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Coded letters and anti-Urquiza networks in northern Argentina. 1852-1861

Abstract

The years 1852-1861 were the subject of a recent renewal in Argentine historiography, given the particularity of the existence of two opposing state units, an aspect which has allowed the question of political alternatives and the ups and downs of national organization to be revisited, questioning teleological or linear views. This ten-year time span, which includes the enactment of the National Constitution, but is framed within a scenario of conflict between the 14 provincial units, has been little analyzed from the Northern provinces. This character of fragile statehoods in conflict is further fragmented if we look at the interior of the provinces and some of their ruling elites. Not always at ease within the Confederation and the figure of José de Urquiza, secretly sending letters to each other and Buenos Aires, the  provinces  close  to  the  northern  border  with  Bolivia  had  their  own  responses,  which  included compound doses of simultaneous links with Entre Ríos and Buenos Aires.From the north of an Argentina under construction, the possibilities of combining links with  Paraná  and  the  Atlantic  port  gave  the  region  a  complexity  that  we  will  analyze  through the potential of the Anselmo Rojo Archive, with more than 5,000 documents that point to disjunctions in the elite of provinces such as Tucumán, Santiago, Salta and Jujuy. We  will  analyze  in  particular  some  50  epistles  that  stand  out  for  containing  a  cipher,  an alphanumeric writing, designed to safeguard information among a restricted circle of actors. In a time of changing alternatives, we will observe how this elite took advantage of the open nature of politics between Caseros and Pavón to generate a combined game, which can be interpreted when the difficulties of the cipher and the political ambiguities derived from that particular conjuncture are overcome.

ARK CAICYT: https://id.caicyt.gov.ar/ark:/s16688090/pivwmrr6w