ABSTRACT
In the Viceroyalty of Río de la Plata, the challenge to Spanish rule was led by urban revolutionaries in Buenos Aires, backed by the city's militias. Like their counterparts in Bogotá and Caracas, they mounted a coup at the center of viceregal government and transferred power to a junta with very little bloodshed. The Buenos Aires junta, led by Cornelio de Saavedra, then asserted its supremacy on the grounds that the junta was the legitimate successor to the viceroy and so inherited his authority over the defunct viceroyalty.
