The Uruguay History Timeline
Uruguay History: Uruguay is bordered by Argentina to the west and southwest; by Brazil to the north and east; by the Rio de la Plata to the south and by the South Atlantic Ocean to the southeast. Uruguay Bordering Countries : Argentina, Brazil. The above blank map represents Uruguay – a country in Southern South America.
History on Uruguay
- Total Area of Uruguay: 176,215 sq km land: 175,015 sq km water: 1,200 sq km
- Capital of Uruguay: Montevideo is the capital and largest city of Uruguay.
- Language of Uruguay: Spanish is the official language
- Continent of Uruguay South America
Prehistory of Uruguay
History about Uruguay: What we now call the Uruguay River, ran in the north with just 20 meters. wide, in a wide valley that could be seen from the elevated shore. Icy winds crossed the ground just covered by shrubs and hard grasses. The traces of a Glyptodont were perceived in the fine dust deposited, while a huge Milodon He climbed slowly towards the height of the next hill, still covered with snow.
A small group of human beings, covered in long cloaks of Skins bordered the escarpment with eyes attentive to the new landscape that was being Presented. This must have been the panorama at the entrance of the first inhabitants in our territory. Our almanac would indicate that The birth of Christ is still more than ten thousand years away.
In this scene, the prehistory of Uruguay begins to be written. A period vast, wide, complex and variable, since it is 40 times greater than the called historical period of the country. A prehistory which is also almost unknown to the vast majority of Uruguayans, and expressly ignored (if not caricature) in education formal.
Over thousands of years, different groups were inhabiting this territory. A region that was sometimes fertile and ferocious, while in others it was devastating and mortifying. What came to have Decertified areas in the northwest 7,000 years ago, with extensive sandy areas in which llamas and guanacos moved. And that he possessed important semi-tropical forests in its central region, hardly three thousand years later.
The ocean covered -our now tourist beaches-, submerging them under six meters, to retreat at other times, leaving more than 70 to 100 km. of new coasts and an immense as unknown Coastal territory to the curious exploration.
A geographically and climate-changing landscape. Almost always surprising, and in which the aborigines had a Extraordinary role: adapting to dramatic changes in flora and environment, in which they not only survived, but developed in addition varied and complex social and cultural relations. All This, together with a renewed capacity to invent and modify tools.
Origin of Uruguay History
Origin Uruguay history: To know the history and origin of Uruguay you must first know how it is and its geographical location. Uruguay is the smallest state in South America. It has borders to the north and east with Brazil; to the west by Argentina, from which it is separated by the Uruguay River, and to the south by the Río de la Plata and the Atlantic Ocean.
The whole history of Uruguay seems marked by the fact that it is a kind of border between the two colossi of South America. Thus, in colonial times its territory was occupied by Spaniards and Portuguese, and then by Argentines and Brazilians, until Artigas and his heirs led the small republic to independence.
Uruguay is an austere and Europeanized country in its immense plains, dedicated mainly to livestock, but in its scarce tropical forests it preserves a small nucleus of indigenous population that still practices ancestral rites.
There is only one big city, Montevideo, and Uruguayans have many lands left to conquer and put into cultivation. Thus, the country may have one of the most promising futures in the American continent if it manages to overcome the low growth of its population.
Who colonized Uruguay?
Who first colonized Uruguay? The Portuguese were the first Europeans to enter the region of present-day Uruguay in 1512. The Spanish arrived in present-day Uruguay in 1516. The indigenous peoples’ fierce resistance to conquest, combined with the absence of gold and silver, limited their settlement in the region during the 16th and 17th centuries.
How was Uruguay founded?
Uruguay history of Foundation: Prior to European settlement, Uruguay was inhabited by indigenous people, the Charrúas. Juan Díaz de Solis, a Spaniard, visited Uruguay in 1516, but the Portuguese were first to settle it when they founded the town of Colonia del Sacramento in 1680. After a long struggle, Spain wrested the country from Portugal in 1778, by which time almost all of the indigenous people had been exterminated. Uruguay revolted against Spain in 1811, only to be conquered in 1817 by the Portuguese from Brazil. Independence was reasserted with Argentine help in 1825, and the republic was set up in 1828.
A revolt in 1836 touched off nearly 50 years of factional strife, including an inconclusive civil war (1839–1851) and a war with Paraguay (1865–1870), accompanied by occasional armed intervention by Argentina and Brazil. Uruguay, made prosperous by meat and wool exports, founded a welfare state early in the 20th century under President José Batlle y Ordóñez, who ruled from 1903 to 1929. A decline began in the 1950s as successive governments struggled to maintain a large bureaucracy and costly social benefits. Economic stagnation and left-wing terrorist activity followed.
Discovery and colonization of Uruguay History
Uruguay history of Discovery: In 1514, Juan Díaz de Solís, senior pilot of the Casa de Contratación of Seville, capitulated with the crown to discover a passage to the Pacific. The following year he left for the Indies. He reached the mouth of the Río de la Plata and went to the Uruguay River, where he met his death at the hands of the Charrúa Indians.
With the Charrúas, Guarani, Yaros and Bohanes Indians lived in the area, who were later catechized by Jesuits and Franciscans. The territory of Uruguay was not immediately colonized by the Spaniards, who settled on the other bank of the Río de la Plata, where they founded the city of Buenos Aires and established a governorate dependent on the viceroyalty of Peru.
But during the governorship of José de Garro (1678-1682) the Portuguese established the colony of Sacramento at the confluence of Uruguay with the Río de la Plata (1680). Reconquered and ceded several times by Spain, it passed definitively into the hands of Spain in 1777.
To counteract the Portuguese and French penetration, the governor of Buenos Aires, Bruno Mauricio de Zabala, expelled the Portuguese from the small port of Montevideo and fortified the town (1726).
In 1776 the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata was created and the administrative structure of the colony was modified. Montevideo remained as the capital of a border government. Meanwhile, the territories on the other bank of the River Plate were organized into intendancies.
The second half of the eighteenth century marked the rise of Montevideo as a commercial center, especially from the Royal Order of Free Trade of Carlos III (1778), which placed it on an equal footing with respect to Buenos Aires.
In 1807, as a consequence of the policy of blockade of Great Britain followed by Spain under French direction, the British fleet occupied Montevideo. This event marked the beginning of a takeoff of the colony from the metropolis. After the occupation was rejected, independence movements began to take place. In 1810 a Junta forced the viceroy to deposit the powers in it, and Buenos Aires declared itself independent.
Independence of Uruguay History
Independent Uruguay history: The leader of Uruguayan independence was José Gervasio Artigas, who with the Grito de Asencio (February 28, 1811) revolted the orientals, who defeated the Spaniards in the battle of Las Piedras (May 1811). They occupied Montevideo in 1814, which marked Uruguayan independence, threatened by the Buenos Aires attempt to constitute a great state with the territories of the Río de la Plata and by Brazilian expansionism.
In 1776 the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata was created and the administrative structure of the colony was modified. Montevideo remained as the capital of a border government. Meanwhile, the territories on the other bank of the River Plate were organized into intendancies.
The second half of the eighteenth century marked the rise of Montevideo as a commercial center, especially from the Royal Order of Free Trade of Carlos III (1778), which placed it on an equal footing with respect to Buenos Aires.
In 1807, as a consequence of the policy of blockade of Great Britain followed by Spain under French direction, the British fleet occupied Montevideo. This event marked the beginning of a takeoff of the colony from the metropolis. After the occupation was rejected, independence movements began to take place. In 1810 a Junta forced the viceroy to deposit the powers in it, and Buenos Aires declared itself independent.
Independence of Uruguay
The Independence of Uruguay was a military and political process by which the region of the Banda Oriental became independent from the Spanish Crown and became the Oriental Republic of Uruguay.
This process began on February 28, 1811 with the Grito de Asencio and ended on August 27, 1828 with the signing of an agreement by which both Argentina and Brazil recognized the Independence of the Banda Oriental. During the emancipatory process, the Eastern patriots had to face both the opposition of the Spanish royalists, the territorial aspirations of the Portuguese and Brazilians, and the centralism of the Buenos Aires governments.
History of the flag of Uruguay
The “Sun of May” shines in this small country in South America, freed from the Spanish yoke: it is the symbol of an autonomy that was regained in 1828. The Uruguayan banner reproduces the colors of the Argentine flag, inspired by the blue and white cockades distributed in May 1810, during the Argentine War of Independence against Spain.
José Gervasio Artigas, leader of the Uruguayan independence movement against Spanish domination that had begun in the eighteenth century, is the author of this flag of blue and white horizontal stripes.It is also a way of evoking the nine original provinces of Uruguay. The Uruguayan flag was made official in 1830. Not even the Great War against Argentina, which took place between 1839 and 1851, served to question the colors of the national emblem of this country wedged between two powerful neighbors. The estuary of the Río de la Plata, one of the longest in the world, constitutes a natural transition between an open Uruguay on the Atlantic Ocean, the Argentine Pampas and the Brazilian plateau.
Read Also History of Brazil
References
PREHISTORY OF URUGUAY (rau.edu.uy)
Independence of Uruguay – What was it?, stages, protagonists and more (enciclopediadehistoria.com)
Pingback: Best Paraguay History Timeline 1811