page_title: Federalization of Buenos Aires
section_title: Federalization by arms
hierarchical_section_title: Federalization of Buenos Aires / History / Federalization by arms
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Combat du 20 juin. — Défense du pont de Barrancas par la garde nationale de Buénos-Ayres. (N.B.: la forme correcte est Barracas.)
context_page_description: Federalization, in Argentine law, is the process of assigning federal status to a territory with the purpose of making that territory the national capital.
  Federalization of Buenos Aires politically separated the city from the Buenos Aires Province to put it under direct control of the national government. It was a constant aspiration of the other provinces of Argentina since the formation of the national state. However, harsh political debates around the issue prevented federalization until 1880, more than sixty years later.
context_section_description: When Avellaneda's government announced the legislation of the federalization of Buenos Aires city, Governor Tejedor ordered military mobilizations and the formation of militias to train citizens in the use of arms. The National Congress sanctioned a law that prohibited the provinces military mobilizations without federal permission, but Buenos Aires ignored, and when the federal government ordered the confiscation of a boat loaded with arms for the militias, colonel José Inocencio Arias prevented the maneuver, following Tejedor's orders.
  In response to this belligerent attitude, Avellaneda arranged to temporarily move the Federal Government to the town of Belgrano, by that time outside the city of Buenos Aires (the town was incorporated later, in 1888, to the Federal District, becoming a neighborhood of Buenos Aires city). The Senate, Supreme Court and part of the Lower Chamber moved there before the national army, commanded by Roca, sieged Buenos Aires.
  The armed confrontation was bloody, after the battles of Puente Alsina, Los Corrales and San José de Flores, Tejedor's troops left in defeat.
  Though Mitre gave support to the insurrection, he served as mediator during the signature of an agreement for the disarming of the militias and Tejedor's resignation.
  The congress, from its provisional location in Belgrano, in a building currently serving as home to the Museo Histórico Sarmiento, dissolved the legislature of Buenos Aires.
  On August 24, 1880 Avellaneda presented a law proposal to declare Buenos Aires city the capital of the republic, under direct control of the federal government; on September 21 the law was approved. With the ratification of the city's legislature days later, the city of Buenos Aires was finally separated from its homonymous province, whose capital would be moved in 1884 to the city of La Plata, built to serve that purpose.
caption: Combat of June 20: Barrancas Bridge's defence by the National Guard of Buenos Ayres.
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