The elimination of the native nations in the south of América

The Confederation of Salinas Grandes was a true state, from its "toldería" capital, Kalfukurá directed the affairs of the great puelche multi-ethnic nation. 
In the vast plains and in the mountains there were several tens of thousands of people lived, grazing their cattle, tilling the land or hunting guanacos and rheas, 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 tolderías 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  lonco winka, 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.

Kalfukura's 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 occupy their land permanently.

According to the Report of the Department of War and Navy of 1879, the results of the campaign were as follows:

"caciques 5 main prisoners, 1 dead chief cacique (Baigorrita), 1,271 ffighter Indians prisoners, 1,313 fighterIndians dead, 10,513 tribe Indians prisoners, 1,049 Indians reduced."

In 1882 a new campaign managed to expand the border to all of Neuquén,

364 indigenous people were killed and more than 1700 were 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 River Limay, 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 remaining ones faced the invaders in a last battle on October 18, 1884.

In that wary,  the consolidation of the Republic of Argentina in the south of the continent was achieved.
From "Chronicles of Human Peripecie", D.Anton, Piriguazu Ediciones.

Expansionism of Argentina and British occupation ot Falkland Islands (Malvinas)

Danilo Anton
In 1833 when Britain occupied the Falkland Islands (Malvinas) Argentina did not exist  (it was only formally established in 1853 and effectively after the battle of Pavón in 1861). The Spanish Viceroyalty of Rio de la Plata (from where allegedly Spain exercised its sovereignty over the islands) had been dismantled. The Governorates of Paraguay and Montevideo had become independent countries. The remaining provinces had become a poorly consolidated confederation called "United Provinces of the Río de la Plata". The territory of this confederation stretche3d a few kilometers South of the Sierra de Tandil due to the campaign of Juan Manuel de Rosas. The valleys of the Colorado and Black rivers were territory of the Mapuche people who were politically organized in the Confederation of Salinas Grandes whose leader was Kalfukura.  Further South Patagonia was populated by several native nations: Tehuelches, Onas, Alakaluf and Yagan.

The invasion of the Mapuche country around 1880 was coordinated by the governments of Argentina and Chile. The result of the war (misnamed war desert) was the occupation of the lands of the Confederation, through death, imprisonment or displacement of the native population. The result of the campaign was more than a thousand mapuche dead, ten thousand prisoners and the expulsion of mapuches to peripheral lands. At that time (1885) when Patagonia was occupied by Argentina the United Kingdom controlled the Falkland Islands more than 50 years earlier. The proximity of the Patagonian coast is used as an argument to justify Argentinean sovereignty over the islands.

The expansion of Argentina towards the Chaco occurred later. Toba, Mocoví, Pilagás and Wichí resisted the invarion forcing Argentina to militarily occupy the Chaco territory. In the war between the Argentinean government and the Chaco indigenous peoples several hundred native people died, and many more were taken prisoner or displaced. The Chaco War lasted until the 1910s.
Paraguay War allowed Argentina to expand northwards to occupy the present province of Formosa (territories between the Bermejo and Pilcomayo rivers) in 1871.

In conclusion the history of Argentina has been a succession of military conquests, either seizing indigenous land or taking advantage of a military victory (against Paraguay).
Argentine arguments to justify its rights over the Malvinas are based solely on their political, economic or military power. Because the current occupying power (the UK) is presently more powerful than Argentina changes are not foresseable in the near future.
All this does not mean that the UK has rights over the islands. It does not have it. Their possession is also based on their political and military force. However for the Falklanders the situation is very different. They have lived in   their island country for several generations. Their fate will be similar to many other micro-nations not having enough population to attain effective independence. However, because they have the principal rights it's absolutely necessary to consider their views before defining their future destiny.

Argentinian founding father recast as genocidal murderer

It was NOT the War of the Desert (La Guerra del Desierto)

The so-called "War of the Desert" was not a war in the "desert". At that time (around 1880) in Northern Patagonia and Southern Pampas, there were many organized communities and a population of several hundred thousands from coast to coast (Atlantic to Pacific oceans). and even a sovereign mapuche state recognized by several governments in the world: "la Confederación de Salinas Grande" (Confederation of Large Salt Plains). The "Confederación" was invaded, the Argentinean army (and the Chilean army on the other side of the Andes range also) took the land and thousands of mapuches were killed or made prisoners. In that way, using indiscriminated violence, the Argentinean government extended its domain to the "Patagonia" region. 

Follows an interesting article from The Guardian.

D.Anton

"Julio Argentino Roca being removed from banknotes and street names for alleged role in exterminating indigenous culture 

Reproduced from The Guardian

For a century it was a name to inspire schoolchildren: Julio Argentino Roca, the military hero and statesman who tamed Patagonia's wilderness and madeArgentina a modern nation.

He was George Washington and Abraham Lincoln rolled into one, a founding father who gazed from banknotes, adorned plinths and

gave his name to avenues from Buenos Aires to Santa Cruz.

But maybe not for much longer. Avenues are being renamed and there is a campaign to topple the former president's statues, erase him from banknotes and teach children a new version: that Roca was a genocidal murderer who brought shame to Argentina.

The man portrayed for generations as a talented visionary has been recast, according to revisionist history, as a villain who exterminated indigenous communities and their culture from much of South America.

Critics say his "conquest of the desert", once hailed for uniting Argentina and rebuffing Chile in 1878-79, was a barbaric campaign which bathed the nascent state in innocent blood.

Writers, academics and indigenous groups are lobbying for Roca, an army general who served as president from 1880-86 and 1898-1904, to be branded a criminal who slaughtered Indians and shared out their land with cronies.

In recent weeks, two cities – Santa Cruz and Tucumán – have renamed Julio Argentino Roca avenues after Néstor Kirchner, a former president who died in October aged 60. His wife and successor, Cristina, has supported the prosecution of more recent human rights abusers from the 1970s dictatorship.

The renamings followed other initiatives to remove Roca from the 100 peso note and to swap a statue in Buenos Aires with a towering 10-metre bronze figure of an indigenous woman. A leading writer and historian, Osvaldo Bayer, said he felt ashamed every time he passed Roca's statue.

Leftwing blogs have taken up the cause. "A big sector of Argentinian society denies there was a genocide. Modern Argentina is built on that negation, the mother of all repressions."

The row echoes debates across Latin America over whether to celebrate or lament the arrival of Christopher Columbus and European settlers. Several countries have renamed 12 October as indigenous day rather than Columbus day and rehabilitated indigenous rebels as patriots.

Roca, born in 1843 to a prominent family in northern Argentina, rose up the army ranks and was tasked with quelling indigenous resistance in the pampas and Patagonia, a vast wilderness which the government wanted to settle with immigrant European farmers lest Chile gobble it up.

Roca's 6,000-strong cavalry force crushed Mapuche and other Indian groups, killing more than 1,000 and capturing thousands more who became servants or prisoners and were prevented from having children. Campaign dispatches depicted them as barely human.

White settlers turned the conquered lands into a breadbasket which made Argentina an agricultural superpower and a confident, thrusting nation in the early 20th century.

Some academics have defended Roca's treatment of indigenous people. Juan José Cresto, a director of the national history museum, said the Indians were violent parasites who attacked farms and kidnapped women. The historian was branded a racist and lost his post.

In a separate incident, a history teacher was removed from her post in Pampa province for telling a radio station that Roca deserved praise for putting Indians to flight and opening Argentina's frontier to European settlers.

Néstor Torres, the province's education minister, said such views should not be transmitted to children. "The thought worries us."

 The Guardian, Rory  Carroll, January 13, 2011

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jan/13/argentinian-founding-father-genocide-row
It is recommended to read the book "Amerrique, the Orphans of Paradise", Danilo Anton, Piriguazu ediciones.

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

daniloanton.blogspot.com