MONTEVIDEO: Uruguay’s capital Montevideo celebrates its 300th birthday starting with a music concert this weekend, even as the actual date of the city’s founding has become the subject of political disagreement.
For the leftist government of the city that is home to half of Uruguay’s 3.4 million people, there is no doubt Montevideo was officially founded on Jan 20, 1724.
On that date, an expedition of Spanish settlers crossed by boat from Buenos Aires to defend the eastern bank — under threat of Portuguese incursions — of what was then the Spanish Governorate of the Rio de la Plata (River Plate).
That group was led by soldier and administrator Bruno Mauricio de Zabala, whose horse-mounted statue today adorns a small square named after him in Montevideo.
“The evidence for the start of the process (of settlement) in 1724 is undeniable,” the Montevideo city council insists on its website.
However, some in the centre-right coalition in charge of the national government say the 300th anniversary will only be on December 24, 2026.
On that day, they say, the city was officially designated San Felipe de Montevideo in honour of Spain’s King Felipe V.
In support of the 1726 founding date, lawmaker Felipe Schipani points out the city’s 200th anniversary was celebrated in 1926 and its 250th in 1976.
“Why did they bring it forward by two years?” he asked on X. “You cannot falsify history for electoral purposes.” Montevideo mayor Carolina Cosse has said she will throw her hat in the ring for the presidency ahead of elections in October, and the opposition accuses her of using an advanced tercentenary celebration as a campaigning platform.
Historians point out that Montevideo was settled between 1724 and 1730, and an exact founding date is impossible to pinpoint. – AFP
