Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
19th century: More men than women resided in the rough-and-tumble
countryside of the Río de la Plata. Females predominated among resi-
dents in the safer towns and cities.
Yet, all in all, the provinces of the interior in the 19th century
successfully converted their economies away from Bolivian silver
mines toward the Atlantic markets. Their populations expanded by
a respectable 2 percent per year, despite sending out numbers of
migrant workers for the littoral provinces.
Rosas, Restorer of the Laws
One politician stands out in this period. Juan Manuel de Rosas reigned
over Buenos Aires province as governor and virtual dictator from 1829
to 1852, and his province's commercial importance aided him in direct-
ing the fate of the interior provinces as well, even if he did not rule
them. As a federalist politician, Rosas supported states' rights over a
strong central Argentine government. Rosas and his own social class of
Buenos Aires
estancieros
benefited from relative free trade to a greater
extent than the landowners of other provinces. Governor Rosas col-
lected port revenues for his own province, reserving a major share for
his militia forces.
Rosas played the trump card of antiforeign nationalism, no small
trick in a country that depended on foreign trade, and appealed bla-
tantly to the popular classes, taking on the rural gauchos and the urban
blacks as his constituents. Being a successful livestock businessman as
well as frontier defender against Indian attacks endeared him to
estan-
cieros
and gauchos alike. Nonetheless, he acted as a populist politician
in order to preserve and reinforce—not to change—the colonial social
order so threatened by political anarchy and lawlessness. It was for a
reason that he called himself the “Restorer of the Laws.”
Rosas was born into the Creole landowning class of Buenos Aires
province toward the end of the colonial period. As such, he was the
poor cousin of the wealthy merchant class of the port city. Rosas par-
ticipated neither in the politics nor in the battles of independence. He
did, however, benefit from the new international trade in Buenos Aires
of the postindependence period. He expanded cattle production on his
family's ranch and started a salting plant in Buenos Aires in the 1820s
that profited from the rising market for hides and meat. His business
acumen earned him the appointment as manager of the estates of his
wealthy cousins, the Anchorena.
