Juan Antonio Lavalleja y de la Torre (June 24, 1784 – October 22, 1853)[1] was an Uruguayan revolutionary, military general, and political figure.[2] He was born in Minas, in a region now named after him as the Lavalleja Department of Uruguay.
Pre-Independence role
Lavalleja led the group called the Thirty-Three Orientals during Uruguay's Declaration of Independence from the Empire of Brazil in 1825. His leadership of this group has taken on somewhat mythic proportions in popular Uruguayan historiography.
Before leading the Thirty-Three, he had been captured by the Portuguese in 1818 and returned to Uruguay in 1821.[1] Lavalleja first met Fructuoso Rivera, another leading Uruguayan politician of his era and a future rival, in 1825 during an event that would become known as the Abrazo del Monzón (Embrace of the Monsoon).[3]
In 1830, under the Constitution of Uruguay of 1830, Lavalleja sought national presidency as a rival to Fructuoso Rivera, but he lost. In protest of his loss, Lavalleja contributed to what is now known as the Uruguayan Civil War until it ended in 1851. He was then part of a triumvirate chosen in 1852 to govern Uruguay, but he died shortly after his accession to power,[4] on October 22, 1853 in Montevideo.[1]
Historical legacy
Lavalleja is remembered as a rebel who led the fight against the Empire of Brazil. As one of the major figures in early, post-independence Uruguayan history he is identified as a skilled but reactionary warrior who contributed to the culture of intermittent civil war which dogged Uruguay for much of the 19th century.
