Manuel Dorrego (11 June 1787 – 13 December 1828) was Governor of Buenos Aires from 29 June to 20 September 1820 (succeeding Miguel Estanislao Soler and preceding Martin Rodriguez) and from 13 August 1827 to 1 December 1828 (succeeding Juan Gregorio de Las Heras and preceding Juan Lavalle). In the latter position, he served as de facto head of state of Argentina from 18 August 1827 to 1 December 1828, succeeding Vicente Lopez y Planes and preceding Lavalle).
Biography[]
Manuel Dorrego was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina on 11 June 1787, the son of a Portuguese merchant father and a Spanish mother. He served under General Manuel Belgrano during the Argentine War of Independence and served as the interim Governor of Buenos Aires in 1820, following the departure of Governor Juan Martin de Pueyrredon. Dorrego, who had been exiled in the United States during the Portuguese conquest of the Banda Oriental from 1816 to 1820, studied federalism and came to reject Pueyrredon's support for a strong and centralized government in favor of a collection of autonomous states, and, when he met Simon Bolivar in Quito, he came to support his plan to create a South American federation. He opposed Bernardino Rivadavia's Unitary government, and, after Rivadavia resigned in 1827, Dorrego - as Governor of Buenos Aires - assumed control of the country's foreign policy and ended the Cisplatine War with Brazil, leading to Uruguayan independence. However, the victorious Argentine military was incensed by Dorrego's compromise with Brazil, and Juan Lavalle overthrew Dorrego in a military coup on 1 December 1828 and had him executed by firing squad.