Tens of millions of black Africans were forcibly removed from their homelands from the 16th century to the 19th century to toil on the plantations and farms of the New World. This so-called “Middle Passage” accounted for one of the greatest forced migrations of people in human history, as well as one of the greatest tragedies the world has ever witnessed.

Millions of these helpless Africans washed ashore in Brazil -- indeed, in the present-day, roughly one-half of the Brazilian population trace their lineage directly to Africa. African culture has imbued Brazil permanently and profoundly, in terms of music, dance, food and in many other tangible ways.


But what about Brazil's neighbor, Argentina? Hundreds of thousands of Africans were brought there as well – yet, the black presence in Argentina has virtually vanished from the country’s records and consciousness.

According to historical accounts, Africans first arrived in Argentina in the late 16th century in the region now called the Rio de la Plata, which includes Buenos Aires, primarily to work in agriculture and as domestic servants. By the late 18th century and early 19th century, black Africans were numerous in parts of Argentina, accounting for up to half the population in some provinces, including Santiago del Estero, Catamarca, Salta and Córdoba.

In Buenos Aires, neighborhoods like Monserrat and San Telmo housed many black slaves, some of whom were engaged in craft-making for their masters. Indeed, blacks accounted for an estimated one-third of the city’s population, according to surveys taken in the early 1800s.


Slavery was officially abolished in 1813, but the practice remained in place until about 1853. Ironically, at about this time, the black population of Argentina began to plunge.

Historians generally attribute two major factors to this sudden “mass disappearance” of black Africans from the country – the deadly war against Paraguay from 1865-1870 (in which thousands of blacks fought on the frontlines for the Argentine military) as well as various other wars; and the onset of yellow fever in Buenos Aires in 1871.

The heavy casualties suffered by black Argentines in military combat created a huge gender gap among the African population – a circumstance that appears to have led black women to mate with whites, further diluting the black population. Many other black Argentines fled to neighboring Brazil and Uruguay, which were viewed as somewhat more hospitable to them.


Others claim something more nefarious at work.

It has been alleged that the president of Argentina from 1868 to 1874, Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, sought to wipe out blacks from the country in a policy of covert genocide through extremely repressive policies (including possibly the forced recruitment of Africans into the army and by forcing blacks to remain in neighborhoods where disease would decimate them in the absence of adequate health care).

Tellingly, Sarmiento wrote in his diary in 1848: “In the United States… 4 million are black, and within 20 years will be 8 [million]…. What is [to be] done with such blacks, hated by the white race? Slavery is a parasite that the vegetation of English colonization has left attached to leafy tree of freedom.”


By 1895, there were reportedly so few blacks left in Argentina that the government did not even bother registering African-descended people in the national census.

The CIA World Factbook currently notes that Argentina is 97 percent white (primarily comprising people descended from Spanish and Italian immigrants), thereby making it the “whitest” nation in Latin America.

But blacks did not really vanish from Argentina – despite attempts by the government to eliminate them (partially by encouraging large-scale immigration in the late 19th and 20th century from Europe and the Near East). Rather, they remain a hidden and forgotten part of Argentine society.


Hisham Aidi, a lecturer at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs, wrote on Planete Afrique that in the 1950s, when the black American entertainer Josephine Baker arrived in Argentina, she asked the mixed-race minister of public health, Ramon Carilio: “Where are the Negroes?” In response, Carilio joked: “There are only two -- you and I.”

As in virtually all Latin American societies where blacks mixed with whites and with local Indians, the question of race is extremely complex and contentious.

“People of mixed ancestry are often not considered ‘black’ in Argentina, historically, because having black ancestry was not considered proper,” said Alejandro Frigerio, an anthropologist at the Universidad Catolica de Buenos Aires, according to Planete Afrique.


“Today the term ‘negro’ is used loosely on anyone with slightly darker skin, but they can be descendants of indigenous Indians [or] Middle Eastern immigrants.”

AfricaVive, a black empowerment group founded in Buenos Aires in the late 1990s, claimed that there are 1 million Argentines of black African descent in the country (out of a total population of about 41 million). A report in the Washington Post even suggested that 10 percent of Buenos Aires’ population may have African blood (even if they are classified as “whites” by the census).

"People for years have accepted the idea that there are no black people in Argentina," Miriam Gomes, a professor of literature at the University of Buenos Aires, who is part black herself, told the Post.

"Even the schoolbooks here accepted this as a fact. But where did that leave me?"

She also explained that almost no one in Argentina with black blood in their veins will admit to it.

"Without a doubt, racial prejudice is great in this society, and people want to believe that they are white," she said. "Here, if someone has one drop of white blood, they call themselves white."

Gomes also told the San Francisco Chronicle that after many decades of white immigration into Argentina, people with African blood have been able to blend in and conceal their origins.

"Argentina's history books have been partly responsible for misinformation regarding Africans in Argentine society," she said. "Argentines say there are no blacks here. If you're looking for traditional African people with very black skin, you won't find it. African people in Argentina are of mixed heritage."

Ironically, Argentina’s most famous cultural gift to the world – the tango – came from the African influence.

"The first paintings of people dancing the tango are of people of African descent," Gomes added.

On a broader scale, the “elimination” of blacks from the country’s history and consciousness reflected the long-cherished desire of successive Argentine governments to imagine the country as an “all-white” extension of Western Europe in Latin America.

“There is a silence about the participation of Afro-Argentines in the history and building of Argentina, a silence about the enslavement and poverty,” said Paula Brufman, an Argentine law student and researcher, according to Planete Afrique.

“The denial and disdain for the Afro community shows the racism of an elite that sees Africans as undeveloped and uncivilized.”


© Copyright 2018 Newsweek Media Group

.

helelekuele!
werimbidis?!

Argentina, loun loun!
anden?
wii dis long atiku giv u lyt?!
dis op sef…

chrisxxx:

Or perhaps, they are so few because the Spanish concentrated on Latin America and did not have much colony in Africa.

Also, perhaps the bulk of black spanish slave were concentrated up North in Colombia as opposed to down south Argentina.

This does not disprove any of the assertion of your essay but could provide valuable explanation for y they are so few.

chrisxxx:

Mind you a similar tactics is presently being used on Black Colombians today as we speak in Colombia.

Maybe in another 100 years, somebody will ask wat happen to Black Colombians.

This Is The Power Of History. It Is Said, The Truth Crushed To The Ground, Shall Rise To Live Again. History Helps To Water Such Seeds. Africa Was Developing At Its Own Pace, B/4 The Exploitation By The Europeans. Think Of Average Nigerians That Travel Out For Studies With The Whites, How Do They Perform? Excellently. Our Problem Is Directionless Of Our Governments And Direct Or Indirect Influence Of The Whites On Our Government. These Discrimination And Stigmatization Of The Black Race, Will Cease When We Start Devicing Tools To Solve Our Problems. I Always Wish Our Politicians Realise That No Matter How Much They Loot Abroad, The Whites Still See Them As Blacks And Rightly As Fools. I'm Encouraging All Blacks Out There, To Think Inwards, Be Creative, Contribute Positively To Your Societies. Time Is All The Equation Demands, Technology Shall Thrive In Africa. Whenever I Look At The Nigerian Entertainment Industry, I Know That Nigerians Have The Potentials. Never Give Up On Yourself.

Black people are just utter useless


Look at Nigeria today
I could remember when a dollar was equivalent to 135 naira....

Today what is obtainable...
Yet the black man is not on the street protesting

Chai! Blacks don suffer for dis world and the most annoying tin be say we no wan get sense

I was wandering why no black man has ever played for Argentina.

Front page material

More info on the black population in Argentina:

Afro-Argentines of Buenos Aires, 1908.

At the Argentine national census of 2010 the total population was 40,117,096, of whom 149,493 (0.37%) identified as Afro-Argentine.

The Afro-Argentine population resulting from the slave trade during the centuries of Spanish domination of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata had a major role in Argentine history. Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries they comprised up to fifty percent of the population in some provinces, and had a deep impact on national culture.

In the 19th century the Afro-Argentine population declined sharply due to several factors, such as the Argentine War of Independence (c. 1810-1818), high infant mortality rates, low numbers of married couples in this ethnic group, the Paraguayan War, cholera epidemics in 1861 and 1864, and a yellow fever epidemic in 1871. By the late 19th century the Afro-Argentine population consisted mainly of women, who mixed with the large numbers of European immigrants.

Over 5% of Argentines state they have at least one black ancestor, and a further 20% state they do not know whether or not they have any black ancestors. Genetic studies carried out in 2005 showed that the average level of African genetic contribution in the population of Buenos Aires is 2.2%, but that this component is concentrated in 10% of the population who display notably higher levels of African ancestry.

Today there is still a notable Afro-Argentine community in the Buenos Aires districts of San Telmo and La Boca. There are also quite a few African-descended Argentines in Merlo and Ciudad Evita cities, in the Buenos Aires metropolitan area.

Since 2013, November 8th has been celebrated as the National Day of Afro-Argentines and African Culture. The date was chosen to commemorate the recorded date for the death of María Remedios del Valle, a rabona and guerrilla fighter, who served with the Army of the North in the Argentine War of Independence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afro-Argentines

Well into the 19th century, mining and agriculture accounted for the bulk of economic activity in America. African slave labor held the advantage of having already been exposed to European diseases through geographical proximity, and African laborers readily adapted to the tropical climate of the colonies. In the case of Argentina, the influx of African slaves began in the colonies of the Rio de la Plata in 1588.

Slave traders kidnapped Africans, who were then sold and shipped from West Africa to the Americas and the Caribbean. Trafficking flourished through the port of Buenos Aires, when the city allowed English traders to import slaves through it.

To provide slaves to the East Indies, the Spanish crown granted contracts known as Asientos to various companies from other countries, mainly Portuguese, English, Dutch and French. By 1713 Britain, victorious in the War of the Spanish Succession, had the monopoly of this trade. The last Asiento was drawn up with the Royal Society of the Philippines in 1787. Until the 1784 ban, African slaves were measured and then branded.

Before the 16th century slaves had arrived in relatively small numbers from the Cape Verde Islands. Thereafter the majority of Africans brought to Argentina were from ethnic groups speaking Bantu languages, from the territories now comprising Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Republic of the Congo. Relatively few Yoruba and Ewe were taken to Argentina; larger numbers of these groups were taken to Brazil. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afro-Argentines

Interesting.

Sorry I remembered you are from Kazakhstan.

zombieHUNTER:
Black people are just utter useless


Look at Nigeria today
I could remember when a dollar was equivalent to 135 naira....

Today what is obtainable...
Yet the black man is not on the street protesting

BelovedBuhari:
Sorry I remembered you are from Kazakhstan.

Defender of corruption

zombieHUNTER:
Black people are just utter useless


Look at Nigeria today
I could remember when a dollar was equivalent to 135 naira....

Today what is obtainable...
Yet the black man is not on the street protesting

1 japanese yen is just 3 naira

selemempe:
1 japanese yen is just 3 naira

Defenders of mediocrity are on the forum

Argentina is still a no go area for blacks till today. If you find your self there by any chance, locate the nearest airport and vamoose. Don't bother if you leave your shoes behind. It's not a rich country anyway so you probably don't have a good reason to be there in the 1st place.

zombieHUNTER:


Defenders of mediocrity are on the forum

read my old posts bro

Mtcheeeeew op. The Racist Argentines Gathered all the blacks thw could find,bounded dem and dumped them at sea.

zombieHUNTER:
Black people are just utter useless


Look at Nigeria today
I could remember when a dollar was equivalent to 135 naira....

Today what is obtainable...
Yet the black man is not on the street protesting

So as a black person, you believe you are "utterly useless"? Hope you don't transmit your self hatred to your kids.

"Don't expose your success too quickly in life".. I learnt that from playing
WHOT...
Once you just say
LAST CARD,
you will see your enemies coming out of the
woods...
You'll just be hearing
PICK2,GENERAL MARKET,HOLD ONE , etc.."
As if they
never had such weapons before.
Be wise.

..

zombieHUNTER:
Black people are just utter useless


Look at Nigeria today
I could remember when a dollar was equivalent to 135 naira....

Today what is obtainable...
Yet the black man is not on the street protesting

Argentina, had a president, in 1840! 1840 o!


U're tryna compare that with Nigeria, that started as late as 1960

chrisxxx:
I was wandering why no black man has ever played for Argentina.

Juan Sebastian Veron

caprini1:
Juan Sebastian Veron

But he is mixed bro.

caprini1:
Juan Sebastian Veron

Thanks I remember. But the lag behind when compared with other South American countries.

This history we don't study in Nigeria is really affecting us.

Argentina’s “self-image coexists with continued manifestations of racism. The same article explains that when the Argentine soccer team was to play either the Brazilian or Nigerian team in the Olympic finals, a sports newspaper ran the headline, ‘Bring on the Monkeys.’ ”

This is a very interesting topic. The little I know about them is that there's a hidden system of blackout and somehow it affects the population. The Argentine will tell you that they ended slavery long before Brazil so you can't see much blacks there.

For example, the black woman could be typically seen as a LovePeddler or Brazilian - she can be easily assaulted on the streets but this could just be fetishism too. There's even a phrase that the black man is Brazil's problem, so they assume that such person must be Brazilian. Such goes a long way to let you know the issues they have. It doesn't mean the average Argentine is racist but it's the same with what would happen in an African community that has 99% black people, they'll simply stare at any foreigner because the skin color is different.

What you can't take away from them is that they're nationalistic in nature. They're proud of themselves and consider themselves superior (not just to blacks alone but to everyone else).

They have a lot of issues with military rule, unemployment and the economy in general, so maybe their lack of prosperity has not magnified their society as we would want to see.

I have read accounts of people who have traveled there as blacks but there's one thigh in general, have fun visiting than living there. Who knows, in 200 years time, things may change and more blacks will migrate there as the world integrates more.

androidroot:
This history we don't study in Nigeria is really affecting us.

So true. It has caused us to become loving adorers of white people, and made us ignorant of their dangerous and hateful antecedents.