The Oriental Republic of Uruguay is a South American nation in eastern central South America, with its capital at Montevideo.
History[]
Location of Uruguay
Uruguay was at first colonized by Portugal in 1680, but gained independence in the Cisplatine War in 1828 after fighting Portugal, Spain, Brazil, and Argentina. It inherited the traditional power struggles of South America's countries, with the conservative Blancos fighting liberal Unitarios and Colorados. The Argentine Confederation attempted to take advantage of Uruguay's weakness in 1842 by invading it in hopes of making it a puppet, but Uruguay's alliance with Bolivia saved it, with Bolivia taking over one third of Argentina's territory by the time of peace in 1845. Uruguay underwent the Uruguayan Civil Wars as Argentina went through the identical Argentine Civil Wars, with the same factions fighting each other in the two neighboring countries.
On 27 June 1857 the Uruguayan Reactionaries took over the government, formerly ruled by the Liberals. They made it so that there was no voting, political reform for the ruling party only, outlawing meetings, only the state press publishing newspapers, only underground political parties, and outlawing political reform. Uruguay became a presidential dictatorship ruled by the Nationalist Party, and remained so for many years.
In 1864, the War of the Triple Alliance broke out. Uruguay, Argentina, and the Brazilian Empire allied against the nation of Paraguay, which attacked Argentina to gain more lands. Uruguay was one of the allied powers, and defended its existence until the war's end in 1871. Uruguay remained independent, although in a small corner of the Rio de la Plata, and yet currently has a strong economy with only a 20% unemployment rate.
People and Culture[]
Uruguayan food
Left: Uruguayan tortuga bread and hard roll; Right: Tortuga sandwich
Uruguay was a mainly-white nation, with their population made up of 82.6% Platineans, 9.7% Afro Caribeno (Afro-Caribbean), and 7.7% Brazilians. The nation was 100% Catholic, due to its influences from Spain and Portugal, with no native population to worship Animism. Uruguay's main language was Spanish after gaining independence from Brazil. Its culture was heavily influenced by a mix of Portugal and Spain as well as their children Brazil and Argentina.
The work force consisted of 82.4% farmers, 6.8% soldiers, 4.6% artisans, 3% slaves, 1.9% aristocrats, and 1.1% clergymen. Their small nation consisted of the provinces of Paysandu, Melo, and Montevideo. The high amount of farmers in Uruguay helped to maintain a constant middle class level, and Uruguay remained a financially-stable country, although not politically-stable.
Food was based around beef, cheese, pasta, and sauces, as the food was influenced by 1800s Spanish and Italian settlers.
Politics[]
Uruguay, like its neighboring country of Argentina, underwent many civil wars between liberals and conservatives. In 1836, its ruling Blancos party of conservatives had 47.2% rule while their opponents, the liberal Unitarios and Colorados, had 52.8% rule.
In 1836, Uruguay had no minimum wage, work day limits, safety regulations, pensions, health care, or school system. Slavery was allowed in Uruguay, there were two upper houses per state, wealth vote franchise, first past the post voting system, meetings were allowed, state press ruling newspapers, no trade unions, and harassment policies (political parties harassed people to vote for them) for political parties. By changing political party policies to gerrymandering (ruling party modifying electoral district or constituency boundaries for election purposes) so that the ruling party, at the time the Blancos, could remain in power. The change in policy made it so that the Blancos had 66.9% of the government, the Colorados had 21.6%, and the Nationalist Party had 11.3%.
Gallery[]
