Historiography of the May Revolution
The last years of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th were marked in Argentina by a growing industrialization process and the arrival of huge numbers of European immigrants. Historiographical studies were increased by the ""New Historical school"", in order to forge a "national identity", and the May Revolution had great prominence. There were discussions about the level of influence that the many causes of the May Revolution actually had, or whose interventions were the most decisive, but two points shared by all historians were to consider the May Revolution as the birth of Argentina, and to consider it an inevitable consequence of the causes that led to it (meaning, the chance of the May Revolution never taking place is not considered a feasible possibility by historians). There was also a subtle change: the scope of the revolution as a subject of study originally "started" with the events of May 1810 in Buenos Aires and kept going on for decades. They were later split, and the name "May Revolution" made reference only to events that led to the removal of Cisneros and the creation of the Primera Junta. A new element added by those historians was to consider, either to support or reject the idea, whenever there was an active and strong popular support for the Revolution, instead of explaining it solely around the actions of a limited number of enlightened men. Nevertheless, they kept the previous approaches for the most part.
May Revolution
According to those historians, the Spanish revolution against absolutism got mixed up with the Peninsular War. When Ferdinand VII stood against his father Charles IV, who was seen as an absolutist king, many Spaniards got the mistaken impression that he sympathized with the new enlightened ideas. Thus, the revolutions made in the Americas in the name of Ferdinand VII (such as the May Revolution, the Chuquisaca Revolution, or the one in Chile) would have sought to replace absolutist power with power formulated under the new ideas. Even if Spain was at war with France, the ideals of the French Revolution (liberty, equality and fraternity) were still respected. Those revolutions pronounced themselves enemies of Napoleon, but did not face any active French military attack; they promoted instead fights between Spanish armies for keeping either the old or new order. This situation would change with the final defeat of Napoleon and the return of Ferdinand VII to the throne, as he began the Absolutist Restoration and persecuted the supporters of the new libertarian ideas within Spain. For people in South America, to stay as a part of the Spanish Empire, but with a new relationship with the mother country, was no longer a feasible option: the only remaining options at this point were to return to absolutism or to adopt independentism.