Connections after Colonialism: Europe and Latin America in the 1820s

10. Porteño Liberals and Imperialist Emissaries in the Rio de la Plata: Rivadavia and the British

10 Porteño liberals and imperialist Emissaries in the rio de la Plata Rivadavia and the British David rock in their introduction, gabriel Paquette and Matthew Brown stressed continuity and transition—the taints of the past and the markers of the future—as the principal features of the 1820s in latin America. following emancipation, transatlantic contacts prolonged ties with western Europe and “resurgent empire ” followed the re-exploration of the region by Europeans. the decade also marked a cycle linked to European investment. the london financial bubble of mid-decade disrupted the flow of funds into latin America and contributed to an economic collapse that weakened the early post-independence regimes . toward 1830, the outward-looking liberal states dissolved; introspective , rural-based caudillos commonly displaced them. the categories defined by Paquette and Brown grew strikingly visible in the rio de la Plata under Bernardino rivadavia.1 his liberal reforms affecting land, government, civil liberties, the church, and the military were based largely on European precedents or derived from European intellectuals. they included modernizing measures, headed by the attempt to build a postcolonial liberal state—a task completed in Argentina only after 1860—alongside conservative, regressive legislation like the effort to re-impose the conchabo, a local form of serfdom. the rivadavian reforms provided instances of complex re-synthesis between the old and the new. As an example, the constitution of 1826 juxtaposed forms of representation from the “age of democratic revolutions ” with centralized government inherited from the spanish Bourbon era of 1776–1810. Against those who stressed rivadavia’s innovative and progressive credentials, vicente fidel lópez, the distinguished nineteenth-century 208 / rock Argentine historian, emphasized his ties with the spanish Enlightenment and his aspirations to emulate it. in lópez’s view, he never transcended the idea that “charles iii and its counselors had made spain the most brilliant and attractive country in Europe.”2 in the rio de la Plata, resurgent empire during this period took two principal forms. one appeared in the influence of contemporary European intellectuals , headed by Jeremy Bentham and Benjamin constant. rivadavia’s supporters frequently invoked Benthamite themes like the freedom of the press, the value of public debate, and the importance of “beneficent and liberating institutions” such as the newly founded university of Buenos Aires.3 Meanwhile , members of the Buenos Aires legislature read lengthy citations from constant in discussions of voting reform.4 Political forms of neocolonialism grew visible in the efforts of British merchants and investors to strengthen their influence in Buenos Aires. the British first arrived during the late colonial period in 1806 and began putting down roots in the city following the May revolution against spanish rule in 1810. As early as 1811, the British claimed to command what a merchant called a “beneficial though quite indirect influence over public affairs and public opinion at the seat of government.”5 in 1817, a us diplomat accused the British of planning to establish a protectorate in the rio de la Plata. he reported he had heard British merchants arguing that the Porteños of Buenos Aires should be “placed under the guardianship of some other nation for twenty or thirty years. . . . the drift of all this was not hard to be discovered . . . [and] it meant the guardianship of England.”6 in 1821, a us consul described British influence in terms identical to a textbook definition of informal empire. he complained that the British “practically control the public institutions. . . . England derives from [la Plata] and from chile all the advantages of colonial dependence, without the responsibility or expense of civil or military administration .”7 in this period, the liberal press in Buenos Aires recurrently denied charges by critics that rivadavia intended to encourage the British to replace the spaniards as the province’s colonial masters.8 Paquette and Brown noted “the persistence of mutual influence” as another hallmark of the 1820s, implying that latin America influenced Europe as well as the reverse. the latin American impact on Europe became visible as a form of European rediscovery of the Americas led by the British. As r. A. humphreys once noted, “it is doubtful whether there has ever been so general a demand in England for information about this vast area and, proportionately , so liberal a supply, as in the eighteen-twenties.”9 in the Plata region, Porteño liberals and imperialist Emissaries in the rio de la Plata / 209 British...