Afro-Argentines

Afro-Argentines (Spanish: Afroargentinos), also known as Black Argentines (Spanish: Argentinos negros), are Argentines who have predominantly or total Sub-Saharan African ancestry. The Afro-Argentine population is the result of people being brought over during the transatlantic slave trade during the centuries of Spanish domination in the region and immigration. During the 18th and 19th centuries Black Argentines accounted for up to fifty percent of the population in certain cities, and had a deep impact on Argentine culture. Some old theories held that in the 19th century the Afro-Argentine population declined sharply due to several factors, such as the Argentine War of Independence (c. 1810–1818), high infant mortality rates, low numbers of married couples who were both Afro-Argentine, the War of the Triple Alliance, cholera epidemics in 1861 and 1864 and a yellow fever epidemic in 1871. There are also Afro-Argentines descended from the small wave of Cape Verdean immigration in the 20th century. In recent years, immigrants of Senegalese, Afro-Venezuelan, Afro-Brazilian, Afro-Uruguayan, Afro-Peruvian, Afro-American, Afro-Colombian, Afro-Ecuadorian and Afro-Caribbean origin have begun to arrive. They currently make up a large part of the country's Black population, although (with the exception of Afro-Uruguayans) they do not share close cultural or historical ties with Afro-Argentines. Research in recent decades cites strong racial intermixing with whites and Indigenous peoples in the 18th and 19th centuries as the main reason for the decline of the Black population in Argentina.