Argentines of European descent


European Argentines, are Argentines who have predominantly or total European ancestry, belong to several communities which trace their origins to various migrations from Europe and which have contributed to the country's cultural and demographic variety. They are the descendants of colonists from Spain during the colonial period prior to 1810, or in the majority of cases, of Spanish, Italians, French, Russians and other Europeans who arrived in the great immigration wave from the mid 19th to the mid 20th centuries, and who largely intermarried among their many nationalities during and after this wave. No recent Argentine census has included comprehensive questions on ethnicity, although numerous studies have determined that European Argentines have been a majority in the country since 1914. The majority of Argentines of European descent are descendants of Italians, Spanish, French, Germans, Polish, Russians, British, Irish, among other groups.

Distribution

European Argentinians may live in any part of the country, though their proportion varies according to region. Due to the fact that the main entry point for European immigrants was the Port of Buenos Aires, they settled mainly in the central-eastern region known as the Pampas, Their presence in the north-western region is less evident due to several reasons: it was the most densely populated region of the country until the immigratory wave of 1857 to 1940, and it was the area where the European newcomers settled the least. During the last decades, due to internal migration from these north-western provinces and due to immigration especially from Bolivia, Peru and Paraguay, the percentage of European Argentines in certain areas of the Greater Buenos Aires has significantly decreased as well.

Estimates

Neither official census data nor statistically significant studies exist on the precise amount or percentage of Argentines of European descent today. The Argentine government recognizes the different communities, but Argentina's National Institute of Statistics and Censuses does not conduct ethnic/racial censuses, nor includes questions about ethnicity. The Census conducted on 27 October 2010, did include questions on Indigenous peoples and on Afro-descendants.

Genetic research

It is estimated that more than 30 million Argentines have at least one Italian forefather.
Another study of the Amerindian ancestry of Argentines was headed by Argentine geneticist Daniel Corach of the University of Buenos Aires. The results of this study in which DNA from 320 individuals in 9 Argentine provinces was examined showed that 56% of these individuals had at least one Amerindian ancestor. Other studies suggest that figure could be 30%. A study on African ancestry was also conducted by the University of Buenos Aires in the city of La Plata. In this study 4.3% of the 500 study participants were shown to have some degree of African ancestry. Nevertheless, it must be said here that this type of genetic studies -meant only to search for specific lineages in the mtDNA or in the Y-Chromosome, which do not recombine- may be misleading. For example, a person with seven European great-grandparents and only one Amerindian/Mestizo great-grandparent will be included in that 30% or 56%, although his/her phenotype will most probably be Caucasian.
A separate genetic study on genic admixture was conducted by Argentine and French scientists from multiple academic and scientific institutions. This study showed that the average contribution to Argentine ancestry was 79.9% European, 15.8% Amerindian and 4.3% African. Another similar study was conducted in 2006, and its results were also similar. A team led by Michael F. Seldin from the University of California, with members of scientific institutes from Argentina, the United States, Sweden and Guatemala, analyzed samples from 94 individuals and concluded that the average genetic structure of the Argentine population contains a 78.1% European contribution, 19.4% Amerindian contribution and 2.5% African contribution.
A team led by Daniel Corach conducted a new study in 2009, analyzing 246 samples from eight provinces and three different regions of the country. The results were as follows: the analysis of Y-Chromosome DNA revealed a 94.1% of European contribution, and only 4.9% and 0.9% of Native American and Black African contribution, respectively. Mitochondrial DNA analysis again showed a great Amerindian contribution by maternal lineage, at 53.7%, with 44.3% of European contribution, and a 2% African contribution. The study of 24 autosomal markers also proved a large European contribution of 78.5%, against 17.3% of Amerindian and 4.2% Black African contributions. The samples were compared with three assumed parental populations, and the MDS analysis plot resulting showed that "most of the Argentinean samples clustered with or closest to Europeans, some appeared between Europeans and Native Americans indicating some degree of genetic admixture between these two groups, three samples clustered close to Native Americans, and no Argentinean sampled appeared close to Africans".
  • According to Caputo et al., 2021, the study of autosomal DIPs show that the genetic contribution is 77.8% European, 17.9% Amerindian and 4.2% African. The X-DIPs matrilineal show 52.9% European, 39.6% Amerindian, and 7.5% African.
  • Olivas et al., 2017, Nature: 84,1% European and 12,8% Amerindian.
  • Homburguer et al., 2015, PLOS One Genetics: 67% European, 28% Amerindian, 4% African and 1.4% Asian.
  • Genera : 85% Caucasian, 13% Amerindian and 1% African.
  • According to Seldin et al., 2006, American Journal of Physical Anthropology, the genetic structure of Argentina would be: 78.0% European, 19.4% Amerindian and 2.5% African. Using other methods it was found that it could be: 80.2% European, 18.1% Amerindian and 1.7% African.
  • In the work of Corach et al. the authors say that "Argentineans carried a large fraction of European genetic heritage in their Y-chromosomal and autosomal DNA, but their mitochondrial gene pool is mostly of Native American ancestry ; instead, African heritage was small in all three genetic systems ".
  • Avena et al., 2012, PLOS One Genetics: 65% European, 31% Amerindian, and 4% African.
  • * Buenos Aires Province: 76% European and 24% others.
  • * South Zone : 54% European and 46% others.
  • * Northeast Zone : 54% European and 46% others.
  • * Northwest Zone : 33% European and 67% others.
  • Other studies indicate that the genetic composition between regions would be:
  • * Central Zone: 81% European, 15% Amerindian and 4% African
  • * South Zone: 68% European, 28% Amerindian and 4% African
  • * Northeast Zone: 79% European, 17% Amerindian and 4% African
  • * Northwest Zone: 55% European, 35% Amerindian and 10% African
  • According to the study by María Laura Catelli et al., 2011. The Native American component observed in the urban populations was 66%, 41%, and 70% in South, Central, and North Argentina, respectively
  • Neide Maria de Oliveira Godinho, 2008, at the University of Brasília: 60% European, 31% Amerindian and 9% African.
  • National Geographic: 61% Caucasian, 27% Amerindian ancestry and 9% African.
  • According to Norma Pérez Martín, 2007, at least 56% of Argentines would have indigenous ancestry.

    History

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, 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, Buenos Aires, and Corrientes.
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 out of a population of 8,765 inhabitants. In Córdoba the Spanish/Criollo people comprised 39.36% 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 purchased their limpieza de sangre.
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 ; 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 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.