Security· South America and Pacific Protective Operations
Buenos Aires protective landing
A return of the Marines to a city they had guarded before, during another upheaval on the River Plate.
The fall of the long-ruling Argentine dictator Juan Manuel de Rosas, defeated at the Battle of Caseros in early 1852, threw Buenos Aires into a period of political disorder, and once again the American squadron put a force ashore to protect American lives, the consulate, and the residence of the American minister through the unrest. It was the latest in a recurring pattern of American naval landings at Buenos Aires whenever Argentine instability threatened the foreign community. The Marines stood guard until order returned and then withdrew. No fighting and no casualties resulted. The episode underscored how the lower reaches of the Plate, with their valuable trade and chronic political turbulence, kept drawing American warships into the role of protector of their nationals ashore.
Record no. 374