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. 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 lithographer
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.
Great wave of immigration from Europe (1857–1940) In February 1856, the municipal government of
Baradero granted lands for the settlement of ten Swiss families in an agricultural colony near that town. Later that year, another colony was founded by Swiss immigrants in
Esperanza,
Santa Fe. These provincial initiatives remained isolated cases until differences between the
Argentine Confederation and the
State of Buenos Aires were resolved with the
Battle of Pavón in 1861, and a strong central government could be established. Presidents
Bartolomé Mitre (the victor at Pavón),
Domingo Sarmiento and
Nicolás Avellaneda implemented policies that encouraged massive European immigration. These were formalized with the 1876
Congressional approval of Law 817 of Immigration and Colonization, signed by President Avellaneda. During the following decades, and until the mid-20th century, waves of European settlers came to Argentina. Major contributors included Italy (initially from
Piedmont, Veneto and
Lombardy, later from
Campania, Calabria, and
Sicily), and Spain (most were
Galicians and
Basques, but there were
Asturians). Smaller but significant numbers of immigrants include those from France,
Poland,
Russia,
Germany,
Austria,
Hungary,
Croatia, England, Scotland, Ireland,
Switzerland,
Belgium,
Denmark, and others. Europeans from the former
Ottoman Empire were mainly
Greek. The majority of Argentina's
Jewish community descend from immigrants of
Ashkenazi Jewish origin. ;This migratory influx had mainly two effects on Argentina's demography: 1) The exponential growth of the country's population. In the first National Census of 1869 the Argentine population was just 1,877,490 inhabitants, in 1895 it had doubled to 4,044,911, in 1914 it had reached 7,903,662, and by 1947 it had doubled again to 15,893,811. It is estimated that by 1920, more than 50% of the residents in Buenos Aires had been born abroad. According to Zulma Recchini de Lattes' estimate, if this great immigratory wave from Europe and the Middle East had not happened, Argentina's population by 1960 would have been less than 8 million, while the national census carried out that year revealed a population of 20,013,793 inhabitants. Argentina received a total of 6,611,000 European and Middle-Eastern immigrants during the period 1857–1940; 2,970,000 were Italians (44.9%), 2,080,000 were Spaniards (31.5%), and the remaining 23.6% was composed of French, Poles, Russians, Germans, Austro-Hungarians, British, Portuguese, Swiss, Belgians, Danes, Dutch, Swedes, etc. Among the remaining 20% (those descended from the population residing locally before this immigrant wave took shape), around a fifth were of mainly European descent. Put down to numbers, this means that about 84%, or 6,300,000 people (out of a total population of 7,903,662), residing in Argentina were of European descent.
Origin of the immigrants between 1857 and 1920 Notes: :(1) This figure includes
Russians,
Ukrainians,
Volga Germans,
Belarusians,
Poles,
Lithuanians, etc. that entered Argentina with passport of the
Russian Empire. :(2) This figure includes all the peoples that lived within the boundaries of the
Austro-Hungarian Empire between 1867 and 1918:
Austrians,
Hungarians,
Czechs,
Slovaks,
Slovenians,
Croatians,
Bosniaks,
Ruthenians and people from the regions of
Vojvodina in Serbia,
Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol and
Trieste in Italy,
Transylvania in Romania, and
Galicia in Poland. :(3) The United Kingdom included Ireland until 1922; that is why most of the British immigrants -nicknamed "
ingleses"- were in fact Irish,
Welsh and Scottish. :(4) Around 0.5% of Luxembourg's total population emigrated to Argentina during the 1880s.
Source:
Dirección Nacional de Migraciones: Infografías., that information was modified – figures there are by nationality, not by country.
Origin of the immigrants between 1857 and 1940 Source: National Migration, 1970.
Second wave of immigration During and after the Second World War, many Europeans fled to Argentina, escaping the hunger and poverty of the post-war period. According to the National Bureau of Migrations, during the period 1941–1950 at least 392,603 Europeans entered the country: 252,045 Italians, 110,899 Spaniards, 16,784 Poles, 7,373 Russians and 5,538 French. Among the notable Italian immigrants in that period were protest singer
Piero De Benedictis (emigrated with his parents in 1948), actors
Rodolfo Ranni (emigrated in 1947) and
Gianni Lunadei (1950), publisher
César Civita (1941), businessman
Francisco Macri (1949), lawmaker
Pablo Verani (1947), and rock musician
Kay Galiffi (1950). Argentina also received thousands of
Germans, including the humanitarian businessman
Oskar Schindler and his wife, hundreds of
Ashkenazi Jews, and hundreds of
Nazi war criminals. Notorious beneficiaries of
ratlines included
Adolf Eichmann,
Josef Mengele,
Erich Priebke,
Rodolfo Freude (who became the first director of
Argentine State Intelligence), and the
Ustaše Head of State of Croatia,
Ante Pavelić. It is still matter of debate whether the Argentine government of President
Juan Perón was aware of the presence of these criminals on Argentine soil or not; but the consequence was that Argentina was considered a Nazi haven for several decades. The flow of European immigration continued during the 1950s and afterward; but compared to the previous decade, it diminished considerably. though other estimates vary between 13,000 and 30,000 dead.
Recent trends The principal source of immigration into Argentina after 1960 was no longer from Europe, but rather from bordering South American countries. During the period in between the Censuses of 1895 and 1914, immigrants from Europe comprised 88.4% of the total, and Latin American immigrants represented only 7.5%. By the 1960s, however, this trend had been completely reversed: the Latin American immigrants were 76.1%, and the Europeans merely 18.7% of the total. Given that the main sources of South American immigrants since the 1960s have been Bolivia,
Paraguay and
Peru, most of these immigrants have been either
Amerindian or
Mestizo, for they represent the ethnic majorities in those countries. or have been victims of
sexual slavery and
forced labor in textile
sweat shops.
Latin American immigrants of European origin Latin Americans of predominantly European descent have arrived from countries where there is a relevant proportion of white population
Chile (52.7% to 68%),
Brazil (47.7%),
Venezuela (43.6%),
Colombia (20%),
Paraguay (20%) and in particular,
Uruguay (88% to 94%). Uruguayan immigrants represent a very distinct case in Argentina, for they may pass unnoticed as "foreigners".
Uruguay received a great part of the same influx of European immigrants that changed Argentina's ethnic profile, so most Uruguayans are of European origin. Uruguayans and Argentines also speak the same
Spanish dialect (
Rioplatense Spanish), which is heavily influenced by the intonation patterns of the Italian language's southern dialects. The official censuses show a slow growth in the Uruguayan-born community: 51,100 in 1970, 114,108 in 1980, and 135,406 in 1991, with a decline to 117,564 in 2001. Around 218,000 Uruguayans emigrated to Argentina between 1960 and 1980, however.
Third immigratory wave from Eastern Europe (1994–2000) Following the fall of the Communist regimes of the
Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, the governments of the
Western Bloc were worried about a possible massive exodus from Eastern Europe and Russia. President
Carlos Saúl Menem – in the political framework of the
Washington Consensus – offered to receive part of that emigratory wave in Argentina. Accordingly, Resolution 4632/94 was enacted on 19 December 1994, allowing "special treatment" for all the applicants who wished to emigrate from the
former Soviet republics. A total of 9,399 Eastern Europeans emigrated to Argentina from January 1994 to December 2000, and of the total, 6,720 were
Ukrainians (71.5%), 1,598 were
Russians (17%), 160
Romanians (1.7%), 122
Bulgarians (1.3%), 94
Armenians (1%), 150
Georgians/
Moldovans/
Poles (1.6%) and 555 (5.9%) traveled with a Soviet passport. Around 85% of the newcomers were under age 45, and 51% had a university education, so most integrated quite rapidly into Argentine society, albeit with some initial difficulties finding gainful employment. These also included some 200 Romanian
Gypsy families that arrived in 1998, and 140 more Romanian Gypsies who migrated to Uruguay in 1999, but only to enter Argentina later by crossing the
Uruguay River through
Fray Bentos,
Salto or
Colonia. European immigration in Argentina has not stopped since this wave from Eastern Europe. According to the National Bureau of Migrations, some 14,964 Europeans have settled in Argentina (3,599 Spaniards, 1,407 Italians and 9,958 from other countries) during the period 1999–2004. To this figure, many of the 8,285 Americans and 4,453 Uruguayans may be added, since these countries have European-descended majorities of 75% and 87% in their populations. ==Influences on Argentine culture==