Malón de la Paz

The Malón de la Paz was a march of indigenous peoples of northwestern Argentina to the capital, Buenos Aires, demanding the restitution of their ancient lands, in 1946.

Near the end of his term, President Hipólito Yrigoyen planned to expropriate lands and grant them to their former aboriginal inhabitants, but a coup in 1930 ousted him and killed the project.

On 31 August 1945, Kolla communities in the northwestern Argentine provinces of Jujuy and Salta, through a group of representatives, sent a note to the National Agrarian Council demanding the restitution of their lands, in compliance with previous laws.

The main organizer of the march was retired Lieutenant Engineer Mario Augusto Bertonasco, who had worked with the Mapuche in land claims and then moved to Jujuy and to Orán, Salta.

On 10 July the aboriginal leaders Valentín Zárate and José Nievas, who had come ahead of the march while the rest were in Rosario, were received in Buenos Aires by president of the Chamber of Deputies at the National Congress.

The train passed by Rosario and Córdoba en route back to the northwest, with the stations surrounded by police forces to keep the passengers from coming out.

On 30 November, President Perón declared that the Malón de la Paz "did not represent... the authentic indigenous inhabitants of our north", and claimed that they had come by train and motor vehicles rather than on foot.

Despite the reaction to the Malón, in 1949 the national government expropriated some lands in the Puna and the Quebrada de Humahuaca, for them to be returned to their original inhabitants, but this was never done.