But Pigüé would never exist as a town were it not for Clément Cabanettes, a man born in 1851 in the small village of Ambec, commune of Lassouts near Saint-Côme (Sant Còsme d'Òlt en occitan) in the southern French département of Aveyron (Avairon).

Cabanettes, then 33 of age, organized the voluntary exile of forty poverty-stricken farming families (as in "groups of relatives") from the surrounding communes of Espalion, Gabriac, Naucelle, Aurelle and Saint-Geniez-d'Olt (Sent Ginièis d'Òlt), to name but a few, to South America.

Cabanettes returned to Aveyron where his friend François Issaly had already started promoting the Pigüé colony, offering each settler two square kilometres of land to cultivate for the next six years on condition that they gave half of their harvest to the community.

Meanwhile, the Aveyron press grew hostile to Cabanettes's project, accusing "the adventurer" of exploiting poor people's misery and painting in glowing colours a most dangerous place full of ferocious and vicious exotic beasts.

But this was not enough for Pigüé to make profits and Casey first decided, as his contract allowed him to, to repossess all land but eventually changed his mind and chose to grant Cabanettes an extra 50,000 pesos instead, thus wiping his friend's slate clean.

The whole colony, facing growing difficulties despite breeding more bovine cattle than sheep now, turned out to be a complete failure and the Government of Buenos Aires finally bought back the settlement at the price of naked land, ignoring the buildings and crops, and leaving Cabanettes with no benefits and glory.

Cabanettes and Casey died even poorer than the families they saved and gave back hope to but their generosity and blind perseverance ensured that Pigüé remains to this day a grateful piece of Aveyron in South America.