Rosas' Gunsmith
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| Friedrich Nell (1819-1894) |
Friedrich Nell was born in Baden-Baden, Germany in 1819. He was a man of great drive and aspirations who, after traveling throughout Germany in the early 1800s, settled in Buenos Aires before 1850.
Nell met the Indians in the area of large ranches of the time, in the vicinity of Dolores (Province of Buenos Aires). Later he moved to San Luis, working in the La Carolina gold mine; He settled in San Luis (Capital) and finally lived in Mendoza, in Alto Verde, near San Martín, where he died in 1894.
Despite not having been a professional – says Puntano geologist Lucero Michaut – he instilled in his children an interest in the German and French languages and in the positive sciences. He had Catholic religious convictions and always despised everything superstitious and lacking logical explanation. He was a man of great personal courage, forming what could be defined as a “guts gringo”, one of those who contributed to forming countries.”
Friedrich Nell arrived in the country around 1846 or 1847. He married in October 1850 in Buenos Aires María Theodore Elisabeth Polte, a German from Hannover, born in 1820, all the witnesses to their marriage being also German, which indicates that at the time There was already an appreciable flow of spontaneous German immigration, without counting men of science who arrived shortly after, from the hierarchy of Germán Burmeister, a true scholar in matters of natural sciences, organizer of the Argentine Museum of Natural Sciences “Bernardino Rivadavia”, and in whose In honor, an Argentine mosquito (Chunga burmeistari), whose popular name is chuña, has been named.
His daughter, Basilia Nell, born in Dolores, Province of Buenos Aires, was the wife of Dr. Adolphe Joseph Michaut, a prestigious French doctor who in 1866 was hired by the Ministry of War and Navy to provide services in the War of the Paraguay.
The informative material provided by Dr. Lucero Michaut includes the Memoirs of Don Carlos Michaut Nell (1) about his maternal grandparents, Friedrich Nell and María Polte, according to the stories he heard in his childhood from their mouths, in family wheel
German Gunsmith in Rosas Service
In the interesting “Memories” it is related that the Nell-Polte couple had an Artistic Blacksmithing Workshop in which spears, sabers and other weapons such as rifles were forged, to supply the cavalry militias called “Los Colorados de Rosas”.
“My grandfather Federico narrated – says Carlos Michaut Nell – that Rosas himself once personally appeared in his workshop, who, after carefully observing the entire existence of weapons prepared and in preparation, left without speaking to anyone.
Both Don Federico and his wife María E. Polte were supporters and sympathizers of Rosas and therefore federalists by conviction and both permanently used the federal currency; The same, which consisted of a wide red ribbon, was worn on the hat by my grandfather and on the “chapeca” that hung on his back, by my grandmother.
Despite this, both the workshop and the house were visited very often by the leaders of La Mazorca, generally by Commander Ciriaco Cuitiño and Andrés Parra, in search of possible Unitarian refugees, who were persecuted to the death. What happened was that La Mazorca systematically distrusted them due to the fact that they were “gringos”, as Cuitiño himself told them in those reviews in which they investigated even the basements.
Don Federico remembered that Cuitiño once showed up with his police group of gauchos with red chiripá and pony boots; Cuitiño was in his shirt sleeves and his right arm was completely stained with the blood of a Unitarian that he had just personally beheaded.
Shortly afterwards, on a date that I cannot specify but which evidently had to be before Caseros, my grandparents decided to sell the workshop and move to the countryside of the province of Buenos Aires, excited to start raising sheep; Thus, they settled in a ranch in the Dolores District, belonging to a rich family with the last name Cisneros; On that ranch my late mother Doña Basilia Nell was born (1858) (who would later marry my father Joseph Adolph Michaut in 1880, in Paso Grande, San Luis).
The Cisneros couple became attached to my grandfather Federico's family and asked my grandmother to name the newborn Basilia and that they were going to be her godparents; Likewise, Mr. Cisneros ordered his butler that every calf that was born male be designated in the name of his “daughter” Basilia. I don't know what purpose that promise had, because on my mother's birth certificate a German Goldschmidt and another person with the last name Adaro, both from Dolores, appear as godfather.
My grandfather said that on two occasions they owed their lives to the punzón currency that they still used permanently while they worked on the aforementioned Cisneros ranch. My grandparents lived in a part of that large ranch, which had been assigned to them, and in which they busily dedicated themselves to raising a huge flock of sheep, for which they occupied an old ranch whose doors were barred shut at night out of fear. to the banditry that at that time devastated the entire national territory.
On two occasions with a very similar development, they were presented with two malones of “pampas Indians”, who upon seeing them wearing the punzón badge did not attack them, since the Indians of that time adored Juan Manuel de Rosas; In fact, the chief shouted to the Indians: “Christian being a federal, not killing, not killing and not stealing, brother, giving capons,” and my grandfather with his blunderbuss on his belt answered them, imitating the Indians' way of expressing themselves: “yes.” , brothers, all grabbing capons, “and there began the mass slaughter until the savages were fed up, after which they withdrew at dawn, keeping their word not to harm them or steal anything from them. While my grandfather had attended to them kindly, trying not to provoke her anger, my grandmother, in desperation, was walking around with a bottle of gin and a jug serving the drink to the chief and her captain, who were very respectful towards her.
The Indians considered Rosas as a kind of ally against the Unitarians, whom they evidently hated with a prevention possibly fueled by him. These malones, upon returning inland, systematically devastated the large ranches belonging to the Unitarians.”
The Three Friedrich Nell Stakes
“About his stay at the ranch, my grandfather always recounted in family gatherings the memory of three mishaps that happened to him there.
One Sunday, my grandfather, like many other residents of that vast countryside, went to a “pulpería” to entertain himself with horse races and card games, on which occasion he had an altercation with one of the gauchos present, whom he stabbed. a strong fist blow; His immediate response was a stab in the lower abdomen. The shopkeeper had him transported to his house where upon entering he simply said “Maria, give me a glass of wine, they have stabbed me, damn it!” The local healers cured him with weed poultices. The word “fuck” was permanently in my grandfather's mouth; He evidently found it very expressive and used it to underline the end of any sentence.
On another occasion - Don Federico said - he was riding his horse along those deserted roads of the region, with the aim of visiting a friend, when suddenly he encountered a group of four semi-wild gauchos who, after making him get off his horse and When they hit him, they told him: “We just killed a gringo and now we are going to kill you.” While some of the assailants pressed him to the ground, another sharpened his knife on a stick at the same time he told him. "I'm going to cut your throat." Then, at the right moment, like a miracle from God, they saw a horseman approaching the great race, before which the bandits released him and mounted their pingos and fled. I say that this happened at the right moment, because one of the savages had my grandfather pulling him by the black beard he wore, or "pear" as it was called, to proceed with the slaughter, while he told them: "Cut quickly, damn it." ”, according to his custom of expressing himself. The person who had arrived so opportunely was a friend of his, very dear and linked to the family by ties of sponsorship that were taken so seriously at that time; This man, like many others in the area, was a very decent gaucho who had assimilated quite a bit of civilization.
On another occasion, while Don Federico was in the same grocery store mentioned, he heard from the locals that nearby there was a place where at night no one dared to walk without being the subject of terrible "scares" or serious accidents. Since my grandfather always used to say that he never knew what fear of anything or anyone was, he assured everyone present that he “planned to go that same night, damn it.” He did so and that night, mounted on his regal pingo, with the faith that he was as good a rider as the best of the gauchos, he went to the aforementioned place in order to personally find out what was true in that mystery that He had terrified the gauchaje of the area, no matter how brave some of them were. Arriving at the place after midnight, he noticed that his horse reared up asking for rein and more rein until suddenly, he received a terrible blow or slap in the face that knocked him off his horse; He fell to the ground with the reins in his hand, which prevented the horse from fleeing, leaving him on foot. Next, Don Federico says, he resolutely shouted: “Hit me again, damn it,” but from then on everything was silent, so he decided to return home, not scared as he said, but very worried about what had happened and because he had not been able to unravel the mistery".
Gold Rush in La Carolina (San Luis)
“Around 1860 (when my mother Basilia was two years old) attracted by the “gold fever” sparked by the discovery of the then rich gold deposits in the “La Carolina-Cañada Honda” area of the province of San Luis , my grandfather decided to leave the Buenos Aires countryside and move with the whole family to the aforementioned place, where the precious metal was extracted both from the sands of the rivers by washing with carob plates, and from quartz veins that carried the same.
Apparently, there he met the Swiss Emile Ruttimann and they worked together for some time. My grandfather and his family stayed in the precarious camp of an abandoned mine long ago and he dedicated himself with all his might to the new task; Unfortunately, and according to their own expressions, the vein developed from top to bottom, requiring the extraction of the metal at increasingly greater depths that came up against the flooding of the works due to the water circulating in fissures in the rock. He finally had to leave the company after heavy financial losses. This situation forced him to move to the capital of the Province (San Luis) where, based on the knowledge acquired about the aforementioned metal, he set up a jewelry business, which allowed him a certain economic recovery.
The stay of the Nell family in the capital of San Luis must have been quite long, since their five children began to go to school and four of them (the three girls and one of the boys) got married there. The three women, Basilia (married in Paso Grande, San Luis, to Dr. Joseph Adolphe Michaut in 1880), Juana (married to Becerra) and María (married to Romanella) were the only blondes who attended the College, so They were called by their companions “the three Marys”; Another of the sons, Pedro, also got married in San Luis and as for the remaining one, Juan, when the whole family moved to their last home (always in that east-west migration so common among foreigners who enter the country ) in San Martín-Buen Orden, Mendoza, he went to Chile where he married, giving rise to a large family; I remember seeing my mother Basilia cry bitterly when she received the news from Chile of the death of her brother Juan de ella, and later after a strong earthquake that occurred in that country, she lost until now all contact with that family branch ; This happened around 1895 or 1896, if I remember correctly.
Once the Nell family (Don Federico, his wife María Theodore E. Polte and the then only unmarried son Juan) moved to Mendoza, my grandfather opened an Artistic Blacksmith Workshop again in a place in the San Martín Department called Alto Salvador; The Michaut-Nell couple, that is, my parents, had already lived in San Martín since 1884, where I was born the following year. Shortly after, we went to live in Alto Alegre, where I remember that grandparents Federico and María Nell visited us very often.
From that time of my childhood so full of pleasant memories due to the almost constant presence of my grandparents and their very interesting stories, I remember very clearly that I once saw him arrive for a visit (I was about 7 years old, so it may have been because 1892) on horseback on his superb dark pingo malacara at full gallop and he made it streak across the patio at the foot of the gallery with his mastery as an accomplished rider, at the same time that his white “perita” (beard) flew over the shoulder; My grandfather would have been around 73 years old at that time.
In his conversations he used to repeat with good Spanish diction, although still with a bit of a German accent, “I'm going to die working, damn it!” And so it was indeed; One day he was working in his Workshop, when he was already 75 years old (in 1894, I think) striking a hot iron, when he suddenly fell on his back, dead of cardiac syncope, with a hot iron held in a clamp in one hand. , and the hammer in the other.
My grandfather Federico was buried in the Buen Orden Cemetery (San Martín), but since at that time there were no permanent niches but rather he was buried directly in the ground, his remains have been lost and it has not been possible to locate the exact place of his burial. his grave; On the other hand, my grandmother María T. E. Polte de Nell, who died in 1904, is currently in a niche in perpetuity, very close to the Pantheon of Dr. Michaut (her son-in-law).
They are descendants of the primitive Nell-Polte branch (my maternal grandparents) the Michaut-Gatica (Buenos Aires and Córdoba), the Lucero-Michaut (Mercedes-San Luis-Córdoba), the Michaut-Ríos-Gutiérrez (San Martín-Mendoza) , all of whom are linked to my mother Basilia Nell de Michaut (1858-1941); From the branch of María Nell de Romanella, among others, the Musset-Romanella (Buenos Aires) descend, from that of Juana Nell de Becerra, there are the Iturralde-Becerra (Buenos Aires); From Pedro, also son of Don Federico, the Barraza-Nells who live in Córdoba descend; As for the descendants of
Reference
(1) Son of the Dr. Joseph Adolphe Michaut and Basilia Nell Polte marriage.
Sources
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Benarós, León – Francisco Nell: Alemán, armero de Rosas y un “gringo de Agallas”.
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Efemérides – Patricios de Vuelta de Obligado
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Michaut Nell, Carlos – “Memorias” – Villa Mercedes, San Luis (1977)
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Portal www.revisionistas.com.ar
Todo es Historia – Año XI, Nº 130, Buenos Aires (1878)
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