Qualla: Cerro Chato

Cerro Chato: Introduction

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Pepe_piton, CC BY-SA 4.0. On a Sunday in July 1927, in a dusty cattle town that could not decide which department it belonged to, women lined up to vote - and made history without quite meaning to. The ballot in Cerro Chato was about something almost comically local: which of three departments should claim the town. But by the rules they followed, every citizen was called to the polls, women included. It was the first time women had ever voted in Latin America, and the rest of the continent would take years to follow.

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Image: Pepe_piton | CC BY-SA 4.0

Cerro Chato: A Town in Three Pieces

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit No machine-readable author provided. Doryszs assumed (based on copyright claims)., CC BY-SA 2.5. Cerro Chato has a problem of belonging. The town sits where the borders of three Uruguayan departments meet - Durazno, Florida, and Treinta y Tres - and so it is literally split among them, its streets divided by lines on a map. The name means Flat Hill, a plain description of pl...

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Image: No machine-readable author provided. Doryszs assumed (based on copyright claims). | CC BY-SA 2.5

Cerro Chato: The Vote Heard Across a Continent

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Perla Pérez Ramallo, CC BY-SA 4.0. The plebiscite of 3 July 1927 was meant to settle the town's three-way split: should Cerro Chato be annexed entirely to Durazno? It was non-binding, almost a formality. But the organizers ran it by the full procedures of Uruguayan election law - secret ballot, every citizen summo...

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Image: Perla Pérez Ramallo | CC BY-SA 4.0

Cerro Chato: A First That Took Years to Repeat

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Pepe_piton, CC BY-SA 4.0. What happened here in 1927 was genuinely ahead of its time. Uruguay had written women's suffrage into its 1917 constitution, but the principle sat largely unused; the country did not make it national law until 1932, and Uruguayan women did not vote in a national election until 19...

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Image: Pepe_piton | CC BY-SA 4.0

Cerro Chato: Cattle, Iron, and a Cancelled Mine

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit No machine-readable author provided. Jordevi assumed (based on copyright claims)., Public domain. Cerro Chato has stayed what it always was - a place of cattle and sheep, grazing the quality grasslands near the source of the Yí River. The 2011 census counted 3,227 people, parceled out across the three departments. The town nearly took a very different turn: it was slated to h...

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Image: No machine-readable author provided. Jordevi assumed (based on copyright claims). | Public domain