General Alvear Colonies

History

On 5 January 1878, a group of approximately 1,000 Volga Germans arrived in Buenos Aires aboard the SS Salier and the SS Montevideo.  They were intending to settle in Brazil, and sent a representative there to check out the situation.  The Argentine government wanted the immigrants to settle in Argentina and intervened to prevent them from moving on to Brazil.  The colonists spent two months living in the "Hotel of Immigrants" in Buenos Aires while negotiations continued.  Eventually, an agreement was reached and the colonists settled in the Province of Entre Ríos on 21 July 1878 in an area called General Alvear.

The government had wanted each family to settle on individual farms, but the colonists insisted on settling together in a village, as they had in Russia. They established the five colonies, which as a group are called the General Alvear Colonies:

Protestante
Salto
San Francisco
Spatzenkutter
Valle María

 The General Alvear group added another colony in 1878 when Volga German immigrants that had originally settled in Brazil arrived and founded San José.