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The Conquest of the Desert (Spanish: Conquista del desierto) was an Argentine military campaign directed mainly by General Julio Argentino Roca during the 1870s and 1880s with the intention of establishing dominance over Patagonia, inhabited primarily by indigenous peoples. The Conquest of the Desert extended Argentine territories into Patagonia and ended Chilean expansion in the region.
Argentine troops killed more than 1,000 Mapuches, displaced more than 15,000 more from their traditional lands and enslaved a portion of the remaining indigenous people.[1][2]Settlers of European descent moved in and developed the lands through irrigation for agriculture, converting the territory into an extremely productive area that contributed to the status of Argentina as a great exporter of agricultural products during the early 20th century.[3][4] The conquest was paralleled by a similar campaign in Chile termed the Occupation of Araucanía. The Conquest is controversial: apologists describe it as a civilising mission and as a defense against attacks by the natives, while revisionists label it a genocide.
Background
The arrival of the Spanish colonists on the shores of the Río de la Plata and the foundation of the city of Buenos Aires during the 16th century resulted in the first confrontations between the Spanish and the local Indian tribes, mainly the Querandí (also known as the Pampas). Spaniards had purchased the Buenos Aires hinterland from the local Indians to be used for cattle raising. This use displaced most of the animals hunted traditionally by the natives and they struggled to survive. The Indians fought those in the towns, raiding many cattle and horses that altered Native homelands. In retaliation, the Spanish colonists built forts and performed attacks.
As more settlers developed properties, the frontier dividing the colonial farms and the Indian territories gradually moved outwards from Buenos Aires. At the end of the 18th century, the Salado River was the boundary between the civilizations. Due to land loss and environmental devastation caused by cattle, many Indians were forced to abandon their tribes to work on the farms. Some assimilated or intermarried with the caucasian population. The mixed race gauchos developed from those who worked on the ranches.
After Argentina achieved independence in 1816, the provinces had numerous political conflicts. Once these were settled, the government wanted to occupy quickly the lands claimed by the young republic (in part to prevent Chile from enforcing its claim to the same land). It also wanted to increase the national agricultural production and offer new lands to prospective immigrants.
In 1833, Juan Manuel de Rosas in Buenos Aires Province and other military commanders in the Cuyo region coordinated offensives to try to exterminate the resistant indigenous tribes, but only Rosas's expedition achieved some success. By this time Chile had founded Punta Arenas in Magellan Strait in 1845, which threatened the Argentine claims in Patagonia. Later in 1861, Chile began the occupation of Araucanía, which alarmed Argentine authorities because of its rival's growing influence in the zone. Chile had defeated the Mapuche in their central region. This indigenous tribe had strong language and cultural ties to the nomadic tribes on the east side of the Andes, with whom they share the same language.
In 1872, the indigenous commander Calfucurá and his 6,000 warriors attacked the cities of General Alvear, Veinticinco de Mayo and Nueve de Julio. They killed 300 settlers and drove off 200,000 head of cattle. These events were a catalyst for the government to mount the Conquest of the Desert.
The Indians drove the stolen cattle from the raids (malones) to Chile through the Rastrillada de los chilenos and traded them for goods. The historian George V. Rauch notes evidence that Chilean authorities knew about the origin of the cattle and consented to the trading in order to strengthen their influence over Patagonian territories. They expected eventually to occupy those lands in the future.[5]
Alsina's campaign
Map of the advance of the Argentina frontier until the establishment of zanja de Alsina.Forts and fortlets in the Pampas before the Conquest of the Desert
In 1875, Adolfo Alsina, Minister of War for PresidentNicolás Avellaneda, presented the government with a plan which he later described as having the goal "to populate the desert, and not to destroy the Indians."[6]
The first phase was to connect Buenos Aires and the fortines (fortresses) with telegraph lines. The government signed a peace treaty with chieftain Juan José Catriel. But he violated it a brief time later, as together with chieftain Manuel Namuncurá and 3,500 warriors, he attacked Tres Arroyos, Tandil, Azul, and other towns and farms. The casualties were greater than in 1872: Catriel and Namuncurá's forces killed 400 settlers, captured another 300, and drove off 300,000 head of cattle.[7]
Alsina attacked the Indians, forcing them to retreat, and leaving fortines on his way south to protect the conquered territories. He also constructed the 374km long trench named the zanja de Alsina ("trench of Alsina"). It was supposed to be a fortified border to the unconquered territories. Three metres wide and two metres deep, it served as an obstacle to cattle drives by the Indians.
The Indians continued taking cattle from farms in the Buenos Aires Province and south of the Mendoza Province, but found it difficult to escape as the animals slowed their march. They had to confront the patrolling units that followed them. As the war continued, some Indians eventually signed peace treaties and settled among the "Christians" behind the lines of forts. Some tribes allied with the Argentine government, being neutral or, less often, fighting for the Argentine Army. In return, they were granted periodical shipments of cattle and food. After Alsina died in 1877, Julio Argentino Roca was appointed Minister of War, and decided to change the strategy.
Roca's campaign
The changing state of Argentina.
In contrast to Alsina, Julio Argentino Roca believed that the only solution against the Indian threat was to extinguish, subdue or expel them.
Our self-respect as a virile people obliges us to put down as soon as possible, by reason or by force, this handful of savages who destroy our wealth and prevent us from definitely occupying, in the name of law, progress and our own security, the richest and most fertile lands of the Republic.
At the end of 1878 he started the first sweep to "clean" the area between the Alsina trench and the Rio Negro by continuous and systematic attacks on the Indian settlements. On 6 December 1878, elements of the Puán Division commanded by Colonel Teodoro García clashed with a native war party at the Lihué Calel heights. In a brief but intense battle, 50 Indians were killed, 270 captured, and 33 settlers were freed.[9]
Numerous armed encounters would follow, until by December 1878, more than 4,000 Indians had been captured and 400 killed, 150 settlers freed, and 15,000 head of cattle recovered.[9]
With 6,000 soldiers armed with new breech-loading Remington rifles, in 1879 General Roca began the second sweep, reaching Choele Choel in two months, after killing 1,313 Indians and capturing more than 15,000.[3] From other points, southbound companies made their way down to the Rio Negro and the Neuquén River, a northern tributary of the Rio Negro. Together, both rivers marked a frontier from the Andes to the Atlantic Ocean.[10] This attack resulted in a large migration of Mapuche into the zone around Curarrehue and Pucón, Chile.
Many European-Argentinian settlements were built in the basin of these two rivers, as well as a number on the Rio Colorado. By sea, some settlements were erected on the southern basin of the Chubut River, mainly by Welsh colonists at y Wladfa.
Final campaign
Roca was elected and succeeded Nicolás Avellaneda as president. He thought it was imperative to conquer the territory south of the Rio Negro as soon as possible, and ordered a campaign during 1881 commanded by Colonel Conrado Villegas.
Within a year Villegas conquered the Neuquén Province (he reached the Limay River). The campaign continued to push the Indian resistance further south, fighting the last battle on 18 October 1884. The last rebel group, with more than 3,000 warriors commanded by chieftains Inacayal and Foyel, surrendered two months later in present Chubut Province.
During the 1880s the Argentine advances effectively disrupted Chileans and German Chilean trade with indigenous communities east of the Andes. This meant the leather merchants in Southern Chile had to cross the Andes and establish livestock operations. As a result, a number of Chilean-owned companies were established in Argentina. They imported workers from Chile, mostly people from the Chiloé Archipelago.[11] It was in this context that German ChileanCarlos Weiderhold established the trading post and shop La Alemana in 1895, from which the city of Bariloche developed.[11]
Border clashes
To counteract the Argentine conquest of Patagonia, the Chileans supplied arms, ammunition and horses to their Indian allies the Mapuches.[12] On 16 January 1883, a 10-man section of a platoon of the Argentine Army in pursuit of a large Indian war party, ran into an ambush in the Pulmarí Valley set by Chilean soldiers. In the engagement that followed, Argentine Captain Emilio Crouzeilles, along with Lieutenant Nicolas Lazcano and several privates, were killed.[13]
On 17 February 1883, Lieutenant-Colonel Juan Díaz, commanding a 16-man Argentine infantry detachment, was trailing a war party of 100 to 150 Indians. Upon reaching Pulmarí Valley, they were surrounded by the Indians and about 50 Chilean soldiers. Much outnumbered, the Argentine soldiers skillfully outfought their attackers, including a bayonet charge mounted by the Chilean detachment.[14] On 21 February 1883, according to Argentine Army Major Manuel Prado, 150-200 Indians armed with Winchesters and Martini–Henry rifles attacked an Argentine Army detachment operating on the Argentine-Chilean border. In a four-hour engagement, 22 Argentine soldiers were killed or wounded at a cost of some 100 warriors.[citation needed]
Literary scholar Jens Andermann has noted that contemporary sources on the campaign conclude that the Conquest was intended by the Argentine government to exterminate the indigenous tribes, and can be classified as genocide.[15] First-hand accounts state that Argentine troops killed prisoners and committed "mass executions".[15] The 15,000 Natives taken captive "became servants or prisoners and were prevented from having children."[3][4] The Argentine Republic in Patagonia "for the colonisation of the bottom of the country, a raid was made against these poor harmless children of nature, and many tribes were wiped out of existence. The Argentines let loose the dogs of war against them; many were killed and the rest – men, women and children – were deported by sea".[16]
Apologists perceive the campaign as intending to conquer specifically those Indigenous groups who refused to submit to Argentine law and frequently performed brutal attacks on frontier civilian settlements.[17] In these attacks, the Natives stole many horses and cattle, killed settlers defending their livestock, and captured women and children to become slaves and/or forced brides of Indian warriors.[18][19]
The Guardian alleged in 2011 that two education officials lost their jobs due to the controversy concerning the Conquest of the Desert: It reported that Juan José Cresto was forced to resign as a director of the Argentine National Historical Museum because he "said the Indians were violent parasites who attacked farms and kidnapped women"[4] and Beatriz Horn, a history teacher in La Pampa Province, was dismissed for "telling a radio station that Roca deserved praise for putting Indians to flight and opening Argentina's frontier to European settlers".[4] Argentine news sources, however, report Juan José Cresto lost his job for being abusive and violent towards employees[20] and Beatriz Horn was dismissed due primarily to her praise for the military dictator Leopoldo Galtieri.[21]
During recent years, Mapuche activist groups and other activist organizations have criticised the representation of Roca in official state imagery. A statue of Roca in the civic center of Bariloche is a frequent site for protests and graffiti by local Amerindian activist organizations.[22][23][24]
Patagonia is a geographical region that encompasses the southern end of South America, governed by Argentina and Chile. The region comprises the southern section of the Andes Mountains with lakes, fjords, temperate rainforests, and glaciers in the west and deserts, tablelands, and steppes to the east. Patagonia is bounded by the Pacific Ocean on the west, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and many bodies of water that connect them, such as the Strait of Magellan, the Beagle Channel, and the Drake Passage to the south.
The Mapuche are a group of indigenous inhabitants of south-central Chile and southwestern Argentina, including parts of Patagonia. The collective term refers to a wide-ranging ethnicity composed of various groups who share a common social, religious, and economic structure, as well as a common linguistic heritage as Mapudungun speakers. Their homelands once extended from Choapa Valley to the Chiloé Archipelago and later spread eastward to Puelmapu, a land comprising part of the Argentine pampa and Patagonia. Today the collective group makes up over 80% of the indigenous peoples in Chile and about 9% of the total Chilean population. The Mapuche are concentrated in the Araucanía region. Many have migrated from rural areas to the cities of Santiago and Buenos Aires for economic opportunities, more than 92% of the Mapuches are from Chile.
Alejo Julio Argentino Roca Paz was an army general and statesman who served as President of Argentina from 1880 to 1886 and from 1898 to 1904. Roca is the most important representative of the Generation of '80 and is known for directing the Conquest of the Desert, a series of military campaigns against the indigenous peoples of Patagonia sometimes considered a genocide.
The Araucanía, La Araucanía Region is one of Chile's 16 first-order administrative divisions, and comprises two provinces: Malleco in the north and Cautín in the south. Its capital and largest city is Temuco; other important cities include Angol and Villarrica.
San Carlos de Bariloche, usually known as Bariloche, is a city in the province of Río Negro, Argentina, situated in the foothills of the Andes on the southern shores of Nahuel Huapi Lake. It is located within the Nahuel Huapi National Park. After development of extensive public works and Alpine-styled architecture, the city emerged in the 1930s and 1940s as a major tourism centre with skiing, trekking and mountaineering facilities. In addition, it has numerous restaurants, cafés, and chocolate shops. The city had a permanent population of 108,205 according to the 2010 census. According to the latest statistics from 2015, the population is around 122,700, and a projection for 2020 estimates 135,704.
The Kingdom of Araucanía and Patagonia, sometimes referred to as Kingdom of New France, was an unrecognized state declared by two ordinances on November 17, 1860 and November 20, 1860 from Antoine de Tounens, a French lawyer and adventurer, who claimed that the regions of Araucanía and eastern Patagonia did not depend on any other states and proclaimed himself king of Araucanía and Patagonia. He had the support of some Mapuche lonkos around a small area in Araucanía, who thought they could help maintain independence from the Chilean and Argentine governments.
Orélie-Antoine de Tounens was a French avoué and adventurer who proclaimed by two decrees on 17 November 1860 and 20 November 1860 that Araucanía and Patagonia did not depend of any other states and that he himself was King of Araucanía and Patagonia. On 5 January 1862, he was arrested by the Chilean army and imprisoned. He was declared insane by the court of Santiago on 2 September 1862, and expelled to France on 28 October 1862. He tried three further times to go back to Araucanía to regain his "kingdom", but without success, and he died in poverty on 17 September 1878, in Tourtoirac, France.
Río Negro is the main river of Patagonia in terms of the size of its drainage basin, its associated agricultural produce and population living at its shores. In eastern Patagonia it is also the largest by flow rate. The river flows through the Argentine province of Río Negro which is named after it. Its name comes from the literal translation of the Mapuche term Curu Leuvu, although the water is more green than black. Formerly, it was also known as "river of the willows" because of the big number of weeping willows that grow along the bank. It is 635 km in length.
The Tehuelche people, also called the Aónikenk, are an Indigenous people from eastern Patagonia in South America. In the 18th and 19th centuries the Tehuelche were influenced by Mapuche people, and many adopted a horseriding lifestyle. Once a nomadic people, the lands of the Tehuelche were colonized in the 19th century by Argentina and Chile, gradually disrupting their traditional economies. The establishment of large sheep farming estates in Patagonia was particularly detrimental to the Tehuelche. Contact with outsiders also brought in infectious diseases ushering deadly epidemics among Tehuelche tribes. Most existing members of the group currently reside in cities and towns of Argentine Patagonia.
Tehuelche was one of the Chonan languages of Patagonia. Its speakers were nomadic hunters who occupied territory in present-day Chile, north of Tierra del Fuego and south of the Mapuche people. It is also known as Aonikenk or Aonekko 'a'ien.
The Araucanization of Patagonia was the process of the expansion of Mapuche culture, influence, and its Mapudungun language from Araucanía across the Andes into the plains of Patagonia. Historians disagree over the time period during which the expansion took place, but estimate it occurred roughly between 1550 and 1850.
The Occupation of Araucanía or Pacification of Araucanía (1861–1883) was a series of military campaigns, agreements and penetrations by the Chilean army and settlers into Mapuche territory which led to the incorporation of Araucanía into Chilean national territory. Pacification of Araucanía was the expression used by the Chilean authorities for this process. The conflict was concurrent with Argentine campaigns against the Mapuche (1878–1885) and Chile's wars with Spain (1865–1866) and with Peru and Bolivia (1879–1883).
Malón is the name given to plunder raids carried out by Mapuche warriors, who rode horses into Spanish, Chilean and Argentine territories from the 17th to the 19th centuries, as well as to their attacks on rival Mapuche factions. Historian Juan Ignacio Molina said the Mapuche considered the malón to be a means of obtaining justice:
The injured family often assumes the right of pursuing the aggressor or his relations, and of punishing them. From this abuse are derived the denominations and distinctions, so much used in their jurisprudence, of genguerin, genguman, gerila, &c. denoting the principal connections of the aggressor, of the injured, or the deceased, who are supposed to be authorized, by the laws of nature, to support by force the rights of their relatives. When those who are at enmity have a considerable number of adherents, they mutually make incursions upon each other's possessions, where they destroy or burn all that they cannot carry off. These private quarrels, called malones, resemble much the feuds of the ancient Germans, and are very dreadful when the Ulmenes are concerned, in which case they become real civil wars. But it must be acknowledged that they are generally unaccompanied with the effusion of blood, and are confined to pillage alone. This people, notwithstanding their propensity to violence, rarely employ arms in their private quarrels, but decide them with the fist or with the club.
Calfucurá also known as Juan Calfucurá or Cufulcurá, was a leading Mapuche lonco and military figure in Patagonia in the 19th century. He crossed the Andes from Araucania to the Pampas around 1830 after a call from the governor of Buenos Aires, Juan Manuel de Rosas, to fight the Boroanos tribe. Calfucurá succeeded in ending the military power of the Boroanos when he massacred a large part of them in 1834 during a meeting for trade.
Camino de los chilenos or Rastrillada de los chilenos were a group of routes in Patagonia used by Mapuches and related araucanized tribes to head cattle stolen during malones from Argentina to Chile across the Andes. Camino de los chilenos ran a length of about 1000 km from the Buenos Aires Province to the mountain passes of Neuquén Province. The cattle were traded in Chile for weapons, food and alcoholic beverages. This trade has been pointed out as one of the most important causes of the war that affected the southern provinces of Argentina during large parts of the 19th century. Therefore, the demand for cattle by Chilean merchants was fueling the conflict in Argentina. To counter the cattle raids a trench called Zanja de Alsina was built by Argentina in the pampas in the 1870s. The use of this trade route effectively ended with the Conquest of the Desert (1876–1878) carried out by the Argentine Army.
The Desert Campaign (1833–1834) was a military campaign in Argentina led by Juan Manuel de Rosas against the indigenous people of the southern Pampas and northern Patagonia. The campaign was later followed by the Conquest of the Desert, which took place in the 1870s and 1880s.
From 1850 to 1875, some 30,000 German immigrants settled in the region around Valdivia, Osorno and Llanquihue in Southern Chile as part of a state-led colonization scheme. Some of these immigrants had left Europe in the aftermath of the German revolutions of 1848–49. They brought skills and assets as artisans, farmers and merchants to Chile, contributing to the nascent country's economic and industrial development.
The last major rebellion of the indigenous Mapuches of Araucanía took place in 1881, during the last phase of the Occupation of Araucanía (1861–1883) by the Chilean state. It was planned by Mapuche chiefs in March 1881 to be launched in November the same year. Mapuche support for the uprising was not unanimous: Some Mapuche factions sided with the Chileans and others declared themselves neutral. The organizers of the uprising did however succeed in involving Mapuche factions that had not previously been at war with Chile. With most of the attacks repelled within a matters of days Chile went on the next years to consolidate its conquests.
One of the best-known arts of the Mapuche is their textiles. The tradition of Mapuche textile production dates back to pre-Hispanic times and continues up to this day. Prior to the 20th century Mapuche textiles and ponchos in particular were important trade items.
Resistencia Ancestral Mapuche is an indigenous organization advocated to the creation of an autonomous Mapuche state in Araucanía, which is, they say, the revindication and recovery of former Mapuche lands. They are mostly renowned for their violent methods, often recurring to arson and poaching and armed attacks against Argentine National Gendarmerie. It operates in the Patagonia region of Argentina and Chile, seeking to secede territories of both countries to create an independent Wallmapuche country for the Mapuche nation. It is associated with the Coordinadora Arauco-Malleco, considered a terrorist organization by the Chilean government.
↑ Canclini, Arnoldo (1980). Congresso nacional de Historia sobre la Conquista del desierto (in Spanish). Academia Nacional de la Historia (Argentina). p.95. "para la colonización el fondo del país, se hizo un raid contra estos pobres inofensivos hijos de la naturaleza y muchas tribus fueron borradas de la existencia. Los argentinos dejaron sueltos los perros de la guerra contra ellos; muchos fueron muertos y el resto – hombres, mujeres y niños – fueron deportados por mar"
↑ Rock, David. State Building and Political Movements in Argentina, 1860-1916. Stanford University Press, 2002, pp. 93-94
↑ Argentina: Countries of the World, Erika Wittekind, p. 67, ABDO, 01/09/2011
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