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 José
Fructuoso Rivera (c1790-1854) again became the elected president [of Uruguay] in March 1838. In 1839
President Rivera, with the support of the French and of Argentine émigrés,
issued a declaration of war against Argentina's dictator, Juan Manuel de Rosas,
and drove Rosas's forces from Uruguay. The French, however, reached an agreement
with Rosas and withdrew their troops from the Río de la Plata region in 1840,
leaving Montevideo vulnerable to the Blancos, led by Manuel Oribe, and their
Argentine allies. For
three years, the locus of the struggle was on Argentine territory. Oribe and the
Blancos allied themselves with Argentina's federalists, while Rivera and the
Colorados sided with Argentina's rival unitary forces, who favored the
centralization of the Argentine state. In 1842 Oribe defeated Rivera and later,
on February 16, 1843, laid siege to Montevideo, then governed by the Colorados.
The siege continued for eight years (1843-1851). The Italian patriot
Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807-82), in exile in Uruguay, was one of the
defenders of Montevideo. British and French naval forces arrived in the
area, occupied parts of Uruguay and Martin Garcia Island at the mouth of
the Uruguay River, and blockaded the Rio de la Plata (1845-49). Oribe was
forced to abandon the siege of Montevideo and sign a treaty (1851)
allowing the Colorados to govern Uruguay, as a consequence of the war
against the Rosas dictatorship in Argentina 1851-1852.
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