Bartolomé Mitre (26 June 1821 – 19 January 1906) was an Argentine statesman, soldier and author. He was
President of Argentina
The president of Argentina, officially known as the president of the Argentine Nation, is both head of state and head of government of Argentina. Under Constitution of Argentina, the national constitution, the president is also the Head of go ...
from 1862 to 1868 and the first president of
unified Argentina.
Mitre is known as a versatile statesman, military man, politician, journalist, historian, writer and poet.
He was a major figure in the
history of Argentina during the second half of the 19th century.
He was the figure that best characterized
liberalism
Liberalism is a Political philosophy, political and moral philosophy based on the Individual rights, rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality, the right to private property, and equality before the law. ...
in Argentina, but he was a moderate and flexible liberal, not dogmatic.
Early life
Mitre was born on 26 June 1821 in
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires, controlled by the government of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Argentina. It is located on the southwest of the Río de la Plata. Buenos Aires is classified as an Alpha− glob ...
. His father was of Greek descent and the family name was originally Mitropoulos.
[Gardner, James. "Buenos Aires: The Biography of a City", 110. (St Martin's Press, 2015, ).]
In 1831, his family settled in Uruguay. He became a soldier, and graduated in 1839 from the Military School of
Montevideo
Montevideo (, ; ) is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Uruguay, largest city of Uruguay. According to the 2023 census, the city proper has a population of 1,302,954 (about 37.2% of the country's total population) in an area of . M ...
, with the rank of second lieutenant of artillery. Also a journalist, his writings supported
Fructuoso Rivera, who, in 1846, made him a lieutenant colonel in the
Uruguayan Army.
Later he joined the
Colorado Party in the civil wars against the
Blancos, in the Banda Oriental (Uruguay). This closeness with the Colorados led him to support the
''unitario'' faction of Argentina, which simultaneously fought against the
''Rosista'' regime in Buenos Aires, ally of the Uruguayan Blancos.
His first poems and journalistic publications in the Uruguayan media date from that time.
He then moved to Bolivia, and later to Chile, where he met fellow Argentine exile
Juan Bautista Alberdi. Both wrote for the
Valparaíso
Valparaíso () is a major city, Communes of Chile, commune, Port, seaport, and naval base facility in the Valparaíso Region of Chile. Valparaíso was originally named after Valparaíso de Arriba, in Castilla–La Mancha, Castile-La Mancha, Spain ...
newspaper ''El Comercio''. Later, he wrote in ''El Progreso'', in
Santiago
Santiago (, ; ), also known as Santiago de Chile (), is the capital and largest city of Chile and one of the largest cities in the Americas. It is located in the country's central valley and is the center of the Santiago Metropolitan Regi ...
, under the direction of
Domingo Faustino Sarmiento.
End of exile and return to Argentina
Mitre returned to Argentina after the defeat of longtime
caudillo
A ''caudillo'' ( , ; , from Latin language, Latin , diminutive of ''caput'' "head") is a type of Personalist dictatorship, personalist leader wielding military and political power. There is no precise English translation for the term, though it ...
Juan Manuel de Rosas
Juan Manuel José Domingo Ortiz de Rozas y López de Osornio (30 March 1793 – 14 March 1877), nicknamed "Restorer of the Laws", was an Argentine politician and army officer who ruled Buenos Aires Province and briefly the Argentine Confedera ...
at the 1852
Battle of Caseros. He was a leader of the revolt of Buenos Aires Province against
Justo José de Urquiza's federal system in the
Revolution of 11 September 1852
The Revolution of 11 September 1852 was a conflict between the Province of Buenos Aires and the government of Justo José de Urquiza after the latter triumphed over Juan Manuel de Rosas at the Battle of Caseros.
A period known as "National Orga ...
, and was appointed to important posts in the provincial government after the Province seceded from the
Confederation
A confederation (also known as a confederacy or league) is a political union of sovereign states united for purposes of common action. Usually created by a treaty, confederations of states tend to be established for dealing with critical issu ...
.
Presidency (1861–1868)
The civil war of 1859, after the revolt of Buenos Aires against Justo José de Urquiza's federal system, resulted in Mitre's defeat by Urquiza at the
Battle of Cepeda, in 1860. Issues of customs revenue sharing were settled, and Buenos Aires reentered the Argentine Confederation. Victorious at the 1861
Battle of Pavón, however, Mitre obtained important concessions from the national army, notably the amendment of the Constitution to provide for indirect elections through an electoral college. In October 1862, Mitre was elected president of the republic, and national political unity was finally achieved; a period of internal progress and reform then commenced. During the
Paraguayan War
The Paraguayan War (, , ), also known as the War of the Triple Alliance (, , ), was a South American war that lasted from 1864 to 1870. It was fought between Paraguay and the Triple Alliance of Argentina, the Empire of Brazil, and Uruguay. It wa ...
, Mitre was initially named the head of the
allied forces.
Mitre was also the founder of ''
La Nación
''La Nación'' () is an Argentine daily newspaper. As the country's leading conservative newspaper, ''La Nación''s main competitor is the more liberal ''Clarín (Argentine newspaper), Clarín''. It is regarded as a newspaper of record for Argen ...
'', one of South America's leading newspapers, in 1870. His opposition to Autonomist Party nominee
Adolfo Alsina, whom he viewed as a veiled Buenos Aires separatist, led Mitre to run for the presidency again, though the seasoned Alsina outmaneuvered him by fielding
Nicolás Avellaneda, a moderate lawyer from remote
Tucuman Province where the independence of Argentina had been declared in 1816. The electoral college met on 12 April 1874, and awarded Mitre only three provinces, including Buenos Aires.
Mitre took up arms again. Hoping to prevent Avellaneda's 12 October inauguration, he hijacked a
gunboat
A gunboat is a naval watercraft designed for the express purpose of carrying one or more guns to bombard coastal targets, as opposed to those military craft designed for naval warfare, or for ferrying troops or supplies.
History Pre-steam ...
; he was defeated, however, and only President Avellaneda's
commutation spared his life. Following the 1890
Revolution of the Park
The Revolution of the Park (''Revolución del Parque''), also known as the Revolution of '90, was an uprising against the national government of Argentina that took place on July 26, 1890, and started with the takeover of the Buenos Aires Artill ...
, he broke with the conservative
National Autonomist Party (PAN) and co-founded the Civic Union with reformist
Leandro Alem. Mitre's desire to maintain an understanding with the ruling PAN led to the Civic Union's schism in 1891, upon which Mitre founded the
National Civic Union, and Alem, the
Radical Civic Union
The Radical Civic Union (, UCR) is a major political party in Argentina. It has reached the national government on ten occasions, making it one of the most historically important parties in the country. Ideologically, the party has stood for r ...
(the oldest existing party in Argentina).
He dedicated much of his time in later years to writing. According to some of his critics, as a historian Mitre made questionable judgments, often ignoring key documents and events on purpose in his writings. This caused his student
Adolfo Saldías to distance himself from him, and for future
revisionist historians such as
José María Rosa to question the validity of his work altogether. He also wrote poetry and fiction
Soledad: novela original, and translated
Dante
Dante Alighieri (; most likely baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri; – September 14, 1321), widely known mononymously as Dante, was an Italian Italian poetry, poet, writer, and philosopher. His ''Divine Comedy'', originally called ...
's ''La divina commedia'' (''
The Divine Comedy
The ''Divine Comedy'' (, ) is an Italian narrative poem by Dante Alighieri, begun and completed around 1321, shortly before the author's death. It is widely considered the pre-eminent work in Italian literature and one of the greatest wor ...
'') into Spanish. He was the grandfather of the poet
Margarita Abella Caprile. Like many other nineteenth century Argentines prominent in public life, he was a
freemason.
Death and legacy
Bartolomé Mitre died in 1906, affected by a gastrointestinal illness. The charismatic leader was mourned by a crowd rarely seen until then, who accompanied the funeral procession from his home to
La Recoleta Cemetery.
Bartolomé Mitre was the paradigm of the Argentine statesman of the 19th century. Mitre thematically returns to the ideals of
May Revolution and lists the principles of the Freedom Party, the first Argentine party that consciously launches itself into political struggle with a
liberal program. The program of the Freedom Party is the faithful synthesis of the democratic
progressivism
Progressivism is a Left-right political spectrum, left-leaning political philosophy and Reformism, reform political movement, movement that seeks to advance the human condition through social reform. Adherents hold that progressivism has unive ...
that
Esteban Echeverría
José Esteban Antonio Echeverría (2 September 1805 – 19 January 1851) was an Argentine poet, fiction writer, cultural promoter, and liberal activist who played a significant role in the development of Argentine literature, not only thro ...
longed for to overcome the sterile antagonism of unitarians and federalists.
As an intellectual, he wrote poetry, theater, countless newspaper articles, cemented historical science with his exemplary biographies, translated classic works, and authored fiery harangues. Mitre was a leading figure in politics and culture until his death in 1906.
Mitre supported the establishment of
universal direct suffrage, which was ultimately established in 1912, during the presidency of
Roque Sáenz Peña.
When he assumed the presidency in 1862, the conditions in which the republic was found were precarious. The treasury was exhausted, the debts were large, the three national powers needed to be organized, buildings to house them separately from the provincial authorities had to be established, the question of the residence of the national authorities in the city of Buenos Aires had to be solved, the army and updated salaries had to be established, the minimum structures of the national public administration were created, and the basic program of their generation was promoted: education, immigration, foreign investment, railways, and land occupation. An appreciation of Mitre's government work that ignores his point of origin will not do him enough justice.
Referring to Mitre's financial rectitude, the explorer
Sir Richard Burton wrote:
Wrote Robert Avrett:
[.]
Bibliography
Mitre ranks as an important South-American historiographer. He wrote the best accounts of South America's wars of independence and published many works, amongst which are:
* ''
Historia de Belgrano y de la independencia argentina''
History of Belgrano and of the argentine independence"(1857; fifth edition, four volumes, 1902)
* ''
Historia de San Martín y de la emancipación sudamericana''
San Martín"">José_de_San_Martín.html" ;"title="History of José de San Martín">San Martín"(1869; third edition, six volumes, 1907)
* ''Rimas'' ["Rimes"] (new edition, 1890)
* ''Ulrich Schmidl, primer historiador del Rio de la Plata'' ["Ulrich Schmidl, first historian of the Rio de la Plata"] (1890)
There is an abridged translation of the ''Historia de San Martín'', entitled ''The Emancipation of South America'' (London, 1893) by W. Pilling. Mitre's speeches were collected as ''Arengas'' (third edition, three volumes, 1902).
Gallery
File:Daguerrotipobartolommit.jpg, Bartolomé Mitre at age 33, 1854
File:Bartolomé Mitre.jpg, Mitre's presidential portrait, 1861
File:Bartolome mitre circa 1870.png, Mitre, perhaps around age 49, 1870
File:Bagley ad politicians.jpg, 1889 ad with caricatures of Mitre and other politicians
File:Argentina-1895-Bill-0.20-Obverse.png, Mitre's portrait on an 1895 bill
References
* J. J. Biedma, ''El Teniente General Bartolomé Mitre'', in Bartolomé Mitre, ''Arengas'', volume iii (Buenos Aires, 1902).
* William H. Katra, ''The Argentine Generation of 1837: Echeverría, Alberdi, Sarmiento, Mitre'' (Madison, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1996).
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Mitre, Bartolome
1821 births
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