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United Provinces of the Rio de la Plata: AD 1816-1828
San Martín marches west into Chile in January 1817, a few month's after the formal declaration of full Argentinian independence. He leaves his compatriots in Argentina with the task of forming a nation out of what has been the vast but relatively uncentralized viceroyalty of La Plata.
The ambitions of many in Buenos Aires are that their city should remain the capital of the entire viceroyalty. But in 1817 this already looks a forlorn hope. Paraguay has resolutely gone its own way in 1811 and by 1814 is a region almost impenetrable to outsiders. Uruguay becomes a battle ground between Argentina and Brazil, until in 1828 both accept it as an independent buffer state between them.
This leaves a large area, consisting mainly of the great alluvial plain between the Andes and the Atlantic which forms the greater part of modern Argentina. But even this proves hard to hold together, with inland regions strongly resisting every attempt by Buenos Aires to prevail as a capital city.
The struggle between Unitarists (favouring centralization) and Federalists (demanding autonomy for the regions) becomes the main political issue in the early years of the republic. But the question is somewhat academic from 1835 during the dictatorship of Juan Manuel de Rosas - paradoxically the leader of the Federalists, yet a man with the personal power to control every region of the nation.
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