Gaucho Rivero

Antonio “El Gaucho Rivero” was a field laborer who led an uprising against the British occupation of the Falkland Islands in 1833.
Biography
Rivero was born in Concepción del Uruguay, a city in Entre Ríos Province, Argentina on November 27th 1808, and was taken around 1827 to the Falklands by the Argentine Islands Governor Luis Vernet, to work as a laborer. He was then about twenty years old. On August 26th 1833, six months after the British occupied the Falkland Islands, Rivero led a rebellion of Creoles and Indians. There was discontent among Vernet's workers because of the labour conditions. They were not paid with money but with vouchers, and William Dickson (administrator of Fort Louis, who also managed the local pantry) rejected them. They weren't allowed either to eat from the livestock, and had to hunt wild animals for eating.<ref name="Pigna"/>
His companions in the rebellion were two gauchos, John Brasso and Jose Maria Luna, and five charrùas, Manuel Gonzalez, Luciano Flores, Felipe Salazar, Marcos Latorre and Manuel Godoy. They killed five men, Captain Brisbane, Juan Simón (foreman of the gauchos), Dickson, Ventura Wagner and Ventura Pasos. The population of that time, just 26 men, fled to the nearby Peat island, and both groups lived apart from each other. No news of the event arrived at Buenos Aires, and thus no Argentine ships were sent to the islands, but the "Antartic" ship from the United States passed by the island around that time and had an interview with Rivero.
By January of 1834 the British ships "Challenger" and "Hopeful" arrived to the islands, under the command of Henry Smith, and after becoming aware of the news they chased the gauchos, who fled into the hills. The attempts to capture the band lasted for 3 months, Luna betrayed the others and Brasido defected. The British were then reinforced by two more ships, the "Beagle" and the "Adventure". They captured all of Rivero companions, and finally Rivero himself. They were sent to Britain to be tried. They were jailed at Sherness, but the English Court acquitted them, recognizing that their military actions had occurred outside the boundaries of the crown. They were sent to Río de Janeiro, and they returned to the zone of the Río de la Plata.
The circumstances of the death of Rivero are unknown. Some sources consider that he died fighting the Battle of Vuelta de Obligado, but it's not confirmed.<ref name="Pigna"/>
Historical perspectives
The actions and purposes of Rivero have motivated different viewpoints from historians in Argentina. The National Academy of History considered in 1966 that Rivero and his followers were common criminals, and that they were not driven by any patriotic feeling but just for economic reasons. They had based their opinions on British documents of the time.<ref name="Pigna"/> Historian Juan Lucio de Almeida mantained in Félix Luna's magazine, Todo es Historia, that even if it can't be demonstrated that Rivero was driven by a desire to recover the islands for the Confederation, even so he wasn't a common criminal.<ref name="Pigna"/> Traditional historical revisionism of Argentina would use the opposite angle, considering him a patriot.<ref name="Pigna"/> Finally, authors like Pablo Hernández, Horacio Chitarroni, José María “Pepe” Rosa or Fermín Chávez made positive comments on him, but not because of patriotic motivations but in the context of class struggle.<ref name="Pigna"/>
In popular culture
Armando S. Fernández wrote in 2009 a historical novel about the uprising of Rivero, called "El Gaucho Rivero y la conspiración para apoderarse de Malvinas". It was presented at the 2009 Buenos Aires International Book Fair, and has a prologue of the journalist Chacho Rodríguez Muñoz.

Main Menu

See Also

Main Menu