Huarpe Archives in the Argentine Desert

Indigenous Claims and State Construction in Nineteenth-Century Mendoza

Bibliographic Data

ID2808871
AuthorsDiego Escolar (0000-0002-3603-6887, University of Mendoza, corresponding author)
Year2013
Volume93
Issue3
Pages451-486
Publication date2013-08-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueHispanic American Historical Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0018-2168 • E-ISSN: 1527-1900
PublisherDuke University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1215/00182168-2210867
OpenAlexW2028464400
LanguageEN
Citations received6
References cited1

The narrative of indigenous extinction and the construction of a "white" Argentina entailed an ethnogeographic imaginary by which the territories of the former Spanish colonies were inhabited since the nineteenth century by gauchos or eventually peasants. The population classified as indigenous, in this view, was projected outside the central areas controlled by the nation-state, beyond the frontiers of the Pampas, Patagonia, and the Chaco. Historical writing accepted and contributed to the formation of this image by characterizing the political mobilization of gauchos or peasants (especially in their bellicosity as montoneras - irregular militia units) as a natural reflection of the projects of elites, factions, patrons, or parties. That historiography dismissed as irrelevant any demands stemming from the gauchos and peasantry themselves, such as those based on the long historical experience of indigenous peoples. Based on documents preserved by inhabitants of the travesía, or the desert, of Guanacache, in the central Cuyo region, the descendants of the Huarpe Indians who were considered extinct in the seventeenth century, this analysis stresses the continuity of indigenous claims and the political strategies of the communities of the countryside during the nineteenth century. While recognizing that other factors were involved in political mobilization, this analysis shows the primary importance of indigenous claims in an area of traditional montonero rebellion and civil conflict, and the active participation of the region in the construction of the state beginning in the 1820s. Indigenous leaders who also served as government officials pressed for institutionalized recognition of indigenous rights. That pressure eventually led to the acceptance of their claims and the maintenance of relative political autonomy until the 1870s

Art · Desert (philosophy · Ethnology · Geography · Government (linguistics · Historiography · Indigenous · Narrative · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Population · Sociology · State (computer science · The Imaginary · Argentine historical studies · Demography · History · History and Politics in Latin America · Indigenous Cultures and History · Law

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