Chile and Argentina compared with the rest of SA (life, country, place)

[robertpasa]

Why is it that demographics of Chile and Argentina are so different? They have fewer people of sub-Saharan African descent. The entire rest of Latin America is not like that, is that right? Does it have to do with the history of slavery?

Don't Chile and Argentina have more people from Western Europe? The new leader of Argentina, for example, is of Italian ancestry.

Average wealth is higher there, I believe. Another factor is mass decline of native people.

[igorcarajo]

Originally Posted by robertpasa

Does it have to do with the history of slavery?

As long as there aren’t any follow up questions then yes, yes it does.

[AntonioR]

I would add Uruguay to that.

With that said, the rest of South America is one block of sameness. Very different from one country to another and even within many of those countries. The average Bolivian seen in Cochabamba isn't similar to the average Peruvian seen in Lima, they aren't similar to the average Colombua seen in Medellín (and there is a difference to between there and the average Colombian seen in Cartagena or in Buenaventura) of the average Venezuelan seen in Caracas.

Also, all the indigenous groups weren't the same, didn't even speak the same language, didn't had/have the same lifestyle, etc. The Arawaks of Venezuela's Orinico are very different from the Mapuches of Chile, to give one example.

In terms of slavery, the major areas of slavery during the Spanish Empire depends on the era.

In the 1500's most if the African slaves were in Mexico and while numerically they weren't as great in Santo Domingo, Puerto Rico, Cuba and Jamaica (then still Spanish); percentagewise they were important. At that point, all were imported directly from Western Africa. As a general rule of thumb, slavery was never intense in much of the Spanish Empire and that included the Argentina area. Africans never became most of the population unlike in most British colonies, French colonies, etc in the Americas.

In the 1700's is when a second wave of slaves entered the Spanish Empire, but where they were settled was different from the 1500's. Then most Africans in the Spanish Empire were found in what is now Colombia, particularly its Caribbean and Pacific coasts. By the end of this century and during the first decades of the next, most African slaves in the Spanish Empire were in the Venezuela area.

From about the mid-1800 to 1898 most of the African slaves in the Spanish Empire were in Cuba as the sugar plantation development there took off with the arrival of the French running away from the Haitian Revolution, where sugar production was the most in the hemisphere until the HR destroyed it almost completely. The last colonies of Spain (Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines) in 1898 were taken away by the USA during the Spanish-American War.

The area around Argentina, Chile (which was called Chile during the entire Spanish colonial period) was never a strong focus of slavery or population for that matter. These were unimportant areas for the Spanish Empire as most of the action took place in Mexico, Peru and a handful of other places.

Immigration policies in the late 1800's onward explains the increasing demographic of those areas. Other areas had population changes due to various factors, such as Mexico was one of the most important places where the Spanish took African slaves in the Americas. Today, there is hardly a presence of Mexican blacks, despite it was common to see blacks abd mulattoes even in places like Mexico City. Miscegination explains why they "disappeared" for the most part (melted to the mestizo majority that took them for husbands and wives.) In contrast, now there are more black in the Dominican Republic when for much of the Spanish colonial times most of the people were very light skin, similar to an extent how Puerto Rico is now. In fact, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic in colonial times had a very similar amount of blacks in each place, a small minority. In Venezueia, particularly around the coast and in Caracas blacks were more visible in colonial times than now (despite since Hugo Chávez the place, particularly in Caracas, has become more brown as the white population greatly left, though there are still many.) In Lima, Peru you don't see many blacks and mulattoes there, though in colonial times they were more visible in Lima and in Callao.

[joacocanal]

Chile and Argentina demographics are totally different. Their level of wealth too, Argentina is in a very different situation because of ihyperinflation and other economic issues.

[EVANGELISTTI]

Originally Posted by robertpasa

Why is it that demographics of Chile and Argentina are so different? They have fewer people of sub-Saharan African descent. The entire rest of Latin America is not like that, is that right? Does it have to do with the history of slavery?

Don't Chile and Argentina have more people from Western Europe? The new leader of Argentina, for example, is of Italian ancestry.

Average wealth is higher there, I believe. Another factor is mass decline of native people.

In fact, in most of Latin America, the population of black African origin is not very large, the predominance is of mestizos (white /amerindian mix) and pure amerindians.

Black Africans have a large presence in places where there were plantations, the Caribbean and the continental coastal areas that border it, such as the south of the USA, Venezuela and the Caribbean part of Colombia including Panama, the 3 Guyanas and the Brazilian coast from Rio de Janeiro up to Pernambuco.

[AntonioR]

Originally Posted by EVANGELISTTI

In fact, in most of Latin America, the population of black African origin is not very large, the predominance is of mestizos (white /amerindian mix) and pure amerindians.

Black Africans have a large presence in places where there were plantations, the Caribbean and the continental coastal areas that border it, such as the south of the USA, Venezuela and the Caribbean part of Colombia including Panama, the 3 Guyanas and the Brazilian coast from Rio de Janeiro up to Pernambuco.

Not always the case. In Dominican Republic the only area that since colonial times could be said to be a plantation area is around San Cristóbal (and in fact, several maps from colonial times have this area named "Los Ingenios" and "Los Negros" (The Sugar Mills and The Blacks.) True enough, there most of the population has been black at least since the 1700's. Before then there was hardly any people there. In the rest of current DR most of the people were very light skin. In places like Samana, which has always had a small population and even today which has more people than ever they amount to around 1% of the Dominican population, most of the population is black since the 1820's. In fsct, it was the Haitian government that attracted many of the African Americans that are the ancestors of many people from there. You csn see it in their English last names and still sone people there speak English as their only language. Before the African American arrived the peninsula hardly had any people of the few left when most of the population left in fear to Puerto Rico as soin they heard Toussaint Loverture was invading in 1801.

Case in point, the capital of that province and península was founded in the 1700's exclusively by Spanish families brought to the island by the Spanish government from the Canary Islands. In fact, most of the Spanish colonial towns were founded in the 1600 and 1700's as a deliberate policy of the Spanish government to increase the population of the Spanish colony the French colony grew very quickly particularly in the 1700's mostly because the French was filling every nook and cranny of the western side with African slaves freshly taken from Africa itself. The French had the habit of encroaching on Spanish land along the border with new plantations filled with newly arrived African slaves and then made claims of ownership of that land without consulting the Spanish authorities who were the legitimate owners of that land. To descourage French encroachment further eastward, the Spanish/Dominican population which by 1737 had reached rock bottom with a population of just 6,000 for the entire territory while the French side already had a population in the hundreds of thousands. The repopulation of the Spanish colony was dine with Spanish families from the Canary Islands, which then was grossly overpopulated to the point there was actual hunger. That's how towns like Dajabón, Hincha (now in Haiti), San Miguel de la Atalaya (now in Haiti) Baní, San Francisco de Macorís, Samaná, etc were founded and other towns that already existed such as Santiago, La Vega, Santo Domingo, Higüey, etc had significant augmentations of their population and rural areas in their vicinity. That's part of the reason you will notice that the traditional families of Higüey, a town that has received a lot of population in recent decades, are in fact more light skin than the Higüey population overall. This is just referring to the older families from the areas, not only the rich. Many people there are recent migrants from other parts of the DR, Haiti and other countries.

In places like Hincha, Haiti most of the original families that were among the founding families ofvthat town moved further east into what is now the Dominican Republic. Ex-President Hipólito Mejía is from Santiago, but his ancestors were originally from Hincha and they moved first to Baní and then settled in Gurabo near Santiago during the times of the Haitian Revolution. Places near in the then border with the Frnch colony such as Hincha saw many incursions of the French running away from their self-liberated slaves and incursions from the ex-slaves too. Properties there and many of the Spanish/Dominican inhabitants were not excluded from being directly affected given to constant theft especially of the cattles of heardsmen by Haitians that crossed the border during the night and also some murders and rapes.

Nowadays you will see more blacks in areas of the DR that historically had few blacks or any at all. In some parts of Santiago there are some really older people that say the first time they or a parent of them saw a black person was when such and such first went to San Pedro de Macorís. They also attest the population changes they have seen in Santiago mow vs when they were kids.

You will also hear other things that many people that don't live in the larger islands of the Caribbean would find it hard to believe. Ex-President Hipólito Mejía has said on many ocassions that the first time he saw the sea was when a teenager he went to Santo Domingo. He says he was amazed at the sight thinking "all this wasted land," that's a perspective from rural people thinking of putting land to produce vegetables and fruits. Sone people may wonder how is it possible to live on an island and never see the sea, but in the DR that was the case with a large portion of the population. In fact, traditional Dominican dishes don't have seafood while in most islands seafood is abundantly eaten.