Patagonia Rebelde (or Patagonia Trágica) ("Rebel Patagonia" or "Tragic Patagonia" in English) was the name given to the uprising and violent suppression of a rural workers' strike in the Argentine province of Santa Cruz in Patagonia between 1920 and 1922. The uprising was put down by Colonel Héctor Benigno Varela's 10th Cavalry Regiment of the Argentine Army under the orders of President Hipólito Yrigoyen.San Martino de Dromi, María Laura (1986). Historia sindical argentina, 1853-1955. Ediciones Ciudad Argentina, p. 54. Approximately 300Los medios anarquistas hablan de 1.500 muertos, la prensa oficial de 300. La Causa Argentina, Juan Archibaldo Lanús, p 393, Emecé Editores, 1988-1,500 rural workers were shot and killed by the 10th Cavalry Regiment in the course of the operations, many of them executed by firing squads after surrendering. Most of the executed were Spanish and Chilean workers who had sought refuge in Argentina's Patagonia after their strike in the city of Puerto Natales in southern Chile in 1919 was crushed by the Chilean authorities, at the cost of four carabiniers killedLa revuelta obrera de Puerto Natales en 1919 – Un aporte a la historia de los trabajadores de la Patagonia and the offices of their union were burned down by the civilians, policemen and the militaries in Punta Arenas on 27 July 1920. At least two Argentine soldiers (privates Fernando Pablo Fischer and Domingo Montenegro), three local policemen (sergeant Tomás Rosa and constables Ernesto Bozán and Juan Campos) and a number of ranch owners and their relatives also died during the strife. According to the versions well publicized by the army and the landowners, several of the captured women were raped in the uprising as the rebel forces fought for control of the territory.Violan mujeres e inauguran el caos en el que sumen a la lejana gobernación resistiéndose a mano armada a las fuerzas policiales. La Tragedia Patagónica: Historia de un Ensayo Anarquista", Orlando Mario Punzi, p. 95, Círculo Militar, 1991Muchos eran comandados por oficiales de carabineros chilenos disfrazados de paisanos y disponían de modernísimas armas entregadas por el país trasandino; todo ello matizado con saqueos, asesinatos, incendio de estancias y violaciones de mujeres. Los Fusilamientos de la Patagonia", Oscar Troncoso, p. 73, Centro Editor de América Latina, 1972 These versions have been disputed by leftist scholar Ernesto Bohoslavsky. The most detailed narrative of these events is that by Argentine journalist Osvaldo Bayer (1972, below), summarized in English by Bruce Chatwin in 1976.'The Anarchists of Patagonia' in The Times Literary Supplement 11 Dec. 1976, also in Chatwin's Anatomy of Restlessness: Uncollected Writings, ed. Jan Borm and Matthew Graves (Jonathan Cape, 1996.)
Background The Federación Obrera de Magallanes was born in the early 1910 in Punta Arenas, capital of the Chilean Territory of Colonization of Magallanes and economic metropolis of southern Patagonia. The multinational union extended throughout the region and led the formation of the Sociedad Obrera de Río Gallegos (Workers' Society of Rio Gallegos) in the Argentinean National Territory of santa Cruz, directed by the Spanish anarchist Antonio Soto, known as the Gallego Soto. Santa Cruz was a center of wool production for export, with large estates and English meat processing plants. The low demand of wool inventories, which had been accumulated at the end of the First World War, and the fall of the price from $9.74 to $3.08, thus returning to the normal level of quotation in times of peace, gave rise to a regional crisis. This affected landowners and merchants, but had an even greater impact on wool workers and rural laborers, who were living in miserable conditions. With the end of the war, the price of exports of Patagonian raw materials fell. The normal working day of the workers of that time was 12 hours, that of the shearers and muleteers was around 16 hours; wages were minimal and were often paid in bonds or in foreign currency which when exchanged in the stores was taken for a lower value. In addition, the only day off was Sunday. A protest strike in September 1920 against the arbitrary actions of the police, the boycott of three merchants linked to the Sociedad Rural and the arrest of the leaders of the Sociedad Obrera deepened the confrontation. Delegates from all over the province came to discuss the measures to be demanded of the Rural Society. In this situation, the workers gathered in the Sociedad Obrera de Río Gallegos presented the management with a list of demands for an improvement in working conditions. Among other demands, the workers requested that no more than three men should sleep in 16 square meters, that a package of candles should be given to each worker every month, that no work should be done on Saturdays, an improvement in the food portions, a minimum monthly salary of 100 pesos, and recognition of the Sociedad Obrera as the only legitimate representative of the workers, accepting the appointment of a delegate as an intermediary between the parties in conflict. This document was rejected by the organization that grouped the landowners and the Sociedad Obrera. The response of the workers was to declare a general strike throughout Santa Cruz.
First strike
In 1920, in the aftermath of the First World War, the price of wool had dropped significantly, provoking an economic crisis in sheep-breeding Argentine Patagonia.Los Sucesos de la Patagonia, La Patagonia rebelde By Johana Farjat The strike occurred during a period in which Argentina had been facing a workers' shortage and an economic downturn, which led to rising prices, which had only began to slowly return to higher economic recovery. The fear of revolution and unrest may have threatened to destroy Argentine society, as the Russian Revolution acted as moral boost for the workers and was fear-inducing in the middle and upper classes of Argentina. During the 8 years preceding the Patagonia Rebelde, the Argentine economy and government was making efforts to move away from a mostly agricultural mode of production and diversify and industrialize, following a trend among nations of the period. The period of economic recovery which preceded the Patagonia Rebelde and followed the economic downturn of 1914 was expected to be less radical and more stable than the period before during the economic downturn. However, it was marked by a number of strikes which resulted in violent confrontations, with Patagonia Rebelde following this trend The Patagonia Rebelde mirrors some aspects of the "Semana Tragica (Tragic Week)", in that it was a failed attempt at using a mass movement in order to affect working conditions with a strike, with its roots in revolutionary and anarchist ideas. The period preceding the Patagonia Rebelde was also marked by the strengthening of the feminist movement within Argentina, which saw changes to the workforce and brought Argentine women in contact with a more radical ideology. In August 1920 there were a number of strikes in the province of Santa Cruz, followed by a general strike declared on 1 November. Most of the strikers were shearers and rural workers. The first armed confrontation took place on 2 January 1921 near El Cerrito, where four policemen and a striker were killed, and two policemen and a gendarme were taken hostages. Another gendarme was shot and killed in an ambush at Centinela river several days later. The ranchers and the interim governor Edelmiro Correa Falcón, himself a landowner, used the incidents to ask the federal government to declare a state of emergency in Santa Cruz. As the unrest spread, the government of Hipólito Yrigoyen ordered Colonel Héctor Benigno Varela's 10th Cavalry Regiment immediately to the affected area and the Argentine Navy seized the various ports and key facilities in the province. The new police chief in Santa Cruz, Oscar Schweizer, under orders of the new governor of the province, radical Ángel Ignacio Yza, instructed Varela to avoid bloodshed and the army colonel was able to work out a deal with the strikers and the ranch owners, and prohibited the payment of wages in Chilean money. In May 1921 the cavalry regiment returned to Buenos Aires but their leave was cancelled in October as strikes broke out again in the province when the ranch owners reneged on their promise of fairer working conditions. The leader of the strikers was a Galician anarchist, Antonio Soto, general secretary of the Workers' Society of Rio Gallegos, the local branch of the Argentine Regional Workers' Federation. Manuel Carlés, president of the Argentine Patriotic League is reported to have violently broken up one of the demonstration of the strikers in Río Gallegos with one dead and four injured in the resulting clash. The month of August saw activity in the ports of Deseado, Santa Cruz, San Julián and Río Gallegos came to a complete standstill with a general strike. Hundreds of strikers believed to be anarchists or Bolsheviks were either thrown in jails or shipped back to Buenos Aires. The Buenos Aires press referred to the armed strikers as "anarchists" and "thieves". At the same time, the Chilean government grew alarmed at the prospect of facing similar unrest in southern Chile and deployed a strong carabineer force under colonel Carlos Ibáñez del Campo to the city of Puerto Natales. According to historian Miguel Angel Scenna, the Argentine government soon grew suspicious of the deployment of this Chilean force on the Chilean-Argentine border. According to captain Elbio Carlos Anaya, a company commander in the 10th Cavalry Regiment, the Chilean carabineers guarding the mountain passes, let the strikers cross back and forth into Argentina armed with weapons and without any hindrance on the part of the authorities.Bayer, II: La Masacre, p. 123 On 16 November 1921, however, the Chilean government eventually took sides and allowed colonel Varela and a motorized column of 13 soldiers to take a 50 km shortcut from Rio Turbio to Cancha Carrera through Chilean territory, east of Puerto Natales, along today's Highway 9.Bayer, II: La Masacre, p. 131Punzi, Orlando Mario (1991). La tragedía patagónica: historia de un ensayo anarquista. Círculo Militar, p. 79.
Second strike and repression