Argentine Civil Wars

The Argentine Civil Wars were a series of civil conflicts of varying intensity that took place through the territories of Argentina from 1814 to 1853. Beginning concurrently with the Argentine War of Independence (1810–1818), the conflict prevented the formation of a stable governing body until the signing of the Argentine Constitution of 1853, followed by low-frequency skirmishes that ended with the Federalization of Buenos Aires. The period saw heavy intervention from the Brazilian Empire that fought against state and provinces in multiple wars. Breakaway nations, former territories of the viceroyalty, such as the Banda Oriental, Paraguay and the Upper Peru were involved to varying degrees. Foreign powers such as the British and French empires put heavy pressure on the fledgling nations at times of international war.

Initially, conflict arose from tensions over the organization and powers of the United Provinces of South America. The May 1810 revolution sparked the breakdown of the Viceroyalty's intendencies (regional administrations) into local cabildos. These rejected the notion that the central government should be able to instate and remove governors of the new provinces; a general opposition to centralism. Escalation resulted in the dissolution of the directorship and the congress leaving the Argentine provinces under the leadership of personalist strongmen called caudillos, leading to sporadic skirmishes until the reestablishment of relative peace after the war between the League of the Interior and the Federal Pact. However, conflicting interests did not permit the creation of a governing body until the pact's defeat during the Platine War. Later conflicts centered around commercial control of the riverways in the Paraná and Uruguay rivers and the country's only port, which saw the secession of Buenos Aires from the Argentine Confederation, its unification and subsequent de-escalation of hostilities as the battleground moved from mutinies to debates within the political system of the Argentine Republic.