The dissolution of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata meant the breakup of the Spanish colony in South America and the creation of new independent countries.
Most of the territory of the Spanish viceroyalty is now part of Argentina, and other regions belong to Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay.
The Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata was a Spanish colonial administrative division in South America.
He aimed to strengthen the territories coveted by colonial Brazil, which invaded the Misiones Orientales and sought to expand towards the Río de la Plata.
The battle of Cepeda ended the authority of the Spanish colonial Supreme Directors in 1820, and for a period of time there was no head of state in the country.
The Upper Peru began uprisings before Buenos Aires, with the 1809 rebellions at Chuquisaca (modern Sucre) and La Paz.
The whole Banda Oriental (modern Uruguay) would be annexed by the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves in 1816, the Misiones were briefly liberated by Andrés Guazurary during the conflict, but he was eventually defeated.
By then, the Viceroyalty had already become the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata, and Brazil would declare its independence a few years later.
Buenos Aires was conquered by British forces, and then liberated by an army from Montevideo, led by Santiago de Liniers.
Javier de Elío, governor of Montevideo, appointed a government Junta, refusing to take orders from viceroy Liniers.
When the war worsened, several criollos of Buenos Aires led the May Revolution against Cisneros, deposing him and establishing a government junta.
Artigas expanded his area of influence to Mesopotamia, Santa Fe and Córdoba, and waged the Argentine Civil Wars against Buenos Aires.
The remaining Artiguist forces attacked Buenos Aires in retaliation for its passivity, and defeated the city at the battle of Cepeda.
Despite the military victories, the Argentine president Bernardino Rivadavia needed the army to fight against the federal caudillos, so he sent a diplomat to rush an end of hostilities.
In this context, the writer and diplomat Vicente Quesada coined the concept of a "Great Argentina", a country encompassing all the territories of the former viceroyalty, which would likely have failed because of British and Brazilian plans to have the territory break into smaller sovereign states, the mistakes of the Argentine diplomacy and the perspectives of the Unitarian party, that preferred a smaller country centered around Buenos Aires.
The purpose of reconstructing the broken country was pointed as a highly desirable goal, but without considering military expansionism as an acceptable option; only a political union achieved by diplomatic means.