Militias and national borders in the formation of Argentina's national State. The National Guard of Buenos Aires (1852-1880)

Abstract

The article discusses the National Guards rules between 1852 and 1880, in order to explore the complexity of their evolution, according to factional conflicts about the national political project and the ocuppation of indigenous territories. Without the capacity to monopolize coercive power, the national government depended on the local goverments military deployments. Thus the National Guard was established with peasants forced to do military exercises and ready to go to every call, under the penality of being sent to the border army. This happened during the gradual supremacy of the national state in social and political integration and that meant for one hand the replacement of the local frameworks as the hub of social relations and for other hand the National Guard subordination. The main documents used were the military laws and decrees between 1852 and 1880, the diaries of the national Congress sessions between 1862 and 1874, and the reports of the War and Marine department between 1868 and 1881.