ABSTRACT
THE circumstances of the establishment of the southern colonies furnished a certain basis for the separate existence of Argentina, Chile, Peru, and Paraguay, and for the later federal organization of Argentina. Chile, cut off from Peru by the desert of Atacama and receiving a governor or captain-general by the direct appointment of the king, was practically independent of the viceroyalty long before its independence was formally decreed by royal authority, in 1778. The provinces east of the Andes took their origin from three sources. Cuyo, embracing the cities of Mendoza, San Juan, and San Luis, was settled from Chile, and maintained its connection with that colony until the creation of the viceroyalty of Rio de la Plata; Tucuman, embracing the cities of Cordova, Salta, Rioja, Jujuy, Santiago del Estero, and Catamarca, was occupied by colonists from Peru; and the provinces in the valleys of the great rivers, Buenos Aires, Santa Fé, Corrientes, and Entre Rios, had a still different origin, deriving their inhabitants directly from Spain. The separatist tendency was intensified by their commercial isolation and by the fact that Buenos Aires was a closed port, which made both Cuyo and Tucuman look to other sources for imported wares. But the removal of the trade restrictions on Buenos Aires, in 1778, tended to draw the several provinces together, to share the common advantages of the new commerce. Under the viceroy these three groups of provinces were drawn together politically, but their individuality continued to be recognized by the existence of the governors-intendants. 1
