Santa Fe, Argentina

Argentina Santa Fe, administrative province and historical region of Argentina significant for its size (with 3,000,701 inhabitants in 2001, it has the third-largest provincial population) and for its economic output. The region around the city of Sante Fe was pioneered by Juan de Garay in 1573 and comprised within its jurisdiction the present provinces of Santa Fe, Entre Ríos, and northern Buenos Aires. Sante Fe was an important port on the fluvial route to Asunción. It exported salted meat, hides, and wood products, as well as yerba maté and wheat.

As an active supporter of the federalists struggling in the wake of independence against the centralism of Buenos Aires, Santa Fe paid dearly as it became a theater of action for federalist and unitarian warlords. The wars continued until the fall of Manuel de Rosas in 1852. Right after approval of the federalist constitution, signed in Santa Fe, the first attempts were made at establishing farming colonies with foreign immigrants in Argentina. Thus Esperanza was founded in 1854, and other agricultural colonies multiplied in the northern part of the Pampa, growing grain and raising cattle. Today Santa Fe province produces 35 percent of Argentina's wheat as well as more than half of the country's sunflower seeds. Other agricultural commodities include flax, lentils, soybeans, and potatoes. The main population centers in the province are Greater Rosario, Santa Fe, Esperanza, La Paz, Villa Federal, and San Lorenzo.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Leoncio Gianello, Historia de Sante Fe (Buenos Aires, 1978).

Ezequiel Gallo, La Pampa gringa: La colonización agrícola de Santa Fé (1870–1895) (Buenos Aires, 1983).

Additional Bibliography

Barriera, Dario, and Juan Nobile. Nueva historia de Santa Fe. Rosario, Argentina: Prohistoria Ediciones, 2006.

                                       CÉsar N. Caviedes