The publication of historical studies concerning the peopling of Buenos Aires province has been a major undertaking of the provincial archives “Ricardo Levene.” In this volume, number thirty-four of the series, Oscar Melli has more than adequately fulfilled his stated purpose of presenting the reader with an “exact account of the birth, organization, and development of a village and district of rural Buenos Aires province in the second half of the past century” (p. 8). In tracing the founding of Chacabuco district (1865) and the subsequent growth of its central town, the author has not attempted to write another laudatory pioneer chronicle. To the contrary, his thirteen carefully written chapters sketch the panorama of the agricultural and transportation revolution that transformed the Argentine pampas in the last half of the nineteenth century.
Particularly interesting to this reviewer is Melli’s account of the Argentine government’s attempt to populate the pampas south and west of the capital by granting land to national guard veterans of the Paraguayan War. Speculation and fraud soon ended this experiment. The study also recounts the disappearance of the Indian and gaucho, the policy and personal conflicts among local officials, the impact of immigrant farm workers on the region, and the discouraging struggle to provide a minimum of educational opportunities for the rural areas. Well-documented from provincial and national archives, clearly written and carefully organized, this volume is an excellent example of local history at its best.
