Buenos Ayres and the Provinces of the Rio de La Plata: Their Present State, Trade, and DebtParish, Woodbine, Sir
History
Buenos Ayres and the Provinces of the Rio de La Plata: Their Present State, Trade, and Debt
Parish, Woodbine, Sir
Argentina -- Description and travel; Argentina -- History
In 1789, ten years afterwards, Helms, the German traveller, on his
way to Peru, was told by the Viceroy at Buenos Ayres that the city
contained between 24,000 and 30,000 inhabitants, a calculation probably
founded on the census of 1778, with his own vague notion of the
probable increase upon it in the interim. No mention is made by him of
the population of the country.
In 1795 the Viceroy Aredondo, on delivering up the government to his
successor, took occasion to allude to the great increase which had
taken place in the population since the opening of the trade, and spoke
of it as then amounting altogether to nearly 60,000 souls.
In 1800 Azara calculated it to be 71,668, estimating 40,000 for
the city, and 31,668 for the country-towns and villages within its
jurisdiction--a great increase since 1778, compared with the past,
which can only be ascribed to the more liberal policy adopted by Spain,
and to the extraordinary impulse thereby given to the colony. This,
however, was but an indication of the further results to be anticipated
from the removal of those remaining restrictions which still grievously
hampered the energies of the community, and retarded the development
of the capabilities of a country formed by nature to be a great
commercial emporium. The British invasions in 1806 and 1807 awakened
the Buenos Ayreans to a sense of their own political importance,
and the subsequent struggle with the mother country for their
independence opened their ports to all the world; and in nothing are
the consequences more strikingly exemplified than in the extraordinary
increase which since that epoch has taken place in the population,
notwithstanding all the waste of war in all its forms, foreign and
civil, by land and by sea.
The following Tables of the Marriages, Births, and Deaths in the city
and country districts of the province for 1822, 1823, 1824, and 1825,
are taken from data published under the authority of the Government;
and the calculations founded upon them give the most correct idea to be
procured of the extent of the population up to the close of 1825.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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