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Governor Velasco, the Portuguese and the Paraguayan Revolution of 1811: A New Look*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

John Hoyt Williams
John Hoyt Williams*
Affiliation:
Indiana State University, Terre Haute, Indiana
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Extract

The day after the successful ouster of Spanish authority in the viceregal capital of the Río de la Plata, on May 26, 1810, the revolutionary Junta in Buenos Aires sent a series of circulars to the governors and cabildos of the provinces formerly subjected to its leadership. These circulars announced the revolution, its aims and purposes, and made it quite clear that the new authorities in Buenos Aires expected to remain in control over the entire immense region. Most of the provinces responded in the affirmative, but royalists in the Banda Oriental and in Alto Perú declared themselves enemies of the revolution and prepared to resist it. In Paraguay, the situation was sufficiently ambiguous that the Junta decided to send Colonel José de Espínola, former military chief of Paraguay's northern frontier and now a partisan of the revolution, to Asunción to state the “ Porteño ” case. He brought with him formal letters from the Junta to the cabildo of Asunción and the Spanish governor, Bernardo de Velasco y Huidbro.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 28 , Issue 4 , April 1972 , pp. 441 - 449
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1972 

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Footnotes

*

The author gratefully acknowledges the two-year grant, 1967-69, from the Foreign Area Fellowship Program.

References

1 See Mitre, Bartolomé, Historia de Belgrano y la independencia argentina (4 vols., Buenos Aires, 1967), Vol. 1.Google Scholar

2 Vittone, Luis, El Paraguay en la lucha por su independencia (Asunción, 1960), passim.Google Scholar

3 Moreno, Fulgencio, Estudio sobre la independencia del Paraguay (Asunción, 1911), pp. 124–6.Google Scholar

4 Ibid., pp. 101–135.

5 Chaves, Julio César, Historia de las relaciones entre Buenos Aires y el Paraguay, 1810–1813 (2nd ed. Asunción, 1959), p. 78.Google Scholar

6 Ibid., p. 58, and Mellid, Atilio Gracia, Proceso a los falsificadores de la historia del Paraguay (2 vols. Buenos Aires), 1963), 1, 125.Google Scholar

7 Pfannl, Roberto Quevedo, “Villa Real de la Concepción en los dias de la Independencia,” Historia paraguaya. Anuario (Asunción, 1962), pp. 61–62.Google Scholar See also Archivo Nacional, Asunción (ANA), Sección historia (SH), vol. 212, Folio 4, page 4; a letter from Agustín Gracia to his father, Colonel Pedro Gracia from Ycuamandiyú to Asunción, September 24, 1810, denouncing a Porteño merchant for sowing revolutionary disaffection in the Paraguayan north.

8 Governor Velasco from Yaguaron to José Theodoro Fernández, his Adjutant General, Jan. 7, 1811. ANA, SH, Vol. 215, fol. 16, p. 1.

9 Colonel Juan Manuel Gamarra from Asunción to Velasco at Yaguaron, n. d. ANA, SH, vol. 184, fol. 2, p. 178.

10 Moreno, pp. 145–149.

11 Chaves, , Relaciones, pp. 101–102.Google Scholar

12 ANA, Sección Libros de Caxa (SLC), Vol. 14 (1811), pp. 30, 84.

13 Cardozo, Efraím, Afinidades entre el Paraguay y la Banda Oriental en 1811, (Montevideo, 1963), pp. 13–14.Google Scholar

14 ANA, SH, vol. 432, fol. 1, p. 27. Manuel Anastacio Cavañas from Asunción to Colonel Franciaco das Chagas Santos, Feb. 3, 1811.

15 Ibid., p. 26.

16 ANA, SH, vol. 432, fol. 1, p. 24, Captain General Diego de Sousa from São Borja, to Governor Velasco, Feb. 25, 1811.

17 ANA, SH, vol. 432, fol. 1, p. 40, Sousa to Velasco, March 22, 1811. See also Cardozo, p. 22.

18 José de Abreu from Ytapúa to Velasco, April 15, 1811. ANA, SH, vol. 432, fol. 1, p. 31.

19 Báez, Cecilio, Historia diplomática del Paraguay (2 vols. Asunción, 1931–1932), 1, 139.Google Scholar Abreu himself estimated a crowd of some 3,000 welcomers.

20 Sousa to Velasco from São Borja, April 1, 1811. ANA, SH, Vol. 432, fol. 1, p. 32.

21 Velasco to the Comandante of Coimbra (Mato Grosso), February 6, 1811. ANA, SH, vol. 215, fol. 8, p. 2. See also Velasco to Comandante of Coimbra, May 1, 8 and 9, 1811, in ANA, SH, vol. 432, fol. 1, pp. 34–37.

22 Báez, I, 139–140.

23 Cardozo, pp. 27–28.

24 Sousa to Viceroy Elio in Montevideo, Feb. 25, 1811. ANA, SH, Vol. 432, fol. 1, p. 25.

25 Wisner, Francisco, El Dictador del Paraguay: José Gaspar de Francia (Buenos Aires, 1957), p. 28,Google Scholar and Cabanellas, Guillermo, El Dictador del Paraguay, Dr. Francia (Buenos Aires, 1946), p. 112.Google Scholar

26 de Holanda, Sergio Buarque (ed.) Historia geral da civilizafão brasileira (4 vols, São Paulo, 1958ff.), 3, 310,Google Scholar and Brothers, Robertson, Letters on South America (3 vols., London, 1843) 1, 126.Google Scholar See also Wisner, p. 28, and Cardozo, p. 27.

27 Velasco to Sousa at São Borja, May 13, 1811. ANA, SH, vol. 184, fol. 2, p. 184.

28 Pedro Juan Caballero from Barracks to Governor Velasco, May 15, 1811, ANA, SH, vol. 213, fol. 1, p. 1.

29 Velasco to Caballero, May 15, 1811, ANA, SH, vol. 213, fol. 1, p. 2.

30 Caballero to Velasco, May 15, 1811, ANA, SH, vol. 213, fol. 1, p. 3.

31 Velasco to Caballero, May 16, 1811, ANA, SH, vol. 213, fol. 1, p. 6.

32 “Secret Manifesto of the Junta,” August 29, 1811, ANA, SH, vol. 214, fol. 1, p. 120.

33 Bando, or official message of the Barracks to the “People of Paraguay,” June 9, 1811, explaining that the governor had been totally separated from the post-revolutionary government, in which he had been used as a figurehead. ANA, SH, vol. 214, fol. 1, pp. 51–53.