Resources, Environment, and Rural Development in Uruguay, 1779-1913
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RESOURCES, ENVIRONMENT, AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT IN URUGUAY, 1779-1913 by Emiliano Travieso Barrios This thesis is submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy King’s College University of Cambridge September Abstract This dissertation examines the history of agricultural change in Uruguay over the long nineteenth century, as a case study in the agrarian roots of Latin American long-term development. Cowhides were first exported on a large scale in , under Spanish rule, starting a series of commodity booms that culminated with frozen beef in . By then, Uruguay had the highest number of cows per person and one of the highest per capita incomes in the world; the country only retains the first of those accolades today. How were resources (natural and human) put to work to lay that development path? Which were its environmental basis and limits? To answer these questions, I draw on a wide range of previously under-utilised primary sources, as well as on present-day scientific literature on grassland ecology. My approach is methodologically eclectic, and techniques vary as suits the diversity of the materials and the questions asked in each chapter. These include different quantitative methods (from descriptive statistics to regression analysis), georeferencing and an array of data visualizations, as well as instances of micro-historical narrative. A major concern throughout is to place the Uruguayan case in comparative perspective, mainly within Latin America but also beyond, in order to consider the findings of this dissertation in relation to the wider history of ‘agrarian capitalism,’ and to interrogate the usefulness of that term itself. It is found that in the late-nineteenth century, as lands were enclosed with steel wire, traditional grazing on unfenced ranges gave way to agricultural innovations for which latifundia were neither an obstacle nor a necessity. Fertile land, still physically abundant, was now institutionally scarce, which encouraged immigrants to concentrate in cities and find urban occupations. However, agriculture remained the largest employer in the economy, with rural wage labour becoming increasingly permanent rather than seasonal. While these changes underpinned the rising productivity of agriculture, they greatly limited the resources for smallholder farming, completing a process of concentration and specialization which began during the ill-named ‘lost decades’ in the aftermath of independence. This profound transformation in working people’s relation to the land shaped the agricultural landscapes, economic specialization, and demographic patterns that define modern Uruguay. But rural development and its legacy were also about what did not change. Throughout the nineteenth century and beyond, the agricultural export economy continued to draw its comparative advantage from the ecological services of its grassland environment. As these became more expensive relative to the declining terms of trade of beef, leather, and wool, Uruguayan agriculture entered a long cycle of stagnation: the background to the country’s divergent twentieth-century siesta. Please cite as: Travieso, Emiliano, ‘Resources, Environment, and Rural Development in Uruguay, -’ (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Cambridge, ). i Contents Abstract i List of tables, graphs, maps, and illustrations iii Preface v Notes on translations, software, and abbreviations vii Introduction ONE. Debates, Context, and Concepts Part I | The Closing Frontier, 1779-1870s TWO. Environment and Rural Slavery in the River Plate Frontier THREE. Lost Decades and Where to Find Them: Early Uruguay Part II | A New Country on Old Pastures, 1870s-1913 FOUR. Latifundia and Agricultural Innovation in the First Globalization FIVE. Occupations and the Nature of Rural Development Conclusion Appendix Sources ii Tables, maps, graphs, and illustrations Tables .. Surviving land titles from the Montevideo jurisdiction, - .. Rural households, slaves, freedpeople, and labourers in surviving enumerators’ books, .. Summary statistics for selected variables across Uruguayan rural districts, .. Impact of farm size and soil quality on cattle crossbreeding rates, .. Spatial autocorrelation tests for cattle crossbreeding and OLS model, .. Sources for reconstructing the occupational structure of Uruguay, - .. Occupational structure of Uruguay, (shares) (including labourers) .. Published estimates of the workforce in agriculture in Uruguay, .. Male occupational structure of Uruguay, and (shares) (excluding labourers) A. Asset inequality between Montevideo households, A. Impact of cattle crossbreeding & farm size on productivity, Maps .. Uruguay in the mid-nineteenth century .. Estancia Las Vacas and its puestos, .. Geographical coverage of enumerators’ books for rural districts, .. Average estate size by districts and railway stations’ main freight, c. .. Mean estate size and percentage of cattle crossbred by district, .. Population geography of Uruguay, iii Graphs .. Testing Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robinson’s ‘Colonial Origins’ within Latin America .. Tristes tropiques? Distance from the Equator and average incomes in .. A long divergence: Uruguay, Latin America(s), and the West, - .. Age profile of population in Uruguayan rural districts, .. Condition or occupation of free black people in Uruguayan rural districts, .. Variation in sheep and cattle herds between and by province .. Soil quality index and cattle crossbreeding rates in ‘pastoral’ districts, .. Estate sizes, output per hectare, soil quality, and pasture-to-cropland ratio, .. Calf crop percentage in districts with low and high crossbreeding rates .. Male occupational structure by age groups in Uruguay, .. Female workers as share of the total workforce by sub-sector, .. Testing birth record sampling: occupations in Montevideo province, - .. Estimates of labour productivity across three large sectors, and Illustrations .. First page from the enumerator’s book for Rosario (Colonia), .. Ads for purebred bulls and wire fencing in El Siglo, October .. Uno de los tres chiripás by Juan Manuel Blanes (oil on canvas, ) .. Example of birth record: Eugenio Domingo Alonso Morales (b.) iv Preface There was a game I used to play to pass the time when we travelled north to see my grandparents. I would look out the window, where the green plains were flying by, and try to find an angle where I could see a landscape of ‘only nature.’ To my childhood self that meant no people, which is not difficult in large parts of rural Uruguay, but also no fences, no houses, no tractors, no artificial ponds. Just grass, trees, livestock, and sky. I often succeeded, or so I thought. As I grew up, I realised the game was rigged from the start: it was impossible to find ‘only nature’ because the grasslands were a domesticated landscape. The complexity of nature had long been simplified, and a new complexity, economic and environmental, had taken its place. This dissertation is about the crucial century in that transformation, how it made Uruguay relatively rich, and which were its limits. In a way, then, the story of this thesis started more than two decades ago. In a more concrete sense, though, it developed over the last three years of research, learning, and teaching. These were made possible by a Cambridge International Scholarship awarded by the Cambridge International Trust, as well as by additional research funding generously provided by the Ellen McArthur Fund, King’s College Cambridge, and the Faculty of History’s fieldwork and travel grants. I am also greatly indebted to the Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure (Campop) for its facilities, research environment, and much else besides. Collective thanks are due as well to the students I was fortunate to teach in courses (‘papers’ in Cambridge lingo) on Latin American history, global history, and historical argument and practice. Teaching encouraged me to keep my own research in perspective and expanded my horizons, as I had to grapple with the often vast periods and regions covered by the few Cambridge courses on the history of the majority world (which is a problem for undergraduates, but turned out to be a great learning experience for me as their supervisor). My largest debt is to my supervisor, Gareth Austin, whose constant advice has been endlessly stimulating and will continue to shape my thinking. To those who know Gareth, I can simply say being supervised by him is exactly as wonderful as you think it would be. To those who do not, let me say I left every supervision meeting knowing many more things than before, and filled with enthusiasm and renewed curiosity. I cannot think of a better way of mentoring. At the Faculty of History I learnt much from Leigh Shaw-Taylor and Amy Erickson in regular conversations over coffee. Leigh also offered invaluable suggestions on how to construct reliable estimates from birth record data, while Oliver Dunn shared extremely useful tips for curating a personal digital archive. Mourat Güvenç from the Istanbul Studies Centre visited us in April and taught an impromptu course which changed the way I thought about data description and visualization. I also received important advice, particularly on what became Chapter , from William O’Reilly over several conversations, as well as from Nicholas Guyatt and Caroline Goodson. My resolve to work on the ‘lost decades’ was strengthened by an email exchange with William Gervase Clarence-Smith, by chats with María