Arequito Revolt - Revolt

Revolt

Arriving at Arequito, on January 8, 1820, general Bustos, supported by colonels Alejandro Heredia and José María Paz, directed the military rebellion. The arrested colones Cornelio Zelaya and Manuel Guillermo Pinto in the middle of the night and traveled to a short distance from Fernández de la Cruz encampment and decided to have discussions with him. They told him they refused to continue with the civil war and to go back to the north front against the royalists instead. They explicitly declared themselves neutral in the conflict between the federalists and the Directory, to avoid being accused of having supported the enemy. Bustos had at this time about 1,600 men, and Fernández de la Cruz, a little less than 1,400.

Bustos demanded to receive half their armament, munitions and head of cattle, to what Cruz seemed to accept at the beginning. But at noon he started a march towards the south, without having delivered the promised goods.

Bustos ordered Heredia to pursue his former commander, and he reached him when he was already surrounded by López's federalist troops (they were already in Santa Fe Province, a federalist stronghold). Seeing he could not continue forward, Fernández de la Cruz decided to give his army to Bustos and returned to Buenos Aires almost alone, only followed by a few loyal officers, Lamadrid among them.

The next day, Bustos started his return to Córdoba, and on January 12 he arrived on Esquina, on Córdoba's border. He wrote López and Rondeau from there, explaining what had occurred, and his plans to return to the fight in the north. In one of those letters he clarified:

"The weapons of the motherland, distracted from their main objective, as they were not used but to spill the blood of their citizens, the same ones from which sweat and labor insured their subsistence."