Mapu: a native nation destroyed by the criollo states of Argentina and Chile

The Confederation of Salinas Grandes was a true state, from its capital toldería, Kalfukurá directed the affairs of the great puelche multi-ethnic nation. In the vast plains and in the mountains several tens of thousands of people lived, grazing their cattle,

land or hunting guanacos and ñandúes, trading, and leading a peaceful and prosperous existence. There were Mapuche, Pehuenche, Ranquelche, Tehuelche, Vorogano and even some Winka communities who had preferred the world of toldería to the false and false society of the Creole cities.

It was the case of Manuel Baigorria, former colonel of the army of José María Paz, who had gone to live among the ranqueles. Baigorria, who was an ally of Kalfukurá, became an important rancho lonco, who, outraged by the aggressions of the Christians, attacked the city of Córdoba and the west of Buenos Aires.

Twenty years after the fall of Rosas, in 1872, already constituted the Argentine Republic, and in full Sarmientino period, there was the feared wink of the winkas that in the official story is known as the Battle of San Carlos, and that soon time, it would end with the death of the old toqui from the pampas.

His son, Namunkura, would continue the resistance for several more years.

The central authorities, represented by the new president Nicolás Avellaneda and his Ministers of War Adolfo Alsina and Julio Argentino Roca, and the English pressure for the colonization and extension of the railroads, led to plan a strategy of destruction and occupation of the confederate country.

In 1876, Alsina ordered the advance of five divisions on the "Tierra Adentro" establishing a line of towns and forts (Carhué, Guaminí, Puán, Trenque-Lauquen and Ita-ló), and a 374 km-long ditch between Carhué and Laguna del Monte.

In 1877 and 1878 the indigenous communities were weakened by hunger and continued aggression by the armed forces of the Winkas.

It was at that moment that the final thrust occurred. The army headed by Julio Argentino Roca, more and more numerous, and now armed with the powerful Remington rifle, unleashed all its strength against the nations of the south. The campaign, which lasted just over a year, allowed to completely defeat the Confederate peoples and to occupy your land permanently.

According to the Report of the Department of War and Navy of 1879, the results of the campaign were as follows: "5 chief caciques prisoners, 1 dead chief cacique (Baigorrita), 1,271 Indians with spear prisoners, 1,313 Indians with spear dead, 10,513 women and children, 1,049 Indians reduced".

In 1882 a new campaign managed to expand the border to all Neuquén, 364 indigenous people had been killed and more than 1700 taken prisoner.

On May 5, 1883, General Villegas reported: "In the territory between the Neuquén, Limay, Cordillera de los Andes and Lago Nahuel Huapi rivers; There has not been a single Indian, all have been thrown to the West ... South of the Limay River, remains of the savage remains of the tribe of Cacique Sayhueque, fleeing, poor, miserable and without prestige.

In 1884 General Wintter decided to annihilate Sayhueque and Inacayal.

Hungry and exhausted, Namuncurá had already been forced to surrender with 330 warriors.

The last Loncos of the Puelmapu, gathered in assembly, tried to organize a desperate defense with the commitment to fight until death.

In an unsustainable situation of cornecution, Sayhueque surrendered on January 1, 1885 with more than 3000 men.

Some loncos continued the fight. A large number of warriors died in combat and the others faced the invaders in a last battle on October 18, 1884.

There were more dead and the two loncos survivors, Inacayal and Foyel were taken prisoner.

In 1886, both leaders were taken, along with the remains of their families to live at the Museo de la Plata where they were exposed to the curious public as captive pieces of the triumphant "civilization".

"When Calfucurá died in 1873, his friends together, full of fear, opened his body. They found two hearts that kept beating happily, that could not die and that surely beat under the earth, full of life and eternal forces and that, maybe for that reason, the earth trembles sometimes ... the hearts keep beating under the earth to return to the aid of the Araucanians, to lead us to the final victory "(Tradiciones araucanas, Institute of Philology, Faculty of Humanities, UNLP, 1962, p 239)