Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
tural produce, at which time the tenant farmers resorted to rebellion and
demanded that their contracts be liberalized. One such occasion was the
Farm Tenants' Strike in Entre Ríos in 1912. A few succeeded by work-
ing hard, living thriftily, and saving money to rent or purchase their own
farmsteads. The big
estancieros
of the Pampas also sold portions of their
estates to the nouveau riche and political insiders from the city.
Land purchase may have been easier in the interior provinces, where
the arrival of railways commercialized several regional economies.
Export-led rural development prompted the big landowners to evict
A CONTEMPORARY VIEW OF
THE CAUSES OF THE FARM
TENANTS' STRIKE OF 1912
T
The colonists [tenants] are paying the proprietor 33 per cent of the
crop with selected grain, threshed, placed in bags and delivered at
the railway stations; they are only allowed to thresh their crops with
machines provided by the landlord, buy their bags from him, and unless
with his consent cannot sell their crops to third parties but must sell
it to him; they are only allowed 10 per cent of the camp rentage for
pasturage purposes and they have to pay for this $30 [30 pesos] per
square per year, and if they require more pasturage land they have to
pay double the price. All their provisions have to be obtained from the
store indicated by the owner. Of the four pigs which they are allowed
to have, one has to be given to the owner; he making his own selection
and with the guarantee that it shall not weigh less than 120 kilos [265
pounds]. The colonists now demand that the rent be reduced to 25 per
cent of the crops, and that they shall only deliver same at the foot of
the thresher, ready bagged and of export type; that they may be allowed
to sell their crop to whom they please giving preference to the owner
under similar conditions, and that he has to receive same eight days
after threshing. Liberty to buy bags where they please, and also all their
store goods, and that they be given 6 per cent of the camp without
charge for pasturage purposes.
Source: Review of the River Plate July 5, 1912.
In Scobie, James R.
Revolution
on the Pampas: A Social History of Argentine Wheat, 1860-1910
(Austin:
University of Texas Press, 1964), pp. 154-155.
