José Gervasio Artigas was born to a wealthy family in Montevideo on June 19th 1764. Working on his family’s farm in his youth, he gained a knowledge of the way of life of the gauchos and native Indians. He was perhaps a little too zealous is his embracing of cowboy ways as he became involved in cattle smuggling and even had a price on his head for a while.
When the Anglo-Spanish War began, he was given a pardon on the condition he joined the army. Artigas proved himself to be a valuable asset in the war, organising the gauchos to wage a guerrilla war against the British.
Some years later, his skills were brought to bear against the Spanish when he offered his services to the Buenos Aires junta that was leading an independence movement against Spain. He commanded Uruguayan patriots and conquered almost all of modern-day Uruguay apart from the city of Montevideo.
Only four years later, he was to turn against Buenos Aires, who wanted to centralise control of Argentina, while Artigas favoured a more federal approach. This disagreement on political control became a civil war and ignited the idea of Uruguayan nationhood.
Artigas participated in the successful siege of Montevideo, and his troops controlled large parts of Uruguay and Argentina. In 1816 he faced defeat when the Portuguese invaded Uruguay. After a four-year struggle, Artigas’s forces were defeated and Artigas lived in exile in Paraguay. After the proclamation of Uruguayan independence in 1828, he was invited to return but declined. He died in Asunción in September 1850.