Rosas, JUAN MANUEL

Rosas, JUAN MANUEL, Argentine dictator, was born in Buenos Ayres, 30th March 1793, entered the army of Buenos Ayres in 1820, was appointed commander-in-chief in 1826, and was governor of the province from 1829 to 1832. Then, being disappointed of re-election, he headed a revolt, and in three years succeeded in obtaining office again, with extraordinary powers. From 1835 to 1852 he governed as dictator, not of Buenos Ayres alone, but practically of the interior also. His rule was a rule of terror and nearly constant bloodshed; one of his chief opponents published, so early as 1843, a detailed list of 22,405 victims of the relentless savagery with which he pursued his policy of extirpation against the Unitarians (the advocates of centralisation, that is to say, as opposed to the Federalists, for whose principles Rosas professed to contend). Many refugees found an asylum in Uruguay, and therefore Rosas willingly supported the attempt of his partisan, General Oribe, to make himself master of the neighbouring republic; and, after the fall of Oribe's government, Rosas in 1839 invaded Uruguay with 7000 men, was defeated, and in 1843 sent Oribe back with an army of 14,000 men to attack Montevideo. The long siege which followed led to the joint intervention, in 1845, of England and France, the blockade of Buenos Ayres (1845-47), and the temporary opening of the Paraná to free navigation. But the river provinces could not be induced to rise against Rosas, until in 1849 a treaty was signed by which he secured for Buenos Ayres the entire navigation of the Plate, the Uruguay, and the Paraná. This roused the other provinces, and in 1851 Urquiza, the governor of Entre Ríos, supported by Brazil with both money and men, defeated Oribe in Uruguay, and won over his troops; then, with a force of 30,000, he marched against Rosas, and on 3d February 1852 routed him at Monte Caseros, near Buenos Ayres. Rosas escaped to England; and, although the Argentine congress in 1861 condemned him to death as a 'professional murderer and robber,' specifying 2034 assassinations carried out by his orders, he lived comfortably near Southampton till his death, 14th March 1877.