Bartolomé Mitre
President of Argentina
1821 CE to 1906 CE
Bartolomé Mitre Martínez (June 26, 1821 – January 19, 1906) was an Argentine statesman, military figure, and author.
He was the President of Argentina from 1862 to 1868.
World
South America and The Eastern Isles
View →Related Events
Showing 10 events out of 66 total
The exiled Bartolomé Mitre has spent the past dozen years living in Uruguay, Bolivia, Peru, and Chile, serving as a soldier and attacking Rosas through his writings.
As new president of the Argentine Confederation, Urquiza enacts the liberal and federal 1853 Constitution.
Buenos Aires secedes but is forced back into the Confederation after being defeated in the 1859 Battle of Cepeda.
Bartolomé Mitre, overpowering Urquiza in the 1861 Battle of Pavón, secures Buenos Aires' predominance and is elected as the first president of the reunified country.
The Argentine provinces of Entre Rios and Corrientes, allied with Brazil and members of Colorado Party of Uruguay, defeat Buenos Aires troops under Juan Manuel de Rosas on February 3, 1852.
Rosas, Governor of Buenos Aires with powers delegated from the other provinces, and thus de facto Argentina's dictator, had declared war on Brazil in 1851, which had led to the signing of a treaty among the governments of Uruguay, the Brazilian Empire, and the adjacent Argentinian provinces of Entre Ríos and Corrientes, on November 21 of that year.
Justo José de Urquiza has served governor of Entre Ríos during the government of Rosas, who has frequently presented a resignation to his charge, but only as a political gesture, figuring that the other governments would reject it.
Urquiza, resentful of the economic and political dominance of Buenos Aires, had accepted Rosas’ resignation in 1851 and resumed for Entre Rios the powers delegated to Buenos Aires.
Along with the resumption of international commerce without passing through the port of Buenos Aires, Urquiza has replaced the slogan "Death to the savage unitarians!" with "Death to the enemies of national organization!", requesting the making of a national constitution that Rosas has long rejected.
Corrientes Province supports Urquiza's action, but Rosas and the other provinces had condemned the "crazy, traitor, savage, unitarian" Urquiza.
The exiled liberal Bartolomé Mitre had returned at the head of an army of Uruguayans, and Argentinian educator and author Domingo Faustino Sarmiento had returned from exile to join the coalition of Argentinian, Uruguayan and Brazilian forces formed by Urquiza, defeating Rosas’s forces at the Battle of Caseros and terminating his twenty-year reign.
The Liberation Army captures about seven thousand prisoners, but Rosas is not among them: he had escaped with some of his officers just some minutes before his army gave way, getting aboard a British ship on this same night.
He will never return to Argentina again, living in permanent exile as a farmer in Southampton, England.
The other provinces that had supported Rosas against Urquiza's pronunciation change sides and support his project of creating a National Constitution.
Buenos Aires secedes from the Argentine Confederation as the independent and true Argentina in 1854 following Justo José de Urquiza’s inauguration.
Bartolomé Mitre is appointed to important posts in the new government.
Years of confrontations between the Federal forces of the provinces and the Unitarian Buenos Aires Province had impelled the Congress of Paraná to pass a law on April 1, 1859, directing Urquiza to peacefully reincorporate the dissident province of Buenos Aires, but allowing the use of arms if this is not possible.
The legislature of Buenos Aires, taking this as a formal declaration of war, decides in May to repel any military aggression by federal troops.
Brazil, Paraguay, the United States and the United Kingdom try to prevent conflict through friendly intercession.
Paraguay sends young Francisco Solano López as a special minister.
Argentine lawyer and politician Valentin Alsina, president of Buenos Aires, demands the resignation of Urquiza, who does not comply.
The State of Buenos Aires is also bolstered by its numerous alliances in the hinterland, including that of Santiago del Estero Province (led by Manuel Taboada), as well as its alliances with powerful Unitarian Party governors in Salta, Corrientes, Tucumán, and San Juan.
The 1858 assassination of San Juan's Federalist governor, Nazario Benavídez, by Unitarians had inflamed tensions between the Confederation and the State of Buenos Aires, as had a free trade agreement between the chief Confederate port (the Port of Rosario) and the Port of Montevideo, which had undermined Buenos Aires trade.
The election of the intransigent Valentín Alsina had further exacerbated disputes.
Open hostilities broke out between Buenos Aires and the Argentine Confederation, led by Urquiza.
After Mitre’s federalist forces lose to Urquiza’s centralist army at Cañada de Cepeda, Santa Fe, on October 23, 1859, Alsina has to resign his post, and shortly after Buenos Aires rejoins the Confederation.
Thus the unity of Argentina is generally secured, although it will be two decades before the centralists complete their victory over the federalists.
Fighting flares up again in Argentina in 1861; Bartolomé Mitre’s Buenos Aires forces win at Pavon against those of the Argentine Confederation on September 17.
Justo José de Urquiza’s position in Entre Rios declines following his defeat by Mitre’s forces, and Argentina reunifies.
The province of Buenos Aires becomes fully integrated in 1862 into the federal structure provided for by the constitution of 1853.
Bartolomé Mitre is elected to a six-year term as Argentina’s president, inaugurating a new era of growth.