The Primera Junta was headed by Saavedra, who believed in sharing power with the provinces over the territory of the viceroyalty and insisted on proclaiming a token loyalty to the Spanish Crown. The other members of the Junta, which included Manuel Belgrano and Mariano Moreno, were less moderate free-trade enthusiasts, intent on bringing the rest of the territory under the control of Buenos Aires. Moreno's views came to represent what was to be the position of the unitarists (known as Azules  - "Blues") who favoured centralism; while Saavedra's contained the first seeds of the ideas of later Federalists (the Colorados or Rojos - "Reds"), promoting the autonomy of the provinces within the framework of a loose confederation. This dispute was to dominate Argentine politics of the nineteenth century, causing bitter division and repeated civil war, and the tension between the provinces and Buenos Aires is still a feature of life in Argentina today.

While the Junta's internal disputes prevented unity in the capital, the May Revolution also failed to mark a clean break from the motherland. Royalists under the leadership of Alzaga continued to militate within Buenos Aires for the return of a Spanish Viceroyalty