, the father of the Argentine homeland. Before the arrival of the Spanish conquest, the
Kaingang,
Charrua and
Guaraní lived in a big area that also covered most of the current province of Corrientes. The city of Corrientes was founded on 3 April 1588 by
Juan Torres de Vera y Aragón as a mid-stop between
Asunción and
Buenos Aires; the city flourished thanks to the traffic from the route.
Jesuits erected
missions in the north of the province, where they dedicated themselves to the expansion of the faith. In the wars of independence from Spain, Corrientes joined
Artigas'
Liga de los Pueblos Libres (1814–1820). The attack of Paraguayan forces on the province in 1865 marked the start of the
War of the Triple Alliance. In 1919 the
National University of the Littoral was founded, which in 1956 became the
National University of the Northeast. Corrientes is legendary in the world of
philately for the postage stamps it issued from 1856 to 1880. These are among the very early or "classic" postage stamps of the world (the
first, from Great Britain, were issued in 1840;
those by the United States in 1847). The Corrientes stamps were close copies of the
first issue of stamps from France, which depicted the profile head of
Ceres, the Roman goddess of agriculture, and were individually crudely engraved by hand, so that each
die is noticeably different, and were printed in small sheets. The first issues, from 1856 to 1860, bore the denomination in the lower panel; in 1860, the value panel was erased; the different denominations thereafter being indicated by the color of the paper used. As locally produced "
primitives", the early Corrientes stamps have long been prized by collectors. After 1880,
stamps of Argentina were used. For much of the 19th and 20th centuries, politics in Corrientes were dominated by the Romero Feris family, prominent local landowners who still control most of the province's
tobacco output. During most of this time, the Romero Ferises created one of Argentina's most bloated government payrolls (over 10% of total employment) and suppressed dissent and efforts at even modest land reform. Following contentious election results in 1991, however, public protest forced President
Carlos Menem to remove Governor Raúl "Tato" Romero Feris from office and, though he was elected mayor of the province's capital in 1997, Romero Feris was ultimately indicted for embezzlement of public funds in 1999. He was sentenced to seven years in prison in May 2002. Corrientes had a significant impact in national politics in subsequent years. A
UCR-led alliance defeated the Romero Feris machine in the 2001 governor's race, but the Corrientes UCR's continued support for President
Néstor Kirchner led to a rebuke from the national committee of the UCR itself, and this triggered a revolt from the Corrientes chapter of the party, as well as a number of others' (notably in
Mendoza Province). These differences led to the appearance that year of
"K" RadicalsUCR governors and other lawmakers allied to President Kirchner. . The northeastern tip of Corrientes Province was chosen as the site for
Yacyretá Dam following an agreement between President
Juan Perón and Paraguayan President
Alfredo Stroessner in 1974. Yacyretá, whose 20-year-long construction and US$11 billion cost far exceeded initial estimates, is one of the largest
hydroelectric dams in the world. Currently, an agreement is being pursued with
Paraguay which would allow reservoir expansion works that could double the facility's current installed electric capacity of 4,050 MW. ==Culture==