“Savages” into Supplicants: Subversive Women and Restitution Petitions in Córdoba, Argentina During the Rosas Era*
In response to an anti-Federalist insurgency within the province of Córdoba in 1840, Manuel López, the governor (r. 1835-1852) and staunchally 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. 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.