The Cisplatin Question, The Empire of Brazil and the Republic

RICARDO GOMES RODRIGUES
10 de mar. de 2021
13 min de leitura

Atualizado: 17 de mar. de 2022

Cisplatin Conflicts’ Background and the Formation of Portuguese Domains in the Amazon Basin

Since Portugal and Spain were under the same crown, the borders of their territories in South America became fluid, thus, religious missions felt at home whether they were from Portugal or Spain. Since then, a perception has formed between these two countries that they belonged to the same Iberian historical, social, religious and cultural fabric, without distinction of borders, collaborating in the formation of their Empires, which, in a certain way, one can say, were more Iberian than Spanish or Portuguese itself.

Within this vision, Portugal acted advancing inland South America’s territory; first through religious missions; later followed by military fortifications, taking for granted the old limits of the Tordesillas’ Treaty, which restricted the occupation of Portuguese territory, now Brazilian; to the north, through the mouth of the Amazon river, where Macapa and Belem was founded, and to the south, going no further than the limits of today Porto Alegre city.

The formation of this United Kingdom of Portugal and Spain made it possible for Portugal to advance through the entire Amazon Basin, under the pretext of research and colonization, going further until the Amazon, Negro and Solimoes rivers’ junction, and to the north reaching Rio Branco and Boa Vista in the present State of Roraima at the Venezuelan borders, containing, thus, the advance of French, Dutch and English in the region.

In this way, Manaus became the gravitational center that guaranteed Portuguese possession in almost the entire Amazon Basin together with its main tributaries, such as, for the river Xingu, Tapajos, Trombetas, Madeira, Negro, Solimoes and, also, Rio Branco towards the present State of Roraima, besides the Amazon river mouth in the direction of Macapa.

Furthermore, the settlement around Belem at the Amazon Delta guaranteed the possession and dominance of whole area of todays’ Central Brazil, going down from Tocantins and Araguaia rivers toward the rivers of Paraná, Grande, Paranaiba, Tiete and Paranapanema, pointing the direction toward la Plata River Basin in Argentina.

Further to the center-west of Brazil, along Madeira, Mamoré and Guapore rivers, Portuguese’s domains extended till Upper Paraguay river, defining the boundaries with the Spanish Empire, where today we have the countries of Bolivia and Paraguay.

From the joint Tocantins and Araguaia rivers’ Basin, in the center-west of Brazil, until Madeira, Mamore and Guapore rivers already in Amazonia, in both cases, the Portuguese colonization also pointed out its interests towards the La Plata River Basin, which is formed mainly by the Paraná, Paraguay and Uruguay rivers, covering, thus, the entire area from Amazonia to the Cisplatin Region.

The protuberance of the Brazilian coast line, from the mouth of the Amazon northward to the city of Porto Alegre southward, was militarily guaranteed by the naval power of the Portuguese Royal Navy and it was protected inland by the natural trenches formed by the Borborema mountains in the Northeast, to the ends of Sierra del Mar near Lagoa dos Patos (Duck's lake) in the present State of Rio Grande do Sul.

Thus, Portugal focused its dominions in South America at the expense of expanding its possessions in Asia, paving the way for the advance of the Spanish Empire in this region, making it clear that there was indeed a division of tasks as to avoid possible disputes between the Spanish and Portuguese crowns.

This division of zones of interest between Portugal and Spain also appears on the partition of the American continent. Spain accepted the fait accompli of Portuguese domination in the Amazon Basin beyond the limits of Tordesillas treaty, who in turn took control of the Orinoco river’s Basin in Venezuela to the north; and the La Plata river basin to the south in Argentina.

The Cisplatin Question Arises

The Cisplatin question arises from the Portuguese Empire's growing interest in expanding its limits towards the La Plata Basin, defining its limits with Spanish dominions as a fait accompli since both shared the same colonizing strategies through Catholic religious missions and subsequent military fortification actions around emerging population groups.

The Lusitanian interests had as their ultimate ambition and goal to establish their limits since Madeira, Mamore and Alto Paraguay rivers, in the center-west of Brazil, and parts of the Parana river in the south-southeast, targeting in addition to that, mainly, the Uruguay river, thus sharing in the Cisplatin area the eastern band of the mouth of the la Plata river with Spain.

Uruguay river was vital for the flow of production from the gauchos’ ranchers, since the region of the present State of Rio Grande do Sul had no natural ports and the entrance to Lagoa dos Patos (Duck's lake) often silted up, blocking access to Porto Alegre.

As Spain's main interest was the gold and silver mineral exploration in Peru and Bolivia, from this point of view, its primary strategy was the flow of its production through Colombia (Cartagena) and Mexico (Vera Cruz), having Cuba (Havana) as its main logistics warehouse for shipping products toward Spain, making of this Caribbean region the epicenter of its geopolitical interests in order to keep European powers away from the American continent.

In the South Atlantic, Portugal protected the Spanish routes to the east, controlling the Brazilian and the African coast through Brazil and Angola, and in the Indian Ocean through the Mozambique channel, in addition to the Cape Town region in South Africa.

This depictures the maritime vessels routes, descending through the ocean currents that passed along the Brazilian Coast, and ascending through the currents of the African Coast toward the Canary Islands (Spanish possession).

The actions of the Portuguese in the Cisplatin area at the mouth of the La Plata River, creating the Colonia del Sacramento on the banks of the River Uruguay; made Spain to put a limit on Portuguese expansionism, since, in this case, it did not welcome the sharing of La Plata Basin. Portugal was going too far.

As a result, started a skirmish war between gaucho ranchers trying to push their limits toward the Uruguay River and, in contrast, Argentine and Uruguayan ranchers trying to repel them, pushing them back to their limits along the edges Lagoa dos Patos (Duck's lake) and Mirim. For these gaucho ranchers, as Rio Grande do Sul did not have viable ports (the port of Rio Grande did not exist then) their main interests were to use the Uruguay River as an outlet and access to the region, a fact that would imply in Portuguese controlling the eastern side of the mouth of the Plata and all the length of the Uruguay River.

Simply put, the Treaty of Madrid of 1750 attempts to put an end to this controversy, defining the limits of Lusitanian influence in the La Plata Basin, recognizing its limits since the highs of the Uruguay River until the mount of the Quarai river, toward northwest and west direction; and following southwest until the Jaguaron River in the limits of today Uruguay and Lagoa Mirim.

This apparently ended the question; Spain removed the religious missions that remained in the territory of Rio Grande do Sul and Portuguese removed the Colonia del Sacramento on the banks of the la Plata in the Cisplatin region.

However, the resistance of the Jesuits to comply with the treaty showed how rooted this amalgamation of Iberian cultures was in the region. From the point of view of the Jesuit missions, there was no need for their removals from Gaucho and Portuguese territories, since for centuries it did not or would not have made any difference.

But, from the point of view of the gauchos and the Portuguese, who lived in skirmishes with the Castilians, it would be necessary to define these cultural new limits between Portuguese and Spanish in order to put an end to the conflict in this region in definitively.

It is clear from the resistance of the Jesuits that the Madrid Treaty was far from definitively resolving the primordial conflict between Portugal and Spain in their disputes over the control of the mouth of the La Plata river.

The Empire of Brazil is born

The Empire of Brazil as a result of the breakup of the Portuguese Empire inherits the Cisplatin issues in the same way that it inherits the control of the South Atlantic, at least along the protuberance of the Brazilian coast, from the mouth of the Amazon to the limits of Rio Grande do Sul and, consequently, the importance and firepower of its Imperial Navy, which in fact was a direct heir to the Portuguese Royal Navy as from 1500.

The transfer of the headquarters of the Portuguese crown to Rio de Janeiro and the consequent collapse of the Spanish monarchy due to the Napoleonic wars, led Don Joao the Sixth to take two immediate steps: firstly, the occupation of the eastern band at the mouth of the La Plata River and secondly, the taking of French Guiana in retaliation against Napoleon.

These two actions were an attempt to maintain Iberian strategies in the American continent, reinforcing Portuguese domination in the South Atlantic through the routes to the east, as mentioned before. However, the Napoleonic wars would be the harbinger of the collapse for both the Spanish and Portuguese Empires.

The first Emperor of Brazil Don Pedro the First, inherits the cisplatin issue from his father, Don Joao the Sixth, and the Argentines and Uruguayans as heirs of the deceased Spanish Empire not only retake the skirmishes among the ranchers of the region, but also redefine a true state of war that forces Don Pedro and the Empire of Brazil to recognize the former limits of the Treaty of Madrid of 1750, and its consequence the Treaty of San Ildefonso of 1777, definitively renouncing any aspiration to control the eastern side of the La Plata River and the Cisplatin region.

As a kind of extension to the 1777 Treaty of San Ildefonso, and having the British Empire as a substitute for the Spanish Empire as the dominant political force in the geopolitics of the world of at that time, the Republic of the Eastern Band of Uruguay was born as a result of a treaty that had as guarantors of its independence and territorial integrity, the Argentine Republic, the Empire of Brazil and the British Empire.

This treaty that results in the birth of the Republic of Uruguay defines new contours to the skirmishes between gauchos, now Brazilians, Argentines and Uruguayans, moving from being a mere conflict between colonizing local ranchers to become a political game of influence in the Cisplatin region, since for to access the provinces of Mato Grosso and the Brazilian Midwest, it was necessary to use the waterways of Paraná and Paraguay rivers, entering through the mouth of the La Plata River under control of the Argentines.

For the view point of the Empire of Brazil, it was important that Montevideo was under its zone of influence to guarantee access to the Brazilian Midwest. For the view point of the Argentine Republic, it was essential to maintain control of the access of the waterways of Paraná, Paraguay and Uruguay rivers; as these rivers cut and irrigated the valuable lands of the humid pampas and it was essential for Argentines that the Republic of the Eastern Band of the Uruguay was under its strict control, since the maritime access channels to Montevideo were the same as for Buenos Aires, its capital. For the view point of the British it was of its interests that neither side had more weight than the other, and therefore that the Republic of Uruguay remained autonomous, serving as a buffer to tensions in the region.

The Paraguayan War

Solano Lopez sneaks into the geopolitical conflict of the cisplatin region, which, by no means, belonged to him. He had no political power to face neither Argentina, Brazil, nor Uruguay and, collaterally, neither the British Empire, the dominant political power of the World of that time. Lopez had so little military or economic power as Paraguay had less than 1 million inhabitants with a low population density and a lot of unproductive land.

For this view point, any analysis about Paraguayan War becomes the deciphering of a complex enigma, since Solano Lopez peremptorily goes through a historically sensitive issue such as that of the cisplatin region, apparently unaware of its antecedents and neither carefully analyzing the repercussions of their actions, as well as the reactions that would undoubtedly come, as indeed they did.

So, when Lopez asks the Argentine Government permission to enter Brazil and Uruguay, he shows childishness, believing that the Argentines would have some interest in any type of alliance with Paraguay to eventually share control of the eastern band at the mouth of the La Plata with Solano Lopes.

The main historical conflict of the Argentine Republic at that time was to accept the sharing of its sovereignty over the mouth of the La Plata basin, accepting the existence of the Republic of Uruguay, which existed by the virtue of an international treaty guaranteed by none other than the British Empire, and collaterally still having to live with the pressures that the Empire of Brazil exerted on Montevideo. The idea of having another participant in this mess was unthinkable.

The legend that Solano Lopez was aiming for an exit to the sea is naive and foolish. Long before reaching the sea, from an allegedly powerful river flotilla, however well-armed, he had to sail all the way the entire Argentine coast line along the Paraná River to take control of the La Plata Basin access; facing in this process the Argentine navy and, even if he were successful in this endeavor, He would have to face, then, the imperial navy of Brazil, which was, by that time, the greatest military force in the region.

On the other hand, if he managed to invade Rio Grande do Sul, he would find no place to anchor his river flotilla since the entire coast of Rio Grande do Sul was not favorable to the existence of natural ports. The Port of Rio Grande today is the result of major engineering works done in early 20th century.

In addition to the whole fiasco, the most intriguing in this history of the Paraguayan War was the invasion of the Province of Mato Grosso, defining a 2.000 miles frontline war from Cuiabá to Porto Alegre, a Herculean task for such a small and poor country with less than 1 million inhabitants and without any production, and still without any capacity to establish alliances with anyone. Neither Argentina, nor Uruguay, nor Brazil, much less the British, would have any interest in allying themselves with Lopez due to Paraguay's absolute lack of strategic importance for the cisplatin issues, which, as we have seen before, dates back to the geopolitical games between Portugal and Spain since 1500.

The strangest thing about this Paraguayan War was Lopez's insistence on going further, despite the fact of the Argentine government's refusal to allow Paraguayan troops to pass through its territory. If he had stepped back, the event would have been historically ignored, but by continuing and with violence, not only did it unleash a fierce 5-year war, but also ended up devastating Paraguay. The question is why, after all, Lopez insisted so much on getting involved in a war with such outrageous strategies without the slightest understanding of the scale of the problem he was getting into.

Lopes' Target

Lopez's target was undoubtedly the Empire of Brazil, believing that by creating a frontline war front from Cuiabá to Porto Alegre it would certainly cause the rupture of the Empire of Brazil that as heir to the Portuguese Empire, had strong dynastic relations with Great Britain and that its navy had the highest firepower in the region.

So, the aim was to knock out the Empire of Brazil, reasoning that the war would cause its provinces to break down into several banana’s republic, destroying its Imperial Navy, a considerable force from the mouth of the Amazon to the vicinity of the La Plata River, and a formidable obstacle to any hegemonic force to dominate the Cisplatin region.

Contrary to the ambitions of Lopez and his supposed and (unknown) financiers and supporters, the Paraguayan war further strengthened the Imperial Brazilian Navy by creating strong ties with the Argentine Navy, and not to the army as the legend goes. For an empty territory such as Brazil at that time, the Navy was the predominant military force of the country.

Without roads, it was the Navy that transported troops, otherwise they were isolated and immobilized, and not by chance, the Paraguayan war was won mainly through naval battles for control of the Paraná, Paraguay and Uruguay waterways.

The Brazilian army was never able to replace the Imperial Navy in its geopolitical role of protecting this immense Brazilian coastline from Oiapoque to Chui; neither was it able to achieve the same strategic importance.

The overthrow and dismantling of the Imperial Navy along with the Empire of Brazil was what made possible the subsequent French invasion of the State of Amapa, an action that the army was not only unable to avoid, nor was it able to retake Amapa by military force.

It was a former remnant of the Empire of Brazil, the Baron of Rio Branco, who with great difficulty, through much diplomacy we managed to get Amapa back to Brazil.

Militarily, the army was very capable of destroying the Empire, but never of stopping this attempt by France to expand toward the mouth of the Amazon, occupying Amapa.

The Republic of the United States of Brazil

The institution of the Republic of the United States of Brazil on November 15, 1889 was catastrophic for our history. It was not the Republic that was instituted, but the Empire of Brazil that was destroyed along with all the historical geopolitical symbols that it represented. The Emperor fell, the Imperial Navy fell and the geopolitical power that the Brazilian Empire had inherited from the Portuguese Empire also fell with them, as well as Brazil's ability to define its own sovereignty policies as that of an independent nation.

One of the main consequences of the fall of the Empire of Brazil, as previously stated, was the occupation of Amapa by the French in retaliation for the political defeats imposed on France by Don Joao the sixth.

When Don Pedro the Second fell, the last direct descendant of Portugal's policies against Napoleonic domination also fell, and the Republic of Brazil can be seen as a subjection, a retaliation, a submission of our history to the ideological hegemonies of both France and the United States of America with the constitution of the Republic of the United States of Brazil. The facts speak for themselves.

The collapse of the Brazilian Empire also represented the collapse of its Imperial Navy, reduced to an ill-equipped and insignificant weapon for the administration of Brazil's strategic interests from the mouth of the Amazon to the la Plata River.

The military force of the Imperial Navy was replaced by the military force of the Brazilian Army upon an empty continent, as well as, empty of any strategic geopolitical interests, since all significant threats against Brazil always were against its coastline not across land borders.

We fell like a giant in irrelevance, just as the army's military became an element of tutelage in national politics; unable to establish stable republican rules.

Since then, we started to live with under the perspectives of coups d'état and revolutions, in addition to a republican regime that is nothing more than a corollary of constitutions and paper money; altogether 9 Constitutions and Coins since 1889,

The Republic in Brazil was a military assault that destroyed our history, a combined act of cowardice, pusillanimity and nihilism that reduced all of us to a prostituted carnival and football yard; an irrelevant giant, unable to define its own strategies or to have its geopolitical role well defined in the world or in the region. The Republic of Brazil was successful in what Solano Lopez had failed to achieve ... Lopez and his allies ultimately won ...