Race Relations w/o Latin American Wars of Independence

Exactly, there's no point in promoting an indigenous language where a large part of the population - the wealthiest part of the population - already speaks natively the language of the motherland. Latin America isn't Indonesia.
 
No, that's not what he says. Re-read it. He doesn't say that most negros are free Indians. He literally says that cholos are the same as Zambos in that region, and that negros y sus mezclas, which can only mean people with African ancestry, are the majority:

"A los que en el uso oficial se les llamaba "zambos", en el uso social mesopotamico se les denominaba "cholos" [...]
A finales del siglo XVIII y comienzos del XIX, los Pueblos de Indios se derivan en un mar de poblaciones mestizas en movimiento, con un fuerte predominio de "negros" y sus mezclas."

The author is clearly stating that there was a large African element, mixed with Indians, in the population. As I said, the figures were surprisingly high to me too, but the text you link clearly shows a large tri-racial rural population, with a strong black element. In fact the whole book is about the presence of blacks not their absence!

A very conservative estimate of the black+zambo+mulato population of Argentina at independence would be 20-30%, though of course this wouldn't include criollos and Indians of partial black ancestry.

I also want to note a significant proportion of enslaved Africans in Argentina were mixed race to begin with. The Malagasy presence was significant and just as it is in the U.S. many people described Malagasy as "Indian" informally given some phenotypical commonality with their Afrasian ancestry.
 
I don't disagree with your post, but it is important to remember that racism was not the only factor behind Argentina's "vanishing" black population.

20-30% is indeed a reasonable estimate of Argentina's colonial black population. However, talking in percentages and not in absolute numbers can be misleading. Argentina's total population in 1810 (excluding Uruguay of course) was of only 600k people. So we are talking about a black population of 120-180 thousand people.

The slave trade was abolished in 1813, when all children of slaves were declared free by law. Over the course of the 19th century and until WW2, Argentina received a staggering 7.5 million European immigrants - More than Canada, Australia, Brazil or any other country in the world after the USA. Per capita, this impact was even greater than in the USA. This explains to some degree how the black population was "swamped" into relative invisibility.

No doubt, racism explains the other part of the equation. A disproportionate number of black Argentines were recruited to fight in the civil wars (Rosas was particularly fond of doing this) and the Paraguayan War during the 19th century, and also a disproportionate number died during the 1871 yellow fever epidemic you mention, which killed around 8% of the population of Buenos Aires, disproportionately striking in the poorer quarters of the city.

However, the demographic impact of immigration and blending in should not be discounted. There was no "One Drop Rule" as in the United States. Modern genetic testing shows that as much as 5% of modern Argentina's population has at least one distant African ancestor, even if it's not "visible" in many, the genetic impact is still present. The African legacy also persists in history and cultural impact, having influenced the development of tango music, and through personalities like Ramon Carrillo who was a reknowned Minister of Health during the first Perón presidency who implemented many important reforms and improvements.
 
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Argentina's first president (although he didn't really manage to rule the entire country except in paper), Bernardino Rivadavia, was black/mestizo. There clearly was a lot of racism in those years, but money and connections could overcome it.

As for race relationships w/o the wars of independence... the Bourbons wanted to keep a tight hold on political power, so I don't see how ATL' Carlist Wars can be avoided. Such wars would expand into the Americas and may lead to later ATL wars of independence. But if we suppose Spain goes through civil wars through the 19th and 20th centuries while (somehow) remaining an unified political entity, then the next question regarding the Viceroyalty (province if liberals win?) of the River Plate is whether the area would receive immigration as it did. I find it more likely that it wouldn't (why would an Spanish central government want to risk the social changes immigration would cause, unless it's only Spanish migration?), and would remain a sparsely uninhabited region. That should result in a larger black/mestizo percentage of population (even if black men are dying in 19th century wars, black women aren't). I think the question becomes one of social mobility. If black/mestizo people can become richer then racism may be tamed a bit.
 
Saberhagen, post: 15932178, member: 100398"]I don't disagree with your post, but it is important to remember that racism was not the only factor behind Argentina's "vanishing" black population.

20-30% is indeed a reasonable estimate of Argentina's colonial black population. However, talking in percentages and not in absolute numbers can be misleading. Argentina's total population in 1810 (excluding Uruguay of course) was of only 600k people. So we are talking about a black population of 120-180 thousand people.

The slave trade was abolished in 1813, when all children of slaves were declared free by law. Over the course of the 19th century and until WW2, Argentina received a staggering 7.5 million European immigrants - More than Canada, Australia, Brazil or any other country in the world after the USA. Per capita, this impact was even greater than in the USA. This explains to some degree how the black population was "swamped" into relative invisibility.

No doubt, racism explains the other part of the equation. A disproportionate number of black Argentines were recruited to fight in the civil wars (Rosas was particularly fond of doing this) and the Paraguayan War during the 19th century, and also a disproportionate number died during the 1871 yellow fever epidemic you mention, which killed around 8% of the population of Buenos Aires, disproportionately striking in the poorer quarters of the city.

However, the demographic impact of immigration and blending in should not be discounted. There was no "One Drop Rule" as in the United States. Modern genetic testing shows that as much as 5% of modern Argentina's population has at least one distant African ancestor, even if it's not "visible" in many, the genetic impact is still present. The African legacy also persists in history and cultural impact, having influenced the development of tango music, and through personalities like Ramon Carrillo who was a reknowned Minister of Health during the first Perón presidency who implemented many important reforms and improvements.

You're ignoring rampant blanqueamento that to this day persists in most of Latin America.

Yes there is not one drop rule, yes there is admixture but the complete withering away of the black Argentinian community did not come about from no where.

The idea now purported from sheer erasure is this idea of assimilation as the result of some differed racial norm of the US. That because there was no Jim Crow the relationships while different socially allowed for this sort of blending but that ignores the powers that be and social attitudes that clearly viewed blackness as far from the idea and ideal of Argentinian people.

Tango developed from a dance that mocked the movements of black Argentinians by the white and mestizo working class after all

"the milonga is danced only by the compadritos of the city, who have created it as a mockery of the dances the blacks hold in their own places"

This was in 1873.

Mestizaje is just as destructive if not more so once you peel back and see behind the mollification it's by design insidious.
 
You're ignoring rampant blanqueamento that to this day persists in most of Latin America.
No, I'm not ignoring it.
Where are you getting that?
I did say I agree with your post.

Obviously the immigration and marriage of blacks with whites of "higher social status" was motivated by the deep prejudices present in the society of that time. So was the wave of European immigration which was promoted by a series of governments that had a blind, narrowminded hatred for the local culture and a typically racist 19th century conception which saw Europeans as "civilization" compared to the "barbarism" of Spanish America.

It is telling tango became accepted by the Argentine elites only after the Europeans started dancing it in the 1920s.

Anyway, my intention was just to put things in the context of the demographic changes taking place, which explains the invisibilization of the black population, as part of the plan that prejudiced 19th century Argentine elites had for the country.

Tango developed from a dance that mocked the movements of black Argentinians by the white and mestizo working class after all
I was referring to the music style which has some of its roots in milonga and candombe, both styles which originated on the African community of the Río de la Plata region, particularly the latter.

Mestizaje is just as destructive if not more so once you peel back and see behind the mollification it's by design insidious.
I agree, obviously we are dealing with a different type of racist policy from that which prevailed in North America but it is racism nevertheless, perhaps even more subtle and pernicious.
 

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I doubt it. You will see less Hispanicization for sure and certainly stronger native languages, but native languages were in decline even before independence, and with rising nationalism, Spain will not be stressing local languages.
That would inevitably create a pushback for local autonomy and cultural revival. Essentially, economic and political stability would eventually see the creation of a middle class with native ancestry, who would champion autonomy movements. I'm thinking more say, Irish Language and cultural revival.

Those were the policy of the Hapsburgs. Why would the centralist Bourbon backtrack on their eighteenth-century laws and policies, especially since those who know the indigenous languages are most likely not members of the criollos?
I'm not claiming this to be a Bourbon policy, but the result of activism from educated communities.
 
That would inevitably create a pushback for local autonomy and cultural revival. Essentially, economic and political stability would eventually see the creation of a middle class with native ancestry, who would champion autonomy movements. I'm thinking more say, Irish Language and cultural revival.

I mean, some good points have been made about the language policy of the Latin American states, but Spain is literally the country where Spanish comes from, and so I suspect the urge for Hispanization would be stronger under them. And unlike many local language and autonomist movements in Spain proper, there would be no mestizo or Indian members of the elite class. There were Quechua and Aymara members of the elite, but they were eliminated after the 1780s revolts. Furthermore, Spanish America wouldn’t industrialize until the advent of electricity due to a lack of coal in accessible areas, and as Catalonia and Basque Country show, industrialization was a major driver in Spanish autonomist movements. At the very most, I can see Maya and Nahuatl movements, but those would be weaker than Galicia in terms of strength, and in the case of Nahuatl at least, there was already by 1800 considerable language mixing with Spanish.
 
20-30% is indeed a reasonable estimate of Argentina's colonial black population. However, talking in percentages and not in absolute numbers can be misleading. Argentina's total population in 1810 (excluding Uruguay of course) was of only 600k people. So we are talking about a black population of 120-180 thousand people.

Even 20-30% is a very high number for full-blooded Africans in Argentina. Most African-descents and slaves were probably already mixed-race by the time of independence, of course, we cannot know for sure, but that's the most probable IMO. See it here.

The City of Buenos Aires was the notable exception, being the port of introduction of slaves. That said, African slaves weren't that predominant if we consider the province as a whole. OTOH if you're talking about African mixed-race people, yes, the numbers can be even higher than 30% IMO. That's all speculative though, the 1770's census wasn't very clear about ethnicity - and why should it?
 
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I see no reason why slavery would have been abolished in the Spanish empire without wars of independence. Yes, slavery was not as economically important in the River Plate as it was in the Caribbean, but, will the Spansih dictate a specific policy for a part of their domains? Or would they rather keep slavery in all the Indias? After all, they kept it in Cuba until quite late. Why would they abolish it in the River Plate? After all, the same laws were applied in all the empire (las leyes de indias).

Without the ideas of the liberal elites who rebelled against Spain and without the need for men in the rebel armies, slavery would have continued and the status of Blacks would have been even worse than IOTL during the XIX century (which it's a lot to say...)
 
I see no reason why slavery would have been abolished in the Spanish empire without wars of independence. Yes, slavery was not as economically important in the River Plate as it was in the Caribbean, but, will the Spansih dictate a specific policy for a part of their domains? Or would they rather keep slavery in all the Indias? After all, they kept it in Cuba until quite late. Why would they abolish it in the River Plate? After all, the same laws were applied in all the empire (las leyes de indias).

Without the ideas of the liberal elites who rebelled against Spain and without the need for men in the rebel armies, slavery would have continued and the status of Blacks would have been even worse than IOTL during the XIX century (which it's a lot to say...)
Well, the liberal elites existed in both the Americas and Spain, it's just that Ferdinand VII said "screw them"
 
I see no reason why slavery would have been abolished in the Spanish empire without wars of independence. Yes, slavery was not as economically important in the River Plate as it was in the Caribbean, but, will the Spansih dictate a specific policy for a part of their domains? Or would they rather keep slavery in all the Indias? After all, they kept it in Cuba until quite late. Why would they abolish it in the River Plate? After all, the same laws were applied in all the empire (las leyes de indias).

Even on the chance Spain does not go the OTL route (slavery banned in all but the Caribbean islands by the 1830's), slavery as a whole won't ever be strong in mainland Hispanoamerica. Admitedly, I can't speak for all of it, but more often than not it was more common to use the natives as a workforce instead of importing slaves from overseas. So it would be "abolished" de facto if not de jure, simply by the little to no prescence, depending on the area.

Well, the liberal elites existed in both the Americas and Spain, it's just that Ferdinand VII said "screw them"

Hmm, now that brings up a good point. Depending on how the independence wars are avoided, what does that say for Ferdinand's position TTL.
 
Hmm, now that brings up a good point. Depending on how the independence wars are avoided, what does that say for Ferdinand's position TTL.

It depends why Spain still retains the Americas. If, for instance, there is no Peninsular War, this has a number of effects such as Napoleon winning, but it also means weaker liberalism in Spain and a very different Ferdinand.
 
It depends why Spain still retains the Americas. If, for instance, there is no Peninsular War, this has a number of effects such as Napoleon winning, but it also means weaker liberalism in Spain and a very different Ferdinand.
At the risk of having this turn into a "Would Napoleon win w/o Peninsular War" thread, why don't we just assume for this thread that Napoleon and the wars named after him are averted entirely?
 
At the risk of having this turn into a "Would Napoleon win w/o Peninsular War" thread, why don't we just assume for this thread that Napoleon and the wars named after him are averted entirely?

Does the increase of trade with “neutral” ships after Britain’s blockade of Cadiz still occur? Assuming some peace with Britain is still signed, you’d likely see Spain clamp down upon trade with Britain and the US afterwards. And this would lead to some levels of resent, and may be a destabilizing force.

But this is a bit off topic.

Nevertheless, the economy of Spanish America would be much better without unstable regimes, though most likely some sort of decline relative to the US is inevitable, as Spanish America simply cannot industrialize without coal. Such prosperity would doubtless flow to natives and other lower castes, and without the bloodiness of the wars of independence, race relations would certainly be better.

I do, however, severely doubt you’d see native languages recover - Nahuatl was quickly converging with Spanish and local Nahuatl village records use a lot more Spanish words in this time period. Nahuatl may very well survive better than OTL, but not to the extent as other posters have said it would. The Yucatan could perhaps see a stronger Maya language. Along the Andes, however, memories of the Tupac Amaru II and Tomac Katari revolts would lead to rather worse race relations than the rest of Latin America.
 
Aren't the southern provinces of Brazil substantially whiter than the rest of the country? That seems to be a pretty good idea of what Argentina would look like.
 
Nevertheless, the economy of Spanish America would be much better without unstable regimes... Such prosperity would doubtless flow to natives and other lower castes, and without the bloodiness of the wars of independence, race relations would certainly be better.

I do, however, severely doubt you’d see native languages recover...
So Spanish America is more economically and linguistically homogenous?
But this is a bit off topic.
Yeah, we don't have to get into the whole question of what, if anything, the Continental System evolves into in this thread, that point's been debated plenty on this board already FWIR.
 
So Spanish America is more economically and linguistically homogenous?

No. Even IOTL, the republican regimes all discouraged native languages, and revolutionaries such as Simon Bolivar saw themselves as Spaniards unfortunately forced to secede and discouraged glorifying the pre-Columbian regimes, seeing them as savages. It wasn’t until the late nineteenth century that neo-Inca and neo-Aztec sentiments were encouraged to construct nationalisms. Spain would be no different, really, except that none of the late nineteenth century building of nationalisms would occur.

Economically, each colony was producing different goods. For instance, from Rio de la Plata came livestock, from Mexico came textiles, and from Peru came gold. So no, you won’t see economic homogeneity. Most likely, Spanish America will be better off as a whole, falling less behind the US and Europe, but due to an absence in coal it won’t be able to industrialize until hydropower and other alternative energies becomes real possibilities.

This is also a bit off-topic, but it may spur Catalan industrialization. The spinning jenny and other industrial technologies already spread to Catalonia, and the blockade of Cadiz meant that more Spanish ships went to Catalan ports. With Spain more or less stable, and with a large market in Spanish America, Catalan textiles will be an attractive product, and this may mean Catalonia industrializes a few decades before OTL.
 
I'm of the idea that the racial relations without the independence process would be more or less the same that is a heavy whitening process con all latín América, with little to none state sponsored racism but with a heavy societal pressure to become more "white looking" a certain disdain to Indian or Black looking people( pero como la nena siendo rubia se va a casar con ese morocho, se te salieron los indios, esta mas desordenado que cumpleaños de...) if you are latinoamérican you know The song but as i say it's almost impossible get a single law in latín América or The Spanish colonial period as the ONE drop rule or the Crow laws

Edit: my awful Spanish autorcorrect
 
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