2023-07-09 10:30:00
The statement of the Independence of the United Provinces of South America, July 9, 1816 was the culmination of an extensive revolutionary process in the region that, although it began on May 25, 1810, was not reduced to that date.
Since then the territory of what was previously the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata it was affected by deep changes and instability given by a revolutionary movement. It began with the change of the viceregal government and the formation of a new local representative authority, but still sworn by the King of Spain, Fernando VII who remained a prisoner of Napoleon Bonaparte. The movement gradually radicalized as a result of the war started once morest those regions of the former viceroyalty that reject the new government.
The continuity of the war on its different fronts and the real acephaly in which Spain continued, allowed the revolutionaries to radicalize until they only began to speak in 1812 of the convenience of independence. It was a discursive and conceptual change that led to the Fall of the First Triumvirate.
May 25, 1810: minute by minute how the First Meeting took over
With the formation of the Second Triumvirate, the new government raised the flags of Independence and Constitution, for which reason it summoned the Assembly of the Year XIII to carry out such purposes. However, despite the importance of many of its measures, the entity did not end up achieving either of the two objectives. Because?
The change of European context changed the priorities. With the retreat of Napoleon, Ferdinand VII returned to the throne. He tried to negotiate with the king, but he did not accept any possibility. He ordered the sending of a military force to reconquer all the American territories that remained in revolution. Between 1814 and 1815, all the Spanish colonies fell under the control of the king, except for the area of the River Plate.
Manuel Belgrano, an Argentine diplomat in London
In the worst possible scenario for the revolutionary movement, the Congress of Tucumán. After listening to the diplomatic experience of Manuel Belgrano, recently returned from Europe and with the pressure exerted by José de San Martín through his deputies from Cuyo, the idea of independence grew. Declaring it would give a different status to the territory. Ferdinand VII might be fought as a state proclaimed sovereign, and not as a rebellious colony. There was no more room to negotiate. San Martín had his continental plan, he was willing to cross the Andes to start it, but he needed the political and economic support of the central power.
San Martín, the hero from Corrientes who experienced the first devastation of his savage homeland
The Congress of Tucumán then declared the Independence of the United Provinces, with deputies representing a large part of the current Argentine territory and regions of the Upper Peru.
Shortly following the declaration, Congress issued a manifesto in which it expressed “end of the revolution, beginning of order”. Independence was expected to consolidate the goals of the revolutionary movement, and end the period of instability and warfare it had represented. San Martín began his campaign and transcended the borders of the River Plate bringing independence to other regions.
However, disunity and internal tensions grew. In fact, not all the River Plate territories assisted Tucumán; Paraguay and the League of Free Peoples (Banda Oriental, Santa Fe and Entre Ríos) were not part of the declaration.
Congress hastened a Constitution in 1819 that should give the intended legal order. But its centralist and corporate character ended up accelerating the situation and the crisis of 1820 came regarding, when a central power in the territory ceased to exist.
Many decades would pass before a new constitutional order might emerge. But that might be a reality to the extent that independence was a fact. It had been promoted and sworn in by those congressmen guided by their principles and ideals, in an absolutely adverse context for them.
*Conicet, Professor of Introduction to History, History of America I and Research Seminar of America, in the History major (Universidad del Salvador)
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