It was Spanish and Portuguese explorers who “discovered” South America at the beginning of the 1500s. The first silver that was found was brought back from the region around Potosi which soon afterwards became a silver mining town, supplying huge quantities of silver to the Spanish empire, and becoming the largest town in South America in the process. Potosi, however, is in Bolivia and what is now Argentina was part of the Spanish Empire which was governed under the heading of the Viceroyalty of Peru. This included Argentina, but also Peru, Brazil, Columbia, Chile and Ecuador and therefore, at the time, there was no perception, in England, of Argentina as an individual country. This really only occurred at the beginning of the 1800s with the War of Independence. It was only in 1861 that the state of Argentina was established, but it took off fast, becoming one of the world’s richest countries within 50 years.
The first time the word Argentina appears is on a map in 1554 where the land is called Terra Argentea – the land of silver. It was also used in Argentina – a poem published in 1602 by Centenera, a Spanish priest who accompanied the explorers to Argentina at the end of the 1500s.
Ironically, the name Argentina derives from the Latin word for silver argentum – so, will the country end up as the silver finalist of the FIFA World Cup or will the prayers of Messi and Pope Francis bring it to the top? Or perhaps the German ex-Pope has connections that will push the German team to No. 1 spot.
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