826 Orientalists

Samuel Hood 1824-1826 Orientals

19
When the Spaniards were Spaniards and the Portuguese were from Colonia (1727-

1777)

During the period of existence of Colonia do Sacramento as a Portuguese town,

the designation of collective identities present in the written accounts of the River Plate

shows the rivalry between the two Iberian empires. The Spanish from the River Plate

were considered a homogeneous category in opposition to the Portuguese, who were

principally regarded as the ones from Colonia do Sacramento. Late in this period, the first

differentiation appeared between Buenos Aires and the other bank.

Before we proceed, it is important to situate the reader with a brief chronology of

the events in the region during the whole period. The settlement of the Rio de la Plata

region started with the foundation Buenos Aires by the Spaniards in 1534. Due to the

opposition of indigenous groups and environmental challenges, the enterprise failed.

Only in 1580 did a new and successful foundation of Buenos Aires take place. After that,

the following successful European settlement created in the region was a Portuguese

enterprise, Colonia do Sacramento. This Portuguese commercial town was located in the

North Bank of the River Plate, and was founded in 1680. The Portuguese tried to found

another settlement in the Eastern Bank in 1723, but they were expelled from the site by

the Spaniards who created the Spanish town of Montevideo. From this moment on, two

competing settlement projects had developed in the region, creating a borderland region

between the two Iberian Empires. Until 1777, there were Portuguese and Spanish settlers

in the Banda Oriental, and the relationship between the colonists involved conflict and

20
cooperation.31 After 1777, the Portuguese were expelled form Colonia, and only returned

to the region in 1811 and 1816 during the Independence process.

The first account about the region that I was able to identify after the foundation

of Montevideo is dated from the late 1720s. In 1727, an anonymous Scotch seaman, on

board of the ship St. Mitchel32, stayed for more than a year in the River Plate, close to the

harbor of Colonia do Sacramento. During his staying, the seaman registered many

impressions about the region. He described the buildings as short, comparing it to their

European counterparts; he mentioned that the religious festivals and masses were quite

similar to those celebrated in Portugal. The Scotch reporter mentioned the fauna and

flora, most of the time comparing them to those of Europe, even using scientific names in

Latin to describe species. The traveler eyes did not have to go much beyond his home

continent to find the measures for the reality that he was trying to apprehend.

Regarding the social groups present in the region, there were clearly two main

groups with whom interaction was seen as natural for our anonymous Scotch sailor the

Portuguese from Colonia, and the Spanish. For him, the Spanish were mainly from

Buenos Aires. Although he mentioned ships coming and going to and from Montevideo,

there is no further mention of the latter city as a population nucleous. Moreover, the

writer did not specify any distinctive features between the inhabitants of Montevideo and
31
For almost a hundred years the Portuguese kept Sacramento (1680-1777), a commercial town established
across from Buenos Aires in the Banda Oriental. This town was subject of innumerable disputes, warfare
and diplomatic treaties. Although the Portuguese lost Sacramento many times through warfare, they
regained it by Diplomatic ways, many times backed by the British. After the lost of 1777, the Portuguese
would reconquest Sacramento once more, together with the whole region of the Banda Oriental in the early
19th century, during the Independence process under the name of Cisplatine province. Although the
emphasis on the conflictive nature of the European colonization of the region, it is noteworthy that most of
the time throughout the period, there were peaceful relations connecting the diverse factions of European
colonizers. Smuggling and other not so official interactions were part of the daily routine in the region.
Although legally forbidden, subjects from the Europeans empires developed stable long term relationships
based of networks of business, family, religion and political alliances.
32
Journal of a Scotch Sailor. Hispanic Society f America New York HC 363-1299. 1726-1728. The parts
referred here are mainly from 1727-1728. I thank to Prof. David Eltis for this material.

21
of Buenos Aires. In his narrative, Spaniards and Portuguese represent possible partners

for trade and social interaction - the former mainly from Buenos Aires, and the latter

from Colonia.

While in the region, the Scotch seaman was socialized more with the Portuguese

than with the Spanish, with whom he maintained in general commercial relations. Thus,

he described the Portuguese settlement as an urban civilized European-like environment,

a little backward in relation to England, but similar to Portugal.

Almost ten years later, Colonia do Sacramento was subject to a two-year long

military siege by the Spaniards (1735-1737). This event resulted in the production of two

printed accounts of the events by Portuguese officials who were present in the town. The

books of Simo Pereira de S Histria Topographica e Blica da Colonia do Sacramento

and Sylvestre Ferreira da Silvas Relao do Stio da Nova Colonia were printed in

Portugal in the late 1740s and early 1750s respectively. These books constituted the

first comprehensive published accounts on the region from a Portuguese perspective.

Both authors wrote their books to legitimize the Portuguese claim over the Banda

Oriental and particularly over Colonia do Sacramento. They started their narratives with

the discovery of the region by Iberian explorers, and they built a historical narrative to

justify the Portuguese claim. S and Silva also described the architecture of the town and

the religious activities, always using European examples as reference. The relations with

the Spanish, although often tempestuous, were understood within Christian morals and

values.33

33
Silvestre Ferreira da SILVA,. Relao do Stio da nova Colnia do Sacramento. So Paulo. 1977. [1748].
pp 75, 77.

22
 However, the description of the social groups interacting in the region was clear:

there were subjects of the Spanish Crown and subjects of the Portuguese Monarchy. For

them the Spanish were synonymous with Castelhanos. Although most of the times they

were referring to the Castelhanos from Buenos Ayres, this designation was also used to

refer to the inhabitants of Montevideo indiscriminately.34

The Spanish or Castelhanos were naturally in opposition to the Portuguese, but

they were also oppose to other groups mentioned, the Indians and the British. The Indians

were always differentiated form the Spanish in the region even though they had been

referring to the converted by the Jesuits.35 The British were not a settling presence; rather

they appeared as commercial partners, in general closely related to the Portuguese,

although they traded with any Europeanized groups indiscriminately.36

These descriptions were derived through interacting with the subjects in the

region. Although the non-European other was present, the main focuses of the authors

were the interactions between the population of European descent. Furthermore, their

perceptions were in large degree pragmatic considering not only their perception of the

enemy but also considering a broader Imperial readership and the political and social

implications of the confrontation between the two historical Iberian rivals.

34
Simo Pereira de S. Histria Topogrfica e Blica da Nova Colnia do Sacramento do Rio da Prata,
Escrita por Ordem do Governador e Capito Geral do Rio de Janeiro em 1737 e 1777. Porto Alegre:
Arcano 17. 1993. pp 25, 51, 90, on page 53 castelhanos from Buenos Aires. Silvestre Ferreira da SILVA,.
Relao do Stio da nova Colnia do Sacramento. So Paulo. 1977. [1748]. pp 45, 74, 75, 77, 95.
35
Simo Pereira de S. Histria Topogrfica e Blica da Nova Colnia do Sacramento do Rio da Prata,
Escrita por Ordem do Governador e Capito Geral do Rio de Janeiro em 1737 e 1777. Porto Alegre:
Arcano 17. 1993. passim. Silvestre Ferreira da SILVA,. Relao do Stio da nova Colnia do Sacramento.
So Paulo. 1977. [1748] p 95.
36
Ingleses q. tomaro nosso partido, mas tb. negociavo com os castelhanos Simo Pereira de S.
Histria Topogrfica e Blica da Nova Colnia do Sacramento do Rio da Prata, Escrita por Ordem do
Governador e Capito Geral do Rio de Janeiro em 1737 e 1777. Porto Alegre: Arcano 17. 1993.p 97 &
101.

23
 In 1772, two Spanish travelers, commissioned by the Spanish Crown traveled to

the River Plate provinces. Francisco Millau and Cosme Bueno traveled separately and

probably never met each other. They did, however, important distinctions in the

representation of the region. Francisco Millau made the important distinction within the

Spanish dominions representing the River Plate region as divided between Buenos Aires

and the Banda Norte. Cosme Bueno did not follow such a distinction since he was

organizing his narrative according to Bishoprics; however, in his descriptions of

Montevideo, its hinterland and Colonia do Sacramento, the Portuguese element was a

main feature. These two descriptions were significantly influential. Although not

consistent within themselves, these narratives created tropes that will appear in the

representations of the region in the following decades the distinction between the

Spanish from Buenos Aires and from Montevideo and the conflict with the Portuguese in

the Banda Norte.

Millaus Descripcin de la Provincia del Rio de la Plata is a general description

of the whole formal jurisdiction under Buenos Aires rule. It encompassed regions from

the Eastern side of the Andes to the Eastern Bank of the Rio de la Plata. In this account,

for the first time, the eastern bank receives special attention. Although described as part

of the jurisdiction of Buenos Aires, he dedicates three chapters exclusively to the banda

Norte emphasizing the natural ports of the region, Montevideo, and Montevideos

hinterland.37 In this section, Colonia do Sacramento also receives attention, and the issue

of contraband is the main topic discussed regarding the Portuguese.

37
Francisco Millau. Descripcin de la Provncia del Rio de la Plata Buenos Aires and Mexico: Espasa
Calpe. 1947. pp 95-124.

24
 Millau did not differentiate the Spaniards in Buenos Aires from the ones in

Montevideo, even so his descriptions of the territory, the farms and the human activities

appear divided, with two centers of reference. Buenos Aires, as the capital of the

province and the trade partners for the Portuguese from Colonia, and Montevideo

emerges as a port city with its own countryside.38

Although the author is not describing separate social groups, he is re-drawing the

territorial representation of the region. Millau is describing another center of social life

and human activity, especially when he mentions the existence of farms preferentially

connected to the city and port of Montevideo rather than to Buenos Aires.39 At this

moment, a new division of the region is clearly represented and implicitly suggests a

distinct population of inhabitants.

Cosme Bueno, an ecclesiastic Aragonese, traveled in the Vice Royalty of Peru,

and arrived in Rio de la Plata from Peru and Chile. In his description of the Buenos Aires

bishopric, Cosme Buenos represented the region of Montevideo and Colonia do

Sacramento separately.40 While Colonia was represented together with Buenos Aires, as a

post of illegal trade,41 Montevideo was represented together with the Jesuit settlements in

the region.42 Nevertheless, although Buenos did not represent the region as an unit per se,

it is noteworthy that Bueno described for the regions located in the banda Norte the

presence of the Portuguese and the recurrence of illegal trade.

38
Francisco Millau. Descripcin de la Provncia del Rio de la Plata Buenos Aires and Mexico: Espasa
Calpe. 1947. p 103.
39
Francisco Millau. Descripcin de la Provncia del Rio de la Plata Buenos Aires and Mexico: Espasa
Calpe. 1947. p 99, 100
40
Bartolome Cosme Bueno. El Aragones Cosme Buenos y la Descripcion Geografica del Rio de la Plata
1768-1776. Huesca: Instituto de Estudios Altoaragoneses. 1996. p 129-145.
41
Bartolome Cosme Bueno. El Aragones Cosme Buenos y la Descripcion Geografica del Rio de la Plata
1768-1776. Huesca: Instituto de Estudios Altoaragoneses. 1996. 132-136
42
Bartolome Cosme Bueno. El Aragones Cosme Buenos y la Descripcion Geografica del Rio de la Plata
1768-1776. Huesca: Instituto de Estudios Altoaragoneses. 1996. p 142-145

25
 Millau wrote his description in 1772 from an administrative viewpoint after he

had been in the region for many years and had worked as a Spanish commissioner for the

creation of the borders between the domains of Portugal and Spain. He was the first one

to describe the region in such a manner, dividing the Rio de la Plata region into to

bandas, and mentioning how the different cities articulated the space and human

activities in particular ways. The author triggered a process of re-territorialization that

was derived from his experience in the region and at the same time represented such

perceptions to the administrative level. Cosme Bueno came from Peru and described the

region as part of the bishopric of Buenos Aires. In his description Millau called the

banda Norte was not an articulated regional unit. However, the regions that were

located in the region of the banda Norte were the locus of the interaction with the

Portuguese.

These two authors were engaged in a process of reterritorializing the region as an

interaction zone. Because the authors were engaged with the Spanish authorities, their

descriptions regarding the northern bank of the River Plate emphasized the presence of

the Portuguese, the illegal connections between Spanish and Portuguese in that space

together with the existence of another important port in the region besides Buenos Aires.

Millau implicit suggests that the Banda Norte was a space with specific characteristics

and needs. This information was eminently connected with the improvement of the

metropolitan control in the region. Therefore, with the aim of improving state control and

producing knowledge, the observers started to represent a more complex situation in the

region, specifying the distinct groups in interaction and the regional peculiarities.

26
The Banda Norte Becomes Oriental and the Portuguese from Brazil

The descriptions produced in the period between 1777 and the early 1800s reflect

the enlightened reformist spirit of the Bourbon period in the Spanish Empire.

Characterized by the aim to optimize the Imperial administration and secure the territory,

the written accounts of the period presented three principal changes in relation to the

previous periods. First, the name Banda Oriental appears describing the region of the

north bank of the River Plate identifies as under the jurisdiction of Montevideo. Second,

the Portuguese started being represented as the inhabitants of the southern provinces of

Brazil. Third, the inhabitants of the region are described as gauchos daily wage laborers

or nomadic semi-outlaw smugglers.

These characteristics present in the written accounts were in part connected with

the political and administrative changes that happened in the region between 1776 and

1778. The creation of the Vice Royalty of Buenos Aires in 1776, with its capital in

Buenos Aires changed the balance of power in the estuary. In 1777, the Portuguese were

expelled from Colonia by Spanish troops, consolidating the Spanish territorial control of

the region. Finally, in 1778, the ports of Montevideo and Buenos Aires were allowed to

free trade directly with Spain. All these political and economic changes impacted the

social life of the Rio de la Plata and the way in which the observers perceived the social

groups. In this period, the authors writing about the region were many times part of the

27
native elite, reflecting that the new administrative structures allowed greater participation

by the local groups in administrative matters.

The narratives emphasized the administrative aspects of the region, centering

most of their content in considering how the economy and social life were organized and

possible ways of improving such organization in favor of the Spanish metropole. Because

of this characteristic, the distinction between the Buenos Aires side of the river and the

Montevideo region is emphasized. With the reforms of the late 1770s, Montevideo

gained commercial autonomy and increased its jurisdiction over its hinterland. At the

same time, although the Portuguese had been expelled from Colonia, illegal trade and

intercourse were still occurring between Portuguese and Spanish in the region, but now

the Portuguese were located in the South of Brazil. Thus, the narratives produced during

this period represented the increasing opposition between Buenos Aires and Montevideo

as commercial ports, and reinforced the notion that the north bank was the region where

illegal contacts with the Portuguese happened. Coincidence or not, at this moment the

region started to be described as the Banda Oriental.

One of the first authors to use Banda Oriental as the designation for the region

was the Creole ecclesiastic Manoel Perez de Castellanos.43 Perez de Castellanos was

born in the Provinces of Rio de la Plata, received a degree from the University of

Cordoba, and was probably ordained priest in Buenos Aires in the early 1770s. Between

1778 and 1808, Perez de Castellano wrote a series of letters to Benito Riva, a religious in

Italy. In his letters, Perez de Castellano described the religious life in the region,

43
Creole were the native born of European descent. Jose Manuel Perez Castellanos Seleccion de
Escritos1787-1814 Montevideo, Biblioteca Artigas, 1968. Descripcion de Montevideo y la Campaa de la
Banda Oriental. Pp 5-15.

28
including the brotherhoods activities, festivals and church buildings. In describing these

aspects of the society, Perez Castellanos clearly positioned himself rein relations to

economic and political matters. The narrative structure of his letters emphasized the

distinction between Montevideo and its hinterland from Buenos Aires. Prices, reactions

before political events, and way of doing business were stressed as important distinctions

between the Banda Oriental and the Buenos Aires side of the estuary. Based on such

logic, the representation of Montevideos hinterland as the Banda Oriental reinforced

an oppositional relation between the two port towns and its hinterlands.

Commonly, the notion that the north bank of the River Plate was located in the

east side of the Uruguay River was not new. However, when the authors started

describing the region Banda Oriental they attached to the space a broader idea of distance

and otherness, since the word Orient in the western world since the late Medieval Ages

has been associated with otherness.44 Although not immediately connected to anything

oriental, the north bank of the River Plate was symbolically connected with the

representation of the eastern cultures. This symbolical connection reinforced the Banda

Oriental as a location in opposition to the Banda Occidental that would the Buenos Aires

bank, the seat of the Vice-Royalty and the town where a powerful political and

commercial elite had their interests rooted. With this representation, Perez de Castellanos

not only further developed the distinction between the Buenos Aires and Montevideos

44
The impact in Europe of the Travels of Marco Polo in the late 14th century was extremely significant and
popularized many ideas about the orient. The Travels of Marco Polo was edited in Spanish and French
version in the subsequent decades. John Larner. Marco Polo and the Discovery of the World. New Haven:
Yale University Press. 1999. Marco Polo. The Travels of Marco Polo. With 25 illus. in full color from a
14th century MS. In the Bibliotheque nationale, Paris. New Yorl: Orion Press. 1958. Manuel Komroff,
Contemporaries of Marco Polo, consisting of the travel records to the eastern parts of the world of William
of Rubruck (1253-1255), the journey of John of Pian de Capini (1245-1247), the journal of Friar Odoric
(1318-1330) & the oriental travels of Rabb. New York: Boni & Liveright. 1928.

29
hinterland, but consolidated the oppositional relationship between the two Spanish ports

in the River plate, reifying the political and economic centrality of Buenos Aires.

The representation of the difference between Montevideo and Buenos was also

present in the way in which Castellanos often referred to the inhabitants of Montevideo

and its hinterland as vecinos de Montevideo.45 Vecinos (neighbors) was the official term

to describe a person who was socially recognized as belonging to a community.

Communities in Spanish America were usually organized around the town council.

Therefore, in describing the inhabitants of Montevideo as vecinos, the author was also

reinforcing the idea that the inhabitants of the Banda Oriental constituted part of a distinct

community with certain degree of political cohesion and autonomy in relation to Buenos

Aires.46

Perez Castellanos was one of the first authors to use Banda Oriental to

designate Montevideo and its hinterland. Eventually, Banda Oriental became a common

way to designate the region, especially in the first decades of the 1800s. It is noteworthy

that its first use appears in private letters from a Creole. The spread of Banda Oriental as

the designation of the north bank also reveals that such notions were not exclusive to one

author. In the following decades, Banda Oriental would appear in administrative

accounts, although the emphasis would be on Montevideos jurisdiction over the region.

45
Jose Manuel Perez Castellanos Seleccion de Escritos 1787-1814 Montevideo, Biblioteca Artigas. 1968.
Descripcion de Montevideo y la Campaa de la Banda Oriental. pp 35-37.
46
This trend becomes clearer specially in Castellanos letters about the British Invasion, and the role of
Montevideo in liberating Buenos Aires. The author also mentions the honor of Montevideo as defined by
the actions of its inhabitants. Jose Manuel Perez Castellanos Seleccion de Escritos1787-1814 Montevideo,
Biblioteca Artigas, 1968. Descripcion de Montevideo y la Campana de la Banda Oriental. Pp 46, 52-56,
125.

30
 An anonymous account, probably produced during the 1790s,47 also adopted the

structure of comparing Montevideo and Buenos Aires, but it emphasized the Portuguese

presence and smuggling as an significant distinction of the region. Because the author

was eminently concerned with administrative reforms to improve metropolitan control

over the region, the dispute over the territory and the illegal trade with the Portuguese

were important matters in his description.48 According to the s writer, the countryside of

Montevideo was inhabited by four categories of people: the land owners (hacendados

duenos de estancias), the daily wage labourers, also know as gauchos (jornaleros,

trabajadores, o penoes del campo conocidos por gauchos), the Indians of the Jesuit

Missions, and the Portuguese.49 It is noteworthy that the Indians and the Portuguese were

the only categories located in a specific area. Respectively they were described as living

in the Banda Oriental of the Uruguay river, and at the oriental side of the Gy river.

The non-Spanish-descent population of the countryside of Montevideo was identified

with the orient. Buenos Aires, the seat of the Bishop, and Capital was described as the

Occidental bank.50

The eastern part of the Montevideos countryside, where the Portuguese were

located, was one of the main concerns of the anonymous writer. According to him, this

was the location where several conflicts, robberies and the illegal transactions between

the subjects of the two Iberian empires took place. In some occasions, some gauchos

47
Anonimo. Noticias sobre el Rio de la Plata. Madrid: Historia 16. 1988. Especially Introduccion.
Because the manuscrypt was not dates, there are some debate about the date of the document. The authors
vary in attribute 1792, 1794 or 1797. However, it is possible that the accounts were produced in multiple
dates. Pp 7- 42.
48
The narrative starts with the title Information to the improvement of the Buenos Aires and
Montevideos countrysides (Noticia para el arreglo de los campos de Buenos Aires y Montevideo.
Anonimo. Noticias sobre el Rio de la Plata. Madrid: Historia 16. 1988. p 43.
49
Anonimo. Noticias sobre el Rio de la Plata. Madrid: Historia 16. 1988. p 91. Los gauchos
50
Anonimo. Noticias sobre el Rio de la Plata. Madrid: Historia 16. 1988. p70-71.

31
were involved in such activities with the Luso-Brazilians. Thus, the author suggested

many reforms to improve the control of Montevideo over the countryside of the Banda

Oriental to stop the disorders.51

This representation reinforced the political role of Montevideo and attached to it a

more defined area of jurisdiction, as well as represented the Indians and the Portuguese as

the inhabitants of the orient. Furthermore, because of the strong importance of the

Portuguese presence connected with illegal trade, the Anonymous author highlighted the

Portuguese as the enemy from who the region should be protected. Montevideos

countryside appears also in opposition to Buenos Aires, or the occidental bank of the

river. Thus, the author represented Montevideo in opposition to the center of power, as

well as Montevideos countryside as the location of the non Spanish population and of

disorder.

Although the author did not use the term Banda Oriental, rather Montevideos

countryside, he described the whole area and part of its inhabitants in opposition to the

Occidental Buenos Aires. At the same time, the region was the limit with another

opposition: the Portuguese. As a result, in the anonymous accounts, the Banda Oriental

was represented as in between two others.

In 1792, the scientific and cartographic expedition of Francisco Xavier de Vianna

rarely used the term Banda Oriental, he referred to the region as a pais (country), but

the maps and geographic knowledge produced by his expedition were in relation to

Montevideo and its territory.52 Xavier de Vianna was born in Montevideo and graduated

51
Anonimo. Noticias sobre el Rio de la Plata. Madrid: Historia 16. 1988. p 51 and following, 90 and
following.
52
XAVIER DE VIANNA. Pp 36-39.

32
in university in Spain.53 He went to the region to make trigonometric maps and take

precise coordinates to circumnavigate South America via Cape Horn. In his Diarios de

Viaje, he described many natural ports and the countryside of the Banda Oriental always

in relation to Montevideo. Buenos Aires was described as the capital of another province,

and the Portuguese were only mentioned as the first settlers of Colonia do Sacramento.

Xavier de Viannas representation of the region emphasized the centrality of Montevideo

and produced cartographic and technical material relating the territory to the city.54 His

use of the word country to describe the region, I believe, is derived from the fact that

he was born there, and he understood the region a natural whole.

Although Vianna did not emphasize the use of Banda Oriental, and his mention of

the Portuguese presence was only reported as part of the past, the production of maps and

geographic coordinates consolidated the reterritorialization of the region. Vianna

documented the jurisdiction of Montevideo over the campaa (countryside), and

represented it as a whole integrated unit separate from Buenos Aires.

Also in the service of the administratively concerned Spanish Crown was Felix de

Azara. Azara, n Spanish bureaucrat who participated in the demarcation of the borders

between Portugal and Spain in the previous decades, wrote, the Rural memoirs of the

River Plate in 1801.55 In this description, the North bank, or the region under

53
Xavier de Vianna was a son of the former governonr of Montevideo Francisco Vianna, in the 1750s. His
family still very influential in Montevideo during the subsequent decades.
54
The production of maps, description of landscape, terrain and routes materialized the connections
between cities and countryside. Representations that used statics, geography and other scientific methods
were tool of state crafting. Maps, descriptions and measurements were eminently utilitarian considering the
improvement of defense, and poltical and economical control over territories. These materials could change
the Raymond Craib. Cartographic Mexico: a History of State Fixations and Fugitive Landscapes Durham:
Duke University Press. 2004. p 20, 22-24.
55
Felix de Azara Memoria sobre el estado rural del Rio de la Plata. Buenos Aires: Editorial Bajel. 1943.

33
Montevideos jurisdiction is one of his main concerns.56 Azaras main interest was in

securing Spanish control over the borderland with the Portuguese domains. According to

his representation, the Portuguese presence in areas of Spanish domain are unavoidable

and even desirable, since the Portuguese were cleaner and more economic, they would

be a good example.57 According to Azara, the Portuguese and the Spanish were involved

in illegal activities at the same level, and only the improvement of the border control

from Montevideo and, principally, the creation of parochial chapels in the countryside to

teach the population would solve the problem.58 It is significant that the author connected

the religious organization with education as the means to solve the lack of loyalty of the

inhabitants.

In all his writing Azara refers constantly to Montevideos jurisdiction as Fields

of the North of the River Plate, or our countryside of Montevideo, but the region was

always considered in relation to Montevideo.59 The author also represented as the vecinos

of Montevideo as an organized community that took actions to improve the control of the

region, especially regarding illegal trade and robberies connected with the Portuguese.60

Azaras representation consolidated the region as an administrative unit, centered

in Montevideo, with a more or less defined territory, and the Portuguese as the threat.

Although the author was writing to inform the authorities of Buenos Aires, the local

administrative center mentioned in the region is Montevideo. The limits of Montevideos

56
Large portions of the text are dedicated to descriptions of the Paraguay province, northern than Buenos
Aires.
57
Felix de Azara Memoria sobre el estado rural del Rio de la Plata. Buenos Aires: Editorial Bajel. 1943.p
6.
58
Felix de Azara Memoria sobre el estado rural del Rio de la Plata. Buenos Aires: Editorial Bajel. 1943.p
5-6.
59
Felix de Azara Memoria sobre el estado rural del Rio de la Plata. Buenos Aires: Editorial Bajel. 1943.p
11, 13, 15, 30, and following.
60
Felix de Azara Memoria sobre el estado rural del Rio de la Plata. Buenos Aires: Editorial Bajel. 1943.p
12.

34
jurisdictions were the contested border with the Portuguese Rio Grande. Although Azara

did not regard the Portuguese with prejudice, he understood the necessity of assimilating

them into the Spanish. Finally, in mentioning the vecinos of Montevideo, the author

suggested the sense of political community of these population, which is reinforced by

the repeated use of the Montevideos countryside to designate the region. Azaras

account consolidated the representation of the region as a unit connected to Montevideo

and with the endemic contradictory presence of the Portuguese. This written account,

according to Azara, was based in many other accounts of the region previously produced,

and it became, the most cited reference by travelers, particularly the British, in the

forthcoming decades of the 1800s.

This trend of reterritorialization, consolidating the links between Montevideo and

the countryside was also expressed in the travel journal of Damasio Larraaga, a native

well educated priest, in 1815. Larraaga was regarded by the nationalist Uruguayan

authors as the first Uruguayan man of science, and his journal described the travel

between Montevideo and Paysandu, both located in the Banda Oriental. In the narrative

the author described the landscapes, the geography and topography, emphasizing

peculiarities of the region. There were also many references to the political situation,

since in 1815, Artigas army was controlling the region and confronting Brazil and

Buenos Aires and its allies at the same time.

In Larraagas accounts, all the distances and comparisons are made in relation to

Montevideo, representing the city as the center of the whole region. In using Montevideo

a reference, the author represented the city and the countryside as a unit. Larraaga wrote

his account during the period of the Independence war, specifically when the Oriental

35
army under Artigas command was in control of the region. His representation of the

space was shaped by his active participation in the unfolding events. Thus, in

representing Montevideo and the countryside as a cohesive unit, the author was

consolidating the process of reterritorializing the space, attaching it to Montevideo, rather

than other cities.61

The author referred to the region in as patria, or pais (country).62 The use of

country to describe the unit is consistent with Xavier de Viannas representation of

1792. This is significant considering that both authors were natives from the region. This

suggests that native authors representations of the region were shaped by their sense of

belonging to the region as a community.

It is also significant that both native authors from the region - Xavier de Vianna

and Larraaga - rarely used the term Oriental to describe the territory. Larraaga only

used the term oriental to describe to location of the Indian town of Soriano.63 Rather,

Larraaga, as well as Xavier de Vianna did earlier, emphasized the centrality of

Montevideo and used words that suggested a notion of belonging and the existence of a

collective identity pais and patria. Furthermore, several occasions Larraaga used

ours when referring to the landscape and habits of the region.64

61
Damasio Larranaga Diario del Viaje de Montevideo a Paysandu Montevideo: Instituto Nacional del
Libro. 1994. p 21,
62
Larraaga,. Damasio Larranaga Diario del Viaje de Montevideo a Paysandu Montevideo: Instituto
Nacional del Libro. 1994. p 19, 39, 43.
63
Paysandu- It is the Indian town on the oriental side of the Uruguay river. [Paysandu es el pueble de
indios que esta sobre la costa oriental del Uruguay. The author also mentions that most of the Indians are
Christians, and describes the Church and the few houses of the inhabitants. Damasio Larranaga Diario del
Viaje de Montevideo a Paysandu Montevideo: Instituto Nacional del Libro. 1994P 75.
64
Damasio Larranaga Diario del Viaje de Montevideo a Paysandu Montevideo: Instituto Nacional del
Libro. 1994. p 63, 79, and following.

36
 During the period between 1777 and 1815, in the representations of the Rio de la

Plata region appeared a clear distinction between Montevideos hinterland and Buenos

Aires, and the North Bank of the River Plate started being designated by the oberservers

as Banda Oriental or Montevideos countryside. The inhabitants of the region were

Montevidean vecinos, rural workers (the gaucho), and the Portuguese and Indians.

Nevertheless, the recurrent emphasis of the narratives weighed on the Portuguese as the

enemy, or the source of trouble for the Spanish government in the region.

In representing to the opposite bank as Banda Oriental, the writers were

implicitly connected the region with broader ideas of otherness related to Asia and East

Africa. If the North Bank was the Banda Oriental, Buenos Aires was representing the

occident. With this representation, the distinction between the two sides of the river

also becomes an opposition between Western and the non-Western. The adjective

oriental was also used to describe spaces where Indians and Portuguese lived in

Montevideos countryside. The orient of the Uruguay and Gy rivers was the place

where the Indians not from India, rather indigenous populations - and the Portuguese

were present. The Portuguese were many times represented as robbers, outlaws, and the

source of disorder. These descriptions reinforced the representation of the Banda Oriental

as the locus of the interaction with the other, corroborating the notion of the region in

opposition to Buenos Aires.

Pari Pasu, the countryside of the Banda Oriental was progressively represented

as tied to Montevideo, and as part of its jurisdiction. This process of reterritorialization

was a result of the increasing production of information about the region. During the

period, accounts describing routes, landscapes, economic activities, active participation

37
of Montevidean vecinos in controlling the area, and the creation of maps that represented

it as a unit consolidated the representation of Montevideo and its countryside as a socially

articulated space in the region.

The period between the creation of the Vice-Royalty of the River Plate, and the

Independence revolution was marked by the increasing advance of the Imperial state

apparatus in the region. This process catalyzed the representation of a distinctive

collective identity and space designation in the region. The opposition to Buenos Aires,

the representation of the area in contact with the Portuguese and the production of

descriptions and maps connecting the hinterland with Montevideo, all represented larger

colonial control. Nevertheless, it also fostered the representation of the region as an

autonomous region.

Neither Buenos Ayreans, nor Portuguese: the Emergence of the Orientals and the

creation of Uruguay

In 1817, the Portuguese invaded Montevideo and its countryside. In 1820,

Artigas army was defeated and the region was annexed to Brazil under the name of

Cisplatine province. This situation lasted until 1825, when a group of caudillos entered

the region from Buenos Aires to liberate the region from Brazilian rule. During this time,

under Portuguese rule, the region was opened to British consular presence.65 As a result,

65
For the alliance between the Portuguese and the British see: Alan Manchester, The British Preminence in
Brazil. Oxford. 1933; 1978; and Peter Winn Inglaterra y la Tierra Purpurea. Montevideo:EBO. 2000.
65
Beaumont; Parish; Samuel Hood In: Humpheys. R. British consular reports on the trade and politics of
Latin America, 1824-1826. London, Offices of The Royal historical Society. 1940; John Luccok Notes on
Rio de Janeiro and the Southern parts of Brazil: taken during a residence of ten years in that country from
1808 to 1818. London: Samuel Leigh. 1820.

38
many travelers and diplomats from Northwest Europe were present in the region and

produced historical accounts. The representations produced by these travelers almost

univocally called the region Banda Oriental. For the first time the word Uruguay was

used to describe the region as a unit.66 Travelers also described the region emphasizing

the distinctiveness of the space and it social groups in comparison to Buenos Aires and to

the Portuguese. By the end of the period, the British consuls began describing the

inhabitants of the region as the Orientals. Years later, the region was granted autonomy

through a Peace Treaty between Brazil and the United Provinces of Argentina supported

by England, and the Orientals had the country of Uruguay. Nevertheless, as the British

consul in Montevideo commented, the so-called orientals were not an homogenous

group, or a national one.

The period of Brazilian rule had legally formalized the jurisdiction of Montevideo

over the whole Banda Oriental, including areas that under Spanish rule were legally

subordinated to Buenos Aires (e.g. Colonia). Moreover, the Luso-Brazilian dominion

over the region consolidated a state apparatus and political institutions (e.g. Assembly of

Representatives). Therefore, the Cisplatine period also marked the development of a

colonial apparatus in Montevideo that maintained better control of the region.

Between 1716 and 1718, the British traveler Emeric Essex Vidal went to Buenos

Aires and to the Montevideo region. He described and painted the landscapes and the

human types of the region, comparing it to Europe.67 Vidal begins his narrative with a

brief historical review of the region, emphasizing the disputes between Portuguese and

66
Beaumont, Parish, Hood, and Luccok.
67
Emeric Essex Vidal Picturesque Illustrations of Buenos Ayres and Montevideo consisting of 24 views
accompanied with description of the scenery.London: Ackerman. 1820

39
Spaniards that took place there. According to him the region presented an important

commerce and was surprising the civilized world because of its struggle for

Independence.68 Moreover, he mentioned the failed British invasion, which he credited

to the imbecility, or something worse, of the commander in chief of the British

forces.69 Throughout his descriptive account, comparisons to Europe were frequent. The

author continually mentions England as the reference to compare prices, womens

clothing, roads, and services. Vidal also compared the region to cities like Philadelphia

and Boston in the United States. 70 In doing so, Vidals narrative presented the region in

familiar terms to his European audience.

The circulation of information is also clear in Vidals narrative. The comparisons

that he makes with the United States are based on the account of Henry Latrobe, an

Englishman that wrote on American cities.71 Moreover, in more than one instance, Vidal

cites and discusses the works of Azara regarding themes of slavery and indigenous

populations.72

Vidal describes the region simply as Banda Oriental, or the Eastern Bank, and

represents it in opposition to Buenos Aires.73 The author constantly compares

68
Emeric Essex Vidal Picturesque Illustrations of Buenos Ayres and Montevideo consisting of 24 views
accompanied with description of the scenery.London: Ackerman. 1820
p v.
69
Emeric Essex Vidal Picturesque Illustrations of Buenos Ayres and Montevideo consisting of 24 views
accompanied with description of the scenery.London: Ackerman. 1820
p xx-xxii
70
Emeric Essex Vidal Picturesque Illustrations of Buenos Ayres and Montevideo consisting of 24 views
accompanied with description of the scenery.London: Ackerman. 1820
p 13, 20-22, 37-40, 50.
71
Emeric Essex Vidal Picturesque Illustrations of Buenos Ayres and Montevideo consisting of 24 views
accompanied with description of the scenery.London: Ackerman. 1820
p 22.
72
VIDAL, 30-31, 60-65.
73
Emeric Essex Vidal Picturesque Illustrations of Buenos Ayres and Montevideo consisting of 24 views
accompanied with description of the scenery.London: Ackerman. 1820

40
Montevideo and Buenos Aires on topics of agricultural production, population, and

customs. When the author mentions the Independence movement, he emphasizes the role

of Montevideo resisting Buenos Aires authority.74

The Eastern Bank inhabitants were not like the Buenos Aireans nor like the

Portuguese. According to Vidal, the rebels who sided with Artigas to fight the Portuguese

and the troops from Buenos Aires, were in fact, nothing more than gauchos in another

dress.75 The author, however, does not define the precise meaning of gaucho. In fact,

an illustration of two gauchos in this section has the curious caption, Paulistas. 76

Another British traveler, John Luccok passed through the region between the

years of 1816 and 1818; he emphasized the differences between the inhabitants

Montevideo versus the Portuguese and the Spaniards. For the first time, the region was

described as the Province of Uruguay.77 Luccok traveled the region, coming from

Brazil, and described the space during the period of warfare. Thus, the author reinforced

the representation of the inhabitants of the Province of Uruguay in opposition to the

Portuguese. Yet, he also represented the Spanish, the French and the England as

xxviii, 3, and passim.

74
Emeric Essex Vidal Picturesque Illustrations of Buenos Ayres and Montevideo consisting of 24 views
accompanied with description of the scenery.London: Ackerman. 1820
p xxv.
75
Emeric Essex Vidal Picturesque Illustrations of Buenos Ayres and Montevideo consisting of 24 views
accompanied with description of the scenery.London: Ackerman. 1820
p 60.
76
Paulistas are the inhabitants of So Paulo region, in Brazil. During the period that the author was
writing, Luso-Brazilian troops were occupying the region. It was common that troops from So Paulo were
enrolled by the government to complement the troops already present in the borderland region. Emeric
Essex Vidal Picturesque Illustrations of Buenos Ayres and Montevideo consisting of 24 views accompanied
with description of the scenery.London: Ackerman. 1820
p.
77
John LuccokNotes on Rio de Janeiro and the Southern parts of Brazil: taken during a residence of ten
years in that country from 1808 to 1818. London: Samuel Leigh. 1820. p 157and 164.

41
others.78 Buenos Aires is also represented in an oppositional relation to the Province

of Uruguay, since the Buenos Aires jealousies inhibited the development of the

valuable port of Colonia.79 Although Luccok passed by the region during a period of

Luso-Brazilian occupation, the author recognizes that the Province of Uruguay and its

inhabitants were not exactly Portuguese, nor were they Spanish. Moreover, the Province

of Uruguay is represented encompassing all the territory of the Banda Oriental, including

the town of Colonia, that was during the Colonial an area under Buenos Aires

jurisdiction. Therefore, Luccoks account represented the Province of Uruguay in

between Buenos Aires and the Luso-Brazilian empire, reinforcing the distinctiveness of

the region and its inhabitants.

This distinction from the Portuguese is also described by the French traveler

Auguste de Saint-Hilaire in 1820. Saint-Hilaire went to region as part of his travels in

Brazil, and during this expedition he held the office of colonel of the Luso-Brazilian

Empire. In his accounts, the author repeatedly mentions the state of poverty of the region

due to warfare. Regarding the social groups present in the Province of Montevideo, he

makes a distinction between Portuguese and the patriots referring to Artigas

followers.80 However, in describing the lifestyle of the population, the constant

comparison is represented between the Spanish and the Portuguese social habits.81 The

78
They love the French, Tolerate the Portuguese, suspect the Spaniards, and stands respectful awe of the
British. John LuccokNotes on Rio de Janeiro and the Southern parts of Brazil: taken during a residence of
ten years in that country from 1808 to 1818. London: Samuel Leigh. 1820., p 164 and following.
79
John LuccokNotes on Rio de Janeiro and the Southern parts of Brazil: taken during a residence of ten
years in that country from 1808 to 1818. London: Samuel Leigh. 1820. p 166
80
Saint-Hilaire, p 164.
81
Saint-Hilaire, p 165-168.

42
author also notes that the regions inhabitants hate their neighbors, namely, the

Portuguese.82 Buenos Aires, in turn, is practically absent from the narrative.

It is noteworthy that the Northwestern European travelers who described the

region during the period 1811-1828, emphasized the distinctiveness of the Banda

Oriental, or Montevideos Province or even Uruguays Province and its inhabitants. The

opposition against the Luso-Brazilians, the Spanish, and Buenos Aires are emphasized.

These accounts discredit any claims of sovereignty over the region formulated by the

Luso-Brazilian Empire or Buenos Aires. This trend was reinforced and consolidated by

the representations of British consuls and entrepreneurs in the following years.

From 1824 on, the British Empire had two consuls in the River Plate, Woodbine

Parish in Buenos Aires and Samuel Hood in Montevideo. They produced many consular

reports, which many of them were classified. The secret nature of these reports made

them even more influential in infroming the British policy in the region. In addition,

Parish and Hood interacted with local elites, other European entrepreneurs in the region,

and with the British consuls and political leaders from Brazil.83 The British Consuls

representations referred to the region principally as Banda Oriental, although they also

mentioned the region as Cisplatine Province, because of the Luso-Brazilian dominion. 84

The term Banda Oriental, by this period, began to be generally used by other British

diplomats in the Americas and in London (e.g. Lord Ponsonby, George Canning).

82
Siant-Hilaire, p 164.
83
Thomas HoodIn: Humpheys. R. British consular reports on the trade and politics of Latin America,
1824-1826. London, Offices of The Royal historical Society. 1940. Webster BRITAIN AND THE
INDEPENDENCE OF LATIN AMERICA.
84
F.O. 51/1. Thomas Samuel Hood to George Canning. Mtvdeo 1824. F.O. 6/4. Woddbine Prish to
Canning. Bs As 25 June 1824 In: Humpheys. R. British consular reports on the trade and politics of Latin
America, 1824-1826. London, Offices of The Royal historical Society. 1940 P. 19, 31, 50,69-72.

43
 The Banda Oriental in the British consular reports appeared as an autonomous

region, distinct from Buenos Aires and to Brazil. The descriptions emphasized the

comparison between Buenos Aires and the Banda Oriental, regarding agricultural

production and the divergent commercial interest of both port towns. The political

aspects also marked the distinction between Buenos Aires and the Banda Oriental.

According to Samuel Hood, after the 1810, the Banda Orientals inhabitants never

contemplated coming under Buenos Aires rule.85 Moreover, since 1811, the Banda

Oriental army was fighting against Buenos Aires. The oriental army was under the

command of Artigas, who was supported by a Junta de Hacendados in the Montevideos

countryside. This same army fought against the Luso-Brazilian in the subsequent years.

The Luso-Brazilian domain over the Banda Oriental is represented as calamitous for the

economy and the general state of the countryside and its inhabitants. According to the

consuls, the prolonged war was the principal problem. Nevertheless, the British diplomat

observed that it is undisputed fact that the Orientalists dislike being subject to Buenos

Ayres only less than being subject to Brazil, and that Independency is their dearest

wish.86 Thus, the only effective way of assuring peace in the region would be

recognizing the region as an autonomous state, although Canning, in London, expressed

his concerns about how far the territory and population of such new State might be fitted

for acquiring, and capable of exercising an independent political existence.87

85
F.O. 51/1. Thomas Samuel Hood to George Canning. Mtvdeo 1824. In: Humpheys. R. British consular
reports on the trade and politics of Latin America, 1824-1826. London, Offices of The Royal historical
Society. 1940. In Humpheys, p 74.
86
F.O. 10/2/1826 Lord Ponsoby to George Canning. In: Webster. P 154.
87
F.O. Canning to Ponsonby 03/18/1826. In Webster, P 143.

44
 The British agents in the region however, were already representing the Orientals

as the collective identity of the inhabitants of the territory of the Banda Oriental, versus

the Buenos Ayreans88 and the Luso-Brazilians from Brazil. The Orientals, however,

were not represented as a homogeneous social group. Hood described the inhabitants of

Montevideo and its countryside in the following classes: Old Spaniards, Creoles native

born, Native of the Canary Islands, Creoles of other provinces, Foreigners Europeans,

Brazilians and Slaves.89 According to him, the Old Spaniards were mostly former

Spanish officials and mechanics, mostly from Galicia and Biscay that by the revolution

almost all the wealthy and respectable families were reduced to beggary; their estates

were plundered of the cattle and destroyed.90 The Creoles Native Born were the natives

of Spanish descent. This groups is represented as

brave but not sanguinary people. From their early infancy they
are taught fraud, deception, lying and flattery. Integrity, truth, and
punctual fulfillment or engagement do not form part of their education.
They consider these things as European prejudices , the effects of a
foolish weakness of disposition and superticious education, and the man
who makes a sacrifice of hi interests to his character and sense of moral
obligation, they consider a very good man, but a very great fool.91

88
Parish and Hood used the term Buenos Ayreans to describe the inhabitants of Buenos Aires.
89
F.O. 51/1. Thomas Samuel Hood to George Canning. Mtvdeo 1824. In: Humpheys. R. British consular
reports on the trade and politics of Latin America, 1824-1826. London, Offices of The Royal historical
Society. 1940. P 174,175, 176.
90
F.O. 51/1. Thomas Samuel Hood to George Canning. Mtvdeo 1824. Humpheys. R. British
consular reports on the trade and politics of Latin America, 1824-1826. London, Offices of The Royal
historical Society. 1940. P 174,175, 176.
. P.175
91
F.O. 51/1. Thomas Samuel Hood to George Canning. Mtvdeo 1824. Humpheys. R. British
consular reports on the trade and politics of Latin America, 1824-1826. London, Offices of The Royal
historical Society. 1940. P 174,175, 176.
. P.176

45
 The Creoles Native Born from other provinces were principally from Paraguay

and were represented as laborious and taciturn people, most of whom were literate.

Regarding the immigrants from the Canary Islands he refers that they are not numerous.

They are principally agriculturists (...) very laborious () and as they intermarry among

themselves they form now a distinct race.92

The Brazilians or Portuguese creoles were, according to Hood

amongst these () of the oldest and most wealthy families in

the province whose ancestors settled here before the Spaniards. It is
well known that from the earliest times this province has been claimed
by the Portuguese by right of discovery [that the Portuguese] were the
founders of Colonia, from whence they were driven about 50 years
ago.93
The British diplomat also mentions that the slaves were more numerous in the

region before the wars, because most of then were enrolled in the armies with the promise

of manumission. Among the foreigners living in the Banda Oriental the consul lists

Luso-Brazilian officers, who were implementing the occupation of the region, along with

French, British and North American merchants.

Hood represented the Orientals not as a homogeneous group, but as subdivided

the inhabitants of the Oriental Province into categories, which the author called classes,

and the foreigners. The Orientals included Creoles from the Banda Oriental and

neighboring provinces, mainly Paraguay, living in the Banda Oriental, Canary Islanders

92
F.O. 51/1. Thomas Samuel Hood to George Canning. Mtvdeo 1824. Humpheys. R. British
consular reports on the trade and politics of Latin America, 1824-1826. London, Offices of The Royal
historical Society. 1940. P 174,175, 176.
. P.176
93
F.O. 51/1. Thomas Samuel Hood to George Canning. Mtvdeo 1824. Humpheys. R. British
consular reports on the trade and politics of Latin America, 1824-1826. London, Offices of The Royal
historical Society. 1940. P 174,175, 176.
. P.177

46
immigrants, Brazilians from the old elite, and slaves. The representation of the foreigners,

however, referred to Northwestern Europeans, Americans and the Luso-Brazilian

occupation troops and bureaucrats. It is worthy to note the distinction between the

Brazilians who considered part of the local elite, were counted as Orientals, while the

Luso-Brazilians who went to the region with the Portuguese-Brazilian occupation, were

considered foreigners.

The consular reports consolidated the representation of the Banda Oriental and it

inhabitants, the Orientals, as a distinct collective group attached to a defined territory.

The Orientals were represented in a double simultaneously opposition from the

inhabitants from Buenos Aires and from the Luso-Brazilians from Brazil. The Orientals,

however, were not although as a homogeneous collective, which evinces that such label

as collective identity did not mean national identity. Embedded in such descriptions was

the idea that this population had a distinctive demographic formation and a shared past,

these groups are represented as the builders of the Banda Oriental space.

Between 1824 and 1826, A.J. Beaumont, a British entrepreneur described the

Banda Oriental emphasizing the distinctiveness of the space and its population as a

whole. Beaumont went to the region to install a project of a British Colony in Entre Rios,

which eventually was a failure, because of his activities in the region, his account is

permeated with references to personal interaction with political leaders of the region,

such as the Argentinean Rivadavia, with the British diplomats Parish and Hood, among

other elites. Beaumonts account however, dedicates large number of pages in describing

the Banda Oriental and its distinctive fauna and flora. According to Beaumont the

animals, the vegetables of the Banda Oriental were slightly different from Buenos Aires

47
hinterland, as well as the agricultural productivity was far higher. The author also makes

comparisons with the English countryside, pointing out differences of size and

productivity in the rural estates with advantage towards the Banda Oriental. Regarding

the human occupation of the countryside, Beaumont los muros de piedra son

caracteristicos de esta provincia oriental [the stone walls are characteristic of this

oriental province].94

Beaumont represents the Banda Oriental as an autonomous region, with specific

natural and human characteristics, and politically independent. Accorindg to him if the

Brazilians were expelled from the Banda Oriental, there is no reason to believe that its

inhbitants would accept Buenos Aires rule, a large and dangerous sweet sea divide and

makes they to ha opposite interests. [Si lo brasileos fueron arrojados de la Banda

Oriental, no es de se esperar que sus habitantes ahora no mas que antes se sometan a ser

gobernados por el gobierno de Buenos Aires. Un ancho y peligroso mar dulce los divide

y son opuestos a sus intereses].95 Therefore, the author concludes that self determination

would be the only option for a longstanding peace in the region.96

The British observers adopted and reinforced the terms Orientals and Banda

Oiental at the same time that they were in favor of the self determination of the region.

94
J. A. B. Beaumont Viajes por Buenos Aires, Entre Rios y La Banda Oriental 1826-27
Buenos Aires: Hachette. P 100.
95
J. A. B. Beaumont Viajes por Buenos Aires, Entre Rios y La Banda Oriental 1826-27
Buenos Aires: Hachette P 273
96
Cualquiera quede dominando en la Banda Oriental, e de creer que el territorio sea teatro de guerras por
muchos anos y en consequencia nadie podera emplear su capital o su industria en aquella provincia con
seguridad. La unica manera, en aparencia, por la que puede ser salvada de estas continuas luchas y gozar de
las bendiciones de la paz y la seguridad, es la de convertirla en estado independiente bajo la garantia de un
gran poder maritimo como la Gran Bretanha. Un estado neutral de esa naturaleza seria tambien mas
deseable para defender la parte mas debil de la frontera brasilena, dejaria entonces de ser objeto de
aprension por parte del Brasil y Buenos Aires no tendria pretexto para nuevas interferencias. J. A. B.
Beaumont Viajes por Buenos Aires, Entre Rios y La Banda Oriental 1826-27
Buenos Aires: Hachette P 274

48
The term Orientals emphasized the otherness of the region in relation to its neighbors

Buenos Aires and Brazil. So, the Orientals would not accept foreign rules, especially

from Brazil of from the occidental Buenos Aires. It is noteworthy that this trope of

representation was underlined by British travelers, and was a product of the interaction

zone, where the authors and the local elites projects and interests interplayed. The fact

that the British diplomats and entrepreneurs were representing the Orientals as the

inhabitants of the Banda Oriental, at the same time that the British Empire started

supporting the region as an independent state is representative of the interaction between

the writers and their characters.

In 1828, after three years of war between Brazil and the Argentinean

confederation for the control of the Banda Oriental, both contenders signed the

Prelminary Treaty of Peace, mediated by the British. The treaty created Republica

Oriental del Uruguay as a sovereign state. The Orientals achieved politcal self-

determination over the territory of the Banda Oriental.

Conclusion

In the 18th and early 19th centuries, written accounts had an fundamental role in

creating representations that informed influent circles of people in the trans-Atlantic

arenas. Unlike the accounts produced in Mary Louise Pratts contact zones, in which

observers and observed subjects with distinct cultural and historical backgrounds

redefined themselves in relation to each other; representations of Latin America produced

in the period were created in interactions zones. The interaction zones were the cultural

and geographical space of interaction between Europeans and natives in the colonial

49
settings in the Americas. In the Southern Cone the small demographic presence of

indigenous population allowed the formation of colonial settings shaped according

European standards. The colonial elites were mostly of European descent and informed

by European ideals. In these interaction zones, the authors that produced written accounts

engaged in social, political and economic interactions. The authors integrated in local

networks produced narratives that reflected their interests in the region. These narratives

shows a change in the words used describe the space and its inhabitants over the period.

This change reflects how the social groups in the region were perceived and represented

in the region shaped policy making and the representation of the social groups present in

region within a broader trans-Imperial space.

Between 1826 and 1830, the years between the foundation of Montevideo and the

independence of Uruguay, the words used in written narratives and descriptions to

represent collective identities and the space designation in the Rio de la Plata varied. The

terms evolved from the general label of Spaniards to the specific notion of Orientals. The

Orientals were represented as attached to the territory of the Banda Oriental in opposition

to the Portuguese and Luso-Brazilians from Brazil, and in opposition to Buenos Aires as

well. The authors involved in the creation of the Orientals representation actively

involved the retreterritorialized the region, attaching Montevideo and the countryside as

an organic whole. This process was fostered by the late colonial reforms that aimed to

increase metropolitan control over the region. In this period, Montevideos jurisdiction

was expanded by the metropole, maps and narratives were produced by colonial agents

representing the city and the countryside as a whole. However, at the same time that these

representations produced knowledge for the colonial metropole to better administer, it

50
empowered local groups fostering their autonomy, and emphasizing a distinct collective

identity. This distinctiveness was primarily based on the shared experience of inhabiting

the same particular space, in where the contacts between the Spanish, the Portuguese and

the Indians happened. The representation of the North Bank as Oriental symbolically

linked the region to ideas of the East, to notion of otherness. Significantly, the

representations the used Oriental to name the region during the colonial period located

the presence of the Portuguese and indigenous groups, and disorders and robberies,

reinforcing the notion that the region as where the interaction with the others occured.

Thus, this process reinforced the differentiation and the opposition between the Orientals

versus the Portuguese/Brazilians and the Spanish and Buenos Ayreans.

The shared experience that connected the people and the territory was even more

significant during the period of warfare and Brazilian rule. The independence movement

opposed the inhabitants of the Banda Oriental against Buenos Aires and against Brazil.

For roughly ten years, the Brazilian occupation of the region increased the state apparatus

in Montevideo, extending its jurisdiction over the whole Banda Oriental. On the same

token, the foreign occupation was represented as a catalyzing element in stimulating the

formation of a non-homogeneous collective identity.

The representations analyzed, however; are product of an interaction zone, in

which the writers were active agents with concrete interests. Thus, the collective

identities and spatial designations described by the author were not necessarily shared by

the social groups being described. Nevertheless, because these agents were involved and

were part of the political projects in the region, their descriptions were not totally isolated

51
and alienated from the reality of the region. These descriptions reflected how the

observers understood the relationship between collective identity and self-determination.

Nevertheless, further research is necessary to investigate how such accounts were

representative of social practices and collective identities, considering social networks,

and other forms of association and alliances between social groups.

52
INGLATERRA NO PRATA DOCS

DIVISION COLONIA - CONTRABANDO Y COMISOS 1715-1752

Legajo 1 11.1.5

Primeiro documento: autos da entrada do navio Reina de la India do asiento da

Inglaterra, carregado de negros. 07/11/1715. Chegou tambm o navio Prncipe de
Gales. Ao fim do auto, em 10/junho de 1716, conclui-se que no houve problemas no
descarrgamento, mas talvez no carregamento de uma quantidade de couro demasiada.

Auto grande, mao de diversas pginas.

Ano de 1720 Autos sobre la apreension. de diferentes generos de mercadorias hechas

por el ayudante Simon Gomez y Dn. Alonso Suarez

Juezes Los Sres. Govr. Y Cap. Gen. Y los oficiales Reales.

[Finais das pginas deteriorados, perda da ltima linha, ou fragmentao do perodo.]

En la ciudad de Buenos Ayres al 18 de julio de 1720. Los seores Bruno Mauricio de

Zavala Cavallero del horden de Calatrava (?), Mariscal de campo de los reales exercitos
de Rey nuestrro seor y su gobernador capitn general de estas provncias del Rio de la
Plata; Don Juan Martin de [hie]nal y Atascazua contador y Don Alonso de Arce y Arco
thesoureiro juezes oficiales reales de ellas y de las del Paraguay, por su Magestad (que
dios guarde) digeron que ayer 17 del corriente por la noche a cossa de las a[r]aciones se
les havia dado notcia secreta de como ala taratana que vino de abisso de los reynos de
/espanha a cargo de Francisco de Sorarte que esta recibiendo corambre cerca de la boca
del Riachuelo para conducirla a los nabios de registro que se allan en el surgidero de este
Puerto al comando de Don Juachin de Trevio, se havian introducido de la Colonia del
Sacramento de los portugueses [.] generos [de mercancia] con animo de pasarlas a esta
ciudad. En cuia consideracion para ebitar esta introduccion ylicita y a fin de ver si se
podia lograr la aprehensin de dthas marcaderias y sus dueos y proceder contra ellos al
castigo en conformidad de lo prevenido por leyes reales dieran su seoria y mercedes
probidencia para que el ayudante de la Cavalleria Simn Gomez con quatro cabos de
esquadra rondasse por la orilla deste Rio; y que Don Alonso Suarez con la falua de su
[.]tapestad y la gente que [.]be e nella sahese del Puerto de el Riachuelo y hiziese guardia
cerca de dtha ta[r]atana para que si quiziese llegar a ella alguna embarcacion se la
ympidiesse y en caso de que abordo de ella hubiese alguna y sahiese para fuera la
[.]gistrasse; en cuyo cumplimiento esta maana cossa delas ocho havia venido [eho]
ayudante como Cossa del alba rondando por la orilla del Rio hazia el Riachuelo havia
visto que de hacia las Barracas venian dos hombres y que queriendo los alcanzar quien
eran, y que taihan se havian escapado dexando caer de lo Caballos en que venian dos
emboltorios que han trido a estas reales cal[s]as o[ho] Ayudante y los cabos de esquadra
que no conociera a los dichos hombres; a cuyo tiempo abisso assimismo el referido Don
Alonso como estando de guardia en el parage que se les orden a cosa del alba havia
apreendido el bote de la taratana, con 5 hombres, trs emboltorios, un saquito y una
alforja de cuero con generos demercaderias y que todo habia conducido a dtho. Riachuelo
y estaba asegurado en la guardia de el hasta que su seoria y mrds. dispussesem otra
cossa, quienes: mandaros que inmediatamente y sin dilacin algunos vaxen. Sus mrdes. al
referido puerto del Riachuelo con el presente escrivano y registren las barracas que ay en
el y embarguen las mizmas que hallaren prendiendo las personas en cuyo poder
estubieren, y hecha esta diligencia con una embarcacin grande passen a bordo de ella
toda la corambre que tubiere dentro; y hagan reconocimiento individual de dicha tazatana
hasta el plan y si algunas mercaderias se hallaren en [...] e al embargo dellas estas como
las personas que estubieren servindo en ella se tragan a este castillo para passar as las
diligencias que convengan y lo firmand.

Assinaturas.

En 18 de julio de 1720 los seores Don Juan [...] contador, y Don. Alonso de Acre
y Arcor thesoureiro, jueces oficiales desta provncia de Rio de la Plata en cumplimiento
del auto antecedente en compaia de [m] el escribano de haz. R. [...] passaron al Puerto
del Riachuelo para efecto de reconocer lo que havia traido a el Don Alonso Suarez en el
bote que esta maana havia apressado de la taratana que esta recibiendo Corambre para
los navios de registro; en cuya conformidad en presen. Del su[ss]o oho y Don Matheo de
Go[.]nola y de Don Francisco Romero cabo de la guardia de dtho. Riachuelo se abrieron
una alforjas de cuero y se hallaron dentro una resma de papel; 4 camissas de lienzo
gruesso de lino, cinco espejos pequeos los tres com las lunas quebradas; un retazo de
lienzo de lino que tendra catorze varas con poca diferencia; una pieza de sempiterna
verde pay, y otra resma de papel.

Asimismo se abrio un saquito de cuero y se hallaron dentro trenita y un cuchillos

de marca mayor con sus baynas; seis pares de guantes para hombre algunos de abe[r]ia;
trs camisas de lienzo gruesso de lino; otros seis pares de guantes como los antecedentes
tambien com algun[..] abe[..] y [...ilegvel...]

Abrio un emboltorio aforrado en lienzo [cru]do y se hallaron dentro siete varas y tres
cuartas de pao acanelado claro; quarenta y dos varas escassas de camelln cassi color de
caa. Assiz mismo dentro de otro de lienzo crudo dos retazos de pao musco de seis
varas con poca diferencia cada uno, y otros dos retazos de sempiternilla de la misma
color de ocho varas cada una.

Asimismo dentro de otro emboltorio se hallo un rollo de baretta azul abscuro y no otra
cossa; los que a les dichos efectos dijo el oho[dicho??] D. Alonso ser los mismos que
havia aprehendido en el bote de la taratana los quales se volveron a poner dentro de los
ohos emboltorios, alafarjas y saquito de cuero; y todo se le entrego al Ayudante Simon
Gomez para que juntamente con los cinco hombres que con los ohos [dichos??] efectos se
aprehendieron en el referido bote y estan en esta guardia lo lleve a Castillo y dicho
Ayudante ofrezio hazerlo assiz y que le participara de todo al seor Governador y los
referidos cinco presos dicieron llamarse [ primeiro ilegvel], Atanuel Rodrigues, /gil
Rebel, Juan Bautista Per. y Francisco Pa[tune]

[A seguir se promoveu diligencia para assegurar a priso dos capturados, e

investigar os donos do navio de registro, vinculados ao Assento Real da Gr-Bretanha,
mas no possuiam mais pirregularidades a bordo.]

Finaliza a diligncia do dia 18.

SALA IX 2.1.4 - MONTEVIDEO 1731-1751, 17 de julio de 1735

Muy seor mjio i amigo, luego que parti de esa ziudad haviendo pasado a ka
ensenada, supe como de la Colonia del Sacramento estaba para salir un navio
prontamente de nacin inglesa cargado de porzin de cueros y platta, como con efecto
haviendose hecho a la vela en dicha isla lunes 6; que se contaban del corriente,
acompaado del bergantim que llaman del Rey con guarnicin bien armada.
Determine en el estado que me hallaba auquen faltto de sastre para navegar.
Segirle tomando el Rumbo por la canal nueba del sur para atajar le, y el dia onze
ataviendo el amanecer en las zercanias de este puerto a cosa de las 10; de el dia parezio
una vela que se descubrio antes de las 11; ser navio que venia de mar en fuera, el qual por
no hazercarse a nosostros di fondo a distancia de 3 leguas sin haver hechado bandera, no
obstante de haberle disparado una pieza para que echase bandera, no lo hizo, por lo que
fui sobre el para que ber que embarcazin hera, y despues que se le dispararon dos piezas,
hecharon bandera Portuguesa, no queriendo hechar botte, pero haviendole embiado el
mio a brodo, vino un muchacho deciendo que era sobrino del capitn portugues, a cuio
tiempo de azercarse al navio entro temporal tan considerable que me hube de perder junto
con el navio, y gente, i paro la perdida de la falua, y en ottros petrechos del navio;
teniendo durado hasta el dia seguinte por la tarde que abonazo, en cuio timpo despache a
Dn. Pedro Navarro a bordo y hallo ser navio Ingles con dos capitanes el uno que es el
Portugues Joseph Coutinho, y el Ingles Samuel, de forma que al mes de haver salido de
Londres para Lisboa se hizieron a la bela para la Colonia que a hecho viaje de 70 dias
conduziendo considerable cargason de ropa, y como quiera que mi despacho no distingue
si se han de apresar o no a los navios que nabegan con dos patentes no quise acer
demosntracin ninguna y prossiguio el domingo por sata[..] su biaje sin que hubiese
subministrado notizia de mi consideracion, mas que las cosas de Europa se hallaban en el
mismo [ser] y que un nabio de negros de la compaia del sur havia salido de londres por
marzo para la costa de guinea para benir a este Puerto.
El mismo dia de Domingo por la tarde parezio a distancia de 3 y mas leguas de
esta ziudad el navio que bajaba de la Colonia, y por que hubo calma y sobetodo por la
gran corriente, por bajar la agua con grande Impetu no nos hizimos a la vela hasta las 3
de la tarde tomando el rumbo para hazia a este Puerto para ber si se le podia tomar pues
benia tomando el rumbo hazia el Pie del Monte por tener viento leste que uno, y ottro
navio, y el portugues que [i]ba a la Colonia a laorazion se hallaban a distancia de 2 leguas
uno de ottros; y la misma noche haviendo salttado en tierra para embiar dos lanchaas de
sastre, como con efecto fueron a las 3 de la madrugada para el navio donde D. Pedro
Navarro estaba, aguardando al Ingles para pelear pero como sin duda se hablaron los dos
Ingleses y aviendo amanecido el dia muy opaco y lleno de niebla no obstante que aclaro a
las onze de el dia En cuio tip. Se havistaron los dos navios Ingleses del nro. Hiendo
nabegando sobre ellos huyo elon[..] que hera el que benia de la Colonia y continuando en
su seguimiento hasta perderse de vista se bolbio el navio al puerto aye a medio dia, lo que
participo V. S. para su inteligencia siendo la realidad de lo que ha pasado enquanto a
navios.
El seor comandante en esta misma ocazin participa a V.S. de todo lo caezido
con el Bragntin del Rey, el qual habiendose hallado armado contropa y armas sin haver
a[s]arpado vandera no obstante las dilixencias que ejecutto el Seor comandante cuio
caso siendo em mi opinin mui grave , y contra toda practica, y costumbre lo que han
ejecutado si esto se les dejar pasar sin demostracin correspondiente pudiera subseder en
adelante lo que quizas no pudiera remediar siendo verosmil, venan alguna sorpresa. Y
para que en adelante no cometan otro insulto de ms consideracin participo a V.S.
quanto ocurre para que enterado de la realidad del echo mande lo que hallase mas
conbeniente al real servicio.
Nsto. Snr. G. V.S.M.A. como deso, San Phelipe de Montevideo 17 de Junio de
1735
Francisco de Alzaibar.

(ou 1739 minha leitura daria 39, o grafiti do arquivo marca 35, caracterie como um S
estilizado, com perna de baixo nao muito curva)

AHU- SACRAMENTO

Doc 3 Consulta sobre restituio de navio de Francisco de Meza tomado por Corsrios.
Sobre a restituio do navio de Francisco de Meza pilhado por piratas, no foi
tomado em guerra por isso ainda pertence a Francisco. Foi pilhado na Colnia do
Sacramento e est em Inglaterra.

11 de Fevereiro de 1689.

Conselho d parecer para que Francisco de Meza informe a seu procurador e

mande os avizos necessrios para cobrar o seu navio. 03 de agosto de 1689.

Doc. 145 Carta sobre dzima e carga de navio comunicao via Inglaterra.

Senhor
 Suposto j haver dado conta a V. Mag. Pella via de Inglaterra em carta de 03 de fevereiro passado, do bom sucesso
com que chegou a no J. M. J. de Alagoas de quem era Cap. de Mar e Guerra Joseph Barreiro de Carvalho, com que houve
socorro de gentes e munioque V. Mag. Foi servido mandar a esta Praa. Como ento no pude dizer o rendimento da
dzima, o fao agora presente a V. Mag.

Antes da no dar fundo mandei para seu bordo ao Ajudante Phelipe de Oliveira, um sargento e dois cabos de
escoadra, todos sojeitos da minha satisfao para que no saisse couza alguma sem que viesse a passar pela Alfndega e como
nesta forma se executou pareceme que no houve descaminho nos direitos os quais rendero somente 2:632$933 rs. Por ser
menos a Fazenda que vejo nesta ocazio do que trouxe a no Madre de Deos estes se carregaram em receita ao Almoxarife da
Fazenda Real e com eles se tem acodido alguas mais precisas necessidades. A Antonio Vilella Machado encarreguei outra vez a
dependncia de fazer o desp. Como juiz da Alfndega e certamente o mais capaz que podia encontrar para esta
incumbmcia e porque ouve dizer V. Mag. Determina se estabela uma Alfndega nesta Praa manda solicitar a essa Corte
ofcio e deseja que represente a V. Mag. A sua inteligncia e capacidade q no posso sem injustica deixar de fazer poque alm
de entender do que he necessario para essa ocupao e mostra com as partes desintesse com a Fazenda Real o zelo que deu.
O escrivo da Fazenda Caetano do Couto Veloso tambm continuou o despacho [...]

O cap. tratou na viage com gente.m bem tanto soldados como casai, no faltando lhe stio com tudo o que se ajustou
com os donos e logo que saltou em terra pagou a todos as quantia que lhe devinha a dinheiro na forma que vinha determinado
e assim se me no fez a menor queixa contra ele.
[..] Transporte sem dvida que ho de ter feito considervel despeza e como V. Mag. Tem determinado se continuem
todos os anos pareceme que se podia evitar o que os lucros que tiraro os navios em que ho de vir estivesse a Fazenda Real o que se
podia conseguir mandando V. Mag. Se comprasse uma galera inglesa que tenha grande bojo e poro, e no demande muita agua a
qual possa carregar treze ou quatorze mil couros, [consta?] se podem mandar carregar munies e demais petrecho necessrios no Rio
de janeiro e Colonia, e a Praa que lhe ficar large aos particulares que quizerem carregar fazendas para ambos os portos tendo
preferencia a que remeterem para a Colonia.
Saindo em companhia da frota do N. tanto que tiver passado as ilhas , bem que pode largar e fazer fora de vella
para mais brevemente chegar aquella cidade onde sem demora descarrega as monies e fazendas para ella e tomando
prtico parte a Colonia continuar sua viagem.
O Governador sendo possvel deve estar avizado desta resoluo por qualquer dos portos do Brazil ter pronta a
amior parte da carga, porque os quintos que ha de remeter para o Rio os ajunta para esta ocazzio mas no ser necessrio
valer-se-lhe delles resolvendo V. Mag. Ter navio Seu porque os homens de negcio desta praa que ath agora fazio as suas
remessas para o Rio, como lhes podem vir em direitura de Lisboa as fazendas menos carregadas a troco de couros ,
precizamente os ho de ter juntos, porque quem primeiro os meter a bordo livra-se do risco de lhes ficarem em terra, como
agora se sucede com esta No Alagoas, que por ser grande se descuidaro algumas pessoas, supondo sempre terio praa.
Em dois meses permitindo o tempo pode carregar e hir ao Rio de Janeiro ainda achar a Frotta, mas que no ache
no pode deixar de encontrar a da Bahia e com ella vai a Lisboa no mesmo anno: Os frettes das munie e todas fazendas que
transportou aos dous portos creio que ho de fazer com pouca diferena a despeza dos soldados e certamente da mesma
galera, e que deixar livre o que levar da Colonia para ajuda do custo principal que em dous annos pode dar o que lhe
satisfaa, pois qual ha de ser a pessoa que deixe de carregar neste navioque certamente mais seguro e servido que os
marcantes. Este poder trazer por lastro, cem moyos de sal e ath 20 pipas de carvalho com pedras porque tudo se vende com
utilidade da Fazenda de V. Mag.
Para o emprego de Capp. Dissera que se servisse V. Mag. Do que vai nesta Nao Joseph Barreiros de Carvalho
porque me parece o melhor que tem vindo de Lisboa para a Colonia pois alm de ser verdadeiro tem experincia dos servios
que se faz nas naos de guerra e a inteligncia necessria sem gnero algum de desabrm. Para com os q governa, e com esta
viagem j vai prtico do Rio da Prata e do cuidado com que se deve navegar. O contra-mestre tambm o melhor
marinheiro e homem de zelo e cuidado para a no e prrpio para mestre da Galera no cazo que V. Mag. Tome a rezoluo de
aprovar a minha ideia . D.G. R. P. V. M. m. a. Colonia 24 de junho de 1725.

Parecer de um conselheiro, no vendo necessidade imediata de uma alfndega na Colnia, ficando a cargo dos oficiais o
recolhimento dos direitos. E Aprova-se a sugesto de transporte de Vasconcellos.

156 Carta de vasconcelos, sobre o paquete de Bernardo Jorge, o navio ingls

Cambriche, e solicitando dinheiro para concluso da fortaleza
 [Assim como informou o que occorria na colonia pelo navio de Alv. Vianna, faz o
mesmo pelo paquete de Bernardo Jorge]
paquete que volta carregado com dois mil couros.
Conta que foi sorte tal diligncia, pois o barco havia encalhado no banco ortiz, e
Vascocncelos remetou um lanxo com um excelente prtico, em 2 horas j estava livre o
barco. O lancho Del Rey foi para desafogar a carga, com um dos melhores prticos,
que em menos de 2 horas o livrou de perigo, deve-se pensar em uma remunerao a este,
pois pretou grande servio.
Em 24 do corrente apareceu a uma lgua desta praia um navio ingls chamado
Cambriche do capito Thomas dos Reis, logo saltou em terra com seu irmo e disse
haver um contratempo de querer por fora o governador de Buenos Aires fazer lhe
segunda visita, e sendo esta contra a sua honra se consentisse violarem-se os Privilegios
do Real Assento, leh foi preciso retirar apressadamente, antes de chegar a ultima
extremidade ia queixar-se a londres, e como para esta viagem lhe faltava mantimentos, se
vinha valer de mim para lho deixar comprar, e entrar para dentro do porto, respondy que
enquanto lhe venderem os mantimentos por dinheiro, e no a troco de gneros, nenhua
dvida se me oferecia, porm que vir para o ancoradouro dependia de maior ponderao,
e sujeitasse a guarda de um um oficial meu e oito soldados, durante o tempo que se
demorasse, e que alm desta guarda os oficiais de alfndega vo hir fazer um inventrio
de quanto trouxe o navio para sair com o mesmo. No dia vinte e cinco veio a terra o
capito, e me disse determinava com efeito voltar para a Inglaterra, mas uma pouca de
fazendas que tinha a bordo lhe embaraava esta rezoluo, motivo que obrigava a pedir-
me dar-lhe licena para meter na Alfndega, ou em alguma casa que alugasse,
submetendo a todoo exame que quizessem fazer os oficiais reais, e que estes o poderiam
entregar a pessoa que o presidente do assento mandasse de Buenos Aires para a
transportar. Como esta reposio poderia redudndar em dano meu formandosse varios
juzos da primio, principalmente sendo as fazendas que metem os ingleses em Buenos
Aires, cauza, de no terem maior sahida as nossas, inteiramente lhe refutei desculpando-
me com as apertadas ordens que tem os Governadores da Amrica e Conquistas dos
Navios estrangeiro. Depois desta resposta tem vindo poucas vezes a terra, suponho
esperando na mesma lhe venha algum favorvel avizo da oputra banda. O Governador
me escreveu prontamente repetindo-me seu [...] quizesse n ampara-lo, pois como
introdutor de comrcio ilcito, eu o no deveria admitir, nem tampouco dar-lhe vveres
por ser contra as estipulaes no congresso de Utreque, quando se nos rendeo esta
Colnia, ao que respondi que segundo as ordens de El Rey meu amo, no se podia faltar
a hospitalidade que premitida as naes com quem meu amo se acah em paz. Eu tenho
feito todas as prevenes que me parecem prprias para embaraar qualquer introduo
de Fazenda que deste navio se possa intentar proibindo com hum Bando que logo
publiquei, hirem lanchas das embarcaes deste porto a seu bordo, nem tampouco
chegarem a nenhuma das ilhas para fazerem lenha, e dei ordem andassem toda a noites
quatro patrulhas pela marinha at a distncia de dez lguas para no consentire que a
lancha ingleza ou outra qualquer por esta costa abaixo possa chegar a terra, e assim que
ella sah para este porto se me d logo parte, e pelos oficiais da Guarda se faz o exame
do que vem nella; toda esta dispozio mais para mostrar o meu cuidado do que receio
de haver nesta praa que lhe compre uma pea de bertanha, tanto por estar a terra
abarrotada de fazendas eu trouxe a to pouco tempo dez navios, principalmente o de
Lisboa que tem despachado inumeravel, como por no haver que de presente tenha
dinheiro para algum emprego que toda a prata que vem da outra banda se lo mete nas
mesmas embarcaes, o que nessa cidade, e na do Rio de Janeiro se ha de ver.
A fortaleza que principiei anno passado na porta do Mar, pela grande necessidade
que tinha de segurar o ancoradouro e de defender que fossem nelle insultados os navios
que ali estivessem pois o fogo dos baluartes da praa no podiam embaraar os
Castelhanos dos navios do referido stio, se acha mui avanada, e no duvido poder
acaba-la ainda este anno havendo dinheiro com que paigue aos oficiais que nella
trabalham sendo esta a despeza de considerao para El Rey, fazem uma obra de tanta
consequencia, porque a pedra, Area, serventes e agoa, se lhe no custam nada, e a cal mui
poco por haver decoberto pedra, que a faz mui boa, e com os ndios se corta a faxina com
que se cozem varias fornadas que se tem feito; porm como o Rio de Janeiro se no d
providncia aos csoldados da guarnio,se lhe devem 10 meses....
Vascocnellos pede providncia para pagamento soldados e fortificao, solicitando se
reivista partes dos direitos reais da cidade, e pede autorizao para passar letras...

31 de maro de 1726
Vasconcellos.

460 Requerimento de Joo Burrish 1752

Diz Joo burrish, nao bertanica,homem de negcio, morador na Praa da

Colonia do Sacramento onde he cazado com Dona Rita Joanna Botelha da Trindade, filha
do Mestre de Campo daquele tero, Manoel Botelho de Lacerda, da qual tem j tres
filhos, e vive nela ha mais de onze anos, dezobrigado na Igreja Matriz da mesma Praa e
porque deseja ser natural deste Reyno, por ter j sentado Domicilio nelle so quer estar
debaixo da proteo e sugeyto as leys de V. Mag. e empregarse em tudo o que for do
Real Servio, ....

Junta certides de Vasconcellos e Silva Paez que governaram a Praa.

Foi Deferido.
_________________-

Em princpios da dcada de 1730, em Buenos Aires, h a substituio do governador

Bruno Maurcio de Zavala (que governava as provncias do Prata desde princpios da
dcada de 1720), por Miguel de Salcedo (que iria ser responsvel pelo stio da Colnia
entre 1735 e 1737). Nem bem sara o antigo Governador, os Oficiais da Fazenda Real
responsveis pela cobrana dos direitos, e responsveis pelas inspees nas mercadorias
que chegassem ao porto da cidade - que trabalhavam com Zavala foram presos. As
acusaes lanadas por Francisco de Alzaybar, detendor de navios de registro no Prata e
licena para corso e represso ao contrabando no esturio platino, relacionava os oficiais
D. Diego de Sorarte, e Alonzo de Arce y Arcos1 a uma srie de empresas de contrabando,
especialmente com os Ingleses e luso-brasileiros da Colnia do Sacramento.
O esquema denunciado dizia que os Oficiais Reais e o antigo governador
mantinham intensas relaes com os Ingleses. Em troca de faustosos jantares, recepes e
festas na feitoria do Assento da South Sea Company, os oficiais faziam vista grossa ao
contrabando. Eram acusados ainda de receber quantias prximas de 6.000 pesos para
permitir que navios vinculados South Sea Company adentrassem no porto de Buenos
Aires. O juiz metropolitano que investigava as denncias dizia que os oficiais reais
demoravam entre um e trs dias para realizar a visita a bordo do navio. Este tempo seria
suficiente para descarregar nas ilhas do rio, temporariamente, ou armazenar na Colnia
ou Banda Oriental, gneros para comerciar. Dessa forma, quando os oficiais Reais
fossem inspecionar o navio, no haveria contrabando bordo.
No bastassem essas acusaes, outras mostravam que a empresa do contrabando
era ainda mais articulada e complexa. O genro de Diego de Sorarte, Adrian Pedro
Warnes, era um homens de negcios de Buenos Aires que, aps o casamento com Savina
Sorarte, progrediu na carreira na cidade na qual havia chegado durante a dcada de 1720.
Warnes era acusado de estar envolvido na introduo de diversos gneros de
contrabando, dos quais muitos eram comercializados por um outro comerciante, em
Buenos Aires, Juan de Mosqueria. Este ltimo possua uma venda clebre por oferecer
todo tipo de artigos de contrabando, por isso cognominada arca de no. Esse grupo
centrado em Diego de Sorarte e sua filha Savina, vo originar um dos principais cls de
comerciantes da Buenos Aires vice-reinal2.
Neste momento, na Colnia do Sacramento, as relaes entre Vasconcellos e
alguns comerciantes, especialmente Joseph Meira da Rocha, esto comeando a se tornar
conflitivas, configurando-se num enfrentamento de bandos similar ao que estava se
desenrolando em Buenos Aires. Vejamos o que nos diz Meira da Rocha:

1
Diego de Sorarte havia sido contador da Reais Caixas no princpio do sculo XVIII, tendo sido afastado
por envolvimento no Contrabando. Alonzo de Arce y Arcos, era filho de um ex-governador das Provncias
do Rio da Prata, tambm do incio do sculo. AGN Tribunales Sala IX 39.9.4 Exp. 01
2
Socolow, 1996.
 Neste mes chegaram a Buenos Aires os navios do assento da Inglaterra, e
juntamente, o rezisto em q. veio o novo governador, e ministros para aquella
cidade os quais tem feito suas reformas nos officiais antigos achando-se ja
alguns prezos; e com os benz confiscados, o que tem cauzado seus azedumes, de
bocca a esta praa ou aos ministros della na conciderao de q. algum dia
susseda por ca o mesmo q. no falta em q.3

Meira refere-se s investigaes que culminaram com a prises e embargo de

bens de Diego de Sorarte e Alozo de Arce y Arcos: os oficiais reais encarregados pela
fiscalizao fazendria. Meira da Rocha insinua que os oficiais da Colnia do
Sacramento sentiram temor de que, algum dia, investigaes e processos semelhantes
viessem a ocorrer na Colnia. Tal passagem um ndice denunciador da estrutura das
alianas entre o Governador e seus oficiais. As acusaes de Meira da Rocha, na verdade,
centraram-se em Vasconcellos por ele ser a parte mais visvel do esquema, a figura mais
proeminente do bando que atuava no complexo porturio do Prata a partir de Sacramento.
As denncias de Meira da Rocha contra Vasconcellos passavam pela revelao
aos centros de poder, nomeadamente Lisboa, dos negcios extra-oficiais com os ingleses.
Segundo o comerciante, o governador e seus oficiais recebiam expressivas somas de
dinheiro, como 4:800$000 ris, para permitir a presena de navios ingleses nas cercanias.
Alm disso, Meira denuncia com grande escndalo os numerosos jantares e banquetes de
que participavam os principais comerciantes e autoridades vinculadas a Vasconcellos e os
britnicos. No bastassem essas acusaes, o comerciante culpava as atitudes do
Governador pelo mau andamento de seus negcios, pois ao contrrio de outras casas
comerciais estabelecidas na Colnia, a Meira era a mais bem livrada q. ha nessa praa
de donde elle no pode tirar o dinheiro4. Vasconcellos acobertaria ainda, a cobrana
ilegal de selos na alfndega de Sacramento, pois teria relaes pessoais de amizade com o
Selador da Alfndega. Essas eram as acusaes que Meira da Rocha enumerava em
diferentes cartas para seu correspondente em Portugal, e com base nisso solicitava a
Pinheiro empenho na representao de um requerimento ao Conselho Ultramarino para

3
LISANTI FILHO, L. 1973. Cartas da Colnia do Sacramento. P 337. 14/III/1734.
4
LISANTI FILHO, L. 1973. Cartas da Colnia do Sacramento. P 385. 04/III/1735. Meira da Rocha escreve
ainda, um ms depois, para Francisco Pinheiro: isto ca no esta para negocios e no repare VM. nas
informaoins, e aparentes luzimentos de outros orgulhozos comerciantes. p 386. 25/IV/1735.
que se apeie ou mude tal governador5, o qual veio a designar como um comilo de
authoridade6.

5
LISANTI FILHO, L. 1973. p 299 20/V/1728.
6
LISANTI FILHO. L. 1973.p 383. 4/III/1735.
 Colonia do Sacramento Immigration, Natural Growth and Slave Trade in Rio de la
Plata

In February of 1680, Don Manoel Lobo, the governor of Rio de Janeiro, landed on

the Island of San Gabriel in the Rio de la Plata and founded a Portuguese settlement in the

mainland of the bay also named San Gabriel. The Colonia do Santissimo Sacramento1 was

located on the northern bank of the Rio de la Plata, 30 miles across from Buenos Aires, in the

so called Banda Oriental. The foundation of Colonia represented the commercial and

territorial expansion furthest to the South of the Portuguese in the Americas. Sacramento was

the commercial effort to reestablish profitable commercial routes between the River Plate and

the Luso-America that flourished during the Iberian Union (1580-1640). Sacramento meant

the formal disregard of the territorial and diplomatic aspects of the Tordesillas Treaty (1494).

Although the Catholic Church had given legal support to the Portuguese claim over the

region, Sacramento, during its almost one hundred years of existence, was object of dispute

between the two Iberian Empires2.

The historical literature on Sacramento has emphasized the military and diplomatic

aspects, and this historiography was strongly shaped by nationalism. The foundation of

Sacramento meant the rupture of the Tordesillas Treaty (1494), which led to diplomatic

disputes between the two Iberian Empires. During the eighteenth century, the town had

became part of at least five European diplomatic treaties Utrecht (1715), Paris (1737),

Madri (1750), El Pardo (1762) and Santo Ildefonso (1777). Thus, questions related to its

existence as a Portuguese possession were the primary focus of historians. Moreover, because

1
Colonia do Santissimo Sacramento hereafter simply Colonia, or Sacramento. The use of Colonia
capitalized will refer to Colonia do Sacramento, while the rest of the Portuguese America will be written
without capitalization.
2
The Catholic Church created in the XVIIth century mentioned the northern bank of River Plate as the
southern limit of the Rio de Janeiro bishopric.
Sacramento was founded by the Portuguese, but currently is in Uruguayan territory, neither

Brazilian nationalistic historians nor Uruguayans had paid much attention to Sacramentos

history beyond its diplomatic and political aspects3.

Nevertheless, Sacramento, especially in the eighteenth, century developed as an

important population, agrarian production and urban structure4. During this period, the

population of Sacramento varied significantly because of warfare; therefore, due to this

political instability, Sacramento experienced intermittent population growth. During periods

of peace in the first and in the second half of the eighteenth century the population was

between 2.500 and 3.000 inhabitants. In the second half of the 18th century, the town

presented characteristics of a mature colonial town, having a large Creole population,

significant presence of slaves and constantly attracting immigrants. Sacramentos constant

demographic growth was primarily connected with the intense commercial activity in the

region, thus implying a constant economic and social interaction between Portuguese-

American and Spanish-American population. These interactions shaped the population

characteristics of the settlement regarding marriage, sex distribution and racial and ethnic

characteristics of Sacramento. I suggest that although the population numbers for the first and

second half of the eighteenth century were similar their demographics were radically

different.

In the first half of the eighteenth century, Colonia consisted of a majority of white

immigrants, and less than a quarter of the population was slaves of mestizos. During this

period, the town developed commercial and agricultural activities, exporting wheat and hides

3
The authors working within the luso-brazilian frame: MONTEIRO, 1937; VELLINHO, 1975; ABREU,
1907. For the Uruguayan and Argentine perspective see: BAUZA s/d; BLANCO AZEVEDO, 1944; and
TORRES REVELLO s/d. An exception is TULA,1951 and GIL, 1931. Fernando JUMAR, 2000 represents
a new trend within the Rio de la Plata historiography.
4
For the urban, agrarian and commercial evolution of Sacramento in the first half of the XVIIIth century
see Prado 2002; and Jumar, 2000.
produced in its agricultural suburbs. In the second half of the 18th century, Sacramento lost

their agricultural suburbs to the Spaniards, and most of its population was composed by

slaves and mestizos rather than free white. Nevertheless, I suggest the development of slave

trade shaped the town populations composition in the second half of the century. I argue that

a significant part of the recorded population was in fact variable population, slaves in transit

that were not actually permanent settlers thus, part of the slave population was in Sacramento

temporarily, while they were waiting to be sold in the regional market.

The Rio de la Plata Region and the Portuguese Presence in the XVIIth century

The flow of direct trade legal or illegal trade with other nations - was intense in

Buenos Aires since its second foundation in 1580. Because of its marginalized position

within the official routes centered in the vice-regal capital of Lima, Buenos Aires was always

in needing European goods, slaves, sugar, tobacco, furniture among other merchandises. As a

result, the city inhabitants were often involved in legal and illegal direct trade with

American-Portuguese, Dutch, British and French traders. The foreign merchant ships used

diverse strategies and excuses to arrive in the region where silver and hides were the main

commercial goals of the foreign traders.

During the Iberian Union (1580-1640), especially between 1580 and 1620, the

American-Portuguese presence in Buenos Aires was overwhelming within the citys

merchant community5. After the end of the Iberian Union the American-Portuguese

merchants lost legal access to the Spanish commercial networks and Dutch, French and

British traders increased their direct contacts in the region.

5
CANABRAVA. 1942.
 The main attraction of the regions trade was the silver which flowed from Potosi.

Buenos Aires merchant developed strong commercial networks that covered an extended

hinterland including the Provinces of Rio de la Plata, Chile and Alto Peru. The merchants of

Buenos Aires drained the silver from the internal market and used it to participate in the

Atlantic market6.

Moreover, the project of expand the Portuguese colonies in America until the River Plate

have been under discussion in the mid-1600s.

The creation of Colonia, in 1680, represented for the Portuguese their return to the

Platine market, a source of silver always scarce in the Portuguese America7. In the regional,

the Sacramentos creation meant on the one hand the Portuguese monopoly of a natural

harbor that had been used, before the Portuguese occupation, by many merchant ships

involved in direct trade in the region8. On the other hand, Sacramento was the first settlement

in the Banda Oriental region, and represented a stable link with the Atlantic market.

Moutoukias also argues that these ports developed complementary roles in the commercial

development of the region, rather than competitive ones9. Furthermore, despite the initial

aggressive reaction from the Buenos Aires elite, in the long run Sacramento constituted

together with Buenos Aires (and later with Montevieo), the port complex of Rio de la Plata10.

Regarding Sacramentos development in the XVIIth century, the Uruguayan historian

Anibal Riveros Tula argues that during the first decade the luso-brazilian presence on the

region, Sacramento was basically a military facility, with few civil inhabitants. Their

activities were limited to contraband with Buenos Ayres, and this activity was controlled by

6
MOUTOUKIAS, 1989. GELMAN, 1998. SOCOLOW, 1991. JUMAR, 2000.
7
RODRIGUES. 1958.
8
MOUTOUKIAS. 1989. p 25-26.
9
See also MOUTOUKIAS, 1998. Conclusion.
10
JUMAR, 2000. Especially chapter IV.
few merchants directly connected with both governors. Jumar define this period as the

governors contraband era11.

In the beginning of the 1690s Sacramento started to develop stable population and to

expand settlement into the countryside (the campaa). During the 1690s until 1705, official

colonists were sent from Portugal and from the Atlantic islands to develop the agricultural

production, to explore the cattle, and, as a consequence, to support the commercial activities.

In the beginning of the eighteenth century Colonia registered significant agricultural

production, exported large amounts of hides and its merchants made profitable transactions

with Buenos Aires merchants12. Nevertheless, as a result of the War of Spanish Succession,

Spaniards and Guarani Indians once more attacked and expelled the Luso-Brazilians from

Sacramento.

Sacramento in the XVIIIth Century - Growth and Intermittent conflicts

It was only in 1716, after the second Utrecht Treaty, that the Portuguese resettle

Colonia. For this time their colonization project was intended to establish a commercial town

with strong military backup and, most important, a significant number of permanent settlers

able to produce foodstuffs and to directly explore the cattle resources of the Banda Oriental.

During the first years, the American-Portuguese settlement experienced a steady growth

based on diversified agricultural production, intense commerce and exploitation of hides in

the campaa. In the 1720s and 1730s Sacramento developed an urban structure, became an

important regional market attracting people from Buenos Aires and from the countryside.

Furthermore, there were Portuguese farms and pulperias several leagues into the

countryside13. During this period a significant production of hides, wheat and other foodstuffs

11
TULA. 1951 P 191-200.
12
MONTEIRO. 1937. T. I.
13
S. 1992. [1747]. PRADO. 2002.
were produced in the Sacramentos suburbs. The wheat production was not only

commercialized locally, but part of it was sent to be sold in Rio de Janeiro. In the immediate

six miles from the urban center there were at least 31 farms which belonged to the citys

inhabitants.

However, according to the second Utrecht Treaty, the Portuguese were not allowed to

extend their dominium more than the distance of a canon ball shot. They were also

prohibited of establishing any kind of commercial relationship with Spanish subjects from

Buenos Aires. These diplomatic clauses were used by the Buenos Airess elites as excuses to

constrain the Portuguese from directly exploit the countryside resources, thus to still

depending on the porteo merchants to acquire food supplies and hides. In order to refrain

from the Portuguese directly exploitation of the countryside, Buenos Aires elites used

military force14.

From 1735 to 1737, Spanish and Guarani troops seized Colonia. The Grande Sitio

(The Great Siege) was the reaction of the Buenos Aires elites to the Portuguese direct

countrysides exploitation. During these almost two years, all Portuguese properties outside

the walled town were destroyed, and the Sacramento population ran out of food. Nonetheless,

the Portuguese were able to defeat the Spaniards and maintain the position in the Rio de la

Plata. However, thereafter, they had to rely on the porteo elite for buying foodstuffs and

hides.

In the 1750s, the Madrid Treaty was signed between Portugal and Spain; this Treaty

established the exchange of Sacramento for the Seven Jesuit Mission on the Eastern Bank of

the Uruguay River. During the 1750s, because of the Madrid Treaty political ambient, a new

14
JUMAR. 2000. Chapther IV.
wave of Portuguese expansion and population growth happened in Sacramentos suburbs.

Nevertheless, after several years of negotiations, demarcations, and even an Indian

rebellion15, Spain and Portugal nullified the Madrid Treaty in 1762. On the one hand,

Portugal under the enlightened administration of Marquis of Pombal wanted to keep their Rio

de la Plata commercial entrepot. On the other hand, the Spanish response was the invasion of

Colonia (1763) and the southern portion of the State of Brazil (1764), currently the Brazilian

state of Rio Grande do Sul, by troops from Buenos Aires led by the Rio de la Plata governor

Pedro de Cevallos. While Sacramento was quickly returned to Portugal (1764), Rio Grande

went from 1764 to 1776 under Spanish rule.

In 1776, Buenos Aires was elevated to Vice Regal Capital, and Don Pedro de

Cevallos returned to the region, now as the First Vice-Roy of the River Plate. The new Vice

Royalty included the mining district of Potosi, Chile and the former jurisdiction of the Rio de

la Plata Provinces under Buenos Aires rule. In the following year, Sacramento was definitely

conquered by Spaniards. Eventually the town would briefly belong to the Luso-Brazilian

Empire during the Cisplatine Period (1821-25) in the early nineteenth century. Currently

Sacramento is the municipality of Colonia in Uruguay.

Population Growth, Immigration and Warfare in the far South Portuguese America

The information regarding population numbers to Sacramento during the eighteenth

century is scarce and scattered. However, if compared with the previous period of

occupation, the information of the 1700s at least allow us to draw the general contours of

Sacramentos demographic growth. I was able find two population maps, which are less

detailed type of census, made by the Portuguese governors in the 1722 and 1760, a partial

map of the population made in 1719, a official statement of th Governor for 1742 and two

15
The Guarani War, 1754-1757. Spain and Portugal fought together against the Seven Missions Guaranis
to impose their acceptance of the clauses of the Madrid Treaty. NEUMANN. 2001; 2004.
estimations by in site observers for the period previous to the Great Siege, in the early

1730s, and a Spanish census from 1778.

Table 1 - Sacramento annual growth rate based on all

information available so far
AHU-Colonia do Sacramento Docs.:86, 513. AHU- Rio de Janeiro Doc. 7286,
MONTEIRO, 1937; SILVA, 1993; TULA 1931
Years Population Annual Growth Rate (%)
1722 1388
1732 3000 8.00
1735 2600 -4.66
1742 1956 -4.19
1760 2712 0.23
1783 290 -9.26

Table 2 - Sacramento Annual Growth Rate Based

Only on Official Reports
AHU-Colonia do Sacramento Docs.:86, 513. MONTEIRO,
1937; TULA 1931.
Annual Growth
Year Population Rate (%)
1722 1388
1742 1956 1.73
1760 2712 1.83
1783 290 -9.26

Table 1 represents the population evolution for the whole period, based on all

available data. If we considered the only governors information between 1722 and 1760 and

the Sapnish census of 1783, not considering the two rough estimative, the annual growth rate

for the period between 1722 and 1760 would be 1.78% (Table 2). However, this

representation, while more reliable, does not take in consideration the demographic growth

until 1735, and the effects of the 2 years warfare on Sacramentos demography.

It is noteworthy that the population decrease registered in the 1783 Spanish censuses

must be understood with caution, since it happened basically in 1777 due by warfare. Thus,
the annual growth rate does not represent accurately the rhythm of change, rather the change

of population was -89.3% mostly in the year of 1777.

The conclusion of analyzing the data, considering the estimative information is that

Sacramentos population growth can be divided in basically two periods: the first one from

its second foundation until 1735, characterized by intense population growth averaging 8%

per year. The second period is from 1737 until the 1760, characterized by a steady population

growth, with an annual growth rate of 1.83. Therefore, the lost of the agrarian suburbs and

the lack of access to the Banda Orientals countryside seemed to be the major constraint of

Sacramentos expansion. The lack of the agrarian suburbs was in part balanced by the

development of slave trade. Although the town continued to attract immigrants and

supported a stable population growth, many immigrants were slaves to de sold in the port

complexs market.

The crude numbers do present a steady population growth in spite of the intermittent

warfare; however, this trend was accompanied by significant changes in the composition of

Sacramentos population. In the beginning of the 1720s, Sacramentos population was

basically composed by immigrants, strongly influenced by the presence of official settlers,

counted with a small slave population and presented an overwhelming male presence. In the

second half of the eighteenth century such a picture was replaced by a significant Creole

population, the disappearance of official settlers as a group apart, a more balanced sex ratio

and by a slave population amounting more than a half of the inhabitants.

Nevertheless, the analysis of two governors censuses combined with the analysis of

the baptismal and death records for the 1760s allow examining in depth the compositional

changes in the population.

 Sacramento Population between 1716 c. 1750

In February of 1716, Manoel Gomes Barbosa, a former governor of Santos, founded

for the third time the Sacramento Colony. In the end of 1719 he sent a detailed report to the

King about the state of the new enterprise. According to Barbosa, in 1719, the town counted

with 51 stone houses inside the walls, in addition the Jesuit College, a house made of hides

for the Indians, and the hide tax warehouse. The governor also mentioned the existence of

other 16 or 17 houses made of hides where some single or poor soldiers inhabited16.

Outside the city walls, there were the casais, official colonizers brought by the Crown

from Portugal and from the Atlantic Islands (Madeira and Azores), Minho and Tras-os-

Montes (Portugal) 17. The casais were distributed into two neighborhoods: the bairro norte

and the bairro sul. The northern neighborhood, spread along Sacramentos beach was more

populated than the southern neighborhood, which was located close to a small creek named

Riachuelo. According to the Governor Barbosa, their location outside the towns walls was

supposed to make ease their access to their crops, since the towns gates were suppose to

keep closed during the night. 18

Although Barbosas information does not give the total number of inhabitants for the

Colony, it gives data on mortality in Sacramento in these beginning years telling something

on the life conditions of the inhabitants, especially among the official settlers (casais). In the

year of 1719, 16 children were borne in the whole town, but only eight survived. All of the

diseased children were among the casais, and among the surviving children, four belonged to

16
AHU-ACL-CU-012- Colnia do Sacramento. Doc. 47. 19/XI/1726, and Doc. 56, 26/XII/1719.
17
AHU-ACL-CU-012 Colnia do Sacramento Doc. 86.The use of casais, nuclear family groups centered
on a couple, was common by the Portuguese crown to establish stable colonies in America. The casais were
also designated as official peasants.
18
AHU-ACL-CU-012 Colnia do Sacramento. Doc. 47. dentro das trincheiras que tenho feito no
cabem os casais, e no sitio aonde esto [...] por ser mais conveniente para eles por ficarem perto do Ryo
Letter of Gov. Manoel Gomes Barbosa. 1719.
the official peasants and other four belonged to particulares. 19 Therefore, only one child out

of three would have survived among the casais. The absence of child deaths among the

particulares could indicate better standards of living. Furthermore, the few births may

signalize the lack of women and couples in the town besides the official colonizers.

The Casais

In the eighteenth century, there were three waves of official colonists arriving in

Colonia. Most of the casais came from the Atlantic Islands or from Portugal. They were

supposed to be agricultural settlers, basically structured around a couple counting with their

kin and relatives. There were casais arriving in 1717 and 1719 at least, in the eighteenth

century. For the 1719s settlers there is a list of all the people, listed by household.

The 1719s official settlers embarked in Porto, in Portugal, passed through Rio and

headed to Colonia do Sacramento where 59 couples, or about 30 households, counting a total

of 271 people including parents, children, siblings and slaves. There was at least one birth

during the trip, and 11 deaths in the trip or soon the arrival in Colonia. In the following weeks

the Sacramentos authorities recorded 17 runaways that went off to Buenos Aires. In the

future, the Sacramentos Governor Vasconcellos would ask for the Crown to send official

settlers from the Atlantic Islands rather than from Portugal. According to the governor, the

thirteen colonizers that were from the Islands had the most productive farms equaling all

Portuguese owned farm production and size.20

Another important feature of the official settlers is that although they were being

brought to Sacramento to develop agricultural activities, the settlers were not necessairly

poor. In the list, a minimum of 6 women had the title Dona before their first name and five

of them are listed in the first five positions of the list. Although there are no similar remarks

19
AHU-ACL-CU-012 Colnia do Sacramento Doc. 49
20
AHU-ACL-CU-012 - Colnia Sacramento Doc. 196.
to men, the title Dona was a sign of status and social position in the hierarchical colonial

society. Moreover, in reproducing and exteriorizing g social status in written lists, the Crown

was reinforcing existing hierarchies in the origin region and transplanting these relation to the

Americas. However, there was more than symbolism in the casais social position in

Sacramento. The first name listed was the Sargento-Mor da Praa, Antonio Rodrigues

Carneiro. Among the casais arrived one of the prime military authorities in the town.

Moreover, the were a militia company of Casais (Comapnhia de Ordenana dos Casais). The

company still existed even in the second half of the eighteenth century, when Sacramento did

not have agricultural suburbs anymore.

In sum, the official settler destined to foster a stable population and an agrarian

production, were from the Atlantic Islands and from Portugal. Because they migrated in

groups and with official support the social hierarchy existent in Europe was in certain ways

reproduced in the America. Moreover, there were distinctions between casais ilheus and

casais do reino regarding agricultural productivity.

In October, 24th 1722, Governor Vasconcellos made a general map of everything

that exists in the town where he recorded the number of inhabitants, occupations, births and

deaths, among other military information. This map is the document more similar to a

census that have been found regarding Sacramento21.

According to Vasconcellos, in 1722, forty one children were born, but eleven died in

the first year. Unfortunately, there is no information regarding the distribution of these births

among the towns population. Nevertheless, comparing to 1719s info, the infant death rate

has diminished from 50% to 26%.

21
AHU-ACL-CU-012 - Colnia Sacramento Doc. 86. Este documento constitui o levantamento
populacional mais completo que possumos para a Colnia do Sacramento.
 Sacramentos population at that time amounted 1388, divided into 317 households,

from which 82 (26%) were official colonizers houselholds (casais). Moreover, Vasconcellos

also registered the gender and status distribution of the population. This information includes

all inhabitants living inside the city walls and its suburbs. However, there would be probably

more people who lived in the countryside or were out of town at the moment of the

confection of this survey that are not included. Therefore, these estimates regard the

minimum number of Sacramento Colony inhabitants.

Table 3 -Colnia do Sacramento Population 1722

GENDER and STATUS

AHU Colnia do Sacramento Doc. 86

Free
Slaves Indians TOTAL

Men 762 204 45 1011

Women 271 90 16 377

TOTAL 1033 294 61 1388

According to this data, the crude sex ratio is a male rate of 270 for the entire

population. Among the free people and Indians the crude sex ratio is 2,8, among slaves the

crude sex ratio is 2,2. The partial sex ratios could give us a better idea about marriage options

in Colonia. In addition its important to notice that the sex ratio between slaves was more

balanced than between whites. The lack of women in the town can be understood because of

its frontier characteristic and the early stage of reoccupation. At this moment, almost five

years after the Portuguese resettlement, Sacramento was mainly inhabited for men with

military capacity.
 The population of slaves represented 21.2% of the total population of the city. For

every seven free people there were two slaves in Sacramento. The slave population could

have been domestic servants, peons, and part of them could have been temporarily waiting to

be sold to the Spaniards. Regarding the Indian population in the town, the 61 Indians were

not natives from the region; rather they were Tupis from Pernambuco brought to Sacramento

to work in the citys works. As a result, the total population living under coerced labor

regime in Sacramento amount 24% of the citys population.

Regarding the presence of youth in town, Vasconcellos report the existence of 222

boys and girls, which represents 16% of the population. The sex ratio among the youths was

more balanced than the one for the whole population, but even though the masculinity rate

was 124. Not considering the possible presence of youths among slaves and Indians, the

dependency ratio of Sacramento at that time was 19%. In other words, for every hundred

adults there were 19 dependent children. The significant presence of children in these early

re-resettling years indicates the intent of creating an urban center with a stable population

rather than just a military facility.

It is noteworthy that this data refers a population composed basically by immigrants

that went to Sacramento under different migration regimes. Only in the subsequent years a

Creole population will contribute to Sacramentos demographic characteristics. At this

moment we can identify the immigrants in six different groups: slaves, Indians, convicts,

military men, official colonizers (casais) and particulares (private settlers). Among these

groups, only private settlers and official colonizers were free immigrants. All other categories
were subjected to coerced migration22. Its important to clarify that convicts, although are

understood as coerced immigrants were not subjected to coerced labor regime.

Sacramento, in 1722, was the only Portuguese colony southern than Laguna, in the

actual Brazilian state of Santa Catarina. Regarding Lagunas population and urban structure,

we only know that, in 1714, the town counted roughly three hundred adults, only one church

and no paved or aligned streets.23 On the other side of the River Plate, in 1720, Buenos Aires

counted with a population around 9.000 inhabitants.

In early 1730s, two estimations regarding Sacramentos population does exist. In

1732, the sergeant-mayor Antonio Rodrigues Carneiro in a letter to King stated that there

were 3.000 inhabitants living in Sacramento at that moment 24. In 1735, weeks before the

Great Siege started, Silvestre Ferreira da Silva counted 2.600 people living in the Portuguese

platine town. 25 Regardless of their accuracy, both approximations reflected the steady growth

of the Portuguese town, based on commerce and agrarian activities.

As matter of comparison, in 1740, Vila Rica, one of the most important Luso-

Brazilian mining centers, counted with 20.000 inhabitants. 26 Southern than Vila Rica, the

town of Viamo, in the actual Brazilian State of Rio Grande do Sul, which was developing a

cattle and mule trade economy, counted with 1116 inhabitants in 1756. 27 However, in the

western bank of River Plate, Buenos Aires had a population of 11.600 inhabitants in 1744.28

22
Regarding the forms of military recruitment and its coerced characteristics see PEREGALLI,
23
PORTO.1954. p 411.
24
AHU-ACL-CU-Rio de Janeiro Doc. 7286.
25
SILVA. 1977. [1748] p. 71
26
RUSSEL WOOD. A. J. R. 1998. p 13 and 17
27
AHCMPA Rol dos Confessados de Viamo. 1756.
28
JUMAR, 2000. P 297. JOHNSON, Lyman e SOCOLOW, Susan. 1980.
 Nevertheless, the military siege imposed by Spanish and Guarani troops from 1735 to

1737 has obstructed Sacramentos suburbs, and most importantly, the Great Siege

represented the lost of direct access to the Banda Orientals countryside. On the one hand, the

lost of the agrarian subusrbs affected all Sacramentos inhabitants, but probably had specific

characteristics to the casais, who would had to change their modus vivendi. On the other

hand, the Sacramentos inhabitants become more dependents on the Buenos Aires trade for

foodstuff and hides. In other words, the needing for foodstuff now allowed these goods to be

used together with silver by Buenos Aires inhabitants to pay for good sold by Sacramento

traders.

The first information about Sacramentos population after the end of the Great Siege

indicates the prolonged period of warfare has reduced the number of inhabitants of the town.

It was possible that some of them migrated far into the countryside or to the new Portuguese

fort of Jesus Maria Jose, which later would become Rio Grande. According to Vasconcellos,

by 1742, space had become a serious issue, nonetheless the town couted with 1946

inhabitants distributed into 1000 families (including slaves) and the military garrison29.

29
MONTEIRO, 1937. Tomo II p 130. I was not able to find this document in the AHU collection, thats
why I relied in the transcription plubished by Monteiro.
Sacramento Population by 1760

In 1760, the new governor Vicente da Silva Fonseca made a survey on the population of the

town. According to him there were 2712 inhabitants living in the town, 58% men and 42%

women30.

Table 4 - Sacramento's Population by 1760

AHU Colonia do Sacramento Doc. 513
Male Female Total
Married 130 160 290
Solteiros 492 197 689
Pardos Forros 25 26 51
Negros Forros 20 88 108
Escravos 941 634 1575
Total 1607 1105 2712

It is noteworthy that in 1760 Sacramentos formal population could only be compared

with the years before the Great Siege. Among the married population there were 30 women

living alone, maybe they were widows or their husbands were traveling in the countryside or

in other regions. Both hypotheses were probable since Sacramento was a conflictive and also

a commercial town. The conflictive characteristic of the town may also explain the high

prevalence of men among the singles population. Quite probably, the permanent military

garrison of the city increased the single male population.

Nevertheless, if the numbers are similar to the early XVIIIth century, the composition

of the population had radically changed. The free population of Sacramento represented 42%

of the population, almost one half of the roughly 80% from the 1720s. Regarding race,

whites represented only 36% of Sacramentos population, while pardos and blacks

constituted 64%. Therefore, Sacramento changed from a predominantly white population to

predominantly black and metizo settlement.

30
AHU Colnia do Sacramento. Doc. 513. 15/IV/1760.
 Population Distribution According Race and Status

36% Whites
Freed Pardos
Freed Blacks
58%
Slaves
2%
4%

The population of pardos forros was very evenly distributed, although the data

suggests that they were intermarrying.. Between 1760 and 1770, eight out of ten freed pardas

who bore a child were married with a freed pardo.31 Nonetheless, in spite of the freed pardo

population constituted only 2% of the total population, there would probably be many others

who were enslaved, since in 1759 there was a pardo militia company in activity in the

town.32

The evenly distributed gender pattern is not present among the freed black

population. The number of freed black women outnumbered the freed black men in the

proportion of 4 to 1.

In 1760, there were 35 births in Colonia, and 84 deaths.33 However, such a high

mortality rate was not common. In the following year, the number of births among free

women was 45, and there were only 37 deaths. Unfortunately, I could not identify the causes

of so many deaths in 1760. However, two factors must be taken in consideration: first, the

31
Arquivo da Cria do Rio de Janeiro (ACRJ) Colnia do Sacramento, Livro 3, Batismos. (Digitized copy
obtained from the Uruguayan Institute of Patrimony, Colnia.) I would like to thank Nelsys Fusco for these
documents.
32
MONTEIRO. 1937. T. II. P 220.
33
AHCRJ Colnia do Sacramento. Livro 3 Batismos; Livro 3 bitos.
death records are not representative of all deaths in the town, but mainly the elite deaths.

Thus, maybe in the year 1760 the priest registered more people than usual, and there were

excessive records of deaths. Third, and most importantly, because Sacramento was a port, the

town was constantly vulnerable to epidemics. Nevertheless, the high number of deaths in

1760 still suggests something abnormal happening in town. Although, I could not find any

mention to specific epidemics in the town in 1760, the high number of slaves present in the

town in the year 1760, may signalize an high number of immigrants arriving in that year (this

issue will be discussed again in the following pages when analyzing in close the presence of

slaves in the town).

From 1760 to 1769, there were 385 births in Colonia, among the cases from which I

could retrieve information, 50.4% were females and 49.6% were males. Moreover, 69.8% of

the children born in Colonia were legitimate children, 14.7% were natural children, 1.8%

were expostos, and only 0.8 percent were non-reported/illegitimate chilfren. For 13.1% of the

newborn the data was partially or totally mutilated and I could not retrieve this information.

Before I proceed, it is crucial to clarify the nature and the limits of the baptismal

records that are my source. For the years 1761, 1762 until November 02, and from 1764

to1769 the data comes from the third book of baptisms of Colonia that only comprises free

people. For the period between November 02, 1762 and December 20, 1763 the data come

form the fifth book of baptisms. The fifth book includes all births of free and enslaved

children. The data in the fifth book corresponds to the period in which the town was under

Spanish rule. As a result, our data present certain biases. First, considering all the period from

1760-1769, our data refers basically to the free population. Second, the sample including all

the population for 1763 includes the Spanish officials living in the town only during the

period of Spanish rule. Although the conquest of Colonia by Spanish troops in 1762, most of

the Portuguese settlers remained in the town under Spanish control. There are records that
basically the military troops were evacuee in late 1762. As a matter of comparison, if we

considered only the number of births among free women in 1763, excluding slaves and

Spanish couples (both parents of Spanish origins), the number of birth for 63 would be 25,

quite similar for the years 1765 (25), 1767 (20), 1767 (25), 1768 (28), 1769 (24). According

to this data, the Spanish conquest does not seem to have significantly changed the

Sacramentos married population patterns. Therefore, the data for 1763 will be considered in

this works as a sample year for the whole population, and slaves in special because the

present data is the more complete source so far available.

Table 5 - Sacramento's Birth Status (AHCMRJ Colonia do Sacramento Livros de Batismo 3 and 5)
1760 1761 1762 1763 1764[1] 1765 1766 1767 1768 1769 Total
Legitimate 29 29 19 41 8 29 22 28 28 24 257
Natural 5 2 13 25 0 4 0 1 4 2 56
Unknown 0 9 22 0 2 5 0 1 2 0 41
Exposto 0 2 0 0 0 1 0 2 1 0 6
Non Reported 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 3
Total 34 42 56 66 10 39 22 33 35 26 363
Index 100 124 165 194 29.4 115 64.7 97.1 103 76.4
[1] The number of low births records in this year is due to mutilation of the documents. The Sacramentos Third Book of Baptisms is
in bad condition and in many pages the data was not readable or it was not there anymore. Because the book is very well
organized in chronological order, I noticed that the pages that would contain the births of 1764 were specially mutilated. Mutilation
also interfered in the data of other years. Nevertheless, I could not think of any reason to consider the mutilation process as biased,
thus, the mutilation in general would not invalidate the sample as a possible representation of Sacramentos society.

Although there are many changes in the births distribution along the decade, the data

does not suggest any significant variation of population size. In 1762 and 1763, the incrasing

of population is due by the inclusion of the slaves from the fifth books of baptism, which

cover the whole year of 1763 and December and November of 1762, the bimonthly period of

more births in Sacramento. The data also present sharp decline of births in 1764; however,

such a decline is not related to change in the number of births, rather to lacking of precise

data for the year. The third book of baptisms is mutilated in several parts, but the pages

where chronologically was supposed to contain the 1764s were without readable conditions.
Considering the ordered form in which the book was generally filled, it is highly probable

that the decline of 1764 was not a real decline in births. Once again the possibility of

epidemics due by the portu condition of the town and the constant flow of immigrants could

be part of the answers. For the years 1766, there are no information regarding the possible

causes of variation, and unlike 1764, the mutilated data within the pages in the third book is

minimum. Nevertheless, for all other 6 years, the distribution of births per year stays stable

around the index for the decade. Moreover, the white free-women births also shows an

evenly distribution of births. Therefore, there are no relevant signs of important changes in

Sacramentos adult married population in comparison with the number of 1760.

Among Sacramentos newborns, 69.8% were legitimate children, 14.7% were natural

children and 1.6% were expostos. No illegitimate or bastard children were reported, however,

the 0.8% (three cases) non declared were son of unknown fathers. For 13.1% of the

population the information was illegible. Considering only the data of 1763 that includes the

whole population there were 62% of legitimate newborns and 38% of natural newborns. The

1763 data shows that there roughly two of every five children born in Sacramento was

illegitimate. Moreover, most of illegitimate children were born out of slaves mothers.

Table 6 - Sacramento 1763 - Children's Birth Status by

Mother's Status
ChildrensBirth
Status
Legitimo Natural Total
MotherStatus
Free 37 0 37
Parda cativa 0 1 1
Parda Forra 1 0 1
Escrava 2 24 26
Total 40 25 65

Regarding the seasonality of the births, there were two peak moments per year, and

the free and slave women did not follow the exact same rhythm of giving birth. Between
1760 and 1769, August and December were the months in which more children were born,

10.8% and 10.5% of the yearly births respectively. Considering bi-monthly periods,

Novemeber and December concentrated 19.7% of the total number of births while July and

August concentrated 18.8%. All the other bi-montlhy period with the exception of March-

April registered around 16% and 17.8% percent of the births per year. However, the fertility

data must be examined considering the diversity of social groups. Considering the mothers

race, it is noteworthy that in Nov-Dec period was a peak of births for free-white and colored

women with a ratio of 2.09 white for every colored women. In Jul-Aug ratio between white

and colored mothers was 6.28 white women for every colored one. Thus, August was the

month with the higher number of white births, while December was the month with higher

number of blacks and mestizos births. This data suggests that the Christian lent, religious

period of sexual abstinence between carnival and Easter, did not have significantly

influenced the sexual behavior of the Sacramentos inhabitants, especially considering the

blacks and mestizos population.

The month with the least number of births was March for all groups, with only 2.2%

of the total births. Between March and April, only 8.4% of the children were born. This data

suggests that months of June and July were not propitious for a pregnancy to start34.

Moreover, although the months of June and July were months with high numbers of births

(8.9% and 8%), during the winter period was precisely the season with least conception.

Maybe weather conditions and health issues related to the winter time would be a possible

explanation.

34
AHCRJ Colnia do Sacramento. Livro 3 Batismos. I did not consider the Death Record information
because the records did not show any pattern and huge discrepancies between each month and each year.
Thus, I have chosen to not consider such a data before proceed with further investigations on this source.
 Parents

In Sacramento, the absolute majority of the marriages was within spouses with same

legal status. Regarding the pattern of marriage considering origin the only endogamic group

is the Creole. Roughly one third of the cases are Sacramentos borne couple. Virtually all

other men used to marry primarily with Sacramento borne women. However, most of the

mothers originally from Buenos Aires were also married to Sacramentos Creoles.

Table 7 - Marriage by Status

MotherStatus Total

Parda Parda preta

Free cativa Forra Escrava forra indio
Father
Status Free 205 0 0 1 0 0 206
pardo cativo 0 1 1 0 0 0 2
pardo forro 0 0 8 0 3 0 11
Escravo 0 0 0 4 0 0 4
Indio 1 0 0 0 0 2 3
Total 206 1 9 5 3 2 226

Table 7 shows that almost all of the couples in Sacramento married within

their juridical status rather than any other criteria. The free white population virtually did not

married outside their social category group. The freed mestizo group (pardos forros),

although marrying mostly within their racial groups, also married freed-blacks. Endogamy

within the social status group was an important conditioning in marriages pattern in the

period. For 1760, according to table 4, the crude masculinity ratio was 143 men per 100

women. But the groups specific sex ratio suggests that sex imbalance was more pronounced

among the free population. The free peoples masculinity ratio was 174 men for each 100

women; the slaves masculinity ratio was 148, for the freed mestizo group was extremely

balanced with a ratio of a 100, and for the freed black the femininity ratio of 440.

The high masculinity ratio for free suggests that the military characteristics of

Sacramento was still shaping the demographics of the city with a high number of soldiers in

the town. Moreover, the single free male population was much larger than the single free
female population also suggests that immigration was an important factor in the period. The

number of single free women in town was due by natural growth. Finally, the freed black

ratio indicates that Sacramentos society the possibility for women slaves to get freedom was

much higher than for male slaves.

Fathers

Regarding the parents who were living in Sacramento, 27% of the fathers were from

Sacramento, 58.4% were from Portugal or the Portuguese Atlantic Islands, 6% were from

different regions of Brazil, 5.8% from Spain and Spanish America and 1% from Africa.

Among the settlers from Portugal, 16% of them were from the Braga bishopric (the region of

Tras-os-Montes and Algarve), 14.2% were from the Atlantic Islands, and the remaining 29%

were from Lisbon, Coimbra, Porto and other regions from mainland Portugal. Regarding the

Luso-Brazilian population, the city which contributed more in the composition of

Sacramentos fathers was Recife, followed by Rio de Janeiro. Among the Spaniards living in

Sacramento, Buenos Ayres was the main origin, followed by Paraguay and many diverse

regions of Spain, from Extremadura to Galiza. It is noteworthy that the Spanish population

regarding men in Colonia is inflated by the 1763 data, when many Spanish officials were

living in the town. Nevertheless, this bias s part of the Sacramentos demographic evolution

as a borderland town.

This data reveals that in the late 1750s and during the 1760s, Sacramento still

attracting immigrants, while the white Creole population represented roughly 1 out of 3 of

the male population having children during the period. Moreover, it is noticeable some

concentration regarding the regional origin of the immigrants, from the region of Braga and

from the Atlantic Islands. In both cases, the significance of chain migration is highlighted

since it was from these regions where the official settlers were chosen.
 Regarding the legal status and color of the Sacramentos fathers were free white men,

4.5% were free pardos, 1.6% slaves, 1.2% pardo slaves and 1.2% Indians. Thus, only 2.8%

of the cases concern slaves. Considering only the year 1763, the percentage of slaves having

children in town raises to 5% of the total male sample, while for the whites, free pardos and

Indians percentages stay the same. This information points some questions regarding the

slaves presence in Sacramento. Considering that in 1760, 58% of the towns population was

slaves a higher number of slave fathers would be expected. However, a possible explanation

is that most of the slave fathers were not registered as the legitimate father, which would be

coherent with the high number of natural children without records of the father being born by

slave women, especially considering the year of 1763.

Mothers

Considering the Sacramentos mothers profile for the whole decade, 70.4% were

natives from Sacramento, 12% were from Spanish dominions in the Americas 9.1 % were

born in Africa, 4.6% were from other parts of Portuguese America, and 4% were from

Portugal and the Atlantic Islands. Among the Spanish-American mothers in Sacramento,

Buenos Aires was origin of 83.3% of their. Among the African mothers, 56% were from

West-Central Africa and 37% from West Africa. The low participation of women born in

Portugal and the total absence of Spanish born women indicates that on the one hand there

was a fast process of Creolization developing at that time. And on the other hand, it shows

the radical change in the composition of the population regarding immigrants if compared to

the 1722 all women in pregnant age were immigrants. This change indicates that besides the

periods of warfare due to the borderland location of Sacramento, the town counted with a

stable Portuguese-American population during the most the XVIIIth century. In addition, the

data shows that most of the women crossing the Atlantic by the second half of the XVIIIth

century were coerced migrants rather than free migrants.

 Regarding the legal status of the Sacramentos mothers during the 1760s, our data

shows 76.1% of free white women bearing children, 14.9% of black and parda slaves and

7.9% of free blacks and pardas. However, considering only the year of 1763, which includes

the whole population, the legal status distribution of the women bearing children changes

radically. The percentage of free white women drops to 56.3% while the percentage of black

slaves rises to 40.6. Pardo women, free and captives were 3.2%. Thus, 57.5% of the mothers

were free and 41.8% were slaves. Considering the data of 1763 as representative of a normal

year, although it presents a slightly bias pro free white women because of the Spanish

presence in town, it allows us to have a better estimative of the physical reproduction of the

population regarding status the considering the whole decade. According to the data,

although more 58% of the population in 1760 was slave, only 41.8% of the children were

born slaves in 1763.

Sacramento, in the 1760s did not resemble to the 1722s Sacramento anymore.

Almost twice the population with a majority of slaves and significant part of the free

population with Creole origins, Sacramento has become during along the period a mature

colonial town, with a stable population in spite of the warfare. However, the prevalence of

slaves in the population and their low participation in the reproductive life of the town

requires a special attention.

Sacramentos Slaves

Vicente da Silva Fonseca, then Governor of Sacramento, in 1760 sent to Lisbon a

survey of the general state of the town. Rather than a census, the list was a

military/bureaucratic report about the condition in which Fonseca was receiving Sacramento.

According to his list, 58% of the total population of Sacramento was slaves and 42% were

free people. These numbers represent a strongly different picture from the 1720s, when only
20% of the inhabitants were slaves. Moreover, this data Sacramento in the second half of the

eighteenth century counted with a slave population similar to plantation colonial towns. But,

what were these slaves doing in Sacramento, since the town had lost its agricultural suburbs

after 1737?

In the year fo 1763, only 40% of the women giving birth were slaves. But according

to the 1760s list, there were many more slaves than free people. Why the number of slaves

having children was so disproportional to the slave population in town.

Although the agricultural area available for agrarian production was reduced, the use

of slaves as peasants or in specific rural activities seems probable. During the 1760s the tithe

records only indicates a significant production of frutos do pais (native fruits) and fish. The

former amounted usually around 50$000 and the latter around 300$000.35 These values

suggest that such products had important role in the day-to-day food market of Colonia.

However, the use of domestic slaves or rent-out slaves could have been quite probable

considering two main factors. First, slave ownership meant social status. Second, in a

primary urban environment skilled slaves could be source of income for families or widows

in the town. Nevertheless, domestic slavery, limited foodstuff production and urban labor

does not seem to explain the prevalence of slaves among the in the list of 1760.

Considering the commercial oriented community of Sacramento, and its deep

connection with Rio de Janeiro, the largest slave port of South America, the high number of

slaves among the population were there as temporary inhabitants, to be commercialized in

Buenos Ayres. In other words, part of the slaves was there to be sold to the Spaniards.

Although this hypothesis implicates in the coincidence of the Governors survey and the

35
The Frutos do Paiz tithe tax amounted 6,6 pesos and the Fish tithe tax amounted 400ps. The auction for
both taxes were managed in Colonia. As matter of comparison, in 1726 the Wheat tithe was 172$155, and
the corn tithe was 25$000.
arrival of a vessel, it was a viable option. Especially considering that in the year 1760 the

number of deaths was more than twice as big as in the following year. This data suggests the

possibility of epidemics that might had been brought by the arrival of a slave with

immigrants from other continents.

For the period between 1716 and 1737, there are no data regarding slave trade in

Sacramento; however, this was the period of the British Asiento. There are mentions of direct

trade between the Sacramento authorities and the British from the Asiento, but no solid data

was found. Some slaves were arrested altogether in petty illegal trade operations by Spanish

authorities, and it was never clear if the slaves were part of the merchandise or not in the

small boats that crossed the River Plate smuggling. Thus, the scarce nature of the sources and

the low number, one or two slaves, found in the embargoed boats does not allow us to

drawing any conclusions. However, for the late 1740s and 1750s there some significant

information suggesting an active role of Sacramento merchants in supplying the regional

slave market.

In the 1740s there was an important slave trade activity in Sacramento, since there

was even a specific tax fo selling slaves to the Spaniards. In 1746, the governor Antonio

Pedro de Vasconcellos suggested to the King and the Overseas Council to take off a sales tax

on slaves sold to Buenos Aires of $750rs (10pesos) per slave36. This tax was created in the

aftermath of the Great Siege (1735-37) by Joseph da Silva Paz, former Governor of Rio de

Janeiro and Santa Catarina, when he has been interim governor of Sacramento. The petition

to release the tax sustained that the illegality of the tax sinnce it was created without Royal

license, and Vasconcellos also referred the disadvantages of the Sacramentos inhabitants

when selling slaves and negotiating prizes with patrons from Buenos Aires. Based on such

36
AHU-Colonia do Sacramento. 18/VI/1746. Doc 409.
arguments, Vasconcellos petition was accepted and the tax was extinguished. The simple

existence of the tax is an undeniable sign of the existence of a stable and well organized

regional slave trade route.

In the late 1740s there are records of Sacramento merchants operating in the slave

trade direct from Africa, as well as there are records of slave vessels crossing the Atlantic

from the West-African coast straight to Sacramento. In the same year of 1746, Manoel

Pereira do Lago a prosperous merchant, militia captain and almoxarife da Fazenda Real,

petitioned to the King for sending a slave vessel to the African coast to acquire slaves to be

brought in Colonia37.

Table 7 - Slaves Disembarked in Sacramento from Africa

(Trans Atlantic Slave Trade Database, 1999)
Total
Year Slaves Children Children %
1748 386 2 0.5
1749 409 77 18.8
1749 452 65 16.0
1749 407 61 15.0
Total 1654 205 12.4

There are records of 4 slave vessels arriving in Colonia in 1748 and 174938, and the

number of slaves disembarked summed up to 1654. These numbers suggests that the arriving

of slaves vessels would had a strong impact in the towns demography, since the number of

slaves arriving represented roughly 50% of the towns population, considering 1760s data.

Such a numerous population arriving from another continent was quite probably an efficient

vector for epidemics. Although healthy climate, the disembarkation of human cargo was

likely to expose the citys inhabitants to diseases.

37
AHU - Colonia do Sacramento. 1746. Doc. 408.
38
STDB. 1999.
 Another data that suggests the role of Sacramento as a regional distribution center for

Luso-Brazilian slaver trade is the redistribution number of Bahia during the period 1760-170.

According to Vieira Ribeiro, Sacramento received 211 slaves from bahia (208 Africans and 3

Creoles), or 1.2% of the total of slaves exported from Bahia in the period. Although the

number are low, one must take in consideration that Sacramento main commercial

connection was with Rio de Janeiros commercial community rather than with Bahia.

Furthermore, if compared to other peripheral regions, such as Rio Grande do Sul (0.3%),

Sacramento was importing almost four times as many slaves, and almost the same quantity of

Mato Grosso (1.2%)39. The sum of the slave imports from bahia for So Paulo, Ceara, Santa

Catarina and Paraiba amounted 3% of total Bahias exports It is noteworthy, that Mato

Grosso, Rio Grande do Sul, So Paulo and the other destinations were regions rather than a

single town, and counted on agricultural and mining hinterlands, which Sacramento did not.

The data regarding slave trade activity in Sacramento allow us drawing some

conclusions. First, the quantity of slaves arriving is unlikely to be explained only by the local

demand; rather it indicates the selling of slaves in the regional market within the port

complex of Rio de la Plata. Second, the existence of a slave sales tax, a local merchant

involved in the slave trade directly with Africa, and four slave vessels arriving in Sacramento

indicates the existence of a stable market for slaves in the Rio de la Plata.

39
RIBEIRO, 2005. p108.
 Sacramento Stable and Variable Population - Wild Estimations

Sacramento by the second half of the eighteenth century had became an important

slave trade center in the region. In addition to tobacco, textiles, sugar, furniture and other

European goods traditionally traded during the first half of the 18th century, the slave trade

was also an important part of the towns activity by the second half of the 18th century. The

increasing of the slave trade in Sacramento coincided with the end of the English Asiento as

regional supplier of slaves. Furthermore, Colonia had became the connection between the

American-Portuguese slave trade and the Spanish-America in the Rio de la Plata.

Considering that the high number of slaves in the 1760s population list was due by

slave trade, and some slaves were not actually residing in Sacramento, what would be the

stable population of Sacramento? What part of the population listed in 1760 was actually

living in town, participating in the communitys life? What was the scale of the slave trade

and the economic dimension of it in Sacramento?

Unfortunately, the population list of 1760 does not give enough information for

calculate a precise number of people actually living in Sacramento. However, considering

1763s data on births as a sample of the womens residing in the town, it allow us to estimate

an approximate proportion of women giving birth in 1763 to the 1760s population data. This

operation intends to estimate the percentage of slave women actually living in Sacramento

a wild estimation. I am using the proportion of women recorded in 1763s births as a

surrogate number to 1760s population. I am considering, for this estimation, that the women

giving birth in Sacramento were residing in town, and that the age distribution of the slave

population were similar to the free population.

 Table 8 Estimation for women residing Sacramento 1760 according to
birth distribution of 1763
Female Female
1760 Population
Participation According to
in Births Births'
1763 (%) Participation Variation
Free 471 58.0% 471 0%
Slaves 634 42.0% 342 -45.9%
Total 1105 100.00% 813 -26.4%

According to 1760s and 1763 data combined, of 634 enslaved women present in

Sacramento in 1760, only 342 were actually permanent inhabitants of Sacramento. In other

words, 45.9% of the slave women present in Sacramento in 1760 were to be sold for the

Spanish-American market.

Because of the lacking of precise data on slaves becoming fathers in Colonia, since

most of slaves newborns were natural children without the fathers record, the estimation of

a stable population of slaves is even more imprecise. Nevertheless, these are the only

available data that would allow a rough estimation that would give us a sense about the

economical and social aspects of the slave trade in Sacramento. Considering a high number

hypothesis that all the natural children borne in Colonia would had a slave father the

percentage slaves among the Sacramentos fathers would be 36%. Nevertheless, considering

that the sex ratio among slaves presented a larger number of males, in using the female

participation in the population the final estimation is a low number hypothesis on the male

slave stable population.

 Table 9 - Revision of Fathers Population according to Births High Estimation
Father's
Male Population Distribution Revised Stable
1760 1763 Population Variation
Free 667 64% 667 0%
Slaves 941 36% 578.5 -38.5
Total 1607 100 1245.5 -22%

Considering this rough estimation as minimum representative, 38.5% of the male

slave population of Sacramento would be sold as part in the regional slave market. In general

terms, one out of each five men in Sacramento was a slave to be sell to the Spanish market. It

is noteworthy the after 1746 the slaves tax sale was extinguished.

The calculation of this roughly estimation for the stable population of Sacramento

presents many pitfalls, not only because of lacking of precise data, but also because the sex

balance within the slaves usually tends to be in pro of men and therefore many men would

become father. Nevertheless, such an estimation intends only to give a sense of the

significance of the variable population in the daily life of the city and the scale of the human

trade in the Luso-Platine Colony.

The implications of the existence of such variable population are, on the one hand,

material and economic. Because of the high number of slaves passing through Sacramento

must had required a stable demand, the existence of facilities to manage such a business and

would made the more town vulnerable to epidemics. The numbers of the slave trade for the

late 1740s suggests a large human trade. Sacramento demography was shaped by its

borderland and port situation that allowed the town to be the connection between the Luso-

Brazilian slave routes and the Spanish America in the late 18th century.

On the other hand, because an important portion of the population was variable, the

experience of belonging to a community, sharing a daily life and social experiences was
restricted to only a part of the population - the stable population. Moreover, the stable

settlers would probably consider themselves apart of the temporary inhabitants, although the

military lists do not mark such a difference.

Table 10 - Estimation of Stable Population in 1760

Minimum participation of slaves based on the births distribution in 1763
Male % Female % Total %
Free 667 61.1 471 57.9 1138 59.7
Slaves 424.8 38.9 342 42.1 766.8 40.3

Total 1091.8 100 813 100 1904.8 100.0

Sacramento Estiamted Stable Population 1760

40%
Slaves

60%
Free

The presence of slaves among the stable inhabitants of Sacramento in 1760 would be

around 43%, and they would count 57%. Although the majority of the stable population was

free, the percentage of slaves was still high, especially considering the inexistence of agrarian

suburbs. The significant presence of slaves in Colonias daily life is supported in face of the

existence of a Brotherhood do Rosario, and a freed-mestizo militia battalion in the second

half of the eighteenth century40. Thus, the slaves in Sacramento were not only a large portion

of the population, but also were integrated in the social life of the town.

These estimate numbers can not replace or substitute the actual numbers in

the sources for Sacramentos population; rather, these estimations can help in understanding

the daily life of inhabitants, their community identity, social strategies and political life.

Furthermore, selling slaves to Spanish America was a significant and stable activity of

Sacramento, the possibility of being exported or of escaping to the other side of the River or

to the open frontier of the Banda Oriental could have been a threat, for some slaves, ad well

as an option for runaways.

The Last Years under Portuguese Rule

In 1775, rumors about the political changes that would happen in the Rio de la Plata

already were driving Portugals intentions. Between 1775 and 1777, the Portuguese

diplomacy were conscious of Spains intentions of creating the new Vice Royalty of Rio de

la Plata. Thus, Sacramentos maintenance would be even more difficult. As a result, when

Don Pedro de Cevallos attacked for the second time Sacramento, the population was neither

able nor prepared to resist. Moreover, Sacramentos governor, Rocha Pitta had instructions to

not fight against the Vice Roy troops, rather to abandon the town. As a result, in the winter of

1777, the Portuguese population was expelled from Sacramento for the last time.41

Cevallos did not allowed any Portuguese to kept property of still living in the town.

The city walls as well as many houses were destroyed with grenades, and the population was

40
AHU-ACL-CU-012 - Colnia Sacramento Doc. 86. XII/1722. MONTEIRO. T.II.
41
GIL. 1931. p. 229
arrested. Most of the former Sacramento inhabitants were brought Buenos Aires and had their

property confiscated or embargoed by the Vice Roy.42

After almost one century of Portuguese presence in the Rio de la Plata, Sacramento,

the far south colony of the Portuguese Empire in America passed to Spanish jurisdiction. One

year later, the Free Commerce law would open the ports of Montevideo and Buenos Aires to

the Atlantic Market, substituting the role of Sacramento as the link between the region and

Europe and Brazil.

The Aftermath of the Conquest

After the fall of Sacramento, the Portuguese commercial presence in the Rio de la

Plata remained significant.43 However, Colonias population was no longer legally involved

in such activities anymore.

In 1783, Miguel de Riglos was ordered to make a complete census of the town.

Acoring to him, Colonia was inhabited at that time for 290 people. Among this population

there were 145 men and 145 women. There were 30 slaves and 15 pardos. Although formarly

there was no Portuguese subjects in the town anymore, I could recognize at least one settler

that remained from the Portuguese period. Nevertheless, most of these settlers were Spanish,

and they were commissioned with the former Portuguese properties in the suburbs of

Colonia44. In addition, the region in the following decades would develop an important wheat

production, which was highly commercialized45.

42
MESQUITA. 1980.p 23-29.
43
TEJERINA. 2004.
44
GIL. 1931. p 138-141.
45
GELMAN. 1998. p 42ss
 Conclusions

The development of the Colonia do Sacramento in the 18th century shows an

particular example of the population evolution in a borderland and a frontier in South

America. Sacramentos demographic, commercial an agricultural change tells the evolution

of the relation between the Iberian Empires and the other European powers, especially

England.

The evolution of Sacramento populations growth makes clear the evolution of the

commercial, agricultural and territorial characteristics of the city, and it can be divided into

two periods. The first one characterized by a large and fast population growth combined with

a fast expansion and occupation of the countryside. This period ends with the Great Siege of

1735-1737 and the lost of the agricultural suburbs. As a result, a sharp population decrease

was recorded.

The second period starts in 1737 and is characterized by steady population growth

based in the development of intense commercial activities and the increase of slave trade

activities. By the 1760s Sacramento had regained population, and was converted in a active

commercial entrepot. By then, slaves became to be one of the main products offered by

Sacramento in the Rio de la Plata port complex. In this period, the effective population of the

town was not always the same as the resident population, the total population could include

temporary inhabitants in the form of slaves to be sold in the regional market.

The demographic evolution of Sacramento shows the Portuguese strategies of

colonization, especially in the first ten year after the foundation. The use of Indians to do

public work, military men, convicts, official settlers, free migrants and slaves shows that the

Portuguese used different forms of migratory regimes combined and intensively. Their

success can be accessed considering that Sacramento although the intermittent warfare that
provoked dramatically population changes, during peace time presented constant population

growth.

It is noteworthy that the casais, the official settlers, were from Portugal ad the

Atlantic Islands. When they arrived they brought with themselves the social hierarchy of their

homeland. This hierarchy was expressed in legal documents, military offices and militia

offices related to the casais in Sacramento.

By the 1760s, a considerable part of the population is native born. The majority of

the women bearing children in the 1760s were natives from Sacramento, and the second

largest groups considering origin were women born in Buenos Ayres. The male population,

considering the origin of the Sacramentos father, rougly 1 out of every three was native form

Sacramento. Most of the males were from Portugal and the Atlantic Islands.

Sacramento, by the second half of the eighteenth century was still attracting

immigrants as well as already had formed a solid local society. The Sacramentos Creole elite

not only married within Sacramento natives, but also concentrated the marriages with women

from Buenos Aires.

The population of Sacramento was in its majority composed of slaves. However, a

significant part of these slaves were to be sold to Buenos Aires. According to my estimative,

large portions of the population could be only temporary inhabitants of the city, especially

because the intense slave trade activity developed in the town. The number of slaves arriving

could reach 1500 slaves disembarked within less than two years, and such variation would

affect temporarily Sacramentos population regarding numbers and regarding the inhabitants

daily life. Moreover, the constant arrival of slaves might have been responsible for possible

epidemics in the town.

Nevertheless, although selling a significant part of the slaves to the Spanish America,

roughly, at least 40% of the permanent towns population was slaves. The slaves were
integrated and participated of the towns institutional life in other ways besides the slave

trade. There were a freed-mestizo militia and a Rozarios brotherhood in operation in

Sacramento at least until the 1760s.

. In the second half of the 18th century, Sacramento had became the connection

between the Brazilian commercial community of Rio de Janeiro in the Rio de la Plata.

Although the obliteration of Colonia in 1777, the commercial contacts between the Rio de

Janeiro commercial community and the Rio de la Plata would last until the end of the

Colonial period.

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consultado em 21 de setembro de 2001]
SOCOLOW, Susan. Los Mercaderes de Buenos Aires Vireinal. Buenos Aires, Ed. De la Flor. 1991.
SOCOLOW, Susan. The Bureaucrats of Buenos Aires: Amor al Real Servicio. Durham: Duke University
Press. 1996.
SOCOLOW, S. e JOHNSON, L Poblacion y espacio en el Buenos Aires del siglo XVIII. Desarollo
Economico. V. 20. N. 19. 1980.
TEJERINA, Marcela. Luso-Brasileos en el Buenos Aires Virreinal. Bahia Blanca: Ediuns. 2004.
TORRES REVELLO, Jos. Historia de la Academia. V. 3
TULA, Anbal Riveros. Historia de la Colonia del Sacramento. IHGU. Montevideo. 1951
VELLINHO, Moyss. Fronteira. Porto Alegre: Globo/UFRGS, 1975 [1973].
 EMORY UNIVERSITY
GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES
DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY
HIST 585 Empires Past & Present
Prof. Crais & Ravina

The Colonial Roots of the British Informal Empire in Latin America:

the Anglo-Portuguese Alliance an the Origins of the Imperialism of Free Trade

Fabrcio Prado

Atlanta, May 2006

 The Colonial Roots of the British Informal Empire in Latin America:
the Anglo-Portuguese Alliance an the Origins of the Imperialism of Free Trade

The historiography on imperialism regarding Latin America considers the region

as part of the informal British Empire in the 19th century.1 This scholarship believes that

although with relatively little governmental direct interference and support, British

entrepreneurs and investors controlled significant resources in the regions economy and

society. Such an influential role of British interests in Latin America varied from region

to region and also depended on native elites collaboration.2 Most of this historiography

considers the origin of the British informal empire in Latin America as a result of the

replacement of the Iberian metropoles hegemony by the British, a phenomenon of the

19th century. However, the British informal presence in the region has older roots in the

18th century, when through the Anglo-Portuguese alliance British merchants and

investors had access to important markets in the Southern Cone, namely Brazil and the

Rio de la Plata.

In this paper, I will argue that during the 18th century, treaties and private

alliances between the British and the Portuguese allowed British merchants to participate

on Brazils and Rio de la Plata markets developing commercial and social networks;

these networks allowed the incorporation of these regions to the British informal empire

in the end of Spanish and Portuguese rule. The treaties and alliances celebrated between

Britain and Portugal granted access to British merchants to the Portuguese market at the

same that assured British military support for the protection Portuguese domains in the

1
John Gallagher and Ronald Robinson The Imperialism of the Free Trade[1953] In: John Gallagher and
Anil Seal The Decline, Revival and fall of the British Empire. Cambridge: Oxford University Press. 1982. p
1 19.
2
Ronald Robinson Non-European Foundations of European Imperialism: sketch for a theory of
collaboration. In: Roger Owen & Bob Sutclife. Studies in the Theory of Imperialism. P. 117-142.

2
Southern Cone. The British participation in the Portuguese empires market was

concretized by private commercial agents, who developed networks with the local elites.

Luso-Brazilians and British traders established partnerships and family ties; the nature of

such interactions reveals a longstanding association in the 18th century, although not

necessarily with an equal balance of power between both parties. By the late 1700s and

the early 1800s Luso-Brazilian merchants depended on the British supply for textiles and

other manufactured products, as well as the Portuguese empire relied on the British

troops to defend its possessions against other European empires, principally the Spanish.3

This was the case in 1763, and 1777, when for two times Anglo-Portuguese fleets

defended the Portuguese town of Colonia do Sacramento.

Although the Portuguese dependence on British manufactures and military

support, Britain also depended on the Anglo-Portuguese alliance to have access to the

Spanish markets in Rio de la Plata, via Portuguese networks, and for logistics of the

maritime routes to Cape Town and Australia. Between 1716 and 1777, the Portuguese

town of Colonia do Sacramento, in the northern bank of the Rio de la Plata estuary

functioned as harbor for British ships, and as the door for British products to enter in the

Spanish markets in the region. Trade partnerships between Luso-Brazilian merchants, and

family networks linking the local elites to the British allowed the latter to produce

information about the regions market and society previously to the creation of the

informal empire in the 19th century.

33
During the 17th century the Portuguese found in the alliance with the British means to protect it colonial
possessions against the Dutch expansion. The alliance with British, another maritime power, were
responsible for the capacity of Portugual to keep and regain it;s colonies in Pernambuco, Brazil, and
Angola. Charles Boxer, The Golden Age of Brazil. New York: Cambridge University Press. 1962.

3
 The British also relied on the port logistics of the Portuguese, especially the port

of Rio de Janeiro, to develop their colonial projects in Australia and Cape Town. Because

of the geographical location in relation to sea-currents, Rio de Janeiro was a fundamental

scale in the trans-oceanic routes that linked London to its African and Australian

possessions. The Anglo-Portuguese relationship during the 18th century was a crucial

experience and a significant moment of knowledge production about the Southern Cone

region that allowed the creation of the British informal empire in the region in the 19th

century. Moreover, this alliance allowed the British expansion with lower costs and fewer

risks towards the East.

Empires, Imperialism of Free Trade and Latin America

The concept Empire appears in the western historiography of the modern era with

multiple meanings. The term is used as an analytical concept by distinct scholarships in

two basic different meanings: one referring to the Iberian Empires of the early modern

era,4 and another referring to the modern Empires of the 19th century, mainly referring to

the British Empire.5 Although a handful of historical works tried to understand both types

of Empires as parts of the same category, this approach had not became widespread

4
James Lockhardt and Stuart Schwartz, Early Latin America: a history of Spanish America and Brazil.
New York: Cambridge University Press. 1982.
5
For an emphasis in the second half of the 19th century Northwestern European Empires and Imperialism:
Frederick Cooper Colonialism in Question. Berkeley : University of California Press, c2005; Kenneth
Pomeranz. The Great Divergence. Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, c2000; Cooper & Stoler
Tensions of Empire Berkeley : University of California Press, c1997. For an theory of Empire based
exclusively on the British Empire in the late 19th century Asia, see James Hevia English Lessons Durham :
Duke University Press ; Hong Kong : Hong Kong University Press, 2003.

4
among historians of Latin America, nor among historians of Africa and Asia.6 In the

present paper I will use the term empire indistinctively for the British, the Portuguese and

the Spanish political and economical interests during the 18th and early 19th century. This

option resides first, in the fact that these political entities defined themselves in legal

terms as Empires; second, because they all held colonial possessions, had a juridical

system of difference between metropoles and the colonial periphery; third, these Empires

implemented their systems of values in the colonies; and fourth, because all of them

counted with military force to keep these regions under colonial rule.7

It is noteworthy that, according to this definition, I am excluding the Brazilian

Empire (1822-1889) of the category of empire. This resides, that although the countrys

political structure was self defined as an Empire, and it had a short colonial experience

while the incorporation of the Banda Oriental (Uruguay), this experience did not last even

a decade, and a consistent system of juridical differentiation or cultural values and ideas

was never implemented. Moreover, the Brazilian Empire during the 19th century was

closely related to the British Empire, developing an increasing economical dependency.

The role of the British Empire in Latin America has been object of debate among

historians. Although its strong commercial and political presence in the region in the 19th

century, the lacking of a colonizing presence in the region led historians to be cautious in

including the region as part of the British Empire. Nevertheless, in 1953, John

6
See: Christine Daniels & Michael Kennedy (ed.). Negotiated Empires centers and peripheries in the
Americas 1500 1820. New York: Routledge. 2002; Max Savelle, Empires to Nations: expansion in
America 1713-1824.Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 1974.
7
For a broad discussion on definition of Empire as an analytical category see: Michael Doyle Empires.
Ithaca: Cornell University Press. 1986. Cooper & Stoler Tensions of Empire Berkeley : University of
California Press, c1997. Charles Maier Among Empires. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 2006;
Michael Mann. Incoherent Empire. London ; New York : Verso, 2003.

5
Gallaghers and Ronald Robinsons The Imperialism of Free Trade provided the

theoretical tool for explaining the significant role of the British in the region after the end

of the Iberian colonial rule.8 According to Gallagher and Robinson, in many regions

where there was no direct necessity of establishing colonial rule to access the market, the

British Empire relied on alliances with local elites to trade and to protect the British

commercial interests. The defense of these interests, eventually, required a stronger

military or diplomatic support of the British Empire without, however, the establishment

of a formal dominion over these regions. Thus, the participation and cooptation of local

elites was a key element in the strategy of the Imperialism of the free trade.9

The authors created the term principally aiming to explain the nature of the

British presence in regions of Asia, Africa and Latin America; however, Latin American

scholars presented some resistance of using the concept as an analytical tool if compared

with the scholarship on Asia or Africa. It is symptomatic that in the volume Imperialism:

the Robinson and Gallagher Controversy edited in 1976, with more than ten articles,

there is only one by a Latin Americanist.10 One of the main impediments of the use of

term in examining Latin America was the fact that the British government never had a

consistent policy of direct intervention in the region in favor of the British subjects

interests.11 These impediments also derived of the concept of imperialism itself. To

8
John Gallagher and Ronald Robinson The Imperialism of the Free Trade[1953] In: John Gallagher and
Anil Seal The Decline, Revival and fall of the British Empire. Cambridge: Oxford University Press. 1982. p
1 19.
9
Ronald Robinson Non-European Foundations of European Imperialism: sketch for a theory of
collaboration. In: Roger Owen & Bob Sutclife. Studies in the Theory of Imperialism. P. 117-142.
10
Roger Louis (ed.) Imperialism: the Robinson and Gallagher controversy. New York: New Viewpoints.
1976. The only Latin Americanist participant of the compendium is Richard Graham with Robinson and
Gallagher in Latin America: the meaning of Imperilaism pp 217-222.
11
H. S. Ferns Argentina as part of an Informal Empire? In: Henessy and King The Land that England
Lost. London: British Academic Press. 1992. p 49-62. Also: D. C. M. Platt. Further Objections to an

6
certain authors imperialism required an official state engagement in establishing

hegemony and imposing their interests over the imperialized state. However, other

scholars used a broader definition of imperialism that considered private interests,

cultural influence and economic power as expressions of imperialism. Thus, although

private interests and investments were less formal than state driven interventions,

entrepreneurs and investors were powerful and effective in interfering in the local affairs

in the periphery.

Currently, the use of the term Informal Empire is undisputed as a useful analytical

category to analyze the British presence in Latin America in the 19th century. Authors

from diverse ideological positions had applied the concept while analyzing the early

independent period of the post-colonial states.12 Countries like Brazil, Argentina, and

Uruguay are by far, the most cited examples of the imperialism of free trade in the south-

west Atlantic. In these countries, after their political independence from the Iberian

metropoles, the British influence was not only economic, but also political and cultural.

Regarding Brazil, many historians pointed the intimate interaction with the

British. Gylberto Freyre noticed that political and cultural values were imported from

Britain, and even the Portuguese language had been changed due to the British

presence.13 Allan Manchester showed the significance of the British trade with Brazil,

and how the country was instrumental for the British presence in the Banda Oriental

Imperialism of Free Trade. In: Roger Louis (ed.) Imperialism: the Robinson and Gallagher controversy.
New York: New Viewpoints. 1976. pp 153-162.
12
Richard Graham Robinson and Gallagher in Latin America: the meaning of Imperilaism. In: Roger
Louis (ed.) Imperialism: the Robinson and Gallagher controversy. New York: New Viewpoints pp 217-
222; Leslie Bethell Britain and Argentine a historical perspective In: Bulmer-Thomas (Ed.) Britain and
Latin America a Changing Relationship. New York: University of Cambridge Press. 1989. p 1-24; and
other articles. Peter Winn. El Imperio Informal Britanico en el Plata. Montevideo: EBO. 1976. Peter Winn
Inglaterra y la Tierra Purpurea Montevideo: FHCE. 1997.
13
Gilberto Freyre. Ingleses no Brasil. Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro. 1948. Specially the
Introduction.

7
between 1810 and 1830. Manchester is also an exception for considering such an alliance

as a product interaction between Luso-Brazilians and the British, although his main

interest is clearly focused on the 19th century.14 More recently, Peter Winn has shown the

significance of the Anglo-Brazilian connection for the British interests in the region

during the period of civil wars in the 19th century.15 Winn describe the role of the Anglo-

Brazilian connection as sub-Brazilian-imperialism to describe the external policy of

Brazil as aggressive, but oriented by British interests and pressures allied with Brazilian

elites. These authors also pointed the importance of this relationship as a mean that the

British used to indirectly interfere in the Rio de la Plata region (e.g.: the Luso-Brazilian

interventions against, Artigas in 1811 and 1816, and against Rosas in 1851).

In Argentina and Uruguay historians had also paid attention to significance of the

interaction with Britain in the 19th century.16 However, because of the lacking of a formal

British presence in the region during colonial times, and the absence of the region as a

point of dispute in the diplomatic treaties celebrated between the British and the Spanish

Empires, contributed for the emphasis on such a relationship only in the 19th century.17

This historiography, however, although it has theorized and documented the

British presence and influence in Latin America in the 19th century, silences about this

14
Allan Manchester The British Preeminence in Brazil. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
1933. Specially chapters: The transfer of the Court to Rio de Janeiro, Lord Strangford anf Portuguese
Designs on Band Oriental, and Success and Failure in the Banda Oriental.
15
Peter Winn. El Imperio Informal Britanico en el Plata. Montevideo: EBO. 1976. Peter Winn Inglaterra y
la Tierra Purpurea Montevideo: FHCE. 1997.
16
Henessy and King The Land that England Lost. London: British Academic Press. 1992. Jose Pedro
Barran. Battle y los Estancieros y el Imperio Britanico. Montevideo : Ediciones de la Banda Oriental,
[1979]
17
Fernando Jumar El Precio de la Fidelidad paper presented in the international colloquium Guerre et
Paix and Espagne et Latin Amerique, Paris, Sorbonne 10-12 October 2002. p 2-7.

8
interaction in the colonial period.18 With the exception of Manchester, most of the

authors only analyze the British presence in the region as a phenomenon associated with

the regions decolonization. Therefore, the British Informal Empire in Latin America is

represented as an eminently 19th century post-colonial phenomenon in the Rio de la Plata.

But, how the British Empire and merchants did in the 19th century replace the old

metropoles in the region? How did they know how to operate in those markets? How did

they choose local allies, and how did they build commercial networks in the region? I

suggest that the British Informal Empire in Latin America was the result of a long

standing presence as the Portuguese allied in the region since the 18th century. The

continued Portuguese presence, especially in the Rio de la Plata, allowed British

merchants to establish local networks and produce instrumental knowledge that permitted

the consolidation of the British presence during and after the Independence process.

18
Allan Manchester is a notable exception, although the author analyzes gives little attention to the colonial
period.

9
Rio de la Plata and Southern Brazil (c.1750)

The Anglo-Portuguese Alliance and Colonia do Sacramento

Since the end of the Iberian Union (1580-1640), England and Portugal celebrated

commercial and mutual protection treaties.19 These treaties assured to the British access

to Portugals colonial markets, and ports in the Atlantic and in the Indian Ocean. To

Portugal such an alliance represented the ability to supply with manufactures its domains.

Moreover, in several occasions, the British diplomacy backed Portuguese interests in the

broader European political scenario. It was thanks to British diplomacy, for instance, that

the Portuguese town of Colonia do Sacramento, created in 1680, was regained from the
19
The Anglo-Portuguese treaties were the following: 1642, 1654, 1661 and 1703. The Methuen Treaty of
1703 consolidated the Portuguese dependence on Britain for manufactures. See Rudy Bauss The Critical
Importance of Rio de Janeiro to British Interests, with particular attention to Australia in the formative
years Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society. 65 1979. p 145-172. During the 18th century the
British diplomacy supported Portuguese claims in 1715, 1737, 1764, and 1777.

10
Spain in 1681, 1715, and 1764. The Anglo-Portuguese alliance allowed the subjects of

the two Empires to develop longstanding relationships, that connected Portuguese and

British merchants through commercial and social networks.

Local Networks and Alliances

After the second Utrecht Treaty of 1715, the Portuguese regained control over

Colonia do Sacramento, and the British via South Sea Company had the Asiento contract

with Spain to introduce a certain quantity of textiles and a certain number of slaves in

Spanish territories in the Americas. Sacramento during the 18th century has become a safe

harbor for British ships. Although the British Asiento in the Rio de la Plata was located

few miles northern to Colonia, the commercial limitations imposed by Spain to that

enterprise stimulated the British to found refuge in the harbor of Colonia. Because the

short duration of the Asiento (1717-1727, with interruptions), British ships found refuge

in Colonias harbor and skilled partners in the Luso-Brazilian traders of the town. This

partnership was a longstanding one.

During the period, constant British presence in the Rio de la Plata estuary

associated with the Sacramento merchants and authorities was recurrent. In the region,

British traders were able to negotiate using smuggling networks, many times

intermediated by the Portuguese. They sold slaves, textiles and other manufactured

products and acquired silver and hides from the region. To participate in the Rio de la

Platas market, British merchants developed many techniques and methods to break the

Spanish monopoly the alliance with the Portuguese was a key factor.

11
 During the 1720s and 1730s many British ships harbored in Colonia, where

they were protected against Spanish authorities and were able to sell their products.20

This was the case of the British ships St. Mitchell and Cambridge.21 Both vessels carried

slaves and textiles. They stayed in the region for many months selling products and

buying hides from local merchants. During this period, there were many denounces of the

connivance of Sacramentos and Buenos Aires authorities with the British illegal trade

activities. 22 In Colonia, some local merchants complained that the British approached the

customers that were crossed the River Plate from Buenos Aires before they got to

Colonia, offering then cheap merchandise. However, the Luso-Brazilian authorities,

under the pretext that they could not deny harboring for vessels from a friend nation,

allowed the ships to be supplied, and the crew to go inland.23 Moreover, British officials

used to socialize with authorities in feasts and participate in the religious festivals.

The British-Portuguese-Buenos Aires connection, however, was exposed in detail

in the early 1730s, when merchants of Buenos Aires and Colonia presented denounces of

the involvement of the local authorities in a complex scheme for illegal trading. The

change of governors in Buenos Aires was the beginning of a conflict between two

powerful local factions, and such confrontations generated serious consequences in the

Colonia of Sacramento.24 The substitution of porteo governors marked the beginning of

20
Arquivo Histrico Ultramarino (AHU) Colonia do Sacramento Doc. 156. 31/03/1726; AHU Colonia
do Sacramento Doc. 195. 13/06/1728; AHU Rio de Janeiro Doc. 9808. 18/02/1737.
21
Journal of a Scotch Sailor. Hispanic Society f America New York HC 363-1299. 1726-1728. The parts
referred here are mainly from 1727-1728. I thank to Prof. David Eltis for this material. AHU Colonia do
Sacramento Doc. 156. 31/03/1726.
22
AHU Colonia do Sacramento Doc. 195. 13/06/1728 & 11/07/1729. Lisanti Filho (ed.) Negocios
Coloniais. Cartas da Colonia. 4/07/1727.
23
Journal of a Scotch Sailor. Hispanic Society f America New York HC 363-1299. 1726-1728.
24
Early modern colonial societies presented many times Old Regime characterisitics. One aspect of that
was the existence of factions based on personal alliances and networks. The bandos cmpeted for power
and the material control of resources, mobilizing people and political institutions. Zacarias Moutoukias

12
a series of lawsuits involving merchants and authorities. As soon as the former governor

Mauricio de Zavala left office, the Real Hacienda Officers that worked with him were

imprisoned.25 As Hacienda Officers, they were responsible for collecting the Royal taxes

and for inspecting the merchandise that arrived at the port of the city. However,

Francisco de Alzaybar, who owned officially licensed mercantile ships in the Rio de la

Plata and also permission to repress the contraband in the estuary, accused the officers

Don Diego de Sorarte, and Don Alonzo de Arce y Arcos of controlling several

contraband enterprises in association with the British and the Luso-Brazilians from

Colonia do Sacramento26.

The denounced scheme was that the Real Hacienda Officers and the former

governor kept intense contacts with the English. In exchange for wonderful dinners,

gatherings and parties at the South Sea Companys warehouses, the officers facilitated

the contraband for the British. They were also accused of receiving amounts around

6.000 pesos to allow South Sea Company ships to anchor in the port of Buenos Aires

Redes Personales y Autoridad Colonial. 1992. Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales Paris, mai-juin. 1992.
(Translated by Maria Zapiola. Universidade de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Filosofia y Letras.1998.) p 6. For
factions conflicts in Buenos Aires: Susan Socolow. The Bureaucrats of Buenos Aires: Amor al Real
Servicio. Durham: Duke University Press. 1987, and also Fernando Jumar. Le commerce Atlantique Au Rio
de la Plata. Paris: cole des Hautes tudes en Science Sociales. 2000. Thesis de Doctorat. For factions
conflicts in the Portuguese America Amrica portuguesa. Joo Fragoso. A nobreza da Repblica: notas
sobre a formao da primeira elite senhorial do Rio de Janeiro (sculos XVI e XVII). In: TOPI, Revista
de Histria do Programa de Ps-graduao em Histria Social da UFRJ no. 1, 2000 and FRAGOSO,
Joo. GOUVEA, Maria de Ftima e BICALHO, Maria Fernanda (organizadores). O Antigo Regime nos
TrpicosRio de Janeiro: Civilizao Brasileira. 2001. Prof. Fragoso found the same type of conflict
between mercantile faction found in Buenos Aires by Socolow and Moutoukias in the Rio de Janeiros
market. Moreover, the author argues that such conflicts were also common in other regions of the Portugue
Seaborne Empire; for instance, in India and Africa. The author define such markets as dominated by
Bandos leaded by Fidalgos. P 57 e 61.
25
It is important to highlight that these positions of oficiais da Real Hacienda, until the Bourbon reforms,
in the 1770s, were purchased; therefore, many of the Hacienda bureaucrats were merchants.
SOCOLOW, Susan. The Bureaucrats of Buenos Aires: Amor al Real Servicio. Durham: Duke University
Press. 1987, and MOUTOUKIAS, Zacarias. Redes Personales y Autoridad Colonial. 1992. Annales.
Histoire, Sciences Sociales Paris, mai-juin. 1992. (Translated by Maria Zapiola. Universidade de Buenos
Aires. Facultad de Filosofia y Letras.1998.)
26
Archivo General de la Nacin Argentina (AGN) Tribunales Sala IX 39.9.4 Exp. 01

13
under some excuse. The metropolitan judge who investigated the denunciations said that

the Royal officers used to delay the inspection on board of merchant ships between one

and three days. This time would be enough to download illegal goods in the islands of the

River Plate, temporarily, or to it store in Colonia or Eastern Band. Thus, when the Royal

officers went on board to inspect the English ships they would never find any illegality.

At the same time, in Colonia do Sacramento, the relationship between the governor

Antonio Pedro de Vasconcellos, who governed Sacramento from 1722 to 1749, and some

merchants (homens de negocios), especially Joseph Meira da Rocha, becoming

conflictive. The situation could be compared to the faction confrontation that was

happening in Buenos Aires. According Meira da Rocha:

Neste mes chegaram a Buenos Aires os navios do assento da Inglaterra, e

juntamente, o rezisto em q. veio o novo governador, e ministros para aquella
cidade os quais tem feito suas reformas nos officiais antigos achando-se ja
alguns prezos; e com os benz confiscados, o que tem cauzado seus azedumes, de
bocca a esta praa ou aos ministros della na conciderao de q. algum dia
susseda por ca o mesmo q. no falta em q.27
[The ships of the British Asiento arrived in Buenos Aires this month. Together

arrived the Spanish official ship, in which arrived the new governor and royal officers for

that city, and they are doing serious reforms there. The former officers had their

properties confiscated. Such a situation has been provoking bitter moods here in Colonia,

since the officers are afraid that similar thing might happen here one day, since there are

plenty of reasons for it.]

27
Lisanti Filho, L. Negcios Coloniais. Rio de Janeiro: Imprensa Oficial. 1973. Cartas da Colnia do
Sacramento. P 337. 14/III/1734.

14
 Meira mentioned the inquiries which resulted in the arrest and embargo of the

estates of Don Diego de Sorarte and Don Alonzo de Arce y Arcos. His accusation was an

indicator that there was a suspicious structure of alliances between the Colonias

Governor and his officers. Meira da Rocha suggested that the Colonias officers were

afraid of similar inquiries and processes may occur in Sacramento. These accusations

were centered, however, on the person of the governor Vasconcellos because he was the

most visible part of the scheme, the most prominent character of his group.

The Meira da Rochas denunciations against Vasconcellos aimed to expose his

illegal activities with the British merchants to the colonial centers of power, especially to

the authorities in the far away Lisbon. The Sacramentos authorities, according Meira da

Rocha, the governor and his higher ranking officers received expressive sums around

4:800$000ris, to allow the presence of English ships in the Colonia harbor. Furthermore,

Meira da Rocha also denounced the great scandal of the numerous dinners and slap-ups

meals in which the main merchants and authorities from Colonia participated with

Vasconcellos and the British.

The Anglo-Portuguese joint enterprises also took other forms, more subtle and

that denoted the deep level of inter-connection between Luso-Brazilians and the British in

Sacramento. In 1735, Francisco Alzaybar, the Spanish officer with the right of patrolling

the entrance of the River Plate estuary, denounced the strategies used by British

merchants to elude the conventions between Portugal and Spain and reach the harbor of

Colonia. According to Spanish laws, the British were not allowed to navigate in the Rio

de la Plata. Nevertheless, Alzaybar described that there were ships entering the estuary

15
with two flags, two captains, and two licenses one Portuguese and one British.28 The

ships usually left from London, to Lisbon, and then headed to Colonia do Sacramento, or

in the case of slave vessels, they from London, went to Guinea, and then to Sacramento.

Their cargo included textiles, knifes, and in some cases slaves. These double flagged

ships illuminates the strategies that British and Portuguese merchants used to fooled the

Spanish monopoly, at the same time it reveals the extension of the Anglo-Portuguese

commercial partnership. However, because of the double nationality of the ships, this

stratagem makes more difficult to quantify the presence of British vessels entering

Sacramentos harbor.

All these episodes reveal how the British merchants interacted within trans-

Imperial networks with the Portuguese, in Europe and in local colonial settings. The

British presence in the Rio de la Plata appears always connected with the Portuguese

from Colonia. Even regarding their direct interaction with the Buenos Aires mercantile

elite, the Portuguese are always mentioned as important associates of the British that

made viable the contraband operations, furnishing boats, storage and harbor. The

significance of the Portuguese-British alliance is also emphasized considering the feasts

and social gatherings that propitiated the creation and consolidation of informal networks.

Finally, the two flagged ships attest the strength and structural association between

merchants subjects of the two crowns.

The Portuguese were responsible for the logistics of the British participation in

the Rio de la Plata market in the first half of the 18th century. Moreover, the merchants

from Colonia were responsible for connecting the British to the local networks of trade

and authority that allowed them to break the Spanish monopoly. The British, by their
28
AGN - SALA IX 2.1.4 - MONTEVIDEO 1731-1751, 17/07/1735.

16
turn, assured the supply of manufactures at a competitive price that allowed the

Portuguese direct trade supplying the Buenos Aires merchants.29

The connection with the British was not restricted to trade circuits. The British

ships also carried copy of private and administrative letters from Rio de la Plata to

Lisbon, and they were delivered via London.30 This procedure was due two reasons: 1

two copies of the letter sent through two different routes would avoid the loss of

information in case of shipwreck, attack by enemies; 2 it avoided serious delay in the

communication, if one of the ships took too long to get to its destination. Nevertheless,

the use of the British communication network evinces the close relationship between the

British and Portuguese mercantile elites regarding their enterprises in the South Atlantic.

The constant presence of British traders in the Rio de la Plata leaded some of

them to root their interests and to integrate in the local social networks. In 1752, the

British merchant John Burrish petitioned the Portuguese Crown to become its loyal

subject in order to marry Dona Rita Botelho.31 Rita Botelho was the daughter of the

colonel Manoel Botelho de Lacerda, the head of the most powerful family in Colonia,

and second man in the line of power in Colonias administration.32 Botelho was one of

the officials charged of having illicit connections with the British in the 1730s. The

29
The merchants of Buenos Aires controlled the vast hinterland the today is Argentina, Bolivia and parts of
Chile. They concentrate most of the money flowing in the region through the control of commercial
networks. The merchants of Buenos Aires concentrate the control over most of the trans-Atlantic trade.
Jorge Gelman. De Mercanchifle a Gran Comericiante. La Rabida: Universidad Internacional Andalucia.
1996.
30
AHU Doc 145. 24/06/1725; also Lisanti Filho, L. Negcios Coloniais. Rio de Janeiro: Imprensa
Oficial. 1973. Cartas da Colnia do Sacramento. Passim.
31
AHU Doc. 460. 1752.
32
For the proeminence of the Botelho family in Colonia and its commercial connections with Buenos Aires
and Rio de Janeiro: Fabricio Prado A Colonia do Sacramento: o extremo sul da America Portuguesa. Porto
Alegre: Fumproarte. 2002. Chapter 4. For the significance of marriages in merchants families see:
SOCOLOW, Susan. Los Mercaderes de Buenos Aires Vireinal. Buenos Aires, Ed. De la Flor. 1991;
GREENE, Jack P. Negotiated Authorities. In: Essays in Colonial Political and Constitutional History.
The University Press of Virginia, 1994. Fragoso. Homens de Grossa Ventura. Rio de Janeiro: Civilizaco
Brasileira. 1993.

17
incorporation of a British trader in the Botelho family shows the degree of articulation of

the Anglo-Portuguese relationship in the Rio de la Plata in the 1750s, and that such a

business still interesting both Luso-Brazilians and British traders.

Colonia do Sacramento represented, for the British, access to the back doors of

the Spanish Empire in the South Atlantic. The recurrent presence of British traders

allowed consolidating their connections, to produce knowledge about the market, prices,

products, and especially the navigational directions in the estuary. This important

information was resultant of a longstanding interaction in the region. Colonia was part of

the British networks of communication, and the Portuguese information circulated

through British channels. Thus, the Anglo-Portuguese alliance secured the semi-formal,

though direct British presence in the Rio de la Plata region.

From Sacramento to Australia The Evolution of the English Colonial Venture

In December, 1762, as a result of the nullification of the Madrid treaty and the

Seven-Year in Europe, Spanish troops from Buenos Aires attacked and occupied

Sacramento and the southern province of Rio Grande in Brazil. It was not until 1764 that

the town was returned to Portuguese domains, and Rio Grande was only regained by the

Portuguese through warfare in 1776. In 1763, a joint fleet half Portuguese half British

unsuccessfully seized Colonia aiming to expel the Spaniards from there. At this moment,

the Anglo-Portuguese alliance manifested itself in a military intervention. Despite its

failure, it signalized the importance of safe access to the River Plate for both empires.

The Anglo-British fleet counted with three vessels, two British ships with 64 and

40 guns respectively, and one from Rio de Janeiro 38 guns. The British fleet was under

18
the command of the admiral Robert McNamara, and the largest ship was the Lord

Clive. The battle for Colonia took several hours, and ended with the Lord Clive burnt

in Colonias harbor. The Anglo-Portuguese fleet then returned to Rio. It was via

diplomacy, with British support that Colonia was regained by Portugal from Spain in

1764. It is significant that the territories of Rio Grande in southern Brazil were not part of

the treaty, revealing the primary British interest in the River Plate enterprise.

The British ships that went to defend of Colonia were privately financed by

investors. To raise funds to prepare the three ships there were a public fundraising

auction for investors acquiring shares of the enterprise. More than sixty thousand sterling

pounds were raised; amount enough for acquiring two ships, one of them, the just

renewed Lord Clive.33 The fact that the enterprise was financed by a pool of private

investors corroborates the fact that the Rio de la Plata region was a well known region for

overseas ventures, although it was not a formal part of the empire.

The Rio de la Plata region was represented in many aspects in Britain, as part of

the British colonial ventures. The reference to Lord Clive , the British colonial

entrepreneur in India, in the name of the ship shows the existence of an image of

colonialism associated to the overseas enterprises and that Rio de la Platas regions was

part of it. The poet Thomas Penrose participated in the 1763 Rio de la Platas defeat, and

wrote a poem in the occasion. On Elegy on Leaving the River Plate, the British

reverend lamented the defeat of the fleet, at the same time that invoked the memory of

Drake, as the sacrifices that his men suffered for the British expansion.34 Penrose also

mentions the wealth of the Potosis silver justifying the fail triumphant oer La Platas

33
Adolfo Oelkers. Incendio y Naufragio del Lord Clive Montevideo: Ed. Torre del Vigia. 2003. p 13-43.
34
Thomas Penrose. Poems by the Rev. Thomas Penrose. Dublin: printed for W. and H. Whitestone, T.
Walker, P. Byrne, N. Cross, and C. Lewis. 1782. p 10-12.

19
tide. This poem circulated within literate circles, and it was widespread enough that

allowed John Luccok, a British traveler in South America in 1820, to describe Colonia as

the place where the Royal Navy was defeated by the Spaniards in the 1760s, mentioning

Penroses poem.35 Therefore, besides the Rio de la Plata commercial interest, there were

a representation of the region as part of the British colonial world that transcended the

pure commercial or military sphere.

The circulation of such representations coincided with a moment of increasing

systematization of information about colonial peripheries by the British bureaucracy.

During the second half of the 18th century, there were an increasing concern with the

accumulation and standardization of knowledge about peripheral regions, that would

eventually culminate with the creation of the Admiralty Hydrographic Office in 1795.36

This office compiled nautical maps, descriptions of towns and cities and images from

distant regions reorganizing such material in a standardized fashion according to

scientific and methodical procedures taught in the Royal Navy Academy and other

institutions. Therefore, during the end of the 18th century, multiple representations of

Latin America, specifically the River Plate, were produced in diverse spheres that

informed the British subjects in interacting in the region.

Between 1775 and 1777, Colonia was threatened by the Spaniards again. This

time, it was the commodore Arthur Phillip the commander of the Anglo-Portuguese fleet

in charge of defending Colonia. Phillip relieved the Spanish pressures over Colonia in

1775, and requested back up from Rio in 1776. Other British officer commanding another

35
In the year of 1762, the British auxiliaries were defeated at this place, and one of our ships was burned.
Penrose, the poet, was in the action, and just before it began, addressed a beautiful poem. John Luccok
Notes on Rio de Janeiro and the Southern parts of Brazil: taken during a residence of ten years in that
country from 1808 to 1818 London: Samuel Leigh. 1820. P 166.
36
Lima Martins, Navigating in Tropical Waters. Imago Mundi, 50.1998 pp 141-155. P 145.

20
Anglo-Portuguese fleet were dispatched from Rio, but the superiority of the Spanish

forces were overwhelming. The Spanish expedition that attacked Colonia this time was

composed of almost a hundred ships, and was lead by D. Pedro de Cevallos, the just

named first Vice-Roy of the River Plate. In elevating the Rio de la Plata region to a Vice

Royalty, the Spanish Empire aimed the definitive displacement of the Portuguese. In July

of 1777, Sacramento was taken by the Spaniards for the last time in the 18th century. All

the inhabitants of Sacramento were evicted and transferred to Buenos Aires frontier

areas, isolated from other Portuguese possessions.

In the following decade, although without a formal presence in the region, the

Luso-Brazilian merchants kept their prominent position as important suppliers of the

region.37 Montevideos port, by this time, presented a sharp increase in its commercial

activities. In 1795, because of the recurrent smuggling, the Spanish Empire legalized the

trade between Brazil and Montevideo. Thus, the Rio de la Plata doors were officially

would open again to Rio de Janeiro merchants and their powerful associates.

The events that unfolded in Colonia and the Brazilian coast in the 1770s were

regarded by the bureaucrats of British Empire as part of the Empires interests. Because

of such an interpretation, the time Phillip spent working in Brazil and Colonia was

considered as services to the Royal Navy, even though it was related to the defense of the

Portuguese possessions. Because of his experience in the South Atlantic, and his

connections in Rio de Janeiro, Arthur Phillip was designated in the 1780s to be the

37
Arturo Bentancour. El Puerto Colonial de Montevideo. Montevideo: 1997. Marcela Tejerina. El
Comrcio Luso-Brasileo en Buenos Aires Virreinal. Bahia Blanca: Ed. Univ. Bahia Blanca. 2004.

21
person in charge of founding New South Wales in Botany Bay.38 The end of the

Portuguese rule on Colonia and the establishment of the Australian colony would start a

new phase in the Anglo-Portuguese alliance, where Rio de Janeiro would become an

important port regarding the logistics of the British colonial enterprise.

In the last decade of the 1700s, Rio de Janeiro was a crucial port of call for the

British fleet navigating towards Cape Town and Australia. Rio de Janeiro is situated in a

strategic position considering the oceanic circulation. To take the maritime route to cross

the Cape of Good Hope, one must pass by relatively in a small distance from the coast of

Rio de Janeiro. From Rio de Janeiro, the voyage to South Africa would take around 50

days, and to Australia 70.39 Rudy Bauss has shown the importance of the Brazilian port

in supplying food, water, wood and other goods for the ships bounded to South Africa,

and principally Australia. Advertisements in the London Times during the period

corroborate Bauss conclusions. The ships that navigated towards or from Australia

usually stopped and Rio de Janeiro.40

The Rio de Janeiro-Cape Town-Australia connection assured the logistics for

navigating to the British colonial areas, but it also allowed the exchange of information,

movement of people and goods between the Portuguese and the British empires. This

relationship, however, was not equal. Since the British had much more access to

Portuguese domains, and were able to establish direct connections with the Luso-

Brazilian elites than the Portuguese merchants were in British domains. The Luso-

Brazilian merchants were also dependent on British manufactures. Although they

38
Arthur King Arthur Phillip defensor de Colonia Revista Naval N.40 Montevideo. 2001.
39
Rudy Bauss The Critical Importance of Rio de Janeiro to British Interests, with particular attention to
Australia in the formative years Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society. 65 1979. p 145-172.
40
The London Times. Tuesday, Jul 15, 1817; pg. 1; Issue 10198; col A; Saturday, Aug 14, 1819; pg. 1;
Issue 10752; col A;

22
controlled the Brazilian internal market and the trade routes to Rio de la Plata, they relied

on the British for manufactures, since the Portugal was a weak metropole unable of

supplying its colonial markets.41 Thus, by the end of the 18th century, the Anglo-

Portuguese alliance was still significant, and it assured the informal presence of the

British in Latin America.

Epilogue

During the decade of 1810s, a traveler crossing Uruguay was able into ran into a

slaughter house named Matadouro do Ingles.42 Traveling in the countryside, a traveler

could also to spend a night discussing Christianism and the power of the Catholic Church

based on the version of the bible distributed by the British and Foreign Bible Society, in

the house of a local inhabitant.43 In 1828, England promoted the Provisional Peace Treaty

between the Brazilian Empire and the Argentinean Confederation. This treaty created

Uruguay as a buffer state in the region, with its political independence recognized and

assured by the British Empire. The creation of an autonomous state between Brazil and

the Argentinean Conferedation assured the free navigation in the River Plate, and access

to the regions markets on free trade basis. Uruguays existence assured that neither

Brazil, nor the Argentinean Confederation would have too much control over strategic

areas in the region, especially in a moment when the tensions between England and

41
See FRAGOSO, Joo, e FLORENTINO, Manolo. Arcasmo como Projeto. Mercado atlntico,
sociedade agrria em uma economia colonial tardia Rio de Janeiro c. 1790 c. 1840. Rio de Janeiro:
Civilizao Brasileira, 2001. [4a ed. revista e ampliada].
42
Archivo Regional de Colonia. Mapoteca. Planta da Colonia do Sacramento. 1818. (Digital Copy)
43
John Luccok Notes on Rio de Janeiro and the Southern parts of Brazil: taken during a residence of ten
years in that country from 1808 to 1818 London: Samuel Leigh. 1820. p 163.

23
Brazil regarding the slave trade were increasing. Although the failed invasions of the

1806/1807, 44 by the late 1820s the British informal influence in the region during the

period was undisputable.

In 1812, during the wars of independence in Rio de la Plata, the British consul in

Rio de Janeiro was the diplomat in charge of sending information and implementing the

British policy in the southern estuary. Without any project of annexing the region to the

formal British Empire, the free navigation on the Rio de la Plata estuary was the main

interest of the Royal agents in the region. In case of the impossibility of establishing free

access to the River Plate, at least the free access of Brazilian ships to the region was

fundamental. The British interference and participation as mediator like in the 18th

century - in the regions conflicts shaped the transitioning from colony to nation in the

area. The annexation of Uruguay by the Brazilian Empire, and the following

independence of Uruguay as an autonomous country was the result of a complex

interaction between the local elites, Brazilian and, especially, British mercantile and

geopolitical interests. This moment was crucial in defining the relationship between the

new states and the world potency of the time. The integration of the region as part of the

British informal empire was concretized with the displacement of the Iberian metropoles.

By then, the Anglo-Portuguese alliance was already useless for the British interests in the

region; rather, the Royal Empire was then able to establish direct connections with each

countrys local elites. These connections, however, were built over an accumulated

44
The British invasions of 1806 and 1807 are regarded as an isolated fact en it was not supported by
important diplomats involved in the Rio de la Plata affairs. Pophams attempt to establish direct control
over Buenos Aires and Montevideo was represented as an enterprise thwarted by the imbecility, or
something worse, of the commander in chief Emeric Essex Vidal Picturesque Illustrations of Buenos
Ayres and Montevideo consisting of 24 views accompanied with description of the scenery.London:
Ackerman. 1820 p. xxiii.

24
experience and knowledge produced during almost one hundred-year presence in the

region via Colonia do Sacramento and the alliance with the Portuguese.

25