What was the Conquest of the Desert in Argentina?

The Conquest of the Desert

La «Conquista del Desierto»

1878–1885. Between 1878 and 1885 the Argentine army campaigned against the Indigenous peoples of the pampas and northern Patagonia, Mapuche, Ranquel and Tehuelche, who…

Draft: not yet checked against its sources.

Where: Río de la Plata, Argentina

What happened

Between 1878 and 1885 the Argentine army campaigned against the Indigenous peoples of the pampas and northern Patagonia, Mapuche, Ranquel and Tehuelche, who had held those lands for centuries and raided the frontier estancias for cattle. The best-known campaign, in 1879, was led by the war minister Julio A. Roca, who reached the Río Negro and later became president. The state called the region 'desert', though it was inhabited; thousands were killed, and prisoners, including women and children, were deported, sent to Buenos Aires as servants or confined in missions. Official history long celebrated the campaigns as the founding of the modern nation; today many historians, and Mapuche organisations, call them a genocide, and the figures of the dead are disputed.

Say it

Entre 1878 y 1885 el ejército argentino ocupó las tierras de los pueblos mapuche y tehuelche.

Between 1878 and 1885 the Argentine army occupied the lands of the Mapuche and Tehuelche peoples.

Why it matters

The campaigns made the pampas available for the beef and wheat that paid for Argentina's golden age and for mass immigration, and they are the reason the country's Indigenous peoples are so few. The argument over Roca's statues is an argument about what Argentina is.

Read about it

• La Conquista del Desierto — The Conquest of the Desert
• Martín Fierro — Martín Fierro
• La Patagonia — Patagonia

Connected

• The Caste War of Yucatán (July 1847–1901)
• The Porfiriato: order, progress and inequality (1876–May 1911)
• The War of the Pacific (February 1879–April 1884)
• Mass migration from Europe to the Río de la Plata (1880–1930)
• Mass migration from Europe to the Río de la Plata (1880–1930)
• The dictatorship and the Madres de Plaza de Mayo (30 April 1977–10 December 1983)
• The dictatorship and the Madres de Plaza de Mayo (30 April 1977–10 December 1983)

• Before: Lunfardo: the words of immigrant Buenos Aires
• After: Perón, Evita and the birth of Peronism

Sources

1. La «Conquista del Desierto» desde perspectivas hegemónicas y subalternas — Claudia Briones and Walter Delrio, Runa XXVII (2007), Universidad de Buenos Aires