Juan Bautista Alberdi was an Argentine political theorist and diplomat

Diplomacy

Diplomacy is the art and practice of conducting negotiations between representatives of groups or states...

. Although he lived most of his life in exile

Exile

Exile means to be away from one's home , while either being explicitly refused permission to return and/or being threatened with imprisonment or death upon return...

 in Montevideo

Montevideo

Montevideo is the largest city, the capital, and the chief port of Uruguay. The settlement was established in 1726 by Bruno Mauricio de Zabala, as a strategic move amidst a Spanish-Portuguese dispute over the platine region, and as a counter to the Portuguese colony at Colonia del Sacramento...

 and Chile

Chile

Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...

, he was one of the most influential Argentine liberals of his age.
Juan Bautista Alberdi was born in San Miguel de Tucumán, capital city of the province

Provinces of Argentina

Argentina is subdivided into twenty-three provinces and one autonomous city...

 of Tucumán

Tucumán Province

Tucumán is the most densely populated, and the smallest by land area, of the provinces of Argentina. Located in the northwest of the country, the capital is San Miguel de Tucumán, often shortened to Tucumán. Neighboring provinces are, clockwise from the north: Salta, Santiago del Estero and...

, Argentina

Argentina

Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...

, in the year of the May Revolution

May Revolution

The May Revolution was a week-long series of events that took place from May 18 to 25, 1810, in Buenos Aires, capital of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata, a Spanish colony that included roughly the territories of present-day Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay...

, the beginning of Argentine emancipation from the motherland, Spain. His father, Salvador Alberdi, was a Spanish merchant; his mother, Josefa Aráoz y Balderrama, had been born into an Argentine family of Spanish descent.