Uruguay, Congress of 1825
Uruguay, Congress of 1825
Uruguay Congress of 1825, body convoked by the leaders of Uruguay's rebellion against Brazilian rule. The congress opened on 20 August, just four months and one day after Uruguayan exiles, known as the "Thirty-Three Orientals," crossed over from Argentine territory to begin the expulsion of Brazilian forces. It met at the small town of Florida, slightly north of Montevideo (which was under Brazilian occupation and was not represented). On 25 August it declared null and void the incorporation of Uruguay into the Portuguese and subsequently Brazilian monarchies and proclaimed union with Argentina in the United Provinces of the Río De La Plata. It named Juan Antonio Lavalleja governor and designated Uruguayan representatives to the congress of the United Provinces.
The Uruguayan congress, which eventually moved to the town of San José, created a first set of governmental institutions and enacted a series of reforms, such as a law of free birth, inspired by the same liberal ideology professed by the dominant Unitarist faction at Buenos Aires (which after slight delay accepted Uruguayan annexation and took the province under its protection). The congress closed its sessions in July 1826.
See alsoRío de la Plata; Uruguay: Before 1900.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
John Street, Artigas and the Emancipation of Uruguay (1959), chap. 9.
Alfredo Castellanos, La Cisplatina, la independencia y la república caudillesca (1820–1838) (1974).
Additional Bibliography
Barrios Pintos, Aníbal. Historia de los pueblos orientales: Sus orígenes, procesos fundacionales, sus primeros años. Montevideo, Uruguay: Academia Nacional de Letras, 2000.