Welcome Avatar! In Argentina, Freemasonry dates back to the time of the country’s independence, and continues to the present. Multiple Presidents and high ranking officials were Freemasons, and Argentina’s architecture and urban planning showcase many references to this movement.
The main lodge in Buenos Aires
Britannic describes Freemasonry as follows:
“Freemasonry, the teachings and practices of the fraternal (men-only) order of Free and Accepted Masons, the largest worldwide secret society—an oath-bound society, often devoted to fellowship, moral discipline, and mutual assistance, that conceals at least some of its rituals, customs, or activities from the public (secret societies do not necessarily conceal their membership or existence).”
However, that “secrecy” around the Freemasonry in general, and specifically in Latin America, was mainly driven out of a fear of being persecuted (or tortured to death) after being accused of heresy.
The square and the compass, characteristic symbols of Freemasonry, which through different lodges, had an active participation in the independence movements in the Americas (George Washington was also a Freemason, for example).
Since people from any religion could become a Freemason as long as they believed in one God as the higher entity, you can imagine the Catholic Church did not like this part one bit.
Pope Clement XII accused the Masons of heresy and many Freemasons were persecuted after that. This is the main reason the Masons began to act in secrecy and their members started using coded words and symbols to recognize each other without it being too obvious.
This is what makes documenting the existence of the first lodges based on concrete evidence a bit challenging.
The Masonic brotherhood in Buenos Aires dates back to the end of the 18th century, thanks to the dissemination of the lodges in the region by travelers, merchants, soldiers, and intellectuals from England and Spain, France and Portugal.
From that moment on, the first known lodge in Argentine territory was the Logia Independencia (Independence Lodge), with authorization granted in 1795 by the Scottish General Grand Lodge of France.
José de San Martín, the liberator of most countries in the Southern Cone, was the creator of the Lautaro Lodge.
With the approval of the Act of Independence, San Martín demanded that the congressmen had to swear by the two objectives of the Lodge: Independence and republic, to make it clear that the nascent country had a precise direction. It would set the tone for many future politicians and influential people in Argentina.
San Martin was a Freemason
Although there are a dozen lodges that operated during the colonial era and the start of the Republic, on December 11, 1857, the Grand Lodge of Argentina was created. Its first headquarters were located at the place where the Banco Nación building can be found today, in front of Plaza de Mayo. At that time this was the location of the first Teatro Colón, before it moved to the Avenida 9 de Julio.
Mid-19th century there was a total of seven Masonic lodges in the country, with more lodges being created over time.
The main lodge in Argentina is located on Perón 1242 in Buenos Aires, called the Gran Logia de la Argentina de Libres y Aceptados Masones:
As you can see by the title on the front of the main lodge in Argentina, this is not exactly a “secret society” — you can visit the website here.
In the 19th century, when the country was being formed, Freemasonry participated in all the processes: in Independence, emancipation, the Constitution, and in the union of the country.
In 1884, President Julio Argentino Roca, promulgated the law 1420 of common, secular, free and compulsory education, which is an event celebrated each year by Freemasonry in Argentina. Domingo Sarmiento, a 33rd degree Mason and President before Roca, was the one who laid the basis for this law.
Plaque at Domingo Sarmiento’s grave, from the Freemason Lodge
All Argentina’s presidents from 1862 to 1930 – with the exception of Nicolás Avellaneda, Julio Argentino Roca and Luis Sáenz Peña – were declared Freemasons.
From the start of the 20th century, Freemason symbols and references really start to show up more and more in the urban landscape in Argentina.
During and after the economic boom during the Roca presidencies around the turn of the century, many buildings were imported in their entirety from France and assembled in Buenos Aires and other cities across the country.
The new found wealth from agricultural and resource exports to Europe and the United States gave way for the incorporation of more embellished buildings, and references to Freemasonry.
Buenos Aires has four of its most important buildings that form an exact triangle. When the capital of Argentina was federalized in 1880, an urban plan was drawn up that was put together by the first municipal mayor Torcuato de Alvear.
The plan included an imaginary line that joined the Center of the Plaza de Mayo — which has a Pyramid that is actually an obelisk — with the center of the Plaza de los Dos Congresos (the fountain). These ends were connected with other straight lines with the center of the Plaza Lavalle in front of the Judiciary, making up a perfect triangle of unequal sides.
One of the best examples of this trend in Buenos Aires is the Avenida 9 de Julio in Buenos Aires, the widest avenue in the world, centered around another Masonic symbol: the Obelisk.
Different demolition phases and construction of the Obelisk
The church of San Nicolás de Bari was demolished in 1936 to create the Obelisk, and the whole avenue used to be comprised of existing buildings and houses on two streets, that were later demolished to create the Avenida.
In 1933 the first 20 blocks were demolished, and it took 3 months to demolish each block. First leg of the Avenida was inaugurated in 1937, but it took many more decades to completely finish it (mid 1990s):
The central axis of Buenos Aires, centered around a typical Freemason symbol of the Obelisk
Another classic example is the city layout of La Plata, which clearly shows the square and the compass in the main arteries:
La Plata: the poster child of Freemason urban planning
La Plata is the second most important city at a Masonic level in Argentina thanks to the number of immigrants who arrived to work in the construction of an entire administrative city from the ground up in 1882. This documentary goes into the construction of the city and the link to Freemasonry.
There is a total of around 300 Masonic lodges in Argentina, which are made up of about 12 thousand members of which just over half are active.
These lodges meet weekly to debate different topics and reach conclusions that are usually published in internal or public publications, and in the meetings the disposition of the participants is determined by the degree of seniority that each one has as a member of the Great Lodge.
According to its members, Freemasonry is not against any religion, but it confronts dogmas in search of the truth. While a Mason can say that he is one, he is not allowed to say that someone else is also a member.
Autist Note: This is why we will never know for sure if Perón was a Freemason or not (some state he initiated in Madrid during his exile (1955-1973), other sources state that he became a Freemason in Chile in 1936, right before his rise to political power.
Juan Domingo Perón, together with Licio Gelli, grand master of the Propaganda Due Lodge in 1973
In most countries, secrecy around Freemasonry returned during more recent dictatorships. According to internal accounts, Hitler persecuted the German lodges with genocidal directives. Before World War II, there were 68,000 Freemasons in Germany; After Nazism, barely 5,000 survived.
In France there were 30,000, of which only 8,000 survived. And for having supported the Republic, in the Spanish Civil War Franco persecuted and imprisoned the minor initiates and executed the masters. He even expropriated their houses. Franco's persecution was such that, while Franco was in power, the grandchildren of Freemasons could not enter university.
A wall in the Buenos Aires lodge dedicated to Salvador Allende.
However the secrecy depends on who is running the dictatorship. In Chile, for example, Salvador Allende —who was a Freemason—, was ousted by another Freemason: Augusto Pinochet (although he eventually lost his membership because he didn’t pay his membership fees).
In Argentina, most of the Masonic lodges shut down completely during the last military dictatorship (1976-1983), and missing persons were registered from different Masonic lodges. The return of democracy in 1983 awakened the idea of acting in society once again.
Freemasonry in Argentina is not going away any time soon, and there is hardly any secrecy around its existence or memberships in that regard. You can schedule a visit to the main lodge online. Lodges in other cities also allow scheduled visits, and
You can find hints and symbols everywhere in society, and from the country’s Independence movement up to the current day, these symbols have accompanied Argentina’s growth (and decline).
During the runoffs between Massa and Milei, Gran Maestre and Freemason leader Pablo Lazaro indicated that both sides of the debate had Freemasons under their wings.
Let’s hope the upcoming decades these symbols can once again be part of a more prosperous Argentina.
See you in the Jungle, anon!
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