Overview
Country, southern South America.
Area: 1,073,520 sq mi (2,780,403 sq km). Population (2008
est.): 39,737,000. Capital: Buenos Aires. The people are mostly
of European ancestry, especially Spanish, with smaller mestizo,
Indian, and Arab populations. Language: Spanish (official).
Religions: Christianity (predominantly Roman Catholic; also
Protestant); also Islam, Judaism. Currency: Argentine peso.
Argentina can be divided into four general regions: the North,
the Pampas, Patagonia, and the Andes Mountains. The subtropical
plains in the northeast are divided by the Paraná River into
Mesopotamia to the east and Gran Chaco to the west and north.
The Pampas, south and west of the Paraná, is one of the world’s
most productive agricultural areas and the country’s most
populous region. Patagonia lies south of the Colorado River. The
Argentine Andes include the continent’s highest peak, Mount
Aconcagua. Argentina’s hydrology is dominated by rivers that
include the Paraná, Uruguay, and Pilcomayo, which drain into the
Río de la Plata. Argentina has a developing economy based
largely on manufacturing and agriculture; it is Latin America’s
largest exporter of beef and beef products. It is a federal
republic with two legislative houses; the head of state and
government is the president. Little is known of the indigenous
population before the Europeans’ arrival. The area was explored
for Spain by Sebastian Cabot beginning in 1526; by 1580
Asunción, Santa Fe, and Buenos Aires had been settled. Early in
the 17th century it was attached to the Viceroyalty of Peru, but
in 1776 it was included with regions of modern Uruguay,
Paraguay, and Bolivia in the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata,
whose capital was Buenos Aires. With the establishment of the
United Provinces of the Río de la Plata in 1816, Argentina
achieved its independence from Spain, but its boundaries were
not set until the early 20th century. In 1943 the government was
overthrown by the military; Col. Juan Perón took control in
1946. He in turn was overthrown in 1955. He returned in 1973
after two decades of turmoil. His third wife, Isabel, became
president on his death in 1974 but lost power after another
military coup in 1976. The military government tried to take the
Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas) in 1982 but was defeated by
the British in the Falkland Islands War, with the result that
the government returned to civilian rule in 1983. The government
of Raúl Alfonsín worked to end the human rights abuses that had
characterized the former regimes. Hyperinflation, however, led
to public riots and Alfonsín’s party’s electoral defeat in 1989;
his Peronist successor, Carlos Menem, instituted laissez-faire
economic policies. In 1999 Fernando de la Rúa of the Alliance
coalition was elected president, but his administration
struggled with rising unemployment, heavy foreign debt, and
government corruption; he resigned later that year, amid
antigovernment protests. Under a succession of interim
presidents, Argentina experienced one of its worst economic
collapses at the beginning of the 21st century. Néstor Kirchner
won the 2003 presidential elections and helped to stabilize the
economy. Four years later his wife became the country’s first
elected female president.
Profile
Official name República Argentina (Argentine Republic)
Form of government federal republic with two legislative houses
(Senate [72]; Chamber of Deputies [257])
Head of state and government President
Capital Buenos Aires
Official language Spanish
Official religion none1
Monetary unit peso (ARS)
Population estimate (2008) 39,737,000
Total area (sq mi) 1,073,520
Total area (sq km) 2,780,403
1Roman Catholicism has special status and receives financial
support from the state, but it is not an official religion.
Main
country of South America, covering most of the southern
portion of the continent. The world’s eighth largest country,
Argentina occupies an area more extensive than Mexico and the
U.S. state of Texas combined. It encompasses immense plains,
deserts, tundra, and forests, as well as tall mountains, rivers,
and thousands of miles of ocean shoreline. Argentina also claims
a portion of Antarctica, as well as several islands in the South
Atlantic, including the British-ruled Falkland Islands (Islas
Malvinas).
Argentina has long played an important role in the
continent’s history. Following three centuries of Spanish
colonization, Argentina declared independence in 1816, and
Argentine nationalists were instrumental in revolutionary
movements elsewhere, a fact that prompted 20th-century writer
Jorge Luis Borges to observe, “South America’s independence was,
to a great extent, an Argentine enterprise.” Torn by strife and
occasional war between political factions demanding either
central authority (based in Buenos Aires) or provincial
autonomy, Argentina tended toward periods of caudillo, or
strongman, leadership, most famously under the presidency of
Juan Perón. The 1970s ushered in a period of military
dictatorship and repression during which thousands of presumed
dissidents were “disappeared,” or murdered; this ended in the
disastrous Falklands Islands War of 1982, when Argentina invaded
the South Atlantic islands it claimed as its own and was
defeated by British forces in a short but bloody campaign.
Defeat led to the fall of the military regime and the
reestablishment of democratic rule, which has since endured
despite various economic crises.
The country’s name comes from the Latin word for silver,
argentum, and Argentina is indeed a great source of valuable
minerals. More important, however, has been Argentina’s
production of livestock and cereals, for which it once ranked
among the world’s wealthiest nations. Much of this agricultural
activity is set in the Pampas, rich grasslands that were once
the domain of nomadic Native Americans, followed by rough-riding
gauchos, who were in turn forever enshrined in the nation’s
romantic literature. As Borges describes them in his story The
South, the Pampas stretch endlessly to the horizon, dwarfing the
humans within them; traveling from the capital toward Patagonia,
the story’s protagonist, Señor Dahlmann, “saw horsemen along
dirt roads; he saw gullies and lagoons and ranches; he saw long
luminous clouds that resembled marble; and all these things were
casual, like dreams of the plain.... The elemental earth was not
perturbed either by settlements or other signs of humanity. The
country was vast, but at the same time it was intimate and, in
some measure, secret. The limitless country sometimes contained
only a solitary bull. The solitude was perfect and perhaps
hostile, and it might have occurred to Dahlmann that he was
traveling into the past and not merely south.”
Despite the romantic lure of the Pampas and of vast, arid
Patagonian landscapes, Argentina is a largely urban country.
Buenos Aires, the national capital, has sprawled across the
eastern Pampas with its ring of modern, bustling suburbs. It is
among South America’s most cosmopolitan and crowded cities and
is often likened to Paris or Rome for its architectural styles
and lively nightlife. Its industries have drawn colonists from
Italy, Spain, and numerous other countries, millions of whom
immigrated in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Greater
Buenos Aires is home to about one-third of the Argentine people.
Among the country’s other major cities are Mar del Plata, La
Plata, and Bahía Blanca on the Atlantic coast and Rosario, San
Miguel de Tucumán, Córdoba, and Neuquén in the interior.
Land
Argentina is shaped like an inverted triangle with its base
at the top; it is some 880 miles (1,420 km) across at its widest
from east to west and stretches 2,360 miles (3,800 km) from the
subtropical north to the subantarctic south. The country is
bounded by Chile to the south and west, Bolivia and Paraguay to
the north, and Brazil, Uruguay, and the Atlantic Ocean to the
east. Its undulating Atlantic coastline stretches some 2,900
miles (4,700 km).
Argentina’s varied geography can be grouped into four major
regions: the Andes, the North, the Pampas, and Patagonia. The
Andean region extends some 2,300 miles (3,700 km) along the
western edge of the country from Bolivia to southern Patagonia,
forming most of the natural boundary with Chile. It is commonly
subdivided into two parts: the Northwest and the Patagonian
Andes, the latter of which is discussed below under Patagonia.
The North is commonly described in terms of its two main
divisions: the Gran Chaco, or Chaco, comprising the dry lowlands
between the Andes and the Paraná River; and Mesopotamia, an area
between the Paraná and Uruguay rivers. The centrally located
plains, or Pampas, are grasslands subdivided into arid western
and more humid eastern parts called, respectively, the Dry Pampa
and the Humid Pampa. Patagonia is the cold, parched, windy
region that extends some 1,200 miles (1,900 km) south of the
Pampas, from the Colorado River to Tierra del Fuego.
Relief
The Northwest
This part of the Andes region includes the northern half of
the main mountain mass in Argentina and the transitional
terrain, or piedmont, merging with the eastern lowlands. The
region’s southern border is the upper Colorado River. Within the
region the Andean system of north-south–trending mountain ranges
varies in elevation from 16,000 to 22,000 feet (4,900 to 6,700
metres) and is interrupted by high plateaus (punas) and basins
ranging in elevation from about 10,000 to 13,400 feet (3,000 to
4,080 metres). The mountains gradually decrease in size and
elevation southward from Bolivia. South America’s highest
mountain, Aconcagua (22,831 feet [6,959 metres]), lies in the
Northwest, together with a number of other peaks that reach over
21,000 feet (6,400 metres). Some of these mountains are volcanic
in origin.
To the southeast, where the parallel to subparallel ranges
become lower and form isolated, compact units trending
north-south, the flat valleys between are called bolsones
(basins). This southeastern section of the Northwest is often
called the Pampean Sierras, a complex that has been compared to
the Basin and Range region of the western United States. It is
characterized by west-facing escarpments and gentler east-facing
backslopes, particularly those of the spectacular Sierra de
Córdoba. The Pampean Sierras have variable elevations, beginning
at 2,300 feet (700 metres) in the Sierra de Mogotes in the east
and rising to 20,500 feet (6,250 metres) in the Sierra de
Famatina in the west.
The Gran Chaco
The western sector of the North region, the Gran Chaco,
extends beyond the international border at the Pilcomayo River
into Paraguay, where it is called the Chaco Boreal (“Northern
Chaco”) by Argentines. The Argentine sector between the
Pilcomayo River and the Bermejo River is known as the Chaco
Central. Argentines have named the area southward to latitude
30° S, where the Pampas begin, the Chaco Austral (“Southern
Chaco”). The Gran Chaco in Argentina descends in flat steps from
west to east, but it is poorly drained and has such a
challenging combination of physical conditions that it remains
one of the least-inhabited parts of the country. It has a
subtropical climate characterized by some of Latin America’s
hottest weather, is largely covered by thorny vegetation, and is
subject to summer flooding.
Mesopotamia
East of the Gran Chaco, in a narrow depression 60 to 180
miles (100 to 300 km) wide, lies Mesopotamia, which is bordered
to the north by the highlands of southern Brazil. The narrow
lowland stretches for 1,000 miles (1,600 km) southward, finally
merging with the Pampas south of the Río de la Plata. Its
designation as Mesopotamia (Greek: “Between the Rivers”)
reflects the fact that its western and eastern borders are two
of the region’s major rivers, the Paraná and the Uruguay. The
northeastern part, Misiones province, between the Alto (“Upper”)
Paraná and Uruguay rivers, is higher in elevation than the rest
of Mesopotamia, but there are several small hills in the
southern part.
The Pampas
Pampa is a Quechua Indian term meaning “flat plain.” As such
it is widely used in southeastern South America from Uruguay,
where grass-covered plains commence south of the Brazilian
Highlands, to Argentina. In Argentina the Pampas broaden out
west of the Río de la Plata to meet the Andean forelands,
blending imperceptibly to the north with the Chaco Austral and
southern Mesopotamia and extending southward to the Colorado
River. The eastern boundary is the Atlantic coast.
The largely flat surface of the Pampas is composed of thick
deposits of loess interrupted only by occasional caps of
alluvium and volcanic ash. In the southern Pampas the landscape
rises gradually to meet the foothills of sierras formed from old
sediments and crystalline rocks.
Patagonia
This region consists of an Andean zone (also called Western
Patagonia) and the main Patagonian plateau south of the Pampas,
which extends to the tip of South America. The surface of
Patagonia descends east of the Andes in a series of broad, flat
steps extending to the Atlantic coast. Evidently, the region’s
gigantic landforms and coastal terraces were created by the same
tectonic forces that formed the Andes, and the coastline is
cuffed along its entire length as a result. The cliffs are
rather low in the north but rise in the south, where they reach
heights of more than 150 feet (45 metres). The landscape is cut
by eastward-flowing rivers—some of them of glacial origin in the
Andes—that have created both broad valleys and steep-walled
canyons.
Patagonia includes a region called the Lake District, which
is nestled within a series of basins between the Patagonian
Andes and the plateau. There are volcanic hills in the central
plateau west of the city of Río Gallegos. These hills and the
accompanying lava fields have dark soils spotted with
lighter-coloured bunchgrass, which creates a leopard-skin effect
that intensifies the desolate, windswept appearance of the
Patagonian landscape. A peculiar type of rounded gravel called
grava patagónica lies on level landforms, including isolated
mesas. Glacial ice in the past extended beyond the Andes only in
the extreme south, where there are now large moraines.
Drainage
The largest river basin in the area is that of the
Paraguay–Paraná–Río de la Plata system. It drains an area of
some 1.6 million square miles (4.1 million square km), which
includes northern Argentina, the whole of Paraguay, eastern
Bolivia, most of Uruguay, and a large part of Brazil. In
Argentina the principal river of this system is the Paraná,
formed by the confluence of the Paraguay and Alto Paraná rivers.
The Río de la Plata (often called the River Plate) is actually
the estuary outlet of the system formed by the confluence of the
Paraná and Uruguay rivers; its name, meaning “River of Silver,”
was coined in colonial times before explorers found that there
was neither a single river nor silver upstream from its mouth.
Other tributaries of this system are the Iguazú (Iguaçu),
Pilcomayo, Bermejo, Salado, and Carcarañá. Just above its
confluence with the Alto Paraná, the Iguazú River plunges over
the escarpment of the Brazilian massif, creating Iguazú
Falls—one of the world’s most spectacular natural attractions.
Aside from the Paraná’s main tributaries, there are few major
rivers in Argentina. Wide rivers flow across the Gran Chaco
flatlands, but their shallow nature rarely permits navigation,
and never with regularity. Moreover, long-lasting summer floods
cover vast areas and leave behind ephemeral swamplands. During
winter most rivers and wetlands of the Gran Chaco dry up, the
air chills, and the land seems visibly to shrink. Only three of
the region’s numerous rivers—the Pilcomayo, Bermejo, and
Salado—manage to flow from the Andes to the Paraguay-Paraná
system in the east without evaporating en route and forming salt
pans (salinas). The region’s largest rivers follow a veritable
maze of courses during flood season, however.
In the Northwest the Desaguadero River and its tributaries in
the Andes Mountains water the sandy deserts of Mendoza province.
The principal tributaries are the Jáchal, Zanjón, San Juan,
Mendoza, Tunuyán, and Diamante. In the northern Pampas, Lake Mar
Chiquita, the largest lake in Argentina, receives the waters of
the Dulce, Primero, and Segundo rivers but has no outlet. Its
name, meaning “Little Sea,” refers to the high salt content of
its waters.
Rivers that cross Patagonia from west to east diminish in
volume as they travel through the arid land. The Colorado and
Negro rivers, the largest in the south-central part of the
country, produce major floods after seasonal snow and ice melt
in the Andes. Farther south the Santa Cruz River flows eastward
out of the glacial Lake Argentino in the Andean foothills before
reaching the Atlantic.
Soils
Soil types in Argentina range from the light-coloured saline
formations of the high puna in the Northwest to the dark,
humus-rich type found in the Pampas. Golden-brown loess soils of
the Gran Chaco are sometimes lighter where salinity is excessive
but turn darker toward the east in the Mesopotamian border zone.
These give way to soils ranging from rust to deep red
colorations in Misiones. Thick, dark soils predominate in the
fertile loess grasslands of the Pampas, but lighter brown soils
are common in the drier parts of northern Patagonia. Light tan
arid soils of varying texture cover the rest of this region.
Grayish podzolic types and dark brown forest soils characterize
the Andean slopes.
Climate
Argentina lies almost entirely within the temperate zone of
the Southern Hemisphere, unlike the rest of the continent to the
north, which lies within the tropics. Tropical air masses only
occasionally invade the provinces of Formosa and Misiones in the
extreme north. The southern extremes of Argentina, which extend
to latitude 55° S, also have predominantly temperate conditions,
rather than the cold continental climate of comparable latitudes
in North America. The South American landmass narrows so
markedly toward its southern tip that weather patterns are
moderated by the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, and average
monthly temperatures remain above freezing in the winter. The
temperate climate is interrupted by a long, narrow north-south
band of semiarid to arid conditions and by tundra and polar
conditions in the high Andes and in southern portions of Tierra
del Fuego.
Precipitation is moderate to light throughout most of the
country, with the driest areas in the far northwest and in the
southern part of Patagonia. Most rainfall occurs in the
northeast, in the Humid Pampa, Mesopotamia, and the eastern
Chaco. Windstorms (pamperos) with thunder, lightning, and hail
are common. During winter, stationary fronts bring long rainy
periods. Dull, gray days and damp weather characterize this
season, especially in the Pampas. Between winter storms,
tropical air masses make incursions southward and bring mild
relief from the damp cold.
Andean and sub-Andean zones
Some parts of the Andean Northwest region have an annual
average temperature range of more than 36 °F (20 °C), and
occasional continental climatic conditions occur. Winter
temperatures sometimes fall below freezing on cloudless days and
nights.
The high-elevation, cold climatic phenomenon in Argentina is
sometimes referred to as tundra climate and, in even colder
mountaintop areas, as polar. Generally, the tundra climate
occupies the mountain zones where average annual temperatures
are below 50 °F (10 °C); in the north this occurs above 11,500
feet (3,500 metres). Moving southward, tundra climate occurs at
gradually decreasing elevations until it reaches sea level in
southern Tierra del Fuego. The highest Andean peaks have
permanent snow and ice cover.
The rain shadow zone
Argentina is the only place in the Southern Hemisphere with
an extensive portion of arid eastern coastline. This is caused
by a longitudinal rain shadow zone (created when air masses lose
their moisture while passing over high mountains) on the eastern
side of the Andes. The zone begins in the Andean Northwest and
extends along the eastern slopes of the Andes southward to, but
not including, Tierra del Fuego. The rain shadow area has a
central arid (desert) core rimmed by semiarid, or steppe,
conditions. The steppe areas have about twice the annual
precipitation found in the arid zones, but evaporation exceeds
precipitation in both zones, which therefore remain treeless.
Most of the arid region is subjected to strong winds that carry
abrasive sand and dust. This is particularly true in Patagonia,
where windblown dust creates a continuous haze that considerably
reduces visibility.
The Pampean zone
The Pampas occupy a transitional area between high summer
temperatures to the north and cooler summers to the south.
Buenos Aires, located on the northern edge of the Pampas, has a
climate similar to that of cities in the southeastern United
States, with hot, humid summers and cool, mild winters. The
range of mean temperatures for summer months (December to
February) is about 72–75 °F (22–24 °C), whereas that for winter
months (June to August) is about 46–55 °F (8–13 °C). In the
Humid Pampa the rainfall varies from 39 inches (990 mm) in the
east to 20 inches (500 mm) in areas near the Andes—about the
minimum needed for nonirrigated crops. Cold fronts that move
northward from Patagonia, chiefly in July, bring occasional
frosts and snow to the Pampas and Mesopotamia. In rare instances
a dusting of snow covers Buenos Aires itself.
Plant and animal life
Argentina’s fauna and flora vary widely from the
country’s mountainous zones to its dry and humid plains and its
subpolar regions. In heavily settled regions the makeup of plant
and animal life has been profoundly modified.
The Northwest
Vegetation in the Northwest region includes that of the high
puna desert, the forested slopes of the Andes, and the
subtropical scrub forests of the Pampean Sierras, the latter
merging with the deciduous scrub woodlands of the Gran Chaco.
Vegetation on the mostly exposed soil of the puna consists of
dwarf shrubs and tough grasses, notably bunchgrass; these and
other plants in the region are coloured almost as brown as the
ground itself. The region is the land of the guanaco and its
near relatives, the llama, alpaca, and vicuña.
Forests grow along the eastern border of the puna region
southward to the colder Andean zones, covering many slopes in
this part of the mountains. The so-called mistol (jujube) forest
thrives above 1,650 feet (500 metres), although giant cedars and
some other tree species disappear above 3,300 feet (1,000
metres). A subtropical rainforest, composed of laurels, cedars,
and other species, is found at elevations of about 4,000 feet
(1,200 metres). The tree heights diminish above 7,000 feet
(2,100 metres), and the growth becomes more like that of a cloud
forest, with myrtles and laurels predominating. Higher still
grow the queñoa, small, crooked trees that in places extend to
the timberline at 11,500 feet (3,500 metres).
Southeast of the Andean region described above, xerophytic
(drought-tolerant) scrub forests, called monte, and intervening
grasslands spread across the Pampean Sierras. Vegetation
includes species of mimosa and acacia, and there is a smattering
of cactus. Hares, skunks, and small deer abound in this part of
the Northwest.
The Gran Chaco
The western Gran Chaco has growths of thorn forest dominated
by algaroba (carob trees) in the drier and often saline zones.
Quebracho trees (a source of tannin) are present, but not to the
extent that they are farther east. No plants survive in areas
with finer salt at the surface. Coarse bunchgrasses are common
in the dry steppe, which also supports dense scrub forests
intermixed with prickly pear, barrel, and many other types of
cactus.
The vegetation of the Chaco becomes increasingly lush toward
the east. The thorn forests are gradually replaced by dense
quebracho forests (though of a less-valuable species than those
in the west), and there are some pure stands of algaroba. Some
90 miles (150 km) west of the Paraná River, a few massive trees
begin to appear. The rich wildlife of the Chaco includes deer,
peccaries, monkeys, tapirs, jaguars, pumas, ocelots, armadillos,
capybaras, and agoutis. The vast birdlife includes the
flightless rheas, which are protected by a refuge in the area.
Streams harbour numerous fish species, including piranhas, and
snakes and other reptiles abound.
Mesopotamia
Thin stands of tall wax palms occupy the flood zones of
Mesopotamia. Groups of trees and grassy areas form a parklike
landscape of noted beauty. Common trees are the quebracho, the
urunday, and the guayacán, used for tannin and lumber. Gallery
forests growing along rivers become denser and taller in
Misiones province. Paraná pines appear at higher elevations.
Mesopotamia is a habitat for jaguars, monkeys, deer, tapirs,
peccaries, many snake varieties, and numerous birds, notably
toucans and hummingbirds, as well as stingless bees.
The Pampas
The principal Pampas vegetation is monte forest in the Dry
Pampa and grassland in the Humid Pampa. The boundary between the
Dry and Humid Pampas lies approximately along longitude 64° W.
Knee-high grasses are found in the most humid areas, whereas to
the north, west, and south, where precipitation decreases,
tougher grasses give way to the monte of the Dry Pampa. The
indigenous, plantlike ombu tree (Phytolacca dioica) is prized
for the shade it provides but is of no commercial value. Planted
grains, grasses, and trees have replaced much of the original
flora.
Since the time of European settlement, vast herds of cattle,
as well as horses, have virtually taken over the areas of the
landscape not planted in crops, and many native animal
populations have dwindled. Flightless rheas still inhabit the
Pampas, but guanacos are no longer found there. Both animals are
fleet-footed, which is probably why the Indians developed the
bola, a device consisting of weights on a short rope thrown to
trip the animals. Small deer, introduced hares, and viscacha, a
burrowing rodent, are common.
Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego
Patagonia contains zones of deciduous Andean forests and,
east of the Andes, of steppe and desert. The largest area—the
steppe region—lies in northern Patagonia between the Colorado
River and the port city of Comodoro Rivadavia. This zone
represents an extension southward of the monte, which gives way
gradually to a xerophytic shrub region without trees except
along stream banks. In the extreme west on the Andean border,
small stands of araucaria survive, and clumps of wiry grasses
are also present. Low scrub vegetation and green grass steppe
alternate south of Comodoro Rivadavia to the tip of the
continent. Wildlife in the region includes now rare guanacos and
rheas, as well as eagles and herons, the Patagonian cavy (mará)
and other burrowing rodents, mountain cats and pumas, and
various poisonous snakes.
The coniferous and broad-leaved forests of the Patagonian
Andes spread into Chile. Antarctic beech and needle-leaved trees
mixed with araucaria are common. The Patagonian Andes do not
support a flourishing animal life: the smallest known deer, the
pudu, dwells there, and wild pigs, introduced by Europeans, have
multiplied.
It seems likely that grasses in Tierra del Fuego first
covered glaciated zones, but forests advanced after volcanic ash
settled there. Antarctic beech is plentiful in the valleys and
grows along with cypress on steep slopes. A local phenomenon
near the southern tip of the continent is species of parrots and
other birds more commonly associated with the tropics than with
Patagonia. Penguins and seals frequent coastal areas, especially
in the south.
People
Ethnic groups
Heavy immigration, particularly from Spain and Italy, has
produced in Argentina a people who are almost all of European
ancestry. In the colonial period, though, the Spanish explorers
and settlers encountered a number of native peoples. Among these
were the Diaguita of the Andean Northwest, a town-dwelling
agricultural people who were forced into labour after they were
conquered. They were divided by the Spanish into small groups
and were sent to work in Peru and the Río de la Plata area. In
the Mesopotamian region the semiagricultural Guaraní also were
forced into labour.
Most other Argentine Indians were hunters and gatherers who
fought the Spanish tenaciously but were eventually exterminated
or driven away. In the Gran Chaco were the Guaycuruan-speaking
peoples, among others. The Araucanian Indians traveled over the
mountains from Chile and raided Spanish settlements in the
southern Pampas until the Conquest of the Desert in the 1870s.
Another Pampas Indian tribe was the Querandí, who inhabited the
region of Buenos Aires. In Patagonia the largest group was the
Tehuelche, and on Tierra del Fuego the Ona.
Population estimates of the colonial period suggest that by
1810 Argentina had more than 400,000 people. Of these perhaps 30
percent were Indian, their numbers drastically depleted from a
pre-Columbian regional population estimated at 300,000. Ten
percent of the total were either enslaved Africans or their
descendants who had been smuggled into the country through
Buenos Aires, and there was a large element of mestizos
(European and Indian mixture). European descendants were in the
minority.
A great wave of European immigration after the mid-1800s
molded the present-day ethnic character of Argentina. The
Indians and mestizos were pushed aside (mainly to the Andean
provinces) or absorbed, and the blacks and mulattos disappeared,
apparently also absorbed into the dominant population. Since
that time mestizos from Chile, Bolivia, and Paraguay have grown
numerous in bordering regions, but only since the late 20th
century has there been substantial immigration from Paraguay and
Uruguay into the urban areas of Argentina.
Almost half of the European immigrants in the late 19th and
early 20th centuries were Italian, and about one-third were
Spanish. Substantial numbers also came from France, Poland,
Russia, Germany, and Great Britain. In 1869 the foreign-born
made up 12 percent of the population; this grew to about
one-third by 1914, and in large cities foreigners outnumbered
natives by as much as 2 to 1. As immigration slowed later in the
20th century, the proportion of foreign-born Argentines dropped.
The Italian influence on Argentine culture became the most
important of any immigrant group, and Italian is still widely
spoken in Buenos Aires. Other major foreign influences have come
from Spanish and Polish immigrants. Smaller groups have also
made notable contributions, however. British capital and
management, in particular, built railroads and created the
meat-processing industry; the British also left a relatively
small but influential community. The Germans established farm
settlements and cooperatives; the French contributed their
viticultural expertise; and the Japanese invested in business,
as did the Syrians and Lebanese.
The children of immigrants were quick to identify themselves
as Argentines, so the people were not divided into antagonistic
ethnic groups. But Argentine society developed a serious
division between the rural interior and the urban coast. Many
rural people grew to resent the wealth, political power, and
cultural affectations of the porteños, the “people of the port”
in the Buenos Aires region, and many porteños looked upon
residents of the interior as ignorant peasants. These divisions
became deeply rooted in the politics of the country.
Language and religion
Spanish is the national language, although in Argentina it
is spoken in several accents and has absorbed many words from
other languages, especially Italian. Numerous foreign languages
and dialects can be heard, from Basque and Sicilian to Welsh and
Gaelic. Toward the end of the 19th century, an underworld
language called lunfardo developed in Buenos Aires, composed of
words from many languages—among them Italian, Portuguese,
Spanish, French, German, and languages from Africa. Lunfardo is
now often heard in the lyrics of tango music.
About four-fifths of Argentine people are at least nominally
Roman Catholic; the majority of them are nonpracticing. The
faith’s influence, however, is strongly reflected in government
and society. Protestants make up about 5 percent of the
population. Muslims and Jews account for small minorities. The
Jewish community of Argentina is the largest in South America.
Settlement patterns
The varied topography, climate, and natural resources of
Argentina shaped the pattern of European settlement. Although
modern transportation and industry have partly effaced regional
differences, the organization of life in both city and country
still follows patterns that were set in early colonial times.
The Northwest
Numerous archaeological sites in the region indicate the
presence—before the Spanish invasion—of permanently settled
Indians who practiced irrigation and terraced farming in the
oasis-like valleys. The Spanish, arriving overland from what are
now Peru and Bolivia, initially occupied areas on the lowland
plains of the Chaco, distant from hostile indigenous groups;
they made their first permanent settlement in 1553 at Santiago
del Estero. Not long afterward forts arose in the Northwest at
San Miguel de Tucumán (1565), Salta (1582), San Salvador de
Jujuy (1593), and San Luis (1594); Córdoba, to the south, was
founded in 1573. Meanwhile, the Northwest received colonists
from still farther south as Spaniards and Creole settlers from
Chile founded the cities of Mendoza and San Juan in the early
1560s.
The cities in the Northwest were founded originally to
support agriculture (including livestock raising) and trade with
the silver mines of the Viceroyalty of Peru, particularly those
at Potosí (now in Bolivia). Later, as Buenos Aires developed and
the silver mines became less profitable, the country’s
orientation switched to the southeast. The Spanish established a
trade route between Chile and Buenos Aires that went through
Córdoba and Mendoza, both of which thrived. This northward path
was chosen in order to avoid the Pampas Indians, and it has
remained an important transportation route. Settlement in the
600-mile- (1,000-km-) long rain shadow zone east of the Andes
took place in river oases stretching from just south of San
Miguel de Tucumán to San Rafael, south of Mendoza.
Rail transportation linked Mendoza to the Pampas in 1885 and
sparked the development of viticulture in the Mendoza region.
Access to Buenos Aires brought new capital, more settlers,
better grape stock, and larger markets. Mendoza and oases such
as San Rafael expanded once European immigrants could reach them
and fill the labour shortage. Farmers in Tucumán province
benefited from their more humid surroundings amid Andean
foothills; they responded to the new markets across the Pampas
by increasing sugar production, which had begun there during
early colonial times. The first direct rail link between Tucumán
and the Pampas in 1875 provided access to expanding sugar
markets and to more modern machinery. Most of the tens of
thousands of workers needed to harvest the crop came to live
year-round on the large plantations, making Tucumán the most
densely settled province in Argentina.
The Gran Chaco
The Gran Chaco has long been considered a frontier region,
and the government has often promoted its settlement and
development. Agricultural colonies and cities grew first along
the Paraná-Paraguay water route and then along railroads built
to serve the quebracho industry. Resistencia was founded in
1878, and Formosa in 1879.
The harsh physical conditions of the Gran Chaco explain why
its native peoples engaged in only limited agriculture. Early
Spanish expeditions aiming to conquer the Chaco came from
Santiago del Estero to the west, Santa Fe to the southeast, and
Asunción (now the capital of Paraguay) across the Paraguay River
to the northeast. None of these succeeded in subduing the
determined Indians, however.
Settlement in the Chaco ultimately took place from Santiago
del Estero, where irrigated cotton was successfully grown as
early as the mid-16th century, and from Santa Fe, where cattle
ranchers had purchased enormous acreages on which to raise tough
criollo (Creole) cattle, which had survived from earlier
expeditions. Ranchers defeated local Indians in 1885 and
advanced to the northern frontier of the Argentine Chaco near
the Bermejo River. Logging operations followed the ranchers and
helped open parts of the Chaco—particularly in the east, where
tannin from the quebracho tree met the demand of the Argentine
leather industry. At the start of the 20th century, European
settlers in the eastern Chaco began raising cotton, a crop that
could withstand the long drought period. Small cotton-growing
areas spread westward nearly to San Miguel de Tucumán, north to
the Paraguayan border at the Pilcomayo River, and east into
Mesopotamia.
Mesopotamia
The northern part of the Mesopotamian region was first
settled by Spaniards from Asunción, who in 1588 founded the city
of Corrientes near the confluence of the Alto Paraná and
Paraguay rivers. In the south settlers from Santa Fe crossed the
Paraná River and established what became the city of Paraná.
Having founded towns along navigable rivers, the Spanish secured
the water route to the Río de la Plata estuary.
When the Spanish first entered the Mesopotamian region,
distances between settlements were so great that supply lines
were tenuous, and the settlers found it necessary to produce
their own subsistence crops. This they accomplished mainly by
subjugating the remaining Indians under the encomienda system,
which granted settlers the use of Indian labour on lands awarded
by the crown. After Indian rebellions were met by Spanish
military reprisals, however, many Indians were forced to flee.
Finally, in the early 17th century the crown turned to the
Jesuits to restore peace and protect the native peoples. Within
a century the Jesuits had built numerous reducciones, or mission
settlements, in Mesopotamia, which later acquired the name
Misiones. Under Jesuit rule northern Mesopotamia became the most
important centre of colonization in the eastern part of the
continent.
The Territory of Misiones was created in the early 1880s, and
Europeans, particularly Germans, began to settle the forested
zone in the north. Yerba maté (Ilex paraguariensis; source of
the brewed beverage maté), citrus, and vegetables, as well as
tung trees, tea, and sugarcane, were grown on small farms.
Outside the agricultural zones of Mesopotamia, cattle ranching
came to dominate.
The Pampas
The Pampas region was originally inhabited by Indians such
as the Querandí, who reportedly did not practice agriculture but
were fishers and hunters who used bolas for entangling
fleet-footed guanacos and rheas. Fierce attacks by the Querandí
forced Spanish settlers in Buenos Aires to flee upriver to
Asunción in 1541. After Buenos Aires reemerged in 1580, the
Spanish showed less interest in opening up the southern Pampas
than in keeping open the northern trade route to Santa Fe,
Asunción, and Upper Peru; as a result, estancias (huge cattle
ranches) were first established northwest of Buenos Aires.
The estancias became one of the most important institutions
in the economy, politics, and culture of Argentina. They began
as gigantic tracts of land, often measuring in the hundreds of
square miles, that were sold or granted to the Creole
descendants of Spanish settlers during the 17th century. Herds
of criollo cattle and horses ran half wild on these tracts. To
manage the herds the estancia owners (estancieros) hired
gauchos, ranch hands who dominated the Pampas until the open
ranges disappeared late in the 19th century.
Located on the estancias were widely dispersed ranchos, or
simple adobe houses with dooryard gardens, which served as the
headquarters of the estancieros. The gauchos were housed in more
primitive huts or lean-tos. In addition, there were small
pulperías, centrally located inns where marketing, banking,
eating and drinking, and other functions took place. Some
pulperías grew into villages. Gradually, the estancia region of
the Pampas spread west and south of Buenos Aires.
Buenos Aires and Santa Fe survived as small, sparsely
populated towns until the mid-19th century. After that time
rapid growth in agriculture changed the face of the Pampas. The
world market for food products increased, and estancieros
modernized their operations to meet the demand. Sheep and breeds
of English cattle were imported to replace the criollo; however,
the new cattle were unable to live on the Pampas grass and had
to be fed with alfalfa. Because gauchos were not numerous or
willing enough to cultivate alfalfa, their employers contracted
European immigrants as tenant farmers. In addition, the southern
frontier of the Pampas was pushed back, so that by 1880 Indian
resistance was wiped out north of the Negro River. By 1914
several million European workers had arrived to work ranches and
farms. Gradually, small farming and tenant farming operations
spread west and south from Santa Fe and Entre Ríos provinces.
The growth of agriculture spurred the growth of cities.
Railroads radiating from Buenos Aires penetrated the interior of
the Pampas, forming the densest network in the country. By the
late 19th century foreign-owned frigoríficos (meat-packing
plants for the export of beef and mutton) had been established
on the Río de la Plata estuary. Efforts by the government to
encourage the growth of manufacturing favoured the port cities,
attracting most immigrants as well as many workers from the
countryside. Buenos Aires subsequently became one of the most
populous and cosmopolitan cities of the world, and the Humid
Pampa became the most prosperous industrial and agricultural
region of Argentina.
Patagonia
Most approaches to Patagonia from the sea were hampered by
inhospitable coastal cliffs and by high tides. With the Pampas
Indians acting as a buffer against Europeans to the north, the
Patagonian Indians thus remained unmolested until the mid-19th
century, when European settlements encroached and warfare
erupted. The Indian wars in northern Patagonia and the southern
and western Pampas culminated in a campaign known as the
Conquest of the Desert, which ended in 1879 with the smashing of
the last major Indian resistance. Argentines, Chileans, and
Europeans began to colonize Patagonia, with soldiers and
financial contributors to the Indian wars receiving large land
grants. Argentine settlers proceeded southward from the Pampean
port city of Bahía Blanca and from Neuquén in the Andean
foothills. Chileans from Punta Arenas settled in Tierra del
Fuego. Welsh, Scottish, and English immigrants spread along the
coast and inland, with the result that both Welsh and English
are still spoken in parts of Patagonia.
The southernmost city in the world, Ushuaia, on Tierra del
Fuego, began as a missionary settlement; it can still be reached
only by ship or aircraft. About the end of the 19th century,
sheep ranching began along the rail line connecting the port of
Río Gallegos with coal deposits at Río Turbio. Comodoro
Rivadavia became an important oil and natural gas centre, and
the Negro River fruit region began to develop in 1886 when the
area east of Neuquén was settled by veterans of the Indian wars
and by others.
Demographic trends
The population of Argentina has increased 20-fold since
1869, when 1.8 million people were recorded there by the first
census. Population growth was rapid through the early part of
the 20th century, but it declined thereafter as both the birth
rate and immigration began to drop off; the proportion of young
people also declined. Argentina’s rates of birth and population
growth are now among South America’s lowest. The nation’s
population density is also among the continent’s lowest,
although certain areas are quite heavily populated, including
the Humid Pampa, Mesopotamia, and parts of the eastern
Northwest. The population is growing faster in urban
areas—especially Buenos Aires—than in the rest of the country.
Nearly nine-tenths of the people live in urban areas, about a
third in greater Buenos Aires alone.
Economy
Argentina’s economy, which is one of the more powerful in
the region, is dependent on services and manufacturing, although
agribusiness and ranching dominated the economy for much of the
19th and 20th centuries. Argentina still produces more grain
than any other country in Latin America and is second in cattle
raising only to Brazil, and its receipts from tourism are second
in the region only to those of Mexico. Its gross national
product (GNP), GNP per capita, and value added from
manufacturing are also among the highest in the region. However,
the country has withstood a number of economic downturns,
including periods of high inflation and unemployment during the
late 20th century and a major financial crisis in the early 21st
century.
In the 60 years after the founding of the farming colony at
Esperanza in 1856, the base of Argentine agriculture shifted
from livestock to crops. The spread of wheat, corn (maize), and
flax cultivation roughly conformed to that of the estancia
region of the Pampas. Although agriculture there did not become
as intensive as it did in North America, soils were good and
land was abundant. Argentine industry became important when
mostly foreign-dominated manufacturers began exporting processed
foods. The growth trend continued well into the 20th century as
Argentina became one of the most prosperous countries in Latin
America. Meat and grain were exported to expanding markets in
Europe in exchange for fuel and manufactured products.
In the early decades of the 20th century, Argentina became
the world’s leading exporter of corn, flax, and meat. However,
the Great Depression of the 1930s considerably damaged the
Argentine economy by reducing foreign trade. Between 1930 and
1980 Argentina fell from being one of the wealthiest countries
in the world to ranking with the developing (Third World)
nations. In response to the Great Depression, successive
governments from the 1930s to the ’70s pursued a strategy of
import substitution designed to transform Argentina into a
country self-sufficient in industry as well as agriculture. This
was accomplished mainly by imposing high tariffs on imports and
thereby sheltering Argentine textile, leather, and
home-appliance manufacturers from foreign competition. The
government’s encouragement of industrial growth, however,
diverted investment from agriculture, and agricultural
production fell dramatically. Fruits, vegetables, oilseed crops
such as soybeans and sunflowers, and industrial crops such as
sugarcane and cotton increased their share of total agricultural
production at the expense of the dominant grain crops. Overall,
however, Argentina remained one of the world’s major
agricultural producers.
By 1960 manufacturing contributed more to the country’s
wealth than did agriculture. Argentina had become largely
self-sufficient in consumer goods, but it depended more than
ever before on imported fuel and heavy machinery. In response
the government invested heavily in such basic industries as
petroleum, natural gas, steel, petrochemicals, and transport; it
also invited investment by foreign companies. By the mid-1970s
Argentina was producing most of its own oil, steel, and
automobiles and was also exporting a number of manufactured
products. Manufacturing became the largest single component of
the gross domestic product (GDP). The country had also become
self-sufficient in fuel.
The era of import substitution ended in 1976 when the
Argentine government lowered import barriers, liberalized
restrictions on foreign borrowing, and supported the peso (the
Argentine currency) against foreign currencies. At the same
time, growing government spending, large wage raises, and
inefficient production created a chronic inflation that rose
through the 1980s, when it briefly exceeded an annual rate of
1,000 percent. Successive regimes tried to control inflation
through wage and price controls, cuts in public spending, and
restriction of the money supply. With the peso quickly losing
value to inflation, a new peso was introduced in 1983 (with
10,000 old pesos exchanged for each new peso), only to be
replaced by the austral in 1985, which was in turn replaced by
another new peso in 1992.
The measures enacted in 1976 also produced a huge foreign
debt by the late 1980s, which became equivalent to three-fourths
of the GNP. In terms of percentage of GDP, the country’s
agricultural and industrial sectors were similar to those of
developed countries, but they were considerably less efficient.
And, despite a high standard of living by South American
standards, Argentina had a foreign debt ratio comparable to that
of Third World countries.
In the early 1990s the government enacted a program of
economic austerity, reined in inflation by making the peso equal
in value to the U.S. dollar, and privatized numerous state-run
companies, using part of the proceeds from their sale to reduce
the national debt. The resulting influx of foreign capital and
increased industrial productivity helped to revitalize the
economy. In 1995, however, a sudden devaluation of the Mexican
peso threatened the economies of many Latin American nations.
Argentines feared that investors who had lost money in Mexico
would also lose confidence in the Argentine financial system. To
avert that threat the government quickly adopted further
austerity measures. However, a sustained recession at the turn
of the 21st century culminated in a financial crisis in which
the government—led by a quick succession of presidents and
presidential resignations—defaulted on its foreign debt and
again devalued the Argentine peso. By the middle of the first
decade of the 21st century, however, the country’s economy had
recovered; there was considerable GNP growth, renewed foreign
investment, and a significant drop in the unemployment rate.
Agriculture, forestry, and fishing
Argentina is one of the world’s major exporters of soybeans
and wheat, as well as meat. It is also one of the largest
producers of wool and wine, but most of its wine is consumed
domestically. Although agriculture is an important source of
export earnings, it now accounts for a small percentage of the
overall GDP, and it employs only a tiny portion of the nation’s
workforce.
Wheat is Argentina’s largest crop in harvested land area, and
it is the main crop in the cattle-raising southern Pampas of
Buenos Aires and La Pampa provinces. Wheat and corn (maize)
dominate in the north. Planting of corn and wheat began
simultaneously in the northern Pampas. By the end of World War
II, however, foreign competition had cut Argentine corn
production in half, and production has increased only gradually
since then. About half of the corn produced is used for
livestock feed. The total area of the Pampas planted in sorghum
and soybeans has grown since 1960 to rank just behind that of
wheat and corn. These crops also serve primarily as livestock
feed and are valuable for export. Another crop of the northern
Pampas is flax.
More than nine-tenths of the country’s grapes are planted in
the Northwest provinces of Mendoza and San Juan; most of the
crop is used for wine making. Table grapes are a specialty in La
Rioja. The warmer northern provinces of Tucumán, Salta, and
Jujuy make up the sugarcane-growing region of Argentina. The
sugarcane provinces also have citrus orchards, which were
introduced as a safeguard against the volatility of the sugar
market. Tobacco is also grown in Salta and Jujuy. The best area
for cotton growing lies mainly west of the Paraná River, between
the Bermejo and Dulce rivers. Most of the crop is used by the
Argentine textile industry.
In Mesopotamia maté is the most important product of Misiones
province, although since 1940 farmers have increasingly
cultivated tea, tung trees (from which tung oil is derived), and
citrus crops. Farther south in Mesopotamia, the truck-farming
area supporting Buenos Aires, oranges, grapefruit, mandarins,
and numerous vegetables are grown. The Negro River irrigation
district in Patagonia has become one of Argentina’s major
fruit-producing regions, particularly for apples and pears.
The Pampas are the traditional source of beef cattle, the
country’s most valuable export commodity. Estancieros have
proved quick to adapt to changing markets, switching breeds and
supplementing alfalfa feed with grain sorghum in order to
produce leaner meat. Most of Argentina’s hogs are raised in the
Pampas, principally for domestic consumption. The cool, moist
area of the southeastern Pampas, between Buenos Aires and the
city of Mar del Plata, is an important dairy and sheep-raising
district. Corrientes and Entre Ríos remain important
cattle-raising provinces, ranking just behind those of the
Pampas. Chaco province began as grazing ground for criollo
cattle, but modern breeds have been susceptible to disease
there, so the Chaco cattle economy has remained underdeveloped.
Patagonia has at least half of the country’s sheep, most of
which are sheared for their wool. For a period during the 1990s,
Argentine beef was banned from importation into the European
Union, the United States, and other nations because of the
incidence of foot-and-mouth disease. Exports subsequently
resumed but were subject to periodic bans. Most of the beef
produced in Argentina is now eaten locally.
The forestry industry does not supply all of Argentina’s
needs. Most of the harvest is used for lumber, with smaller
amounts for firewood and charcoal. In Mesopotamia the Paraná
pine is harvested for its timber; there are also plantations of
poplar and willow. The Northwest highlands produce pine and
cedar, used for pulp and industry. The red quebracho of the
Chaco region is valuable for its tannin, and the white quebracho
is used for lumber and charcoal. Scattered stands of algaroba
(carob) provide local firewood and cabinet wood in the Pampas.
The fishing industry is comparatively small, owing in part to
the overwhelming preference among Argentines for beef in their
diet. Most coastal and deep-sea fishing is done in the Buenos
Aires area, from the Río de la Plata to the Gulf of San Matías;
the major ports are Mar del Plata and Bahía Blanca. Hake, squid,
and shrimp make up a large part of the catch, about
three-quarters of which is frozen or processed into oil and fish
meal for export.
Resources and power
Argentine industry is well served by the country’s abundance
of energy resources. By the late 20th century the country was
self-sufficient in fossil fuels and hydroelectric generation,
and it had become a petroleum exporter. Oil deposits are
concentrated mainly in the Northwest and in Patagonia. The basin
around the Patagonian port of Comodoro Rivadavia is estimated to
hold some two-thirds of the country’s onshore reserves. Other
deposits are located in Jujuy and Salta provinces, in Mendoza
and Neuquén provinces, and at the tip of Patagonia and Tierra
del Fuego. The main natural gas fields are also in the
Northwest, near Campo Durán (Salta province) and Mendoza, and in
Patagonia, near Neuquén and Comodoro Rivadavia. Prior to the
development of these fields in the 1980s, Argentina had imported
gas from Bolivia. Coal deposits are found in southern Patagonia.
Until 2000 some coal was mined there, but that activity has
ceased; Argentina’s needs are met by imports.
With the exception of oil and natural gas, exploitable
mineral reserves are generally small and widely scattered.
Deposits of iron ore, uranium, lead, zinc, silver, copper,
manganese, and tungsten are worked. A wide range of nonmetallic
minerals is found throughout the country. Salt deposits are
located on the western and southwestern edges of the Pampas, and
materials such as clay, limestone, granite, and marble supply
the construction industries.
A significant amount of electrical power in Argentina is
generated through hydroelectric stations, the total capacity of
which has increased exponentially since the early 1970s. The
huge Yacyretá dam on the lower Paraná River, brought on line in
1994–98, gave the nation a surplus of generating capacity.
Argentina, with several nuclear plants, is one of Latin
America’s main producers of nuclear power.
Manufacturing
Manufacturing, which accounts for about one-fifth of GDP and
nearly one-sixth of the workforce, is a mainstay of the
Argentine economy. A large sector of the country’s industry is
involved with the processing of agricultural products.
Agribusiness
Beef initiated industrialization in Argentina. The success
of beef came as refrigeration techniques were perfected to
allow, after 1876, for the storage and shipment of fresh meat.
By the late 1920s frigoríficos (meat-packing plants) were
located in various parts of the country, several of them in the
Buenos Aires area. Later shipments proceeded from La Plata,
Rosario, and Bahía Blanca. Frigoríficos at the ports of
Patagonia came to serve the sheep ranches of that region.
The growth of beef production in Argentina gave rise to a
host of associated industries, including those producing tinned
beef, meat extracts, tallow, hides, and leather. Argentina has
been a consistent world leader in the export of hides. Leather
processing occurs locally, and fine leather clothing can be
obtained at retail outlets in the cities. The Chaco region
supplies the necessary tannin, of which it is a major world
producer.
The Argentine grain-milling industry has grown in cities
along the Río de la Plata littoral, where huge storage silos
were built. Grain became a significant export as production
increased in the late 20th century. Wheat flour is also produced
in the silo areas for local consumption, and food industries
based on wheat flour and pastas have developed at the same
sites. Smaller but similar activities have emerged in the
interior of Argentina wherever grain has been produced. Textile
production in Argentina also developed on the basis of
agricultural products, namely, wool and cotton. It is
concentrated in the cities of the Pampas, where the largest
markets and labour pools are located.
The Argentine sugar industry of the Northwest is centred
mainly in San Miguel de Tucumán, but a few mills also operate in
Salta and San Salvador de Jujuy. These mills fulfill domestic
demand. Mendoza in the same region is the nation’s centre for
olive and olive oil production, as well as for wine bottling.
Argentina exports wine to other South American countries and to
Europe and North America, on the basis of a steadily improving
reputation among consumers.
Oil, steel, and motor vehicles
Argentina’s refining industry has grown along the coast in
Buenos Aires and nearby cities, supplied by crude oil taken
there by tankers and pipelines from Comodoro Rivadavia and
Venezuela. The refining industry has also found a base in the
petroleum fields north and south of Mendoza, where petrochemical
plants have been built.
The steel industry in Argentina began in the 1940s and grew
slowly during the following decades. The Zapla works in Jujuy,
the integrated San Nicolás de los Arroyos mill between Rosario
and Buenos Aires, and the mill in Rosario produce most of the
nation’s steel but fall short of supplying domestic demand.
A developing automobile industry provides a market for
Argentine steel producers. Production had stagnated for decades,
and in the 1980s it was still common to see 1960s-era cars on
the streets of Buenos Aires; in the 1990s, however, foreign
investment and the construction of modern assembly plants
revitalized this sector. There is a developing aircraft industry
at Córdoba.
Finance and trade
The economic sector that includes finance, insurance, real
estate, and business services accounts for one-fifth of GDP and
employs about one-twelfth of the workforce. The central bank
issues currency, sets interest and exchange rates, and regulates
the money supply by deciding the amount of reserve cash that
banks must hold. The peso is the monetary unit.
Prior to the establishment in the 1990s of the Southern
Common Market (Mercado Común del Sur; Mercosur) with Brazil,
Uruguay, and Paraguay, Argentine trade was mainly oriented
toward Europe and the United States. Brazil is now Argentina’s
most important trading partner, representing about one-fourth of
all foreign trade, followed by the countries of the European
Union, the United States, Chile, Japan, and Uruguay.
In the 19th century Argentine beef and grain helped feed
Britain’s rapidly rising urban population, and until 1945
Britain was Argentina’s main trading partner. The United States
then assumed greater importance, particularly as an importer of
Argentine goods. Britain’s share declined and virtually
disappeared for a time after the Falkland Islands War of 1982.
Argentina generally has had a favourable balance of trade,
although it has occasionally experienced years with trade
deficits since the Mercosur pact was enacted. The country’s
major exports are still agricultural products, notably grain;
also important are petroleum, machinery and transport equipment,
and chemicals. About half of its imports, by value, are
machinery and transport equipment. Chemical products and
consumer goods are significant as well.
Services
More than three-fifths of the Argentine GDP and a comparable
portion of the labour force are based on services, including
retail trade, hotels, restaurants, trucking and other
transportation, government, education, health care, and various
other business and social services. Retail and wholesale
commerce alone account for about one-seventh of GDP, and
business services account for a slightly lesser portion.
Tourism is growing in importance, and international visitors
contribute large amounts of foreign exchange to the Argentine
economy. The number of foreign tourist arrivals approached five
million per year in the late 1990s; one-fourth of visitors were
from Uruguay, followed by hundreds of thousands each from Chile,
Brazil, the United States, and Paraguay. Major tourist sites
include Iguazú Falls and the former Jesuit missions in Misiones
province, as well as the ski resorts of San Carlos de Bariloche
in the Lake District. Adventure travelers are drawn to Patagonia
and Tierra del Fuego. Buenos Aires is often called the Paris of
South America because of its European flair, its nightlife, and
its many educational institutions, museums, monuments, and
theatres, including the historic Colón Theatre.
Labour and taxation
Argentina possesses a large and literate workforce. However,
a sizable number of Argentine workers were unemployed at the
turn of the 21st century. Strong labour laws were enacted during
the Perón era, when unions wielded great power over the
Argentine economy, but successive governments have attempted to
reform or repeal some of the Peronist strictures. More than
nine-tenths of Argentina’s 1,100 labour unions are represented
by the General Confederation of Labour (Confederación General de
Trabajo), a Peronist organization. Dissident trade union
confederations include the Argentine Workers’ Movement
(Movimiento de Trabajadores Argentinos).
Women constitute more than one-third of the labour force, and
about two-fifths of women labourers are employed as household
servants. The number of women employed is increasing, which
reflects both the necessity of two incomes to support families
and an increase in the number of women heading households. Women
tend to hold lower-paying jobs and to receive less pay than
their male counterparts.
Taxes contribute the great bulk of government revenue. In
addition to income tax, the principal federal taxes include
wealth tax, value-added tax, and excise taxes on specific
commodities and luxury goods. Additional taxes are levied by
local and provincial governments.
Transportation and telecommunications
During the Spanish colonial period there were three
principal overland transportation routes. The most important led
from Buenos Aires to the wealthy mining centre in Upper Peru
(now Bolivia) via the northwestern route through Córdoba,
Santiago del Estero, San Miguel de Tucumán, and San Salvador de
Jujuy. A second route linked Buenos Aires with Chile westward
through Villa María, San Luis, and Mendoza. The third route
extended north from Buenos Aires to Santa Fe and Corrientes.
These and less-important side roads were used by mule drivers,
horsemen, huge two-wheeled oxcarts called carretas, and
stagecoaches drawn by teams of six to eight horses.
The system was transformed not by modernizing the roads but
rather by rapidly building rail lines during the period just
after 1857. British and other foreign capital funded rail
networks that radiated from Buenos Aires. Rail construction
continued from that time into the 20th century, and the country
developed the most extensive rail system in Latin America. After
the railways expanded, the nation built up its road network.
Argentina’s roadway mileage is now outranked in Latin America
only by Brazil and Mexico; nearly one-third of the roads are
paved. The largest share of surface freight is now carried by
road, with lesser amounts carried by river and railroad.
Small ships that carry passengers and freight have served the
coastal cities from Buenos Aires to Río Gallegos since the end
of the 19th century. The ocean shipping fleet is not well
developed, however, considering Argentina’s extensive export
trade. Airlines link all regions of the country. Every major
city has an airport, and even small, remote centres such as
Ushuaia in southern Patagonia have reliable air service. Nearly
all the largest cities have international airports, the most
important being Ezeiza outside Buenos Aires. The country’s main
air transport company, Aerolíneas Argentinas, was founded by the
government in 1950 to handle domestic and international traffic.
It was sold to a consortium headed by Spain’s national carrier,
Iberia, in 1992 and unsuccessfully restructured in the late
1990s. The airlines returned to state control in 2008.
In November 2000 the telecommunications industry was
deregulated in an attempt to open the market to competition,
improve the speed and breadth of services, and lower costs.
Argentina was experiencing a boom in Internet start-up
companies, which the infrastructure was inadequate to support.
By 2000 fewer than 10 percent of the people owned personal
computers, and less had Internet access, but the numbers for
both were growing rapidly. The two extant regional
telecommunications companies, Telecom and Telefónica, in 1989–90
had replaced the state-owned Entel company, which was notorious
for decade-long waits for installations. The system subsequently
was modernized, with extensive fibre-optic lines installed
throughout most of the market and service made available to
remote locations. Cellular service was expanding as well,
approaching the rate of traditional landline service.
Government and society
Constitutional framework
Argentina is a federal union of 23 provincias and a federal
capital district, the city of Buenos Aires. Federalism came to
Argentina only after a long struggle between proponents of a
central government and supporters of provincial interests. The
constitution of 1853 was modeled on that of the United States.
The constitution promulgated in 1994 provides for consecutive
presidential terms (which had not been allowed previously), but
few other changes distinguish it from the 1853 document; in its
largely original form, the constitution has sustained Argentina
with at least a nominal form of republican, representative, and
federal government.
Executive power resides in the office of the president, who
is elected with a vice president to a four-year term (only two
terms can be consecutive). The president is commander in chief
of the armed forces and appoints all civil, military, and
federal judicial officers, as well as the chief of the Cabinet
of Ministers, the body that oversees the general administration
of the country. The Argentine legislature, or National Congress,
consists of two houses: a 72-seat Senate and a 257-seat Chamber
of Deputies. The Senate, whose members are elected to six-year
terms, consists of three representatives from each province and
the federal capital. The Chamber of Deputies, whose members are
elected to four-year terms, is apportioned according to
population.
Provincial and local government
Each province has its own government, with executive,
legislative, and judicial branches similar to those of the
federal government. The provinces retain all power not
specifically reserved to the federal government in the
constitution. Local government was nullified in 1966 and
restored in 1973, only to be taken over again in 1976 by the
military dictatorship. With the restoration of constitutional
government in 1983, the provinces and municipalities once more
exercised the authority of local government. Municipal
governments vary in structure, but many towns and cities have
elected mayors. The executive (jefe de gobierno) of Buenos Aires
is directly elected to a four-year term and is eligible for
immediate reelection.
Justice
The Argentine judicial system is divided into federal and
provincial courts. The nine federal Supreme Court judges are
appointed by the president with approval of the Senate. Lower
federal court judges are nominated by a Council of Magistrates
and chosen by the president. Reforms begun in the 1990s
addressed long-standing problems of inefficiency, corruption,
and unfilled vacancies. There are federal courts of appeal in
Buenos Aires and other large cities. The provincial justice
system includes supreme courts, appellate courts, courts of
first instance, and justices of the peace.
The judiciary has been criticized as inefficient and open to
political influence, despite recent reforms. Among the
persistent problems cited are arbitrary arrests, lengthy
pretrial detentions, and harsh prison conditions. However, cases
involving human rights abuses have received increasing attention
since the 1980s. The government has designated a prisons
ombudsman since 1993 to monitor conditions and recommend prison
reforms.
The national prison system is directed by the Ministry of
Justice. There are also separate provincial prisons. The number
of prisoners in Argentina increased greatly in the 1990s, from
roughly 21,000 to nearly 40,000, or to as many as 58,000 by some
estimates. The rate of incarceration also increased rapidly.
Pretrial detainees account for more than half of the prison
population.
Political process
The political party system in Argentina has been volatile,
particularly since the mid-20th century, with numerous parties
forming, taking part in elections, and disbanding as new
factions evolve. Among the major parties are the Radical Civic
Union (Unión Cívica Radical; UCR), a centrist party with
moderate leftist leanings; the Justicialist Party (Partido
Justicialista; PJ), more commonly known as the Peronist party
(for its founder, former president Juan Perón), traditionally
nationalist and pro-labour but supportive of neoliberal economic
policies during the 1990s; the Front for a Country in Solidarity
(Frente del País Solidario; Frepaso), a moderate leftist
grouping of dissident Peronists; and the Union of the Democratic
Centre (Unión del Centro Democrático; UCD, or UCéDé), a
traditional liberal party. The PJ has controlled the government
most of the time since civilian rule was restored in the early
1980s, notably under President Carlos Menem in the 1990s.
Frepaso was founded in 1994 from the left-wing Broad Front, the
Christian Democratic Party, and other groups; three years later
it formed an alliance with the UCR and in 1999–2001 held the
government. The UCéDé, which remained separate from many
coalitions, had a limited power base.
The national electoral code provides that 30 percent of
candidates proposed by political parties for elected office must
be women. About one-fourth of the members of the Chamber of
Deputies are women, but the Senate remains overwhelmingly male.
Women’s rights have been established through a series of
legislative acts guaranteeing the right to vote, to work and to
receive equal pay for equal work, and to stand on equal footing
in a marriage, including in the authority over children. In 1985
the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination
Against Women was ratified, and in 1991 the Coordinating Council
for Public Policies on Women was established to ensure its
fulfillment. Departments of women’s affairs operate within many
federal and local agencies and in such institutions as labour
unions.
Security
The military has traditionally been a factor in Argentina’s
political life, and the country has experienced several periods
of military rule, including 1976–83. Since then, however, annual
military spending has fallen to only a tiny fraction of GDP. Of
the roughly 70,000 active military personnel in the army, navy,
and air force, some three-fifths of the total are in the army.
The Coast Guard provides security and rescue services, and there
is also an 18,000-member paramilitary Gendarmería Nacional under
the direction of the Ministry of the Interior, deployable for
both national and international security functions. Argentina
has sent troops to UN missions in Cyprus, Iraq and Kuwait, and
Serbia and Montenegro (Yugoslavia) and has provided observers in
a number of other locations as well. Argentina also has a
federal police force that is controlled by the president through
the minister of the interior.
Health and welfare
An extensive system of hospitals and clinics in Argentina is
run by national, provincial, and local authorities as well as by
private organizations. The cost of medical care is covered by a
comprehensive array of occupational insurance plans. Public
health and sanitation standards are particularly high in
developed places but can drop off considerably in some of the
undeveloped areas. Diseases such as smallpox, cholera, yellow
fever, and tuberculosis have been brought under control or
eliminated. Average life expectancy at birth exceeds 75 years,
higher than that in many South American countries.
Argentina’s social welfare services were developed on a large
scale during the first presidency (1946–55) of Juan Perón. A
social security system was set up to provide extensive benefits
for all workers. Housing, however, has become a problem in
cities because of the movement of workers from rural areas,
especially during periods of economic difficulty. These workers
have congregated on the outskirts of urban zones—and more
recently on vacant land in the inner cities—and assembled
dwellings from corrugated iron and scraps of wood, cardboard,
and other scavenged materials. The resulting shantytown
communities, called villas miserias, lack amenities such as
public utilities and paved roads.
Housing
The quality and style of housing in Argentina vary
considerably according to location and economic status. Many of
the residents of Buenos Aires and other large cities live in
high-rise apartments; those in the suburbs reside in ranch-style
concrete homes with tile roofs. However, poorer families often
inhabit substandard housing in tenements or shantytowns. More
than two-fifths of homes in the city of Buenos Aires are rented.
Apartments and condominiums account for three-fourths of homes
in the capital but only about one-eighth of those in the
surrounding suburbs. At least one-fifth of Argentines occupy
substandard housing, lacking indoor plumbing (drinking water or
toilets) or having either dirt floors or temporary flooring. The
government classifies about half of the substandard homes as
shacks or shanties. In many, more than three people are crowded
into each room.
Education
Argentina has one of the more educated populations in Latin
America, which is reflected in its large number of schools and a
nearly universal literacy rate. Primary education is compulsory
and free; secondary and higher education is offered in free
public schools and in private schools subsidized by the state.
Higher education in Argentina was seriously hampered by the
censorship and other strictures of the military government of
1976–83, but efforts to restore the system began after a
civilian government was returned to power. The National
University of Córdoba, founded in 1613, is the nation’s oldest
university, and the University of Buenos Aires, founded in 1821,
is its largest. Other major national universities are at
Mendoza, La Plata, Rosario, and San Miguel de Tucumán. The
National Technical University is located at Buenos Aires.
Cultural life
Almost all Argentines are descendants of immigrants from
Europe, and Argentine culture is a lively blend of European
customs and Latin American innovations. Whereas earlier
generations of intellectuals, writers, composers, filmmakers,
and visual artists looked to European models, the country has
developed artistic forms that are uniquely Argentine—most
famously the tango, the sexually charged dance of the Buenos
Aires dockside district, as well as the dense, metaphysical
stories of Jorge Luis Borges, which evoke the back alleys of the
capital and the vast Pampas alike. The tensions between those
two milieus are important in Argentine thought, for, although
most Argentines are urban and look to porteños, or residents of
Buenos Aires, as arbiters of taste and trends, the interior has
given to all Argentines their symbol of national identity, the
gaucho, who occupies a position in South American lore similar
to that of the cowboy in the United States. Scorned in his
heyday of the 18th and 19th centuries as a drinker and vagabond,
this mestizo ranch hand rode the open rangeland of the huge
estancias in pursuit of wild horses and criollo cattle.
Eventually Argentines came to see him as a character whose
solitary life taught him self-reliance, courage, indifference to
hardship, and love of the land—traits that represented the ideal
of their national character as set out in the national epic poem
El gaucho Martin Fierro (1872) by José Hernández, in Ricardo
Güiraldes’s fictional classic Don Segunda Sombra (1926), and in
works by Domingo Faustino Sarmiento and Benito Lynch.
Daily life and social customs
Daily life in Argentina’s cities is much as it is in those
of southern Europe: businesses and shops open early, close for a
long break at midday, and stay open into the evening; social
life takes place both in the streets and in lively bars and
nightclubs; and meals are an opportunity for convivial
exchanges. New and Old World cultures meet in the Argentine
diet, where breakfast is generally a serving of three sweet
rolls (medialunas) and coffee in the French fashion, and supper
is taken, in the Spanish tradition, after 9:00 pm, often
featuring Italian dishes. The New World asserts itself in the
Argentine passion for beef cooked on the grill (parrilla), which
is overwhelmingly preferred to other meats and fish. Argentina
consumes more beef per capita than any other nation except
Uruguay, twice the amount per capita as the United States.
Buenos Aires is renowned for its steakhouses (asados criollos,
but nearly every culinary tradition is represented in one or
more of the city’s restaurants. Maté, the native tealike
beverage brewed from yerba maté leaves, is popular in the
countryside and is drunk from a gourd through a strainer; it is
either sipped individually or shared in an important social
ritual. Argentina is one of the largest wine producers in the
world, and its varietal red wines are highly prized by
connoisseurs, though most production goes toward supplying high
domestic consumption.
Most Argentines observe the Roman Catholic calendar of
holidays, including Christmas and Easter. San Martin Day (August
17), Venticinco de Mayo (May 25, the anniversary of the
revolution of 1810), and Nueve de Julio (July 9, Independence
Day) are among the principal national holidays. Regional
festivals include the Fiesta del Milagros (“Miracle Festival”)
in Salta, commemorating the salvation of the city from an
earthquake in September 1692, the celebration on July 6 of the
founding of Córdoba, and the wine festival in Mendoza in March.
The arts
The fine arts of Argentina historically found their
inspiration in Europe, particularly in France and Spain, but the
turbulence and complexity of Argentine national life—and of
Latin America in general—have also found expression in the arts.
In literature the Modernismo movement of the late 19th century
and the Ultraísmo of the early 20th were both influenced by the
French Symbolist and Parnassian poets. By composing verses of
unconventional metre and by using unusual imagery and symbolism,
such poets as Leopoldo Lugones and Jorge Luis Borges hoped to
draw attention to the beauty of the Spanish language. Borges
went on to become one of the most innovative fiction writers of
Latin America. He prepared the way for experimental works of the
later 20th century, such as the antinovel Rayuela (1963;
Hopscotch) by the Argentine novelist Julio Cortázar. Adolfo Bioy
Casares, a colleague of Borges, is particularly well known for
his stories. Also notable is Ernesto Sábato, author of the
fictional work El túnel (1948; Eng. trans. The Outsider) and
chair of the commission that produced Nunca más (1984; “Never
Again!”), a shocking report on human rights abuses in Argentina.
The novelist and screenwriter Manuel Puig is best known for his
El beso de la mujer araña (1976; Kiss of the Spider Woman), a
denunciation of sexual and political repression. Contemporary
Argentine writers such as Alicia Partnoy and Luisa Valenzuela
are well known within the country. Buenos Aires hosts an annual
book fair highlighting the work of these and other authors, as
well as a separate fair for children’s books; Argentina remains
the largest market in Spanish-speaking Latin America for trade
books.
Composers of the early 20th century such as Alberto Williams
and Carlos López Buchardo contributed to a nationalist revival
in music by adapting folk and gaucho themes to classical forms.
A generation later Alberto Ginastera and Juan Carlos Paz
experimented with musical forms that were current throughout
Europe and the Americas. Painters and sculptors studied in Italy
and France and took the academic, Impressionist, and Cubist
styles back to Argentina. Later artists were inspired by Mexican
murals and by abstract and Pop art in the United States.
One of Argentina’s great cultural hybrids is the tango, a
music style and dance that emerged from the poor immigrant
quarters of Buenos Aires toward the end of the 19th century and
quickly became famous around the world as a symbol of Argentine
culture. Influenced by the Spanish tango and possibly the
Argentine milonga, it was originally a high-spirited local
phenomenon, but, after it was popularized by romantic singers
such as Carlos Gardel, it became an elegant ballroom form
characterized by romantic and melancholy tunes. By the end of
the 20th century, the tango had lost some of its appeal among
the nation’s youth, who generally preferred dancing to rock and
pop music in local discotheques; nevertheless, it has remained
popular among the older generation and foreigners and has
continued to evolve under the influence of such artists as Astor
Piazzolla and Roberto Fripo.
Argentine cinema dates from the 1930s; notable among the
works of the later 20th century is La historia oficial (1985;
“The Official Version”), a drama regarding the extralegal
adoption of children born to prisoners who were murdered during
the “Dirty War” of 1976–83. Argentine film has experienced a
renaissance since the 1990s, with the critical and commercial
success of such productions as Enrique Gabriel-Lipschutz’s
Huella borrada (1999; “Erased Footprints”), Diego Arsuaga’s El
último tren (2002; “The Last Train”), Maria Teresa Constantini’s
Sin intervalo (2002; “Nonstop”), and Juan José Jusid’s
Apasionados (2002; “The Lovers”). Carlos Saura’s Tango (1998)
and Marcelo Pineyro’s Cenizas del paraíso (1997; “Ashes from
Paradise”) are among several broadly distributed Argentine films
to have been nominated for Academy Awards or other international
honours.
Cultural institutions
Buenos Aires is home to the National Library, founded in
1810 and holding more than two million volumes, and to a host of
specialized libraries as well. Museums of fine arts, natural
history, decorative arts, ethnology and archaeology, and
national history are also located there. Schools of fine arts in
Buenos Aires offer instruction in visual arts, theatre, dance,
and music. Provincial museums tend to focus on local arts,
history, and sciences; in Ushuaia, the southernmost city in the
Western Hemisphere, the Museo del Fin del Mundo (Museum of the
End of the World) concentrates on history and natural sciences.
In La Plata the university’s Natural History Museum contains
fine examples of the rich fossil record of Patagonia, which
helped inspire naturalist Charles Darwin.
Sports and recreation
Argentina’s worldwide preeminence on the polo field reflects
the nation’s divided social base, the hardiness of its horses,
and the skills of its riders. Steeped in the gaucho tradition
and having the open fields of the Pampas on which to practice, a
ranch hand with the necessary talent can attain high renown and
modest wealth at either polo or horse racing. Both the wealthy
and the urban middle classes attend exclusive sporting clubs
offering tennis, yachting, or power boating. Rugby football is
played in several private schools. There are excellent hiking
and fishing areas in the Lake District of the Patagonian Andes,
where San Carlos de Bariloche attracts crowds of skiers during
the winter. In the summer months bathers pack the beaches at
resorts such as Mar del Plata, though the waters of the Río de
la Plata itself, once available to all comers, are polluted and
have been declared unsafe for swimming.
The most popular sport among the Argentine working class is
football (soccer), introduced by the British (as was polo) in
the 19th century. Professional football offers players of even
the poorest backgrounds a chance at wealth and fame; as
inspiration they look to such national football stars as Diego
Maradona, who was perhaps the world’s leading player in the
1980s and ’90s. Argentine teams are generally among the best
internationally and are often contenders for the World Cup.
A peculiarly Argentine game dating perhaps to the 17th
century is pato (“duck”), which is played on an open field
between two teams of four horsemen each. The riders attempt to
carry a leather ball (originally a duck trapped in a basket) by
its large handles and throw it through the opposing team’s goal,
which is a large hoop on a post.
A majority of Argentines enjoy viewing televised sporting
events as well as dramas, game shows, and other television
programs, including North American comedies dubbed into Spanish.
Telenovelas (soap operas) made in Argentina and other Latin
American countries are particularly popular, and many locally
produced serials are exported throughout the region. Movies,
many of which originate in the United States or Europe, are also
viewed avidly. Increasing numbers of Argentines have bought
personal computers and begun accessing the Internet.
Media and publishing
The mass media in Argentina are well advanced among Latin
American nations. In Buenos Aires the largest newspapers are
published, and many have electronic editions on the Internet.
The largest daily circulation is claimed by Clarín; two other
large-circulation dailies, La Nación and La Prensa, founded in
1870 and 1869, respectively, have high reputations in the
Spanish-speaking world as well as among the international press.
Página/12, a more recent addition, provides thorough independent
coverage of Argentine politics and cultural affairs. The
English-language daily Buenos Aires Herald is also widely
available throughout the republic. Foreign-language papers are
common in the capital. Buenos Aires is a centre of publishing in
South America.
The majority of radio and television stations are privately
operated, although national and provincial governments operate
some 15 television stations. Throughout the country’s postwar
history the broadcast media and press have periodically become
agents of state propaganda, only to be returned to some
independence by succeeding administrations.
Robert C. Eidt
Peter A.R. Calvert
History
The following discussion focuses on events in Argentina
from the time of European settlement. For events in a regional
context, see Latin America, history of. Events that affected
northwestern Argentina prior to the 16th century are described
in pre-Columbian civilizations: Andean civilization.
The population of the area now called Argentina may have
totaled 300,000 before the arrival of the Europeans. Some of the
indigenous peoples were nomadic hunters and fishers, such as
those in the Chaco, the Tehuelche of Patagonia, and the Querandí
and Puelche (Guennakin) of the Pampas, but others, such as the
Diaguita of the Northwest, developed sedentary agriculture. The
highlands of the Northwest were a part of the Inca empire.
Early period
Discovery and settlement
The main Atlantic outline of Argentina was revealed to
European explorers in the early 16th century. The Río de la
Plata estuary was discovered years before Ferdinand Magellan
traversed the Strait of Magellan in 1520, although historians
dispute whether the estuary was first reached by Amerigo
Vespucci in 1501–02 or by Juan Díaz de Solís in his ill-fated
voyage of 1516. Solís and a small party sailed up the Plata,
which he called the Mar Dulce (“Freshwater Sea”), and made
landfall. Ambushed by Indians, Solís and most of his followers
were killed, and several disappeared. The survivors of the
expedition returned to Spain.
The Río de la Plata was not explored again until Magellan
arrived in 1520 and Sebastian Cabot in 1526. Cabot discovered
the Paraná and Paraguay rivers and established the fort of
Sancti Spíritus (the first Spanish settlement in the Plata
basin). He also sent home reports of the presence of silver.
In 1528 Cabot met another expedition from Spain under Diego
García, commander of a ship from the Solís expedition. Both
Cabot and García had planned to sail for the Moluccas but
altered their courses, influenced by excited tales about an
“enchanted City of the Caesars” (a variant of the Eldorado
legend), which later incited many explorations and conquests in
Argentina. While Cabot was preparing to search for the fabled
city, a surprise attack by the Indians in September 1529 wiped
out his Sancti Spíritus base.
Inspired by the conquest of Peru and the threat from
Portugal’s growing power in Brazil, Spain in 1535 sent an
expedition under Pedro de Mendoza (equipped at his own expense)
to settle the country. Mendoza was initially successful in
founding Santa María del Buen Aire, or Buenos Aires (1536), but
lack of food proved fatal. Mendoza, discouraged by Indian
attacks and mortally ill, sailed for Spain in 1537; he died on
the way.
In the same year, a party from Buenos Aires under Juan de
Ayolas and Domingo Martínez de Irala, lieutenants of Mendoza,
pushed a thousand miles up the Plata and Paraguay rivers. Ayolas
was lost on an exploring expedition, but Irala founded Asunción
(now in Paraguay) among the Guaraní, a largely settled
agricultural people. In 1541 the few remaining inhabitants of
Buenos Aires abandoned it and moved to Asunción, which was the
first permanent settlement in that area. In the next half
century Asunción played a major part in the conquest and
settlement of northern Argentina. The main population of
Argentina was concentrated there until the late 18th century.
Buenos Aires, reestablished in 1580 by Juan de Garay with
settlers from Asunción, was largely isolated from this northern
area. Northern Argentina as well as Buenos Aires was settled
mainly by the overflow from the neighbouring Spanish colonies of
Chile, Peru, and Paraguay (Asunción). There was little direct
migration from Spain, probably because the area lacked the
attractions of Mexico, Peru, and other Spanish colonies—rich
mines, a large supply of tractable Indian labour, accessibility,
and the privilege of direct trade with Spain. Nevertheless, in
the early communities a simple but vigorous society developed on
the basis of Indian labour and the horses, cattle, and sheep
imported by the Spaniards, as well as native products such as
corn (maize) and potatoes. Some of the Indians worked as virtual
serfs, and densely populated missions (reducciones) established
by the Roman Catholic church played a notable role in the
colonizing process. European men often took Indian wives because
there were few Spanish women among the settlers.
Colonial centres
Politically, Argentina was a divided and subordinate part of
the Viceroyalty of Peru until 1776, but three of its cities—San
Miguel de Tucumán, Córdoba, and Buenos Aires—successively
achieved a kind of leadership in the area and thereby sowed the
regional seeds that later grew into an Argentine national
identity.
San Miguel de Tucumán’s leadership lasted from the latter
part of the 16th through the 17th century. Its political and
ecclesiastical jurisdiction extended over most of northern
Argentina, including Córdoba. San Miguel de Tucumán also
dominated trade, which was the chief economic activity, by
supplying the rich silver-mining area of Upper Peru (now
Bolivia) with foodstuffs and livestock in return for European
manufactures and other goods brought from Spain. Under the same
economic system, Córdoba rose to leadership in the 17th and 18th
centuries, because the expansion of settlement gave the city a
central location and because the University of Córdoba, founded
in 1613, put the city in the intellectual forefront of the
region.
Buenos Aires, which rose to leadership in the late 18th
century, symbolized the reorientation of Argentina’s economic,
intellectual, and political life from the west to the east. On
the economic front commerce was oriented away from the declining
silver mines of Peru and toward direct transatlantic trade with
Europe. Intellectually, interest in the new ideas of the
European Enlightenment found fertile soil in cosmopolitan Buenos
Aires. Political life was reoriented in 1776, when Spain created
the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata (consisting of modern
Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and southern Bolivia), with Buenos
Aires as its capital. By carving the new viceroyalty from lands
formerly part of the Viceroyalty of Peru, Spain intended to put
its east-coast dominions in a better defensive position. The
chief threat came from Brazil, which was growing rapidly in
population, wealth, and military potential. For the first time,
the port of Buenos Aires was opened to transatlantic trade with
Spain and, through Spain, with other countries. This resulted in
a great increase in both legal trade and smuggling.
Independence
In Argentina the independence movement began in 1806–07,
when British attacks on Buenos Aires were repelled in the two
battles known as the Reconquista and the Defensa. Also important
there, as elsewhere in Spanish America, were the ramifications
of Napoleon I’s intervention in Spain, beginning in 1808, which
plunged that country into a civil war between two rival
governments—one set up by Napoleon, who placed his own brother
Joseph Bonaparte on the throne, and the other created by
patriotic juntas in Spain in the name of the exiled Ferdinand
VII and aided by the British. In most of Spanish America there
was general sympathy with the regency, but both claims were
rejected, mainly on the ground that an interregnum existed and
thus, under ancient principles of Spanish law, the king’s
dominions in America had the right to govern themselves pending
the restoration of a lawful king.
This view was sustained in Argentina by the Creoles
(criollos; Argentine-born Europeans) rather than by the
immigrant (“peninsular”) Spaniards, and it was put into effect
by the Buenos Aires cabildo, or municipal council. This ancient
Spanish institution had existed in all the colonies since the
16th century. Its powers were very limited, but it was the only
organ that had given the colonists experience in
self-government. In emergencies it was converted into an “open”
cabildo, a kind of town meeting, which included prominent
members of the community. On May 25, 1810 (now celebrated as
Venticinco de Mayo, the day of the revolution), such an open
cabildo in Buenos Aires established an autonomous government to
administer the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata in the name of
Ferdinand VII, pending his restoration. When Ferdinand was
restored in 1814, however, he was virtually powerless in Spain,
which remained under the shadow of France. An assembly
representing most of the viceroyalty met at San Miguel de
Tucumán and on July 9, 1816 (Nueve de Julio), declared the
country independent under the name of the United Provinces of
the Río de la Plata.
Several years of hard fighting followed before the Spanish
royalists were defeated in northern Argentina. But they remained
a threat from their base in Peru until it was liberated by José
de San Martín and Simón Bolívar in 1820–24. The Buenos Aires
government tried to maintain the integrity of the old
Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata, but the outlying portions,
never effectively controlled, soon were lost: Paraguay in 1814,
Bolivia in 1825, and Uruguay in 1828. The remaining
territory—what now constitutes modern Argentina—was frequently
disunited until 1860. The root cause of the trouble, the power
struggle between Buenos Aires and the rest of the country, was
not settled until 1880, and even after that it continued to
cause dissatisfaction.
Efforts toward reconstruction, 1820–29
In 1820 only two political organizations could claim more
than strictly local and provincial followings: the revolutionary
government in Buenos Aires and the League of Free Peoples, which
had grown up along the Río de la Plata and its tributaries under
the leadership of José Gervasio Artigas. But both organizations
collapsed in that year, and Buenos Aires seemed to be losing its
position as the seat of national government. However, as the
city regained its function as an intermediary between the nation
and foreign governments, it regained its prominence.
Dominance of Buenos Aires
By then, military leaders had assumed power in almost every
province. Each provincial political regime soon acquired its own
character, according to the relative power held by military
strongmen (caudillos) and by local political interests. This
differentiation was not, however, cause for friction between the
provinces; rather, economic and geographic factors separated
them. Buenos Aires made significant advances toward national
leadership by taking advantage of the interprovincial rivalries.
Within the province of Buenos Aires itself, the regime of the
so-called Party of Order instituted popular reforms, including
dismantling the military apparatus that had persisted from the
war. The remaining armed forces were sent to defend the frontier
areas and Pampas against attacks by Indians. This prudence on
the part of the government won the support of the rural
landowners as well as the urban businessmen, whose backing
ensured victory at the polls.
The political order that seemed to be taking hold was
achieved by setting aside, rather than resolving, certain
fundamental difficulties. In particular, the institutional
organization of the country was not carried out, and nothing was
done about the Banda Oriental (the east bank of the Uruguay
River), which was occupied first by Portuguese and then by
Brazilian troops. By 1824 both problems were becoming urgent.
Britain was willing to recognize Argentine independence, but
only if Argentina established a government that could act for
the whole country. And in the Banda Oriental a group of eastern
patriots had taken over large sectors of the countryside and
agitated for their reincorporation into the United Provinces of
the Río de la Plata, forcing the Buenos Aires government to face
the possibility of war with the Brazilian empire.
Presidency of Rivadavia
In the meantime, an attempt was made to establish a national
government through a constituent assembly that met in December
1824. Overstepping its legal authority, the constituent assembly
in February 1826 created the office of president of the republic
and installed the porteño (native of Buenos Aires) Bernardino
Rivadavia as its first occupant. Civil war flared up in the
interior provinces, soon dominated by Juan Facundo Quiroga—a
caudillo from La Rioja who opposed centralization. When the
assembly finally drafted a national constitution, the major
portion of the country rejected it.
Meanwhile, war against Brazil had begun in 1825. The
Argentine forces were able to defeat the Brazilians on the
plains of Uruguay, but the Brazilian navy blockaded the Río de
la Plata and succeeded in crippling Argentine commerce.
Rivadavia, unable to end the war on favourable terms, resigned
in July 1827, and the national government dissolved. Leadership
of the province of Buenos Aires was given to a federalist,
Colonel Manuel Dorrego. Dorrego was backed by local interest
groups whose political spokesman was the great landowner Juan
Manuel de Rosas, who had been named commander of the rural
militia. Dorrego made peace with Brazil, and in 1828 the
disputed eastern province was constituted as the independent
state of Uruguay. The Uruguayan lands, which Rivadavia had
considered indispensable to the “national integrity” of
Argentina, were never to be recovered. In December 1828 troops
returning from the war overthrew Dorrego and installed General
Juan Lavalle in his place; Dorrego was executed.
Although there was little resistance to the new governor in
the city of Buenos Aires, uprisings began promptly in the
outlying areas of the province. A convention of provincial
representatives met in Santa Fe; dominated by the federalists
under Rosas, they called on the governor of Santa Fe to take
steps against the Lavalle regime. Lavalle finally came to terms
with Rosas, and they agreed to hold elections in Buenos Aires
for a new provincial legislature. Under the compromise agreement
Rosas and Lavalle appointed a moderate federalist governor of
Buenos Aires, but political tensions were too great for this
attempt at reconciliation. Rosas reconvened the old legislature,
which Lavalle had disbanded when he came to power—a triumph for
the most intransigent forces of federalism. The legislature
unanimously elected Rosas governor on December 5, 1829.
Confederation under Rosas, 1829–52
The regime of Rosas in Buenos Aires enjoyed far broader
support than any of its predecessors. Special interest groups,
landholders, and export-import merchants (along with the British
diplomatic contingent that was identified with these interests)
all fell behind the new governor. Practically all the
influential sectors in the province identified Rosas’s triumph
with their own best interests.
Domestic politics
The new governor saw clearly the ambiguities and dangers of
such widespread support, and, although he was identified as a
federalist, he ruled as a centralist, with Buenos Aires his main
power base. Rosas manipulated factions of labourers, gauchos,
and elites from the estancias and set himself up as the arbiter
of a delicate and constantly threatened balance between the
masses and the elites.
By 1832 the opposition to federalism had disappeared
throughout the country, and Rosas turned over the reins of the
government of Buenos Aires to his legal successor, General Juan
Ramón Balcarce. However, Balcarce’s assumption of the office
fanned sparks of dissidence among those who had pledged to
uphold the principles of federalism. Balcarce was overthrown,
and his successor took office with a cabinet composed of Rosas’s
friends. They adopted policies that were designed to lead to
political and economic stability, but it was stability that
Rosas feared, since it would have entailed the demobilization of
his mass political following. The legislature in Buenos Aires
was induced to designate Rosas governor of the province under
conditions that Rosas successfully imposed: he was granted
extraordinary resources, absolute public authority, and an
extension of the governor’s term of office from three to five
years. Armed with these powers, he soon established a formidable
dictatorship, hunting down his real and supposed enemies with
the aid of the Mazorca, a ruthless secret police force whose
members behaved like thugs and vigilantes. To show their
loyalty, citizens were required to wear red favours, and priests
had to display Rosas’s portrait on the altars of their churches.
Foreign policies
Rosas’s foreign policies left no room for anything other
than total success or total failure, and international
difficulties arose as extensions of domestic turmoil. In January
1833 Britain reasserted an earlier claim to the Falkland Islands
(Islas Malvinas), and a British warship took possession of the
islands. More troublesome was the growing independence of
neighbouring Bolivia, Paraguay, and Uruguay, which continued to
pursue their destinies as independent states rather than as
parts of a Buenos Aires-controlled federation. General Andrés de
Santa Cruz, who had established a confederation of Peru and
Bolivia, supported opponents of Rosas in Argentina. Rosas in
turn aided the influential governor of the northern province of
Tucumán when that governor decided to go to war against Santa
Cruz’s confederation. The northern Argentine forces, in alliance
with Chile and Peruvian nationalist rebels, were victorious in
1839.
Rosas’s involvement in a trade dispute with Uruguay, however,
proved to be costly and ended in failure. It contributed to the
first open friction with France, which sent warships to blockade
Buenos Aires in 1838. This caused dissension in the coastal
region, which depended heavily on export trade. Argentine
political exiles in Montevideo, Uruguay, received French backing
in their efforts to overthrow Rosas, and in the north a league
of dissident provinces was formed.
This formidable coalition of adversaries soon fell apart.
France, faced with other problems, abandoned its adventure in
the Río de la Plata area and left its local allies to fend for
themselves against Rosas. At the same time, an army organized in
Buenos Aires and commanded by Manuel Oribe (the deposed second
president of Uruguay) gained control of most of the Argentine
interior. For the first time since 1820, troops from Buenos
Aires had advanced as far as the Bolivian and Chilean frontiers.
The hegemony of Buenos Aires under Rosas’s system of federalism
was not to be challenged again. Oribe went on to conquer most of
Uruguay, and his predominantly Argentine army began a nine-year
siege of Montevideo in February 1843. The city was supplied
through the intervention of British warships, and in 1845 an
Anglo-French fleet blockaded Buenos Aires while a British fleet
sailed up the Paraná River. Eventually the British and French
withdrew their aid to Montevideo and ceased hostilities with
Rosas.
The fact that Rosas was able to conduct a vigorous foreign
policy for so many years was partly because of the weakness of
Argentina’s natural rival in the Río de la Plata area, Brazil,
which had been involved in a civil war (1835–45) in Rio Grande
do Sul. Once the rebellion was put down, it was only a question
of time until Brazil again influenced the Río de la Plata
region. This influence opposed Rosas, and it worked in support
of a rebellion by General Justo José de Urquiza, governor of the
province of Entre Ríos. In 1851 Urquiza formed an alliance with
Brazil and Uruguay. The allies first forced Rosas’s troops to
abandon the siege of Montevideo and then defeated his main army
in the Battle of Caseros (February 3, 1852), just outside Buenos
Aires. Rosas, abandoned by most of his troops as well as his
political supporters, escaped to England, where he died in 1877.
Economic development, 1820–50
Argentina’s society and economy underwent considerable
changes in the 30 years after 1820. Buenos Aires was the
province best adapted to the new era of free trade, exporting
cattle products in return for consumer goods from overseas. The
interior provinces adjusted slowly, replacing their traditional
markets in Upper Peru with new ones in Chile, where a great
expansion of the mining industry was taking place. The coastal
provinces fared better, although their livestock industry
suffered from the effects of the civil war. For Santa Fe,
moderate prosperity returned in the 1830s, and a similar trend
began in Entre Ríos and Corrientes provinces in the 1840s.
National consolidation, 1852–80
General Urquiza called a constitutional convention that met
in Santa Fe in 1852. Buenos Aires refused to participate, but
the convention adopted a constitution for the whole country that
went into effect on May 25, 1853. Buenos Aires recoiled from the
new confederation, the first elected president of which was
Urquiza and the first capital of which was Paraná. The porteño
dissidence was a serious financial handicap to the state, since
Buenos Aires kept for itself all the revenues from customs
duties on imports. In 1859 Urquiza incorporated Buenos Aires by
armed force, but he also agreed to a constitutional revision
that underscored the federal character of the government.
Before the unification took effect, however, Urquiza was
succeeded in the presidency by Santiago Derqui. Another civil
war broke out, but this time Buenos Aires defeated Urquiza’s
forces. Urquiza and General Bartolomé Mitre, governor of Buenos
Aires, then agreed that Mitre would lead the country but that
Urquiza would exercise authority over the provinces of Entre
Ríos and Corrientes. Derqui resigned, and Mitre was elected
president in 1862; Buenos Aires became the seat of government.
The authority of the new president was progressively weakened
by opposition within his own province of Buenos Aires. The
pressures of this opposition forced Mitre to intervene in the
political struggles of Uruguay and then to fight Paraguay in the
War of the Triple Alliance. From 1865 to 1870 an alliance of
Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay carried on a devastating campaign
against Paraguay, employing modern weapons and tens of thousands
of troops.
The war with Paraguay did not disrupt Argentina’s commerce,
as other wars had. In the 1860s and ’70s foreign capital and
waves of European immigrants poured into the country. Railroads
were built; alfalfa, barbed wire, new breeds of cattle and
sheep, and finally the refrigeration of meat were introduced.
The national armed forces became one of the cornerstones of
the new centralized state; however, the army refused to uphold
the policies of the president. One of Rosas’s nephews rallied
the support of the military behind the presidential candidacy of
Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, a native of San Juan. His victory
was guaranteed by the influence of the military combined with
the support of a liberal faction in Buenos Aires that opposed
Mitre, and the new president (1868–74) held office without a
political party of his own. Credit from abroad fortified the
economy, moreover, and thereby allowed Sarmiento to engage in a
costly civil war to put down an uprising in Entre Ríos.
The next president, Nicolás Avellaneda (1874–80), was a
native of San Miguel de Tucumán who had been Sarmiento’s
minister of justice, public education, and worship. Avellaneda’s
government faced serious financial difficulties engendered by
the European economic crisis of 1873. Argentina defaulted on
foreign loans and completed few public works projects, but it
encouraged European immigration, largely into Patagonia, and it
fully supported the Indian wars.
General Julio Argentino Roca, who was also from San Miguel de
Tucumán and who had influence in Córdoba, became the next
president (1880–86). Roca had led a brilliant military career
that included directing the Conquest of the Desert, the campaign
that brought the Indian wars to a close in 1879. This opened the
southern and western Pampas and the northern reaches of
Patagonia to settlement, and it made Roca a political hero. His
campaign for the presidency provoked a new rebellion in Buenos
Aires, but the uprising was quickly suppressed. The perennial
question of the city’s status was then settled by making it a
federal territory and converting it into the national capital; a
new capital for the province of Buenos Aires was established at
La Plata.
The conservative regime, 1880–1916
The entire country was now dominated by the National
Autonomist Party, which had originally supported Avellaneda’s
candidacy and was now an alliance of the various groups
supporting Roca. These included many of the big ranchers, as
well as commercial and business interests who were more than
happy with Roca’s formula of “peace and efficient
administration.” Argentina’s economy grew rapidly during this
period, largely owing to British capital, which made it possible
to build an extensive rail network from the upriver provinces to
Buenos Aires and the sea. The new rail system facilitated the
export of meat and other agricultural products, and ranching and
farming thus became more profitable. Large-scale foreign
investment sparked the expansion of other industries as well.
In addition, the population grew rapidly during this era,
from less than two million in 1869 to nearly eight million in
1914. In 1881 Argentina and Chile agreed to delimit their Andean
frontier, including partitioning Tierra del Fuego. Argentina was
to have exclusive rights to the Atlantic waters, and Chile to
the Pacific.
The crisis of 1890
The economic expansion led ultimately to inflation, the
issuance of too much paper currency, and the onset of a
financial crisis. A political crisis also followed. The
government of Roca’s successor, Miguel Juárez Celman (1886–90),
had avoided launching an unpopular anti-inflationary program,
but this inaction sparked criticism both within and outside the
official party ranks. In July 1890 a revolt erupted that had
strong support from within the army, but it was defeated by
loyal elements. Even so, Juárez Celman was forced to step down
in favour of the vice president, Carlos Pellegrini (1890–92), a
solid ally of Roca.
The rise of radicalism
A new party, the Radical Civic Union, was formed in response
to the difficulties of the 1890s. It was strongly opposed to the
ruling regime and to the compromise candidate, Luis Sáenz Peña,
who was accepted in 1892 by Mitre and the more moderate
opponents of the Roca–Juárez Celman regime. Sáenz was in turn
replaced in 1895 by José Evaristo Uriburu. In 1898 Roca returned
to the presidency for a second term and attempted to bring the
more moderate radicals back into the loose alliance of local
political groups, which after 1890 had controlled the national
government. The most intransigent radical factions remained in
opposition; they were headed by Hipólito Irigoyen, who later
served twice as president.
While political opposition declined, social unrest was
becoming more widespread, and there was growing disarray within
the government itself. Roca broke with Pellegrini, and the
National Autonomist Party suffered because of the split. In 1904
Roca was barely able to avoid being succeeded in office by
Pellegrini; moreover, the candidate Roca finally put into the
presidency, Manuel Quintana, was not one of Roca’s staunchest
supporters. Quintana was forced to quell a radical revolution in
1905, and he died the following year. His death opened the way
to the presidency for José Figueroa Alcorta, a Cordoban who
turned immediately to the task of destroying Roca’s political
machine. In 1910 Alcorta installed as his successor Roque Sáenz
Peña, a brilliant politician who was fully prepared to construct
a governing coalition on new foundations.
The course of Argentine politics in the final stages of
Roca’s career had convinced many of his most influential and
militant followers that the country needed electoral reform.
These reforms were not seen as excessively dangerous, since the
Radical opposition seemed to have limited support. In 1912
President Sáenz Peña had the Congress pass an electoral-reform
law that called for a compulsory secret ballot for all male
citizens. His death in 1914 deprived the national leadership of
its guiding force, and the electoral law he had championed
opened the gates of power to the Radicals. The interim
presidency of Victorino de la Plaza (1914–16) was followed by
that of the Radical leader Irigoyen (1916–22). He was the first
Argentine president who owed his victory to the popular vote
rather than to selection by the incumbent president from the
members of a ruling oligarchy.
The radical regime, 1916–30
The Radical front was a coalition of heterogeneous social
groups whose competing interests slowed the passage of reforms,
despite urgent calls for economic and social change. Not
surprisingly, Irigoyen preferred to concentrate on the political
ills he had inherited from the conservative regime. The most
urgent measure involved political patronage, which had been used
by the conservatives to keep their candidates in office.
Patronage shifted to the service of the Radicals, who created a
new political machine that was virtually unbeatable at the polls
in almost every province.
In other fields also the Radical administration attempted to
expand its political base. Irigoyen achieved substantial rapport
with the more moderate labour unions—a rapport expressed in a
generally pro-labour policy. That policy was tempered after
violent clashes occurred in the capital city during the general
strike of January 1919, which caused the military to align
itself with conservative interest groups. Irigoyen’s
administration supported organizations and movements among
tenant farmers and also put through a university-reform plan.
Irigoyen’s influence was a deciding factor in the election of
his successor, Marcelo T. de Alvear (1922–28), who represented a
safe choice. Alvear was not content, however, with the
restrictions that Irigoyen imposed upon him, and he reluctantly
led a conservative wing hostile to Irigoyen. In the elections of
1928 Irigoyen ran for a second term and was elected by a margin
of two to one, establishing him as head of his party.
Irigoyen was not a revolutionary, but his victory over the
economic, social, and political elites of the country
nonetheless earned him their enmity. His political machine,
though an excellent mechanism for securing power, proved to be
incapable of governing during times of economic distress, such
as late 1929, the eve of the Great Depression. Behind the
nation’s economic growth lay a shift in economic power from the
Argentine landowning class to foreign merchants and processors.
Before 1914 these foreign interests had been concentrated mainly
in the grain-growing sector, but after 1920 they moved into the
cattle-raising industry. Private investment still came primarily
from Great Britain, which was also the main market for Argentine
exports. The United States provided industrial and
transportation equipment and was the government’s principal
source of credit, but it had erected tariff and other barriers
to the importation of Argentine goods, and that prompted
Irigoyen to adopt an anti-U.S. and pro-British line.
Irigoyen’s government could not cope with the onset of the
global depression, and the army expelled him from office in
September 1930. This marked the end of a constitutional
continuity that had lasted for 68 years; it was also the end of
a long period of economic expansion based on the export of raw
materials.
The conservative restoration and the
Concordancia, 1930–43
During the next 13 years, which have often been termed
“the Infamous Decade,” the armed forces sponsored a conservative
restoration. After expelling Irigoyen they installed General
José Félix Uriburu in the presidency (1930–32). Uriburu was a
descendent of an old, conservative northern family, and he
leaned toward fascism. His influence with the army, however, was
not as great as that of General Agustín Pedro Justo, a former
minister of war under Alvear, who favoured a gradual
conservative reorientation of the country. The Radicals, who had
been reorganized under the leadership of Alvear, won an
unexpected victory in trial elections held in the province of
Buenos Aires in April 1931, but the Radicals’ activities were
then severely restricted (including the arrest or exile of their
leaders), and their members either boycotted or were barred from
the national election of 1931. General Justo, in contrast, had
the backing of the Concordancia (a coalition of conservatives, a
faction of the Radicals, and independent socialists), and, with
only limited electoral fraud, he was elected by a large
majority.
The new president, facing a difficult economic situation,
instituted several controversial reforms and initiatives. In
1933 he signed the Roca-Runciman Agreement with Great Britain,
which guaranteed Argentina a fixed share in the British meat
market and eliminated tariffs on Argentine cereals. In return,
Argentina agreed to restrictions with regard to trade and
currency exchange, and it preserved Britain’s commercial
interests in the country. Many Argentines saw the treaty as a
sellout to Britain, although from the British point of view the
pact accorded privileges not given to any other country outside
their empire. Other unpopular reforms included restructuring the
monetary system and establishing agencies to control exports.
After 1935 the economic climate improved.
The election of 1937, in which the government retained its
power, was marked by fraud and violence; however, the next
president, Roberto M. Ortiz, returned to more proper electoral
procedures, calling for federal intervention in the province of
Buenos Aires, where a corrupt conservative machine had been in
control. Ortiz’s poor health obliged him to resign in 1940, and
his successor, Ramón S. Castillo, restored the conservative
coalition to power and gained the support of General Justo.
At the outbreak of World War II, Argentina declared its
neutrality, and it remained neutral even after the United States
entered the conflict in 1941. Castillo’s motives for this stance
were largely economic, and he attempted to court trade
agreements with both the United States and the Axis powers while
maintaining a significant commerce with Britain; however, his
policies were only partly successful, and Argentina struggled to
arm and equip its military while other Latin American nations
received generous lend-lease shipments from the United States.
In the face of opposition from both pro-Allied and pro-Axis
groups, as well as concerns over the increasing strength of the
United States-supplied Brazilian military, Castillo imposed a
state of siege. General Justo died in January 1943, leaving the
president without his most influential supporter, and Castillo
was overthrown in June.
The Perón era, 1943–55
Transitional period
The military government faced several urgent and difficult
problems, including the decision of whether to remain neutral or
choose sides in the war. It also had to decide between the
restoration of a representative system and the installation of a
long-term military dictatorship. General Arturo Rawson was made
president but resigned after two days when his anticonservative
stance and his advocacy of the United Nations won no military
support.
General Pedro P. Ramírez replaced Rawson as president. He
maintained neutrality in the war but faced increasing opposition
from all political groups except the nationalist right wing and
the fascist sympathizers. The government, reflecting an emergent
authoritarianism, censored the press and dissolved political
parties. Under pressure from the United States, the regime broke
off diplomatic relations with Germany, but this deed was not
favoured by many military officers, and Ramírez was removed by a
coup. The presidency was turned over to General Edelmiro J.
Farrell (1944–46), who led a military junta, but, under threat
of international sanctions, his regime prepared for a return to
representative democracy.
The search for a solution ended in the rise of Colonel Juan
Perón to the office of president. From 1941 Perón had led the
United Officers Group (Grupo de Oficiales Unidos; GOU), a secret
military lodge that had engineered the 1943 coup. In October
1943 he secured the minor job of running the labour department
and began building a political empire based in the labour
unions. He helped the unions win favourable settlements from
employers and pushed through a welfare program that provided
vacations, retirement benefits, and severance pay. By 1945 Perón
was also vice president and minister of war. His changes
included giving autonomy to universities, reconstructing
political parties (including the Communist Party, prohibited
since 1936), and declaring war on Germany, thereby facilitating
Argentina’s admittance to the United Nations. But with the
return of political freedom came renewed opposition, culminating
in a mass demonstration in Buenos Aires in September 1945.
Emergency measures were enacted. Seizing the opportunity,
Perón’s enemies in the navy reacted, and he was removed from
office and arrested on October 9. At that point, however,
Perón’s adversaries in the military and the political sphere
failed to agree on a further course of action. Perón’s adherents
in the unions organized a strike that found enthusiastic support
among the people. He was released on October 17—a date still
celebrated by Peronists as Loyalty Day—and his foes were forced
to resign.
Perón in power
Perón campaigned for the presidency in the elections of
1946. He organized the Labour Party, which was resisted by all
the old parties and by the major vested-interest groups. His
victory, though narrow, gave him control of both houses of
Congress and all the provincial governorships. Perón’s political
strategy and tactics were authoritarian and personalistic. He
politically “purified” the schools and courts, declared a state
of internal war in order to expand his executive authority,
redistributed revenues in favour of the workers, nationalized
public services, and gave preferential treatment to urban and
industrial areas over their rural counterparts. He rewarded the
organized workers for their support by enforcing labour
legislation, improving wages and working conditions, controlling
rents, and introducing the aguinaldo (13th-month bonus). Perón
was a charismatic figure who spoke to working people in a
language that they could understand. His appeal among the
descamisados (“shirtless ones,” underprivileged workers) was
reinforced and further dramatized by his wife, Eva Duarte de
Perón (Evita), who unofficially led the Department of Social
Welfare and presided over an extraordinary distribution of
money, apartments, and jobs.
Until 1949 Perón’s economic policies were successful, largely
because exporters were so successful during and just after the
war. However, as inflation increased and trade became less
profitable, it became more difficult to finance imports of vital
raw materials. The constitutional reform of 1949 allowed Perón
to be reelected in 1951, but his next government took on a more
conservative hue, hastened by the death of his wife in July
1952. Evita had become a powerful political figure in her own
right, burnishing the regime’s image of popular democracy,
although she had been obliged by the military to rescind her
acceptance of the vice-presidential nomination in 1951. After
1952 Perón incurred the increasing hostility of the church and
the students. His efforts to eliminate the political influence
of the church provoked disaffection in the officer corps, and in
September 1955 he was overthrown by General Eduardo Lonardi and
fled the country.
Attempts to restore constitutionalism, 1955–66
Lonardi recognized the strength of Peronism and sought a
compromise, but he was displaced in November 1955 by General
Pedro Eugenio Aramburu. The new administration was a military
dictatorship that sought to restore constitutional government.
Taking a fiercely anti-Peronist stance, it dissolved Perón’s old
party and placed the labour unions under state administration.
The Peronists wielded considerable influence on the factions
that were competing for power, and in 1958 they supported Arturo
Frondizi, a Radical leader who promised to readmit them to
political life in return for their support. Frondizi won the
presidency and majorities in both houses of Congress.
President Frondizi focused on economic development and showed
a keen interest in reviving the flow of foreign investment. He
devalued the currency to favour exporters and foreign investors;
however, this had adverse effects on the middle and lower
classes. Rapidly accelerating inflation and the campaign against
it brought restrictions on credit, which increased the
difficulties of industry, and Frondizi had to use the military
to uphold his unpopular policies.
In March 1962 the reorganized Peronists gained control of
important districts, among them the province of Buenos Aires.
The armed forces withdrew support from Frondizi, dissolved
Congress, and set up a government in the name of José María
Guido, president pro tempore of the Senate. Guido’s 18-month
administration was one of confusion as two military factions
fought for control. The Colorados (“Reds”) sought a dictatorship
that would deal strongly with the Peronists and extreme
leftists. The Azules (“Blues”), who prevailed, favoured a
constitutional government by a coalition including the
Peronists, who would be confined to a weaker role than that
indicated by their voting strength.
The elections of July 1963 resulted in victory for Arturo
Illia, the candidate of the Radical Civic Union. President Illia
inherited Frondizi’s economic problems, although the drastic
reorientation of the economy had begun to show signs of success.
Illia tried without success to split the resurgent Peronists,
who now controlled the labour unions, from their exiled leader.
The antagonized Peronists supported a coup in June 1966 that
brought to power General Juan Carlos Onganía, a former Azul
leader and commander in chief of the army.
Military government, 1966–73
Adalbert Krieger Vasena, minister of economy and labour,
attempted to stabilize the economy by again devaluing the
currency and then undertaking programs in electric power, steel,
roads, and housing. In May 1969 disturbances and riots in the
cities of Corrientes, Rosario, and particularly Córdoba rose out
of student and labour conflicts; these incidents, later known as
the Cordobazo, were identified as resentment toward Krieger
Vasena’s economic policies. Krieger Vasena was removed, but the
Onganía administration was unable to agree on an alternative
economic policy, and the Cordobazo decisively affected the
political climate. Underground activities were organized by a
Trotskyite group, the People’s Revolutionary Army (Ejército
Revolucionario del Pueblo; ERP), and by Peronist groups. In 1970
one of these Peronist organizations, the Montoneros, destroyed
the moderate Peronist union leadership and captured and killed
former president Aramburu, who had been organizing a movement
for a return to constitutional rule. The armed forces overthrew
the Onganía government in June 1970. General Roberto Marcelo
Levingston replaced Onganía, but inflation returned and
terrorist acts increased; Levingston was overthrown in March
1971 and replaced by General Alejandro Agustín Lanusse, who
promised to reestablish democratic elections by the end of 1973.
Perón had supported the Peronist underground but also used
other means in a new bid for power. He maintained a formal
alliance with the Frondizi followers, but the cornerstone of his
strategy was an understanding with the largest non-Peronist
party, the Radicals. In addition, he was mindful of the
Argentine elites’ vested interests, and he purged his economic
proposals of any motives that could alarm the propertied
classes. The military government prevented Perón’s own candidacy
but could not stop the electoral victory of the Peronist
coalition, the Justicialist Liberation Front (Frente
Justicialista de Liberación; Frejuli), in March 1973.
The return of Peronism
The newly elected president, Héctor J. Cámpora, took office
in May 1973. It was immediately clear that he was merely
preparing the way for the return of Perón from exile. Tensions
rose sharply among Peronists as the organization’s left wing
fought with its right-wing Montoneros for influence. At the
final return of Perón in June, there was a pitched battle
between right and left at Ezeiza International Airport. The
union leadership and José López Rega, an associate of Perón,
launched a violent antileftist campaign through a death squad
organization, the Argentine Anticommunist Alliance (AAA, or
Triple A), which had the discreet support of Perón himself. In
July Cámpora resigned, and new elections were presided over by
another interim president, Raúl Lastiri, who began a purge of
leftist influences in the government.
Perón’s second presidency
Perón was elected president with his third wife, María
Estela Martínez de Perón (Isabel Perón), as vice president.
Taking office in October 1973, he continued the campaign against
the left, and in May 1974 the victims of the purge acknowledged
the break with their former leader and passed into (still legal)
opposition. Montonero activity increased, and the Triple A,
suspected by many of being close to the police and intelligence
branches of the administration, began to crack down on
political, student, and union leaders.
Perón’s economic policies from 1973 included monetary
stabilization, rigid control of prices and wages in order to
favour wage earners, and limitations on the profits of agrarian
exporters. Within a year the balance of payments suffered,
however. The price of petroleum imports increased sharply, owing
to the Arab oil embargo of 1973, and outbreaks of foot-and-mouth
disease in Argentina caused many European nations to ban
shipments of Argentine meat.
Perón’s legacy
When Perón died on July 1, 1974, he left to his widow a
deeply compromised inheritance, yet the transition of power was
smooth, and Isabel Perón was sworn in as the world’s first woman
president. Under the influence of López Rega, the government
became even more inflexibly oriented toward the right, and
violence reached new heights. López Rega, who used the rightist
crusade to consolidate his power base, favoured labour and army
leaders who personally supported him, and this style of
favouritism created hostility among union, political, and
military leaders. In 1975 he supported a drastic devaluation and
a steep drop in real wages, whereupon inflation soared. Isabel
Perón was persuaded to dismiss López Rega, but the unrest
deepened. On March 24, 1976, military officers deposed the
president and took over the government.
Tulio Halperin Donghi
Peter A.R. Calvert
The return of military government
The Videla regime and the Dirty War
Five days after the coup a three-man military junta filled the
presidency with Lieutenant General Jorge Rafaél Videla. The
junta closed Congress, imposed censorship, banned trade unions,
and brought state and municipal government under military
control. Meanwhile, Videla initiated the infamous Process of
National Reorganization, known subsequently as the “Guerra
Sucia” (“Dirty War”), in which some 13,000–15,000 citizens were
killed, often following their imprisonment and torture. The
Argentine government, which maintained that it was fighting a
civil war, initially faced little public opposition, but this
began to change in the late 1970s, with growing evidence of
civil rights violations. The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, who
lost children to the Dirty War, began calling international
attention to the plight of the desaparecidos (“disappeared
persons”) through weekly Thursday afternoon vigils in the Plaza
de Mayo, fronting the presidential palace. A particularly vocal
critic of both left- and right-wing violence was Adolfo Pérez
Esquivel, who was arrested and tortured in 1977 and received the
Nobel Prize for Peace in 1980. For the most part, however,
opposition was choked off by rigorous censorship, strict
curfews, and fear of the secret police.
During this period the economy continued to lag. A civilian
from an old family, José Martínez de Hoz, became economy
minister, but, keen as he was to deregulate the economy, the
armed forces were equally determined to keep control. Annual
inflation dropped in 1976–82 from about 600 to 138 percent—a
more manageable but still distended level. Argentina’s balance
of foreign trade initially improved, but by 1980 the overvalued
peso had devastated Argentine industry, while uncontrolled
spending had plunged the country into debt.
Galtieri and the Falklands War
Videla was succeeded in March 1981 by General Roberto Viola,
who, with the Dirty War near its end, was quite unable to
control his military allies. In December he was shouldered aside
by Lieutenant General Leopoldo Galtieri. Galtieri faced a
slumping economy and increased civil opposition to military
rule. His trump card was that he had promised his navy ally,
Vice Admiral Jorge Anaya, that they could fulfill Argentina’s
historic claims to the Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas) by
armed force.
Nationalist sentiment over the Falklands had been
precipitated in 1977, when Argentina’s claim to another
archipelago—the three Beagle Channel islands—was refused by the
International Court of Justice in favour of Chile. (In 1979 the
matter had again gone into negotiation, this time under Vatican
auspices, and in 1984 Chile was awarded sovereignty.) In
February 1982 Argentina increased pressure on the United Kingdom
to relinquish the Falkland Islands. With popular support at
home, Argentine troops landed on the Falklands and South Georgia
island in early April, overcame the British Royal Marines
stationed there, and raised the Argentine flag. For the next
three weeks, while a British naval force sailed to the
Falklands, the two belligerents failed to negotiate a solution.
British forces retook South Georgia on April 25. A successful
amphibious landing on San Carlos Water, Falkland Sound,
followed, and after a brief land campaign the Argentine military
governor surrendered the islands on June 14.
Galtieri resigned as commander in chief of the army and
president three days later. General Reynaldo Bignone was
installed as president on July 1. The members of the junta
representing the air force and the navy resigned in protest over
Bignone’s appointment, but the junta was reconstituted on
September 10. Under Bignone political parties were allowed to
resume activities, and general elections were announced;
meanwhile, elements of the armed forces worked to conceal
evidence of crimes committed during the Dirty War. The Peronist
party delayed choosing a presidential candidate and thus lost
ground to the Radical Civic Union, led by Raúl Alfonsín, a
civilian lawyer who had courageously defended victims of the
military regime. Alfonsín won the election on October 30, 1983,
and the Radicals gained a majority over the Peronists in the
national Congress.
Restoration of democracy
Soon after his inauguration in December 1983, Alfonsín
reversed legislation passed under Bignone by announcing plans to
prosecute several members of the defunct military government,
including former presidents Videla, Viola, and Galtieri. He also
repealed a law granting amnesty to those accused of crimes and
human rights violations during the Dirty War, and hundreds of
military personnel were prosecuted. In the trial of nine former
junta members in 1985, five were convicted, including Videla and
Viola. Galtieri was acquitted in that trial, but in 1986 he was
convicted, along with two other officers, of incompetency in the
Falkland Islands War. Rebellion broke out within the military in
the spring of 1987, but most of the armed forces stayed loyal.
Massive rallies voiced approval of Alfonsín’s democracy, and the
international community expressed support.
Alfonsín launched the Austral Plan, an austerity program that
implemented a new currency (the austral), wage and price
controls, and currency devaluations. The measures initially
brought down inflation and restored the confidence of
international bankers. Argentina then restructured its foreign
debts, which had reached crisis proportions. The inflation rate
began to rise again, however, reaching almost 388 percent
annually at the end of 1988, and the austral began a precipitous
decline in value against the U.S. dollar.
There were more rebellions in the last months of Alfonsín’s
tenure as the military remained discontented over wages,
inadequate equipment, and the trials of its members stemming
from the Dirty War. The military’s hand was strengthened after
insurgents carried out a bloody attack on a barracks outside
Buenos Aires, and Alfonsín was forced to accept a military role
in policy and to initiate a huge defense-spending program.
Although Alfonsín remained personally popular, he was
constitutionally ineligible to succeed himself. His government’s
poor handling of the economy contributed to the defeat of the
Radical presidential candidate, Eduardo Angeloz, in May 1989.
Instead, Carlos Saúl Menem, the Peronist former governor of La
Rioja, led his coalition to victory in the presidential and
congressional elections. Throughout the campaign Menem had
cultivated an image recalling Perón, and it was his appeal to
the poor and working classes, the traditional supporters of
Peronism, that clinched his victory.
The Menem era and the 21st century
With the economy crumbling around him, Alfonsín resigned
five months early, and Menem officially took over in July.
Menem’s moderate Peronist program called for a free-market
economy with lower tariffs, based on a wage-price pact between
labour, business, and government. To help carry out his economic
scheme, Menem unexpectedly enlisted the aid of former top-level
executives from Bunge y Born, one of Argentina’s leading
corporations.
Menem, in turn, needed military support in a time of economic
emergency, and he sought to draw a veil over the past by
pardoning those accused of human rights violations. Criticism of
this act was strong but somewhat tempered by the fact that Menem
himself had been held in detention for five years. Former
president Galtieri also was pardoned. Meanwhile, in October
1989, while quietly sidestepping the question of Falklands
sovereignty, Argentina and Great Britain formally agreed to
establish full diplomatic relations.
Initially, Menem was no more successful than his predecessor
in tackling the economy, and inflation continued unchecked. The
situation changed in 1991 when Domingo Cavallo was appointed
economy minister. Cavallo implemented a far-reaching program of
economic stabilization, as well as measures to enhance revenue
collection and prevent tax evasion. By August the annual
inflation rate had fallen to 1.5 percent, the lowest in 17
years. The government then privatized numerous state-owned
businesses and introduced a new currency, the Argentine peso,
the value of which was pegged to the U.S. dollar. Capital flight
was reversed, and in 1992 Argentina emerged with a reformed and
apparently stable economy.
In 1993 the ruling Justicialist Party (Partido Justicialista,
or PJ; Menem’s Peronist party) launched a campaign for a
constitutional amendment that would permit the president to run
for a second term. In elections held in October, the PJ gained a
majority in the Chamber of Deputies but still needed support
from the Radicals to change the constitution. Former president
Alfonsín eventually consented to support the reforms, in an
agreement called the Olivos Pact. The new constitution,
promulgated in 1994, had few changes apart from the provision
for consecutive presidential terms.
Menem decisively won reelection in 1995. The beginning of his
second four-year term was overshadowed by the impact caused by
the abrupt devaluation of the Mexican peso (the “Tequila
Crisis”) and by increasing disagreements with Cavallo over
economic policy. In addition, the government’s popularity was
eroded by high unemployment and accusations of corruption, yet
the president’s political control remained strong. When Menem
finally dismissed Cavallo in July 1996, the economy was
unaffected. Within a year, however, another recession took hold,
made worse by the overvalued Argentine currency. Abroad, the
foreign minister, Guido di Tella, negotiated an agreement with
Chile regarding the delineation of their southern borders, and
in October 1998 Menem paid a state visit to the United Kingdom.
Commercial flights were resumed between the islands and the
Argentine mainland in 1999. Later that year Fernando de la Rúa
was elected president, heading an alliance of parties led by the
Radicals to victory over the Peronists.
De la Rúa inherited a massive foreign debt, a deficit that
was larger than expected, and a continuing recession. His
administration responded by raising taxes, cutting the salaries
of government employees, and encouraging the early retirement of
others. As conditions deteriorated, the economy minister
resigned, as did his replacement. De la Rúa then reappointed
Domingo Cavallo to the post he had held under Menem. Cavallo’s
reforms, however, were largely ineffective, and investors and
lenders lost confidence in the economy. On December 20,
following antigovernment protests in Buenos Aires, both Cavallo
and de la Rúa resigned. Under a succession of interim
presidents, the government restricted access to bank accounts,
defaulted on its foreign-debt payments, and allowed the
Argentine peso to decline in value. The country was rocked by
another economic collapse in 2002.
The first round of the 2003 presidential elections was held
in April against this backdrop of continuing economic and
political turmoil. Menem, again a candidate, came out on top in
the polling, followed closely by Néstor Kirchner, the governor
of Santa Cruz province in Patagonia. However, Menem dropped out
of the race before a runoff election could be held, and
Kirchner, a centre-left Peronist, was inaugurated in May. During
his term, Kirchner helped stabilize Argentina’s economy and paid
back much of the country’s debt to the International Monetary
Fund. The second half of his term, however, was plagued by a
countrywide energy crisis and high inflation. He did not run for
a second term in 2007 and instead supported the candidacy of his
wife, Sen. Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who won by a
significant margin and became Argentina’s first elected female
president.
Peter A.R. Calvert
