Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
4
CRISIS OF THE COLONIAL
ORDER AND REVOLUTION
The spark for revolution in Argentina came from Europe. It came
from war. Being colonial possessions of major European powers
meant that the Río de la Plata and other American colonies became
venues of European military activity and, in particular, victims of the
costs of warfare in the Atlantic. The rise of Great Britain and France
as Europe's premier military powers in the 18th century involved
the declining nations of Spain and Portugal in the competition. The
Bourbon monarchs of Spain joined their French cousins in what was
called the “Family Compact”; Portugal allied itself with Great Britain.
All four European nations had colonies in the Americas. Naturally,
North and South America became just another battleground in their
on-again, off-again struggle.
This was particularly true for Spain's principal port in South
America, Buenos Aires. In the last decade of the 18th century and first
decade of the 19th century, European warfare disrupted commerce at
Buenos Aires, exposed Spanish corruption in the Viceroyalty of the Río
de la Plata, revealed imperial weaknesses unresolved by the Bourbon
reforms, and permitted a resurgence of Creole power. Colonial mili-
tary forces fought over real estate and strategic positioning in the Río
de la Plata, where the Portuguese controlled Brazil and the Spaniards
controlled Paraguay and Argentina. Then, the French Revolution inten-
sified all military competition in the Atlantic and called into question
the very foundations of “empire.” The French Revolution attacked
monarchy, the basis of empire; its advocacy of the Rights of Man under-
mined slavery; and revolutionary ideas questioned the right of one
citizen to be placed over another. Two military actions connected to the
French Revolution launched South America on a new trajectory: the
British invasion of Buenos Aires and Napoléon's invasion of the Iberian
