Argentina emerged as a nation-state in the latter half of the 19th century. However, both popular culture and the official history generally agree that Argentina’s origins lay in the break with Spain in 1810 or even earlier, during the colonial period. The Hispanic monarchy’s dominions in South America were governed by a viceroy based in Lima until the 18th century, when two new divisions were created: the viceroy of New Granada governed the northern half of the continent, and the viceroy of Río de la Plata governed the south. The latter, whose capital was Buenos Aires, included most of what would become Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Bolivia, Paraguay, and Peru. The early-19th-century crisis of the Spanish monarchy created the conditions for the establishment of various nation-states in South America. The viceroyalty of Río de la Plata disintegrated into small power units, and a series of civil wars broke out. Paraguay would be the first independent entity to emerge (1811), followed by Bolivia (1824) and Uruguay (1828). The rest of the fourteen states-provinces of the old viceroyalty continued fighting until 1862, at which point the Argentine Republic was created. The period starting in 1862 is referred to in Argentine national historiography as the period of “national organization,” during which the state gave substance to its sovereignty and institutions. Since the colonial period, agriculture had been the principal productive sector. Toward the end of the 19th century, cattle and grains became the principal and essentially the only exports, and the engine of its growth. Some areas of the country, most especially the city of Buenos Aires and the areas under its influence, underwent rapid demographic and economic growth, which gave Buenos Aires, the country’s major port, a disproportionate role in the territory as a whole, making it the country’s critical center. In the late 19th century, state construction coincided with an important series of transformations, including the forcible incorporation of Patagonia and Gran Chaco, which until then had been under the control of indigenous peoples (“Desert Campaign,” 1878–1885), the takeoff of agricultural exports, infrastructure construction (ports, railways, etc.), rapid urbanization, and, especially, the massive arrival of immigrants, most of them from Europe, who would play an active role throughout this transformative process.
Wages and standards of living in the 19th century from a comparative perspective. Consumption basket, Bare Bone Basket and welfare ratio in Buenos Aires, 1825–1849
