Uruguay, creation of 425 Plaza de Constitution in the capital of Montevideo, Uruguay, at the turn of the century Located between Argentina and Brazil, Uruguay has been a buffer state between its more powerful neighbors by 1800 There were no permanent settlements by the Spaniards in the 17th century Into this vacuum came the Portuguese Having been under Spanish rule between 1580 and 1640, and not formally independent until 1667, the Portuguese wanted to make up for lost time, especially in their largest colony of Brazil In 1688 the Portuguese began a colony called appropriately Colonia in what is now northern Uruguay They based their claim on the Treaty of Tordesillas and the papal bull of 1494, which gave Portugal claim to Brazil The Portuguese argued that the territory was an extension of Brazil, specifically its province Rio Grande Sol (the area around São Paulo) that resembled what is present-day Uruguay in terms of climate and topography The Spanish countered when they established Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay, on the eastern shore of Uruguay Colonia was taken and retaken several times in the ensuing century as Spain and Portugal struggled over the territory between the Río de la Plata and the Uruguay River, which came to be called the Banda Oriental del Uruguay, on the eastern shore of Uruguay When the War of Independence began in 1810, a native of Uruguay, Artigas, took control of the independence movement of the Spanish provinces of the Plata region, such as Buenos Aires and Cordova (the heart of modern-day Argentina) With his power, he was able to propose a federal system of all of the Plata provinces, which included the autonomy of the Banda Oriental In 1816 the Portuguese, still in possession of Brazil, invaded the country on the pretext of trying to restore order The people of the Banda, or Uruguay as the province came to be called, had become independent