White Argentines () are Argentines of total or predominantly European and West Asian ancestry. Individuals within this group tend to have light or olive skin tones and various hair colors, mostly brown or black and rarely blonde or red due to their primarily Spanish and Italian origins.
The vast majority of Argentines are descended from European and Syrian-Lebanese immigrants (mostly Catholic ethnic groups such Castilians, Italians, Galicians, Basques, French, German Catholics, Maronites, Asturians, Poles, Irish, Croats, etc.) who arrived between the late 19th century and the early 20th century, although some have ancestors among the early Spanish colonizers.
Currently, the Argentine government does not conduct an ethnic census survey that would allow counting "white" people in the country. However, various studies have indicated that White Argentines have been the majority group in the country since at least 1778.
History
The city of Buenos Aires was first founded in 1536 by the Spanish conquistador Pedro de Mendoza. This foundation was unsuccessful due to problems with the local indigenous peoples (the Querandí) and a lack of supplies, leading to the settlement being abandoned in 1541, and was later founded again in 1580 by Juan de Garay. The first permanent European settlement founded in what is now Argentina was Santiago del Estero in 1553. The foundation was carried out by the Spanish explorer Francisco de Aguirre. Santiago del Estero is known as the "Mother of Cities" because several expeditions that founded other cities in Argentine territory departed from there. The current Argentine territory was one of the most irrelevant and forgotten regions of the Spanish Empire because the vast majority of the economic benefits were in Upper Peru and in the viceroyalties of Peru, New Spain and New Granada and so Argentina did not receive a large number of slaves and settlers. In addition to having a fairly low number of native population, which made it one of the least populated territories of the Spanish America.
The Spanish settled in the New World during the viceregal era and their children born in America were known as criollos although they could not hold the position of viceroy, which, being the representation of the king, could be occupied only by someone born in Peninsular Spain. Other castes known for having white skin were the castizos and the Octavons although they had a small percentage of native and black blood, respectively. In 1778, during the mandate of Viceroy J. J. de Vértiz y Salcedo, a census was carried out in which it was found that 37.54% of the people in the current Argentine territory were white, then in the years following independence, provincial censuses were carried out, in 1827 in Buenos Aires 73.8% and in 1833 in Corrientes 87.2% of the population was white. It is worth noting that after independence, President Bernardino Rivadavia established the Migration Commission, although during the following years it did not have great relevance due to the instability in the United Provinces of the Rio de la Plata.
In 1880, after the end of the Argentine Civil Wars and the beginning of the period of the Conservative Republic, Argentine immigration policy formally began with Juan Bautista Alberdi, who in his work "Bases and starting points for the political organization of the Argentine Republic" of 1852, proposed promoting European immigration as a way to populate the country and promote its economic and social development. With this began a massive arrival of millions of immigrants from Europe and West Asia, the vast majority of them Spaniards and Italians but included thousands of French, Germans, Croats, Poles, Arab Christians, Irish, Gypsies, Russians, Jews, Ukrainians, Armenians, and others. Between 1869 and World War I the population of Argentina quadrupled due to an influx of millions of European immigrants during the Great European immigration wave to the country, no recent Argentine census has included comprehensive questions about ethno-racial origin, although numerous studies have determined that White Argentines have been a majority in the country since 1914. Also a small wave of white immigrants from Africa between 1899–1902 during the Second Boer War in South Africa, many Boers had lost their farms in the war or considered themselves bittereinders who felt they could not live under a British government so they emigrated mainly to the Chubut Province.
Although some events such as the Crash of 1929 slowed immigration worldwide, events such as the Spanish Civil War, the Unification of Italy, World War I, and the Russian Civil War strengthened the wave of immigration to Argentina. The great majority of immigrants who arrived in Argentina professed Catholicism because of the cultural affinity for which almost all came from Southern Europe, although the Second World War caused the number of immigrants (mainly from Poland) who professed Judaism in Argentina to increase.
Number of immigrants from 1857 to 1940
Nationality Main groups Amount Percentage of total Italian ItaliansSiciliansSardinians 2,970,000 44.9% Spaniard CastiliansGaliciansBasques 2,080,000 31.5% French BasquesFrench 239,000 3.6% Polish PolesAshkenazi Jews 180,000 2.7% Russian Volga GermansUkrainiansRussians 177,000 2.7% Ottoman Arab ChristiansArmenians 174,000 2.6% German Germans 152,000 2.3% Austro-Hungarian CroatsHungarians 111,000 1.7% British IrishScots 75,000 1.1% Portuguese Portuguese 65,000 1.0% Yugoslav CroatsRomanis 48,000 0.7% Swiss Swiss 44,000 0.7% Belgian Walloons 26,000 0.4% Danish Danes 18,000 0.3% American White Americans 12,000 0.2% Dutch Dutch 10,000 0.2% Swedish Swedes 7,000 0.1% Other nationalities 223,000 3.4% Total 6,611,000 100%Source: National Directorate of Migrations (DNM)
Italian immigration
There were already Italians in Buenos Aires during the May Revolution, which started the Argentine War of Independence. In particular, Manuel Belgrano, Manuel Alberti and Juan José Castelli, all three of Italian descent, were part of the May Revolution and the Primera Junta.
However, the stream of Italian immigration to Argentina became a mass phenomenon only from 1880 to 1920, during the Great European immigration wave to Argentina. Over that time period, about two million Italians settled in Argentina, with one million coming from 1900 to 1914, Santa Fe being the province that received the most in percentage terms. A small number of Italo-Albanians also emigrated to Argentina from Southern Italy.
In 1887, Italians accounted for 60.4% of all immigration to Argentina, then there was a decrease as the percentage of Spanish immigration increased. The effect of Italian immigration to Argentina was important for the constitution of Argentine society. In Argentina there are influences of Italian culture that are still evident in modern times. Outside of Italy, Argentina is the country with the highest percentage of Italians, and the one with the greatest examples of Italian culture. In 1914, Buenos Aires alone had more than 300,000 Italian-born inhabitants, representing 25% of the total population.
The outbreak of World War I and the rise of fascism in Italy caused a rapid fall in immigration to Argentina, with a slight revival in 1923 to 1927 but eventually stopped during the Great Depression and World War II.
In the late 1960s, the Italian economy experienced a period of growth and recovery, removing one of the primary incentives for emigration. As of 2016, 527,570 Italian citizens still lived in Argentina.
In 2011, it was estimated that at least 25 million Argentines (62.5% of the country's population) have some degree of Italian ancestry. Argentina has the second-largest community of Italians outside of Italy, after Brazil. Jorge Luis Borges stated that "the Argentine is an Italian who speaks Spanish", while the Spanish philosopher Julián Marías stated that Argentina could be "the only Italian-Spanish republic on the planet".
Spanish immigration
The interplay between Argentine and Spanish culture has a long and complex history. Spanish settlements date back to 16th century, and from then on, many Criollo Spaniards populated the area of Argentina, some of whom intermarried with non-Spaniards. Spain established a permanent colony on the site of Buenos Aires in 1580, although initial settlement was primarily overland from Peru. The Spanish further integrated Argentina into their vast empire by establishing the Vice Royalty of Rio de la Plata in 1776, and Buenos Aires became a flourishing port. Argentina would become a crucial part of the Spanish Empire in South America.
In the post-colonial period (1832–1950), there would be a further influx of Spanish immigrants to Argentina from all over Spain during the Great European immigration wave to Argentina, after the creation of the modern Argentine state. Between 1857 and 1960, 2.2 million Spanish people emigrated to Argentina, mostly from Galicia, the Basque Country, Asturias, Cantabria, and Catalonia in northern Spain, while significantly smaller numbers of immigrants also arrived from Andalusia in southern Spain.
Galicians make up 70% of the Spanish post-colonial immigrant population in Argentina. The city with the world's second largest number of Galician people is Buenos Aires, where immigration from Galicia was so profound that today all Spaniards, regardless of their origin within Spain, are referred to as (Galicians) in Argentina.
Roughly 10-15% of the Argentine population are descended from Basque people, both Spanish and French, and are described as Basque Argentines. They gather in several Basque cultural centers in most of the large cities in the country. A common practice among Argentines of Basque origin is to identify themselves "French-Basques". This is because of French culture being considered more "fashionable" than Spanish among the average Argentine.
French immigration
From the second half of the 19th century to the first half of the 20th century, Argentina received the second largest group of French immigrants worldwide, second only to the United States. Between 1857 and 1946 Argentina received 239,503 French immigrants - out of which 105,537 permanently settled in the country. By 1976, 116,032 had settled in Argentina. French immigration to Argentina can be divided in three main periods, as follows: France was the third source of immigration to Argentina before 1890, constituting over 10% of immigrants, only surpassed by Italians and Spaniards; from 1890 to 1914, immigration from France, although reduced, was still significant; lastly, after WWI, the flow of French immigrants was minimal and only grew again after WWII to finally stop in the 1950s.
Half of French immigrants until the second half of the 20th century came from Southwestern France, especially from the Basque Country, Béarn (Basses-Pyrénées accounted for more than 20% of immigrants), Bigorre and Rouergue. Other important groups came from Savoy and the Paris region. It was estimated that at least 70% of French immigrants in Tandil were coming from the Southwestern part of the country and that half of them were of Basque stock. Until the 1880s, the great majority of French immigrants to Argentina were from the Pyrenees.
Today it is estimated that up to 17% of Argentines have partial French ancestry. French Argentines formed a large portion of the elite of the country. While found throughout the country, they are most numerous in Buenos Aires, Santa Fe, Entre Ríos, Córdoba, Mendoza and Tucumán provinces.
German immigration
German communities developed in the Buenos Aires City and in several provinces such as Buenos Aires, Entre Ríos, La Pampa, Misiones, Córdoba, Chaco, Río Negro, etc.