the rise of the argentine republic was a process that took place in the first half of the 19th century in south america. the republic has its origins in the viceroyalty of the río de la plata, a colony of the spanish empire. the king of spain appointed a viceroy to oversee the governance of the colony. the 1810 may revolution deposed the viceregal representative and, along with the argentine war of independence, started a process to replace the foreign monarchy with an indigenous republican state. all proposals to organize a local monarchy (as in the contemporary empire of brazil or the first mexican empire) failed, and no local monarch was ever crowned.