cattle raiding became a major issue at the end of the 19th century in argentina, where cattle stolen during "malones" were taken through "camino de los chilenos" across the andes to chile, where they were exchanged for alcoholic beverages and firearms. several indigenous groups and outlaws, such as the boroano and ranquel peoples, and the pincheira brothers, ravaged the southern frontier of argentina in search of cattle. to prevent the cattle raiding, the argentine government built a system of trenches called zanja de alsina in the 1870s. most cattle raids ended after the military campaigns of the conquest of the desert in the 1870s, and the following partition of patagonia established by the boundary treaty of 1881 between chile and argentina.