Socolow Susan - Spanish Captives in Indian Societies

Spanish Captives in Indian Societies: Cultural Contact along the Argentine Frontier, 1600-1835
Author(s): Susan Migden Socolow

Source: The Hispanic American Historical Review, Vol. 72, No. 1 (Feb., 1992), pp. 73-99
Published by: Duke University Press
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Hispanic Amiierican Historical Review 72:1
Copyright (? 1992 by Duke University Press
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Spanish Captives in Indian
Societies: Cultural Contact Along the
Argentine Frontier, 1600-1835
SUSAN MIGDEN SOCOLOW
EU R O P E A N - I N D I A N frontiers, the intermediate
zones between areas of secure European settlement
and those where Amerindians maintained their au-
tonomy, were similar in many ways in the American empires of Spain and
Great Britain. In both colonial empires frontier regions were usually zones
of tension and conflict, where frequent raiding sometimes gave way to
open warfare. In both empires, violence between Europeans and Indians
regularly led to mutual taking of captives. While literate Anglo-Americans
had little interest in captured Indians and rarely bothered to record infor-
mation about them, they were often interested in their fellows who had
been held captive by Indians. As a result Anglo-American historical litera-
ture includes a substantial documentary record on European captives, ma-
terial that provides extremely valuable, often unique, information about
the societies on both sides of the frontier and their interaction.' Frontier
The author would like to thank James Saeger, Kristine Jones, Juan Carlos Garavaglia, and
John Juricek for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper.
i. The studies of captives in English America include James Axtell: The Invasion Within
(1986), The European and the Indian (1981), and "The White Indians of Colonial America,"
William and Mary Quarterly 32 (1975), 55-88; Alden T. Vaughan, "Crossing the Cultural
Divide: Indians aild New Englanders, 1605-1763," Proceedings of the American Antiquarian
Society
go
(April 1980), 23-99 (with D. Richter), and Puritans among the Indians (with
Edward W. Clark). See also J. Norman Heard, White Into Red: A Study of the Assimilation
of White Persons Captured by Indians (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press,
1973);
A. Irving
Hallowell, "American Indians, White and Black: The Phenomenon of Transculturalization,"
Current Anthropology 4
(i963),
519-31. One of the major sources available to U.S. histori-
ans has been the captivity narrative; see Wilcomb Washburn, ed., The Garland Library of
Narratives of North American Indian Captivities (New York: Garland, 1977). For an inter-
esting analysis of the weakness of these sources see Rov Harvey Pearce, "The Significances
of the Captivity Narrative," American Literature 19 (1947), 1-20. Because Latin America
lacked both a strong tradition of widespread literacy and a religious tradition that empha-
74
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relations between Europeans and Indians have been studied far less thor-
oughly for Spanish America, although recent work on northern Mexico
and New Mexico has begun to examine this question in a Spanish Ameri-
can context.2 This essay is intended as a contribution toward filling that
gap in the historical literature for one frontier area, central and southern
Argentina, using the often fragmentary but nonetheless intriguing data
from the sixteenth to the early nineteenth centuries.
Patterns of Frontier Relations
The southern region of South America, the area that in the eighteenth
century would become the Viceroyalty of the Rio de la Plata, was, like
northern Mexico, a region inhabited by several Indian societies able to
fend off Spanish conquest in greater or lesser degree until the nineteenth
century. The independence of these groups was in part aided by the adop-
tion of the horse, which by the end of the sixteenth century had become
an integral part of indigenous culture in southern South America. As a
complement to the Indians' warrior ethos, the animal allowed for the
development of a "horse culture" and permitted Indians to imagine and
sometimes to achieve military equality with the Spaniards. Indian tribes
also gradually became dependent on cattle as both a source of food and an
object of trade with other Indians and Spaniards alike. But it is the horse
sized the Babylonian captivity, captivity narratives were relatively rare during the colonial
period. The most well-known captivity narrative in Latin America is Cautiveriofeliz, written
by Francisco Nnfiez Pineda y Buscafian, held captive in Chile in 1629 for seven months. For
Argentina, A. Guinnard, Tres anos de esclavitud entre los Patagones (Buenos Aires-M6xico:
Espasa-Calpe, 1941), recounts a Frenchman's experiences in 1856-59. Some studies have
concentrated on the larger issue of warfare along the colonial frontier, including Juan Carlos
Garavaglia, "La guerra en el Tucuman colonial: sociedad y economia en un area de frontera
(1660-1760), HISLA 4
(i984),
21-34; Philip W. Powell, Soldiers, Indians, and Silver: The
Northward Advance of New Spain,
1550-16oo
(Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1952);
Alvaro Jara, Guerre et societe au Chile: Essai de sociologie coloniale (Paris: Inistitut des
Hautes Etudes de l'Am6rique Latine, 1961). For captives in inon-Indiani society see Elleni G.
Friedman, Spanish Captives in North Africa in the Early Modern Age (Madisoln: Univ. of
Wisconsin Press, 1983).
2. On Mexico, see Oakah L. Jones, Nueva Vizcaya: Heartland of the Spanish Frontier
(Albuquerque: Univ. of New Mexico Press, 1988); Thomas H. Naylor and Charles W. Polzer,
The Presidio and the Militia on the Northern Frontier of New Spain: A Documentary His-
tory (Tucson: Univ. of Arizona Press, 1986). Two notable exceptions to this generalization
are Peter Alan Stern, "Social Marginality and Acculturation on the Northern Frontier of New
Spain" (Ph.D. diss., Univ. of California, Berkeley, 1984), 312-53; and Gabriel Guarda Gey-
witz, "Los cautivos en la guerra de Arauco," Boletin de la Academia Chilena de la Historia
54:98 (1987), 93-157. The first description of Spanish captives in the Latin Americani histori-
cal literature is provided by Bernal Diaz del Castillo, who encountered two Spanish captives
in his 1519 expedition to Mexico. Bernal Diaz del Castillo, The Discovery and Conquest of
Mexico, 1517-1521 (New York: Harper & Bros., 1950), 45-46.
SPANISH CAPTIVES IN INDIAN SOCIETIES 75
that heightened the level of conflict among Indian groups and between
Indians and white society.3 In addition, these Indian groups tended to in-
habit zones that were either peripheral or inaccessible to the mainstream
of Spanish colonization, to live in dispersed and small communities, and
to be adept at the techniques of seminomadic living and guerrilla warfare.
From the beginnings of Spanish settlement in the sixteenth century,
ranches, towns, and cities were periodically threatened by Indian raids:
to the north the Ava-Chiriguanos and the Calchaquies; in the center of
the region, the Chaco groups such as the Guaycurua, the Charrua, and
the Mocobi; and to the south Pampas, Pehuenche, Tehuelche, and Arau-
canian tribes.4 At times a state of endemic war existed, as Indian raids
and Spanish entradas exploded along the frontier.5 In the middle of the
eighteenth century, however, a combination of foreign and colonial policy
considerations caused the Spanish crown to reexamine its defense position
3. Throughout this paper the term Spaniard is used to describe those people, regardless
of their birthplace, who believed themselves to be of Hispanic culture. On the heightenled
conflict, James Schofield Saeger, "Aniother View of the Mission as a Frontier Institution: The
Guaycuruain Reductions of Sainta Fe, 1743-1810," HAHR 65:3 (Aug. 1985), 495. On cattle,
Kristine Jones, "La Cauitiva: Anl Argenitine Soltution to Labor Shortage in the Pampas," in
Brazil and the Rio de la Plata: Challenge and Response, an Anthology of Papers Presented
at the Sixth Annual Conference of ICLLAS, ed. Luis Clay M6ndez and Laurenice Bates
(Charlestoni, IL., 1983), 92. On grotip clharacteristics, Thierry Saignies, "La gtierra 'salvaje'
en los confines de los Andes y del Chaco: La resistencia chiriguana a la colonizaci6n euro-
pea," Quinto Centenario (Universidad Complutense de Madrid) 8 (1985), 104. The Indians of
this regioni tended to travel withini well-defined areas and were therefore nlot truly niomiiadic.
4. For a more detailed discussion of the colonial period see Susanl Migden Socolow,
"Los cautivos espafioles eni las sociedades indigenas: el contacto cultural a trav6s de la
frontera argentina," Anuario IEHS (Tandil, Argentina) 2 (1987),
99-136.
See also Thierry
Saignes, "M6tis et sauvages: Les
enjeux
du metissage sur la frontiere chiriguano (1570-
1620)," Melanges de la Casa de Vel6zquez 18:1 (1982), 87; Padre Hernando de Torreblanica,
Relaci6n hist6rica de Calchaqui (Buenos Aires: Ediciones Culturales Argentinas, 1984);
Teresa Piossek Prebisch, Pedro Bohorquez: El Inca del Tucumdn,
1656-1658
(Buenos Aires:
Gente de Letras, 1983); Edberto Oscar Acevedo, "El gobernador Martinez de Tineo y el
Chaco," Revista de Historia Americana y Argentina 12 (1983-84), 11-65; James S. Saeger,
"Eighteenth-Century Guaycuruan Missions in Paraguay," in Indian-Religious Relations in
Colonial Spanish America, ed. Susan E. Ramirez (Syracuse: Maxwell School of Citizenship
and Public Affairs, 1989), 55-86; Kristine L. Jones, "Conflict and Adaptation in the Argen-
tine Pampas, 1750-1880" (Ph.D. diss., Univ. of Chicago, 1984), 38; Alfred J. Tapson, "The
Indian Problem on the Argentine Pampas, 1735-1852" (Ph. D. diss., Univ. of California, Los
Angeles, 1952), and "Indian Warfare on the Pampa during the Colonial Period," HAHR 42:1
(Feb. 1962), ii. For contemporary reports on the frontier and Indian societies see Pedro de
Angelis, comp., Colecci6n de obras y documentos relativos a la historia antigua y moderna
de las provincias del Rio de la Plata, 6 vols. (Buenos Aires: Imprenta del Estado, 1836, re-
print Editorial Plus Ultra, 1969), and Thomas Falkner, S.J., A Description of Patagonia and
the Adjoining Parts of South America [1744] (Chicago: Arman and Armann, 1935).
5.
According to Urbano de Iriondo, by 1722 not one estancia in Santa Fe had escaped
attack by Indians, along with the loss of property and lives and the taking of captives. Jos6
Urbano de Iriondo, "Apuntes para la historia de la Provincia de Santa Fe," Revista de la
Junta de Estudios Hist6ricos de Santa Fe I, 44.
76 | HAHR
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in Spanish America. One result was a new plan of militarization on the
southern Indian frontier that combined new presidios and forts with an
increasing military presence. The government established a line of mili-
tary forts in the 1750s, reinforcing them during the 1770S and 178os.6 The
crown also encouraged the settling of civilian population close to each fort.
All male inhabitants of the rural districts were required to enlist in militia
units. In addition, a special military unit created to protect the frontier,
the blandengues, was formed in 1751 and reorganized shortly after the
founding of the viceroyalty.
The Spanish combined this line of forts and missions with a program
of pacification and cooptation of hostile tribes. Indian leaders were invited
to Spanish settlements, where they were entertained and presented with
trinkets.7 Funds were also supplied by the sisa tax to pay for ransoming
captives and rewarding faithful Indians. When, for example, an Indian
referred to as Sinforoso and his uncle brought back a Spanish captive
from the Tobas, the intendent rewarded them and their men with goods
worth 104 pesos, including ponchos, hats, uniforms, a baston, tobacco,
and knives.
Sporadic incidents continued along the Indian frontier,8 but in gen-
6. On the forts, Roberto H. Marfany, "Frontera con los indios en el sud y fundaci6n
de pueblos," in Historia de la naci6n Argentina, ed. Ricardo Levene, vol. 4, part 1, 307-
33. See also F6lix de Azara, "Diario de un reconocimiento de las guardias y fortinies que
guarniecen la linea de fronitera de Btuenos Aires para enisanichlarla," in Colecci6n de obras y
docuimentos, comp. Angelis, vol. 5. For anl analysis of the reaction on the part of the rural
populationi to this draft see Carlos A.
Mayo,
"Sociedad rural v militarizaci6ni de la fronitera eni
Buenos Aires, 1737-1810," Jahrbuch fur Geschichte von Staat, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft
Lateinamerikas 24 (1987), 251-63. On the blandengues, Marfany, El indio en la colonizaci6n
de Buenos Aires (Buenos Aires: Comisi6n Nacional de Cultura, 1940), 85-106.
7. On entertainiing visiting Indian caciques, Jos6 Torre Revello, "Agasajos a los inidios
(1797)," Boletin del Instituto de Investigaciones Hist6ricas 17 (1938), 126-30. This practice
is also mentioned by Angelis, who adds that the viceroys wore "su traje de etiqueta," a sign
of esteem for their guests. Colecci6n de obras y documentos, comp. Angelis, 3:106. For a
viceroy's expenditures on entertaining Indians see Andr6s de Torres, Diario de gastos del
Virrey del Rio de la Plata Marques de Loreto, 1783-1790, foreword by Jos6 M. Mariluz
Urquijo (Bilbao: Diputaci6n Foral del Sefiorio de Vizcaya, 1977). On sisa funds, Archivo
Genieral de la Naci6n Argenitina, Buenos Aires [hereafter AGNA], Testimoniio del expedienite
sobre la gratificacion hecha a los indios fieles ., Hacienda, Legajo 122, Expedieiite 3081,
IX-34-5-8.
8. In 1784 Indians raided the estancias in the Mendoza region, and in 1786 and i8o6
they attacked across the San Luis frontier. In 1784 the priest in charge of the Charriian
mission of Cayasta requested that the mission be moved to Los Mananciales, a site near the
original settlement of the city of Santa Fe, in order to free his wards from "the invasions of
the infidel [Indians] of the Chaco." AGNA, Justicia, Legajo 15, Expediente 363, IX-31-4-4.
As late as 1802 Toba Indian tribes were making incursions along the Rio Dorado. AGNA,
Testimonio del expediente . . ., Hacienda, Legajo 122, Expediente 3081, IX-34-5-8. On
Spanish-Indian illegal trade, Kristine Jones, "Nineteenth Century British Travel Accounts of
Argenitina," paper presented at the American Anthropology Association meeting, Chicago,
Nov. 1983. A revised version of this paper was published in Ethnohistory 33:2 (1986), 195-
eral Spanish policies combined with adverse natural phenomena (such as
drought), contagious disease, and widespread food shortages to weaken
Indian assaults and impose an uneasy peace. Although Indian tribes in
the Chaco region continued to raid each other, a buffer zone between
the Spanish and hostile Indians essentially held until after independence.
Moreover, the establishment of forts and coastal defensive colonies also
brought the Spanish and Indians in direct contact with one another and
stimulated an active and profitable, though extralegal, trade between the
two groups. With their borders more or less pacified, the Spanish slowly
began to open up new lands for colonization, increasing the numbers
of Spaniards inhabiting rural areas and extending agriculture and stock
raising. Beginning in the 178os, the result of peace was population growth
in the rural districts of Buenos Aires, Cordoba, and to a lesser degree
Santa Fe, accompanied by increased production of cereals and hides.
This period of comparative peace ended in the decade following the
English invasions of Buenos Aires in 1806-7. Perhaps the Indians realized
that strife in the Argentine provinces now gave them the opportunity to
redress the increasing encroachment on their territory. In addition, the
new provincial governments, concerned first with war and peace against
Spain and then with war and peace among themselves, failed to tend
to the line of fortifications and neglected Indian leaders.9 Revolutionary
forces moving north requisitioned entire companies of soldiers that had
previously garrisoned the frontier. The result was widespread strife along
what had been a pacified frontier. To the south, the Chilean general Jose
Miguel Carrera joined with the Ranquel Indians and Pampas groups to
raid Salto and Melincue in 1820. To the north, the Chaco Guaycuruans
attacked Santa Fe and Santiago del Estero in 1821.
The newly independent Argentine provinces, dependent to a far
greater degree on the export of cattle hides and other products than the
viceregal colony had been, began to organize a defense. In 1819 cattle
ranchers in the province of Buenos Aires created a Sociedad de Labra-
dores y Hacendados, using their laborers as a "mobile army" to defend the
211. For population growth see Jorge Comadran Ruiz, Evoluci6n demnografica argentina
dutrante el periodo hispano (1535-1810) (Buenos Aires: Eudeba, 1969), 97-114. Increased
agricultural and pastoral production are discussed in Juan Carlos Garavaglia, "Economic
Growth and Regional Differentiations: The River Plate Region at the End of the Eighteenth
Century," HAHR 65:1 (Feb. 1985), 51-89.
9. For an attempt by the first independence junta to survey the frontier and a plea not
to neglect the area see Pedro Andres Garcia, "Diario de un viage a Salinas Grandes, en los
campos del sud de Buenos Aires [181o]," Colecci6n de obras y documentos, comp. Ange-
lis, vol. 3. For an example of troop requisitioning, in 181o General Manuel Belgrano took
the two companies of blandengues who had protected the Santa Fe frontier with him as he
marched to Paraguay. Urbano de Iriondo, "Apuntes," 49. On the attacks, Saeger, "Another
View of the Mission," 515.
78 | HAHR
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more isolated ranches. The next year the provincial government of Buenos
Aires, under the military leadership of the governor, Martin Rodriguez,
adopted a more offensive posture with a campaign to the south modeled
closely on colonial entradas. During this four-year campaign, Rodriguez
and his men invaded Indian territory three times but succeeded in found-
ing only one new fort, Fuerte Independencia (present-day Tandil).
Nine years later the new governor of Buenos Aires, General Juan
Manuel de Rosas, again interested in pacifying the frontier to assure
greater production of cattle products, began another "desert campaign."
Rosas was a prominent rancher and industrialist. He was also a consum-
mate, ruthless politician committed to extending the grazing lands of the
province of Buenos Aires and willing to ally himself to so-called "friendly"
Indians to achieve his ends. His goal was to free those lands between
the Salado River to the north and the Colorado and Negro rivers and the
cordillera to the south from hostile Indian encroachment.'0
Rosas was successful. He added to Buenos Aires province an area ex-
tending two hundred leagues west to the Andes and south beyond the
Rio Negro." Moreover, as leader of one of three divisions involved in the
1833-34 campaign, he was able to return with a large number of people
previously captured by the Pampas Indians. Rosas' division, responsible
for the left flank of the invasion, advanced from his ranch at Los Cerrillos
to the island of Choele-Choel on the Rio Negro and from there to the
mouth of the Rio Colorado. Here the troops split, with one group continu-
ing south along the coast to the Rio Negro and then up this river to the
confluence of the Limay and the Neuquen. Other troops marched inland,
following the Colorado into areas "never before seen by the Christians."
The captives that Rosas brought back to "civilization" were all encountered
in this large region.
The Taking of Captives
The fact that Rosas encountered Spanish captives in his "desert campaign"
is hardly surprising, for one of the constants of Spanish-Indian warfare
in the Rio de la Plata throughout four centuries had been the taking
10. Arturo de Carranza, La campaiia del desierto de 1833 (Buenos Aires, 1969). John
Lynch, Argentine Dictator: Juan Manuel de Rosas, 1829-z852 (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1981), 39-41 discusses Rosas' recruitment of Indians for his own political ends.
11. On Rosas' conquest, Lynch, Argentine Dictator, 54. On the captives, Relaci6n de
los cristianos salvados del cautiverio por la division izquierda del ejercito expedicionario al
mando del Seiior Brigadier General D. Juan Manuel de Rosas (Buenos Aires: Imprenta del
Estado, 1835). A facsimile edition entitled Juan Manuel de Rosas y la redenci6n de cauti-
vos en su campana al desierto (1833-1834) was published by the Academia Nacional de la
Historia (Buenos Aires, 1979).
of captives by both parties. Whether it was the Ava-Chiriguanos to the
north, the tribes of the Chaco that assaulted Spanish settlements, or the
Indian groups to the south, all seemed to be interested in two types
of booty-livestock and human captives.'2 As early as 1577, the Avd-
Chiriguanos attacked the newly founded Spanish settlement of Tarija and
carried off some 40 people.
By capturing Spaniards and mestizos the Ava'-Chiriguanos were in fact
continuing their traditional cultural patterns, for they had always taken
captives from other Indian tribes.'3 Although officially forbidden by Span-
ish law, these Indian prisoners of war were sold as slaves to Spanish and
mestizo landowners. Spanish and mestizo captives, such as two very young
girls and a young mestizo freed in 1590, were either ransomed or recap-
tured by the Spanish and returned to Spanish society. More than two
centuries later, the Ava'-Chiriguanos were still resisting Spanish encroach-
ment and still taking captives. In 1809, the Ava'-Chiriguano chief Cumbay,
angered that five captives had been turned over to the comandante of
Santa Cruz, mentioned that "since olden times, it has been the custom
to ransom [captives] for one silver peso apiece." Although in the peace
treaty signed with the Spaniards the same year Cumbay promised to turn
over all Christian captives within two years, by i8ii this clause had not
yet been honored.
In the south, in the pampas region, probably the first reference to
taking captives concerned a Spanish sailor captured by the Tehuelche
Indians in the early i6oos.'4 By the beginning of the eighteenth century, if
12. On Indian captives, Carlos A. Mayo, "El cautiverio y sus funciones en una sociedad
de frontera: el caso de Buenos Aires (1750-1810), Revista de Indias 45:175 (1985), 235. On
Tarija, Thierry Saignes, "Andaluces en el poblamiento del sur boliviano: en torno a unas
figuras controvertidas, el fundador de Tarija y sus herederos," II Jornadas de Andalucia y
America II, 186.
13. Saignes, "Metis et sauvages," 89, 93, 118, 119. In general the Spanish did not enter
into formal written treaties with Indians until after 1763, far later than either the French or
the English. Lawrence Kinnaird, "Spanish Treaties with Indian Tribes," Western Historical
Quarterly 10 (1979), 39-48.
14. The sailor's captivity story is told in Silvestre Antonio de Rojas, "Derrotero de un
viaje de Buenos Aires a los Cesares," Colecci6n de obras y documnentos, comp. Angelis,
2:537-48. On the freeing of captives, see for example the 1738 letter of Juan de Santisso
y Moscosa to the Marques del Torrenueva detailing invasions and the taking of captives in
C6rdoba and Tucuman (Archivo General de Indias, Seville [hereafter AGI], Audiencia de
Buenos Aires 49); the letter of Miguel de Salcedo to Jose de la Quintana mentioning the
taking of "some captives" in an Indian raid on the Arrecife area of the province of Buenos
Aires in 1740 (AGI, Audiencia de Buenos Aires 42); the letter from the Cabildo of Asunci6n
describing the invasion of the nations of the Gran Chaco and their taking of captives in 1761
(AGI, Audiencia de Buenos Aires 48). As late as 1789, Rafael de Sobremonte, the intendant
of C6rdoba, referred to Indian invaders taking "some women captives along the Rio Tercero"
(AGI, Audiencia de Buenos Aires
50).
For an example of the freeing of captives see the letter
of Juan Victorino Martinez de Tineo to the crown (AGI, Audiencia de Buenos Aires 49).
8o I HAHR
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I
not earlier, most Indian groups included some captives among their popu-
lation. Reports of myriad incursions by hostile Indians normally included
mention of the taking of captives, while Spanish entradas often freed at
least one or two. It was from the ranks of ex-captives who had learned the
languages and customs of their captors that the Spanish often recruited
interpreters and scouts.
Sporadic hostage taking continued along with sporadic raiding. Some
of these hostages were incorporated into Indian society, but others es-
caped, and still others were ransomed back to Spanish society. Governors
and viceroys were often called upon to contribute to funds for the ransom
of captives. In 1788, for example, Viceroy Loreto donated a total of 663
pesos 31/2 reales to ransom from Indian captivity Spaniards who had prob-
ably been captured in the 1786 San Luis raids. From the entries in his
account books, the price for rescuing a captive seems to have ranged from
50 pesos 41/2 reales paid for a woman in April 1788 to ioo pesos paid for
a man two months earlier.'5 The viceroy also paid 512 pesos 7 reales for
eight captives freed in Salinas in December 1788, an average of 64 pesos
per individual.
Such relatively large private gifts were not the only source of money
for freeing Spaniards. After receiving government permission, individual
citizens also ransomed members of their families who had been taken cap-
tive. In addition, all people drawing up wills in colonial Rio de la Plata
donated at least two reales to the Fund for the Redemption of Captives,
one of the mandasforzasas originally envisioned to aid in freeing captives
in the Holy Land. In the Rio de la Plata this money was used to ransom
local people.
Indians were not the only ones to take captives. Spanish officials were
not averse to holding Indians as hostages in an attempt to coerce local
tribes. After learning of an Indian raid in 1582, for example, Pedro de
Segura, corregidor of Tomina, held hostage a group of Ava'-Chiriguano
chiefs who had come to visit.
16
It is also clear that throughout the Rio de la
15. Torres, Diario de gastos del Virrey.
i6. On Segura, Saignes, "Metis et sauvages," 88. An6nimo, "Viaje al Rio de la Plata y
Chile (1752-1756)," Revista de la Junta de Estudios Hist6ricos de Mendoza 9:2 (1980), 367,
mentions that "the Spanish soldiers attack the Indians, enslaving those whom they capture."
Recently published research shows that during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
Spaniards took Indian captives in the Tucuman area. See Gast6n Gabriel Doucet, "Sobre
cautivos de guerra y esclavos indios en el Tucuman: Notas en torno a un fichero documental
saltenio del siglo XVIII," Revista de Historia del Derecho 16 (1988), 59-152, for an interest-
ing discussion of how the Spanish authority used Indian captives as slaves and for detailed
information about Spanish capture of both Calchaquis and Guaranis. On the Salta official,
Guillermo Furlong, Pedro Juan Andreu y su carta a Mateo Andreu (Buenos Aires: Libreria
del Plata, 1953), 123.
Plata many Indians whom the Spanish managed to capture in battle were
enslaved. In 1750, the Jesuit Andreu mentioned a government official in
Salta who had captured some Indian children and was selling them for
ioo pesos apiece. In addition, Indians held in prison by Spanish authori-
ties or working in religious institutions or private homes in Spanish towns
and cities commonly believed themselves to be captives of the Spaniards.
The fine distinctions between captivity and imprisonment or between cap-
tivity and Christianization escaped many Indians.'7 From time to time,
captives were exchanged. In 1783 Pedro Pablo Maldonado was sent to the
Lujain fort by his Indian captors to deliver a message offering to exchange
two Christians for two specific Indians. If the exchange were effected, the
Indians would consider it a sign of peace, but if the Spaniards failed to
release these two captives, the Spaniards would be attacked when they
made their yearly visit to the Salinas salt flats.
Spanish society probably took captives as booty, for profit, and to teach
a lesson to those whom they considered "heathen savages."'
8
Although
the Spanish colony often suffered from a scarcity of labor, Indian slaves
were too few in number and too intractable to offer a viable solution to
Spanish society. Indian societies probably took captives for profit, to gain
a medium of exchange with other Indian groups and the Spanish, and to
increase their labor force. Adult male captives were often enslaved, or at
least thought of themselves as being in some type of serfdom. In the sur-
viving captivity declarations, both men and women refer to their "amo,"
their Indian master.
Surviving documents further attest to the use of the captives, espe-
cially children, as a medium of exchange or as goods to be bought, sold,
or bartered.'9 In 1790, for example, the Auca Indians approached the
17. On Indians' confusion about captivity: "One Indian and one Christian who said they
had escaped from the Rancheria arrived [in the Indian camp], and they told how thev had
been held with handcuffs (grillos). Later two girls who escaped fronm the Residencia by going
over the roof came, and they told us how much they had been made to work on the looms."
Carlos A. Mayo, Fuentes para la historia de la frontera: declaraciones de cautivos (Uni-
versidad Nacional del Mar del Plata, 1985), 19, Declaraci6n de Andres de Rodriguez, San
Juan de Chascomus, Feb. 20, 1781. On the Christian-Indian exchange, idem., 23, Declara-
ci6n de Pedro Pablo Maldonado, Frontera de Lujan, Aug. 26, 1783.
18. For the sale of Indian captives, so-called piezas in Tucuman, see Doucet, "Sobre
cautivos," lo-12. According to Mayo (Fuentes, 1), captives were used as slaves, as part of
intertribal commerce, as hostages, as messengers, and as peace offerings. See "amo" refer-
ences in, for example, the testimony of Rafael de Soto (Buenos Aires, June 14, 1752) and of
Juan Macias (Fuerte de Nuestra Madre de Cristo y Frontera del Zanj6n, Dec. 31, 1768), in
Mayo, Fuentes, 3, 11.
19. The testimony of Juan Pascual Zurita, Guardia del Zanj6n, Dec. 26, 1768, in Mayo
(Fuentes, 9), alludes to Indians "who had five Christian captives to sell." Nicolas Romero,
after spending two months as a captive of the Pampas, was sold to the Pehuenches for a
poncho. Mayo, Fuentes, 17, Declaraci6n de Nicolas Romero, Guardia del Monte, Jan. 15,
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small Spanish garrison in Patagonia offering to trade "a girl aged 4 or 5,
daughter of Christians," for "aguardiente, flannel baize, yerba, yellow
tin foil, shaving bowls, and other goods." The government responded by
supplying blue glass beads, baize, little mirrors, small bells, ribbons of
various colors, and blue woolen stuff from the royal warehouse, and pur-
chasing aguardiente, hats, spurs, bridles, small tin basins, thimbles, large
rings for reins, tobacco, yerba, and dried figs for the Indians. The entire
shipment, worth 295 pesos 6 reales, was dispatched south, while funds to
cover this expense were transferred from the Fund for the Redemption of
Captives to the War Department. Preparations were also made to receive
the child in the Buenos Aires orphanage while waiting to see if her par-
ents or any relative claimed her. Although the government warned against
"having captivity become a branch of commerce," that, in part, is what
it had always been. The very fact that the Royal Warehouse stocked such
items as glass beads and small bells attests to an ongoing trade fueled by
the ransoming of Spanish captives. In addition, captives were occasionally
used in intertribal trade; Pampas Indians, who did not themselves prac-
tice formal bondage, provided the Araucanians with slaves.20 Captives,
ransomed back to the Spaniards or exchanged between aboriginal groups,
provided a medium of exchange for Indian commerce.
The periodic return of captives to Spanish society could sometimes
serve either as a ritual demonstration that an Indian group was willing to
enter into peace negotiations with the local authorities or as an affirmation
of that peace.21 Captives were also used by Indian groups as a vehicle for
signaling their willingness to come into missions. In the mid-eighteenth
century, for example, as soon as a provisional peace was signed between
the Spaniards and an Indian group in which the Indians requested that a
missionary be sent to them, they voluntarily released any captives living
among them. As Governor Jose de Andonaegui reported to the Spanish
government, when the Indians requested a reduccion, "they bring with
them, at the same time, a large number of Christian captives."22 Indeed
1781. On the young girl, AGNA, Tribunales, Legajo 227, Expediente 17, IX-38-9-2. The
Royal Exchequer frequently mentioned supplying similar goods to the Patagonia garrison
"so that they can buy horses and other livestock ... from the infidel Indians." According to
the 1781 testimony of a woman captive, "many of the women captives which the Indian took
were exchanged for cloth and aguardiente in the Spanish outpost along the Patagonian coast;
they also exchanged cattle." Mayo, Fuentes, 21, Declaraci6n de Maria Paula Santana, Fortin
de Areco, Feb. 23, 1781.
20. On the Pampas Indians, K. Jones, "Conflict and Adaptation," 34. On captives as an
exchange medium, Mayo, "El cautiverio," 237.
21. Mayo, "El cautiverio," 238.
22. AGI, Audiencia de Buenos Aires 49, letter of Andonaegui to Ensenada, June 24,
1749. See also Acevedo, "El Gobernador Martinez de Tineo," 34, for the same behavior
among the Chunupies.
the Spaniards lost no time in interpreting this conduct as an indication of
the Indians' willingness to leave all "savage" customs behind.
The more than six hundred captives freed during Rosas' lengthy cam-
paign were taken from Pampas, Tehuelche, and Araucanian groups.23 Mili-
tary officials interrogated the captives one by one, asking a fixed set of
questions to elicit basic information about them and their experience.
Upon his return to Buenos Aires, the governor had a list of those freed
printed and widely distributed in the hope of helping these men, women,
and children to find their kinfolk. The published list is an excellent source
of information on the demography of captivity. Each captive is described
by name, sex, age, years in captivity, and ability to speak Spanish. Several
entries are enhanced by more detailed physical descriptions. Because of
the uniformity of the questions asked, the list of freed captives provides
comparable and quantifiable data on the entire group. There is every rea-
son to believe that those freed by Rosas were representative of a typical
group of captives.
Demographic Analysis of Rosas' List
of Freed Captives
The most striking characteristic of those ex-captives who had not been
born in captivity was that women outnumbered men by almost two to
one. Of the total of 634 such individuals, 389 (6i percent) were female;
245
(39
percent) were male. Indeed the 1833 group of captives probably
had a larger proportion of men than most captive groups, suggesting the
possible presence of Spanish renegades among those Rosas classified as
captives. In 1764, for example, the outgoing governor of Tucumarn re-
ferred to 33 Spanish raids into the Chaco that had freed "20 male Christian
captives . . . [and] . . . 240 women and young children."24 Another 73
unspecified "children born in captivity" (presumably mestizos) were freed
in the 1833 campaign, bringing the total number returned to creole society
to 707.
The overwhelming predominance of women in the captive group can
in part be attributed to the Indians' systematically taking women and
children while killing men.25 In the words of a mid-eighteenth-century
23. On the Chaco raids, K. Jones, "Conflict and Adaptation," 112.
24. AGI, Residencia de Coronel Don Juan Victorino Martinez de Tineo, 1764, Audi-
encia de Buenos Aires 49. Data cited by Axtell ("The White Indians," 6o-61) suggest that
North American Indians also preferred women captives. Two lists of captives freed in 1764
contain 107 "men" and 170 "women and children." Vaughan and Richter disagree.
25. Much the same pattern of capturing women and children and annihilating men can
be seen in the Spanish capture of Indians in the Tucuman region. Doucet, "Sobre cautivos,"
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Scottish traveler to the Rio de la Plata, "the death of the men is certain if,
by some misfortune, they are captured by the savages, for they sacrifice
all the Spanish men except the children." The same treatment of Spanish
male captives was still in effect in 1803; according to a freed male captive,
the Indians raided "to rob from the haciendas and to take the boys they
encounter captive, bringing them up according to their customs, and kill-
ing the adults." Twenty-five years earlier the viceroy of the Rio de la Plata
reported that "the Indians are so inhumane that they delight in killing,
making no exceptions because of age or sex, and only sometimes reserving
the life of the women, whom they take with them in order to indulge their
abominable vices."
Specific or approximate ages are given for 97.8 percent of the captives.
The mean age for women is 21.3 years, while that for men is only
13
1.
The same type of age discrepancy can be seen in the median age, 19 for
women and 13 for men. When men and women are divided into ten-year
age groups, below the age of io there were more males than females (see
Table i). The largest group of captives falls into the 10-19 age group; this
group is also the modal group for both female and male captives. Above
the age of 19 the male and female profiles differ greatly. For example,
between the ages of 30-39 and 40-49 there are sizable groups of female
captives but virtually no males.
Regrouping the data into two sets-o to 14 (childhood) and 15+ (adult-
hood)-we can again see that while there were slightly more male chil-
dren than female among the captive group, in the adult population women
predominated (Table 2).
Only 35 percent of the female captives were children. The rest, in-
deed the largest group in captivity, were adult women. The next major
group were white males below the age of 15. Among males only 38 percent
were adults. While there was a slightly larger number of males among the
total under-1s age group, the over-15 group was dominated by females.
Thus Indian captives consisted of women of all ages and young boys. Even
among the over-15 male captives, only four were above the age of 25.
Interestingly, these four "older" men were somewhat atypical: two were
Paraguayans and two, Chileans.
The Indian preference for female captives was probably based on a
combination of sexual, strategic, and economic reasons. Possibly, women
could help the Indian tribes replenish their population. Spanish women,
114-16. For the Scottish traveler, see An6nimo, "Viaje al Rio de la Plata," 367. For the 1803
report, AGNA, Testimonio del expediente . . . Hacienda, Legajo 122, Expediente 3081,
IX-34-5-8. For the viceroy's report, AGI, Audiencia de Buenos Aires 307, Letter of Viceroy
Cevallos to Jos6 de Galvez, Nov. 27, 1777.
TABLE 1: Age and Sex of Captives
Women Men
Age N percentage N percentage
0-9 67 17.7 79 32.7
lo-1g
135 35.4 137 56.6
20-29 8o 20.9 22 9.1
30-39
61 16.o 1
.4
40-49 30 7.9
1
.4
50+ 8 2.2 2 .8
Total 381 (100o0) 242 (100.0)
Note: Only cases that included good age data were included in this table.
TABLE 2: Grouped Age and Sex of Captives
Percentage Percentage of Percentage Percentage of
of all women in this of all men in this
Age Women women age group Men men age group Total
0-14 133 34.9 47.0 150 61.9 53.0 283 (ioo.o)
15+ 248 65.1 72.9 92 38.2 27.1 340 (ioo.o)
Total 381 (100o0) (100o0) 242 (100o0) (100o0) 623
like their Indian counterparts, were economically productive members of
native society. They were more docile and physically easier to manage.
Once captured by Indians they showed little tendency to escape back to
Spanish society with reports of Indian military preparations, as did Span-
ish men. Of course, those Spanish women who had borne children while
in captivity would have been even less willing to escape, as that would
have obliged them to leave their children behind.
The data on age at the time of capture are far scantier, in part a re-
sult of the long years of captivity that dimmed the memory of those taken
captive young (see Table 3). The average female was i6.2 years old at
the time of her capture, while the average male was only 7.6 years old.
It is interesting to note that female respondents had a much higher rate
of recall, in part a function of their usually being older than males when
taken captive. While 62 percent of the females questioned could give the
approximate length of time of their captivity, only 37.3 percent of the
males could supply the same information. Nevertheless, the data indicate
that males were overwhelmingly boys below the age of io at the time of
capture. Young children, both male and female, were attractive to the
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TABLE
3:
Age at Capture by Sex of Captives
Women Men
Age N percentage N percentage
0-9 88 37.5 69 75.8
lo-19 63 26.8 '9 20.9
20-29 40 17.0
2 2.2
30-39 39 16.6
40-49 5
2.1 1 1.1
Total 235 (100o0) 91 (100.0)
Indians because they could be more fully acculturated into Indian society;
yet the data show a relative preference for capturing male rather than
female children.26 In other words, females were at risk to be taken captive
at any age, while the older a male was, the more probable it was that he
would be killed rather than captured.
Because of the relatively greater age at time of capture among the
female population, it is not surprising that a sizable number of women
captured at age 15 or above were already married (2i percent or 52/
248) or widowed (another ii percent or 28/248) at the time they were
taken. Indian raiders displayed no cultural bias against taking women who
had been previously married or women with children. Indeed, women of
proven fecundity might have been more attractive as prospective sexual
partners.
Did female gender help assure better treatment once captured? At
least one source suggests that neither native nor captive women were well
treated, both being flogged "in a most barbarous manner" if they lost
any of the animals under their care.27 On the other hand, Spanish captive
women were often taken as wives or concubines by a cacique or warrior
among both the Chaco and Pampas tribes, although among certain groups,
such as the Chaco Guaycuruans, captives had such a low status that only
26. For example, in 1832 Indian raiders circulating in a zone of quintas near Santa F6
killed eight men, ten women, and one infant in two chacras while taking three or four young
boys captive. Urbano de Iriondo, "Apuntes," 95.
27. On flogging, K. Jones, "La Cautiva," 91. On Spanish women as wives and concu-
bines, Saeger, "Another View of the Mission," 503; Mayo, "El cautiverio," 240. For mention
of "an Indian married to a woman captive" see the Testimony of Sebastian Gonzalez (Fron-
tera del Pago de la Magdalena y Fuerte del Zanj6n, Nov. 24, 1770), Mayo, Fuentes, 13. On
status among the Pampas, Raul Mandrini, "La agricultura indigena en la regi6n pampeana
y sus adyacencias (siglos XVIII y XIX)," Anuario IEHS 1 (1986), 12. It has been suggested
that only caciques could afford to provide for more than one wife and any children she might
bear. On avoiding the bride price, Mayo, "El cautiverio," 240.
men who could do no better took them as mates. The practice of polygamy
in Chaco and Pampas Indian society as well as among the Patagonian-
based Tehuelches, especially among the caciques, made it easier to absorb
women into the native family structure. Indeed among certain Pampas
groups, having "many wives, many head of cattle and much silver" were
all signs of power and wealth, and therefore of social standing. In some
tribes the availability of Spanish women as mates allowed men to avoid
the payment of the "bride price" that they would have had to pay for an
Indian woman. Seen in this light, captive women represented an attractive
alternative for Indian men of marriageable age.
The practice of Indian men taking Spanish wives was beginning to
change somewhat in the early nineteenth century as larger groups of
Araucanians from Chile came to dominate the pampas, restructuring the
indigenous pampa tribes in the process of "Araucanizing the Desert."28
The Araucanians displayed a widespread cultural proclivity for creating
male-centered myths about the sexual skills of females of another cul-
ture. They prized Spanish women for their special erotic talents and
as a result tended to incorporate female Spanish captives into their
society as slave-concubines, rather than as wives. Nevertheless, women
held by Araucanized tribes as consorts or slaves also provided power,
wealth, and status to their captors. The net result was that Spanish
women, through one form of sexual liaison or another, formed bonds with
their Indian captors that were usually not created between Spanish men
and Indian women. Captured Spanish adult men were rarely allowed to
take Indian wives, but rather forced to endure involuntary celibacy.
Even though captured in harrowing raids, many Spanish women came
to identify with their captors, preferring to live among the Indians rather
than return to "civilization." This was especially true of women captured
as young girls. The aforementioned anonymous Scotsman alluded to the
case of two girls who were captured as young children and subsequently
ransomed, but who soon afterward escaped from Spanish society to rejoin
the Indians.29 As early as the end of the sixteenth century Spanish soldiers
28. K. Jones, "La Cautiva," 7, 93.
29. On the two girls, "Viaje al Rio de la Plata," 367. For another example of a Spanish
woman who preferred to return to Inidian society, see Mayo, "El cautiverio," 242. In 1573,
the Toledo expedition reported on "a mestiza who had remained with the chiriguanes when
they killed captain Andres Manso . . . when the other Indian women fled into the monlte,
she went with them. Although some Spaniards who knew her, advised her to remain [with
them], she did not want to return, choosing to follow the others, and until today she remainls
with the Indians, having become a chiriguana." After ten years among the Indians, she had
no second thoughts about her loyalty. Reginaldo de Lizairraga, Descripcio6n breve de toda
la tierra de Peru, Tucuman, Rio de la Plata y Chile, chap. 38 (Madrid: Ediciones Atlas,
1968), quoted by Saignes, "Metis et sauvages," 85.
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came across captive Spanish women who had been completely accultur-
ated into Indian society and who, when given the chance, preferred to
remain with their so-called captors.
An instructive episode is provided by Luis de la Cruz, a Spanish mili-
tary officer sent to survey a trans-Andean route between southern Chile
and Buenos Aires in 1806.30 Twenty days after leaving Santiago, between
Guacaque and Puelee, a woman whom he first believed to be an Indian
was brought to de la Cruz. Upon looking more closely the officer realized
that she had Spanish features, and he proceeded to question her. Her
name was Petronila Perez, and she was a native of Pergamino, one of the
forts along the Buenos Aires frontier. She was a captive of the Pehuelches
and the wife of the Indian Marifian, having been previously married to
Carrilon, brother of the cacique, who had since died. Petronila recounted
how she had been taken captive as a young child along with a sister and
two stepbrothers in a raid along the Buenos Aires post road, in which
her mother and stepfather had been killed by the Indians. De la Cruz,
amazed at her ability to speak Spanish, asked her how she had come to
learn it. "I've had dealings with other women captives who taught me
how to speak as they did," Petronila responded, testifying not only to the
existence of a group of Spanish women captives within Indian society but
also to their awareness of being linguistically and culturally different from
their captors.
While the first part of de la Cruz's interview with Petronila suggests a
self-conscious attempt by Spanish women captives to preserve and trans-
mit their culture, their subsequent conversation reveals other levels of
complexity. It is interesting to note that de la Cruz himself could not de-
cide whether to treat Petronila as a Spaniard or an Indian. He enticed her
to return for further questioning by offering her "many gifts," the tradi-
tional Spanish approach to influencing Indians. Petronila in captivity had
lived in the Salinas area, a region traversed by annual Spanish expeditions
to the salt marshes and a zone of increasing Spanish encroachment. She
admitted that over the years she had seen several Spaniards, and that in
fact every year her two brothers, who had subsequently been freed, came
to visit her at her home. Clearly the frontier was a permeable zone with
Indians visiting Spanish settlements and Spaniards visiting Indian ones.
At this point de la Cruz could no longer contain his amazement. "Why
didn't you join them and return to the Christians?" "I didn't want to leave
because I love my children," was her most human answer.
30. Bibliotheque Nationale de Paris, Fonde espagnol 179, "Diario e informes de Luis
de la Cruz sobre la apertura de un camino desde el sur de Chile hasta Buenos Aires, a trav6s
de los Andes" (i8o6).
We do not know how Indian social mores dictated that a man treat his
wife, or whether women, either Indian or Spanish, had any say in choos-
ing their marriage partners.3' If captured while still young, as the above
examples demonstrate, Spanish women could be integrated into Indian
society well enough that they preferred it to the "Christian" world. This
preference probably resulted from their loyalty to their Indian husbands
and children, and from fear of returning to a Spanish world that might
brand them as social outcasts.
Regardless of their motivation, their behavior was inexplicable to
European men, who could only interpret it as a sign of feminine sexual
passion and weakness. "They prefer to live like slaves and satisfy their
passions, than reside among those of their race (so corrupt is human
nature)."32 While women who preferred Indian life were licentious and
corrupt, men who chose "captivity" over "freedom" were seen as outlaws
or traitors. To the Spaniards, captivity was furthermore a punishment or-
dained by God; one female captive reported that her daughter had spent
the last years as a beata in the House of Religious Retreat in Buenos Aires
beseeching God that her mother be freed, and doing penance.
Both men and women captured by the Indians were expected to par-
ticipate in the Indian economy. Among the Guaycuruans to the north,
Indian women and captives of both sexes participated in spinning, weav-
ing, preparing wild honey and carob beans for fermentation into intoxi-
cants, and other domestic chores.33 To the south female captives worked
along with Indian women at herding livestock, mounted on horseback to
tend the cattle and sheep day and night. Among those tribes that practiced
agriculture, Spanish women were involved in cultivating wheat, barley,
and beans. They probably also joined in the preparation of raw hides,
wool, skins, tallow, grease, and ostrich feathers for trade to Spanish mar-
kets, as well as in artesanal production of woven fabrics, leather goods,
and silver objects. Native women and captives were also responsible for
all housekeeping chores, including cooking food, saddling horses, and
setting up the tents (toldos) that served as native housing.
31. North American Indians, according to Axtell, were most civil to white women,
allowing them as wide a latitude of choice in marriage partners as they did Indian women. He
also argues that in North America the Indianis treated their English captives with kindness,
adopting them into Indian culture. "The White Indians," 65, 67 passim., 78.
32. The quote is from An6nimo, "Viaje al Rio de la Plata," 367. On the beata, see
Relaci6n de los cristianos salvados, 6.
33. On the Guaycuruans, Saeger, "Another View of the Mission," 496, 504. On herd-
ing, K. Jones, "La Cautiva," 91. On agricultural tasks, Mandrini, "La agricultura indigena,"
14. On goods for trade, K. Jones, "La Cautiva," 92. See also Mandrini, "La agricultura indi-
gena," 13. On housekeeping tasks, Alcides D'Orbigny, El hombre amnericano (Buenos Aires:
Editorial Futuro, 1944), 244; Raul Mandrini, Los araucanos de las pampas en el siglo XIX
(Buenos Aires: Centro Editor de Am6rica Latina, 1984), 13.
go
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TABLE
4:
Physical Attributes of Captives
Women Men
N percentage N percentage
Skin color
White 92 69.2 50 50.5
Swarthy (triguefio) 28 21.0 25 25.5
Dark (moreno) 4 3.0 12 12.0
Not given 9 6.8 12 12.0
Total 133 (100o0) 99 (ioo.o)
Hair color
Blond 46 34.6 14 14.2
Red 37 27.8
Brown or black 37 27.8 43 43.4
Not given 13 9.8 42 42.4
Total 133 (100o0) 99 (ioo.o)
Eye color
Blue 13 9.8 11 11.1
Brown 87 65.4 64 64.7
Green 2 2.0
Not given 33 24.8 22 22.2
Total 133 (100o0) 99 (ioo.o)
The Indians certainly chose their captives with a view toward who
could best serve their needs when acculturated into their society. A modi-
cum of physical preference may also have been at work in determining
who would be captured or at least who would survive. Rosas' list pro-
vides physical descriptions for 34 percent of the women (133/389) and 41
percent of the men
(99/245)
to aid in identification (See Table 4). An analy-
sis demonstrates a strong preference for people described by the soldiers
freeing them as fair-skinned and/or blond (rubio). Blue eyes (ojos azules)
were also a popular feature. This description of the captive population
is rather startling given the overwhelming predominance of dark-skinned
(triguenio or moreno), dark-eyed settlers along the frontier. Analyzing the
physical attributes by the sex of the captives, there is a suggestion that
fair complexion, probably equated with exotic physical beauty, was even
more prized in the choice of female than male captives.
In addition to those women described as "dark" were two slave women
(one negra and the other morena), a morena ex-slave, and a parda. Among
the men, one was classified as a mulatillo and another as a black. The
captive group also included three hispanized male Indians and a woman
described as having been born in the Abipon Reduccion. At most this
group of non-espaiioles numbered ten. The vast majority (98.5 percent) of
the captives perceived themselves as racially Spanish.
TABLE 5: Birthplace of Captives
Province Male Female Total
Buenos Aires 107 143 250
San Luis 41 99 140
Chile 23 36 59
C6rdoba 11 43 54
Santa Fe 3 14 17
Santiago del Estero 2 10 12
Mendoza 7 7
Paraguay 3 -- 3
San Juan 2 1 3
Entre Rios 1 1
Tucuman 1 1
Unknown 52 40 92
Total 245 394 639
An analysis of geographical zones supplying captives shows that the
largest group of captives were people born in the province of Buenos Aires
(Table 5). Providing half as many captives was San Luis province to the
west of Buenos Aires. The next-largest number of captives were born in
Chile and Cordoba. The small numbers of
paraguayos,
tucumanos, and
san juaninos freed in the Rosas campaign is not surprising given that the
captives found were all in an area to the south of Buenos Aires province,
and thus relatively far from the northern Chaco areas. But the small num-
ber of mnendozinos is surprising, especially in contrast to the relatively
large number of captives born in neighboring Chile.
The vast majority of the captives were country people, inhabitants of
the agricultural and stock-raising zones opening along the frontier. Only
sixteen individuals (nine women and seven men) had been born in a city;
all the others listed rural towns, estancias, and chacras as their places of
birth. Their modest origins show in that only eight of them refer to their
father by the title "Don," a universal sign of respect, social standing, and
at least a modicum of wealth in the society. Only one captive made any
reference to owing property herself, and another identified her husband as
a "wagon driver and owner."34 Three city-born women, two of whom were
related to arrieros, were taken while traveling from one city to another.
On the whole, the captives were typical representatives of the rural popu-
34. The former was Feliciana Gutierrez, a
50-year-old
widow from Guardia del Salto,
who declared that she had left her two sons "and some goods comprising her fortune" in
the place of her birth (Relaci6n de los cristianos salvados, 6). The latter was Maria Angela
Benosa, native of the city of C6rdoba, who had been taken in the same raid on the Guardia
de Salto as she and her husband were returning from Buenos Aires (Ibid., 14).
92 | HAHR
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TABLE 6: Region Where Capture Occurred
Region Male Female Total
Buenos Aires 37 97 134
San Luis 20 56 76
C6rdoba 6 29 35
Santa Fe 2 8 10
Chile 4 5 9
Mendoza 1 1
Total 69 196 265
lation of the Spanish pampas, people of modest means who tended cattle
or raised crops for an absentee landowner or perhaps themselves held
small parcels of land. They differed from the rural population at large only
in the overrepresentation of women in their midst.35
Comparing information on place of birth and place of capture offers
some insights into the rural population of the pampa (Table 6). Just as most
of the captives had been born in Buenos Aires or San Luis, most were
taken captive there. Those few listed as city dwellers were captured in the
campo. The great majority of captives were country people taken captive
in the very zone or region where they had been born, a reflection of low
geographical mobility for the population at large. Seventy-one percent of
the women for whom information is complete were captured in the place
of their birth (127/180); for men the number was 64 percent (44/69). A
group of male and female rural migrants from Santiago del Estero, Men-
doza, and Paraguay had moved to the Buenos Aires-Cordoba-San Luis
frontier in the hope of finding better economic conditions. In spite of the
presence of female migrants, captures of women tended to occur in the
region of their birth, suggesting less geographical mobility for the female
rural population.
One hundred ninety-five respondents supplied even more specific in-
formation on where they had been captured. Overwhelmingly they had
been taken while on an estancia or chacra (156 individuals), in a rural
chapel (6), or along a road (8), that is, in the countryside. Another group
had been captured in or near a fort
(5)
or in post houses (postas) (ii). Only
7 captives described the place where they were seized as "in town," while
another 2 were found hiding in a coal shed. Those taken captive were
overwhelmingly rural people, performing rural tasks. Their capture had
probably taken place in much the same way that Andres had been taken
in 1803.
35. Axtell also finds that the North Americans captured by Indians were a typical group
of colonists except for the prevalence of women ("The White Indians,"
57).
TABLE
7:
Language Retention of Captives
Women Men Total
No Spanish 42 64 1o6
Knows only name in Spanish 3 5 8
Minimal Spanish 25 44 69
Total 70 113 183
Working as an indentured laborer (conchabado) on the estancia which
belongs to Don Pastor Cornejo on the edge of the Rio Dorado along
the Chaco frontier, a line of several Indian warriors suddenly appeared
a little after noon, and shouting war cries and making a great deal of
noise, they made me mount on a horse, threatening to kill me if I didn't
do it, and they carried me away with an Indian leading my mount.36
While it is difficult to determine what psychological processes the cap-
tives underwent during their capture and early captivity, the list of freed
captives and other evidence provides some interesting suggestions as to
the ability of the captives to survive as culturally Spanish.
One important indicator of Spanish cultural persistence was the reten-
tion of spoken Spanish. Although less than a peifect indication of culture,
it is a surrogate variable. Among those freed in the Rosas expedition io6
people (or i6.7 percent of the group) could not speak one word of Spanish
(Table 7). Another 77 were limited to at most a few Spanish words.
More striking is the difference in language retention between male
and female captives. While at least 28 percent of the male captives (69/
245) had suffered total language deprivation, the comparable percentage
for females was only ii.6 percent (45/389). Females, who represented
6i.
5
percent of the entire group, were only 38 percent of those who had
suffered language deprivation. Here, three factors seem to have been of
capital importance: age at time of captivity, exposure to a sizable group
of captives within Indian society, and the captor society's attitude toward
the group. Those captured young quickly forgot not only their native lan-
guage but even the names of their mother and father. Conversely, those
held with other captives were able to maintain their language in spite
of youth and long years among the Indians.37 Finally, Indian societies
deemed women's language to be different from, if not inferior to, that of
36. AGNA, Testimonio del expediente . . . Hacienda, Legajo izz, Expediente 3081,
IX-34-5-8.
37. Although the list of captives freed by Rosas gives no indication of the numbers of
Spaniards held together, colonial sources suggest that at least some Indian groups held as
many as 30 to
50
captives at a time. Mayo, "El cautiverio," 240-41.
94
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I
men and seem to have tolerated Spanish women continuing to speak a
different tongue.
There is much indirect evidence that some groups of Spanish women
who spent much of their adult lives in captivity never lost their conscious-
ness of being Spanish and their use of the Spanish language. The above-
mentioned testimony of the captured Petronila Perez, the woman who
could speak Spanish because "other women captives" taught it to her, is
evidence of the existence of groups of captives aware of their linguistic
heritage and working to preserve it among other Spaniards. In the 1833
group, at least eight women testified that they knew their names, the
names of their parents, or details of their capture, as well as their native
language, because of information given to them by their "companieras." In
some areas Spanish women captives seem to have been so numerous they
almost formed their own subsociety, but apparently the same cultural or
information network never functioned among male captives.
The Spanish language was also maintained by captives kept with other
members of their families. Although this situation was rare, at least 85
captives were taken with at least one other family member. The largest
family group freed was that of Dofia Felipa Ortiz, a native of Antuco,
Chile, and the wife of Don Pablo Castro. She was freed along with their
four daughters and two sons, ranging in age from 22 to 6.38 More frequent
were the cases of mothers taken captive with one or two small children.
Given the predominance of women among the captives, it is not sur-
prising that a group of children was born in captivity to Spanish mothers
and Indian fathers. In addition to the 634 men, women, and children
listed in the inventory, another 73 young children "who are at the side
of their respective mothers" were also freed, and at least 2 more were
left behind with the Indians.39 Unlike those detailed in the published list,
these children had been born in captivity.
Was one function of captives to help Indian tribes recover from their
demographic losses? The data supplied by the 1833 list, while too incom-
plete to allow for sophisticated demographic calculations, provide some
possible answers. The above-mentioned 75 children probably represent
most of the surviving offspring of the female captives, as there is little
reason to believe that Rosas was willing to leave more than a handful of
these children with the Indians. Calculating the ratio of these surviving
children to the number of women (2io) between the ages of
15
and 39-
38. Relaci6n de los cristianos salvados, 50-51.
39. Ibid., 92, gives the total number of children born in captivity. The only woman who
specifically mentioned leaving her children behind was Manuela Chasarreta, a
5o-year-old
widow who had spent 14 years in captivity. According to her declaration, "she has left two
Indian sons among the infidels and has brought a Christian son with her" (Ibid., 38).
the childbearing years-yields a rough estimate of .36 children born and
surviving for each woman.
Information on age at captivity and age at return provides a rough
idea of the number of woman-years spent between the ages of 15 and 39
among the Indians; that is, the number of years the fecund captive women
were "at risk" to be impregnated by Indian males. The number of sur-
viving children, 75, when divided by the total number of woman-years,
1, 148, gives a fertility ratio of women to surviving offspring of
.o65.
In
other words, in any one year a captive woman had an almost 7 percent
chance of bearing a child and having that child survive. While admittedly
a rough calculation, this fertility ratio and the above-mentioned child-
woman ratio suggest that captured Spanish women did not significantly
alter the demography of indigenous society because of either low fertility
or high infant mortality. The data also suggest two other possibilities. Per-
haps captured women, although culturally assimilated through marriage
into Indian society, were not particularly attractive as sexual partners for
Indian men. It is also possible that Indian society was more concerned
with loss of resources than with loss of population. If this were true, the
Indians might have practiced some sort of birth control, perhaps infanti-
cide or abortion, to prevent a surplus population from straining reduced
resources or limiting the physical mobility of a nonsedentary tribe. Un-
fortunately we do not have enough ethnographic information to test these
hypotheses.
While our data do not provide direct information as to whether, once
captured, women had a better chance of surviving because of favored
treatment, information supplied by the captives does allow us to calculate
the average length of time spent in captivity (see Table 8). The average
term of captivity for the entire group was 8.8 years. If we analyze time
in captivity by sex we find little difference between the two groups, with
women averaging 8.9 years and men 8.6. This suggests thationce admitted
into native society men and women experienced similar survival rates,
perhaps the result of similar treatment.
Information on length of their captivity also allows us to trace an
approximate chronology of Indian raids in the pampas. If Indian raids
had been constant through the years, each succeeding year should show
slightly fewer captives, due to the effects of mortality, especially among
the older female population. But as Table
9 shows, the largest group of
captives was those held for 10 to
15
years and taken during the tumultuous
early years of the i82os. Indeed,
54
captives
(15.
1 percent of the group)
had been in captivity for 14 years (see Table 8). This group represents the
survivors of those men and women taken during the Carrera-Ranqueles
invasion of i82o, perhaps the most dramatic Indian attack on white settle-
96 | HAHR
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I
TABLE 8: Years in Captivity and Year of Captivity
Years in Year
Captivity Captured Female Male Total
0 1834 1 1 2
1 1833 17 9 26
2 1832 22 8 30
3 1831 17 8 25
4 1830 18 7 25
5
1829 14 4 18
6 1828 18 3 21
7 1827 4 4
8 1826 9 6 15
9 1825 5 4 9
10 1824 12 10 22
11 1823 7 8 15
12 1822 12 6 18
13 1821 31 7 38
14 1820 37 17 54
15 1819 15 3 18
16 1818 4 2 6
17 1817
1 1 2
18 1816 2 1 3
19
1815
-
20 1814 4 4
22 1812 1 1
28 18o6 1 1
TABLE
9:
Grouped Years in Captivity
Women Men Total Ratio W:M
0-4 75 33
1o8
1:0.44
5-9 50 17 67 1:0.34
10-14 99 48 147 1:0.48
15-19
22
7
29
1:0.32
20+ 6 6
Total 252 105 357 1:0.42
ments. The number of captives who had been among the Indians for 5 to 9
years was markedly smaller than the 10-14 or the 0-4 cohort, an indica-
tion that the raids had tapered off during the middle of the i82os. The
large number of captives taken after i828 reflects the growing number of
Indian attacks occasioned in part by a major drought that severely affected
both the Indian and the Spanish economies of the pampas. These attacks
prompted Rosas to undertake the 1833 campaign. Ironically, some of those
taken captive in 1829 were victims of the Pampas Indian raids, which were
probably carried out with the tacit support of the Rosas government.40
Analyzing the captives by sex and length of captivity, it appears that
Indian preferences for male or female captives changed over time. The sex
ratio is approximately
.3
males to every female for those held from 5 to 9
and
i5
to 19 years. A very different pattern is found among those in cap-
tivity from o to 4 and from 10 to 14 years; that is, those captured between
i82o and 1824 or 1830 and 1834, years of intense combat along the fron-
tier. During this period male captives are found in greater numbers, with
more than .4 males for each female. Indeed during the 1820-24 period
the number of males rises to almost
.5
males for each female. These differ-
ing ratios suggest that during relatively peaceable periods Indians were
mainly interested in taking female captives, while during periods of war,
they took more male captives. These were, of course, young males who,
the Indians perhaps hoped, could be assimilated and trained as warriors
in a relatively short time. Taking adult male captives in time of war was
never in the Indians' best interest because of problems of physical control.
Conclusions
In the main, captives were people of rural origin seized in or near the
place of their birth. The group was predominantly female, but male and
female captives displayed markedly different age patterns. Males were
usually captured young, while women of all ages seemed desirable to
Indian captors. As a result, and perhaps also as a result of different pat-
terns of socialization once captured, females seemed to retain the Spanish
language and culture better than males. Paradoxically, women were prob-
ably better accepted by Indian societies, marrying native men and bearing
their children.
The relative length of captivity experienced by all members of this
group raises questions about their ability to readapt to Spanish society.
Once freed, could these ex-captives reincorporate themselves into the
world they had come from? This is a complex issue, dependent on the re-
actions of both the ex-captives and Spanish society. Throughout the period
under study, male ex-captives seemed to experience little difficulty in
reentering white society. Many of them were able to take advantage of
skills learned during their years of captivity; they settled near the frontier,
where they served as interpreters and guides. Their experience among the
40. J. Anthony King, Twenty-Four Years in the Argentine Republic (London: Longman
et al., 1846), 224.
98 | HAHR
I
FEBRUARY
I
Indians equipped them to perform a vital service to the Spanish frontier
communities.
In general, male captives seemed more eager to return to Spanish soci-
ety than their female counterparts. Although far fewer men than women
were held captive, among the group of Spaniards who over the years man-
aged to escape from the Indians of their own volition, the vast majority
were men.4' While this imbalance perhaps reflects a greater daring on
the part of males, it also suggests that Spanish women were less unhappy
in their condition of "cautivas" than their male counterparts. Women, in
general, seemed less anxious to return to Spanish society, perhaps be-
cause this transfer-moving from a position as the wife of an Indian chief
to that of a simple peasant-meant a loss in status. It is also doubtful
whether those women, victims of "Indian captivity and sensuality," re-
ceived a warm welcome when they returned to Spanish society, with or
without their halfbreed children. At least a handful of women always at-
tempted to go back to the Indians after their so-called rescue. Ironically,
the captive women apparently spoke more Spanish and probably remem-
bered Spanish society better than did the men. Women had stronger ties
to both sides of the frontier and must have faced a far more difficult choice
when offered their freedom.
To what degree did Spanish families actively attempt to ransom their
children from captivity? We have little direct evidence from either earlier
captives or the Rosas group, and what we have is often contradictory.
Some parents actively sought the release of their children from the begin-
ning, welcomed the return of these children from captivity, and probably
helped them to readapt to the Spanish world.42 But many of the female
captives freed by Rosas were unable to reestablish links with their fami-
lies and were placed under the charge of the Sociedad de Beneficencia in
Buenos Aires.43 The sex of the individual, the age of capture, the years
spent among the Indians, the bearing of children fathered by Indian men,
and the degree to which an individual had been integrated into native
society all influenced the eagerness with which he or she sought to reiden-
tify with Spanish society and the ease with which this society accepted the
returnee.
The economic effects of captivity on either the Indian or the Spanish
societies are hard to ascertain. At least one scholar has suggested that the
41. For example, in Mayo, Fuentes, of the twelve cases of Spaniards who successfully
escaped, there is only one woman.
42. Claudio Sarmiento, 14 years old, had been taken captive while on the estancia of
Don Juan Canario, "and while he was captive, his father went to see if he could ransom
him." Relaci6n de los cristianos salvados, 76.
43. K. Jones, "La Cautiva,"
91-92.
labor of captive women helped Indian society to overcome a labor short-
age, but little numerical data on either the numbers of captives or the
size of Indian societies during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
make this suggestion difficult to explore. The same author also points out
that the 1833-34 ransoming of 707 captives from Araucanian tribes, which
themselves totaled about 8,ooo, appears to have seriously crippled the
native economy.44 It should be remembered that only 340 of those cap-
tives were above the age of 14. Nevertheless, the loss of this number of
productive adults may well have crippled native groups who were at the
edge of subsistence most of the time.
How the loss of these people affected the economy of their home re-
gions is even more difficult to ascertain, in part because of the lack of
viable data on the population. The analysis presented in this essay shows
that the rural population lost more individuals to captivity than did cities.
The analysis further suggests that the people taken captive tended to be
peones and small landowners, individuals who made an important contri-
bution to the local labor force but were not necessarily perceived as essen-
tial. Furthermore, the scattered nature of the raids tended to diminish
their economic impact. The province of Buenos Aires, for example, with a
total frontier population of 9,239 in 1836, provided only 134 captives, less
than 1.5 percent of its population, to the 1833-34 group.45
Perhaps most perplexing is the relative lack of dramatic reaction to the
continuous loss of settlers to captivity during the entire period under con-
sideration. This silence prevailed perhaps because those most at risk to
be taken captive were rural people, illiterate folk with little or no political
power. Furthermore, because so many of the captives were women, their
loss did not represent a dramatically visible reduction of the rural work
force. Nevertheless, the fear of Indian raids, with their resultant death,
destruction, and captive taking, served to dissuade frontier settlement.
Although captives are infrequently mentioned in Spanish sources, their
loss had a powerful psychological effect on frontier society. Regardless of
the actual risk, Spanish settlers felt weak and vulnerable to Indian at-
tack, and to the appalling alternatives of death or captivity, until the final
decades of the nineteenth century.
44. Ibid., 91.
45. Ernesto J. A. Maeder, Evoluci6n demogrdfica argentina de i8io a 1969 (Buenos
Aires: Editorial Universitaria de Buenos Aires, 1969), 34.

Socolow Susan - Spanish Captives in Indian Societies

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Spanish Captives in Indian Societies: Cultural Contact along the Argentine Frontier, 1600-1835

Author(s): Susan Migden Socolow

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