Role of the Black Press and Afro-Descendant Organizations in the Creation of Afro-Argentine Identity and Resistance

 

 

The fact that Afro-descendants in Argentina were forced into slavery, discriminated against and suppressed within Argentine society, does not mean that they can only be considered passive victims. In fact, even thirty years before the initial efforts to abolish slavery in Argentina, black people in Buenos Aires started to organize themselves.

 

Cofradías

 

The 1770s in Buenos Aires saw the emergence of two forms of black organizations. One of these was the Cofradías (brotherhoods). Cofradías were based on religious ties and, as was common at the time, followed strict segregation, but admitted both slaves and free blacks to join in exchange for money in the form of regular fees. Further, their presence at specific events within the realm of the church, which were organized weekly and financed through the money “donated”, as well as the morale of a Christian life were demanded (Andrews 139). Members could, according to Andrews, benefit from a “general uplifting of the brother's soul”, a guaranteed funeral and lifted self-esteem (139). He remarks that while these Cofradías were controlled and instrumentalized by the church as a means to control the black community, it helped to develop a group consciousness within the Afro-Argentine community (139ff.). The cleric control prevented the Afro-Porteño population from organizing autonomously, which, according to Andrews, might be the reason why this form of organization never came to build the core of the black population (142).

 

Nations

 

Another form of Afro-Porteño organization originating in that time was the Nations. Organizations that formed along ethnic lines, which rivaled with the Cofradías over influence and most of all potential members (Andrews 142f.). The first Nations emerged as early as the 1770s, and became so important within porteño society that in 1821 the government established a decree explaining the procedure of forming an African society, and giving certain guidelines and restrictions for their organizational activities (143). These restrictions put Nations under strict governmental control:

 

“postulated a major participatory role for the police, who now replaced the church as the instrument for controlling the black organizations. Police officers were to be present at all elections to collect and count ballots and to announce the winners; the attending policeman could conceivably name any officers that he cared to. Also, society officers were required to inform the police of any criminal activity engaged in by members” (Andrews 143).

 

In contrast to the Cofradías, the Nations had one advantage, which was that they had power over their own finances (143). Just like the Cofradías they collected money from their members, but these benefited each group differently. Nations used the money to buy their members out of slavery or loan it to members who were in need of capital to start their own business. These members would pay back the loan with a 5% interest (143). By the 1850s Buenos Aires counted more than fifty African societies, of which the most important were the Cambunda, Benguela, Lubolo, Angola, and Congo Nations (144f). According to Andrews there was an ulterior motive disguised behind this relative freedom:

 

“the elite of Buenos Aires hoped to use the nations as a means to create a sober, responsible, stable work force to supply the economic necessities of the city. Urging the officers to promote the moral well being of members and to inform on them when they committed crimes would aid the police in reducing crime and disturbances in the city. And asking the societies to support a separate school system would enable the city's schools to remain segregated while guaranteeing that black children would receive an education far inferior to that of the whites. This in turn would definitively consign future generations of Afro-Argentines to low-status jobs and keep them out of competition with whites for better economic position in the city's society” (Andrews 144).

 

African societies were also an important part of Afro-Porteño social life. With the money collected they were able and allowed to buy houses, which would then provide as social centers to gather or hold candombes (146f.). The Nations were highly supported by Governor Rosas, which during his governance gave them a lot of freedom, but ultimately led to their decline simultaneously with his fall in 1852 (147). The following government was very skeptical towards the Nations and when eventually most leading figures of the Nations would need to retire, the following generation focused instead on blending in with the dominant Argentine society, rather than setting themselves apart as ethnically different (Andrews 148f.)

 

While the Nations provided remarkable benefits to their members, they simultaneously caused smaller groups to emerge within the larger Afro-Argentine society and form “cleavages” which lead to disunity within the community (Andrews 151).

 

Mutual Aid Societies

 

Mutual Aid societies emerged during the mid-eighteenth century and focused on the economic support of their members. Like the Cofradías and the African Nations, they collected money and provided their members with housing, financial support in case of illness or death, and they could give out loans for manumission or business matters (Andrews 151). The first of these societies, the Sociedad de la Union y de Socorros Mutuos, was established in 1855, already consisting of 134 members (151). The most successful of these organizations were, according to Andrews, La Fraternal and La Protectora (152).

 

La Fraternal was established in the 1850s and even founded a school for black children, since they were still highly disadvantaged in the public school system. When the society was initially founded the black newspaper, El Proletario, published an article appealing to the black community to support the organization, advertising its good network and support and most of all the unifying effect organizations like La Fraternal had on other communities abroad (152f.).

 

After La Fraternal ceased to exist in the 1870s, the black newspaper La Juventud (The Youth) launched a campaign to create a new organization, which later turned out to become the second most successful mutual aid society in Buenos Aires history: La Protectora. Established in 1876 it was still a visibly active part of the porteño landscape by 1936. Within this period La Protectora achieved great reputation (153f.). Andrews comments:

 

“The stability of La Protectora and the quiet competence with which its affairs were managed was an undeniable reputation of the Afro- Argentines' alleged inability to do anything successfully on their own. The community took care to ensure that the society's accomplishments were brought to the attention of the city's whites. [...] Thus La Protectora met the double prerequisite for a truly successful Afro- Argentine social organization: not only did it promptly and regularly supply economic aid to its members, but it also served as a source of pride and self-respect to the community” (154).

 

Between the 1880s and 1910 the society even published its own newspaper La Protectora (154).

 

“The three-stage progression of Afro-Argentine community organizations corresponds to the evolving relationship between the city's black population and the greater society. The cofradías represented the first tentative efforts of a repressed, subordinate community to create organizations capable of satisfying the spiritual and, occasionally, the material needs of its members” (154).

 

Williams argues that by the mid-twentieth century the Afro-descendant population in Buenos Aires had declined to a degree where black social organizations and publications had ceased to exist (52). Frigerio on the other hand argues that the Shimmy Club, one of the most famous Afro-Argentine dance clubs in Argentina, existed until the 1970s (Frigerio, “Blacks in Argentina” 8f.). For further information on black organizations in Buenos Aires today, please check out our section on Afro-Argentine resistance and accomplishments in twenty-first century Argentina.