The American Society for Ethnohistory

Nineteenth Century British Travel Accounts of Argentina

Author(s): Kristine L. Jones
Source: Ethnohistory, Vol. 33, No. 2 (Spring, 1986), pp. 195-211
Published by: Duke University Press
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ETHNOHISTORY
33(2):195-211
NINETEENTH CENTURY BRITISH TRAVEL ACCOUNTS
OF ARGENTINA
Kristine L. Jones Bowdoin
College
Abstract
Standardized
depictions
of an ahistorical "Indian" in nineteenth
century
travel ac-
counts of
Argentina
are
important
ethnohistorical sources not because the accounts
describe a
theoretically pristine
state of
politically
autonomous
indigenous societies,
but because
they
describe the
points
of articulation with
expanding
Western
society.
In the
nearly
one hundred
fifty years
between initial Jesuit
missionizing attempts
in
the
Argentine pampas
in the 1740s and the final
"Conquest
of the Desert" in the
1880s,
a
major reorganization
of Indian societies coincided with the
expansion
of
European society
into the
grasslands.
These narratives document the
changing
modes
of interaction between "Indian" and "Western"
societies,
record the
development
of a
complex
intercultural frontier
society,
and reveal the
emerging conquest ideology
justifying
the
politics
of
expansion.
The value of travel accounts as ethnohistorical sources lies not so much in
ethnographic
verities as in the documentation of
developing
frontier
society
in
articulation with
expanding
western
capitalism.'
In
Argentina
the
expansion
of
European society
into the
pampas
and
Patagonia
between initial
missionizing
at-
tempts
in the 1740s and the ultimate
"Conquest
of the Desert" of the 1880s coin-
cided with a
major reorganization
of social and
political
life
among
autonomous
indigenous
societies. Nineteenth
century
British travel accounts of
Argentina,
while
attempting
in form to
objectively
describe Indian
society, categorized, objectified,
commoditized and thus
delegitimized
the role of native
people
in frontier
expan-
sion. Historians must
recognize
that ahistorical details of social life in travel ac-
counts do not document a
sphere uniquely "Indian,"
but rather describe an
emergent
intercultural frontier
society
as well as reflect shifts in
expansionist ideology.
This
paper
will
analyze
the
development
of nineteenth
century
travel accounts
of
Argentina
in an
attempt
to delineate
explicitly
the
categories
and
objectives
in them. The commoditization of travel accounts themselves stands out as one
striking
characteristic of this
literature,
as described in the first section of the
paper.
Discussion of the use of travel accounts as ethnohistorical
sources,
the sec-
ond section of this
paper,
reveals the
interpretive
transformations in the travel
accounts that
ultimately legitimized
the
concept
of "the Indians" as
plundering
obstacles to
progress.
While
implicit
western
ideological perspectives
denied
legitimacy
to the activities
of
sovereign
native
societies,
and therefore failed to record them in more formal
documents,
informal
descriptions by
British travelers indicate the
very important
role of the Indians in the
history
of
Argentina. However,
because of the
fixed,
ahistorical
categories
in travel accounts that described
Indians,
historians
consistently
have
ignored
the
dynamics
and
importance
of this interaction. Travelers' accounts
documented
society peripheral,
but nonetheless
directly
tied to the
expanding
ex-
port economy
of the British
empire.
British travelers and
speculators
not
only
reported
on this
"marginal" society,
but
comprised
an
integral part
of it. To be
used as
ethnography,
travel accounts must be
interpreted
in this
light.
JONES
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KRISTINE L. JONES
Background
The
development
of the travel account as a
commodity
in the nineteenth
century
was not limited
solely
to narratives about
Argentina,
nor to accounts
exclusively
British. Nor did the commoditization of the
genre
trivialize its
importance
in in-
forming
and
interpreting
the world for individuals interested in economic
exploita-
tion of that world. Much recent
scholarship analyzes
the western
development
of
an
ideology
about the "non-western" world.
Recently,
Edward Said's Orientalism
(1979) provoked
serious
reappraisal
of a
major
intellectual tradition. In recent
studies of the New
World, anthropologists
and
geographers point
to the
impor-
tance of
reconsidering
traditional
representations
of that
region belonging
to neither
the "East" nor "West." The new look at old
images
has stimulated revisionist
trends in some fields of Latin American and North American
history.2
The issues of
myth
and
image
in western
concepts
about the thousands of distinct
native societies in the Americas have been
approached by
scholars
focusing primarily
on
discovery
and
early
contact. That
European concepts predetermined
much of
Spanish
colonial
policy
has
long
been
acknowledged,
and Lewis Hanke's Aristotle
and the American Indians: A
Study
in Race
Prejudice
in the Modern World
(1959)
stands as the classic
analysis
of the
origins
of western
ideological justifications
for
(mis)treatment
of Native Americans in
Spanish
America. Robert Berkhofer's
White Man's Indian
(1979)
documents for North America the invention of the
idea of "The Indian" that has obvious
parallels
to the South American case. Olive
Dickason's
Myth of
the Savage and the Beginnings of
French Colonialism in the
Americas
(1984)
discusses French reactions and interpretations
of disparate
societies
in
Brazil, Florida, and the St. Lawrence. As these and
many
other studies
point
out, perceptions
and
misconceptions about the Americas
purveyed
in
early
ex-
ploration
accounts colored
interpretations in
subsequent
centuries.
Publication of travel accounts of the New World
began
almost as soon as the
first
European explorers
returned home. By
the sixteenth century,
the accounts
of Bernal Diaz del Castillo, Bartolom6 de Las Casas, and the Spanish-educated
Inca, Garcilaso de la
Vega,
created great interest, and by the seventeenth
century
published
travel accounts
enjoyed
more
popularity
than standard romances, ac-
cording
to one
contemporary
observer in France
(Dickason
1984: 6).
Part of this
popularity may perhaps
be ascribed to the fact that
Spain firmly established con-
trol over most of South America soon after
conquest,
and maintained a stern watch
over
possible interlopers.
The
jealous protectiveness
of
Spain about its American
colonies led to
suppression
of information that
might prove advantageous
to its
European
rivals. In the three centuries
following
the
Spanish conquest
of New
Spain
and
Peru, royal
dictates militated
against foreign
access to information about
the fabled riches of the Americas. Even so, this blackout could not stem interest
in the commercial
potentials
of the restricted colonies, and the
very occasional
travel accounts met a
curiosity
for information about the Americas with a com-
bination of
hearsay, myth, and some truths.
By
the
early nineteenth
century,
travel accounts of Spanish America fell within
a
firmly
established tradition that perpetuated earlier
images,
while
adding
new
variations and embellishments. However, while in the
previous centuries only a
handful of such accounts were
published,
in the
early
1800s scores of travel ac-
counts about South America
appeared. Analysis and collation of the
upsurge
of
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British Travel Accounts
nineteenth
century
travel accounts of Latin America awaits full
investigation,
but
there is little doubt that such literature elaborated on the traditions and
images
of the
discovery
chronicles.
By
this
time,
British travel accounts were also colored
by
the "Black
Legend" propaganda, originating
from seventeenth and
eighteenth
century enmities,
which ascribed all evils of the colonial order to an idea of a
per-
nicious
Spanish
national character.3
The
positivist perspective
so
rigorously attempted
in nineteenth
century
narra-
tions often
purchased
earlier
images
and
myths wholesale,
and then redistributed
them in new
packaging
to meet the demands of the industrial
age. Nevertheless,
careful attention to the intent of these
interpretations
leads to further understand-
ing
of historical
change
and the nature of
European
economic
expansion
as well
as the formation of American societies as
they
were affected
by
this
expansion.
Discussion of British travel accounts of
Argentina
documents one such case.
British Travel Accounts and the
Argentine Economy
One of the first
publications
of an
Englishman
in
Argentina appeared
more than
a
century
and a half after Pedro de Mendoza's
mooring
in the Parana river
delta,
and it
provided
the
English
for the first time the kind of detail
Spain
so
carefully
guarded.
Thomas
Falkner,
a Jesuit
priest
who had worked
among
Indians in the
pampas
and
Patagonia
in an ill-fated
missionizing attempt
in the
1740s,
left a record
of his
experience,
first
published
in London in 1774 as a
political pamphlet.
Falkner's
Description of Patagonia
and the
Adjoining
Parts
of
South America:
Containing
an Account
of
the
Soil, Produce, Animals, Vales, Mountains, Rivers,
Lakes,
etc.
of
those Countries; The
Religion, Government, Policy, Customs, Dress,
Arms and
Language of
the Indian Inhabitants; and some Particulars
relating
to
Falkland's Islands
provided
one of the
very
first
published surveys
of the unex-
plored
territories south of the
city
of Buenos
Aires,
as well as the first
systematic
description
of the inhabitants of those
regions.
Publication in London of Falkner's
description
worried the
Spaniards, already
concerned about
foreign pretensions
against
their American
possessions.
Administrative and
political
reforms initiated
by
the Bourbon
monarchy
in the late
eighteenth century tightened
the net of
secrecy
over the
colonies,
and the
mystery
of the fabled riches of the Americas remained
locked to the rest of the world for several more decades. Publications such as
Falkner's narrative assumed
significance simply
because such accounts so
rarely
appeared;
so
rarely,
in
fact,
that the more fantastical
aspects
of Falkner's version
reappeared
in 1788 in a derivative relation under the
pen
of Thomas
Pennant,
entitled
Of
the
Patagonians. Formedfrom
the Relation
of
Father Falkner A Jesuit
who had Resided
Among
them
Thirty Eight
Years.
Andfrom
the
Different Voyages
who had met this Tall Race.
It was not until Alexander von Humboldt was allowed to tour and
report fully
on the state of the
Spanish possessions
in
1799-1804,
and his account was
published
and
translated,
that reliable information reached a wider
European community.
The
significance
of Humboldt's
tour,
the first such
fact-finding
visit
by
a
foreigner
authorized
by
the
Spanish government,
is well known
by generations
of students.
The
narratives, published
and translated from French into
English,
created a sen-
sation in
Europe by replacing hearsay
with a more accurate
description
of the
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KRISTINE L. JONES
Spanish possessions. By
virtue of
precedent,
Humboldt's narrative set the stand-
ard for the
proliferation
of
European
travel accounts that
followed, especially
when access to trade followed the
independence
of most of
Spanish
America
in 1810.
The
subsequent dismantling
and demise of the colonial order in the
Americas,
as in other
parts
of the
world, opened
new vistas for free trade and
investment,
and a scramble for
capitalist advantage
ensued. When the
Spanish monopoly
over
trade in their American colonies
ended,
and all trade restrictions were lifted
by
1810,
a
speculative
mania in
England
resulted.
Foreign
commercial
expansion
into
Argentina
stimulated increased
production
of
hides, tallow,
and salted
meat,
and
the volume of
production
of Buenos Aires Province more than
tripled
in the first
two decades of the nineteenth
century (Scobie
1971:
97).
British merchants
quickly
assumed
precedence
in this
trade,
and in little over ten
years following
the demise
of the
Spanish
trade
monopoly English capital
dominated the
Argentine economy
(Reber 1979).
In 1824 the
English government
authorized a
study
of the commercial situation
in
Colombia, Mexico,
and the Rio de la Plata. Woodbine Parish's
popular
travel
account of the
period
disseminated the results of this
study
to a broader audience
in a treatise entitled Buenos
Ayres, and the Provinces
of
the Rio de la Plata:
from
their
Discovery and
Conquest by the Spaniards to the Establishment
of their Pres-
ent State, Trade, Debt, etc.; An Appendix of Historical and Statistical
Documents;
and a description of
the
Geology and Fossil Monsters
of the Pampas (1852). Parish
reported that over half of the
public debt and most of the valuable
property in
Argentina was in
English hands. Vera Reber's recent
study
of the
origins
of the
British mercantile
system
in
Argentina corroborates his assertions, documenting
that
thirty-nine commercial houses
operated by British
capitalists controlled almost
all
import
and
export trade, which consisted
mostly of cured hides, furs, and salted
meat
(Reber 1979).
The fervor of
English speculation reached
heights comparable to
any gold rush.
Contributing to the fever was the
spate
of travelers' accounts
published by Lon-
don houses
responsive to this interest in
Argentina. As one historian wrote:
Good, bad, or indifferent, these books were devoured
by a public anxious to find
out all they could about the people, the policies, the possibilities of commerce and
investment, and
opportunities for emigration. Some of these, for
example, the famous
relation of Captain Head, were so well written that
they became best sellers.
(Trifilo
1959, author's
translation)
British travel accounts of
Argentina proliferated as
rapidly
as
capitalist invest-
ment. Interest in investment stimulated
greater demand for
information, and scores
of travel accounts
appeared
in
response to this demand. Between 1805 and
1835,
British
publishing houses had
published over a dozen travel accounts about
Argen-
tina.4 Publication reached a
peak in the 1820s with the
appearance of the works
of Head
(1826), Beaumont
(1828), Caldcleugh (1825), Miers
(1826), Vidal
(1820),
Brackenridge (1820a; 1820b), Miller
(1828), and others.
It
bears
mentioning that
these accounts of
Argentina predominated in the scores of travel accounts about
South
America, including Peru, Brazil, and Mexico, in which
England had an
interest. The intent of these
travelogues seldom was hidden, as is demonstrated
in such titles as: Travels in Buenos
Ayres, and
the
Adjacent Provinces
of the Rio
de la Plata. With Observations Intended for the Use
of Persons Who
Contemplate
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British Travel Accounts
Emigrating
to that
Country;
or
Embarking Capital
in its
Affairs (Beaumont 1828).
Inevitably,
the
speculative
boom was followed
by
bust in
1826,
but
public
in-
terest in
things Argentine
continued for several
years. By
1830
speculative
interest
in
Argentina dropped
off as the British
began
to look elsewhere for
investments,
and
publication
of travelers' accounts dwindled.
New
Argentine policies
under the Rosas administration in the 1830s
restricting
British investment seemed to
dampen
the enthusiasm for
publication
of travel ac-
counts of
Argentina.
Manuel de Rosas's
twenty-three year
administration
actively
opposed foreign investment,
which so thwarted British and French interests that
between 1845 and 1849
they imposed
a blockade
against Argentina.
Because this
political development precluded
investment
possibilities,
the British
public
lost in-
terest in
popularized
travel accounts of
Argentina.
Even
so,
British interests in the
potentials
for its
shipping industry continued,
and the British
Navy
endeavored to
complete mapping
and
surveying
tours of the
relatively
unknown coastline. The
voyages
of HMS
Beagle comprised
two of three
such
expeditions.
The few
published
narratives about
Argentina
in the 1840s
originated
from such official
expeditions, usually
the edited
journals
of British
diplomats
or naval officers.
John MacDouall
prefaced
Narrative
of
a
Voyage
to
Patagonia and Terra
[sic]
del
Fuego Through
the Straits
of Magellan
in H.M.S. Adventure and Beagle
in
1826 and 1827
by writing,
"I have written it not
only
with the view of
gain
. . .
but also . .. with that. .. of
ridding myself
of the remarks of certain kind-hearted
people
. . . toujours pret
at
pointing
out what
ought
to be done on all
possible
occasions
(1833: v)."
This account can be viewed as another example
of the
popularized
travel accounts churned out in the late 1820s, but Charles Darwin's
Diary of
the H.M.S.
Beagle (1839)
falls more clearly
into the new scientific model
of the
positivist age.
Following
the demise of Rosas in 1852, renewed trade with
England
once
again
stimulated public
interest in
Argentina. By
this time industrial
growth
in
England
directed demand for new sources of raw materials, and investors looked to
Argen-
tina for
possible
commercial advantage.
The need in
England
for raw wool for
the textile industries, combined with
possibilities
for wool production
in
Argen-
tina, attracted direct British investment in
Argentine latifundia,
the land itself.
This shift from trade in cured hides and furs to direct investment in land owner-
ship
hastened a transformation from the more traditional cattle
raising
estancias
to more
competitive capital
and labor intensive
sheep raising enterprises (Sabato
1980).
Renewed public
interest in commercial activities, as
might be expected,
resulted in a new wave of British travelers' journals, published
even more cheaply
and aimed at a wider
public.
In the 1850s and 1860s once
again, nearly
a dozen
travel accounts about
Argentina
reached the
public (Bourne 1853; MacCann 1853;
Hinchcliff 1863; Hutchinson 1868; Latham 1866; Seymour 1869; Catlin 1868),
compared
to those few
published
between 1839 and 1850
(King 1846; Parish 1839;
Robertson & Robertson 1843; Darwin
1839).
Increased investment
possibilities
created increased demand for information, and travel accounts met this demand.
The full commoditization of the travel account now was
complete.
This commoditization of the
published
travel account meant that it began to
lose its
utility as
capitalist propaganda,
a means to an end. Publication of travel
accounts first met a demand for information,
but the
popularity
of the accounts
199
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KRISTINE L. JONES
for their own sake transformed the works into
independent
commodities.
By
the
1860s,
access to new
specialized
business
almanacs, reports,
and statistics such
as those
provided
in The Brazil and River Plate Mail
(1863-1878)
fulfilled the need
for detailed investment data. Published travel
accounts,
on the other
hand, although
first written to remove the shroud of
secrecy
and
mystery surrounding
the
Americas,
moved back to the realm of the exotic and
mysterious.
Travel accounts now filled
in a
picture,
rather than
providing
the
only
window.
By
the late nineteenth
century,
this
genre
in some cases had
degenerated
to
pulp
status, pandering
to
public
demand for the sensational. As a
commodity,
a ten-
sion between information and sensation in these accounts
yielded
to the sure
thing,
the sensational. Old
legends
and
myths
were resurrected and
brought
back
into service.
For
instance,
the 1835
publication
in
Argentina
of a collection of
Spanish
works
and documents edited
by
Pedro de
Angelis (1969) provided
not
only
useful
geographic
and
topographic
information to the
British,
but also renewed interest
in the
half-forgotten legend
of the Ciudad Encantada de los
Cesares,
the
mythical
city sought by Spaniards throughout
the seventeenth and
eighteenth
centuries.
Published in the
Angelis
collection was a 1707
captivity
account of a
Spanish sailor,
Silvestre Antonio de
Rojas (Angelis
1969:
537-47),
who testified he had seen the
enchanted
city
of the Cesares in his
captivity.
This
eighteenth century
account served
as the
prototype
for a nineteenth
century
succession of
popular captivity
narratives.
An American version, The
Captive
in
Patagonia,
or
Life Among
the Giants
(Bourne
1853),
was followed in
England
with the translation from the French in 1871 of
Auguste
Guinnard's Three Years'
Slavery Among
the
Patagonians
and Musters's
1873 At Home With the
Patagonians (1871).
In
1879, a much
degenerated
ver-
sion, entitled
Wanderings
in
Patagonia
or
Life Among
the Ostrich Hunters, ap-
peared
in Boston
(Beerbohm).
While the 1707 de
Rojas
account is a
strictly
testimonial
legal document, later
captivity
narratives
emphasized
the "unknown,"
"remote," "undiscovered"
aspects
of the
region. Guinnard, for instance, went
so far as to claim "to be the
only European
who has
yet penetrated
so far into
the interior of
Patagonia."
These kinds of embellishments contributed to the
transformation of the travel account into a
stylized, sensationalistic, literary
form.
Economic
exploitation
and the
development
of
foreign trade had
directly
con-
tributed to the
development
and standardization of a
stylized
form of travel ac-
counts. As interest and demand for information about
Argentina increased, the
published
travel narrative became a
commodity
in its own
right.
The
objectifica-
tion of the form itself then colored the
"objectivity"
of the observations. This
commoditization tended to
encourage sensationalistic and derivative narratives,
which
manipulated
content but nevertheless maintained
legitimacy by
adherence
to standardized form.
Once the form was
commoditized, anything
could
happen
with content. This
led to adventure stories of the "wild west"
variety discussed above or, later, the
more
personal autobiographies that
began
to
appear
in the twentieth
century. For
instance, Hudson's
early 1900s
Long Ago and Far
Away (1918)
can be fitted into
the travel literature
genre
but
clearly
does not
speak to
any perceived
need for
information, as with travel accounts a
century earlier.
Attempts
at
"objectivity"
have
entirely yielded
in the twentieth
century to the
self-consciously self-reflective
versions of travel accounts
exemplified by Gerald Durrell's
Whispering Land
(1961),
200
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British Travel Accounts
or Paul Theroux's Old
Patagonian Express (1979). Perhaps
most indicative of this
shift is Bruce Chatwin's
popular
1977 travel
account,
In
Patagonia.
Chatwin con-
structs a
personal image
of the "uttermost
part
of the earth"
by manipulating
disparate
curiosities and anecdotes to describe
Patagonia.
His
approach
self-
consciously
builds on the foundation laid
by
the nineteenth
century
travel account
in which the same
approach
aimed toward
entirely
different commercial ends.
While few scholars would
accept
at face value the comments and
ethnographic
observations in these twentieth
century
travel
accounts,
this academic discretion
is sometimes lost in the use of nineteenth
century
travel accounts as
ethnography.
The
early
accounts
reported
on the Indians as distinct
objects, independent
of other
social or
political phenomena ("Sheep Farming,"
"The
Economy,"
"Sale and
Rent of
Lands,"
"The
Constitution,"
"The
Indians," [from
table of contents
of Hutchinson
1865])
and so the reader tends to
accept
the
category
at face
value,
while
perhaps questioning possible
biases within the
category. Underlying assump-
tions about the
categories
themselves often remain
unexamined,
and so
any possible
relations between "Sale and Rent of Lands" or
"Sheep Farming"
and "The In-
dians" are lost.
British Travel Accounts as Ethnohistoric Sources
Much as travel literature itself became
categorized, objectified,
and commoditized
in the nineteenth
century, descriptions
in those accounts also
categorized, objec-
tified,
and commoditized the observed. An overview and
analysis
of the treat-
ment of "the Indian" in British travel accounts of
Argentina
illustrates the more
pernicious
results of this
tendency.
The 1744 Falkner
account,
with
prefatory
comments
exhorting
the benefits of
trade and "the common interests of Great Britain and
Spain,"
devoted
nearly
half of
Description of Patagonia
to
description
of "The Inhabitants . . . The
Religion, Government, Policy,
and Customs . . ." and "An Account of the
Language
of the Inhabitants of These Countries"
(Falkner 1935,
table of con-
tents). Preceding subsequent ethnographic descriptions by nearly
a
century,
Falkner's narrative
provides
one of the earliest direct accounts of native societies
in the
pampas. Note, however,
that even this
description
is
presented
in the con-
text of an editorial
argument
for
"extending
the commerce and marine
empire
of Great
Britain,"
and "that
any
information
concerning
the
geography,
in-
habitants,
and other
particulars,
of the most southern
part
of the American con-
tinent, might
be of some
public utility,
and
might
also afford some amusement
to the curious"
(ibid. i).
Even this
early
interest in
expanding
commercial
possibilities
motivated
publication
of Falkner's
account,
and the trend was to con-
tinue in the nineteenth
century publications
of travel narratives.
The
prefatory
remarks to Falkner's
description clearly
indicate a British view of
aboriginal peoples
as
potential trading partners.
The
political autonomy implicitly
granted
"the inhabitants of these countries" in Falkner's account
legitimized
for
the British their freedom to trade and commerce in those
regions.
Not
surprisingly,
Spain interpreted
these
pretensions
to
rights
of trade as
outright piracy according
to international law and intimations such as these moved the
Spaniards
to better
protect
their colonies. One aim of the Bourbon reforms
sought
to better
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KRISTINE L. JONES
protect
the American
possessions
from
foreign
intrusion with increased
military
fortifications
along
the coasts.
The use of the Falkner account for
ethnographic detail, then,
must account not
only
for Falkner's
goals
as a
missionary
in
writing
the narrative but also for the
political
uses for which the account was
published-and
for which it was edited
and
prefaced by
a
twenty-two page political
treatise. The
question
is not whether
the Falkner account is
biased,
but how. Nor can the answer be found in the "ac-
curacy"
of the
ethnographic observations,
but rather it lies in the
interpretive
ends
of those observations. The careful and detailed
description
of
political organiza-
tion and various enmities with
Spanish
settlers indicate a
great
deal about British
views of tactical
intelligence
but not much about
indigenous concepts
of their social
world. In
fact,
the account
speaks
more about
England's expanding
definition
of "nations" as
trading partners
than about a
theoretically pristine
Indian
society.
Once the
Spanish trading monopoly ended,
the investment
potentials
in
Argen-
tina excited a demand for information in
England,
and the travel account
quickly
assumed a standard form. This
form,
of
course,
was not limited
only
to accounts
of
Argentina; rather,
accounts of
Argentina
followed the standards set
by
literature
describing
all
parts
of the world in which British
capitalism
was
expanding.
Nine-
teenth
century
British travel accounts of
many developing regions
in the world
contributed in a demonstrable
way
to
emerging concepts
about a "third
world,"
as a
quick perusal
in
any major library catalogue
under "travel and
description"
for
many
countries indicates.
Following
the standards of the
genre, specific
observations of Indian societies
in
Argentina gradually
tended to
place
them in more
general categories ("natives"),
distinct and
separate
from the
specific sphere
of social and economic relations
being
described.
Descriptions
of the "natives" sounded
very
much like
descrip-
tions of "natives" in other
parts
of the world. In this
way,
"Indians" became
ahistorical
categories,
commodities to be described in narrative
descriptions
of
travel accounts.
Hence, the
descriptions sound more like accounts of other
parts
of the world and less
specific
to the actual situation in
Argentina.
While the Falkner edition had
presented the autonomous
Patagonian "nations"
as
potential
allies in trade and commerce in the South Seas, a
lapse
of little over
a
quarter
of a
century
reversed this view in the
political arena and in travel ac-
counts. The inhabitants of the
pampas signified
little other than
marginalized pro-
ducers, political
enemies
manipulated by
local
caudillos,
or allies used
by the forces
of
good, usually involving
the British.
In his
memoirs, the British
general John Miller described how, in the in-
dependence movements, Pampas
Indians enlisted
against
the Buenoes Aires in-
surgents.
Note how the
concept
of the Indians as free nations has shifted to one
of
political ally/enemy.
The Indians who were invited by Rodriguez to join in the war against us had an un-
conquerable hatred of the Portefios; and at the period in which we expected them
every day
to fall
upon us,
a
deputation
of fourteen captains arrived in Rosario, sent
by
the
principal cacique
to treat with Carrera.
They told him, in the names of their
respective chiefs,
of the
very great rewards which
Rodriguez had offered them for
their
services;
but declared
they could never take part with their insidious enemies
the
Portefios;
and as to the rewards offered them, that they would sooner fight in
the
company
with brave men, independent of emolument, than they would in favor
of such cowards as
they
knew the Portenios to be, notwithstanding any gifts they might
offer.
(Miller
1828:
153)
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British Travel Accounts
In this
version,
the Indians are
coming
to be seen as little more than
political
pawns,
with no
apparant
tactical motivation for their choice.
Although
this
passage
does
give
some idea of
indigenous political
and
military organization,
it tells us
nothing
about native
perceptions
of events.
Besides the notion of Indians as
political pawns,
another
theme,
of Indians as
specialized producers, appeared
in the
upsurge
of travel accounts
published
after
1800. When the
major seaports
of South America
opened
to trade with the
British,
and trade
developed
in these
ports,
travelers' accounts
began
to comment in detail
on native manufactures of
possible
interest to investors. Particular interest in the
possibilities
of
developing
trade in furs and hides
may
even have stemmed from
British successes in the
thriving
and
profitable
fur trade with Indian tribes in North
America. For
instance,
Samuel Hull Wilcocke's 1807
description
of native dress
lingers
in detail on the
advantages
and
disadvantages
of different hides used.
They
wear mantles of skins sewed
together,
sometimes the skins of
young colts,
which
are least
esteemed;
sometimes of otter or other
skins; mostly, however,
of
guanaco-
skins,
which are in
great
estimation on account of the warmth and fineness of the
wool,
and their
long duration;
but those which are in the
highest
esteem are made
with the skins of small
foxes,
which are
exceedingly
soft and
beautiful;
the area of
a mottled
grey colour, but are not so durable as those of the
guanaco. (Wilcocke
1807:
449)
Not more than ten
years
after
Argentine independence
in
1810, export produc-
tion of
hides, furs,
and cattle
by-products
in
Argentina depended entirely
on the
market created and commanded
by
the British.
By
the
1820s, the
peak
of the first
wave of travel accounts and a time when British merchants had firm control over
the
export economy,
travel accounts
commonly
included
descriptions
of Indians
in
Argentine
markets not
only
for color but also to indicate the
dynamism
of the
market itself. Emeric Vidal in 1820 illustrated
Pampas
Indians who travelled
directly
to Buenos Aires markets to sell leather
goods
and ostrich feathers. In their Let-
ters on South America:
Comprising
Travels on the Banks
of the Parana and Rio
de la Plata, the Robertsons focused on the trade in hides when
they mentioned
the Indians.
The
Pampas
Indians received in return from their
agent or
patron,
as they called
him, their
ponchos, knives, tobacco,
a little white cloth, and a
supply
of
spirits; then
off
they
marched in battle
array
to their favorite haunts.
(Robertson
and Robertson
1843:
271)
A
sharp eye
for commercial
advantage prompted
General Miller to note in his
memoirs, "[F]or
the
eight
of a dollar's worth of
Paraguay tea, six vizcacha skins
were
bought:
At Buenos
Ayres the same articles would sell for three
quarters of
a dollar"
(Miller
1828:
153). Again, although
these
excerpts suggest dynamic
in-
tercultural
exchange, placing description
of "the Indian" into fixed
categories
obscures the
importance
or
significance
of these interactions. To read such ac-
counts,
we must remember that
they
inform us not about Indian society, but about
the social and economic life of a
complex
intercultural frontier.
Even
though political
and economic conditons in Indian societies were to
change
rapidly
in the next two decades, travel accounts continued to
portray Indians ac-
cording
to these fixed
categories.
These
categories
allowed elaboration of motifs
convenient to a
conquest ideology.
For instance, Captain Fitzroy
of HMS
Beagle
railed about inconvenient
manipulations
of the
pawns.
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KRISTINE L. JONES
At this moment the
army
of the United Province of the Rio de la Plata
occupies
the
northern bank
(of
the Rio
Negro),
while the unfortunate and now harassed Indians
are
endeavoring
to
keep possession
of the southern side. A war of extermination
ap-
pears
to be the
object
of the liberal and
independent
Creoles. ... It is a curious fact
that while
Spanish
held the
country,
these southern Indians were
extremely
well
disposed
towards the white
intruders,
and received them with the utmost
hospitality.
Since
the Revolution
(what
a
glorious sound)
the most determined
hostility
has been in-
creasing. (in Stanbury, ed.,
1977:
165)
In this
case, sympathy
lies with the non-allied Indians because of the
enmity
ex-
isting
between the British and the United Provinces at that time.
Darwin also adhered to the
"political pawn" theme,
but cloaked it in the
guise
of scientific observation of a natural
phenomenon.
It was
supposed
that General Rosas had about six hundred Indian allies. The men
were a
full,
fine
race, yet
it was afterwards
easy
to see in the
Fuegian savage
the same
countenance rendered hideous
by cold,
want of
food,
and less civilization.
(1930: 67)
In other
words,
those Indians not available for
political
or
military advantage,
nor
producing objects
of commercial
interest,
remained in that classic
category
of the
other,
the
savage.5
Even
though
direct contact and interaction with Indian societies south of Buenos
Aires in the
pampas
and
Patagonia
increased
throughout
the 1840s and
1850s,
the intractable
indigenous
societies resisted coercive
integration
into
expanding
western economic and
political spheres,
and hence the idea of the "uncivilized"
Indian
grew
more
prominent
in travel accounts.
As a
part
of the same
process,
as more and more accounts of
Patagonia ap-
peared,
the notion of an "unknown" and
"unexplored" region grew stronger.
The
following excerpt
from MacDouall's 1833 narrative illustrates a tone that col-
ored most later accounts of the
Patagonians.
Since these
people
have been
known, they
do not seem to have
altered; wrapped
in
the
guanacoe skin,
and inured from
infancy
to
privation, they range
the desert un-
controlled;
subservient to no law or will but their
own, they undoubtedly possess
a
contentment and a
delight
in their native wilds inconceivable to the inhabitants of
the civilized world.
(p. 160-61)
Evidence to
support
the notion of the uncivilized nature of the Indians focused
on
"savage" aspects
of their actions. When
stopping along
the southern coast
north of the Rio
Negro
outlet
passengers
of HMS
Beagle
had occasion to remark
on the countenance of Indian
prisoners (probably Tehuelche)
held
by
Buenos Aires
soldiers.
Captain Fitzroy
noted
[O]n
the other
side,
a
group
of almost naked Indian
prisoners
sat
devouring
the re-
mains of a half-roasted
horse;
and as
they
scowled at us
savagely,
still
holding
the
large
bones
they
had been
gnawing,
with their
rough
hair and
scanty
substitutes for
clothing
blown about
by
the
wind,
I
thought
I had never beheld a more
singular group.
(in Stanbury, ed.,
1977:
83)
Darwin commented
similarly
on the same incident.
The
Indians,
whilst
gnawing
bones of
beef, looked,
as
they are,
half re-called beasts.
No
painter
ever
imagined
so wild a set of
expressions. (Ibid.)
The
apparent equation
of
savagery
with lack of
proper
British table manners is
also evident in MacDouall's
description
of a
Patagonian (also probably
Tehuelche)
feast.
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They
were
all,
and at the same
time, equally busy
about the
fire,
each
turning
and
roasting
his individual
portion.
The
greater part,
when the flesh was
sufficiently
blackened,
withdrew it from the fire and sank their
well-arranged
teeth into
it, gnawing,
or rather
tearing off,
some
good
mouthfuls. . . .
(1833: 163)
Following
the two decade hiatus in British trade with
Argentina,
these same
categories (political pawn,
market
specialist,
uncivilized
savage) appeared
in the
revived
production
of travel accounts. When the renewed
trading
relations be-
tween
Argentina
and
England (following
Rosa's
demise)
stimulated
publication
of travel accounts about that
country
once
again,
the new wave of narratives
perpetuated
and elaborated the notion of the
(uncivilized)
Indian as ahistorical
object.
Even
though
intensified British
presence
in
Argentina
allowed travelers
greater
access to interaction and
familiarity
with Indian
society,
rote
categorical
descriptions
in these later accounts show little attention to
contemporary
relations
between "the Indian" and the rest of the intercultural
society
of the southern
Argen-
tine frontier. Standard "Indian Life"
passages
can be found in most travel ac-
counts
published
in the 1850s and 1860s.
While the
category
of Indian as
political pawn continued,
the
image
was
changing
from the
relatively straightforward descriptions
of
military
incidents such as General
Miller described to a more ominous
image
in the last
part
of the century.
For in-
stance, Colonel J. Anthony King's
account of his
personal
adventures in
Twenty-
four
Years in the
Argentine Republic, published
in 1846, described "The Depreda-
tions of the
Pampas"
carried out in 1829.
The Indians, known as Pampas, had entered many of the
(Cordoban)
villages
in hordes,
committing murders, driving the people
from their homes, destroying
their prop-
erty, and, in numerous instances, burning their houses. From the systematic
manner
and the impunity
with which they performed
their work, taking prisoners
and carry-
ing
them through the very
towns which had proclaimed
for Rosas (who
had recently
become
conspicuous),
it seemed more than possible
that these terrible scenes were
enacted by his connivance, or even by
his direction. (1846: 224)
While travel accounts of Indians
published
in the first two decades of the nine-
teenth century painted
a much more benign picture
of Indians as
political pawns,
little more than dumb accomplices
in the notorious inter-provincial struggles,
the
accounts
published
in the latter half of that century
drew much more
threatening
conclusions.
William MacCann's account of his Two Thousand Miles' Ride Through
the
Argentine
Provinces (1853)
detailed frontier life as it was more than two decades
after the incident described
by King, yet
his
portrayal
shows none of the insight
into political
motivations of Indian actions hinted at
by King. Instead, a stark,
menacing image
transforms the
category
of the Indian as
political pawn
into a
new and ominous image.
The frontier (San Nicolas) is at no greater distance than about twenty leagues; beyond
which there is a vast and unexplored territory possessed by Indians, whose villages,
however, are so remote as to be little known to Spaniards....
About two years ago
a
large body of Indians made an assault upon
the pasture
lands of these parts, sweeping
away a great quantity of cattle and horses. (p. 18)
MacCann's
description
of these "remote," "little known" Indians, written nearly
a
century
after Falkner's account, and several decades after important
commer-
cial relations with the Indians had been established and broken, indicates not so
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KRISTINE L. JONES
much an
ethnographic
void as an
emerging interpretation
that
posited
the Indian
as menace and obstacle to commerce.
About two months
previously,
a
party
of
retreating
Indians fell in with a caravan
of merchandize
coming
from
Mendoza,
when
they
drove off 290
bullocks,
48
mules,
70
horses,
and robbed two merchants of 800 doubloons
(2,500). (Ibid. 21)
While earlier
"depredations"
had been
interpreted
as
political maneuverings,
the
concept
of Indian as obstacle now was
firmly
established in a stark
conquest ideology.
This is not to
suggest
that the
images
of the Indian were not
manipulated
without
reference to
reality. Indeed,
the intercultural
dynamics
in this frontier
region by
the mid-1850s had
degenerated
into
outright
warfare-and warfare in which the
majority
of the
pampean
and
patagonian
societies were
pitted
in direct conflict
with
expanding
western
society.
Travel
accounts, however, by adhering
to form
in
descriptions
of a
stylized, ahistorical, objectified "Indian,"
did not record
chang-
ing
social
dynamics,
but rather reflected these
changes
in
increasingly
harsh
images.
Sensationalistic
pulp
novels
played
with this new
category
of "Indian
menace,"
reinforcing
racist ideas and
concepts
about the
"Patagonian Savages." Examples
of
particularly bloody indigenous ceremonies,
extracted from
any
social
context,
illustrated the theme. The
equation
of
"savagery"
with horse flesh still
persisted,
with some
range
in
exploiting
the theme.
George
Musters's
sympathetic feelings
for the Indians with whom he traveled caused him to rationalize his
participation
in such aberrant behavior.
Previous to this I had felt a sort of
repugnance
to
eating horse,
as
perhaps
most
Englishmen
...
have;
but
hunger
overcame all
scruples,
and I soon
acquired
a taste
for this meat.
(1873: 80)
Bourne's
popularized
American
adventure, published
in
Boston,
most
clearly
demonstrates the
manipulation
of
images
to conform to the idea of
savagery.
I
learned,
on
inquiry,
that a horse was to be
killed;
a matter
which,
it
appeared,
was
always
the occasion of a solemn
powwow.
On
reaching
the
spot,
the
poor
old
beast,
lean and
lank,
with a lariat about his
neck,
stood surrounded
by
some
fifty
Indians.
The
squaws
were
singing,
in stentorian
tones,
"Ye! Ye!
Yup! Yup! Lar, lapuly, yapuly!"
with a
repetition
that became
unendurable,
and drove me to a
respectful
distance.
The horse's
fore-legs
were fast bound
together,
a violent
push
forward threw him
heavily
to the
ground,
and he was
speedily despatched
with a knife .... Soon after
my
return to the
wigwam,
a
huge portion
of the carcass was sent to our
quarters
and
hung up,
to furnish our meals! After
being duly
dressed
by
the women ... it
was served
up-my only
alternative to starvation. Famine has no
scruples
of
delicacy;
if the reader is
disgusted,
he is in a state of
sympathy
with the writer.
(1853: 102)
Even Guinnard's narrative of his Three Years'
Slavery Among
the
Patagonians,
a classic
ethnographic source, portrays
the traditional
ceremony
as
revolting.
These
savages slaughter
and cut
up
a horse. ... In less than ten minutes all this is
done,
and numerous
spectators,
seated on the
very spot,
are
devouring
with ferocious
avidity
hot
livers, hearts, lungs,
and raw
kidneys, dipped
in
blood,
which
they
after-
wards drink.
(1871: 184)
Of these accounts of the infamous blood drinkers of
Patagonia,
Musters's is the
only
one to
suggest
"this
saving
the blood
(which
was secured in
pots)
to be
cooked,
(was)
considered a
great delicacy" (1873: 81).
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However much that
delicacy may
have resembled
English
blood
pudding,
the
only
available
interpretation
in the context of
capitalist expansion
was one of con-
quest
over
savagery.
When the
Argentine
nation celebrated a
military victory
over
the indios
salvajes
in
1880,
British
capital
investment
immediately expanded
into
the
"conquered
desert."
Concluding
Remarks
The travel
account, by stylistic convention, placed description
of Indians into
categories independent
of
any
historical context. This
objectification
of Indians
as a
category
then
permitted interpretation
of the
category according
to conven-
ient
ideology,
be it
"sovereign
nations" suitable for
trade,
"market
specialists"
providing
access to raw materials for
trade, "political pawns"
in the
struggle
over
control of that
trade,
or "uncivilized obstacles to
progress"
in the modernization
of
production
for trade. The
categories
evident in nineteenth
century
British travel
accounts reflect
evolving political
attitudes about Indians much more than
they
document social life as
actually
lived
by indigenous people.
Because the
categories
of "Indianness" in the travel literature
deny any legitimacy
to actions taken
by
the individuals
described, interpretation
of these works as historical sources must
first
interpret
the
categories.
The
descriptions
in travel accounts document not
only specific ethnographic
details at
specific dates,
but also reflect a
developing
western
conquest ideology
for
Argentina.
Acknowledgments
I am
grateful
to Hector Lindo Fuentes and
Enrique Mayer
for useful criticism and discus-
sion. I also thank
Megan McLaughlin,
who offered
careful, critical,
and
time-consuming
editorial assistance.
Notes
1. See "Conflict and
Adaptation
in the
Argentine Pampas
1750-1880"
(Jones 1984)
for historical
analysis
from this
perspective.
2. Such a broad statement invites some discussion.
Ethnohistory
has
published
much
of the work that
represents
these new
directions, particularly
for North American
history.
Historians of Colonial America have been forced to
reappraise early
American
history
in
light
of careful ethnohistorical
research, which, moving beyond
the old
images,
shows the
very important
role of Native Americans in the
development
of
the American colonies.
Although
the
historiography
of the National
period
of United
States
history
has been less influenced
by
this
trend,
studies of nineteenth
century
western
expansion
are
beginning
to
recognize
the
importance
of Native Americans
in the
dynamism
of that
process,
which
conquest ideologies successfully
obscured.
In the
historiography
of Latin
America, study
of "the
Indians," especially
those
of the Andean and Mesoamerican
regions,
has
long
been standard.
Only recently,
however,
have historians looked more
closely
at the distinction between a standard
image
of "the Indian" in Latin America and an actual intercultural
socio-political
arena which contributed to the
unique
historical
developments
of
particular regions.
207
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KRISTINE L. JONES
A review of
comparable
theoretical and
methodological approaches
for North and
South American
ethnohistory might begin
with the
bibliographic essays
of Axtell
(1978)
and Salomon
(1982).
3. See Keen
(1969: 703-21)
and Hanke
(1971: 112-27)
for
scholarly
discussion of the
Black
Legend.
4. An exhaustive
bibliographic
review of all British travel accounts of
Argentina
is not
the intent of this
paper; however,
the
following bibliographic
"cross-tab" does ac-
count for the
majority
of
published
travel accounts of
Argentina.
Published Between Number
1800 and 1820 2
1821 and 1835 12
1836 and 1850 6
1851 and 1880 14
5. The classical idea of the
"savage" literally
derives from classical
philosophy.
Dickason's discussion of "L'Homme
Sauvage"
reviews recent studies of the "Noble
Savage."
Her
introductory
comments indicate the
complexity
of the issue.
Such achievements as the
city
states of
Mexico,
Central
America,
or Peru were either
overlooked or else were dismissed as
being,
at
best,
barbarous. An examination of the
concept
of
savagery
reveals that its
origin
is both more
complex
and far older than such
a view would indicate. In
fact,
it involved the well-known Renaissance folkloric
figure
of the Wild
Man; early
Christian
perceptions
of
monkeys, apes,
and
baboons;
and the
classical Greek and Roman tradition of the noble
savage. (1984: 63)
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