2024-03-06 00:00:00
With the aim of making some clarifications regarding the letter “Roca and sugar” (04/02) from reader Pedro Pablo Verasaluse, I will say that Roca is questioned, in my opinion unfairly, for the Desert Campaign, the problematic indigenous, and also “to a lesser extent” as the reader mentions, because of the sugar issue. Regarding the Campaign to the desert, this was approved in the presidency of Avellaneda by law No. 947 sanctioned on 10/4/1878, and agreed on a budget of 1.7 million gold pesos to equip an army and carry out the Campaign to the desert. Avellaneda supported Roca’s project because the Chileans wanted Patagonia. The Conquest was not the annihilation of the Indian, who was already defeated, but the energetic attitude of possession of that part of Argentina, which until then, in fact was not ours. More than a military expedition, it was an act of possession, pushing the Indian towards the mountain range to prevent him from stealing cows and horses that were sold in Chile. Roca sealed pacts with the tribes, and the chief Manuel Namuncurá was named colonel of the Argentine Army. His son Ceferino entered the Salesian Congregation, and died in Rome at the age of 18, being our “Blessed Ceferino Namuncurá”. The Indians who joined the sugar industry did so by integrating into the local population, and therefore with the same social benefits that the sugar industrialists gave to the province. There should be no industry in the country more suited to the needs of its employees, workers and families. And the contribution of industrialists to Tucumán’s progress is notable. An example that was not well appreciated was Don Alfredo Guzmán, who built the San Miguel canal, which “without the slightest doubt, was the most important private irrigation project in South America.” And then an impressive charity action. The Maternity Home inaugurated in 1904, the Nursery Room, Guillermina Leston de Guzmán School, San José Home, San Roque Home. The Guzmán couple conceived an assistance plan in the three stages of life: childhood, youth and old age. It was certainly a coherent plan. On the productive level, he created the Agricultural Experimental Station in 1907, the Model Farm began in 1914 due to his concern for producing hygienic milk, the Guillermina farm with all varieties of citrus, the Concepción Ingenio, with its circle of workers, library, hospital, club , school. And his last great work, the Church of La Merced, which was inaugurated on September 24, 1950, shortly before Guzmán’s death. But there were many philanthropic Tucumans. The Méndez brothers gave the Bishopric the land that served as a base for the Seminary, Federico Helguera, who gave up his governor’s salaries to build a school that he donated to the State, the brothers José and Isaías Padilla, who donated the building of the Franciscan Sisters, the Brígido Terán’s wife donated a pavilion at the Children’s Hospital, Manuel García Fernández donated the school that bears the name of his son Tulio to the Salesians. Juan B Terán, founder of the University, the wives of doctors Juan Manuel Terán and Eugenio Méndez, founded the Hogar del Niño and the San Cayetano Farm. This list of benefactors is incomplete, because all the sugar mills, in addition to producing sugar, provided education, religious training, health and sports to their staff, which demonstrates what Tucumán businessmen have done for their people from the province. And Roca, as the builder of Argentina that these illustrious people from Tucumán continued, deserves for Roca Avenue to recover its name in its entirety. I hope that the mayor and the capital’s Deliberative Council decide so.
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