Argentine Caudillo: Juan Manuel De Rosas

Argentine Caudillo: Juan Manuel de Rosas

In the year 1829 Argentina was faced with a conflict between two social and political groups to determine the future of the nation. Juan Manuel de Rosas, a federalist, became governor of Buenos Aires that same year starting a period of terror, tyranny and brutal suppression. Rosas's dictatorship was noted for its law and order through tyranny in which his secret police and spies intimidated all opposition, so that by 1840 few people dared to oppose him and thousands fled to Montevideo, Chile, and Brazil for refuge. Juan Manuel de Rosas engaged in a policy of terror towards the people of Buenos Aires to impose social and political order by eliminating all of his enemies and having absolute power and control over the country.

The concept of terror in Buenos Aires during the first half of the 19th century was characterized by the dominant figure of Rosas. He used state terror as an instrument of policy in which he ordered people to display his portrait in public places as a sign of his supreme command and loyalty to him and those who would not obey would be killed (Lynch 97). Other forms of support to Rosas included wearing an insignia and even horses had to display a red ribbon, which was the federalist symbol (Keen and Haynes 195). The church was not exempt from Rosas's rules, they also had to put pictures of him and priests would also wear the red ribbon to show loyalty to him and his government. This act of ordering people to display symbols to show support to him is a type of subordination where he gets respect for authority, order and also showing people that he was the absolute authority. Consequently, this proved that Rosas was concerned with abiding the law and proving he could govern by keeping social order at all costs.

For this purpose, Rosas's politics were having absolute power and a government that was a ruthless tyranny. He was concerned with establishing his own dominance in Buenos Aires than with any federalist principle. He developed a paramilitary force of its own to enforce his will called La Mazorca in which "in collaboration with the police, this terrorist organization beat up or even murdered Rosas's opponents" (Keen and Haynes 195). In other words, this was a secret organization which did dirty work for Rosas and generated into a band of assassins.