La alianza entre pehuenches e hispano-criollos mendocinos en el marco del conflicto contra los huilliches-ranqueles, a fines del siglo XVIII

We present the transcription of some documents about the frontier of Mendoza that correspond to the period between December of 1791 and March of 1792. The file includes official communications and official communications copies, just as the respective replies. We can identify certain polyphonies in the communication between different subjects acting at the frontier of Mendoza. These sources revolve around the confrontation between Pehuenches and Huilliches-Ranqueles, as well as Mendoza’s aid to the first ones. We consider that they have ethnographic and historical value since they allow us to contribute to problems raised by other investigators such as the alliance between Hispanic-creoles and Pehuenches pointing out the services and compensations of each covenant group. Also, the issue of the changeable ethnic identities and the harnessing of the localization of certain tolderías of allied indigenous groups —“indios amigos”— as strips that protected the defensive and productive establishments of the Hispanic-creole. On the other hand, as a cross-cutting theme in the official communications, is the Hispanic-creole´s concern about how that conflict may affect them directly or indirectly, increasing their expenses and forcing them to reconsider their border policy, that enabled us to state the difficult financial situation of the colonial administration of Mendoza, which encourages us to continue enquiring about that matter in future investigations, in order to shed more light on the decisions concerning border policy.

Abstract licence: CC BY-NC

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