The northern and eastern parts of the viceroyalty showed themselves quite unwilling to obey these upstarts.

Meantime, urged on by radicals who revived the Jacobin doctrines of revolutionary France, the junta strove to suppress in rigorous fashion any symptoms of disaffection; but it could do nothing to stem the tide of separation in the rest of the viceroyalty--in Charcas (Bolivia), Paraguay, and the Banda Oriental, or East Bank, of the Uruguay.
At Buenos Aires acute difference of opinion--about the extent to which the movement should be carried and about the permanent form of government to be adopted as well as the method of establishing it--produced a series of political commotions little short of anarchy.
Triumvirates followed the junta into power; supreme directors alternated with triumvirates; and constituent assemblies came and went.

Under one authority or another the name of the viceroyalty was changed to "United Provinces of La Plata River"; a seal, a flag, and a coat of arms were chosen; and numerous features of the Spanish regime were abolished, including titles of nobility, the Inquisition, the slave trade, and restrictions on the press.

But so chaotic were the conditions within and so disastrous the campaigns without, that eventually commissioners were sent to Europe, bearing instructions to seek a king for the distracted country.
When Charcas fell under the control of the viceroy of Peru, Paraguay set up a regime for itself.

At Asuncion, the capital, a revolutionary outbreak in 1811 replaced the Spanish intendant by a triumvirate, of which the most prominent member was Dr.Jose Gaspar Rodriguez de Francia.