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Period

18–25 May 1810

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Scenario

Buenos Aires

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Dropped system

Viceroyalty Río de la Plata

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Result

First Patriotic Junta

🚢  Tuesday, May 13, 1810   The news that changed everything

The British warship Mistletoe docks in the port of Buenos Aires carrying news that will shake the foundations of colonial power: the Supreme Central Junta of Seville – the last institutional bastion of Spanish power – has definitively fallen to the Napoleonic armies.

Viceroy Baltasar Hidalgo de Cisneros receives the information and tries to suppress it. He knows perfectly well what it means: if the Board that appointed him no longer exists, his authority loses legal legitimacy. However, the news is already circulating among merchants, the Creole military and the young revolutionaries who have been meeting in secret for months.

In the soap shop of Vieytes and in the houses of the patriots, tempers flared. Cornelio Saavedra, head of the Patrician Regiment and the most influential military figure among the Creoles, would long ago make a prophetic warning to his relatives: "It is not yet time; Let the figs ripen and then we will eat them." The figs were ripening.

📢  Friday, May 18, 1810   The Viceroy's Side and the Secret Meeting

Unable to maintain silence any longer, Viceroy Cisneros ordered the official publication of the fall of the Junta of Seville by means of a proclamation that the town criers disseminated throughout the city. In the text, Cisneros calls for loyalty to the crown and assures that he will assume control along with the other authorities of the Viceroyalty. The implicit message is clear: nothing is going to change.

But the effect of the side is exactly the opposite of what is desired. By making the news public, the viceroy confirms what the Creoles already knew: the authority that had appointed him no longer exists. The legal and political logic that the revolutionaries had been elaborating now finds its strongest argument.

That same night, a group of patriots met urgently at the house of Nicolás Rodríguez Peña. The decision is unanimous: it is necessary to demand the convening of an Open Cabildo to deal with the situation of the Viceroyalty. Two representatives were appointed to face the viceroy: Juan José Castelli and the officer Martín Rodríguez.

🤝  Saturday, May 19, 1810   The pressure on the viceroy begins

Without sleep since the night before, Cornelio Saavedra and Manuel Belgrano appear early before the Mayor of First Vote, Juan de Lezica, to formally demand the convocation of an Open Cabildo. The request is legally based: since the authority that appointed the viceroy has expired, it is up to the people—represented by their most illustrious neighbors—to deliberate on the government to follow.

Simultaneously, Juan José Castelli and Martín Rodríguez met directly with Viceroy Cisneros. The meeting is tense. Cisneros listens but does not give in. According to an anecdote collected by Martín Rodríguez's memoirs – although its veracity is debated by historians – on that night the commissioners would have ordered Cisneros to cease in command, giving him barely five minutes to answer. The viceroy's response would have been: "Do what you want."

The meetings of the patriots continue until the early hours of the morning. The network of contacts between Creole soldiers, lawyers trained in Chuquisaca and Buenos Aires merchants is activated at maximum intensity. The soap factory of Vieytes functions as the central node of the conspiracy.

🗣️  Sunday, May 20, 1810   The people appear on the scene

It is Sunday, and the square in front of the Cabildo becomes a political stage for the first time. A group of approximately 600 neighbors led by the military Domingo French and Antonio Luis Beruti – popularly known as "the sparklers" or "infernal legion" – congregate in front of the chapter building wearing white ribbons on their lapels and the portrait of Ferdinand VII on their galleys.

The lobbyists delay the call to the Open Council. The demonstrators press with shouts of "Cabildo abierto!" The situation is tense to the point that officials urgently call Saavedra to calm the situation. The patrician chief goes out to the balcony of the Cabildo and manages to get the crowd to leave with the promise that the next day the convocation will be discussed.

It is a pivotal moment in Argentine history: for the first time in the history of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata, what the documents of the time will begin to call "the people" appears as a visible and determining political actor.

Viceroy Cisneros, under pressure from all fronts, received that afternoon officials of the Cabildo, military chiefs and Creole representatives. The negotiation on the convocation of the Cabildo Abierto is already inevitable.

✉️  Monday, May 21, 1810   The Invitations to the Great Debate

The Cabildo gives in to the accumulated pressure and makes a historic decision: to convene an Open Cabildo for the following day, May 22. 450 invitations are drawn up and sent to the most influential residents of the city: royal officials, merchants, soldiers, priests and professionals.

The call establishes that the meeting will have as its only theme the political situation of the Viceroyalty before the fall of the Central Supreme Junta. The definition of who would be invited and who would not be invited was in itself a political act: the so-called "main and healthiest part of the neighborhood" excluded the popular sectors, although the pressure of the crowd in the streets would be present anyway.

Revolutionaries spend the day organizing. Each of the groups that make up the Creole coalition – the soldiers of the Patricios Regiment, the lawyers who graduated in Chuquisaca, the merchants linked to free trade with England – fine-tunes its strategy for the next day's debate.

🏛️  Tuesday, May 22, 1810   The Great Open Cabildo

It is the longest and most intense day of the week. From the early hours of the morning, the 251 neighbors who finally attended —out of the 450 guests— begin to arrive at the Cabildo. Outside, the square is teeming with citizens who were not summoned but who make their voices heard.

The debate lasts for hours and has moments of extraordinary tension. Bishop Benito Lué y Riega, representing the royalist faction, argues that as long as there is an inch of free land in Spain, the Americans must obey him. The response of the prosecutor Juan José Castelli is fulminant: if the authority that appointed the viceroy has expired, sovereignty must return to the people, who can form government juntas both in Spain and in America.

Colonel Cornelio Saavedra intervenes with a definition that is decisive: "Not only does the people have the power to establish their government, but it is necessary to establish it." The words of the patrician chief, backed by the royal force of the Patrician Regiment, tip the balance.

The final vote shows that the majority of the 251 present approve that the viceroy should cease in command. However, a second dispute of enormous importance arises: who should assume the government? The Cabildo directly? A popular junta? The debate is open for the following day.

📜  Wednesday, May 23, 1810   The Cabildo interprets the results

The Cabildo drafted the minutes of the previous day's session and interpreted it in a way that infuriated the revolutionaries: it established that the viceroy must resign, but that the interim command would fall to the Cabildo itself, which would then appoint the government junta it deemed appropriate.

This interpretation is a political manoeuvre by the capitulars – mostly peninsular Spaniards – to control the process and prevent the Creoles from taking power. The resolution literally says that the government corresponds to the Cabildo "in the way it deems appropriate", a deliberately vague formula.

The patriots, alarmed, press throughout the day. Saavedra, Belgrano and the other leaders of the movement see the maneuver clearly: if the Cabildo controls the appointment of the junta, it will be able to include Cisneros or another Spaniard in its presidency, emptying the resolution of the previous day of content.

😡  Thursday, May 24, 1810   The Betrayal of the Cabildo and the Popular Fury

The worst suspicion of the revolutionaries is confirmed. The Cabildo, taking advantage of the ambiguity of the previous day's minutes, formed a governing board presided over by none other than Viceroy Cisneros himself, accompanied by four members: the Spaniards Juan Nepomuceno Solá and José de los Santos Inchaurregui, and the Creoles Juan José Castelli and Cornelio Saavedra.

The reaction is immediate and forceful. Castelli and Saavedra reject their appointments and present their resignation on the spot, denouncing the maneuver. When the news spreads through the city, the people explode in indignation. The "sparklers" of French and Beruti return to the streets. The barracks of the Creole regiments are agitated.

During the night, an angry crowd gathers in front of the Cabildo demanding the resignation of all members of the junta, including Cisneros. The pressure is so intense – with explicit threats from the patrician soldiers – that the newly appointed Creole members have no choice but to present their resignation. Castelli and Saavedra, who had already resigned, are leading the demand that Cisneros do so as well.

In the early hours of the morning of the 25th, Viceroy Cisneros signed his resignation. The road to the First Junta is finally clear.

🌟  Friday, May 25, 1810   The People want to know what it is about!

The dawn of May 25 arrives cold and rainy – as the chronicles of the time record – but the emotional temperature of Buenos Aires could not be more inflamed. From the early hours, a crowd congregates in the Plaza Mayor (today Plaza de Mayo) demanding news. The cry that would go on forever in Argentine history reverberates in the square: "The people want to know what it is about!"

The lobbyists delay the resolution. The crowd, impatient, sends a representation with 476 signatures to the Cabildo demanding the definitive dismissal of Cisneros and the formation of a new junta. The document is one of the first examples of massive popular petition in the history of the River Plate.

Faced with irresistible pressure—and in the face of the certainty that the Creole regiments would not protect the outgoing viceroy—the Cabildo finally acted. At half past four in the afternoon, the First Government Board of the Río de la Plata is officially constituted.

The composition of the First Junta reflects the balance of forces of the revolution: Cornelio Saavedra as president; Mariano Moreno and Juan José Paso as secretaries; and Manuel Belgrano, Juan José Castelli, Miguel de Azcuénaga, Manuel Alberti, Domingo Matheu and Juan Larrea as members. The Junta assumed "in the name of Ferdinand VII" – a compromise formula that disguised the real scope of the change – but in fact it meant the break with the viceregal system and the beginning of the process that would culminate in the Declaration of Independence of July 9, 1816.

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