the resistance. When Florentino Cuello and Bartolo Díaz hand over their wounded hostages (Commissioner Micheri and Pérez Millán), El 68 and El Toscano, along with two hundred of their followers, make off with most of the weapons. Later on, Florentino Cuello gives himself up to Governor Yza at the El Tero ranch, along with the remaining weapons—which are very few—and 1,913 horses. There, the police confirm the identity of the strikers who have turned themselves in and issue them safe conduct passes. Florentino Cuello receives Pass No. 1 and is allowed to leave, followed by El Paisano Díaz and the other ranch delegates. To keep up appearances, Yza sends a telegraph to the interior minister stating that “the ringleaders have been arrested and, after being disarmed, have been released by the police, as ordered.” But he was merely honoring his word to release all those who turned themselves in.
Everything has ended well: the strikers remain free and Yza will come down on the side of the workers. But nobody suspects that this happy ending is only a prelude to death.
CHAPTER FIVE: THE LONG MARCH TOWARDS DEATH
“The same was done to the Indians in that bloodbath they call the Conquest of the Desert.”
“The Massacre in Santa Cruz,”
La Protesta, January 6th, 1922
“Like the Indian before him, the pariah—without family, home, religion or fatherland—becomes a murderer and a vandal, burning crops and
attacking ranches…”
El Soldato Argentino,1 Vol. II No. 13
January 2nd, 1922
The first strike was nothing more than an overture to the massacre that would follow. It was a rosy chapter in the history of Patagonia when compared to the horror that events will acquire nine months later. Let’s see how General Anaya, who participated in the repression of the second strike as a captain, describes the difference:
We have just heard the most objective account possible of the events that shook the far south in 1921. To differentiate it from the events that followed, allow us to refer to it as the “peaceful military campaign,” in contrast to what I shall call the “bloody military campaign.”2
Work resumes and the much-delayed shearing is rushed to completion. But this gives a false impression of what’s really going on: the workers have triumphed, plain and simple. This is how the Workers’ Society sees it, how the Rural Society sees it, and how the Commerce and Industry League sees it.
Two police officers have been murdered. Landowners, gendarmes and ranch administrators have been taken hostage. Fences have been cut, animals have been slaughtered, buildings have been destroyed.
But that didn’t stop Captain Yza and Commander Varela from coming to Patagonia and settling with the strikers, giving them safe conduct passes that allowed them to freely move around the region and work wherever they pleased. And don’t forget that they didn’t hand over their weapons, as most of them remain in the possession of El 68, El Toscano, and the group that followed them. Aside from a few old rifles and rusty revolvers, Varela turned up nothing. Such is the panorama seen by the landowners and despondent merchants of Santa Cruz.
When Varela returns to Río Gallegos, they even say so to his face. Edelmiro Correa Falcón recounts the story in his pamphlet The Events in Santa Cruz, 1919–1921:
Once the 10th Cavalry Regiment’s peacemaking mission had concluded, a few individuals happened to encounter Lieutenant Colonel Varela in Río Gallegos. While they drank their tea, one of those present said that it set a dangerous precedent to allow so many weapons to remain in the hands of the rebels, who had nevertheless been issued with a sort of act of indemnity. The lieutenant colonel rejected this view of the situation, adding that his mission had been satisfactorily completed in accordance with the personal instructions of the president—a claim that was later borne out by those who heard these instructions issued. During this same conversation, another one of those present said that the news arriving from the countryside left him convinced that there would soon be a general uprising throughout the territory. The lieutenant colonel ignored this prediction, repeating that he believed his pacification efforts to have been definitive.
But the mighty aren’t Varela’s only critics. The commander’s pacifist stance is even being openly censured within his own regiment. Captain Anaya enumerates these criticisms:
The regiment, which had remained in the barracks in Santa Cruz, was utterly oblivious to what was going on and felt unsatisfied with the peaceful outcome. These feelings were encouraged by the landowners who had abandoned their ranches and wanted to see brutal, indiscriminate repression. The coastal business interests also disapproved of the solution, wishing that the strike had instead been drowned in blood. They mounted a campaign of defamation against the military officer and the governor, whom they claimed had blindly made a pact with insurgents out of ignorance and short-term political gain. Some officers were not unsympathetic to these criticisms, feeling that a humanitarian rather than military solution to the conflict had robbed them of their laurels.
Even before he leaves for Buenos Aires, Varela hesitates. He seems to be under a lot of pressure. Enrique Noya—brother of Rural Society President Ibón Noya—will tell us the following:
When the first strike ended, my brother Ibón told Varela, “When you leave, it will all start again.” Varela replied, “If it starts up again, I’ll come back and shoot the lot.”
In Río Gallegos, La Unión mercilessly attacks the settlement reached by Varela and Governor Yza:
The settlement deals exclusively with the economic aspects of the conflict, constituting a resounding victory for the impositions of the workers that has been facilitated by the authorities themselves. Lacking understanding, and with a total absence of impartiality, they have delivered a Solomonic judgment and indirectly forced capital to accept it.3 Nothing has been done to address the crimes, thefts, arsons, etc. that were committed during the strike—the perpetrators and their accomplices have not been taken in, not even for questioning.
The bosses had insisted on a hard line, glorifying Correa Falcón and brutish police officers like Ritchie and Nicolía Jameson. They had seen violence as the only possible solution. They could not understand the accommodating policies of the Radical president, as implemented by Governor Yza and Lieutenant Colonel Varela.
So, as we can see, nothing has been settled. There are still three antagonistic forces in a sparsely populated region. There are the bosses, with Correa Falcón as their most visible figure, along with the administrators of British-owned ranches and, perhaps most importantly, Mauricio Braun and Alejandro Menéndez Behety, who are the most intelligent of the lot, the ones with the most influence in Buenos Aires and the ones who have slowly begun to arrange a definitive settlement of the crisis. The second faction revolves around Borrero and Judge Viñas and includes all the members of the Radical Civic Union. It is this group whose support Governor Yza will seek. The third conflicting force is, of course, the labor movement, strengthened by its recent success.
In his role as the mediator between the bosses and the workers, Yza asks the Workers’ Society to lift its boycott of certain stores. But Antonio Soto refuses to simply do whatever the governor tells him to do. Yes, the boycotts will be lifted, but only when three conditions are met:
All of the strikers who have been fired will be rehired and given back pay for all workdays lost to the strike.
All non-unionized workers will be dismissed.
The bosses will reimburse the Workers’
