Napalpí massacre

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The Napalpí massacre in the northern Argentine Colonia Aborigen Napalpí ( Chaco province ) was a mass murder by soldiers of the army, police officers and landowners of a group of around 400 Toba and Mocoví Indians on July 19, 1924. It was part of a major wave of violence in the 1920s, which represented the last violent expression of the so-called Conquista del Chaco , the conquest of the remnants of territory in northeast Argentina that were still held by the indigenous people at that time.

Although the sources of the incident are poor, as there was never a police investigation or even a conviction of the perpetrators, this massacre is now assumed to be a fact. In 2008, the Chaco provincial government apologized publicly for the incident.

course

The Conquista in the Chaco was already completed by 1880, but tensions repeatedly arose between the indigenous people and the new landowners, as most of the land had been divided up among colonists who had mainly immigrated from Europe and the Indians largely from poorly paid gainful employment became dependent on the estancias . The only independent settlements were reductions to which the Indians were forcibly resettled and where they could grow cotton themselves under poor conditions; one of them was Napalpí, founded in 1911. Relations worsened rapidly when, in May 1924, the provincial government demanded a 15% levy from the indigenous peoples. At the same time, shamanic leaders gained a boost among the Tobas and Mocovíes, who called on the end of oppression. Then there were the first isolated acts of violence on both sides.

The trigger for the mass murder was ultimately a strike that was organized by the Indians to obtain payment in cash instead of food vouchers. The action came from the administrator of the then national territory , Fernando Centeno , whose picture was demonstratively removed from the government palace in Resistencia in 2007 . On the morning of July 19, around 130 police officers and landowners entered the Napalpí colony, supported by fighter planes, according to some reports. They set fire in the aboriginal homes and shot the survivors, although women and children were not spared. According to eyewitness reports, there were cruel excesses such as the extraction of testicles from the Indian caciques, which were taken as trophies to the police stations. The number of dead is estimated at between 200 and 400, including white peasants who had joined the protests.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Chaco pidió perdón por una masacre de aborígenes. In: Clarín . January 18, 2008.
  2. ^ Mercedes Silva: Memorias del Gran Chaco. EIM, Reconquista (Argentina) 1997.
  3. ↑ La única sobreviviente de una feroz masacre cumple 107 años. In: Diario de Cuyo. January 14, 2008.

literature

  • Mario Vidal: Napalpí, la herida abierta. Paidós, Buenos Aires 2004, ISBN 149-2004-04-X
  • Nicolás Iñigo Carrera: La violencia como potencia económica: Chaco 1870-1940. Centro Editor de América Latina, Buenos Aires 1988.
  • Carlos Martínez Sarasola: Nuestros paisanos los indios. Emecé Editores, Buenos Aires 1992, ISBN 950-04-2636-6 .

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