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Disciplined Rebels: The Revolution of 1880 in Buenos Aires*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 July 2008

ARIEL YABLON
ARIEL YABLON
Affiliation:
Ariel Yablon is an instructor at the Universidad Torcuato Di Tella (UTDT) in Buenos Aires. Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

This article studies the relationship between electoral processes, popular mobilisation, and revolutionary movements in Argentina at the end of the nineteenth century. Focusing on the revolution of 1880, it is argued that the fraud in favour of General Julio A. Roca, that was perceived to have occurred in the presidential election of that year, resulted in the mobilisation of vast sectors of the Buenos Aires population and the organisation of militias. By analysing the social composition, organisation, and sources of recruitment of these militias, the article claims that although personal allegiance, clientelism and coercion played a role in this mobilisation, these factors are not sufficient to explain the popularity of the movement. The revolution owed its wide and active support to the claims of its leaders, who centred their discourse on defending the purity of suffrage and the rights of citizens to bear arms in order to protect their rights and freedoms.

Resumen:

Este artículo estudia la relación entre los procesos electorales, la movilización popular y los movimientos revolucionarios en Argentina a fines del siglo XIX. Centrándose en la revolución de 1880, señala que el fraude percibido en favor del general Julio A. Roca durante las elecciones presidenciales de ese año, dio como resultado la movilización de vastos sectores de la población de Buenos Aires y la organización de milicias. Al analizar la composición social, organización y fuentes de reclutamiento de estas milicias, el artículo señala que aunque las lealtades personales, el clientelismo y la coerción jugaron un papel en tal movilización, estos factores no bastan para explicar la popularidad del movimiento. La revolución debe su amplio y activo apoyo a las peticiones de sus dirigentes, quienes centraron su discurso en la defensa de la pureza electoral y del derecho de los ciudadanos a portar armas para proteger sus garantías y libertades.

Palabras clave: Argentina, Buenos Aires, política, elecciones, revolución, grupos populares, construcción nacional

Resumo:

Este artigo estuda a relação entre processos eleitorais, mobilização popular, e movimentos revolucionários na Argentina no final do século XIX. Focando na revolução de 1880, propõe-se que a percepção de que a fraude na eleição presidencial favoreceu o General Julia A. Roca levando à mobilização de amplos setores da população portenha e à constituição das milícias. A partir da análise da composição social, organização e fontes para o recrutamentos dessas milícias, o artigo afirma que embora a mobilização fosse possível devido a lealdades pessoais, clientelismo, e coerção, a popularidade do movimento não pode ser explicada somente por estes fatores. O extenso e ativo apoio à revolução deveu-se às reinvindicações de seus líderes, cujos discursos centraram-se na defesa da pureza do sufrágio e no direito dos cidadões de armarem-se para proteger seus direitos e liberdades.

Palavras-chave: Argentina, Buenos Aires, política, eleições, revolução, grupos populares, construção da nação.

Keywords

ArgentinaBuenos Airespoliticselectionsrevolutionpopular groupsnation-building
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Latin American Studies , Volume 40 , Issue 3 , August 2008 , pp. 483 - 511
Copyright
Copyright © 2008 Cambridge University Press

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References

1 In this article the term ‘porteño’ is used in the sense in which it was employed in 1880. At that time the word referred to anybody living in the province of Buenos Aires. Today the term refers exclusively to the inhabitants of the city of Buenos Aires. The figures for casualties come from Isidoro J. Ruiz Moreno, La federalización de Buenos Aires (Buenos Aires 1986), p. 52.

2 This interpretation continues to be fairly popular today. See, for example, Carlos Malamud's otherwise suggestive essay, ‘The Origins of Revolution in Nineteenth-Century Argentina’, in Rebecca Earle (ed.), Rumours of Wars: Civil Conflict in Nineteenth-Century Latin America (London 2002), p. 38.

3 In Lia Sanucci's otherwise excellent work, for example, popular participation is acknowledged, but never analysed: Lia E. M. Sanucci, La renovación presidencial de 1880 (La Plata 1959); see also Bartolomé Galíndez, Historia política argentina: la revolución del 80 (Buenos Aires 1945); Natalio Botana, ‘1880: la federalización de Buenos Aires’, in Gustavo Ferrari et al., La Argentina del ochenta al centenario (Buenos Aires 1980); Luis H. Sommariva, Historia de las intervenciones federales en las provincias, 2 vols. (Buenos Aires 1929–31); and Fernando M. Madero, Entre la genealogía y la historia (Buenos Aires 1989). Accounts of contemporary witnesses include those of Eduardo Gutiérrez, La muerte de Buenos Aires (Buenos Aires 1959 [1882]); Felipe Yofré, El Congreso de Belgrano (año 1880) (Buenos Aires 1999 [1928]); and Ezequiel Ramos Mexía, Mis memorias, 1853–1935 (Buenos Aires 1936). For a distinction between ‘revolution as a process’ and ‘revolution as an outcome’, see François Furet, Interpreting the French Revolution (Cambridge 1977), pp. 17–28; and Alan, Knight, ‘Social Revolution: A Latin American Perspective’, Bulletin of Latin American Research, vol. 9, no. 2 (1990), pp. 175–202Google Scholar.

4 Except where noted in the text, the term ‘elite’ refers here exclusively to political elites. Although these politicians recruited many of their cadres from among the rich, they were not just representing the interests of the latter. The control of the state and its resources, including those used to sustain clientelistic networks, underpinned the access of this political elite to power. See Leandro, Losada, ‘¿Oligarquía o elites? Estructura y composición de las clases altas de la ciudad de Buenos Aires entre 1880 y 1930’, Hispanic American Historical Review, vol. 87, no. 1 (2007), pp. 43–75Google Scholar; and Hilda Sabato, The Many and the Few: Political Participation in Republican Buenos Aires (Stanford 2001).

5 ‘The people’ here does not refer to the lower classes (or ‘subalterns’) alone, but to members of all sectors of porteño society, which included urban and rural journeymen, unskilled wage workers and self-employed at the bottom of the social pyramid; rich landowners, merchants and financers at the top; and white-collar employees, and intellectuals in between. Obviously, this classification should not be read in a static manner. Limited but real opportunities of social ascent, an ongoing economic transformation, and a growing influx of immigrants were changing society rapidly during this period: see Hilda Sabato et al., Los trabajadores de Buenos Aires: la experiencia del mercado, 1850–1880 (Buenos Aires 1992).

6 Paula Alonso, Entre la revolución y las urnas: los orígenes de la UCR y la política argentina en los años 90 (Buenos Aires 2002), p. 155. This definition of the term ‘revolution’ also contrasts with those in vogue until recently which, based on the example of the ‘Great Revolutions’ (basically France, Russia and China), refer to movements aimed at transforming existing social structures and creating new ones. Their goal was, therefore, to break with the past, not to restore it. For an analysis of the history and future of the concept, see Jack, Goldstone, ‘Towards a Fourth Generation of Revolutionary Theory’, Annual Review of Political Science, vol. 4 (2001), pp. 139–87Google Scholar. For a compelling interpretative article on the characteristics of Latin American social revolutions in the twentieth century, see Knight, ‘Social Revolution’.

7 As recently as 1996, David Brading lamented the lack of studies that gave popular classes a more active role in nineteenth-century struggles: see David Brading, ‘Assessing the Legacy of Liberalism’, in Vincent Peloso et al. (eds.), Liberals, Politics, and Power: State Formation in Nineteenth-Century Latin America (Athens, Ga. 1996), pp. 278–300. In a pioneering study that highlights the political and ideological engagement of Colombian rank-and-file soldiers in the movement led by Ricardo Gaitán Obeso in 1885, Malcolm Deas insightfully draws attention to the shortcomings of traditional interpretations: ‘War is political as well as military mobilisation, a maxim so common in the study of other parts of the world that one wonders why it is so rarely applied to Latin America’: Malcolm, Deas, ‘Poverty, Civil War and Politics: Ricardo Gaitán Obeso and his Magdalena River Campaign in Colombia, 1885’, Nova Americana, vol. 2 (1979), pp. 288–9Google Scholar.

8 Frank Safford's review of recent trends in the literature on civil conflicts of this period emphasises that historians are now giving a larger and less instrumental role to popular groups than in the past: see Frank Safford, ‘Reflections on the Internal Wars in Nineteenth-Century Latin America’, in Earle (ed.), Rumours of Wars, pp. 6–28. A pioneering work that challenges stereotypes about popular participation in Argentina's civil wars is Ariel de la Fuente, Children of Facundo: Caudillo and Gaucho Insurgency during the Argentine State Formation Process (La Rioja, 1853–1870) (Durham 2000).

9 On the limits of subaltern agency, see the debate in Hispanic American Historical Review, vol. 79, no. 2 (1999), and Alan, Knight, ‘Subalterns, Signifiers, and Statistics: Perspectives on Mexican Historiography’, Latin American Research Review, vol. 37, no. 2 (2002), pp. 136–58Google Scholar.

10 Among others, see Alonso, Entre la revolución y las urnas; Carlos Cansanello, De súbditos a ciudadanos: ensayos sobre las libertades en los orígenes republicanos. Buenos Aires 1810–1852 (Buenos Aires 2006); Pilar González Bernaldo de Quirós, Civilidad y política en los orígenes de la nación argentina: las sociabilidades en Buenos Aires, 1829–1862 (Buenos Aires 2001); Alberto R. Lettieri, La República de la Opinión: política y opinión pública en Buenos Aires entre 1852 y 1862 (Buenos Aires 1998); Alberto Lettieri et al. (eds.), La vida política en la Argentina del siglo XIX: armas, votos y voces (Buenos Aires 2003); Marcela Ternavasio, La revolución del voto: política y elecciones en Buenos Aires, 1810–1852 (Buenos Aires 2002); Sabato, The Many and the Few, and Pueblo y política: la construcción de la República (Buenos Aires 2005).

11 See a number of works by Gabriel Di Meglio which build upon Tulio Halperín Donghi's classic study, Revolución y Guerra: la formación de una elite dirigente en la Argentina criolla (Buenos Aires 1973): ‘La consolidación de un actor político: los miembros de la plebe porteña y los conflictos de 1820’, in Lettieri et al. (eds.), La vida política, pp. 173–190; ‘Soldados de la Revolución: las tropas porteñas en la guerra de la independencia (1810–1820)’, Anuario IEHS, vol. 18 (2003), pp. 39–65; ¡Viva el bajo pueblo! La plebe urbana de Buenos Aires y la política entre la Revolución de Mayo y el rosismo (Buenos Aires 2007). See also Cansanello, De súbditos a ciudadanos.

12 Sabato, The Many and the Few, and Lettieri, La república de la opinión.

13 The contested experience of subalterns in Buenos Aires has been recently analysed by Ricardo Salvatore, Wandering Paysanos: State Order and Subaltern Experience in Buenos Aires During the Rosas Era (Durham 2003).

14 Alberto Lettieri, ‘La guerra de las representaciones’, in Lettieri et al. (eds.), La vida política, p. 114.

15 Mitre made the province give up its customs house – the country's chief source of revenue – to the national government. Porteño resources fundamentally allowed him to finance the military campaigns against rebel caudillos in the provinces and the War of the Triple Alliance (1865–1870).

16 For the convergence of provincial parties and the autonomistas, see Natalio Botana, El orden conservador: la política argentina entre 1880 y 1916 (Buenos Aires 1977), pp. 33–4.

17 For revisionist readings of elections in nineteenth-century Latin America, see Antonio Annino (ed.), Historia de las elecciones en Iberoamérica, siglo XIX: de la formación del espacio político nacional (Buenos Aires 1995); Eduardo Posada-Carbó (ed.), Elections Before Democracy: The History of Elections in Europe and Latin America (New York 1996), the same author's review article, ‘Electoral Juggling: A Comparative History of the Corruption of Suffrage in Latin America, 1830–1930’, Journal of Latin American Studies, vol. 32, no. 3 (2000), pp. 611–44, and his ‘Elections and Civil Wars in Nineteenth-Century Colombia: The Presidential Election of 1875’, Journal of Latin American Studies, vol. 26, no. 3 (1994), pp. 621–49, as well as Ulrich, Mücke, ‘Elections and Political Participation in Nineteenth-Century Peru: The 1871–72 Presidential Campaign’, Journal of Latin American Studies, vol. 33, no. 2 (2001), pp. 311–46Google Scholar.

18 Manuel C. Icaze to Julio A. Roca, Buenos Aires, 21 Feb. 1880, Archivo General de la Nación, leg. 1237 (hereafter AGN Roca). Unless noted otherwise, all correspondence cited from this archival source was written in Buenos Aires.

19 Ramón Febre to Roca, 3 Feb. 1880, AGN Roca, leg. 1237, and Madero, Entre la genealogía, pp. 358–9. Sarmiento acknowledged that merchants and landowners had first welcomed Roca's nomination: see Domingo F. Sarmiento, Obras (Buenos Aires 1900), vol. 40, pp. 373–4.

20 Yofré, El Congreso de Belgrano, p. 47.

21 La Prensa, 3 September and 4 December 1879, El Nacional, 16 February 1880. Laws regulating the operations of the municipal government and of the justices of the peace provided for the popular election of these officials. Tejedor ignored these two laws and appointed them directly.

22 Roca received the support of employees of the Ministry of War: see Sáenz Quesada, ‘La propaganda tejedorista’, p. 442; Pedro A. Pardo to Roca, 16 March 1880, and Benjamín Posse to Roca, 18 March 1880, AGN Roca, leg. 1237; and El Nacional, 20 March 1880. According to this newspaper, Alberto Hansen, a high-level employee in the Post Office, threatened several sarmientistas for campaigning in favour of their candidate. He openly campaigned in favour of Tejedor among his subordinates.

23 Gregorio Torres to Roca, 1 February 1880, AGN Roca, leg. 1237.

24 The provinces affected were La Rioja, Tucumán, Jujuy, Santiago del Estero, and Corrientes. The rest of the provinces backed Roca without significant opposition. See Galíndez, Historia política, chapter 3.

25 In October 1879 Congress issued a law explicitly disavowing the organisation of any military body in the provinces until after the presidential election.

26 La Nación, 16 October 1879.

27 Eduardo Gutiérrez calculated 2,000 armed civilians, plus another 2,000 from the professional forces: see Gutiérrez, La muerte de Buenos Aires, p. 113. Newspapers calculated roughly similar figures.

28 José Cortés Funes to Roca, 16 February 1880, AGN Roca, leg. 1237.

29 ‘Muy bien’, Buenos Aires, 24 January 1880.

30 Figures taken from Ley de presupuesto general de la nacion Argentina para el ejercicio de 1881 (Buenos Aires 1880).

31 Archivo General de la Nación, Colección Museo Histórico Nacional (hereafter cited as AGN MHN), leg. 54, doc. 9067.

32 Epifanio Martínez to Martín de Gainza, Buenos Aires, 23 January 1880, AGN MHN, leg. 54, doc. 9030.

33 Carlos Tejedor, La defensa de Buenos Aires (Buenos Aires 1881), p. 137.

34 Eduardo Wilde to Roca, 1 April 1880; Olegario Ojeda to Roca, 8 April 1880; Acosta to Roca, 10 April 1880, AGN Roca, leg. 1238.

35 Benjamín Posse told Roca that 2,000 uniforms of policemen were distributed in just one night: Posse to Roca, 17 April 1880, AGN Roca, leg. 1238.

36 Lists of donors included rich and well-known foreign merchants such as Antonio Devotto, a member of the Stock Exchange, who donated 100 bags of flour to the rebels: El Porteño, 19 June 1880, 2a edition. Devotto also participated in the Italian committee in charge of caring for Italian civilians.

37 Las ‘Damas del Socorro’, La Patria Argentina, 16 June 1880.

38 La Patria Argentina, 16 June 1880.

39 Gutiérrez, La muerte, p. 64, and El Nacional, 5 March 1880.

40 ‘Política incendiaria’ and ‘Guardia Civil,’ La Prensa, 30 August 1879; Acosta to Roca, 24 February 1880, AGN Roca leg. 1237.

41 ‘El batallón “Rifleros”: recuerdos del 80’, La Nación, 21 June 1916.

42 ‘Función de los Rifleros’, La Patria Argentina, 7 April 1880.

43 ‘El Colegio Nacional’, La Patria Argentina, 19 June 1880.

44 ‘Boletín del día’, ‘Sueltos’, Buenos Aires, 20 February and 9 June 1880, and Departamento de Hacienda, Memoria del año 1880 (Buenos Aires 1881), pp. 319–37.

45 Published in ‘Boletín del día’, Buenos Aires, 19 February 1880.

46 ‘Ultimas noticias’, Buenos Aires, 17 June 1880, and El Nacional, 30 June 1880.

47 ‘Tiro Nacional’, Buenos Aires, 29 June 1880.

48 El Mosquito, 4 July 1880. Interestingly, the Sosa battalion was one of the bodies that suffered more casualties: ‘Ultima hora’.

49 El Nacional, 8 June 1880, 1st edition.

50 Francisco Roca to Rocha, Rojas, 29 March 1880, Archivo General de la Nación Fondo Dardo Rocha (hereafter cited as AGN Rocha), leg. 2924.

51 José Lijó López to Rocha, 14 and 22 March 1880, Santiago R. Pilotto to Rocha, 13 February 1880, AGN Fondo Rocha, leg. 2924. See also Wilde to Roca, 1 April 1880, Olegario Ojeda to Roca, 8 April 1880, and Acosta to Roca, 10 April 1880, all in AGN Fondo Roca, leg. 1238, as well as ‘Jueces de Paz y Comandantes Militares,’ La Prensa, 30 December 1879 and El Nacional, 3 March 1880.

52 Angel P. Montero to Santiago Alcorta, San Vicente, 9 June 1880, AGN MHN, leg. 54, doc. 9185.

53 ‘Muestras de caducidad,’ La Prensa, 18 September 1880.

54 Julio A. Costa, ‘Historias. 1880: en las trincheras,’ La Prensa, 13 May 1923.

55 ‘Decima de un gaucho de Arias’, La Patria Argentina, 29 June 1880.

56 Cruz y Frutos Martín was a hierarchical employee of the customhouse with a longstanding tradition of mitrista militancy. For Alberto Hansen, see Buenos Aires, 17 June 1880.

57 El Nacional, 10 June 1880.

58 El Nacional, 24 April and 10 June 1880.

59 ‘El ingeniero Tapia’, La Patria Argentina, 21 June 1880.

60 ‘Boletín del día’, Buenos Aires, 19 February 1880.

61 ‘El arreglo’, Buenos Aires, 19 February 1880.

62 Wilde to Roca, 1 March 1880, AGN Roca, leg. 1237; Alonso, Entre la revolución, p. 62.

63 It is important, however, to note that the federalisation of the city was mentioned as a possible consequence of Roca's access to power only occasionally. Without doubt the issue was another cause of friction between the federal government and the province at this time. Since 1862 Buenos Aires had allowed the national government to establish itself in the city ‘provisionally’ until a definite solution was achieved. All attempts to federalise the city according to constitutional provisions (following approval from the national congress and the legislature of the province where the capital would be established) failed in the years that followed. The issue, then, remained a matter of contention. Tejedor brought it back into focus in 1877 when he defiantly reminded the federal government that it was just a mere ‘guest’ of his province. Porteño eyebrows rose again in 1879, when Avellaneda publicly expressed his desire that Buenos Aires should cede the city to federalisation. Yet there was so much awareness of the unpopularity of this measure in Buenos Aires that even Roca himself publicly acknowledged that ‘Buenos Aires will not consent to being federalised; it is not possible to consider such a thing’. Instead, he proposed to establish the federal capital in Rosario or, alternatively, San Nicolás. See Galíndez, Historia política argentina, p. 152. Tejedor's retrospective analysis, published in 1881, put a stronger emphasis on this issue than during the rebellion: see Tejedor, La defensa.

64 As Hilda Sabato put it, ‘it was considered that when a government violated the pact with those governed … it became despotic, [citizens] then had the right (and the obligation) to rise up against that oppression. This situation was consecrated in the 1853 [National] Constitution, since article 21 spoke about the obligation of its citizens to bear arms not only in defence of the fatherland, but also, in defence of “this Constitution”’: Sabato, Pueblo y política, p. 60. For the role of constitutional arguments in the political discourses of nineteenth-century Latin America, see Gabriel, Negretto and José, Antonio Aguilar Rivera, ‘Rethinking the Legacy of the Liberal State in Latin America: The Cases of Argentina (1853–1916) and Mexico (1857–1910)’, Journal of Latin American Studies, vol. 32, no. 2 (2000), pp. 361–98Google Scholar. For case studies in the Andes, see Nils Jacobsen, Political Cultures in the Andes, 1750–1950 (Durham, NC 2005), and Cristóbal Aljovín de Losada, Caudillos y constituciones: Perú 1821–1845 (Lima 2000).

65 For the National Guard of Buenos Aires, see Carlos Martínez, Alsina y Alem: porteñismo y milicias (Buenos Aires 1990); Alberto Lettieri, ‘La guerra de las representaciones’; and Hilda Sabato, ‘El ciudadano en armas: violencia política en Buenos Aires, 1852–1890’, in M. Riekenberg et al. (eds.), Kultur-Diskurs: Kontinuität und Wandel der Diskussion um Identitäten in Lateinamerika im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert. (Sttutgart 2001). For the National Guard in the province of Tucumán, see Flavia Macías, ‘Ciudadanía armada, identidad nacional y estado provincial: Tucumán, 1854–1870’, in Lettieri et al. (eds.), La vida política, pp. 137–52. For the evolving links between the National Guard and the rights and duties of citizens in Latin America, see Fernando Escalante-Gonzalbo, Ciudadanos imaginarios: memoria de los afanes y desventuras de la virtud, y apologia del vicio triunfante el la República Mexicana: tratado de moral pública (Mexico City 1992); Guy, Thomson, ‘Bulwarks of Patriotic Liberalism: The National Guard, Philarmonic Corps and Patriotic Juntas in Mexico, 1847–88’, Journal of Latin American Studies, vol. 22, no. 1 (1990), pp. 31–68Google Scholar; José Murilo de Carvalho, Desenvolvimiento de la ciudadanía en Brasil (Buenos Aires 1995), and Víctor Peralta Ruiz, ‘El mito del ciudadano armado: la Semana Magna y las elecciones de 1844 en Lima’, in Hilda Sabato (ed.), Ciudadanía política y formación de las naciones: perspectivas históricas de América Latina (Mexico City 1999).

66 The enormous popularity of the poem, Martín Fierro (1872–1879), in the hinterland of Buenos Aires – a book about the misadventures of a gaucho drafted against his will – provides a measure of the resentment against the draft there: see Tulio Halperín Donghi, José Hernández y sus mundos (Buenos Aires 1985), p. 286. Interestingly, the urban educated public received the poem coldly.

67 See Elías Palti, ‘Las polémicas en el liberalismo argentino: sobre virtud, republicanismo y lenguaje’, in José A. Aguilar et al. (eds.), El republicanismo en Hispanoamérica: ensayos de historia intelectual y política (Mexico City 2002), p. 207.

68 ‘El pueblo armado’, La Patria Argentina, 12 February 1880.

69 El Porteño, 8 June 1880, 1st edition.

70 ‘La barbarie,’ Buenos Aires, 22 January 1880.

71 Maristella Svampa, El dilema argentino: civilización y barbarie (Buenos Aires 2006).

72 ‘Proclama del gefe de la Legion Italiana,’ El Porteño, 26 June 1880, 2nd edition and La Patria Argentina, 21 June 1880.

73 El Porteño, 16 June 1880, 2nd edition.

74 El Porteño, 8 June 1880, 1st and 2nd editions.

75 El Nacional, 19 and 20 January 1880.

76 ‘¡Adelante!,’ Buenos Aires, 21 January 1880.

77 ‘Instalación,’ Buenos Aires, 27 January 1880.

78 Some notable members of the autonomista party in Buenos Aires remained allies of Roca. For instance, in cabinet meetings the Minister of War, Carlos Pellegrini, defended the right of Roca to keep his nomination despite the reluctance of others. He also played an active and decisive role in the repression of the rebellion. Other autonomistas remained independent. Leandro N. Alem, for instance, supported an alternative party candidate, Bernardo de Irigoyen. After the rebellion was defeated, Alem was elected a member of the provincial legislature. In the debates that decided on the federalisation of Buenos Aires after the rebellion was defeated, Alem was the only significant voice to oppose it, alleging that it was imposed on Buenos Aires following military defeat. After Buenos Aires became the capital city, Alem resigned and remained outside active politics until 1890. For Pellegrini, see Carlos Pellegrini to Roca, 7 January 1880 and Benjamín Posse to Roca, both in AGN Roca, leg. 1237, and Julio A. Noble, Cien años: dos vidas (Buenos Aires 1960), p. 327. For Alem, see Ezequiel Gallo, ‘Liberalismo, centralismo y federalismo: Alberdi y Alem en el 80’, Investigaciones y Ensayos, vol. 45 (1995), pp. 367–87.

79 Sarmiento, Obras, pp. 50–1.

80 Ibid.., p. 179.

81 Ibid.., p. 38.

82 Ibid.., pp. 39–40. For the influence of political changes in Europe on liberals at that time, see Charles Hale, The Transformation of Liberalism in Late Nineteenth-Century Mexico (Princeton, NJ 1989), and ‘Political Ideas and Ideologies in Latin America, 1870–1930’, in Leslie Bethell (ed.), Ideas and Ideologies in Twentieth Century Latin America (Cambridge UK 1996), pp. 133–205.

83 Sarmiento, Obras, pp. 262–3.

84 Ibid.., p. 327.

85 Ibid.., p. 98.

86 Bernabé Demaría to Dardo Rocha, 28 June 1880, AGN Rocha, leg. 2924. The actions of the residents of San Juan Evangelista, a predominantly Italian parish, are a vivid illustration of the varying levels of commitment of Italian immigrants. Local residents, left on their own during the siege, assembled and decided to ask the federal government for guarantees for civilians. One hundred men, meanwhile, moved to Los Corrales to be incorporated into the ‘Tejedor’ battalion. See Antonio Bucich, ‘La Boca del Riachuelo y la revolución del 80,’ La Prensa, 6 July 1967.

87 Pilotto to Rocha, 16 February 1880, AGN Rocha, leg. 2924. Despite these setbacks, Colonel Arias, leader of the rural militias, remained very optimistic about the prospects of recruitment in the hinterland: see José I. Arias to Santiago Alcorta, Mercedes, 9 June 1880, AGN MHN, leg. 54, doc. 9184, and Arias to Gainza, AGN MHN, leg. 54, doc. 9186.

88 Servando García to Martín de Gainza, Dolores, 13 June 1880, AGN MHN, leg. 54, doc. 9257.

89 José Francisco Pérez to Gainza, Almirante Brown, 12 June 1880, AGN MHN, leg. 54. doc. 9235.

90 Justice of the Peace of Quilmes to Gainza, Buenos Aires, 20 June 1880, AGN MHN, leg. 55, doc. 9463.

91 A roquista wrote that the mitristas ‘ … are using any means their inventiveness suggests to create difficulties … If this one does not work, you should not be surprised if they appeal to the ladies of the Sociedad de Beneficencia or, as a last resort, to the dancers of the theatre …’ José C. Paz to Roca, 26 Apr. 1880, AGN Fondo Roca, leg. 1240. Tejedor credits the sarmientistas with the instigation of this mobilisation, the objective being to present Sarmiento as a compromise candidate; see Tejedor, La defensa, p. 105.

92 ‘La gran manifestacion de ayer’, La Patria Argentina, 11 May 1880.

93 This account of events is based on Héctor J. Piccinali, Vida del teniente general Nicolás Levalle (Buenos Aires 1982), and Ignacio H. Fotheringham, Memorias de un soldado, vol. I (Buenos Aires 1970).

94 Gregorio Torres to Roca, 13 July 1880, AGN Fondo Roca, leg. 1237.

95 Costa, ‘Historias’.

96 Richard Warren, ‘Rashomon in the Zócalo: Writing the History of Popular Political Culture in Nineteenth Century Mexico’, in Middle American Council for Latin American Studies (MACLAS), Latin American Essays, vol. 16 (2003), available at http://www.maclas.vcu.edu/journal/Vol%20XVI/warren.dwt [accessed 26 July 2006].

97 Guy P. C. Thomson et al., Patriotism, Politics, and Popular Liberalism in Nineteenth-Century Mexico: Juan Francisco Lucas and the Puebla Sierra (Wilmington, Del. 1999); James E. Sanders, Contentious Republicans: Popular Politics, Race, and Class in Nineteenth-Century Colombia (Durham 2004).

98 According to Sandra Lauderdale Graham, a popular riot in Rio de Janeiro in that same year was a turning point in the urban political culture of Brazil: see Sandra Lauderdale Graham, ‘The Vintem Riot and Political Culture: Rio de Janeiro, 1880’, in Silvia M. Arrom (ed.), Riots in the Cities: Popular Politics and the Urban Poor in Latin America, 1765–1910 (Wilmington, Del., 1996), pp. 115–36.