.
The peons on the farms of Argentina’s Patagonia went out on strike against stunted wages and overgrown workdays, and the army took charge of restoring order.
Executions are grueling. On this night in 1922, soldiers exhausted from so much killing went to the bordello at the port of San Julián for their well-deserved reward.
But the five women who worked there closed the door in their faces and chased them away, screaming, “You murderers! Murderers, get out of here!”
Osvaldo Bayer recorded their names. They were Consuelo García, Ángela Fortunato, Amalia Rodríguez, María Juliache, and Maud Foster.
The whores. The virtuous.
—
Copyright 2015 Eduardo Galeano. Reprinted by permission of TomDispatch.
Excerpted from Eduardo Galeano’s Children of the Days: A Calendar of Human History published by Nation Books.
— Eduardo Galeano