General Roca cancellation: A huge historical mistake
By Roberto Ferrero.An article for controversy. Roberto Ferrero, another historical exponent of the Socialism of the National Left, presents us in this article with the vision and political position that the SIN historically had before Roquism. Pure historical materialism to defend national unification and lay the institutional foundations for the configuration of the country as we know it today. The death of no one is justified, the causes of the need to unify Patagonia to the National State against the imperialist threat coming from Chile are exposed.
Let's place these matters on the agenda, engage in open discussions, and use the resulting conclusions as a foundation for the ongoing reconstruction of our esteemed Latin American Nation. Such is the essence of this message.
Marcos D. Vega -
Author: Roberto A. Ferrero, Former President of the Junta Provincial de Historia of Córdoba
To my considerable surprise, I recently learned about the endeavor to remove General Julio A. Roca's name from the boulevard bearing his name in our city. I believe this decision is a significant error, possibly driven by a well-intentioned and compassionate concern for the plight of our indigenous populations. However, I find that the primary arguments in favor of this change lack substantial support.
These arguments, championed by the Argentine-German author Osvaldo Bayer – who openly advocates for Patagonia's separation from the rest of our country to establish an independent nation – essentially rest on two points. Both of these points, however, are as ahistorical and contextually flawed as each other. The more assertive of the two seeks to label General Roca as a "genocidal figure." Nevertheless, I consider this claim to be both semantically and politically frivolous. What is genocide, after all? It is the intentional extermination of an ethnic or social group solely because of their identity, typically perpetrated against people who are defenseless. For instance, the Turks brutally killed one and a half million Armenians, but they didn't harm any of their own. That is a true instance of genocide. Similarly, the Nazis annihilated six million Jews without persecuting or killing a single German. This, too, constitutes genocide.
But the case of Roca and the Conquest of the Desert is totally different. It was not a genocide, but the culmination of a very long war, in which the indigenous had, between 1820 and 1882 -according to the detailed inventory of the indigenous historian Martínez Zarazola- 7,598 casualties, but at the same time caused the death of 3,200 Creole (fortineros or fort soldiers), small owners, travelers, landowners, women, authorities, children...) In the so-called "Great Invasion" of Calfucurá in the province of Buenos Aires at the end of 1875, only in Azul the malón (Indian raid) murdered 400 residents, captivated 500 and seized 300,000 animals that, as always, were sold in Chile with juicy profits. (By the way: the chieftain Casimiro Catriel lived in Azul, used a carriage and had an open account in the city's bank...) Was Azul's then a Creole genocide caused by the Indians? By no means: it was a stage of this protracted and cruel war. Those who fought against Roca were not unfortunate Indians like those who now suffer unjustly on the banks of the Pilcomayo or in the suburbs of Rosario to which they have emigrated, compatriots who must be helped and integrated into their diversity.
They were soldiers representing a quasi-indigenous state that competed with and challenged the national government while practicing slavery on both captive whites and Indians purchased in Chile. Reflecting on Mariano Bejarano's 1872 official visit, sent by the national government to Chief Sayhueque, leader of the "Country of Apples" (today Neuquén), the indigenous writer Curruhuinca-Roux remarked, "Bejarano's visit was an official encounter between government envoys of two separate entities. The raids were not merely defensive tactics against 'invading' whites but were actual expeditions aimed at capturing loot, akin to terrestrial Vikings – part pirates, part merchants. This plunder was later traded in Chile, whose authorities supported these raids to weaken the Argentine government and gain control of Patagonia. We must avoid simplifying history into a Manichaean and naive narrative. The true story is far more intricate than the childlike portrayal of heroes and villains, victims and oppressors. While there's much more to be said about this historically inaccurate first argument, it suffices for now.
The second argument posits that the original indigenous peoples were dispossessed of lands in the Pampean plain and vast Patagonian regions, but this assertion is far from accurate. Concerning the origin of the indigenous tribes inhabiting our pampas – mostly variants or offshoots of the Araucanian people – only an utter lack of knowledge about our country's history and that of Chile can account for such an error. In fact, these trans-Andean tribes cannot be considered "original" since they only began migrating from beyond the Andes into our country in the early 18th century.
In comparison, the natives of this land were more 'original' because the resilient pioneers of the frontier and Creole soldiers, officers, and leaders of the Conquest of the Desert – with the exception of individuals like Fotheringham (English) and Nicolas Levalle (Italian) – held no less valid claims to these lands than the Ranqueles, Pampas, or Manzaneros. Their ancestors inhabited these lands at the same or even earlier times. Regarding the designation of "landowners" asserted by indigenous tribes and their modern advocates, it must be acknowledged but with one important caveat: the incredibly fertile and expansive pampa belonged to all Argentines, whether Creole or indigenous, native or descendants of immigrants, those who already occupied it and those who awaited their turn in the ports to populate it.
Calfucurá, Namuncurá, Catriel, Baigorrita, Pincén, Mariano Rosas and other Indian leaders could not keep what was common heritage for themselves. Like the dog in the manger who, according to the popular Spanish saying, "does not eat or let eat", so those fearsome inhabitants of the Argentine plain did not make it produce nor let others do it. This refusal, placed like a wall against the impetuous growth of the productive forces, could not and did not last. The historical necessity that, as Hegel unfortunately says "always advances from its bad side", and that carried in its bosom the agricultural progress of the nation, had condemned it.
For the rest, Roca's defense in relation to the Conquest of the Desert cannot make us forget the other great contributions that he and the "Generation of 80" made to the construction of this Modern Argentina, today so devastated: the nationalization of Buenos Aires and its unique Port, the establishment of secular institutions, secular education, mass immigration and agrarian colonization.
These achievements make him more than worthy of national gratitude and, therefore, the nomination of a street, which is one of the ways in which towns usually remember their benefactors. The fact that this Generation has quickly turned into an Oligarchy and that the speculators and large merchants and landowners have later monopolized the areas recovered for work and production, is a different sub-stage of Argentine development, which cannot overshadow the management of those like Roca and his friends strove to finally give us a unified country.
If the enemies of genocide are looking for a culprit, it is better that they study the biographies of Miter and Sarmiento, who preached and carried out a true social catastrophe against the native Creole lineage. Why nobody refers to this genocide, which really was? Or did not the "civilizer" Sarmiento advise Miter "not to hesitate to shed the blood of gauchos, which is the only thing that is human about them"? I am not proposing that the name of Sarmiento street be changed to Coliqueo, but I do believe that, without removing General Roca from the boulevard that honors his name, the homage desired by the indigenistas could be paid on another street in the city.
In the end, both of them, whether we like it or not, are part of national history, if we want to understand it in its integral unity and not as a fight between good guys and bad guys, who knock each other out of their heads. pedestals like in the tournaments of the Middle Ages, dark ages by the way. This is not a time for denigration, but for integration, not for balkanization, but for Latin American unity. Anything that goes against this perspective can only play the game of the foreign enemy that stalks us and intends to take advantage of our confrontations and our artificial anger.
Roberto Ferrero