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In-Depth Information
be attributed directly to the development of the Pampas as producer for
the external market.
Meanwhile, the economic and social transformation of Buenos Aires
province aggravated its separation from the provinces of the interior.
By the 1830s, the trend was clear. Trade at the port of Buenos Aires was
the single most important economic growth factor in the entire region.
The province became the most populous and the wealthiest. Its politi-
cians and state government became the first among provincial equals.
As the so-called United Provinces of the River Plate restructured itself
following the War of Independence, Buenos Aires province assumed
the region's economic, social, and political leadership, which thereafter
it would never relinquish.
Other inequities of postrevolutionary Argentina had their roots
in the colonial social order. While the native-born working class
salvaged a degree of autonomy and independence in the era of eco-
nomic resurgence, it clearly did not enjoy social mobility. Expanding
rural society tended toward the elimination of the prairie Indians.
Economic growth also was shared unequally. The biggest land-
owners, themselves scions of colonial Spanish merchants, favored
European immigrants in subordinate positions as renters and petty
merchants. Native-born people of color—be they mestizos, blacks, or
mulattoes—found opportunities galore, but at the bottom of the rural
social ladder. They worked in the
saladeros
and on ranches, doing the
shearing, harvesting, and branding; driving cattle; and conducting
oxcarts. They chose to exercise a measure of personal freedom in the
developing but rigidly stratified rural society. Native-born people of
color moved from job to job and searched for higher wages and leisure
in defiance of the laws and contrary to the wishes of the landowners.
Postrevolutionary rural society of Buenos Aires province was vibrant
and far from egalitarian.
Argentines had nonetheless begun the process of national consolida-
tion. With the fall of Rosas in Buenos Aires, the interior provinces led
the way toward a new constitution and the negotiation of the responsi-
bilities and benefits of nationhood. Ultimately, the war against Paraguay
and then the final battle against Indian resistance on the frontier gave
new urgency to a stronger nation-state. In this crucible arose a new
political leader, a military man, to be sure, but one of a national army
rather than a provincial militia. General Julio A. Roca had risen through
the officers' ranks during the War of the Triple Alliance and then com-
manded the army to a quick victory over the indigenous peoples.
