Cautivas Argentinas: A La Conquista De Una Nación Blanca

Number 233

CAUTIVAS ARGENTINAS:
A LA CONQUISTA DE UNA
NACIÓN BLANCA
Susana Rotker
Rutgers University

Latin American Program
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

Copyright December 1997

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This publication is one of a series of Working Papers of the Latin American
Program of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. The series includes
papers in thehumanities and social sciences from Program fellows, guest scholars,
workshops, colloquia, and conferences. The series aims to extend the Program's
discussions to a wider community throughout the Americas, to help authors obtain timely
criticism of work in progress, and to provide, directly or indirectly, scholarly and
intellectual context for contemporary policy concerns.
Single copies ofWorking Papers may be obtained without charge by writing to:
Latin American Program Working Papers
The Woodrow Wilson Center
1000 Jefferson Drive, S.W.
Washington, D.C. 20560
The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars was created by Congress
in 1968 as a "living institution expressing the ideals and concerns of Woodrow Wilson,
symbolizing and strengthening the fruitful relationsbetween the world of learning and the
world of public affairs." The Center's Latin American Program was established in 1977.
LATIN AMERICAN PROGRAM STAFF
Joseph S. Tulchin, Director
Cynthia Arnson, Senior Program Associate
Allison M. Garland, Program Associate
Ralph H. Espach, Research Assistant
Michelle Granson, Program Assistant
Audrey Donaldson, Program Aide

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INTRODUCTION

Thepublication of this Working Paper is part of an honored tradition of
the Latin American Program--nurturing Latin American literature, both its
creation and academic analysis. Carlos Fuentes, Tomás Eloy Martínez, Mario
Vargas Llosa, and José Donoso, among others, have spent time working on
novels at the Wilson Center. Most recently, we were delighted to host Susana
Rotker, of Rutgers University,as a Wilson Center Guest Scholar during the
summer of 1997. While working at the Center, Susana made significant progress
on her latest book, an analysis of the cultural mechanisms that allowed the
building of a “white country” in the far south of Latin America, ignoring the
presence of women captives in the frontier and the “disappearance” of the native
and Afro-Argentine populations.

Weare pleased to offer a preview of the first two chapters of that book, so
that friends of the Latin American Program can have an opportunity to acquaint
themselves with the exciting work of Susana Rotker.

Joseph S. Tulchin
Director, Latin American Program

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LA MIRADA DE PROSPERO
Ferdinand: This is most majestic vision, and/ Harmonious charmingly:
May I be bold
To think this spirits?Prospero: Spirits, which by mine art/ I have from their confines call’d to
enact
My present fancies.
Ferdinand: Let me live here ever/ So rare a wonder’d father and a wise,
Makes this place Paradise.
(William Shakespeare, The Tempest)
...Padre ai lemando bender una cautibita en siento sincuenta pesos y dos
corte
de paño fino yo espero este fabor de U. Que me aga por que etoy muy
pobre...
(Carta de Manuel Baigorrita, Poitagué, 4 de marzo de 1878, al padre
Marco Donati)

Argentina es el único país de las Américas que ha decidido, con éxito,
borrar de su historia y de su realidad las minorías mestizas, indias y negras. Las
ha omitido de los relatos nacionales y, a comienzos de este siglo, ha decidido que
desaparezcan incluso de los censos de población. A diferencia delresto del
continente, las minorías han sido borradas incluso de la memoria colectiva, sin
que a nadie le llame la atención que en este país blanco siempre haya un niño que
deba pintarse de negro para actuar en las fiestas patrias escolares, o que los indios
sean sólo unos pocos nómades que tuvieron el remoto papel de comerse a los
primeros conquistadores españoles que asomaron a sus costas.
Es...