What Caused the Drastic Decline of the Afro-Argentine Community?

In 1887 blacks did not make up more than 2% of the total population of Buenos Aires (Andrews 4). This means that within roughly thirty-five years the Afro-Argentine community in Buenos Aires had decreased from 40% to 2%. Historians suggest four approaches to explain the Afro-Argentine decline: 1) The abolition of the slave trade and thus a lack of new African slaves beging brought to the country 2) The high rates of participation in the Argentine military led to a high death rate amongst black males 3) A combination of low birthrates and high mortality rates 4) Intermarriage and mestizaje (the mixture of races) (Williams 46). These approaches can not, according to George Andrews be sufficiently proven (Andrews 6).

In her article La Poblacion Negra y Mulata de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires, 1810-1840, Marta Goldberg claims that the Afro-descendants’ decline was already predictable in 1837 (99). She observes low birth rates, high infant mortality rates and generally heightened mortality rates amongst the Afro-Porteño population that ultimately lead to an inability of self-preservation (99). Many scholars criticize the availability and most of all reliability of data, stating that most censuses available are incomplete or unreliable, which makes it hard to work with them (Andrews 67; Goldberg 1976, 79f.). Referring to the flexibility given in racial categorization during the nineteenth century, Andrews and Williams suggest that Afro-Porteños were often counted in non-black categories, which ultimately lead to undercounting of the population and statistical invisibilization (Andrews 89 - 112; Williams 53). Andrews concludes, “in fact Afro-Argentines continued to exist even while labeled as trigeños or white” (92).

Another reason both Williams and Andrews suggest for the virtual decline of numbers in the Afro-Argentine population, was the massive influx of white Europeans to Argentina in general, and Buenos Aires in particular, at the beginning of the twentieth century (Andrews 187; Williams 53). Between 1880 and 1900, almost one million Europeans had migrated to Argentina. By 1895 two-thirds of the adult population of Buenos Aires was foreign born (Andrews 178). Williams suggests that the European immigration in the nineteenth century might have led to a “disproportionate number of whites in comparison to blacks” (Williams 53), which then lead to a virtual decline of Afro-descendants in Argentina. Andrews states,“The Afro-Argentines were lost to view, but they had disappeared only in the eye of the beholder. They were still visible to whoever wanted to see them, a small but continuing element in the city’s ethnic mix” (Andrews 200)

Several scholars who have intensively studied the Argentine history suggest that the high numbers of European immigration to Argentina in the second half of the nineteenth century were part of a larger goal of racial nation planning (Andrews 178; Bastia and vom Hau 2ff.). Bastia and vom Hau have studied migration and immigration policy in Argentina and highlight that not only did the 1853 Constitution expressly promote European immigration, but also the Argentine government actively promoted Argentina as the perfect destination for transatlantic migration in European metropoles (2f.). Public discourse in mid-nineteenth century Argentina marginalized non-whites, blaming them for hindering Argentina on its way to becoming a modern nation (3f.). Argentine elitist leaders restricted non-whites to the lower strata of society, promoting “blanquedad, or whiteness as a part of its [Argentina’s] national identity” (Williams 19), thereby creating a narrative that strictly limited Argentine identity to a white or European-descendant population.