Hipólito Vieytes

Juan Hipólito Vieytes (August 12, 1762, San Antonio de Areco, Buenos Aires - October 5, 1815, San Fernando) was an Argentine merchant, soldier, journalist, and politician. precursor of economic liberalism in his country.

Biography

Monument to Hipólito Vieytes in Buenos Aires. Work of the sculptor José Llaneces

He was the son of Juan Vieytes y Barreyro, a native of San Adrián de Vilariño –Galicia– and Petrona Mora Fernández de Agüero, born in Buenos Aires. They were married in 1754 and four years later the couple settled in San Antonio de Areco, attracted by the local parish priest who was Doña Petrona's uncle. His family home was located at 133 Calle Real (today Calle Ruiz de Arellano) in front of the central square.

In the 1778 census, the Vieytes family was already settled in Buenos Aires and the census indicated that the household was made up of “Juan, the father, 52 years old; Petrona, the 38-year-old mother; and his offspring: María Isabel, 20; Vincent, 19; Hipólito, 16; Ramon, 14; and Gregorio, the youngest, 4 years old"

When he was still a little boy, his family moved to Buenos Aires and enrolled him and his brother in a Jesuit school, the Real Colegio de San Carlos.

He married Josefa Torres and had two children: Carlota Joaquina and José Benjamín.

He participated in the English invasions of 1806 and 1807 and during the Reconquest of Buenos Aires, achieving the military rank of captain.

He began to act in politics and introduced it to his social life, becoming part of the so-called "tertulias" —Meetings in living rooms of private houses where she talked about different topics. In Buenos Aires, one of the best-known venues for these meetings in the first decade of the XIX century, was the so-called &# 34;Jabonería de Vieytes", in what was a soap factory belonging to Nicolás Rodríguez Peña and Hipólito Vieytes. There the patriots met since 1809, where they debated the ideas that would later start the future revolution. The soap would have been erected at the corner of the current Tacuarí and Venezuela streets, although other sources place it at 1050 to 1068 Mexico Street.

In the following years, he was part of Carlotism, a political party that sought to crown Carlota Joaquina de Borbón as regent, in the name of King Ferdinand VII in the Viceroyalty of Río de la Plata.

Vieytes soap shop on Mexico Street at 1506.

He was also a journalist and founder of the second newspaper published in Buenos Aires, the "Semanario de agricultura, industria y comercio".

In 1810 he supported the May Revolution and attended the open town hall on May 22. He was appointed commissioner of the Provisional Government Board, a position from which he was removed for refusing to shoot Santiago de Liniers. After the death of Mariano Moreno, he replaced him as secretary of the Junta Grande, until 1811. From that position he ignored Viceroy Elío, based in Montevideo, prohibited trade with the eastern coast of the Río de la Plata, suspended the confinement of the Spaniards and encouraged the enlistment of men between the ages of 14 and 45, among other measures.

He was a member of the "Patriotic Society," an association of Río de la Plata revolutionaries created by Manuel Moreno in March 1811, in order to proclaim the independence of the Río de la Plata. He shared these ideas with other morenistas such as Juan Larrea, Agustín José Donado, Juan José Paso, Domingo French, Julián Álvarez and Nicolás Rodríguez Peña, among others.

Product of the revolution of April 5 and 6, 1811, various Morenista leaders, including Hipólito Vieytes, his brother the priest Ramón Vieytes, Colonel Domingo French, Lieutenant Colonel Antonio Luis Beruti, Gervasio Antonio de Posadas and Agustín José Donated, they were sentenced to exile, being immediately transferred to Villa de Luján. Some of them were transferred to the Luján Guard, today Mercedes. At the end of that year, however, a revolt by the party that was overthrown in April led to the formation of the First Triumvirate, which orders the release of the exiles. Vieytes did not hurry to reach the capital, and only the following year did he join the government as a member of the Chamber of Appeals, which replaced the Royal Audience, along with Larrea. He participated in the Assembly of the year XIII, was the police superintendent in Buenos Aires and wrote its regulations. An ally of Carlos María de Alvear, with the latter's fall in April 1815, he was prosecuted for abuse in the public administration and was exiled to San Fernando, his assets were seized, and an inventory of his property was made. library. By order of the new Supreme Director Ignacio Álvarez Thomas, the process was suspended due to his delicate health. Vieytes died in exile from San Fernando a few weeks later, in October 1815.

His son José Benjamín studied at the University of Buenos Aires, graduating as a doctor of medicine in the year 1827; he would die at the age of 40 in San Miguel de Tucumán, on February 25, 1839).

The Buenos Aires town of Vieytes honors this precursor of Independence.

Additional bibliography

• Cordero Banegas, Héctor Adolfo, Juan Hipólito Vieytes in the struggle for independence Argentina, Instituto de Estudios Históricos de San Fernando de Buena Vista, 1997.
• Perpere Viñuales, Alvaro, "Publicity and civility in the thought of Juan Hipólito Vieytes", in Revista Cultura Económica, Year XXXII, No. 87, June 2014, pp. 66-73
• Rojas, Ricardo Manuel, The economic thought of Juan Hipólito Vieytes, San Antonio Foundation, 2010.
• Romay, Francisco L., Juan Hipólito VieytesBuenos Aires, 1962.
• Weinberg, Felix, Preliminary Study on the Economic Background of the May Revolution, Editorial Raigal, Buenos Aires, 1956.

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