The Inca plan was a proposal formulated in 1816 by Manuel Belgrano to the Congress of Tucumán, aiming to crown an Inca. After the Declaration of Independence of the United Provinces of South America (modern Argentina), the Congress discussed the form of government that should be used. Belgrano proposed that the country be ruled by a Constitutional monarchy headed by an ethnic Inca. The proposal was supported by José de San Martín, Martín Miguel de Güemes and the northern provinces, but found strong resistance from Buenos Aires. The Congress would ultimately reject it, creating instead a Republican government. Context The king Ferdinand VII of Spain was overthrown by French armies during the Peninsular War. The Spanish overseas colonies, like the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata, found themselves with a power vacuum. At the same time, the ideas of the Age of Enlightenment and the French Revolution were spreading, and as the captive king had overthrown his absolutist father Charles IV shortly before, it was thought that he shared the new ideas. This led to many riots and rebellions, and the Viceroyalty engaged in the Argentine War of Independence. However, Ferdinand VII was restored in the throne of Spain in 1816, and started the Absolutist Restauration. The patriots, who were so far fighting to replace the absolutist form of government with one closer to the new ideas, became fully Independentist by this point. Contemporary to the War of Independence, the Argentine Civil War confronted Buenos Aires with provincial caudillos. Buenos Aires had been the capital of the viceroyalty and intended to keep exerting that power, but in the lack of a king and its vertical authority, the provinces felt themselves equally capable to rule themselves. Caudillos manifested the strong anti-Buenos Aires sentiment present at many provinces. The Inca Empire had been conquered by the Spanish centuries ago, and the last Sapa Inca, Atahualpa, was executed in 1533. Nevertheless, the Incan heritage was still strong among the indigenous populations of the Upper Peru and Inca nobility was not extinct. Development After the return of Ferdinand VII to the Spanish throne, Manuel Belgrano and Bernardino Rivadavia were sent to Europe in a diplomatic mission, seeking support for the local governments. They couldn't get it, but Belgrano realized that, unlike previous years, the republican form of government was not highly esteemed, and monarchies were preferred again. He also pointed out that the