Table Of ContentSt Antony’s Series
General Editor: Richard Clogg(1999– ), Fellow of St Antony’s College, Oxford
Recent titles include:
Pilar Ortuño Anaya
EUROPEAN SOCIALISTS AND SPAIN
The Transition to Democracy, 1959–77
Renato Baumann (editor)
BRAZIL IN THE 1990s
An Economy in Transition
Israel Getzler
NIKOLAI SUKHANOV
Chronicler of the Russian Revolution
Arturo J. Cruz, Jr
NICARAGUA’S CONSERVATIVE REPUBLIC, 1858–93
Pamela Lubell
THE COMMUNIST PARTY DURING THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION
The Case of the Sixty-One Renegades
Klaus Gallo
GREAT BRITAIN AND ARGENTINA
From Invasion to Recognition, 1806–26
Peter Mangold
SUCCESS AND FAILURE IN BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY
Evaluating the Record, 1900–2000
Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi
REFASHIONING IRAN
Orientalism, Occidentalism and Nationalist Historiography
Louise Haagh
CITIZENSHIP, LABOUR MARKETS AND DEMOCRATIZATION
Chile and the Modern Sequence
Renato Colistete
LABOUR RELATIONS AND INDUSTRIAL PERFORMANCE IN BRAZIL
Greater São Paulo, 1945–60
Peter Lienhardt (edited by Ahmed Al-Shahi)
SHAIKHDOMS OF EASTERN ARABIA
John Crabtree and Laurence Whitehead (editors)
TOWARDS DEMOCRATIC VIABILITY
The Bolivian Experience
Steve Tsang (editor)
JUDICIAL INDEPENDENCE AND THE RULE OF LAW IN HONG KONG
Karen Jochelson
THE COLOUR OF DISEASE
Syphilis and Racism in South Africa, 1880–1950
Julio Crespo MacLennan
SPAIN AND THE PROCESS OF EUROPEAN INTEGRATION, 1957–85
Enrique Cárdenas, José Antonio Ocampo and Rosemary Thorp (editors)
AN ECONOMIC HISTORY OF TWENTIETH-CENTURY LATIN AMERICA
Volume 1: The Export Age
Volume 2: Latin America in the 1930s
Volume 3: Industrialization and the State in Latin America
Jennifer G. Mathers
THE RUSSIAN NUCLEAR SHIELD FROM STALIN TO YELTSIN
Marta Dyczok
THE GRAND ALLIANCE AND UKRAINIAN REFUGEES
Mark Brzezinski
THE STRUGGLE FOR CONSTITUTIONALISM IN POLAND
Suke Wolton
LORD HAILEY, THE COLONIAL OFFICE AND THE POLITICS OF RACE AND
EMPIRE IN THE SECOND WORLD WAR
The Loss of White Prestige
Junko Tomaru
THE POSTWAR RAPPROCHEMENT OF MALAYA AND JAPAN, 1945–61
The Roles of Britain and Japan in South-East Asia
Eiichi Motono
CONFLICT AND COOPERATION IN SINO-BRITISH BUSINESS, 1860–1911
The Impact of the Pro-British Commercial Network in Shanghai
Nikolas K. Gvosdev
IMPERIAL POLICIES AND PERSPECTIVES TOWARDS GEORGIA, 1760–1819
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Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills, Basingstoke,
Hampshire RG21 6XS, England
Great Britain and
Argentina
From Invasion to Recognition, 1806–26
Klaus Gallo
Professor of History
Universidad Torcuato di Tella
Buenos Aires
Argentina
in association with
St Antony’s College, Oxford
© Klaus Gallo 2001
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2001 978-0-333-92099-2
All rights reserved.No reproduction,copy or transmission of
this publication may be made without written permission.
No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced,copied or
transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with
the provisions of the Copyright,Designs and Patents Act 1988,
or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying
issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency,90 Tottenham Court
Road,London W1T 4LP.
Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this
publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil
claims for damages.
The author has asserted his right to be identified
as the author of this work in accordance with the
Copyright,Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in paperback 2001 by
PALGRAVE
Houndmills,Basingstoke,Hampshire RG21 6XS and
175 Fifth Avenue,New York,N.Y.10010
Companies and representatives throughout the world
PALGRAVEis the new global academic imprint of
St.Martin’s Press LLC Scholarly and Reference Division and
Palgrave Publishers Ltd (formerly Macmillan Press Ltd).
ISBN 978-1-349-42471-9 ISBN 978-1-4039-1947-2 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9781403919472
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and
made from fully managed and sustained forest sources.
A catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gallo,Klaus,1961 –
Great Britain and Argentina:from invasion to recognition,
1806-26 / Klaus Gallo.
p.cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p.) and index.
1.Great Britain—Foreign relations—Argentina.2.Argentina–
–Foreign relations—Great Britain.3.Great Britain—Foreign
relations—1800–1837.4.Argentina—Foreign relations–
–1817–1860.I.Title.
DA47.9.A7 G35 2001
327.82041’09’034—dc21
2001034497
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01
Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction 1
1 The River Plate Viceroyalty 9
2 The British Invasions of the River Plate 33
3 The Ministry of All the Talents and the River Plate
Invasions 51
4 Strangford, Independence and the London Missions 85
5 Rivadavia and the British Attitude towards
Recognition 115
6 Great Britain and the Recognition of the River Plate 137
Conclusion 161
Notes 165
Bibliography 181
Index 187
v
Acknowledgements
Among numerous debts and obligations of gratitude the first is to
the supervisor of my thesis – which has now been transformed into
this book – Professor Malcolm Deas, for his expert teaching and
guidance in a field of which he has a profound understanding; I am
most grateful to him for his unfailing care and conscientiousness. I
thank my parents Professor Ezequiel Gallo and Professor Francis
Korn for their support and encouragement and for their comments
on my draft thesis. My wife Mercedes Güiraldes helped me through-
out by reading and correcting the later chapters, and Daniel
Waisbein was so good as to offer his advice on the earlier chapters.
Professor John Lynch, Professor Leslie Mitchell and Professor Alan
Knight each read portions of the work, and I am particularly grateful
to them for personally according me their suggestions for improve-
ment. I would also like to thank Mr Carlos María de Alvear for his
kindness and also for his guidance on the subject of his famous
ancestor’s life. At the Archivo Nacional de Buenos Aires, I benefited
from the invaluable aid of Dr Carlos Mayo and of Dr E. Saguier in
tracing recondite sources. My thanks are also due to Gloria Cavanagh,
Professor Paula Alonso and Professor Eduado Zimmerman for their
friendly observations on my work.
A special mention is due to the examiners of my thesis, Professors
Patrick O’Brien and Carlos Malamud, for their valuable remarks and
suggestions for improvement of this book.
I am especially indebted to the Fellows of Wolfson College for
having awarded the Norman-Hargreaves Scholarship to me during the
course of my studies. I would also like to extend my gratitude to
Fundación Antorchas, Editorial A–Z and Professor Sergio Labourdette.
vi
Introduction
This book is an analysis of the relations between Great Britain and
the River Plate during 1806–26. It is essentially a study of the evolu-
tion of the political and diplomatic relations between the two coun-
tries. These commence with the British invasions of Buenos Aires
and begin to take a more dramatic course after the emancipation of
the River Plate from Spain in 1810, concluding at the time when the
British Government acknowledges recognition of the United
Provinces of the River Plate as an independent nation.
This work aims to analyse and expand the previous contributions
made by the historians who have written about British and
Argentine relations in the nineteenth century. I consider that in
spite of their publications there is still room for new interpretations
on this subject, as I shall explain in this introduction.
The history of the relations between Britain and Spanish America
in the early nineteenth century is a subject that has been studied by
several historians, especially British, mainly between the late 1930s
and the late 1960s. The most obvious examples are Webster (a
pioneer in this topic), Humphreys, Kauffmann, Rydjord, Lynch (the
historian who has written more than anyone else on this subject),
and, most recently, Miller. Also worth mentioning is Robertson,
who worked on the relations of other European nations, such as
Russia and France, with Spanish America in the early nineteenth
century.1
There have also been historians who have focused on the relations
of Britain with one particular Latin American nation during this
period. In the case of Britain and Argentina, the works of Roberts,
1
K. Gallo, Great Britain and Argentina
© Klaus Gallo 2001
2 Great Britain and Argentina
Ferns, and Street are the three most notable examples.2 Roberts’s
book is principally concerned with the events that took place during
the British invasions of the River Plate. He also covers, to a lesser
extent, the period up to British recognition. This was the first
serious work on the relations between the two countries in that
period, and Roberts spent a long time in the British archives collect-
ing material on this topic. This is reflected in the enormous amount
of information in his book, which remains one of the most useful
sources on the British invasions of the River Plate. However, his
work now appears somewhat outdated. Although the sources used
appear listed at the end of the book, there are no footnotes in his
book.
Ferns’s work is a thorough analysis of the relations between the
two countries throughout the nineteenth century, with special
emphasis on the political and commercial aspects. It is a masterly
study and is still today the best source on this subject. As Ferns’s
work covers the whole century, his analysis of the early
nineteenth century is not as thorough as that of the other two
studies mentioned here. Nevertheless it remains very useful,
especially in its analysis of the commercial relations between the
two nations.
Street’s study covers the same period in the relations between
Britain and the River Plate as does this book. Street makes full use of
the available PRO material and exploits Argentine sources as well.
His study is a political, diplomatic, and economic account of the
relations between the two countries. The chapters on the period
1808–16, which deal with the influence of Lord Strangford in South
America, represent his most significant contribution to this subject.
For some reason, however, Street neglected the manuscripts in the
British Library. The omission of this material is reflected in the lack
of a thorough analysis of the role of the British Government
throughout the period, especially in the chapters on the invasions.
There one finds little analysis or explanation of the role of the
Ministry of All the Talents, which is essential to an understanding of
these events. Street also neglects the period after 1816, the years
which led to recognition. He only devotes a few pages of his last
chapter to explaining the process by which recognition was finally
attained, which therefore leaves the treatment of this period
markedly unbalanced with respect to previous years.
Introduction 3
Street’s book is one of the last significant contributions to the
study of British and Argentine relations during the early nineteenth
century. For the last 30 years this subject has been almost totally
ignored.3 The reason for the abandonment of this topic probably
lies in the notion, prevalent amongst some historians, that it has
already been thoroughly investigated by the authors mentioned
above. Nevertheless in the last 30 years new manuscript sources
have been unearthed, especially in Britain, many of which are of
special interest to the historians of British relations with Spanish
America in the first half of the nineteenth century. A significant
amount of secondary work on the history of this period has also
appeared during these years in both Britain and in Argentina. Some
of these publications have made full use of the primary sources that
have recently come to light, and therefore provide more informa-
tion as well as new interpretations on aspects of British and
Argentinian history during these years. It is thus my opinion that if
these new sources are incorporated into the material already used in
the previous works on this topic, they justify a new study of the
relations between Britain and Argentina during the early nineteenth
century. It is mainly for this reason that I consider that a general re-
evaluation of this subject is both necessary and feasible.
As mentioned above, this book primarily emphasizes the political
and diplomatic aspects of the relations between the two countries.
The commercial elements involved in the relations between these
two countries during this period are too important to omit and will
naturally be present in this work. However, it is not my intention to
analyse the economic aspects as thoroughly as the political and
diplomatic. The main reason for this is that I consider the study of
commercial relations as almost a subject in itself. To incorporate
them into this work at the same level of detail as the political and
diplomatic relations, would necessarily require either a more
superficial approach to the subject, or a far more voluminous book.
It is important, when tackling the history of the relations between
the two countries, to find an adequate equilibrium between the
subject matter – the bilateral relationship – and the general situation
of the two countries in the global context of the period. These con-
siderations are even more weighty when the two countries are
immersed in such diverse historical and political contexts as were
Britain and Argentina in the early nineteenth century. It is vital to
