Resistencia, Argentina

Buenos Aires, Argentina, Airport

We were at the domestic terminal waiting for a flight to Resistencia. Whereas before we had remained coastal on our trips to South America, we were going inland this time. We as in Alex, Maureen, Moi, and Ms. Kesha DeSheilds. Ms. DeSheilds is ATA World Sparring Champion for 2015 and Moe’s instructor. We were headed down to Argentina for the Pan-American tournament that takes place every fall somewhere in South America.

Resistance Wasn’t Futile

It’s cool that the name of this city is “Resistance”. The native population fought back so hard against the Spanish Conquistadors that they actually named the town that. I would be proud to be one of them because they never gave up. Are there other cities in the world actually named after the inhabitants’ own chutzpah? This city is the capital of Chaco Province.

Resistencia sits on the Paraná River on the eastern edge of the Chaco Province in Argentina. As of 2021, it is the poorest province in Argentina. Chaco means ‘hunting ground’ in Quecha. The Paraná River flows for 3,032 miles south. It is the second-longest river in South America after the Amazon.

Bird Watching Alert: The Paraná River Delta is one of the best in the world for bird watching.

The Qom, also called Toba in Spanish, live here. They are the largest indigenous group in Argentina. The Spanish called them guaykurú. In their language, guaykurú means “the fierce ones, the indomitable ones”. Their language is also one of the two official languages of Paraguay.

What were they fighting?

They didn’t want to be told how to live or what to believe. They had their own ideas about the world and their place in it. And finally, they were nomads who hunted and fished. This was due to the harsh growing conditions. In fact, Jesuit priests in the 1500s understood this and didn’t press the issue. For example, the Qom did not grow and pick cotton because of the lousy growing conditions. Finally, the Qom were corralled into the dry part of Chaco. In that hot, arid country they could not go on. People started to live in Resistencia full-time in 1865. We also visited Corrientes across the river.