100 Pesos Patagonia Conquest

Issued to mark the centenary of the "Conquest of the Desert," the 1879 military campaign in which General Julio Argentino Roca systematically drove indigenous Mapuche and Tehuelche peoples from Patagonia through a combination of organized slaughter and forced displacement. The campaign opened roughly 15,000 square miles to European settlement and made Roca a national hero — and eventual two-term president. That Argentina's military junta chose to commemorate it in 1979 was not accidental; the regime found obvious ideological utility in celebrating a predecessor's violent pacification campaign while conducting its own.