© 2008 María Andrea Campetella ALL RIGHTS RESERVED AT THE PERIPHERY OF EMPIRE: INDIANS AND SETTLERS IN THE PAMPAS OF BUENOS AIRES, 1580-1776 by MARIA ANDREA CAMPETELLA A Dissertation submitted to the Graduate School-New Brunswick Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Program in History written under the direction of Samuel Baily and approved by ___________________________ ___________________________ ___________________________ ____________________________ New Brunswick, New Jersey January, 2008 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION At the Periphery of Empire: Indians and Settlers in the Pampas of Buenos Aires, 1580-1776 By MARIA ANDREA CAMPETELLA Dissertation Director: Samuel Baily This is a study of the multifaceted interactions between Porteños and Indians in the plains or Pampas that extended southwest of Buenos Aires, between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. In the Pampas, the Spaniards did not encounter large, farming Indian populations like those of central Mexico or the Andean highlands, but mobile hunter-gatherers whom they were unable to conquer and subdue. Using an ethnohistorical approach, this dissertation shows that although Indians remained independent, they thoroughly reinvented their societies under the multidimensional impact of the Spanish arrival, which included ecological changes, epidemics, slaving raids, and intercultural commerce. Most dramatically, the Pampa Indians became superb horse-riders, deft hunters of (feral) cattle, avid consumers of Spanish manufactures, and an integral part of long-distance exchange networks that extended west across the Andes and reached into southern Chile. On the basis of this ethnohistorical understanding of the Pampas, this dissertation offers an ambitious reconsideration of Buenos Aires’ early colonial period. The intersection of Andean and Atlantic trade circuits in Buenos Aires during the seventeenth century provided the stimuli for the development of cattle ranching as a ii main local economic activity. Spanish settlers adapted Iberian cattle-ranching practices to the challenges and opportunities of the Pampas by developing a hunting industry to exploit the proliferating herds of feral livestock that roamed the plains. Such hunting industry put the Spaniards in direct contact, and competition, with the Indians who inhabited the Pampas and with the Indians who arrived seasonally from the Andean zone to hunt and trade. The dissertation examines the complex intercultural and intertribal relations that ensued, which included Indian raids, military expeditions, diplomatic negotiations and treaties, and short-lived Jesuit missions. By the 1750s, these relations had resulted in the emergence of a militarized frontier line lying barely a hundred miles southwest of Buenos Aires. This frontier line defined intercultural relations in the Pampas for the next hundred years, and became a fundamental element in the narrative of Argentina’s emergence as a modern nation in the early twentieth century. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First and foremost, I would like to thank my advisor, Samuel Baily, whose gentle supervision and positive feedback sustained me through this project. I also would like to thank the members of my committee: Mark Wasserman, with whom I started venturing into the history of colonial Latin America; Michael Adas, who had faith in this project before I did, and who encouraged me to take a comparative perspective; and Jeremy Adelman, whose scholarship has been a constant source of inspiration. For the generous support that facilitated my work in this dissertation, I would like to acknowledge the History Department at Rutgers University, and the American Historical Association. Many thanks to my friends and colleagues who have listened and supported me throughout these years. I was fortunate to share my time at Rutgers with Robert Alegre, Kristen Block, and Gregory Swedberg. My “Dissertation Fury” companions, Katrina Olds and Karin Velez, provided that last but much needed final push. Patricia and Neal Priest made my husband and I feel at home during our three years in Athens, Georgia. In Argentina, Andrés Thompson early on encouraged me to continue my studies in graduate school. My old good friends Gabriela Rocamora, Belén Buchiniz, Candelaria Garay, and Claudia Kuttenplan have stood by my side through ups and downs. My friends at the Archivo General de la Nación, Gabriel Taruselli and Fabián Alonso, liberally shared their knowledge and their mates during needed breaks. Juan Marco Vaggione generously received me in Córdoba. María Elena Barral, Silvia Ratto, Sara Ortelli, Raúl Mandrini, and Eduardo Míguez provided stimulant conversation and advice. iv Finally, I would like to thank my ever-growing family, which now extends from New Jersey to Neuquén. I am especially grateful to my husband, John Turci-Escobar, for his patience and love. I dedicate this dissertation to my grandmother, Celia María Fernández de Dagnino, from whom I have received unconditional love since as early as I can remember. Para vos, abuela Chela. v TABLE OF CONTENTS ii Abstract iv Acknowledgments viii List of Maps xix Abbreviations 1 Introduction PART ONE. NEW WORLDS IN THE PAMPAS 18 1. Beginnings 19 I. The Land and its Peoples 29 II. First Encounters 43 III. Settlement 50 2. An Unfinished Conquest 52 I. Early Transformations: The Pampas in 1580 60 II. The Spanish Conquest: A View from the Periphery 82 III. Native New Worlds PART TWO. OLD WORLD ANIMALS IN NEW WORLD SETTINGS. LIVESTOCK, SETTLERS AND INDIANS IN THE LONG SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 98 3. Feral but Claimed: Spanish Cattle Ranching in the Pampas 100 I. Buenos Aires: An entrepôt Connecting the Andes to the Atlantic 118 II. A New World Cattle-Ranching Model 129 III. Whose Property? Inter-Jurisdictional Conflicts over Feral Cattle 4. Indian Ecological and Intercultural Adaptations from the Pampas 140 to the Andes 142 I. A Wider Native World vi 150 II. West of the Andes: War and Tribalization 160 III. East of the Andes: A Sociopolitical Mosaic 5. Cattle at the Crossroads: Indians and Spaniards in the Southern 175 Sierras 175 I. Encounters in the Sierras 188 II. Trans-Andean Patterns: Gift-Giving and Raiding in the Sierras 198 III. Hesitant Beginnings: Diplomacy in the Pampas PART THREE. THE BIRTH OF THE FRONTIER 6. Intercultural Violence and Intercultural Negotiations in the Early 211 1740s 212 I. Porteños and the Pampas during the 1720s-1730s 222 II. “A Devastation never Experienced before:” The Raid of 1740 243 III. A Precarious Peace: The Treaty of 1742 263 7. The Jesuit Experiment 265 I. The Missions at a Glance 275 II. The Missionary Experience Redefined 291 III. The Perils of Intercultural Communication 300 8. A Militarized Frontier 301 I. From Friends to Enemies: the Raid of 1744 314 II. The End of the Missions 320 III. The Ascendancy of the “Rural Experts” 335 Conclusions 343 Appendices 355 Bibliography 372 Curriculum Vita vii LIST OF MAPS 20 Map 1. The Argentine Pampas 22 Map 2. The Pampas sub-regions 46 Map 3. Cities and Governorships in the Sixteenth Century 101 Map 4. Buenos Aires in the Early Seventeenth Century 105 Map 5. Buenos Aires in 1713 110 Map 6. Inter-regional trade roads 143 Map 7. The East-West trans-Andean boundary 224 Map 8. The Buenos Aires Campaña in the Mid-Eighteenth Century 266 Map 9. The Missions of the Pampas viii ABBREVIATIONS AAC FC Archivo del Arzobispado de Córdoba, Fondo Monseñor Pablo Cabrera AECBA Acuerdos del Extinguido Cabildo de Buenos Aires AGI ABA Archivo General de Indias, Fondo Audiencia de Buenos Aires AGI ACh Archivo General de Indias, Fondo Audiencia de Charcas AGN Archivo General de la Nación AGPC Archivo General de la Provincia de Córdoba APSL Archivo Histórico de la Provincia de San Luis DHG Documentos Históricos y Geográficos Relativos a la Conquista y Colonización Rioplatense ME AGI Museo Etnográfico, Fondo Documentos del Archivo General de Indias ix