Antonio Soto (1897 - 1963)

Fri Oct 08, 1897

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Antonio Soto Canalejo (also known as “El Gallego Soto”), born on this day in 1897, was one of the principal anarcho-syndicalist leaders in the 1921 rural strikes of Argentine Patagonia.

In early 1921, Patagonic landowners were refusing to make concessions to an increasingly discontented working class, continuing with layoffs, holding back pay, and maintaining of poor working conditions. In response to this, a general strike was declared on March 25th.

Soto and his comrades traveled along farms of the cordillera of the Andes recruiting rural workers of several large farms, driving the southeast of Santa Cruz into an uprising. They requisitioned arms and food for the campaign, granting vouchers promising to eventually return the goods and occasionally taking the landowners and managers hostage.

In the aftermath of the strike, Soto fled the country and settled in Puntas Aras, Chile. There, he managed a small hotel which served as a meeting place of libertarians, intellectuals, and free-thinkers and founded the “Centro Republicano Español”. His tombstone can be found in the Cementerio Municipal de Punta Arenas.