An 1870 Argentinian travel account contains examples of a language variety which we call Ranquel Pidgin Spanish. It was used between speakers of Spanish and Mapudungun (or Mapuche). Previously untapped by contact linguists, the source is fairly rich in data, which we here exploit to provide the first description of the pidgin. Following the description is a discussion of some of the findings.

Keywords: Pidgins, Spanish, Argentina, grammar, Mapudungun, pidginization, Ranquel, contact languages, reduction, Pidgin Spanish