evidence: The first quarter of the nineteenth century was shaped by struggles between Portugal and Spain over control of the region. In 1801, Portugal agreed to exchange Colônia do Sacramento for the Sete Povos das Missões (or the Misiones Orientales). After the British invasions of Buenos Aires and Montevideo in 1806 and 1807 and the 1808 arrival of the Portuguese Court in Brazil, the Portuguese government decided to take back the left bank of the Río de la Plata just as independence movements in the region were arising – the result being the independence of the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata, led by Buenos Aires. In 1815 Montevideo was part of the territory controlled by the Argentine general Artigas, but in 1816 it passed over to Portugal again and was dubbed the Cisplatine Province. From then on, the area would be at the heart of struggles against Argentina’s presence. In 1825, in what would be called the Cisplatine War, Uruguay began the process of breaking away from Brazil – by, among other things, passing a law that put an end to the slave trade and decreeing that slaves’ wombs were free.