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United Provinces of the Río de la Plata (United Provinces of South America) Provincias Unidas del Río de la Plata (Provincias Unidas de Sudamérica) | |||||||||||||||
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| 1810–1831 | |||||||||||||||
| Motto: "En unión y libertad" (Unofficial) | |||||||||||||||
| Anthem: Patriotic March | |||||||||||||||
| Sol de Mayo[1] (Sun of May)  | |||||||||||||||
 The United Provinces of the Río de la Plata in 1821 | |||||||||||||||
| Capital | Buenos Aires | ||||||||||||||
| Common languages | Spanish | ||||||||||||||
| Religion | Christianity | ||||||||||||||
| Government | |||||||||||||||
| Recognized Monarch | |||||||||||||||
• 1810–1816 | Ferdinand VII of Spain (asKing of Spain) | ||||||||||||||
| Head of State | |||||||||||||||
• 1810–1811 | Cornelio Saavedra (as President ofPrimera Junta andJunta Grande) | ||||||||||||||
• 1811–1812 | Domingo Matheu (as President ofJunta Grande) | ||||||||||||||
• 1812–1814 | First andSecond Triumvirate | ||||||||||||||
• 1814–1815 | Gervasio Antonio de Posadas (asSupreme Director) | ||||||||||||||
• 1820 | Juan Pedro Aguirre (asSupreme Director) | ||||||||||||||
• 1826–1827 | Bernardino Rivadavia (asPresident) | ||||||||||||||
• 1827 | Vicente López y Planes (asPresident) | ||||||||||||||
| Governor of Buenos Aires Province[a] | |||||||||||||||
• 1820 | Matías de Irigoyen | ||||||||||||||
• 1824–1826 | Juan Gregorio de las Heras | ||||||||||||||
• 1827–1828 | Manuel Dorrego | ||||||||||||||
• 1835–1852 | Juan Manuel de Rosas | ||||||||||||||
| Historical era | Napoleonic Wars | ||||||||||||||
| 1806–1807 | |||||||||||||||
| 25 May 1810 | |||||||||||||||
| 9 July 1816 | |||||||||||||||
• Battle of Cepeda End of centralized authority | 1 February 1820 | ||||||||||||||
| 8 February 1826 | |||||||||||||||
• Treaty of Montevideo Independence of Uruguay | 28 August 1828 | ||||||||||||||
| 4 January 1831 | |||||||||||||||
| Currency |
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TheUnited Provinces of the Río de la Plata (Spanish:Provincias Unidas del Río de la Plata), earlier known as theUnited Provinces of South America (Spanish:Provincias Unidas de Sudamérica), was a name adopted in 1816 by theCongress of Tucumán for the region of South America that declared independence in 1816, with theSovereign Congress taking place in 1813, during theArgentine War of Independence (1810–1818) that began with theMay Revolution in May of 1810. It originally comprised rebellious territories of the former SpanishViceroyalty of the Río de la Plata dependencies and hadBuenos Aires as its capital.
The nameProvincias del Río de la Plata (formally adopted during theCortes of Cádiz to designate the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata)[2] alludes to theJunta Provisional Gubernativa de las Provincias del Río de la Plata[3] orPrimera Junta. It is best known in Argentinean literature asProvincias Unidas del Río de la Plata ('United Provinces of theRiver Plate' i.e. 'river of silver'), this being the most common name (since 1811) in use for the country until the enactment of the 1826 Constitution. TheArgentine National Anthem refers to the state as "the United Provinces of the South". TheConstitution of Argentina recognisesProvincias Unidas del Río de la Plata as one of the official names of the country, referred to as "Argentine Nation" (Nación Argentina) in modern legislation.[4]
The United Provinces of South America were bordered on the south by the sparsely populated territories of thePampas andPatagonia, home to theMapuche,Ranquel andPuelche peoples. To the north, theGran Chaco was populated by theGuaycuru nations. To the northwest, across theUpper Peru, lay the SpanishViceroyalty of Peru. Across theAndes, to the west, was the Spanish-controlledCaptaincy General of Chile. To the northeast wasColonial Brazil, a part of thePortuguese Empire (in 1815, theUnited Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves), later theEmpire of Brazil in 1821.
The change from the Viceroyalty into the United Provinces was not merely a change of governors, but a revolutionary process that would replace the Spanishmonarchy with an independentrepublic.
The main influences in this were theEnlightenment in Spain, promoting new ideas, and thePeninsular War that left Spain without a legitimate king after theAbdications of Bayonne. The concept ofseparation of powers gradually became a tool to prevent despotism.[6]: 12
The new political situation generated great political conflict between the cities for two reasons. First, the vacatio regis of Ferdinand VII and the French King of Spain,Joseph Bonaparte, there was no clear view about who was the king. Some people thought that it passed to other offices of the Spanish monarchy, while others held the notion of the retroversion of the sovereignty to the people: sovereignty returned to the people, who had now the right to self-governance temporally.[6]: 14
But, in 1810 under the establishment of the new doctrine of popular sovereignty throughout the Spanish empire, the Spanish government summoned all the nations of America and Spain, to establish Spanish courts for the whole empire, but on the contrary, the patriots, under the same right of popular sovereignty, thought that any nation, both in Spain and America, had the right to self-government and to establish their own country.
The freedom of the provinces of the Río de la Plata was established through a lengthy process that started in May 1810, when the citizens and militias ofBuenos Aires, the capital city of the SpanishViceroyalty of the Río de la Plata, ousted the ViceroyBaltasar Hidalgo de Cisneros in theMay Revolution. Although there was not a declaration of independence at the time, and thegovernment that emerged from the revolution declared loyalty to the king Ferdinand VII, in fact it attempted to reorganise the social, political and economic structures of the provinces of the Río de la Plata. As it faced immediate resistance in some quarters (namely theBanda Oriental, under the new Spanish ViceroyJavier de Elío, Córdoba andSantiago de Liniers, the local government of Asunción in Paraguay and, notably, the royalist forces from theViceroyalty of Perú), the revolution soon turned to be aWar of Independence.
In the midst of the war of independence, during the entire 1810–1831 period there were serious conflicts among ever-changing factions regarding the organization of the state and the political aims of the revolutionary governments. These conflicts involvedcoups d'état, mutinies, politically motivated trials, banishments and imprisonments and finally developed into an outrightcivil war.
Ever since the revolution, there were serious conflicts among diverging views regarding the political organization of the provinces. While some advocated a strong and executive central government with little accountability to the regional interests, a position at first favored by the "enlightened" revolutionary and independentist elements, others sought to integrate representatives from the provinces in a larger deliberative assembly. As the latter position gained the upper hand, thePrimera Junta grew to incorporate delegates from the provinces in 1811. However, as it became evident that such an arrangement was not effective enough to lead the war efforts, atriumvirate assumed executive powers while the assembly retained some controlling functions.
The Liga Federal (1815–1820), or Liga de los Pueblos Libres (League of the Free Peoples), was an alliance of provinces in what is now Argentina and Uruguay, organised under democratic federalist ideals strongly advocated by its leader,José Gervasio Artigas.
The government of the United Provinces of South America felt threatened by the growing appeal of the Liga Federal, so they did nothing to repel the incomingPortuguese invasion ofMisiones Orientales and theBanda Oriental, the stronghold of Artigas. Brazilian GeneralCarlos Frederico Lecor, thanks to their numerical and material superiority, defeated Artigas and his army and occupiedMontevideo on 20 January 1817, but the struggle continued for three long years in the countryside. Infuriated by the passivity of Buenos Aires, Artigasdeclared war on Buenos Aires while he was losing to the Portuguese.
On 1 February 1820, Federal League governorsFrancisco Ramírez ofEntre Ríos andEstanislao López ofSanta Fe,defeated aSupreme Directorshipdiminished army, ending the centralized government of the United Provinces, and established afederalagreement withBuenos Aires Province. Similarly, the Federal League effectively came to an end when its constituent provinces rejoined the United Provinces.
Artigas, defeated by the Portuguese, retreated to Entre Ríos. From there, he denounced theTreaty of Pilar and entered into conflict with his former ally governor Ramírez, who crushed the remnants of Artigas' army. The former Protector of the Free Peoples was exiled inParaguay until his death. TheEastern Province was annexed byPortugal to itsBrazilian dependences in 1821.
The result of thewars was the independence of the provinces. Several new nations appeared, there were:
Five provinces would go on to become Bolivia:Charcas,Cochabamba,Mizque,Chichas [es], andTarija.
TheEastern Province (Provincia Oriental) became independent asUruguay as a consequence of thetreaty of Montevideo, partly retaining its old name in its official name: theEastern Republic of Uruguay. Due to the text of the aforementioned treaty, United Provinces and Imperial Brazil both renounced their claims to the province and agreed to grant it independence, but the treaty did not include nor ask the Orientals' opinion, and also omitted to detail the borders of the new state what would give Brazil a chance to move its borders further south. The Constitutional Assembly approved the Constitution of Uruguay on 10 September 1829 and it was sworn by the citizens on 18 July 1830.[7]
TheMisiones Orientales, after years of Portuguese dominion, were recovered with the 1828 Campaign ofFructuoso Rivera at the Misiones Orientales, but it wasde jure recognized as Brazilian, following the outcome of theCisplatine War.
Following a longcivil war, the following provinces joined to become theArgentine Republic:Buenos Aires (The outpost ofCarmen de Patagones inPatagonia is now part of Buenos Aires Province),Catamarca,Córdoba,Corrientes,Entre Ríos,Jujuy,La Rioja,Mendoza,Salta,San Juan,San Luis,Santa Fe,Santiago del Estero, andTucumán.
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