Argentine authorities, concerned about the strong connections…

Argentine authorities, concerned about the strong connections that araucanized tribes have with Chile, which allegedly gives Chile certain influence over the pampas, fear an eventual war with Chile over Patagonia in which the natives would side with the Chileans and that it would therefore be fought in the vicinities of Buenos Aires.

The decision to plan and execute what will be called the Conquest of the Desert, a controversial campaign by the Argentine government, had probably been triggered by the 1872 attack of Cufulcurá and his six thousand followers on the cities of General Alvear, Veinticinco de Mayo and Nueve de Julio, where three hundred criollos had been killed, and two hundred thousand heads of cattle taken.

Nicolas Avellanda, Argentina’s president from 1874, had run into trouble when he had to deal with the economic depression left by the Panic of 1873.

He names General Julio Roca as minister of war and tasks him to prepare a campaign that will bring and end to the "frontier problem" after the failure of the plan of Adolfo Alsina (his predecessor).

The natives frequently assault frontier settlements and steal horses and cattle, and the captured women and children are enslaved or offered as brides to the warriors.

Roca's approach to dealing with the native communities of the Pampas, however, is completely different from Alsina's, who had ordered the construction of a ditch and a defensive line of small fortresses across the Province of Buenos Aires.

Roca sees no way to end native attacks (malones) but by putting under effective government control all land up to the Río Negro in a campaign (known as the Conquest of the Desert) that will "extinguish, subdue or expel" the natives who inhabit the region.

This land conquest will also strengthen Argentina's strategic position against Chile.