Argentine Territorialism Escude

Argentine Territorial Nationalism
Author(s): Carlos Escude

Source: Journal of Latin American Studies, Vol. 20, No. 1 (May, 1988), pp. 139-165
Published by: Cambridge University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/157332 .
Accessed: 19/02/2015 06:10
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Cambridge University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal of
Latin American Studies.
http://www.jstor.org
This content downloaded from 137.204.14.136 on Thu, 19 Feb 2015 06:10:52 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
J. Lat. Amer. Stud. 20,
I 39-65
Printed in Great Britain
I39

by CARLOS
ESCUDE
Introduction
One important cultural factor which has contributed to inhibiting
regional cooperation and integration in Latin America lies in the intense
territorial nationalism prevailing in several of the Spanish-speaking
countries. This frequently underrated phenomenon is an outgrowth of the
great number of territorial disputes still to be found in the region and the
indoctrination of public opinion through the educational systems and
the mass media that often accompanies them.1 At least the following
disputes can be considered as having greatly affected the international
relations of these countries in recent years:
Argentinavs. Chile. The core of the problem (the dispute over three tiny
islands in the Beagle Channel) was solved with the Treaty of Peace and
Friendship signed in 1984 and ratified in 1985, but it almost led to war in
1978 and was an excuse for intensive nationalistic indoctrination over
several years. It generated arms races and military mobilisation,
concomitantly frustrating a natural potential for economic complementarity and integration. The territorial disputes yet unsolved are very minor,
but distrust will probably linger on for many years.
Argentina vs. Great Britain. This is and has been an excuse for
indoctrination and for the expression of extreme chauvinist feeling. The
1982 war warrants no comments.
1 A. M. Seitz de
Graziano, 'Los Conflictos Territoriales Iberoamericanos', America
Latina (5th. Bimester 1984), listed Latin America's territorial disputes on a country by
country basis as follows: Argentina with Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, Great
Britain, and the signatories of the Antarctic Treaty; Chile with Bolivia, Peru, Argentina,
Great Britain, and the signatories of the Antarctic Treaty; Uruguay with Argentina;
Brazil with Argentina, Paraguay and French Guiana; Paraguay with Argentina and
Bolivia; Bolivia with Chile, Peru and Paraguay; Peru with Chile, Bolivia and Ecuador;
Ecuadorwith Peru in two parts of its border; Colombiawith Venezuela and Nicaragua;
Venezuelawith Colombia and Guyana; Panama with the United States; Costa Rica with
Nicaragua; Honduraswith the United States and El Salvador; Nicaragua with Costa Rica
and Colombia; El Salvadorwith Honduras; Guatemala with Belize and its guarantors;
Mexico with the United States; and Cuba with the United States.

140
Carlos Escude
Bolivia vs. Chile. This leads to periodic ruptures in the diplomatic

relations between both countries. Originating in the Bolivian territorial
losses of over a hundred years ago, it is fed by the Bolivian educational
system, generating intense anti-Chilean feeling.
Bolivia vs. Paraguay.Frontier skirmishes between the military forces of
both countries take place from time to time. The dispute makes it difficult
to put into use the irrigation potential of the Pilcomayo river. The
present-day disagreements are the product of unsolved problems left from
the Chaco War of 1933-5.
Chile vs. Peru. This dispute arises from the same causes as the
Chile-Bolivian dispute, an outgrowth of the Chilean victory in the
Pacific War of 1879. Distrust and arms competition are the normal state
of affairs.
Peru vs. Ecuador.The territorial dispute, which is as old as Peruvian and
Ecuadorian independence, led to wars in I828 and I941, and again to the
outbreak of armed conflict in 98 i.
Venezuelavs. Guyana.This is the outgrowth of an old dispute with Great

Britain, as a consequence of which Venezuela claims approximately twothirds of Guyana's territory.
Colombiavs. Nicaragua. Five islands off the Nicaraguan coast, two of
which are occupied by Colombia (the other three being temporarily lent
by Colombia to the United States) are claimed, sometimes loudly, by
Nicaragua. Former Colombian President Turbay Ayala took military
measures to reinforce Colombia's position, although Colombia's participation in Contadora under President Betancur generated a more flexible
Colombian attitude, while the Nicaraguan attitude was likewise softened
with the general deterioration of the Central American situation.
Hondurasvs. El Salvador.The boundary between these two countries is
officially undefined. Fighting broke out in I969 after a soccer match. The
brief armed conflict led to the paralisation of the Central American
Common Market.
Because many of these disputes are substantively unimportant from a
pragmatic point of view, social scientists have tended to underestimate
them. The chauvinistic, ultranationalistic sectors of these countries'
populations are frequently obsessed with territorial disputes and
geopolitical strategies, while more pragmatic sectors tend to shrug them
off as irrelevant. But the chauvinistic sectors are often influential amongst
(some) political and (many) military leaders. And thus the 'objective'
irrelevance of the disputes per se leads to a situation in which practically
the only information which the public receives comes from the

141
chauvinistic sectors. Hence, chauvinistic feeling is reinforced, arms races

are perceived as reasonable (and high military spending appears justified),
economic integration becomes more difficult, and when war finally breaks
out the world is amazed with a situation which it should have been able
to foresee, at least as a possibility.
Of the cases listed above, one of the more interesting ones is that of
Argentina, both because of its intensity and the misperceptions involved.
The Argentine case
Argentine territorial nationalism is a phenomenon of which politically
conscious people all over the world are by now aware, but which was
practically ignored even by Latin-Americanists until the Falkland/
Malvinas war of I982, despite the fact that it is a cultural characteristic
which at least to some extent is shared by Argentina's neighbour, Chile,
and which has been an important variable in the determination of
Argentine-Chilean relations, and hence in the frustration of these
countries' potential for economic complementarity. This territorial
nationalism is, in my opinion, rooted in a shared misperception - that is,
the idea prevailing in a great deal of bibliography on both sides of the
Andes that substantial territorial losses were suffered during the nineteenth
century. In Argentina there is a widespread perception of Chilean
expansion at Argentina's expense in the south and of additional territorial
losses elsewhere. In Chile there is a parallel perception of Argentine
expansionism at Chile's expense, although this is somewhat mitigated by
the perception of Chile's northward expansion at the expense of Bolivia
and, more undeniably, Peru. In Chile there is a generalised perception that
the whole of Patagonia should have been Chilean. In Argentina there is
a parallel perception that all of Chile south of the River Bio-Bio should
have been Argentine. In Argentina this perception is made more acute by
the fact that Buenos Aires, the capital of the Argentine state, was once the
capital of the colonial state of the Viceroyalty of the River Plate. Hence,
the perception of territorial losses is extended to those countries which,
having been a part of the colonial state, became separate states after
Independence (that is, Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay), and this fact
makes the analysis of whether Argentina's perception of territorial losses
is warranted or not somewhat more complex.
In the case of Argentina, territorial nationalism is a relevant
phenomenon not only because of its political and economic consequences,
but also because of the contrast between the perceptionof territorial losses
and the reality of territorial gains: it is in this respect a phenomenon that

142
Carlos Escude
lies intellectually within the realm of the sociology of knowledge and/or

political psychology. It is different from economic and political
nationalism in Argentina insofar as the political groups which are more
prone to it do not coincide, though they do sometimes overlap, with the
economic and political nationalists: take, for example, the case of La
Prensa, a traditional newspaper which consistently embraces both extreme
economic laissez-faire attitudes and territorial nationalism. It is also
different from the territorial nationalism prevailing in other Latin
American countries, owing to the said contrast between the perception of
territorial losses and the reality of territorial gains. Of the Latin American
countries, only Argentina, Brazil and Chile have had huge territorial
gains; Argentina and Chile share perceptions of territorial losses, but in
Chile these perceptions coexist with perceptions of territorial gains in the
north, whereas in Argentina there is only the perception of huge losses
everywhere.
This perception is, as I have said, historically rooted, and it is so widespread that some foreign scholars have, for example, taken for granted that
Patagonia and the whole of the far south were included in the Viceroyality
of the River Plate, accepting without challenge the claims of the
Argentines. Such is the case of John Lynch, in his Spanish Colonial
Administration, s782-1810,2 though it must be said in his defence that the
territorial issue is only a marginal aspect of his book and by no means the
focus of his research. This being the case with Lynch and others, however,
I cannot take for granted in this paper that the idea of territorial losses is
a misperception. In order to get to the core of what is a contemporary
problem in the sociology of knowledge which has deep political and
economic reverberations, we must dig deep into history, with the
objective of coming to some sort of conclusion with respect to whether
the perception of territorial losses is or is not warranted.
The expansionsouthwards
A long history underlies Argentina's and Chile's shared perceptions of
territorial losses in the south at each other's expense. This, obviously, is
the history of Argentine-Chilean territorial competition for the region, a
history which in turn has two facets: one linked to negotiations,
2
1782-1810
(London, I958). See maps pp. 321
J. Lynch, SpanishColonial Administration,
and 322. See also Preface, p. vii: '...in 1776, in the interests of defence, the vast land
stretching from Tierra del Fuego to Upper Peru, from the Atlantic to the Andes... was
erected into an independent viceroyalty'. The maps include nearly all of Tierra del
Fuego, including some coasts formally in the Pacific ocean, in the Viceroyalty. As will
be seen later on in this text, this is not warranted by the overall evidence available.

143
settlement and military operations, and one linked to the scholarly debate
with respect to title deeds. The political and military facet is relatively well
known. The far south, though claimed by the Spanish Crown, was not
actually settled by the Spaniards, and remained Indian territory until the
end of the nineteenth century. Chile acquired a good head start,
expanding southwards because its consolidation as a state was produced
long before Argentina's. It was a small, homogeneous power which did
not suffer Argentina's balkanisation and prolonged civil wars, and by 1843
had established a military station in the Strait of Magellan, which soon
afterwards became a settlement, Punta Arenas. Through alliances with
Indian tribes, Chilean influence in Patagonia grew slowly but steadily;
what is today the Argentine province of Neuquen became a territory in
which the cattle which was stolen by the Indians in Buenos Aires was
fattened, previous to its transport to the other side of the Andes for sale
in the Chilean markets. The Indians took the cattle through the presentday province of Buenos Aires, then Indian territory, along a trail known
as el Caminode los Chilenos- the Chileans' Road. Chilean claims in the south
grew concomitantly with their influence: although the Chilean Constitutions of i822, I823, 1828 and 1833 established the frontier between
Chile and Argentina along the Andes Mountains all the way down to Cape
Horn, by the i87os they claimed all of Patagonia south of the Rio
Negro.
Meanwhile, Argentina had been a balkanised country which was in no
position to compete. The provinces not only had standing armies and
warred against each other; they sometimes even signed treaties with
neighbouring states, as was the case between Corrientes and Paraguay in
1841, which acknowledged Paraguayan jurisdiction over territories which
are presently Argentine. This situation was modified by stages:
(I) With Mitre's I 860 triumph in the Battle of Pav6n, which established
an initially fragile but eventually lasting territorial unity.
(2) With the war against Paraguay of 865-70, known as the War of the
Triple Alliance, in which allied with Brazil and basically thanks to
Brazilian men, arms and money, Mitre managed to:
(a) Destroy a powerful territorial competitor - as was Paraguay, which
was a consolidated state with a population of approximately
800,000, whereas Argentina, with a population of approximately
was to such an extent fragilely unified that not long
1,200,000,
before the war the powerful Entre Rios leader Urquiza had offered
Paraguayan President L6pez his alliance against Mitre.
(b) Win important territories from Paraguay and hence consolidate

144
Carlos Escude
Argentina in the northeast. The Department of Candelaria, for

example, which is part of the present-day Argentine province of
Misiones, had been put under Paraguayan jurisdiction by a Royal
Warrant in 1659. In 1726 it was transferred to Buenos Aires, but in
1746 it was once again put under Paraguayan rule, this being ratified
in I784. In I806, after a period of three years during which the
entire territory of Misiones (that is, considerably more than
Candelaria) was separated both from Paraguay and from Buenos
Aires, the whole of it was incorporated into Paraguay. In 181I
General Manuel Belgrano signed a treaty with Paraguay in the name
of the Buenos Aires government acknowledging that Candelaria
was Paraguayan. Finally, in I852 a new treaty was signed between
the Paraguayan government and the Argentine Confederation by
which Candelaria was to be transferred to Argentine jurisdiction,
but which acknowledged the present-day Argentine province of
Formosa (and a part of the Argentina province of Chaco) as
Paraguayan. This treaty was not ratified. These territories were
conquered by Argentina during the war, which was a genocidal
affair in which nearly the entire male population of Paraguay was
killed.3
(c) Destroy his internal enemies, and thus consolidate Argentine unity,
while the war was being waged mostly by the Brazilian army and
navy. Indeed, due to the uprisings which took place in the
provinces, Mitre was forced to withdraw most of the Argentine
troops from the Paraguayan front. It is probably no exaggeration to
say that the war forged Argentina's unity thanks to Brazil's
participation, which made it possible to destroy at once both
Mitre's Paraguayan and provincial enemies.4
The war against Paraguay was thus a turning-point in Argentine
history, a turning point towards the better if judged from the narrow
perspective of her national interest, and with the territorial, political and
military consolidation it produced a turning-point in the competition with
Chile over the southern territories. Finally, one last event helped greatly
to turn the tables in Argentina's favour in this competition; that is, the
third of the stages referred to above:
(3) Chile's decision to wage war on Peru and Bolivia.
3 P. H.
Box, Los Ortgenesde la Guerra del Paraguay (Asunci6n, I93I; Illinois University
Press edition, 1927), ch. 3.
4 F.
J. McLynn, 'The Causes of the War of Triple Alliance: An Interpretation', InterAmerican EconomicAffairs (Autumn I979).

145
Indeed, General Roca's so-called 'Conquest of the Desert', in which

Argentine forces occupied the Indian territories up to the Rio Negro, was
initiated days after the official Chilean declaration of war. Argentina now
stood on a much stronger bargaining position, and the negotiated
outcome, the Treaty of i881, was signed three years before the
Chile-Bolivian peace treaty of 1884, at a time when, although the war
had been won, Chilean energies still had to be concentrated in the north.
Almost miraculously, hence, a very fortunate sequence of events helped
Argentina to gain an advantage in a competition in which she had been
at a distinct disadvantage. Nevertheless, the outcome was a border which
was substantially the same as the one that would have corresponded to the
initial perception the Chileans had of their territories, as shown by the
boundaries set in the aforementioned Constitutions of I822, I823, 1828
and I833.
The debateover title deeds

While the 'real' - that is, political and military- contest for Patagonia
was being waged, an intense and erudite debate took place among
Argentines and Chileans with respect to title deeds. Although it probably
had little to do with the outcome of the negotiating process, it was
perceived as the very centre of it, and it has moulded the attitudes towards
territorial issues of generations of Argentines and Chileans. The two main
actors were Vicente G. Quesada on the Argentine side, and Miguel Luis
Amunategui on the Chilean side. They endeavoured to demonstrate, from
Spanish Crown documents, that the entire region, bathed by both the
Atlantic and the Pacific oceans, corresponded to the legal jurisdiction of
their respective countries. In order to do this they had to resort to all kinds
of fallacies. They were trying to demonstrate that the Spanish Crown's
intention had been that the southern lands be included in their respective
jurisdictions, because there had been a previous agreement with respect to
the fact that each republic would be legal heir to the dominions which the
Crown had previously granted to each colonial jurisdiction.5
5 The debate evolved slowly, after the occupation of the Strait of Magellan with the
establishment of Fuerte Bulnes by Chile on 21 September I843. The Argentine protest
was filed on I5 December I847. The first presentation of the Argentine case was
desoberani'ay
dominiodela
probablyPedro de Angelis, MemoriaHistdricasobrelosderechos
delcontinente
americano
entrelas costas
Confederacidn
Argentinaa la parte-austral
comprendida
del Oce'ano
de los Andesdesdela bocadel Rio de la Plata hasta
Atldnticoyla granCordillera
el CabodeHornosinclusala Isladelos Estados,La TierradelFuegoyel EstrechodeMagallanes
entodasuextension(Buenos Aires, 85 ). This was refutedby Miguel Luis Amunategui,
Titulosdela Reptblicade Chilea la soberani'ay
dominiode la extremidad
australdelcontinente

146
Carlos Escude
This agreement, known as the I8Io uti possidetis juris, was quite
reasonable with respect to lands which had been well explored and
relatively settled. With respect to lands that had never been under the
effective control of any conquistador,
however, the agreement was
absolutely impractical because, at least in the case of the southern
territories, the title deeds were overlapping and contradictory.6 That it
should have been so is really quite to be expected purely on logical terms.
The Spanish king had an interest in ensuring himself against the potential
pretensions of other powers. In order to do this, he had to encourage
successive conquistadors to explore and settle in the region. But this
region was so unattractive that not only did no Spanish conquistador
settle there; neither did other powers. Successive incentives were given to
americano (Santiago, I853). Amunategui was in turn refuted by Dalmacio Velez

Sarsfield, Discusionde los titulos del gobiernode Chile a las tierras del Estrecho de Magallanes
(Buenos Aires, I854). This in turn motivated a new publication by Amunategui, a
leaflet printed in Santiago in 1855. As a consequence of this, two works were published
in Buenos Aires, one by Ricardo Manuel Trelles, Cuestidnde limites entre la Repiblica
Argentinay el Gobiernode Chile (i865), and one by Vicente G. Quesada, La Patagoniay
las tierras australesdel continenteamericano( 875). Trelles also published his views in 'La
Reptiblica Argentina y Chile', La Nacidn, 3 April I874. These Argentine writings
motivated Amunategui into publishing what was probably the most important and
serious work in this debate, that is, Cuestidnde limites entreChiley la Repiblica Argentina,
(Santiago 1879). Finally, Amunategui's work generated Quesada's reply, his 'Historia
Colonial Argentina', published in successive issues of the Nueva Revista de BuenosAires
during 1884 and I885, that is, after the signature of the I88i boundary treaty.
Diego de Almagro, Pedro de Mendoza and Sim6n de Alcazaba were granted their
jurisdictions on the same day, 21 May 5 4. Almagro was to have 200 Spanish leagues
along the Pacific coast, south of Pizarro's jurisdiction. Mendoza was to enter his
jurisdiction through the River Plate and reach the Pacific coast, where he was to have
200 leagues south of Almagro's jurisdiction; his title did not clearly establish how many
leagues he was to have along the Atlantic. Alcazaba was to have 200 leagues along the
Pacific coast south of Mendoza's jurisdiction, and he was also free to sail from the
Pacific to the Atlantic and explore Patagonia, where eventually, said the King, he might
also be granted jurisdiction if it so suited his royal interest. According to Amunategui,
one Francisco Camargo, of whose title only one paragraph survives, was heir to
Alcazaba, and afterwards was in turn succeeded by Fray Francisco de la Rivera.
Concomitantly, the king had granted the lands south of the Strait of Magellan to Pedro
Sancho de Hoz. Supposedly, Pedro de Valdivia later unified under his title the
jurisdictions of Rivera, de Hoz, Almagro, and Mendoza's Pacific coast, but the Chilean
proofs of this unification are extremely obscure. Whatever the case may be, by
Valdivia's time the governorship of Chile was established, and he was confirmed as
governor of Chile by the king on 3I May 1552. Yet in I569 the king was still
appointing his adelantadosin the River Plate-Paraguay region as heirs to Mendoza's
entire jurisdiction, as was done with Ortiz de Zarate in that year, theoretically awarding
him central Chile, precisely the core of Valdivia's jurisdiction! This, of course, had no
practical consequences whatsoever.

147
successive conquistadors, to no avail. An objective study of the title deeds

clearly shows this overlap and contradiction to be present. The
jurisdictions
granted were enormous,
especially
at the beginning;
the
territory actually explored and settled was a very small portion of the total
theoretical jurisdiction. A large theoretical jurisdiction, however, gave the
conquistador ample freedom to move about and choose the land in which
he would establish himself and found his cities. The Monarch sought to
ensure his rights by expanding the effective conquest of the territory
through an administrative practice which was never meant to establish the
sovereign rights of anyone but himself. In the case of unoccupied
territories which lay in between settled ones, the Crown often transferred
jurisdictions when it believed that in so doing the interests of the conquest
would be better served. Also, for administrative reasons, settled territories
were often transferred from one jurisdiction to the other.7 This was
usually done in an orderly way, without contradictions, in order to avoid
conflicts among conquistadors, governors or viceroys. But in the case of
remote, unoccupied territories, no such care was taken, and contradictory
jurisdictional overlaps, without a valid nullification of previous titles,
were not infrequent.8
7 As an example of unsettled territories which were transferred and which were situated
in between settled ones, take the case of Paposo in the Atacama desert. Due to a priest's
ambitions to a parish there and to his successful lobbying at the Spanish court, the
governor of Chile was ordered to make important investments there on 3 June i80o
and 26 June I803. The orders were not complied with, and a royal order of i October
1803 transferred the territory to Lima's jurisdiction, much to the Viceroy's dismay,
who complained to the court on 8 March 1804. At times, what a governor or a viceroy
least wanted was the incorporation of unattractive territories into his jurisdiction. On
the other hand, the case was very different with respect to attractive territories. Take
the case of Arica, under Lima's jurisdiction but coveted by Charcas, which lobbied in
the court to have it transferred, thus generating an ambiguous situation when by royal
warrant of 22 June 1593 it was ordered that Arica remain under Lima's jurisdiction but
that its Corregidorfollow the mandates of the Real Audiencia de los Charcas. See J. Vial
Solar, Los Tratados de Chile, vol. i.
8 It is not necessary to go as far as Patagonia to come across these contradictions. Take,
for example, the case of the Atacama desert. According to the royal warrant of 1o
November 1542, the Audience of Lima bordered with Chile along the Pacific. The royal
warrant of 26 May 1573, however, established a larger territorial jurisdiction for the
Audience of Charcas, granting it lands along the Pacific coast between Lima's and
Santiago's jurisdiction, in the Atacama region. This measure was never nullified,
Nevertheless, in 1801 Paposo was dealt with as corresponding to Santiago's jurisdiction
and in I803 it was transferred to Lima's jurisdiction, as was said in note 7 above. Not
surprisingly, Chileans and Peruvians have interpreted the royal warrant of 1573 as an
error, while the Bolivians have used it as proof of the legitimacy of their occupation
of Atacama in the nineteenth century, considerably before the War of the Pacific once
again deprived them of it. The truth would appear to be that it was simply a theoretical

148
Carlos Escude
However, Quesada and Amunaitegui structured their arguments as if

the Crown's wishes were an absolute and as if a contradiction were
unthinkable. In so doing they both indulged in fallacies, and they both
cheated. Quesada's tricks were perhaps less subtle than Amunategui's, but
the latter's arguments were in the end not much better than Quesada's.9
For the Argentine the major difficulty stemmed from the very
embarrassing fact that the Royal Warrant of i August 1776, which
founded the Viceroyalty of the River Plate, makes no mention at all of the
southern territories when it defines the jurisdiction of the new viceroyalty.
Quesada argues, rather unsuccessfully, that it is not mentioned because it
was taken for granted that it belonged to Buenos Aires. In turn,
Amunategui argued equally unsuccessfully that the Chilean rights could
be traced through several royal warrants, some of which had been lost, to
the dominions granted to Sim6n de Alcazaba in the south on 21 May
1534. This argument ran into trouble both because of the obscure nature
of some of the connecting titles and because it implied an interpretation
of Amunategui's grant which exaggerated the actual terms of the
capitulacion. The one very strong point that the Chilean had in his favour
was that in 1775 -that is, one year previous to the establishment of the
Viceroyalty of the River Plate - Cano y Olmedilla, the Spanish Court's
geographer, had published a map showing the southern territories as
jurisdiction which was uninteresting to the conquistadors, who preferred not to be
burdened with it. In such cases, the Crown frequently omitted efforts to be consistent
in the granting of jurisdictions; previous titles were not always formally nullified. My
source with respect to the contents of the royal warrants is Vial Solar, op. cit.
9 Quesada went as far as going to Seville and bringing back an adulterated copy of
Mendoza's title, which instead of saying that he was awarded 200 leagues hacia
(towards) the Strait of Magellan, said hasta (up to) the said strait. The correct text can
be consulted in Coleccidnde DocumentosIneditosdel Archivo de Indias, vol. 22, p. 35. This
was, of course, inconsistent with the words used in the other two titles awarded on the
same day by the king, where the word hacia was used, and it is absolutely contradictory
with Alcazaba's title, which granted him a jurisdiction south of Mendoza's hacia the
Strait of Magellan. The king did contradict himself frequently, but not so blatantly and
on the same day. Besides, the capitulacioneswere available. Quesada's lie is so naive that
it could not possibly convince experts. Rather, it would appear that his purpose was
probably to set up a pseudo-juridical justification which would facilitate indoctrination
in the (then likely) event of war. Amunategui resorts to more subtle but equally
dishonest tricks. For example, he refuses to acknowledge that Mendoza's jurisdiction
along the Atlantic coast is not clearly defined, and wants to make believe that it is the
same as his 200 leagues along the Pacific coast. He also attempts to make his readers
believe, through extrapolation, that Alcazaba's right of exploration of the Patagonian
coasts amount to a title deed, when the king explicitly says that he may grant him such
lands, which were not included in the award, if it suited his royal interest, and he never
did.

149
Chilean. On the other hand, the strong point the Argentine had was that,
after the creation of the viceroyalty, most expeditions to the Patagonian
coast were put in charge of Buenos Aires.'?
This fact fits well into a more realistic line of reasoning. It is more than
likely that, whatever the previous titles might have been, the establishment
of Buenos Aires as a viceroyal capital would have eventually produced the
transfer of Patagonia, east of the Andes, to its jurisdiction, for practical
administrative reasons - if only because once there were enough resources
in the city it would be easier to order an expedition by sea from there than
from any point in settled Chile, which was much further away. The same
line of thinking, however, leads to the conclusion that the Pacific coast
would never have been put in Buenos Aires' jurisdiction. Supportive of
this hypothesis is the map presented to the king, at his request, by the
Spanish court's secretary of marine, Juan de Langara, published in 1798,
which along the southern Pacific coast reads 'Reyno de Chile' (Kingdom
of Chile), and along the southern Atlantic coast reads, in equally
coasts'; the difference with Cano y
important letters, 'Patagonian
Olmedilla's earlier map, although not conclusive, is interesting. After the
creation of the viceroyalty, practical reasons made it unwise to include
eastern Patagonia in the Chilean jurisdiction. No royal documents
clarifying the status of the territory had been issued, however, when the
10
The Cano y Olmedillamap can be consulted in Oxford's BodleianLibraryMap Room.

It is also available at the Public Record Office, Kew Gardens, London, and at the
Archivo General de Indias, Seville. If Patagoniawas in Chileanjurisdictionin I775,
then it could not be in Buenos Aires' jurisdictionwhen the Viceroyaltywas founded
a year later. The only way to argue that it came under River Plate jurisdictionin I776
is by proving that it belonged to Cuyo, which by virtue of the royal warrantthat
created the Viceroyalty was transferred from Chile to the River Plate. Yet the
Argentineargumentsnearlyalways tried to prove that it belonged to Buenos Aires. In
contrast, some Chileansdid make an effortto prove that it was not a part of Mendoza
(in turn, part of Cuyo); they took the map as absoluteevidence and felt that there was
no need to prove that it was not a part of Buenos Aires. On the other hand, after the
creationof the Viceroyaltymany an expeditionto Patagoniawas put under the charge
of Buenos Aires. Quesadamentions severalwell-documentedcases which the Chileans
do not refute. The Argentines argued that an order to explore, establish settlements,
or expel foreignersis demonstrativeof jurisdictionalrights. Pragmaticconsiderations
such as the fact that the king would do so with whatever capital had the necessary
resourcesat a given time, and that he need not be consistent about an administrative
practicewhich had nothing whateverto do with the establishmentof sovereign rights,
are never taken into account by either of the sides. Furthersupport for the pragmatic
(administrative)assumptionlies in the fact that nearlyall expeditionsto the present-day
Argentine province of Neuquen, in Andean Patagonia,were ordered by the central
authority to be organised and depart from Santiago, which was geographically
closer.

5o
Carlos Escude'
Independence crisis broke out in 1810. If the Chileans had a slight edge in
the by-and-large very contradictory set of royal documents available, they
certainly lost it by defining their own territory as limited by the Andes all
the way down to Cape Horn, as they did in their previously mentioned
Constitutions - showing, as has been said, that their own perception of
their country's legal boundaries before an enhanced power could make
them aspire to more did not include the southern territories east of the
Andes. On the other hand, the Argentine claim that the southern Pacific
coast should also fall in River Plate, and hence Argentine, jurisdiction, is
totally unwarranted. Although early royal warrants do grant Rio de la
Plata conquistadors shores along the Pacific Ocean, there is no possible
way of reaching such a conclusion from an objective analysis of the entire
set of available documents. All things considered, the boundaries set by
the 881 treaty appear to be as close to the ones the Spanish Crown would
eventually have established as we can reasonably get, even if the whole
idea of trying to figure out what the king had theoretically wanted out of
a contradictory mass of documents, and after the subversive experience of
the Independence wars, makes little sense."
Myth vs. reality
The debate, however, was passionate, erudite and dishonest. This is not
wholly surprising: indeed, very much was at stake. What is surprising is
not so much the debate and its characteristics, but the fact that in the one
hundred years that followed no one, at least in Argentina, should have had
an interest in revising its terms. The arguments used by each side became
sacred in each one of the countries involved, and while both countries had
expanded southwards, occupying new lands which had never been
occupied by Spain and which pragmatic observers considered res nullius,l2
the feeling that prevailed in both countries was not that each had won
" The Langara map can also be consulted at Oxford's Bodleian Library. It is bound
together with the Cano y Olmedilla map, in a volume titled Los Dominios Espanoles en
America.
2 Although Spain had treaties with other European powers which established her rights
to these regions, such compacts with respect to unsettled areas were not really taken
seriously when an interest arose over them. France, for example, did not respect the
terms of the Family Compact and established a garrison in the Falkland Islands (Port
Louis). When Spain complained, she turned the settlement over to that power, but only
after a Spanish payment of the considerable sum of ?24,000. The lack of effective
occupation by Spain was obviously a factor in this affair. Sebald's Islands were not res
nullius previous to 1764? Maybe not juridically, but from any practical point of view
they were: France behaved as if they were, and although Spain protested, she was
willing to pay to make her protest valid. On the other hand, in the context of Spain's

I5
what it had, but that each had lost what it had not been able to win. Midnineteenth century English, German, French and American maps mark
the southern territories on both sides of the Andes as res nullius. They
could have been occupied by any other power and it is doubtful that either
Argentina or Chile would have had sufficient strength to wage war
This did not happen, and both Argentina and Chile
successfully.
succeeded in expanding southwards, yet both these countries' cultures
were impregnated with the belief not that they had won but that they had
lost, and frustration and harmful nationalism were thus generated.
Apparently, there was a shared cultural need to justify each country's
claims not in terms of realpolitik but in juridical and moral ones. This
seems to be the reason why the historical and juridical debate was so
intense. And this generated the need to lie, since the absolute rights to the
entire region which both sides attempted to demonstrate were farfetched, and since a need for success coexisted with the need juridically to
justify their claims. Hence, after the issue was settled there ensued the
the gains each party had achieved.
of acknowledging
impossibility
one had lied, that one had not been
that
was
admitting
Admitting gains
in the right in one's claims to the entire region. Therefore, it was culturally
preferable to mourn a loss: at least in Argentina, a crude, successdeclining power successivetreatiesbetween England and Spainrepresentedtemporary
balancesof power which soon becameobsolete, after which the treatieswere violated,
war ensued, and a new treatywith furtherconcessions from Spain would follow. This
happened throughout the eighteenth century. Meanwhile, English, Dutch and other
non-Iberiancartographersusually place the southern limits of the Spanish empire in
Chiloe Island on the Pacificcoast, and north of the Rio Salado (present-dayprovince
of Buenos Aires) on the Atlantic. The entire Patagonianregion usuallyappearedas res
nulliusand was called Terra Magellanica(see, for example, Bowen's well-known map
of 1747,which can be consultedat the BodleianLibrary,Oxford). The fact that in their
treatiesthe Britishhad theoreticallycommittedthemselvesto refrainfrom settling these
uncolonised territoriesdid not affectthese pragmaticallyminded cartographers.With
respect to contemporaryhistorical atlases, I have not come across one such work
printed in the United States or non-IberianEurope which does not consider the far
south to have been res nullius until the mid-nineteenth century (take, for example, the
easily accessible Hammond, Anchor or Penguin editions). Despite the treaties, these
territorieswere indeed resnulliusfor all practicalpurposes,especiallyif we considerthe
additional conceptual difficulties involved in extrapolating Argentine and Chilean
rights from theoretical Spanish rights. The idea that these subversive states should
'inherit' the theoretical (and themselves debatable)rights of Spain to, for example,
Tierradel Fuego, was not to be easily accepted by the European powers, and I have
not found one mid-nineteenthcentury English map which awardsTierradel Fuego to
either Argentina or Chile. It was Indian territory which from a European point of
view would belong to whicheverpower occupied it convincingly. Both Argentinaand
Chile did, and this was a mutual expansion and success.

52
Carlos Escude
orientated behaviour appears to have coexisted with a morally orientated

ideology which made the said success-orientated behaviour inadmissible.
This behaviour had thus to be morally disguised, and mourning a loss was
the only way to do it. The perception of the loss became a deeply rooted
conviction. Concomitantly, no one has dared revise the terms of the
debate. To suggest even the possibility that one's country was not totally
in the right is unthinkable and treasonable. Intellectually, the fact that no
one has dared to revise the terms of the debate becomes more interesting
than the substantive question as to which, if any, of the parties was right,
which would be the object of such a revision. The omission in itself
becomes a more relevant issue than the contents of the omission because
it would appear to reveal a culture in which actual behaviour and ideology
are sometimes so much at odds that an incapacity to accept reality is
generated.13 On the other hand, these territorial loss perceptions have
produced the territorial sensitivities which so greatly affected and damaged
these countries very recently, generating needless arms races over
grotesquely unimportant issues, preventing a much needed economic
integration despite natural complementarities, and contributing to push
Argentina into a ludicrous, unwinnable and criminal war in I982.
The colonial vs. the republican state
As was said at the beginning, in the case of Argentina the perception of

territorial losses was enhanced by the unfortunate circumstance that
Buenos Aires, the capital of the Argentine state, was formerly the capital
of the colonial state of the Viceroyalty of the River Plate. This has made
Argentines argue that their country was the rightful heir to the entire
Viceroyalty and that all those countries that were once a part of the
Viceroyality and which are now independent states - Bolivia, Paraguay
and Uruguay- must be computed as territorial losses. This is a deeply
entrenched perception in Argentine culture, which together with the
Patagonian issue increases territorial sensitivities.
This perception is in my view as unwarranted as in the Patagonian case,
basically for five reasons:
Firstly, the Viceroyalty was an artificial creation of the Spanish Crown,
13
In other realms the same cultural characteristics which appear to combine crudely
materialistic behaviour with a deeply rooted morally oriented ideology would seem to
lead to the impossibility of legally executing a convict and to the concomitant stateinspired slaughter of thousands. This digression is warranted in so far as the existence
of parallels suggests that the territorial-loss perceptions vis-a-vis the territorial-gain
realities that we are analysing are part of a complex cultural Gestalt. Naturally, these
ideas can be put forth only as tentative hypotheses.

153
with very definite strategic aims in mind vis-a-vis the Portuguese and the
English. As such, the Viceroyalty had a structure which could not be
maintained without the mediation of a superior authority and power: the
Spanish empire. As Tulio Halperin Donghi points out in the context of
a very different discussion, in order to provide the Viceroyalty with the
financial resources it needed to function as such and carry out its
objectives, the Crown decided to incorporate the silver-rich region of the
Alto Peru (what is today Bolivia) into the River Plate. Moreover, a very
significant percentage of Bolivian silver had to be sent to Buenos Aires,
in what was a kind of outrageously high tax out of which Bolivia, whose
natural commerce was at the time basically with Peru, got nothing at all.
Thus, Bolivia became a subcolony of the River Plate by royal order.14
Such a structure could only be enforced through the Crown's power. It
could never survive the Independence crisis, and as soon as the
insurrection took place in Buenos Aires the Bolivian provinces sought the
protection of the Viceroy of Peru, and were officially reincorporated into
that Viceroyalty by the Spanish government.
Secondly, Paraguay was, together with Bolivia, the more developed
and settled part of the Viceroyalty, and it was unlikely that Asunci6n
would accept Buenos Aires' authority after the insurrection, particularly
because, as in the case of Bolivia, there were divergent economic interests.
Thirdly, Uruguay's first settlers had actually been Portuguese, not
Spanish, and this province had switched from Portugese to Spanish hands
several times, to the point that it must be considered a Spanish success that
this country ended as a Spanish-speaking territory. Argentine nationalists
argue rather naively that the fact that it should have thus changed hands
only points to Portugese and Brazilian expansionism, which permitted the
Portugese to advance considerably westwards of any of the meridians
conceivably stemming from the Tordesillas treaty of 1493. In so doing
they are blind to the fact that Spain did the same, occupying the
Phillippines, which according to the treaty and the Papal bulls fell on the
Portugese part of the globe, and to the fact that both the I75o Treaty of
Madrid and the I777 Treaty of San Ildefonso declared the Tordesillas
treaty 'null, as if it had never been signed'. In the case of Uruguay,
Argentine-Brazilian territorial competition clearly ended in a stalemate.
Fourthly, as Col. R6mulo F. Menendez has pointed out, the idea that
Argentina should be heir to the Viceroyalty is silly if only because the
Viceroyalty was the first enemy of the subversive state born in Buenos
14
T. Halperin Donghi, Guerray Finannasen los Orzgenes

del EstadoArgentino,I79I-I-fO
(Buenos Aires, I982), ch. i.

54
Carlos Escude
Aires in I8Io. Indeed, the Spanish government transferred the capital to

Montevideo and set up a new Viceroy there who waged war on Buenos
Aires.15 Finally - and this is perhaps the most important reason - there is
little continuity between the colonial state which existed before 810oand
the Argentine state born in I86o.
Indeed, as Oscar Oszlak has pointed out in the context of a very
different discussion, national institutions had completely disappeared by
i820.16 In that year, as a consequence of the civil war, the old Intendencia
de Buenos Aires, which had an imprecise and very large territorial
jurisdiction, formally ceased to exist, and a new entity, the Province of
Buenos Aires, with a much more limited territorial jurisdiction, came into
being, and would thereafter interact with the other provinces basically as
a peer. As was pointed out earlier, the provinces had their own armies and
minted their own currencies. They constantly waged war against each
other. Although Buenos Aires was theoretically in charge of foreign
relations for a prolonged period of time, Corrientes would nevertheless
sign a boundary treaty with Paraguay, and Entre Rios would later propose
an anti-Buenos Aires alliance to that country. Surely such a situation does
not conform to any current definition of the 'nation-state': Argentina was
not a nation-state during the I82o-6o period. In contrast to such cases as
Brazil and Chile, in Argentina colonial institutions survived only at the
provincial and municipal level. The state that emerged in 86o was a new
political entity. The 'nationwide' colonial state had not survived; after
forty years of balkanisation a new state, comprising a different territorial
jurisdiction from the old Viceroyalty, was born. This state was not the heir
of the Viceroyalty,as the Argentines have always claimed: forty years of
anarchy separated these two different historical formations, and Uruguay
would have at least as good a claim to that title as Argentina. Obviously,
this is not to say that there were no continuities of any kind. Cultural and
economic continuities there were indeed. But between i820 and I86o, or
at the very least between 820 and I852 (the date at which the
amalgamation process begins, with Rosas's downfall and the establishment
of the Confederaci6n Argentina, against which Buenos Aires was at war)
one cannot properly speak of an Argentine nation-state, and therefore the
15 R. F.
Menendez, Las Conquistas Territoriales Argentinas (Buenos Aires, 1982), intro-
duction. Colonel Menendez(who is not be be confused with other Argentine military

men of the same surname)is a professionalofficerwho dedicatedhimself to the study
of history afterretirement.In his book (which is a pioneer work) he presentsa revision
of Argentine history which is in direct contrast to the typical militaryand nationalist
ideology. Paradoxically,it was published by Circulo Militar.
16 0.
Oszlak, La Formaciondel Estado Argentino (Buenos Aires, 1982),
pp. 2I-5, 156.

155
state born in I86o inherited nothing that it did not defacto control. This
does not mean that we cannot loosely speak of Argentina at the time. We
can speak of Germany or Italy before their respective unifications, but we
cannot speak of a German or Italian nation-state until the political
unification was produced. The same holds for Argentina.
Hence, it is for several reasons that I think that it is very proper to say
that the Argentine state is not (as the Argentine bibliography claims almost
without exception) the heir of the Viceroyalty, but something altogether
new, which was the product of what from the narrow perspective of the
'national' interest was a very fortunate set of circumstances which, of
course, included the Paraguayan war. Indeed, the whole region might
have been 'permanently' balkanised. Therefore, the perception that all of
the territory formerly included in the Viceroyalty but not included in the
Argentine state constitutes a net loss is, in my view, a gross misperception,
which is somehow linked to the juridical obsession prevailing in
Argentine culture and which is partly a product of the unfortunate
coincidence that Buenos Aires has been the capital of both states. Indeed,
although the Paraguayans might perceive that they lost Formosa (which
they did) they do not feel that they lost Argentina. In contrast, the
Argentines, who won Formosa and quite a bit more from Paraguay, feel
that they have lost (what is left of) Paraguay. Hence, in my view, an
objective appraisal cannot fail to recognise a very significant, if not huge,
territorial expansion during the second half of the nineteenth century. As
has been said, historical atlases published throughout non-Iberian Europe
and the United States show this quite clearly. Yet the widespread
Argentine perception stands in direct contrast to this fact, and this is a
cultural phenomenon of great intellectual interest and political relevance.
In my opinion, the only very minor territorial loss which can be
considered as such in objective historical terms is the Falkland Islands,
because this is the only case in which a foreign power forcefully ousted
Argentines from a territory which they were occupying and administering
under the authority and power of one of the several states which made up
the Argentine constellation, namely Buenos Aires. I consider this a
territorial loss because there was an actual occupation of the islands by
Argentina, and not because the Nootka Sound Convention of 1790
established that the English would not settle islands off the Patagonian
coast - in the context of the diminishing power of Spain, such treaties
were not taken very seriously if there was an interest in taking measures
contrary to their terms; occupation was the only serious claim to
sovereignty. Finally, what is more important, the rights of the Argentine

56
Carlos Escude
state to inherit Spanish territories which it did not defacto occupy can be
very much subject to debate. The Falkland Islands were not res nullius
basically because they were occupied by Buenos Aires forces. They were
conquered by the English. If they had settled in Tierra del Fuego instead
of conquering the Falklands this could not be argued truthfully, because
Tierra del Fuego was for all practical intents and purposes res nullius, and
much more so after Spain's abdication. Nevertheless, this territorial loss is
very small when compared to Argentina's huge gains. The perception of
territorial losses, however, unfortunately enhances the importance of this
real but minor loss. Objectively, not only is the Argentine obsession with
respect to the Falklands not warranted: in view of the genocidal
Argentine conquest of Paraguayan territories more than thirty years after
the English conquest of the Falklands, neither is Argentine selfrighteousness with respect to this act of force justified.
The misperceptionmeasuredandportrayed
Having made the previous points, we can now return from history to the
contemporary problem, which, as I said, can be placed within the realm
of the sociology of knowledge or of political psychology.
The perception of huge territorial losses makes the Argentines
extremely sensitive to territorial disputes. Insignificant controversies,
such as the recently solved one with respect to the Beagle Channel islands,
acquire a disproportionate importance, and when very simple juridical
and historical arguments are set forth to show that the Chileans were in
the right, they are dismissed (outright) by the more nationalistic sectors
on the grounds that they are irrelevant because the entire territory should
have been Argentine anyway, and that the Chileans have already expanded
too much at Argentina's expense. Though less intransigent sectors have
been willing to come to terms with Chile with respect to these islands,
they nonetheless share the overall perception of historic territorial
losses.
The degree to which this perception is generalised in the population is
measurable through public-opinion surveys. In March i985 the Gallup
Institute of Argentina included, at my request, the question: 'Do you
believe Argentina has won or lost territories throughout its history?'17 in
one of its polls. As much as 73.6 % of the total sample was of the opinion
17
A probabilistic urban sample of I,ooo cases was used, which included the Greater
Buenos Aires area and seven provincial cities, representing 6o % of the country's urban
population.

157
that Argentina had lost territories, while only 6.4% thought that
Argentina had actually gained land. What is more striking is that the
percentage of people who held the view that Argentina had lost territories
rose steadily with the level of education: while only 61 % of those who
had not finished primary school thought that Argentina had lost
territories, as much as 86.1 % of those with a university degree were of
that opinion. This is an interesting result because it confirmed my
previous hypothesis that the myth of Argentine territorial losses is
basically transmitted by the educational system (thus being more deeply
rooted, and more frequently found, amongst people with a greater
exposure to that system, and hence being a more acute problem with the
leadership than with the general population).
These results should in turn be combined with those of another poll by
Gallup in November 1984 with respect to the referendum which the
Argentine government was about to hold to whether the peace treaty with
Chile should or should not be signed and ratified. It is most interesting to
note that 60 % of the sample were in favour of the treaty while I I % were
against it, but that the percentage of people against the treaty rose steadily
with the degree of education of the individuals polled, from only 6.6 % for
those who had not finished primary school to as much as 17.2 % for those
with a university education.18 Clearly, more-educated people tend to have
greater territorial sensitivities. Nevertheless, although the educational
system appears to have been successful in the dissemination of the myth
of Argentine territorial losses, it has not been successful in depriving its
'victims' of common sense: although the percentage of people against the
treaty was positively associated with education, it was still a minority
(albeit a considerably greater minority) of those with a university degree
who opposed the treaty.
The positive association with education is only to be expected. The
specialised bibliography is nearly unanimous in the contention that
Argentina suffered great territorial losses. Let us take a typical example
from Academia, Isidoro Ruiz Moreno (Jr.). In the first chapter of one of
his books he tells us:
The great nation which is the successor to the Viceroyaltyof the River Plate is
alreadymutilated:it is no longer the nation that measurednorthwardsBelgrano's
martialstep; it is no longer the nation whose arms Alvear placed eastwards,and
whose ships were taken southwardsby the intrepid Brown; it is no longer the
nation whose limits were drawn westwards by San Martin's fulgurant
18 Same
type of sample as above (note I7).

58
Carlos Escude
sword...One by one, we have seen torn off the branches of the corpulent
Viceroyalty. Madness were it to try to recover them.19
On the other hand, Miguel Angel Scenna, a writer who published a
great deal about the history of Argentina's foreign affairs, tells us that all
too little emphasis is placed on international relations by the educational
system, and that 'it is undoubtable that it is due to the mentality thus
produced that Argentina's territory has been to such an extent reduced,
and that having inherited the Viceroyalty of the River Plate, it allowed the
secession of enormous territories without even having shown concern
about it'.20
This idea is to such an extent taken for granted and considered common
knowledge that mass journalism picks it up to colour its news items. Such
was the case, for example, of an article published in Humor magazine, in
which the journalist, who was not in the least trying to be humorous,
complains that Brazil's Itaipui dam was built 'on territory that was once
ours'. While a case can be made in Paraguay's favour, the Argentine claim
is ludicrous: Argentina's nearby territories were actually wrested from
Paraguay. But the journalist takes for granted that any half-educated
reader will agree that the dam was built on 'territory that was once ours',
and in this he is quite right.21
Argentine literature of foreign affairs is plagued with this perception.
Analysts like Gustavo Ferrari and Juan Carlos Puig have made lists of the
'historical constants' of Argentine foreign policy. They have both
included what they call a 'weak territorial policy' as an ever-present
constant in the country's history. It is not surprising, of course, that when
the enterprise of constructing such a list was taken up by an American
historian, Joseph S. Tulchin (obviously not a part of the culture and
unexposed to the indoctrination process most Argentines have suffered),
he altogether omitted this alleged territorial weakness, without any
comment, although he agreed with all the other constants in Puig's and
Ferrari's separate but very similar lists.22 The perception of territorial
losses is also, at times, graphically portrayed through maps which show
19 I. Ruiz Moreno (h), Historia de las RelacionesExteriores Argentinas iSo-iz9r
(Buenos
Aires, 1960), pp. 5-i6.
20 M. A.
Scenna, 'Argentina-Chile: el secular diferendo', part I, Todo es Historia, no. 43
(Nov. 1970), p. 10.
21
J. Emma, 'Nos Ilenaron la represa', Humor magazine, no. 95, p. 38.
22 G.
Ferrari, Esquema de Pol/tica Exterior Argentina (Buenos Aires, 198i), pp. 18-28;
J. C. Puig, 'La Politica Exterior Argentina y sus tendencias profundas', Revista
Argentina de RelacionesInternacionales,no. I; J. S. Tulchin, 'Una perspectiva hist6rica de
la politica argentina frente al Brasil', Estudios Internacionales,no. 52.

59
the progressive dismemberment of the Viceroyalty (which in these maps

includes the whole of the far south) and Chile's expansion southwards.
Though not a military invention, such maps were intensively used
through television in the indoctrination process previous to the war-thatalmost-was, that against Chile in December 1978. The list of examples of
the territorial-loss perception is endless and it would be idle to continue
it. Pre-Falklands War examples are, of course, much more relevant than
postwar ones, because they show the phenomenon to be endemic and not
merely the product of the emotions aroused by the war.
Concomitantly to the perception of territorial losses there is a curious
(though perhaps not uncommon) tendency towards the 'personification'
of territory. In the introduction to one of his articles for example, Scenna
tells us in reference to the first decades of the twentieth century that poor
Patagonia 'continued being an empty and abandoned land, the eternally
relegated member of the Argentine family'.23 In this frequently found
language there is an interesting inversion of values which is relatively
alien to the contemporary West. A certain policy is criticised, not because
it allegedly did not make optimal use of Argentine resources (in this case,
the Patagonian territory) to give the Argentine citizen the best possible
(material and cultural) living standards, nor even because it allegedly did
not apply those resources to maximise the nation's power. It is criticised
because it has relegated Patagonia, which is rhetorically treated as a person
endowed with rights. Although this cultural trait can be found elsewhere
to varying degrees, it becomes more significant when combined with the
territorial-loss perception. Obviously, it is extremely difficult to be
pragmatic about territory when its 'personification' is a frequent mental
operation among those concerned with it. During the Falkland Islands
War a very tacky and sentimental song became popular. It was called Las
Hermanitas Perdidas- 'the lost little sisters' - 'little sisters' of the
'Argentine family' which the Falkland Islands are perceived to be.
Fanaticism, of course, breeds more fanaticism, plus distorted mental
processes to support it. The military regime's slogan went: 'The
Falklands have been, are, and will be Argentina.' This is still written in
many places throughout Argentina. Few people ask themselves what it is
supposed to mean, because if they will be Argentine in the way in which
they are presentlyArgentine, then the British can sit back and relax. It is
not that by saying that they are Argentine it is meant that they shouldbe
23
M. A. Scenna, 'Argentina-Chile;
(Jan. I971), p. 89.
el secular diferendo', part III, Todo es Historia, 45

16o
Carlos Escude
Argentine; it is rather that, due to historical title, they are Argentine in

some metaphysical way.
In this process, as has been mentioned, past, present and prospective
rulers are as much victims as the populace. A self-perpetuating process of
indoctrination takes place through the educational system and the mass
media. Rulers are victims in two ways: not only is their frame of mind
with respect to these issues equally affected; they are also prisoners of
public opinion and, it should be added, of their perceptions of public
opinion. This self-perpetuating process is not limited to the well-known
fact that the Argentines have been told for generations that the Falkland
Islands should be Argentine. By force of law every map of Argentina,
including elementary-school ones, must carry not only these islands but
also the so-called Argentine Antarctic Sector, which overlaps with Chilean
and British claims. In the unlikely event that an Argentine government
should ever acquire effective sovereignty rights over a part of this territory
(and it is quite impossible for it to acquire the whole of it, if only because
the overlap with Chile, whose claim is about as reasonable as Argentina's,
makes a compromise inevitable), this achievement will not be perceived as
a gain - which it certainly would be - but instead as a loss, and worse than
that, by many, a sellout. This is inevitably the case if children from age six
onwards grow accustomed to seeing their country portrayed with a
certain shape and after many years the shape changes by way of a
reduction. This cartographic policy, which is decades old, breeds
inevitable frustration and increased fanaticism. It has been maintained
through the most diverse governments: military and constitutional;
Radical, Peronist and Desarrollista.
Conclusions
Hence, several factors of very diverse nature make up this complex

cultural phenomenon of Argentine territorial nationalism. There is the old
competition for Patagonia, with its cultural sequels; there is also the fact
that Buenos Aires has been the capital of both the Viceroyalty and of the
Republic, and this enhances the perception that the Republic should be
the territorial heir of the Viceroyalty; there are also institutional
mechanisms through which these perceptions are perpetuated and
accentuated. Th )erception of territorial losses is very old. Tracing it
from the times . Quesada to the present is a sad experience precisely
because of the lack of intellectual curiosity shown by those who were
presumed to be intellectually interested in the problem. Quesada's

16i
arguments were, perhaps understandably, full of fallacies. Those who

followed him - for example, C. Diaz Cisneros in the 1940s, A. Rizzo
Romano and Ricardo Paz in recent years - are less sophisticated, despite
the fact that the contest for Patagonia had already been (basically) won,
was certainly over, and there was no longer a raison d'etat to justify
Quesada's fallacies.
Although the perception of territorial losses is old, its political
importance has increased greatly in recent years. Argentina waited I50
years to wage war for the Malvinas. This is not the product of our
patience, as many nationalists have claimed, but of the fact that previous
generations were far too pragmatic to engage in such folly. And three
years before that war Argentina nearly went to war with Chile in what
would have been a much more destructive and far-reaching conflict. One
can do nothing but speculate on this point, but it would appear that the
increasing national frustration, political chaos, and recurrent economic
crises after World War II have increased the importance of the perception
of territorial losses, bringing to the centre of the political arena what is an
old but previously marginal political trait. A content analysis of the
history texts and other bibliographical vehicles of the territorial-loss
perception for the last hundred years would be of use in helping to clarify
this phenomenon.
The territorial-loss perception is endowed with an enhanced destructive
potential when combined with certain other characteristics of Argentine
foreign policy and culture. One such characteristic is, for example,
Argentina's traditional foreign-policy arrogance, which previous to
World War II manifested itself basically vis-a-vis the United States.
Furthermore, after World War II there appears to have been generated an
increasing loss of touch with reality. The self-destructive potential of the
combination of these traits with the newly augmented political importance
of the old perception of territorial losses was clearly seen in I982. On the
other hand, the traditional arrogance of her foreign policy is also a
phenomenon which is rooted in Argentine culture: I am referring to a sort
of national superiority complex. Indeed, IPSA (Risc) polls of 198I, 1982
and 1984 show that a majority of the population think: (i) that the world
has a great deal to learn from Argentina; (2) that Argentina has nothing
to learn from the world; (3) that Argentina is the most important country
in Latin America; (4) that in no country do people live as well as in
Argentina; (5) that Argentina deserves an important place in the world;
and (6) that Argentina's scientists and professionals are the best in the
LAS 20

I6z
Carlos Escude
world.24 Naturally, important differences are registered with respect to

most of these perceptions when socio-demographic variables are taken
into account: most university-trained people, for example, do not believe
that in no country do people live as well as in Argentina. But adherence
to the statements 'foreigners have a great deal to learn from us' and
'Argentina deserves an important place in the world'; is not associated
with these variables: the majority in the first case and the very ample
majority in the second support them no matter what socio-demographic
segment is considered.
Both from the point of view of the 'national superiority complex' and
from that of the contrast between the perception of great territorial losses
and the objective fact of important territorial gains, the Argentine case is
unique in Latin America. However, Argentine territorial nationalism as
such is far from unique. As was said in the introduction, it is a widespread
Hispanic American phenomenon. Thus, the relevance of the problem,
measured in political and economic terms, can be generalised for the
region. Indeed, it can properly be considered a major cultural obstacle to
integration. It also feeds back into other types of nationalism. And as a
generator of arms races, it can also be considered an obstacle to
development, as well as one of the several factors conditioning Argentine
and Brazilian nuclear development. On the other hand, while territorial
nationalism produces an increase in military expenditure in several of the
Latin American countries, this very fact makes the corporate interests of
the military enhance territorial nationalism: the latter is concomitantly a
part of and a thing apart from militarism, both feeding back into each
other.
Although constitutional governments tend to encourage integration
projects and downplay the territorial disputes which military governments
often emphasise (a rule which is not without exceptions), they seldom dare
to try to solve them, and thus the potential conflict is always at hand in
case a government of the future should need to recur to it in a moment
of crisis (generating a 'rally-round-the-flag' effect). Hence, educational
curricula (which reinforce the population's identification with the nationstate emphasising the perversity of one's neighbours) seldom if ever
change. The long-term educational action that would be the only way out
of this situation becomes well nigh impossible if- as is shown by the
Argentine data - the segments of the population which should take the
24
Probabilistic sample of 800 cases from the Greater Buenos Aires area for I98; for I982
and I984, I6oo cases from the Greater Buenos Aires area and three of the largest
provincial cities. The GreaterBuenos Aires area includes the FederalCapitaland the
I9 highly urbaniseddistricts that surroundit.

163
initiative in such action are even more prone to territorial nationalism

than the general population. Even when disputes are solved diplomatically
(a rare event), educational action is usually limited to short-term
propaganda in favour of a government's policy, and does not tend to
eliminate territorial nationalism and the myths that feed it.
The Argentine case is an eloquent illustration of this process. The
democratic government sold the peace treaty with Chile to the population,
but it did little to dispel the idea that although the treaty fortunately
solved a substantively unimportant but potentially very dangerous
problem, the country had nevertheless been unjustly deprived of a
territory which through historic title and effective treaties was its rightful
heredity ('objectively' a blatant falsehood). The government dealt with
the treaty as the most convenient available solution to the problem and
not as an eminently just instrument. It was very far from calling it what
it really was - an instrument which gives Argentina more rights in the sea
adjacent to the islands than she could rightfully claim (this being, of
course, something which the government could not publicly assert, as it
would have disauthorised its negotiations with the Chileans and possibly
rendered Chile's ratification impossible).
The aforementioned is one of the rare cases in which the dispute is
actually solved (the Vatican's intervention when war was about to break
out was crucial to opening the way to a solution). The Falkland Islands
case is even more revealing. War was made by the military regime.
Although the constitutional government is as far removed from the
previous regime, in terms of practices and ideology, as is conceivable in
the Argentine context, it has either not dared, or not thought it equitable
or worth while, to officially state that the war has ended (thus generating
what from its point of view should be a counterproductive justification
and encouragement of the more hawkish sectors within the British
government). It has lagged far behind the British government in taking
confidence-building measures such as the re-establishment of trade, the
abolition of obstacles to the issue of visas, the abolition of control over the
property of the former enemy's nationals, etc. - measures which are an
absolute prerequisite if the Argentine demand to turn back the clock and
once again negotiate on the islands' future is to be taken seriously in
Britain. It is probably not too risky to state that Argentina's constitutional
government is not and will not be willing to confront the political risks
which 'solving' the problem (or advancing towards a solution) would
entail (given the necessary concessions which any feasible solution would
imply).
The case in point serves only to illustrate the more general Hispanic
6-2

164
Carlos Escude
American phenomenon. What Bolivian government, be it constitutional

or military, would be willing to accept a realistic solution to that country's
dispute with Chile? What Ecuadorian government would risk such steps
with Peru? Or what Venezuelan government would accept the facts of life
vis-a-vis Guyana? None, to be sure. And what doubts can there be that
finding some sort of solution to these problems would objectively be
highly beneficial to all the national parties concerned, in terms both of the
opening of opportunities for economic co-operation and integration and
of the saving of vast sums of arms-money? Governments are caught in a
perverse cultural and political trap in which public opinion, elite opinion,
military interests and the potential manipulation of public opinion by the
opposition are all intervening variables. Although mass-media indoctrination campaigns can be switched on and off according to circumstances, educational curricula are not touched, and irredentism becomes a
firmly rooted dimension of the political culture to which rulers and ruled
alike are subject.
The only important exception to this rule appears to be the case in
which a state has historically lost territories to an overwhelmingly more
powerful neighbour. This, which can be considered a rule in itself, applies
to Paraguay, which lost great territories to both Argentina and Brazil, and
to Mexico, which lost vast tracts of land to the United States. Paraguay
does not have significant territorial disputes pending with Argentina or
Brazil, nor does Mexico have relevant problems of this type pending with
the United States. Obviously, the overwhelming disparity of forces
between immediate neighbours appears to account for these behavioural
differences vis-a-vis the typical Hispanic American case of irredentism.
There can be little doubt that the sort of process described above is an
important explicatory factor in the frustration of projects for regional cooperation and integration - not the only one, to be sure, but a relevant
variable to be considered. Chauvinistic nationalism, with a clear
identification of a majority of the population with the state, prevails even
in the tiny Central American countries, where, partly because of disputes
engendered by this phenomenon, the Central American Market turned
into a fiasco.
As I have already said, according at least to the Argentine data, the
problem of an unpragmatic obsession with territory, which greatly affects
most of Hispanic America, seems to be more serious within the bettereducated segments of the population. In this respect, the educational
system and the mass media would appear to operate in a way which is
counterproductive for regional co-operation. Nevertheless, albeit with

I65
distorted information ('the Beagle Channel islands should be Argentine';

'the Esequibo region should be Venezuelan', etc.), common sense tends
to prevail ('peace is more important than the Beagle Channel islands; I
support the treaty').
But pragmatic attitudes are not often intense or militant, whereas, on
the contrary, chauvinistic attitudes often are, and the latter attitudes
converge with the corporate interests of the military, who are anxious to
justify big budgets. Thus, a sort of equilibrium is generated by which
(a) territorial disputes seldom get out of control (Argentina 'waited'
a century and a half before waging war on the United Kingdom);
(b) territorial disputes are seldom solved or die out; and (c) territorial
disputes always cost money and inhibit regional co-operation and
integration. Furthermore, in so far as there is a natural convergence of
interests between the local military establishments and the international
arms trade which clearly inhibits development, Hispanic American
territorial nationalism can be conceptualised as one of the many
mechanisms through which dependencia
operates. In Argentina the case is
somewhat more complex because territorial nationalism comes combined
with a foreign-policy arrogance which, with fluctuations, has lasted for
nearly a century, and which suggests a strange dialectic between
underdevelopment, dependencia,and certain types of Third World
nationalism. This, however, should be the subject of another paper.
Argentine territorial nationalism presents some unique characteristics
(although the same might possibly be said of each and every case
mentioned above). Nevertheless, as was repeatedly stated, this is a
generalised Hispanic American phenomenon: as any reader of Peruvian
novelist Mario Vargas Llosa knows well, in La Ciudady los Perrosone can
find two instances in which the cadets of a military school gleefully
imagine they are stepping over the heads of Chilean or Ecuadorian
soldiers, plus another instance in which officers paranoidally talk about
Ecuadorian and Colombian ambitions with respect to Peruvian territory.
Though useful and interesting, it is not necessary to resort to public
opinion polls to have a valid perception of the extent of this phenomenon.


Argentine Territorialism Escude

Diunggah oleh

Informasi Dokumen

Hak Cipta

Format Tersedia

Bagikan dokumen Ini

Bagikan atau Tanam Dokumen

Opsi Berbagi

Apakah menurut Anda dokumen ini bermanfaat?

Apakah konten ini tidak pantas?

Hak Cipta:

Format Tersedia

Argentine Territorialism Escude

Diunggah oleh

Hak Cipta:

Format Tersedia

Argentine Territorial Nationalism

Author(s): Carlos Escude

This content downloaded from 137.204.14.136 on Thu, 19 Feb 2015 06:10:52 AM

J. Lat. Amer. Stud. 20,

Printed in Great Britain

Argentine Territorial Nationalism

This content downloaded from 137.204.14.136 on Thu, 19 Feb 2015 06:10:52 AM

Bolivia vs. Chile. This leads to periodic ruptures in the diplomatic

Venezuelavs. Guyana.This is the outgrowth of an old dispute with Great

This content downloaded from 137.204.14.136 on Thu, 19 Feb 2015 06:10:52 AM

Argentine Territorial Nationalism

chauvinistic sectors. Hence, chauvinistic feeling is reinforced, arms races

This content downloaded from 137.204.14.136 on Thu, 19 Feb 2015 06:10:52 AM

lies intellectually within the realm of the sociology of knowledge and/or

This content downloaded from 137.204.14.136 on Thu, 19 Feb 2015 06:10:52 AM

Argentine Territorial Nationalism

This content downloaded from 137.204.14.136 on Thu, 19 Feb 2015 06:10:52 AM

Argentina in the northeast. The Department of Candelaria, for

This content downloaded from 137.204.14.136 on Thu, 19 Feb 2015 06:10:52 AM

Argentine Territorial Nationalism

Indeed, General Roca's so-called 'Conquest of the Desert', in which

The debateover title deeds

This content downloaded from 137.204.14.136 on Thu, 19 Feb 2015 06:10:52 AM

americano (Santiago, I853). Amunategui was in turn refuted by Dalmacio Velez

This content downloaded from 137.204.14.136 on Thu, 19 Feb 2015 06:10:52 AM

Argentine Territorial Nationalism

successive conquistadors, to no avail. An objective study of the title deeds

granted were enormous,

This content downloaded from 137.204.14.136 on Thu, 19 Feb 2015 06:10:52 AM

However, Quesada and Amunaitegui structured their arguments as if

This content downloaded from 137.204.14.136 on Thu, 19 Feb 2015 06:10:52 AM

Argentine Territorial Nationalism

The Cano y Olmedillamap can be consulted in Oxford's BodleianLibraryMap Room.

This content downloaded from 137.204.14.136 on Thu, 19 Feb 2015 06:10:52 AM

This content downloaded from 137.204.14.136 on Thu, 19 Feb 2015 06:10:52 AM

Argentine Territorial Nationalism

This content downloaded from 137.204.14.136 on Thu, 19 Feb 2015 06:10:52 AM

orientated behaviour appears to have coexisted with a morally orientated

As was said at the beginning, in the case of Argentina the perception of

This content downloaded from 137.204.14.136 on Thu, 19 Feb 2015 06:10:52 AM

Argentine Territorial Nationalism

T. Halperin Donghi, Guerray Finannasen los Orzgenes

This content downloaded from 137.204.14.136 on Thu, 19 Feb 2015 06:10:52 AM

Aires in I8Io. Indeed, the Spanish government transferred the capital to

duction. Colonel Menendez(who is not be be confused with other Argentine military

pp. 2I-5, 156.

This content downloaded from 137.204.14.136 on Thu, 19 Feb 2015 06:10:52 AM

Argentine Territorial Nationalism

This content downloaded from 137.204.14.136 on Thu, 19 Feb 2015 06:10:52 AM

This content downloaded from 137.204.14.136 on Thu, 19 Feb 2015 06:10:52 AM

Argentine Territorial Nationalism

This content downloaded from 137.204.14.136 on Thu, 19 Feb 2015 06:10:52 AM

This content downloaded from 137.204.14.136 on Thu, 19 Feb 2015 06:10:52 AM

Argentine Territorial Nationalism

the progressive dismemberment of the Viceroyalty (which in these maps

el secular diferendo', part III, Todo es Historia, 45

This content downloaded from 137.204.14.136 on Thu, 19 Feb 2015 06:10:52 AM

Argentine; it is rather that, due to historical title, they are Argentine in

Hence, several factors of very diverse nature make up this complex

This content downloaded from 137.204.14.136 on Thu, 19 Feb 2015 06:10:52 AM

Argentine Territorial Nationalism

arguments were, perhaps understandably, full of fallacies. Those who

This content downloaded from 137.204.14.136 on Thu, 19 Feb 2015 06:10:52 AM

world.24 Naturally, important differences are registered with respect to