United Provinces of the Río de la Plata

The United Provinces of the Rio de la Plata was the state that succeeded the Viceroyalty of the Rio de la Plata after the May Revolution of 1810 and lasted until 1831, taking in the Argentine War of Independence, the Cisplatine War and the beginnings of the Argentine civil wars. It is the ancestor of the Argentine Republic, and its name survives as one of the official names of Argentina in the constitution. The state used several names as politics shifted: the first junta of May 1810 spoke simply of the provinces of the Rio de la Plata, the name United Provinces of the Rio de la Plata was adopted by the First Triumvirate in the 1811 provisional statute, and the declaration of independence of 1816 spoke of United Provinces in South America. Buenos Aires dominated it, and its history is the story of the rivalry between centralists, who wanted a strong national government, and federalists, who wanted provincial autonomy. The Tucuman congress declared independence on 9 July 1816. Uruguay broke away in 1815, was seized by Portugal and won independence again in 1828; the army of the north failed to hold Upper Peru, which became Bolivia in 1825 under Bolivar and Sucre. Bernardino Rivadavia, elected the first president in 1826, held a constitution and warred with Brazil until federal risings forced him to resign, and in January 1831 Buenos Aires, Entre Rios and Santa Fe signed the Federal Pact, opening the Argentine Confederation.