The settlement's first businesses were established in 1700 and in 1749, recurrent attacks by displaced natives led to the construction of a fort. These attacks did not cease, however, and on 8 August 1751 the settlement was destroyed. The site continued to be of interest, and Commander Juan González ordered the village rebuilt on orders from the Buenos Aires colonial government in 1769. The Curate of nearby Arrecifes ordained a Parish in Pergamino in 1779 and the new Viceroyalty of Río de la Plata assigned the area a "partido" (county) in 1784. The fort played a prominent role during the initial battles in the war for independence and, in 1815, was the site of a mutiny led by Col. Ignacio Álvarez Thomas against the fledgling nation's Head of State, Director Carlos María de Alvear. Col. Álvarez Thomas' coup d'état against Director de Alvear's brief though highly divisive autocracy averted the dissolution of the United Provinces of the River Plate, the confederacy that later became Argentina.