Argentine People of European Descent - History - Colonial and Post-independence Period

Colonial and Post-independence Period

The presence of European people in the Argentine territory began in 1516, when Spanish Conquistador Juan Díaz de Solís explored the Río de la Plata. In 1527, Sebastian Cabot founded the fort of Sancti Spiritus, near Coronda, Santa Fe; this was the first Spanish settlement on Argentine soil. The process of Spanish occupation continued with expeditions coming from Upper Peru (present-day Bolivia), that founded Santiago del Estero in 1553, San Miguel de Tucumán in 1565 and Córdoba in 1573, and from Chile, which founded Mendoza in 1561 and San Juan in 1562. Other Spanish expeditions founded the cities of Santa Fe (1573), Buenos Aires (1580), and Corrientes (1588).

It was not until the creation of the Viceroyalty of Río de la Plata in 1776, that the first censuses with classification into castas were conducted. The 1778 Census ordered by viceroy Juan José de Vértiz in Buenos Aires revealed that, of a total population of 37,130 inhabitants, the Spaniards and Criollos numbered 25,451, or 68.55% of the total. Another census carried out in the Corregimiento de Cuyo in 1777 showed that the Spaniards and Criollos numbered 4,491 (or 51.24%) out of a population of 8,765 inhabitants. In Córdoba (city and countryside) the Spanish/Criollo people comprised 39.36% (about 14,170) of 36,000 inhabitants.

According to data from the Argentine government in 1810, about 6,000 Spanish lived in the territory of the United Provinces of Río de la Plata Spanish, of a total population of around 700,000 inhabitants. This small number indicates that the presence of people with European ancestors was very small, and a large number of Criollos were mixed with indigenous and African mothers, although the fact was often hidden; in this regard, for example, according to researcher José Ignacio García Hamilton the Liberator, José de San Martín, would be mestizo.

Nevertheless, these censuses were generally restricted to the cities and the surrounding rural areas, so little is known about the racial composition of large areas of the Viceroyalty, though it is supposed that Spaniards and Criollos were always a minority, with the other castas comprising the majority. It is worth noting that, since a person who was classified as Peninsular or Criollo had access to more privileges in the colonial society, many Castizos (resulting from the union of a Spanish and a mestizo) purchased their limpieza de sangre ("purity of blood").

Although being a minority in demographics terms, the Criollo people played a leading role in the May Revolution of 1810, as well as in the independence of Argentina from the Spanish Empire in 1816. Argentine national heroes such as Manuel Belgrano and Juan Martín de Pueyrredón, military men as Cornelio Saavedra and Carlos María de Alvear, and politicians as Juan José Paso and Mariano Moreno were mostly Criollos of Spanish, Italian or French descent. The Second Triumvirate and the 1813 assembly enacted laws encouraging immigration, and instituted advertising campaigns and contract work programs among prospective immigrants in Europe.

The Minister of Government of Buenos Aires Province, Bernardino Rivadavia, established the Immigration Commission in 1824. He appointed Ventura Arzac to conduct a new Census in the city, and it showed these results: the city had 55,416 inhabitants, of which 40,000 were of European descent (about 72.2%); of this total of Whites, a 90% were Criollos, a 5% were Spaniards, and the other 5% were from other European nations.

After the wars for independence, a long period of internal struggle followed. During the period between 1826 and 1852, some Europeans settled in the country as well -sometimes hired by the local governments. Notable among them, Savoyan litographer Charles Pellegrini (President Carlos Pellegrini's father) and his wife Maria Bevans, Neapolitan journalist Pedro de Angelis, and German physician/zoologist Hermann Burmeister. Because of this long conflict, there were neither economic resources nor political stability to carry out any census until the 1850s, when some provincial censuses were organized. These censuses did not continue the classification into castas typical of the pre-independence period.

The administration of Governor Juan Manuel de Rosas, who had been given the sum of public power by other governors in the Argentine Confederation, maintained Rivadavia' Immigration Commission, which continued to advertise Agricultural colonies in Argentina among prospective European immigrants. Following Rosas' overthrow by Entre Ríos Province Governor Justo José de Urquiza, jurist and legal scholar Juan Bautista Alberdi was commissioned to prepare a draft for a new Constitution. His outline, Bases and Starting Points for the Political Organization of the Argentine Republic, called the Federal Government to "promote European immigration," and this policy would be included as Article 25 of the Argentine Constitution of 1853.

The first post-independence census conducted in Buenos Aires took place in 1855; it showed that there were 26,149 European inhabitants in the city. Among the nationals there is no distinction of race, but it does distinguish literates from illiterates; at that time formal education was a privilege almost exclusive for the upper sectors of society, who were predominantly of European descent. Including European residents and the 21,253 Argentine literates, around 47,402 people of mainly European descent resided in Buenos Aires in 1855; they would have comprised about 51.6% of a total population of 91,895 inhabitants.