The roads of Nnorthern Patagonia as a historiographic problem (1884-1958)

Abstract

This article proposes an approach to the problem of the roads in the south of Río Negro and the north of Chubut, from the second half of the 19th century to the middle of the 20th century. It is argued that in northern Patagonia the consolidation of a state viality, with a hierarchical road network, was a gradual and conflictive process. It seeks to reconstruct the ordering of the North Patagonian roads during the period through different sources: historical cartography, land inspections, technical road reports, press documents and files of the respective governments. The study is based on the analysis of travel chronicles -such as those of Claraz and Musters-, which recorded precise observations on the main indigenous trails that connected the region. Later, it considers the new metropolitan roads that would have begun to be imposed from the military campaigns of national expansion at the end of the 19th century. Finally, the disputes between different actors and agencies that tried to fix hierarchies and road orientations during the following decades are addressed.