Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The civilizations developed autonomously and side-by-side across the
frontier lines, interspersed with moments of mutually beneficial trade
and occasions of brutal savagery. The indigenous wars ended in 1879
only after General Julio A. Roca, representing “modern civilization,”
destroyed once and for all the indigenous civilization through force of
arms. The prolonged conflict reinforced the use of violence in resolving
disputes between two intractable parties.
Meanwhile, European civilization in the Río de la Plata was estab-
lishing a social order based initially on a hierarchy of race and power.
Spanish-born males monopolized the leading positions as merchants
and public officials. To reinforce their status, they often used their
authority to enrich themselves through fraud and corruption. A rapidly
expanding stratum of native-born colonists filled out the lesser ranks of
the white elites, but the Creoles, lacking the connections of their Iberian
kinfolk, seethed as they observed Europeans enjoying greater access to
wealth. The Creoles got their revenge during the War of Independence,
when they replaced the Spaniards through force of arms.
As within the elite, the colonial working class also developed from
unequal parts. European artisans tended to capture the higher-paying
jobs, relegating the native peoples and mestizos to the menial tasks.
Still, the colonial economy expanded with such vigor that it created a
labor shortage. In the 17th century, merchants began to import African
slaves, whose presence increased in the last century of the colonial
period. Slaves worked in all sectors of the economy. They toiled on the
farms of Tucumán and Mendoza, in the households of Spaniards and
Creoles in Córdoba and Santa Fe, in the artisan shops of Buenos Aires
and Salta, and on the farms and ranches of the Pampas. The system of
slavery too depended on violence, the threat of which owners substi-
tuted for wages in order to force Africans to work.
The colonial social structure confused race with work to such an
extent that hard labor became identified with dark skin, and vice versa.
Poverty too became synonymous with skin color. Whites lost status
in society if they had to work with their hands. Those with dark skin
could rise only so far up the social hierarchy because their color marked
them as peons and
obreros
(laborers). The reverse also was true: One's
occupation as a menial worker marked light-skinned persons as if they
were colored. Honorable white women of good family became accus-
tomed to extracting long hours of work from house girls of color. After
a while, it mattered little if the house girl actually was light skinned; the
patrona
still extracted long hours of service from her.
