Liga Federal

League of the Free Peoples
Liga de los Pueblos Libres
1815–1820
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Liga Federal (pink) including present-day Argentine Provinces of Córdoba, Corrientes, Entre Ríos, Misiones and Santa Fe, plus the former Eastern Province (modern day Uruguay)
Capital		Purificación (provisory), Montevideo
Languages		Spanish
Government		Confederation
Leader		José Gervasio Artigas
History
•	Congreso de Oriente	June 29, 1815
•	Treaty of Pilar	February 23, 1820
Preceded by Succeeded by Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata United Provinces of the Río de la Plata Cisplatina Republic of Entre Ríos

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The Federal League or League of Free Peoples (Spanish: Liga Federal or Liga de los Pueblos Libres) was an alliance of provinces in what is now Uruguay, Argentina and Brazil that aimed to establish a confederal organization for the state that was emerging from the May Revolution in the war of independence against the Spanish Empire.

Inspired and led by José Gervasio Artigas, it proclaimed independence from the Spanish Crown in 1815 and sent provincial delegates to the Congress of Tucumán with instructions regarding the nonnegotiable objective of declaring full independence for the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata and establishing a confederation of provinces, all of them on equal footing and the government of each being directly accountable to its peoples by direct democratic means of government. The delegates from these provinces were rejected on formalities from the Congress that declared the independence of the United Provinces of South America in July 9, 1816.

The Federal League confronted the centralist governments, as well as the interests of the economic and cultural elite of Buenos Aires and Montevideo, in what later amounted to a civil war. In 1820, the federalist governors of Santa Fe and Entre Ríos provinces, Estanislao López and Francisco Ramírez, defeated a diminished Directorial army, ending the centralized government of the United Provinces and establishing a federal agreement with Buenos Aires Province.