La historia silenciada: Los afroargentinos protagonistas de un drama social (Spanish text, Argentina)

When looking at the History of Argentina and the birth of this country in the nineteenth century, one is puzzled by the fact that not all people who have participated in the nation-building process have been taken into consideration. From Vicente Fidel Lopez and Bartolome Mitre to the well respected historians of the Academia de la Historia Argentina , the accounts about Blacks' participation in Argentine's society are merely caricatured if at all mentioned. However, it is not a mystery that Blacks have been living in Buenos Aires and its provincias since they were debarked on the shores of the Rio de la Plata in the sixteenth century as slaves for the benefit of the Spanish Crown. Since that period until their disappearance from Argentina's social map, African people have contributed to all aspects of the society in which they were brought up.; This thesis looks at how, in spite of all the efforts to destroy Africans' legacy to the Argentine society and culture, Afro-Argentines have managed to create a great deal of cultural expression that remained important up until today. Exploring the roots of the Tango dance, for instance, one can see an African expression deeply intertwined within the fabric of Argentina. Yet, at the time they were producing one of Argentina's greatest cultural phenomenon, those Afro-Argentines were facing all kinds of racial discrimination and alienation. Writers like Jose Marmol, Esteban Echeverria, Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, Lucio Victorio Mansilla among many others would defend a society in which there was no room for Afro-Argentines. Strengthened by the positivist philosophy of Auguste Comte, those writers will basically craft the ideology that will seek and destroy Afro-Argentines' presence throughout the nineteenth century.