Historiography of Juan Manuel de Rosas The historiography of Juan Manuel de Rosas is highly controversial . Most Argentine historians take an approach either for or against him , a dispute that influenced much of the whole historiography of Argentina . Contemporary descriptions . Rosas ' government of Argentina , during the period of the civil wars , attracted wide criticism . Most leaders of the Unitarian Party exiled themselves to other countries during Rosas ' rule . Domingo Faustino Sarmiento , living in Chile , wrote " Facundo " , a biography of Facundo Quiroga whose real intention was to attack Rosas . Most Unitarians established themselves in Montevideo . In their writings they criticized Rosas , calling him a ruthless dictator and accusing him of many crimes . These statements were not intended for merely local effect but were designed to promote a European intervention in the conflict . José Rivera Indarte wrote a work called " Blood Tables " ( Tablas de Sangre ) which was published in Europe . It was intended to be a complete list of the known victims of Rosas . It attributed more than 22 , 000 deaths to his government . The Argentine politician Manuel Moreno considered this work to be libel . The reports from Montevideo were echoed in France , as many French citizens resided in Montevideo at that time . Alexandre Dumas wrote the novel " Montevideo , or the New Troy " based on the reports of Melchor Pacheco . Adolphe Thiers urged François Guizot to intervene in the conflict . On its own initiative France imposed a blockade of the Río de la Plata between 1838 and 1840 , which was followed in 1845 by a joint blockade with Great Britain . The intervention by the European powers won sympathy for Rosas from other South Americans , who saw him as a fellow American standing against powerful foreign aggressors . He was supported by Francisco Antonio Pinto , José Ballivián , and many international newspapers . Some of those newspapers were the American " New York Sun " ( August 5 , 1845 ) and " New York Herald " ( September 7 , 1845 ) , the Brazilians " O Brado de Amazonas " ( August 9 , 1845 ) and " O Sentinella da Monarchia " ( August 20 , 1845 ) and the Chilean " El Tiempo " ( August 15 , 1845 ) . The liberator José de San Martín , who was living in France , corresponded with Rosas , offering his full support , both against the Europeans and the Unitarians . San Martín showed his respect by bequeathing his sword to Rosas . Later descriptions . Rosas was deposed by Justo José de Urquiza in 1852 , in the battle of Caseros , and Buenos Aires seceded from the Argentine Confederation later in the year . Rosas moved into exile in Southampton . The Unitarians confiscated all his properties and repudiated him in a variety of ways . José Mármol wrote the novel Amalia , the first Argentine novel , and included several criticisms to Rosas , such as " " not even the dust of your bones the America will have " " . However , such authors cannot be considered exclusively from the perspectives of historiography or the history of ideas , as they were politically active people , even with main roles in the political struggles of their time ; and their works were used as tools to advertise their ideas . Most documents of the time were burned during the aftermath of Caseros . The legislature of Buenos Aires charged him with High treason in 1857 ; Nicanor Arbarellos supported his vote with the following speech : Rosas , sir , that tyrant , that barbarian , even if barbarian and cruel , was not considered as such by the European and civilized nations , and that judgment of the European and civilized nations , moved to posterity , will hold in doubt , at least , that barbarian and execrable tyranny that Rosas exercised among us . It ' s needed , then , to mark with a legislative sanction declaring him guilty of " lèse majesté " so at least this point is marked in history , and it is seen that the most potent court , which is the popular court , which is the voice of the sovereign peoples by us represented , throws to the monster the anathema calling him traitor and guilty of " lèse majesté " . Judgments like those must not be left for history . What will be said , what might be said in history when it ' s seen that the civilized nations of the world , for whom we are but just a point , have acknowledged in this tyrant a being worthy to deal with them ? That England has returned his cannons taken in war action , and saluted his bloody and innocent - blood stained flag with a 21 - gun salute ? This fact , known by history , would be a great counterweight , Sir , if we leave Rosas without this sanction . The France itself , which started the crusade that was shared by general Lavalle , in its due time also abandoned him , dealt with Rosas and saluted his flag with a 21 - gun salute . I ask , Sir , if this fact won ' t erase from history everything we may say , if we leave this monster that decimated us for so many years without a sanction . The judgment of Rosas must not be left to history , as some people desire . It ' s clear that it can ' t be left to history the judgment of the tyrant Rosas . Let ' s throw to Rosas this anathema , which perhaps can be the only one to harm him in history , because otherwise his tyranny will always be doubtful , as well as his crimes ! What will be said in history , sir ? And this is sad to tell , what will be said in history when it is said that the brave Admiral Brown , the hero of the Navy of the Independence war , was the admiral who defended the tyranny of Rosas ? What will be said in history without this anathema , when it is said that this man who contributed with his glories and talents to give shine to the Sun of May , that the other deputee referenced in his speech , when it is said that General San Martín , the conqueror of the Andes , the father of the Argentine glories , made him the greatest tribute that can be given to a soldier by handing him his sword ? Will this be believed , sir , if we don ' t throw an anathema to the tyrant Rosas ? Will this man be known as he is in 20 or 50 years , if we want to go further , when it is known that Brown and San Martín were loyal to him and gave him the most respectful tributes , along with France and England ? No , sir : they will say , the savage unitarians , his enemies , lied . He has not been a tyrant : far from that , he has been a great man , a great general . It ' s needed to throw without doubts this anathema to the monster . If at least we had imititated the English people , who dragged the corpse of Cromwell across the streets of London , and had dragged Rosas across the streets of Buenos Aires ! I support , Mr . President , the project . If the judgment of Rosas was left to the judgment of history , we won ' t get Rosas to be condemned as a tyrant , but perhaps he may be in it the greatest and most glorious of Argentines . A notable exception to this trend was Juan Bautista Alberdi , who was among the Unitarian expatriates in Montevideo and attacked Rosas during his rule . He met with him during the latter ' s exile in England in 1857 , an event which changed his mind into supporting him and even lead to becoming friends . Alberdi would condemn the aforementioned sanction against Rosas , lauded that he never plotted to regain power , compared the barbarism attributed to him with the contemporary United States , Russia , Italy and Germany , and pointed that Urquiza deposed Rosas to organize the country but the actual result was the secession of Buenos Aires . Domingo Faustino Sarmiento changed his view of Rosas during his late life as well . Bartolomé Mitre maintained his hatred towards him all his life , which may be explained by family reasons : Mitre ' s father was appointed as treasurer of Uruguay by Fructuoso Rivera and fired by Manuel Oribe ; and Rosas supported Oribe against Rivera during the Uruguayan civil war . Bartolomé Mitre started the first remarkable historiographic studies shortly afterwards , but opted to avoid the period of Rosas rule altogether . He wrote biographies for Manuel Belgrano and José de San Martín , which actually detailed the Spanish rule in the Americas , the Argentine War of Independence and the War with Brazil , but made no mention afterwards . His biography of San Martín ended at the point when San Martín ended his military career , and he declined to write his projected book " " The ostracism and apotheosis of General San Martín " " , as he would have to write about San Martín ' s disputes with Bernardino Rivadavia , his repudiation of the execution of Manuel Dorrego and the rule of Juan Lavalle , his steady appreciative correspondence to Rosas and his rejection to the European interventions against him ; all of which would hint that San Martín was closer to the Federalists than to the Unitarians . Similarly , Mitre wrote a series of small biographies of men from the War of Independence ; some of them worked with Rosas later but those details were carefully omitted . Mitre established a version of history with an explicit bias against his enemies of the civil war ; this method constrated sharply with the historiography of the United States , which avoided the arbitrary divisions into heroes and villains and preferred a fair and dispassionated perspective . The liberal historiography promoted by Mitre and Sarmiento was highly influenced by Anglophilia . The first major attempt to study Rosas and the Confederation as a historical period was done by Adolfo Saldías . Being one generation after the contemporaries of Rosas , he attempted to make a scientific and dispassionated account of his rule . His work was based on a high number of sources , from varied origins . He visited Rosas ' daughter Manuela Rosas in Southampton to check the archive of state documents that Rosas took with himself to the exile : mails sent and received , draft copies of official announcements and diplomatic reports , confidential reports of his ministers in London , París , Washington and Río de Janeiro , and confidential police reports . Saldías checked as well the documents published at the newspapers of the time , interviews with contemporaries and memoirs of military leaders . Saldías rejected the civilization and barbarism dichotomy introduced by Sarmiento , and described the ranchers of the countryside as a mere political faction with specific interests . He gave new significance to the Federal Pact , a perspective that would be shared by both future revisionists and authors as Emilio Ravignani and Ricardo Levene . The Generation of ' 80 . The years between 1880 and 1930 saw a rise of positivist essayists . They modified the approach in the study of history , but with little changes to general interpretations ; for instance , the Great Man theory was gradually dismissed , favoring instead perspectives that explained history through social , mental , cultural or economic factors . José María Ramos Mejía tried to explain key biographies , specially Rosas ' , through a phrenologist analysis . Vicente Fidel López and Domingo Faustino Sarmiento praised his original approach , but López pointed out the lack of clinical records from the period being studied , and Sarmiento that Mejía trusted too much on libelles from that time ( even by Sarmiento himself ) which were more concerned with the political conflicts than with historical accuracy . Another author from this period was Ernesto Quesada , who worked with Rosas and wrote " " La época de Rosas " " ( ) and the influential " " Rosas y su tiempo " " ( ) . Quesada applied the standards of the current German scolarship , as he had studied in that country . He considered that the events of the civil war were best explained by characteristics of Argentine society rather than by Rosas ' own personality , and compared the rise of Rosas after the anarchy of the year XX with the rule of the king Louis XI of France . He did not consider Rosas a tyrant , at least not in comparison with the Unitarian rules , and attributed the failure of the early attempts of political organization to the lack of political education . His book was well documented , and detailed how the image of Rosas was distorted after his exile , and many key documents concealed or destroyed . However , he was critical of Saldías ' work , and had disputes with him . A common assumption of the time considered that Argentina began an age of prosperity after the defeats of Rosas and Urquiza at Caseros and Pavón . This perspective was weakened after the 1912 " Grito de Alcorta " and the raise of Hipólito Yrigoyen to the presidency . Juan Álvarez , influenced by the new state of affairs , wrote a history of Argentina from an economic perspective , and redeemed the protectionist policy of Rosas as an attempt to restore the economy of the country that had been badly damaged by wars and free trade . The new historical school . The new historical school was a new generation of historians , influenced by the University Revolution , who sought to modernize the historiographical work with new methodologies . The New Historical School did not share common ideas about historical topics in themselves , but rather a common " modus operandi " . They were not part of the social upper classes that ruled Argentina since 1852 , but sons of immigrants who arrived to Argentina during the great immigrations waves at the turn of the century . As a result , they were less influenced by factionalism and preconceived ideas . One of the authors of the New Historical School that worked with Rosas was Emilio Ravignani , his main interest being the origins of federalism and the national organization . He presided the " Institute of historical investigations " , and joined the Junta of History and Numismatics by recommendation of Ricardo Levene . As subsecretary of international relations during the administration of Hipólito Yrigoyen he could check a lot of documents and bibliography , which allowed him to write a book about the first meeting of Rosas and Southern . In his study of the Argentine Constitution of 1853 , he considered that the Federal Pact was a strong precedent which established Federal rule , later confirmed in 1853 . Unlike the authors that dismissed the period as anarchic , Ravignani considered that the pacts and the role of the " caudillos " was instrumental to maintain national unity . Ravignani gave new significance to the " caudillos " , Rosas and Artigas , his work was influenced by Saldías and Quesada . His work was discussed by Ricardo Levene , who thought that the civil war and the delegation of the sum of public power generated a dictatorship , and that Rosas was a special " caudillo " , unlike the others . A notable historian of the 1920s was Dardo Corvalán . All his works reinvidicated the actions of Rosas . He employed a less scholarly language than Saldías or Quesada , favoring instead a language closer to the average reader , although Saldías was almost exclusively the source of his work . He did not focus his criticism on other historians , but on writers of poetry or pamphlets against Rosas , such as Rivera Indarte . Though he was an Yrigoyenist , he did not portrait Rosas as a popular or populist leader , pointing instead to his support among the wealthy people . Another important historian was Carlos Ibarguren , minister of Roque Sáenz Peña and teacher of History of Argentina at the Faculty of Philosophy and Literature . He gave a number of conferences about Rosas , which were compiled and published in a book with high success . High interest in Rosas existed for political reasons : politicians opposing Hipólito Yrigoyen ( the president at the time ) compared him with Rosas under a negative light , and his supporters took pride of the comparison by pointing similarities between Rosas and Yrigoyen . Ibarguren is neither critical nor supportive of Rosas , trying to provide explanations for his actions based on psychology . Historical revisionism . The 1930s saw the work of the first revisionist historians in Argentina . The historiography of Argentina is usually simplified as having a liberal or " official " history , that would be hegemonic , scientific and endorsed by the formal institutions , and a " counter history " closer to the writing of essays than to historical work and influenced by political movements . However , the context is much more complicated than that , and the frontiers between both types of history are rather diffuse . Authors deemed as " liberal " did not always follow scientific procedures , nor had homogeneous perspectives in all topics . It was not always hegemonic either , and several revisionists hold public offices or were supported by the current governments . Moreover , revisionist historians did not even have homogeneous points of view : Saldías is commonly considered the first revisionist , but his work praised Bernardino Rivadavia as well as Rosas , suggesting a continuity between both , whereas most revisionists would praise Rosas and reject Rivadavia . The 1930s revisionists were divided into right - wing nationalists , who rejected the black legend and praised the Catholic Church and the Hispanic heritage , and popular nationalists , who rejected the exclusion of the masses from political life and praised Rosas ' s popular support . The starting point of the historical revisionism in the 1930s is disputed , according to the perspective held over such revisionism . Authors that consider revisionism a phenomenon related to ongoing political movements point to the 1934 book " La Argentina y el imperialismo británico " ( ) , by the Irazusta brothers . This work , highly critical of the recent Roca – Runciman Treaty , considered that Britain had been imperialistic towards Argentina since its beginnings . Authors that focus instead on the historiographical merits of revisionism choose instead " Ensayo sobre el año 20 " ( ) and " Ensayo sobre Rosas y la suma del poder " ( ) , by Julio Irazusta , also from 1934 . The first essay analyzed the anarchy of the year XX , and the second the historiography of Rosas . Irazusta diverged with previous works supporting Rosas : unlike Saldías , he did not consider Rosas and Rivadavia as part of a same political project but part of divergent ones . Quesada did not thought Rosas to be a skilled politician , while Irazusta did think so . Neither Saldías nor Quesada considered the battle of Caseros a turning point in the history of Argentina , while Irazusta considered it a lost chance to become a global power . There were many works about Rosas written at the end of the 1930 decade and beginning of the 1940s : " Vida de Juan Manuel de Rosas " ( ) by Manuel Gálvez in 1940 , the first volume of " Vida política de Juan Manuel de Rosas a través de su correspondencia " ( ) by Julio Irazusta in 1941 , and " Defensa y pérdida de nuestra independencia económica " ( ) by José María Rosa in 1942 . The studies about Rosas were channeled through a new institute , the Juan Manuel de Rosas national institute of historical investigations , established in 1938 . This institute and similar ones thought that public instruction was instrumental in generating a new nationalist sentiment in the population , but using new historical structures in place of the ones used in previous decades . Along with the institute , there was Pro - Repatriation Rosas Committee , which promoted the repatriation of Juan Manuel de Rosas ' s body . Popular interest in Rosas further increased with the start of the Spanish Civil War and World War II , which increased and radicalized the disputes between supporters of fascism and anti - fascism to its highest level in Latin America . Most historians tried to avoid the modern political controversies and stay focused on the time period under study ; Emilio Ravignani warned in 1939 that the figure of Rosas should not be used to justify modern dictatorships . Still , those disputes influenced the way people perceived history . Academics as Diego Luis Molinari and José María Rosa were attacked by student unions that considered them Nazis because of their support to Rosas , and tried to prevent them from teaching at universities . Many authors , on the other hand , opted instead to avoid Rosas altogether . The Rosas National Institute quickly abandoned its historiographical purposes , and focused instead in merely promoting Rosas ' image . It was considered that historical revisionism had already prevailed and that Rosas should be considered a national hero . Thus , the institute made little work in creating archives of the time period ( although that was one of its initial purposes ) and actual historical investigation , and worked instead with conferences , parades and literary comment . Although they were accused of holding fascist ideas , they did not support Francisco Franco or other modern fascist governments , supporting instead Argentine neutrality in World War II . Palacio thought that historiography should be a reflection of the values of the society that generates it , so the historiography of decades ago was correct for its own time period but outdated in the 1930s . Manuel Gálvez compared the actions of Rosas with those of other world leaders under similar circumstances , such as Louis XI of France , Diego Portales , and considered him a leader of Republicanism in Argentina , unlike the monarchist Unitarians . Irazusta considered instead that Rosas was a great historical figure , not only in Argentina or even in South America , but in world history as well . José María Rosa rejected the Great Man theory , and thought that history should not focus on specific isolated men or events but on the evolution of society as a whole . Peronism . The Revolution of ' 43 benefited revisionist historians . National universities were intervened and revisionism got a prominent role in them . However , the radical role of Jordán Bruno Genta at the National University of the Littoral was highly criticized , both by antifacists and by other revisionists as Arturo Jauretche and the Irazusta brothers . Jauretche was imprisoned for his criticism , and the magazine run by the Irazusta was closed . Others as Vicente Sierra tried a more integrationist approach . The historical revisionism lost the high hierarchical roles achieved in the Revolution of ' 43 when Juan Perón was elected president . Revisionists had divided opinions towards him : Manuél Gálvez , Vicente Sierra , Ramón Doll and Ernesto Palacio gave their full support to Peronism ; Juan Pablo Oliver and Federico Ibarguren supported him from other political parties ; José María Rosa and Raúl Scalabrini Ortiz supported him at a mere personal level , without getting involved in politics , but Genta and the Irazusta brothers became antiperonists . The government of Perón avoided taking sides in the ideological disputes of the times , and did the same in historical topics , without endorsing nor rejecting revisionism . Other than replacing the tile " The Rosas dictatorship " for " Rosas and his era " at high school textbooks , Peronism did not endorse revisionism or Rosas in any way . The state only made official praise to universally accepted national heroes , such as José de San Martín , whose centennial was celebraated in 1950 . After the railway nationalization no railway received the name of Rosas ; being named instead Urquiza , Mitre and Sarmiento ( all of them historical enemies of Rosas ) and Belgrano and San Martín ( universally accepted national heroes of Argentina ) . On the other hand , antiperonism condemned revisionism and Rosas , extrapolating in him the criticism towards Perón . Most notably , they celebrated the centennial of the battle of Caseros in which Rosas was ousted from power . Still , the antiperonist coup that deposed Perón saw no need to modify the history curriculum , which continued to be used in schools with no modifications . The analogies between Perón and Rosas became explicit during the " Revolución Libertadora " , a coup that ousted Perón from power and banned Peronism . Eduardo Lonardi , " de facto " president , used the quote " " ni vencedores ni vencidos " " ( ) , which was used by Urquiza after deposing Rosas in Caseros . The official perspective was that Perón was " the second tyranny " , the first one being Rosas , and that both ones should be equally rejected , and conversely both governments that ousted them should be praised . This perspective was condensed into the line of historical continuity " May - Caseros - Libertadora " . According to it , the purpose of the May Revolution was to build government institutions , and that purpose would only be achieved after Rosas ' defeat . This approach backfired . So far revisionism had success in academic contexts , but failed to change the popular perception of history . Perón was highly popular and the military coup unpopular ; this made revisionism popular by embracing the comparison established between Rosas and Perón , but viewing him with a positive light instead . The strategy , however , was not immediate . José María Rosa was one of the most benefited revisionist historians in this context . Modern times . The Repatriation of Juan Manuel de Rosas ' s body , a project began in the 1930s , finally took place in 1989 , at the beginning of the first presidency of Carlos Menem . His body , so far kept at the Southampton Old Cemetery in the United Kingdom , was moved to La Recoleta cemetery . The procession , attended by both descendants of Rosas and descendants of his historical enemies , was a symbol of the national unification promoted by Menem , who called for an end to historical enmities . According to the historian Félix Luna , the disputes between supporters and detractors of Rosas are outdated , and modern historiography has incorporated the several corrections made by historical revisionism . Luna points that Rosas is no longer seen as a horrible monster , but as a common historical man as the others ; and that it is anachronistic to judge him under modern moral standards . Luis Alberto Romero , leader historian of the CONICET , the University San Martín and the UBA , pointed that the ideas of revisionism have been smoothly included into high - school textbooks , with no visible contradictions with other perspectives . Horacio González , head of the National Library of the Argentine Republic , points a paradigm shift in the historiography of Argentina , where revisionism has moved from being the second most important perspective into being the mainstream one . However , divulgative historian s often repeat outdated misconceptions about Rosas . This is usually the case of historians from outside of Argentina , who have no bias towards the Argentine topics but unwittingly repeat cliches that have long been refuted by Argentine historiography .