The Disappearance of Afro-Argentines and Colonialism essays

The Disappearance of Afro-Argentines and Colonialism essays At first glance of the current Buenos Aires, one would pre-conclude that the population is purely white or of European ancestry. However, after reading the book authored by George Reid Andrews, one would think otherwise. As the author noted in his book, the population of the Afro-Argentines who obviously were in existence during the 1800s did not dwindle to nothing as many people described it. The mass of historical commentary on the Afro-Argentines disappearance have explained the phenomena as the result of four main reasons. The first being that the Afro-Argentines had been drafted and then perished during the wars of the nineteenth century in large numbers. The second reason was because Afro-Argentine women were faced with the shortage of men of their own race, they turned to the European male immigrants as partners, also in hopes of producing lighter-skinned children who would have a chance of upward social mobility. The third explanation was that low birth rates and high mortality rates were especially pronounced in the Afro-Argentine communities because of their unsanitary living conditions and their inability provide for their young due to the lack of men and their low social status. Th e fourth reason was that slavery was abolished and the import of slaves had declined dramatically. While all the reasons listed above were valid and has unquestionably contributed to the wane of the Afro-Argentine population, they were superficial, a facade for the underlying factor of their seeming demise. The beginning of the decline of the Afro-Argentine population was marked by the censuses taken starting from the early 1800s. The author proposes that blacks were underrepresented in the censuses taken during that period because of a variety of causes. In his opinion, since they lived in the least desirable houses and neighborhoods, many census takers were most likely unwilling to venture into those places to complete their...