May Revolution 1810: Buenos Aires Uprising
May Revolution of 1810
The May Revolution refers to the series of revolutionary events that took place in May 1810 in Buenos Aires, the capital of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata, a colonial dependency of Spain at the time. Following the revolution, Viceroy Baltasar Hidalgo de Cisneros was deposed and replaced by the First Presidency (Primera Junta).
The May Revolution initiated the process of the emergence of the Argentine State. Although there was no formal declaration of independence initially, the First Board did not recognize the authority of the Council of Regency of Spain and the Indies. However, it still nominally ruled on behalf of King Ferdinand VII of Spain, who had been deposed during the Abdications of Bayonne, with his place taken by the Frenchman Joseph Bonaparte. Nevertheless, historians consider this expression of allegiance (known as the Mask of Ferdinand VII) a political maneuver to conceal the revolutionaries' true intentions of independence. Argentina's declaration of independence eventually took place during the Congress of Tucumán on July 9, 1816.
The events of the May Revolution were concentrated in a week known as the May Week, which elapsed between May 18, when the fall of the Junta of Seville was officially confirmed, and May 25, the date of the assumption of power by the First Board.
External Causes of the Revolution
The Declaration of Independence of the United States from its English metropolis in 1776 served as an example that revolution and independence were possible for colonies. The U.S. Constitution proclaimed that all men were equal before the law (though this proclamation did not extend to slaves at the time), defended property rights and freedom, and established a republican system of government.
The ideals of the French Revolution of 1789 began to spread. In France, a popular assembly ended centuries of monarchy with the ouster and execution of King Louis XVI and his wife Marie Antoinette, and the abolition of the privileges of the nobility. The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, whose principles were "Liberté, égalité, fraternité" (Liberty, equality, fraternity), had a significant impact among the youth of the criollo bourgeoisie. The French Revolution also spurred the expansion of liberal ideas in Europe, promoting political and economic freedoms. Some influential political liberals of that era, opposing monarchy and absolute powers, included Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Montesquieu, Denis Diderot, and Jean le Rond d'Alembert. The primary economic liberal was Adam Smith, author of The Wealth of Nations, which proposed free trade.