The ‘friendship’ of (some) settlers: Lucy Taylor, ‘Lifting the veil of kindness: “friendship” and settler colonialism in Argentina’s Welsh Patagonia’, LSE Latin America and Caribbean Blog, 06/09/17 | settler colonial studies blog

The ‘friendship’ of (some) settlers: Lucy Taylor, ‘Lifting the veil of kindness: “friendship” and settler colonialism in Argentina’s Welsh Patagonia’, LSE Latin America and Caribbean Blog, 06/09/17

01Nov17

Excerpt: Now a popular tourist attraction, the Welsh community in Patagonia began life in 1865 with the arrival of 153 Welsh-speaking families. They sought to create a new Welsh homeland forged through the Welsh language, reflecting Welsh values, and in defiance of a disparaging ‘English’ elite. The strategy chosen for this anti-colonial enterprise was, paradoxically, the creation of a settler colony.

The myth of friendship is anchored in the story of first encounter, when Cacique Francisco and his wife arrived on a trading mission. The most detailed and reliable account tells us that after initial fearfulness they shared food. However, one of the colony’s leaders suggested that: “’they are just robbers and spies… Kill them both!’”. Everyone else thought differently, though: “‘I will not do that’ said one…’. ‘Let us show more courage and more of our Christian nature than rushing to take the life of an old man and his wife’ [said another]. Everyone agreed with this… In this way we laid the foundations of friendship”.

According to this account, the Welsh resisted the ‘usual’ barbarities of colonial violence and followed the righteous path of Christian charity, adopting a policy of friendship.

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