Jos Gervasio Artigas – Biography of Jos Gervasio Artigas

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Jose Gervasio Artigas He was a military man, politician and Uruguayan greatest hero, born in the city of Montevideo on June 19, 1764 and died in Asunción (Paraguay), on September 23, 1850.

He received the title of “Chief of the Orientals” Y “Protector of Free Peoples“He was one of the leaders of the Río de la Plata Revolution, and that is why he is also honored in Argentina for his contribution to the independence and federalization of that country.

Artigas was the third child of the six that his parents had, Martin José Artigas Carrasco and Francisca Antonia Arnal Rodríguez. His grandfather, Juan Antonio Artigas Ordobas (originally from the village of Albortón Puebla de Aragón) and his grandmother Ignacia Xaviera Carrasco and Melo-Coutiño, were among the first settlers of the city. Artigas belonged to one of the richest families in Montevideo; his father owned fields and was the first captain of the militia, with the position of Royal Officer.

Artigas spent the first years of his life in the city of Montevideo and on his father’s farm, studying elementary school, with the Franciscan parents of the San Bernardino convent.

Artigas played an important role in the struggles for independence and the predominance of republican and democratic ideas as opposed to the monarchy. He fought successively against the Spanish Empire, the Unitarians installed in the cities of Buenos Aires and Montevideo, the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarve. It led the current territories of Uruguay, Santa Fe, Entre Ríos, Corrientes and Misiones towards independence from Spain.

In a direct way, their struggles were oriented to the formation of the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata, organized on the principles of federalism and republic, defending the integration of what is now Uruguay as the Eastern Province, in reference to the fact that the territory is located on the eastern bank of the Uruguay and the Río de la Plata rivers. This is the reason why Uruguayans are known as “oriental”.

Artigas’ fierce defense of the federal autonomy of the provinces indirectly contributed to the creation of the Oriental Republic of Uruguay as an independent state in 1828, when he was already in his long exile in Paraguay, the country where he died.