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María De Los Ángeles Picone on Carolyne R. Larson, Ed Carolyne R. Larson, ed. The Conquest of the Desert: Argentina’s Indigenous Peoples and the Battle for History. Diálogos Series. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2020. Illustrations. 256 pp. $29.95, paper, ISBN 978-0-8263-6207-0. Reviewed by María de los Ángeles Picone (Boston College) Published on H-LatAm (June, 2021) Commissioned by Casey M. Lurtz (Johns Hopkins University) In 1879, the government of Argentina un‐ United States, and Canada in different stages of leashed a military campaign to northern Patago‐ their careers and from different disciplines. It suc‐ nia, known at the time as the “Conquest of the cessfully weaves a multifaceted approach to the Desert.” What was the desert? For the Sarmientine study of a single moment in a single space, benefit‐ generation, it was the vast lands that surrounded ing from a wealth of sources and disciplinary economic centers, unproductive, uninhabited, and frameworks. Additionally, the editors sagely de‐ usually beyond state control. Of course, the desert cided to permit either footnotes or in-text cita‐ was far from empty. In fact, the raid of 1879 sought tions, according to the disciplinary practice from disarticulate indigenous chiefdoms in present-day each scholar. In an introduction and nine Río Negro, Neuquén, and La Pampa. Behind the sol‐ chapters, this ambitious project examines the rela‐ diers came authorities surveying, dividing, plan‐ tionship between the Argentine state and indigen‐ ning, and selling lands to whomever was willing to ous communities of northern Patagonia during move to the “new” territories. This was the official and after a military raid carried out between 1879 story. and 1884. The Conquest of the Desert joins a vast literat‐ ure that challenges the official narrative of the Ar‐ gentina military raid of 1879.[1] By shifting the at‐ tention to the experiences of Mapuche and Te‐ huelche living in northern Patagonia, this volume highlights the kaleidoscopic impacts of the violent removal of indigenous peoples from their territor‐ ies during the raid and its aftermath. The volume brings together scholars from Argentina, the H-Net Reviews The introduction provides a synthesis of the author confronts the experiences of the indigen‐ history of indigenous people of northern Patago‐ ous families in its halls with the rationale behind nia. Additionally, Carolyne R. Larson, the book’s exhibits of crania and bones. In doing so, he joins a editor, in chapter 1 provides a more detailed ac‐ body of literature that has argued that by filling count on the motivations of military men and au‐ the museum walls and showcases, scientists sym‐ thorities to undertake the military campaign. bolically filled the desert, advancing Argentine While it might seem counterintuitive to begin with “civilization” to northern Patagonia.[2] the official narrative, Larson presents it as the ob‐ In the first four chapters, however, we lack the ject that all remaining chapters scrutinize. problematization of the “Conquest of the Desert” In chapter 2, Julio Vezub and Mark Healey be‐ as a historical construct, which scholars in Argen‐ gin the task of dismantling the simplified version tina have done for decades. In chapter 5, Walter of columns and expeditions present in the publica‐ Delrio and Pilar Pérez introduce this literature to tions from the Ministry of War. Using extensive the English-speaking audience and reconceptual‐ correspondence and reports from the national ize the “Conquest of the Desert” as a war that archives (at a time when archives are closed due to sought to disappear by assimilation, subjugation, COVID-19, they make us miss archival research!), or annihilation the indigenous presence in north‐ the authors paint a vivid picture of frontier rela‐ ern Patagonia. The authors aptly highlight the in‐ tions from the caciques’ perspective, especially ternal disparateness within state forces and longkos Valentín Saygüeque and Manuel Namun‐ policies, resulting in equally diverse response. curá. Additionally, they incorporate the always-fas‐ While the authors have been working on such cinating testimony of Ignacio Cañiumir, a hand‐ themes for nearly a decade, the chapter at hand written document that mixes facts and fiction he explains how narratives of a victorious, finished, allegedly sent to a professor in 1899. homogenous moment (a “conquest”) still loom Rob Christensen’s chapter pushes against the large in present-day conversations of indigenous trope of technological superiority of the military claims to land and reparations.[3] raid by providing evidence that weather and dis‐ In chapter 6, Jennie Daniels analyzes literary ease (smallpox) favored Argentine forces. The El representations of the desert in Argentine literat‐ Niño Oscillation of 1877 caused unprecedented ure. The author effectively synthesizes major precipitations followed by droughts, disrupting works in four chronologies, concluding that the fig‐ trading circuits. Additionally, the consolidation of ure of the desert provided writers with a symbolic confederacies facilitated the spread of disease. As space to mark difference (civilization/barbarism, extreme weather undermined Mapuche subsist‐ urban/rural, white/nonwhite). At heart, the figure ence, so did their ability to fight disease. Finally, the of the desert remains a liminal space in literary mobile nature of the war and the imprisonment of production that revealed structures central to indigenous soldiers made the Mapuche susceptible elites’ ideas of the Argentine nation, a paradox to disease. that Ernesto Livon-Grosman has also pointed out In a focal shift from the military trail to the af‐ in his examination of travel literature, Geografías termath of the campaign, Ricardo Salvatore stud‐ imaginarias: El relato de viaje y la construcción del ies the lives of Inacayal and Foyel, two Mapuche espacio patagónico (2003). caciques captured by the Argentine military and In chapter 7, David Sheinin asks how the taken with their families to the Museum of Natural memory of the conquest underpinned military History in the city of La Plata. Drawing on multiple policy toward indigenous people, especially during reports from people working in the museum, the the last dictatorship (1976-83). Multiple celebra‐ 2 H-Net Reviews tions commemorated the centennial of the con‐ The volume has a clear unifying thread. How‐ quest, accompanied by publications that exalted ever, its contributions as a whole and in each indi‐ the campaign of 1879. Sheinin purposely brings to vidual chapter seem more fragmented. While the the fore the frontier as a space that escaped mod‐ introduction states that “this book adds meaning‐ ernization and where the government sought to fully to scholarship on frontier, borderlands, and advance the civilizing mission it perceived to have settler colonialism,” each chapter engages differ‐ begun a hundred years earlier. Fellow Latin Amer‐ ently with these analytical lenses, if they do (p. 12). icanists of dictatorship will recognize similar anxi‐ Particularly, I found puzzling the uneven use of eties in other countries as well. “Conquest of the Desert” both as a shorthand peri‐ An experienced ethnographer, Ana Ramos, odization and as the title of the book, especially continues the examination of memory of the con‐ since it represents the narrative these authors quest in chapter 8, but this time through the lens of sought to dismantle. As these chapters show, the Mapuche oral tradition and collective texts “Conquest of the Desert” was not a conquest, and (nütram). Nütram are not only their contents but the desert was not empty. also their performance. Ramos argues that these Overall, this volume provides a good transdis‐ traditions were disappeared from the national ciplinary introduction to the history of the geno‐ narrative of the conquest, silencing the experi‐ cide of 1879-85. In bringing this diversity of ap‐ ences of captivity, enslavement, torture, and proaches to the same table of contents, Larson en‐ death. However, the nütram have survived for gen‐ ables a conversation beyond the traditional chro‐ erations and informed present-day Mapuche polit‐ nological boundaries that typify Argentine schol‐ ical philosophies. arship. Additionally, each chapter provides suc‐ In the last chapter, Sarah Warren asks how the cinct historical context, which undergraduates or memory of the military campaign of 1879 appears anyone reading about northern Patagonia for the in present-day Mapuche spatial epistemologies. To first time will fnd accessible. that end, she analyzes three maps of Mapuche ter‐ Notes ritory (Wallmapu) published by Mapuche organiz‐ [1]. Miguel Alberto Bartolomé, “Los pobladores ations. In these cartographic materials Warren re‐ del ‘desierto’: Genocidio, etnocidio y etnogénesis cognizes toponymic and geographical markers en la Argentina,” Cuadernos de Antropología So‐ that further revitalize Mapuche culture as a means cial, no. 17 (2003): https://www.redalyc.org/pdf/ to strengthen their territorial claims. 1809/180913909009.pdf; Pedro Navarro Floria, ed., Paisajes del Progeso: La resignificación de la Pa‐ tagonia Norte, 1880-1916 (Neuquén: Educo, 2007); Claudia Briones and Walter Delrio, “La ‘Conquista del Desierto’ desde perspetivas hegemónicas y sub‐ alternas,” RUNA, archivo para las ciencias del hombre 27 (2007): 23-48; Diego Escolar, Celia Claudia Salomon Tarquini, and Julio Esteban Vezub, “La ‘Campaña del Desierto’ (1870-1890): Not‐ as para una crítica historiográfica,” in Guerras de la Historia Argentina, ed. Federico Lorenz
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