Popular Political Participation in the City of Buenos Aires, 1806-1842

DI MEGLIO, GABRIEL

Berkeley, California

Exposición; reunión mensual del UC Berkeley Latin American History Working Group; 2011

UC Berkeley Latin American History Working Group

A cycle of popular political participation, of steady presence of the plebs or low people in the political scene, started in Buenos Aires in 1806 as a consequence of a British invasion of the city. It grew remarkably after the Revolution of 1810 and lasted until 1842, with the last wave of the so-called “Terror” during Governor Rosas’ regime. This paper focuses on the features of such cycle. It first describes the many political events in which the plebeian participated along the period and then postulates the inner conflicts of the elites as the main cause of the maintenance of the popular mobilisation. Then, it examines the reasons the plebeian had to act politically (considering obedience, clientelism and their own political motifs) and explores the political positions of the urban plebs, from the claims in the mutinies and mobilisations to more general positions, such as hating the Spaniards in the 1810s, constructing later an enemy typified as Aristocrat-Foreigner-Unitario (centralist), and identifying the Federalist cause as a plebeian one. Finally, it proposes the existence of a key social and racial background among the reasons of popular political actions.