Argentine history

[Carol's notes from Daniel K. Lewis’s The History of Argentina, Macmillan, 2003]

Overview

• 8th largest country in the world
• 2nd largest country in South America
• 1.1M square miles
• 2,170 miles long
• 23 provinces
• 6 climate zones
• (1) “Mesopotamia” (Misiones, Corrientes, Entre Ríos): tropical, rainy, sea level
• (2) Chaco (Chaco, Formosa, Santiago del Estero, northern Santa Fe & Córdoba): warm, seasonal rainfall
• (3) Andean (Catamarca, Jujuy, La Rioja, Salta, Tucumán): mountainous, cold, east is Puna desert
• (4) Cuyo (San Juan, San Luís, La Pampa): mountainous, dry, rivers
• (5) Patagonia (Chubut, Neuquén, Río Negro, Santa Cruz, Tierra del Fuego): dry, cold
• (6) Pampa (Buenos Aires, Córdoba, Santa Fe, La Pampa): alluvial plain, more rainfall in east, west & south drier/colder
• largest cities: Mar del Plata, Rosario, Córdoba, Buenos Aires, Mendoza, Salta
• 40M population, 96% literacy
• 89% of population in urban areas
• 85% Caucasian; 15% black/indigenous/mixed
• 1853 constitution, 1994 amendments
• president: 4-yr term, 2 terms
• Senate: 72 members, 3 per province & for Federal District (BA)
• Chamber of Deputies: 257 seats, each seat represents equal number of citizens
• citizens 18 yrs old required to vote
• 1990 debt/currency crisis
• 1995 MERCOSUR: trade agreement between Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, & Brazil
• industry: farming (corn, soy, wheat, wine, cotton, sugar, tea, fruit, yerba mate, tobacco), ranching (beef), mining (boron, tin, tungsten, cement, gold, silver, copper, oil, gas)
• 90% Catholic, 20% practicing
• villas miserias: shantytowns in Buenos Aires & elsewhere
• indigenes: Guaraní, Diaguita, Huarpe, Charrúa, Querendí, Serrenos, Pampa, Tehuelche

Settlement

• 1515-16 Juan Díaz de Solís, Spanish claim @ Río de la Plata, failure
• 1536 Pedro de Mendoza, settled Nuestra Señora María del Buen Aire, 1537 abandoned, he & Juan de Garay left cattle & horses
• settlements: 1553 Santiago del Estero; 1561 Mendoza; 1562 San Juan; 1565 San Miguel de Tucumán; 1573 Córdoba; 1582 Salta; 1591 La Rioja; 1592 Jujuy; 1596 San Luis
• 1630-37 Spanish settlers vs Diaguitas, Sp won
• 1580 resettlement of what grows into Buenos Aires, residents called porteños
• criollo: American-born descendant of European
• 1618 University of Córdoba, controlled by Catholic Church
• 18th century African slave trade w/ British
• silver: most important export during colonial period; also hides, tallow
• estancia: cattle ranch
• vaquería: expeditions into Pampa to gather cattle
• 1752: blandengues, rural militia organized to eliminate indigenes
• until 1800, controlled by the viceregal government in Lima
• 1768 Spain expelled Jesuits from colonies
• 1776 Buenos Aires became capital of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata
• 1778 adoption of free trade (comercio libro) (end by control by Lima)
• 18th century European wars weakened Spain’s power
• 1806 British took Buenos Aires from Spain
• 1806, 2 months later, porteños took Buenos Aires back from British
• 1807 porteños defeated 2nd British invasion, Santiago Liniers became interim Spanish Viceroy
• 1809 new Viceroy Viscount Balthasar de Cisneros from Spain

19th Century Independence

• 1810 porteños took down Cisneros
• revolutionary factionalism
• 7/9/1816 San Miguel de Tucumán claimed independence from Spain, end of slavery
• Juan Martín de Pueyrredón as director
• 1819 new constitution, Buenos Aires powers over interior provinces
• Unitarios for Buenos Aires, Federales for decentralized national government, Federales took BA
• Unitarios Bernardino Rivadavia ran BA
• created University of Buenos Aires
• established rural anti-vagrancy regulations
• established Law of Emphyteusis whereby 122 people took control of 6.5 million acres
• 1823 defeat of Loyalist resistance
• 1826 new constitution as republic, United Provinces, BA in power, Rivadavia president
• caudillo: rural military leader w/ cavalry & militia forces
• 1829 Juan Manual de Rosas & Federales rebels capture BA, overthrow the republic
• 1829-32, 35-52: Rosas as BA governor, dictatorship, repressed political opponents
• Confederación del Río de la Plata: Rosas, Estanislao López (Santa Fe), Juan Facundo Quiroga (La Rioja)
• 1831 all opposition forces routed, focus on BA
• 1833 British seize the Malvinas/Falklands
• 1838 Rosas’s allies w/ militias ruled interior provinces
• 1838 French blockade of BA
• 1839-41: Rosas fought & won wars w/ rebels & invaders (France, Uruguay)
• 1839 Justo José de Urquiza, Entre Ríos caudillo & governor, region’s wealthiest estanciero, Rosas ally
• 1845: British join French blockade; Brazil & Uruguay angry
• Generation of 1837: writers Esteban Echeverría, Juan Bautista Alberdi, Miguel Cané in La Moda called for change
• Rosas forced the leading writers into exile along with Domingo Faustine Sarmiento
• 1851 Urquiza challenged Rosas’s reelection
• 1852 Alberdi’s tract Bases y punto de partida para la organización política de la República Argentina
• 1852 Urquiza w/ Uruguayan, Brazilian, Argentine troops invaded BA, won Battle of Caseros
• Acuerdo de San Nicolás endorsed liberal trade, public education, centralized constitutional gov’t
• BA city refused to support it or 1853 new constitution of Argentine Confederation, Urquiza pres
• 1859 Urquiza & Confederation armies defeated BA forces at Battle of Cepeda
• still province & city didn’t endorse constitution
• 1860 autonomist Bartolomé Mitre became BA governor, interior rebellions
• 1861 Mitre defeats Urquiza at Battle of Pavón
• amendments to 1853 constitution: liberal, intent to develop country including interior
• 1862 Mitre became 1st president of Argentine Republic
• national tariffs on exports & imports
• 1865-70 War of the Triple Alliance, AR w/ Brazil & Uruguay against Paraguyan dictator Francisco Solano López
• 1868 Sarmiento of San Juan became president
• 1874 Nicolás Avellaneda of Tucumán became president
• Mitre led brief rebellion
• 1879 Conquest of the Wilderness campaign to eliminate indigenes on La Pampa
• 1880 Julio Roca became BA governor, put down rebellion, federalized city of BA
• symbolic end to dominance of BA province over national gov’t
• cimarones: wild cattle
• mid-19th century growth of sheep estancias, barb wire fencing
• late-19th century growth of beef paste, tinned beef, frozen & chilled beef exports
• late-19th century growth of European immigrant farmers, wheat, corn, & other grain exports
• colonos: farmers
• golodrinas: swallows, temporary farm laborers
• San Juan & Mendoza: wine
• Tucumán: sugar haciendas
• 1880-1914 Partido Autonomista Nacional (PAN) politics dominated via fraud, corruption, violence
• presidents: 1880 Roca, 1886 Celman, 1890 Pellegrini, 1898 Roca, 1904 Quintana, 1906 Alcorta
• 1885 abandoned the gold standard, printed more pesos, banks issued mortgage bonds
• 1889 Baring financial panic, currency collapsed
• 1890 Revolution of ’90, Bartolomé Mitre & Unión Cívica (UC) backed, failed

20th Century Politics

• 1907 Teatro Colón opera house opened in BA
• 1907 oil found in Patagonia
• UC -> Unión Cívica Nacional -> Unión Cívica Radical (UCR): Leandro N. Alem, Hipólito Yrigoyen
• UCR campaigned for electoral reform, end of corruption
• 1912 Ley Sáenz Peña: males above 18 must vote; secret ballot, % of contested seats go to minorities
• 1912 UCR won majority of seats in Chamber of Deputies; Senate still blocked radicals
• 1912-14 financial depression; collapse of grain market
• 1917-18 labor strikes, Liga Patriótica violence against labor agitators
• 1922 Dirección Nacional de los Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales (YPF) National Oil Agency
• 1922 Yrigoyenistas vs Anti-personalistas led by Marcelo T. de Alvear
• 1925 oil refinery in La Plata
• 1928 Yrigoyen (URC) wins presidency
• 1930 military coup, General José Félix Uriburu & nationalists, Uriburu became dictator
• 1931 Agustín P. Justo president w/ 3 parties formed a regime known as Concordancia
• Federico Pinedo, economics minister
• 1933 Roca-Runciman Treaty w/ Britain for meat trade, British tariff & shipping preference
• 1933 Plan de Acción Económica created exchange board to control currence & trade, set prices
• 1934 Banco Central founded, controlled currency supply, credit rates, value of peso
• 1940 Ramón Castillo president, very conservative
• neutral (fascist-leaning) in WWII
• 1943 military coup, General Arturo Rawson, then General Pedro Ramírez, US called gov’t fascist
• Juan Domingo Perón, born 1895 director of National Labor Department, 1938-40 in Italy, Spain
• 1944 General Edelmiro Farrell president, Perón VP & war minister
• Perón intervened in strikes & settled in favor of the workers, unions that supported his parties
• 1944 Estatuo del Péon to raise wages, improve working conditions
• 1945 Farrell forced Perón to resign, military & unions restored him
• 1946 Partido Laborista & Peron won presidency, 10 provinces, BA Federal
• 1946 Instituto Argentino de Promoción del Intercambio took charge of industries, exports, prices
• 1947 Partido Único de la Revolución Nacional w/ Perón as leader
• descamisados: rural migrants to cities, Eva ran Fundación de Ayuda Social
• 1947 women’s right to vote, new party Partido Peronista, goal of self-sufficiency
• 1949 amended constitution to delete ban on presidential reelection
• 1952 Peronista control of all provincial governments, Senate, Congress, schools, press, military
• 1952 30% inflation
• 1952 Eva Perón died of cancer
• 1955 military coup, General Eduardo Lonardi’s Revolución Libertadora, Perón’s exile
• 1955 coup, General Pedro E. Aramburo acting president/dictator, Peronist Party banned
• 1956 failed rebellion, General Juan José Valle, executions
• 1958 Arturo Frondizi president, Perón ally, $328M IMF loan, oil exploration w/ Standard Oil
• 1962 Peronistas win governorships, military overthrows Frondizi, José María Guido president
• 1962 recession, military split, Azules vs rebellious Colorados, Azules won
• 1962 election, Arturo Illias president
• 1966 military coup, General Juan Carloso Onganía, ended civilian rule, Onganía president
• 1966 universities shut down
• 1967 unions disabled
• 1969 student protests, cordobazo event controlled Córdoba for 2 days
• 1970 military coup, General Roberto Levingston
• 1971 military coup, General Alejandro Lanusse, said Perón could return
• 1973 Peronistas as Frente Justicialista de Liberación won elections, Hector Cámpora president
• 1973 Perón returned, elected president
• 1974 new laws against political violence, Perón dies, Isabel Perón becomes president
• leftist guerrillas: Montoneros & Ejército Revolucionario del Pueblo (ERP) in Tucumán
• 1974 Alianza Argentina Anticomunista (AAA) led by López Rega kidnapped/assassinated leftists
• 1974 state of siege, military conducted operations against the populace, subversives
• 1975 economy close to collapse, peso devalued, unions strike
• 1976 coup, General Jorge Rafael Videla, intent to purge subversives — the “disappeared”
• “Operation Condor” w/ Chile/Brazil/Uruguay pursued subversives abroad
• 1977 “Group of 25” unions/labor against dictatorship, strikes in 1979 & 1981
• 1977 Las Madres de Plaza de Mayo weekly silent marches
• 1978 won World Cup
• 1979 Confederación General de Trabajo (CGT)
• 1980 inflation
• 1981 presidency passed to army commander General Roberto Viola
• 1981 coup, General Leopoldo Galtieri
• 1982 invaded Falklands, Britain won, Galtieri resigned
• 1982 General Cristino Nicolaides took power, named Reynaldo Bignone president
• 1983 Raúl Alfonsín & Radical Party won elections, return to constitutional rule
• 1983 310% inflation, 14% budget deficit, $6.7B balance-of-payments deficit, $43.5B debt
• 1984 Comisión Nacional Sobre la Desaparación de las Personas (CONADEP)
• 1984 Familias de los Muertos por la Subversión (FAMUS) in defense of military
• 1985 trial & life sentencing of General Jorge Videla & Admiral Emilio Massera
• 1985 Austral Plan: austral instead of peso, wage & price controls, etc
• 198x new elections, Carlos Saúl Menem, reformist wing of Peronist party
• 1987 military splinter uprisings, general strike, Alfonsín settled it
• 1987 Ley de Obediencia Débida: no more trials or punishments of military
• 1989 Carlos Saúl Memem, Perónist, president, gov’t spending cuts, deregulation, privatization
• 1991 peso nuevo, 1P = $1, economy stabilized within 2 years
• 1991 Mercado Comün del Sur w/ Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay
• 1991 unemployment: 6.9%; 1995 unemployment: 18.6%
• fraud-ridden privatization: Entel, telephone system; SOMISA, steel
• 1992 bomb outside Israeli embassy; 1994 bomb at Hebrew Community Center
• 1994 constitution convention & reforms
• 1995 “Tequila Effect”: Mexican financial crisis caused Argentina recession
• 1996 general strike to protest economic conditions
• 1997 Alianza para Trabajo, Justicia, y Educación’s Fernando de la Rúa elected president
• 2000 deep recession, IMF loan