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UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN, LAWRENCE, KANSAS
OCTOBER 15,1946
Time Lag Made Argentine Rebellion In 1810 Possible
Buenos Aires. (UP)—Whereas today the news of wars and rumors of wars is broadcast to all parts of the world within minutes, the first word of Argentina's declaration of independence from Spain in 1810 did not reach Europe for over two months.
An article by Oscar Rios Marcalm in the current issue of the Buenos Aires magazine, Mundo Argentino, recalls that news of the Argentine rebellion of May 25, 1810, reached Spain only after British vessels which were in Buenos Aires at the time docked in England the following August.
Meanwhile the revolutionaries had mobilized forces throughout Argentina, sent expeditions against the Spanish in neighboring countries, and had done 4,000,000 pesos' worth of business with British merchant vessels.
British naval officers were the only foreigners present at the first pledging of public allegiance in Buenos Aires to Argentina's May revolution. The London "Monthly Magazine" of July, 1810, reported that 160 British merchant vessels were lining Argentine shores shortly before the revolution, "unable to unload cargo for lack of licenses from Spain."
This strangulation of trade, incidentally, was the economic reason for the rebellion of the Argentine colonists. The first benefit the colonists derived from the revolution was the immediate brisk trade with Britain.
Without the period of grace provided by the time it took Spanish expeditions to cross more than 6,000 miles of water, the Argentine revolution, which touched off other revolts and campaigns and eventually freed all of South America, might have been suppressed.