Araucanization - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Araucanization of Patagonia was the process of expansion of Mapuche

Mapuche

The Mapuche are a group of indigenous inhabitants of south-central Chile and southwestern Argentina. They constitute a wide-ranging ethnicity composed of various groups who shared a common social, religious and economic structure, as well as a common linguistic heritage. Their influence extended...

culture, influence and language

Mapudungun

The Mapuche language, Mapudungun is a language isolate spoken in south-central Chile and west central Argentina by the Mapuche people. It is also spelled Mapuzugun and sometimes called Mapudungu or Araucanian...

from Araucanía into the Patagonic

Patagonia

Patagonia is a region located in Argentina and Chile, integrating the southernmost section of the Andes mountains to the southwest towards the Pacific ocean and from the east of the cordillera to the valleys it follows south through Colorado River towards Carmen de Patagones in the Atlantic Ocean...

plains. Historians disagree in the time of the expansion but it would have occurred sometime between 1550 and 1850. Amerindian peoples such as the Puelche

Puelche

Puelche is the name that the Mapuche used to give the ethnic groups who inhabited the lands to the east of the Andes Mountains including the northern Tehuelches and Hets, these last ones were also known as the Pampas or Querandíes...

s and Tehuelches adopted the Mapudungun

Mapudungun

as their main language (their own name is in Mapudungun). Together with Quechua, Aymara

Aymara language

Aymara is an Aymaran language spoken by the Aymara people of the Andes. It is one of only a handful of Native American languages with over three million speakers. Aymara, along with Quechua and Spanish, is an official language of Peru and Bolivia...

, Guarani

Guaraní language

Guaraní, specifically the primary variety known as Paraguayan Guaraní , is an indigenous language of South America that belongs to the Tupí–Guaraní subfamily of the Tupian languages. It is one of the official languages of Paraguay , where it is spoken by the majority of the population, and half of...

and Nahuatl, Mapudungun was among the few Amerindian languages that extended their territories after the European arrival.

Mapuches that migrated to Patagonia lived often as nomads rising cattle or pillaging the Argentine countryside. The cattle stolen in the incursions (malones

Malón

Malón or maloca was a military raiding tactic of the Mapuche peoples from the 17th to the 19th centuries.The "maloca" among the Mapuche is described as a means of obtaining justice, by Juan Ignacio Molina:...

) would later be taken to Chile through the mountain passes and traded for goods, especially alcoholic beverages. The main trail for this trade was called Camino de los chilenos

Camino de los chilenos

Rastrillada de los chilenos or Camino de los chilenos were a group of routes in the Patagonean pampas used by Mapuches and related araucanized tribes to head cattle stolen during malones from Argentina to Chile across the Andes...

and run a length of about 1000 kilometres (621.4 mi) from the Buenos Aires Province

Buenos Aires Province

The Province of Buenos Aires is the largest and most populous province of Argentina. It takes the name from the city of Buenos Aires, which used to be the provincial capital until it was federalized in 1880...

to the mountain pass

Mountain pass

A mountain pass is a route through a mountain range or over a ridge. If following the lowest possible route, a pass is locally the highest point on that route...

es of Neuquén Province

Neuquén Province

Neuquén is a province of Argentina, located in the west of the country, at the northern end of Patagonia. It borders Mendoza Province to the north, Rio Negro Province to the southeast, and Chile to the west...

. The lonco

Lonco

A lonco or lonko is a tribal chief of the Mapuches. These were often Ulmen, the wealthier men in the lof. In wartime loncos of the various local rehue or the larger aillarehue would gather in a koyag or parliament and would elect a toqui to lead the warriors in battle...

Calfucurá

Calfucurá also known as Juan Calfucurá or Cufulcurá , was a leading Mapuche lonco and military figure in Patagonia in the 19th century. He crossed the Andes from Chile to the Pampas around 1830 after a call from the governor of Buenos Aires, Juan Manuel de Rosas, to fight the Boroanos tribe...

crossed the Andes

Andes

The Andes is the world's longest continental mountain range. It is a continual range of highlands along the western coast of South America. This range is about long, about to wide , and of an average height of about .Along its length, the Andes is split into several ranges, which are separated...

from Chile to the Pampas around 1830 after a call from the governor of Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...

, Juan Manuel de Rosas

Juan Manuel de Rosas

Juan Manuel de Rosas , was an argentine militar and politician, who was elected governor of the province of Buenos Aires in 1829 to 1835, and then of the Argentine Confederation from 1835 until 1852...

, to fight the Boreanos tribe. In 1859 he attacked Bahía Blanca

Bahía Blanca

Bahía Blanca is a city located in the south-west of the province of Buenos Aires, Argentina, by the Atlantic Ocean, and seat of government of Bahía Blanca Partido. It has a population of 274,509 inhabitants according to the...

in Argentina

Argentina

Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...

with 3,000 warriors. As in the case of Calfucura many other bands of Mapuches got involved the internal conflicts of Argentina until Conquest of the Desert

Conquest of the Desert

The Conquest of the Desert was a military campaign directed mainly by General Julio Argentino Roca in the 1870s, which established Argentine dominance over Patagonia, which was inhabited by indigenous peoples...

. To counter the cattle raids a trench called Zanja de Alsina

Zanja de Alsina

Zanja de Alsina were a system of trenches and wooden watchtowers built in the centre and south of the Buenos Aires Province to defend the territories of the federal government against Mapuches malones. The three-meter wide trench was reinforced with 80 small strongholds and garrisons, called...

was built by Argentina in the pampas in the 1870s.

Argentine authorities were worried that strong connections between Araucanized tribes and Chile would give Chile influence over the pampa

Pampa

The Pampas are the fertile South American lowlands, covering more than , that include the Argentine provinces of Buenos Aires, La Pampa, Santa Fe, Entre Ríos and Córdoba, most of Uruguay, and the southernmost Brazilian State, Rio Grande do Sul...

s. In the case of war with Chile over Patagonia

Patagonia

, they feared the natives would side with the Chileans, who would be able to carry the war all the way to the vicinity of Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires

.

The decision of planning and executing the Conquest of the Desert was probably triggered by the 1872 attack of Cufulcurá and his 6,000 followers on the cities of General Alvear

General Alvear, Mendoza

Gral. Alvear is the head city of the General Alvear Department, Mendoza in Mendoza Province, Argentina.Founded on August 12, 1914, it currently has a population of 26,342 , and its UN/LOCODE is ARGVA....

, Veinticinco de Mayo and Nueve de Julio

Nueve de Julio

Nueve de Julio means 9 July in Spanish. It may refer to:* The date of the Argentine Declaration of Independence* One of the following cities and towns in Argentina:** Nueve de Julio, Buenos Aires Province...

, where 300 residents were killed, and 200,000 heads of cattle taken.

See also