Post by Grubb
The westward expansion of Argentina wasn’t finalized until the end of the 19th century when English arbitration got Chile and Argentina to settle on the Andes determining the border between both countries. The Jesuit explorer and friend of the Mapuche natives who suggested the Andes dividing line was Perito Moreno. In honor of his efforts, the Argentinian government granted him a large portion of the Patagonian wilderness. When he died, he willed this land as a national park to Argentina with the proviso that the Mapuches would get to live there.
So this was how the west was won in Argentina. A Jesuit deal maker with a fondness for nature and a belief in native culture created a Patagonian park out of disputed territory. Script a Hollywood Western out of that! Where are the gunfights, saloon brawls, and rampaging pioneers? Those crazy Jesuits, they take the man out of manifest destiny!
Wait—hold on—before there was Perito Moreno, there was Alejandro Julio Argentino Roca Paz. An army general who was president of Argentina in the 1880s, Roca led a genocidal military campaign against the Patagonian natives. So in a way Perito was too late to save anything other than the glacial mountain fastness that no general could ever dominate.
Roca’s statue is in the middle of Bariloche’s civic center square. It has been splashed with red paint. No one has bothered to wash it off.
Interesting history. I always wondered why Chile was so thin.
For better or worse, the Andes are a natural boundary.
It’s true. But worse for Chile.