Argentine Civil Wars | |||||||
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From top left: Battle of Arroyo Grande, execution of Manuel Dorrego, Battle of Pavón, death of Juan Lavalle, murder of Facundo Quiroga, Battle of Caseros, Battle of Famaillá, Battle of Vuelta de Obligado. |
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Belligerents | |||||||
Federales Blancos |
Unitarios Colorados |
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Commanders and leaders | |||||||
José Gervasio Artigas Juan Manuel de Rosas Manuel Dorrego Justo José de Urquiza † Francisco Ramírez † Facundo Quiroga † Chacho Peñaloza † Manuel Oribe |
Bartolomé Mitre Bernardino Rivadavia Juan Lavalle † José María Paz (POW) Domingo Faustino Sarmiento Fructuoso Rivera |
The Argentine Civil Wars were a series of internecine wars that took place in Argentina from 1814 to 1880. These conflicts were separate from the Argentine War of Independence (1810–1820), though they first arose during this period.
The main antagonists were, on a geographical level, Buenos Aires Province and the other provinces of modern Argentina, and on a political level, between the Federal Party and the Unitarian Party. The central cause of the conflict was the excessive centralism advanced by Buenos Aires leaders and, for a long period, the monopoly on the use of the Port of Buenos Aires as the sole means for international commerce. Other participants at specific times included Uruguay, and the British and French empires, notably in the French blockade of the Río de la Plata of 1838 and in the Anglo-French blockade of the Río de la Plata that ended in 1850.
Regionalism had long marked the relationship among the numerous provinces of what today is Argentina, and the wars of independence did not result in national unity. The establishment of the League of the Free Peoples by the Eastern Bank of the Uruguay River and four neighboring provinces in 1814 marked the first formal rupture in the United Provinces of South America that had been created by the 1810 May Revolution.