Plaza de Mayo

Today’s square was formed from two urban spaces that Recova, a commercial arcade with arches, divided for a long time. Plaza de la Victoria lay by the city council, while the other half began beyond the market, closer to the fort. The May Pyramid now stands at the center of the combined space and preserves an early brick core inside.

On May twenty-fourth, eighteen ten, Domingo French put an unusual signature beneath a petition: “for himself and on behalf of six hundred.” French had previously been responsible for delivering correspondence in Buenos Aires and knew many city residents personally. After the British invasion was repelled, he became a commander of the local militia. Now his men went from house to house collecting signatures, then gathered in the square and demanded that the colonial government be replaced.

The cause lay far from Buenos Aires. French troops occupied almost all of Spain, King Ferdinand VII was Napoleon’s prisoner, and the governing junta in Seville that had appointed the viceroy had dissolved. Opponents of Viceroy Baltasar Hidalgo de Cisneros argued that since the lawful monarch could not rule, the right to appoint a temporary government returned to the inhabitants of the Spanish possessions. Cisneros wanted to keep his post and the former order of subordination.

On May twenty-first, French, his associate Antonio Beruti, and several hundred armed supporters occupied the square in front of the city council. They secured the convening of an open Cabildo—an expanded council meeting to which influential male property owners were invited. It was not a general vote: of the city’s entire population, only a few hundred selected people were granted the right to enter. Those left outside could influence the decision from here, from the square.

The meeting on May twenty-second voted to remove Cisneros. Two days later, the council tried to carry out the decision in a way that changed very little: it established a junta but kept Cisneros himself as its chairman and commander of the troops. Then French’s and Beruti’s people collected more than four hundred signatures beneath a demand to dissolve that junta. The document already contained the names of the new government. It was to be headed by Cornelio Saavedra, commander of the largest local Patricios Regiment, who had supported the removal of the viceroy.

On the morning of May twenty-fifth, the petition was brought to the city council. French and Beruti signed on behalf of six hundred militiamen assembled in front of the building. Without the support of the Patricios Regiment, Cisneros could not hold on: he resigned, and the council approved the First Junta—the First Junta—headed by Saavedra.

Independence had not yet been declared. The new government formally swore allegiance to the captive Ferdinand VII, but officials appointed from Spain no longer governed Buenos Aires. The junta sent troops to bring the provinces under its authority, a long war began, and only six years later did representatives of the provinces declare independence. French was given command of a revolutionary regiment. Less than a year later, victorious rivals stripped him of his post and exiled him to Patagonia; he returned and fought again in the army of the new government.

The events took place only in the western half of today’s square. In eighteen ten, Recova—a long commercial arcade with arches—ran across this space. The section between it and the city council was called Plaza de la Victoria; that was where French’s people stood. The eastern half lay beyond the market, closer to the fort.

For the first anniversary of the revolution, the brick May Pyramid was erected in Plaza de la Victoria. Its original core is still concealed inside the present monument. In eighteen eighty-four, Recova was demolished, the two squares were combined, and the entire space was given the name Plaza de Mayo—in memory of the events of May twenty-fifth. The pyramid was moved to its present center only in nineteen twelve. French’s people waited for the decision west of it, between the city council building and the line of the vanished commercial arches.