History and Demographics

   People believe that the land that is currently Argentina was first settled in around 12,000 BCE. They formed a bunch of different cultural groups including the Diaguita, the Guarani and the Charrua.  By the late 1500’s the native population was already 900,000,Their first meeting with the Spanish was in 1516, because the different cultural groups didn't have one central government for the entire country the Spanish had to defeat the groups one by one which took centuries to complete. The first few permanent settlements were Santiago del Estero in 1553, Tucuman in 1565, Cordoba in 1573, Santa Fe in 1573, and Buenos Aires in 1580. The Spanish didn’t only kill the Native Americans with swords but also with the diseases they brought from Europe. Argentina won its independence in 1816. The constitution of Argentina was created in 1853. It outlawed slavery to solve the labor shortage; they encouraged foreign immigration and investment. This also established freedom of religion and made it so immigrants couldn’t get drafted for war to make it more appealing to immigrate to Argentina. This ended up being a good idea because in the next few decades there was a population boom fueled by lots of Immigration from Germany, Italy, and Spain. The population increased from 618,000 to 1.7 million from 1810 to 1869, to four million by 1895, and 7.9 million by 1914. After some modernization Argentina became the most educated and industrialized country of all the Latin American countries.