9 de Julio -Día de la Independencia

On this day in 1816, 6 years after the Revolución de Mayo, delegates from various provinces and regions throughout the area met in the city of Tucumán to sign the Declaration of Independence of the United Provinces of South America, the former Viceroyalty of Río de la Plata. Most delegates were priests and lawyers from Jujuy, Salta, Tucumán, La Rioja, Catamarca, Santiago del Estero, Mendoza, San Juan, San Luis, Buenos Aires, Córdoba, Charcas, Cochabamba, Tupiza y Mizque. (The last two are regions in Upper Perú.) To get to Tucumán they had to make the journey by horse-drawn carriage. From Buenos Aires to Tucumán, this journey would have taken roughly a month. They met in the house of Francisca Bazán de Laguna which was declared a national monument in 1941.



Two years prior, in 1814, King Fernando VII, had returned to the Spanish throne following Napoleon’s invasion. This generated an odd situation for those who had supported the Revolución de Mayo in 1810 as many had vyed for independence in the name of the King of Spain (who had been temporarily removed by Napoleon). With Fernando back, they could no longer fight for independence in the name of the King since Spain wanted to regain control over its colonies. Those who were truly loyal to the crown (and who had opposed the Revolución, supporting Spain’s colonial hold on South America) were making gains and planned to attack the army general José de San Martín, interrumpting his monumental campaign to liberate South America, invade Argentine territory and take the city of Buenos Aires.

In April of 1815, an uprising brought down the government of Carlos María de Alvear, the second Supreme Director of the United Provinces of Río de la Plata and a staunch Unitarian. His (dictatorial) rule had lasted only three months. Those who ousted him, demanded a meeting of Congress, of all the delegates representing the United Provinces. The session began in March of 1816 with 33 delegates present. Some regions were unable to send representatives because they were intercepted by loyalists to the crown or were involved in a war on the Brazilian border. Most Federalist regions that sent delegates were emprisoned by Unitarian agents.



The declaration they wrote declared their unanimous desire to break the “violent relations that tied them to the King of Spain, regain the rights that they had lost and declare themselves a nation, free and independent of Fernando VII and his successors” in the name of “the authority of the people we represent”, the “Heavens, the nations and men throughout the globe”.



One week later, in a secret session, the oath was modified to read: “...independent of Fernando VII and his sucessors and any other foreign domination”.

The declaration was also translated into Quichua, one of the many indigenous languages spoken in the region.