Falklands Wars – the History of the Falkland Islands: with particular regard to Spanish and Argentine pretensions and taking some account of South Georgia, the South Sandwich Islands and Britain's Antarctic Territories by Roger Lorton 1 Paper 52 1816 – 1829 Claims “An authority has been assumed incompatible with His Britannic Majesty’s rights of sovereignty over the Falkland Islands.” 3 ◈ With Spanish power weakening, this paper considers the separation of the Rio de la Plata colonies from that Empire and their first attempts at independence. Also early pretensions, particularly in the case of those territories that would, eventually, become Argentina. Buenos Aires was the major city then, as now. Here I consider its history vis-a-vis the archipelago based upon two events falling into this period; privateer David Jewett's belated claim on behalf of the defunct United Provinces of South America and the German Luis Vernet's business venture on East Falkland. Jewett's claim was obscure, not the least because he failed to report it to the government he supposedly claimed for. Vernet saw a commercial opportunity in the islands' wild cattle, the descendants of those left behind by the French. Harder to make money than he thought and so he turned his attention to the sealing industry, seeking a monopoly through administrative control. A colony of the United Provinces of the Rio de la Plata. In doing so he would rouse two giants, the USA and the UK. 4 1816 – March 24th, a congress meets in Tucumán to consider the future of the Rio de la Plata provinces. “The history of the Government of Buenos Aires between the years 1810 and 1833 is a confused one. The revolution against the mother-country, Spain, broke out in the Viceroyalty of La Plata in 1810; it was completed in 1816, but not until 1853 did the Argentine nation begin to inaugurate constitutional Presidents. The revolutionary junta set up in May 1810 was followed soon by the “Great Junta,” which in turn, in April 1811, suffered a purge, was soon dissolved, and gave place to the first Triumvirate. A second triumvirate was attempted in 1812, this being replaced in 1814 by a Directorate. The revolution of 1815 put an end to this...” 5 June 1st, in Madrid, Spain's Council of State meet. “The Minister of State reported on talks which had recently been held in Madrid with the Buenos Aires representative, Bernardo Rivadavia. Secret discussions had been in progress for some time ... Nothing was achieved and the talks ended with mutual hostility and recrimination.” 6 1 Falklands Wars – the History of the Falkland Islands: with particular regard to Spanish and Argentine pretensions and taking some account of South Georgia, the South Sandwich Islands and Britain's Antarctic Territories Roger Lorton LL.B(Hon), M.Phil. 2011 – 2019. Roger Lorton has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work. NB. These papers are about the disputes surrounding the Falklands. The full research can be found here – https://falklandstimeline.wordpress.com/ 2 Citation = Lorton, Roger. Falklands Wars: Timeline History of the Falkland Islands. Wordpress 2011 Paper 5 3 Parish to Guido November 19, 1829. See below 4 Copies of the charts referred to in this paper can be found at https://falklandstimeline.wordpress.com/charts/ Many of the images contain a hyperlink to a larger version. 5 Memorandum on the Falkland Islands 1947 in LCO 2/490 6 Response to Revolution: Imperial Spain and the Spanish American Revolutions, 1810-1840 Costeloe 1986 p.67 1 Sealers Indispensible and Norfolk sail for South Georgia. 7 July 9th, from the Congress of Tucumán comes a declaration of independence for the Rio de la Plata provinces. It is argued that the Viceroyalty’s union with Spain was broken on Ferdinand's abdication in 1808. However, not all the representatives are in agreement. 8 “We, the Representatives of the United Provinces of South America in General Congress assembled, invoking that Supreme Being, who presides over the universe, and in the name of and by the authority of the people we represent, asserting before heaven and all the nations of the earth the justice of our resolution, do hereby solemnly declare it to be the unanimous and indisputable determination of the people of these Provinces to break the bonds which have hitherto bound them to the Kings of Spain – to recover those natural rights of which they have been deprived, and to take upon themselves the character of Free Nation, independent of King Ferdinand the Seventh, of his successors, and of Spain,..” 9 “In consequence whereof, and impelled both by the conduct of Spaniards and their King, we have constituted ourselves independent, and prepared for our own natural defence and against the ravages of tyranny...” 10 “The declaration by Congress of that independence which they had for many years previously maintained in fact, was a measure of the highest importance, and has been productive of a unanimity and a decision before unknown. This summit of their wishes was only to be reached by slow and gradual progress.” 11 “It is well known to all the World that, by the Revolution which took place on the 25th of May 1810, and the Solemn Declaration of Independence on the 9th of July 1816, a political Community was constituted, in the jurisdiction of Buenos Ayres, under the name, style, and title of “The United Provinces of the Rio de la Plata”... This political Community could not exist without territory, as where there is no independence of territory there can be no sovereign state, and thus as the community acquired the right of treaties, and that of competency to negotiate with foreign powers, it also acquired the right of state property (jus in patrimonium republicae). The United 7 BSWF Databases – A. G. E. Jones; Dale Chatwin; and, Rhys Richards. 8 Those from Santa Fe, Entre Rios, Corrientes, Misiones and the Banda Oriental did not sign up to the declaration. 9 Declaration of the Independence of the United Provinces of South America quoted in Constitution of the United Provinces of South America, Framed, Sanctioned, and Ordered to be Published by the Sovereign and Constituent Congress on the 22 April 1819... 1819 10 Manifesto directed to all nations of the Earth, by the General Constituent Congress of the United Provinces of South America, respecting the treatment and cruelties they have experienced from the Spaniards, and which have given rise to the Declaration of their Independence, Buenos Ayres, October 25, 1816 11 Mr. Rodney to the Secretary of State Nov 5, 1818 in The Reports on the Present state of the United Provinces of South America Rodney C. A. & Graham J. 1819. See https://falklandstimeline.files.wordpress.com/2018/01/rodney-report- 1819.pdf 2 Provinces, consequently succeeded Spain in the rights which that nation, from whom they separated, had possessed in that jurisdiction. The Malvinas had always been a part of that country, or of that district, and, as such, they formed part of the dominion, or public property, of the new state ...” 12 “The people of each of the revolted Districts of the Spanish American Provinces established their own Independence and their own Right of self-government within the Territory which they had occupied, but nothing more. If these revolted Provinces had imagined that they acquired by their Revolt all the rights of Spain, besides determining among each other in what manner those Rights were to be apportioned among them, they must also by necessity have considered themselves bound by the obligations of Spain. But they neither acknowledged these obligations nor were called upon by other States to adopt them.” 13 “... the Argentine Government acquired and resumed itself all the rights that in its territory had and exercised Spanish power. Without dominion over the territory that served him a base, the independence of the new republic would have had no meaning. The Falkland Islands, which due to its geographical area had been part of the Viceroyalty of Buenos Aires, could not correspond after the war of independence, but to the new political community that had arisen in the same territory. All civilized peoples recognize that in such a case the force of things constitutes the right. Thus the Islands were under the authority of the Argentine Republic, and all Nations, including Spain, recognized this fact.” 14 “... the effective possession of part of a region, although it may be held to confer a right to the acquisition of the sovereignty of the whole of a region which constitutes a single organic whole, cannot confer a right to the acquisition of the whole region which, either owing to its size or to its physical configuration, cannot be deemed to be a single organic whole ...” 15 “The ancient Viceroyalty of Buenos Aires, dating its movement of emancipation, as also does Chile, from 1810, declared itself independent in 1816, under the name of the United Provinces of the Rio de la Plata; but the territory, to which it in whole or in part laid claim, came sooner or later to form the four independent states of Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Bolivia. … When the process of emancipation was complete, not a single boundary line had been actually agreed upon and defined, much less marked. Even where attempts were made to indicate them, the indications were insufficient or defective, owing to the want of precise geographical data. The earlier laws, decrees and orders of the former Spanish government, home and colonial, were for the same reason necessarily insufficient.” 16 12 Memoria and Protest to Viscount Palmerston June 17, 1833 Minister Manuel Moreno.