Liga Federal

Liga Federal

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Charrúa people
British invasions
Federal League
Cisplatina
Thirty-Three Orientals
Treaty of Montevideo
Independent State
Civil War
Paraguayan War
Revolution of the Lances
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The Federal League or League of Free Peoples (Spanish: Liga Federal or Liga de los Pueblos Libres) was an alliance of provinces in what is now Argentina and Uruguay that aimed to establish a confederal organization for the state that was emerging from the May Revolution in the war of independence against the Spanish Empire. Inspired and led by José Gervasio Artigas, it proclaimed independence from Spain in 1815 and sent provincial delegates to the Congress of Tucumán with instructions regarding the nonnegotiable objective of declaring full independence and establishing a confederation of provinces, all of them on equal footing and the government of each being directly accountable to its peoples by direct democratic means of government. The delegates from these provinces were rejected on formalities from the Congress that declared the independence of the United Provinces of South America in July, 1816.

The Federal League confronted the centralist governments of the United Provinces in what amounted to a civil war. On 1820, the federal governors of Santa Fe and Entre Ríos, Estanislao López and Francisco Ramírez defeated a diminished Directorial army, ending the centralized government of the United Provinces and establishing a federal agreement with Buenos Aires Province.

The league was dissolved after its constituent provinces rejoined the United Provinces, now under a federal provisional organisation, and after the invasion of the Banda Oriental by Brazilian-Portuguese empire and the defeat of Artigas. At its largest extent, the League extended over the territories of present-day Uruguay, the southern brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul and the Argentine provinces of Entre Ríos, Santa Fe, Corrientes, Misiones and Córdoba. It was instrumental in the Guaraní participation on the revolutionary cause (see: Andrés Guazurary).

Although the country was intended to extend throughout modern-day Argentina, its leadership was based on Montevideo and the Eastern Bank of the Uruguay river. Therefore, it is sometimes considered a predecessor state of modern Uruguay.

Read more about Liga Federal:  History

Famous quotes containing the word federal:

    There are always those who are willing to surrender local self-government and turn over their affairs to some national authority in exchange for a payment of money out of the Federal Treasury. Whenever they find some abuse needs correction in their neighborhood, instead of applying the remedy themselves they seek to have a tribunal sent on from Washington to discharge their duties for them, regardless of the fact that in accepting such supervision they are bartering away their freedom.
    Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)