The Junta That Voted Out the Man Who Built It

Chapters

1. 0:00 The instructions he never delivered
2. 0:19 Not a story about enemies
3. 0:40 Who Mariano Moreno was
4. 1:05 Ten men swear the wrong oath
5. 1:32 Moreno loses the first fight
6. 2:04 A toast that goes too far
7. 2:28 Moreno writes the correction
8. 2:55 The deputies finally arrive
9. 3:17 Fourteen to two
10. 3:49 The removal he asked for
11. 4:18 The instructions he wrote himself
12. 4:55 Aboard the Fame
13. 5:21 Ill in the Atlantic
14. 5:37 A dose nobody agrees on
15. 6:16 Never proven, never disproven
16. 6:55 Eleven months, one mechanism
17. 7:09 What actually defeated him
18. 7:29 Saavedra's turn comes
19. 7:56 Deposed by his own creation
20. 8:32 A plan with nobody left
21. 8:54 Next: the officer who deposes the Triumvirate

Transcript

The instructions he never delivered 0:00

In September of eighteen ten, a young lawyer sat down in Buenos Aires and wrote out, in his own hand, the exact terms a new government should use to ask Great Britain for recognition. Six months later he was dead in the middle of the Atlantic, and the government he wrote those terms for had already voted him out of it.

Not a story about enemies 0:19

This is not a story about a revolution defeating its enemies. By the middle of eighteen ten, Buenos Aires already had its own government. This episode follows what that government does to the man who wrote its rules -- using a principle he helped create, against him, and then, within a year, against the man who used it to beat him.

Who Mariano Moreno was 0:40

Mariano Moreno was twenty-nine years old, a lawyer trained in Chuquisaca, and secretary of the new government -- its most demanding voice. He drafted its founding decrees, launched its official newspaper, the Gazeta de Buenos Ayres, and pushed through a rule that promotions in the new army would go by merit, not by seniority -- a rule that made him enemies among officers who had waited years for rank.

Ten men swear the wrong oath 1:05

Five months into the revolution, the government found out how many of its own subjects had never accepted it. On the sixteenth of October, eighteen ten, ten members of the Buenos Aires cabildo -- the city council -- were discovered to have secretly sworn loyalty to Spain's Council of Regency back in July. They were arrested. And the Junta split, immediately, over what to do with them.

Moreno loses the first fight 1:32

Moreno argued for execution -- a public one, to end any doubt about what the new government would tolerate. Cornelio de Saavedra, the Junta's president, refused to hand the men to a firing squad. Saavedra won. The conspirators were exiled instead, scattered to small towns outside the city -- and the revolution's first internal test ended not in blood, but in a rule Moreno had not written: that Saavedra, not Moreno, decided how far the revolution's violence went.

A toast that goes too far 2:04

Three weeks later, patriot troops win a real battle -- Suipacha, in Upper Peru, on the seventh of November. Buenos Aires celebrates. At a regimental party, a drunk captain named Atanasio Duarte raises a toast to Saavedra and his wife, offering them a pastry crown and calling him, out loud, in front of witnesses, the emperor of America.

Moreno writes the correction 2:28

The rest of the Junta is not amused. Moreno is the one who drafts the response: the Decree on the Suppression of Honors, signed December sixth, eighteen ten, banning ceremonial privileges for any member of the government, Saavedra included. Saavedra signs it without recorded complaint. For one document, the two men about to break the government in half are on exactly the same side.

The deputies finally arrive 2:55

Twelve days later, the fracture arrives by road. Back in May, the Junta had summoned deputies from the interior provinces to come join the government in Buenos Aires. On the eighteenth of December, nine of them finally arrive -- and the question the Junta has been avoiding for seven months can no longer wait: what happens when they get here?

Fourteen to two 3:17

Moreno wants the new deputies kept out of the executive Junta entirely, formed instead into a separate congress. He loses. The vote to fold them directly into the government passes fourteen to two -- only Moreno and his ally Juan Jose Paso hold out -- and by the next morning, sworn in as the enlarged Junta Grande, even Moreno has fallen in line behind the majority. The exact mechanism that built his government, bringing more voices in, has just voted him into the minority inside it.

The removal he asked for 3:49

Moreno submits his resignation. It is refused -- the Junta still wants his name attached to it -- but his power is gone in every way that matters. And then, weeks later, when a diplomatic mission to Britain needs a representative, Moreno does something unexpected: he asks for the post himself. Saavedra accepts immediately. Nobody exiles Mariano Moreno. He requests his own removal.

The instructions he wrote himself 4:18

Before he leaves, Moreno writes his own instructions, literally in his own hand, for the mission he is about to carry out: how to persuade Great Britain, an ally of Spain's Council of Regency, to recognize a government fighting against Spain, without saying so outright, in exchange for naval protection against a feared Portuguese invasion from Rio de Janeiro. The manuscript survives. It sits today in the Casa Rosada Museum in Buenos Aires, registered by UNESCO as part of the Memory of the World in twenty eighteen -- the only part of the entire mission anyone ever finished.

Aboard the Fame 4:55

In February of eighteen eleven, Moreno boards the schooner Fame, bound for London, with his younger brother Manuel and his secretary, Tomas Guido. The government he is sailing away from has already stopped listening to him. The government he is sailing toward does not exist yet in international law. He is carrying, in a leather case, the only version of it that anyone has bothered to write down.

Ill in the Atlantic 5:21

Somewhere in the Atlantic, Moreno falls ill. The ship's English captain, Walter Bathurst, refuses to put in at Rio de Janeiro or Cape Town to let him recover on land. Instead, he treats him at sea.

A dose nobody agrees on 5:37

Bathurst gives Moreno a dose of tartar emetic, antimony and potassium -- a common remedy for the period. English-language accounts put the dose at four grams; Argentine accounts say forty. The sources disagree by a factor of ten, but not on the outcome: it was a routine medicine at a wildly abnormal concentration. Moreno convulses and dies on the fourth of March, eighteen eleven, thirty-two years old. His body is wrapped in a British flag and dropped into the sea, roughly one hundred twenty kilometers off the coast of what is now Santa Catarina, Brazil.

Never proven, never disproven 6:16

Manuel Moreno never accepted that this was an accident. He pointed to the refusal to make land, to a dose he said his brother could never have survived, and to contract clauses spelling out what should happen to the mission's papers if Moreno, quote, died or met an unforeseen accident, clauses written before the ship ever left port. A modern historian, working from family medical records, concluded Moreno most likely died of natural causes, made worse by the treatment. Argentina's courts never reached a final verdict either way. The murder was never proven. It was never disproven.

Eleven months, one mechanism 6:55

Lay out the eleven months that follow, and one shape repeats: the mechanism that expands the government is the mechanism that ends a career. It catches Moreno in December. It is not finished.

What actually defeated him 7:09

Moreno's power did not end because the revolution betrayed its ideals. It ended because the revolution did exactly what it was built to do -- widen the circle of who got a vote -- and the widened circle did not vote for him. The government he had spent seven months building outgrew him in a single afternoon.

Saavedra's turn comes 7:29

Saavedra, the man who won that December vote, does not get to enjoy it for long. In June of eighteen eleven, patriot forces are crushed at the Battle of Huaqui, in Upper Peru -- thousands of men lost in a single afternoon. Saavedra leaves Buenos Aires himself to take personal command of what is left of the army, believing he can do more good at the front than in the middle of the same political fights that had just consumed Moreno.

Deposed by his own creation 7:56

While Saavedra is away, the enlarged Junta Grande he had just used to defeat Moreno turns into a legislature, and hands executive power to a new three-man Triumvirate. On the twenty-third of September, eighteen eleven, nine months, almost to the day, after the vote that broke Moreno, Saavedra learns in Salta that he has been removed as president, in his absence, by the same body he had helped build to remove someone else. An arrest order follows him. He crosses the Andes on horseback into Chile, and will not set foot in Buenos Aires again for years.

A plan with nobody left 8:32

The instructions Moreno wrote for his own mission never reached the government they were addressed to -- Britain would not recognize Buenos Aires for years, and Moreno did not live to make the case himself. The manuscript is the part of the mission that got finished. It sits in a museum in Buenos Aires today, a plan with nobody left to carry it out.

Next: the officer who deposes the Triumvirate 8:54

Within a year, the Triumvirate that replaced Saavedra is gone too -- deposed on the night of the seventh of October, eighteen twelve, by militia officers who call themselves defenders of the popular will: Jose de San Martin, a name in this story for the first time, and Carlos Maria de Alvear. The Cabildo elects a new Second Triumvirate to replace it. One of its three members is Juan Jose Paso -- the only man, besides Moreno, who voted against the mechanism that started all of this.

Description and sources

Mariano Moreno was twenty-nine, a lawyer, and the secretary of the new government born in Buenos Aires in 1810 -- its most radical architect. In October, when ten members of the city council are caught swearing secret loyalty to Spain, Moreno demands they be shot as a warning. He loses that argument to Cornelio de Saavedra, who has them exiled instead. It is the first sign that the revolution's limits are not his to set.

In December, nine deputies summoned from the interior provinces finally arrive in Buenos Aires, and the Junta votes on whether to fold them directly into the government. Moreno wants a separate congress instead. He loses, fourteen to two. The next morning, he is one of the men swearing loyalty to the enlarged government that just out-voted him -- defeated by the same principle, wider representation, that built the revolution in the first place.

Weeks later, he asks to be sent to Britain as a diplomat. Before he sails, he writes the mission's instructions himself, in his own hand -- the only part of that mission anyone would ever finish. At sea, he falls ill, and the ship's English captain gives him a dose of a common emetic at a concentration the sources can't agree on: four grams, say English accounts; forty, say Argentine ones. He convulses and dies on March 4th, 1811, thirty-two years old, and is buried in the Atlantic wrapped in a foreign flag.

Nine months later, almost to the day, the same expanded government that defeated Moreno turns on the man who won that vote. Saavedra is deposed in his absence, and crosses the Andes on horseback to escape arrest.

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The Document Set, Vol. 01 — Cajamarca 1532 and Buenos Aires 1595-1680 — the documents at reading size, with author, date, archive and licence

https://therepository.gumroad.com/l/document-set

SOURCES — every image in this video is a public-domain document.

Each plate below is listed with its author, date, holding archive and licence.

• Ciudad de la Trinidad en el Puerto de Santa María de los Buenos Aires | Wikimedia Commons | CC0
• Juan de Dios Rivera — 1808 | Wikimedia Commons | Public domain
• Fray Pedro Subercaseaux Errázuriz (1880-1956) — 1908 | Wikimedia Commons | Public domain
• Julio Vila y Prades — 1910 | Wikimedia Commons | Public domain
• Canal antiguo del Riachuelo. Plano de Pedro Cerviño, 1814 | Wikimedia Commons | Public domain
• Mariano Torrente (died 1856) | Wikimedia Commons | Public domain
• Cornelio Saavedra - 1810 | Wikimedia Commons | Public domain