In 1884 the governing body was divided into National Territories that were the origen of the actual Patagonian Provinces. In 1880 Buenos Aires was declared capital of the Republic and it was during General Roca's presidency that a strong central power was established for the first time, with ample hegemony over the entire national territory.
From
the beginning of the twentieth century Argentina centered its economy in
the export of livestock products. The extermination of the indians
had permitted the definitive incorporation of 800.000 Km.2. of land guaranteeing
the expansion of an agro-exporter economy. The National State
attempted through concessions and the sale of fiscal land to encourage
immigration and colonization. Nevertheless the systems used
for the allotment of land resulted in the formation of large farms that
limited the possibilities of colonization. The Patagonia, without
official backing, was populated slowly and unevenly.
The
only serious initiative to colonize was the Foment Plan drawn up by the
minister Exquiel Ramos Mexia in 1906.
After the "Conquest of the Desert" north Patagonia was turned into a wool producing zone. The farmers, taking advantage of the very low value of land and its initial high yield, invaded the land with millions of sheep. The big British farms occupied the best land and exported their production without intermediates, as they controlled the transport and trade in the port of Bs.As.
The big
livestock companies gave birth to small settlements on the Rio Negro plateau,
a zone that occupied a preponderate
place
in the regional economy during the first two decades of the century.
Nevertheless in a short time, intense grazing provoked by the excessive
load on the farms limited the benefits of the production. The exclusive
orientation of the economy towards wool production, instead of agriculture
and other productive activities, quickly exhausted the region.
Towards
1915 in the Alto Valle zone of Rio Negro, unlike the plateau, new production
possibilities arose that generated an important development. The railway
from Bahia Blanca to Neuquen and the crops watering installations, impelled
by the minister Ramos Mexia, converted the Alto Valle in a new productive
centre that based its economy in intensive agriculture.
At the end of the X1X century there were only a few scattered indian families left near Nahuel Huapi: Inacayal's people had been thrown off their land and moved to Tecka (Chubut) when the chief was taken prisoner. Curruhinca and his people had submitted to the Argentine government. They still celebrated 'Nguillatun'* now and then... (Rite, supplication for a favorable climate, rain,a good harvest etc.)*
But the region began a new phase in its history. Although incorporated under national sovreignty, the Nahuel Huapi zone began to to develope, fundamentaly linked to Chile. Before the end of the XIX century, when the frontier was still under dispute, settlers began to arrive from the south of the neighbouring country to establish themselves around the lake. They were mostly small agriculturists from the island of Chiloe, but German immigrants living in Chile also arrived.
When in 1902, the Nahuel Huapi colony was created by decree, and land was assigned for the foundation of the town of San Carlos, there already existed the business, that under different names, was to give impetus to the development of the region. San Carlos de Bariloche grew at the same rate as its commercial interchange with Chile, till customs barriers slowed down the activity around 1910. At that time the Commission for Hydrological Studies under the direction of the geologist Bailey Willis, made important studies that were the foundation for big projects for regional development, based on the the use of natural resources.
Notwithstanding the notorious opposition from Buenos Aires, these projects were accepted in Bariloche: the settlers, headed by don Primo Capraro and the engineer Emilio Frey, dreamed - as did the minister Ramos Mexia - of a railway that would permit colonization and industrial development, based on the use of hydroelectric power generated in the region.Around 1920 "The zone was self-sufficient in wheat, oats and barley and all the vegetables which are suited to the climate. (...). Commerce concentrated on ground products, leather, wool and livestock"-according to J.M. Biedma's description in his Historical Chronical of Lake Nahuel Huapi.
Nevertheless
history took another course. In 1922, the decree for the creation
of the Southern National Park suffocated the indusrtrial dream and although
some years passed before the National Park began to function as such, the
decree was enough to stop almost all existing commercial activity and,
little by little, the profile of today's tourist town began to appear.
When the train finally arrived in Bariloche in 1934, it was incorporated
in the tourism project of the new President of the National Parks Directorship:
Exequiel Bustillo, who dreamed of making Bariloche "One of those picturesque
towns that
that are
the delight of Switzerland and the Tyrol.".
While Argentina suffered violent internal fights throughout the XIX century, Chile managed in a few years to construct a modern state. It was the first to start effective occupation in the southern desert and in 1843 it established Fort Bulnes and Port Hambre, in the Brunnswick Peninsula. Nevertheless the frontier question only appeared on the political scene in 1855, when both countries decided to sign a treaty in which the limits were established based on what both nations possessed in 1810. Notwithstanding the agreement, the litigation continued dormant and after comings and goings the signing of the treaty was arrived at in 1881, the protocol in 1893 and the pacts in May 1902; legal elements on which are based the Argentina-Chile territorial distribution that today, because of doubtful interpretation, gives place to the conflict in the southern region.
In 1881 a treaty was signed that began a new cycle in frontier relationships between the two countries. The said treaty, result of all the previous negotiations, was a conpromise between the extreme pretensions of both countries. Chile recognized that the Andes mountain range was its eastern frontier throughout its entire extension, from north to south, to parallel 520, " The frontier line in that area shall run along the highest peaks of the said range that divide the waters and shall pass between the slopes that fall to one side and the other." At the same time it abandoned its claims on all or part of the Patagonia; and Argentina recognized as Chilean territory, the Strait of Magellan region, the greater part of Tierra del Fuego and the southern islands.
Not
until 1888, in a convention between the two countries, were representatives
named who were to be responsible for the demarcation of the limits according
to the 1881 treaty. But, the Chilean representative, Sr. Barros
Arana pretended, in spite of the agreement, "That the commissions named
should, above all, investigate in the terrain the watershed of the hydrografic
basins of the Atlantic and the Pacific, in order to place there the boundary
line". There then bagan talk in Chile of the Continental Divorce, a theory
that delayed even more the solution to the conflict. The Argentine
representative was in complete opposition, maintaining that the agreed
limit was indicated in the 1881 Treaty.
Dr. Estanislao Zeballos, as Minister for foreign Affairs (1889) wrote: "It is understood that by the highest peak as mentioned in the treaty, it means the line that runs along the highest points of the organic body that forms the backbone of the mountain range, although that body has transversal lines or intermediate valleys.". Relations again became tense and the following years were occupied in debates, assembles and protocol. Reunited in Santiago, Roberto Quirno Costa, Argentine plenipotentiary minister and Isidoro Errazuris of Chile, signed the Protocol clauses, in 1893 with the intention of detailing criteria defined in 1881. Nevertheless this didn't resolve the question of the continental divorce of the rivers.
In 1895 Tierra
del Fuego was delineated without inconvenience and they began to place
boundary posts in Patagonia. But there were so many disagreements
between the experts F.P. Moreno and Diego Barros
Arana that they both abandoned their work and submitted documents to their
respective governments. In 1896 they resorted to a new protocol
that indicated the intention of both countries to make every attempt to
arrive at an understanding and, and as a last resort, turn to Great
Great
Britain for arbritration. The point of maximum tension between the two
countries was reached in 1901: The arms race intensified and war seemed
imminent. Nevertheless both governments agreed to submit to the mediation
of the British Crown
to avoid
armed conflict.
