The plot of the book makes a summary of the history of Uruguay, from Spanish colonization to the Civil War.

[1] Dumas describes Artigas and Rosas as barbaric, and Montevideo as a source of civilization.

A similar dichotomy between civilization and barbarism was the theme of Facundo, another antirosist book published by Domingo Faustino Sarmiento in 1845.

[2] Dumas described Rosas, who supported Oribe, as a coward who avoided the Argentine War of Independence and took control of Buenos Aires with a barbaric horde, and Montevideo as a heroic city standing against him.

[2][3] It is likely that the similarities with Sarmiento's book were introduced by Pacheco's, as it would have been unlikely that Dumas had read the former's work.