26 NATURAL REGIONS OF ARGENTINA 



line of the Rio Cuarto by Carlota was reoccupied, and 

 before 1875 the frontier had been pushed back to the 

 Rio Quinto, where it joined the forts of southern 

 Buenos Aires by way of Sarmiento, Gainza, and 

 Lavalle. 



At last, in 1878, General Roca abandoned the classical 

 methods of fighting the Indians, and took the offensive. 

 He deprived the Indians of their refuges to the south 

 of San Luis and the Central Pampa, and threw them 

 back toward the desert. The Argentine troops followed 

 in their steps as far as the Andes and the Rio Negro. 

 There are to-day few traces in the immense terri- 

 tory that was won of the indigenous population. 

 Its extreme mobility had masked its numerical 

 inferiority. 1 



The history of the northern frontier is much the 

 same. At the end of the eighteenth century the 

 Spanish outposts ran along the course of the Salado. 

 To the north of Santa Fe, at Sunchales, Soledad, and 

 San Javier, they protected the direct route from Santa 

 Fe to Santiago del Estero. These outposts were aban- 

 doned during the revolutionary period, and the Indians 

 advanced as far as the suburbs of Santa Fe. The 

 roads both to Santiago and, by the Quebracho 

 Herrado, to Cordoba were cut.* Urquiza reorganized 

 the Santa Fe frontier, first as far as San Javier, then 

 below 29 S. lat. between Arroyo del Rey on the Parana 

 and Tostado on the Salado. The expedition of 1884 

 brought the Argentine army as far as the Bermejo, 

 and broke the resistance of the Tobas. The forts which, 

 more to the north, guarded the province of Salta, 



1 M. J. Olascoaga gives (La conquSte de la Pampa Receuil de 

 documents relatifs a la campagne du Rio Negro, Buenos Aires, 1881) 

 valuable documents concerning both the details of the fight with 

 the Indians and the distribution of their invernadas (common lands) 

 in the region of the Pampas. Olascoaga translates it " winter quar- 

 ters " ; it was pasturage on which they kept their cattle and from 

 which they set out on their expeditions. 

 See Thomas J. Hutchinson, Buenos Aires and Argentine Gleanings. 



