The Toba people, also known as the Qom people, are one of the largest Indigenous groups in Argentina who historically inhabited the region known today as the Pampas of the Central Chaco. During the 16th century, the Qom inhabited a large part of what is today northern Argentina, in the current provinces of Salta, Chaco, Santiago del Estero, Formosa and the province of Gran Chaco in the southeast of the Department of Tarija in Bolivia (which the Qom have inhabited since the 20th century). Currently, many Toba, due to persecution in their rural ancestral regions, live in the suburbs of San Ramón de la Nueva Orán, Salta, Tartagal, Resistencia, Charata, Formosa, Rosario and Santa Fe and in Greater Buenos Aires. Nearly 130,000 people currently identify themselves as Toba or Qom. With more than 120,000 Qom living in Argentina, the Qom community is one of the largest Indigenous communities in the country.

Like most Indigenous groups in South America, the Qom have a long history of conflict and struggle following the arrival of the Spanish. While the Qom incorporated some aspects of European society into their culture, such as horseback riding, violent conflicts were fairly common. The Toba people, in particular, opposed the ideas of Christianity and the systems of forced labor that were imposed upon the Qom during the lives at Jesuit reductions. In some cases, attempts to assimilate the Toba people to Spanish society were accomplished with force and, when met with resistance from the Indigenous group, resulted in massacres such as the Massacre of Napalpí. In more recent history, the Qom have struggled with problems such as poverty, malnutrition, discrimination and tuberculosis due to a lack of support from the community and the inequalities they have endured.

In 2010, a historic protest for land rights developed in the province of Formosa when the government announced it would build a university on lands traditionally claimed by the Qom. After the Tobas' roadblock of National Route 86 was met with violence on behalf of the Argentine police, resulting in the death of one Toba man and one police officer, the protest sparked national controversy and attention. Led by chief Félix Díaz, the Qom community, joined by other Indigenous groups, began the Qopiwini organization and built an encampment in the middle of the city of Buenos Aires in order to continue protests and gain further recognition. While the protests have gained support from famous artists such as Gustavo Cordera, as well as international organizations such as Amnesty International and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the Qom's struggle for land rights and the Formosa case is still developing.

At the time of the arrival of the Spanish in the 16th century, the Qom primarily inhabited the regions known today as Salta and Tarija and from there, Qom communities extended in territory until the Bermejo River and the Pilcomayo River, overlapping with other Indigenous communities.  The large demographic growth of the Wichi put pressure on the Qom and forced them to displace themselves farther east, to the territories that they largely inhabit today.  Traditionally, the Qom and the Mocoví peoples regarded each other as allies while the Abipon peoples were typically treated as enemies to the Qom.

Like other Guaycuru peoples, the Qom organize themselves into bands composed by up to 60 families that would establish relationships with other bands. The principal groups among the Toba were the sheu’l’ec who inhabited the northern or sheu region, the dapigueml’ec who inhabited the western or dapiguem region, the l’añagashec who inhabited the southeastern or l’añaga region, the tacshic who inhabited the eastern or tagueñi region and the qollaxal’ec who inhabited the southernmost region known as qollaxa.

The first written record of Spanish interaction with the Qom appears at the beginning of the 1700s but no formal study of the Qom people was done until Father José Cardú, a Spanish Franciscan missionary, estimated that there were at least 4,000 Tobas living in the western or dapiguem region. The first missionaries to make contact with the Qom did not immediately try to introduce them to an agricultural lifestyle, an approach that was adopted in almost every other part of Latin America in order to "civilize" the Indigenous group. Instead, the limited resources and the difficulties presented by the landscape of the Chaco forced missionaries to accept the Qom's hunter-gatherer lifestyle as the only sustainable option. The presence of the Spanish resulted in a great revolution for the Qom, in part because the Qom encountered a new and powerful enemy and in part because the Spanish involuntarily provided the Qom with a great contribution to their culture: in the 17th century the Qom began to utilize horses and soon developed a powerful equestrian complex in the center and southern part of the Gran Chaco region, known as the Chaco Gualamba.

The Qom became competent horsemen despite the fact that their territory was in large part covered in woodlands forests. When riding their horses through the trees the Qom used to fasten pieces of leather to their heads in order to prevent injuries from the spines of the trees and attacks from jaguars and pumas that would jump from the tree branches to attack them. As enemies of the Paraguayan state, on nights of the full moon, the Qom and other neighboring guaycurú groups would cross the Paraguay River on horse in order to carry out raids. With the adoption of horseback riding, the Qom could extend the reach of their raids, transforming themselves into the dominant Indigenous group of the Central Chaco. Furthermore, their command of the horses permitted the Qom to advance further west and even conduct raids in the northeast zones that correspond to what is today known as the Pampas. From their horses, armed with bows and arrows, the Qom hunted not only Indigenous animals but also cattle that had been imported from Europe. While the horse played a revolutionary role in changing the way in which the Qom travelled and participated in hunts and raids, some historians believe that some bands of Qom maintained more traditional hunting methods. Here, the Qom would use horses to approach their targets but would dismount and stalk their prey on foot in order to avoid notice.

In 1756 the Jesuits founded the Toba reduction, San Ignacio de Ledesma, near the Ledesma fort in the province of Jujuy. At the time of the expulsion of the Jesuits from Latin America in 1768, there were 600 Qom living at the reduction.