The Historical RecordFeedback & corrections

← Read this event in the interactive timeline

1879 and surrounding campaigns

Conquest / dispossessionSupplement

Argentina’s so-called Conquest of the Desert

Pampas and Patagonia; Indigenous peoples

The Argentine army extended state control over inhabited Indigenous territories. Official photographs record conquered communities and captives, including women and elders, exposing the human reality behind the language of an empty desert.

Dates preserve the source’s precision. This entry is part of a selected historical record; its qualifications and sources are retained below.

Context / qualification

1879 marks Roca’s major campaign, within a longer process of conquest.

Sources

Suggest a correction or send feedback about this event

Jim Crow, exclusion, and imperial expansion

Segregation, racial violence, immigration exclusion, and forced assimilation shaped everyday life and national policy.

Explore this period in the timeline