Bartolomé Miter undertook the long journey from Montevideo to Bolivia where the executive was exercised by José Ballivián, a confessed adversary of Juan Manuel de Rosas. Through some contacts, he had been offered the direction of military training in the armya position that excited him.
On November 12, 1846, loaded with books that Esteban Echeverría had asked him to distribute on his stopover in Valparaíso for the exiled community in Chile, Miter began his Andean journeyand after touring the southern coasts of Argentina and crossing the Strait of Magellan, it fulfilled the requested shipments.
The brief stopover in Chile was enough to further strengthen ties with like-minded intellectuals and politicians, and With that conviction he resumed the journey towards La Pazwhere he arrived in February 1847.
In La Paz, Miter had a reception tailored to his needs. Other exiles had preceded him, such as Domingo Oro and Wenceslao Paunero, and it was they who They gave him a place in the circle of liberal republicans. Invited to participate in the founding of the local Patriotic Society, he was also offered the pages of La Época to publish political articles and poems.
The Bolivian stay would soon become complicated. A series of ongoing uprisings against Ballivián gave him a new opportunity to participate in the military fight, invited by the president himself.
Decorated in Bolivia
Now invested as lieutenant colonel, he left for Oruro and Potosí, where he entered with the forces that supported his protector. In recognition of his attitude, He received from the first magistrate the declaration of “Meritorious of the Homeland in a heroic degree.”
The plots against Ballivián had been stopped but not completely dissolved. A new uprising, this time by the main military garrison of La Paz, brought down the presidential command.
Ballivián resigned from his position and Miter, loyal to the overthrown man, was arrested and expelled from the country. With friends and colleagues in Valparaíso, he knew that Chile was his next destination.
On April 24, 1848, he arrived in Valparaíso without money, but with the expectation that men like Domingo Faustino Sarmiento and Juan Bautista Alberdi They would make efforts to protect it. He was not wrong, and in May he was already working on writing The Commerce from Valparaiso.
By then his daughter Josefina Benita had been born and I missed the quiet of family more than ever. who, he knew, suffered the rigors of life in Montevideo.
By May 1849, Miter was already responsible for writing The Progressa newspaper founded by Sarmiento and Vicente Fidel López a few years before, whose political inclination supported local liberals against the conservatives.
Chilean political life will absorb him with intensity, but new news came from the Río de la Plata. Dozens of exiles returned to Buenos Aires where political life seemed to be green again, without fear of the once omnipresent terror that stinged.
Justo José de Urquiza had spoken out against Rosas on May 1, 1851, and Their rebellion was a siren song for the exiles. It was time to return and participate in the liquidation of the rosista order. Sarmiento understood this and began the trip. Miter will also be part of the game and on October 2 he set sail for Montevideo.
Thus ended a cycle in which he was able to observe the vicissitudes of the national organization, an experience that undoubtedly had a profound impact on the political assembly of a project for Argentina.
Urquiza’s uprising against Rosas would give him the opportunity to exhibit his hard learning.
