Buenos Ayres and the Provinces of the Rio de La Plata: Their Present State, Trade, and DebtParish, Woodbine, Sir
History
Buenos Ayres and the Provinces of the Rio de La Plata: Their Present State, Trade, and Debt
Parish, Woodbine, Sir
Argentina -- Description and travel; Argentina -- History
The Entre Rios territory, bounded on three sides by the Paranã, and
on the east by the river Uruguay, like Santa Fé, formed part of the
intendency of Buenos Ayres till the year 1814, when the general
government divided it into two distinct provinces, called the provinces
of Entre Rios and Corrientes:--the separating line between them,
for the present agreed upon, is that formed by the little river
Guayquiraro, which falls into the Paranã in about latitude 30° 30´, and
the Mocoreta, which runs in the opposite direction into the Uruguay.
The Villa del Paranã, or Bajada, opposite to Santa Fé, is, nominally,
the capital town of Entre Rios;--which province is subdivided by the
river Gualeguay into two departments, that of the Paranã and that of
the Uruguay.
According to the Provisional Reglamento or Constitution drawn up in
1821, in imitation of that of Buenos Ayres, the governor should be
chosen every two years by a provincial junta, composed of deputies
from the several towns or villages, the principal of which, after the
capital, are the Villa de la Concepcion on the Uruguay; and Nogoya,
Gualeguay, and Gualeguaychú, on the rivers of the same name.
The population may be about 30,000 souls,--very much scattered,--and
almost entirely occupied in the estancias or cattle-farms, in which
the wealth of the province chiefly consists. Many of them belong
to capitalists in Buenos Ayres:--they have the advantages of a
never-failing supply of water, and of being safe from any inroads of
the Indians,--the two great desiderata for such establishments in that
part of the world,--whilst their proximity to Buenos Ayres ensures a
ready sale for the produce.
These advantages made it a great cattle-country in the time of the
Spaniards, but it was devastated and depopulated in the first years
of the struggle for independence by the notorious Artigas and his
followers, and became the scene of much bloodshed and confusion:--from
that it had hardly begun to recover when the war, breaking out between
the Republic and Brazil for the Banda Oriental, again made it the
theatre, as a frontier province, of military operations, and unsettled
the habits of the population. The years which have elapsed since the
conclusion of that war have sufficed once more to cover the province
with cattle, and there are gauchos enough to take care of them.
PROVINCE OF CORRIENTES.
The population of the province of Corrientes in 1824 was estimated at
from 35,000 to 40,000 inhabitants. It is ruled by a governor elected by
a junta of deputies,--how they are chosen I know not. His official acts
are countersigned by a secretary, and in law matters he is assisted by
an officer termed the assessor,--a point of form common, I believe, to
all the provincial administrations, and derived from the practice of
the intendents in the time of the Spanish rule.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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