(ARGENTINA). (HIRSCH, MAURICE BARON DE). [Foreign Office 1894. Miscellaneous Series. No. 323. Reports on Subjects of General and Commercial Interest]. Argenestenbotine Republic. Report on Baron Hirsch’s Jewish Colonisation Scheme.

Baron de Hirsch founded the Jewish Colonization Association in 1891 with the stated purpose of assisting the emigration of Jews from countries where they may be subjected to political or other disabilities, to form and establish colonies in various parts of North and South America for agricultural, commercial, and other purposes. Jewish colonization in Argentina was spurred on by the persecutions in Russia that forced masses of Jews to leave that country. In August, 1891, some 3,000 square leagues of land were purchased in various parts of the Argentine Republic, for $1,300,000. In all, over 17,000,000 acres were acquired. Colonists began to arrive in the summer of 1891 and by the end of the year they numbered 2,850. This report, prepared Vice-Consul Willam S. H. Gastrell at Buenos Aires, evaluates the success of the Argentine Jewish Colonization Scheme. “This remarkable philanthropic scheme for the establishment of Agricultural Colonies in South America for the benefit of Russian Jews has, so far, succeeded beyond all expectation and it has now been shown that even those Jews formally occupied exclusively in town occupations and destitute of all agricultural knowledge, can become satisfactory agricultural colonists if practically taught and aided in their work, a fact hitherto doubted and often denied. Baron Hirsch’s Jewish Colonization Association… gives each family its passage out, good land, houses, food and the best of all agricultural requisites. In return it requires a small part repayment only after every successful harvest.”