Port-Driven State Formation in Argentina

This chapter begins with an account of the Battle of Pavón on September 17, 1861, which founded the episode in Argentina's state-formation as the army of Buenos Aires clashed against the military forces of the Confederación. It talks about the four-month bargaining process between the leaders of Buenos Aires and the Confederación that resulted in the merger of the two states and the birth of Argentina. It also explains how the negotiations produced an irreversible change in the process of state-formation. The chapter emphasizes how the territory of Argentina would never again experiment with the loose confederations of minisovereignties that characterized the 1830s and 1840s or the duopoly Confederación versus Buenos Aires of the 1850s. It points out that the territory of the new state and the formula of territorial governance in Argentina has remained intact until today.