Flag of Macha

The flag of Macha is the name given to a pair of flags of Argentina found at a chapel in the hamlet of Titiri, near the village of Macha, north of Potosí, Bolivia. They are considered to be the first physical flags created by Manuel Belgrano, who in November 1813 hid the standards to prevent them from falling into enemy hands. They were discovered in 1885. Bolivia kept one of those flags at Sucre; the other was given to Argentina in 1896 and is currently kept at the National Historical Museum. Tucumán Province has used it as provincial flag since 2010. The flag preserved in Argentina is a triband of blue, white and blue bands, like the modern flag of Argentina, but the one kept in Bolivia is a triband of white, blue and white.

The Flag of Argentina was created by Manuel Belgrano during the Argentine War of Independence. After concluding the Paraguay campaign, he moved to Rosario to build artilleries. While being in the village he noticed that both the royalist and patriotic forces were using the same colors, Spain's yellow and red. He requested to the First Triumvirate a new cockade, which was approved by a decree on February 18, 1812. The colours of this cockade were white and light blue. Encouraged by this success, he created a flag of the same colours nine days later. The flag was first flown, for the soldiers to swear allegiance to it, on 27 February 1812, on the Batería Libertad (Liberty Battery), by the Paraná River. Although it is known that this first flag had white and light blue colours, the design is unknown by historians, and could be either a blue-white-blue triband, or white-blue-white. Belgrano wrote a letter to the Triumvirate to inform it of the new flag, saying that "...being in need to raise a flag, and not having one, I made it to be done white and light blue according to the colours of the national cockade..."; which did not detail the actual design. Still uninformed of this, the Triumvirate dispatched Belgrano to Salta, to reinforce the Army of the North. This gave room to another unclear detail: whenever Belgrano left the physical flag in Rosario, or took it with him to the North.

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