El�o asked for help from Portugal. Later the Spanish and the Board of Buenos Aires had to sign an agreement, because Buenos Aires was blockaded by sea. In an armistice agreement it decided to lift the siege of Montevideo and the blockade of the Rio de la Plata. However, General Artigas had to withdraw to the north in what became known at the Exodus of the Western People. The members of the Exodus of the Western People including a considerable number of important people in Uruguayan history, inclusing some 6,000 military personnel and 4,500 civilians camped one month on the Uruguay in December 1811, very close to Salto. In that place the Board of Buenos Aires awarded the title of Lieutenant Governor, Chief Justice and Captain of the Department to Artigas who "guided the revolutionaries in a ten-year crusade to liberate the people from Imperial Spanish rule." After the Battle of Las Piedras on 18 May 1811, Artigas was named "Chief of the Orientales". After 1820, Artigas was forced to live in exile in Paraguay but his movement had been very successful and led to the established of the First Republic of Uruguay on 25 August 1825.
From the time before the Independence of Uruguay, Salto had acquired the category of "Pueblo" (village) and on 16 May 1835, by Decree, it was recognized as being of "Villa" (town) category. Then, on 16 June 1837, Salto was made capital of the department by the Act of Ley N� 158.
In late October 1845, 1000 or so of Giuseppe Garibaldi's Italian and Uruguayan troops had advanced up the Uruguay River and taken Gualeguaych� in Argentina and then seized Salto, remaining there was several months plotting against Justo Jos� de Urquiza, Cesar Diaz and Servando Gomez. On 8 February 1846, Garibaldi defeated Gomez's army, killing several hundred at San Antonio Chico Creek outside Salto. Garibaldi lost about a hundred men in the battle. He was accepted as General by Montevideo on February 16 when they received news of his victory.
On 8
