Importance of the Argentine Revolution of May 1810

It was a unique moment, which happened in the city of Buenos Aires, capital of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata, at that time a Spanish colony, which began the process towards the independence national, which would be declared six years later, and the birth of the Argentine state.

The road to independence and the germ of the Argentine state

In the various events that took place in the so-called week of May 1810, (18 to 25), a group of Creoles, owners of a strong nationalist feeling, inspired by the French Revolution and in the Independence of the United States, and tired of the Spanish oppression, they deposed the local government, representative of the monarch Spanish and incarnated by the Viceroy, and replaced by the first national government called the First Government Board.

First autonomous government that upholds the ideals of diversity and freedom

During those critical days of May, the idea was massively expressed and supported that in the face of a vacant authority, (the First Board did not recognize the Regency Council of Spain and Indies established during the Napoleonic occupation), it was the people who had to choose the government authorities, an unprecedented and certainly revolutionary idea at that time. epoch.

In his quest to get the equality and freedom, and to completely detach from a form of tyrannical management such as the Viceroyalty, is that the new government authorities mixed Creole and Spanish origins, and expressed diverse ideologies, what prevailed and mattered was to be an alternative absolutely opposed to the Viceroy.

Against the economic monopoly exercised by Spain

The provision of self-government facilitated the practice of free trade and of course he gave free rein to the spread of the independence ideals that a large part of the River Plate society supported, among them: merchants, intellectuals, and the military.

The free trade of the colonies with other nations had been systematically prevented by Spanish rule.

The exploitation carried out by Spain in the territory was monumental and enormous wealth left American lands to enlarge the coffers of the Spanish crown.

The commercial isolation did nothing more than impoverish the Viceroyalty of the River Plate and make popular discontent grow... the reasons to promote the liberation continued to be added.

If this revolutionary event had not previously existed, the declaration of independence, on July 9, 1816, in the province of Tucumán, would not have happened either.

The names and men of the Revolution

On the other hand, it was the framework in which notable men and women became known and transcended through their action, considered as heroes of the country, since many of them took up arms, even with ignorance of military practice and at the cost of their own lives, to defend the idea of ​​autonomy and free themselves from the yoke Spanish.

Manuel Belgrano, Mariano Moreno, Antonio Beruti, Domingo French, Cornelio Saavedra, Nicolás Rodríguez Peña, Juan José Paso, Juan José Castelli, Martín Rodríguez and Juan José Viamonte, among others.

Fotolia images – Anibal Trejo, Spectral