recent experience in Potosí, Belgrano was enthusiastic about and engaged with this ambitious project, regardless, maybe, of the many difficulties it involved. When Belgrano returned to his country, the main problem was still the Upper Peru, after a new and overwhelming defeat of the patriot troops at Sipe Sipe. In addition to the resulting disorganization of the Northern Army, rebels from the provinces posed a threat to the domestic front and they created in the Litoral region the League of Free People led by José Gervasio Artigas. At that point, Belgrano offered his services to the government centralized in the Directorate, to work for a unified country. He was immediately appointed military commander of the weakened forces that were fighting against the Santa Fe caudillos that had declared their autonomy. He received new disappointments and disrespectful behaviors against him when in this position. In spite of that, his reputation was not tarnished, which is indicative of the soundness of his bases. The director appointed by the Congress of Tucumán, Juan Martín de Pueyrredón, appointed him as general commander of the Northern Army —or the Peru Army— to provide it with “order and organization”. Belgrano accepted “for the sacred cause of the Homeland”. San Martín very much agreed; he appreciated, in particular, the civic and military virtues of Belgrano, with whom he shared the idea of an “American” revolution. In a secret session of Congress, Belgrano explained how much the international context had changed in the previous two years, that, given to their anarchical situation, republics were no longer highly esteemed, that Independence should be declared and that a political option according to the new trends had to be built. He proposed a constitutional monarchy and an Inca descendant to the throne, as a way to repair the devastation that people had suffered as a result of the Spanish Conquest. The idea was welcomed by the Northern populations, not only by the migrants from cities that were under the royalists’ power, but also by mixed-race soldiers. Belgrano had learnt during his military campaigns the importance of taking into consideration that part of the country that he, as a porteño educated in the European culture, used to ignore. However, the proposal was reviled in Buenos Aires among mockeries to the “chocolate king,” as it was inadmissible that the political center could be taken to the far North. From 1816 to 1819, Belgrano remained as the commander of the Peru Army, which was in pitiful conditions. Meanwhile, San Martín conducted his successful campaign in Chile. “Please keep on making our Country glorious,” Belgrano wrote after Maipú’s victory. He watched very closely the preparations for the expedition to Peru, providing useful information and even accepted that he was not given elements that he needed for its own forces. Meanwhile, he did everything possible to satisfy the help requests from Martín Miguel de Güemes, who was putting up a vigorous defense at the borders of Salta and Jujuy, always threatened by the Spanish army. He was very critical of the Litoral caudillos, Estanislao López and Francisco Ramírez, who rejected the authority of the Directorate. Belgrano’s correspondence is clear about his position: he shared San Martín’s fear of and rejection to the consequences of anarchy; the fate of revolution was not sealed and a reconquest expedition was being organized in Spain. He felt no ill will for the Litoral caudillos, whom he had met during the Paraguay and Eastern Bank campaigns, and recommended that they were heard, but he demanded from them that they dropped their animosity, as the creation of the Nation required to be organized around a unified leadership. Meanwhile, he lived his personal life in the City of Tucuman, where he had an established household, relationships and dear friends; he was always active and was proud of having set an Academy of Mathematics to train military engineers and was
seeking a method to learn soldiers to read, as he regretted their illiteracy. He believed all that was essential to give content to the idea of an independent country. At the beginning of 1819, the Córdoba and Santa Fe campaigns, with staging posts and camps which lacked horses, weapons, clothes, as well as the setbacks experienced by his subordinates, put his spirit to the test. “This chest may bear anything,” he wrote determined to face “the awful outlooks for this year 19,” and he added: “Ultimately we, the Americans, were very barbarians”. By the end of that year, amidst the deterioration of the central authority and the chaos in the different jurisdictions, humiliated by an attempt to imprison him and seriously ill, Belgrano returned to his home town. His last days were at the family household on Santo Domingo street. He made a will and commended the fate of the country to the divine Providence, as the sole possible solution to the catastrophes that it faced. In his opinion, lack of education was the cause of all evils. He died on June 20, 1820. Only a few intimates mourned him. Acknowledgment and glory arrived later.Belgrano: His Example as a Message
Belgrano: His Example as a Message By María Sáenz Quesada
D
espite the feeling of defeat that the national hero felt at the time of his death, when anarchy was at its peak, his beloved country slowly got back on its feet. Indeed, after a succession of civil wars, the Argentine Republic started to grow into a modern nation. Most of Belgrano’s best initiatives on education, freedom of the press, institutions, modernization of infrastructure, industries and national defense were implemented during the historical period known as the National Organization. The creator of the light-blue and white flag eventually became himself a symbol of patriotism and civic virtues. His moral status, his integrity and his mental clarity allowed him to go with an untarnished reputation through extremely difficult times of the American history, where everything was yet to be defined and the outcome of the fight for Independence was still unknown. Belgrano’s image as a national hero has been preserved both by academic historiography, as well as by literature and popular memory. Maybe because this porteño from a wealthy family, who went to school in Europe and was educated in the modern culture, managed to establish relationships of mutual understanding, respect and affection with the country’s inland populations, including indigenous communities in the Altiplano. An inescapable reference associated to the national identity feeling, he is present in monuments and in the nomenclature of the current Argentine territory, as well as in school teaching, where the first patriotic images and models are formed. Belgrano set high goals and helped achieve them; as a humanist and a statesman, as a civilian and a military man, and as a precursor and an architect of Independence, he was instrumental in building the Argentine Nation. This “unassuming hero”, as President Domingo Faustino Sarmiento put it when paying tribute to him, is nowadays one of the undisputed “Founding Fathers” of our nation. His memory helps us come together over and above any differences to face future challenges. Today, his example sends a strong message to all Argentinians—it invites us to exercise citizenship to the full extent of our rights and duties; to embrace the knowledge society; and to understand the general welfare can be achieved when ethics and politics concur. M. S. Q.
Manuel Belgrano. Traducción 157
