War declaration on the Chaco: primitive accumulation, endless dispossession and indigenous land in the Southamerican lowlands (17th and 18th centuries)

This article discusses an attempt of colonial expansion over indigenous land in the Chaco region in the light of some concepts coming from Colonial Studies and Marxist theory. Firstly, it specifically considers the relevance of primitive accumulation and endless dispossession theory for the understanding of colonial spaces history. Secondly, the relation between the war declaration on the Chaco made by Esteban de Urizar y Arespacochaga in a 1708 letter and the aforementioned concepts is established from an anthro-history perspective. Military campaigns coming from Tucuman in the early eighteenth century are considered here as extractive operations that collaborate with the goal of separating native people from the territories that they traditionally occupied. Lastly, we consider the pertinence of these concepts for the study of colonial territorial expansion.