May Revolution
The May Revolution was a week-long series of events that took place from 18 to 25 May 1810, in Buenos Aires, capital of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata. This Spanish colony included roughly the territories of present-day Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay, and parts of Brazil. The result was the removal of Viceroy Baltasar Hidalgo de Cisneros and the establishment of a local government, the Primera Junta, on 25 May.
The May Revolution was a direct reaction to Napoleon's invasion of Spain. In 1808, King Ferdinand VII abdicated in favour of Napoleon, who granted the throne to his brother, Joseph Bonaparte. A Supreme Central Junta led resistance to Joseph's government and the French occupation of Spain, but eventually suffered a series of reversals that resulted in the Spanish loss of the northern half of the country. On 1 February 1810, French troops took Seville and gained control of most of Andalusia. The Supreme Junta retreated to Cádiz, formed the Council of Regency of Spain and the Indies to govern, and dissolved itself. News of these events arrived in Buenos Aires on 18 May, brought by British ships.
Viceroy Cisneros tried to maintain the political status quo, but a group of criollo lawyers and military officials organized an open cabildo on 22 May to decide the future of the Viceroyalty. The Regency of Spain was the prelude to the Spanish Cortes of Cádiz of 1810 and the Spanish Constitution of 1812. All of these Spanish governments considered the Argentine Junta to be insurgent and denied it any legitimacy to govern the territories of the viceroyalty. At the other end, delegates of the Junta refused to recognize the Council of Regency in Spain and established a junta to govern in place of Cisneros, as the government that had appointed him Viceroy no longer existed. To maintain a sense of continuity, Cisneros was initially appointed president of the Junta. However, this caused much popular unrest, and so Cisneros resigned under pressure on 25 May. The newly formed government, the Primera Junta, included only representatives from Buenos Aires and invited other cities of the Viceroyalty to send delegates to join them. The revolutionary army began the war and this resulted in the outbreak of a secessionist Civil war between the regions that accepted the outcome of the events at Buenos Aires and those that remained loyal to Spain.
The May Revolution began the Argentine War of Independence, although no declaration of independence from Spain was issued at the time and the Primera Junta continued to govern in the name of the king, Ferdinand VII, as a subordinate king to popular sovereignty. As similar events occurred in many other cities of the continent, the May Revolution is also considered one of the early events of the Spanish American wars of independence. The question of the mask of Ferdinand is particularly controversial in Argentine History. Historians today debate whether the revolutionaries were truly loyal to the Spanish crown, or whether the declaration of fidelity to the king was a necessary ruse to conceal the true objective—to achieve independence—from a population that was not yet ready to accept such a radical change, but there is strong evidence of the truly loyal to the Spanish crown. The Argentine Declaration of Independence was issued at the Congress of Tucumán on 9 July 1816.
Causes
International causes
The United States Declaration of Independence from Great Britain in 1776 led criollos to believe that revolution and independence from Spain were feasible. Between 1775 and 1783, the American patriots of the Thirteen Colonies waged a war against both the local loyalists and the Kingdom of Great Britain, eventually establishing a republican government in the place of a constitutional monarchy. The fact that Spain had aided the colonies during their war with Britain weakened the idea that it would be a crime to end one's allegiance to the parent state.The ideals of the French Revolution of 1789 spread across Europe and the Americas as well. The overthrow and execution of King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette ended centuries of monarchy and removed the privileges of the nobility. Liberal ideals in the political and economic fields developed and spread through the Atlantic Revolutions across most of the Western world. The concept of the divine right of kings was questioned by the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, by the oft-quoted statement that "all men are created equal" in the United States Declaration of Independence and even by the Spanish church.
However, the spread of such ideas was forbidden in the Spanish territories, as was the sale of related books or their unauthorized possession. Spain instituted those bans when it declared war on France after the execution of Louis XVI and retained them after the peace treaty of 1796. News of the events of 1789 and copies of the publications of the French Revolution spread around Spain despite efforts to keep them at bay. Many enlightened criollos came into contact with liberal authors and their works during their university studies, either in Europe or at the University of Chuquisaca. Books from the United States found their way into the Spanish colonies through Caracas, owing to the proximity of Venezuela to the United States and the West Indies.
The Industrial Revolution started in Britain, with the use of plateways, canals and steam power. This led to dramatic increases in the productive capabilities of Britain, and created a need for new markets to sell its products. The Napoleonic Wars with France made this a difficult task, after Napoleon imposed the Continental System, which forbade his allies and conquests to trade with Britain. Thus Britain looked to new sources of trade, including Spain's colonies in South America, but could not do so because the colonies were restricted to trade only with Spain. To achieve this economic objective, Britain initially tried to invade Río de la Plata and capture key cities in Spanish America. When that failed, they chose to promote the Spanish-American aspirations of emancipation from Spain.
The mutiny of Aranjuez in 1808 led King Charles IV of Spain to abdicate in favour of his son, Ferdinand VII. Charles IV requested that Napoleon restore him to the throne; instead, Napoleon crowned his own brother, Joseph Bonaparte, as the new Spanish King. These events are known as the Abdications of Bayonne. Joseph's coronation was met with severe resistance in Spain, which started the Peninsular War, and the Supreme Central Junta took power in the name of the absent king. This also led to Spain switching alliances from France to Britain. France eventually invaded Sevilla, and a Council of Regency based in Cádiz replaced the disbanded Supreme Central Junta.
National causes
Spain forbade its American colonies to trade with other nations or foreign colonies, and imposed itself as the only buyer and vendor for their international trade. This situation damaged the viceroyalty, as Spain's economy was not powerful enough to produce the huge supply of goods that the numerous colonies would need. This caused economic shortages and recession. The Spanish trade routes favoured the ports of Mexico and Lima, to the detriment of Buenos Aires. As a result, Buenos Aires smuggled those products that could not be obtained legitimately. Most local authorities allowed this smuggling as a lesser evil, even though it was illegal, and it occasionally equalled in volume the legal commerce with Spain. Two antagonistic factions emerged: the landowners wanted free trade so they could sell their products abroad, while the merchants, who benefited from the high prices of smuggled imports, opposed free trade because prices would come down.File:Carlota Joaquina por Manuel António de Castro.jpg|thumb|left|upright|alt=Black&White portrait of a noble woman|The coronation of Infanta Carlota Joaquina was considered an alternative to revolution
The Spanish monarchy appointed their own candidates to most of the political offices in the viceroyalty, usually favouring Spaniards from Europe. In most cases, the appointees had little knowledge of or interest in local issues. Consequently, there was a growing rivalry between criollos and peninsulars. Most criollos thought that peninsulars had undeserved advantages and received preferential treatment in politics and society. The lower clergy had a similar sentiment about the higher echelons of the religious hierarchy. Events developed at a slower pace than in the United States independence movement. This was in part because the clergy controlled the entire educational system in Spanish America, which led the population to hold the same conservative ideas and follow the same customs as in Spain.
Buenos Aires and Montevideo were captured and recaptured during the British invasions. In 1806, a small British army led by William Carr Beresford managed to occupy Buenos Aires for a brief time; a Montevidean army led by Santiago de Liniers recaptured the city. The following year, a larger army seized Montevideo, but was overwhelmed by the forces of Buenos Aires; the British capitulated and returned Montevideo to the viceroyalty. There was no aid from Spain during either invasion. Liniers organized criollo militias during the preparations for the second invasion, in spite of the prohibition against them. The Patricios Regiment, led by Cornelio Saavedra, was the biggest criollo army. These events gave criollos military power and political influence that they did not have before and, since the victory was achieved without any help from Spain, it boosted criollo confidence in their independent capabilities.
The Portuguese royal family left Europe and settled in their colony of Brazil in 1808, after their escape from the Napoleonic invasion of Portugal. Carlota Joaquina, sister of Ferdinand VII, was the wife of the Portuguese prince regent, but had her own political projects. As she avoided the later capture of the Spanish royal family, she attempted to take charge of the viceroyalty as regent. This political project, known as Carlotism, sought to prevent a French invasion of the Americas. A small secret society of criollos, composed of politicians such as Manuel Belgrano and Juan José Castelli, and military leaders such as Antonio Beruti and Hipólito Vieytes, supported this project. They considered it an opportunity to get a local government instead of a European one, or a step towards a potential declaration of independence. The project was resisted by Viceroy Liniers, most peninsulars, and some criollos, including Cornelio Saavedra and the lawyers Mariano Moreno and Juan José Paso. They suspected that it concealed Portuguese expansionist ambitions over the region. The supporters of Carlota Joaquina intended her to head a constitutional monarchy, whereas she wanted to govern an absolute monarchy; these conflicting goals undermined the project and led to its failure. Britain, which had a strong influence in the politics of the Portuguese Empire, opposed the project as well: they did not want Spain split into several kingdoms, and considered Carlota Joaquina unable to prevent this.