Everything about Cisplatina totally explained
The
Cisplatina Province (literally,
Province of this side of the Rio de la Plata from the Brazilian perspective) was a
Brazilian province in existence from
1815 to
1828. The province was formed after the
Portuguese captured and subsequently annexed the territory of the
Banda Oriental, which today forms the independent nation of
Uruguay.
The Banda Oriental had always been a sparsely populated contested border-area between the Spanish and Portuguese Colonial Empires. In the
First Treaty of San Ildefonso in
1777 the control of the area was given to Spain.
In
1811,
José Gervasio Artigas, who became Uruguay's national hero, launched a successful revolt against Spain, defeating them on May 18 in the Battle of Las Piedras. In 1814 he formed the
Liga Federal (Federal League) of which he was declared Protector.
The constant growth of influence and prestige of the Federal League frightened Portugal (because of its republicanism), and in August, 1816 they invaded the Eastern Province, with the intention of destroying the protector and his revolution. The Portuguese forces, thanks to their numerical and material superiority, occupied Montevideo on January 20th, 1817, and finally after a struggle for three years in the countryside, defeated Artigas in the Battle of
Tacuarembó.
In
1821, the Provincia Oriental del Río de la Plata (present-day Uruguay), was annexed by Brazil under the name of
Província Cisplatina.
Brazil justified the incorporation of the province through the
general aclamation of an Assembly of “Eastern notables” on
July 18 1821.
The borders of Cisplatina were : on the east
the Atlantic Ocean, on the south the
Rio de la Plata, on the west the
Uruguay River and on the north the
Cuareim river until
la Cuchilla de Santa Ana. This means that territories traditionally belonging to the
Banda Oriental had been annexed to the jurisdiction of
Rio Grande do Sul.
The Latin area code
cis
, meaning
of this side, suggests that the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves, had plans to also annex the present Argentinian territory as the
Transplatina Province, basing themselves on the hereditary rights of
Charlotte of Spain.
On
September 15 1823, the envoy of the Argentinian president
Bernardino Rivadavia,
Valentin Gómez, wrote in
Rio de Janeiro a memorandum in which it was stated that at no moment the Eastern Province had stopped belonging to the territory of the
United Provinces of the Río de la Plata, present-day Argentina. Gomez received this answer:
"The incorporation of the Cisplatina Province into the Empire is an act of the free will of all its inhabitants, and Brazil, by the sacrifices it has done, is resolute to defend that territory, not allowing that the opinion with respect to the incorporation from that State to the United Provinces is raised again. (...) the Government of S.M.I. (...) can't enter with the one of Buenos Aires in negotiations that have as fundamental base the cession of the Cisplatino State, whose inhabitants don't have to leave" (1)
As a reaction a group of Uruguayan nobles, the
Thirty-Three Orientals led by
Juan Antonio Lavalleja declared independence on
August 25,
1825 supported by the
United Provinces of the Río de la Plata .
This led to the 500-day
Argentina-Brazil War. Despite the Argentinian victory in the
battle of Ituzaingó, neither side gained the upper hand, and in 1828 the
Treaty of Montevideo, fostered by the
United Kingdom, gave birth to Uruguay as an independent state.
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