Montevideo, with its Spanish military and naval contingents, was a royalist stronghold when a movement for independence broke out in Buenos Aires in 1810. In the interior of the Banda Oriental, the fight against Spain was led from 1811 by José Gervasio Artigas, commander of the Blandengues, a mounted corps that the Spaniards had originally created to police the region. Artigas’s small army, which soon included a battalion of freed African slaves, was supported by rural inhabitants, antiroyalist Montevideo leaders, and an army from Buenos Aires. Following victories in the interior and in Montevideo, Artigas promoted a loose confederation of provinces of la Plata, but he also considered forming a rival confederation centring on Montevideo. These plans, coupled with Artigas’s growing power and egalitarian policies (including redistributing estanciero land to freed slaves and other poor Uruguayans), made him a threat to elites in Uruguay and centralists in Buenos Aires, who acquiesced when Portuguese Brazilian forces took over the Banda Oriental in 1820, and Artigas was driven into exile.

“Brazilianization” was resisted within the Banda Oriental and by Uruguayan exiles as well. Argentines felt increasingly threatened by the Brazilian presence, and their government was compelled to support Juan Antonio Lavalleja, one of Artigas’s exiled officers, and his “33 orientales” when they crossed the river to free their homeland in 1825. The ensuing war was a stalemate, but British diplomats mediated a settlement in 1827, and in 1828 a treaty was ratified creating Uruguay as a separate state and a buffer between Brazil and Argentina; the nation’s strategic location also served British interests by guaranteeing that the Río de la Plata would remain an international waterway. On July 18, 1830, when the constitution for the Oriental State of Uruguay was approved, the country had scarcely 74,000 inhabitants.

Uruguay’s first years of independence were disastrous. Twenty years of war and depredation had greatly reduced cattle numbers, and the lands and fortunes of many colonial families had been destroyed. Both Argentina and Brazil still coveted Uruguay. The factions of the first and second presidents, José Fructuoso Rivera and Manuel Oribe, battled each other in what became known as the Guerra Grande (“Great War”). Oribe’s adherents, who displayed white colours, became the Blanco (“White”) Party and controlled the interior. Rivera and his followers used red colours and became the Colorado (“Red”) Party, based in Montevideo. The Blancos, supported by armies of the Argentine dictator Juan Manuel de Rosas, besieged Montevideo during the period 1843–51. The Colorados were aided first by France and England, then by Brazil. When in 1851 the Guerra Grande ended without a clear victory for either side, the Uruguayan interior was devastated, the government was bankrupt, and the disappearance of an independent Uruguay had become a real possibility. Intellectuals wanted to abolish the political parties that had brought the country to such a low point, but the war had made too deep an impact on ordinary Uruguayans, who had become polarized into Colorados or Blancos. In 1865 the Colorados, aided by a Brazilian army, ousted the Blancos from power; however, the Paraguayan dictator, seeing that action as a threat to the regional balance of power, sparked the War of the Triple Alliance (1864/65–70), in which Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina combined to defeat Paraguay. Uruguayan commerce was disrupted by the war, as well as by persistent political disputes, a civil war known as the Revolution of the Lances (1868–72), and Brazilian and Argentine involvement in Uruguayan affairs.

Modernization and reform

Development accelerated during the latter part of the 19th century as increasing numbers of immigrants established businesses and bought land. Partly through their efforts, sheep were introduced to graze together with cattle, ranches were fenced, and pedigreed bulls and rams were imported to improve livestock. Earnings from wool (which became the leading export in 1884), hides, and dried beef encouraged the British to invest in railroad building and also helped to modernize Montevideo—notably in its public utilities and transportation system—which thereby encouraged additional immigration. In 1876 the Uruguayan armed forces took over the government and, aided by improved communications, began to establish firmer control over the interior. However, public support for the regime eventually waned because of the brutality and corruption of some of its leaders, and a civilian Colorado government returned to power in 1890.

Blanco demands for a larger role in government escalated into the Revolution of 1897, led by Aparicio Saravia, which ended when the Colorado president, Juan Idiarte Borda, was killed by an assassin not associated with the Blancos. Although conflicts between Colorados and Blancos continued to impede economic development, by 1900 Uruguay’s population grew to one million—a 13-fold increase over the level of 1830. The Colorado leader José Batlle y Ordóñez was elected president in 1903. The following year the Blancos led a rural revolt, and eight bloody months of fighting ensued before Saravia was killed in battle and government forces emerged victorious. In 1905 the Colorados won the first largely transparent legislative election in 30 years, and domestic stability was finally attained.

Batlle, who had become a Colorado hero, took advantage of the nation’s stability and growing economic prosperity to institute major reforms, including increasing state intervention in economic matters. His administration helped expand cattle ranching, reduce the nation’s dependence on imports and foreign capital, improve workers’ conditions through far-reaching social reforms, and expand education. In addition Batlle abolished the death penalty, allowed women to initiate divorce proceedings, augmented the rights of children born out of wedlock, and reduced the political influence of the Roman Catholic Church—reflecting growing trends toward social liberalization and secularization in Uruguay.

Batlle had two terms (1903–07 and 1911–15) in which to initiate his policies, but, realizing that his program might be reversed by a future president or dictator, he promoted a constitutional reform to end the presidency and replace it with a plural executive, the colegiado. Batlle’s audacious plan split the Colorados and reinvigorated the Blanco opposition, and in 1916 the colegiado was defeated in the country’s first election by secret ballot. Batlle retained a significant amount of prestige and support, however, which allowed him to strike a compromise that partly rescued the colegiado; thus, in a constitution promulgated in 1918, executive responsibility was split between the president and a National Council of Administration.

A consensus government emerged with policies that were more cautious than innovative, except in social legislation. Higher living standards were supported by a ranching economy that had stopped growing, a dilemma hidden by the high export prices of the late 1920s.

Economic and political uncertainties

In 1930 the Colorado presidential candidate, Gabriel Terra, successfully maneuvered through the political vacuum created by the death in 1929 of Batlle, who had held an increasingly complex political and governmental structure together. When the effects of the Great Depression hit Uruguay, President Terra first blamed the plural executive’s economic policies and then, supported by Blanco leader Luis Alberto de Herrera, carried out a coup in March 1933 that abolished the National Council and concentrated power in the hands of the president. Terra’s dictatorship, followed by the presidency of his brother-in-law General Alfredo Baldomir during the period 1938–42, formulated a conservative response to the Great Depression. The state interfered with labour unions, postponed social legislation, preserved as much as it could of the British market for Uruguayan meat, and halted government attempts to nationalize foreign, mainly British, enterprises in Uruguay. The government advocated free-market principles but was compelled to play a more direct role in the economy. It apportioned scarce foreign exchange, built a hydroelectric dam, and tried to ease unemployment and maintain political support by hiring public employees under a system of political quotas. Hard times also sped migration from the interior to Montevideo, where industrial development was encouraged. As a result of these factors, Uruguay emerged from the 1930s with a more urban population and a larger government bureaucracy.

At the onset of World War II, European nations began eagerly to buy Uruguay’s meat, wool, and hides, bringing a period of genuine prosperity. A new constitution in 1942 allowed all political parties to operate freely. The war also strengthened Uruguay’s manufacturing sector, which employed nearly 100,000 people by 1945. Increasing numbers of urban workers joined labour unions, and corporatist “salary councils” arranged for higher wages. The presidential election of 1946 was won by Tomás Berreta, a Batllista (member of the Colorado Batllista Party, founded by Batlle in 1919). After his sudden death, Vice President Luis Batlle Berres, Batlle’s nephew, became president.

During the early 1950s the Korean War stimulated high wool prices on the U.S. market, creating another economic boom for Uruguay. The resulting prosperity enabled the government of Batlle Berres to purchase the British-owned railroads and public utilities, inaugurate new state enterprises, encourage industrialization, subsidize agriculture, and reduce food prices. Unemployment virtually disappeared. A constitutional reform in 1951 replaced the presidency with a nine-member plural executive, the traditional cornerstone of the Batllista program. During this period Uruguay combined a strong democracy with the highest income per capita in Latin America. However, in the mid 1950s, when the end of the Korean War lowered wool prices, Uruguay’s ranching economy declined, as did the standard of living. Politicians, responding to voters’ demands, tried to keep consumption up, first by spending Uruguay’s foreign exchange, then by taking out foreign loans and devaluing the peso. Economic conditions deteriorated: annual inflation rates rose above 60 percent, public services broke down, industries closed, and large numbers of labourers and professionals emigrated.

Voter dissatisfaction brought the Blancos to power in 1958 for the first time since 1865. Although reelected for a second term, the Blanco administration failed to improve conditions, and in 1966 a new constitution was ratified, returning the country to the presidential system. Elections in that year brought new leadership under Colorado conservatives, but inflation and a production slump continued to grip the country, precipitating increasingly stronger protests followed by a government crackdown on students and unions. During this period guerrilla attacks were initiated in Montevideo by the Tupamaros, a leftist group named for Túpac Amaru II, an 18th-century Inca who had rebelled against Spanish rule. When the police could not stop the Tupamaros, the government unleashed the military, which defeated them in a systematic and brutal counterinsurgency campaign. Economic problems persisted, however, and in 1973 the military wrested control of the government from the nation’s discredited politicians.