‘A Luminous Constellation Pointing the Way? The connectivity of Rioplatense & US union and state-formation, 1815-1820.’

'A Luminous Constellation Pointing the Way?' aims to make sense of the connections between the United States and the River Plate between 1815-1820. Based on a connective and comparative approach, the thesis arrives at a different understanding of the United States in a hemispheric perspective. The picture that emerges is of the United States as a weak and vulnerable power struggling against the effects of its post-colonial inheritance. Both out of necessity, because of the United States' weakness, and out of hemispheric solidarity, US Americans sought out allies and enthusiastically embraced Spanish American independence. Rioplatense Americanos reciprocated in their enthusiasm for the United States, and sought to adapt information on the US Federal model to their own local circumstances. A sense of shared American identity and the similarity of North & South American post-colonial inheritances meant information shared between the hemisphere was particularly useful and readily susceptible to local adaptation. These similarities meant that policy solutions for maintaining independence from Buenos Aires to Baltimore had a shared base, but diverged according to each places own circumstances creating local responses to hemispheric problems. US legislators sought to retool their economy in order to realize an 'American System' that would increase the power of the Americas against Europe and integrate the US into Spanish America, an area US Americans considered more promising than their own country.