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After the events of May 1810, the territories of the former Viceroyalty of Río de La Plata began a fierce struggle to strengthen the political and economic course. The process started in 1810 had allowed the Spanish bureaucratic caste to be displaced from the colonial government, it was now necessary to support it in the face of the emerging Spanish threat. The defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte and the return in 1814 of Ferdinand VII to the throne of Spain showed that throughout Europe progressed the monarchical restoration and with it the strengthening of the royalist armies trying to recover their colonial dominions. In America, this became immediate from the counter-revolutionary advance of the Royalist armies in Upper Peru and the Chilean defeat at Rancagua in 1814, urgently placing it out of the "legal" ambiguity of its link with the metropolis. The government of Alvarez Thomas calls a new Constituent Congress that met in Tucumán on July 9, 1816 to declare the independence of the United Provinces of South America.
Independence of whom?
The 9th of July is the date set as the day when the independence of the United Provinces of South America was declared, in this session of the Congress of Tucuman, the minutes read: " (…) we solemnly declare to the face of the earth, which is the unanimous and unmistakable will of these provinces break the violent bonds which united them with the kings of Spain, recovered the rights of which they were stripped and invested in the high character of a free and independent nation of King Ferdinand VII, his successors and his metropolis. " However, by a secret session a few days later, on July 19, a small rectification was made, but no least of all, since the possibility of being exploited by another power than Spain had been left open and it was clear that they existed. groups wishing to bind themselves to another power that would allow them to exchange, that is why it was changed where the Law prays "… free and independent nation of King Ferdinand VII, his successors and metropolis … " annexed " and all other foreign domination ".
Debates
The realistic threat accelerated the times but did not prevent the debates. One of the proposals to speed up the declaration of independence was starring San Martin, who was preparing to advance in the struggle against the colonial power behind the Andean range, to northern cities that were at war with the royalists, but For this to happen, it was necessary for the army to be an independent and undeclared rebel territory. In the words of San Martín: "April 12, 1816, Mendoza Until when we expect to declare our independence! It does not seem very ridiculous to monetize money, d & rsquo; to have the flag and the national flag and finally to make war on the sovereign whose day is believed to depend, that it is necessary more than to say it on the other side.What relation, we can undertake when we are a pupil, and enemies (with reason) treat us, insurgents, because we declare ourselves vassals? Rest assured that no one will help us in such a situation and on the other hand, the system would gain fifty to One hundred with such a measure Courage For the men of courage, the enterprises were made! Let us go. "
The declaration of independence implied the reorientation of the military policy which transformed the local war into another one of continental character: reclaim Chile from the m Realistic and crossing the Pacific to reach Peru, after the failure of the By cons, although the declaration of independence was a strong symbolic act, it did not guarantee by itself freedom from the power of the metropolis, it remained to define the type of government. adopt and it is there that internal contradictions between creole groups have intensified. Belgrano, who was returning from a European mission, before the advent of monarchical restoration in Europe, explained the need to adopt a monarchical form, proposing the so-called "temperate" or constitutional monarchy led by a dynasty Inca, attracting the general enthusiasm that would wake up in the interior dwellers added to the proposal to designate Cuzco as the capital. This idea was counting on the approval of representatives of Upper Peru, spokesman for the mining oligarchy that sought to recompose the lost economic and political power of the Spanish monarchical crisis. The proposal provoked the rejection of Buenos Aires, whose delegates saw in the election of the Andean capital a loss of the estimated centrality of the port. The differences did not allow agreement to be reached.
The internal conflicts were also expressed by those who really participated in the debates, among whom the deputies of Buenos Aires, Catamarca, San Luis, Mendoza, La Rioja, San Juan, Santiago del Estero, Tucumán, Salta, Córdoba, Jujuy and Alto Peru. They were not of the party, besides the territory of Patagonia, the provinces that in 1815 had formed the League of Free Peoples gathered in the Congress of the Chinese Stream on June 29, 1815 in the city of Concepción del Uruguay, as Corrientes , Between Rivers, the Eastern Strip, Santa Fe and Missions leaving open the true scope of the Declaration of Independence on these regions. The designation of "United Provinces in South America" adopted in the Declaration reflected this weakness and considered the possibility of their incorporation.
Although at the beginning of the independence process Artigas fought with the armies of Buenos Aires and the interior, they soon came into conflict. The leader of the Oriental Banda had more radical ideas about how the United Provinces of the Rio de la Plata should be organized. He wanted each province to maintain its autonomy and proposed to allow the ports of Maldonado and Coronda to trade internationally. These positions were opposed to the interests of Buenos Aires to maintain a political and economic centrality, which defended the idea of a single port (Bs as) as it was the case up to here. The influence of Artigas spread rapidly to the coast of the River Plate, designating it "Protector of Free Peoples". This alignment was a response to the fact that Artiguism offered these provinces an alternative to the Buenos Aires area. Buenos Aires' response to this situation was to encourage the Portuguese invasion of Eastern Banda in 1816, at the cost of the loss of the territory considered his.
This may interest you: Artigas: Independence and Agrarian Reform
England and its Opportunity
Despite the frustrated attempt of the British during the British invasions of 1806 and 1807 to take control of Buenos Aires and breaking the Spanish monopoly and free trade, Britain would not give up its plans to turn these territories into areas of political and economic influence. The declaration of independence would facilitate this goal. The commercial oligarchy and the landowner would be converted in the course of the century into an ally of the interests of British industrial capitalism by opening customs to trade and to English products benefiting from the perception of rents.
Once the Congress of Tucumán, the Porteñares and Interior elites aspired to consolidate a new stage that left behind what they called internal agitation and anarchy, the debates and strengthen the now legitimized government against the rest of the powers, so would raise it in the Congress Manifesto of Tucumán published in August 1816: "end to the revolution, beginning of the order".
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