Flag of the Federal League, a.k.a. Artiga’s flag (Eastern Bank of La Plata: Uruguay and northern Argentina

Confederación de Pueblos Libres; Liga Federal; Banda Oriental

Last modified: 2016-03-04 by antónio martins
Keywords: artigas (josé gervasio) | belgrano (manuel) | ramírez (francisco) | banda oriental | la plata | eastern bank | confederación de pueblos libres |
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• Historical background
• Description of the flag

• Independentist flags in La Plata region (Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay: 1810-1840)
• Variant Artigas flag
• Historical flags of Uruguay
• Historical flags of Argentina

• Jaume Ollé’s page about the flags of Banda Oriental

Historical background

Agustin Beraza in its book The flags of Artigas [bza57], describes both current provincial flags, Misiones and Entre Ríos, as banderas de Artigas. He forgets that:

1. st: the current Entre Ríos provincial flag is locally known as Ramírez’ flag.
2. nd: that in the day of Ramírez and Artigas it was known as the Federation Flag, as it stood for a movement, not for a person.
3. rd: that it was hoisted for the fist time in Santa Fe.
4. th: The provincial flag of Misiones is doubtful; sources were never confirmed of verified.

The flag of the Federal League (Liga Federal) was created in 1814 by José Gervasio Artigas. It was hoisted for the first time in 1815.01.13 and used for the first time in the Banda Oriental (eastern bank of La Plata) in 1815.02.26.
Jaume Ollé, 20 Aug 2000, translated by António Martins

This flag was used in the provinces of

• Entre Ríos, in 1815.03.13-1822.03.12 (Herreñu), and 1824-1832 (Sola)
• Catamarca, in early 1815

Description of the flag

The exact specs of the original flag are not known, due to conflicting reports: The white stripe might have been wider than the blue stripes, or not; and the red bend might have been very wide or not so.
Jaume Ollé, 20 Aug 2000, translated and adapted by António Martins

The flag of Artigas, the national hero of Uruguay, was adapted from the Belgrano flag by adding a diagonal red stripe. This flag is now the naval jack of Uruguay and the flag of the province of Entre Rios in Argentina.

The red, blue and white colours were used by Artigas to establish a clear difference between the flag of the Eastern Province. These three colours evoke the colours of the French Tricolor of French Revolution days. At the beginning of the XIX century, red and blue were the colours you could find when looking for cloth for the soldiers’ uniforms, in these Spanish colonies. Materials came in two shades of blue. One, the lightest, was celestial or “heavenly” blue and had been chosen by Belgrano for the flag of the May 1810 Revolution leading to the Argentine Independence. Four or five years later, not wanting his colors to be similar or confused with those of the Buenos Aires government, against whose dominance he would be soon fighting, Artigas chose to design his flag and other provinces which were with him in opposing Buenos Aires domination, in colours not existing in the Argentine flag. The shade of blue he adopted therefore was navy blue.
Jorge Cajarville, 16 Jun 1999