206 CHAPTER 9 DECOLONIZATION AND THE SEARCH FOR NATIONAL IDENTITIES, 1821–1870
new state. The efforts of the wealthy port and prov-
ince of Buenos Aires to impose its hegemony over
the interior met with tenacious resistance. The end
of the Spanish trade monopoly brought large gains
to Buenos Aires and lesser gains to the littoral
provinces of Santa Fe, Entre Ríos, and Corrientes;
their exports of meat and hides increased, and the
value of their lands rose. But the wine and textile
industries of the interior, which had been protected
by the colonial monopoly, suffered from the com-
petition of cheaper and superior European wares
imported through the port of Buenos Aires.
The interests of the interior provinces required
a measure of autonomy, or even independence, to
protect their primitive industries, but Buenos Aires
preferred a single free-trade zone under a govern-
ment dominated by the port city. This was one
cause of the confl ict between Argentine federales
(federalists) and unitarios (unitarians). By 1820
the federalist solution had triumphed: the United
Provinces had in effect dissolved into a number of
independent republics, with the interior provinces
ruled by caudillos, each representing the local rul-
ing class and having a gaucho army behind him.
A new start toward unity came in 1821 when
Bernardino Rivadavia, an ardent liberal who was
strongly infl uenced by the English philosopher Jer-
emy Bentham, launched an ambitious program of
educational, social, and economic reform. He pro-
moted primary education, founded the University
of Buenos Aires, abolished the ecclesiastical fuero
and the tithe, and suppressed some monasteries.
Rivadavia envisioned a balanced development
of industry and agriculture, with a large role as-
signed to British investment and colonization. But
the obstacles in the way of industrialization proved
too great, and little came of efforts in this direction.
The greatest progress was made in cattle raising,
which expanded rapidly southward into territory
formerly claimed by native peoples. To control the
large fl oating population of gauchos, Rivadavia
enacted vagrancy laws requiring them to have
passports for travel and to have written permission
from the estanciero to leave his ranch.
In 1822, hoping to raise revenue and increase
production, Rivadavia introduced the system of em-
phyteusis, a program that distributed public lands
to leaseholders at fi xed rentals. Some writers have
seen in this system an effort at agrarian reform, but
there were no limits on the size of grants, and the
measure actually contributed to the growth of lati-
fundia. The lure of large profi ts in livestock raising
induced many native and foreign merchants, poli-
ticians, and members of the military to join the rush
for land. The net result was the creation not of a
small-farmer class but of a new and more powerful
estanciero class that was the enemy of Rivadavia’s
progressive ideals.
Rivadavia’s planning went beyond the prov-
ince of Buenos Aires; he had a vision of a unifi ed
Argentina under a strong central government
that would promote the rounded economic de-
velopment of the whole national territory. In
1825 a constituent congress met in Buenos Aires
at Rivadavia’s call to draft a constitution for theAlthough he cultivated the populist image of a
gaucho, Juan Manuel Rosas was a wealthy estan-
ciero and military caudillo, whose policies inevi-
tably defended the interests of Argentina’s landed
aristocracy. [Alamy]