Abstract
The objective of this work is to study the creation of the Cisplatina province and its insertion in the Ibero-American liberal experiences. I argue that the transformations in Portugal made it possible to arrange new political pacts in the Río de la Plata and, thus, the fulfillment of an old desire of the Crown: the officialization of Portugal’s domination in the region. To this end, the press in the process of growth played a fundamental role. In 1821, the Extraordinary Courts of Lisbon enacted the Freedom of the Press Law for the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and Algarves, expanding the right acquired by the kingdoms in the previous year. This process meant the appearance of publications in unpublished numbers in Montevideo, part of these domains. Creating a dynamic of discussion in the public sphere with different possibilities for the future. In the newspapers, inserted in the Portuguese dynamics and favorable to the creation of the Cisplatina province, which dates from the same year, fundamental concepts of Portuguese liberalism were reverberated and emulated, such as regeneration, order, anarchy, revolution. I also point out that it was the Artiguist movement, in its most radical stage and its difficulties in imposing its project on all eastern territory, which brought the Montevideo’s elites closer to the Portuguese authorities and its discourse of pacification and regeneration along the lines of European movements. Radical changes and changes in social hierarchies were avoided. Thus, by associating the creation of Cisplatina with a space of experience based on civil wars, a horizon of expectations was projected around the pacification and unity of the Portuguese domains.
Keywords:
Cisplatine; Liberalism; Press