afroargentinos, 1850-1900

Race versus Class Association: The Afro-Argentines of Buenos Aires, 1850-1900Author(s): George Reid AndrewsSource: Journal of Latin American Studies, Vol. 11, No. 1 (May, 1979), pp. 19-39Published by: Cambridge University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/156406Accessed: 09/11/2009 12:08

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i. Lat. Amer. Stud. II, I, I9-39 Printed in Great Britain 19

oo22-2I6X/79/JLAS-IIIO $02.00 t 1979 Cambridge University Press

Race Versus Class Association: the Afro-Argentines of Buenos Aires, I850-I900*

by GEORGE REID ANDREWS

Fundamental to an understanding of the complex relationships between race and social class in Latin America is an understanding of the process by which the caste societies of the colonial and early national periods were gradually transformed into the class societies of the twentieth century.1 During the I85os a number of South American nations struck down the last vestiges of their slave regimes and the colonial Regimen de castas, legislation designed to divide society into racial castes arranged in a well- defined hierarchy.2 Among these countries were Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela. Bolivia, Brazil, and Paraguay delayed until later in the century. These developments seem at first glance to have paved the way for the integration of the non-whites as fully-fledged participants in the continent's newly formed class societies, as several authors writing on the Afro-Latin Americans have concluded.3 Other observers are

* Research for this article was supported by grants from the Social Science Research Council and the Fulbright-Hays Program of the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare. Responsibility for any statements made herein lies solely with the author.

1 By 'caste' is understood 'an endogamous and hereditary subdivision of an ethnic unit occupying a position of superior and inferior rank or social esteem in comparison with other such subdivisions '. A. L. Kroeber, quoted in Gerald D. Berreman, ' The Concept of Caste ', in David L. Sills (ed.), International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (New York, I968), II, 333. By ' class ' is understood a social group whose members share a combination of objectives (e.g. education, income, political or social influence), and attitudinal (perceptions of each other and themselves as part of the same class, commonly held ideas concerning class interests and goals) characteristics, and whose members are perceived by the rest of the society as belonging to that class. See Seymour M. Lipset, ' Social Class ', in Sills, xv, 296-3I5, particularly pp. 3o0-I2. Readers are further referred to Oliver C. Cox, Caste, Class and Race (New York, 1947 and I959).

2 For discussions of the Regimen, see Leslie B. Rout, Jr, The African Experience in Spanish America (Cambridge, 1976), pp. I26-60; Magnus M6rner, Race Mixture in the History of Latin America (Boston, 1967), pp. 53-75.

3 See, for example, Gonzalo Aguirre Beltran, 'The Integration of the Negro into the National Society of Mexico ', and Carlos Rama, 'The Passing of the Afro-Uruguayan from Caste Society into Class Society ', both in Magnus M6rner (ed.), Race and Class in Latin




























20 George Reid Andrews

more skeptical. They argue that aspects of the caste regime live on into the

present, even in the regions most noticeably characterized by class relation-

ships, and that they comprise formidable obstacles to the integration and social mobility of black and brown Latin Americans.4

The case of Buenos Aires is of particular interest in examining the progress of Afro-Latin Americans from caste to class society. Conditions in the post- I850 city would appear to have been exceptionally conducive to the inte-

gration and social advancement of black people in the city's society. Comparative studies of free black populations in various parts of the Americas have found that those populations experienced upward mobility in direct relation to the prosperity and growth rate of the economies in which they lived and worked. The more active the economy, the greater were the social and economic opportunities for black people.5 Buenos Aires, should, therefore, have provided an ideal setting for Afro-Argentine advancement. Argentina's meat and cereals-based export boom of the I870-I914 period made Buenos Aires the most prosperous and rapidly growing city in Latin America.6

The export boom was in turn responsible for the unusually early development of a class-based society in the city. Mainly as a result of European immigration, between I870 and I914 the capital of Argentina grew from a

quiet backwater of I8o,ooo to a bustling, cosmopolitan metropolis of 1.6 million. A white-collar class sprang up to fill the offices of financial, com-

mercial, and governmental institutions. A larger blue-collar class worked at the trades, at the port, in construction and the budding industries, and in service. The traditional elite continued to consist of cattle barons and some

important merchants, but, as the city grew, a second rank of lesser capitalists

America (New York, I970). These two articles are condensed from the authors' larger studies, La poblacidn negra de Mexico (Mexico, I946 and 1972) and Los afro-uruguayos (Montevideo, I967).

4 In the M6rner volume, see Florestan Fernandes, 'Immigration and Race Relations in Sao Paulo '. Fernandes' arguments may be read at greater length in his books O negro no mundo dos brancos (Sao Paulo, 1972), A integrafao do negro na sociedade de clases (Sao Paulo, 1965), and its English translation The Negro in Brazilian Society (New York, 1969). Two dated but still classic studies of North American race relations that come to similar conclusions are John Dollard, Caste and Class in a Southern Town (New York, 1937) and Gunnar Myrdal, An American Dilemma (New York, 1942), Chaps. 31-2. Similarly classic is E. Franklin Frazier, Black Bourgeoisie (New York, I957 and I962).

Stephan Thernstrom's The Other Bostonians (Cambridge, 1973) includes an interesting chapter on vocational mobility in the black community of Boston from I880 to 1960.

5 David W. Cohen and Jack P. Greene (eds.), Neither Slave Nor Free (Baltimore, 1972), pp. 7-8, I7-I8.

6 See James Scobie, Buenos Aires: Plaza to Suburb, 1870-19io (New York, I974), passim, and Roberto Cortes Conde, Hispano-america: La Apertura al Comercio Mundial, 1850- 1930 (Buenos Aires, 1975), Chap. VI.














































Race Versus Class Association 21 Race Versus Class Association 21 Race Versus Class Association 21 Race Versus Class Association 21

expanded into a variety of activities. The number of professionals increased

markedly.7 Class-based political conflict was not long in erupting on the porteno

scene. Mutual aid societies were founded by Spanish immigrants as early as the i85os; in I896 a Socialist Party was formed, and in 1901 the anarchist labor organizations joined into the Argentine Workers Federation, the FORA. Meanwhile, middle-class native-born Argentines formed the Radical

Party, dedicated to overthrowing the oligarchy's control of the Conservative

Republic, as two Argentine historians have termed the administrations of the period.8 In I912 the Radicals were successful in instituting universal male suffrage, which effected the transfer of power from the traditional elites to the middle-class Radicals and eventually to organized labor.

During this period the black population of the capital formed an ever smaller fragment of the city's population. In 1838 the 15,000 Afro-Argentines accounted for almost a quarter of the city's 63,000 inhabitants. By 1887, the next year in which a municipal census recorded information on race, the

community had declined to 8,ooo, a mere 2 per cent in a rapidly growing city of 433,000.9 These figures included individuals of more or less pure African descent, known as negros or morenos, and those of mixed racial

ancestry, known as pardos. Pardos and morenos were collectively termed

'people of color': for the purposes of this essay, they will be referred to as

Afro-Argentines or as blacks.

Argentine writers of the second half of the century commented frequently on the dwindling black population, and the national census of 1895 included a brief essay on the disappearance of black people from the Argentine scene.'? One might hypothesize that the demographic insignificance of the

Afro-Argentines would be another factor promoting their integration into class society. Since black competition for jobs, housing and other resources would not form a major threat to the white population, perhaps the greater society would feel free to admit the Afro-Argentines on terms of relative

equality, unfettered by the legal and social restrictions of the earlier caste

system. 7 This period is covered in Scobie's Buenos Aires. 8 See Ezequiel Gallo and Roberto Cortes Conde, La republica conservadora (Buenos Aires,

1972), pp. I87-233. 9 Marta B. Goldberg, 'La poblaci6n negra y mulata de la ciudad de Buenos Aires, I8Io-

1840', Desarrollo Economico, xvI, No. 6I (Apr.-June 1976), p. 98; Censo General de Poblacion, Edificacion, Comercio e Industrias de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires (Buenos Aires, 1889), II, 56-7.

10 Domingo F. Sarmiento, Conflicto y Armonia de las Razas en America (Buenos Aires, I900), I, 76; Vicente Quesada (pseud. Victor Galvez), 'La Raza Africana en Buenos Aires', Nueva Revista de Buenos Aires, vIII (883), pp. 246-60; Segundo Censo de la Republica Argentina: Mayo Io de I895 (Buenos Aires, I898), I, xlvii-xlviii.




















































22 George Reid Andrews 22 George Reid Andrews 22 George Reid Andrews 22 George Reid Andrews

In short, Buenos Aires might well have provided a setting in which black

people could be painlessly absorbed into the larger society. It also forms a

promising case study in terms of the quantity of primary documentation left by the nineteenth-century community. Though the censuses represented the community as tiny in size, it was apparently an extraordinarily active one. Between I850 and 900o it generated at least fifteen weekly newspapers, as well as occasional books, literary reviews, and essays. This material

provides a rare opportunity to study the transformation from caste to class

society from the Afro-Argentine perspective. These sources allow the social scientist to record and analyze black impressions concerning the changes under way in the city's society and, most important, the community's perception of its own position in that rapidly evolving society.

Buenos Aires' 1827 municipal census revealed that of all the Afro-

Argentines who listed professions, 94 per cent worked at manual labor, divided fairly evenly among skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled professions. Only 52 per cent of the white population listed such trades.'l As throughout the rest of Spanish America, black men and women performed the labor that the whites were either too few, too proud or too lazy to do. Black skin and manual labor became so closely associated in late colonial and early national Buenos Aires that the town council several times pondered the

problem of how to attract whites into the trades.12 White Argentines hesitated to enter occupations heavily populated by black practitioners, for the social status of such trades was low. As several European visitors to the

city commented, the only whites who could be induced to perform skilled or unskilled manual labor were poor Spaniards and other European im-

migrants not yet attuned to the racial niceties of the New World.13 Black people were especially heavily represented in service occupations,

particularly domestic service.14 If anything, the association between African descent and working as a servant was even stronger than that between

11 From a sample taken by the author. The original manuscripts of the census are located in the Archivo General de la Nacion, Buenos Aires (henceforth AGN), x, 23-5-5 and 23-5-6. Since the majority of individuals in the census failed to list any occupation (86% of the blacks and 72% of the whites), we may speculate that the percentage of manual laborers in each racial group was actually higher than that yielded by the census.

12 Lyman L. Johnson, 'The Artisans of Buenos Aires during the Viceroyalty, I776-I80 '

Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Connecticut, i974, pp. 56-8; Ricardo

Rodriguez Molas, 'El negro en el Rio de la Plata ', Polemica, 2 (I97o), p. 50. 13 Alexander Gillespie, Buenos Aires y el Interior (Buenos Aires, I92I), p. 65; Emeric E.

Vidal, Picturesque Illustrations of Buenos Ayres and Montevideo (London, I820), pp. I3-14. 14 A study of slave manumissions in late colonial Buenos Aires found that 90% of freed

slaves with listed occupations were domestic servants. Lyman L. Johnson, ' La manu- misi6n de esclavos en Buenos Aires durante el Virreinato ', Desarrollo Economico, xvi, No. 63 (Oct.-Dec. I976), p. 338.





















































African descent and manual labor in general. Official statistical reports of the i83os and i84os listed black births, deaths and marriages in columns headed 'Blacks and people of service'." In 1813 the revolutionary Govern- ment enacted legislation abolishing the slave trade and instituting a program of gradual emancipation of the slaves. By the I83os these laws had produced a marked decline in the slave population, with the result that the city found itself faced with a grave shortage of domestic labor. Several editorials in that decade and the I85os protested against this situation and proposed the

impressment of free black people into service.'6 Such proposals were never acted on by the government, but it is symptomatic of the Afro-Argentines' extremely low vocational and social status that the newspapers should have

singled them out as the candidates for such a scheme. But even as early as the I82os a small proportion of the Afro-Argentines

worked at trades higher than that of artisan. Several were professionals (usually military officers, pharmacists, or school teachers), others owned small businesses. The 1827 census is the last one of the century from which vocational information on the Afro-Argentines may be extracted, but it

appears that this nascent middle class continued to grow during the second half of the century. The black newspapers of the I87os and i88os were

supported in part by regular advertisements from such black-owned businesses as Juan Pablo Balparda's cigarette factory or the dance halls owned and operated by members of the community. Successful musicians and

journalists commanded incomes above the ordinary, as did such professionals as Tomas B. Platero, the first black man to become a notary public in Argentina, or Jose Maria Morales, the black man who came closest to becoming a general in the Argentine army.l7 This class was further

expanded by blue-collar workers who, through careful financial management and shrewd investment in the city's expanding economy, amassed comfortable financial holdings. An early example of this phenomenon was a black musician and coachmaker of the I83os who became sufficiently wealthy to open negotiations for the purchase of a Spanish title of nobility.l8 A later

example was Eugenio Sar, a sailor and stevedore whose investments in real estate made him one of the most well-to-do members of the black com-

15 AGN, x, 27-7-4. 16 ' Servicio Domestico ', El Martir o Libre, No. 9 (17 July I830), pp. I-2; 'La moral

domestica , La Tribuna, i, No. 63 (27 Oct. i853), p. 2; ' La moral domestica - Casa de correccion ', La Tribuna, I, No. 74 (8 Nov. I853), pp. 2-3.

17 For biographies of these men, see Jorge Miguel Ford, Benemeritos de mi estirpe (La Plata, I899), pp. 50-2, I03-5.

18 Jose Luis Lanuza, Morenada (Buenos Aires, I967), pp. 1oo-IOI.









































munity. His name appeared regularly, along with the rest of the black middle class, on subscription lists for fund drives held by the black papers."9

By the second half of the century, therefore, the black population had become clearly divided along a socio-economic scale, so much so that many of the Afro-Argentine writings of the period may be readily labelled as

working class or middle class in orientation. Since manual laborers continued to form the bulk of the black community, it seems appropriate to consider first their expressions of thought on the questions of social mobilization and organization.

The i85os found the black laborers in very bad straits. From 1835 to 1852 the province of Buenos Aires was ruled by Governor Juan Manuel de

Rosas, a wealthy rancher who had based his political support on an unlikely combination of the province's land-owning elite and the urban workers of Buenos Aires city. Prominent among this latter group were the Afro-

Argentines. Rosas had made a special point of courting the black com-

munity: he regularly attended their social functions, invited the presidents of the African mutual aid societies to his residence for consultations and social events, allowed black men into the officer corps of the regular army, and so on.20 Ultimately the Afro-Argentines were badly served by their alliance with the governor. Rosas embroiled the province in a series of international and civil wars in which black men served in disproportionate numbers, due largely to racially discriminatory draft decrees. The prolonged absence of a large portion of the black male population during the wars, as well as the death or disappearance of an unknown number of them, had a correspondingly blighting effect on the life of the community. Further-

more, when Rosas was overthrown in 1852 and his political enemies took over the government of the province, an immediate anti-black backlash

began against one of the most visible supports of his regime. The black

newspaper El Proletario had just cause to reflect bitterly on 'that barbarous and savage tyranny of twenty years' which ruined the whole city but did

especially severe damage to the black community.21 In 1882 La Broma (The Jest) echoed this point, blaming the community's continuingly depressed social and economic position on its 'education' in the barracks and encamp- ments of Rosas' army.22

As the Afro-Argentines sought to recover from the ill effects of the Rosas

years, they were confronted by yet another adverse circumstance, the begin- 19 See Ford, op. cit., pp. 73-4. Sar's will is in AGN, Sucesiones 83I0, Testamentaria de

D. Eugenio Sar. 20 See Lanuza, op. cit., pp. I20-7; Jose Maria Ramos Mejia, Rosas y Su Tiempo (Buenos

Aires, I907), i, 274-5, 286-8, 330-40; Rout, op. cit., pp. I90-I.

21 ' Las Clases Altas de la Sociedad y la de Color', El Proletario, i, No. 2 (24 Apr. I858), p. I. 22 ' Bombos y Bombas ', La Broma, in, No. 69 (i2 May I882), p. I.





















































ning of large-scale immigration from Europe. Europeans had been entering the country in large numbers ever since the elevation of Buenos Aires to the status of viceregal capital in 1776, but between I870 and I9I4 they fairly

poured into the city. In 1855 foreigners comprised 41 per cent of the capital's economically active population (persons listing an occupation in the census of that year); by I895, that proportion had risen to 72 per cent.23 In a

development paralleling similar events in Brazil and the United States,24 the immigrants pushed the Afro-Argentines out of a number of occupations they had long specialized in. For instance, the washerwomen of the i800-6o

city tended to be mainly black women - as late as 1873 a photograph of two washerwomen on the riverbank showed one of them to be black and one white.25 But by I899 a magazine article could describe the disappearance of the black washerwomen, who had surrendered their jobs to the 'hearty Italian women .26 Similar articles appeared on the replacement of black street vendors by Italians, and the disappearance of the black changadores, the porters who carried loads around the city.27 In the Carnaval celebrations of 1876 a black ensemble sang a song denouncing the 'Neapolitan usurpers' who had taken over the blacks' old jobs.28 Immigrant displacement of black labor even extended to the army: between 1814 and 1824, when it was dis-

banded, Regiment 8 had been an Afro-Argentine unit that distinguished itself in the Independence wars. When the unit was reconstituted in 1871, it was formed of companies from the Italian Legion, a unit of immigrant soldiers.2

The Afro-Argentines retreated into their last vocational preserve, domestic service. The national census of 1895, though it provided no statistical information concerning race, noted in one of its chapters that the great majority of blacks in the capital continued to work as domestic servants.3 Black and white authors of the period noted how it was considered very

23 Alfredo Lattes and Raul Poczter, Muestra del censo de poblacion de la ciudad de Buenos Aires de 1855 (Buenos Aires, I968), p. 68; Scobie, op. cit., p. 265.

24 See Cohen and Greene, op. cit., pp. 263, 33I; Mary Catherine Karasch, ' Slave Life in Rio de Janeiro, 1808-1850' Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Wisconsin-Madison, I972, pp. 4I2, 484-5; Richard Wade, Slavery in the Cities (London, I964), p. 275; Fernandes, The Negro in Brazilian Society, p. 5; Leon F. Litwack, North of Slavery: The

Negro in the Free States, 790o-i860 (Chicago, I96I), pp. I62-8. 25 A. Taullard, Nuestro antiguo Buenos Aires (Buenos Aires, I927), p. 86. 26 ' Los lavanderos municipales ', Caras y Caretas, in, No. 56 (28 Oct. I899). 27 Caras y Caretas, I, No. II (17 Dec. i898), 5; 'El Changador ', Caras y Caretas, Ii, No. 4I

(15 July 1899). 28 Quoted in Lanuza, op. cit., p. 220.

29 Manuel Alvarez Pereyra, Historia del Regimtento 8 de Linea (La Plata, I92I), pp. 22-9. 30 Ricardo Rodriguez Molas, 'Negros libres rioplatenses ', Buenos Aires: Revista de

Humanidades, I, No. I (Sept. I96I), p. I25.





































26 George Reid Andrews 26 George Reid Andrews 26 George Reid Andrews 26 George Reid Andrews

chic to employ retinues of well-dressed black servants.31 So widespread was the phenomenon that the elegantly turned-out manservant was a frequent feature of fiction and cartoons from the period.32

Black-immigrant competition also occurred over housing. By the I87os the black neighborhoods of the central city were breaking up and dis-

solving under the white onslaught, driven out by rising rents and mutual

animosity between the two groups. The Afro-Argentines moved into the suburbs west and south of the city, but even here the immigrants followed them. One Argentine historian recalls how, in the ragged neighborhood of Barracas, on the city's south side,' mutual antipathy erupted more than once into impressive brawls among blacks, creole whites, and Italians '.3

Conflict between the immigrants and the Afro-Argentines meant that any sort of alliance between the two groups to promote working-class interests was unlikely. Native-born black and white workers alike greeted the im-

migrants with hostility and contempt.34 An editorial in 1874 in the black

weekly newspaper La Igualdad complained that immigrants enjoyed all the

rights of citizenship without having to shoulder any of the duties, that they had been disloyal in not going to fight in the civil wars and in Paraguay against Buenos Aires' enemies, and that the 'foreign element that enjoys all rights and privileges, that is received with open arms, that is more protected than any other, as soon as they set foot on our territory becomes an

enemy of all the authorities created by national law '.35 Writing in the I89os, the young Afro-Argentine, Jorge Miguel Ford, complained bitterly about how European musicians had taken over the most lucrative jobs in the

city.36 An especially delicate aspect of the black-immigrant competition was touched on in a feature in i880 on the subject of black women marrying Italian men. The editor of La Broma sarcastically congratulated such brides on their good fortune and said that he looked forward to seeing them sell-

ing spaghetti on the street soon. The author's bitterness is unmistakable,

though he consoled his readers with a brief reflection on the sexual im- balance in the community that forced black women to seek husbands else-

31 Mamerto Fidel Quinteros, Memorias de un negro del Congreso (Buenos Aires, 1924), p. 224;

Rodriguez Molas, ' Negros libres rioplatenses ', p. I25.

32 See the black butler in Lucio Lopez's La Gran Aldea (Buenos Aires, many editions, first

published in 1884), or the black manservant Benjamin who appears in cartoons in Caras y Caretas. ' En el Tigre ', Caras y Caretas, IIi, No. 71 (Io Feb. 900o); 'Noticias de la

Guerra ', II, No. 76 (I7 Mar. 900oo). 33 Miguel Angel Scenna, Cuando murio Buenos Aires, i87S (Buenos Aires, I974), p. III.

34 For a description of anti-immigrant feeling in Buenos Aires, see Scobie, op. cit., pp. 230-I.

35 ' La opini6n del estrangero ', La Igualdad, ii, No. 49 (3 May 1874), p. i.

36 Ford, op. cit., p. 44.






























































where, concluding with the witticism that when you can't get bread, you must settle for pasta.37

Particularly vehement on the subject of the immigrants was Mamerto Fidel Quinteros, who published a book on his years as a Congressional orderly. Quinteros argued for increased federal aid to vocational schools in order to enable Argentines to re-enter the trades and compete with the better-trained Europeans. He also attacked immigrant participation in

politics and proposed that high government positions be barred by law to

immigrants and their children. In an ironic reversal of Domingo Sarmiento and other Argentine thinkers who saw European immigration as the

country's salvation, Quinteros denounced the Italo-Argentine community as 'the Argentine Calabria, descendants of immigrants inherently un-

adaptable to the culture of the civilized centers, and the representatives of the most brutish people produced by the peninsulas of the world .38

Despite their antagonism toward the Europeans, however, the Afro-

Argentines did not prove immune to the class-based ideologies circulating among the immigrants. The socialism and anarchism introduced into

Argentina by the immigrants caught the attention of the black community, particularly its working class. The two openly working class Afro-Argentine weeklies of which collections survive both display an acquaintance with the radical political thought of the time. El Proletario, published over a several month period in 1858, proclaimed in its first issue that 'in union there is

strength' (original italics) and in subsequent articles employed the concept of social class in its analysis of the black community's ills. It also urged the establishment of a mutual aid society in the community along the lines of those founded by the anarchists in Europe: such societies 'in other countries have produced the most splendid and beneficial results '.3

La luventud which was published between 1876 and 1883 (and perhaps longer) was even franker in its social analysis. Taking its vocabulary and

concepts directly from Marxist thought, the weekly called its readers' attention to certain 'contradictory facts' in the city's situation: 'contra-

dictory, when thousands of arms lie idle, and a great number of families sunk in the most complete misery. Discontent is widespread, and he who has work today cannot count on having any tomorrow.'40 The editors returned again and again to the theme of union as the only possible protection against the bourgeoisie. 'The workers are those beings who more than

37 La Broma, I, No. 33 (21 Mar. i880). 38 Quinteros, op. cit., pp. II, 93, 153-4. 39 El Proletario, i, No. (I8 Apr. I858), p. i. 40 ' Consejos sociales ', La Juventud, I, No. 4 (23 Jan. 1876), p. i.












































any other require union to protect themselves '; the bourgeoisie are 'those

beings who wear frock coats the better to hide the leprosy of their souls. . .' 41

The two papers placed little faith in the efficacy of party politics to relieve the community's situation. Though both paid the customary lip service to the principles of freedom and republicanism on which the Argentine Republic was founded, they occasionally allowed themselves more realistic

appraisals of the province's political realities. El Proletario attracted strong criticism from the white press with an article describing the discrimination that black students suffered in the public schools. Many readers wrote in to

agree with the paper's findings, but the major dailies accused El Proletario of having insulted Governor Alsina and his administration. The paper was forced to issue a carefully worded apology which suggests the delicate com-

promise the editors of the black papers had to make between exposing the truth and not offending white society. For many years we have been the first to acknowledge the beautiful principles and openly liberal ideas that have always distinguished and commended the present Chief of State; and we agree wholeheartedly that to him are owed in large part the benefits which we theoretically enjoy today; but it is also undeniable that social concerns and other circumstances no less powerful, which we shall have occasion in the future to point out, form practical obstacles, and frequently make the laws illusory.42

La Juventud approached the question of party politics with frank and

outright cynicism. The editors argued that politics served only to divide the community and did it no good whatsoever. An article on the black

legislators of the period described them as party hacks who slavishly followed the dictates of the machine bosses.43 A later article accused the white press of

exploiting the black community for political purposes. It charged that the white dailies only reported on the black community when it organized to

support a candidate favored by the papers; when the community struggled to establish an apolitical mutual aid society or newspaper, its efforts went

unreported by the major papers. The white press thus encouraged conflict and discord within the community and ignored efforts to mobilize it for constructive ends.44

La Juventud rejected the idea of political participation for blacks and instead promoted the concept of the mutual aid society. A series of articles

proclaimed that 'our true religion is Mutual Aid' and held up the example of the European working class: 'in the Old World, where life is so difficult

41 La sociedad obrera ', La Juventud, i, No. 8 (20 Feb. 1876), p. I. 42 ' Falsa inteligencia ', El Proletario, i, No. 3 (4 May 1858), p. i.

43 Union, Igualdad, Fraternidad ', La Juventud, ii, No. 23 (30 July i878), p. 3. 44 ' Vaya! ', La Juventud, Ii, No. 30 (Io Oct. I878), pp. I-2.




















































Race Versus Class Association 29

for the unfortunate beings who have no other means than their miserable salaries, mutual aid societies give strength and life to millions of families who without that protection would die of hunger'.4 The paper's campaign bore fruit in the form of La Protectora, a society formed in 1876 and which was still in existence in 1936, the last year for which there is information on it. Founded by the black stevedores, the society provided a defense against unemployment and illness, providing regular benefits to members who were

prevented from working. Though membership was open to whites, it

appears that few white people joined.46 This is hardly surprising, given the fact that the immigrants had their own societies and that white Argentines would have no desire to affiliate themselves with black organizations.

The Afro-Argentines recognized their isolation but resolved to overcome it by organizing the entire black community into a cohesive social unit. As the editor of El Proletario explained in i858, despite the paper's name 'we do not come to defend the proletariat, because strictly speaking, that class does not exist among us. We come to promote our own interests: those of the society of color.' 47 (Original italics.) Although La Juventud appended the motto 'Organ of the Working Classes' to its masthead, its content was

clearly directed at a black audience. The paper emitted frequent appeals for

unity, but it was talking about the uniting of the black community rather than cross-racial class unity. For example, an editorial in 1876 on the 'society of color' argued that 'our society's endeavors are great and solemn. Its principles are of the highest... and the number of its members is enormous... It need only unite itself to achieve the triumph of its most precious rights and liberties.' 48

It appears that La Juventud was frustrated in its appeals not only by the

apathy of a large portion of the black workers but also by the desire of the black middle class to set as much distance as possible between itself and the black proletariat.49 La Juventud's angriest blasts were reserved for those

Afro-Argentines who set themselves above the rest of the community. A

representative example is a controversy that erupted in 1876 concerning a social club called 'The Argentine Hope'. The club was founded by several of the more prosperous Afro-Argentines and charged dues much too high

45 ' El hombre del pueblo ', La Juventud, i, No. 26 (25 June I876), p. I. 46 See Ford, op. cit., pp. 73-4; Luis Canepa, El Buenos Aires de Antaio (Buenos Aires, 1936),

p. 263; ' La Protectora ', La Broma, ii, No. 79 (28 July 1882), pp. I-2. 47 El Proletario, I, No. 2 (24 Apr. 1858), p. i. 48 Nuestro triunfo ', La Juventud, i, No. 4 (23 Jan. 1876), p. I. 49 In so doing, the Afro-Argentines displayed similarities to the Afro-North American

bourgeoisie. See Frazier, op. cit., Chap V; Ira Berlin, Slaves Without Masters (New York, 1974), pp. 273-83; Carl Degler, Neither Black Nor White (New York, 197I), section on 'The Flight from Blackness ', pp. I67-7o; Litwack, op. cit., pp. 186-7.












































for a manual laborer to pay. La Juventud attacked this exclusiveness, accus-

ing the club's founders of harboring social pretensions that would split the

community. The editors urged the club's members to forget their class

superiority and concentrate on uniting the community. Let us make no more propaganda against our own brothers ... Let these disastrous pretentions end, on the part of those who so evilly call themselves men of circumstance (hombres de categoria). Let the great divisions that exist among us be

ended;... Let us gather together about a single flag, and we will give the lie to those who have already consigned us to oblivion 50 (original italics).

But 'The Argentine Hope' did not disband, so several weeks later La

luventud announced the formation of a new club, 'The Sons of Order',

'truly an association composed of humble workers, in which exist union,

progress, and friendship 5 (original italics). The organ of the black middle class was La Broma, published during the

I87os and i88os, and the longest lived of the black papers. The evolution in La Broma's editorial policies forms an interesting counterpoint to La Juventud's themes. The two were mortal enemies - La Juventud seldom let

up on La Broma, deriding its editors as madmen, pompous stuffed shirts, and public drunkards.52 La Broma's usual reaction was loftily to ignore these attacks, probably recognizing that its opponent's shaky financial base would eventually lead to its demise. On occasion it angrily denied La

Juventud's charges that it was promoting class division within the com-

munity. 'The society of color is united, it thinks as a single man, it longs for the realization of its hopes according to a single prediction, and it is animated with vitality like a heart that beats to a single rhythm.' 5 But for the most part it simply refused to respond to its opponent's outbursts, leav-

ing to La Juventud the task of analyzing the community's ills: ' ...if

occasionally we write a serious little article, it is not with the intention of

enlightening anybody, because we can hardly pretend to teach others what we do not know ourselves and wish that others would teach us'.5 When La Broma came into existence in I876, it announced that it would carefully avoid all political issues and sources of possible conflict, occupying itself instead with dances, social clubs, get-togethers, and social events in general. This frivolous approach infuriated La Juventud, which responded with a

blistering editorial, mocking the newly founded paper: 'Nothing related

50 ' Nuestro triunfo ', La Juventud, I, No. 4 (23 Jan. 1876), p. i. 51 La Juventud, I, No. 7 (I3 Feb. I876), p. 2.

52 See the regular feature 'La Broma ', which appeared in La Juventud during May and

June i876, and which ridiculed the previous week's issue. 53 ' Actualidad ', La Broma, I, No. 5 (22 Aug. 1878), p. 2,

54 ' fPor que se llama " La Broma "? ', La Broma, I, No. 17 (I5 Nov. I878), p. 2.




































































to party politics and a great deal related to detailed chronicles of tea

parties!!! coffee parties!! hot chocolate parties! ! ! of big dances!!! of

really big dances!!! of strolls!!! soirees! ! ! meetings!!! etc.'.55 La Broma was undeterred, however, and continued on its chosen path.

In so doing, it represented a black middle class intensely desirous of being accepted by its white counterpart as equals. This previously unthinkable

concept looked as though it would become an actual possibility in post-I85o Buenos Aires. Not only did economic expansion provide opportunities for the growth of the black middle class, but white society itself seemed more amenable to the idea of accepting blacks as equal partners. Following the fall of Governor Rosas, the provincial government was most eager to

prevent any future populists from seizing power by exploiting the discontent of disadvantaged groups. The national constitution of 1853 and the provincial constitution of 1854, therefore, contained articles guaranteeing the

equality of all citizens before the law, which theoretically outlawed racial discrimination. Subsequent legislation overturned segregation in the army and in the public schools. The government appeared to be urging the

Afro-Argentines to forget their past separateness and join in the task of

building a new and united Argentina. This appeal was made explicit in an editorial in 1858 in La Nueva

Generacio6, a weekly newspaper published by students at the University of Buenos Aires. The editorial was in response to the appearance of Buenos Aires' first black newspaper, La Raza Africana (The African Race). The writer admitted that he had yet to see a copy of the new publication, but its title alone was enough to provoke his dismay. Why call yourselves Africans, he asked the city's blacks, when in fact you are Argentines? Obviously associating the paper's name with the African societies that had

supported Governor Rosas, the students accused the paper's editors of

attempting to resurrect political barbarism and dictatorship in the city. The editorial concluded by suggesting that the city's 'noble colored youth' instead join with the university students in creating an Argentina dedicated to the principles of political, economic and social progress.56

This union of black and white youth would have been somewhat difficult to achieve, given the fact that as of i858 not a single black student had yet matriculated at the university. By 1882 no Afro-Argentine had yet received

55 La Juventud, i, No. 19 (7 May 1876), p. 3. For some interesting parallels, see Frazier's

chapters on 'The Negro Press and Wish-Fulfillment' and ' "Society ": Status Without Substance '. Black Bourgeoisie, op. cit.

56 ' La Raza Africana ', La Nueva Generacion, No. 27 (9 Jan. I858), p. I.





















































a degree there.57 Nevertheless, many blacks took the bait and embarked on the task of rendering themselves acceptable to white society. This impulse was especially strong among the younger members of the community, who were anxious to escape the caste status their families had endured for

generations. It manifested itself most noticeably in efforts to sever the com-

munity from its black and African past. La Broma urged its readers to try to overcome 'the semi-barbarous vices and habits that come to us by racial tradition, that up until now we have not been able to restrain com-

pletely. . .'5 The African mutual aid societies faded away during the I86os and i87os as the young Afro-Argentines refused to join and maintain them. The community abandoned the candombe, the distinctively Afro-

Argentine dance, in favor of such popular European imports as the waltz, schottisch and mazurka.

All the black papers, working and middle-class alike, ran editorials urging the community to reform its casual living arrangements, give up liquor, and adopt the respectable sobriety of middle class mores. Young Afro-

Argentines spent lavish portions of their incomes to dress in the styles affected by the city's white trendsetters; both La Juventud and El Proletario attacked this extravagance as a waste of money.59 Black and white Argentine artists studied the European masters faithfully - several black musicians and

painters even won government scholarships to go to European conservatories and academies to study.60

The political verities of the Conservative Republic were scrupulously honored by the middle class Afro-Argentines. Rosas was trotted out and

subjected to ritual abuse at regular intervals in the black press; the ' glorious principles' of the revolution of I8Io were reaffirmed each Independence Day; the poet Horacio Mendizabal (son of Rosendo Mendizabal, one of the black provincial legislators) authored several verses to the glory of Buenos Aires and Argentina; and young Jorge Miguel Ford sang the praises of 'that colossus of a capital, beacon of South America, standing like a Parthenon in the midst of a sea of progress...' 61 Many blacks joined political parties and participated in the infighting in the capital. Party

57 Letter from ' Dos Ciudadanos de Color ', El Proletario, I, No. 8 (I6 June I858), p. I; 'Tomas B. Platero', La Broma, II, No. 91 (4 Nov. I882), p. I.

58 ' La Hermandad del Rosario ', La Broma, I, No. 8 (3 Sept. 1879), p. I. 59 'El lujo es incompetente y ruinoso a la clase de color ', El Proletario, I, No. 4 (9 May I858),

I; ' El lujo ', La Juventud, in, No. 22 (20 July 1878), p. 2,

60 Among those mentioned in the black papers are the musicians Zen6n Rolon and Manuel L. Posadas, who studied in Italy and Belgium; and the painters Juan Blanco de Aguirre and Justo Garcia.

61 See ' Alerta ' in Mendizabal's Primeros Versos (Buenos Aires, I865) and ' Arjentina ' in Horas de Meditacidn (Buenos Aires, I869); Ford, op. cit., p. 73.


















































activity within the community was particularly intense during the i868 and

1874 presidential elections, when the rival candidates each sponsored Afro-

Argentine weeklies. The two papers heaped scurrilous abuse on each other and helped whip tempers to such a height that a fist fight broke out between

partisans of the two candidates at a fashionable Afro-Argentine social

gathering in i874.62 In short, nobody could accuse the middle class Afro-Argentines of having

failed to respond to the invitation to help form a new Argentine state and

society. Not even La Juventud could completely resist the siren's song of assimilation: it, too, ran editorials promoting the principles of middle-class

propriety, and at one point it even ran a serialized novella whose protagonist had 'skin as white as snow, and golden curls falling in profusion to her

shoulders'.63 Nevertheless, the expected rewards did not materialize. The

Afro-Argentines' careful imitation of the norms and mores of white society did attract white notice and approval, but that approval tended to be of a

markedly condescending sort, and it brought few, if any, concrete benefits. In i880 the white editor, Horacio Varela, commented in his paper El Porteno on 'the good upbringing and behavior of all those people of color', a remark which earned him accolades in La Broma as 'the true defender of our rights and liberties' and 'the nicest man in the Americas .64 A

magazine article in I905 on 'The People of Color' commented on the

progress of the black middle class. It mentioned their newspapers, literary reviews,

beneficent societies and aristocratic salons, where instead of the grotesque candombe or semba - lewd as a monkey's grimace - they dance in modern clothes in the manner of Louis XV... Those numerous corrals in which the people of color used to live all thrown together, in a depressing promiscuity, have now dis- appeared. Now there are black families that ride in coaches with liveried servants and wear fabulous jewels...65

This praise was a token achievement at best, and it was heavily out-

weighed by the continuingly disadvantaged position of the Afro-Argentines within porteno society. During the second half of the century, it was amply and consistently demonstrated that white portenos thought of their black

countrymen as blacks before they thought of them as Argentines. As in

virtually every country in the Americas, the colonial heritage of caste

62 ' (Por que se llama "La Broma"? ', La Broma, i, No. II (3 Oct. I878), pp. I-2; La

Igualdad, ii, No. 54 (7 June 1874), p. 3. 63 First episode, 'El Ramo de Flores ', La Juventud, i, No. 3 (i6 Jan. 1876), p. 2. 64 Luis Soler Cafias, ' Pardos y Morenos en el Afio 80 ', Revista del Instituto de Investigaciones

Historicas Juan Manuel de Rosas, No. 23 (I963), pp. 28I-2, 274. 65 Juan Jose Soiza de Reilly, 'Gente de Color', Caras y Caretas, vmII, No. 373 (25 Nov.

I905).

L.A.S.-3






















I905).

L.A.S.-3






















I905).

L.A.S.-3






















I905).

L.A.S.-3


remained indelibly fixed in the city's society and culture. One finds frequent letters in the black press protesting at discrimination in the city, and a

particularly ominous incident in the summer of I879-8o formed a watershed of sorts, convincing even the congenitally optimistic La Broma of the true nature of porteno race relations.

Segregation had been an on-again, off-again reality in Buenos Aires

throughout the century, but during that summer opposition to black

presence in places of entertainment solidified and manifested itself in a series of newspaper advertisements specifically prohibiting blacks from entering a number of theaters and dance halls. The municipal government and the white press joined in condemning this prohibition, with the result that several weeks later it was withdrawn. The incident ended happily, but it had been of sufficient ugliness to chill the hopes of even the most sanguine members of the community. A profound change in La Broma's orientation dates very closely from this affair. The paper printed one of its earliest angry editorials at that time. Its author, Froilan Bello, described the multitude of whores and pimps who frequented the dance halls and expressed rage at the fact that 'thieves, hoodlums, and cardsharps can enter, because they are white. A compadrito, a bum, one of those professional vagabonds can enter the theater... and the owner looks at him and instead of throwing him

out, shows his pleasure with a happy smile: because after all, he is white! ' Bello prophesied that this discriminatory step boded no good for the com-

munity in the future. 'Today it is the theater that is closed to us, tomorrow it will be some other place, and the day after that it will be the church, where we all have the right to go to worship God, who is the kind father of all human beings, regardless of race or color .66

Other editorials from these months or after express disillusionment with the treatment accorded the Afro-Argentines by porteno society. An editorial on the presidential election of i880 urged blacks not to support any candi-

dates, since the parties had shown themselves willing to appoint Afro-

Argentines to only the lowest level patronage jobs, usually as orderlies in

government offices. It particularly attacked 'the leaders of the parties, those who try to take the juiciest morsels from the pot for themselves, without

leaving even the crumbs for our humble fellows ... 67 An even more bitter

piece recalled the sacrifices made by Afro-Argentine soldiers in all the

country's wars and then reflected on the continuing discrimination and

inferiority suffered by the community. 'And when we have invoked the Constitution as the saving foundation of our rights, they have replied to us

66 The best account of this episode is found in Soler Cafias' previously cited article, pp. 274-81. 67 ' Estamos ', La Broma, I, No. 2 (20 July I879), p. I.





















































with a sarcastic laugh. Equality in our country exists only in form. This is the liberty before the law that our class enjoys.'

68

The paper that was going to report only on happy things, on the parties and dances of the comfortable black middle class, had been forced into

joining the rest of the black press in denunciations of a society that would not honor its promise of equal admission for all. Furthermore, La Broma seems to have recognized the necessity of joining with the black working class to form a truly unified black community. In i88o, following the

collapse of the working class papers La Juventud and El Unionista, La Broma adopted the former paper's motto 'Organ of the Working Classes' as part of its own masthead. It published editorials opposing municipal ordinances controlling domestic service, and in i881 it printed a memorial article to the vanished black washerwomen, honoring them as the respected mothers and matrons of the community.69 It grew consistently warmer in its

support of the mutual aid society La Protectora, a society that had grown out of La Juventud's campaign on behalf of the concept of mutual aid. There is evidence that La Protectora itself was increasingly penetrated by the black middle class; originally founded by the stevedores, it gradually expanded until it included a number of prominent Afro-Argentine families.

By 1882 its president was Tomas B. Platero, the previously-mentioned notary public.70

A further interesting development was La Broma's increasing willingness to acknowledge and even publicize the African past of the community. In 1881 descendants of the members of the African mutual aid society formed

by the Kisama people of Angola successfully sued for the recovery of the

society's old headquarters. La Broma warmly applauded this action, saying that the dilapidation and neglect the society buildings had fallen into was an affront to the entire community. This property should be reclaimed and restored as a monument to the good work the African nations had done in

bygone decades, the editors argued. Apparently inspired by the suit and the editorial, descendants of the Hausa nation launched a similar suit the

following year and also won.71 In 1878 La Juventud had printed an editorial

protesting how blacks and whites alike had ignored and forgotten Afro-

Argentine history. In 1882 La Broma published a piece on exactly the same theme, observing that 'the history of our country has many blank

68 'La libertad ', La Broma, I, No. 23 (I8 Dec. 1879), p. I. 69 'La ley del embudo ', La Broma, I, No. 34 (19 Aug. I88I), p. I; 'La lavandera ', La

Broma, I, No. 43 (27 Oct. I88I), p. 2. 70 ' La Protectora ', La Broma, in, No. 79 (28 July I882), p. 2. 71 'Los bienes de nuestros abuelos ', La Broma, I, No. I8 (30 Apr. I88I), I; La Broma, Ir,

No. 8I (II Aug. 1882), p. 3.



68















No. 8I (II Aug. 1882), p. 3.



68















No. 8I (II Aug. 1882), p. 3.



68















No. 8I (II Aug. 1882), p. 3.


pages...' 72 The young writer Jorge Miguel Ford took a step towards

filling those pages when in 1899 he wrote Worthies of My Race, an

anthology of biographies of fifteen distinguished Afro-Argentines.73 These reversals of previous editorial policy were extremely significant. In

effect conceding the correctness of La ]uventud's position without taking up the radical rhetoric of its opponent, La Broma implicitly admitted that the Afro-Argentines' hope of being accepted as equals into white society was unrealizable. The economic development and opportunities created by Argentina's export boom between I870 and 1914 had not been sufficient to obliterate the vestiges of the colonial caste system and allow black people to rise in the society, unhindered by their racial heritage. Though some Afro-

Argentines did experience upward economic mobility, this was not accom-

panied by equivalent upward social mobility, at least within the context of white society.

Professor Carl Degler's well-known comparative study of race relations in Brazil and the United States may well contain the answer as to why Buenos Aires did not in fact form the 'ideal setting for Afro-Argentine advancement' proposed in the opening paragraphs of this essay. In seeking an explanation for the more relaxed and seemingly more amicable state of race relations in Brazil, Degler focused on, among other factors, the relative stasis of Brazilian society during the colonial period and the nineteenth

century. Divisions among social strata remained well defined (frequently on the basis of race) and for the most part impermeable, so competition for

upward mobility was fairly low. There was, therefore, less need for whites to bar blacks from social and economic competition by crude and overt racial discrimination. Controls were more subtle than in the United States, where a class system in the process of formation allowed for substantial

upward and downward mobility. It was very much in the interest of lower- and middle-class North American whites to remove black people from the crowded social and economic competition that occurred in the rapidly developing country. Thus racial discrimination in the United States became much more open and blatant than was the case in Brazil.T7

The proof of Degler's proposition may be found in one of its apparent exceptions, the Brazilian city of Sao Paulo. Sao Paulo is comparable in many ways to Buenos Aires: both cities were the first in their respective countries to become integrated into the modern, post-industrial world economy, and

today they form the dominant financial, commercial, and industrial centers

72 ' Los cabellos de la aurora empiezan a ilustrar la naturaleza ', La Juventud, 11, No. 32

(30 Oct. 1878), pp. I-2; Club Barcala ', La Broma, In, No. 8I (II Aug. I882), p. i.

73 See note 17. 74 Degler, op. cit., pp. 253-6I.


















































of Brazil and Argentina. Since 900o, race relations in Sao Paulo have become

considerably more strained than in the economically stagnant North-east of Brazil. In a remark that might well be applied to Buenos Aires, Florestan Fernandes has observed that the arrival of nineteenth- and twentieth-century immigrants to the city in response to economic opportunities there 'con- tributed clearly to worsen the appearance and the reality of racial in-

equality'.5 In the face of growing economic competition among social

groups, black people were increasingly barred from participating in the

society with whites on equal terms. This is what occurred in the United States and it appears that, in the mobile society of the boom years between

I870 and I914, the same thing happened in Buenos Aires. Competition for

membership in the new porteno middle class was intense, as was competition for passage from the middle to the upper class. As in Sao Paulo and the United States, the black population was ruled out of the contest.

Further proof of the applicability of Degler's argument can be found in the transformation of porteno race consciousness that took place between

I850 and 900o. During the first half of the century, Buenos Aires, like the rest of Spanish America, was characterized by a three-tier, Brazilian style of racial terminology in which distinctions were drawn among individuals of pure African ancestry, pure European ancestry, and mixed racial ancestry. This was, of course, different from the North American case, in which

people of pure and mixed African ancestry were and are grouped together in the 'black' racial category and distinguished from 'whites', people of more or less pure European descent. After I850 porteno writers and statistical recordkeepers showed a growing tendency to group all non-whites

together under the label 'people of color'. Porteno race consciousness thus became more dichotomous and North American in nature; Afro-Argentines were set clearly apart from white society and maintained as a marginal group. This tendency towards racial dichotomy has become even more

pronounced in this century. The term 'people of color' is now used only among Afro-Argentines; white portenos use the considerably harsher negro to refer to any non-white, regardless of whether that person is of mixed or

pure African descent.76 Thus the Afro-Argentines were excluded from white society. The black

working class was less affected by this exclusion than was the integration- oriented middle class. The black laborers for the most part failed to develop a consciousness of themselves as part of a larger working class, but rather

75 M6rner, Race and Class, p. I4I. 76 George Reid Andrews, 'Forgotten But Not Gone: The Afro-Argentines of Buenos Aires,

I800-900o' Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1978, pp. 554-6, 568-9.





















































continued to see themselves in racial terms, as members of an oppressed and isolated racial minority. This perception was an entirely reasonable one.

They had suffered greatly at the hands of the immigrants and were set

apart from them by race and culture. They were isolated from their white

compatriots by the country's long history of racially discriminatory legal and social practices. Even had the black workers been willing to form class associations with the creole whites, the whites themselves would probably not have cooperated in such an effort. Thus the black working-class news-

papers and other forms of expression tended to argue for racial, rather than class, solidarity.

The black middle class learned the realities of porteno race relations by painful experience. Having acquired many of the objective attributes neces-

sary for admission to the middle class, they consciously cultivated the attitudinal prerequisites as well, adopting the social norms, political ideals, and cultural standards of the white bourgeoisie. But the whites consistently rebuffed their efforts to be accepted as part of porteno society. Denied the accorded status essential for class membership, the Afro-Argentine middle class remained separate and alone, cut off from the whites save in exceptional individual cases in which acceptance was facilitated by extraordinary personal qualities and/or light skin color.

At least some members of the nineteenth-century black elite recognized that their 'disastrous pretensions' could only weaken and divide the com-

munity, and they seem to have resolved to unite with the black workers in

rebuilding it. Unfortunately, by the time this realization was reached, it was too late for it to have much impact on the community's welfare. Rather than proving to be an asset, the Afro-Argentines' reduced numbers worked

only to their disadvantage. By the i88os and i89os the black community formed a minimal percentage of the city's population; even united, it

possessed little political or economic power with which to better its social

position. As in Sao Paulo, the arrival of the immigrants had relieved and

eventually eliminated the city's dependence on black economic and political cooperation and participation. Once the community no longer had indispens- able services with which to bargain, it was not eligible to receive the social

acceptance tantalizingly proffered by the society and government of the post- I850 period.

Besides relieving the city's dependence on its black population, the arrival of the immigrants also had the effect of transforming the racial composition of the capital. The racially mixed gran aldea of I85o was no more; it had been replaced by a city of transplanted Europeans, a booming metropolis in which the Afro-Argentines had become almost invisible. The portenos





















































drew pointed comparisons between themselves and the heavily African

and/or Indian populations of countries like Brazil, Peru, Mexico, and others.

Arguing on the basis of the changes that had occurred in the capital, Argentine writers and thinkers announced that Argentina had become a

truly white society, racially superior to the other South American republics, and, therefore, the premier nation of the continent. Non-European realities in the country's past and present were ignored and eventually forgotten in the process of cultivating the myth of a white Argentina.7

By 900o Buenos Aires had unquestionably become a class-based society, but the Afro-Argentines remained a caste apart, a caste divided into classes which paralleled those of the larger society but were almost completely marginal groups. This impression of the black community as a group apart is reinforced by the Afro-Argentines' own way of collectively referring to themselves. To the present, they call themselves la clase de color (the colored class) or gente de clase (people of the class). When asking each other whether a third party is black, they will say, ' es de clase?' (is he or she of the class?). 'Class' as used by the Afro-Argentines is, therefore, not a socio-economic term but rather a purely racial term, reflecting their own historical experience of having been shunted aside in the porteno class structure solely because of their race.

Thus the case of Buenos Aires casts doubt on the conclusions of those authors who claim the complete integration of Afro-Latin American populations into their countries' class societies. It would seem that such conclusions

spring from excessive attention to official laws and proclamations and a con- comitant failure to examine carefully the reality of post-independence race relations and the extent to which those laws and proclamations went un- enforced and unobserved. Further research on Afro-Latin Americans in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries should serve to clarify this and other

misconceptions concerning the history of black people in the Americas.




























77 Ibid., Chaps. 5, II. 77 Ibid., Chaps. 5, II. 77 Ibid., Chaps. 5, II. 77 Ibid., Chaps. 5, II.

afroargentinos, 1850-1900

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