"Savages" into Supplicants: Subversive Women and Restitution Petitions in Córdoba, Argentina During the Rosas Era
Milledgeville, Georgia
In response to an anti-Federalist insurgency within the province of Córdoba in 1840, Manuel López, the governor (r. 1835-1852) and staunch ally to Juan Manuel de Rosas, issued a directive to all provincial judges to round up all suspected Unitarians and their families, seize their property, and strip them of their citizenship.1 In following these orders, Pedro José García, the local juez de paz (Justice of the Peace), the principle law enforcement body of Pueblo de la Toma in the heart of Córdoba province, proceeded to the farmhouse of Faustino Avalo, who had recently been "classified" as a "savage Unitarian," a political label describing any person opposing Federalist rule. García charged Avalos with secretly aiding and abetting Unitarian armies, which had passed through the province during the anti-Federalist uprisings in the previous year. As evidence of his guilt, according to the confiscation order, Avalos went missing for weeks and was nowhere to be found. Indeed, when García arrived, only Avalos's wife, María Juana Villafáñez, and their ten children remained. Nevertheless, García, along with two other "trusted" witnesses, read the order and confiscated the entire family's property. Villafáñez and her children could only watch helplessly as their clothes, toys, furniture, and livestock were taken away in wagons and their house boarded up. Yet, García did not arrest nor imprison Villafáñez and her children; instead, they were allowed to stay with her brother, Gervasio, a well-known Federalist and one of the "trusted" witnesses to his sister's material loss and public humiliation.2 [End Page 59]
With financial and legal support from her brother, María Juana was able to petition authorities for the release of her family's property and restore her and her children—but not her husband—to their original status as "citizens." Further distancing herself from her accused husband and his political crimes, María Juana claimed that she and her children had "always been faithful and obedient to the [Federalist] governor." As proof of her loyalty, she had been a "loving mother" to a "numerous family of ten children."3 She also used the occasion to explain what Federalism meant for her:
The Federalist cause, for all of its principles, has as its aims to restore laws and to lavish its citizens with charity and equality. My petition also has a similar goal. In principle, by law, a woman should not lose half of her property because of the crimes of her husband, nor should children through our institutions lose their inheritance rights. I respect the decisions of authorities, but considering the facts in this case, I object to the decisions taken because [taking our property] is not significant to the State, and it ruins a family to the most deplorable conditions.4
Based on legal precedent, moreover, she argued that her dowry protected her and her children's property from confiscation because it had never belonged to her husband in the first place. She also secured letters of support from Federalist friends, who attested to her good name and loyalty. On July 28th, only nine days after the confiscation took place, authorities granted Villafáñez's request, basing their decision on her "Federalist equality." In the political fire and brimstone, Lazarus-like, María Juana and her children had been resuscitated as new "citizens" for the "Federalist cause."5
María Juana's story of political survival and restitution provides a much different view of how Juan Manuel de Rosas and his Federalist allies treated matters of political criminality in Argentina. Historians have long emphasized the brutal methods of his rule and the finality of his decisions in dealing with Unitarian suspects and their families. In his well-known biography of the dictator...
