Industry Day in Argentina

Since 1941, September 2 has been celebrated in Argentina as Industry Day. Paradoxically, in order to pay tribute to the National Industry, a criminal act was chosen, specifically, a smuggling episode. That was what happened on September 2, 1587 in the territory we know today as the Argentine Republic, which then belonged to the Viceroyalty of Peru.

The calendar recalls that September 2, 1587, when the caravel San Antonio, commanded by a certain Antonio Pereyra, set sail from the Riachuelo anchorage, which served as the port of Buenos Aires, bound for Brazil. The San Antonio carried in its holds a cargo from Tucumán, chartered by the bishop of that city, Fray Francisco de Vitoria. The cargo consisted of fabrics and flour bags produced in the then prosperous Santiago del Estero. The remarkable thing is that inside the innocent flour bags, according to the governor of Tucumán Ramírez de Velasco, several kilos of silver bars from Potosí, whose export was forbidden by Royal Decree, were camouflaged. That is to say that the "first Argentine export" conceals an act of smuggling and illegal trade.

Bishop Francisco de Vitoria had served a merchant in Charcas and there he was able to establish commercial relations with the most notable members of the Audiencia, which allowed him to obtain a permit to import slaves from the Río de la Plata. Until then, not a single slave had entered through Buenos Aires. Vitoria was the pioneer of the slave trade in these lands.

Industrial development in these territories would take centuries to arrive. It was not until the end of the 18th century that the first English manufactures arrived in Buenos Aires, but the massive penetration of imported goods made industrial development impossible, which had to wait until well into the 20th century. The debate between free traders and protectionists went on for a long time during the 19th and 20th centuries and continues to this day.