120 B A H IA B LANCA. Aug. 1833.
taken or killed, for the soldiers sabre every naan. The
Indians are now so terrified, that they offer no resistance in
a body, but each flies, neglecting even his wife and children;
but when overtaken, like wild animals, they fight
against any number to the last moment. One dying Indian
seized with his teeth the thumb of his adversary, and allowed
his own eye to be forced out, sooner than relinquish his hold.
Another, who was wounded, feigned death, keeping a knife
ready to strike one more fatal blow. My informer said, when
he was pursuing an Indian, the man cried out for mercy, at
the same time that he was covertly loosing the bolas from his
waist, meaning to whirl it round his head and so strike his
pursuer. “ I however struck him with my sabre to the
ground, and then got off my horse, and cut his throat with
my knife.” This is a dark picture; but how much more
shocking is the unquestionable fact, that all the women who
appear above twenty years old, are massacred in cold blood.
When I exclaimed that this appeared rather inhuman, he
answered, “ Why, what can be done ? they breed so !”
Every one here is fully convinced that this is the most just
war because it is against barbarians. Who would believe in
this age, in a Christian civilized country, that such atrocities
were committed ? The children of the Indians are saved, to
be sold or given away as servants, or rather slaves, for as
long a time as the owners can deceive them ; hut I believe in
this respect there is little to complain of.
In the battle four men ran away together. They were pursued,
and one was killed, but the other three were taken
alive. They turned out to be messengers or ambassadors
from a large body of Indians, united in the common cause of
defence, near the Cordillera. The tribe to which they had
been sent was on the point of holding a grand council; the
feast of mare’s flesh was ready, and the dance prepared : in
the morning the ambassadors were to have returned to the
Cordillera. They were remarkably fine men, very fair, above
six feet high, and all under thirty years of age. The three
survivors of course possessed very valuable information; and
to extort this they were placed in a line. The two first
being questioned, answered, “ No se” (I do not know), and
were one after the other shot. The third also said “ No s e ;”
adding, “ Fire, I am a man, and can die!” Notone syllable
would they breathe to injure the united cause of their country
! The conduct of the cacique was very different: he
saved his life by betraying the intended plan of warfare, and
the point of union in the Andes. It was believed that there
were already six or seven hundred Indians together, and
that in summer their numbers would be doubled. Ambassadors
were to have been sent to the Indians at the small
salinas, near Bahia Blanca, whom I mentioned that a
cacique, this same man, had betrayed. The communication,
therefore, extends from the Cordillera to the east
coast.
General Rosas’s plan is to kill all stragglers, and having
driven the remainder to a common point, in the summer, with
the assistance of the Chilenos, to attack them in a body.
This operation is to be repeated for three successive years.
I imagine the summer is chosen as the time for the main
attack, because the plains are then without water, and the
Indians can only travel in particular directions. The escape
of the Indians to the south of the Rio Negro, where in such
a vast unknown country they would be safe, is prevented by
a treaty with the Tehuelches to this effect;—that Rosas pays
them so much to slaughter every Indian who passes to the
south of the river, but if they fail in so doing, they themselves
are to be exterminated. The war is waged chiefly against
the Indians near the Cordillera; for many of the tribes on this
eastern side are fighting with Rosas. The general, however,
like Lord Chesterfield, thinking that his friends may in a
future day become his enemies, always places them in the
front ranks, so that their numbers may be thinned. Since
leaving South America we have heard that this war of extermination
completely failed.
Among the captive girls taken in the same engagement,
there were two very pretty Spanish ones, who had been carJ
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