100 Pesos 2004, Argentina
| in Krause book | Number: 357 |
| Years of issue: | 2004 - 2010 |
| Edition: | -- |
| Signatures: | Presidente del Banco Central de la República Argentina: Martín Redrado (2004 - 2010), Presidente H.C. Senadores: Daniel Scioli |
| Serie: | 2003 Issue |
| Specimen of: | 1999 |
| Material: | Cotton fiber |
| Size (mm): | 155 х 68 |
| Printer: | Casa de Moneda de la Nación, Buenos Aires |
* All pictures marked 
are increased partially by magnifying glass, the remaining open in full size by clicking on the image.
** The word "Specimen" is present only on some of electronic pictures, in accordance with banknote images publication rules of appropriate banks.
Description
Watermark:
Portrait of Julio Argentino Roca and his initials JAR.
Avers:
The engraving is, presumably, made after this photo of Julio Argentino Roca, publisghed in 1903, in Thomas C. Dawson's book "The South American Republics. Part I".
Alejo Julio Argentino Roca Paz (July 17, 1843 - October 19, 1914) was an army general who served as President of Argentina from 12 October 1880 to 12 October 1886 and again from 12 October 1898 to 12 October 1904.
In 1878, during Avellaneda's presidency, he became Minister of War and it was his task to prepare a campaign that would bring an end to the "frontier problem" after the failure of the plan of Adolfo Alsina (his predecessor). The Indians frequently assaulted frontier settlements and stole horses and cattle, and the captured women and children were enslaved or offered as brides to the warriors. Roca's approach to dealing with the Indian communities of the Pampas, however, was completely different from Alsina's, who had ordered the construction of a ditch and a defensive line of small fortresses across the Province of Buenos Aires. Roca saw no way to end native attacks (malones) but by putting under effective government control all land up to the Río Negro in a campaign (known as the Conquest of the Desert) that would "extinguish, subdue or expel" the Indians who inhabited there. This land conquest would also strengthen Argentina's strategic position against Chile.
He devised a "tentacle" move, with waves of 6,000 men cavalry units stemming coordinately from Mendoza, Córdoba, Santa Fé and Buenos Aires on July 1878 and April 1879 respectively, with an official toll of nearly 1,313 Native Americans killed and 15,000 taken as prisoners, and is credited with the liberation of several hundred European hostages.
Due to his military successes and the massive territorial gains linked with them, Roca was put forward as a successor to President Avellaneda. In October 1879 he gave up his military career to get ready for the election campaign. When Carlos Tejedor instigated a revolution in 1880 Roca was one of the key figures in the federalization of the country and the naming of Buenos Aires as the capital of Argentina, settling the question of central rule.
After triumphing over Tejedor, Roca took over the presidency on 12 October 1880. Under his mandate the so-called "laicist laws" (Leyes Laicas) were passed, which nationalized a series of functions that previously were under the control of the Church. He also created the so-called Registro Civil, an index of all births, deaths and marriages. President Roca also made primary education free of charge by nationalizing education institutions run by the Church. This led to a break in relations with the Vatican. Under Roca's rule the economy became state controlled and he presided over an era of rapid economic development fueled by large scale European immigration, railway construction, and agricultural exports. However, financial speculation and government corruption marred his administration. In May 1886 Roca was the subject of a failed assassination attempt.
Roca did not participate in the 1890 revolution, which was instigated by Leandro N. Alem and Bartolomé Mitre (Unión Cívica, later Unión Cívica Radical). However, he was pleased in the resulting weakness of Miguel Juárez Celman. Roca himself had put forward Juárez Celman as his successor, who also happened to be his brother-in-law. However, Celman distanced himself from Roca and reprivatized large sectors of the economy in a corrupt fashion.
After his first presidency Roca became a senator and Minister of the Interior under Carlos Pellegrini. After President Luis Sáenz Peña resigned in January 1895, José Evaristo Uriburu took over the presidency, during which Roca was President of the Senate. Because of this, Roca again assumed the duties of President between 28 October 1895 and 8 February 1896, when Uriburu was ill.
In the middle of 1897 the Partido Autonomista Nacional party put forward Roca as a presidential candidate once more. Unopposed, he was able to begin a second regular time in office on 12 October 1898. During his second presidency, the Ley de Residencia law was passed, which made it possible to expel Argentina's trade union leaders. During this presidency military service was introduced in 1901 and a border dispute with Chile was settled in 1902. Luis Drago, Roca’s foreign minister, articulated the Drago Doctrine of 1902 asserting that foreign powers could not collect public debts from sovereign American states by armed force or occupation of territory. Roca's second term ended in 1904.
In 1912 Roca was appointed as Special Ambassador of Argentina to Brazil by President Roque Sáenz Peña. Roca returned to Argentina in 1914 and died in Buenos Aires on October 19, 1914. His son, Julio Argentino Roca, Jr., became vice-president of Argentina in 1932-1938. Julio Argentino Roca was buried in La Recoleta Cemetery in Buenos Aires.
In recent years, there has some re-evaluation of Roca's involvement in the Conquest of the Desert, with some groups claiming that he should be regarded as guilty of a form of genocide against the Indians. 
The main motifs are intaglio printed and the background is offset printed.
The center front features his portrait and the background, a replica of a letter, which Roca sent to Miguel Cané, then ambassador to Austria (1883-1885).
The harbour, view at Buenos-Aires and rising sun evokes Argentine progress under the sun of the future. Rapid national expansion and the State's efficient action relate to the following verses in the National Anthem: "[I]n the face of the Earth a new and glorious Nation is born."
Denomination in words centered, vertically. In numerals are in three corners and along whole field of banknote (except watermark field).
Revers:
The engraving on banknote is made after the paint by Uruguayan painter Juan Manuel Blanes "La Conquista del Desierto".
In 1889 was the tenth anniversary of the military occupation of Black River (Rio-Negro). The government ordered the Uruguayan painter Juan Manuel Blanes an allegorical paint.
From 1890, the painter worked with some pictures and photos. Among them, the photo of 24 May 1879 (made by Italian Antonio Pozzo) was corresponding to the specific time, that should evoke.
The result was imposing - oil on canvas paint, measuring 7.10 meters long and 3.55 meters high. Blanes concluded it in 1896. It is on display at the National History Museum, in Parque Lezama.
The Conquest of the Desert (Spanish: Conquista del desierto) was a military campaign directed mainly by General Julio Argentino Roca in the 1870s with the intent to establish Argentine dominance over Patagonia, which was inhabited by indigenous peoples. Under General Roca, the Conquest of the Desert extended Argentine power into Patagonia and ended the possibility of Chilean expansion there.
Argentine troops killed more than a thousand Indians and displaced over 15,000 more from their traditional lands. Ethnic European settlers developed the lands for agriculture, turning it into a breadbasket that made Argentina an agricultural superpower in the early XX century.
The Conquest is highly controversial. Apologists have described the Conquest as bringing civilization, while revisionists have labeled it a genocide. One revisionist, Jens Andermann, has noted that contemporary sources on the campaign indicate that the Conquest was intended by the Argentine government to exterminate the indigenous tribes, an example of genocide. First-hand accounts stated that Argentine troops killed prisoners and committed "mass executions". The 15,000 Indians taken captive "became servants or prisoners and were prevented from having children."
Apologists perceive the campaign as intending to conquer specifically those groups of Indians that refused to submit to Argentine law and frequently carried out brutal attacks on frontier civilian settlements. In these attacks, Indians stole many horses and cattle, killed men defending their livestock, and captured women and children to become the slaves or brides of Indian warriors. Some persons have been dismissed from public positions for advocating apologist views: for instance, Juan José Cresto was labeled a "racist" and forced to resign as a director of the Argentine National Historical Museum because he "said the Indians were violent parasites who attacked farms and kidnapped women." A history teacher in La Pampa Province was fired for "telling a radio station that Roca deserved praise for putting Indians to flight and opening Argentina's frontier to European settlers." This recent debate between Conquest apologists and revisionists is usually summarized as "Civilization or Genocide?"
The main motifs are intaglio printed and the background is offset printed.
There is also a summary of the hero's biography in microprinting; some hand-written sheets of paper, the saber, and a laurel branch evoke Roca as a statesman and military man. The background features the outline of a horse and a spear.
In top right corner is the coat of arms of Argentina.
The coat of arms of the Argentine Republic (Escudo de la República Argentina) was established in its current form in 1944, but has its origins in the seal of the General Constituent Assembly of 1813.
It is unknown who designed the coat of arms. It is often mentioned that there were three men involved: Alvear, Monteagudo, and Vieytes, but it is known that a few years before, President Bernardino Rivadavia asked the Peruvian Antonio Isidoro Castro to create an Argentine coat of arms; however, the two schemes have never been found.
The coat of arms is a figure, in which at the top we find the gold-yellowed Sun of May, also found on the flag of Argentina. The rising sun symbolizes the rising of Argentina, as described in the first version of the Argentine National Anthem, se levanta a la faz de la tierra una nueva y gloriosa nación, meaning "a new and glorious nation rises to the surface of the Earth". It must be noticed how the verb "rise", and so in Spanish, can be used to describe the motion of the Sun.
In the center ellipse there are two shaking hands, connoting the unity of the provinces of Argentina. The hands come together to hold a pike, which represents power and willingness to defend freedom, epitomized by the Phrygian cap on the top of the spear.
The blue and white colors are symbols of the Argentine people and the same colors of the Argentine flag. The blue half of the ellipse symbolizes the sky and the white one denotes the Río de la Plata.
The hands are flesh coloured and stand for friendship, peace, unity, and brotherhood. The pike is brown (wooden), and the Phrygian cap is red, like the traditional French liberty cap. The proximity of the hands and the Phrygian cap, in addition to their individual meanings, represent the national motto of Argentina, en unión y libertad ("in unity and freedom"), and illustrate the idea that in unity (the hands) there is power (the pike), and in power there is freedom (the Phrygian cap).
The Phrygian cap was typically worn by the inhabitants of Phrygia, in the Anatolian peninsula, and is commonly mistaken for being a Pileus. The Pileus was a hat that in ancient Rome became a symbol of freed slaves, who were touched by their owners with a wooden pike before setting them free.
Laurel is another classical symbol. At the end of the ancient Olympic Games (and also the 2004 Summer Olympics), the winner was given a laurel crown, and since then it has symbolized triumph and glory.
Denominations in numerals are in lower right and top left corners, in words on the left side, vertically.
Comments:
Protective security thread with the acronym Bank of Argentina "BCRA" and the face value of 100.
Denomination in the upper left corner changes color from green to blue (when the note tilted up and down).
Small raised square on the top is for the visually impaired.
Portrait, the sun, the ship in the harbor and the paint on reverse are intaglio printed (felt fingers).
Last zero in nominal value of 100, in the upper right corner, coincides with the second zero on the reverse of the banknote, when viewed against the light.
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