The Federal League (Spanish: Liga Federal), also known as the League of the Free Peoples (Liga de los Pueblos Libres), was a short lived confederation of provinces located in South America. From 1815 to 1820 it tried to establish a confederal organization for the State that was emerging from the May Revolution in the war of independence against the Spanish Empire in part of what is now Uruguay, Argentina and Brazil.
Founded and led by José Gervasio Artigas, it proclaimed independence from the Spanish Crown in 1815 and sent provincial delegates to the Congress of Tucumán with instructions regarding the nonnegotiable objective of declaring full independence for the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata and establishing a confederation of provinces, all of them on equal footing and the government of each being directly accountable to its peoples by direct democratic means of government. The delegates from these provinces were rejected on formalities from the Congress that declared the independence of the United Provinces of South America on July 9, 1816.
