Argentine conquest of the Gran Chaco: a recent genocide

D,Anton

After the establishment of the South American states, particularly Argentina and Paraguay, they succeeded the Spanish and Portuguese in their campaigns to control the Gran Chaco.

However, despite all attempts, in the early 1870s, the Chaco was still in the hands of the native nations.

The Argentine government started its campaign to conquer the territories of the Chaco nations south of the Pilcomayo in 1870 with raids under Lieutenant Colonel Manuel Obligado and Commander Luis Jorge Fontanai.

The government's stated purpose was to obtain new land for colonization and supposedly "civilizing the Indians."

The conquest was completed in 1884 by General Benjamin Victorica campaign, orchestrated in a similar manner to the one that had allowed the invasion of the Mapuche nation and pampa just five years earlier.

The tactics used by the Argentine armed forces against the Chaco warriors were not exclusively military. There are references of old settlers of Formosa, reported by Pierre Clastres and Alfred Metraux that "the Argentine army gave “generously” to native communities, clothes, sheets, blankets and mattresses used in hospitals in large cities in Argentina, for the sick with smallpox and other diseases, for which it is known that the indigenous population is very weak. An inexpensive way to germ warfare."

It should be noted that at that time the president of the Argentine republic was Julio Argentino Roca, the same general who had commanded the campaign of conquest in the south.

According to General Victorica major military targets were obtained by establishing "a military line through a chain of forts defending a rich territory of more than six thousand leagues, and that will require 15 or 20,000 male labourers, which were useless, abandoned to barbarism and robbery, to surrender to the benefits of civilization ".

Victorica continued:

"I think it will be helpful to the civilization of these tribes to promote contact with the colonies of the coast, where they will soon find work benefiting the industries that develop there. No doubt that these tribes will provide cheap labor for the sugar industry and wood mills as do some in the farms of Salta and Jujuy, but also it is considered essential to adopt an adequate system to place them permanently at convenient points, where they must occupy land with their families in order to go slowly changing their habits and civilize "iv

Chaco peoples organized by the Toba leader Juanelrai opposed facing the Argentine invasion army commanded by Captain Villanueva in the battle of t Napalpí in July 11, 1873.

The toba montoneras fought with spears, clubs and bolas against a well-armed enemy. Gradually the fight was becoming untenable for the Chaco fighters who had to withdraw in defeat leaving many corpses on the battlefield.

From the book "Ghosts of Memory". Danilo Anton, Pirigiazu Ediciones

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