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Toba (Qom)

The great horse-warriors of the eastern Chaco, whose mounted bands raided Spanish frontiers from the Bermejo to the Paraguay for two hundred years and remain Argentina's largest Chaco nation today.

Broken by the Conquest of the Chaco (1884-1917) and herded onto reductions and cotton estates, the Qom endured the Napalpí massacre (1924) yet persist — over 120,000 people across Chaco, Formosa and Santa Fe and into Paraguay and Bolivia.

See it on the interactive map →

Borders over time

The atlas holds 3 border frames for Toba (Qom) — the shape you scrub through changes in 1537 · 1641 · 1884.

Moments from the Chronicle

• 1924 Napalpí massacre At the Napalpí reduction in Chaco province, Argentine police and settlers fired some five thousand rounds into Toba (Qom) and Mocoví who had struck against a punishing cotton tax and forced labour, killing at least 200 — a slaughter declared a crime against humanity in 2019 and reconstructed in a landmark truth trial in 2022.

Further reading

• Peoples of the Gran Chaco Elmer S. Miller · 1999

  An edited survey of the Chaco nations centred on the Toba/Qom, Argentina's largest Chaco people.

• A Brief History of Argentina Jonathan C. Brown · 2004

  Background on the Conquest of the Chaco (1884-1917) and the Napalpí massacre (1924) the Qom endured (broad context).

Sources

• Toba people — Wikipedia