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1825 Nùñez Map of the Banda Oriental, Produced during the Cisplatine War
BandaOriental-nunez-1825$600.00
Title
Carta Geografica que Comprehende los Rios de la Plata, Paranà, Uruguay, y Grande y los Terrenos adyacentes conforme a' los Comisionados de la Linea de limites 1820.
1825 (dated) 17 x 20.25 in (43.18 x 51.435 cm) 1 : 2200000
1825 (dated) 17 x 20.25 in (43.18 x 51.435 cm) 1 : 2200000
Description
This is an 1825 map of the lands comprising present-day Uruguay, produced anonymously by Argentinian diplomat Ignacio Núñez to garner European support for the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata in the Cisplatine war against the Empire of Brazil. While the mapmakers are unnamed, the map draws on the work of Spanish border commissioners and engineers Félix de Azara, Jose Maria Cabrer, and others. It presented to a European audience the frontier agreed upon in the 1777 Treaty of Ildefonso between the Spanish and Portuguese Empires in South America - thus emphasizing that Brazil's invasion occupation of Montevideo was a breach of treaty.
With the war in progress, minister Bernardino Rivadavia (future first President of Argentina) traveled to London with his secretary Ignacio Núñez to encourage support both for the United Provinces and for the revolutionaries of the Banda Oriental. In support of these efforts, Núñez's anonymous Noticias históricas, geográficas y estadísticas del Río de la Plata was published in London in both Spanish and English; a French edition was produced in Paris the following year. The present map was included in this work. Red marks the border between the United Provinces and Imperial Brazil, along the Rivers Yaguaron, St. Maria, Ybicui, and the Upper Uruguay River. Thus depicted, the border ignored, or denied, the border caused by Brazil's occupation of the Banda Oriental and Montevideo. Throughout the 19th and even into the 20th century, the 18th-century surveys undertaken following the 1777 treaty setting the boundaries between Spain and Portugal were considered - particularly by Argentine authorities - to be authoritative, particularly in the Misiones province and the Banda Oriental. (Cabrer's 1790 reconnaissance of the eastern extreme of the Misiones Province was particularly miserable, finally 'arriving at the town of Santo Ángel, with our entire party in the greatest misery and nakedness, with their legs swollen, the body covered with sores, and the beards long like anchorites.')
A Closer Look
The map encompasses all of modern-day Uruguay and northern Argentina, from Punta de la Memoria in the south, as far north as the border of Paraguay. It includes that part of the Argentine Confederation north of the Plata, Uruguay, Paraguay, and the southernmost provinces of Brazil. The western limit of the map is the Rio Paranà, but the detail is best east of the Rio Uruguay.The Frontier of Buenos Aires and Brazil
The history of this region was plagued with confusion following the initial surveys relating to the 1777 Treaty of Ildefonso. The treaty granted the Banda Oriental - the region east of the Uruguay River, including the Misiones Orientales - to Spain. However, the treaty poorly defined the borders, necessitating better surveys to determine what exactly the treaty meant. The labors of Azara, Cabrer, and other surveyors were meant to clarify the borders stipulated in the treaty - which continued to resurface in relevance as the independence movements of the early 19th century wrested these lands from Spain, only to see them recaptured by Imperial Brazil.A Context of Conflict
Although the map is dated 1820, it is likely that the surveys that informed it predated the Brazilian invasion of the Banda Oriental in 1816 and still held it as 'Cisplatina' when Brazil declared independence in 1822. The United Provinces made unsuccessful diplomatic forays to negotiate Brazilian withdrawal in 1823. In 1825, the patriot group known as the Thirty-Three Orientals, with support from the United Provinces, declared Cisplatina's unification with the United Provinces and independence from Brazil. In December 1825, Brazil declared war on the United Provinces.With the war in progress, minister Bernardino Rivadavia (future first President of Argentina) traveled to London with his secretary Ignacio Núñez to encourage support both for the United Provinces and for the revolutionaries of the Banda Oriental. In support of these efforts, Núñez's anonymous Noticias históricas, geográficas y estadísticas del Río de la Plata was published in London in both Spanish and English; a French edition was produced in Paris the following year. The present map was included in this work. Red marks the border between the United Provinces and Imperial Brazil, along the Rivers Yaguaron, St. Maria, Ybicui, and the Upper Uruguay River. Thus depicted, the border ignored, or denied, the border caused by Brazil's occupation of the Banda Oriental and Montevideo. Throughout the 19th and even into the 20th century, the 18th-century surveys undertaken following the 1777 treaty setting the boundaries between Spain and Portugal were considered - particularly by Argentine authorities - to be authoritative, particularly in the Misiones province and the Banda Oriental. (Cabrer's 1790 reconnaissance of the eastern extreme of the Misiones Province was particularly miserable, finally 'arriving at the town of Santo Ángel, with our entire party in the greatest misery and nakedness, with their legs swollen, the body covered with sores, and the beards long like anchorites.')
Publication History and Census
This map was lithographed in 1825 in London for inclusion in the Ackerman edition of Núñez' work, An Account historical, political and statistical of the United Provinces of Rio de la Plata and simultaneously in that publisher's Spanish language edition. A further 1826 edition was printed in Paris from a different stone. We find this separate map surviving in the collections of the Biblioteca de Uruguay, the Bibliotheque National de France, and the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek. In its English, Spanish, and French editions, Núñez's book is well-represented in institutional collections.CartographerS
Ignacio Núñez (1792 - 1846) was an Argentine politician, journalist, and historian. In 1806 he joined the military to repel British invaders of the Río de la Plata; still in service in 1809 he fought against the attempted coup of Martín de Álzaga. He was a supporter of the Buenos Aires May Revolution in 1810, but afterwards was expelled from the army due to the First Junta's factionalism. He left for the Banda Oriental (Uruguay) in 1811, where he would participate in the siege of royalist-held Montevideo that year. He returned to Buenos Aires and entered politics, holding an array of bureaucratic positions, but turmoil would send him to take refuge in Montevideo. In 1817 he returned. He participated in the drafting of the abortive 1819 constitution. The 1820s would see him develop as a journalist in support of the minister and future president of Argentina Bernardino Rivadavia; in turn, the minister appointed him chief of staff. He edited several newspapers in support of the government and Rivadavia's party. In 1825 he accompanied Rivadavia to London, thereafter being appointed ambassador to the United Kingdom. During this time he published his 1825 Noticias históricas, geográficas y estadísticas del Río de la Plata, an effort to encourage European recognition of Buenos Aires and gain support against Brazil in the Cisplatine War then underway. He would return to Buenos Aires to become Rivadavia's Minister of the Interior, a post he would retain in successive regimes. From his position in Buenos Aires he lent support to the Uruguayan revolution in 1837, for which he was arrested by the governor of Buenos Aires Juan Manuel de Rosas. His refusal to support the federalists at this point would lead to his political downfall. He died in 1846. More by this mapmaker...
Azara, Félix de (May 18, 1742 - October 20, 1821) was a Spanish military officer, naturalist, and engineer. He joined the Army, and received training as an engineer in a Spanish military academy. His thirteen year career in the Army would see him promoted to Brigadier General. He spent twenty years in the Rio de la Plata region of South America as a delegate under the treaty of San Ildefonso, during which period he undertook to create an accurate map of the region. On the surveys, he also recorded the fauna the region, in particular cataloguing nearly four hundred species of bird. On his return to Europe in 1801 he wrote and published in Paris his Voyage dans l'Amerique meridionale depuis 1781 jusqu'en 1801 (1809) which contained his observations on the region's geography, natural features, and indigenous groups. His work was praised for thoroughness and accuracy, and was well regarded by Darwin. He died of pneumonia on October 20, 1821. Learn More...
Jose Maria Cabrer (1761 - 1836) was a Spanish military engineer and geographer. Born in Barcelona, the son of a military engineer Carlos Cabrer y Suñer. He studied engineering at the Royal Academy, and was a student of cartographer Félix de Azara (as well as his own father.) With the onset of the American Revolution, he set aside the academy to join Spanish naval efforts to support America against the British Empire. Initially targeted at Jamaica, he was sent instead to the Buenos Aires as attaché of the Royal Corps of Engineers to assist in demarcating the boundary of Spanish territory in South America with Brazil. He arrived there in 1781, then completing his training as a cartographer. In 1783, with the military rank of Captain, he surveyed the border region of the Banda Oriental, which would largely become Uruguay. He would become a commissioner and geographer of the second demarcation party under Diego de Alvear, reconnoitering the Paraná River and the course of the Uruguay River. In 1789, he surveyed the Pepirí Guazú River, the middle of the border set by the Treaty of San Ildefonso (1777). He returned to Buenos Aires as a Lieutenant Colonel in 1801, where he would choose to stay upon learning of the deaths in Spain of his father and brothers. He settled and married a barber's daughter over the objections of his superiors, who thought the match below him. The following twenty years seem to have been, politically, poorly navigated: following the Revolution of 1810 he was appointed to direct a mathematics academy, but the project did not proceed; he would be appointed secretary to the Argentine General Staff, but he refused the position. In 1831 following the estblishment of the Argentine Confederation, he accepted a posting to the Topographical Department, but did not enjoy the position long: He died in 1836 as the result of an improperly prescribed medicine. Although many of his boundary commission maps would be published, his superb 1802 he map of the La Plata region, including Uruguay and Paraguay, would not be published until 1853 in a Paris edition. Learn More...
Source
Núñez, Ignacio Noticias históricas, geográficas y estadísticas del Río de la Plata(London: Ackerman) 1825.
Condition
Very good. Some light soiling at junctures of folds; mend at insertion point not impacting image. Else excellent.
References
OCLC 162456680.