Amigos, pero intrusos. “Los caciquillos” del Chupat y sus negociaciones con el gobierno y la colonia galesa antes de la conquista (1865-1883)

Abstract

Previously we have analyzed the political trajectory of a letter sent in 1865 by Antonio, a “patagon” cacique, to the authorities of the Welsh colony on the banks of the Chubut River. In this paper we think about Antonio again and in other caciques related to him by a network of alliances, based in new sources from 1865 to 1883 -when the zone was militarized by the National Government-. Correspondence, treatises, and chronicles of travelers and colonist were analyzed to shed light into the relationship between these chiefs, since they seemed to depend on caciques principales of northern Patagonia but actually kept certain degree of autonomy in their decisions. The frontier advance through colonization and new treaties boosted not only interethnic power relations but those among new authorities of the colony and the national government. Thus, we can continue revising the great ethnic complex of Patagonia, providing less essentialist interpretations of these identities.