This post remains available for posterity’s sake, but a much revised and much expanded version of this translation is available completely for free! The revised version includes translated footnotes, a translated appendix, an expanded introduction, and a map of disputed territory and important locations. You can download a copy in the following formats: Docx — Epub — Mobi — PDF. Or, if you want to throw some money my way, you can set your price for it on Smashwords. And it’s in the public domain!

One cannot deny that this was an intervention into eastern politics, but it was a disinterested intervention, according to the interests of the Republic and the desires manifested by it in the past; but not even this offered support was enough to become an effective intervention, remaining on offer to any government that would assume the responsibility of accepting the intervention to pull together the parties and reorganize the country. And this was not the case only with Brazil’s support—the impartial candor with which it was offered elicited support from the Argentine Republic and commanded the respect of Great Britain, engaged in the mediation. What Saraiva really wanted was to infuse Aguirre with validity. “I am, however, convinced,” he told the imperial government, “that if the president reforms the ministry he will not request nor need to request a single soldier from Brazil. The Eastern State needs order, and its inhabitants yearn to see it reestablished by a government of men who are sincere, active, and upright. A new administration with these characteristics and with the moral support of the other powers will have sufficient strength to establish order and impede revolts.”

That negotiation was aborted. Aguirre promised to constitute a new ministry, but with elements still more factional, and with Leandro Gómez (14) figuring in it. The mediators put forth the names of Castellanos, Villalba, Andrés Lamas, Martínez, Herrera, and Obes. Given the impossibility of coming to an understanding, the representatives of the three nations brought the mediation to an end on 7 July.

Saraiva went to confer with Mitre in Buenos Aires. In that Republic the dominant political attitude was hostile to the Blanco party; all sympathy was with Flores, and because of that Brazil’s intervention, at a time in which it was equivalent to insuring victory for the revolution, was considered by the Argentine government to be an act of providence, an unexpected gift of fortune. Saraiva and Mitre got along from then on, and from this perfect accord resulted the new Brazilian doctrine in the Plata, which from 1864 to today governs the relations between Brazil and the Argentine Republic. For that reason, perhaps by having known Mitre’s government’s intentions, and having penetrated their desires with regards to Montevideo, Saraiva is still more convinced that peace is the most agreeable policy for Brazil, and from Buenos Aires he even tries to attract Aguirre to his ideas, meeting up with his confidential agent Reguera.Read More »

This post remains available for posterity’s sake, but a much revised and much expanded version of this translation is available completely for free! The revised version includes translated footnotes, a translated appendix, an expanded introduction, and a map of disputed territory and important locations. You can download a copy in the following formats: Docx — Epub — Mobi — PDF. Or, if you want to throw some money my way, you can set your price for it on Smashwords. And it’s in the public domain!

Note: This is a really long chapter, so I’m splitting it into two parts. This won’t be a regular thing though—I think there’s only one other chapter, maybe two, long enough that I’ll want to split them up. Also, see this post for background info.

When the old brigadier Netto (1) came to Rio de Janeiro, at the beginning of 1864, to excite our government against Uruguay’s, presenting, as the new leader of the eastern campaign, a portrait of the long-standing abuses committed against Brazilians, it produced a fury of opinion, and from this violent impulse was born Saraiva’s mission. We had suffered the humiliation of English retaliation at the Rio de Janeiro bay entrance, and the ideology of democracy, with Teófilo Ottoni (2) at the head, showed itself to be of as bellicose a humor as the emperor himself was said to be. Given these circumstances, Netto’s presence inflamed spirits predisposed to acts of imprudence and senselessness. The conservative party took the initiative to make interpellations in the Chamber of Deputies about the state of the campaign.

From this so-called patriotic attitude of the opposition and the majority, in the session of 5 April what resulted was war, unless the Blanco government would completely yield to the demands and grievances of the Brazilians enlisted under Flores’s flag. Today it would not be possible to investigate whether or not our complaints were founded. The Brazilians residing in Uruguay (3) should have suffered the fate of the easterners themselves, or abstained from any interference with those factions which always devastated the countryside. Neither should the Brazilian government have forgotten the chronic anarchy of the Republic. Order, peace, and calm in the Eastern State were only possible if Brazil and Argentina united for many years to uphold the healthy elements of that country; but since Brazil and Argentina could not do so and did not want to do so, they lost the right to demand responsibility in the eastern government, whatever it was, because of acts that almost always resulted from the state of disorder in the border regions. It is unnecessary to examine the claims and complaints one by one to be sure that the ministry of 15 January 1864 made a mistake in yielding to their first impulse and allowing themselves to be commanded by the clamor of Flores’s supporters, who demanded immediate intervention in Montevideo.

If our country had the luck to not be immediately engaged in a war with this Republic, it owes it only to the circumstances of having conferred to Saraiva the role of inspector. Succeeding events have proved that if others had found themselves in his position, the mission would have begun with the occupation of Uruguayan territory, followed by the bombardment of Montevideo, and a war against the entire Río de la Plata.

Saraiva arrives in Montevideo on 6 May 1864. His instructions are to address to the eastern government “our last friendly intimation,” concluding by demanding, with regard to the crimes and abuses against the lives and property of Brazilians, “1^st That the government of the Republic put into effect the necessary punishments, if not for all the criminals, then at least those that, being recognized as such, go unpunished, and even occupy some posts in the eastern government or work in state offices. 2^nd That the police officers that have abused the authority they exercise be immediately dismissed, and held accountable. 3^rd That those Brazilians that have been dispossessed of their property by military or civil authorities of the Republic be compensated justly. 4^th Finally, that the Brazilians forced to take up arms in service of the Republic be completely released.”Read More »

This post remains available for posterity’s sake, but a much revised and much expanded version of this translation is available completely for free! The revised version includes translated footnotes, a translated appendix, an expanded introduction, and a map of disputed territory and important locations. You can download a copy in the following formats: Docx — Epub — Mobi — PDF. Or, if you want to throw some money my way, you can set your price for it on Smashwords. And it’s in the public domain!

NOTE: This chapter and the next focus on Uruguay, and the civil unrest there from 1850-1865, so I recommend you first read this supplemental post about the Uruguayan War if you haven’t already. Also, a more general note, though I’ve decided to include some translations of footnotes from the original text, in places where I would have to add my own translator’s note otherwise. Why write a translator’s note when I can just translate a note that Nabuco wrote for me? “Footnotes” are Nabuco’s, “Translator’s Notes” are mine.

Since the war against Rosas the Argentine dictator (1), when we prevented Montevideo from falling under Oribe’s control (2), the matter of the Eastern State of Uruguay was the most important and dangerous foreign policy problem. We had no ambitions on its annexation, nor did we want to mix ourselves up in its internal affairs, our sole purpose being to have a peaceful and secure border, for which the complete independence of that state was an essential condition. “The foreign policy,” writes the Baron of Rio Branco, a supporter of this thinking, “created by the conservative party and principally by Paulino de Souza, Viscount of Uruguay, consisted then, as it still does today [1875], of maintaining the independence of the two states threatened by Argentinian ambitions: Paraguay and Uruguay.”

The years have greatly modified the Argentine Republic’s aspirations, as measured by that primitive platine sentiment becoming different on both sides of the Río de la Plata; but it can be said that not even today is the old hope of re-forming the former viceroyalty (3)—if not in its entirety, then at least in the Plata basin—completely dead for Argentine patriots. Many sons of Buenos Aires still dream of the United States of South America, sons on whom the tradition of the past and a common literature still weigh heavy, with the same force as they did on the mid-century generation, contemporary to the siege of Montevideo. Back then, however, this sentiment was more alive and more broadly asserted.Read More »