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“He who is not for the fatherland is an

enemy of the fatherland.”

Río Gallegos Rural Society,

May 27th, 1921

“Workers of the world, unite!

In one solid block, in the close embrace of our exploited brethren, we shall march down the path that leads to the emancipation of the slaves of capital.”

Río Gallegos Workers’ Society

May 18th, 1921

The movement in Puerto Deseado was unique. Far from being a simple confrontation between workers and their bosses, the conflict pitted the majority of the town’s population against the “Argentine Circle,” an organization of far-right notables that had the full support of the police and treated the town’s politicians like their playthings. And it’s striking that here is where the battle between the left and the right was at its purest. The left was made up of small shopkeepers, immigrant artisans, and the entirety of the working class—including the unionized workers of the Puerto Deseado-Pico Truncado railway line—while the right consisted of professionals, ranchers, and high-ranking employees of the Braun-Menéndez and Argensud companies. It all started when the immigrants asked the interior minister to officially recognize Puerto Deseado as a municipality. This would not only give immigrants the right to vote but also control of the local government, as they were the majority of the town’s population. And so power would slip from the hands of the Argentine Circle’s highly exclusive membership. As the latter were neither stupid nor lazy, they were well aware that they were about to lose their truly oligarchic power through a simple legal maneuver. So they sent Yrigoyen an unusual telegram: “The Argentine Circle of Puerto Deseado is against giving the town municipal status, as it would put the local government into the hands of the immigrant majority. No country in the world would allow its political process to be controlled by foreigners.”

The animosity between the two groups increases; there’s open hatred for the police and the powerful. On December 2nd, the workers at La Anónima go on strike, as do the railway workers. The police respond by locking up the secretary-general of the Workers’ Society. One week later, the strike has not only held up but even managed to spread. Despite the communication difficulties involved, local union leaders are in close contact with Antonio Soto in Río Gallegos. Hotel, bar, and café employees have all gone on strike by December 9th. Businesses that hire scabs are boycotted. There are violent incidents across town: blows are exchanged at the Spanish Society—which serves as the headquarters for the strike committee and the pro-municipality activists—and the Colón Bar. Nothing moves. The police patrol the streets in twos, while hotel owners personally serve their guests. Puerto Deseado seems to be on the verge of a civil war. An arbitration committee made up of doctors and bank managers fails in its attempts to reach an agreement with the strikers. From Río Gallegos, Correa Falcón calls for an end to insubordination. The police don’t take their time. They lock up the organizers San Emeterio and Christiansen. But the workers stand firm: they call for a general strike, beginning on December 10th at 8 a.m. They don’t have access to a printing press to make their flyers and so they write them by hand on Canson paper. It pays off. The streets are empty.

The patriots of the Argentine Circle realize that their days are numbered. The numbers don’t lie: Puerto Deseado has a population of 1,570 and only 80 are adult Argentines.

The explosion comes on December 17th. The unions and the pro-municipality committee are scheduled to meet at the offices of the Spanish Society, but the police turn everyone away. Word spreads that the meeting will take place in the graveyard. They are honor-bound to gather at 5:30 p.m. More than three hundred men begin marching towards downtown.

News of the approaching strikers terrifies the members of the Argentine Circle, who take refuge at the police station, bringing their weapons with them. The police chief asks the Coast Guard for reinforcements.

There are contradictory accounts about what happens next. The strikers will later say that their procession was perfectly calm, while the police will claim that they “hurled abuse at shopkeepers, businessmen and members of the White Guard and broke the windows of the offices of the Argentina del Sur Company.” And the police will childishly add that two of the protesters shouted, “Death to the Argentines, lovers of order! Down with the Argentine Circle!”

The procession continues forward and the two or three soldiers trailing behind do not dare to stop it. Soon everyone gathers in front of the police station. Inside, the cream of the Argentine Circle take up their positions next to the police and the Coast Guard, refusing to be intimidated by loudmouthed immigrants and anarchists. They open fire the moment the crowd gets within range. This is evidently the language they speak. No one is left on the street, save the corpse of a twenty-one-year-old railway worker named Domingo Faustino Olmedo. A bullet has struck him in the heart. The men of the Argentine Circle aimed well. Excellent marksmanship. A few others have been wounded. Commissioner Alberto Martín will later report that all of the wounds that day were inflicted by Winchester rifles wielded by “citizens who cooperated with the police.”

It’s time to finish off the strikers before they can regroup. A wide net is cast and the agitators are brought in, one by one.

The police refuse to give up young Olmedo’s body, holding it at the station overnight. Only later do they release the body to his mother.

Governor Correa Falcón is pleased. The strikers have been taught a lesson.

All thirty of those arrested are packed into the same cell. None of them are treated like little girls.

But in spite of the police dragnet and the lesson taught with gunpowder, the strike holds. And posters continue to appear, written in pencil or red ink on Canson paper for lack of a printer;

Departmental Workers’ Federation—Puerto Deseado

TO WORKING PEOPLE! COMRADES!

Thirty of us have been jailed by the capitalist tyrants. But there are still enough of us left to sustain and rejuvenate the struggle against this increasing tyranny.

LONG LIVE THE STRIKE!

—The Strike Committee

Governor Correa Falcón sends the Interior Ministry a telegram explaining “the truth” behind the events in Puerto Deseado:

On Friday the 17th at 6 o’clock, a group of 250 individuals attacked the Puerto Deseado police station with the intention of freeing two people who had been arrested as threats to public safety. The police, with the help of the Argentine Circle, managed to repel the attack, killing one of the attackers and wounding three others. Luckily, there were no losses sustained by the champions of order. The police conducted themselves impeccably.

This is the approach Correa Falcón will use during his final days in office, an approach that will lead directly to the bloody skirmish at El Cerrito. He knows that El 68 and El Toscano are operating near Lago Argentino. He sends out Commissioner Pedro Micheri, an unscrupulous man, the very prototype of the rogue cop. Micheri receives orders to crush the rural uprising with a heavy hand. This plan is accompanied by insistent calls for military intervention from ranchers and their representatives in Buenos Aires. In Río Gallegos, plans are being made for the creation of a Free Labor Association that will bring in workers from Buenos Aires.

This is the situation at the beginning of 1921, the most tragic year in the history of Patagonia. There’s a total work stoppage in Río Gallegos and Puerto Deseado. The few shops that manage to stay open are directly staffed by their owners and supervisors. The Workers’ Society has also declared a boycott against three shops in Río Gallegos. And this doesn’t just mean that no one shops there but that no one is allowed to engage in any sort of commerce with them—not even butchers, barbers, or milkmen.

There is a violent atmosphere in San Julián and Puerto Santa Cruz, with partial strikes erupting on a day-to-day basis. In Puerto Deseado, a general strike manages to survive the repression. On December 30th, the first of Yrigoyen’s troops arrive; sixty soldiers under the command of Frigate Lieutenant Jorge Godoy disembark from the Ona in Puerto Deseado.

South of the Río Santa Cruz, the rural strike is all-­encompassing. El 68, El Toscano, and their men camp out near Lago Argentino—close to José Pantín’s hotels in Río Mitre and Calafate, which are little more than taverns, and Clark and Teyseyre’s El Cerrito hotel, which is a little bigger. From there they organize raiding parties to attack ranches, carrying off horses, cutting barbed wire fences, and stirring up the peons.

In the meantime, Captain Yza—appointed governor of Santa Cruz several months back—remains in Buenos Aires, where he orders that Correa Falcón’s entire staff be replaced by loyal Radicals.

On December 27th, La Prensa runs an editorial rightly stating, “Despite the current lack of leadership and the seriousness of the situation, we can still find governors strolling around the Plaza de Mayo.”

The one man who will take advantage of Yza’s strolls will be Edelmiro Correa Falcón.

Commissioner Micheri sets off for Lago Argentino. Correa Falcón has given him orders to revoke the permits for the “hotels and drinking establishments” owned by the Spaniard José Pantín, who sympathizes with the strikers and allows them to buy all sorts of goods on credit. You have to start here: take away the chilotes’ source of sustenance, and complement by the judicious use of the saber and the riding crop, and the problem will go away. Micheri is accompanied by two young men from Buenos Aires—both fervent nationalists—who can’t wait to confront the chilotes and show them what Argentines are made of. Their names are Ernesto Bozzano and Jorge Pérez Millán Temperley. The latter is something of a fanatic, a scion of high society who will later become one of the key players in these bloody events.

Commissioner Pedro José Micheri—a thirty-four-year-old from Corrientes—has been given a free hand to carry out his mission however he sees fit. Arriving at Lago Argentino on December 24th, he discovers that Christmas will be celebrated with horse races and card games at a place called Charles Fuhr. He immediately heads out to stop the games from taking place, but when he arrives, after a few shouts and a search for weapons, he gets to talking. At an inquiry conducted four months later, the police officer Martín Gray, who accompanied Commissioner Micheri, will confess that Micheri placed bets on the horses and “played cards all day on the 25th while police officers kept an eye on the games, accompanied by two bribe-­takers assigned by Micheri.” Micheri also sends Officer Balbarrey a message explaining that any permits requested for horse races at Charles Fuhr should be granted, as long as the kickback doesn’t drop below 1,000 pesos.

From there, Micheri goes off to visit the rancher Gerónimo Stipicich, assuring him that he’s come to protect his ranch from being attacked by strikers. In return for this protection, Micheri is given sixteen red fox pelts. A good tip.

Sergeant Sosa informs Micheri that sixteen armed strikers have been seen at Pantín’s hotel in Calafate. Micheri heads over with his men. He confronts the strikers and brusquely tells them, “You have twenty-four hours to get back to work or leave Lago Argentino or I’ll beat you black and blue, bathe you in your own blood, and then force you over the Cordillera.”1 The strikers quietly hear him out and then ask for an extension of four days, as they have a delegate in Río Gallegos who they say will negotiate an end to the strike. Micheri agrees, provided they don’t butcher any livestock taken from the ranches.

He nevertheless arrests the manager of the Pantín hotel, who offered the strikers goods on credit, and revokes his business license. He intends to close all of the businesses extending credit to the strikers. He then does the same to the stores owned by Severino Camporro—a Galician anarchist who not only offered them credit, but also urged them to carry on the strike to the last man—and the Spaniard Sixto González, whom he arrests as an “instigator and propagandist.” Officer Alberto Baldi will later testify that Micheri personally beat González on the head with his riding crop.

He is brave, this Micheri. With ten officers like him, you could break any strike. He continues his campaign against the business owners who support the strike with all the toughness he’s shown until now. He sends an agent to the Río Mitre Hotel along with a warning to its manager—the Yugoslav Nicolás Batistich—to immediately clear everyone out of the establishment for “having harbored strikers.” Batistich has a compatriot named Doza deliver a letter to Micheri. When Doza arrives, Sergeant Sosa warns Micheri that the messenger is a spy for the strikers. Micheri strikes Doza on the back with the flat of his saber, arrests him, and marches him out in front of the police station, hoping that the strikers will kill him themselves.

Accompanied by fifteen policemen armed with Mausers, commissioner Micheri rides off to defend the Menéndez-­Behety’s La Anita ranch. Upon arriving at Cerro Comisión, he approaches a store owned by the Spaniard García Braña, who sells food and drink to the peons. Micheri shouts for Braña to come out. He’s one of those shopkeepers who likes to talk things over and explain his point of view, defending himself with words. But Micheri cuts him off, saying, “I already know you’re a professor, say everything you need to say.” And without hesitating, he firmly beats the Spaniard on the back with his saber. While this is happening, Officer Nova takes two bottles of whiskey from the store for his men.2

One less supporter of the strike.

From there, Micheri rides off to visit his friend Gerónimo Stipicich, who asks him to evict the five Chilean cart-drivers who have been occupying and collecting firewood at the Cerro Buenos Aires ranch for the last couple days. Micheri doesn’t need to be asked twice.

He and his men approach the peaceable cart-drivers and beat them with the flats of their sabers, forcing them to take their carts to the police station, where they are made to unload all their firewood (it will come in handy during the winter). He also charges them a fine for “grazing rights.” Then he tells them to get out.

The Chileans leave with their pockets and carts empty, their backs warmed by the beating. It’s hard to imagine that they’ll ever return.

Commissioner Micheri presses on with his epic tour around Lago Argentino. He has taken a dislike to Batistich, the manager of the Río Mitre Hotel. He wants to inspect the premises to see if Batistich has carried out the order to evict his guests. When they’re within sight of the hotel, they notice that there’s a group of people out front who rapidly go inside and lock the doors. Accompanied by Officer Garay, Sergeant Sosa, and the gendarmes Bozzano, Gardozo and Pérez Millán, Micheri approaches and demands that they open the doors. But the men inside aren’t easily intimidated. They don’t open up. Micheri repeats the order. He’s livid. But the only response from inside is a gunshot fired from the window. There’s a great deal of confusion. The police, led by Micheri, only stop running when they’re five blocks away. The hotel’s occupants take advantage of their momentary victory to flee to the hills. At the inquiry held months later, Micheri will declare that once the gunfire ceased, “the gang fled.”

From there, Micheri heads straight to La Anita. He arrests a number of people along the way. Micheri’s methods for getting people to confess are not very refined. He primarily makes use of his saber, holding it with both hands so as to better caress the flesh with the flat of his blade. He beats one of the suspects with such enthusiasm that it actually bends the blade. But he doesn’t get upset: he asks one of the gendarmes to straighten it out and then gets back to business. To make things better, one of the suspects, a Spaniard named Pablo Baquero, was among those who had barricade themselves inside the Río Mitre Hotel and then fled to the hills. Micheri likes to do things personally and gives Baquero special treatment. “You Spanish son of a bitch!” he shouts. “Was something grabbing you by the ass that kept you from coming out like I told you?” And then he gives him a thorough beating.

As all those arrested were farmworkers on Stipicich’s ranch, the commissioner—whose arms have already gotten sore—gathers them together and tells them, “I’m going to release you, but if Mr. Stipicich sends for you, you must do whatever he says and work for nothing.”

Micheri arrives at La Anita, where he oversees the shearing and leaves a well-armed guard at the request of the administrator, Mr. Shaw. Just as he’s getting ready to leave—on January 2nd—word arrives that El 68 and El Toscano have attacked the El Campamento ranch, another Menéndez property. According to the police report, the strikers—led by “a Piedmontese Italian” (El 68)—made off with 3,000 pesos in merchandise, weapons and cash. They destroyed the ranch’s automobile before they left with the peons and horses, taking the ranch administrator along as a hostage.

Commissioner Micheri knows that the strikers are on the prowl near El Cerrito. He gets two automobiles ready. He will ride in the first, driven by José Alonso, as will Officer Balbarrey and Corporal Montaña. The second—a vehicle borrowed from Stipicich and driven by his chauffeur, Rodolfo Senecovich—will carry Sergeant Sosa, Corporal Bozzano, and Pérez Millán Temperley. They leave at eight in the morning, well-armed with Mausers.

As they approach El Cerrito, they spot a number of men looking for cover. Micheri smiles and orders Alonso to keep driving. He trusts in his saber and his bullets. But he has miscalculated. El 68 and El Toscano are waiting at El Cerrito, and uniforms don’t scare them. The two Italians give the order to stop the automobiles.

Accounts of the bloody events that follow will vary greatly. According to Balbarrey and Montaña—as well as Officer Martín Garay, who is not present but will collect evidence later on—when Commissioner Micheri sees that he’s being expected, he speeds down the road towards Río Gallegos, signaling for the other automobile to follow.

They hear the order to stop when they’re within two hundred meters of the hotel. Micheri, brave as always, stands up in the automobile and starts shooting left and right. But El 68’s men don’t flinch; they answer with a hail of gunfire. Bullets fly all around the commissioner and his companions, but they manage to make it through. But then a well-aimed Winchester shot takes out a rear tire. Micheri thinks that he’s reached his end and orders Alonso to keep driving. The vehicle laboriously zig-zags forward. Four strikers get into an automobile and follow Micheri. But while these farm boys may be excellent riders, they’re lost behind the wheel. They take off with such force that the car rolls over. Though shaken, they remain undaunted. They run over to Valentín Teyseyre’s automobile and resume the chase. Some kilometers away, the back wheel falls off Micheri’s car and everyone gets out and runs. Micheri is badly wounded; he has one bullet lodged in his shoulder and another in his chest.

The other car had been following just two hundred meters behind Micheri. They stop, turn around and are about to drive off in the other direction when they receive a hail of gunfire. El 68 gives the order to shoot them all, without mercy. The chauffeur, Senecovich, panics and tries to move forward through the bullets.

The car lurches forward until, directionless, it turns towards the hotel and crashes into a post. Pérez Millán Temperley, despite his leg wounds, is the only passenger who manages to free himself from the wreck. Senecovich tries and fails to stand up: he has been shot in the hip. In the front seat, next to the chauffeur, Sergeant Sosa lies dead. In the back, Corporal Bozzano clings to life for a few minutes more. Two dead, and Senecovich gravely wounded. The strikers take him inside the hotel and lay him down on a cot, next to Pérez Millán.

Back at the first car, the other four policeman have been caught by their pursuers. Micheri and his men surrender. They are taken prisoner and turned over to El 68. When they get back to the hotel, Micheri is surrounded by strikers shouting, “And now? What’ll we do with him? He’s not so brave now, is he? Where’s the tough guy now?”

The Chilean Lorenzo Cárdenas wants to immediately shoot the prisoners. He says that there needs to be a purge if the strike is to succeed. But opinion is split. El Gaucho Cuello, who commands the group of Argentines, doesn’t want trouble. He asks El 68 not to kill the policemen: he argues that they should be taken hostage and their fate decided later.

El 68 isn’t in a position to argue with Florentino Cuello, nor with the other Argentine strike leader, El Paisano Bartolo Díaz. He gives in.

And then the hotel restaurant empties out, leaving only El 68. Two ranchers—a German named Helmich and the Comte de Liniers—are brought before him. They were both taken hostage after coming to the hotel to do some shopping. After witnessing the shootout, they believe that they’re in their final hour and they ask to meet with the strike leader. Both Liniers and Helmich tell the former prisoner of Ushuaia that they’re willing to sign the new labor agreement and that they will concede to all of their demands. El 68 doesn’t accept their offer. He replies that if they sign while being held hostage, the authorities in Río Gallegos will claim that they were coerced into doing so.

The other Argentine strike leader, El Paisano Bartolo Díaz—a wily gaucho who’s always watching his back—asks El 68 to release the two ranchers. He agrees, on the condition that they write a letter to the Río Gallegos Workers’ Federation stating that they voluntarily accept the new labor agreement.

The time has now come to move on. El 68 and El Toscano give the order to pack up. As they’re getting ready to go, they hear the sound of a motor. It’s Commissioner Ritchie, Correa Falcón’s acting police chief. He’s arrived from Río Gallegos to provide back up for Micheri.

Two cars pull up. Commissioner Ritchie, Sergeant Peralta and Agent Campos ride in the first, on loan from La Anónima and driven by a chauffeur named Caldelas. The second gets a flat just a few kilometers from El Cerrito. But Ritchie’s car also comes to a halt, just four hundred meters short of the hotel, when they run out of gasoline. Ritchie orders Campos to retrieve a gasoline can and refill the tank.

El 68’s men, having watched the policemen climb out of the car, charge forward on horseback to stop them. When Ritchie sees the cavalry coming, he orders his men to take cover behind some nearby rocks. When they ask him to surrender, Ritchie responds by opening fire. He’s a fine shot, a cool-headed man who knows that these Chileans are worth nothing. But the peons dismount, take positions behind the rocks and return fire. Ritchie realizes that they’ll soon be surrounded and orders Campos to keep filling the tank while the others cover him. And then a barefaced Galician worker named Zacarías Gracián approaches to hunt for policemen. Ritchie greets him with a bullet to the face. Gracián falls, and Ritchie and his men take advantage of the confusion to get into their car. But the peons and their Winchesters bathe them in bullets. Ritchie is shot in his right hand and Sergeant Pereya’s arm dances from a bullet in the wrist. The commissioner realizes that it’s now a matter of life or death and starts the car, pulls a U-turn and drives off, leaving Campos standing there with the gasoline can in his hand.3 He’s promptly cut down by El 68’s men.

When Ritchie passes by the second car, he tells its occupants to follow him. They take refuge at Pablo Lenzer’s ranch and wait there for reinforcements.

The strikers at El Cerrito hastily finish their preparations for departure. They know that the weight of the entire Río Gallegos police force will soon fall on them.

Arguments can be heard in the midst of their preparations. Pérez Millán says that he won’t be able to ride with his injuries. And the chauffeur, Senecovich, loudly demands care. Lorenzo Cárdenas wants to finish both of them off himself. Pérez Millán is saved by Armando Camporro, a striker who takes him by the arm and helps him into the saddle.4 But Senecovich remains on his cot, accused by Cárdenas of being a police agent who reported on the strikers at Stipicich’s ranch to Micheri.5 And what should be done with this man who not only can’t ride, but can’t even stand up? Lorenzo Cárdenas quickly solves the problem: he shoots him, avenging the death of his friend Zacarías Gracián.

This enrages many of the farmworkers. They reproach Cárdenas for his decision. But Cárdenas is a man of action and he pays their threats no heed. He’s one of those who feel that the movement is no place for introspection. Subsequent developments may prove him right. Those on the other side, those defending order and private property, will act just like the murderer Lorenzo Cárdenas.

The strikers depart, all two hundred of them. They ride off and set up camp in a canyon nine leagues away. There they sleep under the stars, covering themselves with quillangos.6 They are accompanied by their two wounded hostages: Commissioner Micheri, with his two bullet wounds, and Pérez Millán Temperley.

When news of the El Cerrito incident reaches Río Gallegos, it’s truly explosive. Especially after the arrival of Commissioner Ritchie, with his wounded hand, Sergeant Peralta—whose right arm will have to be amputated—and the chauffeur, Caldelas, whose face is badly scarred by the glass from the shattered windshield. People are terrified. Ritchie, a strong man who is accustomed to treating the poor like sheep, returns wounded and defeated, his men routed, bearing the news that Micheri has been taken prisoner. These mounted anarchists have even dared to attack Micheri!7

This news confirms the sense of unease in Río Gallegos, which had already witnessed a Danteesque spectacle on Monday, January 3rd. The town’s residents were awoken by gunfire at one in the morning. The shots were fired to draw people’s attention to a fire. The La Amberense warehouse, owned by a Belgian named Kreglinger, was burning down. And it was filled with gasoline and oil tanks. The strikers had chosen well. There would be explosions all throughout the night. Those who believed in private property were chilled to the bone. But for the poor, this crackle of fireworks provided splendid entertainment. More than a few think that the time has come to pack up and leave, that Santa Cruz has come to resemble the Russia of 1917.

There is a strong backlash in Río Gallegos. “Unity in the face of danger,” exhorts the conservative newspaper. And at the Social Club, a group of Argentines resolve to throw their weight behind Correa Falcón and his defense plans. This meeting brings together thirty-seven citizens, all of them ready to defend Argentina and, in passing, their property. But the Argentines aren’t the only ones making preparations. The British community holds their own meeting, also offering their services to the governor.

The situation is chaotic. Steamships no longer arrive. It’s announced that once the Asturiano unmoors, Santa Cruz will be cut off from the outside world. Not that it matters much: everyone’s getting ready to defend what’s theirs.

Though he only has a few days left in office, Correa Falcón prepares to defeat the strikers once and for all. He issues a ­manifesto to the “citizens,” posting it on every street corner in Río Gallegos:

The situation created by the outrageous acts of subversive groups makes it necessary for those men who respect the law and the liberties granted by the Constitution to band together. This isn’t a labor dispute, but instead something much more serious: the subversion of law and order, along with all the principles of equality and justice.

He calls on the “honest citizens” to organize themselves, as “the honor, life and property of the populace cannot be left to the mercy of heartless fools.” He concludes by stating, “Let us ensure respect for our Constitution and our laws, and let us keep the flag of our fatherland flying high.”

He sends a telegram to the interior minister informing him that “those supporting law and order in Río Gallegos have immediately responded, unconditionally putting themselves at the disposal of the government. The majority of these people are Argentine and British.”

The British community in Patagonia isn’t alone. The ­British embassy in Buenos Aires has also reacted. Its representative, Ronald Macleay, tells the Argentine government of his concerns regarding the plight of British nationals in rather ­uncompromising terms:

Things have gotten to such a critical state that British nationals, both in town and in the countryside, require urgent protection. It would be dangerous in the extreme to delay any further in providing this protection. I therefore beseech Your Excellency to treat this matter with the utmost seriousness and to authorize me to telegraph the British consul in Río Gallegos, allowing him to reassure his countrymen that the Argentine government will adopt immediate and appropriate measure to protect their lives and property.

Things are beginning to take a more serious turn. Yrigoyen knows that British interests have immense influence in Argentina and that they won’t be shy in defending themselves. The Falkland Islands lie just off the coast and British warships are always on standby.

On January 8th, the War Ministry reports that the Navy is dispatching fifty sailors to Río Gallegos and that “the ministry has a squadron standing by to intervene, should further events make such a measure necessary.”

When things are at their most fraught, the Aristobulo del Valle arrives in Río Gallegos with twenty-five sailors under the command of Ensign Alfredo Malerba. They are only a handful of men, but Malerba is worth one hundred sailors. He meets with Correa Falcón the moment he comes ashore and resolves to pacify the town with an iron hand.

The following day, Captain Narciso Laprida disembarks from the Querandi, bringing fifty soldiers from the 10th Cavalry Regiment with him.

The newspaper La Unión, speaking for the region’s ranchers, merchants, and government officials, enthusiastically welcomes the military:

Though they are few in number, we have every confidence in their effectiveness because they represent the nation’s armed forces. Rebelling against them is to rebel against the fatherland they represent, and those who do so risk being considered enemies of the nation and treated with all the severity of martial law. And so those who respect order, both Argentine and immigrant, could not contain their applause when these bearers of the glad tidings of peace and security marched through our streets.

When Correa Falcón realizes that Malerba is an advocate of order at all costs, he puts him in command of the city’s prisons and police force.

He doesn’t need to be asked twice. On Sunday, January 16th, he mobilizes his sailors and the entire police force to seal off the town, which, in a matter of hours, is cleansed of anything that smells of strikers. He has no qualms about locking up the leaders along with the small fry. And so the first to fall is José María Borrero, the advisor to the Workers’ Society and the managing editor of La Verdad. He’s soon followed by all of the friends of Antonio Soto, though the man himself could not be located.8

Two hours after Borrero was arrested, something disgraceful occurs. Accompanied by their men, Malerba and Ritchie set off for La Verdad’s printing press. But the doors are locked. Ritchie approaches the house of a type-setter—which faces the press—to ask for the keys. He’s whipped when he refuses and Ritchie orders the doors to be forced open. The next day, Ensign Malerba visits the jail. When he passes in front of Borrero, he tells him that his printing press has been destroyed by persons unknown.

This procedure is not very democratic, but it is incredibly effective. When Borrero is released from jail, he finds his printing press destroyed, his plates smashed, and thirty-six boxes of type ruined. In the subsequent court case, Malerba will state that he had been acting on orders from the Naval Ministry.

This is how Correa Falcón and Malerba manage to leave the movement leaderless in Río Gallegos. Save for Antonio Soto, all of the leaders are behind bars. And Antonio Soto is cut off from his followers. Before, messengers from the countryside were able to slip past the police checkpoints by taking a detour along the banks of the river. But now Malerba has sealed off that route as well.

Furthermore, a curfew has also been decreed:

Public gatherings are prohibited. The population is asked to refrain from bearing arms or using the streets after 9 p.m., as well as to immediately comply with any orders they may receive from sentries or police officers.

Yrigoyen and Minister Gómez are in over their heads with this problem of the rural strike. The British embassy complains once again. Macleay informs Argentina’s Foreign Affairs Ministry that a ranch owned by a British national named Juan Cormack was attacked by “armed and mounted strikers, who destroyed shearing equipment and requisitioned horses and supplies.” And then he insists that the Argentine government take protective measures.

Chile, too, is worried about the rural strike on the other side of the border. The following document is an undeniable rebuttal of the theory that the strike in Patagonia was fomented by the Chilean armed forces. In a note addressed to the Foreign Affairs Ministry in Buenos Aires and dated January 12th, Noel, the Argentine ambassador in Buenos Aires, writes:

Confidential and Restricted

To the Foreign Affairs Ministry, Buenos Aires:

Chile’s foreign affairs minister tells me that he has received some very alarming reports about disturbances in the far south, where bandits have overrun the ranches along the border between Chile and Argentina, 250 kilometers away from Punta Arenas, whose residents are asking for protection. The Chilean government requests that Your Excellency forward any relevant news to the embassy, as well as to inquire if the Argentine government has sufficient forces at its disposal in said region and if it would be willing to order its police forces to work in coordination with the Chilean police to defeat these bandits. The Chilean government requests an urgent response.

Noel, Argentine Ambassador.

There will be note after note along these lines, showing the Chilean government’s fear that the conflict would spread into Chilean Patagonia and the Aysén region, a fear stoked in the halls of power by large landowners with the same names as those on the Argentine side of the border.

Under the command of Captain Laprida, the 10th Cavalry Squadron sets out from Río Gallegos on January 2nd, accompanied by Commissioner Ritchie and around twenty policemen. They go by truck to Robert MacDonald’s La Vanguardia ranch and wait there for their horses.

Laprida remains at La Vanguardia, unwilling to venture beyond this stronghold. He knows that El 68 and El Toscano, both of them quite close, are not afraid of a shootout.

Laprida, Malerba, and Correa Falcón telegraph Buenos Aires, reporting that they do not have enough men at their disposal.

But in the meantime, what are the town’s strikers up to? In Río Gallegos, the strike has become unsustainable. Repression, imprisonment, a ban on meetings, and the loss of Borrero’s newspaper (which often ran union communiqués) would, little by little, lead to the bosses’ victory and a return to work. Antonio Soto understands that nothing more can be done in the city and, as the syndicalist FORA doesn’t respond to his desperate appeals, he calls for the strike to be lifted in order to save the Workers’ Society. He drafts a long communiqué analyzing the movement and explaining why the urban workers were defeated. This communiqué closes by stating:

Men of conscience will eventually judge us and the authorities will do us justice because truth and justice will come to light and triumph. If we are silenced, other voices will be raised because there is no strength that can destroy the union of the workers, because it is a beautiful and righteous cause.

There’s no alternative: in Buenos Aires, the Maritime Workers’ Federation has already come to a separate arrangement. Ships begin to arrive in Río Gallegos once more. The first to arrive is the Presidente Mitre, carrying 326 third class passengers. La Unión, the mouthpiece of the ranchers, triumphantly reports that the ship has brought in “a full staff for the meatpacking plants.” The arrival of the Mitre ends a period of seventy days’ rest at the ports of Santa Cruz, which the newspaper notes is “equivalent to the time that Columbus took to discover America four centuries ago.”

The ship’s arrival in Río Gallegos has a tremendous psychological impact on the town’s residents, especially its merchants and landowners. Two delegates from the syndicalist FORA also arrive from Buenos Aires on the Presidente Mitre: Santiago Lázaro and Francisco Somoza, who will wage a war to the death against Antonio Soto and the Río Gallegos Workers’ Society.

Besides the Mitre, the Presidente Quintana, and the Asturiano are also on their way to the coasts of Patagonia.

Antonio Soto decides to travel to Buenos Aires and clarify the situation to the syndicalists. He emerges from hiding and is smuggled aboard the steamship Asturiano by the ship’s mechanics. During a stopover at Puerto Deseado, the town’s sub-prefect learns of Soto’s presence aboard the ship and orders the maritime police to bring him ashore. But the ship’s entire crew goes on strike and the police, outdone, are forced to retreat. Upon docking in Buenos Aires, the police try to search the ship, but a group of three hundred stevedores get in the way.9 La Organización Obrera, the mouthpiece of the syndicalist FORA, reports Soto’s arrival on January 29th. Soto will participate in the union’s national congress as the delegate of the Río Gallegos Workers’ Society. But Soto has also come to encourage the unionized workers of Buenos Aires to help their fellows in the countryside, then facing the toughest moments of the strike. The labor congress, bringing together delegates from every corner of the country, is held from January 29th to February 5th, 1921. There, Soto will insult the national union leadership. He will criticize the decision of the Maritime Workers’ Federation to allow ships filled with strikebreakers to disembark and sail to Río Gallegos. The entire congress will listen with astonishment to the Patagonian delegate’s scathing criticism of the national leadership’s lack of solidarity and their abandonment of the labor movement in the south during so difficult a year for the workers as 1920.

Soto will never be forgiven for this speech. Criticizing the bureaucracy of the country’s most powerful labor federation is a capital sin. And the bureaucracy immediately hits back. The union’s national newspaper, La Organización Obrera, publishes the following report on the labor congress on February 12th:

The delegate from Santa Cruz used the labor disputes on the southern coast as an opportunity to bring up matters that took two hours to address. He made unjustified criticisms of the Maritime Workers’ Federation and the national leadership, which drew a vehement response from Alegría, Cisneros, and others, as well as from the national leadership council. In the end, the decisions of the national leadership were endorsed by a vote of 99 to 3, and it was agreed by a vote of 111 delegates that all matters not scheduled on the agenda should be addressed in committee.

As we can see, the Chamber of Deputies isn’t alone in referring sensitive matters to committee—unions can do it as well.

But the rural strike will last until the bitter end. El 68 and El Toscano move shrewdly. They’re constantly shifting camp and don’t seek out confrontation, but when they need to fight, they fight. And they will prove this in their tragicomic clash with Commissioner Francisco Nicolía Jameson and the officers under his command.10

As we have seen, the strikers have been camping out in a canyon nine leagues away from El Cerrito. From there, they set out for Juan Clark’s El Tero ranch. Their ranks have been swollen by around 450 peons. Keeping with their tactic of staying on the move and disorienting the police, they push forward and set up camp in a quarry, which will later be known as Cañadón de los Huelguistas (Strikers’ Canyon). There they remain for several days while El 68 heads to Río Gallegos to meet with Soto. The former prisoner of Ushuaia manages to slip past the police checkpoints and then leaves the capital accompanied by thirty men, a truly daring feat. They attack the ranches they come across on their way back to camp, taking hostages, capturing gendarmes, and requisitioning weapons and horses. Their ranks swell by 150 men, making a total of six hundred strikers in the canyon. They immediately break camp and march towards Lago Argentino, where they carry out an occupation of La Anita ranch. There they capture four gendarmes and thirty shearers.

Unaware of these developments, Commissioner Nicolía Jameson has received orders from Correa Falcón to reinforce the guard at La Anita. Assisted by Officer Novas, he gathers together fifteen well-armed men and they drive off in a car and a truck. They feel safe because they know that Laprida is stationed at La Vanguardia with fifty soldiers, and they’re confident they won’t see a trace of El 68’s men. Upon reaching Calafate, the commissioner lets his men stop at Echeverría’s tavern and generously buys them a few rounds. They’re a bit tipsy when they resume their journey to La Anita. But when they reach the Río Centinela, they see three cars approach. Sixty riders emerge from the side of the road. Commissioner Jameson orders his men to halt and take up positions.

As the cars approach, a gendarme named Artaza, drunk and unsteady on his feet, begins firing left and right. Facing such a welcome, the strikers stop and fire on the police. Commissioner Nicolía Jameson and his men flee as best they can, piling into their vehicles, turning around and taking off at top speed, leaving behind Artaza, who is too drunk to run, and another two ­gendarmes named Giménez and Páez. Realizing that they have been left to the mercy of the strikers, Giménez and Páez scream for their lives. Officer Nova, riding in the truck, draws his revolver and forces the driver to stop and pick them up. Artaza is left on his own and keeps firing until he is cut down by El 68’s men.

Officer Nova will later tell his superiors that Nicolía Jameson beat a hasty retreat; that when he saw the strikers, he shouted, “Everybody aboard, let’s go!”; that Artaza had left the police station drunk, “having consumed a large amount of alcohol, purchased from La Anónima by Commissioner Jameson.”

The car leaves the truck far behind. When Nova finally reaches Echeverría’s tavern, he finds “Commissioner Jameson and Officer Garay totally intoxicated, embracing each other and saying farewell.” Jameson had bought three bottles and got drunk, as had most of his men, strengthening their spirits while they waited for the strikers. But the latter had given up the chase, as the area was under surveillance by Captain Laprida and his cavalry troops. The police officer’s testimony will state that, as he left the tavern, Jameson shouted, “Long live the fatherland! Down with the red flag and long live the flag of Argentina!” He then ordered those present to give a cheer for each officer who had fought that day.

When they arrive at the police station, they find Subcommissioner Douglas ordering Jameson to give a cheer for him and his men. He then orders Nova to fetch three bottles of whiskey from Dickie’s ranch “to share among the men who conducted themselves so bravely at the Río Centinela.” And then something occurs that clearly shows these men’s brutality and total lack of respect for humanity. Two riders were being held at the station on suspicion of being strikers. Jameson has them taken from their cells, orders his men to strip them naked and beats them with the flat of his saber in front of the troops. He then orders them to be left naked all night, though this order is later overridden by Captain Laprida, who arrives half an hour later. But Nicolía Jameson hasn’t finished with the day’s great deeds. Nobody at the police station feels safe. They all fear an attack by El 68 and El Toscano. And so they decide to head to Lenzner’s ranch, where most of the cavalry troops are stationed. There, Captain Laprida turns a German striker over to the police. Nicolía Jameson immediately orders the German to be taken out back. He handcuffs the prisoner, lowers him halfway into a well and then uses Officer Nova’s handcuffs to shackle him to a nearby fence. A true Chinese torture: spending the Patagonian night out in the open, with one’s feet in the water. (An investigation will conclude with Jameson’s dismissal on March 23rd, 1921 for “misconduct and moral weakness.”)

But the “Battle” of the Río Centinela will naturally be seized upon by the press as yet another opportunity for outrage at the savagery of the strikers. Río Gallegos’ La Unión will refer to the death of Artaza as an “unprecedented and premeditated murder” and a “repulsive crime.”

But Correa Falcón has only a few days left in power. After six months of indecision, Governor Yza is finally leaving for Río Gallegos. The ranchers prepare to give him a warm welcome. They distrust him as a Radical, but trust him as a military officer. One editorial in La Unión proclaims:

It takes the authority of a disciplined spirit—such as the we see in Captain Yza, forged in the purest patriotic traditions and strengthened by military life in the bosom of these legendary institutions and by daily contact with the symbols of our nation, which inspire the most fervent and austere feelings of appreciation for the values they represent—to take on the task at hand, which demands not only governmental expertise and the application of time-honored measures, but also the virtue of a civic conscience and the serene, magnanimous understanding of lofty souls.

The news that the new governor is on his way arrives even as Correa Falcón and Malerba carry on with the repression. In Río Gallegos, every democratic right has been revoked. Meanwhile, the Rural Society is extremely active in preparing its defenses. Its members resolve to unite with similar organizations in San Julián and Puerto Santa Cruz. The unification committee is made up of sixteen members (eight from Río Gallegos, four from Puerto Santa Cruz and four from San Julián) and chaired by Ibón Noya. Governor Correa Falcón is ratified as its managing secretary. But the most important decision the committee takes is to collect 100,000 pesos for expenses and for “the campaign to uphold law and order.” These funds are raised by requiring each landowner to pay the Rural Society two centavos per head of livestock. One document that clearly shows the connivance between the police, the army, and the White Guard—the self-defense organization of the ranchers—is the report addressed to the interior minister by Engineer Cobos, sent to Buenos Aires as a delegate of the Santa Cruz Rural Society:

The White Guard has taken responsibility for supplying meat, automobiles, and gasoline to the local police station and has agreed to pay for repairs. And let me also mention that, for some time, each of the town’s five primary retail outlets has been providing them with goods equivalent to 50 pesos per month, free of charge. This arrangement has been in place for years. The White Guard has covered the expenses of a car trip taken by four officers stationed at Tamel Aike who were needed as reinforcements at the police station in San Julián. During the strike, when it was decided to send eleven soldiers to San Julián, their journey was underwritten by merchants and landowners, as was their return trip to Río Gallegos. And, during their mission, they had to be provided with lodging and saddles, along with other supplies and living expenses. We merchants and landowners have paid a total of 8,615 pesos on maintaining and transporting these troops, which does not include the 4,000 pesos provided by the White Guard.

There is little hope left for the workers. Who are the police and army going to defend if they depended on the landowners for food and transportation?

Yrigoyen is slow but neither deaf nor blind. The federal government mobilizes the 10th Cavalry Regiment with orders to pacify the south. The regiment is under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Héctor Benigno Varela.

Varela visits the Casa Rosada to meet with the president and clarify the details of his mission. On a torrid January day, Varela and his young assistant, First Lieutenant Anaya, both of them in dress uniform, enter the cool shade of the president’s office. Before them stands an enormous man, twice their own height, who barely seems to be moving. He speaks slowly, taking his time. Anaya is awestruck. Varela listens with a religious silence. The president talks in generalities and the officer listens with growing interest, anticipating the moment in which his commander-in-chief will issue the “secret instructions,” the precise orders that must never be repeated outside that mysterious office. But the president takes his time. He speaks of party politics, the struggles of years past, and the republic in general.

Suddenly, the audience is over. The president rises to his feet. Taken aback, Varela ventures one polite and deferential query: “Mr. President, I should like to know what I am to do in Santa Cruz.”

Hipólito Yrigoyen, his warm voice inflected with trust and intimacy—as if he were addressing a brother or a son—tells him, “Go, Lieutenant Colonel. Go and study what is happening and do your duty.”

And that is it. Varela is at a loss. But the giant offers him his hand. There’s no more to say.

“Stop by Dr. Gómez’s office and he will give you your instructions.”

But Anaya will later state, “Dr. Gómez was waiting for us in his office but didn’t add a single word. He merely passed on some telegrams he had received and wished us a safe journey.”11

Varela is not the type of man who spends his time worrying about if he’s being set up. His thoughts are on his soldiers, his plans, his preparations and logistics. Having been ordered, he will act. The 10th Cavalry Regiment shakes to life. Varela has a military soul. He loves action, discipline, duty, and the manliness of command. He is a great admirer of German military ­discipline and has been diligently studying the German language for years.

The 10th Cavalry Regiment did not exist when it was ordered to move south. The 1889 class had graduated in December and the new class was still being recruited. The soldiers would need to be tracked down. One by one, the former conscripts are taken from their homes and sent to the barracks. We can only imagine the “delight” felt by these young men, their military service completed, who are now ordered back to active duty to crush a strike in Patagonia. Anaya describes this forced recruitment as “a difficult task.” He only manages to muster up 150 men and will have to reinforce the regiment with another twenty additional soldiers from the 2nd Cavalry Regiment.

They embark on the Guardia Nacional on the night of January 28th, 1921.

The strikers continue their occupation of La Anita. A car passes by, carrying the ranchers Gerónimo and José Stipicich, along with their brother-in-law Duimo Martinovich and Gerónimo’s son, only twelve years old. The strikers take them prisoner. El 68 suggests that Stipicich go to Río Gallegos and encourage the other ranchers to sign the labor agreement. His brother and son will be held at the ranch until he returns.

Trembling, Stipicich drives towards Río Gallegos, accompanied by Guillermo Payne, another rancher who was being held hostage. In the meantime, El Toscano heads to the Río Coyle to stir up the workers and bring back food and weapons.

The first thing Stipicich does upon reaching Río Gallegos is send a telegram to the representative of La Anónima in Puerto Santa Cruz. We have reproduced it below as it describes the situation well:

Mr. Menotti Bianchi: I have just arrived from Lago Argentino. I had set out on the 21st, along with my brother, my son, and several other people. When we arrived at La Anita, we were greeted by the over five hundred strikers who were occupying the ranch. They held me for six hours, and my brother and son remain in their power. I received permission to leave and seek out some sort of settlement. You can understand my plight. I would recommend settling because the situation is dire—they didn’t kill me only because they didn’t want to, they told me that I arrived at just the right time, as they were about to burn down La Anita, as well as all of my ranches. They agreed to grant me four days’ reprieve. The authorities are powerless. Over fifteen police officers have also been taken prisoner, including Commissioner Micheri, who has been wounded. Many of the strikers are blameless. We must do whatever is in our power to avoid confrontations. As I am in danger, I beg you to inform me of your decision at once, as I must leave tomorrow. Speaking for myself, I am in favor of settling. —Gerónimo Stipicich.

In Río Gallegos, Stipicich will meet with Mauricio Braun, Alejandro Menéndez Behety, José Montes, Ibón Noya, Ernesto von Heinz, and other landowners. The ranchers propose that the workers elect a negotiating committee and that, if no agreement can be reached, a neutral arbitrator be designated. Stipicich returns to La Anita on January 26th.

The strikers agree, appointing a delegate to meet with the ranchers in Río Gallegos.

On Saturday, January 29th, 1921—months after being appointed—the new governor of Santa Cruz finally arrived in Río Gallegos. Yza’s first actions disappoint the hardliners. He dismisses Correa Falcón’s friends, retaining only those with no reputation for brutality. The curfew is the next to go.

That same day, he meets with the members of the Rural Society to look for a solution to the rural conflict. Stipicich returns, accompanied by the workers’ delegate. On Sunday, the ranchers hold a meeting in the presence of the governor. They approve a new list of conditions and unanimously elect Governor Yza as their arbitrator.

In their new offer, the ranchers accept nearly all of the workers’ demands. The article on the ranch delegates is worded as follows:

The employers agree to recognize labor associations as lawful organizations on the condition that they have been granted legal status. Workers are free to join said associations at their own discretion, as only the good conduct and competence of each individual will be taken into account by employers.

This offer was signed by all of the powerful landowners of Santa Cruz, including Mauricio Braun and Alejandro Menéndez Behety. A close reading of the ranchers’ offer shows the extent of the strike’s success—this agreement was without precedent in Argentina as a whole.

The governor immediately speaks with the workers’ delegate and proposes that he travel alongside two government representatives who will have the power to open formal negotiations with the strikers.

In the meantime, Varela receives orders for his troops to disembark from the Guardia Nacional in Puerto Santa Cruz rather than Río Gallegos. Yza continues to make decisions that don’t favor the landowners: he releases all of the workers who been arrested during the strike, including the controversial José María Borrero, who—despite the destruction of his printing press—immediately resumes his offensive against Correa Falcón and the men of the Rural Society.

The government commission that has gone to Lago Argentino in search of the strikers, and give them word of the ranchers’ offer fails to find them. This gives Varela the opportunity to propose his own solution, one that will later prove to be extremely controversial. The strikers have also drafted a new offer to bring to the discussion table:

Full recognition of the demands presented by the workers.

The workers will not be held responsible, either morally or materially, for any of the events that occurred during the strike.

The label of “bandits” that has been given to the workers must be formally retracted.

Any and all authorities who unjustly targeted workers must be dismissed.

The governor must guarantee that no reprisals of any kind will be taken against those workers who participated in the strike or no agreement will be possible.

But the absence of contact makes direct negotiations impossible. Varela and his troops reach Puerto Santa Cruz on February 2nd, 1921. Years later, Anaya will write about this moment:

The decision to disembark there was dictated by the possibility of the insurrection spreading north, as was expected, thus putting us in position to intercept them. Once the troops had been welcomed by the local authorities, the regiment’s commander easily gauged popular expectations, as well as the prevailing disorder and the lack of coordination between local authorities. These observations prompted him to press on towards Río Gallegos, accompanied by his aide-de-camp and one police officer.

Anaya has also told us that, during his trip to Río Gallegos, Varela does not meet with Yza but instead with Correa Falcón, who apparently painted an exaggerated portrait of the crimes of the strikers and the destruction caused by the conflict. Anaya adds that Varela, wishing to corroborate these claims, embarks on “a personal reconnaissance of the nearby ranches that were said to be looted and destroyed (but) those who abandoned their land were the first to provide information contradicting the official reports.”

Anaya’s writings are very important and must be remembered, as he will later contradict himself when justifying the executions to come. But if exaggerations were made regarding the behavior of the strikers during the first strike, who’s to say that the same thing won’t happen during the second strike as well?

It is only then that Varela meets with Yza, who has received “instructions from the federal government.” Anaya describes them as follows:

The instructions received by Governor Yza added little or nothing to what we already knew. But they did include a desire to avoid bloodshed at any cost and to peacefully resolve the conflict that was so damaging to the territory’s economy. It was a matter of some urgency for the business community in general and the governor in particular to ensure that the shearing go smoothly and for the governor to show himself to be a faithful servant of the president, whose pro-labor policies were well known.

The ranchers, who had been dreaming of a military solution that would solve the problem with saber blows, now realize that they had fallen into the Radical trap. On February 10th, they react with a furious telegram to the interior minister:

In the wake of the vandalism committed by the rebels, the territory’s residents feel obligated to remind Your Excellency of the rights guaranteed by the Constitution. The ranchers have authorized the Rural Society’s president to appoint Governor Yza as arbitrator on the understanding that he would reach a satisfactory arrangement with the good elements among the workers. Given the failure of his efforts and the continuing criminal attacks, we have called off our overtures to the strikers and have instead requested that Governor Yza strictly enforce the nation’s laws. We have been greatly dissatisfied with his decision to free the instigators and intellectual authors of this conflict, as it is public knowledge that the leaders of the revolt in the countryside are based in the capital. —Ibón Noya.

The ranchers have realized that Yza, as a good Radical, will give more weight to the opinions of his fellow party members. They are correct; Yza will principally listen to Judge Viñas. Besides, the governor—who wants to end the strike at all costs—has realized that the judge is the only one who the workers will obey. Yza will use the judge to contact two of the strike leaders—both friends of Viñas—who will be the ones to finally accept a settlement. They are also two of the only Argentines among the peons: Gaucho Cuello and El Paisano Bartolo Díaz.

They reach a temporary arrangement. No one will be taken prisoner and each worker will be given a safe conduct pass allowing them to return to work. Yza will be the arbitrator and will agree in principle to the workers’ offer. In exchange, to prevent the army and the governor from losing face, the workers will appear to unconditionally surrender their hostages, weapons, and horses to Varela.

Gaucho Cuello and El Paisano Díaz take this offer to El 68 and El Toscano, who angrily reject it, declaring that they will never surrender their weapons. So the decision goes to the assembly. El 68 and the Spaniard Graña speak against the offer. Cuello, Bartolo Díaz, the Paraguayan Jara and another Argentine by the name of Lara speak in favor. The chilotes vote to end the strike: there are 427 votes in favor of returning to work against 200 votes in favor of continuing the resistance. When Florentino Cuello and Bartolo Díaz hand over their wounded hostages (Commissioner Micheri and Pérez Millán), El 68 and El Toscano, along with two hundred of their followers, make off with most of the weapons. Later on, Florentino Cuello gives himself up to Governor Yza at the El Tero ranch, along with the remaining weapons—which are very few—and 1,913 horses. There, the police confirm the identity of the strikers who have turned themselves in and issue them safe conduct passes. Florentino Cuello receives Pass No. 1 and is allowed to leave, followed by El Paisano Díaz and the other ranch delegates. To keep up appearances, Yza sends a telegraph to the interior minister stating that “the ringleaders have been arrested and, after being disarmed, have been released by the police, as ordered.” But he was merely honoring his word to release all those who turned themselves in.

Everything has ended well: the strikers remain free and Yza will come down on the side of the workers. But nobody suspects that this happy ending is only a prelude to death.