Bicentennial of Uruguay: why the country celebrates its independence on the day that its territory joined the Argentine provinces

A child agitates the Flag of Uruguay with a celestial sky in the background. — Photo foot, The date of birth of Uruguay as an independent country has been the cause of debates over time.

- Author, Redacción*
- Author's title, BBC News World
25 August 2024

Updated August 22, 2025

If you ask a Uruguayan what is celebrated every August 25 in his country, you are likely to receive two different and curious responses at the same time.

One of them would be “The Night of Nostalgia”, which begins in the hours prior to the arrival of that date and continues in the early morning, with crowds that go out to dance music from past times.

The other probable answer is that Uruguay commemorates the anniversary of his declaration of independence of August 25, 1825 with a non -working holiday. In fact, that facilitated that the day begins with night parties for a few decades.

But there is something that is usually in the background of the collective memory: that same day 200 years ago, the then called Eastern Province also chose to join the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata, the embryo of what would later become Argentina.

Over time, politicians and historians have analyzed and discussed this paradox.

“Independence is requested, but to link again to a major political unit. So it is not the sense of independence of the country as we finally obtained,” said Uruguayan historian Ana Ribeiro to BBC Mundo. “That is the point of discussion.”

However, she and other specialists argue that there are explanations for the apparent contradiction.

Three laws

The Eastern Province reached 1825 marked by a series of facts that, for some, had already initiated its independence process.

The today's hero of Uruguay, José Gervasio Artigas, had led in the previous decade the eastern revolution against the Spanish monarchy, whose Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata was in crisis after the May Revolution of 1810 in Buenos Aires.

Artigas statue in Montevideo — Photo foot, Artigas is the hero of Uruguay, although his political project aimed to form a confederation of provinces in the region.

But Artigas never conceived Uruguay as an independent country. His project in favor of forming a Regional Confederation of Provinces faced him to the centralist leaders of Buenos Aires and ended up defeated after the Portuguese-Brazilian invasion of the Eastern Province in 1816.

From an uprising of several leaders against that occupation in April 1825, a provisional government was formed in the eastern province that convened a representatives, which would approve three fundamental laws.

The first of these laws declared to the Eastern province “free and independent of the King of Portugal, the Emperor of Brazil, and of any other of the universe, and with broad power to give the ways that, in use and exercise of their sovereignty, deems appropriate.”

Ribeiro stressed that this law clearly established the concept of independence.

However, the second law approved that day declared “the union with the other Argentine provinces, which always belonged to the most sacred links that the world knows.”

A third law established that the provisional pavilion of the Eastern province would be blue, white and red stripes (different from the one that Uruguay would then adopt) until reinstatement was completed to the United Provinces.

Old map of the territories that today belong to Chile, Argentina and Uruguay — Photo foot, The birth of Uruguay as an independent country was part of a long and complex process, experts point out.

“If I deduce that on August 25, 1825, what is being established is the formation of a separate state with a vocation to be independent of others, I am forcing it,” said Ana Freega, professor of History at the University of the Republic, in Montevideo, to BBC Mundo.

However, that was the date that would be officially chosen to commemorate Uruguayan independence.

“Secular liturgy”

Since then, Uruguay has questioned as few countries in Latin America what was the time when he was born as an independent state.

The debate was installed in the Uruguayan Parliament in 1923, but failed to settle. The Chamber of Deputies voted to declare on August 25, 1825 as the date of Independence and the Senate opted for July 18, 1830, the day the first constitution of the brand new state was swore.

The dilemma divided the two traditional Uruguayan games: the white one, inclined by the first date, and the Colorado, by the second.

The issue returned to the legislative scope in 2005, when the former president and colored senator Julio María Sanguinetti proposed to change the national date and said that celebrating independence on August 25 is a “historical error” because that moment “marks more our provincial sovereignty and its consequent adherence to Argentine belonging”.

Some historians have stated that true independence was achieved on October 4, 1828 with the ratifications of the Preliminary Peace Convention. That day, with a British mediation, the war between the Empire of Brazil and the provinces united by the control of what would become the eastern state of Uruguay was ended.

High stone drawing, Uruguay — Photo foot, High stone, today in Uruguayan Department of Florida, was where the three fundamental laws of the Eastern province were proclaimed on August 25, 1825.

However, on August 25, the official date of Uruguayan independence remains until today.

“The commemorations are generating sediment in society, then eliminating a date requires very wide consensus and discussions,” Frega said. “In Uruguay, rather than eliminating dates what we have done is to incorporate new ones.”

He explained that on August 25 the Eastern Province established independent sovereignty as a “founding act.” And only after that would be incorporated into some united provinces with which he had previous conflicts, so that union “was also very forced.”

Ribeiro said that the date of independence was a “historiographic construction” to which there was solemnity and has a civilist sense for referring to laws instead of battles.

“Sometimes there has been talk (of changing it) and immediately begins the discussion about what the other would be, the correct one. There is no date that is free of controversy, because the process must be understood and the processes are complex, with comings and goings, with contradictions,” said the historian.

Perhaps the question is then why it is so important to mark a specific day of origin for this nation located between Argentina and Brazil, which today has only 3.4 million inhabitants.

“There is a secular liturgy in countries (which) Mojones, one day of birth, a father,” Ribeiro replied. “A country requires a strong reference and this country specified it to be born, to demonstrate that its independent existence made sense.”

*This article was originally published on August 25, 2024 and updated on the occasion of the Bicentennial of the declaration of Independence of Uruguay.