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Buenos Aires & Argentina history - The road to independence Page 5

As Borges has written, Argentina had achieved its independence from Spain, but the Spanish conquest of Argentina was still incomplete. Borges was right about the conquest, but wrong about the conquerors. If you wander Patagonia or other cities, look at the shop names, examine local industry and the more traditional agricultural outlets, the names of those that both settled and built Argentina, particularly in the far provinces were not Spanish.

Fernand Braudel states that Argentina exchanged Spanish colonial masters for dependence on British capital, giving up one master for another.

With Spanish rule clearly over, huge investment in Argentina came from the City of London and that meant the British government offered both 'friendship' and 'support' to this fledgling nation.

Two main forces combined to create the modern Argentine nation in the late XIX century: the introduction of modern agricultural techniques and integration of Argentina into the world economy as a major exporter of agricultural products and a buyer of manufactured goods.

It is interesting to note that the heavy reliance on agricultural and natural resources, exports and manufactured imports has been the undoing of Argentina's economy numerous times.

Foreign investment and immigration from Europe aided an economic revolution.

Bartolome Mitre Investment, primarily British, entered into such fields as railroads and ports, but the foreign owners expected to retain control of industries that were the foundation of an emerging modern economy.

The migrants who worked to develop Argentina's resources (especially the western pampas) came from all over Europe.

Slavery abolished in 1843.

By 1859, the unity of Argentina was generally stable although it would be two more decades before the centralists, (unitarios) completed their victory over the federalists.

Bartolomé Mitre as Governor of Buenos Aires would revolt against Justo José de Urquiza's radical federal system and Buenos Aires would not re-enter the Argentine confederation until after a civil war in 1859.

In 1862, the National Assembly selected the liberal Bartolomé Mitre as president of the Republic of Argentina and finally achieved national unity.

Domingo Sarmiento During this period (1865-1870), the bloody War of the Triple Alliance allied Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay against Paraguay and created chaos in the region.

The War of the Triple Alliance and the brutal blockade of the people of Paraguay would weigh heavily on those not able to live off the land and shifted the ethnic balance of the population. This is still evident today when one visits Paraguay; the population has a higher concentration of native people and language than elsewhere on the continent.

Mitre was followed in 1868 by Domingo Faustino Sarmiento who is noted for many things, but the Pink House (Casa Rosado), was said to be the merging of opposing political colors of red and white (and the blood of 10,000 bulls – vox populi?).

In the following decade, General Julio Argentino Roca established Buenos Aires' dominance over the pampas and the unitarios victory over the federalists and in 1880, Julio Argentino Roca became president.