The Repository Códice

The Army of the Andes Bought 710 Men From Their Owners

September 8, 2026 · Runtime 10:45 · Watch on YouTube

The Army of the Andes has a published ledger, and it contradicts the monument twice. The enrolment was compulsory, not voluntary. And the single most expensive item in the account was not artillery — it was 710 enslaved men, purchased from the households that owned them.

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Transcript

The province paid first 0:00

By the middle of eighteen fifteen, an army was being assembled in a province of three small towns against the Andes. The national government was contributing to it, but not much, and somebody had to find the rest. That first year, three quarters of the money did not come from the capital. The province paid first. And one of the largest single items in the account was not equipment. It was people.

This episode is the ledger 0:27

This episode is the ledger. It has been published, and it contradicts the monument in two places. The enrolment was not voluntary. The money changed hands in the opposite direction the year after. And a hundred and sixty-one thousand pesos of it went on buying men out of the households that owned them.

What was being built at El Plumerillo 0:48

What was being built sat at a camp called El Plumerillo, outside Mendoza. It was meant to cross the highest mountains on the continent and land intact on the other side. When it finally marched it counted three thousand nine hundred and eighty-seven combatants. Behind them came one thousand three hundred and ninety-two men in the services. Five thousand three hundred and seventy-nine people in all.

Five thousand against nine thousand 1:14

Three quarters of the fighting strength was infantry. Cavalry was under twenty per cent, artillery under seven. On the other side of the cordillera, the royalist army in Chile numbered somewhere near nine thousand.

Registration made compulsory 1:29

Start with the men, because the story usually starts with the money. On October twenty-seventh, eighteen fourteen, a proclamation reorganised the militia of Cuyo and made registration compulsory. About two thousand three hundred militiamen were on the rolls already. In practice this is the first compulsory military service in the country's history.

A quarter against three quarters 1:53

Now the money. In eighteen fifteen the national government in Buenos Aires sent just under twenty-eight thousand pesos. Local sources raised seventy-eight thousand. That is roughly a quarter against three quarters, and the three quarters came from three towns.

The local column, line by line 2:11

The local column is worth reading line by line. Sales tax, about ten and a half thousand pesos across both years. The church tithe, thirteen thousand seven hundred in eighteen fifteen alone. Donations gathered in San Juan, fourteen thousand two hundred. From convents and religious brotherhoods, about two thousand.

Assessed, not offered 2:35

And one line that is not a tax at all. An extraordinary contribution was levied on the men with capital in Mendoza. It brought in thirteen thousand four hundred pesos in the second half of eighteen fifteen alone. It was assessed, not offered.

Wine, horses and eight hundred mules 2:53

A great deal of it never took the form of coin. Two hundred barrels of wine, valued at sixteen hundred pesos. Fifteen hundred horses, at six thousand. Eight hundred pack mules, at two thousand four hundred. A province paying in the only things it had.

The word usually attached to this 3:13

The word usually attached to this is donation. The record uses other words: extraordinary levies on merchants, confiscation of property, seizure of church assets, requisition of livestock. San Martin himself acknowledged that the measures required extraordinary rigour. He was not describing a fundraising drive.

The largest purchase in the book 3:35

Which brings us to the largest purchase in the book. In January of eighteen fifteen a decree provided for the freeing of enslaved men between sixteen and thirty years old, to serve in the army. The word used for it was rescate. Rescue. In practice, the treasury bought them from their owners.

What freedom meant on paper 3:57

It helps to know what freedom already meant on paper in that decade. Two years earlier, in eighteen thirteen, an assembly had declared the children of enslaved mothers free from birth. Then it attached them to their mothers' owners until they turned twenty, if they were boys, and sixteen if they were girls. Freedom, in this system, arrived with a date on it.

Seven hundred and ten men 4:21

Seven hundred and ten men were bought this way in Cuyo. Mendoza supplied three hundred and ten of them, for seventy-two thousand four hundred and sixty-three pesos. San Juan, two hundred and forty, for seventy-five thousand six hundred. San Luis, seventy, for thirteen thousand three hundred.

161,363 pesos 4:43

The total is a hundred and sixty-one thousand three hundred and sixty-three pesos. Set that against the seventy-eight thousand the province raised locally in eighteen fifteen, and the shape of the budget becomes very clear. This was the expensive part.

Prices that differ by province 4:59

Look at what the averages do. About two hundred and thirty-three pesos a man in Mendoza. About three hundred and fifteen in San Juan. About a hundred and ninety in San Luis. Prices that differ by province are market prices. The state was paying owners what the men were worth to them.

Manumission deferred 5:20

And the freedom on the other side of the transaction had a condition attached. They were freed on the obligation to serve until one year after the present war concluded. Not manumission. Manumission deferred, and conditional on surviving a campaign that had not started.

The eighth battalion 5:39

They went into the infantry, which was three quarters of the army. One unit in particular was raised largely from them: the eighth battalion of light infantry. It crossed the Andes with two commanders, twenty-nine officers, and seven hundred and eighty-three men in the ranks.

What Sipe Sipe had just shown 5:57

It is worth being clear about what that meant in eighteen fifteen. In November of that year, at Sipe Sipe, two battalions of free black and mulatto troops were practically annihilated. That was a different army entirely, the Army of the North, up in Upper Peru. But it was not obscure. It was that season's news.

A Franciscan friar and a workshop 6:20

The rest of the money went into a workshop. On the first of March, eighteen fifteen, San Martin put a Franciscan friar named Luis Beltran in charge of the army's maestranza. In November he was given the arsenal and laboratory of the state of Mendoza. In February of eighteen sixteen the national government confirmed him as a lieutenant of artillery.

Twenty-two guns 6:44

What came out of that workshop is countable. Twenty-two guns, adapted or built. Two six-inch howitzers, seven four-inch field guns, nine mountain guns, two iron pieces and two small ten-ounce guns. Plus the rigging Beltran designed to get all of them over passes averaging three thousand metres.

Eighty-four per cent went on wages 7:06

But the workshop is not where the money went, and this is the part that surprises. In eighteen fifteen, eighty-four per cent of military spending went on wages and pensions. War materiel and administration took the remaining sixteen. And officers' pay was under a tenth of the wage bill.

What an army costs before it fights 7:26

So the province was not really buying cannon. It was buying the daily existence of five thousand people who were not producing anything, for two years, in an economy of vineyards and mules. That is what an army costs when nobody is fighting yet.

Tucuman, July 1816 7:43

Then eighteen sixteen changes the arithmetic. On May third, a congress meeting in Tucuman named Juan Martin de Pueyrredon Supreme Director. On July ninth, that same congress declared independence. On July fifteenth, Pueyrredon met San Martin at Cordoba and approved the plan without conditions.

Financed partly by prizes at sea 8:05

Pueyrredon was not paying out of a full treasury either. Among other measures, he sent two captains out as privateers: Hipolito Bouchard and William Brown. Their job was to raise money for the crossing by taking Spanish shipping. The national contribution to this army was partly financed by prizes taken at sea.

The ledger inverts 8:27

And the ledger inverts. In eighteen sixteen the national government put in four hundred and fifteen thousand pesos. Local sources put in a hundred and thirty thousand. Twenty-six against seventy-four one year; seventy-six against twenty-four the next.

Risk in Mendoza, invoice in Buenos Aires 8:45

Read the two columns together and they say something quite exact. The province paid for it while it was still one man's private idea. The nation paid for it once independence had been declared and the idea had become policy. The risk was carried in Mendoza. The invoice moved to Buenos Aires.

Over the mountains, January 1817 9:06

In January of eighteen seventeen the whole thing went over the mountains. Five thousand three hundred and seventy-nine people, twenty-two guns, and the mule trains a wine province had always kept. On February twelfth it won at Chacabuco, and the road to Santiago was open.

Twenty-one names, cut into stone 9:25

There is a monument to all of this on a hill above Mendoza, unveiled in nineteen fourteen. One of its panels is a list of names, cut into the stone. San Martin. Soler. O'Higgins. Las Heras. De la Plaza. Cramer. Zapiola. Beltran, the friar with the workshop. Paroissien. Lavalle. Twenty-one names in all.

Only one set of records is carved 9:57

The seven hundred and ten appear in a different kind of document. They are a sum of money in a treasury account. They are also individual entries in notarial records of purchase, where each of them has a name, an age and a price. Both sets of records survive. Only one of them is carved.

Four columns sent to be seen 10:18

Next: the crossing itself. Six columns, six separate passes, and four of the six sent purely to be seen. The most productive part of the whole operation was not the marching. It was a deception campaign run for over a year. It included a formal parley with the Pehuenche, and a clerk inside the royalist governor's own secretariat in Santiago.

Description and sources

In 1815 the army being assembled at El Plumerillo, outside Mendoza, did not appear on any national budget. That year the national government in Buenos Aires sent just under 28,000 pesos; local sources in Cuyo raised 78,000. Roughly a quarter against three quarters, and the three quarters came from three small towns — sales tax, the church tithe, donations gathered in San Juan, an extraordinary contribution assessed on Mendoza's men of capital, 200 barrels of wine, 1,500 horses and 800 pack mules.

The largest purchase in the book was people. A decree of January 1815 provided for freeing enslaved men aged 16 to 30 to serve in the army; in practice the treasury bought them from their owners. 710 men were bought this way in Cuyo — 310 in Mendoza for 72,463 pesos, 240 in San Juan for 75,600, and 70 in San Luis for 13,300. The total, 161,363 pesos, is more than twice everything the province raised locally that year. The averages differ by province — roughly 233, 315 and 190 pesos a man — which is what market prices look like. The freedom on the other side of the transaction was conditional on serving until one year after the war concluded.

And the enrolment was not voluntary either: a proclamation of October 27th, 1814 reorganised Cuyo's militia and made registration compulsory, which is in practice the first compulsory military service in the country's history.

Then 1816 inverts the arithmetic. Independence is declared at Tucumán on July 9th; Juan Martín de Pueyrredón, named Supreme Director in May, meets San Martín at Córdoba on July 15th and approves the plan without conditions. That year Buenos Aires puts in 415,228 pesos against 130,000 raised locally. The province carried it while it was one man's private idea. The nation paid once it had become policy.

On a hill above Mendoza there is a monument, unveiled in 1914. One of its panels carries twenty-one names cut into the stone. The 710 are a sum of money in a treasury account, and individual entries in notarial records of purchase, where each of them has a name, an age and a price. Both sets of records survive. Only one of them is carved.

PRINT-READY, FROM THIS CHANNEL

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.

Peter Schmidtmeyer — 1820 | Wikimedia Commons | Public domain
José de San Martín (1778-1850) — 1815 | Wikimedia Commons | Public domain
Retrato más canónico de José de San Martín | Wikimedia Commons | Public domain
Peter Schmidtmeyer Agostino Aglio — 1824 | Wikimedia Commons | Public domain
Johann Moritz Rugendas — 1838 | Wikimedia Commons | Public domain
Johann Moritz Rugendas — 1838 | Wikimedia Commons | Public domain
José de San Martín (1778-1850) — 1815 | Wikimedia Commons | Public domain
Peter Schmidtmeyer George Johann Scharf — 1824 | Wikimedia Commons | Public domain
Juan León Pallière — 1858 | Wikimedia Commons | Public domain
Peter Schmidtmeyer Agostino Aglio — 1824 | Wikimedia Commons | Public domain
Congreso de Tucumán — 1816 | Wikimedia Commons | Public domain
Daniel Hernández Morillo — 1921 | Wikimedia Commons | Public domain
George Johann Scharf — 1824 | Wikimedia Commons | Public domain
Pedro Subercaseaux — 1908 | Wikimedia Commons | Public domain

... and 4 more plates, each credited on screen in the video and listed in this project's manifest.