1810 жылғы Аргентинаның тәуелсіз үкіметі және Буэнос-Айрес метросы

1810 independent government of Argentina
the metro station in Buenos Aires

The Primera Junta or Junta Provisional Gubernativa de las Provincias del Río de la Plata (Provisional Governing Junta of the Provinces of the Río de la Plata), is the most common name given to the first government of what would eventually become Argentina. It was formed on 25 May 1810, as a result of the events of the May Revolution. The Junta initially only had representatives from Buenos Aires. When it was expanded, as expected, with the addition of representatives from the other cities of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata, it became popularly known instead as the Junta Grande (Grand Junta) or Junta Provisional Gubernativa de Buenos Aires. The Junta operated at El Fuerte (the fort, where the modern Casa Rosada stands), which had been used since 1776 as a residence by the viceroys.

Despite the replacement of viceroy Baltasar Hidalgo de Cisneros, the Royal Audience and the Cabildo stood with the authorities that existed before the revolution, who opposed the Junta since its first day. The Audience refused at first to swear allegiance to the Junta, and when they finally did, prosecutor Caspe did so with clear gestures of contempt. Caspe would later be ambushed near his home, in retaliation for this. The Cabildo imposed a time limit on the Junta: if the General Congress was not formed in six months, the Cabildo would reassume government. The Junta answered the same day, rejecting such requirements. The Audience then requested that the Junta submitted to the Council of Regency, but the Junta refused, on the grounds that Cisneros did not so submit and the Audience did not request him to. The Audience itself swore allegiance to the Council shortly after, and they were all banished in response. Together with the ex viceroy Cisneros, they were forced to take the ship Dart that left them at the Canary Islands; the exceptions were Márquez del Plata, who was at the Banda Oriental at the time, and the octogenarian Lucas Muñoz Cubero. From the early days of the Primera Junta there was a strong rivalry between Saavedra and Moreno. According to Ignacio Núñez, the Morenists accused Saavedra of plotting to restore the tyranny of the viceroys in his office, while the Saavedrists accused Moreno of usurping government roles that were not intended for him. Matheu would also point in his memories that the Morenists were upset because they perceived that Saavedra enjoyed receiving honors and distinctions that they had chosen to avoid. There's some controversy among historians about the authenticity of the Operations plan, a secret document attributed to Mariano Moreno, that set a harsh government policy in the fields of economics, politics and international relations. Military authorities, fearing the loss of power by Saavedra, pressured the Junta to control Moreno. Moreno, on the other hand, succeeded in getting the approval of decrees that limited Saavedra and others. By December 1810 tensions had reached a peak. Saavedra got the support of deputies sent by the interior provinces that had not yet been allowed to join the Junta. With this backing, Saavedra gave Moreno his most serious political setback: he forced Moreno to present his resignation on 18 December. With this resignation, the integration of the deputies from the other provinces to the Junta became possible. Created on 25 May 1810, the Primera Junta was thus transformed on 18 December of the same year into the new Junta Grande by the introduction of representatives from other provinces of Río de la Plata.

The Primera Junta was concerned with the risk of Portuguese expansion towards La Plata, either directly or through the Carlotist project. The diplomacy in Spain attempted to prevent the dispatch of a punitive army, limiting the armed conflicts to the royalists in Paraguay, Upper Peru and the Banda Oriental. The Junta declared itself a natural ally of any city that revolted against the royalists; either those that did so in support of the May Revolution or those who revolted on their own (Chile and Paraguay shortly after Manuel Belgrano's defeat). Britain, allied with Spain in the Napoleonic Wars, stayed neutral in the conflicts between patriots and royalists. Nevertheless, the British policy towards the conflict was to favour British trade as long as it did not conflict with the neutral policy.