| Summary: | The city of Buenos Aires was the stage of a very active political life along the 19th century, characterized by a remarkable popular presence. This article explores its main features through the century: how some practices which were going to become common and repeated appeared, and how others were modified. First, the practices of popular participation emerged by the end of the colonial period and in the revolutionary process of 1810-1820 are reviewed: involving in factional struggles led by the elite, attending political celebrations in the streets, making mutinies with popular direction, creating an enemy –the Peninsular– and adhering to republicanism. Then the remain of these practices in the following decades is approached, analyzing the making of a popular adhesion to Federalism, and how it managed to express politically some social tensions, canalizing plebeian egalitarianism. The third part describes the features of a new cycle of popular political participation that goes from 1852 to 1890, in which the weight of such participation was minor but still important. Finally, some similarities and differences between this cycle and the previous one (1806-1842) are analyzed, taking the leadership forms as an example.
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