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Argentine Patagonia The Early Settlers of the Country |
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This book would not be complete, nor would it carry out its purpose of depicting in its pages the history of the development of the National Territory of Santa Cruz, if it did not devote a considerable portion of its contents to relating the achievements of those who were the principal factors in that evolution, or, rather, the sole originators of the progress that in the brief space of thirty years has attained to its present high level.
These were a few Scotchmen, Spaniards and Germans, who, leaving their native countries, where the scope of activity was too narrow for their ambition, and urged by the irresistible impulse of their adventurous souls, crossed the seas with the fixed intention of unveiling the mystery of the wilderness in order to wrest from its unexplored recesses the fortune to which they aspired, and this same wilderness was to constitute, in the course of time, their reward and the sheltering canopy beneath which their tired bodies rested after their gigantic struggle.
It is of that struggle, and the fatigues which they had to undergo, of the obstacles they had to overcome, and of the titanic efforts they had to make, that these pages will speak in aspiring to render the homage of Argentine hearts to those valiant foreigners who, whilst they built up their own fortunes, in exploiting our Southern desert prairies, reclaimed, at one and the same time, for our Motherland and for civilisation, enormous stretches of half-abandoned territories, which it might be said, without exaggeration, existed, until then, in the minds of the natives almost as figments of the imagination.
The results of the work of these men are obvious. All that this book describes was effected by these pioneers, who, in their optimism, never faltered in attempting any undertaking, however daring or costly it might be.
Generally speaking, the Argentine Government did not second or encourage these efforts, to any extent, and in regard to its help in the progress of the Territory, there are very few recorded evidences of it.
The biographies of these pioneers are, necessarily, largely analogous. Their surroundings did not allow for distinguishing features or achievements. An incessant struggle, without intermission or rest, against the climate, the soil, the solitude and the immeasurable wastes surrounding them; that is the only inscription upon the rude pages of the book of their lives.
There is not a single recollection engraved upon the tablets of memory of those forerunners of civilisation that does not testify to the realisation of a great effort or to the triumph over some obstacle that obstructed or impeded their progress towards the much desired goal.
They had no houses and therefore lived exposed to the inclemency of the elements or under the shelter of some rough hut in a temperature that often fell twenty degrees below zero.
Provisions were scarce and they lived on the flesh of the guanacos and ostriches that fell before their unerring guns. The animals with which they had started their adventure had usually been brought from hundreds and hundreds of miles away, patiently driven in long day marches of hopeless monotony that succeeded one another ceaselessly for months and even years together. Later on, when they were firmly established and their credit was good, what further triumphs have not been achieved by those pioneers?
Bridges built that represent fortunes; roads dug out in the hard lava of pre-historic volcanoes, upon each inch of which fell the sweat of many days toil; endless lines of wires, crossing one another like the meshes of a net, over the whole of the immense extent of the Pampa; all symbolical of the conquest of the desert in accordance with the most sacred of the rights consecrated by our legislation; mansions displaying a luxury and a comfort that cannot be surpassed by that of abodes in any of the more privileged zones; rural installations which are models in respect of comfort and productive efficiency; telephone lines which cross enormous distances carrying spoken words from one boundary of the country to another; motor cars in place of horses; tractors replacing heavy cars and bringing nearer to the coast the far-off estancias whilst the promised railways are in course of construction; hotels and inns erected in the remotest corners of the most distant parts; and further, those barren lands with scanty vegetation, which the great English naturalist called deprecatingly "cursed lands" and which previously were exclusively inhabited by guanacos, pumas and ostriches, to-day are covered with innumerable flocks of thorough-bred sheep, whose fleeces of beautiful wool stand out in snowy whiteness in vivid contrast to the soft green of the wild pastures or the darker tones of the "mata negra".
And all this is the result of but thirty years of work!
Those men must have had great energy and stout hearts to achieve such results in so short space of time. Our Motherland ought to be very grateful to them, because, though they were successful in the struggle for the attainment of personal wealth, their victory, obtained by dint of courage and perseverance, served also to increase Argentine Territorial patrimony and in view of this fact the homage which we render them in these pages is but just and well-deserved and must be for their descendants the best of titles to nobility; those of work and tenacity.
Final Remarks
We should have wished to refer in this section, to all those persons who, one way or another, had a decisive influence on the progress of the territory; but the lack of information about the greater number of them prevented us from complying with a pleasant duty. We do not forget the names of Saturnino García, José Manzano, Peter Richmond, Edelmiro Mayer, William Jenkins, Américo Berrando, John Frazer, Henry L. Reynard, Smith, Guillaume, John Riquez, B. Urbina, Redman, Douglas, Roux, Clark, Ross, W. Hope, William Ness, Lippert, Lemaitre, Dobrée, but circumstances over which we have no control — not seldom the unconquerable modesty of the persons in question — rendered it impossible to carry out our purpose of interviewing those old settlers, or to obtain any data relating to them.
The chapter, therefore, is incomplete, but as we engaged
in it with the best will in the world, this will serve as an excuse for the
omissions, which to our regret we must have incurred in.