[2] The Afro-Argentine population is the result of people being brought over during the transatlantic slave trade during the centuries of Spanish domination in the region[3][4] and immigration.

Some old theories held it that in the 19th century the Afro-Argentine population declined sharply due to several factors, such as the Argentine War of Independence (c. 1810–1818), high infant mortality rates, low numbers of married couples who were both Afro-Argentine, the War of the Triple Alliance, cholera epidemics in 1861 and 1864 and a yellow fever epidemic in 1871.

[7] Research in recent decades cites a strong racial intermixing with whites and indigenous peoples in the 18th and 19th centuries as the main reason for the decline of the black population in Argentina.

[7] That mixing was promoted by governments of those times as a method to, in a first era, make non-whites (both indigenous and black people) racially closer to whites during the construction of a modern society, as they saw it; and in a second era, make them decline gradually through their "dilution" into a white majority that it was to become as such with the promotion of a mass immigration from Europe and Middle East that started to arrive since then (mid-19th century) until the 1940s.

[8] At the same time, non-whites frequently sought to have offspring with whites as a way to make their racially mixed child escape from slavery in the colonial period, and later, from discrimination.

As part of the process of conquest, the economic regimes of the European colonies in the Americas developed various forms of forced labor exploitation of the indigenous peoples.

Studies have shown that owing to their immunological isolation from the peoples of the Old World prior to the first contacts with Europeans from 1492 onwards, some 50-90% of the indigenous population throughout the Americas died from epidemic diseases,[9] exacerbated by the stresses brought on by violent conquest, dispossession and exploitation.

[12] However, many more died during the process of enslavement, travel through the interior of Africa, and while awaiting shipment, with an estimated 40 deaths for every 100 slaves who reached the New World.

[17] In 1812, Argentine politician Bernardo de Monteagudo was not allowed as a member of the First Triumvirate, due to his "questionable mother"—i.e., African ancestry.

One of its statements read: The Constitution is a dead letter and the Counts and Marquises abound, which, following the old and odious colonial regime intended to treat their subordinates as slaves, without understanding that among the men who humiliate there are many who hide under their clothes a coarse intelligence superior to that of the same outrage.Other newspapers were The African Race, the Black Democrat and The Proletarian, all published in 1858.

José María Morales and Domingo Sosa were in action as senior military officers and held significant political posts.

[7] Among the causes expressed are the supposed high mortality of black soldiers in the wars of the 19th century (since theoretically, they were a disproportionately high number within the armed forces, which would have been intentionally planned by the governments of the time) and in a yellow fever epidemic in 1871 that affected the south of the city of Buenos Aires, as well as a large emigration to Uruguay (due to the fact that there would have been a larger black population and a more favorable political climate).

[7] Although it is true that blacks made up an important part of the armies and militias of the 19th century, they were not the majority nor did their number differ much from that of indigenous and white people, even in the lower ranks (the so-called cannon fodder).

The most widely accepted theory today is that the black population gradually decreased over the generations due to its mixture with whites and, to a lesser extent, indigenous peoples, which occurred frequently since the 18th century in the colonial period, and that it accelerated even more in the late 19th century (in the already independent Argentina) with the arrival of the massive immigration wave from Europe and Middle East,[7] which was promoted by the Argentine governments of the time precisely so that the non-white population becomes "diluted" within the white majority through racial mixture.

This process was similar to that of the rest of the continent (with different results depending on the volume of immigration and the particular demographic characteristics of each region) and is known as whitening.

This was based on the then-popular idea that whites (especially those belonging to Western European cultures) were the only ones capable of carrying on a civilization, while most non-whites (such as indigenous and black people) were inevitably related to barbarism.

For this reason, there was less mistreatment towards slaves, who also had greater freedom to circulate, especially those who worked in the fields, where labor associated with livestock and extensive farming was fundamentally required.

On the other hand, due to the association of blackness with barbarism, already at the last decades of the 18th century, blacks (who by then normally had a certain level of racial mixture and therefore lighter skin than most of slaves recently arrived from Africa, as well as less typical features of the race), according to their degree of freedom or good relationship with their masters or white social environment, gradually came to be considered in censuses and legal documents in ambiguous pseudo-racial categories (but beneficial for them) such as those of pardos and trigueños[7] (which also included indigenous people who were part of colonial society and even whites with a high level of racial mixture) in an attempt to detach them from their slave past and, theorically, make them more functional to the modern society that the authorities intended to conform (according to their eurocentrist vision), and this allowed those already mixed blacks a better social position and a greater degree of freedom by moving away from their original racial category.

In other cases, also due to their ambiguous phenotype, several tried to be recorded as Indians (if they could explain their indigenous ancestry)[7] because this would allow them to obtain freedom, since from the 16th century, in Spanish colonies it was prohibited the slavery of indigenous peoples of the Americas through the New Laws and the Laws of the Indies (despite this, it happened illegally, but much less frequently than the slavery of black Africans and their descendants, which was permitted).

The very people belonging to these races (which were already heavily racially mixed, especially in the case of blacks) actively sought to identify with the new categories since they were symbolically closer to whiteness, which made possible more benefits and less discrimination.

It will not take long for the population to be completely unified into a beautiful new white race.In reference to the racial mixture that had occurred with blacks for several generations, in 1905 the journalist Juan José de Soiza Reilly stated in his article Gente de color (published in the magazine Caras y Caretas) that:[23] 'Meanwhile, the race is losing its original colour in the mixture.

The African tree is giving white Caucasian flowers...'From then on, and for almost a century, in Argentina practically no studies were carried out on black Argentines.

There have been black organizations such as "Grupo Cultural Afro," "SOS Racismo," and perhaps the most important group "Africa Vive", founded by Pocha Lamadrid, that help to rekindle interest into the African heritage of Argentina.

It is currently believed that among the black population of Argentina, the predominant Angolan ancestry is the largest, the majority come from the cities of Cabinda, Luanda and Benguela.

They were expert sailors and fishermen, which is why most places settled in ports such as Rosario, Buenos Aires, San Nicolás, Bahía Blanca, Ensenada and Dock Sud.

When denied a residence permit, the African refugees remain in the country without status and become lawful targets of human trafficking network.

For this reason, onwards from 1862, the press, intellectuals and politicians began to assert the misconception of Afro-Argentine disappearance that has remained in the imagination of ordinary people from Argentina.

In Corrientes Province, candombe is part of the religious feast of San Baltasar, a folk patron saint for Black Argentines.

Whatever their origin, payadas provided an opportunity for Black singers like Gabino Ezeiza to use music to articulate political consciousness and defend their right to exist within Argentina's increasingly white-dominated society.

Performances take place in the form of parades (known as corsos) across the various neighbourhoods of Buenos Aires; some groups feature not only dancers and musicians but also jugglers, stilts, flagbearers, and other types of visually stimulating elements.