Salta Province Salta Province Salta () is a province of Argentina, located in the northwest of the country. Neighboring provinces are from the east clockwise Formosa, Chaco, Santiago del Estero, Tucumán and Catamarca. It also surrounds Jujuy. To the north it borders Bolivia and Paraguay and to the west lies Chile. Before the Spanish conquest, numerous native peoples (now called Diaguitas and Calchaquíes) lived in the valleys of what is now Salta Province; they formed many different tribes, the Quilmes and Humahuacas among them, which all shared the Cacán language. The Atacamas lived in the Puna, and the Wichís (Matacos), in the
Pact of San José de Flores in Buenos Aires (rather than in the capital, Paraná). The Buenos Aires government also enjoyed numerous alliances in the hinterland, including that of Santiago del Estero Province (led by Manuel Taboada), as well as among powerful Liberal Party governors in Salta, Corrientes, Tucumán and San Juan. The 1858 assassination of San Juan's Federalist governor, Nazario Benavídez, by Liberals inflamed tensions between the Confederation and the State of Buenos Aires. Relations deteriorated further with the signing of a free trade agreement between the Port of Rosario (the chief Confederate port) and the Port of Montevideo to the detriment of Buenos Aires.