Its dominant position was not achieved, however, without years of contention with other centers of industry in the country. During the three hundred years of Spain’s stifling economic policies in this, once the agricultural unit of her golden empire, Argentina made small progress. The settlements founded in Santiago (1553), in Tucumán (1565), and in Córdoba and Santa Fé (1573), by the immigration of Spaniards from Peru, Chile, and the early settlement of Buenos Aires, all led an isolated and neglected existence during the colonial period up to the year 1776, when Spain, awakened from her dream of endless mineral riches in South America to a realization of the importance of the fertile country of La Plata, and erected it into a separate viceroyalty, independent of the Viceroyalty of Peru. The viceroys, freed from the poisoning influence of Andean gold lust, did much to develop a sense of nationalism among the scattered agricultural centers. With the growth of this nationalism, the protests against Spain’s repression increased until 1810, when the people asserted their right to an unrestricted, independent national life. May twenty-fifth of that year is their Fourth of July, and is perpetuated to-day in the name of the superb Avenida de Mayo in their capital city. During the formative period that followed, Argentine politics revolved chiefly about the question of Unitarianism or Federalism—whether the rich and progressive province at the gateway of the nation (Buenos Aires) should form a separate unit of government, or remain part of a confederation and be accorded the leading rôle in national affairs that its importance merited. In 1862 federalism prevailed and the integrity of the Argentine Republic was assured, under the presidency of General Mitré. The capital was later removed from Santa Fé to Buenos Aires and the latter city erected into a federal district (of some seventy square miles) somewhat similar to our own District of Columbia. The capital of the Province of Buenos Aires, however, is La Plata, a few miles distant from the national capital, on the shores of the great river.