In a context of historiographic renovation and bicentennial celebrations in Latin Amer ica, th is research analyses t he characteristics, meanings and political uses of the concept of independence in the speeches of the press of Lima and Buenos Aires between the May Revolution in 1810 and the independence of the United Provinces of the Rio de la Plata in 1816. This analysis becomes a war of the words where the political legitimacy and the uses, mediations and mutations of the concept of independence responds to the vicissitudes of the theater of war itself and to the interests of the social and political actors that Par ticipate in it.