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THE ‘DRESDEN AFFAIR’ was an incident where almost 1,800 people, mainly poor Irish labourers and servants, set sail for Argentina in search of a better life.
However, their terrible treatment on arrival and doomed attempt to start an ‘Irish colony’ near Buenos Aires is widely viewed as marking the end of mass Irish emigration to Argentina.
From around the middle of the 1800s, the South American nation was a popular Irish emigration spot. Young Irish were desperate to leave a land ravaged by the Great Hunger of 1845 – 1852.
Argentina – with the promise of a better economy and the possibility of becoming landowners – seemed attractive. It’s estimated as many as 40,000 Irish emigrated to the nation, largely around the mid to late 1800s, and now up to half a million Argentines claim Irish descent.
This makes it the fifth-biggest Irish diaspora in the world, and the largest outside English-speaking nations. Many Irish emigrants had a major impact on Argentina’s history, such as Mayo-born William Brown, who was known as the ‘father of the Argentine navy’ and played a crucial role in the country’s independence movement.
But this mass movement of Irish to one of the most distant continents on earth came to an abrupt end later that century. The Dresden Affair, which has been described as “one of the more miserable events in the history of Irish emigration”, is commonly held up as a reason why.
In the late 1880s, the Argentine government was looking for foreign workers to help stoke its economy, which at the time was performing well. The Irish and British, considered to have a strong work ethic, were looked on favourably.
Two local agents – John Stephen Dillon and H. Buckley O’Meara – were employed to help convince people to go. The poor Irish labourers were told they would receive “land, cattle and financial support” when that was never something the Argentinian government intended to offer.
Some showed concern: Thomas W. Croke, the Archbishop of Cashel at the time, warned potential Irish émigrés not to follow those who had left on the Dresden, “however tempted they may be to do so by offers of a free passage or assurance of comfortable homes.”
However, his concern was mainly due to the fact that Irish people could not speak Spanish, and he instead urged people to look to either England or the United States. There were also warnings from the existing Irish community in Argentina, who wrote “many articles and letters” protesting at poor people being given empty promises.
Unfortunately, the warnings were too late or went unheeded. In January 1889, the SS Dresden left Cobh (then Queenstown) in County Cork to sail for Buenos Aires with 1,774 emigrants on board, most of whom were Irish, with a small British contingent. While much subsequent Irish emigration to Argentina would be from the middle class, several contemporary accounts give an indication of how poor those who went on the Dresden were. Naval records show that most were either labourers or servants.
It was also reflected in the ship itself, the SS Dresden. It had space for just 58 first or second class passengers, while 1,759 of the capacity was designated as ‘third-class’. This ship contained what was the largest number of passengers to ever arrive in Argentina on a single vessel.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, conditions during the 19 day crossing were poor to say the least. Emigrants were described as dehydrated, ‘hungry and exhausted’ essentially from the second they landed in Buenos Aires. There were also reports that some passengers died on board during the journey, although records of this do not appear to have been kept. The ship docked in Buenos Aires on 16th February 1889 – with the migrants immediately facing more hardship.
The Irish community in Argentina had made some efforts to prepare for the boat. At a meeting organised by prominent local businessmen, David Gartland, an Irish-American entrepreneur, he said he would try to give families financial aid while they got set up with work. At the same meeting, a letter was presented from Ronald Bridgett, the British consul in Argentina, saying “excellent and plentiful” food and accommodation would be provided at a hotel in Buenos Aires.
However, concrete support does not appear to have materialised. Juan Pablo Alvarez Pearce, a researcher who has extensively studied the Dresden Affair, said the Argentinian government had “used incentives to bring in immigrants”.
“But when they arrived in Buenos Aires, there was no plan,” he told The Journal.
Local priest Reverend John Santos Gaynor wrote that people “had to sleep huddled together on the bare floors and there was scarcely any food provided”.
Dublin-born Father Matthew Gaughran, an Irish missionary in Argentina, was even more scathing. “To say they were treated like cattle would not be true, for the owner of cattle would at least provide them with food and drink. These poor people were left to live or die unaided by the officials who are paid to look after them,” he said.
“I am told that as a result a child died during the night of exhaustion. No one who witnessed these scenes of hopeless despairing misery can forget them until his dying day.”
Worse was to come. While a small number of the émigrés got jobs with rich local families, for the majority, there was nothing and no immediate prospects on the horizon.
Although some British and Irish figures organised relief efforts, historians wrote how, “for every one immigrant aided, several were exploited by unscrupulous employers or left to fend for themselves”.
For most, the best hope was the plan to establish an Irish colony near Napostá, more than 600 kilometres south of Buenos Aires, attracting approximately 700 of the Irish on board the Dresden. But at the site, those who arrived supposedly found their luggage lost. On top of that, the land was open and windswept, making it bad for crops.
Reverend Gaynor said despite the fact that the land “was unsuitable for agriculture” and they had few possessions or access to sanitation, the Irish briefly “eked out a miserable existence”.
The conditions were apparently horrific – families reportedly lived in tents on the barren land, with a lack of crucial supplies such as medicine. An unlucky few apparently were forced to live “under trees or in ditches”.
The lack of clean water was said to be devastating, with contaminated water apparently causing “numerous deaths among the most vulnerable immigrants”.
“The death rate was terrific: over 100 deaths in two years,” Gaynor wrote, although this figure has not been confirmed by other sources.
Juan Pablo told The Journal that disease swept through the colony: “In Napostle, the ground was salty so they couldn’t drink the water,” he said. “This led to diarrhoea among the children.”
Father Gaughran was one of the few to support the colonists, spending months in Napostá trying to help the community get established. One of his letters from Napostá gives horrifying insight to the level of struggle. “Already twelve little graves have been filled, and there are three more to be buried, and some others who are sure to die within a week.”
Despite Father Gaughran’s best efforts and those of the émigrés, the colony collapsed in March 1891. The remaining Irish were faced with another arduous 600 kilometre trek back to Buenos Aires.
Upon arriving, many emigrated again, leaving Argentina behind for more traditional destinations such as the United States. The final death toll from the Dresden affair is not clear. ‘Over 100’ is the most solid number mentioned, although this only includes the failed Napostá colony.
This figure is also cited by the National Maritime Museum of Ireland, likely going on the estimate provided by Reverend Gaynor, which published an article on its website stating: “By early 1891 the Irish colony experiment had failed disastrously, forcing our immigrants to abandon the camp en masse, leaving behind more than a hundred dead most of them Irish children buried in unknown graves and who now rest in eternal silence within the soil of Argentina.”
Between deaths on the initial journey from Ireland, the terrible conditions in Buenos Aires, and those who went to Napostá, historians indicate the final death toll was likely even higher, mentioning that “hundreds starved in destitution.”
But the time span is not clear. It is also important to note that due to factors such as Irish people being classed as ‘British’ and poor record keeping, the fates of many of those who crossed the sea on board the Dresden remains “unknown”.
What is clear is that while a lucky few found work and decent conditions, most of the passengers of the SS Dresden suffered horribly upon arriving in Argentina. Other factors have been cited for the dramatic collapse in Irish emigration to Argentina, such as a slowdown of the South American country’s sheep industry.
But the bad press generated by the Dresden affair is generally held by multiple sources to be a key reason for the virtual cessation of Irish emigration to Argentina around the late 19th and early 20th century.
Despite the large Irish diaspora and improved relations between the two nations in modern times, the incident is still a sore spot today – for those who remember it.
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