Tucumán, Congress of

▪ Argentina [1816]

      assembly that met in the city of Tucumán (now San Miguel de Tucumán) and declared the independence of Argentina from Spain on July 9, 1816.

      Napoleon's intervention in Spain in 1808 had plunged that country into civil war and released its American colonies from the control of the central government. In 1810 a town meeting of prominent citizens in Buenos Aires set up an autonomous government (or junta) to administer the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata (consisting of modern Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and southern Bolivia) in the name of Ferdinand VII, heir to the Spanish throne. In 1813 the viceroyalty was renamed the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata, but the junta remained unable to solidify control over its vast territories in the face of internal anarchy and royalist attempts at reconquest.

      The 32 delegates to the Congress of Tucumán met in 1816 to devise a new political structure to cope with the disarray in the country. Having formally proclaimed Argentina's independence from Spain, the delegates appointed Juan Martín de Pueyrredón as supreme dictator, while they conducted a fruitless search for a monarch. European royal candidates and even an Inca prince were considered. The congress moved to Buenos Aires in 1817, and two years later it framed a constitution providing for a strong central government. The breakaway of Paraguay, Uruguay, and Bolivia from the United Provinces was accompanied by separatism between the provinces of Argentina itself, spearheaded by the caudillos (local magnates), who finally forced the congress to disband in 1820. Confusion and disunity reigned in Argentina until the beginning of the dictatorship of Juan Manuel de Rosas in 1829.

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