CAPTURED BLACK SLAVES 131 



curious effects of the hospitality offered to the priva- 

 teers was the unloading upon the Patagonian coast 

 of blacks, intended for Brazil, who were taken from 

 the slave-traders. Thus an unforeseen eddy brought 

 to the south of the Pampean region part of the current 

 of the slave-trade intended for the sugar-cane planta- 

 tions in tropical America. A number of the Carmen 

 ranches had coloured workers at this time. 



Breeding, in fact, was just beginning to spread in 

 the neighbourhood of Carmen at the time. The cattle 

 had been brought by land from Buenos Aires, and had 

 multiplied along the coast and the river above Carmen. 

 South of Carmen, at San Jose, the cattle had run wild 

 after the fort was abandoned. The Carmen herds 

 were estimated, before the revolution, at 40,000 head. 

 They disappeared during the revolutionary period, 

 but were reconstituted immediately afterwards, and 

 even during the war with Brazil there was an active 

 export of hides and salt beef. Carmen profited mainly 

 by trade with the Indians. It lived in terror of them, 

 and had garrisons to give the alarm on the routes by 

 which they could approach. But this state of chronic 

 warfare did not prevent trade. Near Carmen there 

 was a group of peaceful Indians who served as intermed- 

 iaries with the tribes of the interior, who were jealous 

 and hostile. Guides and interpreters were found in 

 this colony, and through it came the first news of the 

 interior. The traffic with the Indians continued for 

 a long time to be of great use to the colonists. In 

 1865 the Welsh colony established on the Chubut, 

 which had many difficulties at first, was saved from 

 complete disaster by its trade with the Indians. 



The indigenous population comprised two groups : the 

 Tehuelches, or Patagonians proper, men of tall 

 stature, and the Araucans, the Ranqueles, the Pehuenches 

 and the Pampas. There was no fixed geographical 

 limit between them. The Tehuelches lived in southern 

 Patagonia ; but the Araucans advanced eastward 



