History of Buenos Aires

Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.

From Argentina and Her People of To-Day by Nevin O. Winter, 1911.

The first European navigator to discover the Rio de la Plata was Juan de Solis, a Spanish captain, in the year 1508, while in search of a passage to the Pacific Ocean. Magellan did not visit these shores until 1520. A chronicler who was with Magellan says that the “gigantic natives called canibali ate de Solis and sixty men who had gone to discover land, and trusted too much to them."

The first settlement was established at Buenos Aires in 1536 by Pedro L de Mendoza, who has been termed a free-booter, and who was made governor by the Spanish Crown. This settlement was destroyed shortly afterward by the hostile Indians, and no permanent settlement was established on the mud flats of the “river of silver" until nearly forty years later.

During the succeeding centuries the Spaniards did all that they could to exploit this country and check all advancement. The only aborigines were wild and nomadic Indians. Argentina was for a long time subject to the vice-regency of Peru, and many of the settlements were made by explorers who came across the Andes. In this way Tucuman was founded in 1565, Cordoba in 1573 and Santa Fe in the same year.

The Jesuits spread their settlements along the rivers far up into Paraguay and Brazil, and laid the foundation of that mighty power which lasted for two centuries. They subdued the Indians and turned them into peons or labourers, but otherwise treated them kindly. For a long while the history of Argentina is merely a record of the internecine struggles of a loosely connected province. The settlements were wide apart and there was no homogeneity. Portugal and Spain fought with each other for supremacy and the settlement of the lines of demarkation.

It was not until the time of our own declaration of independence that Spain finally realized the importance of this colony and made it a vice-regency, Dom Pedro de Cevallos being named as the first viceroy. The Jesuits were expelled and much of their property confiscated. Some good grew out of this change, as a number of the viceroys were men of ability and integrity. The spirit of independence, however, grew and the feeling of revolt steadily increased.

In 1805 Great Britain, then at war with Spain, attempted to capture the city of Buenos Aires, which had already become an important trade centre, but was repulsed on several occasions. This was done by the provincials with scarcely any help from Spain, and success gave them confidence in themselves. On the 25th of May, 1810, independence from Spain was formally declared, and this patriotic movement did not cease until actual independence was achieved several years later.

The first Congress was summoned in 1816, and the United Provinces of the La Plata River were formally organized. The first president was elected in 1825, and Don Bernardo Rivadavia was chosen to that position. Uruguay was at one time forcibly annexed by Brazil, and this action precipitated a war with Brazil. Argentina championed the smaller state, as a result of which the independence of Uruguay was guaranteed.

Internal wars and revolutions were numerous in the early days of the republic, for ambitious leaders were everywhere fighting each other. In 1820 there were a dozen changes of government. The services of several progressive and able presidents brought order out of chaos, established the country's credit and set the country onward toward the era of progress and prosperity which she has now enjoyed for a number of years.

Winter, Nevin O. Argentina and Her People of To-Day. L. C. Page and Company, 1911.

Nevin O. Winter

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