Overview
- Popular protests, Cabildo meetings and pressure from activist groups culminated on May 25, 1810, when local leaders removed Viceroy Baltasar Hidalgo de Cisneros and established the Primera Junta as the first autonomous government.
- The collapse of metropolitan legitimacy followed Napoleon's 1808 invasion of Spain and King Ferdinand VII's forced abdication, which left colonial authorities without a clear source of authority.
- Longstanding criollo grievances over restricted trade and exclusion from high offices helped mobilize elites and merchants who backed the move toward self-rule.
- The British invasions of 1806–07 strengthened local militias and political leaders, and popular groups such as Los Chisperos pressured cabildantes in the plaza to demand change.
- Commemorations on the 216th anniversary stress the May events as the start of a multi-year independence process that culminated in 1816 and later constitutional consolidation, and call for applying the founders' ideas of publicity, equality and civic participation to modern life.