The place Potreros de Arerunguá or simply Arerunguá is located in the center and north of

Uruguay Uruguay (; ), officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay ( es, República Oriental del Uruguay), is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast; while bordering ...

on the homonymous stream, the Arroyo Arerunguá. It extends over territories that are currently part of the departments of Salto and

Tacuarembó Tacuarembó ( Guarani: ''Takuarembo'', literally: "Bamboo shoot") is the capital city of the Tacuarembó Department in north-central Uruguay. Location and geography The city is located on Km. 390 of Route 5, south-southwest of Rivera, the c ...

. Its historical importance lies in having been a refuge for the

Charrúa The Charrúa were an indigenous people or Indigenous Nation of the Southern Cone in present-day Uruguay and the adjacent areas in Argentina ( Entre Ríos) and Brazil ( Rio Grande do Sul). They were a semi-nomadic people who sustained themselve ...

s as a result of the gradual Spanish colonial expansion, then during the revolutionary independence period and finally in the first decades of independent Uruguay, until their almost total extermination in the

Massacre of Salsipuedes The Massacre of Salsipuedes () was an organised campaign to eradicate the last remnants of the now extinct Charrúa people. It was executed by the Uruguayan Army under the command of Uruguayan president Fructuoso Rivera. The massacre took place in ...

in 1831. According to the historian

Carlos Maggi Carlos Maggi (5 August 1922, Montevideo, Uruguay – 15 May 2015, Montevideo, Uruguay) was a Uruguayan lawyer, playwright, journalist and writer. Among his acquaintances he was known as "the Kid" ( es, el Pibe). He was one of the last surviving ...

in his book ''El Caciquillo'', this may have been one of the places where

José Gervasio Artigas José Gervasio Artigas Arnal (; June 19, 1764 – September 23, 1850) was a political leader, military general, statesman and national hero of Uruguay and the broader Río de la Plata region. He fought in the Latin American wars of ind ...

lived during his "years in the desert", the name usually given to the long period when Artigas was between 14 and 33 years of age. Maggi investigates the possibility that it was among the Charrúas that José Artigas had his first partner and his first son, later known as Manuel Artigas and nicknamed "El Caciquillo". In February 1805 Artigas requested and obtained from Commander Francisco Javier de Viana, representative of the

Viceroy A viceroy () is an official who reigns over a polity in the name of and as the representative of the monarch of the territory. The term derives from the Latin prefix ''vice-'', meaning "in the place of" and the French word ''roy'', meaning "k ...

, over of land in Arerunguá. This, then, would be the place chosen by José Gervasio Artigas, Protector of the Free Peoples, as the center of operations and headquarters of the Ejército Oriental (Eastern Army) during the period of the Gesta Artiguista in the

Río de la Plata The Río de la Plata (, "river of silver"), also called the River Plate or La Plata River in English, is the estuary formed by the confluence of the Uruguay River and the Paraná River at Punta Gorda. It empties into the Atlantic Ocean and fo ...

. These characteristics place Arerunguá as a region of enormous historical value, given that it was where substantial elements of the "orientality" that distinguishes the essence of the Uruguayan nation emerged and matured.

References

Colonial Uruguay Geography of Salto Department {{Uruguay-geo-stub