Perceptions of the Members of Viceregal Expeditions on the Indigenous Management of Territories and Resources of the North of the Patagonia by the End of the 18th Century

Abstract

At the late eighteenth century Bourbon authorities ordered expeditions towards the interior of certain colonial territories of which only the coasts were known but they were considered to be under their domain. The trip diaries of the colonial officials sent to northern Patagonia allow us to analyze their interpretations on the indigenous groups that inhabited the region and the management of the territory and resources they did. We think that perceptions and uses of the landscape of the expedition evidenced the power struggles to make sense of territory and were closely linked to the representations that travelers were on the «others». The Hispanic-creoles interpreted the ways in which Indians used the land and certain resources conditioned by the limited knowledge that they had about the landscape, in contraposition with the management of the landscape by the natives.