Juan Antonio Lavalleja
Juan Antonio Lavalleja landed on the eastern bank of the Uruguay with thirty-two men in April 1825 to take the province from the Brazilian empire, raised it in weeks, won at Sarandí in October, and by the treaty of 1828 that Britain brokered the country he had raised was independent of both Brazil and Buenos Aires; the Thirty-Three Orientals are the founding myth of Uruguay and their flag is one of its three. He was born in 1784 at Minas, the son of a rancher, and fought under Artigas from 1811 in the wars that made the Banda Oriental first a province of the revolution and then the enemy of Buenos Aires. When Portugal invaded from Brazil in 1816 he fought until captured in 1818 and spent three years in a prison at Rio. The province became Brazil's Cisplatine in 1821 and he swore the oath and then went across to Buenos Aires to plan. The crossing came on the night of 19 April 1825, from San Isidro to the beach of La Agraciada, with a flag of blue, white and red and the words Liberty or Death. The countryside rose, Fructuoso Rivera came over with the cavalry the Brazilians had given him, Montevideo was besieged, and the assembly at Florida on 25 August declared the province free of Brazil and part of the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata. The United Provinces went to war with Brazil for it, and after three years, a blockade and the victory at Ituzaingó, British mediation in 1828 made the disputed province a state that neither side could have. Lavalleja had wanted the union with Buenos Aires and got a country instead. He was the new republic's rival to Rivera for twenty years, raised three revolts against him, went into exile in Brazil and Buenos Aires, fought in the Great War of the Uruguayan factions on Oribe's side against Montevideo, and died in October 1853 a month after becoming one of the triumvirate that was to reconcile them. The town of Minas is named for him and the thirty-three are in the national anthem's version of the story.
- Lived: 1784 CE – 1853 CE
- Nationality: Uruguayan
- Roles: general, revolutionary
