Drawing: Antón Journal pitchers, Buenos Aires, December 1875 - Although it captivates you believe in God? -
Fermina's your answer:
- And what does he blame for what happened to me? More white guilt is the man who can not defend his own .-
For many years the land around the suburbs of Buenos Aires to the provinces were the scene of struggle, of death, desolation and cultural tear. They faced two human groups: the whites who wanted to expand its borders and, that of indigenous people, the true owners of the plains, not defending them.
The fight was uneven: sometimes the strength of the raid was sweeping a meager outpost in which the natives surrendered their lives in spite of the stores, in general, guns decimated the Indian.
Among many victims, there was a confrontation that left more than life: women, from arrival at the fort was preparing for a string of losses.
She has been throughout the history of war booty, and the struggles of borders, belonging to one or the other, was the big loser. It was not massacred, raped by the winner leaving behind his affections, their dignity, their cultural patterns.
victim was India, "China's" than "satisfy" the desire of the soldiers and Christianity was brought to the ranch, away from all hope.
Hundreds of families without distinction of class, lost mothers, daughters, sisters. Since the inhabitants of the fort at that lofty lady who eventually traveled from one point to another in the Pampa, were swept away at a gallop along the chest of a stranger, since there would be his master.
life of women in the nineteenth century was not easy, but much less than it was among the Indians. The man was a warrior, all the rest of the work for survival was in women's hands. It was from the culture of the whites "Birth" a slave. " For the captive's existence was more contentious than for indigenous women. He suffered the imposition of the man who had seized and abuse of Indian women while away the favorite raptor. Countless
relationships tell us about their worries, the gadgets that hatched to escape their captors and the torture he was subjected. However, other stories such as Mansfield, paint your situation with different nuances.
know that the affected families will never resign themselves to this type of loss and resorted to ransom for money, most often in vain. We also know that the military victors insisted on returning the rescued white "civilization", they refused to return.
Why? There were many reasons, again among his people, aroused suspicion by its coexistence with the "wild" again suffered a tear of being separated from their children, this time from the mestizos. Just remember the song "... I'm not Huinca (1) Captain, it was a long time .."
Prejudice, distance, why not love? There is Fermina
Zárate, wife of Chief Ramon Cabral, who had many children, she rejected with horror the proposal Mansilla returning to Buenos Aires. In the tents was his life, whether it was Christian love for this man who was a stranger, I was forgetful heart.
Fermina is just one of many who crossed his blood stock making with the love of freedom.
(1) Huinca: name that the Indians gave the white man.
© Peña Southern History. Ana di Cesare, Geronimo Rombolá, Beatriz Clavenna
Internet version of the original published in May 1994 * This article is
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