How was the argentine independence war much different from the independence war of the US? Both were led by colonial elites on behalf of a population of european settlers. I'm not trying be a "hurr durr latinos are all white colonisers" yanqui, I just wanna hear about the topic
Well the similarities were certainly there. In fact, many Latin American próceres saw the United States as a model to emulate, as an example of a successful New World republic. Both the US and the Latin American revolutions are examples of liberal revolutions, as the ideas of socialism were not developed yet.
But I would disagree that in Latin America's case, even in Argentina's case, it was led "on behalf of European settlers" as if it was a movement driven by race. First of all, the distinction of "White" settler compared to slaves and native americans in the 13 Colonies and the latter United States was sharp as a knife. There was little active (I repeat, active) participation of them in the process of independence.
In Latin America this was not the case, as black and native people actively participated in the processes of independence and nation building. Not only in leaders of the Rio de La Plata such as Azurduy (mestiza commander of independetist forces), María Remedios del Valle (black commander, now called Mother of the Motherland) and Rivadavia (first Argentine with the title of President and mulatto), but also as in political forces.
One of the reasons why slavery was virtually extinct even before its abolition was because former slaves joined independentist forces to free themselves, and the abolition of slavery and colonial mistreatments was a demand by all revolutionaries. Native people were first represented politically in the congress of Artigas. And of course, perhaps the most striking political proposal was to crown a descendant of the Inca as emperor of South America (not just Argentina, but all of South America, the Argentine declaration of independence declares the Provincias Unidas en Sud América). This was proposed by people like Belgrano and San Martín. The idea was not just independence but the determination of building a new society, not just the continuation of colonial society. Indeed, it was the abolition of feudal colonialism and slavery that drove the ideas of the independentists. (worth noting that the Spanish repressed the Tupác Amaru rebellion decades earlier, and killed or repressed much of the independentist Inca and native elites. Who knows what might have happened if they were present)
So, what happened? The ironic thing is that the testimony of these radical ideas reach us by the most part from historians that hated them, like Mitre and Sarmiento. They were the ones that after decades of post-independence chaos, built the "Conservative Republic" of Argentina. They were the architects of the myth of White Argentina, of the need of erasing the native, black, gaucho elements of Argentina and building an "European" society in America, and indeed, Roca and Sarmiento were inspired on this by none other than the United States. Much like elsewhere in Latin America, what happened after independence is that a new bourgeois oligarch class arose to replace the colonial landowners (in many cases directly descended from those colonial landowners) while the more radical aspects of independence were suppressed and erased from history.
This is why I insist that Argentine and Latin American independence is not complete (especially with our current president), political independence is not enough, it needs to be economical and social freedom too, the construction of a new society. El socialismo será nuestra segunda independencia.
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