The Military Prison of Isla de los Estados
BY JUAN CARLOS GARCÍA BASALO
(EXTRACTED FROM TODO ES HISTORIA MAGAZINE Nº 366. JANUARY 1998)
THE ISLA DE LOS ESTADOS IS DISCOVERED ON DECEMBER 25, 1615 BY THE DUTCH JACOBO LE MAIRE AND CORNELIO SCHOOUTTEN. BY LAW NUMBER 269, PROMULATED BY MITER ON OCTOBER 10, 1868, DAYS BEFORE THE END OF HIS PRESIDENTIAL TERM, IT IS GRANTED IN PROPERTY TO LUIS PIEDRA BUENA. BOVE EXPLORED IT IN 1882. IN THE LAST DECADE OF THE XIX CENTURY, IT IS REPEATED TIMES APPOINTED AS AN APPROPRIATE PLACE TO RADICATE A PRISON. IN FACT, ON A SMALL SCALE AND IN A MUCH INFORMAL WAY, IT FULFILLS THAT CRIMINAL FUNCTION AS OF 1884.
NATURAL PRISON
Who most vehemently defended the idea of "natural prison" was Julio Popper (1857-1893). In the conference he delivered on July 26, 1891 at the Argentine Geographical Institute, without directly referring to Governor Mario Cornero's project to establish a prison in Tierra del Fuego, oppose his fabulous plan to assign the Isla de los Estados to prison.
In Popper's opinion, "(...) the Island meets all the conditions, responds to the most scrupulous demands to make it a natural, unbeatable prison. The Island is called to be sooner or later, the Presidio of the Republic, because for that purpose it offers all the moral and economic advantages ". Possessed by his project, he lets his fertile imagination run freely: "(...) There are no walls or fortifications needed there; a single navy ship would be amply enough to make any attempt at evasion impossible. fuel is inexhaustible, hygienic conditions are excellent, and inmates would enjoy relative freedom, country life, exempt from the demoralizing atmosphere of the penitentiaries and engaged in beneficial and productive work. There, carpentry workshops could easily and inexpensively set up. , furniture factories, turnery and cooperage factories. In the isthmus that separates the Cook port from the Vancouver port, a shipyard could be established for boats and in all the ports of the north of the Island, factories that would transform the abundant wood into paper pulp. industry that yields excellent results to Norway, where woods, white pine, are less typical of the industry than eu the beech of the Isla de los Estados.
A reserve of 20 leagues in Tierra del Fuego, would produce more than enough cattle to provide fresh meat to the convicts, in conditions much cheaper than in Buenos Aires, while legumes and especially potatoes could be grown in the The same Island, where the tests carried out for this purpose by the San Juan Subprefecture gave satisfactory results. "
Popper closes his penological fantasy with an affirmation, as emphatic as inconsistent: "With the establishment of a prison on the Isla de los Estados, in short, a considerable economy would be obtained for the Treasury and the valorization of thousands of unproductive arms, which they would serve to promote new and profitable industries for the country. "
As a good visionary, Popper dispenses with the conditions and limitations that until today impose an indomitable nature and a poorly known social reality. He forgets - or does he disdain? - the scientific observations of the time on the Island. Few years before, in the exploration carried out in February 1885, Federico Mouglier noted in his travel diary: "The climate of the States is not bearable for the human beings, as evidenced by the meteorological observations that we have in view, there is not a single day in the year that has not rained or snowed, added to a temperature that has rarely exceeded 12º above zero in summer and fluctuates in winter between 5º and 15º below zero ".
However, Popper's fascinating idea gathers support. Juan Manuel Eizaguirre writes in the newspaper Sud América: "Lately there was talk of a very successful project: to build a prison in it. This is an idea that should be put into practice immediately." Until the draft of the Penal Code of Norberto Piñero, Rodolfo Rivarola and José Nicolás Matienzo, presented to the Executive Power in June 1891 -days before Popper's conference- in its punitive system includes the penalty of imprisonment, to comply with forced labor in any of the southern islands (Art. 15) and the penalty of deportation, consisting of relegation for an indefinite period of time to the Island of the States or another designated for that purpose.
In reality, the first convicts arrive on the Isla de los Estados with the South Atlantic Expeditionary Division, commanded by Navy Colonel Augusto Lasserre (1826-1906), whose main mission, or at least ostensible, is to establish a lighthouse and a subprefecture on the island and another in Tierra del Fuego. They come from the National Penitentiary of Buenos Aires. Lasserre himself chooses them from justice and public instruction makes them available to him. "(...) in order to be employed in the various jobs that originate in the sub-prefectures of Tierra del Fuego and Isla de los Estados and serve their respective sentences there."
From then on, a selective dispatch of military convicts began -the first are not-, to be employed in the roughest and most painful jobs of the sub-prefecture that Lasserre left installed, together with the lighthouse, in San Juan de Salvamento. Thus, for example, at the beginning of 1889, the War Council sentenced the boatswain Bayona, of the corvette Chacabuco, for injuries at the end of the quarter and the officer of the guard, to ten years in prison, which he must serve in Tierra del Fuego or on Isla de los Estados. In November 1893, the Executive Power ordered that the Marine Police Station "(...) hand over the rationing that corresponds to four inmates (...) and must henceforth include them in the rationing that is supplied to the Maritime Prefecture of the Island of the States ".
In 1894, despite the existence of the Puerto Santa Cruz Military Prison, four cases were recorded in which as many death sentences were commuted to ten years in prison on the Island of the States. Finally, in order to regularize the administrative aspect of the presence of condemned military men and their families on the island, on April 9, 1895, a decree of the Executive Power authorized the Marine Police Station "(...) so that, jointly With the rationing and clothing that is provided to the personnel of the Island of the States, the one that corresponds to the inmates serving a sentence on said Island is delivered, in accordance with the attached forms for the months of February and March next past., and must be adopted this procedure from now on, for which purpose the Sub-prefect will send a monthly sheet equal to the families of the prisoners; for the purposes of rationing, one ration must be considered for each older person, and for each two minors only one, without uniform " .
THE PRESIDIO OF SAN JUAN DEL SALVAMENTO
The Isla de los Estados since 1884 has as the only inhabited point the port of San Juan del Salvamento, headquarters of the Subprefecture and the lighthouse, officially lit on May 25, 1884 and that was to go out on October 1, 1902, at the beginning to operate the one installed in the neighboring New Year's Island, more modern and better located. The budget law for 1883, which authorizes the creation of the Subprefecture on the Island and another in Tierra del Fuego, at the initiative of the San Luis deputy Doctor Cristóbal Pereyra - "for a political, national and humanitarian need" -, assign to each one of them a crew composed of a sub-prefect, an assistant, a clerk, two guards, three helmsmen and 25 sailors.
On May 10, 1895, when the Second National Census was taken, the island has 56 inhabitants, 9 families and 3 houses. If thirteen people who make up the crew of the Golondrina notice and another eight from the Punta Lasserre lighthouse are deducted, the 35 of the subprefecture include a boatswain, a carpenter, a blacksmith, 14 sailors, 2 women, a child and 15 assigned, as shown calls those sentenced to prison. A third are foreigners, undoubtedly former hookers, mainly from the army: two from the East (one Vicente Zuloaga, the black cook, who Gerlache and Payró will remember); a Chilean, a Belgian and another Bolivian. Among the convicts registered by the census taker Carlos Méndez, sub-prefect at that time, none of the ten inmates that Lasserre brought from the National Penitentiary to build the two sub-prefectures and serve their sentences on the island appear. Ten of those registered are still in the presidio when Payró visits him.
The closure of the Military Prison of Puerto Santa Cruz, ordered by the Executive Power on June 19, 1896, only incorporated a small contingent of six inmates to the Island of the States. However, it is considered prudent to reinforce the staff. A general agreement of ministers, dated July 25, 1896, so provides, "(...) because the number of inmates serving their sentences there has increased, with a part of those who kept the dissolved Military Prison of Santa Cruz
The reinforcement consists of appointing a military auxiliary in commission to Frigate Lieutenant Santiago Cressi, adding a carpenter and a cook, and incorporating the seafaring personnel of the Thetis Bay sub-prefecture, "which was suppressed unnecessarily." During the year 1897 the average monthly term of convicts is 23 individuals. There were 13 discharges (4.57%), 2 discharges (0.70%) and 2 deaths (0.70%). However, the increase in staff that year, the sub-prefect communicates to the General Prefecture that he has seven inmates who, due to their terrible behavior, are unbearable. There is no punishment or repression that can correct them.
They constitute a serious danger in cases where the lifeboat leaves the port, which needs to be manned by a boatswain and fourteen sailors. The sub-prefecture - he says - is then little less than garrisoned. Shortly after, on the wintry night of July 3, a serious blood event occurs. It is caused by the former soldier of the 3rd Infantry Isidro Ramírez. He is serving an indefinite sentence. Payró described him as a "healthy and robust man, very white and even sympathetic if it weren't for his wicked and grim gaze; he was undoubtedly the most perverse criminal of all those convicts, among those who have a pierced soul, as is vulgarly said. ". That night, taking advantage of the darkness and the defenselessness of his victim, he stabbed the pantry Carruza to death for denying him the sugarcane ration.
When Ramírez arrived in Buenos Aires in April 1900 to be taken to the National Penitentiary, given the failure of the Military Prison to contain his excesses, some newspapers attributed 19 deaths to him and will say that he killed the island's butler with 14 stab wounds, one per every day to leave him without his ration of cane. Se non e vero ... All these - and other - revealing circumstances of a state of discipline inappropriate for a prison, even more so from a military prison, in which an invariable, predominance of rigor over all other considerations is presupposed, they determine that a detachment of the Marine Corps be sent, periodically renewed.
Among those who visit the Isla de los Estados in those years is the Antarctic explorer Adrian de Gerlache de Gomey (1866-1934). On board the Belgium, between 1897 and 1898 he made his famous trip to the polar regions. At the beginning of 1898, the expedition arrived at San Juan del Salvamento, to make water. On January 14, he leaves for Hughes Bay. In the book that he published about his trip, Gerlache says of the prison: "For several years, the Island of the States has served as a penitentiary for military sentences. With the exception of some who are married and enjoy the privilege of occupying with their family In a miserable hut, the prisoners are housed in a wooden barrack. They are under the supervision of two lieutenants and some men of the troops, but in reality, they enjoy relative freedom. Their tasks consist of providing firewood for heating, take care of the Piedra Buena avenue and the offices of the Subprefecture, etc ... They are allowed to leave the station when some urgent work does not demand them, and they always return on time. The soil of the Isla de los Estados is everywhere wet and It offers no recourse. He who leaves prison gets no more advantage than a rude diversion in the monotony of his exile. One or two nights spent under the roof, in the open and the anguish of the hunger soon calms all vagabond humor. As for the escape, it is impossible. The Lemaire Strait is too wide (about 20 miles) and the currents so violent that they will prevent its crossing by swimming ... It rains, snows or hails in San Juan del Salvamento, two hundred and fifty-two days a year and there are only sixty days calm ... The sky is almost always overcast and the wind blows with an average speed of seven and a half meters per second. The Land of the States is not, then, an Eden, and the fate of the officials who must live there is not much more enviable than that of the prisoners they keep.
Invited by the assistant Mr. Nicanor Fernández, in charge of the sub-prefecture due to the absence of its owner, Gerlache participates in a peculiar meal consisting of three mutton dishes, prepared in a different way. "Ram and always ram," he comments, "this is the only meat that the Argentine transports bring, procured in Ushuaia or Harberton." "The guests," he adds, "are, in addition to Mr. Fernández and the members of the Expedition, Dr. Ferrand, two second lieutenants, a distinguished prisoner, Captain C and his wife.
Captain C has been sentenced to life for having killed a superior and his young wife, wanting to share the miseries of this terrible exile and mitigate them with his presence, he had the admirable courage to accompany him. "Days later, in the company of Captain C and Doctor Ferrand, he walks through the rocky places of penguins, cormorants and otariums in the vicinity of San Juan del Salvamento. Captain C, the singular "distinguished prisoner", who draws the attention of Gerlache, - singular for his social lineage, for his European education, his bad star in Zárate, in Mendoza, in Curamalal-, is none other than the captain of the National Guards Juan Carlos Castex. His last misfortune occurs in the middle of 1896. on the night of June 2, in the Curamalal Camp , Castex kills his subordinate, Lieutenant Federico Kuls, with a revolver shot. On September 30, the Supreme War Council sentenced him to prison for an indefinite period of time for the crime of treacherous homicide with a circum mitigating stance. That circumstance - having observed the defendant's good conduct before committing his crime - saves him, for the second time, from capital punishment. Days later, he is ordered to serve his sentence on the Island of the States, "until the military prison is established." On board the Villarino, on December 3 he leaves for the south. Four years he remains on the island, first in San Juan del Salvamento and then in Puerto Cook. In 1900 he went to the Ushuaia Prison. There he spent time as a school teacher in the Minors Section, with excellent results, says director Muratgia. At the end of 1902 or the beginning of 1903 he joined the new Military Prison of Ushuaia, in Puerto Golondrina, in the process of authorization. Finally, on July 9, 1903, President Roca commutes the sentence of imprisonment for that of confinement in the Territory of Tierra del Fuego, for the same time as the sentence. That same summer of 1898 Roberto J. Payró made his "Journalistic excursion to the Patagonian coasts, Tierra del Fuego and Isla de los Estados", origin of his work "La Australia Argentina". He arrives at San Juan del Salvamento in the Villarino transport and undertakes his return on May 1st. Therefore, he has enough time to get to know in depth, even in his intimacy, the life and characters of the lighthouse of the Subprefecture and the Military Prison. From Buenos Aires, his traveling companions are, among others, the island's new sub-prefect, frigate lieutenant Luis Demartini, the head of the Lasserre lighthouse, Augusto de la Serna and Doctor Pinchetti, a doctor assigned to the prison. That daily relationship with them, at all hours, shortens distances, but also imposes subtle inhibitions and favors the journalist's mission.
Demartini receives the sub-prefecture and its annexes from the assistant Nicanor Fernández. He returns unhappy from the first inspection of him. Payró points out: "Indeed, at first glance you could see that there was no organization or discipline in the Presidio. Good work awaited Demartini. Payró adheres to the theory of the natural prison advocated by Popper: "The Island of the States - he emphatically affirms - seems made expressly for prison and fortress." Pages before he calls it "natural prison and ship tomb" and wonders why he does not claim the name of Isla del Diablo, which has usurped it with fewer titles. Therefore, he is not surprised that it is a military prison. On the other hand, if he is surprised "that it has not given greater scope, also taking civilian prisoners and testing a penal colony that -properly organized- would have to give excellent results."
Payró sees the prison problem only from one angle. Safety. At that time, there are around fifty convicts in prison. Among them there are 18 homicides and two homosexuals. Much of it consigns identity, crime and conviction. There are 5 condemned to imprisonment for an indefinite period, 20 to prison for 10 years, 4 to 12 ... More than one - such as Trinidad Cuello - is serving a long term of imprisonment as a substitute for the death penalty to which he was originally sentenced. With one exception, they are all soldiers or classes of the corps of the line. The exception corresponds to a former captain of the National Guards, Juan Carlos Castex. He enjoyed - says Payró - great privileges until the arrival of the new sub-prefect. Six of the prisoners have more or less legitimate women, "as if they were trying to establish a kind of penal colony there." Contradicting what he affirmed before, Payró comments: "Insufficient trial, and certainly unsuccessful, since it will be difficult to establish a population in San Juan, whose resources cannot be more scarce, and whose climate or can be more inclement." "These prisoners have had, in general, good behavior and this improvement as the discipline is implanted with more rigidity. Before it was very relaxed, the springs loose, at their discretion the inmates. Now, and especially since Demartini has been made in charge of the sub-prefecture, order reigns and the children enter the path; they dedicate themselves to work and give little to do. " "The reorganization of the prison - he will say in another chapter - was already plausible when I undertook the return trip."
THE CEMETERY
A chronicler of the time points out that in that desolate cemetery lie "the remains of the crew of the boat Lina, from Hamburg, which on March 15 of last year (1900) found the greatest Grandson at Cape Cornell, in the center of the town. north of the Island.
The other graves indicate the following deceased: Teófilo Martínez and Marcos Bordet, from Entre Ríos and Adolfo Seguel, from Patagones, the three soldiers from the picket line; Fermín Bazán, sailor, and the convicted Simón Rodríguez, Paraguayan; Pedro Royal, Belgian; Vicente Ávila, from Santa Fe; Cruz Amorales and Manuel Puebla, from Mendoza; Enrique Rojas, from Entre Ríos. To which we must add three more convicts, of which I only remember the names of Martín Rodríguez and Pedro Carrasco. "
THE PRESIDIO IN PUERTO COOK
Brief is the permanence of the military prison in San Juan de Salvamento.
Together with the sub-prefecture, he has the same fate. On February 22, 1897, by general order No. 9, the Navy General Staff announced to the navigators: "(...) that the Executive Power has resolved, taking into account the best conditions of shelter and shelter, to transfer the sub-prefecture currently located in San Juan de Salvamento at Puerto Cook, Isla de los Estados. As soon as the change has been verified, it will be announced by another notice to sailors. "
Despite the short distance that separates both points of the island -12 miles, that is to say 4 leagues- due to the difficulties that the terrain opposes, the transfer will take time. Carlos R. Gallardo, who visited the island in February 1902, on his return from the mission entrusted to him by the Ministry of the Interior in Tierra del Fuego, to clarify aspects of the performance of Governor Félix A. Carrié, when he disembarked says that: " (...) the desire is felt to clap hands with those who, with their knowledge, their energy, their intelligence, their work, those who, through a commendable leading action, have known how to carry out the work of clean up, as far as is humanly possible, the place where more than a hundred men, convicts or guards live. And when visiting the work in detail, it is known that no less than five meters of peat, that the land has been filled with gravel, that three or four palisades of poles have been built to contain the gravel that forms the great boardwalk facing the sea and that all these works represent much more work than required by the construction of the rooms s and dependencies ... "
VISIT TO THE MILITARY PRISON IN COOK
Gallardo leaves a neat description of the definitive facilities of the Military Presidio in Cook that is worth remembering: "At the bottom of Cook's Bay and extended along the shore, are the boxes that form the military prison ... The general appearance is charming ... Starting our visit from the right, we first find the boathouse for boats, and then, in a box 16 meters long by 6 wide, the bakery ... In that box there is the warehouse for the flours, the dough sauce and a machine brick kiln. Next, there is the Meteorological Observatory installed in a 16 square meter kiosk. It has recording instruments that rest on good masonry bases ... In front of the pier is the house of the head of the prison, a house measuring 10 meters by 17.50 meters, surrounded by a glass-covered corridor, equipped with good heating devices and with all the comforts that e can be desired.
This luxurious construction has been made in large part taking advantage of the remains of shipwrecked ships. In another 16 by 7 meter building, there are four spacious rooms for officers and the pharmacy. The second chief's house measures 9 by 12 meters and in front is a glass-covered corridor, which is extremely necessary in winter. The food storage is 16 by 6 meters and the provisions well installed, occupy the walls and the center of the shed. Below are six stone cells, with a ceiling and wooden floor, cellular system. The whole forms a stone kiosk. The body of the guard occupies a room measuring 8 by 16 meters, serving as accommodation for the troops another room of the same dimensions. The two kitchens are the same; its dimensions are 5 by 6 meters and the paved wooden floor. The convicts are housed in two contiguous blocks forming a single shed measuring 12 meters by 17.50. the beds are on the sides and reach 48 in each block, that is, there is comfort for 96 prisoners. In the center of the stables are the tables. At the time of my visit, other blocks were being built just like the previous ones. The infirmary occupies a 20 by 6 meter shed.
There is a room for convicts, another for the troops and a small room for cures. At ten the number of toilets, hygienic, made with machine bricks reaches. At the far left and somewhat boarding school you can see the cemetery. Another three 6 by 16 meter sheds are being built for workshops, warehouses and families of the prisoners. All the squares are mounted on wooden piles of the Island, some of them reaching up to 5 meters deep. Zinc on the outside and wood on the inside is common in buildings, as are plank floors and ceilings. All the frames are made of wood from the island itself and the rest of tea pine brought from Buenos Aires. Each house has two iron tanks of 1800 liters each, in which the rainwater is collected to drink, since that of the streams is untouchable because of the taste and color that the peat gives it. In order to make the effects of a fire less disastrous, a distance of six meters has been left between building and building. The henhouse and the farmhouse, whose land has been taken from Ushuaia in Tierra del Fuego, were useless; the first because of not being able to raise animals and the second because the vegetables do not flourish ... I will finish this review by saying that the pavilions have electric bells that put the different departments in communication with the body of guard and the head of the prison ".
Gallardo forgets to remember that all that immense and rough work, carried out in harsh climatic conditions, is carried out by the condemned themselves, "on ration and without pay," like the former galley slaves, their predecessors. The operation to relocate the prison was concluded on March 14, 1899, two years after the announcement of the transfer of the subprefecture. Since then, the Isla de los Estados has two occupied points: San Juan de Salvamento, with the Punta Lasserre lighthouse and Puerto Cook, the new headquarters of the sub-prefecture and the Military Prison. The change of situation originates new administrative measures. By General Order No. 31, of February 12, 1900, the Military Chief of the Presidio is established as the only superior authority of the Island. Shortly after, by decree of August 26, 1900, in response to the reorganization of the sub-prefecture and for economic reasons, the position of assistant in the stationery and in the prison was abolished and the dismissal of Augusto de la Serna, who held it, was ordered. At the beginning of 1901, by agreement between the Ministries of Navy and War, the detachment of the Coastal Artillery battalion was replaced in its surveillance service by another of the 1st Infantry, from the Río Gallegos Garrison. The Ministry of the Navy Onofre Betbeder, in May 1901, expressed to the National Congress a certain satisfaction with the change in the location of the prison: "The current prison facility is as comfortable as the island's harsh climate allows it to be (...) It is pleasant for me to state here that the discipline and order that reign in the Presidio and other dependencies of the Island are worthy of praise. "
As long as the almost permanent inclement weather permits, the long hundred convicts that the prison has, occupy themselves with various tasks, almost all of mere maintenance and subsistence. There are cooks, bakers, tailors, nurses, hairdressers, pantry and pharmacy assistants ... There is no lack of making trinkets, using the few materials that can be found on the island. They are the traditional works of prisoners of all times and from all latitudes, in which sometimes traits of the most candid naïve art emerge over the waste of patience. These curious trifles have a limited market: the passengers of the national transport that, from time to time, arrive on the island. An opportunity that the inmates also take advantage of, through their invisible and efficient intelligence service, to smuggle a long-awaited alcoholic beverage. Although, in principle, both the staff and the convicts were exposed to the same rigors of a hostile and brave nature, the situation of both groups differs substantially. The staff, whatever their hierarchy, is renewed periodically, apart from sometimes enjoying long leave. The convicts, with heavy sentences on their backs that are weaker every day, must remain on the island for many years, with the physical and psychological deterioration that this implies. Nothing is opposed to the generalized cultural primitivism of almost all of them. Not the incipient school for adults that the Santa Cruz Military Prison had, nor hints of spiritual assistance. The marginalization, the isolation is total: physical, moral and social. The right medical assistance is not always available at the right time. If someone becomes ill - writes the correspondent for El País - he has to get well as he can; or if not to get sick, or to hit a blow that breaks a leg or a rib, you must wait for a transport to come so that the on-board doctor prescribes you ... and the doctor leaves to continue his trip and the patient to the cemetery if the case is serious.
Sporadically, the army sends one of its doctors to the island. In March 1901, because this erratic system could not continue, the Executive Power ordered the appointment of a certified doctor. The appointment falls to Dr. Nicanor Morales, with the monthly allowance of $ 400, which will be paid, in equal parts, by the Ministries of War and Navy. A growing ill-fated halo surrounds the military prison, in large part due to the unhealthy climate and the havoc it unintentionally wreaks on its clientele. Perhaps also to some disciplinary arbitrariness. At the end of 1900, the Supreme Council of War and Navy commissioned one of its members, Commodore Enrique Guillermo Howard, to inspect the prison on Isla de los Estados.
He returns on the ship 1º de Mayo on February 11, 1901. from what transpires from his report; Howard strongly recommends that the removal of Cook's prison proceed without delay. Luis D. Cabral, his military assistant and secretary for many years beginning in 1895, says that Howard took advantage of the 1900 vacation to make that trip and that upon his return "(...) he presented a concise but luminous report, condemning all the most vivid color, so inhuman, was imprisoned, comparable to the Siberia of autocratic Russia, in a country of laws as free and benign as those of this republic. more criminals than they were and despite their convictions, this procedure was imposed as a reparation to justice on the part of the government. And it added: "At least on the shores of Ushuaia." Disclosed such a noble thought arisen from a righteous spirit, advocating for those wretches, he found a unanimous and spontaneous echo in the press ".
On this trip, Howard also notes that, due to non-observance of the principle of retroactivity of the most benign criminal law, in the prison there is a group of convicts for desertion, who are prosecuted and sentenced while the old Spanish legislation still applies, which punishes with ten years of imprisonment - the maximum of this penalty - that crime that under the new legislation in force punishes with only four of that penalty at most. Howard's presentation originates the preparation of a decree that provides for the freedom of those who have already served those four years in prison. Shortly afterwards, travelers arriving in the National Guard transport declared to the press: "The island's climate is unhealthy, for which reason the number of patients increases considerably in the prison." In August of that same year, Pedro Gori, founder of the Argentine Criminological magazine, the first publication of its kind published in our country, when reporting on his trip to the southern territories, refers to the military prison of the Island of the States. and demands for the convicts a little more humanity.
However, the qualified opinions adverse to the permanence of the prison and the almost certainty that their transfer would be arranged to another point, new constructions are undertaken and the sending of convicts continues. Thus, in October 1901, the Santa Cruz transport set sail from Buenos Aires, leading another consignment of convicts to the military prison. The return to Buenos Aires of Carlos Gallardo from his trip to the south coincides with the dissemination of news that account for acts of indiscipline produced in the detachment that guards the military prison. The newspaper La Nación interviews him to collect data on the conditions in which the prison is located. Gallardo is categorical in his statements: "The climate of the Isla de los Estados is one of the worst known. It rains approximately 280 days a year and the humidity is enormous. Snow, wind, cold, are phenomena that characterize the region (...) that constant humidity, together with the lack of space to exercise, means that the prisoners of the military prison are exposed to acquiring serious diseases whose outcome is not long in coming.
"Mortality reaches 10% among convicts (...). The moral regeneration of the individual cannot be carried out in this environment that is perfectly unsuitable for the object. He considers the permanence of that prison in the place where it is found as a great error . It can be affirmed that those who established the military prison in Cook did not have the remotest notion of what penal establishments are"
As can be seen, it is very far from the theory of the "natural prison" unscrupulously supported by Popper in 1891 and collected, among others, by the journalists Eizaguirre and Payró. If it were necessary to further corroborate what is in the public domain, upon arriving in Buenos Aires in September 1902 the National Guard transport brings, among others, the news that the winter on the island has been "extremely cruel, since numerous prisoners have deceased and others are very ill."
In the middle of 1902, the Lieutenant Segundo Valladares was appointed chief of the Stationary of the Lighthouse and Presidio of the Island of the States. In those days the decision to move the prison to another point in the south seems imminent. The determination of this new location gives rise to different opinions. Already in 1901, when harsh criticism and the decisive recommendation of Commodore Howard transcended, from the pages of the newspaper El País the Island of the Lions was proposed, in the northern head of the San Jorge Gulf, "since by its extension and proximity relative to the capital, apart from the hygienic conditions, would offer the advantages that are claimed ". Gallardo, in turn, states: "Tierra del Fuego has a fertile land, a healthy climate, magnificent forests, pure, fresh water, and abundant game. Why isn't the prison moved there? Why aren't those 100 or 150 men who perish in Cook and who in Tierra del Fuego will have a hygienic way to live? " "In Tierra del Fuego they would cultivate the soil producing legumes that they need for their food, they will take care of the livestock destined for the same purpose: they would work in the mountains, preparing the wood necessary for the constructions and for the military dependencies; they would carve and place the posts in their place. for the telegraph that they claim in Tierra del Fuego, they would build roads, in a word many jobs of unquestionable utility, thus rendering a service to the society in which they live. And from the moral point of view, what a great triumph would be obtained! " When the transfer of the prison to Tierra del Fuego is resolved, Lapataia is mentioned, the site that the Executive Power chose for the definitive establishment of the Reoffenders Prison provisionally enabled in Ushuaia in 1896 and that the engineer Catello Muratgia, yielding Under pressure from the people, he was unaware in September 1902 by placing the cornerstone of the civil prison building in the modest capital of Tierra del Fuego. Finally, the choice is another. On the morning of August 26, the mayor of the Navy, Mr. Alberto Casares, interviews President Roca in order to present him with the plans for the military prison, "which will be established in the Ushuaia peninsula."
On October 20, the National Guard set sail carrying part of the elements for the new military prison. On November 7, the Ushuaia transport leaves for the south, under the command of Lieutenant Enrique Fliess. It carries the mission of transferring the facilities and the inmates from the Isla de los Estados to Ushuaia. Meanwhile, upon his return to Buenos Aires, on November 30, the National Guard brings the news that the prison is being installed in Ushuaia and its commander, Lieutenant Zurreta, when informing the Ministry of the Navy of the trip, transmits the request of the government to increase the detachment that must guard the prisoners in the peninsula. He adds that "the health status of the Isla de los Estados is bad, with several inmates currently sick."
A communication from the governor of the territory to the Ministry of the Navy, which accompanies the definitive terms of the prison, indicates that he handed over the area where the prison is going to be lifted and that on December 3 the disembarkation from aboard the Ushuaia of materials and items from Puerto Cook. The military prison is installed in front of Puerto Golondrina, in a strategic location, it is said. For the direction and inspection of the works, a commission is set up chaired by the governor and formed by the head of the Military Prison, lieutenant Valladares, the director of the Reoffenders Prison and National Presidio, engineer Catello Muratgia and the sub-prefect of Ushuaia.
The operation of the transfer gives the opportunity, long awaited by the prisoners, for a riot with a massive escape in Cook. Due to its magnitude and violence, it was unprecedented in the country's prison history. On December 14, the Ministry of the Navy received a telegram from the Ushuaia transport commander transmitting the disturbing news. Commander Fliess reports: "When anchoring in Port Cook (Island of the States), on December 10 at 6 pm on the way back from the first trip made by the ship under my command, with material from the island's prison, which was To Ushuaia, a boat approached this ship, with the presidio's food master, who informed me, on behalf of the ensign Clodomiro Matheu, that 51 convicts had risen up and left the island in two whalers and a lifeboat. "Shortly after, Ensign Matheu came on board and told me what had happened in the following way ..." From that moment on, the relentless persecution of the fugitives was unleashed across the Island and Tierra del Fuego. serious events, their causes and their penal consequences, exceeds the purpose of these pages. Suffice, for now, the brief official statement of the Minister of the Navy, Onofre Betbeder. In his memory 1902-1903 to the National Congress, dated May 15, 1903, writes: "During the transfer of the prison 51 prisoners who had remained in Cook revolted and managed to put to sea in three boats. Several detachments of the 1st Line Infantry embarked in the Homeland, Ushuaia and Azopardo, captured the survivors, some of whom perished at the hands of their own comrades and others were killed when resisting or trying to escape.
"The process instructed to clarify the facts and determine the responsibilities, continues and will be seen in the Council of War." Such is the finishing touch that closes the unfortunate history of the Military Prison of the Island of the States. It was an unfortunate criminal experience, brought to an end by belated social piety. With the Punta Lasserre lighthouse turned off and the Puerto Cook Military Prison erected, the Isla de los Estados is once again practically deserted. Between 1902 and, at least, until 1910, the year in which President Roque Sáenz Peña visited her, a lonely inhabitant lived in Cook, Felipe Zucarelli and years later another, Juan Roldán Molinas, in Bahía Crosley, seat in 1873 of Luis Good stone. Both characters were graciously granted the title of "Governor of the Island of the States" by their contemporaries.
From this afternoon, the memory of the prison briefly reappears. Work and grace of a tango by Eduardo Bonessi -Amor Perdido-, which in 1923 became enduring in an Odeón album on the voice of Carlos Gardel:
He has maddened the girl
who disputes him fierce and brutal.
Today they got angry and blood ran
through the siren of the suburb.
There is one on Isla de los Estados
who watches when she will leave,
they say that her lost love cries,
the tragic muse of the suburb.
THE PRISON ACCORDING TO PELLEGRINI
Shortly after Howard's report on the prison, the newspaper El País, founded by Carlos Pellegrini, announced that it was "(...) thinking of moving the prison to a point on the Atlantic coast that, due to its hygienic conditions, offers greater guarantees to the wretches who are currently being sent to that den of death, much worse than the famous Devil's Island that Dreyfus inhabited. " He adds: "It is time to get the prison out of where it is. The laws, our civilization and the political and social antecedents of our public men demand it." He concludes with this exhortation: "The new Minister of the Navy, a highly humane and far-sighted person, has the duty to listen to such an authorized chief, removing the prison that speaks very little in favor of our civilization and that instead of being a point of regeneration moral, contributes for multiple reasons, apart from hygiene, to promote vices and hasten the death of beings that can still be useful to society ".
THE OPINION OF A CRIMINOLOGIST
Pedro Gori -in a context steeped in criminological positivism, then expanding and now abandoned-, recounts some details of the conditions in which the condemned are transported to the south: "Completely isolated from the passengers who are heading determinedly to the unknown, down, in the prow, chained to the same iron bar and united in the same pain, are those condemned to the military prison of the Island of the States, or to the prisons of repeat offenders of Ushuaia. "" It is an absurd and atrocious mixture of organisms anomalous, in which the crime, before presenting itself in its external manifestation, is imprinted with its dangerous characteristics of biological stigma "." (...) A sympathetic note, perhaps the most beautiful of this trip, casts flashes of light on those black souls ". "Sergeant Valbuena, sentenced to prison for the murder of another sergeant, is also going to serve his sentence on the island of storms." "When embarking in Buenos Aires, he had been preceded on board by his lover, a Chinese girl with a tender and melancholic look Fearing that she would be prevented from continuing the journey, she had hidden but was discovered. ”“ She begged the commander of the National Guard, Ezequiel Guttero, a sympathetic figure of a sailor and gentleman, to allow her to share the misfortune of her lover, that he obtained from him the promise that he would recommend him to the Chief of the Port Cook Presidium, so that this idyll, more powerful and victorious than crime and misfortune, is not cut off by an arid and cruel administrative procedure. "
THE BLOODY ESCAPE OF 1902
The newspaper El País, in its edition of Monday, December 15, 1902, headlines: "Uprising of prisoners on the Isla de los Estados. Audacious coup. Death of sentries. Officers surprised. Flight of 51 inmates. Departure from the Homeland." He adds: The following important telegraphic news was received last night at the Ministry of the Navy: "Puerto Gallegos -Transport Ushuaia- Minister of the Navy: When anchoring in Puerto Cook (Island of the States), on December 10 at 6 pm, from Returning from the first affected trip with the ship under my command, transporting materials from the prison from that island to Ushuaia, a boat approached bringing the master of supplies from the prison, who informed me on behalf of the ensign Clodomiro Matheu, that 51 convicts were They had risen up and left the island in two whalers and a lifeboat. Shortly afterwards, Ensign Matheu came on board and told me what had happened as follows: On December 6 at 3 in the morning, a group of conspirators killed for They surprised the sentries: soldiers Bonifacio Díaz and the sailor José Lagos and they wounded Corporal Eduardo Alejo and soldier Cirilo Martínez; later they seized the weapons of the body of guard. All this was done in the greatest s idleness. Immediately after having the weapons and ammunition, they surrounded by sentries the lodgings of Ensign Matéu and Lieutenant Altamirano, head of the military detachment, the stable of the soldiers and sailors and the houses of the families of the convicts. These measures were taken by convicts 61 Félix Cabrera and 75 Luis Maldonado, who were the leaders of the riot.
The promoters appear to be 15 convicts, later increased to 51, all of them later wanted to force the remaining 32 to accompany them, having them flee to the mountains to escape the death threats. Ensign Matheu and Lieutenant Altamirano, who were sleeping in their quarters, learned of the uprising at 3:30 a.m. by a soldier who managed to flee the block. They immediately left and found themselves surrounded by rebellious, armed criminals, and the prison in their hands. Prisoner 61, Félix Cabrera, addressed them and told them that they were going to leave the island in boats, which they effectively did at 8 a.m. of that same day, taking the weapons, sailors' clothing and supplies and having stated that his intention was to gain Chilean territory through Tierra del Fuego or the Strait, and according to some they wanted to wait for Ushuaia, which they supposed would arrive in those days, to take him by surprise, as they had found out he had no weapons. Among the prisoners who remained on the island, such was the fear that this had happened, that when the ship entered Cook, they won the mountain, leaving Ensign Matheu and a few men on the dock and only returned when they saw that there was nothing new. In charge of the prison was the ensign Clodomiro Matheu, as Lieutenant Segundo Valladares moved with 36 convicts, taking part of the detachment to Ushuaia to take care of them, where the installation of the new prison has begun. with the materials that this ship carried on its first voyage from November 30 to December 10. Immediately after having knowledge of the facts that I have just communicated to V.E. I decided to go to Gallegos to communicate with V.E. and requesting forces from the 1st Infantry of the line to reinforce the Ushuaia detachment, garrison the islands that have been left without armed forces, since the rebels have taken all the weapons, and be able to have some armed men on board, to be able to travel the coast from Tierra del Fuego and the island in search of the convicts and to be able to make effective their prison in case of finding them. I have also taken the resolution to come to Gallegos so as not to cause alarms in Ushuaia, where there are no elements and the news of the uprising could induce the convicts to try to escape. Upon learning of my resolution, Ensign Matheu asked me to embark with the convicts for not being able to guard them on land and being completely demoralized and disarmed. Finding this request reasonable, I have shipped them, keeping the convicts in a warehouse with the greatest security. On the island the boatswain with some men and families of convicts have been taking care of the sheds. On the date, I request from the chief of the 1st Infantry of the line a reinforcement of 40 men, 15 for the Island of the States, 15 for Ushuaia and 10 for this ship. I await orders from V.E. in Gallegos. There is a click at the head of the line to lead the telegrams to Puerto Gallegos as quickly as possible. In this port, the ship is completely isolated from land, to avoid news to the convicts. Among those escaped, 25 are confined to prison indefinitely. From Cook I sailed at 11 a.m. For Gallegos and when passing through New Year, the lighthouse worked without incident. Enrique Fliess. Commander of the Ushuaia transport ”. Immediately receiving the telegraphic dispatch, the Minister of the Navy ordered that the cruise ship Patria be prepared to set sail for Ushuaia, touring the coasts of Tierra del Fuego, to try to apprehend the escaped convicts on the coast, carrying special and reserved instructions.