ABSTRACT
Successive waves of immigration absorbed most of the mestizos and drove the Indians into remote parts of the national territory. The Indian of Argentina ultimately remained as unincorporated and forgotten as the Indian of the United States. The combined Indian and mestizo population constitutes less than 3 percent of the national total. The nation plunged into a series of civil wars. The interior provinces were forced to relinquish ever-larger portions of the national income to Buenos Aires and other provinces of the East, which were quick to utilize their geographical advantage and superior capital means. For most interior provinces Juan Manual de Rosas' government represented the continuation of the economic status quo. Buenos Aires continued to exercise control over the country's economy; it kept internal ports closed to overseas trade and appropriated the nation's customs revenues. Successive national administrations subsidized immigration, relying on private initiative and fertile soil.
