[ARTÍCULO RETRACTADO] Nación y territorio: políticas estatales de gestión de los pueblos indígenas "charrúas" en el Uruguay (1828-1833)

Abstract

The present article inquires about the state narratives about the “disappearance” of indigenous Charrúas during the process of formation of the Uruguayan nation, within the framework of the political and ideological establishment of the State in the territory between 1828 and 1833. The myth of the creation of the nation that “imagines” itself as comprised of people who descend from boats and “sin indios”, is the result of a long process of concealment, persecution and invisibility of the indigenous peoples that began in 1828 with the independence of the Eastern State of Uruguay. Motivated to understand the “starting point” of this myth, official documents issued by different agencies of the State between 1828-1833 and press articles published in the El Universal newspaper were analyzed. The documentary investigation was carried out in the Archivo General de la Nación (AGN) and in the National Library (BNM) in Montevideo. There, I read about 200 documents, of which I photographed and transcribed 76. I obtained numerous records of reports, by landowners, of supposed robberies carried out by the charrúas, which served as justification for the military actions “on” the indigenous people, carried out during the first years of of Uruguay’s independent life. On the other hand, it is concluded that this myth of the “descendants from boats” nation was conjectured precisely in a moment of enormous indigenous presence in the montevidean society and in recent actions that sought its extermination, which was the summit of the Salsipuedes Massacre in 1831. However, it is understood that these actions should not be narrated as “the end of the Indians”, but should be reported as the story of an enslavement, which in turn resulted in ethnic fragmentation.