The Quilmes people, also known as ''Kilmes'', were an indigenous tribe of the

Diaguita The Diaguita people are a group of South American indigenous people native to the Chilean Norte Chico and the Argentine Northwest. Western or Chilean Diaguitas lived mainly in the Transverse Valleys which incised in a semi-arid environment. E ...

group settled in the western subandean valleys of today’s Tucumán province, in northwestern

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 List of South American countries by area, second-largest ...

. They fiercely resisted the

Inca The Inca Empire (also known as the Incan Empire and the Inka Empire), called ''Tawantinsuyu'' by its subjects, ( Quechua for the "Realm of the Four Parts", "four parts together" ) was the largest empire in pre-Columbian America. The adm ...

invasions of the 15th century, and continued to resist the

Spaniards Spaniards, or Spanish people, are a Romance ethnic group native to Spain. Within Spain, there are a number of national and regional ethnic identities that reflect the country's complex history, including a number of different languages, both ...

for 130 years, until being defeated in 1667. Spanish invaders relocated the last 2,000 survivors to a reservation (''reducción'') 20 km south of

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata, on South ...

. This 1,500 km journey was made by foot, causing hundreds of Quilmes to die in the process. By 1810, the reservation was abandoned as a result of its having become a ghost town. The survivors ultimately settled in what is now the city of

Quilmes Quilmes () is a city on the coast of the Rio de la Plata, in the , on the south east of the Greater Buenos Aires. The city was founded in 1666 and it is the seat of the eponymous county. With a population of 230,810, it is located south of the ...

. The Quilmes Indians were one of the fiercest cultures which resisted the

s but eventually fell to the Spaniards. Today, there are only a few Quilmes left in Tucumán Province.

Quilmes ruins

On the way to

Cafayate Cafayate () is a town located at the central zone of the Valles Calchaquíes in the province of Salta, Argentina. It sits above mean sea level, at a distance of from Salta City and from Buenos Aires. It has about 12,000 inhabitants (). The t ...

, 182 km from

San Miguel de Tucumán San Miguel de Tucumán (; usually called simply Tucumán) is the capital and largest city of Tucumán Province, located in northern Argentina from Buenos Aires. It is the fifth-largest city of Argentina after Buenos Aires, Córdoba, Argentina, ...

, the

Ruins of Quilmes The Ruins of Quilmes is an archaeological site in the Calchaquí Valleys, Tucumán Province, Argentina. The site was the largest pre-Columbian settlement in the country, occupying about 30 hectares. The area dates back to ca 850 AD and was inhabi ...

may be seen; this is a fortified citadel which was raised by the Quilmes Indians. One of the most important archaeological locations in Argentina, the ruins were discovered by ethnographer and

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the st ...

Samuel Lafone Quevedo in 1888 and restored in 1978. As of 2007, this archaeological site is in private hands, and has a private hotel on its territory.

Population

Population at the beginning of the second half of the 17th century, is estimated in about 2,000 families, approximately 10,000 persons. When the

Calchaquí Wars The Calchaquí Wars ( es, Guerras calchaquíes) were a series of military conflicts between the Diaguita Confederation and the Spanish Empire in the 1560–1667 period. The wars raged in the Argentine Northwest, in what are now the provinces of ...

ended survived about 2,000 people (1665), which were taken prisoners and deported to a reservation located near Buenos Aires. But to the reservation just arrived only 200 families (about 1,000 people). In 1726, there were 141 people. William Beresford found a ghost town when he visited the reservation during the first British invasion of the River Plate in 1806. According to the last parish priest of the reserve, the last natives died in the late 18th century. The population was decimated by the high rate of infant mortality and epidemics. The government officially declared the ethnic group extinct on February 12, 1812 (but admitting that there are mestizo families) and the reservation was finally closed on August 14, 1812.

Eponyms

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriat ...

of lizard, '' Liolaemus quilmes'', which is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found else ...

to Argentina, is named in honor of the Quilmes People.Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). ''The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. . ("Quilmes", p. 214). There is also a dinosaur called ''

Quilmesaurus ''Quilmesaurus'' is a genus of carnivorous abelisaurid theropod dinosaur from the Patagonian Upper Cretaceous (Campanian stage) of Argentina. It was a member of Abelisauridae, closely related to genera such as ''Carnotaurus''. The only known rem ...

''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Quilmes People Diaguita Indigenous peoples in Argentina Indigenous peoples of the Andes People from Tucumán Province