In 1778, the year in which the port was partially thrown open under the free-trade regulations of Spain, as they were called, a census was taken, by which it appears that the inhabitants of the city and of its campaña, or country jurisdiction, amounted to 37,679 souls, of which 24,205 belonged to the city, 12,925 to the country, and 549 were members of religious communities; divided as follows, viz.:—

Colour.City.Country.
Males.Females.Total.Males.Females.Total.
1, Spaniards and Creoles7,8217,89815,7195,0084,7249,732
2, Indians2762685448417021,543
3, Mestizoes289385674......
4, Mulattoes1,3661,7873,1535714491,020
5, Negroes1,9332,1824,115351279630
Total11,68512,52024,2056,7716,15412,925
Summary.
Population of the city 24,205
Population of the country 12,925
Ecclesiastical establishments 549
Total 37,679

To these numbers, however, some, and not an inconsiderable, addition should be made for short returns, particularly from the country districts; for, let it be borne in mind, in examining all such official estimates of the population of the Spanish colonies, that, as any attempt on the part of the authorities to take a census was sure to be regarded as the forerunner of some new exaction for the service of the mother country, so it was as certain to be evaded, especially by the lower orders of the people, and, in proportion, to fall short of the reality. In this census it does not appear that the military were included, but in that year, or the preceding one, no less than 10,000 men were sent out from Spain under the command of the Viceroy Cevallos, in addition to the ordinary forces, to carry on the war with the Portuguese: a great part of them it may be assumed never returned, and should therefore be added to the numbers of the colonists. Making, then, a fair allowance for these deficiencies in the census for 1778, the population at that time probably did not fall short of 50,000 souls; and this calculation may be rather under than over the truth.

In 1789, ten years afterwards, Helms, the German traveller, on his way to Peru, was told by the Viceroy at Buenos Ayres that the city contained between 24,000 and 30,000 inhabitants, a calculation probably founded on the census of 1778, with his own vague notion of the probable increase upon it in the interim. No mention is made by him of the population of the country.

In 1795 the Viceroy Aredondo, on delivering up the government to his successor, took occasion to allude to the great increase which had taken place in the population since the opening of the trade, and spoke of it as then amounting altogether to nearly 60,000 souls.

In 1800 Azara calculated it to be 71,668, estimating 40,000 for the city, and 31,668 for the country-towns and villages within its jurisdiction—a great increase since 1778, compared with the past, which can only be ascribed to the more liberal policy adopted by Spain, and to the extraordinary impulse thereby given to the colony. This, however, was but an indication of the further results to be anticipated from the removal of those remaining restrictions which still grievously hampered the energies of the community, and retarded the development of the capabilities of a country formed by nature to be a great commercial emporium. The British invasions in 1806 and 1807 awakened the Buenos Ayreans to a sense of their own political importance, and the subsequent struggle with the mother country for their independence opened their ports to all the world; and in nothing are the consequences more strikingly exemplified than in the extraordinary increase which since that epoch has taken place in the population, notwithstanding all the waste of war in all its forms, foreign and civil, by land and by sea.

The following Tables of the Marriages, Births, and Deaths in the city and country districts of the province for 1822, 1823, 1824, and 1825, are taken from data published under the authority of the Government; and the calculations founded upon them give the most correct idea to be procured of the extent of the population up to the close of 1825.