Conquest of The Desert - Roca's Campaign

Roca's Campaign

Julio Argentino Roca, in contrast to Alsina, believed that the only solution against the Indian threat was to extinguish, subdue or expel them.

Our self-respect as a virile people obliges us to put down as soon as possible, by reason or by force, this handful of savages who destroy our wealth and prevent us from definitely occupying, in the name of law, progress and our own security, the richest and most fertile lands of the Republic. —Julio Argentino Roca,

At the end of 1878 he started the first sweep to "clean" the area between the Alsina trench and the Negro river by continuous and systematic attacks to the Indian settlements. On 6 December 1878, elements of the Puán Division under Colonel Teodoro García clashed with a war party at the Lihué Calel heights. In a brief but hard fought battle, 50 Indians were killed, 270 captured, and 33 settlers were freed.

Numerous armed encounters would follow, until by December 1878, over 4,000 Indians had been captured and 400 killed, 150 settlers freed and 15,000 head of cattle recovered.

With 6,000 soldiers armed with new breech-loading Remington rifles, in 1879 he began the second sweep reaching Choele Choel in two months, after killing 1,313 Indians and capturing over 15,000.From other points, southbound companies made their way down to the Negro River and the Neuquén River, a northern tributary of the Negro River. Together, both rivers marked the natural frontier from the Andes to the Atlantic Ocean. This attack led to a large migration of Mapuches into the zone around Curarrehue and Pucón, Chile.

Many settlements were built on the basin of these two rivers, as well as a number on the Colorado River. By sea, some settlements were erected on the southern basin of the Chubut River mainly by Welsh colonists.