Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Rural Population in Buenos Aires Province, 1854
Origin
Men
Women
Total
Natives of Buenos Aires province
39.8%
34.8%
74.6%
Migrants from interior provinces
9.0
5.9
14.9
Foreign-born immigrants
7.6
2.9
10.5
Total
54.4%
43.6%
100
Source: RegistroestadísticodeBuenosAires,1854 (Buenos Aires 1855, table 9).
militia drained the labor pool of gauchos. Labor shortages meant that
landowners had to put off branding and other chores. As late as 1846,
large numbers of cattle without brands wandered through the fenceless
prairies. “[T]he land all around here is very fertile, and ready for the
plough,” observed a traveler at mid-century, “but where the population
is not sufficient to care for the cattle, they [sic] cannot be expected to
attend to the labor of agriculture.” (MacCann 1853, I:62) In times of
crisis, such as the 1830 drought, cattlemen were unable to turn dying
cattle into dried meat and hides or to move the herds to less desic-
cated pastures. Peons (any workers employed by a rancher or a farmer,
including gauchos) made themselves scarce and expensive. In fact, the
ranch managers found that available peons held out for higher wages
in the rancher's time of need. As another British traveler concluded,
“Resources of the country are altogether neglected for want of an indus-
trious population” (Parish 1852, 256).
Nonetheless, the intensification of land use on the Pampas does not
seem to have eliminated—indeed, it enhanced—the worker's ability
to move from job to job, though not necessarily up the social ladder.
Labor scarcity was endemic. Recruitment into the militias, the end of
the slave trade, and the free birth laws had depleted the numbers of
slaves in Buenos Aires province. For the most part, the men in the coun-
tryside were native-born of mainly mixed blood. Some ranches also had
many mulatto and black workers ( pardos and morenos, respectively).
But the elites considered these persons of color fit only for wage labor.
Lack of even a rudimentary education prevented them from rising to
the ranks of foremen, and social prejudices closed off opportunities to
rent land or to run a country store.
The labor shortage also created opportunities for immigrant workers.
They took jobs that self-respecting gauchos would not do, such as dig-
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