Notes on the History of Argentine Independence

——A PAPER READ BY——
Mr. C. W. WHITTEMORE
February 6th, 1920
Before the American Club Buenos Aires


A Paper read Before the American Club of Buenos Aires by Mr. C. W. WHITTEMORE.
In a former paper read before this Club, effort was made to show how settlements in the Argentine came east and south from Perú, step by step, until Buenos Aires was eventually founded by Juan de Garay in 1580. In Argentine history this is known as the Refoundation of the city, a sentimental fiction of obscure origin for there was no connection between the permanent work of Garay and the ephemeral passing of Pedro de Mendoza forty-four years previously. In the present paper, we will trace the history of Argentine Independence as it extended west and north, step by step, reversing the march of early settlement, until the final battles were fought and won in Perú, the stronghold of Spanish power in South America.
The Fathers of Argentine Independence took it for granted that the new nation would embrace all the territory included in the Viceroyship of the River Plate, which was created in 1776 (note the year:) as an afterthought of the Spanish Government and intended to quiet the discontent of the Argentine people over trade restrictions and to provide a bulwark against Portuguese aggressions, at that time a serious menace. It included the present Republics of Argentine, Uruguay, Paraguay and Bolivia, then called Upper Perú, this last having a considerable frontage on the Pacific Ocean. The population in 1776, including slaves and tame Indians, was probably less than five hundred thousand people, of which fully one-half lived in Upper Perú.
A noteworthy feature, the only one in all Spanish America, of the primary Argentine colonization was that it absorbed the Indian population. In Perú as in Mexico and elsewhere, the conquerors implanted a feudalism which had as its principal basis the distribution of the natives as laborers among the mine and ranch owners. The Indian races crossed with the Spaniards but were not assimilated. In the Argentine, on the contrary, the Indians were assimilated, there was a minimum of oppression, a limitation to human exploitation, a rudimentary recognition of equality, with the result that at an early day the native sons were the backbone of the settlements, assumed positions of authority, led exploring expeditions and founded other colonies. Seeds of eventual freedom were planted from the very beginning.