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"Civilization" Battles "Barbarism": The Limits of Argentine Indian Frontier

Strategies
Richard W. Slatta
Spanish and later Argentine armies fought against Indians of the Argentine
pampa (extensive grassy plain) for more than three-and-a-half centuries. For a
number of reasons, cristianos had great difficulty in subduing the salvajes
(savages) of the Ro de la Plata and as a consequence formulated a number of
different strategies to do so. These strategies fluctuated over time, from primarily
defensive to offensive approaches, culminating in the definitive "Conquest of the
Desert" by Gen. Julio A. Roca in 1878-79.
This essay traces and critiques the strategies used from the sixteenth through the
nineteenth centuries. It then places Argentine anti-Indian military strategy within a
larger sociopolitical context and argues that factors external to the military explain
the length of time needed to subdue the Indians of the pampas. Indians and
gauchos (landless horsemen of the plains) contested the will of ruling colonial and
national elites for access to the livestock riches of the vast pampa. Argentina's
national leadership had to subdue unruly elements of its own population -gauchos as well as the federalist caudillos (warlords) of the interior provinces -before it finally could defeat the "barbarous" Indian population. Spanish and then
criollo (native-born white) elites based in Buenos Aires, self-styled forces of
"civilization," battled to eliminate /131/ unwanted economic competitors. This
economic competition, along with national sociopolitical values and goals, shaped
1
frontier strategy more than did purely military exigencies.
Economic Roots of Indian-Spanish Conflict
Spanish occupation of the lower Ro de la Plata got off to a very shaky start.
Hostile Indians killed one early explorer, Juan Daz de Sols, on the banks of the
river in 1516. Massive Indian attacks obliterated the modest settlement
established at Buenos Aires in 1536 by Pedro de Mendoza after only five years.
Until the re-establishment of the city in 1580, by Juan de Garay, the only traces of
Spanish influence on the Argentine pampa were growing herds of wild cattle and
horses -- remnants of earlier failed expeditions.
These wild animals flourished on the lush grasslands of the Ro de la Plata and
by the mid-seventeenth century numbered in the millions. By the early eighteenth
century, enterprising Indians had developed a profitable livestock trade between
the pampa and Chilean mountain valleys. The wealth in livestock by 1725 had
brought new tribes to the pampa, notably the fierce Araucanians of Chile. They
emulated preexisting tribes -- Tehuelches, Ranqueles, and others -- in rounding
up herds of cattle and trailing them to Chile. The herds of horses and cattle also

Slatta, Richard. 1997. 'Civilization' Battles 'Barbarism': The Limits of Argentine

Indian Frontier Strategies. In: Bradford, James C. (ed).1997. The Military and
Conflict between Cultures: Soldiers at the Interface. College Station, TX, Texas
A&M University Press, 130-159.

supplied daily necessities, including beef, mare's meat, and leather for building
crude huts and making clothing.
The Indian cattle trade brought the tribes into conflict with Spaniards and
mestizos who also hunted the wild cattle and horses. Vaqueras (wild cattle hunts)
decimated herds near Buenos Aires, as horsemen killed animals, stripped and
staked the hides, and sold the produce for export to European markets. During
the eighteenth century, Spaniards moved to control access to the herds, as well
as to grazing lands and water sources, by establishing estancias (ranches). New
legal strictures conflicted with the traditional practices of Indians and gaucho
2
cattle hunters.
The Spaniards' need for salt also brought them into conflict with Indians of the
southern plains. Annual expeditions from Buenos Aires to the salt beds at Salinas
Grandes began as early as 1730. These excursions took whites far into Indian
territory. Each expedition traveled in a heavily armed convoy. In addition, as
ranchers moved across the Ro /132/ Salado, their herds of cattle drove off game
animals needed by Indians for food. This loss of hunting grounds naturally
3
angered the Indians.
Coloniol Defensiveness, 1516-1810
At first, the Spanish countered the Indian threat by establishing defensive forts to
protect adjoining or nearby settlements. Sebastin Gaboto built the first fort on
Argentine soil in 1527. The modest wooden structure, named Fort Sancti Spiritu,
guarded by thirty men, stood at the confluence of the Cracarana and Coronada
rivers, tributaries of the mighty Paran in the north. On the humid pampa to the
south, the cabildo (town government) of Buenos Aires made little headway in
establishing exterior forts until the mid-eighteenth century. By 1752, crude forts
existed at Lujn, Salto, and Zanjn. Beyond the Ro Salado, however, the pampa
4
remained the domain of the Indian through the late eighteenth century.
These primitive, poorly supplied structures hardly constituted a serious threat to
Indian raiders or an adequate defense against attack. Such inhospitable quarters
persisted late into the mid-nineteenth century on the perimeter of the frontier line.
Many soldiers chose to desert and face the hostile Indian frontier rather than
5
subsist under such conditions.
During the viceregal period beginning in 1776, the Ro de la Plata region got more
attention from Spanish strategists. Conflict with the British over the Malvina
(Falkland) Islands a few years earlier and expansionist threats from the
Portuguese in Brazil increased security concerns in the area. In 1778, Viceroy
Juan Jos de Vertiz ordered several reconnaissance missions to Patagonia and
directed that the construction of frontier forts be improved and regularized. In
6
reality, few forts measured up to the new standards.
Spaniards occasionally altered their defensive posture of fort-building by
undertaking punitive military expeditions against raiding Indians. In 1663, the
cabildo of Buenos Aires sent fifty soldiers in pursuit of Indians who had raided

frontier estancias. The force engaged the Indians in a three-hour battle and killed
fifty to sixty. In 1724, when rural militia forces took the offensive to pursue raiders,
Indians attacked Buenos Aires itself. To make matters worse, porteos (residents
of Buenos Aires) engaged in slave-hunting expeditions to counter their chronic
shortage of labor. Naturally, these expeditions, while not on the same /133/ grand
scale as those of the bandeirantes (slave hunters) of So Paulo, Brazil, did nothing
to enhance Spanish-Indian relations. Enslaved Indians worked at many tasks,
particularly in the necessary agricultural labors despised by Spaniards. But they
often fled or succumbed to disease, so that by 1608 black slaves imported from
7
Africa augmented the region's insufficient work force.
Spaniards held an edge in firearms and military technology that played an
important part in their successful conquest of much of Latin America. Each
infantry company of sixty to a hundred soldiers fought with a variety of weapons,
including pikes, arquebuses, swords, and daggers. Twelve companies comprised
a tercio (equal to a regiment) that was commanded by a maestro de campo
(colonel). By the late seventeenth century, flintlocks with bayonets added greater
firepower. Armor made out of many different materials protected soldiers. Artillery,
for the most part, served as a means of intimidating rather than seriously injuring
Indians. Given the vast flat plains, cavalrymen proved the most potent force
against the able horsemanship of the pampas Indians. Spanish cavalrymen
considered it degrading to use lances and preferred to serve as dragoons with
pistols and carbines. But, against Indians, the lance proved the most effective
8
weapon for plains warfare.
Indians utilized a dangerous arsenal of their own. In addition to lances, more than
twelve feet long, tribes of the northern pampas used the bow and arrow, with a
range of up to three hundred meters. Everywhere on the pampas, boleadoras
entangled the feet of enemy mounts, and bolas perdidas struck potentially fatal
body blows, particularly if one of the balls attached to a rawhide thong struck the
head. Small, pointed cudgels, knives, and leather armor completed the Indian
stock of weapons. Given the deadliness of these native weapons, Spanish forces,
especially mestizo soldiers, also adopted them. A description of the bolas written
in the 1850s by an American visitor to the pampas could have applied as well in
the sixteenth century: "The bolas are of two kinds: that used for catching cattle
consists of three wooden balls, or stones, about three inches in diameter, covered
with raw hide, each joined to the other in a common centre by a thong of the
same of about three feet in length. The other is of two balls, smaller, and is used
to catch ostriches.
While firearms played an important defensive role, not until the advent of
Remington rifles in the 1870s did the tactical advantage on horseback swing to
the Argentine cavalry, so deadly were bolas and lance.
/134/ Indian tactics, well adapted to the plains, included night rides to hide dust
clouds; never dismounting during battle; rapid, shrieking mass attacks; setting fire
to buildings with fire arrows; and immediate retreat in the face of determined
opposition. Retreating raiders divided into smaller groups to make pursuit more
9
difficult.

Another part of the military weakness of the Spaniards in the Ro de la Plata

resulted from the failure of missionary activity. The dual thrust of presidio and
mission, used so successfully elsewhere in the Spanish empire, never
materialized in Argentina. Jesuit attempts to establish missions on the pampa in
the 1740s failed within a decade. Thomas Falkner's trek through the south pampa
in the 1740s also failed to establish an ongoing evangelizing program. The
Indians of the pampa, nomadic, hostile, and self-sufficient, had no need for the
Spanish god or goods. Epidemic disease, brought by the Europeans, also
deterred Indians from living in contact with the Spanish. In 1675, officials
convinced some eight thousand Indians to settle and attempt agriculture near
Buenos Aires. But after only eight months, a smallpox epidemic wiped out most of
10
them.
Alarmed by diminishing numbers of wild livestock, the Buenos Aires cabildo
moved on several fronts in the mid-eighteenth century. To conserve the herds, a
decree of 1748 banned the killing of calves in the countryside. In addition, only
persons holding monopoly licenses could engage legally in wild cattle hunting.
The rural gaucho population ignored the porteo strictures and continued their
hunts. Spaniards tried to take the offensive by fielding itinerant patrols. The city of
Santa Fe in 1712 sent out roaming patrols, but the poorly trained and ill-equipped
troops had little deterrent value against Indian raiders. The cabildo of Buenos
Aires resolved to alter its purely defensive military strategy by creating companies
11
of blandengues (irregular gaucho cavalry) to patrol the countryside.
These ineffective units functioned only from 1752 until about 1766. The
blandengues disappeared because of class conflict inherent in Argentine colonial
society. Harsh treatment, abysmal conditions, and late or nonexistent pay quickly
prompted many recruits to desert. Locally recruited gaucho saw little reason to
exchange their self-sufficient lives as wild cattle hunters for the constraints and
privations of military life. And the idea of protecting the property rights of the same
landed elite that was striving to deny them access to wild livestock likely made
little /135/ sense to gauchos. Economically, gaucho and ranchers were
competitors, and politically they were enemies. Small wonder that the blandengue
12
units languished for want of dependable personnel.
After the collapse of the blandengue units, the cabildo turned to regular army
units in hopes of effecting a better offensive strategy. In late 1770, maestro de
campo Manuel de Pinazo led an expedition against marauding Tehuelches. His
forces pushed all the way to the Ro Colorado. Superiority in arms helped his
cause, and alliances with friendly tribes proved important. Accommodation and
exchange with friendly Indians, an approach later utilized fully by Juan Manuel de
Rosas, began to figure in official thinking. But Pinazo still favored armed
confrontation, and, backed by Viceroy Vertiz, planned a major offensive in 1777.
The following year, however, the officials abandoned the offensive strategy in
favor of building more frontier outposts. Again, failed recruitment played a
significant role in derailing military planning. The cabildo reported to the viceroy in
1779 that "the people of the plains are loathe to submit to all the formal military
rules." In short, the Spanish lacked the manpower necessary to mount a major
sweeping offensive on the pampa. At the same time, the need to combat

contraband and rural disorder by gauchos, as well as to secure the Indian frontier,
13
made the proliferation of rural forts a reasonable policy.
Strategists of the late colonial period formulated most of the plans eventually put
into action in the nineteenth century. The Spanish scientist Flix de Azara
explored the pampa in 1796 and noted with disgust that frontier lines, "because of
a few annoying barbarians, are approximately the same as those which [Juan de]
Garay took with sixty men 216 years ago." He emphasized the importance of
populating the plains by granting land for frontier service. This policy would give
soldiers a stake in defending their own lands against attack. In anticipation of
plans by Rosas and Julio A. Roca, he proposed taking and fortifying the island of
Choele Choel that lay in the Ro Negro. "Control of the Ro Negro," he wrote,
"would once and for all make the whites masters of the Pampa, for the Indians
would dare not attack for fear of being cut off." This key location would provide a
14
means of interdicting the still-thriving contraband cattle trade to Chile.
The landed elite, however, had no interest in granting land to anyone. And lack of
resources and resolve forced officials to pursue more accommodating and
conciliatory policies toward the Indians. Relative /136/ calm prevailed during the
last decades of the colonial era. Indians came to "corrals" in many cities to trade
hides and skins. One official even suggested giving Indians a monopoly on the
salt trade to avoid conflict over that critical resource. In an interesting role
reversal, the Spanish paid tribute or protection money to friendly Indians in
exchange for peace and intelligence on the movements of hostiles. Before
serious consideration could be given to mobilizing the resources needed for
sweeping frontier strategies, other more pressing events overtook Argentina.
Napoleon's disruption of Iberian power, British invasions of the Ro de la Plata in
1806 and 1807, and the call for independence by the Buenos Airescabildo in
15
1810 catapulted international political problems ahead of the frontier in priority.
Independence Disruptions and the Rosas Offensive, 1810-52
Estanislao Zeballos, Argentine politician and writer, summarized the quandary of
frontier strategists of the nineteenth century: "Peace with the Indians lasts as long
as the peace of the Republic." And Argentina enjoyed very little peace during the
first seven decades of its national life. The independence struggle gave way
immediately to civil wars that pitted ambitious caudillos against one another and
the province of Buenos Aires against the rest of the new nation. Estimates of
Indian depredations from 1820 until Roca's successful campaign in 1879 include
fifty thousand killed, three thousand houses destroyed, and eleven million cattle
driven off. Revolving-door national administrations faced more urgent problems
16
that often pushed frontier security into the background.
The exigencies of the independence wars again forced the criollo elite to turn to
unwilling gauchos for military manpower. An 1815 vagrancy statute, with
antecedents in the colonial era, classified the landless rural population as
"servants" and required of them a passport for travel. Failure to carry the paper
could result in five years of forced service in the regular army or two years' labor
for an appointed patrn. The patriot government reestablished the blandengues in
December 1816 and ordered patrols into the countryside "to recruit vagrants and

deserters" for the units. The threats of forced military service and labor drove
many gauchos away and further exacerbated the manpower shortage. The new
criollo landed elite faced the same problem as had colonial officials. The /137/
landless rural population did not wish to die on behalf of porteo economic
17
interests, whether against Spaniards, federalist caudillos, or marauding Indians.
With independence won, attention again focused on the neglected frontier.
Despite internal political chaos, the governor of Buenos Aires province, Martn
Rodrguez, mobilized two major expeditions to the southern frontier. In April 1823,
he established Fort Independencia to protect the new settlement of Tandil.
Rodrguez ably brought the pampas Indians into alliance with the army against
the ranqueles (outlaw Indians of the pampa). Juan Manuel de Rosas was to use
this strategy of alliances with friendly tribes to underpin his Indian policy during
the 1830s and 1840s. Enfiteusis, a land-lease program that aspired to promote
frontier population, quickly degenerated into a spectacular land grab by politically
powerful speculators and terratenientes (landed elite). Frontier policy continued to
serve the interests of the landed elite and little else, and those interests found a
strong, able champion in the person of Rosas. He developed and carried out a
strategy which brought relative peace on the frontier for two decades but which
18
ultimately proved costly in lives and money.
As Rosas moved to consolidate his political control of Buenos Aires province,
and, through subordinate caudillos, the rest of Argentina, he also refined his
strategy for the Indian frontier. In 1828, he recommended to Gov. Manuel Dorrego
a traditional defensive approach to the frontier question -- the further extension of
forts to the south. As a result, the Dorrego administration ordered the construction
of Fort Federacin in Junn, Fort Cruz de Guerra in 25 de Mayo, and Fortaleza
Protectora Argentina at Baha Blanca. Rosas hoped to bolster the extension of
the military line with a buffer of friendly Indians, pacified with allotments of
livestock. Ranchers donated livestock for this purpose, in hopes of purchasing
19
security for their holdings.
Dorrego's assassination in December 1828 left a power vacuum that Rosas
maneuvered skillfully to fill. As he consolidated his political power base among
porteo ranchers and built his private army, the Colorados del Monte, he also
moved to a more offensive posture on frontier matters. Upon completing his first
term as provincial governor in 1832, he proposed a major push with three
divisions to the Ro Negro. Enlightened self-interest also guided his thinking.
Earlier in the year, Indians had driven off twelve thousand head of cattle from the
southern pampa, /138/ many of them his. He and his fellow ranchers also stood to
profit handsomely from provisioning a major military expedition. So, in a speech to
20
Congress on November 30, 1832, he called for a major offensive.
Rosas originally planned to mobilize three divisions from the west, center, and
south. Internecine conflict -- specifically, the lack of interest and distrust of the key
caudillo of the interior, Juan Facundo Quiroga -and poor security (Indian
caciques, or chieftains, learned of the plan) forced revisions. The actual
operations, carried out in 1833, failed on two fronts. Despite eight months in the
field, the western division of eight hundred troops from Cuyo, led by Jos Flix
Aldao, failed to reach their objective, the Ro Neuquen. The center division, one

thousand troops from the interior provinces of Crdoba, San Lus, and La Rioja,
as well as from Buenos Aires, attempted to clear the central pampa to the Ro
Colorado. They also failed, in large measure because of the weak leadership of
their commander Jos Ruiz Huidobro. Only the southern Division of the Left,
more than two thousand men led by Rosas, secured their objective. Well
mounted, with three horses per man and four per officer, the force swept to the
Ro Colorado and then followed the Ro Negro westward all the way to Neuquen.
They also occupied the key island of Choele Choel, which Azara had earmarked
21
as essential for the interdiction of contraband.
In the short run, the Rosas expedition appeared to bring positive results for all
concerned parties, even including some Indian tribes. The operation freed 634
captives, brought relative peace to rural society, and added 2,900 square leagues
of grazing lands to the national patrimony. Rosas used those lands as booty to
consolidate support among the ranching elite. Ranchers also benefited from the
one million pesos spent by the government on provisioning and continued to profit
from the treaty terms signed by Rosas with various tribes. Some ten thousand
Indians became eligible for allotments of livestock (Indians favored mare's meat
over beef) in exchange for good behavior. The treaty Indians also received yerba
mate, tobacco, and alcohol, the same vices favored by gauchos and frontier
militiamen. Rosista estancieros, who often owned local country stores and
taverns called pulperas, reaped added benefits from sales to Indians. The
common soldiers of the expedition lost, however, with 50 percent dead, wounded,
or unaccounted for (most probably deserted). With access to the acquired real
estate limited to the politically powerful, the frontier remained sadly
underpopulated. And in the long run, the nation lost, through the economic drain
from /139/ buying Indian good will and through the strengthening of Indians via
subsidies given them. An anti-Rosas coalition forced the dictator to flee to
England in early 1852. Subsequent political infighting interrupted the Rosista
subsidies, and once-friendly Indians opened a full-scale war that pushed the
22
frontier line back to a position occupied several decades earlier.
Retrenchment and Alsina's Ditch, 1852-18
The conflict between Buenos Aires province and the Argentine Confederation (the
interior provinces) again raised military manpower needs throughout Argentina.
This forced shift in priorities, coupled with the interruption of treaty-mandated
allotments, opened the way for renewed Indian depredations. Major raids in 1855
virtually depopulated the southern frontier counties of Tandil, Azul, and Tapalque.
Settlers fled their ranches to the relative safety of other counties. Even when army
troops arrived, the situation improved little. Juan Fugl, a Danish settler in Tandil,
recounted that soldiers looted the virtually empty town more thoroughly than had
the Indians. The burden of frontier defense still fell on irregular troops, often
forcibly recruited. The old militias, dating from the colonial period, gave way to
newly organized national guard units. The landed and wealthy received
exemptions, but otherwise adult males to age forty-four became eligible for active
service and those from forty-five to sixty for inactive status. But the reality of poor
training, pitiful conditions, and unwilling recruits did not change. Many men failed
to respond to the draft summons, and troops often deserted in the face of Indian
23
attacks.

The widespread, savage attacks forced the frontier problem back into political
prominence. A resolution of October 1856 directed that the president of the
Argentine Confederation, "in his capacity as commander in chief of the national
forces, personally direct the defense of the frontiers." Officials gave lip service to
the populate-and-settle strategy advocated earlier by Azara. They also urged the
re-establishment of a buffer of friendly Indians. Confederation strategists
envisioned a frontier system of military settlements (Colonias) furnished by the
government with adequate armaments as well as necessary work tools. As war
erupted in 1858 between the Confederation and Buenos Aires province, however,
24
the "give them a stake" policy again disappeared amid more urgent problems.
/140/ Frontier defense degenerated badly during the 1850s and 1860s. In March
1857, caciques Catriel and Cachul raided the county of 25 de Mayo. They
captured women and children to be enslaved and drove off thousands of head of
livestock. The population of the partido fell from about five thousand to a mere six
hundred hardy souls. The dangerous ranqueles in the western province of
Mendoza numbered twelve hundred braves, supplemented by another seven
hundred from nearby tribes. The pampas Indians could mobilize two thousand
lances. The famous cacique Calfucura led one thousand Chilean Indian braves,
plus another eight hundred Araucanians. To complicate matters, some gauchos
fled military service and other onerous restrictions and joined with the Indians.
Richard Seymour, an immigrant to the pampa, reported that a gaucho acted as
interpreter for a band of Indians who drove off his horses. In another incident,
gauchos interceded to save the life of a native but acquiesced as Indians
murdered three Englishmen. Another foreigner estimated that "the Gaucho
element" made up half of Indian raiding parties. A War Department report for
1877 complained that "a number of Chilean Christians" lived in the Indian villages
25
of Neuquen.
In an act of wishful thinking, the government ordered in August 1867 that the
army occupy all national territory from the Andes to the Atlantic. Resisting Indians
were to be removed beyond the Ro Negro and the Ro Neuquen. This was
particularly ambitious thinking, because, since 1865, Argentina had been at war
with Paraguay. In an oftmade but seldom fulfilled promise, soldiers who
participated in the frontier offensive were to be rewarded with grants of land. But
more than a decade would pass before that official directive was carried out.
While no general expedition materialized, some punitive measures were imposed.
In March 1872, Gen. Ignacio Rivas, aided by the temporarily friendly caciques
Catriel and Coliqueo, defeated Callvucura and a force of three thousand braves.
The rebellious cacique lost two hundred warriors dead, compared with army
losses of four soldiers and thirty Indians. The army recovered seventy thousand
cattle, sixteen thousand horses, and many sheep. With no excess of modesty,
Rivas reported the victory as "the most splendid that has been achieved to this
day over these cruel enemies." But these limited offensive actions did not deter
the Indians for any length of time, and the general strategy remained defensive,
26
the order of 1867 notwithstanding.
As minister of war under President N Nicols Avellaneda in the 1870s, /141/
Adolfo Alsina formulated a master defensive strategy for the frontier. He shared
the pervasive belief of Argentine leaders of the time that the future of the nation

lay in attracting masses of European immigrants. The dictum of Juan Bautista

Alberd, "To govern is to populate," strongly shaped government policy from the
fall of Rosas to 1900. Alsina hoped to use new technology to hold off Indian raids
while settlers gradually pushed back the frontier line with agricultural and livestock
production. He planned to extend the railroad from Baha Blanca into the south
pampa. Alsina looked to telegraph lines and frontier outposts to transmit ample
warning of impending attack and to six-guns and Remingtons to tip the balance of
firepower in favor of the army. But the most radical and heavily criticized element
of Alsina's cautious plan was the construction of a large ditch across the southern
27
pampa to act as a barrier to marauders.
Alsina had devoted considerable thought to his "tortoise" approach of slow but
sure expansion. He bought time with some Indian tribes by renewing allotments of
mate, sugar, tobacco, flour, corn, alcohol, horses, and cattle. At least publicly, the
minister espoused a policy of accommodation and peaceful coexistence. He
warned against what he termed "destructive expeditions" that "will only irritate the
savages, make their instincts crueler, and raise a barrier that separates Indian
from Christian." In July 1875, he signed an important treaty with cacique Juan
Jos Catriel that promised, in addition to supplies, agricultural implements and
28
seed, so that the Indians could practice farming.
The minister of war recognized the economic roots of Indian raiding, and the
support for Indian agriculture was designed to offer them an alternative. "Indians
do not invade for the pleasure of invading," wrote Alsina, "but rather to rob and
carry off what they can steal." His ambitious ditch, 610 kilometers long, 3 varas
deep, and 2 varas wide (one vara equals about 33 inches), with embankments on
both sides, would "make large invasions impossible and small ones difficult." It
would prevent raiders from driving off livestock, and this, Alsina theorized, would
eliminate the economic motive by interdicting the profitable contraband trade.
Planned to run from near Baha Blanca northwest to Lake La Amarga in southern
Cordoba province, the ditch was only partially completed (374 kilometers).
Construction chief Alfredo Ebelot estimated that "isolated entries" could be made
over the ditch but that eight hours of labor would be required by Indians wishing to
pass with a /142/ herd of horses. The ambitious ditch marks the high-water mark
of Argentine defensive strategy -- the most elaborate attempt to etch a clear,
29
definitive line between barbarism and civilization.
Alsina's defensive strategy met a howling defeat with the "Great Invasion" of
December 1875. Five thousand braves, led by Catriel, Namuncura, Pincn, and
many other caciques killed three hundred Argentines, burned forty houses, and
carried off some five hundred captives and three hundred thousand head of
livestock. The southern frontier, supposedly protected by the great ditch, took the
brunt of the attack. Tandil, Azul, Tapalque, Tres Arroyos, and Alvear suffered the
worst damage. The minister of war, who had signed the treaty with Catriel only
months before, termed the motivation for the attacks "a mystery." But the causes
lay in the inherent flaws of his strategy and in his own duplicity toward the
30
Indians.
For all his public patience and accommodationism, Alsina secretly planned a
major offensive against the Indians when the time was ripe. He ordered engineers

led by Ebelot to draw the first map of the pampa to be completed since colonial
times. He organized a "scientific" expedition, destined for Carhue, the pago, or
"stomping grounds," of cacique Namuncura. Both moves clearly were efforts to
gain the intelligence needed to plan invasion routes into Indian territory. The wily
cacique read the heated debates concerning Alsina's strategy and actions in the
Buenos Aires press and protested to Alsina against the expedition. When the
minister persisted, the cacique drove off the "scientists," and the "Great Invasion"
31
followed.
Other caciques had no more faith in the promises or good will of Argentina's
leadership. cacique Mariano Rosas, killed in 1877, put the matter bluntly in a
letter to Col. Lucio V. Mansilla: "Brother, when the Christians could, they killed us;
and if tomorrow they could kill us all, they would kill us. They have taught us to
wear fine ponchos, to drink mate, to smoke, to eat sugar, to drink wine, to use
hard boots. But they have not taught us to work, nor to know their God. So,
brother, what services do we owe them?" A frontier commander, Col. Alvaro
Barros, concurred in the criticism of national policy. The Indians, he charged, "are
less guilty than our administrations. Educating the Indian to the advantages of
32
work awakens his love of property."
But Argentine leaders never actively considered integrating the Indian into
"civilized" society. The defensive strategists plotted how to keep him out and the
offensive planners how to push him further back.
/143/ In many ways, official attitudes toward Indians and native Argentines or
gauchos on the frontier coincided. Both represented, in the official eye, obstacles
to civilization that had to be removed forcibly.
Alsina's frontier plan met with wide criticism. Julio A. Roca, chief of frontier forces,
disagreed sharply with the minister of war on strategy. Roca, impatient with
Alsina's caution, favored a "hare" approach -- a rapid, sweeping offensive to drive
the Indians out of Argentina entirely. In a letter to Alsina in October 1875, Roca
charged that "forts located in the middle of the desert kill discipline, decimate the
troops, and control little or no territory." To Roca, Alsina's approach was slow,
ineffective, and required placing too many troops in vulnerable frontier outposts.
"In my judgment, the best system to finish the Indians, that is, exterminating them
or removing them beyond the Ro Negro, is an offensive war, like that pursued by
Rosas that almost finished them." The Great Invasion at the end of the year only
confirmed Roca in his views. He made public his differences with Alsina. Writing
to the editor of La repblica on April 24, 1876, he made an economic argument.
Indians remove forty thousand cattle per year to Chile, he estimated, and sell
them for two or three pesos per head. With that income, they purchase from
Chilean sources tobacco, liquor, clothing, and necessities. Argentina therefore
loses both stolen cattle and the considerable commerce generated by the
33
tribes.
Roca's Final Offensive, 1818-19
Alsina's death late in 1877 left the ministry open to Roca, who wasted no time in
implementing a new strategy. Given the long centuries of stalemate on the

frontier, Roca's success against the Indians came with amazing speed. He
succeeded for a number of reasons. First, national political hegemony over the
interior provinces and unruly gauchos finally had been achieved, ending the long
period of divisive civil wars and rural social conflict. This permitted the national
government to focus its energy and resources on the long-festering frontier
problem. Second, the physical integration of the nation had progressed rapidly,
with the expansion of railroads and telegraph lines across the pampa. These
advances gave the national army a logistical and intelligence edge over the
Indians. Third, Roca's forces were better trained and better equipped than
previous frontier troops. Fourth, Roca's military leadership and political genius
exceeded that of any nineteenth-century Argentine /144/ politician. Finally,
Congress provided sufficient funding, thanks to the sale of bonds redeemable in
new frontier land. In short, the Argentine elite invested in the expedition and
profited handsomely from the millions of hectares of new lands added to their
holdings.
Roca undertook his two-stage offensive in mid-1878, with several expeditions
against specific caciques. Col. Nicols Levalle attacked the territory of
Namuncura, and Col. Conrado Villegas attacked Pincn. These operations deep
in the "desert" brought considerable hardships to the troops. Francisco Bidot
recorded the miseries of long forced marches in pursuit of retreating Indians.
Soldiers were reduced in some cases to drinking horse urine or to placing pieces
of metal in their mouths in hopes of inducing salivation. The men ate roots and
horsemeat -- the latter relished by Indians but abhorrent to cristianos. These
preliminary engagements rescued some 150 captives and retrieved fifteen
thousand head of livestock. More importantly, the army captured four thousand
braves, as well as caciques Catriel, Pincn, and Espumer (who had succeeded
his brother, Mariano Rosas). Field commanders reported their victories
enthusiastically and perhaps embellished their deeds a bit. Roca telegraphed
Commander Paris in Carhue and requested clarification of an engagement that
took place on September 25, 1878. "I'm inclined to compensate all action against
the Indians," noted Roca, "that shows intelligence, activity and courage. ... Thus I
wish the truth and that the facts not be distorted." Embellished reports or not, all
major Indian tribes had been pushed back and put on the defensive for the first
time in decades. On January 11, 1879, Roca ordered the second stage of the
34
conquest.
Roca's "Conquest of the Desert" mobilized five divisions. Roca himself
commanded the first, comprised of five cavalry regiments, four infantry, and one
artillery. Gen. Nicols Levalle led the second, with a regiment each of cavalry and
infantry. Col. Eduardo Racedo led the third division of two cavalry and two infantry
regiments and a battery of light artillery. The fourth division, under Col. Napolen
Uriburu, included two cavalry regiments and a battery of mountain artillery. Col.
Hilario Lagos directed a regiment each of cavalry and infantry in the fifth division.
The navy also participated, with forces on the Ro Negro and Lake Nahuel Huapi.
These units accomplished their missions within a few months. They captured five
caciques and nearly 1,300 braves and wounded or killed another 2,362. In his
report of the operations, Manuel J. Olascoaga emphasized the significant change
in strategy from Alsina's /145/ tenure: "Happily, and to the honor of our nation,
the bold Army, that labored three years in a hundred-league ditch, demonstrated

in only five months of efforts more appropriate to its martial bravery, that the
35
soldier of civilization does not need parapets to defeat barbarism."
Roca brought together for the first time material support, able leadership,
intelligent planning, and new technology, to accomplish what had been talked
about for centuries -- security against Indian attack. With the financial and political
backing of the landed elite, Roca enjoyed a strong mandate for his offensive. His
strategy was well conceived and powerfully executed. His political genius, which
flowered after the great frontier campaign, played no small role in his success. By
1881, Roca, as president, had dissolved the provincial national guards, giving the
national army a monopoly on group armed force. He also federalized the city of
Buenos Aires, which resolved the old antagonism between the coast and the
interior in favor of the former. He brought elites of both the coast and the interior
into a new political coalition, his National Autonomist Party.
Technology also played a significant role. Argentina's spreading telegraph
network communicated timely intelligence on Indian movements and offered a
means of coordinating the various divisions. Upon leaving behind the last
telegraph station, Roca lauded the contribution of the field operators to the
success of their mission. Alsina had pushed new lines across the pampa,
stringing 696 kilometers between April 1876 and February 1877. By 1890, the
National Telegraph included four hundred offices and eighteen thousand
kilometers of lines. That technology literally united the nation, while Roca's skillful
leadership united it politically. Roca vigorously implemented his hard-line policy
toward the Indians. In a telegram sent to a commander at Puan on October 11,
1878, he affirmed the need to break the spirit of the Indian and keep him full of
fear and terror of us. That way, instead of thinking to invade us, he will only think
of fleeing, seeking his salvation in the depths of the forest. He also ordered
villages leveled and caciques exiled to Chile with the women and children, to
36
destroy their morale by assailing their machismo.
/146/ The twenty million hectares of land added to the national patrimony went to
Roca's political favorites and speculators, not to the soldiers of the expedition.
Roca presided over a new, powerful coalition of interior and littoral elites that
dominated national politics for a generation. Wrapped in military glory, Roca rose
38
to the national presidency twice, beginning in 1880.
Roca's bold stroke reflected the new reality of a unified, prosperous, modern
Argentina, looking proudly and confidently toward the twentieth century. A few
final mop-up actions were necessary. In his message to Congress in 1882, Roca
confidently announced that "once more the Army of the Nation will march in the
vanguard of Argentine civilization, marking with its steps and camps the future
towns that will complete the transformation of the desert." The action also
39
bolstered the Argentine presence in Patagonia, a region long coveted by Chile.
In 1883, the president affirmed that "the wild Indians, then, have disappeared,
with no danger that they can return." Despite the major strides made, however,
frontier security remained incomplete for a few years to come. In April 1883,
cacique Pincn, with fifty braves, attacked German immigrant ranchers beyond
Trenque Laquen. The band killed and mutilated at least eight ranchers, injured

fifteen, and drove off three thousand head of cattle. La campaa reported that
"with the band of Indians went some gauchos," one indication that the entire
40
gaucho population had not been subdued.
During the following two years, Roca pushed for final consolidation of frontiers
and exploration of unknown terrain. Chilean expansionism and migration into
Patagonia worried Argentine leaders. He ordered expeditions to Patagonia in
1884, telling Congress that, on the southern frontier, "forts will become flourishing
settlements, the tribes will disappear and the savage subordinate himself to the
demands of civilization." One of the last powerful caciques, Valentfn Sayhueque,
surrendered at Fort Junfn de los Andes on January 1, 1885, with seven hundred
braves and twenty-five hundred women and children. In February, Namuncura
surrendered, ending all resistance on the southern frontier.
In September 1885, Congress authorized an expedition to the Chaco which
marked the end of the open frontier in Argentina. Roca informed Congress in his
message of 1885 that as of today, then, all the absurd barriers of barbarism that
confronted us in the north as well as in the south have been removed, and when
we speak in the future of frontiers, we will mean the lines that divide us from
neighboring nations and not /147/ those that have been for us synonyms for
blood, insecurity, and discredit to the Republic. Although military actions would
occur until 1917 in the Chaco, the centuries-long struggle of "civilization" against
41
"barbarism" on the pampa was at an end.
Sociopolitical Problems in Frontier Strategy
The difficulties of pampean terrain and distances, as well as the martial skills of
the Indians themselves, partially account for the long time necessary to subdue
them. By the time of Roca's offensive, the railroad and telegraph had given the
national army the means of overcoming those vast distances. Remington rifles
finally overmatched the Indian's lance and bolas.
But larger national sociopolitical problems impinged upon and impeded frontier
policy. Civil-military conflict often hindered policy implementation. In frontier
regions, justices of the peace wielded broad powers that sometimes brought them
into conflict with military commanders. In April 1855, Col. Julin Martnez,
commander-in-chief on the southern frontier, complained that civilian officials
would not raise the national guard forces he was to command. The Ministry of
Government issued a circular in April, urging justices to cooperate with the
42
military because of the grave Indian threat.
Comdr. Julin Murgia, at Patagones, voiced similar complaints to Minister of War
Bartolom Mitre in July 1855. He charged that local officials would not even
supply horses to his volunteer forces. The commander also complained that
"many individuals belonging to certain families never contribute to service" in the
national guard. Such dissension amid the massive Indian raids of that year did
little to shore up already weak frontier defense. Civil-military conflict persisted into
the following decade. Comdr. Paulino Amarante of the 22d Regiment and Jos
Zoilo Miguens, justice in Ayacucho, came to heated disagreement in 1866.
Amarante sought to incorporate men he deemed "disobedient" into his command.

Miguens resisted what he considered arbitrary impressment of citizens from his

county into military service. Civil reform decreased the broad powers of rural
justices by the I870s. And, beginning with Domingo Sarmiento's presidency
(1868-74), army officers received more professional training at the Military
43
College. These changes decreased the civil-military conflict on the frontier.
Frontier officers, desperate for troops, sometimes exceeded their /148/ powers in
obtaining men. In 1869, Buenos Aires province charged military authorities in
several southern counties with illegally impressing men into frontier service. The
commander of the 16th Regiment at Las Flores was found guilty and relieved of
duty, but most of the time such abuses passed uncontested. Gov. Emilio Castro
recognized the ills caused by snatching citizens violently and arbitrarily from their
homes or work places, causing not only commotion and pernicious alarm
throughout the partido but also the consequent dispersion of native workers. In
general, both civil and military officials tolerated abuses with an endsjustify-themeans philosophy. More regular recruitment practices improved the situation
44
somewhat by the late 1870s.
Chronic manpower shortages long had plagued military commanders and
rendered impractical strategies requiring large numbers of troops. Firearms
technology worked in Roca's favor to help overcome the manpower shortage.
Armed with Remington rifles, his troops could fight with a better soldier-Indian
ratio. Officials had long faced the problem of how to mobilize unwilling gauchos.
In terms of class, culture, and economic interests, gauchos often had more in
common with the "salvajes" than with the elite-run government giving the orders.
Officials had to force gauchos to defend the interests of the landed. Vagrancy
laws, passport requirements, work papers, and arbitrary impressment put
gauchos into the enemy camp and hindered frontier strategy. Argentina could not
45
defeat the Indians, because it first had to defeat the gauchos.
Frontier officials filled recruiting quotas by any possible means. In October 1855,
the justice of Matanza requested that two men whom he had sent in the latest
draft contingent be freed. He explained that they were honorable and hardworking residents of the county, not vagrants. He had sent them only to meet his
quota by the prescribed date. Men at frontier outposts also remained in service
long beyond their prescribed terms. The mouthpiece of porteo estancieros, the
Anales de la Sociedad Rural, complained in 1867 of a grave labor shortage for
the agricultural harvest. A hundred men sent to the frontier had not returned,
despite the fact that another contingent had been sent to replace them. As a
result, farmers in Chivilcoy had to pay ruinous wages to secure scarce
agricultural workers. In the same year, the justice of Azul complained that the
faulty and inequitable quota system for the national guard had depopulated his
46
county, as workers fled to escape the onerous service.
Despite heavy penalties for failure to register and serve in the national /149/
tional guard, at least forty thousand men failed to register between 1854 and
1857. The shortfall prompted officials to look to European volunteers for additional
manpower, a move consonant with the racial and cultural biases of the ruling
elite. Advertisements in La tribuna in 1854 promised a bonus of one thousand
pesos for enlisting two or three years in the guard. These monetary enticements

did bring some foreigners into military service on the frontier. But most of the
immigrants could not even ride a horse, which made them hindrances in frontier
service. Writing to Col. Rufino Victoria in May 1870, Julio Campos, commander at
Fort Belgrano, emphasized the centrality of cavalry units on the frontier. He
pointed out that foreigners, while unsuited for cavalry service, did make able
infantrymen. The gradual professionalization of the national army improved
training over time. Repeating rifles and railroad travel also decreased the need for
the traditional gaucho cavalry skills. But Argentina did not fully reform its military
recruitment system until 1902, when Roca established universal obligatory
47
service during his second presidency.
Other frontier commanders railed against foreign troops. In 1872, Ignacio Rivas
complained that "half of the men are foreigners (Italians), completely useless for
frontier service, because most are sick and none can ride a horse." Alvaro Barros
termed his foreign troops "absolutely worthless." Given the vast distances on the
pampa, even infantrymen had to ride, so the lack of horsemanship among
immigrants rendered them a liability. In "Martn Fierro," the colorful poem of
gaucho life written in the 1870s by Jos Hernndez, a similar complaint is lodged:
I'd like to know why the government Enlists the gringo crew, And
what they think they're good for here? They can't mount a horse or
rope a steer, And somebody's got to help them out In everything
48
they do.
Internal military policies also militated against effective frontier defense. While
Roca appears to have used less extreme measures on his expedition, harsh
corporal punishments were used in the military through the 1880s. Soldiers might
be placed in stocks or staked out on the plains with wet rawhide thongs. Robert
Crawford commented on the plight of a staked victim in 1884: As the thongs
which bound him to the stakes /150/ dried, they became shorter, stretching the
unfortunate victim's legs and arms in a way that must have been exceedingly
uncomfortable. The contracting leather stretched the four limbs, sometimes to
49
the breaking point.
Often impecunious administrations failed to pay frontier troops. Barros estimated
that wages fell behind from six months to three years. Some troops simply gave
up waiting for their money and deserted to work as ranch hands. Others took up a
criminal life as rustlers or joined with raiding Indians. Other soldiers became
indebted to local store and tavern owners. Comdr. Manuel Prado recorded that
troops paid highly inflated prices to local merchants. Taverns even issued their
own tokens and greatly discounted the solders' already low wages when pay did
arrive. Frontier soldiers ran the risk of becoming deeply indebted and unable ever
to repay the advances. Desertion then became a logical economic choice. Thanks
to the bond sales to the landed elite and sufficient congressional allocations,
Roca could pay his troops and even provide adequate food and supplies. The
short duration of the campaign -- a mere five months -- also prevented long-term
50
problems from developing.
Draconian penalties did not deter deserters. The province of Buenos Aires in
1855 offered a reward of one hundred pesos for information leading to the arrest

of a deserter. Abetting deserters could result in a one-hundred-peso fine, but

labor-short ranchers sometimes hired known deserters anyway. Estanislao
Zeballos estimated that, from March 1876 to March, 1877, 18 percent of frontier
troops deserted. They took with them two hundred Remingtons and one thousand
horses. On the northern frontier, 160 of 291 troops had left their posts. Records
on 21 deserters in Tandil in 1872 offer a portrait of the unhappy frontier soldier.
The men, an average of twenty-seven years of age, had spent an average of
thirteen months in the military. Thirty-eight percent deserted within the first six
months. Virtually all were single, and most were from Buenos Aires province, so
they generally could flee elsewhere and find work or a means of subsistence. But
the closing of the frontier and poor employment opportunities in the interior
51
provinces cut off escape routes by the late 1870s.
According to La reforma of Mercedes, "the hateful persecution of the poor
paisano" through forced military service created a rural crime wave in 1876.
Ranchers had to hire extra workers for security. In October, seventy-five
guardsmen in Chivilcoy murdered their four officers /151/and fled with two carts of
Remingtons. They killed a rancher and his family at Villarino and rode toward the
Indian frontier with municipal forces in pursuit. The army caught the mutineers
near Chacabuco, captured seventeen, and killed six. The following March, troops
in Azul shot and seriously wounded a Major Villalba, stole arms, and deserted in
all directions. Military morale and discipline at frontier outposts left much to be
desired. By mobilizing fresh troops, striking quickly, and providing them with
52
improved leadership and supplies, Roca avoided such problems.
The serious political disputes that marred most of the nineteenth century drained
energy, resources, and manpower away from the frontier. Conflict between the
Unitarian and Federalist parties and a war with Brazil absorbed national energies
during the 1820s. The imposed peace of Rosas during the 1830s and I840s
brought some relief to the frontier but at the high cost of internal censorship and
repression. The Paraguayan War (1865-70) siphoned off troops, including
national guardsmen, to the north. The struggle of the interior provinces against
the hegemony of Buenos Aires did not come to an end until the establishment of
the national capital in the port city in 1880. Rosas excepted, no national leader
until Roca could devote the necessary attention to the frontier. Civil wars also
militated against any cohesive sense of nationhood and made appeals to
patriotism difficult. Partisanship and ambition, not the national welfare, dictated
policy decisions.
Improved technology played a central role in Roca's success. Alsina, to his credit,
had pushed hard to extend the nation's telegraph network and to link the forts on
the southern frontier. Roca was the beneficiary of those efforts. Railroads also
made possible the more rapid and complete logistical support necessary for large
military operations. The nation's railway mileage rose from a mere 7 in 1857 to a
respectable 2,294 by 1885. Improved infrastructure tied the nation together and
generated a greater sense of nationality. Residents of a distant pampean village
could follow national news carried to the provincial press by telegraph, or even
53
read the major newspapers of Buenos Aires with only slight delay.

Arms technology also figured strongly in the final conquest of the desert. Before
the advent of the Remington rifle on the pampa in the 1870s, traditional weaponry
put the army and the Indian on a par. The army had to field as many lances as
the Indians in order to contest them on equal terms. And Indians almost always
enjoyed superior tactical /152/ cal knowledge of the plains. With the Remington,
however, army policy fixed the acceptable ratio of battle at one soldier with rifle
per five Indians. According to general orders issued by Col. Conrado Villegas at
Trenque Laquen in 1876, frontier forces armed with rifles were to attack Indians if
the odds were five-to-one or better. While Remingtons also reached Indian hands,
54
modern firepower weighed strongly in favor of the national army.
In spite of modern technology, however, the Argentine military still faced a cultural
gap between its leadership and its enlisted men. Gaucho troops, accustomed to
traditional ways of surviving on the pampa, did not always readily accept new
army mandates. Any orders involving footwork, such as digging Alsina's ditch,
aroused gaucho ire. The gauchos considered such work servile and unmanly and
preferred to leave it to immigrant laborers. In fact, a life in the saddle, grasping a
small stirrup with the big toe, deformed the foot so that some gauchos could walk
only with difficulty. Nor did they all take to firearms. Many preferred their
traditional bolas and facones (long swordlike knives used for work and fighting).
Gaucho superstition held that some men, known as retobados (cunning or wily),
could not be wounded by firearms. This belief naturally made them suspicious of
the efficacy of rifles. Better training and battlefield experience gradually eroded
55
such old prejudices.
Even orders concerning care of horses might be met with hostility or indifference.
Articles 9 through 14 of the orders issued by Villegas in 1876 required that troops
care for and groom their mounts. Soldiers also were forbidden to ride an animal
with a sore back. "Without horses there is no cavalry," affirmed Villegas.
Commanders had to insist on this matter, because gauchos customarily gave
their mounts little care. For much of the nineteenth century, horses remained so
cheap and plentiful that even the humblest gaucho had a string of six or more.
Gauchos could ride anything, so they wasted little effort in breaking or training
their mounts. The military had to fight against the deeply ingrained cultural
prejudice that horses were disposable. Already short of manpower, frontier
commanders had to cope with immigrant volunteers who could not ride and native
56
troops who abused and injured mounts.
In the final analysis, however, the major shortcoming of Argentine frontier strategy
lay in conceptualization, not in technology, tactics, or military intelligence. The
racial and cultural prejudices of Spanish and then criollo elites precluded a
comprehensive, positive frontier policy. From the days of sixteenth-century
slaving expeditions, policy was geared /153/ to negative goals -- to exterminate
and subjugate, rather than to coexist with, the various tribes of the pampa. The
Indians had formulated a sophisticated cattle trade that well might have evolved
into economic partnership, not conflict, had the Argentine leadership been so
inclined. The intermittent success of treaties placing Indians in military service
and directing changes in their activities and lifestyles show that such adaptation
was possible. Across the Andes in Chile, contraband traders exchanged wine,
hardware, and trinkets for Indian ponchos and livestock. In French Canada, to cite

another example, Europeans and Indians carried on a booming fur trade

57
throughout the seventeenth century.
A strategy of accommodation and economic cooperation, rather than
marginalization and extermination, might have shortened the period of conflict
between "civilization" and "barbarism." On the other hand, the "enlightened"
paternalism of efforts to reform Indian policy in the United States imposed another
tactic of cultural imperialism -assimilationism -- upon tribes in the United States.
As Robert Utley, Francis Jennings, and others have shown, the practical outcome
of Indian policy in the United States differed little from that in Argentina. Captives
of ideologies and values deeply rooted in their cultures and historical experiences,
neither North Americans nor Argentines could develop policies toward native
peoples that recognized the integrity and worth of the "barbarian." Seeing no
place for barbarians in their societies, both nations preferred policies of
58
extermination to negotiation.
Argentine elites, from the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries,
conceptualized the frontier as an uncrossable line dividing the forces of civilization
and of barbarism. The Spanish and Argentines were far from unique in this
attitude. Ethnocentric definitions of "civilized" and "barbaric" peoples emerged in
ancient cultures, including China, India, Greece (who coined the term barabaros),
and Rome. In the New World, the French, English, and Spanish all perpetuated a
worldview pitting savagery" or "barbarism" against civilization.
In Argentina, the elite needed the gaucho to fight the Indian, but its members
considered gauchos as another element of barbarism. This dual battle to subdue
both gauchos and Indians prolonged the time and vastly increased the
sociopolitical costs of conquering the frontier. Only after the battle against the
gaucho had been won did Argentina succeed against the Indian. Economic
marginalization and government repression subdued the gaucho population
59
during the 1870s, paving the way for Roca's successful Indian offensive.
/154/Notes
A shorter version of this essay appeared under the title "'Civilization' Battles
'Barbarism': Argentine Frontier Strategies, 1516-1880," Inter-American Review of
Bibliography 39, no. 2 ( 1989): 177-94..
1. The broad outlines of this conflict for the nineteenth century may be
found in Richard W. Slatta, Gauchos and the Vanishing Frontier (Lincoln:
Univ. of Nebraska Press, 1983).
2. Roberto H. Marfany, Et indio en la colonizacin de Buenos Aires
(Buenos Aires, Argentina: Comisin Nacional de Cultura, 1940), 62-63, 6768; Madaline Wallace Nichols, The Spanish Horse of the Pampas,
American Anthropologist 41 (Jan. 1939): 119-29; Juan Carlos Walther, La
conquista del desierto, 2d ed. (Buenos Aires: Crculo Militar, 1964), 11819, 139. Walther's work, available in several editions, is the definitive study
of military actions on the Argentine Indian frontier. Also useful are Dionisio
Scho Lastra, El indio del desierto, 1535-1879 (Buenos Aires: Agencia

General, 1928); and F. J. McLynn, The Frontier Problem in Nineteenth

Century Argentina, History Today 30 (Jan. 1980): 28-32.
3. Alfred Tapson, Indian Warfare on the Pampa during the Colonial
Period, Hispanic American Historical Review 42 (Feb. 1962): 8-9; Alfred
Hasbrouck, The Conquest of the Desert Hispanic American Historical
Review 15 (May 1935): 205.
4. Walther, Conquista, 108-109, app. 1; Marfany, Indio en la colonizacin,
102.
5. Argentine Republic, Ejrcito, Comando en Jefe, Resea histrica y
orgnica del ejrcito argentino (Buenos Aires: Crculo Militar, 1972), 1:49;
Juan Mario Raone, Fortines del desierto (Buenos Aires: Lito, 1969), 35-65.
For a graphic description of privations at a fortn of the 1870s, see the
memoirs of Comdr. Manuel Prado, La guerra al maln, 6th ed. (Buenos
Aires: EUDEBA, 1970).
6. Argentine Republic, Resea histrica, 1:49-50; Walther, Conqqista, 102;
Argentine Republic, Ejrcito, Comando en Jefe, Poltica seguida con el
aborigen, 1750-1819 (Buenos Aires: Crculo Militar, 1973): 1:262; quoted in
Juan Carlos Vedoya et al., La campaa del desierto y la tecnificacin
ganadera (Buenos Aires: EUDEBA, 1879), 31-32; Walther, Conquista, 16061.
7. Marfany, Indio en la colonizacin,20-24, 48-49, 66.
8. Walther, Conquista, 89-93.
9. Tapson, "Indian Warfare,"6-8, 20-22; Hasbrouck, "Conquest,"203-204;
Walther Conquista, 72-73, 92; Marcos de Estrada, Apuntes sobre el
gaucho argentino (Buenos Aires: Ministerio de Cultura y Educacin, 1981),
14344; quotation from Thomas Jefferson Page La Plata, the Argentine
Confederation, and Paraguay (New York: Harper, 1859), 52-53.
10. Vedoya et al., La campaa del desierto, 15; Marfany, Indio en la
colonizacin, 54-56; Carlos Antonio Moncaut Reduccin jesutica del
Nuestra Seora de la Concepcin de los Pampas, /155/ la Concepcin de
los Pampas, 1740-1753 (Buenos Aires: Ministerio de Economa de la
Provincia de Buenos Aires, 1981), 11, 17, 87. See also Jorge Cabral,
Conferencias sobre las misiones jesuticas en el Ro de la Plata (Buenos
Aires: Peuser, 1934).
11. Argentine Republic, Poltica seguida, 1750-1819, 1:121; Ricardo
Rodrguez Molas, Historia social del gaucho ( Buenos Aires: Mar, 1968),
27, 66-70, 135; Vedoya et al., La campaa del desierto,17-18. See also
Roberto H. Marfany "El cuerpo de blandengues de la frontera de Buenos
Aires, 1752-1810," Humanidades 23 (1933): 313-73.

12. Kristine L. Jones, "Conflict and Adaptation in the Argentine Pampas,

1750-1880" (Ph.D. diss., Univ. of Chicago, 1984), 27; Tapson "Indian
Warfare," 13; Vedoya et al., La campaa del desierto, 18.
13. Vedoya et al., La campaa del desierto,18-19, 23-24; Kristine L. Jones,
"Conflict,"44-46, 69; 1738 quotation from Marfany, Indio en la
colonizacin,68-69; 1779 quotation from Tapson, "Indian Warfare," 21.
14. Azara, quoted in Tapson, "Indian Warfare," 25; Juan Beverina, El
virreinato del Ro de la Plata: Su organizacin militar (Buenos Aires:
Bernard, 1935), passim.
15. Tapson, "Indian Warfare," 26; Beverina, Virreinato del Ro de la Plata,
passim.
16. Estanislao S. Zeballos, La conquista del quince mil leguas, 2d ed.
(Buenos Aires: La Prensa, 1878), 338; figures from Clarn ( Buenos Aires),
June 11, 1979, cited in Kristine L. Jones, "Conflict," 188.
17. Decree of Aug. 30, 1815, "Gobierno," X 8-9-3, Archivo General de la
Nacin, Buenos Aires; Ataulfo Prez-Aznar, "La poltica tradicional y la
Argentina moderna," Revista de la Universidad, 20-21 (Jan. 1966-July
1967): 207-208; Walther, Conquista, 191-92.
18. Martn Rodrguez, Diario de la expedicin al desierto (Buenos Aires:
Sudestada, 1969), 55-78; Vedoya et al., La campaa del desierto, 52-57;
Osvaldo L. Fontana, Tandil en la historia (Tandil, Argentina: Parra, 1947),
unpag.; Argentine Republic, Ejrcito, Comando en Jefe, Poltica seguida
con el aborigen, 1820-1852 (Buenos Aires: Crculo Militar, 1974),
1:305483; see also Ramn Gorraiz Beloqu, Tandil a travs de un siglo
(1923; reprinted Buenos Aires: Matera, 1958).
19. John Lynch, Argentine Dictator: Juan Manuel de Rosas, 1829-1852
(Oxford, England: Clarendon, 1981), 35; Walther, Conquista,244-45.
20. Quoted in Lynch, Argentine Dictator, 52-53; Walther, Conquista,26566.
21. Juan Manuel de Rosas, Diario de la expedicin al desierto, 1833-1834
(Buenos Aires: Plus Ultra, 1965), 83-137; Argentine Republic, Poltica
seguida, 1820-1852, vol. 3, pt. 2, passim; Walther, Conquista,265-68, 27071, 280-82, 288-93, 331.
22. Walther, Conquista,326-28; Argentine Republic, Relacin de los
cristianos salvados del cautiverio por la Divisin Izquierda (1835; reprinted
Buenos Aires: Academia Nacional de la Historia, 1979); Kristine L. Jones,
"Conflict,"111-12; Vedoya et al., La campaa del desierto,61; Lynch, /156/
Argentine Dictator,53-56. On the retrogression of the frontier line, see the
maps in Jonathan C. Brown, A Socioeconomic History of Argentina, 17761860 (Cambridge, England: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1979), 126; and

Martin Surez, Atlas histrico militar argentino (Buenos Aires: Crculo

Militar, 1974), 322.
23. Juan Fugl, Abriendo surcos, trans. Lars Baekhoj, 2d ed. (Buenos Aires:
Altamira, 1973), 75-77; Augusto G. Rodrguez, Resea histrica del
ejrcito argentino, 1862-1930 (Buenos Aires: Secretaria de Guerra,
Repblica Argentina, 1964) 38; Manuel de Escalada "Prevenciones," 1855,
X 193-6, Archivo General de la Nacin, Buenos Aires; Ministerio de
Gobierno, Circular of May 29, 1855, 9-4-7, Archivo Histrico de la
Provincia de Buenos Aires "Ricardo Levene," La Plata, Argentina.
24. Nestor Toms Auza, El Ejrcito en la poca de la Confederacin,
1852-1861 (Buenos Aires: Cfrculo Militar, 1971), 166-75, 179, 181.
25. La reforma pacfica (Buenos Aires), Apr. 13-15 and 25, 1857; Walther,
Conquista,408, 538; Richard A. Seymour, Pioneering in the Pampas (
London: Longmans, Green, 1869), 52-53, 74-75, 150; Thomas J.
Hutchinson , The Paran (London: Edward Stanford, 1868), 216-17;
McLynn, "Frontier Problem,"29-31.
26. Walther, Conquista, 775-78; Estrada, Apuntes sobre el gaucho,70.
27. Vedoya et at., La campaa del desierto,157-58; Argentine Republic,
Resea histrica, 2:235; Walther, Conquista,491-93.
28. Jones, "Conflict,"234; Catriel treaty, reprinted in Nestor Toms Auza,
Documentos para la enseanza de la historia argentina, 1852-1890
(Buenos Aires: Pannedille, 1970), 1:145-46, 1:148-49; quoted in Julio
Anbal Portas , Maln contra maln: La solucin final del problema del
indio en la Argentina (Buenos Aires: La Flor, 1967), 9. This is one of the
few revisionist studies of Argentine frontier policy and is sharply critical of
Roca's "final solution."
29. Adolfo Alsina, La nueva lnea de fronteras, 1877, reprint (Buenos Aires:
EUDEBA, 1977), 13, 64-67, 291, 322, 334-35. Vedoya et al., La campaa
del desierto,158; diagram of ditch, p. 175. Alsina letter of Mar. 16, 1876,
reprinted in Walther, Conquista,792; Portas, Maln,17. See also the
memoirs of Alfredo Ebelot, Frontera sur, trans. Nina Dimentstein and Ecala
Dimentstein (Buenos Aires: Kraft, 1968); and Alfredo Ebelot's 1877 report
in Alsina Nueva lnea, 289-300.
30. Estanislao Zeballos, Callvucura y la dinasta de los piedra (1886;
reprint, Buenos Aires: Hachette, 1961), 166-67; Walther, Conquista, 49496.
31. Walther, Conquista, 489-91, 793.
32. Rosas and Barros quoted in Estrada, Apuntes sobre el gaucho, 73-74.

33. Walther, Conquista, 524-26, 551; Manuel J. Olascoaga, Estudio

topogrfico de la pampa y Ro Negro (1880), vol. 1 of Argentine Republic,
Ministerio de Guerra y Marina, La conquista del desierto, 4 vols. (Buenos
Aires: Arajo, 1939), 1:24, 1:40-41.
34. Walther, Conquista,561, 565, 580-81; Vedota et al., La campaa del
/157/ desierto, 164-66; Sociedad Rural Argentina, Tempos de epopeya,
1866-1966 (Buenos Aires: Sociedad Rural Argentina, 1966), 44-45;
quotation from Olascoaga, Estudio topogfico, 66; see also Richard O.
Perry, "The Argentine Frontier: The Conquest of the Desert, 1878- 1879"
(Ph.D. diss., Univ. of Georgia, 1971); Argentine Republic, Archivo General
de la Nacin, Campaa del desierto, 1878- 1884 ( Buenos Aires: Archivo
General de la Nacin, Buenos Aires, 1969).
35.
36. Rodrguez, Resea histrica, 65; Walther, Conquista, 642; Olascoaga,
Estudio topogrfico, 12; Enrique Gonzlez Lonzieme, La armada en la
conquista del desierto (Buenos Aires: Centro Naval, 1972), 81-112.
37. Olascoaga, Estudio topogrfico, 160-63, quotation from 69; Alsina,
Nueva lnea, 25-29, 369; John E. Hodge, "The Role of the Telegraph in the
Consolidation and Expansion of the Argentine Republic", Americas 41
(July 1984): 68-69, 72, 80; Hasbrouck, "Conquest", 217.
38. Juan E. Belza et al., La expedicin al desierto y los salesianos (Don
Bosco, Argentina: Ediciones Don Bosco, 1979), 206-209. See also Csar
Bustos Videla , "The 1879 Conquest of the Argentine 'Desert' and Its
Religious Aspects", Americas 21 (July 1964): 36-57.
39. Hasbrouck, "Conquest", 225-26; Lee Bruce Kress, " Julio A. Roca and
Argentina, 1880- 1886: A Political and Economic Study" (Ph.D. diss.,
Columbia Univ., 1972), 1-65; A. E Zimmerman, "The Land Policy of
Argentina, with Particular Reference to the Conquest of the Southern
Pampas", Hispanic American Historical Review 25 (Feb. 1945): 22-24;
McLynn, "Frontier Problem", 32.
40. Message reprinted in Auza, Documentos, 211; Alfredo M. Serres
Giraldes, La estrategia del General Roca (Buenos Aires: Pleamar, 1979),
377
41. Auza, Documentos, 212; La campaa (Buenos Aires), Apr. 25 and 29,
1883.
42. Auza, Documentos, 215-17; Portas, Maln, 91; see also Alberto D. H.
Scunio, La conquista del Chaco (Buenos Aires: Crculo Militar, 1971), esp.
257-341.
43. Murga to Mitre, July 28, 1855; and Ministry to Murga, Aug. 9, 1855,
Archivo General de la Nacin, Buenos Aires, X 19-3-3; Angel Hctor

Azeves, Ayacucho (Buenos Aires: Municipalidad de Ayacucho, 1868), 8387.

44. Circular, Apr. 1855, "Juez de Paz de Azul," 9-4-7, Archivo Histrico de
la Provincia de Buenos Aires "Ricardo Levene," La Plata, Argentina
45. Castro decree of Jan. 23, 1869, reprinted in Rodrguez Molas, Historia
social, 560-61.
46. On legal repression, see Richard W. Slatta, "Rural Criminality and
Social Conflict in Buenos Aires Province", Hispanic American Historical
Review 60 (Aug. 1980): 450-72; and Rodriguez Molas, Historia social, 4142, 75, 83-85, 102, 112-14.
47. Justice of the Peace of Matanzas to Ministry of Government, Buenos
/158/ Aires Province, Oct. 15, 1855, Document 997, Archivo General de la
Nacin, Buenos Aires, X 19-3-6; Anales de la Sociedad Rural Argentina 1
(Jan. 31, 1867): 139; Buenos Aires Province, Ministro de Gobierno,
Memoria, 1867, 156.
48. La tribuna (Buenos Aires), May 16, May 21, and Aug. 24, 1854;
Campos report, May 27, 1870, Archivo General de la Nacin, Buenos
Aires, X: 43-6-10.
49. Rivas quoted in Rodrfguez Molas, Historia social, 587-88; Alvaro
Barros, Fronteras y territorias de las pampas del sur, 1871-72, 2d ed.
(Buenos Aires: Hachette, 1975), 107; Jos Hernndez, The Gaucho Martn
Fierro: Adapted from the Spanish and Rendered into English Verse by
Walter Owen (Buenos Aires: Pampa, 1960), 40.
50. Carlos D'Amico, Siete aos en el gobierno de la provincia de Buenos
Aires (Buenos Aires: Peuser, 1895), 99; Robert Crawford, Across the
Pampas and the Andes (London: Longmans, Green, 1884), 115-16.
51. Barros, Fronteras, 107; Prado, La guerra, 54.
52. Buenos Aires Province, Deserter Decree, Sept. 3, 1855, Registro
oficial, 1855, 106-107; Zeballos, Conquista de quince mil leguas, 408;
"Wanted" posters (filiaciones), 1872, Archivo Histrico Municipal de Tandil.
53. La reforma (Mercedes, Argentina), Oct. 2-5, 1876; Buenos Aires
Herald, Oct. 8, 1876, and Mar. 15, 1877.
54. Hodges, "Role of the Telegraph", 67-68, 80; Raymond H. Pulley, "The
Railroad and Argentine National Development, 1852- 1914", Americas 23
(July 1966): 69; see also Winthrop Wright, British-Owned Railways in
Argentina (Austin: Univ. of Texas Press, 1974).
55. Col. Conrado Villegas, General Orders, Oct. 1, 1876, Trenque Laquen,
reprinted in Walther, Conquista, 797-99.

56. Slatta, Gauchos, 25-28, 118; Estrada, Apuntes sobre el gaucho, 155.
57. Slatta, Gauchos, 43-45; quotation from Walther, Conquista, 798;
Portas, Maln, 58-60.
58. Brian Loveman, Chile: The Legacy of Hispanic Capitalism (New York:
Oxford Univ. Press, 1979), 112; Harold A. Innic, The Fur Trade in Canada,
rev. ed. (Toronto: Univ. of Toronto, 1956), 16-20.
59. The phrase quoted is from Robert M. Utley, The Indian Frontier of the
American West, 1846- 1890 (Albuquerque: Univ. of New Mexico Press,
1984), 71. See also ibid., 132, 155, 208-11, 268-70; Brian W. Dippie, The
Vanishing American (Middleton, Conn.: Wesleyan Univ. Press, 1982), 10721; Francis Paul Prucha, ed., Americanizing the Indian (Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard Univ. Press, 1973); and Francis Paul Prucha, Indian Policy in the
United States (Lincoln: Univ. of Nebraska Press, 1981), 242-62. For a
perceptive interpretation of frontier conflict, see Silvio Duncan Baretta and
John Markoff, "Civilization and Barbarism: Cattle Frontiers in Latin
America", Comparative Studies in Society and History 20 (Oct. 1878): 587620; and Kristine L. Jones, "Conflict", passim.
60. W. R. Jones, "The Image of the Barbarian in Medieval Europe",
Comparative Studies in Society and History /159/ tive Studies in Society
and History 13, no. 4 ( Oct. 1971): 376-87, 405; Romila Thaper, "The
Image of Barbarism in Early India", Comparative Studies in Society and
History 13, no. 4 (Oct. 1971): 408-10; Cornelius J. Jaenen, "Les sauvages
ameriquains': Persistence into the Eighteenth Century of Traditional French
Concepts and Constraints for Comprehending Amerindians", Ethnohistory
29, no. 1 (1982): 46-48. The literature on Indian-white relations in the U.S.
includes major studies by Roy Harvey Pearce, The Savages of America (
Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1953, rev. ed. 1965); Francis
Jennings, The Invasion of America (Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina
Press, 1975); Robert E Berkhofer Jr., The White Man's Indian (New York:
Knopf, 1978); Dippie, Vanishing American; and Utley, Indian Frontier.
Curiously, the Indian remains virtually invisible in Argentine scholarship.