Argentines of European descent
Argentines of European descent
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Argentines of European descent

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Argentines of European descent

European Argentines (Spanish: Argentinos Europeos), are Argentines who have predominantly or total European ancestry (formerly called Criollos or Castizos in the viceregal era), belong to several communities which trace their origins to various migrations from Europe and which have contributed to the country's cultural and demographic variety. They are the descendants of colonists from Spain during the colonial period prior to 1810, or in the majority of cases, of Spanish, Italians, French, Russians and other Europeans who arrived in the great immigration wave from the mid 19th to the mid 20th centuries, and who largely intermarried among their many nationalities during and after this wave. No recent Argentine census has included comprehensive questions on ethnicity, although numerous studies have determined that European Argentines have been a majority in the country since 1914. The majority of Argentines of European descent are descendants of Italians, Spanish, French, Germans, Polish, Russians, British, Irish, among other groups.

European Argentinians may live in any part of the country, though their proportion varies according to region. Due to the fact that the main entry point for European immigrants was the Port of Buenos Aires, they settled mainly in the central-eastern region known as the Pampas (the provinces of Buenos Aires, Santa Fe, Córdoba, Entre Ríos and La Pampa), Their presence in the north-western region (mainly in the provinces of Jujuy and Salta) is less evident due to several reasons: it was the most densely populated region of the country (mainly by Amerindian and Mestizo people) until the immigratory wave of 1857 to 1940, and it was the area where the European newcomers settled the least. During the last decades, due to internal migration from these north-western provinces and due to immigration especially from Bolivia, Peru and Paraguay (which have Amerindian and Mestizo majorities), the percentage of European Argentines in certain areas of the Greater Buenos Aires has significantly decreased as well.

Neither official census data nor statistically significant studies exist on the precise amount or percentage of Argentines of European descent today. The Argentine government recognizes the different communities, but Argentina's National Institute of Statistics and Censuses (INDEC) does not conduct ethnic/racial censuses, nor includes questions about ethnicity. The Census conducted on 27 October 2010, did include questions on Indigenous peoples (complementing the survey performed in 2005) and on Afro-descendants.

It is estimated that more than 30 million Argentines (about 65%) have at least one Italian forefather. Another study of the Amerindian ancestry of Argentines was headed by Argentine geneticist Daniel Corach of the University of Buenos Aires. The results of this study in which DNA from 320 individuals in 9 Argentine provinces was examined showed that 56% of these individuals had at least one Amerindian ancestor. Other studies suggest that figure could be 30%. A study on African ancestry was also conducted by the University of Buenos Aires in the city of La Plata. In this study 4.3% of the 500 study participants were shown to have some degree of African ancestry. Nevertheless, it must be said here that this type of genetic studies -meant only to search for specific lineages in the mtDNA or in the Y-Chromosome, which do not recombine- may be misleading. For example, a person with seven European great-grandparents and only one Amerindian/Mestizo great-grandparent will be included in that 30% or 56%, although his/her phenotype will most probably be Caucasian.

A separate genetic study on genic admixture was conducted by Argentine and French scientists from multiple academic and scientific institutions (CONICET, UBA, Centre d'anthropologie de Toulouse). This study showed that the average contribution to Argentine ancestry was 79.9% European, 15.8% Amerindian and 4.3% African. Another similar study was conducted in 2006, and its results were also similar. A team led by Michael F. Seldin from the University of California, with members of scientific institutes from Argentina, the United States, Sweden and Guatemala, analyzed samples from 94 individuals and concluded that the average genetic structure of the Argentine population contains a 78.1% European contribution, 19.4% Amerindian contribution and 2.5% African contribution (using the Bayesian algorithm).

A team led by Daniel Corach conducted a new study in 2009, analyzing 246 samples from eight provinces and three different regions of the country. The results were as follows: the analysis of Y-Chromosome DNA revealed a 94.1% of European contribution (a little higher than the 90% of the 2005 study), and only 4.9% and 0.9% of Native American and Black African contribution, respectively. Mitochondrial DNA analysis again showed a great Amerindian contribution by maternal lineage, at 53.7%, with 44.3% of European contribution, and a 2% African contribution. The study of 24 autosomal markers also proved a large European contribution of 78.5%, against 17.3% of Amerindian and 4.2% Black African contributions. The samples were compared with three assumed parental populations, and the MDS analysis plot resulting showed that "most of the Argentinean samples clustered with or closest to Europeans, some appeared between Europeans and Native Americans indicating some degree of genetic admixture between these two groups, three samples clustered close to Native Americans, and no Argentinean sampled appeared close to Africans".

The presence of European people in the Argentine territory began in 1516, when Spanish Conquistador Juan Díaz de Solís explored the Río de la Plata. In 1527, Sebastian Cabot founded the fort of Sancti Spiritus, near Coronda, Santa Fe; this was the first Spanish settlement on Argentine soil. The process of Spanish occupation continued with expeditions coming from Upper Peru (present-day Bolivia), that founded Santiago del Estero in 1553, San Miguel de Tucumán in 1565 and Córdoba in 1573, and from Chile, which founded Mendoza in 1561 and San Juan in 1562. Other Spanish expeditions founded the cities of Santa Fe (1573), Buenos Aires (1580), and Corrientes (1588).

It was not until the creation of the Viceroyalty of Río de la Plata in 1776, that the first censuses with classification into castas were conducted. The 1778 Census ordered by viceroy Juan José de Vértiz in Buenos Aires revealed that, of a total population of 37,130 inhabitants, the Spaniards and Criollos numbered 25,451, or 68.55% of the total. Another census carried out in the Corregimiento de Cuyo in 1777 showed that the Spaniards and Criollos numbered 4,491 (or 51.24%) out of a population of 8,765 inhabitants. In Córdoba (city and countryside) the Spanish/Criollo people comprised 39.36% (about 14,170) of 36,000 inhabitants.

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