Martín Miguel de Güemes is part of the history of the Argentine Nation. From a very young age he chose a military career. After participating in the defense of Buenos Aires during the English Invasions, he joined the revolutionary and independence cause that began in 1810. Invoking the American cause of freedom, equality and fraternity, he added the gaucho militias to the ranks of the regular army, and won the wills of small producers, muleteers, artisans, mestizos, Indians and enslaved people. He was the first governor of Salta elected without the intervention of the authorities of Buenos Aires. He fought for a country larger than our current Argentina. He and his troops were in the period and in the effective space of the war for South American Independence. The Spanish harassment, and the conflicts over power and resources, converged in the ambush that brought him death. From that fatal event, the story of the military man and governor Martín Miguel de Güemes, and his gauchos, open up to the horizon of memory.
(*) “Declared Don Martín Miguel de Güemes a National Hero, the only Argentine general killed in war action on June 17, 1821, in the historic epic of the emancipation of the American continent.”
National Law N° 26.125/06
(**) “Incorporated as a National Holiday and a non-working day throughout the Nation, on June 17 of each year, in commemoration of the passage to the immortality of General Don Martín Miguel de Güemes.”
National Law n° 27.258/16