Mariano Moreno - First Political Activities

First Political Activities

Although Mariano Moreno was a criollo, a Spanish citizen born in the Americas, he did not work with the other criollos of Buenos Aires who sought to promote political changes against the privileges of the Spanish-born. Unlike the criollo politicians Manuel Belgrano and Juan José Castelli, he did not support viceroy Liniers or the Carlotist project, which sought the coronation of Carlota of Spain in the Americas. He joined mayor Martín de Álzaga instead, which allowed him to serve as legal adviser of the Cabildo. In that capacity, he wrote a petition to the King of Spain, so that the Buenos Aires Cabildo was named Protector of the Cabildos of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata. As a result, all petitions from local cabildos to the King or the Viceroy would be channeled through the Cabildo at the capital.

Martín de Álzaga organized a mutiny on January 1, 1809, and Moreno joined it. Álzaga aspired to replace Viceroy Santiago de Liniers with a government Junta, after learning of the capture of the Spanish King Ferdinand VII during the Peninsular War and the creation of the Junta of Seville. If it prevailed, Mariano Moreno would have been part of the new Junta. The mutiny was defeated by the swift reaction of Cornelio Saavedra, in command of the Regiment of Patricians, who dispersed the crowd and persuaded Liniers not to abdicate. It is disputed by historians whenever the mutiny had similar or opposite goals to those of the May Revolution that would take place a year later. The historians who support the latter perspective try to make attempts to excuse or justify Moreno's involvement; those who support the former consider instead that Moreno was a revolutionary a year before most other Argentines. Moreno was Álzaga's lawyer in the trial that followed, which was labeled a trial for independentism. Liniers did not extend the trial to Moreno himself, for reasons unknown.

Liniers was succeeded by Baltasar Hidalgo de Cisneros a few months later, who pardoned the mutineers to reduce political conflicts. Cisneros allowed free trade as well, as instructed by the Junta of Seville, which benefited British merchants; Britain was allied with Spain in the Peninsular War. The agents of the Consulate of Cadiz asserted that this would hurt the local economy, moral values, social usages, religious practices, and the loyalty to Spain and its monarchy. As a result, Cisneros closed trade again, restoring the Spanish monopsony. A group of hacendados (owners of haciendas), who did not feel adequately represented at the Cabildo, asked Moreno to defend them. Moreno wrote The Representation of the Landowners, a report that represented the export interest of the landowners, encouraged free trade, and condemned the privileges of the merchants benefited from the monopsony. It is considered the most comprehensive economic report from the time of the viceroyalty. It represented the new European economic ideas, and noted that the legal monopsony with Spain did not prevent British goods from being smuggled. Several authors have questioned Moreno's authorship of the paper, considering it instead an update of another, previously drafted by Manuel Belgrano, Secretary of the Commerce Consulate of Buenos Aires, written to make a similar request to the former viceroy Liniers. This report, as well as Moreno's prestige in the colonial society, helped him gain the confidence of Cisneros. Yet secretly, Moreno supported the plan to dismiss the Viceroy.