La Conquête de la Pampa. Recueil des documents relatifs à la campagne du Río Negro. Comprend l’itinéraire suivi par toutes les colonnes expéditionnaires qui, sous les ordres du Ministre de la Guerre, Général D. Julio A. Roca, ont occupé le désert et porté la ligne de frontière sur le Río Negro. Précédé d’une étude topographique par Manuel J. Olascoaga. Suivi du rapport du Général Villegas sur l’expédition à Nahuel-Huapi et d’une Notice sur l’importance des territoires de la Pampa et du Limay. Avec la carte de la Pampa et des territoires du Río Negro.
Buenos Aires: Imprimerie du “Courrier de la Plata” 148, rue de la Piedad, 154, 1881. First edition. In contemporary half leather. CIV 307 [2] p. and a large colored folding map. Binding moderately rubbed at extremities. Some foxing, particularly to the first and last leaves. A closed tear to the map at the joint with old tape repair, not affecting the image. Pp. [290]–291 misbound after p. 302. Otherwise in fine condition.
Eyewitness compilation of official reports and military correspondence from Argentina’s 1879 campaign to subjugate indigenous Patagonia—a key source on the Conquest of the Desert and state formation.
First edition of this official compilation documenting the 1879 Conquista del Desierto (“Conquest of the Desert”), the Argentine military campaign led by General Julio A. Roca against the indigenous peoples of the Pampas and northern Patagonia. The volume includes correspondence between military and government figures, operational reports, a topographical survey by Manuel J. Olascoaga, and General Conrado Villegas’s detailed account of the expedition to Nahuel Huapi. It is one of the earliest comprehensive publications on the planning, execution, and immediate outcomes of the campaign. A large folding color map of the Pampa and Río Negro territories is bound at the end.
The campaign, launched under President Nicolás Avellaneda, aimed to assert Argentine sovereignty over the southern frontier by defeating or displacing indigenous populations—primarily the Mapuche, Ranquel, Puelche, and other groups—and incorporating the land into the national economy through colonization and settlement. Under Roca’s leadership, the army advanced rapidly, occupying an estimated 20,000 square leagues of territory and pushing the frontier to the Río Negro. The military success was presented as a national triumph of civilization over barbarism and was instrumental in consolidating the Argentine state.
While hailed at the time as a foundational act of state-building, the campaign has since come under critical reassessment for its violent treatment of indigenous peoples, including mass killings, forced relocations, and cultural erasure. This volume, though couched in the language of 19th-century nationalism, preserves key primary source material on the conduct and justification of the campaign, including its strategic, logistical, and ideological dimensions.
The compiler, Manuel J. Olascoaga (1841–1911), was an engineer, cartographer, and military officer who later served as governor of Neuquén Territory. He played a direct role in the campaign and here frames it as essential to Argentina’s territorial consolidation and political future. The text is printed in French—unusual for an Argentine government publication—because it was issued by the French-language press of Le Courrier de la Plata in Buenos Aires. A Spanish-language version with substantially the same content, titled La conquista del desierto proyectada y realizada por el General Julio A. Roca en 1879, was published in the same year. The dual-language publication reflects a coordinated effort to present the campaign both to domestic and international audiences, aligning it with contemporary ideals of progress, state-building, and national modernization.
A significant source for the study of settler colonialism, frontier warfare, and indigenous resistance in South America, offering insight into the official mindset and administrative apparatus behind one of Argentina’s most controversial historical episodes.
Scarce. Not listed in Sabin. Only two other copies recorded RBH over the past hundred years, excluding the present example.
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Price: €3,500.00