#and trust me that when Perón started nationalizing stuff they wanted him GONE GONE starting the cycle of coups

[elbiotipo]

La Forestal was a British corporation that owned practically all of the Argentine Gran Chaco as a colony. In a very literal way: the HQ of La Forestal was a mansion (I think it's now abandoned) in the north of Santa Fe where the Union Jack was raised every morning and tea time was followed strictly.

The workers of La Forestal fell down quebracho trees to extract the tannin from it to feed Britain's industries. The trees were previously hard to cut (hence "El Impenetrable", the impassable forest) until the British came with chainsaws and motor vehicles. My grandfather tells me that when a quebracho fell, it destroyed the entire forest where it fell, preventing it to recover it, we're still dealing with the destruction of the native old forest today, what remains is only a shadow of the century-old trees from before. Workers; criollos, natives, inmigrants, were pushed to work from sun to sun to cut the inmense trees under the whips, sleeping in huts made of mud and covered by palm leaves. The conditions were so harsh that many commited suicide, letting out a sapucai (it's a traditional guaraní sharp cry) before killing themselves, as recorded in many books. The trees were grinded down on factories until they were tannin dust and sent to England. My grandpa tells me that you could tell how their Empire spread across the Earth, as the ropes they used to transport the trees were made in India.

Not a single pound was left here, not a single peso even. La Forestal didn't pay its employees, instead it gave them a coin (my Grandpa still has his one, it says "Obrero 14", he was a number) which you presented in the company store and they paid you whatever the company felt like you deserved. Sometimes they might say they gave you 2 kilos of flour, when in fact it's just one. What are you gonna do, complain? My grandpa said that they didn't even let you go to school so that you could tell you were getting ripped off by reading the weights.

And what if people had enough, what if they wanted to resist or form a union? Well, it could call of course the Argentine Army, since the Argentine oligarchy elected by a few rich families was in the pocket of the British Empire (to the point that some senators actually asked to be a colony). But since that was kind of a hassle, they often just brought in the cardenales, named by their red caps, gangs taken from prison, given machetes and free rein to do with the revolting workers as they wished.

La Forestal eventually faded away. The reforms of Perón brought workers rights, schools, clinics, housing, and strong unions. Eventually it was transferred to local owners who continued the operations in a much subdued way. But it wasn't out of the kindess of the heart of its former owners. The British found a better source of tannin in the acacia trees of their African colonies. God knows what they did there but I always tell myself I have to learn about it.

But yeah, why is Argentina so mad about the British? It must be because of some islands lol

do anglos know wrt the malvinas situation that argentina was a neocolony of the uk for a good chunk of post independence history