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1987

Comparative Frontier Scoial Life: Western Saloons and Argentine Pulperias

Richard W. Slatta North Carolina State University

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Slatta, Richard W., "Comparative Frontier Scoial Life: Western Saloons and Argentine Pulperias" (1987). Great Plains Quarterly. 429. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly/429

This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Great Plains Studies, Center for at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Great Plains Quarterly by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. COMPARATIVE FRONTIER SOCIAL LIFE

WESTERN SALOONS AND ARGENTINE PULPERIAS

RICHARD W. SLATTA

In sparsely populated cattle frontier regions of helped to shape many of the negative stereo­ the nineteenth century, only a limited number types of the cowboy and the gaucho, the of social institutions functioned. The ranch, as itinerant cattle hunter and ranch hand of the a central socioeconomic complex, took on pampas. It was in the saloons of western cow added importance. Ranch owners often took towns that eastern journalists formed their upon themselves political and legal powers judgment of cowboys as wild and drunken. exercised by civic officials in more settled The Cheyenne Daily Leader described cowboys areas. In the cattle regions of the American in 1882: "Morally, as a class, they are foul­ West and the pampas of Argentina, taverns mouthed, blasphemous, drunken, lecherous, were important local institutions. A compari­ utterly corrupt." The newspaper found their son of social activities in the western saloon behavior in town particularly reprehensible and the Argentine pulperi'a-a combination because there "liquor has the ascendancy over country store and tavern-reveals strong simi­ them." Relatively comfortable taverns, rich larities. As frontier institutions, they served with gossip and news, held considerably more analogous multiple functions, and their cow­ attraction for eastern writers than did the hot boy and gaucho patrons behaved according to dusty plains, so it is not surprising that writers the norms of similar "saloon cultures."! spent more time in the saloon than in the Beyond their intrinsic importance as fron­ saddle.: tier institutions, the saloon and the pulper'ia Similarly, European travelers on the pam­ pa saw gauchos lounging, drinking, gambling, and fighting at pulperi'as. Outsiders formed Richard W. Slatta is associate professor of history equally unflattering estimates of the gaucho at North Carolina State University. His award­ character. One mid-nineteenth-century visitor winning book Gauchos and the Vanishing opined that "gambling is the moving spirit of Frontier was followed in 1987 by Bandidos: The existence and enjoyment in the real gaucho. Varieties of Latin American Banditry. Indeed the veritable camp gaucho is a sort of loafer, hanging about pulperi'as, looking out [GPQ 7 (Summer 1987): 155-165J for gaucho-flats to fleece of whatever they have

155 156 GREAT PLAINS QliARTERLY, Sl\l\IEI, lel<,- about them, drinking (ana and gin, now and w\\'ns, where they sold liquor and incidentals. then ripping up somebody with his knife after On the pampa, where vast distances separated a dispute of the most insignificant nature." towns, they served as way stations. Although By viewing cowboys and gauchos at rest the western saloon often shed the historic and play, rather than at work in the saddle, lodging function of the tavern, the rural pul­ I11,1I1V ubsef\'Crs recorded biased conl,lusions peri'a added the services of post house for about their character and way of life. For most travelers. In his fine novel of gaucho life, Don cowhands of Argentina and the United States, Segundo Sam bra, Ricardo Guiraldes describes a idling and drinking at public houses rep­ typical country tavern of the pampa: resented only a small, if more highly visible, proportion of their lives. Like other elements It was a single building, rectangular-shaped; of cowboy life, the time spent "hellin' 'round the taproom was an open room on the right town" became exaggerated and romanticized. with benches where we sat side by side like swallows on a wire. The storekeeper handed

ORIG[i\:S AND FUNCTIOl\:S out the drinks through a heavy iron grating that caged him in with tiers of brightly Many aspects of tavern life in Argentina labeled bottles, flasks, and jugs of every and the North American West were similar, kind. Skin sacks of mate leaf, demijohns of including the origins of the institutions. West­ liquor, different-shaped barrels, saddles, ern saloons grew from urban roots in colonial blankets, horse pads, lassos, covered the America, where taverns and hotels provided floor.' both lodging and liquor. Such institutions served as important political and social meet­ Accommodations at these post houses re­ ing places during the colonial period. In 1788 mained rudimentary throughout the nine­ the Hillsborough Convention voted that the teenth century. Guests could partake of a capital of North Carolina had to be built spartan meal and sleep on the floor amid within ten miles of a tavern located on Isaac hordes of ravenous insects and bold rats. Hunter's plantation. As a result, Raleigh, in Although similar to the businesses operating Wake County, was laid out as the state's in Buenos Aires and other towns, rural capital in 1792.4 pulperlas-those frequented by gauchos-took The etymology of the word saloon includes on a different character. Gauchos, avoiding the sense of an abode (German saal), a large contact with civic and military officials when­ room (French salon), or hall (Dutch zaal). The ever possible, preferred the remoteness of the term, meant to conjure up images of a lavish rural public house. Families of the landed elite French salon, came into general use in the often owned the pulpedas and operated them United States during the 1840s. As the settlers through managers as adjuncts to their ranch­ moved westward, state laws changed by the ing and mercantile interests. Although a few 1830s and 1840s to permit the sale of alcohol bottles of cheap French wines occasionally without lodging facilities. Richard Erdoes graced the shelves of these crude country identifies New Orleans, St. Louis, Chicago, stores, pulpedas held few other accoutrements and San Francisco as especially important in of urban or European civilization.; shaping the nature of the western saloon. At In some ways, the pulperla resembled the the cutting edge of the moving frontier, the road ranch (or ranche) of the Great Plains. saloon carried urban values and practices These way stations offered humble shelter to westward. It also served as a principal theater plains transients benighted between towns. A where western and eastern ideas and practices Cincinnati banker, James F. Meline, described met, melded, and clashed.' a Nebraska road ranch in 1866 as "not a Argentine pulperias also first operated in dwelling, nor a farm-house, nor a store, nor a SALOONS AND PULPERIAS 157 tavern, but all these, and more." These rude and other "fruits of the countryside" and structures often carried colorful, suggestive usually asked few questions about origin, names, such as "Dirty \Xioman's" and "Fort brands, or ownership. Pulpedas became im­ \\licked" in Colorado. An important historical portant collection points for licit and illicit foornote to the road ranches is that they livestock produce-cattle and horse hides, ,howed that cattle could survive Great Plains tallow, and bones-that eventually reached winters. But unlike the pulpeda, which sup­ merchant houses in Buenos Aires for shipment ported local gauchos and transients, the road to European markets. Salted beef went to feed ranch catered almost entirely to passing mi­ slaves in Brazil and Cuba. Ie' grants. ' It would seem that gauchos had somewhat Despite some differences, however, western better access to illicit gains than did American saloons and Argentine pulpedas both fulfilled cowboys. Rural pulpedas, spread far across the a variety of functions. The public house in pampa, operated beyond the pale of adequate American history has operated as courtroom, policing. In addition, mobile stores (pulpedas church, political arena, barber shop, trading ,dantes), run by itinerant merchants, ex­ post, post office, and library, in addition to its changed liquor and goods for hides and usual services. Since cash flowed into taverns feathers-far from the watchful eye of the on the specie-short frontier, many saloon justice of the peace. The landed elite lobbied keepers took advantage of the lack of banks by strenuously for repression of the traveling making loans. One Denver tavern-owner, merchants. They charged that the itinerant "uncle Dick" Wootney, charged up to 20 traders encouraged drunkenness, disorder, percent interest per day. Saloons also provided and theft. Pulpedas vol antes also offered a logical and convenient site for illicit activ­ unwelcome competition for the estanciero's ities, including prostitution, gambling, and own country store. Buenos Aires province fencing stolen goods. Y banned the traveling traders in 1831; bans Pulpedas, while not quite as varied in their followed in Corrientes in 1833 and Santa Fe in functions as the whiskey mills of the American 1836. None of the bans was successful, how­ West, also provided a diverse set of services. ever, cend the maligned, itinerant mercachifles

The proprietors, or pulp eros , sold liquor, basic continued their profitable, illicit activities. I I necessities, and the gaucho's favorite vicios (his Because of the substantial market for illicit vices of mate' tea and tobacco). Pulpedas also livestock produce, Argentine gauchos could functioned as hiring halls. A rancher in need earn a marginal living by cooperating with of hands for a roundup could count on finding corrupt pulperos and ranchers in the contra­ unemployed and willing peons at the local pul­ band capitalism of the pampa. European perla. The seasonal nature of ranch work left fashion fads also created a demand for ostrich gauchos without wage income for months at a feathers, gathered by bands of gaucho ostrich time, so the pulpero often extended credit. hunters. Thus, gauchos had access to sources Travel restrictions and internal passport re­ of income (albeit meager) that cowboys lacked. quirements imposed on gauchos helped to Unemployed cowboys on the drift might well secure the pulpero's outlay. Some ranches butcher someone else's beef (a "slow elk" or a issued tokens for payment of wages that "big antelope") for a meal. And a mavericker circulated locally as currency at stores on the could build a herd from the calves of other specie-short pampa. Thus the pulpeda added people's animals. But, although rustling and banking functions to its other activities. Al­ poaching occurred in the American West, they though the sale of liquor and incidentals were not on the same scale nor considered as brought in some income, the real profits of a acceptable as similar activities on the pampa. 12 pulpeda came through its function as a trading Thomas Noel identified a number of illegal post. Pulperos paid for hides, ostrich feathers, business activities in the saloons of Denver. 158 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SUMMER 1987

Fencing stolen goods provided additional and the consumption of alcohol appear to be income to some tavern keepers. At Denver's pervasive and enduring. Ii more unscrupulous saloons, drunk customers But the rosy glow induced by friendly were sometimes rolled for whatever remaining social drinking often turned to the vivid red of cash they possessed. Such activities did not violent anger. Saloons earned their widespread decrease a saloon's attractiveness, however. As reputations as sites of fighting and death. The another observer has noted, "It is a curious temporary bonds of communal drinking often historical fact that vile gambling joints peopled gave way to contests of dominance, competi­ by knaves, sharpers, ropers and steerers have tion, and conflict. Rousing, furniture-smashing only served to heighten the excitement and saloon fistfights ("dog fights") were largely increase their patronage."ll creations of the Western movies. Real cowboys disdained fisticuffs. As one old-timer re­ marked, "If the Lord had intended me to fight DRINKING, MACHISMO, AND VIOLENCE like a dog, He'd a-give me longer teeth and Despite the multifunctional nature of bar­ claws." But a cowboy did not hesitate to fight rooms, most patrons frequented them to drink with a knife and "manstopper" (gun). Some and to gamble. Behavior in taverns in both the cattle country saloons became infamous. Vio­ American West and Argentina seem to bear lence at the original "Bucket of Blood" saloon, out partially David G. Mandelbaum's crosscul­ owned by Shorty Young in Havre, Montana, tural observations about drinking. He found led cowboys to apply the term to any tough that drinking (a) tends to be a male activity; (b) whiskey mill. Elliott West found similarly high is normally a social rather than a solitary levels of homicide in the saloons of Rocky pursuit; (c) occurs usually among peer groups Mountain mining towns. 16 and age cohorts; and (d) cements social Argentine pulperi'as became justifiably fa­ solidarity and amity. Only on the last point mous for bloody knife fights. Gauchos skillful­ did saloon and pulpeda behavior differ ly wielded long, deadly swordlike knives markedly. Although amity could be the out­ (facones) well after firearms reached Argentina. come of drinking, aggression and conflict were One rancher of the pampas suggested in 1856 much more likely, particularly in the pul­ (with some exaggeration) that 99 percent of peda. 14 homicides, injuries, and disorders occurred at As sites of predominantly male activity, pulpedas. Police and justice of the peace taverns provided a logical showcase for exhibi­ records are full of cases in which knife duels tions of manliness or machismo. Lionel Tiger's ended in the wounding or death of one notion of "male bonding" is faulty historically combatant and the precipitous flight of the and biologically, but clearly "treating" or other to more remote areas of the frontier. "buying drinks for the house" represented a Despite the fact that the traditional goal of means of temporarily uniting a group of gaucho knife duels was simply to mark an drinking men. It was a gross breach of barroom opponent's face, drunken fights often went far etiquette to refuse a proffered drink, although beyond the rituals of dueling. I; in the United States one could sometimes get William B. Taylor remarked the same away with substituting coffee for liquor. T oast­ combination of machismo, drink, and violence ing, calls of "bottoms up," provided another in taverns and pulquerlas of colonial Mexico. communal activity that brought drinkers to­ Arguments and contests of dominance often gether in a brief shared moment. Recent spawned fights. During the late colonial period research on alcoholism has shown a correla­ in Mexico City, patrons battled one another in tion between participation in masculine activ­ lower-class bars. In 1798, 45 percent of all ities and problem drinking in the United arrests in the city were alcohol-related. In the States. The cultural links between "manliness" Mexican countryside or capital, refusal of a SALOONS AND PULPERIAS 159

Jrink could be taken as a serious affront to tu escape the restrictive conventions of society ;1:1nly honor and precipitate a fight. William and embrace other norms of the saloon dilJ Claudia Madsen found the same potent culture. These norms, different from the "l[CeS of machismo, verbal duels, drinking, conventions of proper society outside the ;mJ aggression among mestizos in contempo­ tavern, shaped the actions of drinking men. rary tvlexico." Assertive and domineering machismo, verbal Alcohol-related violence at one barroom and physical aggression, and gambling with helped seal the doom of the western saloon. In abandon were part of the saloon culture of the Texas town of Richmond (just southwest both the North and South American frontier. of Houston) stood the nondescript Brahma Despite different cultural heritages, frontier Bull and Red Hot Bar. In 1889 drunken barrooms of North and South America show patrons violently beat a man named David marked similarities as theaters of excessive Nation. The victim and his wife, Carry machismo. 2' i\ arion, moved to Kansas thereafter. Her bar­ Anglo-American cowboys carried the cul­ smashing crusade in that stare pushed ahead tural baggage of a Protestant work ethic that the ultimately successful drive for national revered and rewarded hard work and dis­ Prohibition. In 1920 the Eighteenth Amend­ trusted idleness. Nevertheless, Americans ment went into effect, thereby killing the drank prodigiously during the colonial period. already ailing western saloon as an institu­ Rum and homemade whiskey were especially tion.'" popular for slacking thirst in the eighteenth Barroom violence did not stem from mere century. Drinking probably increased in the physiological changes induced by alcohol. nineteenth century, and alcohol became one Although alcohol impairs sensorimotor capa­ of the many targets of religiously motivated bilities, it does not necessarily act as a disinhi­ social reformers. Like sailors home from the biting agent, nor does it necessarily suspend sea, cowboys engaged in spree drinking when moral judgment. Rather, social conventions the rare opportunity presented itself. The end influence drunken comportment, just as they of a long trail drive or of the roundup and do the behavior of sober persons. Mandel­ branding season provided two such opportuni­ baum points out that cultural expectations ties. But drinking bouts were separated by long regulate emotional as well as physiological dry periods. Liquor was often unavailable reactions to liquor. A link clearly exists outside of towns, and some ranchers insisted between increased aggression and the con­ on sobriety on the ranch. Teddy Blue Abbott sumption of alcohol. But even that relationship relates the story of one rancher who offered his is not a matter of strict physiology. Men who foreman a hundred head of cattle to stay sober drink distilled spirits show higher levels of for a year. American social critics identified aggression than those who consume beer. But vagrancy, idleness, and tavern-going as vices so do men given a placebo who think that they associated with the "unworthy" poor. Al­ are consuming a distilled beverage.'" though spree drinking was pardoned, if not Violence and lack of accountability for entirely condoned, no working cowboy could one's actions are part of a different set of "time­ afford (in monetary or social terms) to idle out" norms. In the case of the saloon culture, away his days at the saloon." the "time-out" norms represent the values and The abstemious Spanish Roman Catholic behaviors of an exaggerated machismo. For heritage also condemned excessive drinking. example, the killing of a gaucho in a drunken The epithet of "drunkard" was an extreme duel was considered to be a desgracia-an insult. But ritualized drunkenness in connec­ unfortunate accident. In the eyes of his peers, tion with festivals was permissible. According the killer deserved sympathy, not blame. In a to one foreign observer, "feast days are strictly sense, alcohol was used as a convenient excuse kept by the gauchos in their own peculiar 160 GREAT PLAIi':S QUARTERLY, SLlvl~1ER 1QS7 way," which meant accompanied by much discriminated against Hispanics, and isolated drinking. But the great number of Catholic blacks in separate establishments. In short, the feast days provided many more opportunities same class and racial divisions that cut for acceptable drunkenness than the sparse through frontier society also obtained in the Protestant religious calendar and the seasonal western whiskey mills.:' work schedule on the ranch. During his long THE SPIRIT dictatorship as governor of Buenos Aires GAMBLI~G province, Juan Manuel de Rosas issued decrees Balzac wrote that "the gambling passion to eliminate some of the many holidays that lurks at the bottom of every heart." Ubiqui­ provided excuses for drinking and idleness.:; tous throughout history, gambling seemed One minor difference was in the types of epidemic among cowboys and gauchos. Like beverages consumed. Gauchos drank ferment­ heavy drinking, aversion to foot work, and ed cana or gin at the pulpeda. Cana, the machismo, it represented another element of favorite, was distilled from sugar-cane juice. cowboy culture. Tavern keepers were more The juice of palm trees could also be processed than happy to host games of chance. Card into an alcoholic drink. Pulperos also sold games played in cattle frontiers traced their other beverages. One late nineteenth-century origins to Europe. Spain, perhaps the card­ visitor to the pampa recalled a pulpeda where playing capital of medieval Europe, numbered "vermuth, absinthe, squarefaced gin, Carlon, many fanatical players. Soldiers, sailors, and and ~'ino seea stand in a row, with a barrel of even clerics played cards enthusiastically. Brazilian cana, on the top of which the pulpero Canasta, a variant of rummy, had many ostentatiously parades his pistol and his adherents. That popular game, and many knife."" others, traveled from Spain to Spanish Ameri­ Cowboys at western saloons favored whis­ ca with the conquistadores.:; key-bourbon, rye, or corn-which they ge­ In Spanish America, regional favorites nerically termed "bitters. " Texas cowboys appeared. In Mexico, both men and women of referred to whiskey as "Kansas sheep-dip" in all classes patronized salas or gambling halls. honor of the cow towns where they quaffed Women often worked as dealers. Spanish drinks at the end of a trail drive. Near Utah, monte, played like short faro, reigned as the cowboys called very strong whiskey a "Brig­ most popular card game of Mexico. In Argenti­ ham Young cocktail," because "one sip and na, William MacCann noted that at the pul­ you're a confirmed polygamist." Other collo­ pedas, the gauchos' "chief amusement is card­ quial names for liquor included tornado juice, playing, and they are confirmed gamblers." coffin varnish, mountain dew, redeye, red ink, On the pampa, however, the most popular snake poison, and tanglefoot. Beer enjoyed card game was truea. Played with a forty-card great popularity toward the end of the nine­ deck, it included a good bit of clever signaling, teenth century as breweries moved into the witty table talk, and verbal sparring. In some West.:; cases, players also sang verses back and forth Prices charged for beverages segregated as part of the game. > western saloons by social class. Denver saloons The dandified Mississippi riverboat gam­ charged from five to twenty-five cents for a bler is the most colorful representative of mug of beer. Cowboys gathered at the cheap western gaming. But every saloon included a saloons, while cattlemen, buyers, and other number of busy card tables. One Denver businessmen gathered at fancier bars in hotels. pioneer wrote in an 1859 letter that "there is Thus, saloons segregated the city's drinkers by more drinking and gambling here in one day social class. The physical layout of saloons than in Kansas City in six-in fact about one­ could also separate customers by class. In half of the population do nothing else but addition, racial segregation excluded Chinese, drink whiskey and play cards." But by 1872 SALOONS AND PULPERIAS 161

Kansas City, the "Cowboy Capital," offered a patrons, but taverns also offered other activ­ range of lavish establishments, including the ities to attract customers and to generate Alhambra, Lady Gay, Alamo, and Lone Star. additional profits. Prostitution provided a Gamblers enjoyed the hospitality of the Gold natural adjunct to liquor sales. Erdoes notes Room in Cheyenne and the Bull's Head in that "Westerners divided women into two Abilene. 29 categories-good ones and bad ones." A Cowboys favored the simplicity and clarity Virginia City newspaperman, Alfred Doten, of poker, especially draw and stud. The games wrote a revealing journal entry in 1870 about a of faro and monte also held favor with many benefit ball held to aid Benito Jua'rez and the gamblers. Cowboys distrusted complicated Mexico liberals: "The women were principally gambling machinery or fancy card games, just whores, altho there were some decent women as they distrusted other artifacts of eastern among them." The sexual imbalance toward culture. Many cowboys lost their hard-earned males in frontier regions dictated that most wages to more skillful gamblers at saloon men, especially poor, working cowboys, social­ tables. As one Montana cowboy recalled, ized only with "bad ones." An Argentine "When I would get into a town I wanted to commentator, Ezequiel Marti'nez Estrada, have a good time. I usually took a few drinks, pointed out a similar circumstance on the and sometimes got into a game of poker, and pampa. Of women on the plains, "there were generally left town 'broke.''' Cheating in only two extremes, immured chastity and many guises was commonplace. A "card prostitution." The demands of ranch work, as mechanic" might "jump the cut" and deal well as powerful negative pressures from the himself an especially good hand. "Buying landed elite, condemned most gauchos to chips" came to mean jumping into a fight­ enforced bachelorhood, or, at best, to serial evidence of the close relationship between concubinage. Some ranchers discouraged or gambling and fighting. Many ranchers prohib­ even prohibited women from living on the ited gambling at the home place, so sprees in ranch because they aroused jealous conflict town came as a welcome relief. Cowboys also between the men. Gauchos lived mobile lives enjoyed poker games around a roundup camp­ to meet the requirements of ranch work and to fire, if the roundup boss permitted it.JO escape military conscription. Barred effectively For the gaucho, however, card playing from land ownership, gauchos had few oppor­ provided only a small part of his gambling tunities to set up a stable home life. Prostitutes activity. As Thomas Hutchinson commented, were often their only means of female compan­ gambling was the "life, soul, and very exis­ ionshipY tence" of gauchos. As much as cards, gauchos The "fallen angels," "soiled doves," or enjoyed playing taba. In this ancestor of "calico queens" of the West graced most cow modern dice games, players throw the knuckle towns, despite city ordinances and the deter­ or anklebone (the tali or astragali) of cattle or mined efforts of civic and religious reformers. horses. The outcome of the throw-heads or Abilene, the notable exception, made a largely tails-determines the winner. As elsewhere in successful effort to exclude prostitutes in 1870. Latin America, cockfights drew large, bois­ The term red light district supposedly originated trous crowds. In addition, gauchos partici­ in one of the foremost cow towns, Dodge City. pated in and bet on a number of contests on As the Rocky Mountain News lamented in 1889, horseback. By sponsoring a horse race, ostrich saloons "were the most fruitful source for hunt, or similar event, a pulpero could draw breeding and feeding prostitution." Though patrons ftom great distances on the pampa. JI some sanitized memoirs of life in the Old West discreetly omit this element of cowboy life, PROSTITUTION others are more forthright. Teddy Blue Abbott Drinking and gambling occupied most devotes an entire chapter of his memoirs to the 162 ()REAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SL:M:--1ER 1987 cowboy's relationship with prostitutes. Some, not the substance, remains. such as Cattle Annie, with her heart of gold, Similar forces altered and eclipsed the became legends in their own right. Besides western saloon. In the United States, munici­ prostitutes, saloons employed "hurdy-gurdy" pal reform and temperance movements set girls who danced with patrons and brought about ro uplift society. The Women's Chris­ them drinks-for a price. tian Temperance Movement, founded in 1874, If the local population near a pulpeda did made the prohibition of liquor its avowed goal not suffice to support resident prostitutes, an the following year. Led by the vigorous itinerant madam and her charges probably Frances E. Willard, the WCTU targeted local serviced the area. The arrival of such an saloons and taverns for attack. Funded by entourage in a high-wheeled oxcart signaled churches and led by clergy, the Anti-Saloon the beginning of an impromptu fiesta that League joined the WCTU in its fight in 1895. quickly drew gauchos from far and wide. These groups and other reform movements Setting up small tents for the clients and coalesced in the Progressive era and gradually women, the madam sold candles of varying succeeded in altering American politics and in lengths that measured the time allotted to each banning prostitution, gambling, and finally, patron. Because of the lack of employment with the coming of Prohibition, alcohol. The opportunities for women in the countryside, Eighteenth Amendment sounded the death many moved ro towns and worked as prosti­ knell for 1n, 790 saloons throughout the land tutes. Most towns passed ordinances that in January 1920. Carry Nation gained revenge regulated the business and required periodic on the barroom brawlers of Richmond, Texas, health inspections. With a nod to social who had beaten her husband many decades propriety, some municipalities prohibited so­ before. One old Arizona gambler complained licitation on the street. '4 bitterly in 1908 of the new "milksop frontier": "The buttermilk boys have driven us into the ditch."'; DEMISE OF THE SALOON AND PULPERIA In addition to the effects of Progressive As frontier institutions, the pulpeda and reform and other social change, the growth of the saloon were as vulnerable to the encroach­ cities spawned new specialized services and ments of "civilization" as other elements of institutions that supplanted the multifunction­ frontier life. Along with the ranch, the tavern al saloon. As "civilization" overtook the served essential social and economic functions frontier, saloons of the West and pulpedas of in the absence of more specialized institutions. the pampa lost both their clientele and their But as frontier regions became more settled, monopoly on services. While they lasted, they taverns, like their cowboy patrons, went into exhibited similar functions and similar saloon decline. The twin forces of regulation and cultures. But in the twentieth century, both specialization doomed the frontier saloon and institutions became museum relics, symbols of pulpeda by the early twentieth century. Mod­ a lost frontier past, frequented by soda-sipping ernizing elites in Argentina legislated away tourists, not hard-drinking cowboys or gau­ much of the gaucho's life, including favored chos.;; equestrian games, ostrich hunts, and cock­ fights. Other laws restricted the gaucho's NOTES movements or forced him into obligatory military service. With the taming of the I thank Michael Cummings for research assis­ gaucho population, the pulpeda became a relic tance and the Tinker Foundation of New York for the fellowship support needed to complete this of the past. A few have been preserved as project. museum sites by traditionalist groups, but, as 1. Among recent general treatments of the with other elements of gaucho life, the form, western saloon are Richard Erdoes, Saloons of the SALOONS AND PULPERIAS 163

Old West (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1969); Cheyennes and Sioux because he was one of the few Thomas J. Noel, The City and the Saloon: Denver, station keepers to withstand repeated Plains Indian 1858-1916 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, attacks on the Overland Trail during the winter of 1982); Elliott West, The Saloon of the Rocky Mountain 1865. Mining Frontier (Lincoln: University of Nebraska 9. Erdoes, Saloons, p. 9; Noel, City and the Press, 1979); and Robert L. Brown, Saloons of the Saloon, p. 14. American West (Silverton, Colo.: Sundance Books, 10. Richard W. Slatta, "Rural Criminality and 1978). On the pulperi'a, see Jorge A. Bossio, Historia Social Conflict in Nineteenth-Century Buenos de las pulperias (Buenos Aires: Plus Ultra, 1972); and Aires Province," Hispanic American Historical Review the less useful leo'n Bouche, Las pul­ 60 (August 1980): 453-61; Bossio, Historia de las pul­ perias: mojdn civilizador (Buenos Aires: San T elmo, perias, pp. 200-201; Miguel A. Lima, EI estanciero 1970). Although differences exist between them, for prdctico: Manual completo de ganaderia (Buenos stylistic variety I will use synonymously the terms Aires: Ri'o de la Plata, 1876), p. 233; Jonathan C. barroom, tavern, saloon, and public house. Brown, A Socioeconomic History of Argentina, 1776- 2. Quoted from issue of 3 October 1882, in 1860 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Clifford P. Westermeier, ed., Trailing the Cowboy: 1979), pp. 79, 142-43, 195; Slatta, Gauchos, p. 144. His Life and Lore as Told by Frontier Journalists 11. Gasto'n Gori, Vagos y mal entretenidos, 2d ed. (Caldwell, Idaho: Caxton Printers, 1965), p. 50; (Santa Fe: Colmegna, 1965), pp. 65-68; report by Noel, City and the Saloon, p. 2. Erdoes notes that juez de paz of las Flores, 31 December 1851, doc. 4, some journalists in the West had a whiskey allow­ X 21-2-4, Archivo General de la Nacio'n (Buenos ance in addition to their wages, Saloons, p. 76. Aires); La Tribuna (Buenos Aires, 13 December 3. Quote from Thomas J. Hutchinson, Buenos 1853), p. 2; 22 April 1854, p. 2; Buenos Aires Ayres and Argentine Gleanings (london: Edward Province, Comisio'n de Hacendados del Estado de Stanford, 1865), p. 283. For other unflattering Buenos Aires, Antecedentes y fundamentos del proyecto images of pulperi'a life, see Richard W. Slatta, "Pul­ de cddigo rural (Buenos Aires, 1864), pp. 69, 170; La peri'as and Contraband Capitalism in Nineteenth­ Union del Sud (Chascomus, 25 August 1872), p. 3. Century Buenos Aires Province," The Americas 12. Slatta, Gauchos, pp. 87-88, 120-21; Joe B. 38 0anuary 1982): 352-56. Frantz and Julian Ernest Choate, Jr., The American 4. Hugh Talmage Lefler and Albert Roy New­ Cowboy: The Myth and the Reality (Norman: Univer­ some, North Carolina: The History of a Southern State sity of Oklahoma Press, 1955), pp. 101-5; Douglas (1954; reprint Chapel Hill: University of North E. Branch, The Cowboy and His Interpreters, (1926; Carolina Press, 1973), pp. 259-60. reprint New York: Cooper Square, 1961), pp. 5. Erdoes, Saloons, p. 9; Noel, City and the 116-17; Ramon F. Adams, Western Words: A Saloon, p. 1; Richard Maxwell Brown, "Saloon," in Dictionary of the American West, rev. ed. (Norman: The Reader's Encyclopedia of the American West, ed., University of Oklahoma Press, 1968), pp. 19, 192, Howard R. lamar (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 288. 1977), p. 1061; Walter W. Skeat, A Concise Etymolog­ 13. Noel, City and the Saloon, p. 90; quote from ical Dictionary of the English Language (1882, 8th Darrell W. Bolen, "Gambling: Historical Highlights impression; reprint N ew York: Peregee Books, and Trends and Their Implications for Contempo­ 1980), p. 461. rary Society," in Gambling and Society: Interdiscipli­ 6. Ricardo Guiraldes, Don Segundo Sombra: nary Studies on the Subject of Gambling, ed. William Shadows on the Pampas, trans. Harriet de Onis (New R. Eadington (Springfield, Ill.: Charles C. Thomas, York: New American Library, 1966), p. 51. 1976), p. 17. 7. Richard W. Slatta, Gauchos and the Vanishing 14. David G. Mandelbaum, "Alcohol and Cul­ Frontier (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, ture," in Beliefs, Behaviors, and Alcoholic Beverages: A 1983), p. 70; Slana, "Pulperi'as," pp. 360-61; Ricar­ Cross-Cultural Survey, ed. Mac Marshall (Ann do E. RodrIguez Molas, "Variaciones sobre la pulpe­ Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1979), p. 17. ri'a ri'oplatense," Revista de la Universidad 14 (May 15. See Lionel Tiger, Men in Groups, 2d ed. 1961): 139, 141. See also Rodri'guez Molas, "la (New York: M. Moyars/Scribner, 1984); and the pulperi'a ri'oplatense en el siglo XVII: Ensayo de critique by Rae lesser Blumberg, Stratification: historia social y econo'mica," Universidad 49 (1961): Socioeconomic and Sexual Inequality (Dubuque, Iowa: 99-134. William C. Brown, 1978), pp. 6-10; Noel, City and 8. Richard A. Van Orman, A Room for the the Saloon, p. 91; Sherri Cavan, Liquor License: An Night: Hotels of the Old West (Bloomington: Univer­ Ethnography of Bar Behavior (Chicago: Aldine, 1966), sity of Indiana Press, 1966), pp. 8, 14-17. Actually p. 67; William B. Taylor, Drinking, Homicide, and Fort Wicked took its name from its proprietor, Rebellion in Colonial Mexican Villages (Stanford: Holon Godfrey, called "Old Wicked" by the Stanford University Press, 1979), p. 65; Robert J. 164 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SUMMER 1987

Glynn, et aI., "Social Contexts and Motives for Ride through the Argentine Provinces (London: Smith, Drinking in Men," Journal of Studies on Alcohol 44 Elder, 1853), vol. 2: 282, 285. Quotation from (November 1983): 1021-22. Robert B. Cunninghame Graham, "La Pulperi'a," in 16. Quote from Adams, Western Words, p, 96; The South American Sketches of R.B. Cunninghame see also pp. 39, 190; Frantz and Choate, American Graham, ed. John Walker (Norman: University of Cowboy, pp. 96-97; West, Saloon, pp. 19-21. Oklahoma, 1978), p. 63. 17. Buenos Aires Province, Comisidn de Hacen­ 25. Erdoes, Saloons, pp. 25-26; David Dary, dados, Antecedentes, pp. 145, 151; letter from Cowboy Culture: A Saga of Five Centuries (New York: Mauricio Di'az, Bahi'a Blanca, 6 March 1850, juez de Alfred A. Knopf, 1981), p. 211; quote from Adams, paz de Azul 9-4-4; reports of juez de crimen 1872,38- Western Words, p. 34; see also pp. 178-79. 4-313; Archivo Histdrico de la Provincia de Buenos 26. Noel, City and the Saloon, pp. 23-29; Dary, Aires "Ricardo Levene" (La Plata); police reports of Cowboy Culture, p. 211. March, June, July 1852, Polici'a 1852, Archivo 27. Balzac quoted in Bolen, "Gambling," p. 12; Histdrico Municipal de Tandil (Tandil). J. Philip Jones, Gambling Yesterday and Today: A 18. Taylor, Drinking, pp. 65-66, 156; Michael Complete History (Newton Abbot, England: David C. Scardaville, "Alcohol Abuse and Tavern Reform and Charles, 1973), pp. 13-14,64,84. For a critique in Late Colonial Mexico City," Hispanic American of various theories of gambling, see Tomas M. Historical Review 60 (November 1980): 644-45, MartInez, The Gambling Scene: Why People Gamble 670-71; William Madsen and Claudia Madsen, (Springfield, Ill.: Charles C. Thomas, 1983), pp. "The Cultural Structure of Mexican Drinking 108-31. Behavior," in Beliefs, Behaviors, and Alcoholic Bever­ 28. Robert K. De Arment, Knights of the Green ages: A Cross-Cultural Survey, ed. Mac Marshall Cloth: The Saga of the Frontier Gamblers (Norman: (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1979), University of Oklahoma Press, 1982), pp. 227-9; pp. 49-51. For another Latin American case, see MacCann, Two Thousand Miles' Ride, vol. 2: 47; William C. Sayres, "Ritual Drinking, Ethnic Status, Slatta, "Pulperi'as," p. 352; Jorge Paez, Del truquiflor and Inebriety in Rural Colombia," Quarterly Journal a la rayuela: Panorama de los juegos y entretenimientos of Studies on Alcohol 17 (March 1956): 53-62. argentinas (Buenos Aires: Centro Editor de America 19. Brown, "Saloon," p. 1062. Latina, 1971), pp. 35-40. 20. Craig MacAndrew and Robert Edgerton, 29. Quoted in De Arment, Knights, p. 41; see Drunken Comportment: A Social Explanation (Chi­ also pp. 75-85; Brown, "Saloon," p. 1062. cago: Aldine, 1969), pp. 36, 60, 165; Mandelbaum, 30. Dary, Cowboy Culture, p. 214; William H. "Alcohol and Culture," pp. 17-18; R. O. Pihl, Mark Forbis, The Cowboys (Alexandria, Va.: Time-Life Smith, and Brian Farrell, "Alcohol and Aggression Books, 1973), pp. 82, 170; quote from Roderick in Men: A Comparison of Brewed and Distilled Craig, Ranching with Lords and Commons (1903; Beverages," Journal of Studies on Alcohol 45 (May reprint, New York: AMS, 1971), pp. 89-90, 97; 1984): 278, 281. Adams, Western Words, pp. 48, 55, 167, 231. 21. MacAndrew and Edgerton, Drunken Com­ 31. Bolen, "Gambling," p. 16; Hutchinson, The portment, pp. 82, 90-94, 171-73; Taylor, Drinking, p. Parand, p. 91; Madaline Wallis Nichols, The Gaucho: 66; Slatta, Gauchos, p. 118. Cattle Hunter, Cavalryman, Ideal of Romance (1942; 22. Allan M. Winkler, "Drinking on the Ameri­ reprint, New York: Gordian Press, 1968), p. 14; can Frontier," Quarterly Journal of Studies on Alcohol Tinker, Horsemen, p. 24; Paez, Truquiflor, pp. 40-46. 29 Oune 1968): 416; Laurence Ivan Seidman, Once 32. Erdoes, Saloons, p. 182; Doten quoted in in the Saddle (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1973), p. George M. Blackburn and Sherman L. Richards, 86; Charles W. Harris and Buck Rainey, eds., The "The Prostitutes and Gamblers of Virginia City, Cowboys: Six Shooters, Songs and Sex (Norman: Nevada: 1870," Pacific Historical Review 48 (May University of Oklahoma Press, 1976), p. 87; E. C. 1979): 241; Ezequiel MartInez Estrada, X-Ray of the Abbott and Helena Huntington Smith, We Pointed Pampa, trans. Alain Swietlicki, Spanish ed., 1933 Them North (Norman: University of Oklahoma (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1971), p. 205. Press, 1939), p. 52; Noel, City and the Saloon, pp. On the barriers to gaucho family life, see Slatta, 30-31. Gauchos, pp. 58-60. 23. Taylor, Drinking, p. 41; Thomas J. Hutchin­ 33. Rocky Mountain News, 23 July 1889, quoted son, The Parand (London: Edward Stanford, 1868), in Noel, City and the Saloon, p. 86; Adams, Western p. 89; quotation from Nathaniel Holmes Bishop, Words, p. 51; Erdoes, Saloons, p. 189; Abbott, We The Pampas and the Andes: A Thousand Miles' Walk Pointed Them North, p. 108; Paul F. Sharp, Whoop­ across South America, 11 th ed. (Boston: Lee and Up Country: The Canadian-American West, Shepard, 1883), pp. 98-99. 1865-1885 (Helena: Historical Society of Montana, 24. William MacCann, Two Thousand Miles' 1960), p. 174; Dary, Cowboy Culture, p. 217. See also SALOONS AND PULPERIAS 165

Marion S. Goldman, Gold Diggers and Silver Miners: Herbert Asbury, The Great Illusion: An Informal Prostitution and Social Life on the Comstock Lode History of Prohibition (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1981). Press, 1950), pp. 86-87, 94-95; Richard W. How­ 34. Slatta, Gauchos, pp. 66-67; Edward La­ land and Joe W. Howland, "200 Years of Drinking rocque Tinker, The Horsemen of the Americas and the in the United States: Evolution of the Disease Literature They Inspired, (1952; reprint Austin: Concept," in Drinking: Alcohol in American Society­ University of Texas Press, 1967), p. 27; Bossio, Issues and Current Research, ed. John A. Ewing and Historia de las pulpenas, p. 61. Beatrice A. Rouse (Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1978), pp. 35. Slatta, Gauchos, pp. 114-15; 138-40. One of 49-50. the most famous pulperi'a museums is "La Blanque­ 37. Perry Duis, The Saloon: Public Drinking in ada," at the Ricardo Guiraldes Park in San Antonio Chicago and Boston, 1880-1920 (Urbana: University de Areco, Buenos Aires Province. Guiraldes made of Illinois Press, 1983), pp. 293-97; Bossio, Historia the site famous in his novel Don Segundo Sombra. de las pulper{as, pp. 248-50. 36. Quoted in De Arment, Knights, pp. 392-93;