UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE Disease and Democracy: The Practice of Governance and the Cholera Epidemics of Northwestern Argentina, 1865-1905 A Dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History by Carlos Salvador Dimas August 2014 Dissertation Committee: Dr. James P. Brennan, Chairperson Dr. Juliette Levy Dr. Robert W. Patch Copyright by Carlos Salvador Dimas 2014 The Dissertation of Carlos Salvador Dimas is approved: Committee Chairperson University of California, Riverside Acknowledgments This dissertation, like so many other things in life, was not a solo process. Along the way a variety of people helped me in more ways than one and to you I say thank you from the bottom of my heart. This ranged from advice, proofreading, pressing me to ask better questions or simply giving directions to somewhere good to eat. This dissertation was completed with grants from Henry R. Marcoux and Carl H. Marcoux Award for Dissertation Research, a travel grant from the Center for Ideas and Society, a GRMP and a Dissertation Year Project writing grant. I first want to thank everyone in the history department for giving me venues, opportunities to share my work and valuable advice. Special thanks go to David Biggs, Randolph Head, Dana Simmons and Kiril Tomoff. I also want to send a warm thank you to staff in the department. Especially Deisy Escobedo for helping establish roots my first year and becoming a friend, Iselda Salgado for always answering my questions, especially when it was the fourth time I had asked it, Cristina Cuellar for being a fellow LA Galaxy and US Men’s National Team fan and Wendy Mello for helping with travel arrangments. Outside of UCR, Patricia Juárez Dappe deserves special mention for helping me discover the beautiful province of Tucumán and sharing its history with me. Lastly, my dissertation committee for who a “thank you” can never cover the extent to which I am grateful to have worked so closely with, James Brennan, Juliette Levy and Robert Patch, have all taught me how to be a better and confident historian My years at UCR I cultivated numerous friendships that have made these years memorable, from sharing a beer or inadvertently talking about our work, these times iv made it pleasure to be in the department. David Buhl, Russell Fehr, Jeno Kim, Moyses Marcos, Ulices Piña, Bob Przeklasa and Kevin Whalen. I want to give a special thank you to all the libraries and archives here in the United States and Argentina who have helped me getting valuable sources to complete this dissertation. UCR’s ILL who provided me with sources and materials I never would have considered, the archives of Tucumán for giving me access to new material and sharing coffee or mate with me during those cold winters I traveled to research. The wonderful people at CONICET in Tucumán, Daniel Campi, Marcela Vignoli, María Paula Parolo, Dinah and her boyfriend and the many others who made the northwest a second home for me. This dissertation was born around the same time that my first born, Oliver, came into this world. In the two months that he has been with us, he has changed my life for the better. I thank him here for, in his own way, always pushing me forward. Lastly, I want to thank my wonderful wife, Lily. She has been next to me every step of the way from applying to the program, joining me on my first research trip to Argentina and being next to me as I weaved through a very confusing Argentine archival system. Words cannot describe how much you have played a role in this writing process. Lily and Oliver, this is for you. v For Lily and Oliver, the two centers of my life vi ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Disease and Democracy: The Practice of Governance and the Cholera Epidemics of Northwestern Argentina, 1865-1905 by Carlos Salvador Dimas Doctor of Philosophy, Graduate Program in History University of California, Riverside, August 2014 Dr. James P. Brennan, Chairperson This dissertation looks at the effect of the arrival of cholera to the far northwestern province of Tucumán. This project participates in a relatively new historigraphical approach that has emerged within Latin American studies in the last decade: "sociocultural history of disease." I study the interaction between politics and culture, within the epidemics, in order to foreground the political agency of marginalized people and regions. The project determines the role that provincial politicians and public health played in center-periphery relations and the place of disease and health within the state- building project. I deviate from the literature on state-formation, which overemphasizes the role of the nation’s capital and coercion, by highlighting the work of Tucumán in forming the Argentine state. “Disease and Democracy” analyzes the relationship between province and state through the study of two cholera epidemics in 1868 and 1886. Through an analysis of vii medical dissertations, newspapers, government reports, memoirs, traveler reports, private correspondence, songs, tales and stories examined in libraries and archives in Buenos Aires, La Plata, Córdoba and Tucumán, I utilize the epidemics as a lens through which I explore the fractious relationship between politics and health. Studying epidemics is especially productive because the stress that epidemics place on society illuminates areas of the social fabric that would otherwise go unnoticed. My research reveals multiple instances in which the provinces took the lead in creating services and institutions that established the presence of the state in the interior, and created a balance between the needs of the state and provincial autonomy. viii Table of Contents Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 1 War .................................................................................................................................. 3 Governance ..................................................................................................................... 5 The state of medical studies ............................................................................................ 8 “Decentering” Argentina .............................................................................................. 12 Discussing the state and its formation .......................................................................... 17 Sources .......................................................................................................................... 22 Chapter 1: Tucuman, 1850-1900 ...................................................................................... 24 Tucumán: people and daily life..................................................................................... 25 The Sugar Industry ........................................................................................................ 48 Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 67 Chapter 2: Argentina in the Time of Cholera ................................................................... 69 Cholera and the global epidemics ................................................................................. 72 The spread of cholera in Argentina ............................................................................... 77 1868............................................................................................................................... 77 1886-1887 ..................................................................................................................... 84 The Development of Cholera as a Global and Local Problem ..................................... 91 The meaning of cholera: the social body ...................................................................... 94 Etiology ......................................................................................................................... 96 Argentina..................................................................................................................... 103 Chapter 3: The Importance of Being Folk: Rural Medicine and Urban Politics ............ 111 The “Eden Envenando”............................................................................................... 126 The Epidemic in the South .......................................................................................... 134 Municipality vs. Province ........................................................................................... 143 Oranges and Figs......................................................................................................... 149 Soldiers, Meat and Borders ......................................................................................... 157 Poisonous People and Mail ......................................................................................... 160 Rural and Urban Medicine .......................................................................................... 164 Chapter 4: From the Paraguayan Frontlines to the Northwest: Doctors Hygienists in the Consolidation of the State, 1865-1870............................................................................ 189 From Tucumán to Paraguay: War the Divider ............................................................ 204 Cholera the Consolidator ...........................................................................................