  The distribution of the population—The streams of emigration to the interior—Seasonal migrations—The historic towns—The towns of the Pampean region—Buenos Aires. A large-scale chart of the mean density of the population for each province—like those which were published in the latest Argentine Census-reports—has no geographical value for the west and north-west, where oases of slight extent are separated by vast desolate stretches, deserted because of the lack of water. In the Pampean region, on the other hand, the population is distributed in a very regular manner, and the mean densities calculated fairly represent the facts. To the several types of exploitation, of which we have studied the distribution on the Pampa, there correspond unequal densities of population. Cattle-breeding, for instance, requires only a thin population. The early pastoral colonization of the plain on the west of the Salado was carried out, between 1880 and 1890, with a very small number of workers. A large ranch of 400 square kilometres on the northern edge of the Pampa (the Tostado ranch) only employs about a hundred men, or one for four square kilometres. The density increases appreciably for sheep-breeding on the pastos tiernos of Buenos Aires province, where a ranch of a hundred square kilometres, devoted to producing wool, with fifty or sixty shepherds, sustains at least 200 persons, or two to the square The growth of the population of Argentina can be followed closely from the middle of the eighteenth century. A Census taken in 1774 gives the Buenos Aires district within the first line of forts 6,000 inhabitants. At the end of the eighteenth century (Census of 1797, quoted by D'Azara) the population of the province of Buenos Aires, without the town, was a little over 30,000 souls, the zone occupied having been extended in the meantime, at least in part, as far as the Salado. Woodbine Parish estimates the population at 80,000 in 1824, at the time when the expansion southward, beyond the Salado, as far as the Sierra de Tandil, began. It doubled between 1824 and 1855. The northern departments then counted 45,000 inhabitants, the western 58,000 and the southern 63,000. The density was still a little greater in the north, along the road to Peru, but the advance of sheep-rearing in the south was beginning to change the centre of gravity of colonization. The first regular Census of the Argentine Republic in 1869 showed a still more rapid advance. The population of the Buenos Aires province had grown to 315,000 inhabitants. The increase was greatest in the west, where tillage began to extend round Chivilcoy, beyond the pastoral area, and in the south, where sheep-farms multiplied. The population of the southern departments more than doubled in fourteen years (137,000 inhabitants to 70,000 square kilometres in occupation, or two to the square kilometre). However, the Pampean region—Buenos Aires (including the capital), Santa FÉ, and the southern part of CÓrdoba—still had a smaller population than that of the northern and north-western provinces: 626,000 as compared with 813,000. The Mesopotamian provinces had then 263,000 inhabitants. The proportion was reversed twenty-five years later at the 1895 Census. The population of the Pampas had increased threefold, and was more than a half of the entire population of the country. That of the western and north-western provinces was about a third of the whole, and had only increased by fifty per cent. If one considers in detail the distribution of the population of the Pampean plain in 1895, one sees that beyond the suburbs of Buenos Aires the area of greatest density—five to eight per square kilometre—was in the north-west, between San Andres de Giles and Pergamino, a district of advanced methods, where the cultivation of maize was beginning to occupy a good part of the land. The population was confined to the west of the preceding zone, in the agricultural area of Junin, Chacabuco and Chivilcoy. This area, where maize and wheat were next each other, already embraced Viente Cinco de Mayo (five to the square kilometre) on the west and Nueve de Julio (2.5). In the south of Buenos Aires, the departments of the left bank of the Salado, which were entirely given up to breeding, but long colonized, had a density of three to five per square kilometre. The region lying between the lower Salado and the Sierra de Tandil, a sheep-breeding area, then giving good returns but of recent colonization, had not more than three. The density falls rapidly as one goes westward. It sinks to less than one in the north-west and west of the Buenos Aires province, in the area where the cattle-breeders from the east had settled. At Santa FÉ, the region of the colonies, at the level both of Rosario and Santa FÉ, had five inhabitants per square kilometre. But beyond the CÓrdoba frontier the density falls to two in the San Justo department, and still less further south, at Marcos Juarez, Union and General Lopez. Drying Hides THE OLDER INDUSTRIES OF THE PAMPA: DRYING HIDES. Photograph by Soc. Fotografica de Aficionados. In 1914 the density was more than fifteen in the whole of the maize area in the Buenos Aires and Santa FÉ provinces, and it approached this figure in the departments of the old agricultural colonies on the middle Salado. In the region of the lucerne farms it was three to five, except in the south-east (departments of Veinte Cinco de Mayo, Nueve de Julio and Bolivia), where it rose, thanks to the co-existence of ranches and of wheat and maize. It sank to between two and three in the wheat area in the south and south-east of Buenos Aires. At Santa FÉ the district of the colonies had seven to the square kilometre. The growth of the population is partly explained by immigration from Europe. Foreigners were, in 1914, 30 per cent. of the total population.137 The proportion of foreigners to the total population is one of the indications by which we can best follow the advance of colonization. As soon as it relaxes in any region, the number of immigrants diminishes. (The children born of foreign colonists in Argentina are considered indigenous in Argentine statistics.) In 1869 the proportion of foreigners rose to 417 per 1,000 in the province of Buenos Aires (without the capital). This was the great period of pastoral colonization and the development of sheep-breeding. It was then only 156 per 1,000 at Santa FÉ. In 1895 the proportion of foreigners sank to 309 per 1,000 at Buenos Aires, but rose to 419 at Santa FÉ, where the date almost marks the end of the great period of agricultural colonization. In 1914 the proportion of foreigners at Buenos Aires rose to 340 per 1,000 (development of the maize region and the southern wheat area). It sank at Santa FÉ (350 per 1,000), in spite of considerable immigration in the southern maize-growing departments. At the same time there was a great influx of foreign population in the province of CÓrdoba (200 per 1,000) and in the area of the Central Pampa (360 per 1,000).138 The recent enumerations also enable us to follow the displacements of the indigenous population on Argentine territory and the part this has had in colonization. Outside the Pampean region the parts of the country which have proved centres of attraction for the Argentine population are the sugar provinces of TucumÁn and Jujuy and the province of Mendoza. In 1895 TucumÁn had 40,000 inhabitants who had been born in other provinces, Jujuy 15,000 and Mendoza 19,000. The attraction of TucumÁn was mainly felt in the adjoining province of Santiago (12,000 immigrants) and Catamarca (12,000). At Mendoza the immigrants came mainly from San Juan (7,000) and San Luis (3,000). The attraction of the timber region is more difficult to estimate, because most of the obrajes are in the province of Santiago, which found the workers itself, and the enumerations have not taken into account displacements within each province. Nevertheless, immigration into the land of the quebracho ChaqueÑo, along the ParanÁ, can be recognised from 1895 onward. It was maintained by the Corrientes province. Santa FÉ has 10,000 immigrants from Corrientes, of whom 6,500 are in the forestry departments of Reconquista and Vera. The Chaco region maintains 2,000 Corrientes wood-cutters and several hundred from Santiago In the Pampean region the population of Buenos Aires in 1895 included very few who came from other provinces. The population of Santa FÉ was more mixed. The attraction of the agricultural colonies had brought 65,000 Argentine immigrants. They came mainly from the left bank of the ParanÁ and CÓrdoba. The immigrants from CÓrdoba are localized along the railway from Rosario to CÓrdoba, in the Belgrano and Iriondo departments and the town of Rosario. The migration of the Santa FÉ colonists to the new lands in the west had scarcely begun at that time. They were still only 3,000 in the Buenos Aires province, and 5,000 at CÓrdoba; most of them were in departments adjacent to the old colony area. The colonization of CÓrdoba began simultaneously in the east, toward Santa FÉ, and in the south-west, in the Rio Cuarto department, to which the breeders from San Luis went. Similarly, the Argentine population of the Central Pampa includes elements from the east as well as European colonists and elements from the north-west (10,000 immigrants from the Buenos Aires province, 3,000 from San Luis). The 1914 Census has less complete details in regard to interior immigration than its predecessor. The migrations had not ceased. The attraction of TucumÁn and Mendoza had, in fact, decreased. The province of TucumÁn had 55,000 Argentine immigrants, the province of Jujuy 15,000, the province of Mendoza 34,000. The provinces of Mendoza and Corrientes remained nuclei of considerable immigration (38,000 and 63,000 immigrants). At Santa FÉ the number of emigrants who left the province to settle at CÓrdoba and in the remainder of the Pampean region rose from 14,000 to 87,000. The Patagonian territory also had a large excess of immigrants from other provinces. Periodic migrations with no definitive change of residence are not given in the official statistics. The importance of these migrations in northern Argentina has been noted in the chapters we devoted to TucumÁn and the forestry industry. They occur also in the Pampean region, where they are due chiefly to The oldest, and still the largest, stream is that which comes from the Santiago province. D'Orbigny notices in 1827 the temporary streaming of SantiagueÑos to the coast. In that year slow progress was made with the wheat-harvest of Buenos Aires Temporary emigration began, no doubt, with the journeys which brought the northerners to Buenos Aires as drivers of convoys of wagons. SantiagueÑos were numerous amongst these troperos. Lorenzo Fazio collected reminiscences of these journeys in the land of the baÑados.140 They go back to the first quarter of the nineteenth century, the period before the diversion of the Rio Dulce and the ruin of Salavina and Atamisqui. "My father," said one of his informants, "drove wagons of wheat to CÓrdoba, and sometimes to Buenos Aires, where he sold them and bought goods-stuffs in exchange. He bought the wheat at Loreto, Atamisqui or Salavina. It was a year before he got back, because it was necessary to wait for the rain and the growth of the vegetation, otherwise his animals would have died of thirst or hunger on the road." The journeys of the troperos meant a long spell of idleness in the Pampean region, precisely at the harvest season. Naturally, they would lend a hand in it. The temporary emigration of the SantiagueÑos continued throughout the nineteenth century. It was maintained even during the disturbances under the government of Rosas, which almost entirely put an end to commercial relations between Buenos Aires and the northern provinces. When Galvez passed through the villages on the Rio Dulce he noticed that there were few men in them. They had scattered over the roads or were, as he says, andariegos. Only the women remained. The province of Buenos Aires received the SantiagueÑos in crowds, offering their services. Chivilcoy and the whole region of the chacras of maize and wheat received their caravans for the harvest, and some were kept for the sowing. Even the ranchers took advantage of this reinforcement, and hired the men for marking. In the autumn they went back with their tropillas, much dreaded by the breeders whose land they crossed, stealing any horses that were not well guarded. The province of Santa FÉ, especially in the agricultural departments of the north-west, is now the chief theatre in the Pampean region for the immigration of the SantiagueÑos. It does not always come by rail, but has to some extent preserved its primitive and picturesque features. The immigrants arrive in troops on mules and horses, and scatter in November over the colonies. The population of Argentina has also felt the attraction of the urban centres. The growth of the towns is due to both foreign and national immigration. The development of urban life, which is one of the characteristic features of modern Argentina, is a recent phenomenon. There was no indication of its coming in the eighteenth century. D'Azara was, on the contrary, struck by the absence of communal life (pueblos unidos). The scattering of the population was a result of the predominance of breeding. "If these people found profit in agriculture, one would see them gather together in villages, instead of the whole population being dispersed in ranches."141 It is this scattering of the population rather than an absolute numerical inferiority—the solitude, "the desert, the universal horizon that forced itself into the very entrails of the land"142—that moulded the fiery soul of the gaucho. A HERD OF CREOLE CATTLE. Photograph by Widmayer. The primitive urban sites were all either on the river or on the historic roads to Chile and Peru. The only towns of the ParanÁ region at the end of the eighteenth century were Buenos Aires, Santa FÉ and Corrientes. As to towns in the interior, Helms's journey in 1778 gives us some idea of their size. CÓrdoba, at the crossing of the Peru road and the tracks to the province of La Rioja, had then 1,500 white inhabitants and 4,000 blacks. As it was near the Sierra, which provided granite and lime, it had some semblance of architecture, and had paved streets, which struck even the traveller from Buenos Aires. The attraction of its schools was felt over a wide area. We still have a list of students from Paraguay who studied at CÓrdoba University in the eighteenth century.143 TucumÁn and Salta, especially Salta, also were busy centres. Salta had 600 Spanish families and 9,000 inhabitants in all, and its influence extended as far as Peru and Chile. Jujuy, on the other hand, was a very small town. Helms mentions the decay of Santiago del Estero. The trade which had once flourished there had, he says, gone in a different direction. The prosperity of Santiago was, as a matter of fact, connected with traffic on the direct route from Santa FÉ to TucumÁn, which ceased at the close of the eighteenth century. Santa FÉ also was a decaying town at the close of the eighteenth century, and would remain such until the middle of the nineteenth. Its distress was due, not merely to the suspension of its direct trade with Peru, but also to the decay and isolation of Paraguay, which had provided most of its trade and for which it acted as intermediary with the Andean provinces. The great development of urban life in Argentina dates from the time of the colonization of the Pampean region. The ratio of the urban population has risen considerably during the last twenty-five years. In 1895, 113 centres with more than 2,000 inhabitants comprised 37 per cent. of the total population of Argentina; in 1914 the number of urban centres was 322, and they comprised 53 per cent. of the population. The population of towns with 5,000 to 20,000 inhabitants has increased threefold in twenty years, rising from 312,000 in 1895 to 977,000 in 1914. Large new towns like Rosario and BahÍa Blanca were created. The relative sizes of the older towns changed rapidly. TucumÁn and Mendoza (121,000 and 92,000 inhabitants) shot beyond Santiago and Salta (22,000 and 28,000 inhabitants). The towns of the north-west, Catamarca and Rioja, are, on the other hand, scarcely developed. When one examines a chart of the urban population of the Pampean region, one finds that colonization has led to the creation in it of ten chief centres, of from 15,000 to 25,000 inhabitants, and some fifty secondary centres, of from 5,000 to 12,000 inhabitants, which all have a distinctly urban character. This association of urban centres and a scattered agricultural or pastoral population is one of the original features of the way in which the Pampa was peopled. There is no village, or purely rural group. The distribution of these centres on the plain is fairly regular. They are a little closer together in the districts near the ParanÁ, to the north of Buenos Aires, where the population is older, and where the density, even of the rural population, is at its highest. The territory of the Pampa is divided between the spheres of influence of these various centres. Their radius is as low as ten miles in the north-west, and is about twenty miles in the south of Buenos Aires and twenty-five in the extreme west. A secondary railway nucleus has generally settled the sites of them (San Francisco-Pergamino, Junin). Their population comprises all the workers needed for the flow of the economic life of the Pampa: agents for the exporters of cereals, merchants who supply the But the towns of the Pampa which have grown most rapidly are the ports. Rosario rose from 23,000 inhabitants in 1869 to 91,000 in 1895 and to 245,000 in 1914; BahÍa Blanca from 9,000 in 1895 to 62,000 in 1914. The actual population of the Pampa ports is not at all in proportion to the part which each plays in the export of Pampean products:—
Some centres, such as Campana, Zarate, San Pedro or San Nicolas, which load up meat or grain in great quantities, have nevertheless remained small towns. Neither the trade in meat nor that in cereals is enough of itself to sustain a busy urban life. In point of fact, the growth of the Pampa ports is mainly connected with their function as importing ports and markets of capital. The close dependence of BahÍa Blanca upon Buenos Aires in both these respects seems to forbid it all hope of ever becoming the equal of Rosario. The prosperity of Rosario was founded during the time when Buenos Aires was isolated, between 1853 and 1860; this enabled them to organize an import trade there and to accumulate a nucleus of independent capital.145 The development of Buenos Aires must be studied separately. It does not merely reflect the success of the colonization of the Pampa; it is a phenomenon of a national order. The attraction of Buenos Aires has been felt throughout the whole land. In 1895, of a total population of Argentine birth of 318,000 souls, more than a half—167,000—were born in the provinces.146 The way in which the prosperity of Buenos Aires is bound up, not only with that of the adjacent territory but with that of the whole country, is seen in the stability of the figure representing the number of the inhabitants who have come from foreign lands. While the proportion of foreigners in each of the provinces varies from one census to another, according to the displacements of the stream of colonization, it remains almost the same at Buenos Aires: 496 per 1,000 in 1869, 520 in 1895, 493 in 1914. The population of the city of Buenos Aires was estimated by Helms in 1788 to be between 24,000 and 30,000. D'Azara put it at 40,000 in 1799. The Revolution did not interrupt its growth. According to the estimate of Woodbine Parish the city had 81,000 inhabitants in 1824. On the other hand, the Rosas Government involved a period of stagnation (90,000 inhabitants in 1855). But after 1855 Buenos Aires resumed its progress, even before the political unity of Argentina was re-established, and has never since relaxed. Its population has doubled almost regularly at intervals of fifteen years: 177,000 in 1869, 433,000 in 1887, 663,000 in 1895, and 1,575,000 in 1914. The latter figure, in fact, is inadequate. Greater Buenos Aires, including the outlying parts, has really 1,990,000 inhabitants. The site on which the city is built is a regular plateau, sixty-five feet above sea level, cut by flat-bottomed, marshy valleys. The Riachuelo, at the mouth of one of these valleys, provided Buenos Aires with its first port. The low and badly drained lands of the valleys are occupied by the poorest quarters. Their sides, the barrancas, bear the aristocratic residences, and the gardeners have been able to use the sites to great advantage in their plans. As a whole, the growth of Buenos Aires presents the same feature of regularity, on account of the uniformity of the soil, as the spread of colonization over the plain of the Pampas. The city is distributed in concentric zones, and it is thus a model on a small scale of the distribution of the various types of exploitation on the Pampa which surrounds it. The central nucleus, the business quarter, contains not only the offices, but the warehouses of imported goods. Round this centre, with a radius of one to three miles, are the residential quarters in which the density is greatest (250 to 350 to the hectare). Beyond this the density sinks to less than 200 per hectare and less than fifty on the outskirts. The central quarters developed the maximum density after 1900. Those of the first outer zone have gained greatly between 1904 and 1909. Since the latter date, the progress of these quarters has been arrested in turn, and the recent growth is mainly in the remote working-class suburbs in the south and on the bank of the Riachuelo. Buenos Aires has preserved in its central district, and reproduces in all its outer districts, the primitive draught-board plan of a Spanish colonial city. This plan is not suited to its needs to-day. The rapid growth of the city and its expansion—the mean density is not more than fifty-four inhabitants to the hectare, as against 360 at Paris—complicate the problem of transport. At the present time the city is considering plans for reconstructing its thoroughfares and making diagonal streets, starting from the centre and following the direction of the main streams of traffic. In this way the city would reproduce the fan-wise distribution of railways over the Pampean plain. Buenos Aires is the intermediary between the provinces and oversea countries. It has three titles to this profitable part. In the first place, it is the chief centre of the import trade. The merchants of the cities in the interior are customers of the Buenos Aires importers, and are closely bound to them by a system of long-term credit. Buenos Aires is, secondly, the centre for the distribution of the European capital which has been used in the development of the country. Lastly, it divides immigrant workers amongst the provinces, just as it divides capital. As an immigration port its position is unrivalled. The efforts that were made to divert part of the immigrants to BahÍa Blanca failed, and direct immigration to the Santa FÉ province ceased at the close of the first period of colonization, about 1880. It is also at Buenos Aires that immigrants who are not going to settle in Argentina embark; re-emigration, which is regarded as a national plague by Argentine economists, is another source of profit to the capital. Hence the fortune of Buenos Aires is due in the first place to the close contact between the economic life of Argentina and that of Europe and North America. But its very growth has led to a gradual change in the part it plays in the interior of the country. In
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