Camino de los chilenos ( es, Road of the Chileans) or Rastrillada de los chilenos were a group of routes in

Patagonia Patagonia () refers to a geographical region that encompasses the southern end of South America, governed by Argentina and Chile. The region comprises the southern section of the Andes Mountains with lakes, fjords, temperate rainforests, and g ...

used by

Mapuche The Mapuche ( (Mapuche & Spanish: )) are a group of indigenous inhabitants of south-central Chile and southwestern Argentina, including parts of Patagonia. The collective term refers to a wide-ranging ethnicity composed of various groups who s ...

s and related araucanized

tribe The term tribe is used in many different contexts to refer to a category of human social group. The predominant worldwide usage of the term in English is in the discipline of anthropology. This definition is contested, in part due to confli ...

s to head

cattle Cattle (''Bos taurus'') are large, domesticated, cloven-hooved, herbivores. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae and the most widespread species of the genus ''Bos''. Adult females are referred to as cows and adult ma ...

stolen during malones from

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

across the

Andes The Andes, Andes Mountains or Andean Mountains (; ) are the longest continental mountain range in the world, forming a continuous highland along the western edge of South America. The range is long, wide (widest between 18°S – 20°S ...

. Camino de los chilenos ran a length of about 1000 km from the Buenos Aires Province to the mountain passes of Neuquén Province. The cattle were traded in Chile for weapons, food and alcoholic beverages. This trade has been pointed out as one of the most important causes of the war that affected the southern provinces of Argentina during large parts of the 19th century. Therefore, the demand for cattle by Chilean merchants was fueling the conflict in Argentina. To counter the cattle raids a trench called

Zanja de Alsina Zanja de Alsina (, '' Alsina's trench'') were a system of trenches and wooden watchtowers (''mangrullos'') built in the central and southern parts of Buenos Aires Province to defend the territories of the federal government against indigenous Mapu ...

was built by Argentina in the pampas in the 1870s. The use of this trade route effectively ended with the

Conquest of the Desert The Conquest of the Desert ( es, Conquista del desierto) was an Argentine military campaign directed mainly by General Julio Argentino Roca in the 1870s with the intention of establishing dominance over the Patagonian Desert, inhabited primar ...

(1876-1878) carried out by the

Argentine Army The Argentine Army ( es, Ejército Argentino, EA) is the land force branch of the Armed Forces of the Argentine Republic and the senior military service of Argentina. Under the Argentine Constitution, the president of Argentina is the commander- ...

Sources

*Richard O. Perry
"Argentina and Chile: The Struggle for Patagonia 1843-1881"
''The Americas'', Vol. 36, No. 3 (Jan., 1980), pp. 347–363, published by Academy of American Franciscan History {{mapuche Conquest of the Desert Argentina–Chile border crossings 19th century in Chile Trade routes Mapuche history