The first Spanish establishment in Argentinian territory goes back to 1536, while the settlement is carried out starting from Peru towards Río of Plata. Thus are created the stopovers cities of Santiago del Estero, Mendoza, Tucumán and Córdoba, before the true foundation of Buenos Aires in 1580. But the Spanish crown neglects the area of Río of Plata, which does not conceal noble metals, single concern of the Iberian conquerors.

Argentina is then placed under the jurisdiction of the viceroyalty of Peru and attracts few emigrants. One practices there the extensive breeding for the provisioning of the workers of the mines of the Andes. It is high with the row of viceroyalty, in 1776, to make failure with the seizure of the British trade on Río of Plata and to control the Portuguese presence in the south of Brazil.

Independence

In 1810, the invasion of the armies of Napoleon in Spain creates one vacancy of being able in Latin America. The Argentinian patriots, supported by the British, deposit the viceroy. The United Provinces of South America proclaim their independence on on July 9th, 1816.

The fifty-five years which follow, remembered by the seizure of the British on the economy, are disturbed by the confrontations between federalists and unit: the first defend the autonomy of the provinces, the seconds wish to impose the preeminence of Buenos Aires and the centralization of the State. The commercial middle-class of Buenos Aires, related on the interests and the British trade, controls the port and the great landowners located at the accesses of the capital. Favorable to the centralism, she is opposed to the land oligarchy and the middle-class of the interior which, of the time of the viceroyalty, developed a manufacturing activity safe from Spanish tariff barriers, thus prohibiting the entry of foreign goods and the free access to the wearing of Buenos Aires.  

In 1829, Juan Manuel de Rosas, the chief of the federalists, seizes the power and exerts until 1852 a dictatorship which consolidates the Argentinian State. Little by little, the middle-class men of Buenos Aires manage to extend their control on the whole of the territory. A compromise signed in 1830 fact of Argentina a unified federal republic, whose Buenos Aires preserves the statute of capital.

After the fall of Rosas in 1852, the Constitution promulgated in 1853 founds a federal system rather similar to that of the United States. In 1880, Buenos Aires is promoted with the row of federal capital of the new Republic.

The development of the modern nation

Nationalism is one of the principal points of crystallization of the political history of Argentina. As of the end of the XIX E century, part of the local middle-class is organized in party, the radical civic Union, to fight against the British imperialism. Its leader, Hipólito Yrigoyen, remain one of the great figures of the nation. Radicalism integrates in its rows the middle-classes, part of the working class, the small ones and average owners and the latifundists of the interior.

The radicals register the male vote for all in the Constitution and Hipólito Yrigoyen is elected president of the Republic in 1916. It is at the origin of nationalist and populist measurements (creation of a state monopoly on hydrocarbons, neutrality during the First World War) and social (minimum wage, eight work hours day, arbitration of the social conflicts). But there remains also that which ordered the terrible repression of the working demonstrations at the time of the “tragic week”, from Friday to. Yrigoyen is re-elected in 1928 (after having left the power during the legislature of its radical opponent Marcelo Torcuato de Alvear), but a military coup d'etat reverses it later two years.

The era of the “pronunciamientos”

The Argentinian military era opens in 1930. Since this date, the army exerts, even during the brackets of a civil government elected, if not a permanent control, at least a pressure on the power; six coups d'etat followed one another until 1976. Corruption, scandals, ballot-riggings mark the years 1930.

British and Americans dispute the Argentinian market then and extend their control to it, obtaining, for example, the monopoly of the refrigeration, the transport and the export of the meat. In 1935, the majority of the capital of industry is between the hands of foreign firms. The radical party is prohibited and the Justo general is elected president thanks to ballot-riggings. The period is called “the infamous decade”.

The Peronism

In 1943 the coup d'etat of the nationalist generals Rawson and Ramírez takes place, in which colonel Juan Domingo Perón (1895-1974) takes part, then Minister for Labor. This last, officer resulting from the middle-classes and professional soldier, travelled in 1938 to Italy and returned impressed by the fascistic mode of Mussolini. Nationalist, it obtains the confidence of the popular masses thanks to a series of social measures like the freezing of the rents of the real estate and the grounds, and paid vacation.

On June 16th, 1945, the employers' associations, supported by the ambassador of the United States, protest against this industrial relations policy. Perón is dislocated of its functions and decree. But, on on October 17th, 1945, from the thousands of workmen of the suburbs of Buenos Aires, the descamisados (“without-shirts”), go down in the street to support Perón, which is elected president one year later. It creates the justicialist party and, with the assistance of his wife Eva Duarte (called Evita), it applies an ambitious reform program social and of industrialization excessively. Near to the people, Evita Perón causes an unrestrained enthusiasm of crowd.  

Perón creates Instituto Argentino para Promoción del Intercambio (IAPI), organism in charge to buy at low prices the national agricultural produce to export them with the full price. The released benefit are invested in the small one and average industry, finance the nationalization of foreign companies (telephone, railroad, gas), the creation of new national companies and a fabric of industries of substitution for the imports (textile, chemistry, food, household goods, plastic, car). Perón does not make a land reform, the economic power of land oligarchy untouchable remainder.  

Compared to the other Latin-American countries, Argentina makes prosperous figure of country. From the years 1950, the economic situation is degraded with the fall of exports, the exchange rate fall of the farm prices and the cost of the industrial relations policy. Re-elected in 1951, Perón takes austerity measures. He points out the foreign assets and hardens his position against the working mobilization (the state of siege is founded of 1952 to 1955).  

The opposition is organized and, in September 1955, Perón is reversed by the general Eduardo Leonardi, itself replaced in November by the general Pedro Aramburu. This last authorizes unfolding, in 1958, of elections which carry to the power the Arturo Frondizi radical, reversed four years later. It is at that time that is set up the Argentinian two-party system, which opposes radicalism to the Peronism. Political instability and the economic recession (inflation prevails already) mark the years 1960, which see appearing armed groupings, of extreme left like the revolutionary Army of people (ERP), peronists like the Armed forces peronists or Montoneros (which assassinate the Aramburu general) and of right-hand side like “triple has” (Alliance Argentinian anticommunist).  

On November 17th, 1973, Perón is recalled to the power after seventeen years of exile and elected official chairs on on September 23rd with more than 60 % of the votes. But violence continues and Perón manages to put an end to neither removals nor the attacks. He is opposed hard to the most radical members of his party. With its death, on on July 1st, 1974, his third wife, Isabel Martínez, becomes president in a political climate particularly disturbed.

Dictatorship and the war of the Falklands

Inflation, corruption and smuggling disorganize the economy, whereas deep divisions of the peronists weaken the power. On March 24th, 1976, a coup d'etat reverses the president. Jorge Rafael Videla constitutes a military junta “to fight subversion”. The assessment is very heavy: 30 ' 000 missings, died under the torture or carried out, whose list of names for summer has published.  

To make forget these deaths and mask the economic disaster, the Argentinian soldiers occupy in April 1982 the Falkland Islands (Falkland, in English), British possession. The recovery of these islands, asserted since always, would make it possible Argentinian to extend considerably their exclusive economic zone in an area rich in fishing resources, in particular in krill, and perhaps in oil. The British reaction, moved especially by the geostrategic position of the site, is fast, and the victory of Royal Navy in June precipitates the fall of the dictatorship.

The return to the democracy

On June 17th, 1982, the Leopoldo Galtieri general, successor of Videla after the short interlude of Roberto Violated, gives up his functions and the Brignone general succeeds to him. In August, the military authorities authorize the political parties (interdicts since 1976) and organize free elections in October 1983.

Before leaving the power, the military power, seeking to put itself safe from possible legal proceedings, its car issues amnesties. During the electoral campaign, the two principal candidates will be opposed on this point-key: the peronist Italo Luder declaring itself favorable to the military decree of' autoamnistie, the radical candidate Raul Alfonsin making of her engagement to judge the soldiers one of the strong axes of its program

Invested on on December 10th, 1983, President Alfonsin orders three days after the arrest and the committal for trial of the military main leaders of the first three military juntas having controlled Argentina since the coup d'etat of March 24th, 1976. After nine months of oral lawsuit during which more than 800 victims came to testify in front of their torturers, of the military chiefs were condemned to degradation and sorrows going until perpetuity by a government civil, elected democratically, made single in the history of the Latin America and moreover world.

In spite of the progress made in matire of protection of the doits of the man, the economic situation, marked by the weight of an enormous external debt inherited the military regimes, does not improve and will end up obliging President Alfonsin to leave the power 5 months before the constitutional term envisaged, leaving the presidency to Carlos Menem.

(This chapter at summer written by Anne Morel)