Breve relación de las misiones de la Patagonia hecho el 29 setiembre de 1887. El militarismo patagónico. El General Villegas por el salesiano Antonio Ricardi

Abstract

The document "Brief account of the missions of the Patagonia" in 1887, has also been named by his author, the Salesian priest Antonio Ricardi, as "the patagonian militarism". The manuscript presents the aberrant acts of violence by the Argentine army between 1879 and 1883 in Patagonia. In this text, Ricardi accuses the army and especially General Villegas of imposing militarism on the Patagonian territory, i.e., an immoral and anticlerical behavior, that prevented, according to their view, the conversion of the inhabitants and the evangelization of the Salesian Congregation. He uses the terms "barbarism and civilization", identifying the first with the actions of the army and the second with the Salesian evangelization, which he conceives as the "true civilization". The facts that illustrate these actions against the indigenous peoples and with attitudes defamatory against members of the Congregation have been reported evenly without differentiations as regards their gravity. This selection of events is aimed at proving who were the ones who impeded the "evangelizing and civilizing" of indigenous peoples.

Keywords

• Evangelization
• Salesians
• Villegas
• Patagonia